Originally posted by gestalt11Your argument can be summed up to the folllowing. This won't be as bad because their raiding will actually be fun. Therefore it is ok that those who choose not to participate in it will be punished.
/snip
No, you miss the point. My argument is that just because there is Raiding in this game, doesn't mean it takes precedence over the rest of the game. And also doesn't mean that it'll be exactly like what we find in WoW or before that, Everquest. That raiding in this game is mostly about the PvE RTS gameplay.
And also that it is now known that raiding WILL NOT provide the best gear, crafting will. Though some of the components needed to make the best gear may be rare, possibly dropping in Raid situations (IE gotten off boss mobs in the PvE RTS encounters.)
This is NOT WoW so please stop assuming every game mechanic found in both games must be identical to (the generally fubar) WoWs.
The end game is GvG PvP based upon concurring territory and resources and holding said territory and/or resources for your guild. Beyond that the focus of the game is NOT GEAR. Despite what Jayde said months ago, he doesn't have final say on anything and apparently these early thoughts were out-voted.
Unlike other upcomming MMOG's, *cough*WAR*cough*, Funcom isn't trying to make a clone here, but to bring something new to the genre, make their own game unrestricted from what confines and constrictions the industry wants to place on them, or the 'safe road' that so many have taken to now saturate the industry, as has been said by the devs on MANY occasions. Yes the means to make the best stuff will be raid exclsuive drops. That is not acceptable. Raids don't deserve the best stuff. It has been as closed to confirmed as possible that they will have exclusive purview of at least some subset of the best stuff. In addition they also get the best drops.
So they have the best drops and the best crafting. Crafting may make better stuff, but they have the best of both worlds because they get the best crafting stuff and the best non-crafting stuff.
Clearly raiders are rewarded with superior stuff there is simply no arguing that. the best you can ever hope to argue is taht non-raiders may at least be able to buy this stuff. Well screw that. Raiders don't deserve to be rewarded better.
Rewards are a key part of these games. People should be able to play how they like and not cajoled into raiding if they want to be rewarded with cool stuff.
PS. You are the one stuck on WoW, my argument does not require WoW or any other game. Exclusuive superior raiding rewards have been stated to most likely be part of the game. Rewards are important in PvE. Any honest designers will tell you that they use them to direct player behavior.
Yes the means to make the best stuff will be raid exclsuive drops. That is not acceptable. Raids don't deserve the best stuff. It has been as closed to confirmed as possible that they will have exclusive purview of at least some subset of the best stuff. In addition they also get the best drops.
So they have the best drops and the best crafting. Crafting may make better stuff, but they have the best of both worlds because they get the best crafting stuff and the best non-crafting stuff.
Clearly raiders are rewarded with superior stuff there is simply no arguing that. the best you can ever hope to argue is taht non-raiders may at least be able to buy this stuff. Well screw that. Raiders don't deserve to be rewarded better.
Rewards are a key part of these games. People should be able to play how they like and not cajoled into raiding if they want to be rewarded with cool stuff.
PS. You are the one stuck on WoW, my argument does not require WoW or any other game. Exclusuive superior raiding rewards have been stated to most likely be part of the game. Rewards are important in PvE. Any honest designers will tell you that they use them to direct player behavior.
Holy crap can you get any less shakable on this?
Did you ever play Anarchy Online or Star Wars Galaxies? These two games had fairlysimilar 'loot' systems when it came to the best gear in the game.
In Anarchy Online the best weapons and armor were crafted from various components. Some of those were purchasable, others required you to kill certain mobs that dropped certain pieces. Once in a while, those certain mobs would be within one of the many high end dungeons or (with the case of Shadowlands) high end zones that you could only get into after completing certain quest lines.
You would think this left out most people, but surprisingly it didn't. Because many of those 'rare' components sold on the open market. So even if you NEVER went into dungeons and you NEVER got into those high end Shadowlands zones, you could still get some sweet stuff. For example, my main in AO was a Fixer and I never got past level 140 (out of 220). I never got passed the 3rd zone in Shadowlands, yet I still managed to equip a QL200 Perrenial(sp) SMG. I bought some of the parts, I got those I could get at my level and I had a high level guild mate put it all together. I had one of the best Fixer guns in the game. Not 'the' best, but right up there, and I was a long way from being able to enter the top end dungeons and zones.
Now SWG, pre-NGE (which took place about a year and a half ago) there were few dungeons, but all the best stuff, well nearly everything in the game actually, was crafted. The game didn't have a whole lot of 'instances' though it had it's share of dungeons. Mostly high end content was found by exploring various planets. Drops were more random but still certain things were found in certain mobs. Just like in Anarchy Online. But still, you could always get the best stuff if you worked at it and you never HAD to get it by doing that top 5% of content. You could often buy parts. Sure you might pay a bunch, but it was often worth it. SWG worked VERY differently then most games, similar to old Ultima Online, but still quite different from that even.
So please.. get out of the mindset that any game that has a mechanic that WoW has, it must be just as deplorably unbalanced and screwed up, catering only to that top 5% of players. Many a MMOG has broken the mold and done things differently, often far superior to the similar mechanic in WoW.
Age of Conan is one of those games. As I stated before part of 'raiding' in Age of Conan has to do with raising the enemy PvE towns that slowly build up and try to vie for your towns resources and eventually get big enough they attack the players town. But the players has to raise their town and kill the leaders, IE the RTS element.
Sure there will be some instances. But to automatically assume that they must be identical to WoW catering to the top 5% of players and dismissing all the others. Being extremely gear focused and thus terribly unbalanced. There is no way to justify such narrow views, unless you've never played any MMOG's besides WoW and thus haven't the experience enough to realize that the BEST MMOG's are often nothing like that.
I am unsure why you are arrgoant enough to believe that since I do not like having gameplay control the supply of important componenents that I therefore must be ignorant.
I am happy you like AO's system. I do not. You seem to think its equitable. I do not think it is. Fine non-raiders can have access to stuff if its put on the market. The possiblity of access is not the same as equitable.
I do not belive this system is equitable. I will not participate in a non-equitable system. Can I get any less shakable? No I cannot and will not participate in an obviously inequitable system.
Prove that it is equitable. Prove that a group gameplay person has the same opportunities that a raider does. You won't be able to do so because we already know raiders will have extra stuff.
Maybe the degree of inequitiy is ok by you. That is fine, but for me its not good enough.
It's not arrogance, it's a difference of opinion. Believe it or not however, I share part of your opinion with you. I originally left Anarchy Online because of the rift between the haves and have nots. Just like in WoW, AO slowly became a game about gear. You had the best gear or you didn't. Those who did were considered 'better' then those who didn't. With fixers for one, if you didn't use Grid Armor, you were somehow less a fixer. That was complete crap, and one of the reasons I left.
WoW is even more hardcore on this situation. But I choose not to let it bother me that much. I still had tuns of gameplay to go through so I didn't care if I didn't have the best gear or if my class wasn't the most 'uber.' Once this content was run through and the only thing left for me was to take on the game as a job to become a 'haves' player, I left that game too.
The thing is, nearly every game has this in one sense or another. It's inescapable. I just chose to not let myself get bothered by it and to enjoy the games I choose to play instead of completely avoiding them because of that. The only MMOG I know of without this is City of Heroes/Villains, but thats because there is no real loot to the game.
What I find unshakable about your opinion is that Age of Conan isn't even out yet. We know so little about the game that I find it amazing that someone can chock it up to another WoW clone with all the problems attributed to it. It has raiding, oh that means it must be just like WoW's and that means it must be all about gear and that the top 5% of raiders have all the good stuff and the rest of us get the crap at the bottom.
I'm I the arrogant one for being open minded about a game that isn't out yet. Or are you the arrogant one assuming the worst about a game with 6 months of development left and no real details on said games mechanics. I'm sure in the end we'll both believe what we choose to believe, no matter who's right or who's wrong, if either of us are in the end. I'm just saying instead of writing the game off as a WoW clone with huge imbalances related to gear and 'power' within the game, at least give the developers the courtesy to release the facts before you jump the gun, again.
Some of the Devs have said with as much certainty as they do for anything that some of the best drops and certain high end crafting components will only be avaialbe in raids. You even acknowledged this in a previous post. How is this jumping the gun?
There is simply no arguing that this is a source of inequity and I see no reason to doubt them.
Not only have they said this, they have purposely avoided giving out a simple assurance that this is not the case when asked directly. I have read Sturmrabe's posts on the official forums. And he was being very a reasonable.
Obviously they can change whatever they like before release. But they have given very good indications that they intend to put in this inequity and no indication that they have any intention of insuring equal opportunities. In fact they have purposely and stubbornly refused to make any statements that they wish for any sort of gameplay opportunity equity even when asked directly in multiple threads. Even though they responded in those threads.
The only assurance they have given is they intend all aspects to be fun. That is all well and fine, but that is not my issue and it is not good enough for me since this issue makes games no longer fun.
I have played many MMORPGs. In fact Ihave played more than 10 different MMORPGs. I know enough to say that for me, gameplay inequity is always distasteful no matter the form. AoC will not pull off gameplay inequity "done right" because it is always wrong. Since the gameplay inequity has resonable and documented indications for being part of their design this is a problem for me.
Goin gon the information I currently have for AoC I will not be playing this game. Information I have gotten from developer quotes.
Comments
And also that it is now known that raiding WILL NOT provide the best gear, crafting will. Though some of the components needed to make the best gear may be rare, possibly dropping in Raid situations (IE gotten off boss mobs in the PvE RTS encounters.)
This is NOT WoW so please stop assuming every game mechanic found in both games must be identical to (the generally fubar) WoWs.
The end game is GvG PvP based upon concurring territory and resources and holding said territory and/or resources for your guild. Beyond that the focus of the game is NOT GEAR. Despite what Jayde said months ago, he doesn't have final say on anything and apparently these early thoughts were out-voted.
Unlike other upcomming MMOG's, *cough*WAR*cough*, Funcom isn't trying to make a clone here, but to bring something new to the genre, make their own game unrestricted from what confines and constrictions the industry wants to place on them, or the 'safe road' that so many have taken to now saturate the industry, as has been said by the devs on MANY occasions. Yes the means to make the best stuff will be raid exclsuive drops. That is not acceptable. Raids don't deserve the best stuff. It has been as closed to confirmed as possible that they will have exclusive purview of at least some subset of the best stuff. In addition they also get the best drops.
So they have the best drops and the best crafting. Crafting may make better stuff, but they have the best of both worlds because they get the best crafting stuff and the best non-crafting stuff.
Clearly raiders are rewarded with superior stuff there is simply no arguing that. the best you can ever hope to argue is taht non-raiders may at least be able to buy this stuff. Well screw that. Raiders don't deserve to be rewarded better.
Rewards are a key part of these games. People should be able to play how they like and not cajoled into raiding if they want to be rewarded with cool stuff.
PS. You are the one stuck on WoW, my argument does not require WoW or any other game. Exclusuive superior raiding rewards have been stated to most likely be part of the game. Rewards are important in PvE. Any honest designers will tell you that they use them to direct player behavior.
Did you ever play Anarchy Online or Star Wars Galaxies? These two games had fairlysimilar 'loot' systems when it came to the best gear in the game.
In Anarchy Online the best weapons and armor were crafted from various components. Some of those were purchasable, others required you to kill certain mobs that dropped certain pieces. Once in a while, those certain mobs would be within one of the many high end dungeons or (with the case of Shadowlands) high end zones that you could only get into after completing certain quest lines.
You would think this left out most people, but surprisingly it didn't. Because many of those 'rare' components sold on the open market. So even if you NEVER went into dungeons and you NEVER got into those high end Shadowlands zones, you could still get some sweet stuff. For example, my main in AO was a Fixer and I never got past level 140 (out of 220). I never got passed the 3rd zone in Shadowlands, yet I still managed to equip a QL200 Perrenial(sp) SMG. I bought some of the parts, I got those I could get at my level and I had a high level guild mate put it all together. I had one of the best Fixer guns in the game. Not 'the' best, but right up there, and I was a long way from being able to enter the top end dungeons and zones.
Now SWG, pre-NGE (which took place about a year and a half ago) there were few dungeons, but all the best stuff, well nearly everything in the game actually, was crafted. The game didn't have a whole lot of 'instances' though it had it's share of dungeons. Mostly high end content was found by exploring various planets. Drops were more random but still certain things were found in certain mobs. Just like in Anarchy Online. But still, you could always get the best stuff if you worked at it and you never HAD to get it by doing that top 5% of content. You could often buy parts. Sure you might pay a bunch, but it was often worth it. SWG worked VERY differently then most games, similar to old Ultima Online, but still quite different from that even.
So please.. get out of the mindset that any game that has a mechanic that WoW has, it must be just as deplorably unbalanced and screwed up, catering only to that top 5% of players. Many a MMOG has broken the mold and done things differently, often far superior to the similar mechanic in WoW.
Age of Conan is one of those games. As I stated before part of 'raiding' in Age of Conan has to do with raising the enemy PvE towns that slowly build up and try to vie for your towns resources and eventually get big enough they attack the players town. But the players has to raise their town and kill the leaders, IE the RTS element.
Sure there will be some instances. But to automatically assume that they must be identical to WoW catering to the top 5% of players and dismissing all the others. Being extremely gear focused and thus terribly unbalanced. There is no way to justify such narrow views, unless you've never played any MMOG's besides WoW and thus haven't the experience enough to realize that the BEST MMOG's are often nothing like that.
I am unsure why you are arrgoant enough to believe that since I do not like having gameplay control the supply of important componenents that I therefore must be ignorant.
I am happy you like AO's system. I do not. You seem to think its equitable. I do not think it is. Fine non-raiders can have access to stuff if its put on the market. The possiblity of access is not the same as equitable.
I do not belive this system is equitable. I will not participate in a non-equitable system. Can I get any less shakable? No I cannot and will not participate in an obviously inequitable system.
Prove that it is equitable. Prove that a group gameplay person has the same opportunities that a raider does. You won't be able to do so because we already know raiders will have extra stuff.
Maybe the degree of inequitiy is ok by you. That is fine, but for me its not good enough.
There is simply no arguing that this is a source of inequity and I see no reason to doubt them.
Not only have they said this, they have purposely avoided giving out a simple assurance that this is not the case when asked directly. I have read Sturmrabe's posts on the official forums. And he was being very a reasonable.
Obviously they can change whatever they like before release. But they have given very good indications that they intend to put in this inequity and no indication that they have any intention of insuring equal opportunities. In fact they have purposely and stubbornly refused to make any statements that they wish for any sort of gameplay opportunity equity even when asked directly in multiple threads. Even though they responded in those threads.
The only assurance they have given is they intend all aspects to be fun. That is all well and fine, but that is not my issue and it is not good enough for me since this issue makes games no longer fun.
I have played many MMORPGs. In fact Ihave played more than 10 different MMORPGs. I know enough to say that for me, gameplay inequity is always distasteful no matter the form. AoC will not pull off gameplay inequity "done right" because it is always wrong. Since the gameplay inequity has resonable and documented indications for being part of their design this is a problem for me.
Goin gon the information I currently have for AoC I will not be playing this game. Information I have gotten from developer quotes.