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What precisely do you think is lacking? CONTENT-WISE (esp regarding guild wars)
osmunda
Member Posts: 1,087
In the "serious concerns" thread, I found a certain irony in this post...
Originally posted by Neoptolemus
Originally posted by HodoI love how everyone forgets that the developers of this game, back oh nearly a year ago now, said "they were aiming for a world like UO." That would be a sandbox, not a massive FPV FPS. Which unfortunately is what MO is turning into. Every week you can watch the numbers steadily drop. My guild numbers went from 20-30 online to 10-15, now 3...... Hell the alliance I joined went from 100+ online to 20 in just a month.
Its because there is NOTHING to do in game other than fight.
WERE THE HELL IS THE SAND STAR VAULT!
This is pretty much what I was saying pre-release. You have to give the players something to fight over, otherwise it's just one big deathmatch. What do players fight for? World domination of course. But the world has to actually be worth fighting over, and right now all you can fight over is empty land with a few resources in it.
Hodo's points I can sympathize with even though I disagree. It would be nice if SV had been able to keep the game in development until they had worked out a means of implementing everything that they have planned for MO. That being said, SV has limited resources and can't stay in development forever. They concentrated on having a solid core for the game that they would be able to expand upon, and have been up front about that since early Beta. There is a lot more content that they have discussed, some of it coming soon (alchemy), some just over the horizon (butchery) and some well over the horizon (religion). For Hodo, all I can say is you joined too early for what you wanted out of MO.
As for Neoptolemus's post, that one mystifies me and is the one I find ironic. He seems to be arguing that there is nothing to fight for because the only things to fight for are land and resources. What precisely should people be fighting over aside from land and resources? If the concern is that there are too few resources, adding more of the same resources would just drive down the value of the resources in the game. If the concern is a lack of rare resources, there are some rare resources most notably blackwood and ironwood. This link http://mortal-info.wikia.com/wiki/Housing shows the value of using the rare resource for at least one application. If the concern is a lack of variety of resources, there are additional "pickables" planned for addition in the near future http://www.mortalonline.com/content/under-development includingstones for catapults and (presumably) items for alchemy, If all this doesn't satisfy the need for something meaningful to fight over there is the ability to impose taxes on any houses in the region. (I know the argument that only large guild have houses, but as more individuals and small guilds accumulate wealth this will be less true)
If none of this addresses the concern of land and resources not being "actually worth fighting for, what precisely do you want ? NPC keeps that your faction/alliance tries to capture? strongholds in the lands separating factions from one another? The ability to change how criminal flagging works? Top listing on the leader board on the website? Or do you just think all the things they have planned should have been implemented at launch (which gets us back to Hodo's point and the need for SV to do what they can with the resources they have)
Comments
Personally I am patiently waiting for updates to AI and pathing, PvE is what the game lacks for me. Or atleast fully functioning PvE. I would like to see more humanoid/intelligent factions that go around the world of Nave with their own agendas and lore. AI that allows intelligent mobs to truely help each other, call for help and cast healing on each other for instance will make the game awesome. (In terms of PvE)
Fluff, clothing, dyes, furniture, mini-tavern games, more features for player cities.
I have read this before and I think that much of it is missing. That is, the thing which is lacking is the presence of security within the system. In short, the numerous hacks/exploits is not lacking which is the major issue of this cutNpaste portion of his problems.
Hacking not so much but the screen-dragging exploit is getting out of hand for those trying to escape.
All of which I agree with. That gets back to the question of whether they could have stayed in development longer. There are many reasons they may not have been able to, none of which we are privy to. (finances, level of player interest, legal obligations) From the pace at which they are adding new content, I think the devs agree on this point also.
Neoptolemus's contention about land and resources not making the PVP worthwhile is the part that mystifies me.
I haven't played MO for long (less than a week now?), so I may not have the proper perspective on this. If anything, I would say MO is lacking in 'time wasters' though... I'd like to be able to gamble in-game, for example.
edit: just realized this is more relating to territory control though... which is weird, since MO's territory control is pretty interesting (I'm used to POS-spam and/or TCU-Spam in EVE, so voting and taxes is a breath of fresh air... again though, I haven't played enough to get involved in these mechanics, I've just been reading the patch notes)
I think the only thing lacking from MO is competence.
I had posted more than a year ago, some basic development rules that all developers live by, at least in a professional environment. It is these rules that continue to elude SV, and the primary reason that MO continues to be a buggy product. Put features aside for a moment here, and let's be honest -- the game is broken in more ways than I can count. Every patch brings with it game-breaking bugs. People on the forums complain about a lack of quality control and to a point, they are correct -- but at the same time, I have to give SV some slack here as they are trying to bring more features in order to keep the audience happy.
The problem is of course, that more features with a broken game doesn't retain customers. Look at Aegis Imperium, who was (and probably still is) the biggest MO guild out there. Out of three founding members, only one remains playing MO. The other two have left MO in disgust -- from admiralnlson of AI:
I think MO is simply the worst PoS joke of a game I've ever seen.
The worst part probably is the extremely choppy animations, with characters and mobs sliding or TPing every so often. But there are also too many really ridiculous bugs, almost no sand to play with, a laughable AI and an ugly GUI. Even though SV is an indie company, I would find it quite ballsy if they claimed their game had reached alpha level.
I am both amazed and disgusted by the amount of bullshit and incompetence they has managed to pull off. I wish i hadn't been so stupid to give them money before they actually showed us how fucking bad they were (threw my lootbag in the trash 15 minutes after receiving it). I don't understand why someone would willingly sub to this game now. I see it as like giving money to those fake charities who use the donations for their own personal gain.
In his own message, he mentions the incompetence he is disgusted by, and then of course adds the "yea duh" stuff that everybody already knows about. As people are quick to point out -- all MMOs have bugs, and are never really 'feature complete'. That isn't really the issue with MO. Bugs are there, to be sure, but the development process is so brutally flawed because of obvious mismanagement, that the playerbase feels betrayed a lot, and felt like they are not being listened to. In recent polls, almost 80% of people wanted SV to fix the game and stop adding features -- and from my professional view, this is the correct avenue to pursue. However, SV continues to add features into the game, and with obviously bad code that new systems break existing systems, even if they don't seem to share the same codebase.
What MO needs is new management, however I think we all know that this isn't a possibility. Henrik owns the company for all intents and purposes, and that isn't going to change. If I get permission to post up this developer log, you'll see exactly how things run at SV, with some insight that would make your head spin. MO is headed downhill, and there's not really a whole lot any of us can do to combat that. I don't think any publisher in their right mind would take on the game at this point -- especially after they see the upcoming Massively review -- and for them to get proper developers is an impossibility due to the pay structure that the existing developers get -- they can't afford anybody good.
Either way, at this point, all you can do is hope for the best, but it's just that -- hope. The reality of what will come to pass is all up in the air, and if MO makes a turnaround I would be extremely surprised. However, with the client-sided nature of the game, the flawed development process throughout, and the lack of general direction the game is taking well... I know as a person who manages enterprise systems, and manages developers -- that the reality is far less optimistic than many here would like. You're free to think I don't know what I'm talking about, but if you look at SV's history, their need for 'fans' to create the patching system for their game, it would make you wonder whether or not they really have the skill to make this come together.
I leave that opinion for you yourself to judge. I have mine and you know it, and more and more people are signing on to my point of view by the day, as people leave MO. Founding members of Aegis Imperium included.
What's lacking? well more land, boats, seas, oceans, mob camps, fortresses, dungeons hidden places, anciant tombs, more rare mobs, more epic creatures, more variety in equipement, quests (lore based or whatever but you need them).
more professions : tailor, (armorsmith shouldn't be tailor they are 2 separate skills), healer/doctor, priest/shaman, bards etc...
more variety in environement, not just Steppe/Jungle/desert/snow /dirt, more types and shapes for trees, more different foliage, bushes, etc, swamps/marshes, dark forests, epic places with fire and volcanos etc...
this game simply lacks any sort of long term progression. it's way too easy and fast to max out all 3 characters and after that there is absolutely nothing to do but farm animals for gold, pvp, or craft.
the majority of people try to avoid pvp because they dont want to loose their stuff. in a game were pvp is one of the 3 things you can do ( farm gold/pvp/craft ) it seriously limits gameplay. pvp in it's self is extremely simple, it usually consists of one party getting ganked, you die very fast, has way too much cheating and lag and buggs releted issues. it also has very harsh consequences with you loosing all your stuff, then having to spend lots of time to find a priest and then run all the way back to town to get equipped again. not to mention murder counts.
when people start avoiding pvp they dont loose stuff, and this seriously slows demands for weappons and armor which is the third part of this game. most crafters dont log in anymore because there is basicly no demand for anything.
the only thing left to do is farm animals for gold but seriously how long is that gonna keep people playing? basically within a month of playing you feel like you'v done it and seen it all. wile we can criticize a game like DF to no end we must admit that the long term character progression is one of the things they got right. without such a mechaninc a game feels extremely shallow and cannot keep 98% interested for long. as mmo players we are addicted to endless progression be it with levels, gear, achievements, perks, titles, stats or what have you and when this is laking we get bored.
Here is my take. I believe there are many things wrong which prevent people from enjoying the game, but specific to your example of territory control I think the largest stumbling block is simply population. When you have a few hundred players online simultaneously it is very difficult to play the World Domination game. Games like Warband have 1/2 to 1/3 of the players but they are all focused in one area so it is pure adrenaline pounding mayhem. When you spread a few hundred players over a continent (and even though it's a small landmass it still takes an hour to cross) it dilutes the population even further.
I think this system might work out better if the peak population was more like 2000. Then you could actually start to get an epic feel to the conflicts that develop.
Of course it's a catch 22.. because in order to gain that population there is a LOT of other stuff that has to happen first to gain/retain players, but that is my take on what is missing from the Territory Control system.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Territory control is meaningless unless there are some real things attached to it, that make it matter. That's what killed Shadowbane, if you recall. It was a constant back and forth of fighting, but there wasn't really any point. Hell, that even happened in UO. The nice thing in UO was of course, you could become wealthy and prosperous, and everybody would know that you were.
There's tax income for whomever controls the region (right?). That's more than EVE has, and no-one complains that EVE's politics / territory control is shallow.
I think OP is asking for specific things that MO is lacking. Maybe I just haven't played enough MMO's to knwo what good territory control consists of, but I'm having trouble thinking of things that most other games have that MO doesn't. (edit: in regards to territory control, anyway... obviously MO is lacking in the quests /bug-testing department
)
Oddly enough, there was a statistic released by CCP that most people ingame actually do 'missions' rather than engage in full on PvP. Strange, that, eh?
MO has no PvE to speak of, the AI is borderline retarded, so their PvP game has to be top notch to begin with, and it's laughably bad and buggy. So what's left? Nothing. At least EVE has a solid base to play the game, and then adds great PvP to the mix as well. And if EVE launched today, I think it would have died a horrible death because people just expect more from games than they did when the first MMOs were coming out.
Not to sound like an *** but you didn't mention how territory control is lacking.
I still say that population is the killer of this system. Just take a look at the current Political Map. Look at the guilds that control the regions and then their active players. There are 7 regions.. and they are controlled by guilds with 15-20 active players....(some LESS than that!). Just take a look at Prometheus and 13... What do they have combined? 30-40 players? They own 2 of the 7 provinces.. and are constructing both keeps in a 3rd (which will default control to them). Having 30-40 players control 43% of your territories?!?! In a Massively Multiplayer Game?
This leads back into the WHY conquer question from Herc. This happened to DF too when the population dwindled. You had (probably still do) a clan of 20 players owning multiple cities/hamlets which just sat there empty with people logging in alts occassionally to mine/harvest resources...
Anyhow.. those are my thoughts.. yours may differ.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Ok, now I'm starting to sound like a fanboy, but what's wrong with not having zergs everywhere?
I'd rather have territories controlled by small guilds... it gives me something to shoot for as a new player... as opposed to glancing at all the mega-alliances in EVE and going "ok, where do I fit in".
also agree with Slapshot.
too many keeps for the ammount of players.
the only thing that spurs conflict is high demand of rare resources (keeps). give everyone a keep and soon everyone will get bored.
For me there were a few major issues that prevented me from enjoying the game. First off was the new player experience. I find this game to be very unfriendly to new players. Even Darkfall gets you started and teaches you more about the game when you first begin than MO does. In MO, you just appear somewhere with absolutely no direction, no map and only a help file to guide you. It isn't enough and it turns many people away right from the beginning.
Then there's the fact that the world is so empty. It takes forever to get around and spawns are few and far between. The world is so empty compared to other games that it will naturally turn away all but the most hardcore of PvP players. Anyone interested in PvE will pretty much stay away... which virtually guarantees that the game will NEVER be like old-school UO.
The game also lacks many conveniences from other games like a world map which make it very difficult for people to get into. I know the developers have said that this is a 'feature', but honestly I think it sucks and would much rather have access to a map. I know I'm not the only one...
Game is lacking variety, and depth.
Mo has pvp, pve, crafting, and housing. All good things but thats where it stops. Then everything feels like its only there to support the pvp part. The pve is there just for crafting resources + gold, which is used to make weapons and armor. The housing/keeps are there just to have something to fight over. Warfare and combat are the driving forces behind everything and the end result. It's like playing a persistent counterstrike map with crafting and npcs, instead of a real sandbox.
A person who wants to do pve has varry little options unless you think grinding different mobs is pve. There are a few boss type mobs, but not enough for someone to be a full time pve player. The lore is not present in the game world, there are no books or artifacts, no npc dialog. Nothign to make you feel like you are playing in a world. Feels just like a counterstrike map where the sole purpose is a big ass battlefield.
People who like to craft are just as bad off. There are alot of materials you can use and each weapon or piece of armor can use a different combination, but you can only make weapons and armor and the styles are very limited. Different materials have different properties but there is no way to tell what they are in game, people rely on datamined information when combining materials. The interface for crafting is nothing more than menu clicks, before the crafting system was added we were under the presumption that the crafting process would be fun and skillful (kind of like vanguard) with the huge amount of material combinations. At the end of the day youa re just an armorer or weaponsmith, making the same armor as everyone else and whatever weapon is the most OP. Anything made under 100 in all related skills is just for the sake of grinding to max.
Too many murderers, the alignment system was supposed to promote a healthy and diverse population, but the flagging system only works for about 5 minutes. That combined with not enough things for the non bloodthirsty pvper to do, results in those people leaving or joining in on the psycho killing. SV has focused heavilly on gvg warfare and combat as a whole, and the people who want to play a sandbox are left out in the cold.
Houses in MO are utilitarian, they aren't 'homes'. You can't build anything for your house like UO. You have to buy a module and those modules are limited to weapon/armor crafting, guild stone, stables, vendor and tiers/additions. You are basically making an armory. The skill associated with construction doesn;t allow you to build/craft anything, it just lets you use a module item on the house, the tier additions that require resources are the same, engineer uses item then anyone can build it. Everything else just apears when you place the bought item. Houses and modules are priced with guilds in mind, I can understand a keep, the guildstone and higher tiers being really expensive, but the basic deed is like 500 gold and can be looted/stolen, and the foundation is as sturdy as a wet noodle.
Guilds require a house first, then an expensive guildstone. I don't understand why, they could have just allowed you to form a guild for some gold in town and make the guildstone claim a house/keep and give you some extra guild options.
Nothing else to do. Grind mobs, craft on your alt, pvp. Not enough tools to do anything else.
Despite the bugs and crashes, that was honestly what bothered me the the least. It is the lack of variety, lore and tools to make the game a real sandbox.
My sig is just as logical as your posts are
@colutr - I agree
Be careful what you ask for, people wanted a moon
What did they get? A BIG BALL OF CANCER
They needed to add the moon back in, but it's too bright. Which brings me to another thing, SV reminds me of that beer commercial. They could try and hammer a nail for instance, and at first the just tap it then it says "too light" then they turn around and try and drop a truck on it and it says "too hard". They have an issue with balancing things out, and not the hard things the easy things.
My sig is just as logical as your posts are
This is nothing more than a restatement of what Neo posted in the first place. WHAT are the real things attached to it that need to be included to make it matter? If you can come up with no answer, is that an implicit acceptance that open ended guild war with the players defining the terms of the conflict is an impossibility and that RvR is the closest that MMOs can ever get?
When I read the OP the one word that entered my mind was "competence" and as I read the thread prior to posting came upon your post above which mirrors my own.
My guild went head-on in to release of MO understanding the game had many issues but as old school seasoned gamers we were ready for that. What I was not ready for was the level of incompetence I personally experienced. I was the first to leave MO from my guild and "incompetence" was the exact reason why. It was not bugs, horrid AI, lag, or any of the typical issues gamers complain about; but my complete lack of faith there was the professionalism to correct it.
Hercules - I appreciate the effort you have made in a number of recent posts and sharing your real life career experiences that have allowed me to better understand what was mostly my intuition previously.
Take care -CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Admittedly, it's partly my fault since the OP leans toward being a wall of text, but some posts are straying rather far from the intended topic(s).
1) The main intended topic ---- related to Neo's post--- What precisely do you feel is lacking from guild warfare that causes it to lack meaning? What do you feel need to be added that would make it more meaningful than a conflict over land, resources and tax money?
2) the secondary, peripheral topic ---- related to Hodo's post--- What precisely is lacking content-wise that makes MO feel more like a FPS than sandbox?
I certainly expected more answers to the second one than the first because it is much easier to come up with content that is in other games and could work well in MO.1 I don't think anyone has really addressed the main topic in any meaningful way and several posts have been totally unrelated.2 The question is what is lacking content-wise, not what do you think is lacking in general, as that becomes a discussion of anything and everything related to the game.
Examples of things that would address #1 : The ability to more effectively deny enemies access to land and resources your guild controls i.e. members of enemy guilds are automatically flagged grey for everyone when in your territory, the ability to hire patrolling Lictor's that treat enemy guild members as KOS. The ability to more effectively use resources in your own territory i.e. 10% bonus on production when harvesting in your own guilds territory
1 Fluff, clothing, dyes, furniture, mini-tavern games, more features for player cities. well more land, boats, seas, oceans, mob camps, fortresses, dungeons hidden places, anciant tombs, more rare mobs, more epic creatures, more variety in equipement, quests (lore based or whatever but you need them).
2 presence of security, competence, long term progression, population, variety, depth
P.S. I'm certainly not saying the things listed in footnote 2 are lacking. just listing the things people have mentioned that don't fit either the primary or secondary topic. There's no way to discuss all of those at once in any meaningful way, and some already have their own thread http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/289518/So-how-many-people-actually-play-this-game.html http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/289354/Serious-Concerns.html
1. I can agree with this, but I don't like calling it fluff. This is content, these are the things that make a game into a sandbox rather than just endless pvp or gear-chasing pve. Concerning player cities, they need more basic building types, all you have is the keep and houses. They have a good opportunity to make the area inside of the palisades feel more like a town, by linking those house spots to the keep. I look at how POS works in EVE and thats how I would like the keep + buildings to work (without the future tech, and less automated).
There definitely needs to be more humanoid mob camps, fortresses and caves. And some random spawners for bandits and such would be nice.
Not gonna hold by breath on ocean travel, boats and more land. They stated well before beta that they intend on releasing that in an expansion. I just hope they don't go the route of buy the deed/foundation then build off of it. Would be nice if the actual engineer could make the blueprints instead of just getting to a high enough level to use an item that places the foundations.
They should add some sort of quests, but don't make them all themepark like WOW. I mean, they could link a random spawner with a questgiver. Like a 'bandit' spawn can apear outside fo a town that spawns bandits and at the same time an npc apears in town. it could be a generic story of how he was attacked by bandits, He doesn't have to have a big ? above his head. Could just be standing around asking for help, telling people about the bandits. You don't have to accept a quest, just get the information and go kill some bandits. Maybe the npc city would reward you (with money and status) for bringing the head of the bandit leader to the guards. Maybe killing the leader would destroy the spawner so no more bandits apear until that area gets a random attack. Maybe if you turn the leaders head in the npcs in that town give you respect for walking by.
They need to add more equipment styles, just for the sake of variety. They have some in every armor class but they all have a different use, something like a heavy and a light version of that class. Would be nice if there were a few different light and heavy plate options rather than just one for each.
2. Exploiters are bad in any game and no game is immune. People exploit in every AAA mmo out there, in eve you had people getting free resources from moon mining and exploiting bugs to manipulate the market like there is no tomorrow. People use exploits in wow to complete dungeons and kill raid bosses. I know people who have gotten banned for outright hacking.
My sig is just as logical as your posts are
@colutr: Nor am I calling it fluff. Both lists are cut and pasted from other peoples posts in this thread.
compare:
1 Fluff, clothing, dyes, furniture, mini-tavern games, more features for player cities. well more land, boats, seas, oceans, mob camps, fortresses, dungeons hidden places, anciant tombs, more rare mobs, more epic creatures, more variety in equipement, quests (lore based or whatever but you need them).