This is merely a case of lack of competition and lock-step design. We won't KNOW the answer until someone tries it. Let's face it WoW is heavily based on the EQ model even down to the raiding.
The only thing that can be said with much certainty is that in this specific genre of level grind item-centric MMORPGs the introduction of raiding has hurt one game and removing that content helped that game. This game is DAoC. But no one else has ever released a game with raid and non-raid servers. And other than DAoC no one has realeased a raid server and then released a non-raid server.
DAoC would indicate that it is a good idea with its classic servers, but that is muddled up with possible dislike of other content additions or just plain nostalgia. It is certainly a stronger indication than "We know most people in WoW dislike raiding but they tolerate it". But until we see actual competition between raid and raid-disabled we rather than rollbacks to pre-expansion, won't really know.
Further WoW also indicates that disabling raid content is a no-loss proposition since at least 75% of people have never even bothered to finish the first raid instance much less step foot in the next 3. And probably easily half the player population doesn't raid at all. Clearly for half the population disabling the raid content has no effect at all, well it might make the economy better. But it wouldn't effect content utilization. Raid content is already poorly unitlized when measured by population rather than time.
However I would be willing to bet quite a good amount of money that if WoW did create a raid disabled server set that had its own non-raid only BG section it would be immensly popular. Server crashingly popular. And I would go so far as to say the introduction of such a thing would cause quite a number of old canceled subs to be reactivated.
So yes it is certainly not clear at all whether raids are tolerable or necessary or whatever else, because there is not competition of variance in the rather stagnant MMORPG market. If there were competition though there is some indication from DAoC that raids would do rather poorly. However even if they are tolerated but hated, the WoW show there is no real reason to even force that toleration and nothing is gained by it since a quite large portion of your customers will never use it even if you do incentivize them. And it should be inarguable that WoW heavily incentivizes people to raid.
PvP was not always a necessary part of MMORPGs but more and more almost all MMORPGs are beginning to at least put in some sort of features a long those lines in some way. Simply because those who don't can't really compete. PvP is by far the major alternate ruleset in a large portion of MMORPG. Initially EQ had no PvP but due to DAoC and UO they created it. It may be the case that in the future it is as Anofayle says and those who don't offer a non-raid alternative will find themselves struggling to compete jsut like those who do not offer PvP. Or It may not be that way. We simply don't know and we won't know until there is competition.
But even though we don't know whether it is or will be NECESSARY it does seem like there is a quite a bit of data to show it may at least be worth a try to run a raid-disabled server. There are two very good reasons for this:
1) Its almost trivial to do and trivial to switch it back to a normal server. Therefore costs almost nothing. 2) There are clearly many people who are unhappy with raiding going all the way back to EQ days. And there is clearly an increased awareness of the dislike of raiding due to WoW. And the DAoC classic servers are existant business model with sufficent history and similarity to justify giving this outcry some credence.
So you may be able to try to satisfy a need at almost no risk. And if it turns out that need was just a bunch of people who don't know what they were asking for and are disatisfied you could turn it back into a normal server in a day by changing a configuration file.
So if Sigil does in fact release a non-raid server, which I will reiterate I do not expect they will do. Then we can at last see some competition and better be able to see if the DAoC classic server effect is nostalgia or mudflation or raids. Of course we would still need a number of other games to do the same thing to really get good data. And then see what happens to people who only offer raid servers or never offer and raiding and see if they have serious trouble competing. The most interesting thing would be to see if raiding even mattered at all. Would those game which never offered raiding struggle or do the same as those games that offered both? Clearly some people like to raid but would they tolerate not having raids in exchange for other things, like the groupers are currently tolerating raiders in WoW because they like WoW even if they never actually play a very large portion of the post release content additions.
Now THAT was an excellent arguement, and a great discussion thread in itself. Good read, and TY.
For consideration I suggest reading the various threads regarding some possiblities for raiding that the Vanguard Devs & Forum Vets have been considering / discussing. Probably the most interesting concepts were:
A "chest" system like DDO. This would allow ALL that finish a raid to partake in the loot, and reduce campers & resellers.
To have the highest Raid Loot be awarded from a Quest reward menu from a NPC, allowing flexability in rewards.
Another was to have "safe zones" to allow players to rest (and possibly leave the raid & return to that spot) or log out, and still be able to continue the raid. This concept was brought forward to take the "endlessness" out of raiding, as well reduce camping by making it a more common choice in adventuring.
To "stage" raids in smaller "parts" to keep the adventure of them, but allow those who play less time at once to participate.
Have "Lock-Out timers on the NPC's that start some Raids to reduce camping & reselling.
Honestly, I may hate raiding, but if it was done well, it could be quite enjoyable as a part of the over all content.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
Originally posted by oakthornn Z80, That is the most ridiculous request I've ever heard anyone ask before.. Vanguard clearly follows the roots of EQ my friend..What was EQ famous for exactly??? RAIDING END GAME CONTENT FOR UNIQUE AND GREAT TREASURES!!!! Vanguard will live and die based on how good the end game "RAID" content is.. This game is for hardcore power gamers,not casual gamers with little time to play.. "TRUST ME" Once you get high enough level,ALL of the faithful Vanguard gamers will EXPECT more.. This is where the END GAME content comes into play.. If there is no raiding,well the game will have no followers except for maybe u and a few other pansies.. It will be considered a failure if there were no raiding.. And theres no way there would ever be a "no raiding server" lol The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks
Relax my friend. MX13 already cleared me up on Vanguard. I no longer hold the belief that Vanguard will absolutely force you to raid to avoid having a gimped toon. Am I skeptical? Sure...but that's normal for someone to be skeptical until they actually get deep into the actual game. But the record has been set straight. And my whole OP was written in support of the second half of your post.
"The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks"
I agree with that fully. If you reread my OP carefully you can see that that was my main point. And you are absolutely right. And for the record, I don't hate all raiding. They are fun for me the first 4 times. I also feel that raiding has it's place as well. I just don't like forced raiding, especially when you must do the same raid 40 or more times to get all your gear out of it. Also different people have their own Idea of what non-raiding server will be and for me that meant a server that had raiding but wasn't required to have top tier gear or some statistical equivalent. My point was that it's better to support a different game than make such a request..so basically, I agree with you.
I totally agree with the OP. I don't care if it has as little solo options as EQ had. I do care about raiding. I won't play a game where raids are more important than skill based grouping. In raids people can slack and the raid can still win. Not so in challenging group settings.
If Vanguard's raiding resemble's EQs or WoWs I will not be playing. By that I mean the raid items dictate the game's balance. Raiding should dictate raid balance not group balance, imo.
Z80, That is the most ridiculous request I've ever heard anyone ask before.. Vanguard clearly follows the roots of EQ my friend..What was EQ famous for exactly??? RAIDING END GAME CONTENT FOR UNIQUE AND GREAT TREASURES!!!! Vanguard will live and die based on how good the end game "RAID" content is.. This game is for hardcore power gamers,not casual gamers with little time to play.. "TRUST ME" Once you get high enough level,ALL of the faithful Vanguard gamers will EXPECT more.. This is where the END GAME content comes into play.. If there is no raiding,well the game will have no followers except for maybe u and a few other pansies.. It will be considered a failure if there were no raiding.. And theres no way there would ever be a "no raiding server" lol The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks
Relax my friend. MX13 already cleared me up on Vanguard. I no longer hold the belief that Vanguard will absolutely force you to raid to avoid having a gimped toon. Am I skeptical? Sure...but that's normal for someone to be skeptical until they actually get deep into the actual game. But the record has been set straight. And my whole OP was written in support of the second half of your post.
"The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks"
I agree with that fully. If you reread my OP carefully you can see that that was my main point. And you are absolutely right. And for the record, I don't hate all raiding. They are fun for me the first 4 times. I also feel that raiding has it's place as well. I just don't like forced raiding, especially when you must do the same raid 40 or more times to get all your gear out of it. Also different people have their own Idea of what non-raiding server will be and for me that meant a server that had raiding but wasn't required to have top tier gear or some statistical equivalent. My point was that it's better to support a different game than make such a request..so basically, I agree with you.
/agree
Well said.
Skepticism is healthy regarding games in closed Beta...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
This is merely a case of lack of competition and lock-step design. We won't KNOW the answer until someone tries it. Let's face it WoW is heavily based on the EQ model even down to the raiding.
The only thing that can be said with much certainty is that in this specific genre of level grind item-centric MMORPGs the introduction of raiding has hurt one game and removing that content helped that game. This game is DAoC. But no one else has ever released a game with raid and non-raid servers. And other than DAoC no one has realeased a raid server and then released a non-raid server.
well yes, I'm sure if a game was designed with no raiding and had all the right elements involved it could be extremely successful, and your right this has not been done yet.
but using Daoc as an example actually reintegrates my argument, first of all the classic Daoc servers have nowhere near "more people playing than all the other servers combined".
yes there are more people playing the classic servers but not by that much...not only that but you would think out of all the old skool games like eq and Daoc, that Daoc would have by far the most players (using Anofalye's argument here) because of the non-raiding servers.
but that is defiantly not the case, Daoc has nowhere near the player base that eq has to this day. the point is raiding is not the deciding factor of what makes these games popular like Anofalye suggests, not even close.
but yet he acts as if it is a fact that if vanguard had non-raiding servers it would have 500K users and if not less than 50k, i strongly disagree with that logic and i think its unbelievable that anybody buys into that BS to be honest.
again, i do not doubt that there are lots of people that don't like to raid....but the majority of those people are not going to let that stop them from enjoying the rest of the game, that ofcource is not a fact just an opinion but i think the success of wow would tell you that most people are willing to put up with raiding in their game even if they don't like it.
Originally posted by baphamet Originally posted by gestalt11This is merely a case of lack of competition and lock-step design. We won't KNOW the answer until someone tries it. Let's face it WoW is heavily based on the EQ model even down to the raiding.The only thing that can be said with much certainty is that in this specific genre of level grind item-centric MMORPGs the introduction of raiding has hurt one game and removing that content helped that game. This game is DAoC. But no one else has ever released a game with raid and non-raid servers. And other than DAoC no one has realeased a raid server and then released a non-raid server.
well yes, I'm sure if a game was designed with no raiding and had all the right elements involved it could be extremely successful, and your right this has not been done yet.
but using Daoc as an example actually reintegrates my argument, first of all the classic Daoc servers have nowhere near "more people playing than all the other servers combined".
yes there are more people playing the classic servers but not by that much...not only that but you would think out of all the old skool games like eq and Daoc, that Daoc would have by far the most players (using Anofalye's argument here) because of the non-raiding servers.
but that is defiantly not the case, Daoc has nowhere near the player base that eq has to this day. the point is raiding is not the deciding factor of what makes these games popular like Anofalye suggests, not even close.
but yet he acts as if it is a fact that if vanguard had non-raiding servers it would have 500K users and if not less than 50k, i strongly disagree with that logic and i think its unbelievable that anybody buys into that BS to be honest.
again, i do not doubt that there are lots of people that don't like to raid....but the majority of those people are not going to let that stop them from enjoying the rest of the game, that ofcource is not a fact just an opinion but i think the success of wow would tell you that most people are willing to put up with raiding in their game even if they don't like it.
Unfortunately the classic servers of DAoC do not support much in the way of arguments since we cannot really isolate what is going on. The fact is there are many factors involved. The classic servers involve more than just a lack of raiding. And the retention of the non-classic servers also involves more than raiding. Further the classic servers are very late in the game addition and have to compete with a juggernaut.
There are far too many variables involed to isolate raiding out from there. The analysis you are making a perfunctionary attempt at is not really useful because we could each of us come up with 4 or more reasons for the population numbers and they may even all be valid.
However we do know that the classic servers have been successful and that they have succeeded in bringing back former players and even managed to bring in some new people to the game. Anecdotally one of the major factors for their success has been the lack of raiding.
It could even be the case that there are more people playing classic servers then current servers merely because of nostalgia and that it is only natural that such an old game is now getting more profit on the nostalgia than on servers trying to compete with WoW.
However it is inarguable that the classic servers are a case where non-raiding servers in a game that has raids can be successful enough to fill up a decent amount of servers. Any analysis past that would be close to pointless due to the inability to isolate the many other factors involved.
To actually do the analysis you are proposing and be abel to have it be useful we would need something on the order of a raid-disabled and raid-enabled server at release with out all the extra complications of expansions, character investment, customer alienation, the lack of raids at original release etc.
If Sigil did something like that and the non-raid servers were 50/50. That would certainly be interesting. But even then we would still need more data from other games. Because lets face it, Vanguard is most likely to attract many of the original uber-raiders from EQ and will certainly be vulnerable to baised sampling argument. Now if both AoC and Vanguard released both types of servers and they both had a 75/25 split (one way or the other) that would certainly be pretty hard to argue with I would think.
As for Anofayle if you haven't figured out by now that he likes to make absolute statements and play the part of the revolutionary, well I can't help you
As for Anofayle if you haven't figured out by now that he likes to make absolute statements and play the part of the revolutionary, well I can't help you
oh yes, i know his posting style quite well
i don't disagree with anything you are saying, we really don't know how successful a new game would be without raiding in the design. the only thing we do know for certain is games can be and are very successful with raiding on each and every server.
I like to play solo and have online ppl too so i can interact with them when i want instead of just npcs.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
Originally posted by z80paranoia neanderthal : I'm going to destroy your entire argument at the base right now. This is where it started and the flaws that your entire argument is based on shall be made clear and thus render your whole argument moot. It is moot because it is based on an irrelevant and fallacious premise.
Originally posted by Neanderthal Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too. Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it.
your argument is based on two fallacious points:
1."Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too." I never said in my OP or any post after it that LoTRO would not have raiding. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I said that LoTRO would not have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming LoTRO would not have raiding?
2."Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it." I never claimed that there was any sort of game coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding in my OP. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I actually claimed that there was an mmo coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming an mmo was coming out in the near future that will not have raiding?
Then you follow up with more logical fallacies and fallacious red herring lines of questioning based not on my actual claims but on uncontested (and therefore irrelevant) points that have no baring on the validity of my actual claims. A valid point is a point that counters an actual claim explicitly made by your opponent. You on the otherhand have been focusing your questions on points that while mostly in and of themselves true are not valid attacks against my claims because they attack positions I never claimed in the first place. Now if you ever decide to attack my argument with questions that question any actual claim that I have made explicitly, then we can go at it...until then you are just wasting my time with your irrelevant garbage red herring questions and statements.
Yak, yak, yak....you talk and you talk but you don't say anything pertinent to the issue at hand.
You claimed that LotR would be a good game for solo and group players who don't want to be second class citizens and who want to be just as good as raiders. Why don't you try to support that claim for a while instead of attacking me with blizzards of wordy text. All you do is bitch about me asking questions instead of trying to actually answer any of my questions.
I explained in another post why the mere presence of raiding in the game will inevitably make it a game which favors raiders and I asked you to explain how they intended to avoid that; a reality which we have seen played out in numerous games in the past. To avoid the same thing happening in LotR they would have to have some completely new idea which has never been seen before in a game and I eagerly await hearing about it.
To date the only explanation you have offered is that the motivation for raiding will not be better rewards but will be "fun". If that's the best you can come up with then it's no suprise that you would rather attack me than actually try to support your claim. In case you hadn't noticed, all developers claim that all content in their games is "fun".
The link I gave has a statement by (LoTRO Content Designer) Jared Hall-Dugas, and he clearly states ..."we are not forcing casual players to participate in raids" Wow, imagine a dev saying people won't be forced to raid. All developers of games with raiding say this. And technically it's true, I've never had a dev stand behind me with a gun to my head and force me to participate in a raid. But that doesn't mean that non-raiders will be able to advance their characters just as far as raiders. And it doesn't mean that non-raid content won't peter out at high levels, leaving the non-raider with no rewarding content to do. I even posted another quote from Jared Hall Dugas "Unique refers to the only place you can get said sword, armor, etc. We use comparable to say that while you may not be able to get the exact +400 uber sword of death that you can get in a Raid, you might get a +410 uber sword of smiting. And yes, crafters should be able to make some darn cool stuff..."
He clearly illustrates by the numbers that the intent is to allow non-raiders to get gear that is on par with raid gear.
Ah, but does he really? It is certainly intended to give that impression to people who want to believe that. But if you read the quote he doesn't actually say that non-raiders will get gear that is on a par with raid gear. All he does is offer up two hypothetical items with some undefined numbers associated with them. But he doesn't describe the items and he doesn't say what the numbers pertain to. The raid item is the "sword of death +400" and the non-raid item is the "sword of smiting +410". But what does that mean? For all the information he gave it could mean anything anyone wants it to mean. It's intentionally vague for just that reason. For all I know the Sword of Death might do ten times more damage than the Sword of Smiting. The Sword of Death might have a insta-death proc while the Sword of Smiting has .5 second stun proc. The +400 on the Sword of Death might be +400 strenght while the +410 on the Sword of Smiting might be +410 to your flower sniffing skill. We can't know because he didn't say. This sort of intentional vagueness is a common tactic on the part of developers. It's like a horoscope, so vague that you can read into it whatever you want to. Again, my point for the thread was to advise others to support a game that is already what they are looking for in a game (no forced raiding to have a top geared toon in this case)... Ah, good, I'm glad you said that. And you indicated that LotR was such a game. Now that you have defined what your point was would you please try to support said point? So far you have offered one meaningless dev quote and the idea that the motivation for raiding will be "fun". Got anything else?
Dont matter what yall say, Vanguard is gonna be a KICK ASS GAME! . even if ya guys r complainin, I bet 60% of u that say u arent gonna play it cuz they dont have non-raidin servers, I bet you will . They have so many features and its such a good game.
Originally posted by baphamet Originally posted by gestalt11As for Anofayle if you haven't figured out by now that he likes to make absolute statements and play the part of the revolutionary, well I can't help you
oh yes, i know his posting style quite well
i don't disagree with anything you are saying, we really don't know how successful a new game would be without raiding in the design. the only thing we do know for certain is games can be and are very successful with raiding on each and every server.
Actually it is entirely possible that in a few years this may turn into something that is no longer true. It would be a mistake to assume raid games are a safe choice. In fact I think raiding is WoW's biggest weakness. If their were truly viable competition that offered a similar experience to WoW and offered both raiding and non-raiding servers. I believe many people would flee WoW and the trend would go the other way. However very few games offer the smooth experience WoW does. The main reason for success in WoW is the smooth experience. A smooth experience is a actually very rare in the software world and highly contributes to the success of a product. People get frustrated easily and if they are frustrated before they become invested they will drop a game like a rock. Just like people a on a first date you must oput your best foot forward. And like dating initially substance is not what is important. And even more like dating once they start looking into the substance they just complain and try to change the other and don't actually leave. WoW keeps things nice and smooth and glosses over all the many problems of the game. Not only most games but most software in general do not do this well. And it is incredibly important, if you want people to like something minimize their frustration. They don't need you and they will drop you like a rock.
Since that kind of expereince is very rare and generates a sort of Mac hype/loyalty effect there are currently no true competitiors to WoW. But if there was something viably competitive in that regard that also offered a raid and and non-raid server set I would predict massive losses from WoW within a year solely because of that issue. Unfortunately that will not happen anytime soon.
Just like DAoC threatened EQ with its RvR PvP because it filled need that many EQ players wanted and lacked. I think raid vs non-raid will turn out to be similar. Right now you can sustain the unhappiness because there is no alternative. But once a truly viable alternative crops up. Games like WoW and Vanguard who do not do it will find themselves similarly trheatened. Clearly DAoC did not drive EQ out of business, but it had enough of an effect, especially inititally, to cause EQ to react.
One of the main reasons I believe this to be the case is because MMORPGs are at their heart a social enterprise. And it is a fact of life that there are people who like large groups and people who like smaller groups. There are people who like to hang out with a few friends and there are people who join frats and have big parties. I have known many people who simply detest house parties. One friend of mine would rather stay home alone on a friday night than goto a house party. And there are people in between. The WoW philosophy of forcing everyone into raiding is completely and utterly flawed. The Vanguard way is a much better but will still cause friction.
Just like some people like PvP and some people like PvE and some people like both. The raid and group stuff works almost exactly the same. And until they are treated similarly there will be a significantly underutilized portion of the market.
So yes it is "safe" right now to have raids on all servers. But I predict it will not be safe in the future.
And lastly we do know that games can be successful with no raiding at all. DAoC classic servers are a decent indicator, but even better there have been quite a number of successful game without raiding. Such as Ultima Online and Eve.
The only real question is can a game mix the two server sets. It is flat out false to say that a game with no-raiding at al is an unknown quantity. EQ initially had no raids. UO had no raids. Eve has no raids. In fact it is far easier to argue that raids have harmed those games. Obviously that is a hot button issues with no real obvious answer but it is certainly easier to argue than saying that non-raid games are unkown to be successful.
We know that: 1) non-raid games have been successful in the past, both long term and short term (Eve, UO, Neocron for its first year, DAoC classic, Guild Wars). 2) raid games have been sucessful in the past, both ones that started with raiding (WoW, EQ2) and ones that adopted raiding (EQ, DAoC).
We have a rather muddled instance that may indicate that a mixed server set can be succesfful : DAoC classic servers.
So we know both raid and non-raid games are and have been successful. Can a mixed raid/non-raid game be successful? And if it is will it have an effect on the the other two?
I beleive the answer is yes and yes. With the caveat that I think non-raid only games will always be fairly successful, but raid exclusive games will be hard to pull off once they are competing with mixed raid/non-raid games. The fact is raiders are a small minority, so once the mixed raid/non-raid games become successful the raid-exclusive games will be very hard pressed to find subs. Whereas the non-raid and mixed sets games will be competing over a large pool and therefore it will be much easier for non-raid games to survive against the competition and carve out their niches.
Going from a group game to a raid&group game really only nets you maybe 15% more people. Most groupers certainly have no need for raiders to exist although they will tolerate them. Raiders really offer groupers nothing, there is no value added. There is some overlap between raiders and grouping but it is still quite small, maybe 10%. Bringing total raid utilization up to maybe 25% at best. So the major issue is whether the extra content burden of raiding justifies bringing in those 15% and giving that other 10% more stuff to do. And will it infringe on your major source of revenue's, groupers, content demands?
I think the answer is yes it is worthwhile, if you manage it well. Because 15% of the Western population of WoW is a quite a bit of money (say about 350k subs) and really should be able to support the content additions of raids in a standalone manner. And you would still have far more money to realease group content. So I think that you can avoid the serving two masters problem since you should theoretically be bringing new people to support the extra burden. Therefore this will, in my opinion, eventually come out to work very simiarly to the PvP issue that DAoC started back in the day. I differentiate UO and DAoC because DAoC was very much a direct competitior to EQ whereas UO was a very different game and although they did compete they offered quite different products.
Of course it is possible that someone will come up with some way to have raiders and groupers live together in harmony, but I doubt that will ever really happen. Groupers have no need for raiders and raiders generally demand to be made better than groupers fro various reasons, usually difficultly/making raiding pointless. I seriously doubt anything short of separation will sort that out. Just like WoW had to come come with a flag system PvP server (what they call PvE) and a non -flag system PvP server (what they call PvP) and were froced to separate people by preference. The same thing will eventually ahppen with this issue. Because in the end it is about preference and there are significant constituencies for each side and there really is no right answer. Sadly few will admit that, especially the designers. There is no unifying solution, because there are fundamental differences in goals and desires. Separation of raiders and exclsusive groupers will become as useful for success as the separation between PvP and PvE and for almost the same reasons. Just like some people don't like to be ganked and demand a flag system, some exclusive groupers do not like raiders and demand separation. And just like some people hate a flag system because of they like the ganking aspect of things, both doing it and needing to worry about it, some people hate that they can't have the raiding is better dynamic, both the obtaining it and the needing to worry about not obtaining it. Just look at people like Vanguarde they use virtually the same argumentation about "watered down" games when it comes to raiding that "hardcore" PvPers use about being carebear. And the people who respond use virtually the same "you wish you were hardcore you real life wussy with no life" arguments. Even the same arguments about persecution and oppression are used. Raiders just aren't called griefers, instead they are called purple pride loot queens that use arbitrary rules to lord it over groupers. It is virutally the same and will eventually turn out to have virtually the same solutions. Not everyone uses separation but most do, because it is easiest, especially in a highly stylized and unrealistic non-sim game like EQ or Vanguard.
Just like there really is no reason to force people to be ganked by high levels they can't do anything about, there is no reason to force exclusive grouper to deal with raiders they can't do anything about. Now there are reasons to have ganking in a game and there are reasons to have raiding in a game. But there is no reason to force people to put up with either one when they do not enjoy those reasons.
But eventually the designers will be forced to admit that is the case, it is simply a matter time. Even stubborn ones like Brad will eventually be forced into it. Remember Vanguard was initially set to have no PvP ruleset at release, although they said they were defintely considering it after release. Now that has changed due to demand. Brad won't add a non-raid ruleset because there is not 7 years of weight on that yet. But there will be and when Vanguard 2 is released (if the game is successful) the same pattern will follow except instead of PvP it will be non-raid.
But unitl someone actually competes using that strategy like DAoC did with PvP to EQ, nothing will happen. No matter how much people complain. Because like baphamet says right now it is safe to make a game will raids on all servers.
Even if people like me and Anofayle who believe that will not be the case in future and that things are even right now set up to be taken advantage of. It won't matter until some competent and viable product is released to compete. Until that time it is "safe". If Anofayle and I are right then they are setting themselves for hard times in the future. But for right now it is relatively safe.
And that is why I agree with Vanguarde that they will never do it. Even though I think my argument of virtually risk-free raid-disabled servers is 100% valid. It will still never happen. Because they think they are "safe".
Originally posted by Neanderthal Originally posted by z80paranoia neanderthal : I'm going to destroy your entire argument at the base right now. This is where it started and the flaws that your entire argument is based on shall be made clear and thus render your whole argument moot. It is moot because it is based on an irrelevant and fallacious premise. Originally posted by Neanderthal Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too. Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it.
your argument is based on two fallacious points:
1."Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too." I never said in my OP or any post after it that LoTRO would not have raiding. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I said that LoTRO would not have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming LoTRO would not have raiding?
2."Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it." I never claimed that there was any sort of game coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding in my OP. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I actually claimed that there was an mmo coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming an mmo was coming out in the near future that will not have raiding?
Then you follow up with more logical fallacies and fallacious red herring lines of questioning based not on my actual claims but on uncontested (and therefore irrelevant) points that have no baring on the validity of my actual claims. A valid point is a point that counters an actual claim explicitly made by your opponent. You on the otherhand have been focusing your questions on points that while mostly in and of themselves true are not valid attacks against my claims because they attack positions I never claimed in the first place. Now if you ever decide to attack my argument with questions that question any actual claim that I have made explicitly, then we can go at it...until then you are just wasting my time with your irrelevant garbage red herring questions and statements.
Yak, yak, yak....you talk and you talk but you don't say anything pertinent to the issue at hand.
You claimed that LotR would be a good game for solo and group players who don't want to be second class citizens and who want to be just as good as raiders. Why don't you try to support that claim
I did, you didn't acknowledge the official dev-written info I posted to back my claims
for a while instead of attacking me
I attacked your arguments. If that makes you feel like an attack victim, that's your choice.
with blizzards of wordy
The wordiness has no bearing on validity, besides my last 2 posts were only 4 average sized paragraphs all together. If that's "wordy" to you ought not engage in intellectual debate.
text. All you do is bitch about me asking questions
They are fallacious. why would anyone answer fallacious and essentially off-topic questions in a debate about something different than what they were claiming in the first place?
instead of trying to actually answer any of my questions.
I explained in another post why the mere presence of raiding in the game will inevitably make it a game which favors raiders and I asked you to explain how they intended to avoid that; a reality which we have seen played out in numerous games in the past. To avoid the same thing happening in LotR they would have to have some completely new idea which has never been seen before in a game and I eagerly await hearing about it.
Question: Did I claim to know how they were going to pull it off in the first place? Answer: NO. Do you know why? Because I don't and can't know that until the devs actually make some kind of public statement that answers that. Speculation on what they will do to pull it off is off the topic of this thread. Basically it's a thread hijack. If you want to have a talk about speculation that's fine but realize it's a separate topic better suited for a separate thread.
To date the only explanation you have offered is that the motivation for raiding will not be better rewards but will be "fun".
Understand, that while my answer to that particular question was not a great one it does not invalidate any of the claims I made in my OP because that question was a separate topic about speculation on what the devs will do. It does not invalidate my claim that LoTRO will not force raiding. A claim I backed with Official Turbine Dev statements.
If that's the best you can come up with then it's no suprise that you would rather attack me than actually try to support your claim.
Show me one actual claim in my OP that I didn't support with real quotes from a dev and a webdiary page link that contained the dev saying what I claimed. You can't. I backed all my claims with Official turbine supplied statements. It doesn't get any more official than that. Is there any part of that you do not understand?
In case you hadn't noticed, all developers claim that all content in their games is "fun".
Oddly enough, the dev diary I posted a link to said the same thing, "fun". This means even my answer to your question is based on an Official Turbine statement. Straight from Jared Hall-Dugas. All of my LoTRO claims have been based on and backed by Official Turbine statements made by the Content Designer of LoTRO that anybody can see on the Official LoTRO site. It doesn't get any more backed than that.
You lost. You got wtfpwned. At this point you are just trying to save face. I'm bored with you and done with you now. Feel free to have the last word and talk trash. It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded. I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
Originally posted by gurthgor Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
I don't understand why poeple are obsessed with not wanting raids. This will not be WoW. A VERY small portion of items are raid related, and it would take over Ten Thousand of hours (rough estimate) of play to even come close to getting ALL of the best raid & non-raid gear, that's how many items and how much content is available. Raiders may have certian items, but so will High-Level Small Groupers. So will High-Level Diplomats. So will High-Level Crafters. So will High-Level Harvestors. NO ONE will have everything, there are just too many items, quests and not enough time...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
Originally posted by gurthgor Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
I don't understand why poeple are obsessed with not wanting raids. This will not be WoW. A VERY small portion of items are raid related, and it would take over Ten Thousand of hours (rough estimate) of play to even come close to getting ALL of the best raid & non-raid gear, that's how many items and how much content is available. Raiders may have certian items, but so will High-Level Small Groupers. So will High-Level Diplomats. So will High-Level Crafters. So will High-Level Harvestors. NO ONE will have everything, there are just too many items, quests and not enough time...
You are not requested to understand me, nor "Gurthor" or any other player "obsessed" with the not wanting raid. Just understand that, with raid-free servers, we would support the same game you would, while without such servers, we wouldn't.
You are not requested to understand, just to know. The clan of the raid-haters, the clan of the raid-victims and the clan of the won't-raid would rally the cause of a raid-free server, but watch idle any MMO get crushed under financial troubles without such a server. (hehe, only the raid-haters are inclined to be vocal however, the other want to be AWAY from raiders, unlike me who actually crave to train them...)
But honestly, stop thinking NEGATIVE. Raid-free doesn't mean lack of raid first, even if it is with a lack of raid, it stand first for "group/solo/Tradeskills"-focused. You get peoples with positive, with content. A raid-free server in Vanguard would satiete MANY players(more than there ever was any amount of raiders*), after all, if some like me can play CoH for 2-3 years and find plenty of content, I am sure Vanguard would be nice, it can't seriously have less content than CoH.
Raid-free mean a FAIR gaming surrounding to me, first and foremost. I never see it as fair that foreign gameplay get group-priority. That was most unfair. Raid-free is the only way to have it fair with Brad; so let's it be raid-free then. Raid-free wasn't the first and foremost idea, I really try hard to reconciliate raiding, however with Brad and FoHish ways of thinking, it isn't possible...thereby raid-free is the only acceptable solution...just like I am sure Brad try to conciliate PvP before making PvE servers, however with Gankfest guilds, it wasn't possible...PvEers players are the best players on the PvE servers. This explains why PvE servers work, just like groupers needs to be the best groupers...same logic. But nobody has to understand it, just to understand the amount of players that would play with the raid-free servers is enought. It change nothing on other servers, but it increase the amount of players significantly. Yeah, it may draw a few peoples away from the raiding servers, but that should be positive for all, except for "gankers" who lose some victims...but overall, raiders would be happier been surrounded by raiders anyway, and groupers would be a LOT better without this raiding...but yes, BEST gear to achieve grouping uberness has to be on a raid-free server, no matter what FoH-ish "gankers" think! It might be "easier" or harder, the point is that the best groupers are on the grouping(aka raid-free) servers, and THAT is important.
Many gamers have grown past a point where they don't bear any abuse...especially not raid-oriented abuses. What you find nice in raiding, we find it aggravating and abusing. You don't have to understand, just to know. Raid-free would be an awesome boon on Vanguard.
PS: In case you haven't noticed yet, I am to grouping what AL and FoH are to raiding. I will be extremely vocal, heavily defender, first liner jerk. But, I am part of a minority within a much bigger thing. I can't talk for the casuals, but I still try to. Just like FoH or AL would talk about what raiders want...well...I am equally flawed, but don't dismiss the raid-free because of me, the individual, you may dislike. I am, as most "uber-player", a jerk, in my own way. I try to be nice and to leave opening for the casuals, as much as I can, but I won't stop been who I am...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Originally posted by gurthgor Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
I don't understand why poeple are obsessed with not wanting raids. This will not be WoW. A VERY small portion of items are raid related, and it would take over Ten Thousand of hours (rough estimate) of play to even come close to getting ALL of the best raid & non-raid gear, that's how many items and how much content is available. Raiders may have certian items, but so will High-Level Small Groupers. So will High-Level Diplomats. So will High-Level Crafters. So will High-Level Harvestors. NO ONE will have everything, there are just too many items, quests and not enough time...
You are not requested to understand me, nor "Gurthor" or any other player "obsessed" with the not wanting raid. Just understand that, with raid-free servers, we would support the same game you would, while without such servers, we wouldn't.
You are not requested to understand, just to know. The clan of the raid-haters, the clan of the raid-victims and the clan of the won't-raid would rally the cause of a raid-free server, but watch idle any MMO get crushed under financial troubles without such a server. (hehe, only the raid-haters are inclined to be vocal however, the other want to be AWAY from raiders, unlike me who actually crave to train them...)
But honestly, stop thinking NEGATIVE. Raid-free doesn't mean lack of raid first, even if it is with a lack of raid, it stand first for "group/solo/Tradeskills"-focused. You get peoples with positive, with content. A raid-free server in Vanguard would satiete MANY players(more than there ever was any amount of raiders*), after all, if some like me can play CoH for 2-3 years and find plenty of content, I am sure Vanguard would be nice, it can't seriously have less content than CoH.
Raid-free mean a FAIR gaming surrounding to me, first and foremost. I never see it as fair that foreign gameplay get group-priority. That was most unfair. Raid-free is the only way to have it fair with Brad; so let's it be raid-free then. Raid-free wasn't the first and foremost idea, I really try hard to reconciliate raiding, however with Brad and FoHish ways of thinking, it isn't possible...thereby raid-free is the only acceptable solution...just like I am sure Brad try to conciliate PvP before making PvE servers, however with Gankfest guilds, it wasn't possible...PvEers players are the best players on the PvE servers. This explains why PvE servers work, just like groupers needs to be the best groupers...same logic. But nobody has to understand it, just to understand the amount of players that would play with the raid-free servers is enought. It change nothing on other servers, but it increase the amount of players significantly. Yeah, it may draw a few peoples away from the raiding servers, but that should be positive for all, except for "gankers" who lose some victims...but overall, raiders would be happier been surrounded by raiders anyway, and groupers would be a LOT better without this raiding...but yes, BEST gear to achieve grouping uberness has to be on a raid-free server, no matter what FoH-ish "gankers" think! It might be "easier" or harder, the point is that the best groupers are on the grouping(aka raid-free) servers, and THAT is important.
Many gamers have grown past a point where they don't bear any abuse...especially not raid-oriented abuses. What you find nice in raiding, we find it aggravating and abusing. You don't have to understand, just to know. Raid-free would be an awesome boon on Vanguard.
1) I HATE Raiding, and will not raid in VSoH.
2) I have no problem with a Raid free game, but I DO have a problem with redesigning large portions of the game to accomidate a no-raid system, especially when those efforts can be used to tune & tweak the game before launch.
3) Read up on the systems the Devs are considering to end the 1337 Raiders, most sound promising.
4) You could do high-end content for YEARS and never raid. There is PLEANTY of non-raid high-end content.
5) Non-Raid High-End items are equal to Raid items.
6) Raiders will NOT have enough time to get all of the non-raid loot. That is where the balance is, considering the Loot will be equal.
7) I may hate Raiding, but if it adds to game diversity, I support it completely. The more High-End content, the better.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
This topic needs to be closed. Point and case has been made already. No need in continueing flaming or trash talking.
PS: Vanguard ROX YOUR SOX
PPS: Vanguard is going to own the mmorpg market
PPPS: YAY FOR THE SQUIRREL MOUNTS!
PPPPS: Everybody pre-ordered Vanguard already, if your one of the 2% that didn't, you best blend in to the crowd and pre-order it
PPPPPS: This is my last PS. And am going to make it worth it. GO VANGUARD, yay vanguard, LOVE VANGUARD. I am a complete fanboi! GOING TO BE BEST GAME EVER
Originally posted by MX13 1) I HATE Raiding, and will not raid in VSoH. I will gladly call you a brother then. 2) I have no problem with a Raid free game, but I DO have a problem with redesigning large portions of the game to accomidate a no-raid system, especially when those efforts can be used to tune & tweak the game before launch. FAIRNESS matter here. A large portion of the peoples who don't like raiding care about fairness. Personnally, I don't mind if it is done exhaustively or fast (all on a merchant), because at least, it is fair...the more work, the better. But I can live with a merchant. You just have to make sure that all raid-gears is accessible in an "easier" non-raiding way. This is about fairness toward grouping gameplay. Putting the raid-gear on a merchant is less work then cutting off raiding, it is fair, it is fast, it is efficient, it require minimal work...and it is acceptable. More work and more redesign is welcome, but not part of the basics need. 3) Read up on the systems the Devs are considering to end the 1337 Raiders, most sound promising. See, if you want to be the BEST, you have to do everything, INCLUDING raiding. My problem is not only with L33T raiding, it is with raiding. Many casuals have the same problem, since it is a different gameplay, which we don't want to play. 4) You could do high-end content for YEARS and never raid. There is PLEANTY of non-raid high-end content. Doing high-end content for YEARS without working toward uberness? That is utterly most pointless. I have sins, I have bad sides...if I work on the end-content, I will do it "efficiently", and toward becoming the BEST I can, which send me raiding quite fast honestly and that is wrong because I don't want to raid. 5) Non-Raid High-End items are equal to Raid items. If a player want to be the BEST, he will have to do EVERY activity, including raiding. This is a problem. 6) Raiders will NOT have enough time to get all of the non-raid loot. That is where the balance is, considering the Loot will be equal. That is quite a BOLD statement and I don't believe it. Brad is a noob, as are most of Sigil Staff, especially the designers. FoH may talk nicely and give "honorary" place to noobs designers, but don't be mistaken here...might be hard for the ego...Anyway, even FoH is relatively noob these days...so, an honorary place in a relatively noob guild...talk about noobishness. 7) I may hate Raiding, but if it adds to game diversity, I support it completely. The more High-End content, the better. Let's face it, the game is designed to be more casual-oriented, and Brad even say it, I will have to do EVERY activity, including raiding...which is a problem. Optional diversity is good, enforced diversity, as in this case, is extremely bad, I don't want this gameplay and I won't stand been a second-ranked character because someone play it and I don't while it goes to group-uberness.
Even a casual would find issues in that, since he MAY have a few full week-end/weeks to work on uberness and then hit his noise on the raiding door. That isn't nice, not nice at all. Raid-free servers where you don't miss any reward raiding grant is the only solution.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Originally posted by MX13 Originally posted by gurthgor Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
I don't understand why poeple are obsessed with not wanting raids. This will not be WoW. A VERY small portion of items are raid related, and it would take over Ten Thousand of hours (rough estimate) of play to even come close to getting ALL of the best raid & non-raid gear, that's how many items and how much content is available. Raiders may have certian items, but so will High-Level Small Groupers. So will High-Level Diplomats. So will High-Level Crafters. So will High-Level Harvestors. NO ONE will have everything, there are just too many items, quests and not enough time...
Ok the question then is if raid items are more powerful than solo or small group items.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
Originally posted by MX13 1) I HATE Raiding, and will not raid in VSoH. I will gladly call you a brother then. im typing in blue haha! 2) I have no problem with a Raid free game, but I DO have a problem with redesigning large portions of the game to accomidate a no-raid system, especially when those efforts can be used to tune & tweak the game before launch. FAIRNESS matter here. A large portion of the peoples who don't like raiding care about fairness. Personnally, I don't mind if it is done exhaustively or fast (all on a merchant), because at least, it is fair...the more work, the better. But I can live with a merchant. You just have to make sure that all raid-gears is accessible in an "easier" non-raiding way. This is about fairness toward grouping gameplay. Putting the raid-gear on a merchant is less work then cutting off raiding, it is fair, it is fast, it is efficient, it require minimal work...and it is acceptable. More work and more redesign is welcome, but not part of the basics need. Luke I am your father. 3) Read up on the systems the Devs are considering to end the 1337 Raiders, most sound promising. See, if you want to be the BEST, you have to do everything, INCLUDING raiding. My problem is not only with L33T raiding, it is with raiding. Many casuals have the same problem, since it is a different gameplay, which we don't want to play. Nooooo! Its not true! 4) You could do high-end content for YEARS and never raid. There is PLEANTY of non-raid high-end content. Doing high-end content for YEARS without working toward uberness? That is utterly most pointless. I have sins, I have bad sides...if I work on the end-content, I will do it "efficiently", and toward becoming the BEST I can, which send me raiding quite fast honestly and that is wrong because I don't want to raid. Raiding is the power of the dark side! It is pointless to fight it! 5) Non-Raid High-End items are equal to Raid items. If a player want to be the BEST, he will have to do EVERY activity, including raiding. This is a problem. FACT #1 THERE WILL ALWAYS, ALWAYS BE SOMEONE BETTER THEN YOU! 6) Raiders will NOT have enough time to get all of the non-raid loot. That is where the balance is, considering the Loot will be equal. That is quite a BOLD statement and I don't believe it. Brad is a noob, as are most of Sigil Staff, especiallythe designers. FoH may talk nicely and give "honorary" place to noobs designers, but don't be mistaken here...might be hard for the ego... WTF KIND OF STATEMENT IS THAT? Ok your done. Leave. lol thats just stupid talk. Wish Brad was here to listen to your Quote quote "jelous" and ignorant remark. wow that was just stupid lmao. VANGUARD ROCKS YOUR SOCKS. VANGUARD ROCKS YOUR COC*S. 7) I may hate Raiding, but if it adds to game diversity, I support it completely. The more High-End content, the better. Let's face it, the game is designed to be more casual-oriented, and Brad even say it, I will have to do EVERY activity, including raiding...which is a problem. Optional diversity is good, enforced diversity, as in this case, is extremely bad, I don't want this gameplay and I won't stand been a second-ranked character because someone play it and I don't while it goes to group-uberness.
Even a casual would find issues in that, since he MAY have a few full week-end/weeks to work on uberness and then hit his noise on the raiding door. That isn't nice, not nice at all. Raid-free servers where you don't miss any reward raiding grant is the only solution. Vanguard will succeed.....dum dum dum dum, dum du du dum du du
What was I trying to win? I hoped that you were right. What I was trying to do was get you to offer some substantive information backing up your claim that LotRO will be a game in which non-raiders get just as good a deal as raiders. I acknowledge that I can be very combative in my quest for information but my combativeness comes out most strongly when someone is making unsupported claims. As in this case.
You got wtfpwned.
Ok, if you say so. You can wtfpwn me all you want. I really don't care. I'm still waiting for you to support your claim. Why don't you wtfpwn my doubts with some solid information.
At this point you are just trying to save face.
My face is beyond saving.........still waiting for that information.
I'm bored with you and done with you now.
That's understandable. I'm getting a little tired of this too.
Feel free to have the last word and talk trash.
In the process at this very moment......
It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements
Don't you mean, "No matter how many times I repost that same dev quote which doesn't actually say anything to support my claim"?
which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
I acknowledge the quote. It just doesn't say what you want it to say.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded.
How I look is irrelevant........still waiting for you to support your claim.
I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Again, whether I got pwned and whether or not I can save face is completely irrelevant.......still waiting for you to support your claim.
Wait? That's it? Ok, so we're at one meaningless dev quote and, "raiding will be fun"........
What was I trying to win? I hoped that you were right. What I was trying to do was get you to offer some substantive information backing up your claim that LotRO will be a game in which non-raiders get just as good a deal as raiders. I acknowledge that I can be very combative in my quest for information but my combativeness comes out most strongly when someone is making unsupported claims. As in this case.
Lol what does LotRO have to do with anything.
You got wtfpwned.
Ok, if you say so. You can wtfpwn me all you want. I really don't care. I'm still waiting for you to support your claim. Why don't you wtfpwn my doubts with some solid information.
I SUPPORT MY CLAIM THAT THIS IS THE MOST STUPID POST! AND I'LL EVEN GIVE U A REASON!
#1 INTERNET TRASH! Dont we all just love internet drama?
My face is beyond saving.........still waiting for that information.
I am sorry I can't help with your face problem, I apologize that somethin is wrong with your face and beyond help, but I can give you whatever information you may want.
I'm bored with you and done with you now.
That's understandable. I'm getting a little tired of this too.
Since we're all tired of typing and talking about something so stupid, and fight like kids to get the last word, watch some Dr. Phil so we can work together and get through our problems. Better yet, i'll hook us up with the TV show and we can all go on Dr. Phil together.
Feel free to have the last word and talk trash.
In the process at this very moment......
We really need to see Dr. Phil! DONT WORRY GUYS! WE'LL WORK THROUGH THIS!
It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements
Don't you mean, "No matter how many times I repost that same dev quote which doesn't actually say anything to support my claim"?
Dev quote "At this very moment we are working on designing a giant squirrel and bunny mount, although this is very difficult, the squirrel has offered us a trade. The trade will be 2,000 nuts, and in exchange we will be able to use him as a design.....as for the bunny goes....it goes on and on and on and on....."
which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
I acknowledge the quote. It just doesn't say what you want it to say.
I'll say what I say when I say how I say whatever I want to say when I want to say.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded.
How I look is irrelevant........still waiting for you to support your claim.
I already told you I am sorry about your look, there is nothing more I can do for your face! I already supported my claim! DONT DENY THE TRUTH!
I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Again, whether I got pwned and whether or not I can save face is completely irrelevant.......still waiting for you to support your claim.
STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR FACE! I DID EVERYTHING I COULD FOR YOU!
Wait? That's it? Ok, so we're at one meaningless dev quote and, "raiding will be fun"........
............and holding........
Same here....they put me on hold....still waiting for DR. Phil....
Comments
The only thing that can be said with much certainty is that in this specific genre of level grind item-centric MMORPGs the introduction of raiding has hurt one game and removing that content helped that game. This game is DAoC. But no one else has ever released a game with raid and non-raid servers. And other than DAoC no one has realeased a raid server and then released a non-raid server.
DAoC would indicate that it is a good idea with its classic servers, but that is muddled up with possible dislike of other content additions or just plain nostalgia. It is certainly a stronger indication than "We know most people in WoW dislike raiding but they tolerate it". But until we see actual competition between raid and raid-disabled we rather than rollbacks to pre-expansion, won't really know.
Further WoW also indicates that disabling raid content is a no-loss proposition since at least 75% of people have never even bothered to finish the first raid instance much less step foot in the next 3. And probably easily half the player population doesn't raid at all. Clearly for half the population disabling the raid content has no effect at all, well it might make the economy better. But it wouldn't effect content utilization. Raid content is already poorly unitlized when measured by population rather than time.
However I would be willing to bet quite a good amount of money that if WoW did create a raid disabled server set that had its own non-raid only BG section it would be immensly popular. Server crashingly popular. And I would go so far as to say the introduction of such a thing would cause quite a number of old canceled subs to be reactivated.
So yes it is certainly not clear at all whether raids are tolerable or necessary or whatever else, because there is not competition of variance in the rather stagnant MMORPG market. If there were competition though there is some indication from DAoC that raids would do rather poorly. However even if they are tolerated but hated, the WoW show there is no real reason to even force that toleration and nothing is gained by it since a quite large portion of your customers will never use it even if you do incentivize them. And it should be inarguable that WoW heavily incentivizes people to raid.
PvP was not always a necessary part of MMORPGs but more and more almost all MMORPGs are beginning to at least put in some sort of features a long those lines in some way. Simply because those who don't can't really compete. PvP is by far the major alternate ruleset in a large portion of MMORPG. Initially EQ had no PvP but due to DAoC and UO they created it. It may be the case that in the future it is as Anofayle says and those who don't offer a non-raid alternative will find themselves struggling to compete jsut like those who do not offer PvP. Or It may not be that way. We simply don't know and we won't know until there is competition.
But even though we don't know whether it is or will be NECESSARY it does seem like there is a quite a bit of data to show it may at least be worth a try to run a raid-disabled server. There are two very good reasons for this:
1) Its almost trivial to do and trivial to switch it back to a normal server. Therefore costs almost nothing.
2) There are clearly many people who are unhappy with raiding going all the way back to EQ days. And there is clearly an increased awareness of the dislike of raiding due to WoW. And the DAoC classic servers are existant business model with sufficent history and similarity to justify giving this outcry some credence.
So you may be able to try to satisfy a need at almost no risk. And if it turns out that need was just a bunch of people who don't know what they were asking for and are disatisfied you could turn it back into a normal server in a day by changing a configuration file.
So if Sigil does in fact release a non-raid server, which I will reiterate I do not expect they will do. Then we can at last see some competition and better be able to see if the DAoC classic server effect is nostalgia or mudflation or raids. Of course we would still need a number of other games to do the same thing to really get good data. And then see what happens to people who only offer raid servers or never offer and raiding and see if they have serious trouble competing. The most interesting thing would be to see if raiding even mattered at all. Would those game which never offered raiding struggle or do the same as those games that offered both? Clearly some people like to raid but would they tolerate not having raids in exchange for other things, like the groupers are currently tolerating raiders in WoW because they like WoW even if they never actually play a very large portion of the post release content additions.
Now THAT was an excellent arguement, and a great discussion thread in itself. Good read, and TY.
For consideration I suggest reading the various threads regarding some possiblities for raiding that the Vanguard Devs & Forum Vets have been considering / discussing. Probably the most interesting concepts were:
Honestly, I may hate raiding, but if it was done well, it could be quite enjoyable as a part of the over all content.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
"The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks"
I agree with that fully. If you reread my OP carefully you can see that that was my main point. And you are absolutely right. And for the record, I don't hate all raiding. They are fun for me the first 4 times. I also feel that raiding has it's place as well. I just don't like forced raiding, especially when you must do the same raid 40 or more times to get all your gear out of it. Also different people have their own Idea of what non-raiding server will be and for me that meant a server that had raiding but wasn't required to have top tier gear or some statistical equivalent. My point was that it's better to support a different game than make such a request..so basically, I agree with you.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
If Vanguard's raiding resemble's EQs or WoWs I will not be playing. By that I mean the raid items dictate the game's balance. Raiding should dictate raid balance not group balance, imo.
"The best advice I can give u fella is, Instead of presenting us with ridiculous ideas to suite "your gaming schedule/style whatever" DO NOT PLAY VANGUARD.. Its definitely not for the likes of you.. Thanks"
I agree with that fully. If you reread my OP carefully you can see that that was my main point. And you are absolutely right. And for the record, I don't hate all raiding. They are fun for me the first 4 times. I also feel that raiding has it's place as well. I just don't like forced raiding, especially when you must do the same raid 40 or more times to get all your gear out of it. Also different people have their own Idea of what non-raiding server will be and for me that meant a server that had raiding but wasn't required to have top tier gear or some statistical equivalent. My point was that it's better to support a different game than make such a request..so basically, I agree with you.
/agree
Well said.
Skepticism is healthy regarding games in closed Beta...
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
well yes, I'm sure if a game was designed with no raiding and had all the right elements involved it could be extremely successful, and your right this has not been done yet.
but using Daoc as an example actually reintegrates my argument, first of all the classic Daoc servers have nowhere near "more people playing than all the other servers combined".
yes there are more people playing the classic servers but not by that much...not only that but you would think out of all the old skool games like eq and Daoc, that Daoc would have by far the most players (using Anofalye's argument here) because of the non-raiding servers.
but that is defiantly not the case, Daoc has nowhere near the player base that eq has to this day. the point is raiding is not the deciding factor of what makes these games popular like Anofalye suggests, not even close.
but yet he acts as if it is a fact that if vanguard had non-raiding servers it would have 500K users and if not less than 50k, i strongly disagree with that logic and i think its unbelievable that anybody buys into that BS to be honest.
again, i do not doubt that there are lots of people that don't like to raid....but the majority of those people are not going to let that stop them from enjoying the rest of the game, that ofcource is not a fact just an opinion but i think the success of wow would tell you that most people are willing to put up with raiding in their game even if they don't like it.
well yes, I'm sure if a game was designed with no raiding and had all the right elements involved it could be extremely successful, and your right this has not been done yet.
but using Daoc as an example actually reintegrates my argument, first of all the classic Daoc servers have nowhere near "more people playing than all the other servers combined".
yes there are more people playing the classic servers but not by that much...not only that but you would think out of all the old skool games like eq and Daoc, that Daoc would have by far the most players (using Anofalye's argument here) because of the non-raiding servers.
but that is defiantly not the case, Daoc has nowhere near the player base that eq has to this day. the point is raiding is not the deciding factor of what makes these games popular like Anofalye suggests, not even close.
but yet he acts as if it is a fact that if vanguard had non-raiding servers it would have 500K users and if not less than 50k, i strongly disagree with that logic and i think its unbelievable that anybody buys into that BS to be honest.
again, i do not doubt that there are lots of people that don't like to raid....but the majority of those people are not going to let that stop them from enjoying the rest of the game, that ofcource is not a fact just an opinion but i think the success of wow would tell you that most people are willing to put up with raiding in their game even if they don't like it.
Unfortunately the classic servers of DAoC do not support much in the way of arguments since we cannot really isolate what is going on. The fact is there are many factors involved. The classic servers involve more than just a lack of raiding. And the retention of the non-classic servers also involves more than raiding. Further the classic servers are very late in the game addition and have to compete with a juggernaut.
There are far too many variables involed to isolate raiding out from there. The analysis you are making a perfunctionary attempt at is not really useful because we could each of us come up with 4 or more reasons for the population numbers and they may even all be valid.
However we do know that the classic servers have been successful and that they have succeeded in bringing back former players and even managed to bring in some new people to the game. Anecdotally one of the major factors for their success has been the lack of raiding.
It could even be the case that there are more people playing classic
servers then current servers merely because of nostalgia and that it is
only natural that such an old game is now getting more profit on the nostalgia than on servers trying to compete with WoW.
However it is inarguable that the classic servers are a case where non-raiding servers in a game that has raids can be successful enough to fill up a decent amount of servers. Any analysis past that would be close to pointless due to the inability to isolate the many other factors involved.
To actually do the analysis you are proposing and be abel to have it be useful we would need something on the order of a raid-disabled and raid-enabled server at release with out all the extra complications of expansions, character investment, customer alienation, the lack of raids at original release etc.
If Sigil did something like that and the non-raid servers were 50/50. That would certainly be interesting. But even then we would still need more data from other games. Because lets face it, Vanguard is most likely to attract many of the original uber-raiders from EQ and will certainly be vulnerable to baised sampling argument. Now if both AoC and Vanguard released both types of servers and they both had a 75/25 split (one way or the other) that would certainly be pretty hard to argue with I would think.
As for Anofayle if you haven't figured out by now that he likes to make absolute statements and play the part of the revolutionary, well I can't help you
oh yes, i know his posting style quite well
i don't disagree with anything you are saying, we really don't know how successful a new game would be without raiding in the design. the only thing we do know for certain is games can be and are very successful with raiding on each and every server.
I like to play solo and have online ppl too so i can interact with them when i want instead of just npcs.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
1."Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too."
I never said in my OP or any post after it that LoTRO would not have raiding. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I said that LoTRO would not have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming LoTRO would not have raiding?
2."Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it."
I never claimed that there was any sort of game coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding in my OP.
So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I actually claimed that there was an mmo coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming an mmo was coming out in the near future that will not have raiding?
Then you follow up with more logical fallacies and fallacious red herring lines of questioning based not on my actual claims but on uncontested (and therefore irrelevant) points that have no baring on the validity of my actual claims. A valid point is a point that counters an actual claim explicitly made by your opponent. You on the otherhand have been focusing your questions on points that while mostly in and of themselves true are not valid attacks against my claims because they attack positions I never claimed in the first place. Now if you ever decide to attack my argument with questions that question any actual claim that I have made explicitly, then we can go at it...until then you are just wasting my time with your irrelevant garbage red herring questions and statements.
Yak, yak, yak....you talk and you talk but you don't say anything pertinent to the issue at hand.
You claimed that LotR would be a good game for solo and group players who don't want to be second class citizens and who want to be just as good as raiders. Why don't you try to support that claim for a while instead of attacking me with blizzards of wordy text. All you do is bitch about me asking questions instead of trying to actually answer any of my questions.
I explained in another post why the mere presence of raiding in the game will inevitably make it a game which favors raiders and I asked you to explain how they intended to avoid that; a reality which we have seen played out in numerous games in the past. To avoid the same thing happening in LotR they would have to have some completely new idea which has never been seen before in a game and I eagerly await hearing about it.
To date the only explanation you have offered is that the motivation for raiding will not be better rewards but will be "fun". If that's the best you can come up with then it's no suprise that you would rather attack me than actually try to support your claim. In case you hadn't noticed, all developers claim that all content in their games is "fun".
Dont matter what yall say, Vanguard is gonna be a KICK ASS GAME!
. even if ya guys r complainin, I bet 60% of u that say u arent gonna play it cuz they dont have non-raidin servers, I bet you will 
. They have so many features and its such a good game.
GO VANGUARD!
1) Some people just love to argue for the sake of argueing.
2) VG will not have forced raiding, its just one of a thousand other things you can do. Get over it. Any MMO will have raiding, period.
"God, please help us sinful children of Ivalice.."
oh yes, i know his posting style quite well
i don't disagree with anything you are saying, we really don't know how successful a new game would be without raiding in the design. the only thing we do know for certain is games can be and are very successful with raiding on each and every server.
Actually it is entirely possible that in a few years this may turn into something that is no longer true. It would be a mistake to assume raid games are a safe choice. In fact I think raiding is WoW's biggest weakness. If their were truly viable competition that offered a similar experience to WoW and offered both raiding and non-raiding servers. I believe many people would flee WoW and the trend would go the other way. However very few games offer the smooth experience WoW does. The main reason for success in WoW is the smooth experience. A smooth experience is a actually very rare in the software world and highly contributes to the success of a product. People get frustrated easily and if they are frustrated before they become invested they will drop a game like a rock. Just like people a on a first date you must oput your best foot forward. And like dating initially substance is not what is important. And even more like dating once they start looking into the substance they just complain and try to change the other and don't actually leave. WoW keeps things nice and smooth and glosses over all the many problems of the game. Not only most games but most software in general do not do this well. And it is incredibly important, if you want people to like something minimize their frustration. They don't need you and they will drop you like a rock.
Since that kind of expereince is very rare and generates a sort of Mac hype/loyalty effect there are currently no true competitiors to WoW. But if there was something viably competitive in that regard that also offered a raid and and non-raid server set I would predict massive losses from WoW within a year solely because of that issue. Unfortunately that will not happen anytime soon.
Just like DAoC threatened EQ with its RvR PvP because it filled need that many EQ players wanted and lacked. I think raid vs non-raid will turn out to be similar. Right now you can sustain the unhappiness because there is no alternative. But once a truly viable alternative crops up. Games like WoW and Vanguard who do not do it will find themselves similarly trheatened. Clearly DAoC did not drive EQ out of business, but it had enough of an effect, especially inititally, to cause EQ to react.
One of the main reasons I believe this to be the case is because MMORPGs are at their heart a social enterprise. And it is a fact of life that there are people who like large groups and people who like smaller groups. There are people who like to hang out with a few friends and there are people who join frats and have big parties. I have known many people who simply detest house parties. One friend of mine would rather stay home alone on a friday night than goto a house party. And there are people in between. The WoW philosophy of forcing everyone into raiding is completely and utterly flawed. The Vanguard way is a much better but will still cause friction.
Just like some people like PvP and some people like PvE and some people like both. The raid and group stuff works almost exactly the same. And until they are treated similarly there will be a significantly underutilized portion of the market.
So yes it is "safe" right now to have raids on all servers. But I predict it will not be safe in the future.
And lastly we do know that games can be successful with no raiding at all. DAoC classic servers are a decent indicator, but even better there have been quite a number of successful game without raiding. Such as Ultima Online and Eve.
The only real question is can a game mix the two server sets. It is flat out false to say that a game with no-raiding at al is an unknown quantity. EQ initially had no raids. UO had no raids. Eve has no raids. In fact it is far easier to argue that raids have harmed those games. Obviously that is a hot button issues with no real obvious answer but it is certainly easier to argue than saying that non-raid games are unkown to be successful.
We know that:
1) non-raid games have been successful in the past, both long term and short term (Eve, UO, Neocron for its first year, DAoC classic, Guild Wars).
2) raid games have been sucessful in the past, both ones that started with raiding (WoW, EQ2) and ones that adopted raiding (EQ, DAoC).
We have a rather muddled instance that may indicate that a mixed server set can be succesfful : DAoC classic servers.
So we know both raid and non-raid games are and have been successful. Can a mixed raid/non-raid game be successful? And if it is will it have an effect on the the other two?
I beleive the answer is yes and yes. With the caveat that I think non-raid only games will always be fairly successful, but raid exclusive games will be hard to pull off once they are competing with mixed raid/non-raid games. The fact is raiders are a small minority, so once the mixed raid/non-raid games become successful the raid-exclusive games will be very hard pressed to find subs. Whereas the non-raid and mixed sets games will be competing over a large pool and therefore it will be much easier for non-raid games to survive against the competition and carve out their niches.
Going from a group game to a raid&group game really only nets you maybe 15% more people. Most groupers certainly have no need for raiders to exist although they will tolerate them. Raiders really offer groupers nothing, there is no value added. There is some overlap between raiders and grouping but it is still quite small, maybe 10%. Bringing total raid utilization up to maybe 25% at best. So the major issue is whether the extra content burden of raiding justifies bringing in those 15% and giving that other 10% more stuff to do. And will it infringe on your major source of revenue's, groupers, content demands?
I think the answer is yes it is worthwhile, if you manage it well. Because 15% of the Western population of WoW is a quite a bit of money (say about 350k subs) and really should be able to support the content additions of raids in a standalone manner. And you would still have far more money to realease group content. So I think that you can avoid the serving two masters problem since you should theoretically be bringing new people to support the extra burden. Therefore this will, in my opinion, eventually come out to work very simiarly to the PvP issue that DAoC started back in the day. I differentiate UO and DAoC because DAoC was very much a direct competitior to EQ whereas UO was a very different game and although they did compete they offered quite different products.
Of course it is possible that someone will come up with some way to have raiders and groupers live together in harmony, but I doubt that will ever really happen. Groupers have no need for raiders and raiders generally demand to be made better than groupers fro various reasons, usually difficultly/making raiding pointless. I seriously doubt anything short of separation will sort that out. Just like WoW had to come come with a flag system PvP server (what they call PvE) and a non -flag system PvP server (what they call PvP) and were froced to separate people by preference. The same thing will eventually ahppen with this issue. Because in the end it is about preference and there are significant constituencies for each side and there really is no right answer. Sadly few will admit that, especially the designers. There is no unifying solution, because there are fundamental differences in goals and desires. Separation of raiders and exclsusive groupers will become as useful for success as the separation between PvP and PvE and for almost the same reasons. Just like some people don't like to be ganked and demand a flag system, some exclusive groupers do not like raiders and demand separation. And just like some people hate a flag system because of they like the ganking aspect of things, both doing it and needing to worry about it, some people hate that they can't have the raiding is better dynamic, both the obtaining it and the needing to worry about not obtaining it. Just look at people like Vanguarde they use virtually the same argumentation about "watered down" games when it comes to raiding that "hardcore" PvPers use about being carebear. And the people who respond use virtually the same "you wish you were hardcore you real life wussy with no life" arguments. Even the same arguments about persecution and oppression are used. Raiders just aren't called griefers, instead they are called purple pride loot queens that use arbitrary rules to lord it over groupers. It is virutally the same and will eventually turn out to have virtually the same solutions. Not everyone uses separation but most do, because it is easiest, especially in a highly stylized and unrealistic non-sim game like EQ or Vanguard.
Just like there really is no reason to force people to be ganked by high levels they can't do anything about, there is no reason to force exclusive grouper to deal with raiders they can't do anything about. Now there are reasons to have ganking in a game and there are reasons to have raiding in a game. But there is no reason to force people to put up with either one when they do not enjoy those reasons.
But eventually the designers will be forced to admit that is the case, it is simply a matter time. Even stubborn ones like Brad will eventually be forced into it. Remember Vanguard was initially set to have no PvP ruleset at release, although they said they were defintely considering it after release. Now that has changed due to demand. Brad won't add a non-raid ruleset because there is not 7 years of weight on that yet. But there will be and when Vanguard 2 is released (if the game is successful) the same pattern will follow except instead of PvP it will be non-raid.
But unitl someone actually competes using that strategy like DAoC did with PvP to EQ, nothing will happen. No matter how much people complain. Because like baphamet says right now it is safe to make a game will raids on all servers.
Even if people like me and Anofayle who believe that will not be the case in future and that things are even right now set up to be taken advantage of. It won't matter until some competent and viable product is released to compete. Until that time it is "safe". If Anofayle and I are right then they are setting themselves for hard times in the future. But for right now it is relatively safe.
And that is why I agree with Vanguarde that they will never do it. Even though I think my argument of virtually risk-free raid-disabled servers is 100% valid. It will still never happen. Because they think they are "safe".
1."Paranoia, I would agree with you 100% except for one little problem....LotRO has raiding too."
I never said in my OP or any post after it that LoTRO would not have raiding. So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I said that LoTRO would not have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming LoTRO would not have raiding?
2."Point me to a well funded fantasy game coming out in the near future that DOESN'T have raiding and I'll be all over it."
I never claimed that there was any sort of game coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding in my OP.
So basically what this is is a red herring (click link) fallacy. You brought up an uncontested point. Had I actually claimed that there was an mmo coming out in the near future that didn't have raiding, then that would have been a valid attack on my position. Can you please validate the relevance of this point by quoting me as claiming an mmo was coming out in the near future that will not have raiding?
Then you follow up with more logical fallacies and fallacious red herring lines of questioning based not on my actual claims but on uncontested (and therefore irrelevant) points that have no baring on the validity of my actual claims. A valid point is a point that counters an actual claim explicitly made by your opponent. You on the otherhand have been focusing your questions on points that while mostly in and of themselves true are not valid attacks against my claims because they attack positions I never claimed in the first place. Now if you ever decide to attack my argument with questions that question any actual claim that I have made explicitly, then we can go at it...until then you are just wasting my time with your irrelevant garbage red herring questions and statements.
Yak, yak, yak....you talk and you talk but you don't say anything pertinent to the issue at hand.
You claimed that LotR would be a good game for solo and group players who don't want to be second class citizens and who want to be just as good as raiders. Why don't you try to support that claim
I did, you didn't acknowledge the official dev-written info I posted to back my claims
for a while instead of attacking me
I attacked your arguments. If that makes you feel like an attack victim, that's your choice.
with blizzards of wordy
The wordiness has no bearing on validity, besides my last 2 posts were only 4 average sized paragraphs all together. If that's "wordy" to you ought not engage in intellectual debate.
text. All you do is bitch about me asking questions
They are fallacious. why would anyone answer fallacious and essentially off-topic questions in a debate about something different than what they were claiming in the first place?
instead of trying to actually answer any of my questions.
I explained in another post why the mere presence of raiding in the game will inevitably make it a game which favors raiders and I asked you to explain how they intended to avoid that; a reality which we have seen played out in numerous games in the past. To avoid the same thing happening in LotR they would have to have some completely new idea which has never been seen before in a game and I eagerly await hearing about it.
Question: Did I claim to know how they were going to pull it off in the first place?
Answer: NO. Do you know why? Because I don't and can't know that until the devs actually make some kind of public statement that answers that. Speculation on what they will do to pull it off is off the topic of this thread. Basically it's a thread hijack. If you want to have a talk about speculation that's fine but realize it's a separate topic better suited for a separate thread.
To date the only explanation you have offered is that the motivation for raiding will not be better rewards but will be "fun".
Understand, that while my answer to that particular question was not a great one it does not invalidate any of the claims I made in my OP because that question was a separate topic about speculation on what the devs will do. It does not invalidate my claim that LoTRO will not force raiding. A claim I backed with Official Turbine Dev statements.
If that's the best you can come up with then it's no suprise that you would rather attack me than actually try to support your claim.
Show me one actual claim in my OP that I didn't support with real quotes from a dev and a webdiary page link that contained the dev saying what I claimed. You can't. I backed all my claims with Official turbine supplied statements. It doesn't get any more official than that. Is there any part of that you do not understand?
In case you hadn't noticed, all developers claim that all content in their games is "fun".
Oddly enough, the dev diary I posted a link to said the same thing, "fun". This means even my answer to your question is based on an Official Turbine statement. Straight from Jared Hall-Dugas. All of my LoTRO claims have been based on and backed by Official Turbine statements made by the Content Designer of LoTRO that anybody can see on the Official LoTRO site. It doesn't get any more backed than that.
You lost. You got wtfpwned. At this point you are just trying to save face. I'm bored with you and done with you now. Feel free to have the last word and talk trash. It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded. I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Guild Wars 2 is my religion
Why all games are raid based? I cant understand the fun in being 1 of 70 guys. I play to have adventures and become a hero, not just a insignificant number, have a boss in my guild that gives me the equipment he decides. It is like working for another company but in game. I dont get why ppl like raids.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
You are not requested to understand me, nor "Gurthor" or any other player "obsessed" with the not wanting raid. Just understand that, with raid-free servers, we would support the same game you would, while without such servers, we wouldn't.
You are not requested to understand, just to know. The clan of the raid-haters, the clan of the raid-victims and the clan of the won't-raid would rally the cause of a raid-free server, but watch idle any MMO get crushed under financial troubles without such a server. (hehe, only the raid-haters are inclined to be vocal however, the other want to be AWAY from raiders, unlike me who actually crave to train them...)
But honestly, stop thinking NEGATIVE. Raid-free doesn't mean lack of raid first, even if it is with a lack of raid, it stand first for "group/solo/Tradeskills"-focused. You get peoples with positive, with content. A raid-free server in Vanguard would satiete MANY players(more than there ever was any amount of raiders*), after all, if some like me can play CoH for 2-3 years and find plenty of content, I am sure Vanguard would be nice, it can't seriously have less content than CoH.
Raid-free mean a FAIR gaming surrounding to me, first and foremost. I never see it as fair that foreign gameplay get group-priority. That was most unfair. Raid-free is the only way to have it fair with Brad; so let's it be raid-free then. Raid-free wasn't the first and foremost idea, I really try hard to reconciliate raiding, however with Brad and FoHish ways of thinking, it isn't possible...thereby raid-free is the only acceptable solution...just like I am sure Brad try to conciliate PvP before making PvE servers, however with Gankfest guilds, it wasn't possible...PvEers players are the best players on the PvE servers. This explains why PvE servers work, just like groupers needs to be the best groupers...same logic. But nobody has to understand it, just to understand the amount of players that would play with the raid-free servers is enought. It change nothing on other servers, but it increase the amount of players significantly. Yeah, it may draw a few peoples away from the raiding servers, but that should be positive for all, except for "gankers" who lose some victims...but overall, raiders would be happier been surrounded by raiders anyway, and groupers would be a LOT better without this raiding...but yes, BEST gear to achieve grouping uberness has to be on a raid-free server, no matter what FoH-ish "gankers" think! It might be "easier" or harder, the point is that the best groupers are on the grouping(aka raid-free) servers, and THAT is important.
Many gamers have grown past a point where they don't bear any abuse...especially not raid-oriented abuses. What you find nice in raiding, we find it aggravating and abusing. You don't have to understand, just to know. Raid-free would be an awesome boon on Vanguard.
PS: In case you haven't noticed yet, I am to grouping what AL and FoH are to raiding. I will be extremely vocal, heavily defender, first liner jerk. But, I am part of a minority within a much bigger thing. I can't talk for the casuals, but I still try to. Just like FoH or AL would talk about what raiders want...well...I am equally flawed, but don't dismiss the raid-free because of me, the individual, you may dislike. I am, as most "uber-player", a jerk, in my own way. I try to be nice and to leave opening for the casuals, as much as I can, but I won't stop been who I am...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
You are not requested to understand me, nor "Gurthor" or any other player "obsessed" with the not wanting raid. Just understand that, with raid-free servers, we would support the same game you would, while without such servers, we wouldn't.
You are not requested to understand, just to know. The clan of the raid-haters, the clan of the raid-victims and the clan of the won't-raid would rally the cause of a raid-free server, but watch idle any MMO get crushed under financial troubles without such a server. (hehe, only the raid-haters are inclined to be vocal however, the other want to be AWAY from raiders, unlike me who actually crave to train them...)
But honestly, stop thinking NEGATIVE. Raid-free doesn't mean lack of raid first, even if it is with a lack of raid, it stand first for "group/solo/Tradeskills"-focused. You get peoples with positive, with content. A raid-free server in Vanguard would satiete MANY players(more than there ever was any amount of raiders*), after all, if some like me can play CoH for 2-3 years and find plenty of content, I am sure Vanguard would be nice, it can't seriously have less content than CoH.
Raid-free mean a FAIR gaming surrounding to me, first and foremost. I never see it as fair that foreign gameplay get group-priority. That was most unfair. Raid-free is the only way to have it fair with Brad; so let's it be raid-free then. Raid-free wasn't the first and foremost idea, I really try hard to reconciliate raiding, however with Brad and FoHish ways of thinking, it isn't possible...thereby raid-free is the only acceptable solution...just like I am sure Brad try to conciliate PvP before making PvE servers, however with Gankfest guilds, it wasn't possible...PvEers players are the best players on the PvE servers. This explains why PvE servers work, just like groupers needs to be the best groupers...same logic. But nobody has to understand it, just to understand the amount of players that would play with the raid-free servers is enought. It change nothing on other servers, but it increase the amount of players significantly. Yeah, it may draw a few peoples away from the raiding servers, but that should be positive for all, except for "gankers" who lose some victims...but overall, raiders would be happier been surrounded by raiders anyway, and groupers would be a LOT better without this raiding...but yes, BEST gear to achieve grouping uberness has to be on a raid-free server, no matter what FoH-ish "gankers" think! It might be "easier" or harder, the point is that the best groupers are on the grouping(aka raid-free) servers, and THAT is important.
Many gamers have grown past a point where they don't bear any abuse...especially not raid-oriented abuses. What you find nice in raiding, we find it aggravating and abusing. You don't have to understand, just to know. Raid-free would be an awesome boon on Vanguard.
1) I HATE Raiding, and will not raid in VSoH.
2) I have no problem with a Raid free game, but I DO have a problem with redesigning large portions of the game to accomidate a no-raid system, especially when those efforts can be used to tune & tweak the game before launch.
3) Read up on the systems the Devs are considering to end the 1337 Raiders, most sound promising.
4) You could do high-end content for YEARS and never raid. There is PLEANTY of non-raid high-end content.
5) Non-Raid High-End items are equal to Raid items.
6) Raiders will NOT have enough time to get all of the non-raid loot. That is where the balance is, considering the Loot will be equal.
7) I may hate Raiding, but if it adds to game diversity, I support it completely. The more High-End content, the better.
I'll start my own SWG... with Black Jack... and Hookers!!!
In fact, forget the SWG!!!!
This topic needs to be closed. Point and case has been made already. No need in continueing flaming or trash talking.
PS: Vanguard ROX YOUR SOX
PPS: Vanguard is going to own the mmorpg market
PPPS: YAY FOR THE SQUIRREL MOUNTS!
PPPPS: Everybody pre-ordered Vanguard already, if your one of the 2% that didn't, you best blend in to the crowd and pre-order it
PPPPPS: This is my last PS. And am going to make it worth it. GO VANGUARD, yay vanguard, LOVE VANGUARD. I am a complete fanboi! GOING TO BE BEST GAME EVER
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Ok the question then is if raid items are more powerful than solo or small group items.
Blade with whom i have lived, blade with whom I now die. Serve right and justice one last time. Seek one last heart of evil. Still one last life of pain. Cut well old friend. Then farewell!
Vanguard is awsome!
You lost.
What was I trying to win? I hoped that you were right. What I was trying to do was get you to offer some substantive information backing up your claim that LotRO will be a game in which non-raiders get just as good a deal as raiders. I acknowledge that I can be very combative in my quest for information but my combativeness comes out most strongly when someone is making unsupported claims. As in this case.
You got wtfpwned.
Ok, if you say so. You can wtfpwn me all you want. I really don't care. I'm still waiting for you to support your claim. Why don't you wtfpwn my doubts with some solid information.
At this point you are just trying to save face.
My face is beyond saving.........still waiting for that information.
I'm bored with you and done with you now.
That's understandable. I'm getting a little tired of this too.
Feel free to have the last word and talk trash.
In the process at this very moment......
It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements
Don't you mean, "No matter how many times I repost that same dev quote which doesn't actually say anything to support my claim"?
which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
I acknowledge the quote. It just doesn't say what you want it to say.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded.
How I look is irrelevant........still waiting for you to support your claim.
I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Again, whether I got pwned and whether or not I can save face is completely irrelevant.......still waiting for you to support your claim.
Wait? That's it? Ok, so we're at one meaningless dev quote and, "raiding will be fun"........
............and holding........
You lost.
What was I trying to win? I hoped that you were right. What I was trying to do was get you to offer some substantive information backing up your claim that LotRO will be a game in which non-raiders get just as good a deal as raiders. I acknowledge that I can be very combative in my quest for information but my combativeness comes out most strongly when someone is making unsupported claims. As in this case.
Lol what does LotRO have to do with anything.
You got wtfpwned.
Ok, if you say so. You can wtfpwn me all you want. I really don't care. I'm still waiting for you to support your claim. Why don't you wtfpwn my doubts with some solid information.
I SUPPORT MY CLAIM THAT THIS IS THE MOST STUPID POST! AND I'LL EVEN GIVE U A REASON!
#1 INTERNET TRASH! Dont we all just love internet drama?
#2 WHY CANT WE JUST BE FRIENDS?
#3 LOTRO has no relation to VANGUARD!
#4 VANGUARD ROCKS YOUR SOX AND YOUR CO**s!!
At this point you are just trying to save face.
My face is beyond saving.........still waiting for that information.
I am sorry I can't help with your face problem, I apologize that somethin is wrong with your face and beyond help, but I can give you whatever information you may want.
I'm bored with you and done with you now.
That's understandable. I'm getting a little tired of this too.
Since we're all tired of typing and talking about something so stupid, and fight like kids to get the last word, watch some Dr. Phil so we can work together and get through our problems. Better yet, i'll hook us up with the TV show and we can all go on Dr. Phil together.
Feel free to have the last word and talk trash.
In the process at this very moment......
We really need to see Dr. Phil! DONT WORRY GUYS! WE'LL WORK THROUGH THIS!
It's pointless trying to get you to actually acknowledge "the writing on the wall". Bottom line is if you refuse to acknowledge something, you won't. No matter how many times I give dev quotes and links to official dev statements
Don't you mean, "No matter how many times I repost that same dev quote which doesn't actually say anything to support my claim"?
Dev quote "At this very moment we are working on designing a giant squirrel and bunny mount, although this is very difficult, the squirrel has offered us a trade. The trade will be 2,000 nuts, and in exchange we will be able to use him as a design.....as for the bunny goes....it goes on and on and on and on....."
which validate and back my LoTRO claims you will only acknowledge them if you want to.
I acknowledge the quote. It just doesn't say what you want it to say.
I'll say what I say when I say how I say whatever I want to say when I want to say.
Your grasping-for-straws face-saving attempts are just making you look trollish and weakminded.
How I look is irrelevant........still waiting for you to support your claim.
I already told you I am sorry about your look, there is nothing more I can do for your face! I already supported my claim! DONT DENY THE TRUTH!
I will let you continue to talk alone and dig yourself into an increasingly deeper hole by yourself. You never know, If you dig deep enough nobody will notice you got pwned. Enjoy your face-saving campaign.
Again, whether I got pwned and whether or not I can save face is completely irrelevant.......still waiting for you to support your claim.
STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR FACE! I DID EVERYTHING I COULD FOR YOU!
Wait? That's it? Ok, so we're at one meaningless dev quote and, "raiding will be fun"........
............and holding........
Same here....they put me on hold....still waiting for DR. Phil....