Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
It would be as useless as wow. One of the big things in wow you feel like you did nothing after you pvp for a while. At least in this game you feel like you did something after you a achieve a RR. It may be bits of info in a game but at least its something. Relics I think are useless but not RA's and RR. Its like leveling thought rvr once you get done with pve.
Peps need goals of some kind No goals. No point. Yes i know wow has ranks but they don't stay if you leave or don't keep up with it.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
EuphoricAnguish posted:
Semi4 posted: DAoC is a great game that has been twisted into a RvR/PvP centric game
Until ToA came out it was a PvP-centric game that was dominating the MMO market (which was, admittedly, small then). When ToA came out they lost a very large portion of their subscriber base, partially to people not wanting to PvE grind, partially to the way ToA stats and abilities totally broke everything for two years. Saying a game that started as a PvP game has been twisted into one is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?
I see little/nothing in the way of facts that back up your evaluations.
First, DAoC did not dominate. That never happened. Doing 'ok' is not dominating. Doing better than Mythic thought it would, that is not dominating. See Ravynmagi post for more info.
Second, “partially to people not wanting to PvE grindâ€
It was not the TOA PvE grind that players did not want, it was the MANDITORY PvE grind of their already PvP/RvR ready toons that players did not want. Mandatory PvE, and huge amounts of it, that requires the player to take their RvR ready toon out of RvR play, is completely different than just adding some PvE to the game.
SI gave huge additional PvE and SI did not cause the yelling that TOA caused, because SI brought ‘optional’ PvE. Actually many think that SI was one of the better expansions. SI proves that it is not just adding PvE to the game that caused anger with TOA.
Mythic’s exact phrasing of why players had anger with TOA was, “Players don’t want to be forced; they want to choose what they do.†Mythic’s own statement about TOA backs up my evaluation that it was “forced†(mandatory) PvE that caused much of the player dislike of TOA.
Third, the evidence shows that DAoC was initially a PvE centric game with good PvP/RvR at the end game.
Look at the initial BGs (or lack of) for players to RvR as they leveled up. No RvR while leveling means a PvE focus while leveling.
Look at the time it took in PvE just to level a single character to 50 (25 to 35 days /played to level up to 50). For the typical player it took more than a year of DAoC PvE to level a single character up to 50. That’s not a year of PvP. . . a year of PvE per character.
Look at the lack of Realm invasion.
Look at the number of PvP/RvR zones compared to the number of PvE zones
.
Look at the first expansion and the number of additional PvP/RvR zones added to the game with SI compared to the number of PvE zones added with SI.
Look at the small PvP server population compared to the PvE server population.
All the evidence shows that DAoC was primarily a PvE game with great PvP/RvR as a bonus once a player hit the level cap.
The more Mythic twisted the game to move toward being RvR/PvP centric the smaller the number of subscribers.
-----signature-----
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.
Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can,
and keep moving. - Ulysses S. Grant
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Second, “partially to people not wanting to PvE grindâ€
It was not the TOA PvE grind that players did not want, it was the MANDITORY PvE grind of their already PvP/RvR ready toons that players did not want. Mandatory PvE, and huge amounts of it, that requires the player to take their RvR ready toon out of RvR play, is completely different than just adding some PvE to the game.
Yes!! I really dont mind pveing every now and again but to be forced to pve to be competitive in rvr is stupid.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Myblue19 posted: Yes i know wow has ranks but they don't stay if you leave or don't keep up with it.
They removed ranks in WoW. Only way to have a PvP rank now is if you had one before they removed it. If you where a Marshall when they removed the ranks you got a "marshall" title, if you where a Private you get a "Private" title.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Jocke-Percival posted:
angryranger posted:
Jocke-Percival posted:
EuphoricAnguish posted:
Semi4 posted: DAoC is a great game that has been twisted into a RvR/PvP centric game
Until ToA came out it was a PvP-centric game that was dominating the MMO market (which was, admittedly, small then). When ToA came out they lost a very large portion of their subscriber base, partially to people not wanting to PvE grind, partially to the way ToA stats and abilities totally broke everything for two years. Saying a game that started as a PvP game has been twisted into one is a bit disingenuous, don't you think?
*sigh*
They lost population to WOW not becuse of ToA, the carebares went to WoW instead of playing DAoC becuse WoW had better PvE.
Lol, why would happy players flock to WOW? Toa drove them away, lol!
Why would you stop eating at a hamburger joint when a steakhouse open across the street? Both sell meat and you did not complain about the hamburgers before.
Better stuff = most ppl will actually get that rather than the old and not as good stuff.
EDIT: But where did all the "pvp/RvR centric players" go? Did they all drop down dead from the ToA experience or did they shift game to something with better PvP/RvR? if so, what game(s)? I want to know as aparantly many PvP lovers stoped playing DAoC at the same time as WoW came out.
Well, I don't have any time money or effort invested into working up my appetite for hamburgers, that I have to re invest so I can go eat steak at the same level of enjoyment I was burgers.
I can just cruise across the street and eat me a steak just like I want from day 1.
It takes some sort of motivation to leave a game you are invested in in one way or another to play another game that is relatively similair to the one you are playing now. You can argue it wasn't TOA, but you can't argue just because it was shinier.
We've got insanely huge amounts of people still playing UO. Talk about a graphically inferior game with out dated pve. You can't pry people out of there with dynomite. Plus the huge number of free to play UO servers, of an extremely outdated game.
People don't inherently like change, so it takes some sort of motivation.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Relic system for RVR/PVP
Very important. It's a goal, and one that can be repeatedly reset. It gets to be an empty achievement to take the same keeps over and over again for the same lack of reason.
It just needs to not be so overpowering. Or min/max oriented. It would be better if there were 6 different relics, and you could only have any 2 or 3 at one time. So you pick and choose which combination you want, instead of just hoarding all 6. In fact, there should be more than that. 20 or so, one for each stat, mana regen, end regen, life regen, in realm speed, etc.
Realm Ranks
Very important. It's not only a goal, but it's a similar need like that of the pve community. The PVE people need to sit outside of town with their blessed black sandals and blessed silver kat of vanq. The PVP community needs to display similar achievements or prowess in pvp combat.
Realm Abilities
Very important. It is a means to continue to develop your character. It just needs to not be so over powered for player vs player performance. I think a 5 yr vet Warrior with the equivelent of 1 million rps should have an advantage in the field against a 1 yr vet warrior, but the 1 yr vet warrior should still have the class abilities to be victorous 4 out of 6. It would be the 5 yr vets superior exp and skills that nets him a win 8 of 10, not a character ability aquired through rvr.
Heck, they could all be out of combat abilities, so pvp performance was constant with 10 yr vets and the 1 yr noob. Stuff like first aid, mystic crystal lore etc.
This would also prevent the pvp toons from out performing the pve toons in pve. Which is going to be a sore point with your pve community, which also tend to be your crafters, and the general population of the realm, usually nicer people that don't mind helping out new players.
I know it's not intended to be pve centric, but you can't take a giant dump on your pvp community or you might as well just make a meidevil/fantasy FPS style game like COD.
Titles and Lifetime stat trackers.
Important. With realm ranks, you may satisfy some of the need for people to strut. But just like in UO, we all tried at one time or another to get Lord status.
Everyone likes to be recognized as somethig special. A veteran, a slayer of whatever, gm smith, etc. We all like that recognition, no so much for eachother, but to 'wow' the noob.
as for stats...
Aren't we all stat whores? Even anti gamers are stat whores with all of their sports stuff. games won at night, in the snow, after a loss, at home, or away, after the rain, the heat, cold, with a starting count, down by 8 in the fourth etc etc etc.
Even anti game, anti sport people are stat whores with all of their stock exchange crap.
I think it would be unwise to scrap the idea of any type of stat tracker. It may not have to be the most comprehensive one created, but some sort of /timeplayed, deathblows, people rezed, relics stolen etc should be implemented.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Jocke-Percival posted:
angryranger posted: Lol, why would happy players flock to WOW? Toa drove them away, lol!
Why would you stop eating at a hamburger joint when a steakhouse open across the street? Both sell meat and you did not complain about the hamburgers before.
Better stuff = most ppl will actually get that rather than the old and not as good stuff.
EDIT: But where did all the "pvp/RvR centric players" go? Did they all drop down dead from the ToA experience or did they shift game to something with better PvP/RvR? if so, what game(s)? I want to know as aparantly many PvP lovers stoped playing DAoC at the same time as WoW came out.
Simple. Your analogy is flawed. There are no switching costs in your analogy, there are in the Daoc/Wow example. There's no reason to leave a character you've invested in and enjoy playing for a little kids' game. The real answer is the pvp lovers were disgusted and left. I have no idea where the pvp lovers went, but they left. Ask them. I would guess that some hung on a while hoping for change (like me) only to see the game further wrecked by Mythic's bungling. Others went to EvE, others to Eq2 pvp server, others to Wow pvp servers, others to ftp pvp game (SHaiya was cool for a while). Others hung on for Lolhammer only to get their faces figuratively smashed in again by mythic's bungling.
Now those loyal but naive customers are about to get swindled again by mythic employees by trying SWTOR. Mythic agents have infiltrated that game (lol head class balance dude) and have already demonstrated their incompetence. The cancer spreads.
Semi is right. Nothing wrong in more pve if it's not mandatory to compete in rvr. The one downside is that with limited resources it distracted mythic from improving rvr, and we got lolfrontiers as a result. Secondly, the toa items and abilities were so out of line that mythic never figured out how to balance this overly complex system.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
Jumo_007 posted: I played the game when it first came out. It took me at least 8 months, probably more to get my first character to 50 due to the nature of the game at the time. I played on Midgard/Percival almost exclusively. I have only just returned to the game a few months ago
Relic system?
I like the Relics system because it gives a realm as a whole a goal to achieve. In OF it took a lot of coordination and planning for one realm to take the relic(s) of another in most cases. I remember private forums where plans for relic takes would be posted and argued over for a week or two before the raid was made. Was it always like this? No of course not, frequently a realm would just decide they had the numbers and charge over the borders, but the former tended to succeed more than the later. Both were a lot of fun, and both gave rise to real realm leaders, recognized success stories that people would follow. They also gave rise to a great deal of realm pride.
All that said and perhaps the benefits of having the relics are a bit too great, a scaled system would be better. I remember RvRing before Relics existed mind you, and we did so just because the enemy was the enemy.
Realm Ranks?
Realm Ranks came in before RAs, we knew they were coming and would amount to something that added to our character but not exactly what. I don't ever remember RvRing to get more RR though, it was just another stat. Does it matter? Yeah, for the typical PvP mentality player it matters to have some sort of measure of their achievements. The problem is that mostly what RRs measure is /played not skill. With enough time even the most pathetic PvP player can achieve the same rank as someone who has really mastered the game. Nonetheless, RRs were probably a good idea.
Realm abilities?
RAs were a mistake as implemented. They aren't bad now but its a little too late I think. Most of the time they have been in the game I think they represented too much of an improvement in many ways. They were introduced as a way to give PvPers an incentive to PvP I am sure, but Mythic also used them as a way to try to balance out inconsistencies in the game. More time developing the game to avoid those inconsistencies would have been a better choice of course, but inevitably there is pressure to take a game live before its ready. I am sure thats what happened.
The biggest problem with RAs is that they changed the focus of the game from "Kill the enemy because they are the enemy" to "kill the enemy to get points to make my gameplay easier and to hell with the rest of my realm, they will just steal my points". This represented a big shift in Realm Pride and started a lot of divisive bickering and forum wars/epeen waving. RAs brought out the worst in PvP players in large part. They may sound like a good idea, they may add to the game and provide incentives to PvP and thus augment that part of the game, but they also pitted players against players on the same realm and caused a lot of division. Overall I would say they were a mistake and needed rethinking a lot.
Titles and lifetime stat tracking?
I think the titles are kind of neat, I know there are players who live for stats. I don't care much about either.
The biggest things any game seeking to emulate the success of the early DAOC (before SI or other expansions) are IMHO:
* ONE REALM ONLY PER SERVER - with rigorous internal checking to see if people are cross realming, and actual permanent bans if people are (losing an account or player here or there is worth the lost revenue when compared to losing a lot of players because some are cheating). Realm Pride is what made DAOC worth playing when it all came down to it. Loss of realm pride as a concept has greatly decreased this game. I see zero Realm Pride these days, none at all
* DO NOT FORGET THE PVE PLAYERS - Despite the protests of most PvP players, its PvE players that dominate any MMO. Most players by a large majority do not have any interest in PvP (I expect because of the type of players they meet when they do so, most of which make humanity look pretty petty and ignorant, sorry folks). Any MMO that wants to maintain its subscription level cannot focus on PvP exclusively, it has to seek a balance and if anything favour PvE players. The problem is that PvE players seldom bother to visit game forums, PvP players seem to view the forums as an extension of the PvP gameplay and participate heavily. This skews the developers opinions on what is important in the game - and I have seen in happen in multiple MMOs so far. I would (analy extracting a set of numbers) think that PvP players are at most 10% of total players, and its probably more like 5%. The rest come to play an MMO to play with friends and play a casual game while chatting, or in some cases just to chat in a really elaborate chat client.
* DO NOT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO PLAYER SUGGESTIONS - most people who post on MMO forums are NOT game designers. They make suggestions that seem informed, often backed by stats and math to justify things etc, and they often mean well - but they don't have the big picture, they often don't see beyond a specific problem, or class, or situation - and they often suggest "improvements" that aren't in the end. I think many game developers have been lead astray by listening to the players too much.
* DO NOT OVERENGINEER THINGS - TOA was an unmitigated disaster because they didn't think it out at all. It was technically very well designed and implemented but it forced PvP players to engage in hours of the most frustrating PvE imaginable. My wife and I were both literally screaming at the top of our lungs in frustration at how stupid and inept the other members of our realm who were on the same trial were. I have never been more frustrated in a game.
New Frontiers is also over engineered in my opinion. OF was far better and many players seem to think so too.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
OT-What if DAoC never had relics nor Realm Ranks?
jhonto posted: I played the game when it first came out. It took me at least 8 months, probably more to get my first character to 50 due to the nature of the game at the time. I played on Midgard/Percival almost exclusively. I have only just returned to the game a few months ago
Relic system?
I like the Relics system because it gives a realm as a whole a goal to achieve. In OF it took a lot of coordination and planning for one realm to take the relic(s) of another in most cases. I remember private forums where plans for relic takes would be posted and argued over for a week or two before the raid was made. Was it always like this? No of course not, frequently a realm would just decide they had the numbers and charge over the borders, but the former tended to succeed more than the later. Both were a lot of fun, and both gave rise to real realm leaders, recognized success stories that people would follow. They also gave rise to a great deal of realm pride.
All that said and perhaps the benefits of having the relics are a bit too great, a scaled system would be better. I remember RvRing before Relics existed mind you, and we did so just because the enemy was the enemy.
Realm Ranks?
Realm Ranks came in before RAs, we knew they were coming and would amount to something that added to our character but not exactly what. I don't ever remember RvRing to get more RR though, it was just another stat. Does it matter? Yeah, for the typical PvP mentality player it matters to have some sort of measure of their achievements. The problem is that mostly what RRs measure is /played not skill. With enough time even the most pathetic PvP player can achieve the same rank as someone who has really mastered the game. Nonetheless, RRs were probably a good idea.
Realm abilities?
RAs were a mistake as implemented. They aren't bad now but its a little too late I think. Most of the time they have been in the game I think they represented too much of an improvement in many ways. They were introduced as a way to give PvPers an incentive to PvP I am sure, but Mythic also used them as a way to try to balance out inconsistencies in the game. More time developing the game to avoid those inconsistencies would have been a better choice of course, but inevitably there is pressure to take a game live before its ready. I am sure thats what happened.
The biggest problem with RAs is that they changed the focus of the game from "Kill the enemy because they are the enemy" to "kill the enemy to get points to make my gameplay easier and to hell with the rest of my realm, they will just steal my points". This represented a big shift in Realm Pride and started a lot of divisive bickering and forum wars/epeen waving. RAs brought out the worst in PvP players in large part. They may sound like a good idea, they may add to the game and provide incentives to PvP and thus augment that part of the game, but they also pitted players against players on the same realm and caused a lot of division. Overall I would say they were a mistake and needed rethinking a lot.
Titles and lifetime stat tracking?
I think the titles are kind of neat, I know there are players who live for stats. I don't care much about either.
The biggest things any game seeking to emulate the success of the early DAOC (before SI or other expansions) are IMHO:
* ONE REALM ONLY PER SERVER - with rigorous internal checking to see if people are cross realming, and actual permanent bans if people are (losing an account or player here or there is worth the lost revenue when compared to losing a lot of players because some are cheating). Realm Pride is what made DAOC worth playing when it all came down to it. Loss of realm pride as a concept has greatly decreased this game. I see zero Realm Pride these days, none at all
* DO NOT FORGET THE PVE PLAYERS - Despite the protests of most PvP players, its PvE players that dominate any MMO. Most players by a large majority do not have any interest in PvP (I expect because of the type of players they meet when they do so, most of which make humanity look pretty petty and ignorant, sorry folks). Any MMO that wants to maintain its subscription level cannot focus on PvP exclusively, it has to seek a balance and if anything favour PvE players. The problem is that PvE players seldom bother to visit game forums, PvP players seem to view the forums as an extension of the PvP gameplay and participate heavily. This skews the developers opinions on what is important in the game - and I have seen in happen in multiple MMOs so far. I would (analy extracting a set of numbers) think that PvP players are at most 10% of total players, and its probably more like 5%. The rest come to play an MMO to play with friends and play a casual game while chatting, or in some cases just to chat in a really elaborate chat client.
* DO NOT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO PLAYER SUGGESTIONS - most people who post on MMO forums are NOT game designers. They make suggestions that seem informed, often backed by stats and math to justify things etc, and they often mean well - but they don't have the big picture, they often don't see beyond a specific problem, or class, or situation - and they often suggest "improvements" that aren't in the end. I think many game developers have been lead astray by listening to the players too much.
* DO NOT OVERENGINEER THINGS - TOA was an unmitigated disaster because they didn't think it out at all. It was technically very well designed and implemented but it forced PvP players to engage in hours of the most frustrating PvE imaginable. My wife and I were both literally screaming at the top of our lungs in frustration at how stupid and inept the other members of our realm who were on the same trial were. I have never been more frustrated in a game.
New Frontiers is also over engineered in my opinion. OF was far better and many players seem to think so too.
A great post.
-----signature-----
The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.
Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can,
and keep moving. - Ulysses S. Grant
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato
