Originally posted by Fion This is a duplicate post from the main forums I just created. But I thought it deserved a copy here.
There seam to be a lot of people out there that don't know what AoC is or are ignorant to what it is. By AoC I'm of course talking about Age of Conan. There are a lot of poeple who've done research on the game and then realized how awesome it will be. Then there are others that have heard about it, but think it's about the conan movies with sweaty arnold and poor acting. Then there are others who simply haven't looked into it at all. This is for all of you.
This interview, which came out a few days ago, is a must read for anyone even mildly interested in AoC or who would like to know what all the hoopla is about.
It's somewhat a long read so settle down with a cup of coffee or a bottle of your favorite soft drink and read away. If it intrigues you, you can find farther details on things like the new Spellweaving system, the real-time combat and the 20+ unique classes on the main website and in the list of their friday updates, found here;
Lemme know what ya think. I know I'm super excited for someone to FINALLY make a more unique and adult oriented MMOG. I'm sick and tired of EQ/WoW clones.
I loved good old Conan movies... Old Skool fantasy ROX!
What this really means is that you can't come up with a good response to any of what I've said or support your accusation that I'm taking something you've said out of context.
NO, actually it means just what he said, that you are an asshole taking him out of context...
GO raidgrind in vaguard or something
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Originally posted by Pantastic Originally posted by Aelfinn Let us assume for a moment that you enjoy the challenge and the thrill of a large raid that lasts for 2-3 hours and requires coordinated tactics, like the ones being made here.
This is just silly. If I enjoyed raiding and the alleged challenge and thrill of it, I wouldn't really be concerned with whether it's rewarded better than other content. Then again, if there really is some kind of enjoyable 'challenge and thrill' to raiding, why does it need better rewards; why not just say 'Raiding will only give rewards as good as those for grouping' and let the challenge and thrill be the reward for raiding? Face it, essentially no one finds raiding itself fun, they only put up with it for the gear.
Well, if you downsize raiding to NOT be rewarding on its own, then why not downside grouping too?Accourding to your logic, grouping should NOT produce better rewards then soloing. Grouping's only reward should be self satisfaction from grouping... yeah? Which means ANY kind of reward will be from soloing, which means the game is very specific and oriented for a certain type of folks, soloers. The whole point of raiding is it is TOUGH. Its hard to even get enough people for a raid, its hard to get GOOD people for a raid(noobs arent good raiders, but they make good meat shields). Its hard to get the RIGHT people for a raid (100 warriors cant raid without a healer). Its hard to coordinate all those people. Raid encouters usualy mean mobs are either extremely tough or come in groups - thats a whole new way to play a game (picking solo targets gets boring after a while, this activity often is associated with grind). Its often hard to get back to the point where raid was wiped, often resulting in failed raids, which distinguishes good guilds from not so good ones. Yes, raiding usualy is associated with better gear, but isnt that the main concept behind MMORPGs? More time/effort invested = better reward , I am a casual player, I never was in a hardcore raiding guild, nor did I raid with professional often (maybe once or twice) in any given game that I played, but If I ever looted Godly sword of the Gods with a zillion stats on it from solo encounter, id drop that game right away - the same reason I dont play games with cheat codes, its just boring when nothing can touch u or you get maximum reward without any real effort.
Yes, good equipment will come from raids, rewarding the person who does it, that does not, has never, and never will necessarily mean that it is the best available anywhere,
As I said before, I've got some beachfront property in Arizona for you. Or for anyone else who thinks that 'rewarded' in this context doesn't mean 'will get better gear'. You whine that I don't take things at 'face value', yet when it comes down to it you're just saying 'have faith that the developers really don't mean what every other game means when they talk about rewarding raiding better'. If they really, truly, don't plan to give better rewards for raiding than for not, why don't they say that instead of long posts where they rant about the exact number of people in raids and that their gear won't be organized into tiers? I think what Aelfinn meant is raiding will often result in good gear, but not necessarily the BEST gear. Which means if you like to PvP a lot, and you do PvP a lot and you are good at it, you may be rewarded for your efforts with something of similar value as if you were raiding and not PvPing. Same goes with trade skills, if u r a super dupe grand freaking master of swordscraft, you may be able to forge a super duper sword of gnome slaying that kills gnomes in the 1 mile area around you with one swing. Raiding doesnt necessarily means best loot ever. Its only one way of a few(or many, depends on how diverse this game will be) to obtain best loot.
Developers are going with the concept that the more difficult the problem, the higher the reward. While raids TEND to be more difficult than other encounters,
The challenge in raiding is getting enough people together, at the right time and place, and enduring the boredom of coordinating a large herd of people. If that sort of boring crap is the source of the 'difficult problem' that they're going to reward better, then I have no desire to play the game. Solving differential equations or filling out tax forms is far harder than anything you do in a game like this, but if a game rewarded solving differential equations or filling in tax forms better than actual fun content I wouldn't want to play it either. Now this depends entirely how the game will be developed. Some games (EQ, WoW) are as you state they are - raiding gets boring just because of the wait time. But what if someone uses a better way (GW) and will allow you to hire NPC mercenaries to fill in a gap in your raiding party? They wont necessarily be as good as a PC player, but at least you wont have to abandon your raid just because your cleric/priest/monk went LD and you have no backup healers.
It was a bloody joke, that was the entire point. Jayde was not intending the reader to take that particular statement at all seriously,
Yes, but you were earlier whining that "I am simply irritated, and tired of trading words with someone that wont take things at face value under any circumstances." I find it hugely amusing that you posted a quote from a dev that you'd complain if someone did take it at face value after complaining about people not taking dev comments at face value. I mean, if I take that line from Jayde at face value, that would prove that I do take things at face value under some circumstances (rendering your earlier complaint moot), but you'd certainly complain about it if I did. no comment
I have read and participated some of in the raiding threads on the official forums of AoC, under the login of hurin. My understanding of Jayde's(a content developer of AOC) comments and statments is that raiding will, in fact, reward better.
He stated explicitly that raid drops will be the best drops in the game. He justified this by saying that raid encounters are inherntly the hardest of PvE encoutners due to added complexity and therefore deserve the best PvE drops. A position of which I directly disagreed with him on in that thread. And as someone who does complexity analysis in my professional career I am fairly confident of my position.
The only consolation was that a) Jayde thinks they can do raids "better" b) That these ultimate PvE drops will mostly be useful for PvE and less useful for PvP.
I have no idea about a) but I am unwilling to believe b) as I know the vicious cycle that occurs when uber loot is concerned and do not believe Funcom will ever hold up against it.
I disagree with their justification and point of view on raids and I have no faith in their ability to keep itemization sane since they are already making steps towards the insane.
Due to this I will not be playing this game. And that is a shame as otherwise it looks interesting.
Originally posted by gestalt11 I have read and participated some of in the raiding threads on the official forums of AoC, under the login of hurin. My understanding of Jayde's(a content developer of AOC) comments and statments is that raiding will, in fact, reward better.
He stated explicitly that raid drops will be the best drops in the game. He justified this by saying that raid encounters are inherntly the hardest of PvE encoutners due to added complexity and therefore deserve the best PvE drops. A position of which I directly disagreed with him on in that thread. And as someone who does complexity analysis in my professional career I am fairly confident of my position.
The only consolation was that a) Jayde thinks they can do raids "better" b) That these ultimate PvE drops will mostly be useful for PvE and less useful for PvP.
I have no idea about a) but I am unwilling to believe b) as I know the vicious cycle that occurs when uber loot is concerned and do not believe Funcom will ever hold up against it.
I disagree with their justification and point of view on raids and I have no faith in their ability to keep itemization sane since they are already making steps towards the insane.
Due to this I will not be playing this game. And that is a shame as otherwise it looks interesting.
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
Originally posted by Aelfinn Originally posted by gestalt11 I have read and participated some of in the raiding threads on the official forums of AoC, under the login of hurin. My understanding of Jayde's(a content developer of AOC) comments and statments is that raiding will, in fact, reward better.
He stated explicitly that raid drops will be the best drops in the game. He justified this by saying that raid encounters are inherntly the hardest of PvE encoutners due to added complexity and therefore deserve the best PvE drops. A position of which I directly disagreed with him on in that thread. And as someone who does complexity analysis in my professional career I am fairly confident of my position.
The only consolation was that a) Jayde thinks they can do raids "better" b) That these ultimate PvE drops will mostly be useful for PvE and less useful for PvP.
I have no idea about a) but I am unwilling to believe b) as I know the vicious cycle that occurs when uber loot is concerned and do not believe Funcom will ever hold up against it.
I disagree with their justification and point of view on raids and I have no faith in their ability to keep itemization sane since they are already making steps towards the insane.
Due to this I will not be playing this game. And that is a shame as otherwise it looks interesting.
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
Well that thread was from about 2 months ago or so, but he was quite explicit. I do not think I misunderstood him. I had to argue with multiple people including Jayde about this issue. That a larger battle is inherently more complex and more difficult. I even went so far as to say I could not accept that the battle of Thermopyle was less difficult than a much larger battle.
He was explicitly stating that due to the extra variables from raiding it was harder irregardless of the actual pre-battle coordination, which may add even more stuff. People explicitly challenged him on the coordination aspect and he defended his point of view that more thing going on = harder and that raids have more things going on.
Persuant to this he mentioned that due to risk vs reward (god that is so effing stupid) raids must be rewarded better than other PvE aspects. He even did a hierarchy where drops were related to crafting, raids were ranked slightly above the best crafting. Maybe this has changed, but that is what was said. Also keep in mind that many of the best gems for weapon enhancment via crafting have been stated to be drops, gues where the best ones will come from.
I'm glad Sturmrabe will be playing the game as he is low on the BS and is no friend of dumbass PvE raiding but I won't. Like Neanderthal I will let him do the dirty work and check back in a year or so after release.
I did my research and did enough forum battling there to see they are having raids and they are preferring them to some degree. I was also throughly convinced that the Cult of the Raid is throughly ensconced there too. The devs have already ceded the high ground and the Cult will wear it down, since the Devs have already conceded all their points. Right now it is simply a matter of degrees. Mudflation will happen and it will become as stupid as it always does and it will vastly favor raiders.
Originally posted by gestalt11 Originally posted by Aelfinn Originally posted by gestalt11 I have read and participated some of in the raiding threads on the official forums of AoC, under the login of hurin. My understanding of Jayde's(a content developer of AOC) comments and statments is that raiding will, in fact, reward better.
He stated explicitly that raid drops will be the best drops in the game. He justified this by saying that raid encounters are inherntly the hardest of PvE encoutners due to added complexity and therefore deserve the best PvE drops. A position of which I directly disagreed with him on in that thread. And as someone who does complexity analysis in my professional career I am fairly confident of my position.
The only consolation was that a) Jayde thinks they can do raids "better" b) That these ultimate PvE drops will mostly be useful for PvE and less useful for PvP.
I have no idea about a) but I am unwilling to believe b) as I know the vicious cycle that occurs when uber loot is concerned and do not believe Funcom will ever hold up against it.
I disagree with their justification and point of view on raids and I have no faith in their ability to keep itemization sane since they are already making steps towards the insane.
Due to this I will not be playing this game. And that is a shame as otherwise it looks interesting.
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
Well that thread was from about 2 months ago or so, but he was quite explicit. I do not think I misunderstood him. I had to argue with multiple people including Jayde about this issue. That a larger battle is inherently more complex and more difficult. I even went so far as to say I could not accept that the battle of Thermopyle was less difficult than a much larger battle.
He was explicitly stating that due to the extra variables from raiding it was harder irregardless of the actual pre-battle coordination, which may add even more stuff. People explicitly challenged him on the coordination aspect and he defended his point of view that more thing going on = harder and that raids have more things going on.
Persuant to this he mentioned that due to risk vs reward (god that is so effing stupid) raids must be rewarded better than other PvE aspects. He even did a hierarchy where drops were related to crafting, raids were ranked slightly above the best crafting. Maybe this has changed, but that is what was said. Also keep in mind that many of the best gems for weapon enhancment via crafting have been stated to be drops, gues where the best ones will come from.
I'm glad Sturmrabe will be playing the game as he is low on the BS and is no friend of dumbass PvE raiding but I won't. Like Neanderthal I will let him do the dirty work and check back in a year or so after release.
I did my research and did enough forum battling there to see they are having raids and they are preferring them to some degree. I was also throughly convinced that the Cult of the Raid is throughly ensconced there too. The devs have already ceded the high ground and the Cult will wear it down, since the Devs have already conceded all their points. Right now it is simply a matter of degrees. Mudflation will happen and it will become as stupid as it always does and it will vastly favor raiders. That's sad to hear. I hope they change their mind about that. The idea of crafting drops being in raids completely nullifies crafting being better than raids IMO. If you have to raid to craft, then not only are PVEers gimped that don't raid, but crafters will be gimped as well.
Here's hoping that the PvP will be fun enough and balanced enough to offset the raiding that will be in the game.
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
DOn't get too disheartened by those comments checkthis500.. thats all his opinion. And neanderthal too...
Jayde's comments about raid=difficult pissed me off too, and I railed against it harder than any other...
But the endgame has been explicitely stated as GvG PvP, city building, and crafting items for both.
So don't just off the deep end for a couple of nay sayers, even though I agree with the raiding trend there is a lot to say NAY about, AoC is so much more about actual player skill than other games that I can't see item being the final deciding factor in fights like other (WoW/EQ/Vanguard/etc) games
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
According to compiled developer quotes, most of them in this thread:
The very best gear is available thusly: Crafting > Raids ~ Blood Money purchases ~ extremely difficult small group PvE
The tilde here is used in place of the mathemetical symbol for "approximately equal to"
The only real argument here is whether or not it actually looks like the above, or more like this: Crafting > Raids >/= PVP ~ Small group PVE
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
Originally posted by Sturmrabe DOn't get too disheartened by those comments checkthis500.. thats all his opinion. And neanderthal too...Jayde's comments about raid=difficult pissed me off too, and I railed against it harder than any other...But the endgame has been explicitely stated as GvG PvP, city building, and crafting items for both.So don't just off the deep end for a couple of nay sayers, even though I agree with the raiding trend there is a lot to say NAY about, AoC is so much more about actual player skill than other games that I can't see item being the final deciding factor in fights like other (WoW/EQ/Vanguard/etc) games
I make no claim that it is anything more than my opinion. The only claim I make is that is my interpretation of a thread that a particular Dev posted in about 10-15 times. And a few other threads. Sturmrabe was there, he has a different opinion. We will see what happens. I hope everyone looks into it themselves and forms their own opinion.
Originally posted by gestalt11 I make no claim that it is anything more than my opinion. The only claim I make is that is my interpretation of a thread that a particular Dev posted in about 10-15 times. And a few other threads. Sturmrabe was there, he has a different opinion. We will see what happens. I hope everyone looks into it themselves and forms their own opinion.
I was there myself, just under the name of Heronblade, not Aelfinn.
I am sorry to hear that, I just want you to know I feel you're making a mistake, one thats not hard to rectify, but still a mistake.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
Originally posted by Aelfinn Originally posted by gestalt11 I make no claim that it is anything more than my opinion. The only claim I make is that is my interpretation of a thread that a particular Dev posted in about 10-15 times. And a few other threads. Sturmrabe was there, he has a different opinion. We will see what happens. I hope everyone looks into it themselves and forms their own opinion.
I was there myself, just under the name of Heronblade, not Aelfinn.
I am sorry to hear that, I just want you to know I feel you're making a mistake, one thats not hard to rectify, but still a mistake.
I prefer to let Sturmrabe do my dirty work. I am patient. If waiting a year is a mistake then the game isn't worhtwhile anyway.
I refuse to participate in the farcical raiding game cults. The only reason I played WoW was they fooled me. EQ didn't fool me but Blizzard did and I waited 6 months to make sure WoW was ok. This time I will wait a year.
Originally posted by Aelfinn According to compiled developer quotes, most of them in this thread: The very best gear is available thusly: Crafting > Raids ~ Blood Money purchases ~ extremely difficult small group PvE The tilde here is used in place of the mathemetical symbol for "approximately equal to" The only real argument here is whether or not it actually looks like the above, or more like this: Crafting > Raids >/= PVP ~ Small group PVE
See this is the problem that I see. And this is why I'm disheartened about the game now. I was glad when I read "Crafting > Raids" from you Aelfinn, but then I read some stuff from the devs and they said that the best crafting materials are going to be drops in raids..... So basically It doesn't matter if Crafting is Better than Raid drops, because you'll still have to do Raids to get the best crafting materials.
I don't even mind raids being in games, but the fact that they're going to tie crafting into raiding gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
Wow, a year is a loooong time dude, I can't see how did didn't figure it out about WoW if you waited 6months, but I also never said you are a dumbass for your opinion, but lots of people take the way things are said by you and neanderthal as fact because of how you say them...
Originally posted by checkthis500
Originally posted by Aelfinn According to compiled developer quotes, most of them in this thread: The very best gear is available thusly: Crafting > Raids ~ Blood Money purchases ~ extremely difficult small group PvE The tilde here is used in place of the mathemetical symbol for "approximately equal to" The only real argument here is whether or not it actually looks like the above, or more like this: Crafting > Raids >/= PVP ~ Small group PVE
See this is the problem that I see. And this is why I'm disheartened about the game now. I was glad when I read "Crafting > Raids" from you Aelfinn, but then I read some stuff from the devs and they said that the best crafting materials are going to be drops in raids..... So basically It doesn't matter if Crafting is Better than Raid drops, because you'll still have to do Raids to get the best crafting materials.
I don't even mind raids being in games, but the fact that they're going to tie crafting into raiding gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.
Well another reason why I think a lot of people are getting the wrong impression, is they are using the word raid a lot... a 10 man instance is not what people typically think of when they think "raid" but the propasals by Jayde and others I really don't think that it will be common for more than that.
Also: even if crafting requires raid dropped mats, mats are easier to balance out with chain quests and other raid alternatives than a uber drop...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Originally posted by Sturmrabe Wow, a year is a loooong time dude, I can't see how did didn't figure it out about WoW if you waited 6months, but I also never said you are a dumbass for your opinion, but lots of people take the way things are said by you and neanderthal as fact because of how you say them...Originally posted by checkthis500Originally posted by Aelfinn According to compiled developer quotes, most of them in this thread: The very best gear is available thusly: Crafting > Raids ~ Blood Money purchases ~ extremely difficult small group PvE The tilde here is used in place of the mathemetical symbol for "approximately equal to" The only real argument here is whether or not it actually looks like the above, or more like this: Crafting > Raids >/= PVP ~ Small group PVE
See this is the problem that I see. And this is why I'm disheartened about the game now. I was glad when I read "Crafting > Raids" from you Aelfinn, but then I read some stuff from the devs and they said that the best crafting materials are going to be drops in raids..... So basically It doesn't matter if Crafting is Better than Raid drops, because you'll still have to do Raids to get the best crafting materials.
I don't even mind raids being in games, but the fact that they're going to tie crafting into raiding gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.
Well another reason why I think a lot of people are getting the wrong impression, is they are using the word raid a lot... a 10 man instance is not what people typically think of when they think "raid" but the propasals by Jayde and others I really don't think that it will be common for more than that.
Also: even if crafting requires raid dropped mats, mats are easier to balance out with chain quests and other raid alternatives than a uber drop...
I new there were raids in WoW, but I was expecting that they would keep them sane as Blizzard promised. MC was ok at first and I started playing before BWL was released. MC gear was better but only somewhat and only for certain jobs. So it appeared as though they were keeping things reasonable and it seemed like 6 months was a reasonable amount of time to start seeing some trends. Generally in the past it seemed like Blizzard was more interested in making a fun above all other concerns. Keep in mind MC was released like two months after the game and by the 5/6 month mark I started MC gear was not that common and really a number of builds were just as good with a piecemeal set of blues from Dire Maul even though people chase after the Tier sets. So it seemed like things were going ok and I had a certain amount of respect for Blizzard's stated design goals and was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and take them at their word based on previous games.
But BWL made the leap to stupidity to stupidity about 3 months later and then AQ and then Naax showed that they had abolutely no intention whatsoever to follow through on keeping things reasonable and had essentially lied. Of course I was long gone by the time Naax came out. In fact I had switched to guild wars before AQ was released although I canceled my account a month after that patch.
It really took about 8-10 months after release for things to begin to get really out of hand as some top guild began to really get the BWL farming down and then another couple months for most people to realize that Blizzard was making their game worse and not better and had clearly showed every intention of making it even worse not matter what 80% of their players said.
There were people on the forums who about a month after the release of BWL were warning people, but at that point Blizzard could easily have put in another Dire Maul to keep things reasonable. It was AQ that was the true death knell and AQ came out 14 months after release. AQ proved to everyone who gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt that WoW was in fact an elaborate bait and switch. Right around January of 2005 there was no longer any debate and by March even the CMs could no longer deny that non-raiders would be completely screwed and simply resorted to banning and demeaning all dissenters on the forums. By that time no one even tried to make excuses anymore and those that did were laughed at. But right when the BWL was released it was actually easily possible that non-raiders could hve been kept within striking distance a couple months later.
It was not until about March or April that the Blizzard CMs were forced to admit that non-raiders would in fact not not be kept within reasonable range but would be made even more inferior and left to languish until the expansion came out. Between october 2004 for and march of 2005 a deliberate campaign of non-information and vague insinuations was waged by Blizzards PR department. They essentially prevaricated and strung a majority if their customers along for 5 months purposly never answering key content questions they clearly had decided many months previously. They had designed the game so that Dire Maul was the end and Naax would reward with gear that was literally double or triple in power and yet would never, ever acknowledge this until a forum mob essentially called them liars over and over again.
For a time after BWL was released it was easily possible that the original somewhat reasonable scheme established by MC may still be put back into place. Even though this had explicitly been designed by Blizzard to not be the case they allowed people to believe this may actually be the case for as long they could get away with it. For easily two months many people tried desparately to believe they would do such a thing because they genuinely liked Blizzard as a company.
They waged a deliberate campaign of deception and false hope to keep people who were unhappy playing and had every intention to not only make the situation worse, but to never even give non-raiders the extra content they had been promised.
Rob Pardo gave a recent in which AGC talk in which he sketched the entire design intentions of raiding as the "core" part of the game they had decided upon a crazy game ruining raid progression well before WoW's release and yet would never admit such a thing to anyone in anway. They purposely lied by omission and avoided direct questions about this trend so that they could bait and switch the non-raiders. They could have told people when MC was released that raids would be released with progressively better items and non-raids would never ever reward better than even the worst raid. They completely refused to be honest even when asked directly.
And that is why I was fooled. That is why at the 6 month point those of us who gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt were fooled in the end. At that point it was reasonable, I knew raiders had to have better stuff or they would cry like the babies they are. I just thought Blizzard would reign them in and be responsible rather fall onto their knees give them a BJ. Afterall they had explicitly marketed WoW as non-catass and had promised to not reward raiding overly much in that NY Times article. Further they had a reputation for not bowing to pressure from interest groups. But they had always intended to wage a campaign of deception and were capable of keeping up the facade for alomst an entire year. The more savy people marked at about the 10 month point, for me it took about a month of doing the completely ruined PvP and gave up at the 11/12 month point and I really only stayed that long to get the complet PvP set. For others they still desparatly held on to believing Blizzard until march/april when they simply couldn't lie anymore.
Afterall they never got any confirmations of their fears (even though it had all been decided many months beforehand) and were desparate, so stringing them along with false hope was easy. Its the hallmark of any good con job. They were able to string me along for a couple months as I gave them some credit and really didn't run into the raid protion of the game until the last month or two. But for the more desparate the con job worked for another 6 months and even up to a year or more for some.
Yes, its been said by us here and them there so many times its ridiculous:
Funcom is not Blizzard, and AoC is not WoW, and from what I read, been personally told, and have seen, the focus and core gameplay will be much more like Shadowbane with other things to do BESIDES PvP, than anything EQ/WoW/etc raid dynamic.
There will be NO SET GEAR to grind for.
PvE equipment will not be signifigant in PvP (of course you can use it, that sweet sword doesn't become a limp twig, but its not teh ubarpwner that will carry you though the batter even if you are a newb).
And there will be a purpose for playing at lvl 80, a purpose for PvP other than some other ladder grind, and a motivation to play beyond a sparkly lump of pixels.
Sure, people will farm for this or that, but there will be plenty of ways to farm for those who do that kind of thing that a raid that locks you into 6-8 hours and if you drop, or your healer/dps mage/whatever drops at hour 7 it was all in vain.
I understand your bitterness and mistrust, believe me, I share it, but nothing about this game bespoke "derivative" to me... (sure there are going to be a few old standard MMO themes), and definatly nothing to warrent this level of virulence.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Originally posted by Sturmrabe Yes, its been said by us here and them there so many times its ridiculous:Funcom is not Blizzard, and AoC is not WoW, and from what I read, been personally told, and have seen, the focus and core gameplay will be much more like Shadowbane with other things to do BESIDES PvP, than anything EQ/WoW/etc raid dynamic.There will be NO SET GEAR to grind for.PvE equipment will not be signifigant in PvP (of course you can use it, that sweet sword doesn't become a limp twig, but its not teh ubarpwner that will carry you though the batter even if you are a newb).And there will be a purpose for playing at lvl 80, a purpose for PvP other than some other ladder grind, and a motivation to play beyond a sparkly lump of pixels.Sure, people will farm for this or that, but there will be plenty of ways to farm for those who do that kind of thing that a raid that locks you into 6-8 hours and if you drop, or your healer/dps mage/whatever drops at hour 7 it was all in vain.I understand your bitterness and mistrust, believe me, I share it, but nothing about this game bespoke "derivative" to me... (sure there are going to be a few old standard MMO themes), and definatly nothing to warrent this level of virulence.
Mistrust yes. But I do not call them liars out of vitriol or significant bitterness. I call them liars because there is no other explanation. How else can you explain a refusal to answer direct straightforward questions that you have an answer for? You can't. That is lying by omission. I looked into it because the whole thing puzzled me for quite sometime. Their changes made no sense and there behavior was assinine. But I eventually foudn enough information to know what they had decided on a rough timescale. and thus I know they were purposfully witholding vital information from their player base.
Am I calling the AoC devs liars? No. But I have have seen too many inconsistencies and I believe that their initial design ideas are working from a rotten foundation. Like someone else mentioned they are just putting in hacks (such as raid exclusive crafting drops) to try to satsify the raiders thirst for power and yet try to convince others they are not being punished even though they are. Since they are already treading the slippery slope and since raides ALWAYS want more and more and are never satisfied and ALWAYS demand that their previous content never be invalidated by inferior non-raiders there is a cycle of progressive decline.
I only place any amount of confidence in Devs who take a firm stand and absolutely refuse to go past a certain point with raiding and the raiding babies who partake of the activity. But as I see it the Devs have alerady given tacit nod and approval towards implementing the downward spiral. I thought Blizzard was firm on drawing a reasonable line. I was wrong. Then they extended it into prolonged deception.
With Funcom I simply have no confidence that they want to or even see a need for such a thing. Even if their focus as you say, they are trying to serve multiple masters and have already agreed that one of those masters arguments are superior. Funcom has, in my opinion, certainly been more forthwright than Blizzard ever was or has been. I simply have no confidence that what they say will actually happen. They have already started the vicious cycle and have agreed that the justifications make sense. Therefore it will have the problems of other raiding games. Afterall raiding deserves to be better and if it isn't then what is the point? We all know it about more than just progression. They will be forced into a position of giving raiders the best rewards. Afterall they have stated that is their design philosophy. And since raiding is king all raids must be superior to everything else. Thus raid/non-raid gap will get worse and worse.
A bad model always comes back and bites you in the ass. And all the indications and argumetns I have seen indicate a high probability that in the end Funcom has bought into the arguments of raiders for why they desreve to be exalted. The implementation of the exaltation will eventually punish others because that is the whole point of it. Raiders must have peasants and all non-raiders must be peasants.
I am sure that the AoC Devs are interested in making good PvP and wish to allow PvP players to be good at PvP, but I have not seen them take any good stands on any of the slippery slope issues the way a team like Anet or CCP has. Granted Guild Wars is a very different game, but the pyschological aspects of the players are constant. They have multiple constiuencies that they are trying to cater too. But these constituencies are opposed and irreconcilable. And they have already acceded to the arguments of raiders. The question is not "Will they jump?", the question is merely "How high?".
And thus I will wait a year because whether it is because of dishonesty like in Blizzards case or design/psychology pitfalls as I suspect of Funcom that should be enough time for the bottom to fall out and the trends to become visible. And besides I have plenty of other things I can do with my time. It really is time for me to get back into fighting trim. MMORPGs are an investment. Time, money, and mentally. They are meant to be that way. If they are not an investment people get upset. This investment mentality is also why they really are more than just a service no matter what the EULA claims. For me, from what I have seen, and based upon my opinion and analysis AoC is not a safe investment yet. And I see no reason to make a risky investment as MMORPGs do not pay off big like some monetary investments.
Originally posted by ronan32 I didnt know the best gear came from raids in AOC..Oh well that has put me right off this game now.
Pantastic, the above is precisely what I was talking about earlier.
Ronan, a couple of facts for you:
The best gear WILL come from crafting, and not raids. The best crafting materials come from both raid drops and other sources, whether or not these drops will happen in a fashion that raiding is unnecessary has yet to be confirmed.
Raid gear will be at least close to equal to several other sources of lootable equipment.
Equipment does not make as big of a difference in this game, player skill is more important
PvP equipment bought with blood money is more usefull in PvP than anything gained through PvE
Raids themselves will not be the 40 man, 8 hour long nightmares you see in other games. The raid times devs are aiming at is around two hours.
Pantastic argues that even the slight advantage that MAY be in there for raid loot over other loot is unnacceptable. I continue to retort that nothing the devs have said confirmed such an advantage, and that they say just the opposite.
Gestalt is more concerned with Funcom shifting the focus, forcing the gap that once again MIGHT be in there wider and wider. I don't have much to say to this, I fully trust Funcom to stick to the straight and narrow, but cannot confer that trust to another.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. Hemingway
How else can you explain a refusal to answer direct straightforward questions that you have an answer for?
Because quite simply they have answered it, and if you have ever followed any game in development you know that all devs are loathe to make concrete claims for several reasons, some of which is trying to keep trade secrets, some of which is not wanting to overcommit and be called a liar later, because no one dev is going to make final calls like whats in and out...
You are holding AoC devs to an unreasonable standard that NO devs of ANY mmo EVER had followed.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Originally posted by Sturmrabe NO, actually it means just what he said, that you are an asshole taking him out of context...
Except that neither of you actually show me taking anything out of context. Pointing out a flaw in one part of an argument is not dropping context, and none of you have actually shown that there was some part of what he said that changes the meaning of what I quoted and responded to.
GO raidgrind in vaguard or something
Telling someone who hates raiding and wants no part of it to go raidgrind is truly a brilliant response.
Originally posted by jimmyman99 if you downsize raiding to NOT be rewarding on its own, then why not downside grouping too?
I never asked to downsize raiding to NOT be rewarding, merely to make it only as rewarding as other playstyles. As far as 'why not downsize grouping', because I enjoy group content and would be doing it regardless of whether it rewards better than other playstyles.
Of course, the real problem here and with your whole line of argument is that you're arguing that raiding should produce better rewards than other content, and the main point of discussion here is about whether or not that is true in AOC, not whether or not each of us likes it.
Accourding to your logic, grouping should NOT produce better rewards then soloing. Grouping's only reward should be self satisfaction from grouping... yeah? Which means ANY kind of reward will be from soloing, which means the game is very specific and oriented for a certain type of folks, soloers.
Really? That's news to me. Please lay out the chain of logic that gets you there, because I don't see it at all. My objection is to having the choice 'raid or be second class', I have at no point said that I have any problem with 'group or be second class'. I've said multiple times that I don't like raiding, but not a single time have I said I don't like grouping, thus I have no objection to it. I will not be raiding no matter what, but I'd be grouping even if I didn't need it for rewards.
The whole point of raiding is it is TOUGH. Its hard to even get enough people for a raid...
Look, you quoted my response to this line of argument already, I'm not sure why you made this paragraph when a little ways down I answered it. "The challenge in raiding is getting enough people together, at the right time and place, and enduring the boredom of coordinating a large herd of people. If that sort of boring crap is the source of the 'difficult problem' that they're going to reward better, then I have no desire to play the game. Solving differential equations or filling out tax forms is far harder than anything you do in a game like this, but if a game rewarded solving differential equations or filling in tax forms better than actual funontent I wouldn't want to play it either."
Yes, raiding usualy is associated with better gear, but isnt that the main concept behind MMORPGs? More time/effort invested = better reward ,
While a lot of current MMORPGs follow a flawed patter, it isn't that more time and effort invested results in better rewards. It's either simply more time results in better awards (like grinding) or more time in gigantic mobs results in better rewards (raiding). Plus, the concept behing MMORPGs is to have a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game; roleplaying games are not actually about mindlessly grinding or raiding for days, weeks, and months on-end.
I am a casual player, I never was in a hardcore raiding guild, nor did I raid with professional often (maybe once or twice) in any given game that I played, but If I ever looted Godly sword of the Gods with a zillion stats on it from solo encounter, id drop that game right away
Then why are you looking at a game based on CONAN of all people; in how many conan books or even in the movies did he do anything remotely like an MMORPG raid? Sometimes he'd lead armies, but he was always the hero, he never was just a cog in a 15/25/40 man cluster of people all with roughly his own ability level.
- the same reason I dont play games with cheat codes, its just boring when nothing can touch u or you get maximum reward without any real effort.
You didn't say 'without any real effort', you said 'from a solo encounter'. It's easy to make difficult solo content or easy raid content, the number of people doesn't affect much about the in-game difficulty.
Originally posted by Aelfinn Pantastic, the above is precisely what I was talking about earlier.
And it's exactly why I will keep posting about this game. Ronan32 might have been suckered into blowing his money on a raid game, now he can make an informed decision. He can read through your post and note how convoluted it is, how it dances around the key issue just like dev comments do. All he has to do is read your post to see confirmation.
I mean, you admit that the devs have explicitly said that the best items will come from crafting, but that they have refused to confirm whether or not those items will require raid drops to make. I think it's pretty obvious why they chose to confirm one solidly but not the other, and I'm sure ronan32 is clever enough to read ALL of the comments here and see what they really mean.
It may shock you realize this Pantastic but I totally agree:
Spamming your heal/taunt/DPS spell/whatever is not harder or take more skill [raid]
Spending 8 hours doing a chain quest should give you the same % chance to get tha same kind of uber drops and an 8 hour raid
There should be plenty of stuff for people who are never going to raid, but in AoC there will be.
Raid gear should not overbalance PvP, and HAS specifically been said it wouldn't.
Now wether they fail and need to rebalance or not, I don't think the devs are flat out lying.
This isn't WoW, so don't rag on it liek it will be the same no matter how many times the dev get pissed at having to hear that same stupid comparison over and over until we all get to beta/release...
And don't say "well is AoC wasn't like WoW they wouldn't hear that..."
You have been on this forum long enough that you know WoW kiddies, or people who's forst MMO that was, throw that at EVERY game
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Originally posted by Sturmrabe Because quite simply they have answered it,
Funny how none of you manage to quote their answer to it.
and if you have ever followed any game in development you know that all devs are loathe to make concrete claims for several reasons, some of which is trying to keep trade secrets, some of which is not wanting to overcommit and be called a liar later, because no one dev is going to make final calls like whats in and out...
Yet somehow they've been willing to state explicitly that the best equipment in the game will be crafted (though not whether that crafting will require raid drops). They've been willing to state that raiding gear will not be 50 times as good as nonraid gear and that it will not let raiders WTFPWN nonraiders, but are silent on whether it will be better or not. And they have stated explicitly that raiding is harder than group content, and that the greater difficulty will be rewarded. That's an awful lot of specific statements on related things but somehow not a specific comment on the core issue here; it's easy to infer what that means.
And it's not like 'will raiding gear be better than nonraiding gear in this game' is a trade secret or involves overcomittment.
Comments
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
GO raidgrind in vaguard or something
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
This is just
silly. If I enjoyed raiding and the alleged challenge and thrill of it,
I wouldn't really be concerned with whether it's rewarded better than
other content. Then again, if there really is some kind of enjoyable
'challenge and thrill' to raiding, why does it need better rewards; why
not just say 'Raiding will only give rewards as good as those for
grouping' and let the challenge and thrill be the reward for raiding?
Face it, essentially no one finds raiding itself fun, they only put up
with it for the gear.
Well,
if you downsize raiding to NOT be rewarding on its own, then why not
downside grouping too?Accourding to your logic, grouping should NOT
produce better rewards then soloing. Grouping's only reward should be
self satisfaction from grouping... yeah? Which means ANY kind of reward
will be from soloing, which means the game is very specific and
oriented for a certain type of folks, soloers.
The whole point of
raiding is it is TOUGH. Its hard to even get enough people for a raid,
its hard to get GOOD people for a raid(noobs arent good raiders, but
they make good meat shields). Its hard to get the RIGHT people for a
raid (100 warriors cant raid without a healer). Its hard to coordinate
all those people. Raid encouters usualy mean mobs are either extremely
tough or come in groups - thats a whole new way to play a game (picking
solo targets gets boring after a while, this activity often is
associated with grind). Its often hard to get back to the point where
raid was wiped, often resulting in failed raids, which distinguishes
good guilds from not so good ones.
Yes, raiding usualy is
associated with better gear, but isnt that the main concept behind
MMORPGs? More time/effort invested = better reward , I am a casual
player, I never was in a hardcore raiding guild, nor did I raid with
professional often (maybe once or twice) in any given game that I
played, but If I ever looted Godly sword of the Gods with a zillion
stats on it from solo encounter, id drop that game right away - the
same reason I dont play games with cheat codes, its just boring when
nothing can touch u or you get maximum reward without any real effort.
As I said
before, I've got some beachfront property in Arizona for you. Or for
anyone else who thinks that 'rewarded' in this context doesn't mean
'will get better gear'. You whine that I don't take things at 'face
value', yet when it comes down to it you're just saying 'have faith
that the developers really don't mean what every other game means when
they talk about rewarding raiding better'. If they really, truly, don't
plan to give better rewards for raiding than for not, why don't they
say that instead of long posts where they rant about the exact number
of people in raids and that their gear won't be organized into tiers?
I
think what Aelfinn meant is raiding will often result in good gear, but
not necessarily the BEST gear. Which means if you like to PvP a lot,
and you do PvP a lot and you are good at it, you may be rewarded for
your efforts with something of similar value as if you were raiding and
not PvPing. Same goes with trade skills, if u r a super dupe grand
freaking master of swordscraft, you may be able to forge a super duper
sword of gnome slaying that kills gnomes in the 1 mile area around you
with one swing. Raiding doesnt necessarily means best loot ever. Its
only one way of a few(or many, depends on how diverse this game will
be) to obtain best loot.
The challenge in raiding is
getting enough people together, at the right time and place, and
enduring the boredom of coordinating a large herd of people. If that
sort of boring crap is the source of the 'difficult problem' that
they're going to reward better, then I have no desire to play the game.
Solving differential equations or filling out tax forms is far harder
than anything you do in a game like this, but if a game rewarded
solving differential equations or filling in tax forms better than
actual fun content I wouldn't want to play it either.
Now
this depends entirely how the game will be developed. Some games (EQ,
WoW) are as you state they are - raiding gets boring just because of
the wait time. But what if someone uses a better way (GW) and will
allow you to hire NPC mercenaries to fill in a gap in your raiding
party? They wont necessarily be as good as a PC player, but at least
you wont have to abandon your raid just because your cleric/priest/monk
went LD and you have no backup healers.
Yes,
but you were earlier whining that "I am simply irritated, and tired of
trading words with someone that wont take things at face value under
any circumstances." I find it hugely amusing that you posted a quote
from a dev that you'd complain if someone did take it at face value
after complaining about people not taking dev comments at face value. I
mean, if I take that line from Jayde at face value, that would prove
that I do take things at face value under some circumstances (rendering
your earlier complaint moot), but you'd certainly complain about it if
I did.
no comment
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I have read and participated some of in the raiding threads on the official forums of AoC, under the login of hurin. My understanding of Jayde's(a content developer of AOC) comments and statments is that raiding will, in fact, reward better.
He stated explicitly that raid drops will be the best drops in the game. He justified this by saying that raid encounters are inherntly the hardest of PvE encoutners due to added complexity and therefore deserve the best PvE drops. A position of which I directly disagreed with him on in that thread. And as someone who does complexity analysis in my professional career I am fairly confident of my position.
The only consolation was that
a) Jayde thinks they can do raids "better"
b) That these ultimate PvE drops will mostly be useful for PvE and less useful for PvP.
I have no idea about a) but I am unwilling to believe b) as I know the vicious cycle that occurs when uber loot is concerned and do not believe Funcom will ever hold up against it.
I disagree with their justification and point of view on raids and I have no faith in their ability to keep itemization sane since they are already making steps towards the insane.
Due to this I will not be playing this game. And that is a shame as otherwise it looks interesting.
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
Well that thread was from about 2 months ago or so, but he was quite explicit. I do not think I misunderstood him. I had to argue with multiple people including Jayde about this issue. That a larger battle is inherently more complex and more difficult. I even went so far as to say I could not accept that the battle of Thermopyle was less difficult than a much larger battle.
He was explicitly stating that due to the extra variables from raiding it was harder irregardless of the actual pre-battle coordination, which may add even more stuff. People explicitly challenged him on the coordination aspect and he defended his point of view that more thing going on = harder and that raids have more things going on.
Persuant to this he mentioned that due to risk vs reward (god that is so effing stupid) raids must be rewarded better than other PvE aspects. He even did a hierarchy where drops were related to crafting, raids were ranked slightly above the best crafting. Maybe this has changed, but that is what was said. Also keep in mind that many of the best gems for weapon enhancment via crafting have been stated to be drops, gues where the best ones will come from.
I'm glad Sturmrabe will be playing the game as he is low on the BS and is no friend of dumbass PvE raiding but I won't. Like Neanderthal I will let him do the dirty work and check back in a year or so after release.
I did my research and did enough forum battling there to see they are having raids and they are preferring them to some degree. I was also throughly convinced that the Cult of the Raid is throughly ensconced there too. The devs have already ceded the high ground and the Cult will wear it down, since the Devs have already conceded all their points. Right now it is simply a matter of degrees. Mudflation will happen and it will become as stupid as it always does and it will vastly favor raiders.
Gestalt, if Jayde had ever done that, I would never have bothered arguing with Pantastic and Neanderthal over the past few pages.
Jayde's argument was that difficulty and time invested in something meant better rewards, nothing more, nothing less. Raiding tends to be more difficult than most other PVE encounters. However, the best of crafting, and the best of the rewards gained through PvP are just as good if not better than raid gear. Additionally, there will be smaller group PvE encounters considered to be as much or more difficult than raids, thus will have as good or better rewards.
Jayde in the statement you were probably looking at, was trying to justify having raids at all, against people who wanted them taken out of the game entirely, or for them to have no reward whatsoever.
Well that thread was from about 2 months ago or so, but he was quite explicit. I do not think I misunderstood him. I had to argue with multiple people including Jayde about this issue. That a larger battle is inherently more complex and more difficult. I even went so far as to say I could not accept that the battle of Thermopyle was less difficult than a much larger battle.
He was explicitly stating that due to the extra variables from raiding it was harder irregardless of the actual pre-battle coordination, which may add even more stuff. People explicitly challenged him on the coordination aspect and he defended his point of view that more thing going on = harder and that raids have more things going on.
Persuant to this he mentioned that due to risk vs reward (god that is so effing stupid) raids must be rewarded better than other PvE aspects. He even did a hierarchy where drops were related to crafting, raids were ranked slightly above the best crafting. Maybe this has changed, but that is what was said. Also keep in mind that many of the best gems for weapon enhancment via crafting have been stated to be drops, gues where the best ones will come from.
I'm glad Sturmrabe will be playing the game as he is low on the BS and is no friend of dumbass PvE raiding but I won't. Like Neanderthal I will let him do the dirty work and check back in a year or so after release.
I did my research and did enough forum battling there to see they are having raids and they are preferring them to some degree. I was also throughly convinced that the Cult of the Raid is throughly ensconced there too. The devs have already ceded the high ground and the Cult will wear it down, since the Devs have already conceded all their points. Right now it is simply a matter of degrees. Mudflation will happen and it will become as stupid as it always does and it will vastly favor raiders.
That's sad to hear. I hope they change their mind about that. The idea of crafting drops being in raids completely nullifies crafting being better than raids IMO. If you have to raid to craft, then not only are PVEers gimped that don't raid, but crafters will be gimped as well.
Here's hoping that the PvP will be fun enough and balanced enough to offset the raiding that will be in the game.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
DOn't get too disheartened by those comments checkthis500.. thats all his opinion. And neanderthal too...
Jayde's comments about raid=difficult pissed me off too, and I railed against it harder than any other...
But the endgame has been explicitely stated as GvG PvP, city building, and crafting items for both.
So don't just off the deep end for a couple of nay sayers, even though I agree with the raiding trend there is a lot to say NAY about, AoC is so much more about actual player skill than other games that I can't see item being the final deciding factor in fights like other (WoW/EQ/Vanguard/etc) games
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
According to compiled developer quotes, most of them in this thread:
The very best gear is available thusly:
Crafting > Raids ~ Blood Money purchases ~ extremely difficult small group PvE
The tilde here is used in place of the mathemetical symbol for "approximately equal to"
The only real argument here is whether or not it actually looks like the above, or more like this:
Crafting > Raids >/= PVP ~ Small group PVE
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
I was there myself, just under the name of Heronblade, not Aelfinn.
I am sorry to hear that, I just want you to know I feel you're making a mistake, one thats not hard to rectify, but still a mistake.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
I was there myself, just under the name of Heronblade, not Aelfinn.
I am sorry to hear that, I just want you to know I feel you're making a mistake, one thats not hard to rectify, but still a mistake.
I prefer to let Sturmrabe do my dirty work. I am patient. If waiting a year is a mistake then the game isn't worhtwhile anyway.
I refuse to participate in the farcical raiding game cults. The only reason I played WoW was they fooled me. EQ didn't fool me but Blizzard did and I waited 6 months to make sure WoW was ok. This time I will wait a year.
I don't even mind raids being in games, but the fact that they're going to tie crafting into raiding gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
Wow, a year is a loooong time dude, I can't see how did didn't figure it out about WoW if you waited 6months, but I also never said you are a dumbass for your opinion, but lots of people take the way things are said by you and neanderthal as fact because of how you say them...
Well another reason why I think a lot of people are getting the wrong impression, is they are using the word raid a lot... a 10 man instance is not what people typically think of when they think "raid" but the propasals by Jayde and others I really don't think that it will be common for more than that.Also: even if crafting requires raid dropped mats, mats are easier to balance out with chain quests and other raid alternatives than a uber drop...
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
I don't even mind raids being in games, but the fact that they're going to tie crafting into raiding gets under my skin in all the wrong ways.
Well another reason why I think a lot of people are getting the wrong impression, is they are using the word raid a lot... a 10 man instance is not what people typically think of when they think "raid" but the propasals by Jayde and others I really don't think that it will be common for more than that.
Also: even if crafting requires raid dropped mats, mats are easier to balance out with chain quests and other raid alternatives than a uber drop...
I new there were raids in WoW, but I was expecting that they would keep them sane as Blizzard promised. MC was ok at first and I started playing before BWL was released. MC gear was better but only somewhat and only for certain jobs. So it appeared as though they were keeping things reasonable and it seemed like 6 months was a reasonable amount of time to start seeing some trends. Generally in the past it seemed like Blizzard was more interested in making a fun above all other concerns. Keep in mind MC was released like two months after the game and by the 5/6 month mark I started MC gear was not that common and really a number of builds were just as good with a piecemeal set of blues from Dire Maul even though people chase after the Tier sets. So it seemed like things were going ok and I had a certain amount of respect for Blizzard's stated design goals and was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and take them at their word based on previous games.
But BWL made the leap to stupidity to stupidity about 3 months later and then AQ and then Naax showed that they had abolutely no intention whatsoever to follow through on keeping things reasonable and had essentially lied. Of course I was long gone by the time Naax came out. In fact I had switched to guild wars before AQ was released although I canceled my account a month after that patch.
It really took about 8-10 months after release for things to begin to get really out of hand as some top guild began to really get the BWL farming down and then another couple months for most people to realize that Blizzard was making their game worse and not better and had clearly showed every intention of making it even worse not matter what 80% of their players said.
There were people on the forums who about a month after the release of BWL were warning people, but at that point Blizzard could easily have put in another Dire Maul to keep things reasonable. It was AQ that was the true death knell and AQ came out 14 months after release. AQ proved to everyone who gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt that WoW was in fact an elaborate bait and switch. Right around January of 2005 there was no longer any debate and by March even the CMs could no longer deny that non-raiders would be completely screwed and simply resorted to banning and demeaning all dissenters on the forums. By that time no one even tried to make excuses anymore and those that did were laughed at. But right when the BWL was released it was actually easily possible that non-raiders could hve been kept within striking distance a couple months later.
It was not until about March or April that the Blizzard CMs were forced to admit that non-raiders would in fact not not be kept within reasonable range but would be made even more inferior and left to languish until the expansion came out. Between october 2004 for and march of 2005 a deliberate campaign of non-information and vague insinuations was waged by Blizzards PR department. They essentially prevaricated and strung a majority if their customers along for 5 months purposly never answering key content questions they clearly had decided many months previously. They had designed the game so that Dire Maul was the end and Naax would reward with gear that was literally double or triple in power and yet would never, ever acknowledge this until a forum mob essentially called them liars over and over again.
For a time after BWL was released it was easily possible that the original somewhat reasonable scheme established by MC may still be put back into place. Even though this had explicitly been designed by Blizzard to not be the case they allowed people to believe this may actually be the case for as long they could get away with it. For easily two months many people tried desparately to believe they would do such a thing because they genuinely liked Blizzard as a company.
They waged a deliberate campaign of deception and false hope to keep people who were unhappy playing and had every intention to not only make the situation worse, but to never even give non-raiders the extra content they had been promised.
Rob Pardo gave a recent in which AGC talk in which he sketched the entire design intentions of raiding as the "core" part of the game they had decided upon a crazy game ruining raid progression well before WoW's release and yet would never admit such a thing to anyone in anway. They purposely lied by omission and avoided direct questions about this trend so that they could bait and switch the non-raiders. They could have told people when MC was released that raids would be released with progressively better items and non-raids would never ever reward better than even the worst raid. They completely refused to be honest even when asked directly.
And that is why I was fooled. That is why at the 6 month point those of us who gave Blizzard the benefit of the doubt were fooled in the end. At that point it was reasonable, I knew raiders had to have better stuff or they would cry like the babies they are. I just thought Blizzard would reign them in and be responsible rather fall onto their knees give them a BJ. Afterall they had explicitly marketed WoW as non-catass and had promised to not reward raiding overly much in that NY Times article. Further they had a reputation for not bowing to pressure from interest groups. But they had always intended to wage a campaign of deception and were capable of keeping up the facade for alomst an entire year. The more savy people marked at about the 10 month point, for me it took about a month of doing the completely ruined PvP and gave up at the 11/12 month point and I really only stayed that long to get the complet PvP set. For others they still desparatly held on to believing Blizzard until march/april when they simply couldn't lie anymore.
Afterall they never got any confirmations of their fears (even though it had all been decided many months beforehand) and were desparate, so stringing them along with false hope was easy. Its the hallmark of any good con job. They were able to string me along for a couple months as I gave them some credit and really didn't run into the raid protion of the game until the last month or two. But for the more desparate the con job worked for another 6 months and even up to a year or more for some.
In a nutshell Blizzard a ran a very good con job.
Yes, its been said by us here and them there so many times its ridiculous:
Funcom is not Blizzard, and AoC is not WoW, and from what I read, been personally told, and have seen, the focus and core gameplay will be much more like Shadowbane with other things to do BESIDES PvP, than anything EQ/WoW/etc raid dynamic.
There will be NO SET GEAR to grind for.
PvE equipment will not be signifigant in PvP (of course you can use it, that sweet sword doesn't become a limp twig, but its not teh ubarpwner that will carry you though the batter even if you are a newb).
And there will be a purpose for playing at lvl 80, a purpose for PvP other than some other ladder grind, and a motivation to play beyond a sparkly lump of pixels.
Sure, people will farm for this or that, but there will be plenty of ways to farm for those who do that kind of thing that a raid that locks you into 6-8 hours and if you drop, or your healer/dps mage/whatever drops at hour 7 it was all in vain.
I understand your bitterness and mistrust, believe me, I share it, but nothing about this game bespoke "derivative" to me... (sure there are going to be a few old standard MMO themes), and definatly nothing to warrent this level of virulence.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Am I calling the AoC devs liars? No. But I have have seen too many inconsistencies and I believe that their initial design ideas are working from a rotten foundation. Like someone else mentioned they are just putting in hacks (such as raid exclusive crafting drops) to try to satsify the raiders thirst for power and yet try to convince others they are not being punished even though they are. Since they are already treading the slippery slope and since raides ALWAYS want more and more and are never satisfied and ALWAYS demand that their previous content never be invalidated by inferior non-raiders there is a cycle of progressive decline.
I only place any amount of confidence in Devs who take a firm stand and absolutely refuse to go past a certain point with raiding and the raiding babies who partake of the activity. But as I see it the Devs have alerady given tacit nod and approval towards implementing the downward spiral. I thought Blizzard was firm on drawing a reasonable line. I was wrong. Then they extended it into prolonged deception.
With Funcom I simply have no confidence that they want to or even see a need for such a thing. Even if their focus as you say, they are trying to serve multiple masters and have already agreed that one of those masters arguments are superior. Funcom has, in my opinion, certainly been more forthwright than Blizzard ever was or has been. I simply have no confidence that what they say will actually happen. They have already started the vicious cycle and have agreed that the justifications make sense. Therefore it will have the problems of other raiding games. Afterall raiding deserves to be better and if it isn't then what is the point? We all know it about more than just progression. They will be forced into a position of giving raiders the best rewards. Afterall they have stated that is their design philosophy. And since raiding is king all raids must be superior to everything else. Thus raid/non-raid gap will get worse and worse.
A bad model always comes back and bites you in the ass. And all the indications and argumetns I have seen indicate a high probability that in the end Funcom has bought into the arguments of raiders for why they desreve to be exalted. The implementation of the exaltation will eventually punish others because that is the whole point of it. Raiders must have peasants and all non-raiders must be peasants.
I am sure that the AoC Devs are interested in making good PvP and wish to allow PvP players to be good at PvP, but I have not seen them take any good stands on any of the slippery slope issues the way a team like Anet or CCP has. Granted Guild Wars is a very different game, but the pyschological aspects of the players are constant. They have multiple constiuencies that they are trying to cater too. But these constituencies are opposed and irreconcilable. And they have already acceded to the arguments of raiders. The question is not "Will they jump?", the question is merely "How high?".
And thus I will wait a year because whether it is because of dishonesty like in Blizzards case or design/psychology pitfalls as I suspect of Funcom that should be enough time for the bottom to fall out and the trends to become visible. And besides I have plenty of other things I can do with my time. It really is time for me to get back into fighting trim. MMORPGs are an investment. Time, money, and mentally. They are meant to be that way. If they are not an investment people get upset. This investment mentality is also why they really are more than just a service no matter what the EULA claims. For me, from what I have seen, and based upon my opinion and analysis AoC is not a safe investment yet. And I see no reason to make a risky investment as MMORPGs do not pay off big like some monetary investments.
Pantastic, the above is precisely what I was talking about earlier.
Ronan, a couple of facts for you:
The best gear WILL come from crafting, and not raids. The best crafting materials come from both raid drops and other sources, whether or not these drops will happen in a fashion that raiding is unnecessary has yet to be confirmed.
Raid gear will be at least close to equal to several other sources of lootable equipment.
Equipment does not make as big of a difference in this game, player skill is more important
PvP equipment bought with blood money is more usefull in PvP than anything gained through PvE
Raids themselves will not be the 40 man, 8 hour long nightmares you see in other games. The raid times devs are aiming at is around two hours.
Pantastic argues that even the slight advantage that MAY be in there for raid loot over other loot is unnacceptable. I continue to retort that nothing the devs have said confirmed such an advantage, and that they say just the opposite.
Gestalt is more concerned with Funcom shifting the focus, forcing the gap that once again MIGHT be in there wider and wider. I don't have much to say to this, I fully trust Funcom to stick to the straight and narrow, but cannot confer that trust to another.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Hemingway
You are holding AoC devs to an unreasonable standard that NO devs of ANY mmo EVER had followed.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Except that neither of you actually show me taking anything out of context. Pointing out a flaw in one part of an argument is not dropping context, and none of you have actually shown that there was some part of what he said that changes the meaning of what I quoted and responded to.
Telling someone who hates raiding and wants no part of it to go raidgrind is truly a brilliant response.
I never asked to downsize raiding to NOT be rewarding, merely to make it only as rewarding as other playstyles. As far as 'why not downsize grouping', because I enjoy group content and would be doing it regardless of whether it rewards better than other playstyles.
Of course, the real problem here and with your whole line of argument is that you're arguing that raiding should produce better rewards than other content, and the main point of discussion here is about whether or not that is true in AOC, not whether or not each of us likes it.
Really? That's news to me. Please lay out the chain of logic that gets you there, because I don't see it at all. My objection is to having the choice 'raid or be second class', I have at no point said that I have any problem with 'group or be second class'. I've said multiple times that I don't like raiding, but not a single time have I said I don't like grouping, thus I have no objection to it. I will not be raiding no matter what, but I'd be grouping even if I didn't need it for rewards.
Look, you quoted my response to this line of argument already, I'm not sure why you made this paragraph when a little ways down I answered it. "The challenge in raiding is getting enough people together, at the right time and place, and enduring the boredom of coordinating a large herd of people. If that sort of boring crap is the source of the 'difficult problem' that they're going to reward better, then I have no desire to play the game. Solving differential equations or filling out tax forms is far harder than anything you do in a game like this, but if a game rewarded solving differential equations or filling in tax forms better than actual funontent I wouldn't want to play it either."
While a lot of current MMORPGs follow a flawed patter, it isn't that more time and effort invested results in better rewards. It's either simply more time results in better awards (like grinding) or more time in gigantic mobs results in better rewards (raiding). Plus, the concept behing MMORPGs is to have a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game; roleplaying games are not actually about mindlessly grinding or raiding for days, weeks, and months on-end.
Then why are you looking at a game based on CONAN of all people; in how many conan books or even in the movies did he do anything remotely like an MMORPG raid? Sometimes he'd lead armies, but he was always the hero, he never was just a cog in a 15/25/40 man cluster of people all with roughly his own ability level.
You didn't say 'without any real effort', you said 'from a solo encounter'. It's easy to make difficult solo content or easy raid content, the number of people doesn't affect much about the in-game difficulty.
And it's exactly why I will keep posting about this game. Ronan32 might have been suckered into blowing his money on a raid game, now he can make an informed decision. He can read through your post and note how convoluted it is, how it dances around the key issue just like dev comments do. All he has to do is read your post to see confirmation.
I mean, you admit that the devs have explicitly said that the best items will come from crafting, but that they have refused to confirm whether or not those items will require raid drops to make. I think it's pretty obvious why they chose to confirm one solidly but not the other, and I'm sure ronan32 is clever enough to read ALL of the comments here and see what they really mean.
It may shock you realize this Pantastic but I totally agree:
Spamming your heal/taunt/DPS spell/whatever is not harder or take more skill [raid]
Spending 8 hours doing a chain quest should give you the same % chance to get tha same kind of uber drops and an 8 hour raid
There should be plenty of stuff for people who are never going to raid, but in AoC there will be.
Raid gear should not overbalance PvP, and HAS specifically been said it wouldn't.
Now wether they fail and need to rebalance or not, I don't think the devs are flat out lying.
This isn't WoW, so don't rag on it liek it will be the same no matter how many times the dev get pissed at having to hear that same stupid comparison over and over until we all get to beta/release...
And don't say "well is AoC wasn't like WoW they wouldn't hear that..."
You have been on this forum long enough that you know WoW kiddies, or people who's forst MMO that was, throw that at EVERY game
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Funny how none of you manage to quote their answer to it.
Yet somehow they've been willing to state explicitly that the best equipment in the game will be crafted (though not whether that crafting will require raid drops). They've been willing to state that raiding gear will not be 50 times as good as nonraid gear and that it will not let raiders WTFPWN nonraiders, but are silent on whether it will be better or not. And they have stated explicitly that raiding is harder than group content, and that the greater difficulty will be rewarded. That's an awful lot of specific statements on related things but somehow not a specific comment on the core issue here; it's easy to infer what that means.
And it's not like 'will raiding gear be better than nonraiding gear in this game' is a trade secret or involves overcomittment.