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Darkfall (DFO)
Aventurine SA
MMORPG | Genre:Fantasy | Status:Cancelled  (est.rel 02/22/09)  | Pub:AudioVisual Enterprises
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Darkfall Forum » General Discussion » Horrible news about DF 2.0

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85 posts found
  Biskop

Hard Core Member

Joined: 10/06/11
Posts: 667

3/01/12 5:56:48 AM#41

I sort of agree with OP.

The problem with DF isn't that people lack the ability to trade globally and risk free, or that it takes too long to gear up and get back to a fight. The opposite, in fact; local banking and markets, stratetic logistics, etc, are crucial if a game is to be truly open ended and player driven. 

DF's main issues as far as I'm concerned is 1) no skillcap and 2) lack of any real sandbox tools.

If the game had offered diverse options in character builds (i.e. if AV had designed the game with char specialization and interesting group dynamics in mind) and ways for players to run and operate empires, trade hubs, industries, and so on, DF would have been a huge success.

I don't see how them catering to the casual masses will bring back the hordes of disgruntled sandbox players who originally flocked to DF. All those people want is a working, well-designed game with multiple playstyle options and a high degree of player freedom.

The casual, "carebear" type player on the other hand do not want a FFA game, no matter how many "safe newbie areas", global markets or limbo states it features. Besides, they've got 99% of the market catering to them already.

  tom_gore

Advanced Member

Joined: 2/27/09
Posts: 1144

3/01/12 6:08:04 AM#42

Don't worry OP. You still have your Darkfall 0.9 to play for the next 2-3 years.

 

  DarthRaiden

Hard Core Member

Joined: 11/20/05
Posts: 4306

i make art,
till someone dies.

Forum Terrorist

 
3/01/12 6:37:37 AM#43
Originally posted by tom_gore

Don't worry OP. You still have your Darkfall 0.9 to play for the next 2-3 years.

 

You obviously haven't read all my previous posts in this thread.  I don't want to preserve anything. I made even suggestions about how alternative implementations and changes  would be more exciting. ( hulks as mobile spawn and storage solution, vendor space for rent or even clan vendors maintained by the clans themselves in cities and local)

Its the direction and the planned blunt implemetation of theirs (AV's)  that i don't like.

-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!

"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)

  Simsu

Novice Member

Joined: 11/06/03
Posts: 278

3/05/12 4:15:14 PM#44
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Try to say something notheworthy please some contribution to the current discussion maybe ?

I did in fact say something noteworthy, but because you didn't agree with the points I made you totally ignored the post. Hrm, how odd... Once more for ya, since I like you so much.

You, and people like you, make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made that you do not personally like. This happens so often, and with such predictability of it's content, that it's not even worth the effort of trying to discuss your complaints because most of the time you're only considering what you personally want and do not care about what other people want or what would benefit the game.

Another uninspired approach your type makes is that they always compares everything to WoW. Ever single time a tiny change is made, that even has the slightest hint of anything Blizzard has even thought of putting into WoW, you start running around screaming that it's some sort of evil hell-spawn that will ruin the game. All because it might have, at one time, been thought of by Blizzard. It takes an incredibly lack of perspective to always fall back on this argument.

The very fact that you're on this site (and not the official site) “discussing” it shows you're not interested in expressing yourself to fix your perceived problems. (I use the term “discussing” very loosely since you're basically trying to get people to quit/not play the game because of your personal opinion).

And I wont even go into the topic of why your opinion (the opinion of some anonymous person on the Internet) should or shouldn't have an effect on anyone else's decisions.

  DarthRaiden

Hard Core Member

Joined: 11/20/05
Posts: 4306

i make art,
till someone dies.

Forum Terrorist

 
3/05/12 4:57:28 PM#45
Originally posted by Simsu
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Try to say something notheworthy please some contribution to the current discussion maybe ?

I did in fact say something noteworthy, but because you didn't agree with the points I made you totally ignored the post. Hrm, how odd... Once more for ya, since I like you so much.

You, and people like you, make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made that you do not personally like. This happens so often, and with such predictability of it's content, that it's not even worth the effort of trying to discuss your complaints because most of the time you're only considering what you personally want and do not care about what other people want or what would benefit the game.

Another uninspired approach your type makes is that they always compares everything to WoW. Ever single time a tiny change is made, that even has the slightest hint of anything Blizzard has even thought of putting into WoW, you start running around screaming that it's some sort of evil hell-spawn that will ruin the game. All because it might have, at one time, been thought of by Blizzard. It takes an incredibly lack of perspective to always fall back on this argument.

The very fact that you're on this site (and not the official site) “discussing” it shows you're not interested in expressing yourself to fix your perceived problems. (I use the term “discussing” very loosely since you're basically trying to get people to quit/not play the game because of your personal opinion).

And I wont even go into the topic of why your opinion (the opinion of some anonymous person on the Internet) should or shouldn't have an effect on anyone else's decisions.


I ignored to answer you post because there was nothing of substance in it even after i had read it.

This post  also doesn't contain anything worth to respond to (itsthe same like the other basically) but this time i will try to be kind  to you.

First you obviously don't know me well and any person who know me also knows that  "make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made" doesn't fit me at all and i guess anyone who know me will laugh about the comedy in it since i was almost the only "neverchanging" fanboi no matter what...ironically isn't it .

Second whats wrong about my opinion about WoW. It isn't a MMORPG and shouldnt be listed as one. Its a single player game with online maps who's success destroyed many good games and the whole genre, because real MMORPG's doesn't become  easy the financial funding they deserve since the travesty of MMORPG appeared on the scene.  You maybe find my attachmend to such a statement not fitting, but knowing that WoW is one reason why my favorite game Pre CU SWG turned into a mess and MY gaming experience got ruined i see my opinion perfectly fitting.

The simple reason why i set this poinst here for discussing is i am banned on the official forum.

Reason for ban: Non constructive critic.

I think my motivitaion should be clear for you now even i didn't had to explain it to you, but probably it will entertain a lot of people i appreciate in this forum xD

 

 

 

 

-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!

"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)

  Realbigdeal

Hard Core Member

Joined: 9/28/08
Posts: 1448

3/05/12 11:19:59 PM#46
Originally posted by DarthRaiden
Originally posted by Simsu
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

Try to say something notheworthy please some contribution to the current discussion maybe ?

I did in fact say something noteworthy, but because you didn't agree with the points I made you totally ignored the post. Hrm, how odd... Once more for ya, since I like you so much.

You, and people like you, make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made that you do not personally like. This happens so often, and with such predictability of it's content, that it's not even worth the effort of trying to discuss your complaints because most of the time you're only considering what you personally want and do not care about what other people want or what would benefit the game.

Another uninspired approach your type makes is that they always compares everything to WoW. Ever single time a tiny change is made, that even has the slightest hint of anything Blizzard has even thought of putting into WoW, you start running around screaming that it's some sort of evil hell-spawn that will ruin the game. All because it might have, at one time, been thought of by Blizzard. It takes an incredibly lack of perspective to always fall back on this argument.

The very fact that you're on this site (and not the official site) “discussing” it shows you're not interested in expressing yourself to fix your perceived problems. (I use the term “discussing” very loosely since you're basically trying to get people to quit/not play the game because of your personal opinion).

And I wont even go into the topic of why your opinion (the opinion of some anonymous person on the Internet) should or shouldn't have an effect on anyone else's decisions.


I ignored to answer you post because there was nothing of substance in it even after i had read it.

This post  also doesn't contain anything worth to respond to (itsthe same like the other basically) but this time i will try to be kind  to you.

First you obviously don't know me well and any person who know me also knows that  "make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made" doesn't fit me at all and i guess anyone who know me will laugh about the comedy in it since i was almost the only "neverchanging" fanboi no matter what...ironically isn't it .

Second whats wrong about my opinion about WoW. It isn't a MMORPG and shouldnt be listed as one. Its a single player game with online maps who's success destroyed many good games and the whole genre, because real MMORPG's doesn't become  easy the financial funding they deserve since the travesty of MMORPG appeared on the scene.  You maybe find my attachmend to such a statement not fitting, but knowing that WoW is one reason why my favorite game Pre CU SWG turned into a mess and MY gaming experience got ruined i see my opinion perfectly fitting.

The simple reason why i set this poinst here for discussing is i am banned on the official forum.

Reason for ban: Non constructive critic.

I think my motivitaion should be clear for you now even i didn't had to explain it to you, but probably it will entertain a lot of people i appreciate in this forum xD

 

 

 

 

Lol, you didnt even need to reply. We're not looking for wow players here. I didnt bother reading that whole post or any other post that includes wow or theme park mmo's in them

Fact is Wow pre BC was the best of what wow ever was. It went downhill afterwards, only wow haters will take me seriously here.

 

In my opinion, a player will only like DF if he finally decides to never look back on any other theme park mmo's. My 1st mmo was wow, just saying...

C:\Users\FF\Desktop\spin move.gif

  Simsu

Novice Member

Joined: 11/06/03
Posts: 278

3/06/12 9:58:04 PM#47
Originally posted by Realbigdeal

Lol, you didnt even need to reply. We're not looking for wow players here. I didnt bother reading that whole post or any other post that includes wow or theme park mmo's in them

Fact is Wow pre BC was the best of what wow ever was. It went downhill afterwards, only wow haters will take me seriously here.

In my opinion, a player will only like DF if he finally decides to never look back on any other theme park mmo's. My 1st mmo was wow, just saying...

You realize that I'm not the one that brought up WoW, right? In fact I stated that bringing up WoW every time you do not like something about a game is ignorant (at best).

  Simsu

Novice Member

Joined: 11/06/03
Posts: 278

3/06/12 10:04:07 PM#48
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

First you obviously don't know me well and any person who know me also knows that  "make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made" doesn't fit me at all

The simple reason why i set this poinst here for discussing is i am banned on the official forum.

Reason for ban: Non constructive critic.

I find it hilarious that you can make these two statements, in the same post, when replying to someone that is explicitly telling you that you're not being constructive. Fantastic defense there.

On an unrelated note you didn't get it the first time so why would I think you'd get it the 2nd time. Not gonna bother with a 3rd.

  DarthRaiden

Hard Core Member

Joined: 11/20/05
Posts: 4306

i make art,
till someone dies.

Forum Terrorist

 
3/07/12 11:41:17 AM#49
Originally posted by Simsu
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

First you obviously don't know me well and any person who know me also knows that  "make the same kind of posts every single time a change is made" doesn't fit me at all

The simple reason why i set this poinst here for discussing is i am banned on the official forum.

Reason for ban: Non constructive critic.

I find it hilarious that you can make these two statements, in the same post, when replying to someone that is explicitly telling you that you're not being constructive. Fantastic defense there.

On an unrelated note you didn't get it the first time so why would I think you'd get it the 2nd time. Not gonna bother with a 3rd.

 

Its really ridulous you dont understand the reasoning even explained to you like to a litle kid.

It makes no sense to break it even more down to you, you need some basic undesrtanding capabilities at least or it can't be helped yand you never will realize what the topic and the matter here. 

Probably you just wanted to derail the thread and i fell for it, i should have kept to my first instinctive feel to just ignore you.

 

-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!

"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)

  Classicstar

Apprentice Member

Joined: 12/02/04
Posts: 2245

3/07/12 11:48:03 AM#50


Originally posted by DarthRaiden
As a veteran gamer  i am very worried about what AV is developing there. The more the reveal, the more shit it sounds. You all know i was a very avid supporter but i cant support the insta travel back after death = limbo and the global Auction House. Its the wrong direction i wanted to see this game heading to.
I m afraid DF flushes down the toilet.
"Once ganked, a character enters a limbo state where he is able to re-equip his character with items from his bank box, and reenter the battle at a random spot relatively close to his tomb stone." update 10 feb
 
"Browsing any marketplace will reveal all buy and sell orders currently available all over Agon. If  an item is located at the market you are at, you can buy it right there and then. If the item is located in another marketplace you have two options: You can either travel to the market and buy it there, or you can pay a courier cost related to the item’s price, and have it delivered to your location" update Feb 23
 
This will kill Darkfall for me. I ll supported it for become more rich gaming experience and not for it to become WoW. 
 
 
 

It came to this by there own community already started at launch and now Darkfall become a themepark target for mass market they offcorse fail but i gave up year ago i followed Darkfall sinds 2003 as longterm follower, played it for 2 years 100% pure without 1min afk/macro/exploit seeing it going down the drain bah, to widness the DUMB DOWN of game i wanted so much for years.

Cheaters and ex-themeparkers are the guilty ones

I quit Guildwars 2 for now im fed up with empty world:(... played:AC-Darktide,AC2-Darktide,L2 and Darkfall.Solo Fav games:Morrowind,DayZ(PLAYING NOW), Skyrim, Bioshock, Age of Empires 2, Soldiers of fortune 2 and many more...
Playing:Skyrim-dishonered and deusex revelations at moment.
Bought AoE 2 HD but not yet played.
No mmorpgs for while.

  gotha

Apprentice Member

Joined: 10/13/05
Posts: 988

3/07/12 11:53:11 AM#51

Having the carrier pigeon options destroys regional markets and EvE style gameplay along with siege pvp.  

  User Deleted
3/07/12 11:56:01 AM#52
It came to this by there own community already started at launch and now Darkfall become a themepark target for mass market they offcorse fail but i gave up year ago i followed Darkfall sinds 2003 as longterm follower, played it for 2 years 100% pure without 1min afk/macro/exploit seeing it going down the drain bah, to widness the DUMB DOWN of game i wanted so much for years.

Cheaters and ex-themeparkers are the guilty ones

I ran out of breath reading this paragraph.

  DarthRaiden

Hard Core Member

Joined: 11/20/05
Posts: 4306

i make art,
till someone dies.

Forum Terrorist

 
3/07/12 12:05:15 PM#53
Originally posted by Biskop

I sort of agree with OP.

The problem with DF isn't that people lack the ability to trade globally and risk free, or that it takes too long to gear up and get back to a fight. The opposite, in fact; local banking and markets, stratetic logistics, etc, are crucial if a game is to be truly open ended and player driven. 

DF's main issues as far as I'm concerned is 1) no skillcap and 2) lack of any real sandbox tools.

If the game had offered diverse options in character builds (i.e. if AV had designed the game with char specialization and interesting group dynamics in mind) and ways for players to run and operate empires, trade hubs, industries, and so on, DF would have been a huge success.

I don't see how them catering to the casual masses will bring back the hordes of disgruntled sandbox players who originally flocked to DF. All those people want is a working, well-designed game with multiple playstyle options and a high degree of player freedom.

The casual, "carebear" type player on the other hand do not want a FFA game, no matter how many "safe newbie areas", global markets or limbo states it features. Besides, they've got 99% of the market catering to them already.

 

Basically yes, there are much points i agree here.  Especially this

"The problem with DF isn't that people lack the ability to trade globally and risk free, or that it takes too long to gear up and get back to a fight. The opposite, in fact; local banking and markets, stratetic logistics, etc, are crucial if a game is to be truly open ended and player driven. "

/yes, yes, double signed, absolutely agree here

 Don't agree with the skill cap part. Specializations (even those DF has in mind now) can be fully sufficient for DF and are IMO superior to any real skill cap.

Their initial thought of giving everyone the freedom to be everything but making it a huge task has turned out to be to much naive thinking giving the min-maxers and insta gratification generation players of today.

Also i dont think there isnt any sandbox tools in Darkfall, the foundation is absolutely there, but they are limited. Whats holds more weight is that with these moves THEY DON'T EXPAND ON THEM...thats the important part.

Its not like EvE which hss become better and richer and deeper over time, DF seems becomes blunt and shallow. 

I absolutely agree with the verdict here:

I don't see how them catering to the casual masses will bring back the hordes of disgruntled sandbox players who originally flocked to DF. All those people want is a working, well-designed game with multiple playstyle options and a high degree of player freedom.

/absolutely

I doubt Darkfall will attract FPS players (console kiddies), because they simply not into MMORPG's, as their real playerbase, they have many good alternatives with alot of action based FPS combat elsewhere.

Darkfalls future would have been the sandbox players who having a rich sandbox gameplay experience and welcome (or stomach) the fresh change of FPP and FFA.

I dont agree with casual = carebear. The casual player can  also accept FFA and full loot IMO if there are game mechanics in place that guarantee that he won't be in big disadvantage with those who can stay 24/7 online. Offline skill meditation was a good step, which needs some polishing still but can solve the issue IMO.

 

-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!

"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)

  PsyMike3d

Advanced Member

Joined: 9/01/11
Posts: 329

Sorry for my English xD

3/07/12 12:07:11 PM#54

i also dont trust DF2.0... thanks god Archeage is on the horizon!!!

http://www.wix.com/mmaganadellis/michaelmag

http://www.youtube.com/user/PsyMike3d/videos

http://soundcloud.com/michaelmag

  Snoepie

Advanced Member

Joined: 8/18/07
Posts: 369

3/07/12 12:14:05 PM#55

well 2.0 will tel us if darkfall still excists..

 

Its either live or die with this game..

Ive been around for a very long time.. and the company that made this game with so little resources.. did a very good job..

 

However..

 

AV don't know shit about running a company.

Av do not listen to there playerbase ( which is a  minor group but highly dedicated to darkfall)

What AV is blogging.. you can't not tell if this info is true or false.. so basicly disregard what there blogging.

 

What i would like to see:

 

Av goes bankrupt.. ( i truely hope this) ,

- sells the company to internetQ

- or goes open source.

 

As i don't know what this internetQ does or who they are i  hope that darkfall will go open source..

 

There is an endless list  of broken promises with this company..

 

Don't get more wrong tho.. darkfall is really great.. and have so much potential.. but the company seems either not intrested or just don't care about there baby..

 

Simple excample of Av's view of things..

 

They are working on visuals all the time..the playerbase of darkfall told so many times they none gives a **** about the visuals

 

FYI: it took them 2 years to adjust village caputuring points.., which was the most genuis patch ever..

 

 

 

  Sid_Vicious

Advanced Member

Joined: 4/07/10
Posts: 1519

3/08/12 9:57:56 PM#56

I am actually excited for the possibility of a wipe and not bothering with crafting when 2.0 comes out. There are too many things needed in each gear bag to not be a crafter in this current game. There is no way that I would want to tolerate buying all the shit from others that I would need to buy if I wasn't a crafter. Right now I can make myself whatever and just need the mats to be satisfied but even that is fucking hard to obtain when I don't want to spend the day watching some people BS over trade chat. To be a player now without any crafting what-so-ever is hard to imagine. Thats a lot of time of bartering that everyone who doesnt craft is forced to have to put up with. To be honest I would be playing the game more often now if there was a casual-player friendly market to get mats from. I am a crafter and have a hard time obtaining selentine as often as I need it among a dozen other things. I am having to farm lowbie mobs on an end game toon at times for some enchanting mats. Sure I could go to some player vendor at a village but would really rather have an easier way to obtain something in less than an hour.

NEWS FLASH! A bank was robbed the other day and a man opened fire on the customers being held hostage. One customer zig-zag sprinted until he found cover. When questioned later he explained that he was a hardcore Darkfall Online player and knew just what to do.

  DarthRaiden

Hard Core Member

Joined: 11/20/05
Posts: 4306

i make art,
till someone dies.

Forum Terrorist

 
3/21/12 6:29:18 PM#57

There was some discussion about a new blog entry on Koster's blog that sparked discussion on Auction Houses vs local markets over at official forum.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

It is a relief to read the words of one of the masters who invented the MMORPG genre and to see the downhill that has come by crap design ideas from "fast food" games into this genre.

Bottom line, AV and Darfall just do it  WRONG. They have a lot to learn till they are able to make a enjoybale game.

 

Here a copy :

"Once upon a time, there was a game set in a science fiction universe where the economy was very important. Its name was not Eve.

In this game, players could, if they so chose, run a business. They could

  • designate a building as a shop
  • hire an NPC bot to stand in it
  • give the bot items to hold for sale
  • specify the prices at which those items would sell
  • customize the bot in a variety of ways
  • make use of advertising facilities to market the shop
  • decorate the shop any way they pleased

With this basic facility, emergent gameplay tied to the way that the crafting system worked resulted in players who chose to run shops being able to do things Ike build supply chains, manage regular inventory, develop regular customer bases, build marketing campaigns, and in general, play a lemonade stand writ large.

The upshot was that at peak, fully half the players in Star Wars Galaxies ran a shop.

Now, most of these players engaged in the system in a shallow way. Advanced versions of the capabilities cited above were unlocked based on RPG-style advancement. You had to choose to do a lot of merchant activity in order to get Merchant XP, in order to unlock more advanced advertising capabilities etc. But even a dabbler could run a small business.

Advanced players actually made the economy their entire game, working either solo or in highly organized guilds, managing oilfields worth of harvesters, factory towns worth of crafting stations, and whole malls.

The economy in something like World of Warcraft is very different in character. The peak populations on a shard in each game were comparable, though of course WoW achieved far far higher subscriber numbers in aggregate. But the peak of economic play in WoW is essentially basic arbitrage, timing the market.

There are several factors that make the functioning of the two economies radically different, of course.

  • in WoW all the best stuff is spawned as a result on combat. In SWG it was crafted by players.
  • in WoW nothing breaks; instead you outlevel it. In original SWG everything decayed.
  • in WoW a lot of the most valuable items aren’t actually items — they are buffs or skills in fancy dress. They aren’t transferable to other players. In SWG there was no “soul binding” and anything could be traded or gifted.

Fundamentally, though, the biggest difference has to do with the basic approach taken. You see, in Star Wars Galaxies we designed the economy to be a game, not a side effect. In particular, the merchant class was created to fulfill the fantasy of running your own business. It had features like decorating your shop because that is part of the fantasy of being a shopkeeper in a world such as that — to build up the equivalent of Watto’s junkyard, or a Trade Federation.

And this meant that above all, one feature could not exist: the auction house.

If you think of running a business as a game, then think about what you need in order to make it fun. Game grammar tells us that you are probably playing this as an asynchronous parallel game, meaning that you are measuring yourself against other players’ progress against the same opponent you fight. What’s the opponent? The vagaries of supply and demand as expressed by market price. The actions of other players have an indirect effect on this system.

Remember, a game provides statistically varied opposition within a common framework — if there is no variation, we call it a puzzle, not a game. Because of this, we invested a lot of effort into creating ever-varying economic situations in SWG.

  • Every resource in SWG was randomly generated off of master types. We defined “iron,” and gave it statistical ranges. Different kinds of iron would spawn with
    different names, but they would all work as iron in any recipe that called for such. This meant that you might find a high-quality vein of iron, or a low quality one.
  • Even more, it might be high quality only for specific purposes.
  • Resource types were finite. You could literally mine out all the high quality iron there was. It would just be gone. A new iron might be spawned eventually (sometimes, very eventually!) but of course, it would be rolled up with different characteristics.
  • And in a different place. Resources were placed using freshly generated Perlin noise maps.
  • Crafters gambled with their resources, generating items of varying quality that were partially dependent on the resources and the recipe.
  • Crafters could lock in specific results as blueprints, but that forced a dependency on the specific finite resource that was used, meaning that blueprints naturally obsolesced.

All of this meant that a merchant could never rely having the best item, or the most desirable item (indeed, “most desirable” could exist on several axes, meaning that there were varying customer preferences in terms of what they liked in a blaster). Word spread through informal means as to the locations of rare ore deposits. People fought PvP battles over them. People hoarded minerals just
to sell them on the market once they had become rare. And of course, they organized sites like the now defunct SWGCraft.com, which monitored all of this fluctuating data and fed it back out in tidy feeds for other sites and even apps to consume, such as this one, which was widely used by hardcore business players much like a Bloomberg terminal is by someone who plays the market.

Then it all went away. You see, a key feature of the system was that the central NPC run shops were not permitted to interfere with this. Nor was the spawn system allowed to drop high quality items as loot. The result was that if you wanted the coolest weapon, you had to hunt through player-run shops like a mad antiquer on a summer drive. The result of the above systems, you see, was an economy where it was very very hard to see the gestalt of the trade economy. You really had to hunt to find out if you had found a bargain.

For someone who just wanted to frickin’ buy a blaster, it was very inconvenient.

In other words, we had local pricing in full effect. This meant that the individual merchant, who, remember, was there to fulfill the fantasy of running a small business, could get away with not being being great at it.

In the real world, we are rapidly approaching a perfect information economy. I can instantly look up the varying prices of something I want, determine the one with the lowest actual cost to me (price, shipping, time to arrival, physical location, quality, etc), and get exactly what I want. It is a world optimized for the buyer.

The experience for the seller, though, is not generally awesome, unless they happen to have the scale that drives victory in a winner takes all scenario. The big guys can essentially dictate prices by undercutting everyone. They dominate the visible market, and can drown out the smaller or more unique offerings. In this sort of world, the funky used bookstore with the awesome decor tends to die, and it doesn’t matter how much fun the shop owner had in coming up with said decor.

SWG eventually did put in a serverwide auction house, responding to WoW. It made life easier for the buyers. But it created a perfect information economy, and all that complexity and variation that was present in the market earlier fell away. Small shopkeepers were shut out of markets.

If that happens to you in a game, you don’t find another line of work. You quit.

So do auction houses suck? No, not if your game is about getting. It is a better experience for a gamer interesting in getting.

But the fantasy of running a shop, or being a business tycoon, is not just about the getting. It is about the having — of relationships, of an empire, of a well-oiled machine. It is about running things, not about working your way up a chain of gewgaws. The gewgaws are a way to keep score, but you play the game for the sake of the game.

SWG was not a game about getting. After all, everything you could get in the game eventually broke. It was about the having. Having your shops, your town, your supply chain, your loyal customers, your collectible Krayt dragon skull or poster or miniature plush Bantha like in the Christmas Special.

When the merchant changes went in to SWG, the merchants went out.

Getting is kind of addictive. For a mass market audience, it may well be the path to greater acceptance and higher profits. Me, I like funky bookstores; but I have to admit I usually buy from Amazon. It’s convenient.

The lesson here is that sometimes features that make things better for one player make them dramatically worse for another. Every time you make a design choice you are closing as many doors as you open. In particular, you should always say to yourself,

I’m adding this feature for player convenience. How many people live for the play that this inconvenience affords?

The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map.

Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

-----MY-TERMS-OF-USE--------------------------------------------------
$OE - eternal enemy of online gaming
-We finally WON !!!! 2011 $OE accepted that they have been fired 2005 by the playerbase and closed down ridiculous NGE !!

"There was suppression of speech and all kinds of things between disturbing and fascistic." Raph Koster (parted $OE)

  darkehawke

Novice Member

Joined: 11/03/10
Posts: 180

3/21/12 7:20:03 PM#58
Originally posted by DarthRaiden

There was some discussion about a new blog entry on Koster's blog that sparked discussion on Auction Houses vs local markets over at official forum.

http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/20/do-auction-houses-suck/#more-4080

It is a relief to read the words of one of the masters who invented the MMORPG genre and to see the downhill that has come by crap design ideas from "fast food" games into this genre.

Bottom line, AV and Darfall just do it  WRONG. They have a lot to learn till they are able to make a enjoybale game.

 

Here a copy :

"Once upon a time, there was a game set in a science fiction universe where the economy was very important. Its name was not Eve.

In this game, players could, if they so chose, run a business. They could

  • designate a building as a shop
  • hire an NPC bot to stand in it
  • give the bot items to hold for sale
  • specify the prices at which those items would sell
  • customize the bot in a variety of ways
  • make use of advertising facilities to market the shop
  • decorate the shop any way they pleased

With this basic facility, emergent gameplay tied to the way that the crafting system worked resulted in players who chose to run shops being able to do things Ike build supply chains, manage regular inventory, develop regular customer bases, build marketing campaigns, and in general, play a lemonade stand writ large.

The upshot was that at peak, fully half the players in Star Wars Galaxies ran a shop.

Now, most of these players engaged in the system in a shallow way. Advanced versions of the capabilities cited above were unlocked based on RPG-style advancement. You had to choose to do a lot of merchant activity in order to get Merchant XP, in order to unlock more advanced advertising capabilities etc. But even a dabbler could run a small business.

Advanced players actually made the economy their entire game, working either solo or in highly organized guilds, managing oilfields worth of harvesters, factory towns worth of crafting stations, and whole malls.

The economy in something like World of Warcraft is very different in character. The peak populations on a shard in each game were comparable, though of course WoW achieved far far higher subscriber numbers in aggregate. But the peak of economic play in WoW is essentially basic arbitrage, timing the market.

There are several factors that make the functioning of the two economies radically different, of course.

  • in WoW all the best stuff is spawned as a result on combat. In SWG it was crafted by players.
  • in WoW nothing breaks; instead you outlevel it. In original SWG everything decayed.
  • in WoW a lot of the most valuable items aren’t actually items — they are buffs or skills in fancy dress. They aren’t transferable to other players. In SWG there was no “soul binding” and anything could be traded or gifted.

Fundamentally, though, the biggest difference has to do with the basic approach taken. You see, in Star Wars Galaxies we designed the economy to be a game, not a side effect. In particular, the merchant class was created to fulfill the fantasy of running your own business. It had features like decorating your shop because that is part of the fantasy of being a shopkeeper in a world such as that — to build up the equivalent of Watto’s junkyard, or a Trade Federation.

And this meant that above all, one feature could not exist: the auction house.

If you think of running a business as a game, then think about what you need in order to make it fun. Game grammar tells us that you are probably playing this as an asynchronous parallel game, meaning that you are measuring yourself against other players’ progress against the same opponent you fight. What’s the opponent? The vagaries of supply and demand as expressed by market price. The actions of other players have an indirect effect on this system.

Remember, a game provides statistically varied opposition within a common framework — if there is no variation, we call it a puzzle, not a game. Because of this, we invested a lot of effort into creating ever-varying economic situations in SWG.

  • Every resource in SWG was randomly generated off of master types. We defined “iron,” and gave it statistical ranges. Different kinds of iron would spawn with
    different names, but they would all work as iron in any recipe that called for such. This meant that you might find a high-quality vein of iron, or a low quality one.
  • Even more, it might be high quality only for specific purposes.
  • Resource types were finite. You could literally mine out all the high quality iron there was. It would just be gone. A new iron might be spawned eventually (sometimes, very eventually!) but of course, it would be rolled up with different characteristics.
  • And in a different place. Resources were placed using freshly generated Perlin noise maps.
  • Crafters gambled with their resources, generating items of varying quality that were partially dependent on the resources and the recipe.
  • Crafters could lock in specific results as blueprints, but that forced a dependency on the specific finite resource that was used, meaning that blueprints naturally obsolesced.

All of this meant that a merchant could never rely having the best item, or the most desirable item (indeed, “most desirable” could exist on several axes, meaning that there were varying customer preferences in terms of what they liked in a blaster). Word spread through informal means as to the locations of rare ore deposits. People fought PvP battles over them. People hoarded minerals just
to sell them on the market once they had become rare. And of course, they organized sites like the now defunct SWGCraft.com, which monitored all of this fluctuating data and fed it back out in tidy feeds for other sites and even apps to consume, such as this one, which was widely used by hardcore business players much like a Bloomberg terminal is by someone who plays the market.

Then it all went away. You see, a key feature of the system was that the central NPC run shops were not permitted to interfere with this. Nor was the spawn system allowed to drop high quality items as loot. The result was that if you wanted the coolest weapon, you had to hunt through player-run shops like a mad antiquer on a summer drive. The result of the above systems, you see, was an economy where it was very very hard to see the gestalt of the trade economy. You really had to hunt to find out if you had found a bargain.

For someone who just wanted to frickin’ buy a blaster, it was very inconvenient.

In other words, we had local pricing in full effect. This meant that the individual merchant, who, remember, was there to fulfill the fantasy of running a small business, could get away with not being being great at it.

In the real world, we are rapidly approaching a perfect information economy. I can instantly look up the varying prices of something I want, determine the one with the lowest actual cost to me (price, shipping, time to arrival, physical location, quality, etc), and get exactly what I want. It is a world optimized for the buyer.

The experience for the seller, though, is not generally awesome, unless they happen to have the scale that drives victory in a winner takes all scenario. The big guys can essentially dictate prices by undercutting everyone. They dominate the visible market, and can drown out the smaller or more unique offerings. In this sort of world, the funky used bookstore with the awesome decor tends to die, and it doesn’t matter how much fun the shop owner had in coming up with said decor.

SWG eventually did put in a serverwide auction house, responding to WoW. It made life easier for the buyers. But it created a perfect information economy, and all that complexity and variation that was present in the market earlier fell away. Small shopkeepers were shut out of markets.

If that happens to you in a game, you don’t find another line of work. You quit.

So do auction houses suck? No, not if your game is about getting. It is a better experience for a gamer interesting in getting.

But the fantasy of running a shop, or being a business tycoon, is not just about the getting. It is about the having — of relationships, of an empire, of a well-oiled machine. It is about running things, not about working your way up a chain of gewgaws. The gewgaws are a way to keep score, but you play the game for the sake of the game.

SWG was not a game about getting. After all, everything you could get in the game eventually broke. It was about the having. Having your shops, your town, your supply chain, your loyal customers, your collectible Krayt dragon skull or poster or miniature plush Bantha like in the Christmas Special.

When the merchant changes went in to SWG, the merchants went out.

Getting is kind of addictive. For a mass market audience, it may well be the path to greater acceptance and higher profits. Me, I like funky bookstores; but I have to admit I usually buy from Amazon. It’s convenient.

The lesson here is that sometimes features that make things better for one player make them dramatically worse for another. Every time you make a design choice you are closing as many doors as you open. In particular, you should always say to yourself,

I’m adding this feature for player convenience. How many people live for the play that this inconvenience affords?

The small shopkeepers; the socializers who need the extra five minutes you have to spend waiting for a boat at the Everquest docks; the players who live to help, and can’t once every item is soul bound and every fight is group locked and they can’t even step in to save your life; the role player who cannot be who they wish to be because their dialogue is prewritten; the person proud of his knowledge of the dangerous mountains who is bypassed by a teleporter; the person who wants to be lost in the woods and cannot because there is a mini-map.

Every inconvenience is a challenge, and games are made of challenges. This means that every inconvenience in your design is potentially someone’s game."

SWG still had that awesome crafting side of things way after the nge still. The global bazaar terminals were pretty much just used to trace individual merchant shops for a long while as the auction market itself was useless. If you wanted to sell items you needed vendors. This remained true until a few months before shut down when they removed the list price limit. 

Of course nothing will compare to the economy pre nge, SWG was a fantastic game for it. The shift towards loot ruined it, but it still remained a far deeper experience then any other mmo I've played. The nge got a lot better as it went on, but the damage was done to the craters and they slowly got more and more shafted as the loot whores got involved. It's a crying shame what happened to SWG, but nge was still a richer experience then wow and other crap. I personally don't blame soe for the nge anymore after hearing how lucasarts works. LA has the final say in any star wars products and the nge was, in my mind, their idea. Considering they forced an author to completely change the ending to his book wasting all the work he'd done on previous books building it up, we'll it just sounds a little too familiar.

About the darkfall changes, getting back into combat quickly is not a good thing. Skill andtactics mean nothing and numbers mean everything. It's not a good thing. You don't need to babysit the players, let them play for themselves and they will create their own world and it'll be a richer experience for it

Currently playing- SWG PreCU & GW 2
Have tried WoW, AoC, & Vanguard, SWG:NGE, GW, LOTRO & SWTOR
Best MMO: SWG
Worst MMO: SWTOR

  adderVXI

Advanced Member

Joined: 1/08/05
Posts: 480

Tonight!!

3/21/12 7:27:44 PM#59

I dont think anyone needs to worry about what DF 2.0 will be like, by then i plan on playing GW3, ArcheAge2 and EQ3.

Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order - John V. Lindsay

  Thorkune

Spotlight Poster

Joined: 9/28/06
Posts: 1582

Dyslexics of the world...UNTIE!

3/21/12 7:30:56 PM#60
Originally posted by adderVXI

I dont think anyone needs to worry about what DF 2.0 will be like, by then i plan on playing GW3, ArcheAge2 and EQ3.

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