All Posts by Novaseeker

The issue is that the dash to steal some of WoW's market share is a doomed exercise.  At this point, noone can create a WoW-like game that out-WoW's WoW itself.  WoW now has 4+ years of content and polish and a huge playerbase, and really a newcomer game of the same type really cannot compete with that at all.  That's what we've found with all of the DikuMUD type games that have been released since 2004.  Some have been better than others, some have had more issues than others, but what they all have in common is that they vastly underperformed expectations and failed utterly at becoming any kind of credible competition for Warcraft.  Instead, WoW continues to grow its sub base.

The answer is for developers and publishers to focus on developing games that are truly different from the DikuMUD design -- something different and new.  Darkfall is an example of that, but should not be taken as a great example because its FFA+loot ruleset will limit its appeal right off the bat.  But it should be possible to make other games that are different from the DikuMUD design without the hardcore PvP aspect to them, which will potentially do well and attract good, sustainable playerbases.  But the key factor is that developers and publishers have to stop aiming for 1m+ subs for their games -- that's not going to happen.  Only WoW has done that outside of Asia, and WoW is the outlier, not what is normally possible for a subscription-based MMO.  

So overall more realism is needed in the market.  Make innovative games and people will play them.  Make expensive, glitzy DikuMUD games to siphon WoW's market, and some people will play them, but probably not more people than would play the nichey ones, and in some cases less -- and in any case, you spent more money making the game, so you're in a bad situation in terms of the economics.  The key, then, is being more realistic about what's achievable, stop spending 120m to make the game, and come up with innovative designs that will attract and retain 200k subs.

Well, unless you have a more sandbox type game, where the player content is the game, and yet does not moot other players enjoying both that content and their own content.

 DK's are mostly considered OP in PvP right now, mostly because people are not used to them and haven't figured out how to counter them, on the one hand, and at the earlier levels they are wearing gear that far outpaces gear that normal leveling characters have at that level -- a level 58 DK has the equivalent of a full set of t2/t3 gear, which basically noone else has at that level, or even in the early to mid 60s.  So a lot of people are coming across newly minted DKs and getting owned.  

For PvP you would probably do well with either blood or unholy.  Blood is oriented towards your main melee attacks, and their healing effects, as well as providing variety of ability through death runes.  Unholy is the most popular leveling spec because it greatly increases your DoTs, gives you a permanent ghoul summon (and strengthens that summon as well), gives you nice perks like desecrate and a speed buff and bone armor and that kind of thing.  Much of this would be useful in PvP as well, especially in BGs.  Frost is mainly the tanking spec, but there are some nice damage abilities in there as well.  At this stage a lot of people are still trying out various specs, but I would say blood and unholy would be the ways to go for PvP.

As to whether to come back, that depends on what you want.  LK has fun content, but when you reach 80, it will be the same as it ever was, really.

 Fans will tell you that balance is around group PvP, not 1v1 classes.  This is true.  But, as we all know, RvR consists of two groups fighting, of course, but within that a lot of small group or even 1v1 encounters are taking place.  That's where the frsutration comes in.  The classes are not designed to take each other on in a balanced way 1v1.  It's an interesting design, but it leads to a lot of frustration in my view.

I don't think that this will "kill" WAR.  WAR will have a good number of subs because it doesn't have a whole lot of competition in terms of PvP-oriented MMOs.  But it does limit the appeal to many players.  People like to feel effective in their class in general, not merely effective in one particular role -- and WAR's balancing is around roles, definitely.

Originally posted by Daffid011 

Someone above said this is the best handling of server mergers in an MMO and I have to disagree with that in many ways.  The moves themself seemed smooth.  However they allowed players to chose where to go.  This doesn't work on several levels as it a) can split up online friendships/alliances/partners formed on the server b) doesn't focus population where it needs to go as can be seen in POTBS server mergers.   Then Mythic screwed the players who decided to stay on dead servers by closing them down to new characters.  They have essentially stranded those players on a deserted island for all intents and purposes. 

Warhammer would have been better servers by a straight out server merger and closing down the old realms.  That would have kept players together, left no one behind and Mythic could have matched up populations to best make full servers after the mergers.   It would have been a huge publicity hit for Warhammer, but it would have been best for the game.

 

 

 

This is why I say it is an interesting stealth move.  It's very clear Mythic wants to consolidate servers without actually consolidating servers.  That was the point of the server transfers.  And it can also be the only point of blocking creation on these servers -- they want to choke them.  But they *don't* want to either say they are choking them or simply close them.  This way they can technically say that they have not merged servers, while basically doing everything short of shutting them down to ensure that they will be shut down eventually.  It's trying to have the cake and eat it, too, and is another example of how precarious the game is at the moment.

Originally posted by Reklaw

Originally posted by Novaseeker

 It has to do with the breakdown of players in terms of who likes to do what.  The % of players who really want a lot of non-combat play is dwarfed by the number of players who want mostly combat play.  A good number like to have some kind of non-combat play strictly for variety's sake or filler here and there, but the moment you make that kind of play rewarding, the complaints start about "crafted items being too uber" and so forth.  The reality is that the largest segment of the playerbase by far prefers combat to any other kind of gameplay.  That's why a game like WAR can get away with having a ridiculous crafting system -- most of the people who play the game couldn't care less.

 

I am so with OP I wold like to see this genre EVOLVE instead of DEvolve, as OP state's why all this combat ONLY in our MMORPG's, numerous of games in dfifferent genres then MMORPG do combat so much better where a MMORPG use to be a mix of all sorts of players, those who enjoy combat and those who don't like combat, or don't prefure 100% combat but a mix of things to do in such a virtual world..

You (novaseeker) just made me sad by telling the TRUTH  as yeah! also are right, the numbers will bring in the cash. And we who prefure more from a MMORPG seem to be in the minority, else I am sure this genre would be different then it is today.

And yeah I still remember lots of ignorance going on in games/forums about people who said "go play The Sims" or Secondlife" as those type of people who say things like that just do not understand a thing about what a MMORPG "can" be, else they would never even consider saying something like that to MMORPG players.

 

It's true.

I mean there have been MMOs released with quite good crafting systems -- EQ2 and Vanguard come to mind here, as well as Ryzom.  And crafting can be fun in those games.  But I think that overall, even those games are skewed towards combat in order to get materials to craft.  EVE has perhaps the greatest separation, but it's more of a market/industrialist simulation rather than a real "crafting" experience.

It's worth noting, though, that 2008's two big releases (AoC and WAR) both have crap crafting systems, and seem pretty unapologetic about it.

 SL is mostly about two things (1) creativity for people who like to use SL's creation tools to make buildings, landscapes, clothing, etc. and (2) virtual relationships and cybersex, particularly alternative lifestyle cybersex.  The most active areas in SL by far and far and far away are strip clubs, free sex areas, fetish venues, and "lesbian" clubs (filled with a combination of men playing as lesbians and frustrated women in RL who are curious about it but don't want to try in RL for various reasons).  

So generally you're either a content creator type, or a socializer/cybersex type.  There are other people there, too, but these are the two main groups and the second group is much larger than the first.

The point is that it;s interesting that Mythic didn't simply say "new character creation on certain realms has been disabled".  I mean that would further encourage the players still on those servers to move, which is presumably what Mythic wants.  In any case, given all of the stuff they *have* said about the server transfers, it's quite odd that this went unmentioned.

No, he's quite right.

I just logged in to test this and, lo and behold, when you press the "more" button and reveal the other servers, and click on the low/low ones, the big "Select" button is greyed out.  The servers are online, but you can't create on them.  That's a very interesting stealth move by Mythic.

As others have stated, it's because developers and publishers are chasing the mass market that WoW created.  What has become evident, however, is that copying WoW's design in essence and repackaging it in another game with some additional doo-dads and hot graphics is *not* going to recreate WoW's success.  The reason for this is that no other WoW-like game can out-WoW WoW itself.  Blizzard owns that kind of game in terms of quality of presentation -- so making new games that have the same basic idea of levels/quests/classes, etc., is really an exercise in frustration.  But that doesn't stop developers and publishers from chasing the money, hoping that their game will be the next big one to have more than 1m subs in NA and Europe.

Sandbox games are less popular because a lot of people do not like the less direction that they have and the more open PvP that they tend to have.  People like to have their hand held, to be safe to play casually, to have a path set out before them.  Yes, most gamers are lazy and carebear, that is the nature of the beast.  A sandbox game *can* be successful, but will always be much less successful than a theme park type game.  So what needs to happen is for developers are publishers to ratchet expectations down from the 1m+ that many seem to be aiming at now, and create games that hope to have stable pops between 200k and 500k -- the kind of pop levels that a sandbox game can reasonably hope to attract and retain, really.

 I don't expect we'll see mainstream MMOs focusing on grinding anytime soon.  It's kind of snake oil for the mass market -- toxic, really.

People like quests because they break up the repetition of grinding.  It's well known that quests simply dress-up mob grinding, but the dressing up bit, which wraps it up in storyline and setting, is what people find entertaining about them.  It's much more guided than grinding, but a lot of people like the developers to do the entertainment work for them, and simply follow the path through the game's content.  I don't expect that will change anytime soon, because it's one of the lessons that the designers of other games seem to have taken from WoW's success: quest-driven gameplay is popular.  The ironic thing, of course, is that WoW is a very, very grindy game once you reach level cap, but I suppose a lot of people either don't bother with those grinds and roll alts, or quit, where the more dedicated players will grind through them to get their netherwing mount or something like that.

 EVE, because the whole thing is PvP -- whether you are involved in combat or manufacturing or trade or diplomacy or what have you, the entire thing is PvP.

 LOTRO is best if you like storytelling and PvE.  The PvP system is not very good to say the least, there is forced grouping throughout the game for storyline quests, and the classes are quixotic, especially if you like more traditional fantasy MMO classes.  However, the game is very, very polished, almost no bugs, and runs and looks great.  But really it's strictly PvE.

AoC is the best looking MMORPG ever made, and has a fun, interactive combat system.  It has better PvP by a long shot than LOTRO.  However, it is also still lacking content and functionality in key areas, and overall the endgame in particular is lacking.  It can be fun to play, but you shouldn't expect that the game is finished, and LOTRO is higher quality, but different in approach.

Both of these games substantially underachieved their potential -- which to me underlines the reality that anyone trying to compete head-on with WoW, in terms of marketing a leveling/questing/class-based fantasy game, is going to have a very, very hard time living up to the potential, regardless of the strength of the IP or the polish of the game (LOTRO had both going for it).

 It has to do with the breakdown of players in terms of who likes to do what.  The % of players who really want a lot of non-combat play is dwarfed by the number of players who want mostly combat play.  A good number like to have some kind of non-combat play strictly for variety's sake or filler here and there, but the moment you make that kind of play rewarding, the complaints start about "crafted items being too uber" and so forth.  The reality is that the largest segment of the playerbase by far prefers combat to any other kind of gameplay.  That's why a game like WAR can get away with having a ridiculous crafting system -- most of the people who play the game couldn't care less.

Originally posted by Bladin

The whole reason I was interested in WAR was the open PvP, but it was epic fail come release.

Surprisingly I just did lake wintergrasp the other day in wow, and it's honestly better designed open rvr content then all of WAR.

You can argue all you like regarding this, but it really is just better.  And it really shows how WoW is truely the better game.

WAR being a RvR game, didn't even have real siege weapons(whoopdeedoo turrets you place at places),

Heck I'm on a PvE server and every time wintergrasp pops, we get about 80v70 battles every single time.  I can't say that about WAR and it's keeps.

So what does this say about war?

Blizzard produces a quality game, no doubt.  But the focus of the game isn't Wintergrasp.  WoW's approach is the smorgasbord: give some content to everyone.  WAR is much less of that, and more skewed toward RvR.  I don't care for WAR, myself, because I think that the design was cocked up in terms of scenarios having too much of a reward -- but if they had gotten the reward scheme right from the start, I think that the game would have been better and more successful.  As it is, it's bleeding population to WoW, because again WoW is a quality game.  I hate what Blizzard has done to the MMO community and market, but I can still admit that Blizzard makes a quality game.

Originally posted by chokepoint

Originally posted by pencilrick

PVE, because in most cases a PVP'er can handle a PVE game (with some amount of grumbling), but a PVE'er has a much tougher time accepting the ganking in a PVP world.

 

I will never understand the level of cowardice and fear of PVP you see from PVEers, especially when these people spend up to 4 hours a night repeatedly being rolled by AI-controlled scripted bosses for tiny incremental improvements in gear, yet they scream and whine when killed a couple of times by an actual player that doesn't have super boss powers.

 

doesn't make any sense to me.

I think that the reason is fairly obvious:  in PvE everyone wins (eventually), while PvP has winners and losers.  People don't like to lose.  The number of PvEers who do the challenging endgame raids is small for the same reason: people don't like to die.   This is why PvE is more popular than PvP, and why games will continue to have dumbed down PvE outside of endgame raids -- because the vast majority of people do not like to raid or do PvP, but want PvE content that they can "casually" play through and not die.

 Pure PvP isn't as popular a ruleset as pure PvE.  Most games try to provide both, so that they can get the large PvE crowd and at least some of the much smaller PvP crowd.  The PvP crowd is vocal on the internet, but greatly outnumbered in the playing community by PvE players, really.

 LOTRO, EQ2 have the best communities.  EVE is a good example of an as good as you can get with a PvP MMO community.

At the end of the day, the significant community is you and your guild, and in a PvP MMO like EVE or WAR, the quality of the same on the enemy side.

 It's not there just to teach people how to play, but to give people some investment in their character.  If you can log in, create a new PvP max level character and so forth, that's fine, but the next question is "why am I paying for this, when I have Guild Wars" or CS or something else.  And to be honest, one of the main "hooks" for MMO subscriptions is that people become attached to their character, its achievements and the like.  WoW relies on this heavily, as people reactivate dormant characters to continue playing them.  If you have a disposable max level character system, you have nothing invested, and you are much, much more easily swayed away from the game, for very good reason, really -- much less to "lose" in terms of time invested.

 Games get the most flames the more popular they are, and in particular around release, when emotions tend to run higher.

Not many people bashing LOTRO now either.  The bash community has moved on to .. WAR, the latest release.  And of course, people bash WoW nonstop because it is the behemoth.  But for a settled game like AoC or LOTRO, not much interest to bash, really.