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I'm sick of 2 Faction systems, are you?
Divion
Member UncommonPosts: 411
Am I the only one of tired of these 2 faction systems?
Even in WoW I wasn’t a fan of it, it didn’t make sense nor sate my desire for variety.
Warcraft 3 had 4 Main factions (Alliance {Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, High Elves, and Later Blood Elf}, Horde {Orcs, Ogres, Goblins, Tauren, trolls}, Night Elves {Treants, Mountain giants, Wisps, Fae} Scourge {Undead, Zombies, Skeletons, Abominations, Ghouls, ect), and even 1 Sub-Faction, Naga (Blood Elves were later mix in with them)
Some how, and for some reason (Lazy Developers maybe), it was condensed into 2; Factions, the Signature Alliance, and Horde – This made for some rather 1 sided choices (Especially back during Vanilla when Paladin/Shaman were Faction restricted.), it also destroyed the Lore behind WoW (Night Elf Death Knights, Death Knights joining the ALLIANCE? WTF?).
To me having 4 factions would made more sense, with faction restricted classes being more widespread (Example, you could only be a Death Knight if you joined the Scourge, with your Faction Boss being no-other then the Lich King -- Paladins Alliance, Blade master Horde, Hunter Night Elves, ect).
How many factions are the right amounts? Is the notion of factions flawed at best? I remember the days of EQ when there was no factions only reputation, if your reputation was bad with the Dark Elves the NPC would kill you, you could change your “Factions” by improving or degrading your rep with hundreds of different combinations.
However, in EQ2 it was scrapped for a 2 party system (Good vs Evil).
What was your favorite Faction System? From what game?
For me, it was Lineage 2, it was player driven with castle sieges, and player owned terrain, open PvP.
Comments
Im with you, im sick of it also. infact when i see these new games come out and there is 2 factions i wont even think twice about not buying it. that system has been beat to death and im over it.
my favorite is still Asherons Call Darktide server, anybody can kill anybody no safe place on the map.
3 is awesome as it throws in so much more to the gaming experience. Any more than 3 and it might be overkill. I don't know though 4 or 5 would be intense but more than 3, things might seem too lopsided or spread out.
You just brought back a ton of memories. I remember slaughtering gnome guards for days inside Ak'Anon for the gems they would drop and getting a kill on sight rep with all gnomes. I would just take a hike over to the minotaurs and slaughter them to get my rep back and then go back slaying the poor helpless gnomes again. Rinse and repeat!
Like DAoC, no less than 3 factions. Which is why I'm watching Prime. http://www.primeonline.com/
A very organic, open-ended, player-driven game with the sandboxy elements I'm interested in: pve & pvp, 3-races, 7-professions, 6-classes, a mission system, base and advanced skill-sets to develop, player-driven merchandising & economy, resource control of "Prime" (which is dynamic), crafting, territorial control, base-building & management, 3-faction RvR, guild-control and in-factional politics, etc.
But good memories right!?
Hahah!
The problem though arises if you dont have the population in a game to sustain more than 2 factions,and making each seperate faction desirable to play so the majority of that population doesnt all drift towards 1 faction therby unbalancing it even more.
I am sure if it was an easy thing to accomplish more developers would do it.
Pretty much all my best mmo memories are from EQ before Luclin. Camping that testament of Vanear for Dylan Starshine to pop, getting the wurmscales for the Wurmslayer, all the corpse runs, going on Xmas holiday and remembering I had a corpse and logged back in and all my buddies instantly sent me a tell saying my body rotted. The list goes on!
Ultima Online really did it best even with Trammel. You had faction wars in both Tram and Fel and if you simply wanted to pvp anytime or anywhere then Fel is where you wanted to be.
Just in case you didn't experience it, Trammel and Fel mirrored each other as in basically identical worlds if you will. In Trammel, pvp was only consensual unless you were in a faction war which was voluntary. Fel was the 1/2 of the game where pvp was open and anyone could be attacked. There were consequences of becomming a murderer (stat loss for x amount of time) that sort of thing.
LOL CORPSE RUNS! I hated that, i learned a valuable lesson once... just becuase you think someone is your friend don't grant them permission to drag your corpse... it might end up in the middle of the ocean! BASTARD !
God i miss those days.
The Murder System was always my favorite.
Lineage 2 / Archelord did it best... i attack you, i go purple, you attack me, you go purple, and then we fight to the death! If not i kill you or, the other way around, and once of us is a murder, -- Red name, KoS to NPCs, huge punishment for death, ect...
Archelord allowed you to put bountys on people who murdered you, made for some amusing sights...
1 Guy with a red name running trying to take off his Armor before the mob of 50 people chasing him caught him.
I'm with you on this.
One thing I've always wanted to see was a faction system with multi-faction grouping... maybe even guilds. That would blur the faction distinction with FFA and add some new dynamics to gameplay. No clue if it would be workable, but it could make things a bit different from normal.
I'd much rather games be factionless for the players, not necesarily for the NPC's, and allowed the community at large to form their own guilds, corporations, organizations, allegiances and enemies. It's far more interesting, but it's also a personal preference.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Well, i disagree, there is several ways you can approach it.
Incentives, overt/covert status proclaiminations, buffs, bonuses, automatice server balancing (Caps on population.).
You speak as if 2 faction systems make things balanced? I think we all have stories about how our server, and battlegroup always got owned in World PvP / Battlegrounds... Some servers Horde sucked, others Alliance... Balance issues is perpetual regardless of number of factions.
If they solve those issues that solves what issues you speak of.
Too bad they dont at least have 2 factions and have a 3rd one that is basically neutral kind of like how Anarchy Online is.
I wonder what would happen if Warcraft added a 3rd faction would its population start to rise again instead of falling like it is atm?
I honestily though that Wrath of the Lich King was going to add Scourge as a 3rd Playable Faction.
Consider this.
Scourge Races :
Vyrkul (The Forbearers of the Human Race, sure why not? )
Mindless Undead (Different than their Foresaken counsins, with glowing blue eyes, different featrues, hair, ect)
Abominations (There are allot of note worthy Abominations through out the game, why not make them playable?).
Neuriban (The Undead Spiders!)
Humans (But an darker version [occulists]).
Faction only class : Death Knight
Faction Boss : The Lich King
Faction Capital : Icecrown
Faction Major Cities : Stratholm, and Sholomance.
Personally, that would have felt more Emersive, and allowed someone like me who always wanted to RP an Death Knight in a city of the Dead to feel right at home, eating Ghoul guts, and drinking Maggot Slime..
Nothing felt more off as trying to RP as a Death Knight in the Hot Southern Kingdom of Stormwind, with Angry looking Paladins eye balling me as i rode past on my Undead Steed.... through meadows, and a sunny forest... really?
^^ This is why you have 3 factions. If you can't support 3, you wont have 2 even populated factions either. Three factions generally take care of any population imbalance while 2 faction systems exploit the problem and make it worse.
race locking is substantially more annoying, regardless of the number of factions.
And I really dislike this forced rivalry, it never feels even moderately legit.
Hatred should arise naturally, people are good at it after all.
Archlord system was funny with the bountys, worst part is if you had a bounty on your head and sombody killed you. well you just lost a ton of XP and in that game XP is not easy to get at higher levels. you could lose like 5% xp and that is about 4 hours of grinding.
one thing i really did like in Archlord though was the sieges, i thought they did a good job on their siege system ( except for the lag of course ) but the consept behind it was really good.
"multiple" - I would want more than 3 and the ability to change faction just like EQ did.
Face of Mankind had, what, five factions? Fun stuff, though they weren't inherently at war 100% of the time like in games like World of Warcraft. Honestly it just made each faction feel a heck of a lot more close knit, and it allowed a much larger variety of communities to grow within the game. I'd like to see that more often in MMOs.
Factions limit gameplay...
Give me a world where my actions, not my faction, dictate who I like/hate/ally/gank/grind or chill with. Give me a system to where if I choose the most outlandish combination, and take the penalty to boot, it's allowable. The laziness is in creating factions, not leaving them out. Everquest and Elder Scrolls were great with this concept, you determined your fate, not the game or the faction. Factions are a crutch, both for the Developer and the player, limiting both creativity and immersion.
I agree with the DAoC comment.
But Prime, yeah I'm not feeling it. Looks too small developer to me, too low budget/low quality. Its something I would research once released, but not something I would follow till release.
Besides, maybe I am already biased for Guild Wars 2--the World Vs World Vs World pvp is three way (minus the same 3 way faction dynamics)
Yes. I'm extremely sick of the simplicity of two factions.
My ideal MMO would have 5 major warring factions with the option to remain neutral amung them. Players should be able to influence the success of these factions, e.g., being able to build player colonies within and outside of the main static city. If you wish to build within one of the major 5 city factions, you will be taxed. If your guild starts a small colony (shops, etc) within the main city, you will be taxed harder.
Neutral colonies or those who reside in the wilderness will not be taxed. However, they don't have the security of the city walls / combat towers.
All 5 cities hate each other.
But hey... this is too complex for MMOs.... according to post-WoW developers.
Two 3 faction games are coming out, both GW2 and TSW, and while I'm not a rabid PvP'er, I do enjoy some PvP when I'm in the mood and I am very excited for these two games. I will say though, that neither of them is PvP my MAIN focus or reason for excitement. Still....I think it will prove challenging and fun.
I don't have a favorite faction system. Well...Fallen Earth's six faction ( or was it more than that ) system had potential, but it fell short, in my opinion.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
I hate faction systems period. I wan't to group with my friends ffs!