This is not just cause of Pvp or PvP impacting, they have already stated that most things are tabulated, PvP, PvP, puzzle solving, crafting, exploration, and this gives you "point" for the leaderboards, which in turn are added to the points of your cabal and faction, which also are ranked. So by locking factions (to servers) they ensure that you work for your faction there, and that the rewards, bragging rights and turn of events reflect this.
Also remember the global ARG puzzles that are to be solved by factions, which also have a "purpose". Faction locking (at least servers) not only makes sense, but, as expressed by others, is nothing new. This is actually a non issue.
I'm all for cabals being faction locked, that makes sense, but faction-locking accounts dilutes the server communities. Far better to allow people to stay on their 'home' server with their friends, enemies, and frienemies. In Warhammer, you were faction locked per server so if you wanted to try classes from the opposite faction you ended up on another server with people you didn't know. Servers can have thousands of players and it takes time to get to know them which is why Funcom needs to embrace community building within the servers. Let's be honest here, spying on the other factions is a joke and doesn't really net much useful intel for the spy as most pvp encounters are designed to bring players together in conflict and not to have a bunch of shady activity happening outside of pwning face.
the problem is that the secret world is going to have some hardcore puzzles that are thrown every 2 weeks, when this hardcore puzzle is solved, it gives bonus to the first faction that solved it.
and they have "sabotage missions", don't know what they meant with that
All the more reason to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
I assumed that you'd only be able to pick 1 faction on a server and not have alts in the other factions on the same server as well. Seemed most logical to me, but I guess we'll see.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Restricting cabals to a single faction makes perfect sense, as does stopping a person from having alts in different factions on the same server. People can still spy, but they'll have to work on it, and it will even fit into the lore.
What the OP is trying to do is just restrict any time of lore or story from the game, what sense does it make that different factions would be in the same Cabal? I mean really, what sense? where? how? why? Please this is non-sense.
Also how exactly would the world PvP 1v1v1 work? especially since the winning side gets bonuses. Explain how that would work? It wouldn't, in fact... Funcom would have to remove this awesome pvp idea they came up with.
Having cabals be able to have members of multiple factions doesn't make sense. These people aren't exactly friends, they might come together, loosely, to combat the coming darkness but that's where their unity ends. And since there will be faction specific rewards for capturing and holding grounds, cross-faction cabals wouldn't share these with all members.
When the Dragon let their poor little, misguided Lumie and Tempie friends in their cabals they wouldn't be able to share the wealth. As well, how would it play out when the Dragon starts unravelling the secrets of an ARG. The little Lumies and Tempies will undoubtedly not be privy to their gracious hosts information...they might run back and tell their mother-factions.
So you have these little red and blue ragamuffins, no real place to belong. They can't be trusted by their benefactors in the multi-factional cabal of unity. And they can't be trusted by their parent factions because they're always hanging out with the enemy. They'd have no place to call home, lost in a lonely world slowly watching the rising tide of darkness engulf them.
I've played a few games that had limits on interactions between factions. In these games I felt the members of our faction had a shared identity, to some extent, because we were all thrown in together on the same side. It was us against them and I wound up meeting a lot of people outside of my guild just because I helped out a fellow faction member or they helped me out.
The only game i've played that allows for cross-faction guilds, Fallen Earth, has meaningless factions because of it. Your faction choice had simply zero impact on your interaction with other players in the game. You wound up hanging out with your guild members and that's it, there was nothing to really connect you and the other members of your faction.
Judging from your article, just hanging with your guildies will be fine with you, as you're coming into the game with friends from guilds from other games. Thing is, I think you're in a small minority of players. We don't all have giant guilds that hop from game to game. Three factions and no intra-faction cabal won't be an issue for the majority of players, and when the solution to your issue turns a faction choice for everyone else into something as meaningless as "What color pony do you want to have?" Then no, just.... no. You want to play with your friends, work it out with them.
The game is not even out yet people. I am excited also, but to start concerning yourself with guild recruitment and formation is a bit premature in my opinion.
Currently Play: ? Occasionally Play: Champions, Pirates of the Burning Sea, WOW, EVE ONLINE
I really dont get this argument. Any standard dual faction game you have to pick Side A or Side B. Just because there is a Side C doesn't change anything.
They had 3 factions for players and numerous NPC only factions in AO as well. Though, most of the NPC factions were sided with one of the 3 main factions for players. It adds more choice, but things like neutral player factions end up being anything but neutral in game for players. I think it works better when they try not to fence sit (because most don't truly remain neutral) and have a bonafied side to represent.
The one thing it did not do was help to balance populations. It still swayed.
Worked well in DAoC and in that game the toons from different factions couldnt even speak the same language; and I for one will not be shedding any tears if the uber raid guilds out there think they are being hard done by
In my experience there's a "dark side" factor that drives these kinds of restrictions, in my opinion: Exploitation by players for unfair advantage.
In your article's examples we've assumed a normalized, straight up, honest approach to Cabals having members of more than one faction.
However, people are anything if not contrary, often times focussed on the great entertainment that can be had from "screwing with others". Examples from past games that have caused a great deal of trouble, and in some cases causing the dev house to take measures have been:
AC2 - The guild list was rudimentary, organized by "Patron", not by individual member. The list was basically a Tree structure, only listing members under the patron being viewed. Infiltrators could BURY an alt way down in the tree structure somewhere, then get on World chat and echo to World chat what's going on in Guild Meetings using their main, while their little spy alt was "invisible", but online, in your guild.
WoW - Log your Alliance Alt and use it to support / power up your Horde ganker. You think I jest here? I assure you I am not: Mages are INCREDIBLE HEALERS in WoW: Your Rogue alt is hurt whilst killing people in Ironforge. SHEEP him with your Alliance Mage (Sheeping a player induces a mega heal of the target, but they are sheeped), then PLINK him with your bitty dagger to break sheep. All healed to full, quickly. Use your Alliance Priest to Mind Control your Horde Alt, then BUFF THE CRAP out of him because, while mind controlled, you can do that.
As youv'e seen, as you point out, the MMO Community can be VERY passionate about their factions. Their desires to get at the other ones, to be on top.
As much as you make good points about the positives, and why it would be nice to have other faction members in your Cabal, in the end it would be a very, very bad idea.
Because of human nature and the proliferation of "bad apples", as it were.
I just watched an interview with Ragnar on GT TV and it confirmed my fear regarding factions. He says they still haven't decided whether to allow players to make alts in other secret societies. All the trailers so far have been pretty clear that you must choose wisely because it is a permanent choice. Which led me to fear they would not let you make alternate faction alts, and now Ragnar confirms they might not.
Now I know some people have no problem with this, and will tell me one toon can do it all, a la FF. But I HATE that. I like my charaters to have a distinct personality, so my gun-toting psycho hillbilly would not be tossing out lightening strikes, for example. Besides, if I'm paying for a games content, I want it all. And the faction quests are different for each side, and I want to experience all of them, I need at least 3 toons, loyalty be damned. ( Spoken like a true Illuminati...heh.)
Make your 3 characters on different servers.
I have NO problem with this. In fact I prefer it. However, we have not heard whether there will be multiple servers or if we will be allowed to make alts in other factions on multiple servers. It is a pretty easy assumption to make, but we have not been told this is the case yet. Until I hear it specifically from the devs, it is a reasonable but unsupported assumption.
If they allow alts in different factions (and I sure hope they do) then one solution to your guild problem can be a simple. Ask each member of your guild to create 3 characters, one for each faction. Then you form an Arch-Guild where each week you play, as a guild (cabal), each faction. This way you keep your members together and also have a chance to try the various storylines and abilities.
Now for the weakness. Many players who take part in long term - multi game guilds have this 'urge-passion' to get to the top (end game) as fast as possible, regardless of content. An Arch-Guild will probably be unsatisfying to these players. But for many others an Arch-Guild would be gratifying and give a wide variety of play for members, not the same thing every session. Matter of playstyle of course. Also RPers may have a problem playing a character of one of the factions (I am not overly eager to play Sith Empire in SWTOR - but don't want to miss the story content there). Again, playstyle.
One character per server would still work as the Arch-Guild would establish their own rotation. If, however, we are limited to one character, well, I still plan to play but probably won't join a guild and simply look at TSW as a single player game, which is OK but disappointing
Maybe I'm too pragmatic, but just go multi-faction and recruit responsibly? If you have voice chat, people can just ask others to stop ganking them if that's a problem, and those who can't listen to others may just need to be removed. I've seen it work a few times, and if you're an old guild, it means you have a lot of advantages (and history) to support a move like that.
To me, mixed guilds would defeat the point of three factions and it would make each faction seem dull, I'd rather have them seperated. I find it to be like the relationship between Orcs and Humans (natural enemies in all kinds of games) - while they may group up to defeat a common foe, their overall goal is vastly different, thus preventing them from ever unifying.
I see my character in TSW along the lines of a foot-soldier. I am not the leader of my faction, and I sure as hell don't think my faction leader would accept his soldiers mingling with the enemies, unless it's absolutely necessary for the survival of the faction. Each faction has its own (religious) viewpoint(s) and I highly doubt those viewpoints would ever align and form one unified faction.
Isabelle that is a complete load of nonsense you just wrote. First really bad article you have written. You can't have played DAoC and see how well such a design works. If you wanted to play a different faction in DAoC you got on a different server.
When you write about an issue, you need to step back and look at it from all angles. I don't see how the developers could allow different factions in one guild, that just does NOT work.
Hope you take this as a lesson in how to look at an issue. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill!
To me, mixed guilds would defeat the point of three factions and it would make each faction seem dull, I'd rather have them seperated. I find it to be like the relationship between Orcs and Humans (natural enemies in all kinds of games) - while they may group up to defeat a common foe, their overall goal is vastly different, thus preventing them from ever unifying.
I see my character in TSW along the lines of a foot-soldier. I am not the leader of my faction, and I sure as hell don't think my faction leader would accept his soldiers mingling with the enemies, unless it's absolutely necessary for the survival of the faction. Each faction has its own (religious) viewpoint(s) and I highly doubt those viewpoints would ever align and form one unified faction.
Comments
This is not just cause of Pvp or PvP impacting, they have already stated that most things are tabulated, PvP, PvP, puzzle solving, crafting, exploration, and this gives you "point" for the leaderboards, which in turn are added to the points of your cabal and faction, which also are ranked. So by locking factions (to servers) they ensure that you work for your faction there, and that the rewards, bragging rights and turn of events reflect this.
Also remember the global ARG puzzles that are to be solved by factions, which also have a "purpose". Faction locking (at least servers) not only makes sense, but, as expressed by others, is nothing new. This is actually a non issue.
All the more reason to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Warhammer fanatic since '85.
Is it really any different to any other mmo with factions? You have to pick a side.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I assumed that you'd only be able to pick 1 faction on a server and not have alts in the other factions on the same server as well. Seemed most logical to me, but I guess we'll see.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
What the OP is trying to do is just restrict any time of lore or story from the game, what sense does it make that different factions would be in the same Cabal? I mean really, what sense? where? how? why? Please this is non-sense.
Also how exactly would the world PvP 1v1v1 work? especially since the winning side gets bonuses. Explain how that would work? It wouldn't, in fact... Funcom would have to remove this awesome pvp idea they came up with.
Having cabals be able to have members of multiple factions doesn't make sense. These people aren't exactly friends, they might come together, loosely, to combat the coming darkness but that's where their unity ends. And since there will be faction specific rewards for capturing and holding grounds, cross-faction cabals wouldn't share these with all members.
When the Dragon let their poor little, misguided Lumie and Tempie friends in their cabals they wouldn't be able to share the wealth. As well, how would it play out when the Dragon starts unravelling the secrets of an ARG. The little Lumies and Tempies will undoubtedly not be privy to their gracious hosts information...they might run back and tell their mother-factions.
So you have these little red and blue ragamuffins, no real place to belong. They can't be trusted by their benefactors in the multi-factional cabal of unity. And they can't be trusted by their parent factions because they're always hanging out with the enemy. They'd have no place to call home, lost in a lonely world slowly watching the rising tide of darkness engulf them.
I've played a few games that had limits on interactions between factions. In these games I felt the members of our faction had a shared identity, to some extent, because we were all thrown in together on the same side. It was us against them and I wound up meeting a lot of people outside of my guild just because I helped out a fellow faction member or they helped me out.
The only game i've played that allows for cross-faction guilds, Fallen Earth, has meaningless factions because of it. Your faction choice had simply zero impact on your interaction with other players in the game. You wound up hanging out with your guild members and that's it, there was nothing to really connect you and the other members of your faction.
Judging from your article, just hanging with your guildies will be fine with you, as you're coming into the game with friends from guilds from other games. Thing is, I think you're in a small minority of players. We don't all have giant guilds that hop from game to game. Three factions and no intra-faction cabal won't be an issue for the majority of players, and when the solution to your issue turns a faction choice for everyone else into something as meaningless as "What color pony do you want to have?" Then no, just.... no. You want to play with your friends, work it out with them.
Read this will clarifie more:
http://www.darkdemonscrygaia.com/showthread.php?t=17620
u will find there a guide with thx, video & interesant debate
enjoy it
3 factions and 1faction only guilds while persistant pvp...worked in daoc..so whats the matter? ^^
I'm amazed anyone thought I was suggesting cross-faction cabals.
The game is not even out yet people. I am excited also, but to start concerning yourself with guild recruitment and formation is a bit premature in my opinion.
Currently Play: ?
Occasionally Play: Champions, Pirates of the Burning Sea, WOW, EVE ONLINE
I really dont get this argument. Any standard dual faction game you have to pick Side A or Side B. Just because there is a Side C doesn't change anything.
They had 3 factions for players and numerous NPC only factions in AO as well. Though, most of the NPC factions were sided with one of the 3 main factions for players. It adds more choice, but things like neutral player factions end up being anything but neutral in game for players. I think it works better when they try not to fence sit (because most don't truly remain neutral) and have a bonafied side to represent.
The one thing it did not do was help to balance populations. It still swayed.
Worked well in DAoC and in that game the toons from different factions couldnt even speak the same language; and I for one will not be shedding any tears if the uber raid guilds out there think they are being hard done by
Isabelle,
In my experience there's a "dark side" factor that drives these kinds of restrictions, in my opinion: Exploitation by players for unfair advantage.
In your article's examples we've assumed a normalized, straight up, honest approach to Cabals having members of more than one faction.
However, people are anything if not contrary, often times focussed on the great entertainment that can be had from "screwing with others". Examples from past games that have caused a great deal of trouble, and in some cases causing the dev house to take measures have been:
AC2 - The guild list was rudimentary, organized by "Patron", not by individual member. The list was basically a Tree structure, only listing members under the patron being viewed. Infiltrators could BURY an alt way down in the tree structure somewhere, then get on World chat and echo to World chat what's going on in Guild Meetings using their main, while their little spy alt was "invisible", but online, in your guild.
WoW - Log your Alliance Alt and use it to support / power up your Horde ganker. You think I jest here?
I assure you I am not: Mages are INCREDIBLE HEALERS in WoW: Your Rogue alt is hurt whilst killing people in Ironforge. SHEEP him with your Alliance Mage (Sheeping a player induces a mega heal of the target, but they are sheeped), then PLINK him with your bitty dagger to break sheep. All healed to full, quickly. Use your Alliance Priest to Mind Control your Horde Alt, then BUFF THE CRAP out of him because, while mind controlled, you can do that.
As youv'e seen, as you point out, the MMO Community can be VERY passionate about their factions. Their desires to get at the other ones, to be on top.
As much as you make good points about the positives, and why it would be nice to have other faction members in your Cabal, in the end it would be a very, very bad idea.
Because of human nature and the proliferation of "bad apples", as it were.
Wherever you go, there you are.
And someone please KILL the freaking posts from the RETAIL outlet selling goods.
Wherever you go, there you are.
I have NO problem with this. In fact I prefer it. However, we have not heard whether there will be multiple servers or if we will be allowed to make alts in other factions on multiple servers. It is a pretty easy assumption to make, but we have not been told this is the case yet. Until I hear it specifically from the devs, it is a reasonable but unsupported assumption.
If they allow alts in different factions (and I sure hope they do) then one solution to your guild problem can be a simple. Ask each member of your guild to create 3 characters, one for each faction. Then you form an Arch-Guild where each week you play, as a guild (cabal), each faction. This way you keep your members together and also have a chance to try the various storylines and abilities.
Now for the weakness. Many players who take part in long term - multi game guilds have this 'urge-passion' to get to the top (end game) as fast as possible, regardless of content. An Arch-Guild will probably be unsatisfying to these players. But for many others an Arch-Guild would be gratifying and give a wide variety of play for members, not the same thing every session. Matter of playstyle of course. Also RPers may have a problem playing a character of one of the factions (I am not overly eager to play Sith Empire in SWTOR - but don't want to miss the story content there). Again, playstyle.
One character per server would still work as the Arch-Guild would establish their own rotation. If, however, we are limited to one character, well, I still plan to play but probably won't join a guild and simply look at TSW as a single player game, which is OK but disappointing
I went to sign up for the beta and the fb game and found out, the fb game isn't even active. WTF is Funcom doing?
If you don't worry about it, it's not a problem.
Maybe I'm too pragmatic, but just go multi-faction and recruit responsibly? If you have voice chat, people can just ask others to stop ganking them if that's a problem, and those who can't listen to others may just need to be removed. I've seen it work a few times, and if you're an old guild, it means you have a lot of advantages (and history) to support a move like that.
To me, mixed guilds would defeat the point of three factions and it would make each faction seem dull, I'd rather have them seperated. I find it to be like the relationship between Orcs and Humans (natural enemies in all kinds of games) - while they may group up to defeat a common foe, their overall goal is vastly different, thus preventing them from ever unifying.
I see my character in TSW along the lines of a foot-soldier. I am not the leader of my faction, and I sure as hell don't think my faction leader would accept his soldiers mingling with the enemies, unless it's absolutely necessary for the survival of the faction. Each faction has its own (religious) viewpoint(s) and I highly doubt those viewpoints would ever align and form one unified faction.
I say no to multi faction-diseased guilds.
For the Dragons!
Eleanor Rigby.
Isabelle that is a complete load of nonsense you just wrote. First really bad article you have written. You can't have played DAoC and see how well such a design works. If you wanted to play a different faction in DAoC you got on a different server.
When you write about an issue, you need to step back and look at it from all angles. I don't see how the developers could allow different factions in one guild, that just does NOT work.
Hope you take this as a lesson in how to look at an issue. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill!
I highly agree.