Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction.
Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one? That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)
Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.
As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue. They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.
In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration thereby solving the problem naturally. Time will tell whether their plan will work however.
A Ratio Cap might work, and in essence there is one, sort of... but that is perhaps the problem with War to begin with - it isn't a persistant world MMORPG in any real sence of the term.
War is a team-arena. Its arenas are bigger than other games, but the War 'world' is tiny and restricted to a few hundred people. It simply isn't an MMORPG.
After playing both factions, there is no doubt in my mind that the devs spent years making Chaos and a few months tossing in some garbage to make some sort of group to comprise 'the other side'.
Tiny world, restricted to only a few hundred players, one side far superior in animation and design (and that level of animation and character class design is already subpar for any game after the 1990's to begin with) And a game that doesn't work without a balance? There are troubled times ahead.
Sidenote - even if the characters on both factions had had equal amounts of effort put in to them, the younger children that this game caters to are mostly going to be drawn to the chaos side anyhow. Simple developmental biology at work.
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
I don't know who is fool and who is not. I just explained your problems to you from the neutral point of view. I do not support you and do not bashing you even if you think so. It's easy to claim somebody as a fool and flame the forums about someone else fault like "Mythic's biggest mistake" than realize your own fault and accept it, then change it to your advantage.
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
My solution would be to group up servers into small clusters. Allow those waiting in 1 hour ques to have the option of playing on the low pop server in their cluster.
It would not be for everyone especially if you are looking to play with your guild/friends etc and they are already logged in, but there is no forcing it would simply be an option. It also does nothing to address the realm imbalance, but all the while you can choose your side, little will (although an Order graphics overhaul would not hurt, tank with a skirt! F'off).
There are times (many) when its desirable to be on a lower popped server, while at the same time having the option to go back to your higher pop on your next log in. For guilds this would be very handy, in practice the chances are the lower pop will fill quick enough.
Atm the lower pop servers are staying so because many feel they are forced to create their chars on full servers for fear of the future maybe empty server.
Would need lots of tweaking but cba to give it much though tbh.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Taking a keep... well you need at least 6-10 peoples to kill the Keep Lord depends of your skill. 2 Full parties should not have any problem doing it. But yes - ventrilo and yes - skilled players. That's 12 peoples... 6-12 peoples more to wipe or at least hold the opposite faction.
Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one? That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)
Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.
As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue. They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.
In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration thereby solving the problem naturally. Time will tell whether their plan will work however.
A Ratio Cap might work, and in essence there is one, sort of... but that is perhaps the problem with War to begin with - it isn't a persistant world MMORPG in any real sence of the term.
War is a team-arena. Its arenas are bigger than other games, but the War 'world' is tiny and restricted to a few hundred people. It simply isn't an MMORPG.
After playing both factions, there is no doubt in my mind that the devs spent years making Chaos and a few months tossing in some garbage to make some sort of group to comprise 'the other side'.
Tiny world, restricted to only a few hundred players, one side far superior in animation and design (and that level of animation and character class design is already subpar for any game after the 1990's to begin with) And a game that doesn't work without a balance? There are troubled times ahead.
Sidenote - even if the characters on both factions had had equal amounts of effort put in to them, the younger children that this game caters to are mostly going to be drawn to the chaos side anyhow. Simple developmental biology at work.
I don't think you are being fair to mythic. A lot of what you are seeing is from Gamesworkshop. Chaos always had extremely oranate and rich looking stuff.
I think mythic made an aethetic mistake in not having the knights of the blazing sun and underestimated the importance of that aesthetic.
But the phenomenon of Destruction preference is bigger than simply Mythic or even GW really.
I mean what would have happned if they implemented skaven? I bet there would be a ton of people playing them. And dark elves have always been far more sexy than High elves and sexy sells.
No mythics biggest mistake was handing blizzard all of their users with the force fed crap in TOA.anyone who was really around remembers how many times it was said: if you force this on us we are gone.
Mythic didnt listen, sony didnt listen and thus bliz ended up with 10 million+ subscribers.Anyone who thinks mythics changed or different only needs to look at their partner company and do their homework on UO,MCO,TSO and a couple other games to understand that warhammer and its fiasco of a launch is headed down the same road age of conan is.When you hire incompetants who just sit back and copy crap from other games, its destined for failure and everyone of the fan boys will be right back in wow.
My solution would be to group up servers into small clusters. Allow those waiting in 1 hour ques to have the option of playing on the low pop server in their cluster. It would not be for everyone especially if you are looking to play with your guild/friends etc and they are already logged in, but there is no forcing it would simply be an option. It also does nothing to address the realm imbalance, but all the while you can choose your side, little will (although an Order graphics overhaul would not hurt, tank with a skirt! F'off). There are times (many) when its desirable to be on a lower popped server, while at the same time having the option to go back to your higher pop on your next log in. For guilds this would be very handy, in practice the chances are the lower pop will fill quick enough. Atm the lower pop servers are staying so because many feel they are forced to create their chars on full servers for fear of the future maybe empty server. Would need lots of tweaking but cba to give it much though tbh.
That is an interesting idea. But what about all the keep ownership stuff?
No mythics biggest mistake was handing blizzard all of their users with the force fed crap in TOA.anyone who was really around remembers how many times it was said: if you force this on us we are gone. Mythic didnt listen, sony didnt listen and thus bliz ended up with 10 million+ subscribers.Anyone who thinks mythics changed or different only needs to look at their partner company and do their homework on UO,MCO,TSO and a couple other games to understand that warhammer and its fiasco of a launch is headed down the same road age of conan is.When you hire incompetants who just sit back and copy crap from other games, its destined for failure and everyone of the fan boys will be right back in wow.
Well ok, Mythics biggest mistake since TOA then
Or Mythics biggest release mistake.
Look I am not bahsing Mythic here this is a very sticky and tricky problem. And it is peculiar to WAR because it has so many large community elements.
THere are defently alot of issues coming up with the current basic idea of PQs. Hopefully Mythic will do abit more coding to make it work for less amount of players and make the rewards better for taking part. About sever population. Yes - that is a huge problem atm. Obviously something went horribly wrong when making the Order classes intresting enough. Maybe the look and the animations are enough to push ppl to the dark side. Cause lets face it - all the bad guys look alot better than order does.
OMG im tired of this response. People pick the bad side because they look better. Looking better has nothing to do with it. Being bad in general is the fun part. Why be good when it feels so much better to be bad. We as Humans love the dark side of things and thats not going to change in a game. You have heroes and you have villians. Psych 101 people.
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game.
look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred.
Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1.
Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed.
And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
I don't know who is fool and who is not. I just explained your problems to you from the neutral point of view. I do not support you and do not bashing you even if you think so. It's easy to claim somebody as a fool and flame the forums about someone else fault like "Mythic's biggest mistake" than realize your own fault and accept it, then change it to your advantage.
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
When did i call you a pussy? Challenges may be different.
Simple example..... i don't really know and care what kind of real life PvP did you mention.
You are: 2m height / 140 kg weight going to PvP a 1.58 m / 60 kg guy..... It's a challenge for who?
For 60 kg guy i'd say. And i know that many times this 60 kg guy won because he is accepting that he can loose but he is making all to win. That's exactly your case.
If you have a great advantage you are not fear to lose - that's always true. That's why ppl are going to fill most populated servers. That's why you fear that you're doomed. All related.
Another kind of challenge could be...... I can PvP all but i can't make all others interested in doing it with me. That's a greater challenge than go as a 60 kg guy because it requires social skills. You can be a superman for yourself but will never be a superman for all others.
Do you understand me now?
P.S.: i'm sure that some 50+ ppl strong guilds will roll on your server just because they can be at TOP there. It's interesting to have a strong opponent always.
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game. look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred. Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1. Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed. And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
i'd love to enjoy the game. i and a couple of friends have already left a couple of servers because we bought a pvp game and have little interest in spending most of our time pve'ing because of lack of enemies in the rvr areas and scenarios taking for ever to start. since some assclown decided to not have official forums, it's rather a pain in the ass to try to see who all is where and how many guilds are on what faction in which server.
Yeah because it is so hard to read low, med, high and full on the server screen...
Blaming this on no official forums is just silly.
I don't disagree that the game is very dependent on population but you can do most PQs with 4 players if you know what you are doing, you need 6 max so it isn't the end of the world. I think they have a few too many servers and they need to do something to make people want to roll order more. They need the population to stabalize before they can do much about it though.
I like it the way it is, see i like to be the underdog, i never have touble fining people to assist me in open field rvr and i like the fact that order cant win unless they do some serious orginized RvR strategies.
there i said it, if you want solo killing spree action then roll a destruction tank.
i bet 90% of the people whining about order sucking or being underpopulated are wow players looking for the easyest gaming experience they can find, getting too fustrated with a real challange.
Anyway in a few week the sides will even out, all anyone cares about now is getting one character to endgame.
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game. look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred. Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1. Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed. And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
I agree, the day after launch I purchaced the the game from Direct2Drive. Downloaded the game. Installed it...patched it... Signed up for an account, enterned the keys D2D emailed me. And viola I was online playing. It was flawless.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
I don't know who is fool and who is not. I just explained your problems to you from the neutral point of view. I do not support you and do not bashing you even if you think so. It's easy to claim somebody as a fool and flame the forums about someone else fault like "Mythic's biggest mistake" than realize your own fault and accept it, then change it to your advantage.
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
When did i call you a pussy? Challenges may be different.
Simple example..... i don't really know and care what kind of real life PvP did you mention.
You are: 2m height / 140 kg weight going to PvP a 1.58 m / 60 kg guy..... It's a challenge for who?
For 60 kg guy i'd say. And i know that many times this 60 kg guy won because he is accepting that he can loose but he is making all to win. That's exactly your case.
If you have a great advantage you are not fear to lose - that's always true. That's why ppl are going to fill most populated servers. That's why you fear that you're doomed. All related.
Another kind of challenge could be...... I can PvP all but i can't make all others interested in doing it with me. That's a greater challenge than go as a 60 kg guy because it requires social skills. You can be a superman for yourself but will never be a superman for all others.
Do you understand me now?
P.S.: i'm sure that some 50+ ppl strong guilds will roll on your server just because they can be at TOP there. It's interesting to have a strong opponent always.
How can you believe there will be a strong opponent on a ghost town?
Don't you see the catch-22?
Even if you have a destro guild that took every single keep. And your leet guild is thinking about rolling order.
So what? If the server is a ghosttown you would be a fool to assume that guild is anything better than medicore. Any guild with 30 or so people and just a modicum of skill can take a keep when there is no one around. as long as most of that guild is in the same tier.
It is EASY to take keeps with no opposition. There will be some of jobbers who want to be at the top and roll an empty server to be alone in T4. So what they are still alone in T4.
There might be some guild who wants no queues and rolls that server because thye think those guys are good.
But they would still be wrong since that guild is jsut a bunch of jobbers avoiding a real challenge or simply does not have the experience to be any good since they had no opposition and just leveled in PvE anyway.
In order to make a low population server have any REAL action. This would have to happen ALOT. That does not seem likely. Especially there will be major features of WAR that are not operational. Like scenarios.
You can be the most charimatic and social guy in the world. But if that does not mean jack when there is no one to fight. You can have hugely charismatic and soical guys on both sides but if you only have 20 peopl on each side how are you going to cover 9 HUGE zone of RvR.
You are not. That is why there is the term "critical mass". Low population servers do not have ciritical mass. No amount of you trying will make it work right.
You might as well try to fall up. Has nothing to do with challenge.
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game. look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred. Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1. Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed. And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
yeah they sold alot..and then couldnt deliver any of them! You obviously havent played many mmo's then and just fell off the newbie wagon if you dont understand.
I repeat ANY mmo that has that bumpy of a launch ends up shelved...MCO anyone? canceled out of the blue because of poor management and forced crap nobody wanted.AOC? game isnt even a few months old and is about to need life support..anarchy online? had to be turned into F2P..shadowbane? f2p also..and they still arent gaining interest.
blizzard never ever EVER should have outsold daoc, much less starwars galaxies.It was just incomprehensible considering the things you could do in DAOC compared to wow, and well starwars..no brainer everyones familiar with it and the name alone was good for a few million subscriptions..
Selling pre orders, beta codes, etc...collecting the money and not being able to deliver? tsk tsk tsk..bad bussiness..
Now lets reflect on the history of mythic..they should have known better then to get into bed with EA..plain and simple...they should have learned from toa and then catacombs...but its obvious they learned nothing.
And dont get me started on bbs's and muds..I ran everything from diku/black circle to tele-arena/majormud on a 99 node major bbs with 217 incoming telnet connections.I know full well how they worked along with falken and many other bbs doors.
Its simple..if you only care about profit and not giving ppl something for the money you take from them its a guaranteed fail.
Tell them you arent paying? you already did when you bought the game and accepted the fact they didnt deliver what you originaly bought.
I like it the way it is, see i like to be the underdog, i never have touble fining people to assist me in open field rvr and i like the fact that order cant win unless they do some serious orginized RvR strategies. there i said it, if you want solo killing spree action then roll a destruction tank. i bet 90% of the people whining about order sucking or being underpopulated are wow players looking for the easyest gaming experience they can find, getting too fustrated with a real challange. Anyway in a few week the sides will even out, all anyone cares about now is getting one character to endgame.
Honestly, where do you people live ... show me one game where pops magically started to balance out after a while. At best you're looking at half a year here probably for something like this. Do you really expect the bulk of the people to wait for this?
This isn't Daoc or WoW where being an "underdog" is *cool*. In thos egames being an underdog didn't mean squat, so you had tons more enemies and lost ver ylittle and you lacked a relic or 2, big deal.
n WAR being the underdog means the other side will walk over you in Open RvR objectives which means you'll never even get to see the enemy city and be on the defensive nearly your entire gaming life.
This also means that you're looking at enemies that get progressively better gear/RP wise compared to you "underdogs" which will easily compensate for any perceived "skills" the underdogs think they get over the "zerg" population which means you're back down to equal chances yet they have more = win.
If you don't think population matters bigtime in this game then you should look at Mythic, they've made it quite clear population balance is important to their game. Unfortunately, so far their methods are lacking. Keeping the pop cap on servers low with caps on both sides would have worked fine *if* they had gotten more peopleor kept the number of servers lower.
Unforunately they were kind of forced to increase them due to incessive whining after the headstart debacle.
I think you'll notice that low and medium are not perceived as succesful servers so far, only the high ones which means, in my opinion, that the caps are too low for the way the servers are built, they seem to be built to hold way more people than they are holding now but raising htem will make balance even more difficult for all the other servers that are out there as those high servers right now will just fill up more.
Consolidating servers is the last thing you want to do at this point yet without a large influx of players still coming that's going to mean a lot of servers will be "lacking" in the perception of a lot of people.
(disclaimer: All my perception, welcome to disagree but use some facts/arguments and not "Zomg gb2WOW fanboi!")
1) Imo it's also true on medium PoP server, i think that most zones are too big to handle even a medium-high population. Far too many times i just run into huge empty lanscape, and that's only in T2.
In WoW i used to bump into people ALL the time almost anywhere on the map.
MAPS are WAY too big. Better keep it small anf focused like WOW.
2) Scenarios were not needed; since there is world pvp, players just constantly queue to BG and pop in and out of PQ/PVE/RVR, there is no group consistancy in any part of the game, as people selfishly drop what they are doing to enter a scenario.
3) the game will suffer greatly from population shortening at low lvls and high lvls. Fact is, lvling is NOT solo friendly: it's easy, you can do it, but it's boring because hardly anyone communicate, global chats are empty, and you eventually realize you're going to do the same old PQ (kill 100 normal mobs, kill 10 elite mobs, kill 1 boss) same quests (kill 10 XXX, Kill 1named, Find object X), but without talking to other people much.
WAR is completely dependant on servers numbers and faction balance at the same time. Unfortunately it's not the case.
And the fact that everything PvE related is easy makes player sunable to communicate; or maybe thats the fact everyone come from WoW and feel they already know it all...
My addiction History: >> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore >> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual >> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
OP what's the server name? just curious. I wanna take a look at ghost server when my working day ends.
Btw. I like marauder, squig herder, chosen, zealot, black orc, shaman and sorcerer destruction classes. I played destruction almost all the time in betas but i'm playing on the Order side now (coz of friends, they decided to roll Order). And what we have...... all keeps owned by destruction constantly. But all is ok
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game. look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred. Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1. Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed. And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
yeah they sold alot..and then couldnt deliver any of them! You obviously havent played many mmo's then and just fell off the newbie wagon if you dont understand.
I repeat ANY mmo that has that bumpy of a launch ends up shelved...MCO anyone? canceled out of the blue because of poor management and forced crap nobody wanted.AOC? game isnt even a few months old and is about to need life support..anarchy online? had to be turned into F2P..shadowbane? f2p also..and they still arent gaining interest.
blizzard never ever EVER should have outsold daoc, much less starwars galaxies.It was just incomprehensible considering the things you could do in DAOC compared to wow, and well starwars..no brainer everyones familiar with it and the name alone was good for a few million subscriptions..
Selling pre orders, beta codes, etc...collecting the money and not being able to deliver? tsk tsk tsk..bad bussiness..
Now lets reflect on the history of mythic..they should have known better then to get into bed with EA..plain and simple...they should have learned from toa and then catacombs...but its obvious they learned nothing.
And dont get me started on bbs's and muds..I ran everything from diku/black circle to tele-arena/majormud on a 99 node major bbs with 217 incoming telnet connections.I know full well how they worked along with falken and many other bbs doors.
Its simple..if you only care about profit and not giving ppl something for the money you take from them its a guaranteed fail.
Tell them you arent paying? you already did when you bought the game and accepted the fact they didnt deliver what you originaly bought.
I have played 20 different MUDs and 15 different MMOs. So the newb thing doesn't wash.
So you are referring to all the cd/beta code problems and grace period? Ok, that wasn't really very obvious from your post. Because WAR has certainly had much less problems in the way of bugs and balance issues you usually see in release.
Well I don't agree that is as big a deal as you do, but we will see. Time will tell that is for sure.
You seem to have pre-judged Mythic and EA, not without merit, and have an axe to grind about it. That is fine maybe you will turn out right in the end. I won't tell you to buy WAR if Mythic burned you in the past and clearly EA has burned people and even shut down MMOs. And I think TOA was crap. People should be circumspect. Performing falactio on Mark Jacobs won't make the game better that is for sure. Well you never know, but its doubtful
But I am not really seeing the severity you are implying and using the newb bit is well incorrect and also is simply invalid in regards to making any kind of point. Claim all the authority you like you will still need to make a case and explain what you mean. Because other than the various problems with keys most historical MMO release problems are fairly well minimized. Heck they even rotated downtime for oceanic people
1) Imo it's also true on medium PoP server, i think that most zones are too big to handle even a medium-high population. Far too many times i just run into huge empty lanscape, and that's only in T2.
In WoW i used to bump into people ALL the time almost anywhere on the map. MAPS are WAY too big. Better keep it small anf focused like WOW. 2) Scenarios were not needed; since there is world pvp, players just constantly queue to BG and pop in and out of PQ/PVE/RVR, there is no group consistancy in any part of the game, as people selfishly drop what they are doing to enter a scenario. 3) the game will suffer greatly from population shortening at low lvls and high lvls. Fact is, lvling is NOT solo friendly: it's easy, you can do it, but it's boring because hardly anyone communicate, global chats are empty, and you eventually realize you're going to do the same old PQ (kill 100 normal mobs, kill 10 elite mobs, kill 1 boss) same quests (kill 10 XXX, Kill 1named, Find object X), but without talking to other people much. WAR is completely dependant on servers numbers and faction balance at the same time. Unfortunately it's not the case. And the fact that everything PvE related is easy makes player sunable to communicate; or maybe thats the fact everyone come from WoW and feel they already know it all...
Yes its a great game when you have hit the "sweet spot". It get more and more boring as you get to lower populations.
You can solo to 40 easy and fast. But it will be really boring.
Factional balance is a bit trickier but even if it is only moderately important it is completely obvious that lower pop severs have no control of it.
the current mechanics assume the server will fill up. But isn't this a bad assumption. Why fill up a server that is boring and as the added problem huge factional imbalances.
You can say well some people want a challenge, fine but do that want to be bored? Probably not. And how many people actually want that challenge. Cearly a lot less think that "challenge" is fun.
So you are pre-selecting those servers for a smaller population due to faciontional imbalance and an even smaller population because it is boring.
Telling people to stick it out things will pick up is simply naive. There are currently at least 10 low pop servers. When your choice is stick it out on the boring and imbalanced server or have fun on the higher pop server which actuall enforece some modicum of balance.
What do you think the ration of peopl who choose a low pop server will be? It will be lower than it needs to be. Therefore queues will increas and low pop will not grow fast enough. Further due to these negatives not only will people make the choice of a higher pop server iniitally, the lower pop server will experience greater attrition.
There is no reason to think otherwise unless people can come up with some compelling reason people will choose a low pop server.
The only reason to choose a low pop at this point is to avoid queues. But if you look at the time management waiting in a queue is prefereable than playing a low pop server.
That is the fundamental problem. I can wait in a queue for 30 minutes and play non-stop scenarios for 3 hours. Or I can log in to a low pop server instantly and never find a PvP target and certainly have at best one scenario.
Add onto the fact that factional balance is intrinsically tied to a server getting full and you get a negative feedback loop.
No one rolls low pop because there is no action. There is no action becase no rolls a low pop server. No one rolls a low pop server because factions are imbalanced. Factions are imbalanced because the servers never fill up.
That is TWO negative feedback loops. That is bad. What is there to work against these two loops? Only queue times. Clearly they are not enough when put into context.
I have played 20 different MUDs and 15 different MMOs. So the newb thing doesn't wash.
So you are referring to all the cd/beta code problems and grace period? Ok, that wasn't really very obvious from your post. Because WAR has certainly had much less problems in the way of bugs and balance issues you usually see in release.
Well I don't agree that is as big a deal as you do, but we will see. Time will tell that is for sure.
You seem to have pre-judged Mythic and EA, not without merit, and have an axe to grind about it. That is fine maybe you will turn out right in the end. I won't tell you to buy WAR if Mythic burned you in the past and clearly EA has burned people and even shut down MMOs. And I think TOA was crap. People should be circumspect. Performing falactio on Mark Jacobs won't make the game better that is for sure. Well you never know, but its doubtful
But I am not really seeing the severity you are implying and using the newb bit is well incorrect and also is simply invalid in regards to making any kind of point. Claim all the authority you like you will still need to make a case and explain what you mean. Because other than the various problems with keys most historical MMO release problems are fairly well minimized. Heck they even rotated downtime for oceanic people
think about it.You dont see it as a problem a company cant even keep straight what they sold?
I ordered my beta codes and pre orders a while ago and just had them delivered yesterday.the order has been canceled over a week, but even thats not the funny part.
I live in NC and ended up with 2 EU copys of it and beta codes for EU < bleck what lag i wouldnt even want to imagine it.. >
playing muds and running them are 2 different things.Running a old school mud back in the 80s and 90s was the equivelent of running a mmo on a smaller scale.It boils down to keeping the users happy, if you told a user: i dont care i got your money, quit playing, they wouldnt come back, and ppl logging in is what makes it MULTIPLAYER...
Pre-judge mythic? not hardly I was there when they closed andred, it was my main server, I had to reroll to merlin and restart that infil over.I even ended up with 17 lvl 50s on merlin when toa was pushed outm necros, paladins, warriors, theurgists, ice mages, earth mages, matter cabbys, friars, clerics, played em all and thats not even counting the shadowblades and shamans, or druids and enchanters on other servers.
Pre-judge EA? again not true, i was there when UO started in june 97, even was a counselor on PAC shard, Counselor Lobokin.Once EA aquired it the game went steady downhill..TSO? MCO? played them.Watched MCO close with zero warning and no explanation.
Bugs? hah i seen lotsa bugs..exploits? seen em all, radar hack, map hacks, dupes, etc..etc..
You dont see the severity because you chose not to.Go read up on some of those interviews with the fools saying how they dont care if you quit or not, your dues have already been paid, and then tell me you feel as if you will be given a immersive gaming expeirience?
Not tired of being force fed crap in games you dont want or watching cheap imitations of games flood the market yet?
When it boils down to it, rvr is nothing new.been done before.instances, quest grinding solo to max level...done before...what is so new and wonderful about WAR that it can get away with shafting the ppl who payed to play it?
But then its not just about the beta code issue or the preorder cluster $%^& either.Its about 2 euro copys of WAR sitting on my table that came in the mail yesterday that were ordered sept.03.2008 and the beta codes i just got in email that were canceled a week ago after dancing around on the phone with a answering machine for hours and 4 or 5 different calls to cancel.
SO, I order it..dont get it when I could use it, decide I dont want it anymore, end up getting it, and find its EURO to boot.
Oh yes this mmo will be a great wow killer, at least as much as AOC was.Now I dont even need to point out the removal of the classes...the population imbalances...and who knows what else can be brought up from a gameplay standpoint, oh yeah and those graphics...from the graphics I seen nothing different from wow, the orcs look stubby and controls looks to be turned with wasd.
OP what's the server name? just curious. I wanna take a look at ghost server when my working day ends. Btw. I like marauder, squig herder, chosen, zealot, black orc, shaman and sorcerer destruction classes. I played destruction almost all the time in betas but i'm playing on the Order side now (coz of friends, they decided to roll Order). And what we have...... all keeps owned by destruction constantly. But all is ok
I don't care if Destro own the keeps. I have my gear and renown gear pre-t4 is simply convience I am getting slightly better stuff from PQ's and quests anyway. What I would like to have is frequent and significant keep battles. This is not going to happen for months and months if ever. I do not care which side of the keep battles I am on. I would like enemy players to actually be involved in those battles. I would like this because I experienced in Beta and i know it is better than what is currently happening.
I am sorry but I would prefer not say what server I am on in an interent forum. You can roll any of the low pop servers. I am confident they are similar. Try Marienburg or something
I have played 20 different MUDs and 15 different MMOs. So the newb thing doesn't wash.
So you are referring to all the cd/beta code problems and grace period? Ok, that wasn't really very obvious from your post. Because WAR has certainly had much less problems in the way of bugs and balance issues you usually see in release.
Well I don't agree that is as big a deal as you do, but we will see. Time will tell that is for sure.
You seem to have pre-judged Mythic and EA, not without merit, and have an axe to grind about it. That is fine maybe you will turn out right in the end. I won't tell you to buy WAR if Mythic burned you in the past and clearly EA has burned people and even shut down MMOs. And I think TOA was crap. People should be circumspect. Performing falactio on Mark Jacobs won't make the game better that is for sure. Well you never know, but its doubtful
But I am not really seeing the severity you are implying and using the newb bit is well incorrect and also is simply invalid in regards to making any kind of point. Claim all the authority you like you will still need to make a case and explain what you mean. Because other than the various problems with keys most historical MMO release problems are fairly well minimized. Heck they even rotated downtime for oceanic people
think about it.You dont see it as a problem a company cant even keep straight what they sold?
I ordered my beta codes and pre orders a while ago and just had them delivered yesterday.the order has been canceled over a week, but even thats not the funny part.
I live in NC and ended up with 2 EU copys of it and beta codes for EU < bleck what lag i wouldnt even want to imagine it.. >
playing muds and running them are 2 different things.Running a old school mud back in the 80s and 90s was the equivelent of running a mmo on a smaller scale.It boils down to keeping the users happy, if you told a user: i dont care i got your money, quit playing, they wouldnt come back, and ppl logging in is what makes it MULTIPLAYER...
Pre-judge mythic? not hardly I was there when they closed andred, it was my main server, I had to reroll to merlin and restart that infil over.I even ended up with 17 lvl 50s on merlin when toa was pushed outm necros, paladins, warriors, theurgists, ice mages, earth mages, matter cabbys, friars, clerics, played em all and thats not even counting the shadowblades and shamans, or druids and enchanters on other servers.
Pre-judge EA? again not true, i was there when UO started in june 97, even was a counselor on PAC shard, Counselor Lobokin.Once EA aquired it the game went steady downhill..TSO? MCO? played them.Watched MCO close with zero warning and no explanation.
Bugs? hah i seen lotsa bugs..exploits? seen em all, radar hack, map hacks, dupes, etc..etc..
You dont see the severity because you chose not to.Go read up on some of those interviews with the fools saying how they dont care if you quit or not, your dues have already been paid, and then tell me you feel as if you will be given a immersive gaming expeirience?
Not tired of being force fed crap in games you dont want or watching cheap imitations of games flood the market yet?
When it boils down to it, rvr is nothing new.been done before.instances, quest grinding solo to max level...done before...what is so new and wonderful about WAR that it can get away with shafting the ppl who payed to play it?
But then its not just about the beta code issue or the preorder cluster $%^& either.Its about 2 euro copys of WAR sitting on my table that came in the mail yesterday that were ordered sept.03.2008 and the beta codes i just got in email that were canceled a week ago after dancing around on the phone with a answering machine for hours and 4 or 5 different calls to cancel.
SO, I order it..dont get it when I could use it, decide I dont want it anymore, end up getting it, and find its EURO to boot.
Oh yes this mmo will be a great wow killer, at least as much as AOC was.Now I dont even need to point out the removal of the classes...the population imbalances...and who knows what else can be brought up from a gameplay standpoint, oh yeah and those graphics...from the graphics I seen nothing different from wow, the orcs look stubby and controls looks to be turned with wasd.
Again I simply disagree about the severity and eventual effects of these thigns. ESPECIALLY when put into the context to other MMORPG (which you brought up not me).
And pre-judging them is not a bad thing when it has merit, which I said there was. It is merely bad when you do keep an open mind towards the future. People like to say pre-judgment is always bad. They are wrong, humans naturally pre-judge all kinds of things for good reason and it is much faster than trying to find every single little fact and angle about something before making a decision.
Half of the stuff you mention is pre-judging them based on past experience. That is fine since those things have merit and you are not pulling crap out of your ass, but that is what it is.
Again you are perfectly within your right and being somewhat reasonable hear. I simply do not agree with you. So do me the same courtesy of doing the same, as I believe I have done nothing to deserve being accused of being a newb or of being blind. And frankly this is exactly what Mythic and every other MMO and MUD designer probably thinks of you as well. The way I see it you and Mythic and most of the other MMORPG dev houses are peas in a pod. It is a lot of pot calling the kettle black type stuff. And calling everyone who isn't seeing what seems to be proven obvious fact stupid or blind or whatever. You see it all the time when engineers argue about things.
It is fine to try to convince people of what you see as obvious and well founded. You may even be completely right/ But when you cross the line into saying we are at fault because we do not understand your point then you have lost the entire point. This is a common problem with people in technical fields especially computers. And it is in my opinion one the biggest maladies in this entire industry. I do not get as mad about it as you, because I no longer participate in that way. If I did what i did in my MUD days maybe I would be saying stuff like waht you are saying.
But I came to the conclusion that entire appraoch is wrong. Because people don't work the way you might think they do and trying to convince people that get into nerd fights about things is a losing battle. And by and large the vast majority of devs work this way whether paid or not. And the ones that don't are generally very well loved and very rare.
No matter how nerdy or not nerdy or an egineer or logical or greedy. People still do want certain things. They want success and popularity. They are not devils, well rarely are they devils. At they same time they very much bleieve they know what they are doing and since many of them are technical type you will have to prove that to them. Solidly prove it to them or they get very stubborn.
But many of these things there is no easily provable thing. And many of these are based on human feeling about things. And people develop feelings about things for reason that you will not be able to predict or that they may not even be able to understand. But this is precisely what many of the professionals in this fields are very much lacking in. The ability and willingness to listen to people's crap. And it is crap. But its thier crap so its important to them.
In fact most people do not want to do this. Only thigns like politics and customer service do this. And msot people in customer service hate it.
And when it comes to these games and the mechanics behind them. A large portion of that crap is simply wrong. But that gets extrapolated into listening to nothing.
I don't expect any listenting. It is rare, it is not going to happen except by luck. Over the last ten years these companies have started to figure out all this stuff is more politics than mathematical game design. They are diverging from Bartle and IMO smart to do so when it comes to people. IN the process they are making mistakes and diverging to far from some of the Bartle ideas.
This is the way it goes. I do not see what you see as unbearable or indications of failure. I do not begrudge you not wanting to buy from companies that have wronged you and others in the past. That is perfectly rational. But I evaluate those actions from a very different perspective.
In fact if I were a "newb" I would be more inclinded to agree with you. But I am not. I stopped those recriminations in regard to various dev decisions a long time ago it just didn't add up. Too many lose ends it never quite made sense. And seeing so many engineers basically do the same thing. And seeing the total lack of understanding or blaming the other party in regards to social stuff. Not that both were not to blame it was more of the strange juxtiposition of being practical on technical matter and idealistic in social matters. Anyway I just stopped being idealistic and started being socially pragmatic. At least to some degree.
To be sure EA has done nasty stuff. Don't think I am being naive here. And Funcom lied about a lot of things. And Mythic has effed up a lot of things. But from a pragmatic standpoint no I do not agree about the severity or consequences.
Why would anyone stay on a low pop server? Only for emotional reasons. Further whichever faction has a significant edge will drive away the other faction making balance even more unlikely.
While the rest of your post is great, this part is complete rubbish.
A lot of players like me actively seek out the underdog for the simple reason that we like a challenge, not for some imagined emotional reason. Playing Order is most definitely a challenge, and this is just what I like
I'm hardly on Sylvania for emotional reasons. That's just crazy talk. lol
That is emotional. Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional.
I didn't say they wanted to be their because they are a bunch of panty waste over sensitive and needy cry babies.
There is no advantage to the low pop servers. Even for challenge you won't get much because just finding any action at all can be hard.
I have personally run around on a low server in T1 for over an hour and never found a single destro. And i this server is at least 2 to 1 out numbered maybe eve 3 to 1.
When you do actually find some action and if you wait long enough for the 2 people who found you to spread the word then yes you might get your emiontal need for a challenge sated.
Not very well though. Probably should check out a medium high server if that is what you want.
And you realize that wanting to be on high population servers is emotipnal as well right. Everything is "emotional" as you choose to define it
Comments
Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one? That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)
Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.
As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue. They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.
In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration thereby solving the problem naturally. Time will tell whether their plan will work however.
A Ratio Cap might work, and in essence there is one, sort of... but that is perhaps the problem with War to begin with - it isn't a persistant world MMORPG in any real sence of the term.
War is a team-arena. Its arenas are bigger than other games, but the War 'world' is tiny and restricted to a few hundred people. It simply isn't an MMORPG.
After playing both factions, there is no doubt in my mind that the devs spent years making Chaos and a few months tossing in some garbage to make some sort of group to comprise 'the other side'.
Tiny world, restricted to only a few hundred players, one side far superior in animation and design (and that level of animation and character class design is already subpar for any game after the 1990's to begin with) And a game that doesn't work without a balance? There are troubled times ahead.
Sidenote - even if the characters on both factions had had equal amounts of effort put in to them, the younger children that this game caters to are mostly going to be drawn to the chaos side anyhow. Simple developmental biology at work.
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
My solution would be to group up servers into small clusters. Allow those waiting in 1 hour ques to have the option of playing on the low pop server in their cluster.
It would not be for everyone especially if you are looking to play with your guild/friends etc and they are already logged in, but there is no forcing it would simply be an option. It also does nothing to address the realm imbalance, but all the while you can choose your side, little will (although an Order graphics overhaul would not hurt, tank with a skirt! F'off).
There are times (many) when its desirable to be on a lower popped server, while at the same time having the option to go back to your higher pop on your next log in. For guilds this would be very handy, in practice the chances are the lower pop will fill quick enough.
Atm the lower pop servers are staying so because many feel they are forced to create their chars on full servers for fear of the future maybe empty server.
Would need lots of tweaking but cba to give it much though tbh.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Is it really this easy to take a keep, that 12 players can actually capture one? That would have been almost impossible in DAOC, even if the keep was at its lowest setting. (keeps don't have levels in WAR, do they?)
Hmm.. .disappointing to say the least, I knew WAR was easier, but didn't realize it was that easy.
As for population, the solution is simple, (although painful), cap the populations on all servers to be no more than a 60/40 ratio, and put the rest of the players into a queue. They'll either switch sides or quit, but either way, balance will be acheived.
In a way, i think Mythic is taking a benign approach, they figure if they let the imbalance go long enough, Destro players will reroll on the order side in frustration thereby solving the problem naturally. Time will tell whether their plan will work however.
A Ratio Cap might work, and in essence there is one, sort of... but that is perhaps the problem with War to begin with - it isn't a persistant world MMORPG in any real sence of the term.
War is a team-arena. Its arenas are bigger than other games, but the War 'world' is tiny and restricted to a few hundred people. It simply isn't an MMORPG.
After playing both factions, there is no doubt in my mind that the devs spent years making Chaos and a few months tossing in some garbage to make some sort of group to comprise 'the other side'.
Tiny world, restricted to only a few hundred players, one side far superior in animation and design (and that level of animation and character class design is already subpar for any game after the 1990's to begin with) And a game that doesn't work without a balance? There are troubled times ahead.
Sidenote - even if the characters on both factions had had equal amounts of effort put in to them, the younger children that this game caters to are mostly going to be drawn to the chaos side anyhow. Simple developmental biology at work.
I don't think you are being fair to mythic. A lot of what you are seeing is from Gamesworkshop. Chaos always had extremely oranate and rich looking stuff.
I think mythic made an aethetic mistake in not having the knights of the blazing sun and underestimated the importance of that aesthetic.
But the phenomenon of Destruction preference is bigger than simply Mythic or even GW really.
I mean what would have happned if they implemented skaven? I bet there would be a ton of people playing them. And dark elves have always been far more sexy than High elves and sexy sells.
No mythics biggest mistake was handing blizzard all of their users with the force fed crap in TOA.anyone who was really around remembers how many times it was said: if you force this on us we are gone.
Mythic didnt listen, sony didnt listen and thus bliz ended up with 10 million+ subscribers.Anyone who thinks mythics changed or different only needs to look at their partner company and do their homework on UO,MCO,TSO and a couple other games to understand that warhammer and its fiasco of a launch is headed down the same road age of conan is.When you hire incompetants who just sit back and copy crap from other games, its destined for failure and everyone of the fan boys will be right back in wow.
That is an interesting idea. But what about all the keep ownership stuff?
Well ok, Mythics biggest mistake since TOA then
Or Mythics biggest release mistake.
Look I am not bahsing Mythic here this is a very sticky and tricky problem. And it is peculiar to WAR because it has so many large community elements.
OMG im tired of this response. People pick the bad side because they look better. Looking better has nothing to do with it. Being bad in general is the fun part. Why be good when it feels so much better to be bad. We as Humans love the dark side of things and thats not going to change in a game. You have heroes and you have villians. Psych 101 people.
Well no one is really bashing mythic, however, its been proven history repeats itself again and again..
No way wow should have outsold DAOC, nor would it have until the toa fiasco.Original daoc owned so much mythic was forced into classic servers after stating time and again they would under no circumstances do it, and even that didnt save the game.
look up my name, merlin server, 17 lvl 50s there not to mention playing on andred <since day 1 before they closed it> and mordred.
Loved the original DAOC...then look uo Salem/Minrath/Cain uo on atlantic shard, look me up in wow,swg, eq 1 and 2, my names in all of them starting with diablo 1.
Will I touch warhammer? no.Ill never even log into it.When you have that rough of a launch, and that many problems pre-selling a game then the rest of the game is headed for headache.
As for the post above mine..be bad all you want, you still need ppl to kill or you will end up with 50 buffbots camped outside of the keeps to keep those 50 infiltrators that are going to be spamming dragonfang on your head buffed.
And to add to this whole conversation a flavor of reality..the designers themselves state in their interviews they dont care who plays it or who quits, they dont want to read your feedback, dont care what you say or feel, and only want your money.
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
When did i call you a pussy? Challenges may be different.
Simple example..... i don't really know and care what kind of real life PvP did you mention.
You are: 2m height / 140 kg weight going to PvP a 1.58 m / 60 kg guy..... It's a challenge for who?
For 60 kg guy i'd say. And i know that many times this 60 kg guy won because he is accepting that he can loose but he is making all to win. That's exactly your case.
If you have a great advantage you are not fear to lose - that's always true. That's why ppl are going to fill most populated servers. That's why you fear that you're doomed. All related.
Another kind of challenge could be...... I can PvP all but i can't make all others interested in doing it with me. That's a greater challenge than go as a 60 kg guy because it requires social skills. You can be a superman for yourself but will never be a superman for all others.
Do you understand me now?
P.S.: i'm sure that some 50+ ppl strong guilds will roll on your server just because they can be at TOP there. It's interesting to have a strong opponent always.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
Yeah because it is so hard to read low, med, high and full on the server screen...
Blaming this on no official forums is just silly.
I don't disagree that the game is very dependent on population but you can do most PQs with 4 players if you know what you are doing, you need 6 max so it isn't the end of the world. I think they have a few too many servers and they need to do something to make people want to roll order more. They need the population to stabalize before they can do much about it though.
I like it the way it is, see i like to be the underdog, i never have touble fining people to assist me in open field rvr and i like the fact that order cant win unless they do some serious orginized RvR strategies.
there i said it, if you want solo killing spree action then roll a destruction tank.
i bet 90% of the people whining about order sucking or being underpopulated are wow players looking for the easyest gaming experience they can find, getting too fustrated with a real challange.
Anyway in a few week the sides will even out, all anyone cares about now is getting one character to endgame.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
I agree, the day after launch I purchaced the the game from Direct2Drive. Downloaded the game. Installed it...patched it... Signed up for an account, enterned the keys D2D emailed me. And viola I was online playing. It was flawless.
Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands? ~Ernest Gaines
Tell me I can't take a challenge and its personal. That means you called me a pussy. Can't back that up huh?
Yeah think we see what the real deal is. Neutral my ass.
When did i call you a pussy? Challenges may be different.
Simple example..... i don't really know and care what kind of real life PvP did you mention.
You are: 2m height / 140 kg weight going to PvP a 1.58 m / 60 kg guy..... It's a challenge for who?
For 60 kg guy i'd say. And i know that many times this 60 kg guy won because he is accepting that he can loose but he is making all to win. That's exactly your case.
If you have a great advantage you are not fear to lose - that's always true. That's why ppl are going to fill most populated servers. That's why you fear that you're doomed. All related.
Another kind of challenge could be...... I can PvP all but i can't make all others interested in doing it with me. That's a greater challenge than go as a 60 kg guy because it requires social skills. You can be a superman for yourself but will never be a superman for all others.
Do you understand me now?
P.S.: i'm sure that some 50+ ppl strong guilds will roll on your server just because they can be at TOP there. It's interesting to have a strong opponent always.
How can you believe there will be a strong opponent on a ghost town?
Don't you see the catch-22?
Even if you have a destro guild that took every single keep. And your leet guild is thinking about rolling order.
So what? If the server is a ghosttown you would be a fool to assume that guild is anything better than medicore. Any guild with 30 or so people and just a modicum of skill can take a keep when there is no one around. as long as most of that guild is in the same tier.
It is EASY to take keeps with no opposition. There will be some of jobbers who want to be at the top and roll an empty server to be alone in T4. So what they are still alone in T4.
There might be some guild who wants no queues and rolls that server because thye think those guys are good.
But they would still be wrong since that guild is jsut a bunch of jobbers avoiding a real challenge or simply does not have the experience to be any good since they had no opposition and just leveled in PvE anyway.
In order to make a low population server have any REAL action. This would have to happen ALOT. That does not seem likely. Especially there will be major features of WAR that are not operational. Like scenarios.
You can be the most charimatic and social guy in the world. But if that does not mean jack when there is no one to fight. You can have hugely charismatic and soical guys on both sides but if you only have 20 peopl on each side how are you going to cover 9 HUGE zone of RvR.
You are not. That is why there is the term "critical mass". Low population servers do not have ciritical mass. No amount of you trying will make it work right.
You might as well try to fall up. Has nothing to do with challenge.
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
yeah they sold alot..and then couldnt deliver any of them! You obviously havent played many mmo's then and just fell off the newbie wagon if you dont understand.
I repeat ANY mmo that has that bumpy of a launch ends up shelved...MCO anyone? canceled out of the blue because of poor management and forced crap nobody wanted.AOC? game isnt even a few months old and is about to need life support..anarchy online? had to be turned into F2P..shadowbane? f2p also..and they still arent gaining interest.
blizzard never ever EVER should have outsold daoc, much less starwars galaxies.It was just incomprehensible considering the things you could do in DAOC compared to wow, and well starwars..no brainer everyones familiar with it and the name alone was good for a few million subscriptions..
Selling pre orders, beta codes, etc...collecting the money and not being able to deliver? tsk tsk tsk..bad bussiness..
Now lets reflect on the history of mythic..they should have known better then to get into bed with EA..plain and simple...they should have learned from toa and then catacombs...but its obvious they learned nothing.
And dont get me started on bbs's and muds..I ran everything from diku/black circle to tele-arena/majormud on a 99 node major bbs with 217 incoming telnet connections.I know full well how they worked along with falken and many other bbs doors.
Its simple..if you only care about profit and not giving ppl something for the money you take from them its a guaranteed fail.
Tell them you arent paying? you already did when you bought the game and accepted the fact they didnt deliver what you originaly bought.
Honestly, where do you people live ... show me one game where pops magically started to balance out after a while. At best you're looking at half a year here probably for something like this. Do you really expect the bulk of the people to wait for this?
This isn't Daoc or WoW where being an "underdog" is *cool*. In thos egames being an underdog didn't mean squat, so you had tons more enemies and lost ver ylittle and you lacked a relic or 2, big deal.
n WAR being the underdog means the other side will walk over you in Open RvR objectives which means you'll never even get to see the enemy city and be on the defensive nearly your entire gaming life.
This also means that you're looking at enemies that get progressively better gear/RP wise compared to you "underdogs" which will easily compensate for any perceived "skills" the underdogs think they get over the "zerg" population which means you're back down to equal chances yet they have more = win.
If you don't think population matters bigtime in this game then you should look at Mythic, they've made it quite clear population balance is important to their game. Unfortunately, so far their methods are lacking. Keeping the pop cap on servers low with caps on both sides would have worked fine *if* they had gotten more peopleor kept the number of servers lower.
Unforunately they were kind of forced to increase them due to incessive whining after the headstart debacle.
I think you'll notice that low and medium are not perceived as succesful servers so far, only the high ones which means, in my opinion, that the caps are too low for the way the servers are built, they seem to be built to hold way more people than they are holding now but raising htem will make balance even more difficult for all the other servers that are out there as those high servers right now will just fill up more.
Consolidating servers is the last thing you want to do at this point yet without a large influx of players still coming that's going to mean a lot of servers will be "lacking" in the perception of a lot of people.
(disclaimer: All my perception, welcome to disagree but use some facts/arguments and not "Zomg gb2WOW fanboi!")
1) Imo it's also true on medium PoP server, i think that most zones are too big to handle even a medium-high population. Far too many times i just run into huge empty lanscape, and that's only in T2.
In WoW i used to bump into people ALL the time almost anywhere on the map.
MAPS are WAY too big. Better keep it small anf focused like WOW.
2) Scenarios were not needed; since there is world pvp, players just constantly queue to BG and pop in and out of PQ/PVE/RVR, there is no group consistancy in any part of the game, as people selfishly drop what they are doing to enter a scenario.
3) the game will suffer greatly from population shortening at low lvls and high lvls. Fact is, lvling is NOT solo friendly: it's easy, you can do it, but it's boring because hardly anyone communicate, global chats are empty, and you eventually realize you're going to do the same old PQ (kill 100 normal mobs, kill 10 elite mobs, kill 1 boss) same quests (kill 10 XXX, Kill 1named, Find object X), but without talking to other people much.
WAR is completely dependant on servers numbers and faction balance at the same time. Unfortunately it's not the case.
And the fact that everything PvE related is easy makes player sunable to communicate; or maybe thats the fact everyone come from WoW and feel they already know it all...
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
OP what's the server name? just curious. I wanna take a look at ghost server when my working day ends.
Btw. I like marauder, squig herder, chosen, zealot, black orc, shaman and sorcerer destruction classes. I played destruction almost all the time in betas but i'm playing on the Order side now (coz of friends, they decided to roll Order). And what we have...... all keeps owned by destruction constantly. But all is ok
What rough of a launch are you talking about? Which problems selling? Didn't they sell a lot of pre-orders etc?
There have been bumps and patches etc. But comparatively the launch has been one of the least bumpy I have seen in MMOs.
I have no idea if WAR will succeed but I am not sure what problems you are referring to. Also of course they want your money, therefore they do care if you play. They just don't want your design advice. At least usually. They certainly care if people are having fun. They just don't care about you personally. And the fun part they care about because it = money.
All P2P games work that way. Even most F2P games. Only some MUDs did not work that way. And frankly even the MUDs created by people who donated their they did not care about player feedback. In fact many of them were real A-holes. And they did it for free to make a game people enjoyed. Well sort of, but not really. I am getting off topic, but when money is invloved you are more likely to get designers to listen to you, because they want money. When they do it for their own edification they will just dismiss you as an idiot out of hand. All this altruism stuff is bunk. Took me a couple years of messing around in MUDs to figure it out though.
Designers would prefer to be in their own little world without players mucking it up. Players are a necessary evil. Money brings them back to reality. The reality of real people with real social concerns working in a social framework. Alot of design nerds are not real great at dealing with that stuff. They prefer to deal in aboslutes and quantify players into rules of behavior.
But if you tell them that their design = you not paying then they perk up and listen. But they are incredibly stubborn and they generally need a vicous msakc back into reality.
Don't take it personally. They are nerds they can't help it.
yeah they sold alot..and then couldnt deliver any of them! You obviously havent played many mmo's then and just fell off the newbie wagon if you dont understand.
I repeat ANY mmo that has that bumpy of a launch ends up shelved...MCO anyone? canceled out of the blue because of poor management and forced crap nobody wanted.AOC? game isnt even a few months old and is about to need life support..anarchy online? had to be turned into F2P..shadowbane? f2p also..and they still arent gaining interest.
blizzard never ever EVER should have outsold daoc, much less starwars galaxies.It was just incomprehensible considering the things you could do in DAOC compared to wow, and well starwars..no brainer everyones familiar with it and the name alone was good for a few million subscriptions..
Selling pre orders, beta codes, etc...collecting the money and not being able to deliver? tsk tsk tsk..bad bussiness..
Now lets reflect on the history of mythic..they should have known better then to get into bed with EA..plain and simple...they should have learned from toa and then catacombs...but its obvious they learned nothing.
And dont get me started on bbs's and muds..I ran everything from diku/black circle to tele-arena/majormud on a 99 node major bbs with 217 incoming telnet connections.I know full well how they worked along with falken and many other bbs doors.
Its simple..if you only care about profit and not giving ppl something for the money you take from them its a guaranteed fail.
Tell them you arent paying? you already did when you bought the game and accepted the fact they didnt deliver what you originaly bought.
I have played 20 different MUDs and 15 different MMOs. So the newb thing doesn't wash.
So you are referring to all the cd/beta code problems and grace period? Ok, that wasn't really very obvious from your post. Because WAR has certainly had much less problems in the way of bugs and balance issues you usually see in release.
Well I don't agree that is as big a deal as you do, but we will see. Time will tell that is for sure.
You seem to have pre-judged Mythic and EA, not without merit, and have an axe to grind about it. That is fine maybe you will turn out right in the end. I won't tell you to buy WAR if Mythic burned you in the past and clearly EA has burned people and even shut down MMOs. And I think TOA was crap. People should be circumspect. Performing falactio on Mark Jacobs won't make the game better that is for sure. Well you never know, but its doubtful
But I am not really seeing the severity you are implying and using the newb bit is well incorrect and also is simply invalid in regards to making any kind of point. Claim all the authority you like you will still need to make a case and explain what you mean. Because other than the various problems with keys most historical MMO release problems are fairly well minimized. Heck they even rotated downtime for oceanic people
Yes its a great game when you have hit the "sweet spot". It get more and more boring as you get to lower populations.
You can solo to 40 easy and fast. But it will be really boring.
Factional balance is a bit trickier but even if it is only moderately important it is completely obvious that lower pop severs have no control of it.
the current mechanics assume the server will fill up. But isn't this a bad assumption. Why fill up a server that is boring and as the added problem huge factional imbalances.
You can say well some people want a challenge, fine but do that want to be bored? Probably not. And how many people actually want that challenge. Cearly a lot less think that "challenge" is fun.
So you are pre-selecting those servers for a smaller population due to faciontional imbalance and an even smaller population because it is boring.
Telling people to stick it out things will pick up is simply naive. There are currently at least 10 low pop servers. When your choice is stick it out on the boring and imbalanced server or have fun on the higher pop server which actuall enforece some modicum of balance.
What do you think the ration of peopl who choose a low pop server will be? It will be lower than it needs to be. Therefore queues will increas and low pop will not grow fast enough. Further due to these negatives not only will people make the choice of a higher pop server iniitally, the lower pop server will experience greater attrition.
There is no reason to think otherwise unless people can come up with some compelling reason people will choose a low pop server.
The only reason to choose a low pop at this point is to avoid queues. But if you look at the time management waiting in a queue is prefereable than playing a low pop server.
That is the fundamental problem. I can wait in a queue for 30 minutes and play non-stop scenarios for 3 hours. Or I can log in to a low pop server instantly and never find a PvP target and certainly have at best one scenario.
Add onto the fact that factional balance is intrinsically tied to a server getting full and you get a negative feedback loop.
No one rolls low pop because there is no action. There is no action becase no rolls a low pop server. No one rolls a low pop server because factions are imbalanced. Factions are imbalanced because the servers never fill up.
That is TWO negative feedback loops. That is bad. What is there to work against these two loops? Only queue times. Clearly they are not enough when put into context.
think about it.You dont see it as a problem a company cant even keep straight what they sold?
I ordered my beta codes and pre orders a while ago and just had them delivered yesterday.the order has been canceled over a week, but even thats not the funny part.
I live in NC and ended up with 2 EU copys of it and beta codes for EU < bleck what lag i wouldnt even want to imagine it.. >
playing muds and running them are 2 different things.Running a old school mud back in the 80s and 90s was the equivelent of running a mmo on a smaller scale.It boils down to keeping the users happy, if you told a user: i dont care i got your money, quit playing, they wouldnt come back, and ppl logging in is what makes it MULTIPLAYER...
Pre-judge mythic? not hardly I was there when they closed andred, it was my main server, I had to reroll to merlin and restart that infil over.I even ended up with 17 lvl 50s on merlin when toa was pushed outm necros, paladins, warriors, theurgists, ice mages, earth mages, matter cabbys, friars, clerics, played em all and thats not even counting the shadowblades and shamans, or druids and enchanters on other servers.
Pre-judge EA? again not true, i was there when UO started in june 97, even was a counselor on PAC shard, Counselor Lobokin.Once EA aquired it the game went steady downhill..TSO? MCO? played them.Watched MCO close with zero warning and no explanation.
Bugs? hah i seen lotsa bugs..exploits? seen em all, radar hack, map hacks, dupes, etc..etc..
You dont see the severity because you chose not to.Go read up on some of those interviews with the fools saying how they dont care if you quit or not, your dues have already been paid, and then tell me you feel as if you will be given a immersive gaming expeirience?
Not tired of being force fed crap in games you dont want or watching cheap imitations of games flood the market yet?
When it boils down to it, rvr is nothing new.been done before.instances, quest grinding solo to max level...done before...what is so new and wonderful about WAR that it can get away with shafting the ppl who payed to play it?
But then its not just about the beta code issue or the preorder cluster $%^& either.Its about 2 euro copys of WAR sitting on my table that came in the mail yesterday that were ordered sept.03.2008 and the beta codes i just got in email that were canceled a week ago after dancing around on the phone with a answering machine for hours and 4 or 5 different calls to cancel.
SO, I order it..dont get it when I could use it, decide I dont want it anymore, end up getting it, and find its EURO to boot.
Oh yes this mmo will be a great wow killer, at least as much as AOC was.Now I dont even need to point out the removal of the classes...the population imbalances...and who knows what else can be brought up from a gameplay standpoint, oh yeah and those graphics...from the graphics I seen nothing different from wow, the orcs look stubby and controls looks to be turned with wasd.
I don't care if Destro own the keeps. I have my gear and renown gear pre-t4 is simply convience I am getting slightly better stuff from PQ's and quests anyway. What I would like to have is frequent and significant keep battles. This is not going to happen for months and months if ever. I do not care which side of the keep battles I am on. I would like enemy players to actually be involved in those battles. I would like this because I experienced in Beta and i know it is better than what is currently happening.
I am sorry but I would prefer not say what server I am on in an interent forum. You can roll any of the low pop servers. I am confident they are similar. Try Marienburg or something
Here is a list:
http://www.tillberg.us/warpop
just pick one
think about it.You dont see it as a problem a company cant even keep straight what they sold?
I ordered my beta codes and pre orders a while ago and just had them delivered yesterday.the order has been canceled over a week, but even thats not the funny part.
I live in NC and ended up with 2 EU copys of it and beta codes for EU < bleck what lag i wouldnt even want to imagine it.. >
playing muds and running them are 2 different things.Running a old school mud back in the 80s and 90s was the equivelent of running a mmo on a smaller scale.It boils down to keeping the users happy, if you told a user: i dont care i got your money, quit playing, they wouldnt come back, and ppl logging in is what makes it MULTIPLAYER...
Pre-judge mythic? not hardly I was there when they closed andred, it was my main server, I had to reroll to merlin and restart that infil over.I even ended up with 17 lvl 50s on merlin when toa was pushed outm necros, paladins, warriors, theurgists, ice mages, earth mages, matter cabbys, friars, clerics, played em all and thats not even counting the shadowblades and shamans, or druids and enchanters on other servers.
Pre-judge EA? again not true, i was there when UO started in june 97, even was a counselor on PAC shard, Counselor Lobokin.Once EA aquired it the game went steady downhill..TSO? MCO? played them.Watched MCO close with zero warning and no explanation.
Bugs? hah i seen lotsa bugs..exploits? seen em all, radar hack, map hacks, dupes, etc..etc..
You dont see the severity because you chose not to.Go read up on some of those interviews with the fools saying how they dont care if you quit or not, your dues have already been paid, and then tell me you feel as if you will be given a immersive gaming expeirience?
Not tired of being force fed crap in games you dont want or watching cheap imitations of games flood the market yet?
When it boils down to it, rvr is nothing new.been done before.instances, quest grinding solo to max level...done before...what is so new and wonderful about WAR that it can get away with shafting the ppl who payed to play it?
But then its not just about the beta code issue or the preorder cluster $%^& either.Its about 2 euro copys of WAR sitting on my table that came in the mail yesterday that were ordered sept.03.2008 and the beta codes i just got in email that were canceled a week ago after dancing around on the phone with a answering machine for hours and 4 or 5 different calls to cancel.
SO, I order it..dont get it when I could use it, decide I dont want it anymore, end up getting it, and find its EURO to boot.
Oh yes this mmo will be a great wow killer, at least as much as AOC was.Now I dont even need to point out the removal of the classes...the population imbalances...and who knows what else can be brought up from a gameplay standpoint, oh yeah and those graphics...from the graphics I seen nothing different from wow, the orcs look stubby and controls looks to be turned with wasd.
Again I simply disagree about the severity and eventual effects of these thigns. ESPECIALLY when put into the context to other MMORPG (which you brought up not me).
And pre-judging them is not a bad thing when it has merit, which I said there was. It is merely bad when you do keep an open mind towards the future. People like to say pre-judgment is always bad. They are wrong, humans naturally pre-judge all kinds of things for good reason and it is much faster than trying to find every single little fact and angle about something before making a decision.
Half of the stuff you mention is pre-judging them based on past experience. That is fine since those things have merit and you are not pulling crap out of your ass, but that is what it is.
Again you are perfectly within your right and being somewhat reasonable hear. I simply do not agree with you. So do me the same courtesy of doing the same, as I believe I have done nothing to deserve being accused of being a newb or of being blind. And frankly this is exactly what Mythic and every other MMO and MUD designer probably thinks of you as well. The way I see it you and Mythic and most of the other MMORPG dev houses are peas in a pod. It is a lot of pot calling the kettle black type stuff. And calling everyone who isn't seeing what seems to be proven obvious fact stupid or blind or whatever. You see it all the time when engineers argue about things.
It is fine to try to convince people of what you see as obvious and well founded. You may even be completely right/ But when you cross the line into saying we are at fault because we do not understand your point then you have lost the entire point. This is a common problem with people in technical fields especially computers. And it is in my opinion one the biggest maladies in this entire industry. I do not get as mad about it as you, because I no longer participate in that way. If I did what i did in my MUD days maybe I would be saying stuff like waht you are saying.
But I came to the conclusion that entire appraoch is wrong. Because people don't work the way you might think they do and trying to convince people that get into nerd fights about things is a losing battle. And by and large the vast majority of devs work this way whether paid or not. And the ones that don't are generally very well loved and very rare.
No matter how nerdy or not nerdy or an egineer or logical or greedy. People still do want certain things. They want success and popularity. They are not devils, well rarely are they devils. At they same time they very much bleieve they know what they are doing and since many of them are technical type you will have to prove that to them. Solidly prove it to them or they get very stubborn.
But many of these things there is no easily provable thing. And many of these are based on human feeling about things. And people develop feelings about things for reason that you will not be able to predict or that they may not even be able to understand. But this is precisely what many of the professionals in this fields are very much lacking in. The ability and willingness to listen to people's crap. And it is crap. But its thier crap so its important to them.
In fact most people do not want to do this. Only thigns like politics and customer service do this. And msot people in customer service hate it.
And when it comes to these games and the mechanics behind them. A large portion of that crap is simply wrong. But that gets extrapolated into listening to nothing.
I don't expect any listenting. It is rare, it is not going to happen except by luck. Over the last ten years these companies have started to figure out all this stuff is more politics than mathematical game design. They are diverging from Bartle and IMO smart to do so when it comes to people. IN the process they are making mistakes and diverging to far from some of the Bartle ideas.
This is the way it goes. I do not see what you see as unbearable or indications of failure. I do not begrudge you not wanting to buy from companies that have wronged you and others in the past. That is perfectly rational. But I evaluate those actions from a very different perspective.
In fact if I were a "newb" I would be more inclinded to agree with you. But I am not. I stopped those recriminations in regard to various dev decisions a long time ago it just didn't add up. Too many lose ends it never quite made sense. And seeing so many engineers basically do the same thing. And seeing the total lack of understanding or blaming the other party in regards to social stuff. Not that both were not to blame it was more of the strange juxtiposition of being practical on technical matter and idealistic in social matters. Anyway I just stopped being idealistic and started being socially pragmatic. At least to some degree.
To be sure EA has done nasty stuff. Don't think I am being naive here. And Funcom lied about a lot of things. And Mythic has effed up a lot of things. But from a pragmatic standpoint no I do not agree about the severity or consequences.
While the rest of your post is great, this part is complete rubbish.
A lot of players like me actively seek out the underdog for the simple reason that we like a challenge, not for some imagined emotional reason. Playing Order is most definitely a challenge, and this is just what I like
I'm hardly on Sylvania for emotional reasons. That's just crazy talk. lol
That is emotional. Wanting a challenge is fundamentally emotional.
I didn't say they wanted to be their because they are a bunch of panty waste over sensitive and needy cry babies.
There is no advantage to the low pop servers. Even for challenge you won't get much because just finding any action at all can be hard.
I have personally run around on a low server in T1 for over an hour and never found a single destro. And i this server is at least 2 to 1 out numbered maybe eve 3 to 1.
When you do actually find some action and if you wait long enough for the 2 people who found you to spread the word then yes you might get your emiontal need for a challenge sated.
Not very well though. Probably should check out a medium high server if that is what you want.
And you realize that wanting to be on high population servers is emotipnal as well right. Everything is "emotional" as you choose to define it
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