Why can't people just voice their opinions, instead of trampling all over the game and proclaiming their pearls of wisdom to everyone as though they#re a universal truth? That's what ticks me off really, not people who voice doubts, but people who voice pre-fabricated "truths" based on supposed sources and whatnot.
Beautifully put lol, this is the #1 reason why I dont visit the forums all that often any more lol. Everyone seems to know "the game will be like this, and thus bad... or NO it will be PWNAGE because of this reason." Sigh, but i have to say at least it is not near as bad in this community as in some prelaunch games hehe.
What about all of those hordes of PvEers such as myself who love to quest or just kill stuff, but despise raiding and all it stands for. Why the hell should we be relegated to second class citizens when we invest just as much time as raiders do, but are not rewarded equally for it? It's bullshit through and through. It's bad enough we have to deal with elitist players who think they're entitled to the best of the best because they think their play style is the only deserving one, but to see this same mentality relfected in the developers of the game is just sickening. Until a year ago, there was going to be no raiding in this game, but Funcom caved in to the extremely vocal hardcore minoirty and now have made a very raid focused PvE game that I won't be playing.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
With the new information coming out are you starting to see the writting on the wall? Are you at least starting to doubt your certainty that I and a few others were wrong when we said this game would be an item-centric raid fest? Some of you will remember the long, long arguments we had on this subject on this board. I mostly remember Aelfin and Sturmrabe being the most vocal in saying we were wrong. But there were others too. So I'm just wondering if your certainty is begining to waver. I could dig up some of the info I've read recently but I'm going to assume that you've all read it already. I'll just sum things up a little. There will be at least eight raid dungeons in the game AT RELEASE. Each of those will have three tiers. To move on to the second tier of any raid you will first have to beat one of the 1st tiers and you will need to equip your guild members with 1st tier items before you'll have a chance at beating a 2nd tier of a dungeon. Equiping everyone will mean repeatedly running 1st tiers to get drops for everyone. Then you will move on to the 2nd tiers of the dungeons and go through the same process again, upgrading your items so you can move on to the 3rd tiers. Starting to sound painfully familiar? Raid grinding anyone? If I remember right they said it will take something like 3 hours to beat a dungeon which I assume means 3 hours for a tier. And of course they are going to give the most unrealistically optomistic number they possibly can so I think it's safe to assume that in reality it will probably be more like 5-6 hours per raid per tier, and that's probably only if everything goes really well. And then, being wildly optomistic, you will have to run that same raid at least 24 times to equip everyone in your raid group and that's assuming that you only have 24 people in your guild to equip. And then, you will most likely need equipment from each of the first tiers before you can move on to a second tier so after you raid that one tier of that one dungeon at least 24 times you still have 7 other 1st tiers to raid at least 24 times before you will move on to the 2nd tiers. Ugg. So this isn't going to be a raiding game, huh? It's not going to be item-centric? Then what is this all about? Just get real here for a minute and ask yourself why they would put all this in, why they would go to the trouble to set up this huge raiding time sink if there were really any viable alternative to it. Athelan said himself that nobody would raid if they could get the same rewards some other way. Ok, I still can't prove concisively that I'm right and this game will revolve around PvE raiding. But does anyone really still want to argue that it won't be? I stand by my long held position that people who don't want to play another raid-fest game should stay away from AoC. And that's not a slam against the game. It will be what it will be, that doesn't mean it will be a bad game. It just means that it will be a bad game for people who don't want to devote their lives to raiding. If anyone still doubts what the end-game will be like in AoC I think they are being foolish. I still can't prove that I was right....what, two years ago? At least that long. I still have to fall back on the statement that time will tell. But unless you're in denial you should be starting to see the writting on the wall.
I retract my previose statement. This game is selling out to wow loot whores.
I think a good game that will be coming out is Chronicles of Spellborn, but it's still a bit under people's radar, for now. None of the armor or weapons have stats, so the player, themselves, and how they divide points, is what matters. When you make your character, you can make it look just about however you want, and that includes how your armor looks, so that removes the issue of clones. And every class is a hybrid, so they all have some form of healing, whether it be self heals, targetted, or group, or damage provvention, even. Really, it's too much to go on about, here, so look it up. It looks promising.
Hmm, you seem to be under the misconception that pvp = fps.
In re-gards to many of these post claim best pvp gear is from pvp, Wow can say the same can't it? (PS yes it can). Does that mean its not a raid grind for pve gear (oh no it is, heck so is the pvp gear). If you look at what is being reported as their end game pve system it is 100% long ass raids, JUST LIKE WOW. If you look at their craftign system i think it sounds good i see they took a page from mythic and DAOC and allowed items to have 4 slots you can add stats to player made equipment. However, at the end of the day you'll need one set for pve and one for pvp (if what EVERY poster talkin gabout this claims is true and well that is almost 100% wowish , thank god WAR is one single game and not two glued together, aka wow aka AOC.) PS . i know i am expanding the reality of this situation however, what i am saying is not inncorrect. So you should think about it instead of just fanboying it up. Personal these ideas and systems sounds awful. If you think they sounds good , thats cool. However, at the same time do go play wow becuase WoW is currently doing this very same thing. I guess AOC still has boobs and its combat (which you can hope will be a positive thing).
The problem with MMORPG PvP is that it isn't about skill for the most part. Having 5 friends with you all level 60 and killing some level 5 newbie isn't skill. Items/level make a big (dare I say, gigantic) difference in most MMORPG PvP.
I pvp'd quite a bit in WoW, both battlegrounds and open pvp on open pvp servers. Most of the time in the open PvP servers, you couldn't have a fair fight. It happened, but rarely. But death didn't mean very much in WoW, so it wasn't a huge deal. Still had the odd griefers running around ganking people, but it wasn't too bad.
But as the cost of death goes up, so does the grief factor. People will no longer engage in even remotely fair fights. If their chance of winning isn't 99.99999999%, they run away. Is that fun? Is that skill? Nope. Not even remotely. I know I know, everyone will say they fight the close fights all the time. But outside of battlegrounds and WoW where the death penalty is small, I've been in precisely ZERO fights in games like Shadowbane, L2, Eve, DAOC, AO and now most recently PotBS where I had a chance to win if I was outnumbered/outleveled. ZERO. Either you are in a gank squad roaming around looking for lone victims, or you are a lone victim.
So, MMORPG isn't about skill, its about levels/gear/numbers. Utterly boring to be on the winning side as your foe never stood a chance, and utterly frustrating to be on the losing side, because you never had a chance. I'd rather try to sneak up on a Tiger tank in my M10 or as a sapper if I want to test my skills.
Umm I want to call you names .... badly, but i will resist.
"So, MMORPG isn't about skill, its about levels/gear/numbers."
Ok mmorpgs = number ftw. However, . . .
"...in games like Shadowbane, L2, Eve, DAOC, AO and now most recently PotBS where I had a chance to win if I was outnumbered/outleveled"
So what SB, l2, Eve, DAOC, AO, and PotBS are not MMORPGs. Well thats news to me.
Insted lets say Wow does not have the combat mechainics in place to allow small numbers to dominate large numbers. However, that is simply one mmorpg.
PS maybe wow doesn't take a ton of skill (I play wow ps , and i can say most players total suck in that game , it is so easy to out play them), however, I also play DAOC and if you say skill has no impact on the game and pvp then i /rofl at you.
"You might want to rethink that comparison 80-90% of WoW's population doesn't raid or even like to raid. So if they got rid of it they would still be at 8-9 million assuming every raider left immediately." ~ gestalt11
So what are they doing? Honestly, everyoen will agree that wow's pvp, while at times fun, is one of the worst pvp systems in any mmo ever. Raids, easy brainless leveling, and gold farmers are the majority of wow players. PS i seen other peopel reply to this ty, because this guy obviously has no clue.
"Came from Blizzard itself. Kaplan even admitted it. I don't feel like rehashing it." - yes , now i understand Blizzard told you that "No, raiding is not the only thing to do in wow". Of course they would say this , your not goign to hear them say , our pvp sucks and we know it. However, what are they doing brand new next x-pack ... trying to fix open world pvp, which they attempted once and failed already at.
Kk im done, but really Think about it.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
They said there may be item looting servers on this game.
No one is going to be a "hardcore raider" in a game on a PVP server with item looting. You raid 10 hours a night, wipe wipe wipe, then get your RARE drop loot and if someone kills you in PVP they can take it. Grats.
People on item loot servers are forced to use crafted gear or lower quality gear than raid gear. Gear that is pretty easily to acquire and can be passed around between the PvPers as they kill each other.
This is why AOC still has tons of hope no matter WHAT system they implement.
Hardcore raids for those folks who like it. Item loot servers for people who don't .
This is the ultimate way to run an MMORPG. People on the item loot server WILL raid too sometimes. People are freaking crazy. These items will be floating around being passed around as trophies and it will OWN.
What about all of those hordes of PvEers such as myself who love to quest or just kill stuff, but despise raiding and all it stands for. Why the hell should we be relegated to second class citizens when we invest just as much time as raiders do, but are not rewarded equally for it? It's bullshit through and through. It's bad enough we have to deal with elitist players who think they're entitled to the best of the best because they think their play style is the only deserving one, but to see this same mentality relfected in the developers of the game is just sickening. Until a year ago, there was going to be no raiding in this game, but Funcom caved in to the extremely vocal hardcore minoirty and now have made a very raid focused PvE game that I won't be playing.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
What about all of those hordes of PvEers such as myself who love to quest or just kill stuff, but despise raiding and all it stands for. Why the hell should we be relegated to second class citizens when we invest just as much time as raiders do, but are not rewarded equally for it? It's bullshit through and through. It's bad enough we have to deal with elitist players who think they're entitled to the best of the best because they think their play style is the only deserving one, but to see this same mentality relfected in the developers of the game is just sickening. Until a year ago, there was going to be no raiding in this game, but Funcom caved in to the extremely vocal hardcore minoirty and now have made a very raid focused PvE game that I won't be playing.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
Which we already covered, as AoC raid items contain raid-centric stats. Pay attention! If you're going to take the time to whine about it, at least get your facts straight.
As for the raiders using their 'leet items' to totally pwn you in PvP, shut the fuck up. No, seriously. Even in WoW, raiding gear isn't the best PvP gear. So, what game are we discussing here? Everquest? Everquest was a great game for its time, maybe even amazing, but its era has passed. The mechanics have moved on. Let go of the hate. Lineage 2? Certainly a beautiful game. But AoC isn't going to be anything like Lineage, and we all know it.
And lets check it out, uber gear in solo. Hmm, how does it effect you? Oh, right, it doesn't. Its SOLO CONTENT. Someone can do it faster than you. Or maybe not. My priest was always lightyears behind a blue-geared warlock. Hell, a GREENED Warlock. Shall we discuss Hunters? Its the same in every game. Solo content is never intended to be balanced for race or gear, because its for SOLOING. I'm capitalizing the word so you can easily select them and look them up here.
As for group content, who cares? The number of raiders I've seen in non-guild groups is pretty low. Most are happy to help people out when they're outside their guild. The few that don't are... drumroll... jerks. Hey, guess what? Jerks in greens are just as common (I would say more so). So once again, doesn't effect you.
No, the problem is you want to have the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness, without doing the content that would get you the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness. But wait, group players and solo players got different cool items in WoW (and, from what I hear, AoC). Reputation rewards, oddball quest lines, special mounts, etc. Many of these soloing rewards, in WoW, were better FOR SOLOING! Huh. Wow. Crazy how that works?
Doesn't matter. Because you can't get every uber-dangly bead of absolute shiny awesomeness. Without, y'know, doing the raid content.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
What about all of those hordes of PvEers such as myself who love to quest or just kill stuff, but despise raiding and all it stands for. Why the hell should we be relegated to second class citizens when we invest just as much time as raiders do, but are not rewarded equally for it? It's bullshit through and through. It's bad enough we have to deal with elitist players who think they're entitled to the best of the best because they think their play style is the only deserving one, but to see this same mentality relfected in the developers of the game is just sickening. Until a year ago, there was going to be no raiding in this game, but Funcom caved in to the extremely vocal hardcore minoirty and now have made a very raid focused PvE game that I won't be playing.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
It should be apparent to anybodu who has ever participated in a thread like this that explaing the obvious is pointless because raiding is obviously superior and deserves all that, and is apparently worth all the damage it causes even though most people don't do it.
Seriously these types of threads are the most depressing and unproductive things in MMOs avoid them for your own sanity.
What about all of those hordes of PvEers such as myself who love to quest or just kill stuff, but despise raiding and all it stands for. Why the hell should we be relegated to second class citizens when we invest just as much time as raiders do, but are not rewarded equally for it? It's bullshit through and through. It's bad enough we have to deal with elitist players who think they're entitled to the best of the best because they think their play style is the only deserving one, but to see this same mentality relfected in the developers of the game is just sickening. Until a year ago, there was going to be no raiding in this game, but Funcom caved in to the extremely vocal hardcore minoirty and now have made a very raid focused PvE game that I won't be playing.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
Which we already covered, as AoC raid items contain raid-centric stats. Pay attention! If you're going to take the time to whine about it, at least get your facts straight.
As for the raiders using their 'leet items' to totally pwn you in PvP, shut the fuck up. No, seriously. Even in WoW, raiding gear isn't the best PvP gear. So, what game are we discussing here? Everquest? Everquest was a great game for its time, maybe even amazing, but its era has passed. The mechanics have moved on. Let go of the hate. Lineage 2? Certainly a beautiful game. But AoC isn't going to be anything like Lineage, and we all know it.
And lets check it out, uber gear in solo. Hmm, how does it effect you? Oh, right, it doesn't. Its SOLO CONTENT. Someone can do it faster than you. Or maybe not. My priest was always lightyears behind a blue-geared warlock. Hell, a GREENED Warlock. Shall we discuss Hunters? Its the same in every game. Solo content is never intended to be balanced for race or gear, because its for SOLOING. I'm capitalizing the word so you can easily select them and look them up here.
As for group content, who cares? The number of raiders I've seen in non-guild groups is pretty low. Most are happy to help people out when they're outside their guild. The few that don't are... drumroll... jerks. Hey, guess what? Jerks in greens are just as common (I would say more so). So once again, doesn't effect you.
No, the problem is you want to have the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness, without doing the content that would get you the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness. But wait, group players and solo players got different cool items in WoW (and, from what I hear, AoC). Reputation rewards, oddball quest lines, special mounts, etc. Many of these soloing rewards, in WoW, were better FOR SOLOING! Huh. Wow. Crazy how that works?
Doesn't matter. Because you can't get every uber-dangly bead of absolute shiny awesomeness. Without, y'know, doing the raid content.
Your mentality is exactly the reason why hardcore games cannot make the kind of money that casual games can. Thanks to EA Mythic, I HAVE a raidless game to play in the form of WAR and I can guarantee you it will kick AoC's ass in subscriptions. They treat soloers with the same respect they show for groupers. They realize that casual / solo play is just as important to a game's health as any raid or crafting could ever possibly be.
I never once said I wanted anything for free or with an easy ride, but I do expect to get equitable rewards for my time investment, because to me and many others, our play style is just as deserving of epic loot as any other. If people truly loved raiding, then one, it would be much more popular than it is, not a single game out has ever gotten more than 20% of their player base to even participate in raids. Two, you should love the challenge, that combined with a REGULAR reward should be enough incentive to do that crap. But we all know deep down inside that raids are shit content and you HAVE to have uber rewards to even get the hardcores to do it, let alone entice any other type of player.
You and your ilk are nothing more than elitist, self entitled spoiled brats who think they are god's gift to the genre. Your hardcore play style isn't hard, it's just tedious and boring and there is nothing about it that makes it more deserving of epic loot. Everyone invests a lot of time in these games and should be rewarded for doing so.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Your mentality is exactly the reason why hardcore games cannot make the kind of money that casual games can. Thanks to EA Mythic, I HAVE a raidless game to play in the form of WAR and I can guarantee you it will kick AoC's ass in subscriptions. They treat soloers with the same respect they show for groupers. They realize that casual / solo play is just as important to a game's health as any raid or crafting could ever possibly be. I never once said I wanted anthing for free or with an easy ride, but I do expect to get equitable rewards for my play style, because to me and many others, it's just as deserving of epic loot as any PvPer or raider gets. If people truly loved raiding, then one, it would be much more popular than it is, not a single game out has ever gotten more than 20% of their player base to participate. Two, you should love the challenge, that combined with a REGULAR reward should be enough incentive to do that crap. But we all know deep down inside that raids are shit content and you HAVE to have uber rewards to even get the hardcores to do it, let alone entice any other type of player. You and your ilk are nothing more than elitist, self entitled spoiled brats who think they are god's gift to the genre.
You got WAR?? Wow? Where did you get it? I would love to play that right now!
Oh wait...isn't it in closed Beta? Durn, you must mean some other game. <.<
Luckily, I'm allowed to say I'm in beta, but I can't give out any specifics, but I will say I absolutely love the game so far.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Luckily, I'm allowed to say I'm in beta, but I can't give out any specifics, but I will say I absolutely love the game so far.
Guess what. So do many of the people who are in the AoC Beta.
I actually only quoted your post to illustrate one thing. How many people pick one thing from a previous posters words and mash on that, disregarding everything else. It's been said, about a hundred times or more, that Raid and PvP will be seperate in AoC. That the raiders in AoC won't have an advantage over non raiders when it comes to PvPing, that better PvP gear can be obtained in PvP itself and by crafting it.
But people just don't listen. They have their preconceptions about the game, which they build on singular statements, most often taken out of context, disregarding additional info that is readily available. It personally sickens me that this thread continues on with the same accusations coming over and over again, without anyone having definite proof of the matter, since that will only be obtained once the game is released.
That's the same for WAR. Everyone either praises or bashes the game without having more than rumors or speculation to go on. And yes, even the Beta-testers, since you have no guarantee that the game will be the same thing you think you will get once it is released.
This is not to bash WAR. Personally, I hope the game will succeed, find its own playerbase and be fun for those players to play. But could we just stop bash each others heads in? Can#t we just keep it straight and rational and forget all those strange animosities that grow because of rumors?
The games will eventually be released. We will see how they fare. Everything up till then is speculation and hitting on each other purely out of speculation is, simply said, sad. Speculate if you want, but quit bashing fans of the other game. And yes, that goes for both parties.
Luckily, I'm allowed to say I'm in beta, but I can't give out any specifics, but I will say I absolutely love the game so far.
Guess what. So do many of the people who are in the AoC Beta.
I actually only quoted your post to illustrate one thing. How many people pick one thing from a previous posters words and mash on that, disregarding everything else. It's been said, about a hundred times or more, that Raid and PvP will be seperate in AoC. That the raiders in AoC won't have an advantage over non raiders when it comes to PvPing, that better PvP gear can be obtained in PvP itself and by crafting it.
But people just don't listen. They have their preconceptions about the game, which they build on singular statements, most often taken out of context, disregarding additional info that is readily available. It personally sickens me that this thread continues on with the same accusations coming over and over again, without anyone having definite proof of the matter, since that will only be obtained once the game is released.
That's the same for WAR. Everyone either praises or bashes the game without having more than rumors or speculation to go on. And yes, even the Beta-testers, since you have no guarantee that the game will be the same thing you think you will get once it is released.
This is not to bash WAR. Personally, I hope the game will succeed, find its own playerbase and be fun for those players to play. But could we just stop bash each others heads in? Can#t we just keep it straight and rational and forget all those strange animosities that grow because of rumors?
The games will eventually be released. We will see how they fare. Everything up till then is speculation and hitting on each other purely out of speculation is, simply said, sad. Speculate if you want, but quit bashing fans of the other game. And yes, that goes for both parties.
I do not want to bash on AoC either. But i find scary that a game that i was reading about as a massive guild vs guild battle , now have an equal PVE thing. The time they put in balancing PVE encounter and putting new ones , is time they don't develop the PVP game.The trying to balance classes for PVE/PVP fiasco ( wow lol!) .
By having two separate and time consuming path , won't it separate the community between guild that do PVP and thoses that raid. That is not such an issue but if they ever cave in to raiders and make the gear overlap in both path, you will have a big mess. I love how WAR weave the PVE into another way to help your faction win the RvR fight. You won't see any PVE raiding guild there. But thats what i want in a game. Not everyone does :P
On the plus side , it could truly bring a lot of players that would not have played AoC because of the previously perceived heavy PvP nature. So if they really keep the top PVE gear from owning everything in guild battles , it won't really be an issue. Each side should be able to enjoy their own playstyle. Let's just hope for you guys that Funcom can balance both aspect well.
I noticed the WoW reference and the relation to gear dependence. Yes it was a joke for quite some time (years), but I believe that they have finally found their balance.
Right now you don't absolutely need to be in a raid guild to be a to PvPer, quite the opposite actually. Raid gear are pretty useless for anything but PvE and are considered sub-average for PvP (people use them if they have nothing better to use). The top raiding guilds are not the top PvP guilds as well. In fact, you're more or less forced to choose a path if you want to excel on one or the other and still have time to do stuff outside the game.
If a heavily gear dependant game like WoW managed to separate the PvE from the PvP gear, I don't see how AoC which is supposedly less gear dependant can't learn from them and adapt. Bottom line, somebody succeeded in making top PvE gear undesirable for PvP without overly invalidating the PvE content (PvE people were complaining that it was way too easy to get top PvP gear compared to raiding). So it's doable and hardly impossible.
Since it's doable I would like to see it in AoC as well. More choices are always better than less (supermarket managers would disagree).
8 raids at launch... wow, that's a lot. As someone with no interest in raiding, that's a negative for AoC. Why should I care if raiders have a ton to do? Because all of the time spent on that content is wasted time (to me). Warcraft gets about $15 a year from me, mainly because the amount of content for solo & small-group play is so limited (including expansions) that it can be pretty much exhausted in one month.
Now Conan with 8 raids at launch (of course we'll see if 8 actually make it) and a PvP system that sounds a lot like raiding (large group-oriented, I mean). I know I'll be trying the game, but at this point I couldn't even guess if I'll be playing for 1 month or 12. It makes me wonder if AoC will be able to capture a casual audience in any significant way. I don't schedule my life around games, I schedule games around my life (ie I play when I have free time and am bored, not 'when my guild tells me to play'). Anecdotal evidence indicates there are significantly more people that treat games as a diversion than those who treat them as a job/commitment. All census numbers from various sources about WoW have shown that non-raiders outnumber (serious/devoted/committed) raiders overwhelmingly. So my hope is that the Conan developers haven't focused too heavily on the small hardcore niche at the expense of the wider audience at-large.
Of course, it's also possible that they've managed to find a way to make large-group-oriented gameplay not require rescheduling your life to feel like you're getting any enjoyment out of it... but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
... All census numbers from various sources about WoW have shown that non-raiders outnumber (serious/devoted/committed) raiders overwhelmingly. So my hope is that the Conan developers haven't focused too heavily on the small hardcore niche at the expense of the wider audience at-large. ...
How many months is a casual gamer expected to keep his game subscription as opposed to a raider?
How fast is a casual gamer consuming (bad wording, I know) content before he reaches the point where he has nothing new to do? How fast is a raider consuming content?
How much is an activity that you dislike affecting your enjoyment in a game? Lets say I hate PvP (so I choose a server with PvP in the border kingdoms), how much is affecting my enjoyment if half the server is on the border kingdoms if I dislike PvP? Lets say that 5% of the server is raiding but I loathe it and never participate, how much is that hurting me?
I fear that the truth is elsewhere. There are tons of hardcore people (I would go as far as to say that anyone posting anything on this site is hardcore) that do not have the free time to match their attitudes towards the MMOs they are playing. So they are trying to trim the games to what they can actually fit in their everyday schedule, cutting down features that could be fun to those that have a bit more free time to spare. And I'm not talking about time sinks. I've seen negative posts on raiding, creating towns, sieges, world PvP, guild wide PvP, crafting. Aka activities that potentially take more time than a casual hardcore player could afford. And then I've seen threads claiming that 800 hours of content are not enough.
Did we reach the point where we complain when the developers don't trim their games to fit our lives?
I’m sorry no matter how you sugar coat this..funcom has made a conscious decision to follow the Kaplan Raid paradigm, and this is greatly going to affect sales, it already has...between the push back and the new Raid information Gamestop corporate is seeing a glut of cancellations for AoC, So much so that GS is now going to offer new bonuses to try and recoup some of those cancellations. I know this to be fact because my Wife works for Gamestop Corperate.
Gamestop comprises GS EB and Planet X stores in North America and Canada that is a huge hit to the confidence in the title.
The vast majority of people do not want a Raid based Item centric end game...EVEN Blizzard finally gets this, just look at the direction WoW has taken over the last two years. The only thing I can figure is Funcom wants to attract the disenfranchised WoW Uber guilds that were left out in the cold when Blizzard dropped 40 mans.....stupid, stupid move on Funcoms part. They basically are telling the REH fans of the game to fuck off they would rather have players named phuckedurmomhard and azzwhippa .
Epic fail I never have seen a game with such positive buzz fall apart like this, yeah a handful of Basement dwellers are rejoicing, the rest of us are canceling our AoC pre orders and Ordering WAR.
Funcom: We Fucked up AO, and were currently fucking up AoC.
Raiding should be for the sheer excitement and accomplishment, not something that you should HAVE to do in order to compete in any game, whether it be pve or pvp.
I’m sorry no matter how you sugar coat this..funcom has made a conscious decision to follow the Kaplan Raid paradigm, and this is greatly going to affect sales, it already has...between the push back and the new Raid information Gamestop corporate is seeing a glut of cancellations for AoC, So much so that GS is now going to offer new bonuses to try and recoup some of those cancellations. I know this to be fact because my Wife works for Gamestop Corperate.
Gamestop comprises GS EB and Planet X stores in North America and Canada that is a huge hit to the confidence in the title.
The vast majority of people do not want a Raid based Item centric end game...EVEN Blizzard finally gets this, just look at the direction WoW has taken over the last two years. The only thing I can figure is Funcom wants to attract the disenfranchised WoW Uber guilds that were left out in the cold when Blizzard dropped 40 mans.....stupid, stupid move on Funcoms part. They basically are telling the REH fans of the game to fuck off they would rather have players named phuckedurmomhard and azzwhippa . Epic fail I never have seen a game with such positive buzz fall apart like this, yeah a handful of Basement dwellers are rejoicing, the rest of us are canceling our AoC pre orders and Ordering WAR. Funcom: We Fucked up AO, and were currently fucking up AoC.
I am going to laugh so hard if WAR incorporates the same basic principles as DAoC and people realize that they will have to raid for PvP gear. *chuckles*
But that aside, Where are you drawing comparisons? You're mentioning 40-mans....something AoC won#t even have to begin with. And I repeat the simple statement, that nothing in the announcement tells me that raiding will be the only viable option for End-Game. That's something the major flame-people here on this forum blare out constantly these days, but I have yet to see any proof or even hint of that.
I can agree more with the poster that replied to my last post, saying that there might be a certain queasiness about FC now paying attention to raiding and thus wondering if they can manage to juggle their time between the different end-game activities, I share in those which was why I was partially glad the delay came along (partially, mind you ^^).
I agree. WoW was a great game even when it had no raiding content. You don't absolutely need raiding to have a great game. You don't need PvP either. Or crafting. Or questing. There were and still are MMOs out there without certain game elements, without being considered incomplete or lacking. It all comes down to implementation. This is an unknown factor in this game for now. It's natural for people to try and foretell future experiences based on their past ones.
As for WoW, they didn't fix raiding with the expansion (actually almost 1 year after the expansion). They fixed PvP. They finally managed to separate it from PvE in terms of gear. They still need to do something with the constant respecs required to those who want to participate both in PvP and PvE. Also the raids didn't become easier when the number dropped to 24 from 40. They become much much harder. Every raid spot counted, no dead weight was allowed (at least not in Illidan-able guilds).
I believe that you can have group content much harder than raid content (assuming that in both cases you had people skilled to the class/role they picked). The problem is that group content is seen as a casual or entry to teaming activity, so most developers design with these people primarily in mind. Casuals are not expected to raid in anything but the most forgiving dungeons. So again developers design dungeons with the misconception that raiding is only for the hardcore.
I wouldn't mind if AoC had no raiding at launch. I would mind if the group dungeon content was only entry level. There is much that we don't know at this point (especially the feeling of the game), so it's hard to tell how much of a commitment (if any) the 8 "dungeons" will require out of us.
I personally enjoy raiding. So... works for me. BTW, I'd raid with no epics, and most raiders I talk to agree. Its about the working together, and seeing the content, and enjoying yourself with a bunch of cool people.
Yes, little baubles to say you've beaten the Temple of Relentless Doom are fun, but overall, I would be perhaps happier if the raiding rewards were just neat mounts, pets, novelty items, etc. That would almost make it more fun, IMHO. The items are just there so you can work out a progression, and so each week the attempts become a little easier. Its a decent system, even if I wish there was a way to quick-equip guildies. If you can really get raid-quality gear from crafting, you actually may be able to quick-equip guildies, and bypass the need to regrind old instances.
BTW, to all the haters - raiding is the only form of content unique to MMOs. Partying has been done in non MMOs (Guild Wars and Diablo, notably, but also games like Halo), PvP is done all the time in non-MMOs, single player RPGs have the solo content, but only MMOs have raids. So basically, if you don't like raids, maybe its not US who are playing the wrong sort of game, neh?
One of the smartest post I seen in this thread and it needed to be reposted.
You sound like you like wow. Actually it's a really good topic. Answer this, why should a pvper (one part of the game) be forced to do raiding (a different part of the game) in order to succeed in his part of the game?
Why shouldnt a player be forced to take part in every aspect of the game to master it ? This US and THEM scares me. Why not a raid for a great PvE+PvP necklace ? Why not the need to be a winner of a PvP tournament for a nice Ring, usefull for PvE and PvP. Why not having a loooong solo questline with a nice solo instance at the end for a great PvE+PvP belt ?
Raids arent the evil, but tier based raids are. A raid should be the highlight of a story and not tool for a self-sufficient progression ladder. A raid should be a 24 people encounter and never, ever depend on item progression. This is alienating a vast number of paying customers. Unfortunetely not having raid progression also alienates players. Raiders have a higher rate of fluctuation though.
As "casual" i am locked out from tier based raid from day one. There is either froced group crawling through the tiers or nothing. No fridaynight raid, no highlight, null. Either 100% or nothing.
EQ2 introduced tier raids with the RoK expansion and the result is devasting. I have nothing agianst riaders, i do know a few quite well. But with tier raids you dont meet them anymore. They meet at raid time, zone in and log out. They are no longer part of the life on the server. Another FOTM design element thats haunting the players.
I agree. WoW was a great game even when it had no raiding content. You don't absolutely need raiding to have a great game. You don't need PvP either. Or crafting. Or questing. There were and still are MMOs out there without certain game elements, without being considered incomplete or lacking. It all comes down to implementation.
Pardon me if i am taking you out of context here, but it seems that your saying all you need in a game is to run around and stab things. If that is implimented well I still would need to do something besides hack and slash after a few hours. I would certainly find shallow content lacking and incomplete.
The key to a great MMO is making it fun and unique for every style of player. Soloer, raider, PvPer, (etc.)should be able to choose their game from a great MMO's content. Personally, I like to explore and socialize. The PvP aspect of DAoC was great for a while too. If I find a game that can give me a dose of all this with another dose of mini games to help me pass the time.. they will get my money.
Just my 2 cents.
_____________________________ *This thread contains enough compressed stupidity to erase all science as far back as the middle ages.
Comments
Beautifully put lol, this is the #1 reason why I dont visit the forums all that often any more lol. Everyone seems to know "the game will be like this, and thus bad... or NO it will be PWNAGE because of this reason." Sigh, but i have to say at least it is not near as bad in this community as in some prelaunch games hehe.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
I retract my previose statement. This game is selling out to wow loot whores.
I think a good game that will be coming out is Chronicles of Spellborn, but it's still a bit under people's radar, for now. None of the armor or weapons have stats, so the player, themselves, and how they divide points, is what matters. When you make your character, you can make it look just about however you want, and that includes how your armor looks, so that removes the issue of clones. And every class is a hybrid, so they all have some form of healing, whether it be self heals, targetted, or group, or damage provvention, even. Really, it's too much to go on about, here, so look it up. It looks promising.
The problem with MMORPG PvP is that it isn't about skill for the most part. Having 5 friends with you all level 60 and killing some level 5 newbie isn't skill. Items/level make a big (dare I say, gigantic) difference in most MMORPG PvP.
I pvp'd quite a bit in WoW, both battlegrounds and open pvp on open pvp servers. Most of the time in the open PvP servers, you couldn't have a fair fight. It happened, but rarely. But death didn't mean very much in WoW, so it wasn't a huge deal. Still had the odd griefers running around ganking people, but it wasn't too bad.
But as the cost of death goes up, so does the grief factor. People will no longer engage in even remotely fair fights. If their chance of winning isn't 99.99999999%, they run away. Is that fun? Is that skill? Nope. Not even remotely. I know I know, everyone will say they fight the close fights all the time. But outside of battlegrounds and WoW where the death penalty is small, I've been in precisely ZERO fights in games like Shadowbane, L2, Eve, DAOC, AO and now most recently PotBS where I had a chance to win if I was outnumbered/outleveled. ZERO. Either you are in a gank squad roaming around looking for lone victims, or you are a lone victim.
So, MMORPG isn't about skill, its about levels/gear/numbers. Utterly boring to be on the winning side as your foe never stood a chance, and utterly frustrating to be on the losing side, because you never had a chance. I'd rather try to sneak up on a Tiger tank in my M10 or as a sapper if I want to test my skills.
Umm I want to call you names .... badly, but i will resist.
"So, MMORPG isn't about skill, its about levels/gear/numbers."
Ok mmorpgs = number ftw. However, . . .
"...in games like Shadowbane, L2, Eve, DAOC, AO and now most recently PotBS where I had a chance to win if I was outnumbered/outleveled"
So what SB, l2, Eve, DAOC, AO, and PotBS are not MMORPGs. Well thats news to me.
Insted lets say Wow does not have the combat mechainics in place to allow small numbers to dominate large numbers. However, that is simply one mmorpg.
PS maybe wow doesn't take a ton of skill (I play wow ps , and i can say most players total suck in that game , it is so easy to out play them), however, I also play DAOC and if you say skill has no impact on the game and pvp then i /rofl at you.
"You might want to rethink that comparison 80-90% of WoW's population doesn't raid or even like to raid. So if they got rid of it they would still be at 8-9 million assuming every raider left immediately." ~ gestalt11
So what are they doing? Honestly, everyoen will agree that wow's pvp, while at times fun, is one of the worst pvp systems in any mmo ever. Raids, easy brainless leveling, and gold farmers are the majority of wow players. PS i seen other peopel reply to this ty, because this guy obviously has no clue.
"Came from Blizzard itself. Kaplan even admitted it. I don't feel like rehashing it." - yes , now i understand Blizzard told you that "No, raiding is not the only thing to do in wow". Of course they would say this , your not goign to hear them say , our pvp sucks and we know it. However, what are they doing brand new next x-pack ... trying to fix open world pvp, which they attempted once and failed already at.
Kk im done, but really Think about it.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Im losing interest in this game more and more everyday. Not just this topic but alot of others. Too much to explain so i won t bother.
They said there may be item looting servers on this game.
No one is going to be a "hardcore raider" in a game on a PVP server with item looting. You raid 10 hours a night, wipe wipe wipe, then get your RARE drop loot and if someone kills you in PVP they can take it. Grats.
People on item loot servers are forced to use crafted gear or lower quality gear than raid gear. Gear that is pretty easily to acquire and can be passed around between the PvPers as they kill each other.
This is why AOC still has tons of hope no matter WHAT system they implement.
Hardcore raids for those folks who like it. Item loot servers for people who don't .
This is the ultimate way to run an MMORPG. People on the item loot server WILL raid too sometimes. People are freaking crazy. These items will be floating around being passed around as trophies and it will OWN.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
Which we already covered, as AoC raid items contain raid-centric stats. Pay attention! If you're going to take the time to whine about it, at least get your facts straight.
As for the raiders using their 'leet items' to totally pwn you in PvP, shut the fuck up. No, seriously. Even in WoW, raiding gear isn't the best PvP gear. So, what game are we discussing here? Everquest? Everquest was a great game for its time, maybe even amazing, but its era has passed. The mechanics have moved on. Let go of the hate. Lineage 2? Certainly a beautiful game. But AoC isn't going to be anything like Lineage, and we all know it.
And lets check it out, uber gear in solo. Hmm, how does it effect you? Oh, right, it doesn't. Its SOLO CONTENT. Someone can do it faster than you. Or maybe not. My priest was always lightyears behind a blue-geared warlock. Hell, a GREENED Warlock. Shall we discuss Hunters? Its the same in every game. Solo content is never intended to be balanced for race or gear, because its for SOLOING. I'm capitalizing the word so you can easily select them and look them up here.
As for group content, who cares? The number of raiders I've seen in non-guild groups is pretty low. Most are happy to help people out when they're outside their guild. The few that don't are... drumroll... jerks. Hey, guess what? Jerks in greens are just as common (I would say more so). So once again, doesn't effect you.
No, the problem is you want to have the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness, without doing the content that would get you the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness. But wait, group players and solo players got different cool items in WoW (and, from what I hear, AoC). Reputation rewards, oddball quest lines, special mounts, etc. Many of these soloing rewards, in WoW, were better FOR SOLOING! Huh. Wow. Crazy how that works?
Doesn't matter. Because you can't get every uber-dangly bead of absolute shiny awesomeness. Without, y'know, doing the raid content.
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
It should be apparent to anybodu who has ever participated in a thread like this that explaing the obvious is pointless because raiding is obviously superior and deserves all that, and is apparently worth all the damage it causes even though most people don't do it.Seriously these types of threads are the most depressing and unproductive things in MMOs avoid them for your own sanity.
How are you second class citizens? You can do everything you want to do perfectly well. You won't PvP as well as the PvPers, or raid as well as the raiders, but for what you want, you'll be able to do it just fine. So how does this make you a second class citizen? There's not an ounce of content you can't do - except raids (which you don't want to do anyway) and hardcore PvP (which apparently you don't want to do anyway).
Second class because I put in just as much time as stupid raiders, but they get superior rewards. That is bullshit. On top of that, these raiders get to use their uber gear in every aspect of the game, trivializing solo, group and PvP content and making the non-raiders suffer as a result.
Which we already covered, as AoC raid items contain raid-centric stats. Pay attention! If you're going to take the time to whine about it, at least get your facts straight.
As for the raiders using their 'leet items' to totally pwn you in PvP, shut the fuck up. No, seriously. Even in WoW, raiding gear isn't the best PvP gear. So, what game are we discussing here? Everquest? Everquest was a great game for its time, maybe even amazing, but its era has passed. The mechanics have moved on. Let go of the hate. Lineage 2? Certainly a beautiful game. But AoC isn't going to be anything like Lineage, and we all know it.
And lets check it out, uber gear in solo. Hmm, how does it effect you? Oh, right, it doesn't. Its SOLO CONTENT. Someone can do it faster than you. Or maybe not. My priest was always lightyears behind a blue-geared warlock. Hell, a GREENED Warlock. Shall we discuss Hunters? Its the same in every game. Solo content is never intended to be balanced for race or gear, because its for SOLOING. I'm capitalizing the word so you can easily select them and look them up here.
As for group content, who cares? The number of raiders I've seen in non-guild groups is pretty low. Most are happy to help people out when they're outside their guild. The few that don't are... drumroll... jerks. Hey, guess what? Jerks in greens are just as common (I would say more so). So once again, doesn't effect you.
No, the problem is you want to have the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness, without doing the content that would get you the uber-dangly beads of absolute shiny awesomeness. But wait, group players and solo players got different cool items in WoW (and, from what I hear, AoC). Reputation rewards, oddball quest lines, special mounts, etc. Many of these soloing rewards, in WoW, were better FOR SOLOING! Huh. Wow. Crazy how that works?
Doesn't matter. Because you can't get every uber-dangly bead of absolute shiny awesomeness. Without, y'know, doing the raid content.
Your mentality is exactly the reason why hardcore games cannot make the kind of money that casual games can. Thanks to EA Mythic, I HAVE a raidless game to play in the form of WAR and I can guarantee you it will kick AoC's ass in subscriptions. They treat soloers with the same respect they show for groupers. They realize that casual / solo play is just as important to a game's health as any raid or crafting could ever possibly be.
I never once said I wanted anything for free or with an easy ride, but I do expect to get equitable rewards for my time investment, because to me and many others, our play style is just as deserving of epic loot as any other. If people truly loved raiding, then one, it would be much more popular than it is, not a single game out has ever gotten more than 20% of their player base to even participate in raids. Two, you should love the challenge, that combined with a REGULAR reward should be enough incentive to do that crap. But we all know deep down inside that raids are shit content and you HAVE to have uber rewards to even get the hardcores to do it, let alone entice any other type of player.
You and your ilk are nothing more than elitist, self entitled spoiled brats who think they are god's gift to the genre. Your hardcore play style isn't hard, it's just tedious and boring and there is nothing about it that makes it more deserving of epic loot. Everyone invests a lot of time in these games and should be rewarded for doing so.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Oh wait...isn't it in closed Beta? Durn, you must mean some other game. <.<
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Luckily, I'm allowed to say I'm in beta, but I can't give out any specifics, but I will say I absolutely love the game so far.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
I actually only quoted your post to illustrate one thing. How many people pick one thing from a previous posters words and mash on that, disregarding everything else. It's been said, about a hundred times or more, that Raid and PvP will be seperate in AoC. That the raiders in AoC won't have an advantage over non raiders when it comes to PvPing, that better PvP gear can be obtained in PvP itself and by crafting it.
But people just don't listen. They have their preconceptions about the game, which they build on singular statements, most often taken out of context, disregarding additional info that is readily available. It personally sickens me that this thread continues on with the same accusations coming over and over again, without anyone having definite proof of the matter, since that will only be obtained once the game is released.
That's the same for WAR. Everyone either praises or bashes the game without having more than rumors or speculation to go on. And yes, even the Beta-testers, since you have no guarantee that the game will be the same thing you think you will get once it is released.
This is not to bash WAR. Personally, I hope the game will succeed, find its own playerbase and be fun for those players to play. But could we just stop bash each others heads in? Can#t we just keep it straight and rational and forget all those strange animosities that grow because of rumors?
The games will eventually be released. We will see how they fare. Everything up till then is speculation and hitting on each other purely out of speculation is, simply said, sad. Speculate if you want, but quit bashing fans of the other game. And yes, that goes for both parties.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Guess what. So do many of the people who are in the AoC Beta.I actually only quoted your post to illustrate one thing. How many people pick one thing from a previous posters words and mash on that, disregarding everything else. It's been said, about a hundred times or more, that Raid and PvP will be seperate in AoC. That the raiders in AoC won't have an advantage over non raiders when it comes to PvPing, that better PvP gear can be obtained in PvP itself and by crafting it.
But people just don't listen. They have their preconceptions about the game, which they build on singular statements, most often taken out of context, disregarding additional info that is readily available. It personally sickens me that this thread continues on with the same accusations coming over and over again, without anyone having definite proof of the matter, since that will only be obtained once the game is released.
That's the same for WAR. Everyone either praises or bashes the game without having more than rumors or speculation to go on. And yes, even the Beta-testers, since you have no guarantee that the game will be the same thing you think you will get once it is released.
This is not to bash WAR. Personally, I hope the game will succeed, find its own playerbase and be fun for those players to play. But could we just stop bash each others heads in? Can#t we just keep it straight and rational and forget all those strange animosities that grow because of rumors?
The games will eventually be released. We will see how they fare. Everything up till then is speculation and hitting on each other purely out of speculation is, simply said, sad. Speculate if you want, but quit bashing fans of the other game. And yes, that goes for both parties.
I do not want to bash on AoC either. But i find scary that a game that i was reading about as a massive guild vs guild battle , now have an equal PVE thing. The time they put in balancing PVE encounter and putting new ones , is time they don't develop the PVP game.The trying to balance classes for PVE/PVP fiasco ( wow lol!) .
By having two separate and time consuming path , won't it separate the community between guild that do PVP and thoses that raid. That is not such an issue but if they ever cave in to raiders and make the gear overlap in both path, you will have a big mess. I love how WAR weave the PVE into another way to help your faction win the RvR fight. You won't see any PVE raiding guild there. But thats what i want in a game. Not everyone does :P
On the plus side , it could truly bring a lot of players that would not have played AoC because of the previously perceived heavy PvP nature. So if they really keep the top PVE gear from owning everything in guild battles , it won't really be an issue. Each side should be able to enjoy their own playstyle. Let's just hope for you guys that Funcom can balance both aspect well.
Cheers!
http://revolutionwar.guildlaunch.com/
I noticed the WoW reference and the relation to gear dependence. Yes it was a joke for quite some time (years), but I believe that they have finally found their balance.
Right now you don't absolutely need to be in a raid guild to be a to PvPer, quite the opposite actually. Raid gear are pretty useless for anything but PvE and are considered sub-average for PvP (people use them if they have nothing better to use). The top raiding guilds are not the top PvP guilds as well. In fact, you're more or less forced to choose a path if you want to excel on one or the other and still have time to do stuff outside the game.
If a heavily gear dependant game like WoW managed to separate the PvE from the PvP gear, I don't see how AoC which is supposedly less gear dependant can't learn from them and adapt. Bottom line, somebody succeeded in making top PvE gear undesirable for PvP without overly invalidating the PvE content (PvE people were complaining that it was way too easy to get top PvP gear compared to raiding). So it's doable and hardly impossible.
Since it's doable I would like to see it in AoC as well. More choices are always better than less (supermarket managers would disagree).
8 raids at launch... wow, that's a lot. As someone with no interest in raiding, that's a negative for AoC. Why should I care if raiders have a ton to do? Because all of the time spent on that content is wasted time (to me). Warcraft gets about $15 a year from me, mainly because the amount of content for solo & small-group play is so limited (including expansions) that it can be pretty much exhausted in one month.
Now Conan with 8 raids at launch (of course we'll see if 8 actually make it) and a PvP system that sounds a lot like raiding (large group-oriented, I mean). I know I'll be trying the game, but at this point I couldn't even guess if I'll be playing for 1 month or 12. It makes me wonder if AoC will be able to capture a casual audience in any significant way. I don't schedule my life around games, I schedule games around my life (ie I play when I have free time and am bored, not 'when my guild tells me to play'). Anecdotal evidence indicates there are significantly more people that treat games as a diversion than those who treat them as a job/commitment. All census numbers from various sources about WoW have shown that non-raiders outnumber (serious/devoted/committed) raiders overwhelmingly. So my hope is that the Conan developers haven't focused too heavily on the small hardcore niche at the expense of the wider audience at-large.
Of course, it's also possible that they've managed to find a way to make large-group-oriented gameplay not require rescheduling your life to feel like you're getting any enjoyment out of it... but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
How fast is a casual gamer consuming (bad wording, I know) content before he reaches the point where he has nothing new to do? How fast is a raider consuming content?
How much is an activity that you dislike affecting your enjoyment in a game? Lets say I hate PvP (so I choose a server with PvP in the border kingdoms), how much is affecting my enjoyment if half the server is on the border kingdoms if I dislike PvP? Lets say that 5% of the server is raiding but I loathe it and never participate, how much is that hurting me?
I fear that the truth is elsewhere. There are tons of hardcore people (I would go as far as to say that anyone posting anything on this site is hardcore) that do not have the free time to match their attitudes towards the MMOs they are playing. So they are trying to trim the games to what they can actually fit in their everyday schedule, cutting down features that could be fun to those that have a bit more free time to spare. And I'm not talking about time sinks. I've seen negative posts on raiding, creating towns, sieges, world PvP, guild wide PvP, crafting. Aka activities that potentially take more time than a casual hardcore player could afford. And then I've seen threads claiming that 800 hours of content are not enough.
Did we reach the point where we complain when the developers don't trim their games to fit our lives?
I’m sorry no matter how you sugar coat this..funcom has made a conscious decision to follow the Kaplan Raid paradigm, and this is greatly going to affect sales, it already has...between the push back and the new Raid information Gamestop corporate is seeing a glut of cancellations for AoC, So much so that GS is now going to offer new bonuses to try and recoup some of those cancellations. I know this to be fact because my Wife works for Gamestop Corperate.
Gamestop comprises GS EB and Planet X stores in North America and Canada that is a huge hit to the confidence in the title.
The vast majority of people do not want a Raid based Item centric end game...EVEN Blizzard finally gets this, just look at the direction WoW has taken over the last two years. The only thing I can figure is Funcom wants to attract the disenfranchised WoW Uber guilds that were left out in the cold when Blizzard dropped 40 mans.....stupid, stupid move on Funcoms part. They basically are telling the REH fans of the game to fuck off they would rather have players named phuckedurmomhard and azzwhippa .
Epic fail I never have seen a game with such positive buzz fall apart like this, yeah a handful of Basement dwellers are rejoicing, the rest of us are canceling our AoC pre orders and Ordering WAR.
Funcom: We Fucked up AO, and were currently fucking up AoC.
Raiding should be for the sheer excitement and accomplishment, not something that you should HAVE to do in order to compete in any game, whether it be pve or pvp.
But that aside, Where are you drawing comparisons? You're mentioning 40-mans....something AoC won#t even have to begin with. And I repeat the simple statement, that nothing in the announcement tells me that raiding will be the only viable option for End-Game. That's something the major flame-people here on this forum blare out constantly these days, but I have yet to see any proof or even hint of that.
I can agree more with the poster that replied to my last post, saying that there might be a certain queasiness about FC now paying attention to raiding and thus wondering if they can manage to juggle their time between the different end-game activities, I share in those which was why I was partially glad the delay came along (partially, mind you ^^).
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I agree. WoW was a great game even when it had no raiding content. You don't absolutely need raiding to have a great game. You don't need PvP either. Or crafting. Or questing. There were and still are MMOs out there without certain game elements, without being considered incomplete or lacking. It all comes down to implementation. This is an unknown factor in this game for now. It's natural for people to try and foretell future experiences based on their past ones.
As for WoW, they didn't fix raiding with the expansion (actually almost 1 year after the expansion). They fixed PvP. They finally managed to separate it from PvE in terms of gear. They still need to do something with the constant respecs required to those who want to participate both in PvP and PvE. Also the raids didn't become easier when the number dropped to 24 from 40. They become much much harder. Every raid spot counted, no dead weight was allowed (at least not in Illidan-able guilds).
I believe that you can have group content much harder than raid content (assuming that in both cases you had people skilled to the class/role they picked). The problem is that group content is seen as a casual or entry to teaming activity, so most developers design with these people primarily in mind. Casuals are not expected to raid in anything but the most forgiving dungeons. So again developers design dungeons with the misconception that raiding is only for the hardcore.
I wouldn't mind if AoC had no raiding at launch. I would mind if the group dungeon content was only entry level. There is much that we don't know at this point (especially the feeling of the game), so it's hard to tell how much of a commitment (if any) the 8 "dungeons" will require out of us.
One of the smartest post I seen in this thread and it needed to be reposted.
Raids arent the evil, but tier based raids are. A raid should be the highlight of a story and not tool for a self-sufficient progression ladder. A raid should be a 24 people encounter and never, ever depend on item progression. This is alienating a vast number of paying customers. Unfortunetely not having raid progression also alienates players. Raiders have a higher rate of fluctuation though.
As "casual" i am locked out from tier based raid from day one. There is either froced group crawling through the tiers or nothing. No fridaynight raid, no highlight, null. Either 100% or nothing.
EQ2 introduced tier raids with the RoK expansion and the result is devasting. I have nothing agianst riaders, i do know a few quite well. But with tier raids you dont meet them anymore. They meet at raid time, zone in and log out. They are no longer part of the life on the server. Another FOTM design element thats haunting the players.
The key to a great MMO is making it fun and unique for every style of player. Soloer, raider, PvPer, (etc.)should be able to choose their game from a great MMO's content. Personally, I like to explore and socialize. The PvP aspect of DAoC was great for a while too. If I find a game that can give me a dose of all this with another dose of mini games to help me pass the time.. they will get my money.
Just my 2 cents.
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*This thread contains enough compressed stupidity to erase all science as far back as the middle ages.