I seriously applaud Funcom for attempting something a little different to appeal to the PVP minded players. Ever since DAoC I have always played every MMO I have been in as a PVP centered game, even though PVP has always been a tacked on addition with very little thought by the developers.
I have never, however, been a fan of unfair ganking. I don't think level 40 players should be able to gank level 1-10 zones all day just because they like to be jerks. When you enter a zone and there are a bunch of players your level fighting and ganking that is just good PVP fun, but when it is high level players ganking people that can't fight back, it is just unfair and abusive. It takes the fun out of the game and should never be an option.
The fact that this new server will not have factions, but will in a sense be everyone versus everyone sounds good in theory, yet in practice the most perniciously abusive players will simply sit around all day ganking other players who can't fight back. They don't want a fair fight. They don't want to have a chance of actually losing. That is not fun to them. What is fun is squishing lowbie players like bugs all day, even if they get no in-game rewards out of it.
A server like this would only be appealing to me if it encourages players to fight people their own level and punishes those that sit around all day ganking people 70 levels below them. At least then you could expect REAL PVP and not just a lowbie gank fest.
Real PVP is not lowbie ganking. Players that do that aren't PVPers, they are pussies afraid of a fair fight.
I agree. The concept of factionless pvp under the guise of random guild titles is no more inventive and genre progressive than just putting a bunch of gangs together and instead of Crips and Bloods vs Kings and Disciples - we get Johnny Griefer's bored Darkfall Online guild and Zit's McCoy and his gang of lonely teen-age smot pokers. There's nothing epic about immaturity and arsehattery being translated into an mmorpg community that in this case, was written into pages by a man who created the genre of Fantasy Horror.
Age of Conan has demeaned its own population with an inaccurate (Priests of Mitra and Tempests of Set grouping to kill Priests of Mitra and Tempests of Set) and hardly plausible world, i.e., Necromancers running with all their pets out through Cimmeria - the land where according to the books, even minor shamantic magic was questioned at the point of a sword.
The game should have been an answer to those who were never given Dark Age of Camelot 2. It would have been a blockbuster. Set, Cimmeria, Aquilonia = 3 realms at war. Notice in the first video that opened the game, Conan beat his fist on a warmap and claimed that his country would rise to defeat and defend against neighbors that were not simply named by Zit's McCoy's guild - but by actual nations. The game, in the end, was just a few races and classes that were mostly cosmetic so that they didn't just outright create one moving pixel with a title over its head that said: kill this.
I really believe that the reasoning behind games like Age of Conan (that could have been ever so great), is that
1. Today's developers are programmers, software developers, code writers, etc. They are not historians, well read in the fantasy genre, or part of the early community that gave us Ultima, Everquest, etc. (okay, so Mortal Online is a shabby attempt at 3-D ultima - but seriously - I had to go train how to /rest. I mean really?). When Conan released, there was a Culture server. So here, they had a sense of realm vs realm. Problem was, they didn't understand the concepts. They had no idea how to make it work, and they didn't even do the research (just buying a darn mmorpg at Best Buy and seeing how they did it in Dark Age of Camelot). So, in the end, they saw it as a failed attempt.
Second example, they had RP servers. But they, like the gods at Blizzard, had no clue as to what made something RP vs just putting a title on a server and forgetting about it. Again = we see a lack of education and common sense that was not just in the Funcom product but painfully obvious elsewhere. And shamefully, if these are the only products on the shelf, then this is the only great educator for matriculating players. This means that an entire generation has forgotten or never knew that a 3 realm mmorpg with unique cultures and siege warfare could exist. They think Rift or the Jedi and Sith players that will soon make up 75% of the player base of SW:ToR = any kind of reality.
2. Today's game producers assume (maybe correctly) that the gaming population is undereducated. They (I believe) draw up the average guy who games on a marker board in order to remind developers what audience they are aiming for:
This gamer is 14-24, lives at home. Loves to poke smot (you get it), does not care about complex politics and religious divides that have created the most real to life epic cultures on this planet, has never read George R.R. Martin's a Game of Thrones et al., does not understand the maturity required to maintain a long term relationship with (a) proper friends that are giving back to society (b) a girl.
And that - my friends, is what has destroyed the genre. Until a company comes forward that takes adults seriously, as well as themselves, we will see games go Free to Play or just go forgotten. I am hoping that in the next 10-15 years, someone will step forward and give us something complex and epic.
While I am not quite as pessimistic as you, I agree with a lot of your points. I think that the main problem faced by developers when planning out MMOs is that there is only one behemoth on the block and that is WoW. They are basing everything about their game off of it and thinking that because the graphics are a little bit different, or the combat is a little different, they have something new and wonderful. WoW is a raid centered game with a little bit of half hearted PVP tacked on. Thus, the new MMOs that have come out since then are all following the same pattern with very few exceptions.
To me, a complete MMO would include the things that WoW offers, but also have RVR and a reason to PVP on top of endless raiding and dungeon grinding. Take away arena and add in RVR like back in DAoC with it's own rewards and progression system such as realm ranks and you are far on your way toward having a winner.
Mythic crashed and burned with Warhammer, which is really unfortunate. They already had the winning formula with DAoC and they just needed to update it and crank up the graphics, but they went in a different direction instead. I think that their failure has dissuaded other developers from concentrating too heavily on PVP.
What stops them from adding RVR on to an MMO that already has the basics such as Rift or AoC, I just don't know, but I'd love to attend a meeting with a few developers and waggle my finger at them a little.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
This model is GREAT for the players that are there at launch and play hard to stay at the top step of level and gear. For anyone else that wants to start later it will be hellish,and so as people leave they will not be replenished, which means a dieing server almost from the end of week 1. This whole play philosophy just creates a barrier to entry for the new player, and why any dev would want to deliberatly build that into their game I have no idea. Still, it will be fun for the first month for those that hardcore grind it.
To me, a complete MMO would include the things that WoW offers, but also have RVR and a reason to PVP on top of endless raiding and dungeon grinding. Take away arena and add in RVR like back in DAoC with it's own rewards and progression system such as realm ranks and you are far on your way toward having a winner.
You've hit on a topic I've posted about a lot
Do you have any idea of what an MMO that included all WoW features + all PvP features from your pvp game of choice would cost? And good graphics? We're talking like... 200 million development costs, easy. And a studio that knows how to manage a 200 million dollar project. That's a lot of money to bet on something that is "far on its way toward being a winner"
They've picked a good time to do this, what with the new Conan film coming in 2011 and with the mass boredom in games like darkfall, it will certainly be a lively brutal beginning to the new server.
Hardcore is NOT hardcore without perma-death. However, the peroma-death should only be perma-death in PvP, NOT PvE. It is too easy in AoC to have a random spawn land on top of you as you try to work your way through the Pict villages to allow perma-death to PvE and too difficult to find groups to help you do it.
Comments
I agree. The concept of factionless pvp under the guise of random guild titles is no more inventive and genre progressive than just putting a bunch of gangs together and instead of Crips and Bloods vs Kings and Disciples - we get Johnny Griefer's bored Darkfall Online guild and Zit's McCoy and his gang of lonely teen-age smot pokers. There's nothing epic about immaturity and arsehattery being translated into an mmorpg community that in this case, was written into pages by a man who created the genre of Fantasy Horror.
Age of Conan has demeaned its own population with an inaccurate (Priests of Mitra and Tempests of Set grouping to kill Priests of Mitra and Tempests of Set) and hardly plausible world, i.e., Necromancers running with all their pets out through Cimmeria - the land where according to the books, even minor shamantic magic was questioned at the point of a sword.
The game should have been an answer to those who were never given Dark Age of Camelot 2. It would have been a blockbuster. Set, Cimmeria, Aquilonia = 3 realms at war. Notice in the first video that opened the game, Conan beat his fist on a warmap and claimed that his country would rise to defeat and defend against neighbors that were not simply named by Zit's McCoy's guild - but by actual nations. The game, in the end, was just a few races and classes that were mostly cosmetic so that they didn't just outright create one moving pixel with a title over its head that said: kill this.
I really believe that the reasoning behind games like Age of Conan (that could have been ever so great), is that
1. Today's developers are programmers, software developers, code writers, etc. They are not historians, well read in the fantasy genre, or part of the early community that gave us Ultima, Everquest, etc. (okay, so Mortal Online is a shabby attempt at 3-D ultima - but seriously - I had to go train how to /rest. I mean really?). When Conan released, there was a Culture server. So here, they had a sense of realm vs realm. Problem was, they didn't understand the concepts. They had no idea how to make it work, and they didn't even do the research (just buying a darn mmorpg at Best Buy and seeing how they did it in Dark Age of Camelot). So, in the end, they saw it as a failed attempt.
Second example, they had RP servers. But they, like the gods at Blizzard, had no clue as to what made something RP vs just putting a title on a server and forgetting about it. Again = we see a lack of education and common sense that was not just in the Funcom product but painfully obvious elsewhere. And shamefully, if these are the only products on the shelf, then this is the only great educator for matriculating players. This means that an entire generation has forgotten or never knew that a 3 realm mmorpg with unique cultures and siege warfare could exist. They think Rift or the Jedi and Sith players that will soon make up 75% of the player base of SW:ToR = any kind of reality.
2. Today's game producers assume (maybe correctly) that the gaming population is undereducated. They (I believe) draw up the average guy who games on a marker board in order to remind developers what audience they are aiming for:
This gamer is 14-24, lives at home. Loves to poke smot (you get it), does not care about complex politics and religious divides that have created the most real to life epic cultures on this planet, has never read George R.R. Martin's a Game of Thrones et al., does not understand the maturity required to maintain a long term relationship with (a) proper friends that are giving back to society (b) a girl.
And that - my friends, is what has destroyed the genre. Until a company comes forward that takes adults seriously, as well as themselves, we will see games go Free to Play or just go forgotten. I am hoping that in the next 10-15 years, someone will step forward and give us something complex and epic.
/my 2 cents
While I am not quite as pessimistic as you, I agree with a lot of your points. I think that the main problem faced by developers when planning out MMOs is that there is only one behemoth on the block and that is WoW. They are basing everything about their game off of it and thinking that because the graphics are a little bit different, or the combat is a little different, they have something new and wonderful. WoW is a raid centered game with a little bit of half hearted PVP tacked on. Thus, the new MMOs that have come out since then are all following the same pattern with very few exceptions.
To me, a complete MMO would include the things that WoW offers, but also have RVR and a reason to PVP on top of endless raiding and dungeon grinding. Take away arena and add in RVR like back in DAoC with it's own rewards and progression system such as realm ranks and you are far on your way toward having a winner.
Mythic crashed and burned with Warhammer, which is really unfortunate. They already had the winning formula with DAoC and they just needed to update it and crank up the graphics, but they went in a different direction instead. I think that their failure has dissuaded other developers from concentrating too heavily on PVP.
What stops them from adding RVR on to an MMO that already has the basics such as Rift or AoC, I just don't know, but I'd love to attend a meeting with a few developers and waggle my finger at them a little.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
This model is GREAT for the players that are there at launch and play hard to stay at the top step of level and gear. For anyone else that wants to start later it will be hellish,and so as people leave they will not be replenished, which means a dieing server almost from the end of week 1. This whole play philosophy just creates a barrier to entry for the new player, and why any dev would want to deliberatly build that into their game I have no idea. Still, it will be fun for the first month for those that hardcore grind it.
You've hit on a topic I've posted about a lot
Do you have any idea of what an MMO that included all WoW features + all PvP features from your pvp game of choice would cost? And good graphics? We're talking like... 200 million development costs, easy. And a studio that knows how to manage a 200 million dollar project. That's a lot of money to bet on something that is "far on its way toward being a winner"
Just sayin'
They've picked a good time to do this, what with the new Conan film coming in 2011 and with the mass boredom in games like darkfall, it will certainly be a lively brutal beginning to the new server.
Now I want to give that a try
Hardcore is NOT hardcore without perma-death. However, the peroma-death should only be perma-death in PvP, NOT PvE. It is too easy in AoC to have a random spawn land on top of you as you try to work your way through the Pict villages to allow perma-death to PvE and too difficult to find groups to help you do it.