I'm not trying to offend when I say this, just being honest, but this game isn't for you.
Then it won't get funded and it will crash and burn.
It's not a casual friendly game. Mark Jacobs is making a game for the old school RvR crowd. Players who understand that to have an impact on RvR you need to be part of a group or guild, you have to be dedicated, you have to be unconcerned with the trappings of the modern MMO like tiered kit chasing, and PvE raids every other night.
[mod edit]
I understand perfectly what you're looking for and why, but you won't find it here. There are plenty of MMO's out there that will cater to your requirements.
[mod edit]
It may indeed crash and burn, but as I pointed out MJ knows that is a risk and it's one he's willing to take. Personally I think it's a brave move and regardless of whether the game succeeds or fails I think MJ deserves some respect just for having the balls to try this.
I didn't intend to sound cendescending but obviously you have no problem with that. I don't know if I'm older school or not and I never claimed to be. I do know that I'm 50 in a few months and have been playing MMO's since Meridain 59, along with many other genre of games. I started gaming in 1982 on the C64. Does that make me old school? I don't know. Either way I am not your "son".
I did read your post, all the way through and I didn't latch onto a single criticism. I certainly didn't go into fanboi trollmode as you so eloquently put it. What I did was try to convey Mark Jacobs' attitude towards the game's development and the probable response to that. I would also like to point out that at no time was I trolling and I am most certainly not a fanboi. I'm interested to see if this can work but fanboi is a bit of a stretch.
This wil be a niche game, it will not appeal to the majority.
Calling me a troll or fanboi won't change that. Using a condescending attitude won't change that. Claiming to be older school won't change that.
I said in my first post, I have no wish to offend you but this is the truth about the game. I thought I had written a well reasoned and polite reply to try and explain this to you. If you can't accept it for what it is and how it's being designed then it simply isn't a game you're going to want to play. I'm having a hard time understanding why you're getting so worked up about it. It's a game, man. If it's not your cup of tea then just pass on it.
I haven't seen trolling, just disagreement with the direction that can easily reach a middleground without breaking any FPs. Sometimes people get worked up
Auction Houses make the buying and selling of gear a breeze. You don't have to spend time where you could be out slaughtering things standing in a marketplace and hawking your wares. Nor do you have to devote hours standing in same marketplace waiting to get the items you want at the price you desire. I feel that an unintended consequence having an auction house is that it contributes to a less tightly knit community because what is essentially an exchange of items between one player and another is conducted by an automated third party, removing any actual contact between a buyer and seller. These little bits of contact may generally amount to nothing but with any bit of contact you have with another person there is a chance for a relationship to grow. This guy was a douche and is now my enemy. That guy was cool and I'm going to buy all my armor from him.
LFD tools auto match you to a group and whisk you to away to a dungeon without any effort. This is an undeniably good thing for those with a limited time to spend on gaming, people who have the odd hour or two to spend at the computer between work and family and life in general. What do we give up for this ease though? A LFD tool requires abssolutely no interaction between anyone. Before, at the bare minimum, one person had to at least announce in zone chat where the instance was that they were LFM, and another person had to respond, even if it was with something as simple as "I'll DPS that." Magically zapping you inside the instance when your que pops removes any chance of emergent world pvp while groups from two sides are waiting for all of their members. Once again, an opportunity for interaction with other people in the game, both negative in the form of a fight with your enemy and positive in the ability to jump into a fight between another group from your faction and the enemy, is gone. Hell, with some LFD tools any reason to be out in the world is gone.
I think the most devious killer in the form of convenience in modern mmos comes from something that's actually outside the games themselves. Between wikis and forums, there is simply too much information available to players of modern mmos. There's no mystery anymore, just shopping lists of items you need to get to gear out your character. There's no exploration of the world, just detailed maps of it or answers to specific questions along the lines of "walk to X and catch the boat to Y, then take the flight point to Z. Doesn't it help to make a world more immersive when you actually have to immerse yourself in it, just to get to your next questing area? Except for a select few, no players learn boss fights anymore in games with raiding. They just learn proven strategies, and when they are able to execute them and are geared enough for the encounter, they down the boss. Sure, this is convenient in that you progress through contect more quickly, but is victory as sweet as it would have been if you hadn't flipped to the end of the book and looked up the answers?
These conveniences in modern MMOs that many take for granted and those you mentioned in your OP require if they are to play aren't terrible things. But we must realize that there are consequences from having them. Thing is, I think we could live without some of these things. Most of what we get from this stuff is time. Time spent looking for a group. Time spent travelling to a dungeon. Time spent in a trade channel. These conveniences are saving us from having forced downtime. But downtime isn't always bad. Many of succesfull single player game developers put a lot of effort into testing their games simply for pacing. Bioshocks that aren't infinite had puzzles in them. Was this because fps players love puzzles and the solving of them? No, it slows down the pace when needed. It gives you a way to interact with the world other than by killing the things in it. It provides you with space between fights. We have all felt like things were dragging on too long when playing games, wanted one section to just be over. That's a pacing problem. A little downtime at the cost of a little less convenience goes a long way in addressing that problem.
I'm not trying to offend when I say this, just being honest, but this game isn't for you.
Then it won't get funded and it will crash and burn.
It's not a casual friendly game. Mark Jacobs is making a game for the old school RvR crowd. Players who understand that to have an impact on RvR you need to be part of a group or guild, you have to be dedicated, you have to be unconcerned with the trappings of the modern MMO like tiered kit chasing, and PvE raids every other night.
[mod edit] What part of player shops makes for better RvR? What part of player shops has anything to do with a group or guild?
Using bad oldschool mechanics just be be oldschool is fucking retarded.
I don't think you quite comprehend the playerbase of an RvR game. For RvR to be successful, you need population. You need the emain zerg. What kind of player makes up that zerg? The casual pug. Without them, the PvP drags, and dies. If you want to be successful, you need the casual RvR player.
CU is supposed to be an RvR game, not a hardcore game for elitist 8-man no-school no-job, no-life asshats.
I understand perfectly what you're looking for and why, but you won't find it here. There are plenty of MMO's out there that will cater to your requirements.
[mod edit]
However, solo story lines? Your story line is you playing your character and experiencing the game itself through everyday interacting. Sadly, if player needs to have their hand held to tell a story of their own character then the character's story probably shouldn't be told in the first place.
Depends if you want anyone to play the game. Many players may try CU to see what "oldschool RvR" is about, but if they can't even find where to start or get rolled without doing much, they're just going to leave and play GW2 or something they're already familiar with.
As I said in my post, I would envision the "solo story line" as a 2 hour pseudo-PvE RvR track where it's basically like a solo mission in an FPS game before you go play multiplayer. You know, so the player's not a complete drag on your team. E.g. a tutorial.
The one useful thing about PvE in games is that it does give the player some time to become slightly proficient with their class. That doesn't mean "PvE" should be in CU, but it does mean that the player should have the option (or not?) of some solo / structured content so they don't immediately fail epicly in RvR where teammates are relying on them.
Because that's going to make players like me talk shit to them in chat and they'll be upset and leave the game. That or I'll get a temp ban from a CSR.
hmmm, he was trying to be polite and you are throwing a temper tantrum. Or at least that's how it's coming off.
I can say that I personally wouldn't want an AH, or anything that you are askign for. Therefore "the game would be for me". But it has things that you don't want therefore "the game is not for you".
It remains to be seen if it will crash and burn.
IF the game can be financially successful with the old school mechanics then it proves the point that a game like this can survive. They are willing to take that chance.
You can demand all you want but it seems that there are people who want this type of game play. Therefore, other than you discussing it for the sake of discussing it, there is nothing for you here.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Something else to bear in mind. AH to sell loot. With little to no PvE in the game, what loot? Gear will be crafted as stated clearly by the devs. You're probably gonna find that most gear will be made to order the same way it was in DAoC. There shouldn't be much need for an AH.
Also LFD tools. Dungeons? Really? See that bit about little to no PvE? So you want an LFD tool just for The Depths? I don't see why something as simple as an LFG channel wouldn't be sufficient to cover anyone wanting to find a spot in a RvR group.
If someone has in-game videos for a kickstarter then they already have the game in those videos. Those developers are just trying to grab some extra money to push in a few final features and hype up the product before pushing it out the door.
Youre free to buy in to glorified pre-order campaigns for other games if thats what you want.
However thats not the same thing as players getting involved with development of a game on the ground floor and having their opinions actualy be taken into account.
Originally posted by Thorbrand I agree totally with this post 100% except your last sentence. I do not believe CU will be anything more than instance capped PvP like GW2.
Let's see if I am reading this right:
You think CU rvr will be like GW2? GW2 pvp is in an instanced area entirely seperated from their pve game and CU's rvr is entirely based within the main large open world they are developing an in house engine for that manages up to 1000 players at once.
I agree in the sense that games are becoming too easy in this genre. Not all of them, but a majority are catering to people who don't have very much time or a very short attention span. You can't just put the blame on the kids who own consoles though, I own both consoles and have yet to complain that a game needs some sort of convenience factor. The older generation is partially to blame as well, seeing as alot of the gamers who started on EQ or UO didn't have full time jobs and a family back in that time so they were able to do whatever they wanted and play games however long they wanted. I see more people from that area complaining they don't have enough time to play a time consuming game so they want more convenience factors to be able to physically enjoy the game instead of consistantly feeling inferior due to the fact they can't play it 50 hours a week. The argument saying the wow generation killed mmo's is getting tired and there isn't much left to say in that other than, yes it made developers go down a path for developing easier content, convenient travel times, and solo content. But that helps totally different people in different ways.
I'm completely for a hard core mmorpg, that has obnoxious travel times, obnoxious mob spawns, no instances just open dungeons. But at the same time I don't mind playing a game with conveniences as well. You can't say people who enjoy console games are the main reason for this, because there are plenty of console games that don't cater to your every whim. Why was assasins creed even mentioned? It isn't an instant gratification game, it's a story heavy game.
This is a niche MMO, the rules were laid out, and the vision was shared.
But this got really popular really fast, and just looking at this forum alone you can see the influx of post wow era mmoers, who just started playing mmos after 2010 because their Xbox was getting old...are just complaining up a storm about this and that..
I want fast travel,
I want an action house,
I want dungeon finders, loot drops, tokens and quest, solo story lines, pretty much everyting that the kids who play assasins creed and black ops want. Tons of shallow scripted content and anti community systems that dont belong in MMOS.
It is soo easy to see how the devs that just want to sell copies can get sucked into this casual player crap. Becasue it just staggers me the amount of people who want an MMO to be just a socially shallow crapshoot.
MJ is a G*d damn savior.. Stick to your guns sir.
Although I find the CU project to be a waste of money on a washed up developer this is probably the most accurate post I've seen in many months.
This is a niche MMO, the rules were laid out, and the vision was shared.
But this got really popular really fast, and just looking at this forum alone you can see the influx of post wow era mmoers, who just started playing mmos after 2010 because their Xbox was getting old...are just complaining up a storm about this and that..
I want fast travel,
I want an action house,
I want dungeon finders, loot drops, tokens and quest, solo story lines, pretty much everyting that the kids who play assasins creed and black ops want. Tons of shallow scripted content and anti community systems that dont belong in MMOS.
It is soo easy to see how the devs that just want to sell copies can get sucked into this casual player crap. Becasue it just staggers me the amount of people who want an MMO to be just a socially shallow crapshoot.
MJ is a G*d damn savior.. Stick to your guns sir.
My first online game was a modification of the core code of CircleMUD. My first graphical MMO was "The Realm Online".
I want a system of economical trade.
I want a system of teleportation.
I want a system of group finding.
Because the first MMO's ever created had them, and it is what we expect.
I agree with the previous comments that convient game mechanics are needed, as they reduce the amount of time people have to spend menial tasks. I know that there are people enjoy tedious grinds, but I am not one of those.
Besides all the typical bells and whistles, I think there are two things need to done properly by any future MMOs that is looking for longevity:
Dynamic player-driven content - this includes various features that have not been properly done by any MMO today, except perhaps EVE online, but that is a genre in itself. The problem is that this type of content is difficult to develop. You can probably design a hundred linear WoW-esque dungeon in a time it takes to develop a dynamic system that allows all players in the server to participate in an open-world.
Progressively more difficult content - harder, more rewarding content is needed, players need challenges and also something to aspire towards. If everyone is special, nobody really is. Raiding in classic WoW is a good example of a working design. This does not only have to mean PvE content, but all content should be progressively more difficult and require increasing amount of cooperation to complete - whether it is about building a city or conquering a difficult raid instance. The hardest content should so so difficult that only few dedicated guilds will be able to take up the challenge.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Part of the success of DAOC was that the objectives were so large that, in a normal situation, no single guild was strong enough to take a relic by themselves. Most alliances of guild were not strong enough, for that matter.
That fostered realm communication and cooperation to get big things done.
I agree with the previous comments that convient game mechanics are needed, as they reduce the amount of time people have to spend menial tasks. I know that there are people enjoy tedious grinds, but I am not one of those.
I disagree, i'd much rather spend a bit more time trying to get to know people than log in, do my dailies and/or gear grind raiding/arenas.
Mmo's today feel more like a job than fun. You group up with people through group finder and barely even say one word to each other. There's no community in today's mmo', and it's certainly not fun equpiment grinding and quest grinding for me.
I'm not trying to offend when I say this, just being honest, but this game isn't for you.
Then it won't get funded and it will crash and burn.
It's not a casual friendly game. Mark Jacobs is making a game for the old school RvR crowd. Players who understand that to have an impact on RvR you need to be part of a group or guild, you have to be dedicated, you have to be unconcerned with the trappings of the modern MMO like tiered kit chasing, and PvE raids every other night.
[mod edit] What part of player shops makes for better RvR? What part of player shops has anything to do with a group or guild?
Using bad oldschool mechanics just be be oldschool is fucking retarded.
I don't think you quite comprehend the playerbase of an RvR game. For RvR to be successful, you need population. You need the emain zerg. What kind of player makes up that zerg? The casual pug. Without them, the PvP drags, and dies. If you want to be successful, you need the casual RvR player.
CU is supposed to be an RvR game, not a hardcore game for elitist 8-man no-school no-job, no-life asshats.
I understand perfectly what you're looking for and why, but you won't find it here. There are plenty of MMO's out there that will cater to your requirements.
[mod edit]
However, solo story lines? Your story line is you playing your character and experiencing the game itself through everyday interacting. Sadly, if player needs to have their hand held to tell a story of their own character then the character's story probably shouldn't be told in the first place.
Depends if you want anyone to play the game. Many players may try CU to see what "oldschool RvR" is about, but if they can't even find where to start or get rolled without doing much, they're just going to leave and play GW2 or something they're already familiar with.
As I said in my post, I would envision the "solo story line" as a 2 hour pseudo-PvE RvR track where it's basically like a solo mission in an FPS game before you go play multiplayer. You know, so the player's not a complete drag on your team. E.g. a tutorial.
The one useful thing about PvE in games is that it does give the player some time to become slightly proficient with their class. That doesn't mean "PvE" should be in CU, but it does mean that the player should have the option (or not?) of some solo / structured content so they don't immediately fail epicly in RvR where teammates are relying on them.
Because that's going to make players like me talk shit to them in chat and they'll be upset and leave the game. That or I'll get a temp ban from a CSR.
There is the bit. AKA the excuse. IF we say that everything MUST BE FUN, then you can use FUN as the excuse to speed everything up. How fun is it to work hard to get that magic item? It's just as fun if it get in with 3 seconds work than it is if I spend 3 weeks making it. Because the fun is in the HAVING not the getting. This is why we can't have good games.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
This is a niche MMO, the rules were laid out, and the vision was shared.
But this got really popular really fast, and just looking at this forum alone you can see the influx of post wow era mmoers, who just started playing mmos after 2010 because their Xbox was getting old...are just complaining up a storm about this and that..
I want fast travel,
I want an action house,
I want dungeon finders, loot drops, tokens and quest, solo story lines, pretty much everyting that the kids who play assasins creed and black ops want. Tons of shallow scripted content and anti community systems that dont belong in MMOS.
It is soo easy to see how the devs that just want to sell copies can get sucked into this casual player crap. Becasue it just staggers me the amount of people who want an MMO to be just a socially shallow crapshoot.
MJ is a G*d damn savior.. Stick to your guns sir.
You do understand most of the thing you state you hate about modern MMO's where in DAoC and which helped make it great till MJ the "savior" killed it with his vision TOA.
Loot drops, AH etc. DArkness falls being a major example of things you seemingly hate. So far from what the majority of you fans are saying there will be NPC's to kill but they won't drop anything. Animals won't drop hides as that would be loot, NPC guards won't drop gold as that would be loot, and player when you kill them won't drop anything. So in effect what your saying is there IS no loot in this game what so ever as noithing drops anything?
Seems CU will have a clumsy bartering system where players have to sit or stand around possibly for hours bored to tears trying to trade their mined resources for a player crafted item. That in itself will be a pita. (Remember theres no merchants in the game and no loot drops thus no gold to use to buy from players either) While CU is shaping up to be a shell of a game with almost nothing but PVP and House Building (which can and will be attacked and destroyed when you log out) It will rely on players to do some rather cumbersome and time consuming barter/trade of raw materials which can only be gained by mining resourses for finished products ie. Player A: How much for that sword? Player B: I want 10 ore 2 leather and a rare elm wood. Player A humm I don't have any rare elm wood how about 10 ores, 2 leather and a silver ore? Player B: no sorry i got tons of silver ore: etc etc etc.
I imagine CU will go through alot of changes before its released and that alot of the things the fans are currently saying now will change. If not i see it being perhaps even more niche then DArkfall
Oh who am i kidding. They run on tears, complains and misery, everyone knows that. Controversial design choices are necessary, even if it necessitates some(alot) of inconviniences.
The game needs travel to be harsh and long, painful and risky . At the same time boring as it is exhilerating(because you have to fear having to do it all over again).
The game needs wares to be hard to come by, by close trades. So that we can punish and exclude the nonsocial solo players, all the while encouraging a smaller and tighter community.
The game needs handholding to be minimal. While a personal handholding story that helps you develope your character and find the way to grinder would surely lead to delicious tears as it cuts of just at the point where you need guidiance the most(pvp). It would still be a waste of resources given the titles budget.
And yes, i perfectly know that a game without handholding, f2p, auction houses and whatever other crap i just forgot surely can never succeed. Unless that game gets run like EvE that is. Actually EvE is a bigger success than most PvE themepark games imho, sure many eclipse(or have eclipsed in the past) its playercount, but for how long before they vanish into the unimportance of what is maintenance mode? And how many do so without a publisher behind them who is buying them reviews at game mags etc?
Realistically, as a really small studio, you would be stupid to copy ANY or the recent big MMOs or their revenue models. There is no indication at all that its even possible to produce a AAA themepark mmo without a big publisher spending billions just on advertisements, shelf placements and yes reviews(80-90% reviews at launchday my ass).
The only rolemodel you can have, the one company that was in your exact situation. The one glimmer of hope you can look up too is CCPs EvE. If THEY could do it, it stands to reason YOU can do it. Start niche, start small. And then grow. Grow for 10 years, grow your game, grow your company. Don't charge for patches, don't charge for ingame items, clothes or colors. Not for expansions and not for new classes. Just the Sub.
Will it work? Hell yeah. Yeah. Well ... unless you mess up that is. The thing is your players may think your stupid, not getting this or that at times or go some wrong way. But they never will feel ripped off, they will always see you try to make right.
I rather keep following a honest fool doing what he believes in forever, than being one single day in the presence of someone brilliant that only applies his intellect at getting at my wallet. Some of the ... psychological tricks ... that get employed by some F2P games are downright sick, especially in the context that they are used to get at children. Why does the state try and protect children from gambling irl, but doesn't care as soon as its in a game? The effect on the brain are the same, addiction and loss of rationality(if i bet one more time i can win it all back, 10 times bad luck in a row, 11 time MUST be a win).
I was just thinking the same thing OP. I've seen much much more crazy requests and game "should haves" than your examples even. The fact that people can demand so much from such a small project is mind boggling. People have gotten so out of touch. It's funny, because you'd almost think they think everyone else is unrealistic at the same time. Hard to not be disheartened.
I was just on a poll/post on ESO where 40% of the people that voted on the poll want ESO to be a SINGLE player game. People wonder why a decent game doesn't get made. As if most of these people would even know what to do with a good game.
There is the bit. AKA the excuse. IF we say that everything MUST BE FUN, then you can use FUN as the excuse to speed everything up. How fun is it to work hard to get that magic item? It's just as fun if it get in with 3 seconds work than it is if I spend 3 weeks making it. Because the fun is in the HAVING not the getting. This is why we can't have good games.
What the hell are you even talking about? I just did a search and didn't even find the word "fun" in my post.
You do understand most of the thing you state you hate about modern MMO's where in DAoC and which helped make it great till MJ the "savior" killed it with his vision TOA.
Mark took the fall for TOA but I personally believe Matt Firor (TESO guy) was equally responsible
I've always said real MMO players are sorta masochistic. We want things to be hard and take (compared to today) ungodly amounts of time to do anything. We want to be severely punished when we make mistakes and/or die. We don't want to equip a piece of armor and it lasts forever. We want more than running the same thing over and over again once you reach the final level. We want complicated, time-consuming, and "only the most hardcoriest (if that's a word) will do it" crafting. Imho, that's what a real mmo should be. None of this logging in for 30 minutes and actually get something done. If I log in for 30 minutes, I should barely be able to run from one town to the next
Ok first off it isn't 1 miscellaneous subsystem you disagreed with. You talked about an AH, a dungeon finder, and solo content or storyline. That's 3 areas of disagreement.
1. The AH is the only significant topic of discussion.
2. The dungeon finder is pretty extremely obvious that it will end up in the game, although you probably have a different set of mental assumptions going into the words "dungeon finder" than I use. I am looking more at the group finding system in Warhammer. And if you're against that, you're an idiot.
3. Tutorial WILL be in CU, if CU is released. I'm merely suggesting that a few voiceovers are added with some structured direction. This seems extremely obvious to me, unless you really want CU to fail 2 months after release. PvP in MMOs decays due to mechanics or end-game, or whatever. But it DIES from lack of population, and making the game hard to pick up for a casual player that likes PvP is shooting yourself in the foot.
Nobody has told you to fuck off.
Telling me that an RvR game is not for me is that, in as many words.
You've stated your disagreements with the game, and Sovrath and I have suggested that perhaps, given your attitude towards the lack of certain features that you consider important being missing, that you would not like the game.
You make a lot of assumptions.
You do know that myopic and blind are practically the same, right?
I was going to add a sidenote "(although these are semi-redundant)", but myopia only covers side-vision, so I figured they were different enough that I'd let it go without adding the parenthetical and disrupting the flow of adjectives. It had a nice cadence.
At the risk of further invoking your ire I suggest you take a chill pill and calm down.
I'm pretty chill. You'll know when I'm actually angry when I make more than 1 spelling/grammar mistake in a post, along with some all caps.
I'm just being honest with my reaction, instead of filtering it. This tends to get more honest responses.
You see, I feel pretty insulted that a random poster on the internets would tell me that CU is "not for me" because of a disagreement on what is essentially a miscellaneous subsytem.
Because that is what the AH is. That message to me basically says that the other party is a complete fanboy when they can't coherently discuss the merits / problems with one subsystem of the game. This is exacerbated by the fact that the only tangential justification behind the "no-AH" is a poorly thought-out statement by MJ, and the delusion that "oldschool is good because oldschool" circular reasoning spouted on this forum.
Under that logic, we should go with max range 9s AOE no-cooldown stun too, because that's so oldschool it gives me a throbbing hard-on. Oh, and de-leveling. That's fun guys because oldschool. Corpse looting too. And 2D sprites!
CU is about RvR. The AH is not RvR, and it is not PvP. It's a tool to make trading more efficient.
Originally posted by Gravarg I've always said real MMO players are sorta masochistic. We want things to be hard and take (compared to today) ungodly amounts of time to do anything. We want to be severely punished when we make mistakes and/or die. We don't want to equip a piece of armor and it lasts forever. We want more than running the same thing over and over again once you reach the final level. We want complicated, time-consuming, and "only the most hardcoriest (if that's a word) will do it" crafting. Imho, that's what a real mmo should be. None of this logging in for 30 minutes and actually get something done. If I log in for 30 minutes, I should barely be able to run from one town to the next
Hmm not quite. I have a nice example that explains it i think. Its a RL example of when i was in my countries army:
We where in our 4th week of basic training and it was in the middle of winter(cold but not subzero), had just completed a forced march and now had to cross a pool of something that probably wasn't shit, but certainly did a good job imitating it(im pretty sure things had crawled into it to die). So while i was standing in this liquid hell of gross, down to my chin in the crap and thinking about how miserable i was(you know, weak, cold, broken blisters on my foot and standing in liquid crap) i turned my head to the guy behind me to see how he was doing.
I instantly felt my mood brighten and a big smile forming on my face, i felt great. Why? Because while i was miserable and to my chin in the crapper, so was the guy behind me, and he was half a head shorter, obviously hopping up and down to keep his noseholes out of the crap atleast parttime and spitting out the disgusting crap now and then.
Thats a true story. The lesson pretty much is that its not about having it good, its about having it better. Misery has to be in copious supply, to ensure its there for you to enjoy when it falls on your enemies. The job of the devs is it to make sure it gets spread around more or less fairly.
"Progressively more difficult content - harder, more rewarding content is needed, players need challenges and also something to aspire towards. If everyone is special, nobody really is. Raiding in classic WoW is a good example of a working design. This does not only have to mean PvE content, but all content should be progressively more difficult and require increasing amount of cooperation to complete - whether it is about building a city or conquering a difficult raid instance. The hardest content should so so difficult that only few dedicated guilds will be able to take up the challenge"
Your "Harder" content is players. The beauty of a pvp based game is that all the content and all the difficulties are provided by the players themeslves with no need for developer's time at all (other than balancing)
Want to be special? Kill a zerg with your full group every day, and you'll be "special"
WoW is a pve game, pve is boring, no one would ever raid anyinstance in wow more than half a dozen time if there wasn't a shiny carrot, and so you get a gear progression.
CU is a rvr game, the content is fun, so you don't really need a shiny carrot (though an impossible to complete progression like daoc's rps is great) PvP provides all the challenges you'll ever need. And it scales too, you can join a zerg and have fun there, or you can try to run a small group/full group, which is much more challenging. Yet it is a natural progression, instead of a forced one like in wow.
I have to agree with EasymodeX. His points are well made. It's a sad reflection on the CU community when the responses he gets are "this game isn't for you."
Comments
It may indeed crash and burn, but as I pointed out MJ knows that is a risk and it's one he's willing to take. Personally I think it's a brave move and regardless of whether the game succeeds or fails I think MJ deserves some respect just for having the balls to try this.
I didn't intend to sound cendescending but obviously you have no problem with that. I don't know if I'm older school or not and I never claimed to be. I do know that I'm 50 in a few months and have been playing MMO's since Meridain 59, along with many other genre of games. I started gaming in 1982 on the C64. Does that make me old school? I don't know. Either way I am not your "son".
I did read your post, all the way through and I didn't latch onto a single criticism. I certainly didn't go into fanboi trollmode as you so eloquently put it. What I did was try to convey Mark Jacobs' attitude towards the game's development and the probable response to that. I would also like to point out that at no time was I trolling and I am most certainly not a fanboi. I'm interested to see if this can work but fanboi is a bit of a stretch.
This wil be a niche game, it will not appeal to the majority.
Calling me a troll or fanboi won't change that. Using a condescending attitude won't change that. Claiming to be older school won't change that.
I said in my first post, I have no wish to offend you but this is the truth about the game. I thought I had written a well reasoned and polite reply to try and explain this to you. If you can't accept it for what it is and how it's being designed then it simply isn't a game you're going to want to play. I'm having a hard time understanding why you're getting so worked up about it. It's a game, man. If it's not your cup of tea then just pass on it.
Or perhaps you'd like to insult me some more.
I haven't seen trolling, just disagreement with the direction that can easily reach a middleground without breaking any FPs. Sometimes people get worked up
Convenience has it's costs.
Auction Houses make the buying and selling of gear a breeze. You don't have to spend time where you could be out slaughtering things standing in a marketplace and hawking your wares. Nor do you have to devote hours standing in same marketplace waiting to get the items you want at the price you desire. I feel that an unintended consequence having an auction house is that it contributes to a less tightly knit community because what is essentially an exchange of items between one player and another is conducted by an automated third party, removing any actual contact between a buyer and seller. These little bits of contact may generally amount to nothing but with any bit of contact you have with another person there is a chance for a relationship to grow. This guy was a douche and is now my enemy. That guy was cool and I'm going to buy all my armor from him.
LFD tools auto match you to a group and whisk you to away to a dungeon without any effort. This is an undeniably good thing for those with a limited time to spend on gaming, people who have the odd hour or two to spend at the computer between work and family and life in general. What do we give up for this ease though? A LFD tool requires abssolutely no interaction between anyone. Before, at the bare minimum, one person had to at least announce in zone chat where the instance was that they were LFM, and another person had to respond, even if it was with something as simple as "I'll DPS that." Magically zapping you inside the instance when your que pops removes any chance of emergent world pvp while groups from two sides are waiting for all of their members. Once again, an opportunity for interaction with other people in the game, both negative in the form of a fight with your enemy and positive in the ability to jump into a fight between another group from your faction and the enemy, is gone. Hell, with some LFD tools any reason to be out in the world is gone.
I think the most devious killer in the form of convenience in modern mmos comes from something that's actually outside the games themselves. Between wikis and forums, there is simply too much information available to players of modern mmos. There's no mystery anymore, just shopping lists of items you need to get to gear out your character. There's no exploration of the world, just detailed maps of it or answers to specific questions along the lines of "walk to X and catch the boat to Y, then take the flight point to Z. Doesn't it help to make a world more immersive when you actually have to immerse yourself in it, just to get to your next questing area? Except for a select few, no players learn boss fights anymore in games with raiding. They just learn proven strategies, and when they are able to execute them and are geared enough for the encounter, they down the boss. Sure, this is convenient in that you progress through contect more quickly, but is victory as sweet as it would have been if you hadn't flipped to the end of the book and looked up the answers?
These conveniences in modern MMOs that many take for granted and those you mentioned in your OP require if they are to play aren't terrible things. But we must realize that there are consequences from having them. Thing is, I think we could live without some of these things. Most of what we get from this stuff is time. Time spent looking for a group. Time spent travelling to a dungeon. Time spent in a trade channel. These conveniences are saving us from having forced downtime. But downtime isn't always bad. Many of succesfull single player game developers put a lot of effort into testing their games simply for pacing. Bioshocks that aren't infinite had puzzles in them. Was this because fps players love puzzles and the solving of them? No, it slows down the pace when needed. It gives you a way to interact with the world other than by killing the things in it. It provides you with space between fights. We have all felt like things were dragging on too long when playing games, wanted one section to just be over. That's a pacing problem. A little downtime at the cost of a little less convenience goes a long way in addressing that problem.
hmmm, he was trying to be polite and you are throwing a temper tantrum. Or at least that's how it's coming off.
I can say that I personally wouldn't want an AH, or anything that you are askign for. Therefore "the game would be for me". But it has things that you don't want therefore "the game is not for you".
It remains to be seen if it will crash and burn.
IF the game can be financially successful with the old school mechanics then it proves the point that a game like this can survive. They are willing to take that chance.
You can demand all you want but it seems that there are people who want this type of game play. Therefore, other than you discussing it for the sake of discussing it, there is nothing for you here.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Good post by Sketocafe.
Something else to bear in mind. AH to sell loot. With little to no PvE in the game, what loot? Gear will be crafted as stated clearly by the devs. You're probably gonna find that most gear will be made to order the same way it was in DAoC. There shouldn't be much need for an AH.
Also LFD tools. Dungeons? Really? See that bit about little to no PvE? So you want an LFD tool just for The Depths? I don't see why something as simple as an LFG channel wouldn't be sufficient to cover anyone wanting to find a spot in a RvR group.
If someone has in-game videos for a kickstarter then they already have the game in those videos. Those developers are just trying to grab some extra money to push in a few final features and hype up the product before pushing it out the door.
Youre free to buy in to glorified pre-order campaigns for other games if thats what you want.
However thats not the same thing as players getting involved with development of a game on the ground floor and having their opinions actualy be taken into account.
Let's see if I am reading this right:
You think CU rvr will be like GW2? GW2 pvp is in an instanced area entirely seperated from their pve game and CU's rvr is entirely based within the main large open world they are developing an in house engine for that manages up to 1000 players at once.
Yup ... totally the same.
You stay sassy!
I agree in the sense that games are becoming too easy in this genre. Not all of them, but a majority are catering to people who don't have very much time or a very short attention span. You can't just put the blame on the kids who own consoles though, I own both consoles and have yet to complain that a game needs some sort of convenience factor. The older generation is partially to blame as well, seeing as alot of the gamers who started on EQ or UO didn't have full time jobs and a family back in that time so they were able to do whatever they wanted and play games however long they wanted. I see more people from that area complaining they don't have enough time to play a time consuming game so they want more convenience factors to be able to physically enjoy the game instead of consistantly feeling inferior due to the fact they can't play it 50 hours a week. The argument saying the wow generation killed mmo's is getting tired and there isn't much left to say in that other than, yes it made developers go down a path for developing easier content, convenient travel times, and solo content. But that helps totally different people in different ways.
I'm completely for a hard core mmorpg, that has obnoxious travel times, obnoxious mob spawns, no instances just open dungeons. But at the same time I don't mind playing a game with conveniences as well. You can't say people who enjoy console games are the main reason for this, because there are plenty of console games that don't cater to your every whim. Why was assasins creed even mentioned? It isn't an instant gratification game, it's a story heavy game.
Although I find the CU project to be a waste of money on a washed up developer this is probably the most accurate post I've seen in many months.
My first online game was a modification of the core code of CircleMUD. My first graphical MMO was "The Realm Online".
I want a system of economical trade.
I want a system of teleportation.
I want a system of group finding.
Because the first MMO's ever created had them, and it is what we expect.
I agree with the previous comments that convient game mechanics are needed, as they reduce the amount of time people have to spend menial tasks. I know that there are people enjoy tedious grinds, but I am not one of those.
Besides all the typical bells and whistles, I think there are two things need to done properly by any future MMOs that is looking for longevity:
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
Part of the success of DAOC was that the objectives were so large that, in a normal situation, no single guild was strong enough to take a relic by themselves. Most alliances of guild were not strong enough, for that matter.
That fostered realm communication and cooperation to get big things done.
I disagree, i'd much rather spend a bit more time trying to get to know people than log in, do my dailies and/or gear grind raiding/arenas.
Mmo's today feel more like a job than fun. You group up with people through group finder and barely even say one word to each other. There's no community in today's mmo', and it's certainly not fun equpiment grinding and quest grinding for me.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
There is the bit. AKA the excuse. IF we say that everything MUST BE FUN, then you can use FUN as the excuse to speed everything up. How fun is it to work hard to get that magic item? It's just as fun if it get in with 3 seconds work than it is if I spend 3 weeks making it. Because the fun is in the HAVING not the getting. This is why we can't have good games.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You do understand most of the thing you state you hate about modern MMO's where in DAoC and which helped make it great till MJ the "savior" killed it with his vision TOA.
Loot drops, AH etc. DArkness falls being a major example of things you seemingly hate. So far from what the majority of you fans are saying there will be NPC's to kill but they won't drop anything. Animals won't drop hides as that would be loot, NPC guards won't drop gold as that would be loot, and player when you kill them won't drop anything. So in effect what your saying is there IS no loot in this game what so ever as noithing drops anything?
Seems CU will have a clumsy bartering system where players have to sit or stand around possibly for hours bored to tears trying to trade their mined resources for a player crafted item. That in itself will be a pita. (Remember theres no merchants in the game and no loot drops thus no gold to use to buy from players either) While CU is shaping up to be a shell of a game with almost nothing but PVP and House Building (which can and will be attacked and destroyed when you log out) It will rely on players to do some rather cumbersome and time consuming barter/trade of raw materials which can only be gained by mining resourses for finished products ie. Player A: How much for that sword? Player B: I want 10 ore 2 leather and a rare elm wood. Player A humm I don't have any rare elm wood how about 10 ores, 2 leather and a silver ore? Player B: no sorry i got tons of silver ore: etc etc etc.
I imagine CU will go through alot of changes before its released and that alot of the things the fans are currently saying now will change. If not i see it being perhaps even more niche then DArkfall
RvR games are mostly fueled by War.
Oh who am i kidding. They run on tears, complains and misery, everyone knows that. Controversial design choices are necessary, even if it necessitates some(alot) of inconviniences.
The game needs travel to be harsh and long, painful and risky . At the same time boring as it is exhilerating(because you have to fear having to do it all over again).
The game needs wares to be hard to come by, by close trades. So that we can punish and exclude the nonsocial solo players, all the while encouraging a smaller and tighter community.
The game needs handholding to be minimal. While a personal handholding story that helps you develope your character and find the way to grinder would surely lead to delicious tears as it cuts of just at the point where you need guidiance the most(pvp). It would still be a waste of resources given the titles budget.
And yes, i perfectly know that a game without handholding, f2p, auction houses and whatever other crap i just forgot surely can never succeed. Unless that game gets run like EvE that is. Actually EvE is a bigger success than most PvE themepark games imho, sure many eclipse(or have eclipsed in the past) its playercount, but for how long before they vanish into the unimportance of what is maintenance mode? And how many do so without a publisher behind them who is buying them reviews at game mags etc?
Realistically, as a really small studio, you would be stupid to copy ANY or the recent big MMOs or their revenue models. There is no indication at all that its even possible to produce a AAA themepark mmo without a big publisher spending billions just on advertisements, shelf placements and yes reviews(80-90% reviews at launchday my ass).
The only rolemodel you can have, the one company that was in your exact situation. The one glimmer of hope you can look up too is CCPs EvE. If THEY could do it, it stands to reason YOU can do it. Start niche, start small. And then grow. Grow for 10 years, grow your game, grow your company. Don't charge for patches, don't charge for ingame items, clothes or colors. Not for expansions and not for new classes. Just the Sub.
Will it work? Hell yeah. Yeah. Well ... unless you mess up that is. The thing is your players may think your stupid, not getting this or that at times or go some wrong way. But they never will feel ripped off, they will always see you try to make right.
I rather keep following a honest fool doing what he believes in forever, than being one single day in the presence of someone brilliant that only applies his intellect at getting at my wallet. Some of the ... psychological tricks ... that get employed by some F2P games are downright sick, especially in the context that they are used to get at children. Why does the state try and protect children from gambling irl, but doesn't care as soon as its in a game? The effect on the brain are the same, addiction and loss of rationality(if i bet one more time i can win it all back, 10 times bad luck in a row, 11 time MUST be a win).
I was just thinking the same thing OP. I've seen much much more crazy requests and game "should haves" than your examples even. The fact that people can demand so much from such a small project is mind boggling. People have gotten so out of touch. It's funny, because you'd almost think they think everyone else is unrealistic at the same time. Hard to not be disheartened.
I was just on a poll/post on ESO where 40% of the people that voted on the poll want ESO to be a SINGLE player game. People wonder why a decent game doesn't get made. As if most of these people would even know what to do with a good game.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
What the hell are you even talking about? I just did a search and didn't even find the word "fun" in my post.
Mark took the fall for TOA but I personally believe Matt Firor (TESO guy) was equally responsible
Trials of Atlantis interview with Matt Firor
http://forums.bbbguild.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2289
EQ2 fan sites
Ok first off it isn't 1 miscellaneous subsystem you disagreed with. You talked about an AH, a dungeon finder, and solo content or storyline. That's 3 areas of disagreement.
1. The AH is the only significant topic of discussion.
2. The dungeon finder is pretty extremely obvious that it will end up in the game, although you probably have a different set of mental assumptions going into the words "dungeon finder" than I use. I am looking more at the group finding system in Warhammer. And if you're against that, you're an idiot.
3. Tutorial WILL be in CU, if CU is released. I'm merely suggesting that a few voiceovers are added with some structured direction. This seems extremely obvious to me, unless you really want CU to fail 2 months after release. PvP in MMOs decays due to mechanics or end-game, or whatever. But it DIES from lack of population, and making the game hard to pick up for a casual player that likes PvP is shooting yourself in the foot.
Nobody has told you to fuck off.
Telling me that an RvR game is not for me is that, in as many words.
You've stated your disagreements with the game, and Sovrath and I have suggested that perhaps, given your attitude towards the lack of certain features that you consider important being missing, that you would not like the game.
You make a lot of assumptions.
You do know that myopic and blind are practically the same, right?
I was going to add a sidenote "(although these are semi-redundant)", but myopia only covers side-vision, so I figured they were different enough that I'd let it go without adding the parenthetical and disrupting the flow of adjectives. It had a nice cadence.
At the risk of further invoking your ire I suggest you take a chill pill and calm down.
I'm pretty chill. You'll know when I'm actually angry when I make more than 1 spelling/grammar mistake in a post, along with some all caps.
I'm just being honest with my reaction, instead of filtering it. This tends to get more honest responses.
You see, I feel pretty insulted that a random poster on the internets would tell me that CU is "not for me" because of a disagreement on what is essentially a miscellaneous subsytem.
Because that is what the AH is. That message to me basically says that the other party is a complete fanboy when they can't coherently discuss the merits / problems with one subsystem of the game. This is exacerbated by the fact that the only tangential justification behind the "no-AH" is a poorly thought-out statement by MJ, and the delusion that "oldschool is good because oldschool" circular reasoning spouted on this forum.
Under that logic, we should go with max range 9s AOE no-cooldown stun too, because that's so oldschool it gives me a throbbing hard-on. Oh, and de-leveling. That's fun guys because oldschool. Corpse looting too. And 2D sprites!
CU is about RvR. The AH is not RvR, and it is not PvP. It's a tool to make trading more efficient.
Hmm not quite. I have a nice example that explains it i think. Its a RL example of when i was in my countries army:
We where in our 4th week of basic training and it was in the middle of winter(cold but not subzero), had just completed a forced march and now had to cross a pool of something that probably wasn't shit, but certainly did a good job imitating it(im pretty sure things had crawled into it to die). So while i was standing in this liquid hell of gross, down to my chin in the crap and thinking about how miserable i was(you know, weak, cold, broken blisters on my foot and standing in liquid crap) i turned my head to the guy behind me to see how he was doing.
I instantly felt my mood brighten and a big smile forming on my face, i felt great. Why? Because while i was miserable and to my chin in the crapper, so was the guy behind me, and he was half a head shorter, obviously hopping up and down to keep his noseholes out of the crap atleast parttime and spitting out the disgusting crap now and then.
Thats a true story. The lesson pretty much is that its not about having it good, its about having it better. Misery has to be in copious supply, to ensure its there for you to enjoy when it falls on your enemies. The job of the devs is it to make sure it gets spread around more or less fairly.
"Progressively more difficult content - harder, more rewarding content is needed, players need challenges and also something to aspire towards. If everyone is special, nobody really is. Raiding in classic WoW is a good example of a working design. This does not only have to mean PvE content, but all content should be progressively more difficult and require increasing amount of cooperation to complete - whether it is about building a city or conquering a difficult raid instance. The hardest content should so so difficult that only few dedicated guilds will be able to take up the challenge"
Your "Harder" content is players. The beauty of a pvp based game is that all the content and all the difficulties are provided by the players themeslves with no need for developer's time at all (other than balancing)
Want to be special? Kill a zerg with your full group every day, and you'll be "special"
WoW is a pve game, pve is boring, no one would ever raid anyinstance in wow more than half a dozen time if there wasn't a shiny carrot, and so you get a gear progression.
CU is a rvr game, the content is fun, so you don't really need a shiny carrot (though an impossible to complete progression like daoc's rps is great) PvP provides all the challenges you'll ever need. And it scales too, you can join a zerg and have fun there, or you can try to run a small group/full group, which is much more challenging. Yet it is a natural progression, instead of a forced one like in wow.
I have to agree with EasymodeX. His points are well made. It's a sad reflection on the CU community when the responses he gets are "this game isn't for you."