Prime for me as well. On paper, it is the only 3-faction mmorpg that will be be more sandboxy in design than coop themeparkish: looking forward to trying it.
Sooooooooooooo obvious question. How do you make sure one faction does not become dominant? It is easier to split 50/50 then 33/33/33 in a mmorpg. That is why this genre died out and never worked past DAoC
No, actually you are wrong. With two sides, there is nothing to stop the dominant side. With three sides, the two underdogs can cooperate against the dominant side if they so choose.
This is true in 3 faction PvP, but not necessarily WvWvW ..such as GW2. The whole point of their W v W v W is for there to be 1 winner and 2 losers, so I don't think teaming will be relevant, especially since you only have 2 weeks to win the "battle" before it resets. With 3 worlds, 1 prize, and no long-term for cooperation its more of a "faction FFA".
Prime BFD is the true return of 3 faction PvP. It still has a long ways to go, but so far, what they have going on is very promising.
You bring up a good point about deliberately teaming up, and it's known that GW2 will not allow cross faction communication.
Still, I have to think that there will be checks and balances due to there being 3 factions and 4 zones (one for each faction and a contested middle one). One server can't invade another's zone without worrying about overextending and being invaded by the third.
GW2 prevents one faction from being dominant by matching each server against different servers at the end of the two week period based on W/L record and population. Unlike one-server 3-faction PVP, you can't have one faction permanently dominating the other two. Each time that strong server wins and a weak server loses, their next matches get harder and easier.
The other benefit of pitting servers against other servers is that the server population isn't divided into different factions. It's not 50/50 or 33/33/33, it's all 100 vs all 100 vs all 100.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Sooooooooooooo obvious question. How do you make sure one faction does not become dominant? It is easier to split 50/50 then 33/33/33 in a mmorpg. That is why this genre died out and never worked past DAoC
No, actually you are wrong. With two sides, there is nothing to stop the dominant side. With three sides, the two underdogs can cooperate against the dominant side if they so choose.
This is true in 3 faction PvP, but not necessarily WvWvW ..such as GW2. The whole point of their W v W v W is for there to be 1 winner and 2 losers, so I don't think teaming will be relevant, especially since you only have 2 weeks to win the "battle" before it resets. With 3 worlds, 1 prize, and no long-term for cooperation its more of a "faction FFA".
Prime BFD is the true return of 3 faction PvP. It still has a long ways to go, but so far, what they have going on is very promising.
You bring up a good point about deliberately teaming up, and it's known that GW2 will not allow cross faction communication.
Still, I have to think that there will be checks and balances due to there being 3 factions and 4 zones (one for each faction and a contested middle one). One server can't invade another's zone without worrying about overextending and being invaded by the third.
GW2 prevents one faction from being dominant by matching each server against different servers at the end of the two week period based on W/L record and population. Unlike one-server 3-faction PVP, you can't have one faction permanently dominating the other two. Each time that strong server wins and a weak server loses, their next matches get harder and easier.
The other benefit of pitting servers against other servers is that the server population isn't divided into different factions. It's not 50/50 or 33/33/33, it's all 100 vs all 100 vs all 100.
Well, yes, AND no.. while you are right its not a fraction of the entire server, each world isn't 100 percent of an entire servers population either, its also just a fraction of the participating PvPers. So balancing will be key in GW2. If its based on population then those with a low PvP participation will be hurting, and of course, server transfers will aid in the complainers to just switch servers at will.
Thats another thing with factional PvP. if you get to the top of a server and find you don't like that side, you can't just flip sides to the winner the next battle (unless its an ffa factional thing, and those really don't work very well). While it is possible that the battles are smaller when you take an entire server population and cut it into pieces for factions, 3 Faction PvP has its benefits, many of which I think will be lost on 3 World PvP. W v W v W will have its own benefits too, I'm just trying to point out that 3 Faction isn't 3 World.
Hardcoded factions is crap. I want to decide who my enemies and friends are, not the devs.
There are already games out there that do that, and those games largely haven't done very well.
I like both types of games, but find that the PvP is more enjoyable when you have a defined enemy rather than running the risk of having everyone be your enemy, or having no one be.
Yeah, world vs. world sounds awesome! I mean, if you like the idea of herding cats, which is basically what large scale PvP like this winds up being. Anything over 100 people just winds up being mass chaos (and even 100 people is pushing it most of the time).
You know cat hearding is one of my hobbies. In all seriousness though I truely enjoy large scale PvP outside of FPS games because of the chaos. Its just plane fun to watch 100+ people firing spells, guns, arrows, or what ever at eachother. Who said war was organized anyways!
Once again trumpetting DAoC as the highest evolution of MMOs. Slow down here champ.
First off you're mistaken if you don't think there was "Good" vrs. "Evil" in DAoC. THEY CALLED IT DARK AGE OF CAMELOT! The Albions were the "good guys" fighting to preserve King Arthur's Camelot days against the invaders from Hibernia and Midgard.
Second there were plenty of DAoC servers where one faction just completely dominated due to population. There was nothing that magically split the DAoC population into thirds on every server. In fact there were several where Albs outpopulated the Mids and Hibs put together. Maybe from time to time the two underpopulated realms could get together and do something, but it was so rare you remember it a decade later.
Third not every MMO setting or IP lends itself to multiple factions and I think that World of Warcraft has proven that more people play MMOs to PvE than to PvP or RvR.
Fourth those "glory days" where the realms fought each other in DAoC actually lasted about a year. If you played from launch you know that "realm pride" started to die the day they introduced realm points into the game. This started the inevitable fall towards Group v. Group rather than RvR (the vaunted 8 mans) and the three faction feel of the game broke down into two realms ... 8 mans v. Zergers.
Fifth if two is bad and three is good than why wouldn't five be the bomb? Why not nine factions? Better yet why not everyone be their own little faction ... oh wait .. that's open PvP and that's too "hardcore".
Please stop looking at it through rose colored LCD screens. The reasons for DAoC's success have nothing to do with the number of factions etc. It had to do with the community it drew and the spirit of that community. Stop giving game mechanics the credit for what we human beings built in a cyber world. Kindly remember that DAoC wasn't mainstream, was never meant to be mainstream and it released today would be a dud. It was made for table top roll playing game afficianadoes who had access to the internet, not the twitter kids.
Please let DAoC lie where it belongs in the mass grave of MMO passed and stop dredging it up. If you like a game mechanic, say you like a game mechanic for these reasons, not because your all time favorite game did it and you're praying someone else will make you DAoC 2.
Sakes.
I actually took the time to read through that. About the only thing I can say you wore blinders during your entire time playing DAoC. The success was all due to the 3 faction system, the community grew around that. The downfall of DAoC was trials of Atlantis because it gave those with inordinant amount of time to devote to long quest chains a huge advantage in pvp. The exodus from the game started about 4-6 months after release of the expansion, after promised changes did little to fix the problem.
I played on a bunch of the servers and never experienced any situation where one faction outnumbered all the others. If there was one, it would have been easy to move to another server.
The only thing I can say about what you wrote is that it was entirely wrong, it was still the best implementation of an open pvp environment for a couple years.
Blinders? Ok, you call it, pot or kettle. I should have known better than to try and talk sense to a rabid fanboy with no objectivity on the subject.
Lets just start here. How can you say that not every IP lends itself to three faction warfare is false? Obviously you DIDN'T read the whole post.
Also I said that realm pride 'STARTED TO DIE" with the implementation of realm points.
Frankly I could go on and on, but I'm wasting time on you. You'll never see past your own nose on this topic, which is just too bad since you're supposed to have some kind of objectivity.
I understand you loved it. Maybe you broke your maiden on it? I did. I loved it, but I understand the game didn't love me back and it wasn't the best thing ever to grace the intrawebs with it's presence. The game you love DIED in 2004. It's time to let go ... let go!
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
No DAOC is/was not even close to being any good,i think too many old schoolers,just can't let go of their "first" or past gaming.Myself i am always looking beyond to maybe something better,last thing i want is gaming to return to any of the old stuff i have seen,it is all extremely outdated game play.
I completely disagree, but like someone else said, your entitled to your own opinion. Yes, I am an old school gamer, but I am also open to new ideas and "looking beyond to maybe something better" as well.
Unlike yourself, I considered DAoC one of the best games at the time. I still believe that their RvR, three faction, system was the most enjoyable PvP play I have had to date (by far). Yes, it is outdated in the graphics/UI department, but that is because it is 10 years old! I would still stack their classes (the MOST of ANY game I have ever played) against any current or former MMORPG. I mean WoW barely has a third of what DAoC has. You would think with all the friggin money, they could develop some more classes (and no more pathetic races, who cares...) A hunter as a night elf is the same as a hunter as a werewolf IMO.
Blinders? Ok, you call it, pot or kettle. I should have known better than to try and talk sense to a rabid fanboy with no objectivity on the subject.
Lets just start here. How can you say that not every IP lends itself to three faction warfare is false? Obviously you DIDN'T read the whole post.
Also I said that realm pride 'STARTED TO DIE" with the implementation of realm points.
Frankly I could go on and on, but I'm wasting time on you. You'll never see past your own nose on this topic, which is just too bad since you're supposed to have some kind of objectivity.
I understand you loved it. Maybe you broke your maiden on it? I did. I loved it, but I understand the game didn't love me back and it wasn't the best thing ever to grace the intrawebs with it's presence. The game you love DIED in 2004. It's time to let go ... let go!
You call him a fanboy, yet you are the one with emotion-filled posts. Exactly who appointed you as the grand scholar to "try and talk sense" to us, the uneducated masses? You have an opinion, and unfortunately you are entitled to it. But its just that, an opinion.
There were many problems with DAoC, yet there were fair more things they did right; things that any mmorpg today could learn from. I am sorry you had such a bad experience with DAoC, but based on what I have seen here and elsewhere, there are far more people who loved it and will hold some if its features as the gold standard to be met in any new mmorpgs.
Oh and one other thing . . . Someone got rolled in RvR.
I had high hopes that Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium would use more than the standard and stale 2 factions... afterall it's IP is basicly everyone against everyone (with occasional temporary alliances for 1 specific goal) in a chaotic carnage of battle, which other game would be better for it??
Who knows? Maybe 1 or 2 months in official alliance with the Eldar against a rushing horde of Oks and Chaos... which happened to hit a Tau settlement planet and the Dark Eldar hiding base... meanwhile the Tyranid NPCs show up attacking everyone...
Then on the next month the Orks resented Chaos using them as cannonfodder, the Tau found out that some Dark Eldar did some sneaky backstabs while the Eldar got displeased by the Empire's excessive use of force...
In a word... shifting alliances
Probably too much hopefull... but way better (to me atleast) than "Order vs Chaos"...
That's because Planetside is simply more of an FPS game and less of an MMORPG.
Anyways, I cannot wait to experience GW2's 3 server PvP, because the concept is entirely new to me and from what we know, it seems to be very promising.
It's an MMO nontheless. Thing was most mmoRPG players where whining their asses of when they played planetside, complaining about cheating and exploiting when they failed to hold their rifle straight.
Oh and one other thing . . . Someone got rolled in RvR.
This? This is the best you've got? Yeah, you really told me didn't you, you two Twinky and a Mountain Dew Dinner llama. Here are a couple of tips to help you acclimate back into society when EA has the common decency to pull the server's plugs out of the wall and consign DAoC to sweet cyber oblivion and you get done pining for a DEAD GAME!
1. You're not really a Vampiir, so go outside and get some sun.
2. You can't grind faction with women online.
3. 16 level 50 toons. Really?
4. Trolling you "DAoC was teh bestest evah" wads is like watching a chimp playing with a bic lighter; at first it's kind of cute and amusing but pretty soon it just smells like burnt chimp, which is pathetic.
Stop embarrassing yourself. I've watched you guys bend over backwards trying to point to the game mechanic that made DAoC great for years and in all honestly it's gone past pathetic to annoying.
I'll keep saying this until I die and I'm right, which is why you can't stand it. The game was good because the people playing it made it good.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
Pirates of the Burning Sea has/had 4 factions.... 3 that were more or less copies (french, english, spanish) and the 1 unique-ish (pirates).
When the game launched and had a decent population - that variety of factions made for a lot of fun pvp.
WoW made a lot of money with 2 factions. More that 2 factions would generally require more work. Most companies didn't care to do the extra work, or feel it was necessary to get your $15/mo.
3 factions in Planetside was also awesome.
Pre-2004 was really the golden age of online pvp (or rvr... whatever team you care to use, you know what I mean). Hope to see another age emerge!
One of the inescapable facts of life is that "there ain't nothin' new under the sun". In today's column, MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller takes a look at the return of a "new" old feature, three-faction PvP. Check out Garrett's thoughts and then weigh in with a few of your own in the comments.
Why the three tier system works in simple, there is no Good vs. Evil. Everyone has an equal fighting chance, and no one side is more righteous than the other. If one side overpowers the other two, most of the time the other two teams join to defeat the greater enemy. Once that enemy is eliminated the two survivors battle it out. Back in the old days of DAOC, there were many fights where Midgard and Hibernia formed temporary alliances to defeat Albion. Once that was over, the fight continued to see who was truly king of the zone. There were even times we just went our separate ways and decided to fight another day.
You sir, nailed it on the proverbial head. Had EA/Bioware/Mythic, etc, hired you and booted Paul Barnett after his cocky, "people are whining about aoe comments" after which there was a post (thanks to yours truly) of a youtube link that showed 3 BWs and a WP out of line of sight aoeing the mess out of a Destro raid..and laughing themselves silly...well, the game may have not bombed.
It is a shame DAoC was swept under the carpet of mediocrity. It is a shame that countless times in Warhammer, Age of Conan, Lord of the RIngs Online, Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and Rift, I read, "Man, I sure miss DAoc PvP -" and "Best pvp ever" ad nauseum. I mean, people typed this stuff all the time. Sad those titles rode the two faction (or conan's 0 faction) wow model instead of raising the bar where DAoC took it.
I am very glad you pointed out Secret World. I will be looking into that! It's not Medieval fantasy, but meh...I will take what I can get at this point because god knows, the genre has killed the 2 faction model.
You sir, nailed it on the proverbial head. Had EA/Bioware/Mythic, etc, hired you and booted Paul Barnett after his cocky, "people are whining about aoe comments" after which there was a post (thanks to yours truly) of a youtube link that showed 3 BWs and a WP out of line of sight aoeing the mess out of a Destro raid..and laughing themselves silly...well, the game may have not bombed.
-SNIP-
And they still let that Idiot barnett work there.... how I will never know. The denial that there was a problem with Bright Wizards and the denial that magic resistance was broken are the two key things that brought ruin to that game.
No way that Wow got it wrong, i mean they have 12million sub man, its like the whole humanity think it is the best game ever created, and even chess game have 2 factions so...
/Sarcasm off
Ye 3 faction is a good number, you could probably add few in but not much or it came back to a guild vs guild setting which is full of problems too, so 3 is really the smart number imo. But things that could probably be done is to have different level of factions and guilds overlapping in a global pvp setting, i don't think mmo do that or ever did that. They tend to simplified too much imo. So ye you could probably have "npc guilds" or factions, i don't know like mage guild, or thief guild, city guild or revolutionary guild, whatever fit a game, also participate to a 3 faction pvp, and stuff like that, but just a level under to 3 top faction. So that this mage guild is one of the main leader of one of those 3 faction for ex. I don't know how GW2 will implement the fact that you can be in more than one guild, but they probably will have this kind of pyramidal scheme, especially if they ever implement npc guilds or factions. I also think "npc faction" is a must to implement in pvp games, because it let everyone participate in the big events, not only player guilds, which is imo a stupid restriction in mmo today. Since today only guild have a pass for the sieges and big pvp event, as a kind of rewards for their effort, but i think it just limit the game for nothing. You can give some good reward to player guilds without forbidding pvp events to the majority of players. So i hope this next step will come soon.
3 factions is awesome. I am stll wayting for a game with 5 or 7 factions..... And where your ingame actions make which faction you join
Fallen Earth caters to that, thought Its 6 factions. Ingame actions dont so much decide your faction but you do need to choose one about 1/3 of the way through the game and once you do it affects what missions you can do and where you can safely go.
What made DAoC great was three distinctly different realms where no one was the 'evil' ones. Sure, Albion had the luster of Arthur and could easily be viewed as the good guys, but the Hibernians and Midgardians could take equal pride in their realms.
There were plenty of issues with DAoC, and especially balancing became a nightmare as time progressed, but what people miss about DAoC is not only the RvR but also the way it enticed communities to work together for a common purpose. My hunter spent many a night out in Old Emain just scouting and reporting enemy movements, and as long as Midgard reigned supreme I did not care that I hardly earned a realm point all night, and the pride of watching your guild banner fly over a castle made wasting a platinum on wood to reinforce the gate worth the expense.
There were many things that made DAoC special, and three faction RvR certainly is the way to go. I am intrigued by The Secret World and the fact that the seem to have made a persistent PvP zone similar to DAoC's frontier. Final verdict has to wait until release though. Hopefully, Funcom has learned their lesson from the mistakes made on AoC, and implemented better systems on this one.
TSW it would seem as actually missed one of the major things that made DAoC so special, the fact that the three realms were entirely seperate and only came together in PvP; they couldn't even speak the same language. This created what became known as realm pride and it was this that really drove the game forward.
TSW is using London as a central social hub and all three factions will intermingle, speak the same language and even team up against the PvE heavies. I do have some hope for TSW but I see it more as an Ao type system without the neutrals rather than the holy grail which was DAoC's RvR
I loved 3 faction PvP, for the above reasons. I don't really understand the reasoning that they haven't used it again in other mmos other than WoW did 2 factions so that must be the one and only acceptable way to set it up.
Originally posted by eric1000 TSW it would seem as actually missed one of the major things that made DAoC so special, the fact that the three realms were entirely seperate and only came together in PvP; they couldn't even speak the same language. This created what became known as realm pride and it was this that really drove the game forward. TSW is using London as a central social hub and all three factions will intermingle, speak the same language and even team up against the PvE heavies. I do have some hope for TSW but I see it more as an Ao type system without the neutrals rather than the holy grail which was DAoC's RvR
TSW isnt trying to be like DAoC. The three factions joining forces during some pve campaigns is set heavily into the lore of the game. There are scenarios where your team of mixed factions will double cross each other mid dungeon as part of the storyline. A lot of quests are a mix of survival horror and puzzle solving so the gameplay goes much deeper than your typical whack-a-mole pve.
Comments
You bring up a good point about deliberately teaming up, and it's known that GW2 will not allow cross faction communication.
Still, I have to think that there will be checks and balances due to there being 3 factions and 4 zones (one for each faction and a contested middle one). One server can't invade another's zone without worrying about overextending and being invaded by the third.
GW2 prevents one faction from being dominant by matching each server against different servers at the end of the two week period based on W/L record and population. Unlike one-server 3-faction PVP, you can't have one faction permanently dominating the other two. Each time that strong server wins and a weak server loses, their next matches get harder and easier.
The other benefit of pitting servers against other servers is that the server population isn't divided into different factions. It's not 50/50 or 33/33/33, it's all 100 vs all 100 vs all 100.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Well, yes, AND no.. while you are right its not a fraction of the entire server, each world isn't 100 percent of an entire servers population either, its also just a fraction of the participating PvPers. So balancing will be key in GW2. If its based on population then those with a low PvP participation will be hurting, and of course, server transfers will aid in the complainers to just switch servers at will.
Thats another thing with factional PvP. if you get to the top of a server and find you don't like that side, you can't just flip sides to the winner the next battle (unless its an ffa factional thing, and those really don't work very well). While it is possible that the battles are smaller when you take an entire server population and cut it into pieces for factions, 3 Faction PvP has its benefits, many of which I think will be lost on 3 World PvP. W v W v W will have its own benefits too, I'm just trying to point out that 3 Faction isn't 3 World.
Hardcoded factions is crap. I want to decide who my enemies and friends are, not the devs.
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There are already games out there that do that, and those games largely haven't done very well.
I like both types of games, but find that the PvP is more enjoyable when you have a defined enemy rather than running the risk of having everyone be your enemy, or having no one be.
You know cat hearding is one of my hobbies. In all seriousness though I truely enjoy large scale PvP outside of FPS games because of the chaos. Its just plane fun to watch 100+ people firing spells, guns, arrows, or what ever at eachother. Who said war was organized anyways!
I actually took the time to read through that. About the only thing I can say you wore blinders during your entire time playing DAoC. The success was all due to the 3 faction system, the community grew around that. The downfall of DAoC was trials of Atlantis because it gave those with inordinant amount of time to devote to long quest chains a huge advantage in pvp. The exodus from the game started about 4-6 months after release of the expansion, after promised changes did little to fix the problem.
I played on a bunch of the servers and never experienced any situation where one faction outnumbered all the others. If there was one, it would have been easy to move to another server.
The only thing I can say about what you wrote is that it was entirely wrong, it was still the best implementation of an open pvp environment for a couple years.
Blinders? Ok, you call it, pot or kettle. I should have known better than to try and talk sense to a rabid fanboy with no objectivity on the subject.
Lets just start here. How can you say that not every IP lends itself to three faction warfare is false? Obviously you DIDN'T read the whole post.
Also I said that realm pride 'STARTED TO DIE" with the implementation of realm points.
Frankly I could go on and on, but I'm wasting time on you. You'll never see past your own nose on this topic, which is just too bad since you're supposed to have some kind of objectivity.
I understand you loved it. Maybe you broke your maiden on it? I did. I loved it, but I understand the game didn't love me back and it wasn't the best thing ever to grace the intrawebs with it's presence. The game you love DIED in 2004. It's time to let go ... let go!
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
I completely disagree, but like someone else said, your entitled to your own opinion. Yes, I am an old school gamer, but I am also open to new ideas and "looking beyond to maybe something better" as well.
Unlike yourself, I considered DAoC one of the best games at the time. I still believe that their RvR, three faction, system was the most enjoyable PvP play I have had to date (by far). Yes, it is outdated in the graphics/UI department, but that is because it is 10 years old! I would still stack their classes (the MOST of ANY game I have ever played) against any current or former MMORPG. I mean WoW barely has a third of what DAoC has. You would think with all the friggin money, they could develop some more classes (and no more pathetic races, who cares...) A hunter as a night elf is the same as a hunter as a werewolf IMO.
Cheers!
You call him a fanboy, yet you are the one with emotion-filled posts. Exactly who appointed you as the grand scholar to "try and talk sense" to us, the uneducated masses? You have an opinion, and unfortunately you are entitled to it. But its just that, an opinion.
There were many problems with DAoC, yet there were fair more things they did right; things that any mmorpg today could learn from. I am sorry you had such a bad experience with DAoC, but based on what I have seen here and elsewhere, there are far more people who loved it and will hold some if its features as the gold standard to be met in any new mmorpgs.
Oh and one other thing . . . Someone got rolled in RvR.
I had high hopes that Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium would use more than the standard and stale 2 factions... afterall it's IP is basicly everyone against everyone (with occasional temporary alliances for 1 specific goal) in a chaotic carnage of battle, which other game would be better for it??
Who knows? Maybe 1 or 2 months in official alliance with the Eldar against a rushing horde of Oks and Chaos... which happened to hit a Tau settlement planet and the Dark Eldar hiding base... meanwhile the Tyranid NPCs show up attacking everyone...
Then on the next month the Orks resented Chaos using them as cannonfodder, the Tau found out that some Dark Eldar did some sneaky backstabs while the Eldar got displeased by the Empire's excessive use of force...
In a word... shifting alliances
Probably too much hopefull... but way better (to me atleast) than "Order vs Chaos"...
I fear for the Warhammer 40K MMO mostly because they have made it only 2 faction......
It's an MMO nontheless. Thing was most mmoRPG players where whining their asses of when they played planetside, complaining about cheating and exploiting when they failed to hold their rifle straight.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
aaaaaaaaaaaanyway....
I really do hope three faction pvp becomes the new standard at least for a while. Temporary alliances are a welcome fix to the server pop imba issues.
All I can say is - ABOUT TIME..
Not only am I dumbfounded that companies didnt use this method of pvp after DAOC and Planetside.Im also surprised they didnt use it and build upon it.
Making a 4 faction pvp system perhaps?
Pirates of the Burning Sea has/had 4 factions.... 3 that were more or less copies (french, english, spanish) and the 1 unique-ish (pirates).
When the game launched and had a decent population - that variety of factions made for a lot of fun pvp.
WoW made a lot of money with 2 factions. More that 2 factions would generally require more work. Most companies didn't care to do the extra work, or feel it was necessary to get your $15/mo.
3 factions in Planetside was also awesome.
Pre-2004 was really the golden age of online pvp (or rvr... whatever team you care to use, you know what I mean). Hope to see another age emerge!
Nice try but he typed 2001, not 2011. Kudos for humor though.
You sir, nailed it on the proverbial head. Had EA/Bioware/Mythic, etc, hired you and booted Paul Barnett after his cocky, "people are whining about aoe comments" after which there was a post (thanks to yours truly) of a youtube link that showed 3 BWs and a WP out of line of sight aoeing the mess out of a Destro raid..and laughing themselves silly...well, the game may have not bombed.
It is a shame DAoC was swept under the carpet of mediocrity. It is a shame that countless times in Warhammer, Age of Conan, Lord of the RIngs Online, Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and Rift, I read, "Man, I sure miss DAoc PvP -" and "Best pvp ever" ad nauseum. I mean, people typed this stuff all the time. Sad those titles rode the two faction (or conan's 0 faction) wow model instead of raising the bar where DAoC took it.
I am very glad you pointed out Secret World. I will be looking into that! It's not Medieval fantasy, but meh...I will take what I can get at this point because god knows, the genre has killed the 2 faction model.
Thank you
And they still let that Idiot barnett work there.... how I will never know. The denial that there was a problem with Bright Wizards and the denial that magic resistance was broken are the two key things that brought ruin to that game.
/Sarcasm on
No way that Wow got it wrong, i mean they have 12million sub man, its like the whole humanity think it is the best game ever created, and even chess game have 2 factions so...
/Sarcasm off
Ye 3 faction is a good number, you could probably add few in but not much or it came back to a guild vs guild setting which is full of problems too, so 3 is really the smart number imo. But things that could probably be done is to have different level of factions and guilds overlapping in a global pvp setting, i don't think mmo do that or ever did that. They tend to simplified too much imo. So ye you could probably have "npc guilds" or factions, i don't know like mage guild, or thief guild, city guild or revolutionary guild, whatever fit a game, also participate to a 3 faction pvp, and stuff like that, but just a level under to 3 top faction. So that this mage guild is one of the main leader of one of those 3 faction for ex. I don't know how GW2 will implement the fact that you can be in more than one guild, but they probably will have this kind of pyramidal scheme, especially if they ever implement npc guilds or factions. I also think "npc faction" is a must to implement in pvp games, because it let everyone participate in the big events, not only player guilds, which is imo a stupid restriction in mmo today. Since today only guild have a pass for the sieges and big pvp event, as a kind of rewards for their effort, but i think it just limit the game for nothing. You can give some good reward to player guilds without forbidding pvp events to the majority of players. So i hope this next step will come soon.
Fallen Earth caters to that, thought Its 6 factions. Ingame actions dont so much decide your faction but you do need to choose one about 1/3 of the way through the game and once you do it affects what missions you can do and where you can safely go.
TSW it would seem as actually missed one of the major things that made DAoC so special, the fact that the three realms were entirely seperate and only came together in PvP; they couldn't even speak the same language. This created what became known as realm pride and it was this that really drove the game forward.
TSW is using London as a central social hub and all three factions will intermingle, speak the same language and even team up against the PvE heavies. I do have some hope for TSW but I see it more as an Ao type system without the neutrals rather than the holy grail which was DAoC's RvR
I loved 3 faction PvP, for the above reasons. I don't really understand the reasoning that they haven't used it again in other mmos other than WoW did 2 factions so that must be the one and only acceptable way to set it up.
TSW isnt trying to be like DAoC. The three factions joining forces during some pve campaigns is set heavily into the lore of the game. There are scenarios where your team of mixed factions will double cross each other mid dungeon as part of the storyline. A lot of quests are a mix of survival horror and puzzle solving so the gameplay goes much deeper than your typical whack-a-mole pve.