I would like to remind everyone, once again, what the problem with three faction PVP is: the story. How many wars in real life actually involved three factions fighting each other (not just one fighting two)? About one. And the reason is it takes a strange set of circumstances for a three factions conflict to begin (a battle for the crown or a piece of land). Because of this, it's hard to build a compelling story around three factions. You'll notice Guild Wars doesn't involve the three factions into the story at all.
I would like to remind everyone, once again, what the problem with three faction PVP is: the story. How many wars in real life actually involved three factions fighting each other (not just one fighting two)? About one. And the reason is it takes a strange set of circumstances for a three factions conflict to begin (a battle for the crown or a piece of land). Because of this, it's hard to build a compelling story around three factions. You'll notice Guild Wars doesn't involve the three factions into the story at all.
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would like to remind everyone, once again, what the problem with three faction PVP is: the story. How many wars in real life actually involved three factions fighting each other (not just one fighting two)? About one. And the reason is it takes a strange set of circumstances for a three factions conflict to begin (a battle for the crown or a piece of land). Because of this, it's hard to build a compelling story around three factions. You'll notice Guild Wars doesn't involve the three factions into the story at all.
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would say then that the PvP might as well be a whole separate game if it's treated like that. The conflict between factions should be central to the story in a well developed world. Imagine if, say, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other for no reason and the fact that they were fighting each other didn't affect the world at all. How rediculous would that be?
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would say then that the PvP might as well be a whole separate game if it's treated like that. The conflict between factions should be central to the story in a well developed world. Imagine if, say, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other for no reason and the fact that they were fighting each other didn't affect the world at all. How rediculous would that be?
Then why is it that in these Faction orientated MMOs, where the war between Factions are oh-so important, that I can then log onto a PvE server and be all buddy, buddy with the opposite Faction? See in games where both the PvE & PvP experience are integral to eachother, you'll find that the experience is bogged down in some fashion. Be it PvP players ruining the PvE experience of others or skills that are balanced for PvE becoming OP in PvP.
So if the developers of Guild Wars 2, want to treat their PvE & PvP as entirely seperate games, then so be it. As long as it's fun and reasonable, that's really all that should matter in a game. It's amazing how people try to find faults in such a sound idea/concept.
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would say then that the PvP might as well be a whole separate game if it's treated like that. The conflict between factions should be central to the story in a well developed world. Imagine if, say, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other for no reason and the fact that they were fighting each other didn't affect the world at all. How rediculous would that be?
Then why is it that in these Faction orientated MMOs, where the war between Factions are oh-so important, that I can then log onto a PvE server and be all buddy, buddy with the opposite Faction? See in games where both the PvE & PvP experience are integral to eachother, you'll find that the experience is bogged down in some fashion. Be it PvP players ruining the PvE experience of others or skills that are balanced for PvE becoming OP in PvP.
So if the developers of Guild Wars 2, want to treat their PvE & PvP as entirely seperate games, then so be it. As long as it's fun and reasonable, that's really all that should matter in a game. It's amazing how people try to find faults in such a sound idea/concept.
If you can be "all buddy, buddy with the opposite faction," then the game world isn't well developed. You should have a reason (from the game world) for fighting. Otherwise it's just an e-sport. And maybe that works for GW2 (I'm buying it, so I'm not just a hater). But three-faction PvP can't be the salvation of online gaming because, as I said, it makes the world complicated. Separating PvP and PvE is the easy way out. A game is part fun, part fiction, and you can't just throw the fiction out.
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would say then that the PvP might as well be a whole separate game if it's treated like that. The conflict between factions should be central to the story in a well developed world. Imagine if, say, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other for no reason and the fact that they were fighting each other didn't affect the world at all. How rediculous would that be?
Then why is it that in these Faction orientated MMOs, where the war between Factions are oh-so important, that I can then log onto a PvE server and be all buddy, buddy with the opposite Faction? See in games where both the PvE & PvP experience are integral to eachother, you'll find that the experience is bogged down in some fashion. Be it PvP players ruining the PvE experience of others or skills that are balanced for PvE becoming OP in PvP.
So if the developers of Guild Wars 2, want to treat their PvE & PvP as entirely seperate games, then so be it. As long as it's fun and reasonable, that's really all that should matter in a game. It's amazing how people try to find faults in such a sound idea/concept.
If you can be "all buddy, buddy with the opposite faction," then the game world isn't well developed. You should have a reason (from the game world) for fighting. Otherwise it's just an e-sport. And maybe that works for GW2 (I'm buying it, so I'm not just a hater). But three-faction PvP can't be the salvation of online gaming because, as I said, it makes the world complicated. Separating PvP and PvE is the easy way out. A game is part fun, part fiction, and you can't just throw the fiction out.
And like I said earlier. There will be a backstory to The Mist in GW2, giving players who want a reason, a reason to fight. But most people will go in it, to have fun with their friends & guild mates, killing other people who want to have fun with their friends & guild mates. I don't see why you're so hung up on having a story forced down people's throats, in a PvP environment. It just won't work in GW2, when they really want people to treat the The Mist as a sandbox environment, where the players create their own stories of exploits (trust me, you'll be seeing alot of that on youtube, once the game has been out long enough).
To those complaining that open world pvp is just a "chaotic" mess and nothing but a "zerg fest", that's why the mmo that gets pvp right is the one that puts in tools to control armies of players easily and efficiently. It's the difference between the "herding cats" problem and fun strategy that appeals to all the strategy lovers out there. My idea would be to build in social tools that breaks down organization of an army: Liutenant, Major, Colonel, General. Liutenant would only control smaller groups of say 10 people, Majors would only organize and see the Liutenants, Colonels would only organize and see the Major, and Generals would only have to organize and see the Colonels. This would provide for a fun and easy to run strategic fight in MMOs, in my humble opinion.
If you ever played Face of Mankind, you will remember that they had a unique take on faction based pvp. in that game there was eight distinct factions, each with a home zone. in each home zone there was a "safe" area that other factions couoldnt travel to. However you weren't safe from your own faction there. Each factions home zone had certain crafting resources that were unique to that zone. Alliances were constantly formed and dissolved, making for some truly epic fights and politics. Face of Mankind was a pretty bland game but I still look back fondly at how their faction system and ffa full loot system worked. I think if a AAA publisher took on a similar model to this, we might not even be talking about three factions at all.
Tanemund please stop posting. You know nothing of pvp period. Honestly what have you done in any game to even give an opinion? Just about every game that has come out recently that has promised good pvp I have played to at a very high level which include gladiator every season ive played of WoW, rr72 of a possible 80 in warhammer and 2x rr11s in daoc. I believe my opinion on what makes a good pvp game would far outweigh yours, and simple fact of the matter is there has yet to be a game that has come close to the enjoyment daoc offered.
3 factions DID in fact have a lot to do with it but it wasn't the only factor.
Run speed(with zergs usually having to run at speed4 which was slower than 8 mans that were usually at speed 5-6) This might not have seemed like a big deal but the simple fact that smaller numbers had a chance to escape much larger numbers kept these smaller numbers out in the battlefield. Nobody likes going out and getting killed by big numbers everytime they leave and that's a major downfall of almost every world vs world game. Bigger Numbers ALWAYS win or are always able to keep up.
Also the mechanics of the game aoe cc let smaller numbers have a chance against a slightly larger number team.
Tanemund please stop posting. You know nothing of pvp period. Honestly what have you done in any game to even give an opinion? Just about every game that has come out recently that has promised good pvp I have played to at a very high level which include gladiator every season ive played of WoW, rr72 of a possible 80 in warhammer and 2x rr11s in daoc. I believe my opinion on what makes a good pvp game would far outweigh yours, and simple fact of the matter is there has yet to be a game that has come close to the enjoyment daoc offered.
Wow. I'm not even part of the conversation, but the highlighted is absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I didn't think DAOCs PvP was all that great at all. 3 Faction, or two faction, or 6 faction, I liked the open world PvP in Fallen Earth, and I liked it in SWG, both of which kept me playing much longer than my time in DAOC. Its a matter of preference and opinion. Just because you've played more PvP games than someone else doesn't make their opinion invalid champ.
That being said, there are plenty of opinions that outweigh yours when it comes to PvP games or any game for that matter, and that opinion is.. someones own opinion. Nomatter how much you try to play top dog, you'll never change someones mind by saying "I'm right and you're wrong." Point of fact - DAOC wasn't a great game at all.
Oh and one other thing . . . Someone got rolled in RvR.
This? This is the best you've got? Yeah, you really told me didn't you, you two Twinky and a Mountain Dew Dinner llama. Here are a couple of tips to help you acclimate back into society when EA has the common decency to pull the server's plugs out of the wall and consign DAoC to sweet cyber oblivion and you get done pining for a DEAD GAME!
1. You're not really a Vampiir, so go outside and get some sun.
2. You can't grind faction with women online.
3. 16 level 50 toons. Really?
4. Trolling you "DAoC was teh bestest evah" wads is like watching a chimp playing with a bic lighter; at first it's kind of cute and amusing but pretty soon it just smells like burnt chimp, which is pathetic.
Stop embarrassing yourself. I've watched you guys bend over backwards trying to point to the game mechanic that made DAoC great for years and in all honestly it's gone past pathetic to annoying.
I'll keep saying this until I die and I'm right, which is why you can't stand it. The game was good because the people playing it made it good.
ok dude... number one. Take your prozac and calm the hell down. You are getting this angry about a post on the internet because they share a different opinion, then state that they are losers who drink mountain dew and need to get some sun... Really dude sounds like it might be you that has this problem, or did at some point. You don't know them, so don't try and call them out for some bull crap.
Now on to your post, I hated DAoC. Thought it was a completely crap game, but the RvR did make that game. and if you know about secret world, their 3 faction RvR type scenarios, will not be a que up for a battleground. It will be a run to this area much like DAoC.
I do not agree with your community statement. look at wow. One of the worst communities I have ever seen in my life, not as bad as DF, but it's freaking bad. Now some communities do help a game, that is why DAoC is still around, same thing with EQ1, and UO.
So I guess in short, take your prozac, go outside for a walk, maybe just go out and beat the hell out of someone because you my friend have more pent up aggression than anyone I have seen in a long time. ITS A GAME brosef! chill out, and don't forget... take that prozac. Love you cupcake.
Brings back memories of realm announcements in DAoC that Darkness Falls was about to open.
Players would congregate at the entrance and the instant it was open they would rampage through DF killing enemy realmers. Some huge battles would occur. The other realms could not reinforce so eventually they would die and leave. For a couple of days afterwards the occasional enemy would pop as they logged in their characters inside DF. A few skilled and stealthy enemies could last for a week or two until an organized search party would find them and kill them.
Ultima Online - post-Trammel split Factions PvP system - best open world PvP ever implemented ever, ever.
No questions, no if, nor and, nor but.
If you don't agree, you're wrong because you didn't play it then.
yeah I can only say that nothing post trammel was good. I didn't play it then, but i still refuse to admit that! lol
That is where you are wrong sir.
The Factions PvP system brought people back to Felucca, in mass, for the most awesomely epic and amazing open world PvP ever...
Plenty of ganking, plenty of griefing and full loot madness, yet you chose to be there and had time/freedom to skill up and get your items on the PvE side...
It was the most ingenious and amazing system ever in any MMORPG ever....
And no one has replicated it... why?
Obviously they stopped paying attention to Ultima before Trammel/Felucca split, or they actually liked the pre-Trammel days and like you are ignorant of the awesome-sauce that was post-Trammel split PvP in Felucca.
DAoC was not balanced because of 3 realm fights. It was fun and unpredictable because of 3 realm fights but certainly not balanced because of it. The idea that the two underdogs can team up against the big dog is great in theory but in practice you more often see the underdogs trying to get the big dog on their side long enough to get some benefit out of it. People don't do what is best for making the fight fun for everyone, they do what is in their selfish best interest. Not to mention that it completely breaks down once one faction gets to the point where it can dominate both of the others together.
What will make W v W v W in GW2 better is the W part more so than there being 3 of them. That is, when you have whole worlds pulling together as a community and those worlds being rematched according to past successes and failures, there you will find your balance. Static factions slowly start to lean to one side or the other. People don't like being beaten down every week, week after week. Eventually the underdogs start giving up and rerolling on the other faction or on another server. This even happens in a game like Aion where one of the sides is controlled by the system and developers. They had the golden opportunity to have the "third" faction fight consistently for the underdog. And they still had horrible balance.
3 factions fighting at once is great and will make it unpredictable but not balanced. It is the reshuffling of who the opponents will be each 2 two weeks that is the real brilliance of the new GW2 system.
One of the main drawbacks with player factions is that in the games where it exists, the player faction has carried over into PvE, reducing the pool of players with whom you can group. Reducing the pool of players for grouping to half (2 factions) or one third (3 factions) has a huge impact, and can be even worse if one of the player factions is unpopular with players.
Developers have started to implement some solutions to this issue, such as cross-server grouping.
DAoC was not balanced because of 3 realm fights. It was fun and unpredictable because of 3 realm fights but certainly not balanced because of it. The idea that the two underdogs can team up against the big dog is great in theory but in practice you more often see the underdogs trying to get the big dog on their side long enough to get some benefit out of it. People don't do what is best for making the fight fun for everyone, they do what is in their selfish best interest. Not to mention that it completely breaks down once one faction gets to the point where it can dominate both of the others together.
.
And this is why Darkness Falls was so important to the entire game. The only way to get access to DF was to hold most of the relic keeps; sucking up to the dominant faction didn't get you in and DF was where the best levelling and gear was. It wasn't unusual to see the two weaker realms team up to kick the big dog in the happy sacks and when big D was down for the count all bets were off.
Comments
Try Fallen Earth ...there are 6 factions. But you must get into it there are not many pl who like post-apocalyptic mmos.
Thread about thempark elements is not complete if it doesn't have a sandbox glorifier bashing it and praising the sandbox crap
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
I would like to remind everyone, once again, what the problem with three faction PVP is: the story. How many wars in real life actually involved three factions fighting each other (not just one fighting two)? About one. And the reason is it takes a strange set of circumstances for a three factions conflict to begin (a battle for the crown or a piece of land). Because of this, it's hard to build a compelling story around three factions. You'll notice Guild Wars doesn't involve the three factions into the story at all.
And how often do people even care about the story in a PvP environment? My guess is, not often. If you want to experience a compelling story, in GW2, the personal story would be there to experience. If you want to learn the backstory of any PvP environment in GW2, you'll be able to find some tomes, giving you the general idea of why you're fighting. But really what people would care about is being able to get into the action as quickly as possible and being able to do it with their friends/guild mates.
PvP of any kind is just not the place to experience a compelling story, but it can be the place to create you own stories.
I would say then that the PvP might as well be a whole separate game if it's treated like that. The conflict between factions should be central to the story in a well developed world. Imagine if, say, the Horde and Alliance were fighting each other for no reason and the fact that they were fighting each other didn't affect the world at all. How rediculous would that be?
Then why is it that in these Faction orientated MMOs, where the war between Factions are oh-so important, that I can then log onto a PvE server and be all buddy, buddy with the opposite Faction? See in games where both the PvE & PvP experience are integral to eachother, you'll find that the experience is bogged down in some fashion. Be it PvP players ruining the PvE experience of others or skills that are balanced for PvE becoming OP in PvP.
So if the developers of Guild Wars 2, want to treat their PvE & PvP as entirely seperate games, then so be it. As long as it's fun and reasonable, that's really all that should matter in a game. It's amazing how people try to find faults in such a sound idea/concept.
If you can be "all buddy, buddy with the opposite faction," then the game world isn't well developed. You should have a reason (from the game world) for fighting. Otherwise it's just an e-sport. And maybe that works for GW2 (I'm buying it, so I'm not just a hater). But three-faction PvP can't be the salvation of online gaming because, as I said, it makes the world complicated. Separating PvP and PvE is the easy way out. A game is part fun, part fiction, and you can't just throw the fiction out.
And like I said earlier. There will be a backstory to The Mist in GW2, giving players who want a reason, a reason to fight. But most people will go in it, to have fun with their friends & guild mates, killing other people who want to have fun with their friends & guild mates. I don't see why you're so hung up on having a story forced down people's throats, in a PvP environment. It just won't work in GW2, when they really want people to treat the The Mist as a sandbox environment, where the players create their own stories of exploits (trust me, you'll be seeing alot of that on youtube, once the game has been out long enough).
To those complaining that open world pvp is just a "chaotic" mess and nothing but a "zerg fest", that's why the mmo that gets pvp right is the one that puts in tools to control armies of players easily and efficiently. It's the difference between the "herding cats" problem and fun strategy that appeals to all the strategy lovers out there. My idea would be to build in social tools that breaks down organization of an army: Liutenant, Major, Colonel, General. Liutenant would only control smaller groups of say 10 people, Majors would only organize and see the Liutenants, Colonels would only organize and see the Major, and Generals would only have to organize and see the Colonels. This would provide for a fun and easy to run strategic fight in MMOs, in my humble opinion.
If you ever played Face of Mankind, you will remember that they had a unique take on faction based pvp. in that game there was eight distinct factions, each with a home zone. in each home zone there was a "safe" area that other factions couoldnt travel to. However you weren't safe from your own faction there. Each factions home zone had certain crafting resources that were unique to that zone. Alliances were constantly formed and dissolved, making for some truly epic fights and politics. Face of Mankind was a pretty bland game but I still look back fondly at how their faction system and ffa full loot system worked. I think if a AAA publisher took on a similar model to this, we might not even be talking about three factions at all.
Tanemund please stop posting. You know nothing of pvp period. Honestly what have you done in any game to even give an opinion? Just about every game that has come out recently that has promised good pvp I have played to at a very high level which include gladiator every season ive played of WoW, rr72 of a possible 80 in warhammer and 2x rr11s in daoc. I believe my opinion on what makes a good pvp game would far outweigh yours, and simple fact of the matter is there has yet to be a game that has come close to the enjoyment daoc offered.
3 factions DID in fact have a lot to do with it but it wasn't the only factor.
Run speed(with zergs usually having to run at speed4 which was slower than 8 mans that were usually at speed 5-6) This might not have seemed like a big deal but the simple fact that smaller numbers had a chance to escape much larger numbers kept these smaller numbers out in the battlefield. Nobody likes going out and getting killed by big numbers everytime they leave and that's a major downfall of almost every world vs world game. Bigger Numbers ALWAYS win or are always able to keep up.
Also the mechanics of the game aoe cc let smaller numbers have a chance against a slightly larger number team.
Wow. I'm not even part of the conversation, but the highlighted is absolutely ridiculous. Personally, I didn't think DAOCs PvP was all that great at all. 3 Faction, or two faction, or 6 faction, I liked the open world PvP in Fallen Earth, and I liked it in SWG, both of which kept me playing much longer than my time in DAOC. Its a matter of preference and opinion. Just because you've played more PvP games than someone else doesn't make their opinion invalid champ.
That being said, there are plenty of opinions that outweigh yours when it comes to PvP games or any game for that matter, and that opinion is.. someones own opinion. Nomatter how much you try to play top dog, you'll never change someones mind by saying "I'm right and you're wrong." Point of fact - DAOC wasn't a great game at all.
ok dude... number one. Take your prozac and calm the hell down. You are getting this angry about a post on the internet because they share a different opinion, then state that they are losers who drink mountain dew and need to get some sun... Really dude sounds like it might be you that has this problem, or did at some point. You don't know them, so don't try and call them out for some bull crap.
Now on to your post, I hated DAoC. Thought it was a completely crap game, but the RvR did make that game. and if you know about secret world, their 3 faction RvR type scenarios, will not be a que up for a battleground. It will be a run to this area much like DAoC.
I do not agree with your community statement. look at wow. One of the worst communities I have ever seen in my life, not as bad as DF, but it's freaking bad. Now some communities do help a game, that is why DAoC is still around, same thing with EQ1, and UO.
So I guess in short, take your prozac, go outside for a walk, maybe just go out and beat the hell out of someone because you my friend have more pent up aggression than anyone I have seen in a long time. ITS A GAME brosef! chill out, and don't forget... take that prozac. Love you cupcake.
Brings back memories of realm announcements in DAoC that Darkness Falls was about to open.
Players would congregate at the entrance and the instant it was open they would rampage through DF killing enemy realmers. Some huge battles would occur. The other realms could not reinforce so eventually they would die and leave. For a couple of days afterwards the occasional enemy would pop as they logged in their characters inside DF. A few skilled and stealthy enemies could last for a week or two until an organized search party would find them and kill them.
Was a lot of fun.
Ultima Online - post-Trammel split Factions PvP system - best open world PvP ever implemented ever, ever.
No questions, no if, nor and, nor but.
If you don't agree, you're wrong because you didn't play it then.
yeah I can only say that nothing post trammel was good. I didn't play it then, but i still refuse to admit that! lol
That is where you are wrong sir.
The Factions PvP system brought people back to Felucca, in mass, for the most awesomely epic and amazing open world PvP ever...
Plenty of ganking, plenty of griefing and full loot madness, yet you chose to be there and had time/freedom to skill up and get your items on the PvE side...
It was the most ingenious and amazing system ever in any MMORPG ever....
And no one has replicated it... why?
Obviously they stopped paying attention to Ultima before Trammel/Felucca split, or they actually liked the pre-Trammel days and like you are ignorant of the awesome-sauce that was post-Trammel split PvP in Felucca.
DAoC was not balanced because of 3 realm fights. It was fun and unpredictable because of 3 realm fights but certainly not balanced because of it. The idea that the two underdogs can team up against the big dog is great in theory but in practice you more often see the underdogs trying to get the big dog on their side long enough to get some benefit out of it. People don't do what is best for making the fight fun for everyone, they do what is in their selfish best interest. Not to mention that it completely breaks down once one faction gets to the point where it can dominate both of the others together.
What will make W v W v W in GW2 better is the W part more so than there being 3 of them. That is, when you have whole worlds pulling together as a community and those worlds being rematched according to past successes and failures, there you will find your balance. Static factions slowly start to lean to one side or the other. People don't like being beaten down every week, week after week. Eventually the underdogs start giving up and rerolling on the other faction or on another server. This even happens in a game like Aion where one of the sides is controlled by the system and developers. They had the golden opportunity to have the "third" faction fight consistently for the underdog. And they still had horrible balance.
3 factions fighting at once is great and will make it unpredictable but not balanced. It is the reshuffling of who the opponents will be each 2 two weeks that is the real brilliance of the new GW2 system.
All die, so die well.
GW2 is doing a lot of things brilliantly...
On paper.
I'm skeptical, but excited for the possibilities.
One of the main drawbacks with player factions is that in the games where it exists, the player faction has carried over into PvE, reducing the pool of players with whom you can group. Reducing the pool of players for grouping to half (2 factions) or one third (3 factions) has a huge impact, and can be even worse if one of the player factions is unpopular with players.
Developers have started to implement some solutions to this issue, such as cross-server grouping.
And this is why Darkness Falls was so important to the entire game. The only way to get access to DF was to hold most of the relic keeps; sucking up to the dominant faction didn't get you in and DF was where the best levelling and gear was. It wasn't unusual to see the two weaker realms team up to kick the big dog in the happy sacks and when big D was down for the count all bets were off.
RFO was fun until the elites started drop hording.......Again, random rolling for gear is a must!