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If you are concerned about Mark Jacobs consider this...
Khalathwyr
Member UncommonPosts: 3,133
...You can fixate on WAR, but MJ also had a huge hand in DAoC, which was a good game. He's even at best if you want to have honest conversation. Of course something you don't know about that I do is that with WAR he and EA had to also deal with Games Workshop. Having worked for GW I know the BS they pull behind closed doors. Knowing that, I don't blame MJ so much and amazingly I let off of EA a little too.
Either way with this title MJ is doing it his way. If it funds then we will get to see if MJ is such the devil some make him to be. Judging by the overwhelming response to his ideas, ideas that can't be ruined by EA or GW, he's going down the right path as far as the majority of players are concerned. That in itself should speak volumes as far as who is to blame for WAR.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Comments
I will respond to this for your a long standing member here and not just some cu spammer and second the real reason many of us are sceptical.
The reason :
Do you think WAR might have done better if it had scrapped PvE and almost exclusively focused on RvR?
No. During the negotiations with EA and others, my belief was that any RvR-centric game is going to have a hugely loyal but smaller audience than PvE-centric ones. My initial projection for WAR was 300K monthly subs because I believed then, as I do now, that RvR/PvP scares off some people, and that back then, if you wanted a shot at bigger numbers, you needed to support both the PvE and RvR players. Plus, with the whole "the world's economy going to hell in a hand basket" thing, I'm not sure how much it would have mattered.
The other:
When questions came up upon warhammer and the use of daoc rvr, his response was pretty much..
"Stop asking as it will not happen, warhammer rvr is a whole new game"
That killed it, the whole warhammer RvR was a horrible experiance, placable seige items, static locations and the list goes on. DAOC had it perfect and there is that old saying, "don't break what is not broken" improve on it for sure, but don't break it.
Finally:
The kickstarter hasn't had solid anything, it's all we want this or that , what do you want? and more. I will say it over and over, where is the design bible mark?
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
whats wrong with WAR? it was a great RvR game.
some things were wrong sure.
but it had other great thing too.
like certain class and game mechanics.
ally and enemy collision, awesome. cant think of an RvR game without one. (gw2 rvr failed cause of lack of this. blob wars)
the grudge/oathfriend mechanic.. awesome. same for the righteous fury mechanic and the whole melee-healer archtype.
the offensive/defensive target mechanic... guarding...
the game was not excellent, but the battle was extremelly fun and tactical.
No I could go on and on, it's a trend in his design, he does what he wants and so be it, but this new "I listen" thing I find pretty funny. Sorry I don't buy it, he wouldn't listen in daoc and war, so whats to change? Oh he needs your money up front. Hey, all the best to you guys if this goes well, but I wouldn't be suprised to have some of you coming back months down the road saying, "we have heard nothing or been part of nothing for months now".
I could be wrong, but you know that old saying, once a ....
"The monster created isn't by the company that makes the game, it's by the fans that make it something it never was"
You do realise the slow rot of DAoC was caused by Mythic, led by MJ before they sold out to EA? Also, they sold out to EA......and it wrecked a game many of us still hold dear.
There is a long and torrid history between MJ and his former DAoC customers, especially those of us who live in the EU.
It goes a lot deeper than WAR (which MJ had little to do with anyway) a LOT deeper.
I support MJ in this project, I like to think that he has learnt from his mistakes, but I'm not everyone and a lot of people will simply never trust him again.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
I think a lot of it also is, who else is there?
What other developer is going to even attempt to give us a good PvP game?
We all know PvE brings in the $. Look at WoW. It has some PvP but not even 1/4 of the game's content is about PvP.
Look how many expansions they have, how many new dungeons, and how many new battlegrounds...
I know mark has a sketchy past, but man at least he's trying to do something good here. Something that a lot of players want, and can't get from any game today. We're all pushed in a corner in all other games. We do not have a solid PvP game to play, and in games with a little PvP, we just get forced to raid.
Its not a huge market right now for PvP, no. But if mark pulls this off correctly it could change the whole market. If he sticks to his guns, and really pulls off his promises, this game is going ot be a beauty.
I love MMORPG's, they are one of my favorite things in the world, and I am willing to stand up and fight for the genre of games I love. This is how I do that, by backing CU.
Mark has stepped in as a leader to represent the PvP players, if he lets us all down, at least he tried. Thats more than any other publisher has EVER done for PvP players.
We're the bastards of the MMORPG game genre.
Addressing the first reason, GW had something to do with that as well. Just keep that in mind. That's the "others". Ultimately it's GW's IP and I will say there are more than a few folks in that company who think their ideas regarding anything using this IP are THE ideas. Other than that yes, I agree with what is said in that answer. I actually, now, love it. I'd prefer a 300K max niche MMO. More chance of having the most features put in the way I prefer.
He said to stop asking because GW was not going to let it happen with their IP. That's not how the tabletop plays out. GW was pushing this whole "Order vs Destruction" slant on good vs. evil which they are still pushing to this day. DAoC RvR with its 3 sides and it's keeps and relics no way refelected the Warhammer IP. So GW would put the kibosh on it. They (GW) are very very particular about the way their IP is represented. So Mark was just shooting a straight answer there. Basically, "I've been told 'No!" and I'm telling you no." Can't fault him for that.
As far as your last remarks, I can certainly see your view on that. I address it in my mind in all the video I've seen of the work their programmers have done in basically 2-3 weeks from nothing and that tells me they have some smart folks there and if given the opportunity and no publisher/investor shackles they can put together what they outline on paper. Whether it's fun in practice, we'll hopefully see. On paper it does sound interesting and isn't same old themepark, that's for sure.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Nope, that;s what YOU are saying.
I'm saying he made a good game and a not so good one in acceptable MMO gamer popular opinion. That being the case it does not see right to dwell on one or the other and sum up ther guy;s ability. CU maybe good or it may be bad. I'm also saying for me, the direction he;s outined so far is so far away from the typical same old same themepark that I'm will to give this project a shot at life.
Listen, if this were Uwe Bolle or <insert name of another person who has more flops and good projects> then sure, stay away. But this isn't the case when you look at his MMO record. 1 and 1. That;s batting .500 in the world of Major League (Professional) Baseball. Average in baseball is .250 and .300 is recordish.
That's what I'm saying. Those specific words there.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Yes. MJ says he has learned from past mistakes. This is the first time I've heard him say so. Where I've from and how I was raised you take a man at his word until he has proven different. CU will be that chance, in my view, for him to prove such. I know most, but not all, of the concerns with DAoC as I had multiple friends playing it long after I had left.
And yes, I know some folks will never trust him again. I feel the same way about John Smedley. THat said I took a break from giving SOE/Sony money and after 7 years I've decided time was up. I still haven't given them any money, but they have an opportunity to win me back with EQNext. But, yeah, I'm not going to try to tell folks what or who to trust, just to want to make sure they know there are two sides to every coin and that there is ALOT you gamers/customers don't see going on behind closed doors. I just happen to be familiar with one of the companies in this instance.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I don't know if the majority of players are sold on Mark's ideas especially since a lot of the ideas are very vague at this point. Rather I think they (including me) like the general idea of an RvR game that isn't ruined by having a PvE level and gear grind and hope he'll get RvR right this time when he gets around to filling in the details. We're funding because we want to see an RvR game that gets it right and we hope CU will be it.
I'm still highly skeptical Mark can pull this off, but I don't have high hopes for TESO either and I'm not aware of any other RvR MMOs coming out in the next few years. So it's either give up on RvR, throw more money at EA to play DAOC again, or donate to CU and hope it turns out to be the game I've been looking for since 2008. In the end it may turn out to be another failure, but if it doesn't fund, we'll never know. That makes it worth taking a chance on for me and many others. YMMV.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
Name the last good game ea put out.
I'm thinking as far back as crysis:warhead which was ea partners and therefore hands off. For internal stuff probably mass effect 2, although it want as good as the 1st one.
Both planetsides are pure rvr mmos for a start.
One of the biggest problems with WAR was very simple. They were not given the development time to create 3 factions as was originally intended with that title. They had to rush it and push it out the door with 2 factions.
Personally I don't support a RvR only game. But the fact is (in my mind), WAR was never given the time and resources it needed to succeed.
Do you really think this will affect the MMO market in any way if it succeeds? Because I find that hard to believe.
The fact is the vast majority of MMO players are the PvE crowd and those of them that do PvP like it in nice small controlled doses. I say this with absolute confidence because you only need to look at past games.
UO pre and post Trammel
Any FFA sandbox in fact (UO MO even EVE which is a very well made FFA game)
WoW and it's army of clones.
Which ones have the most players?
This won't change the market. People don't change. The people that will play this are a rare breed and MJ knows this and he doesn't care, he's going ahead with it anyway. It's a welcome relief for those of us who are looking for a good RvR game but it's never going to be more than a niche game.
Also:
Yeah he probably could fund it from his own wallet but I don't think this KS is really about the money as much as it's about MJ trying to see the number of people prepared to pledge.
I'm pretty sure that if you do the research on past games that used KS you'll see a trend showing the number of pledges in relation to the number of actual players once the game releases. Lets say it's a hypothetical 25%. So MJ can look at his almost 10k pledges and estimate he'll get a population of 40k. Or maybe it's only 10% so he can expect 100k, who knows?
Those numbers are pure speculation but you get the point. He's looking to see if there's a market for the game. Let's face it, with no PvE he's taking a big risk. Getting those numbers before he puts millions into it makes sense.
The problem with the statement about gauging market interest is that, if you look at the article that other thread posted, he is imploring people who have no interest in the game anyways to pledge. That alone would skew your numbers so it kind of hurts the position that it is largely for that.
Agreed, it was pushed out far too early.
I think there were other problems too.
They had Scenarios (BG's) as the only form of PvP originally but the testers all wanted proper RvR so that was added to the game. The mistake they made was leaving the Scenarios in. Everyone was wearing their WoW goggles at the time so if WoW had BG's then everyone else wanted them.
The problem is that BG's/Scenarios take people away from your RvR pools. Then they put loot on the Keep Lords which only encouraged flipping. They basically shot themselves in the foot.
People that want a wow like experience are already playing wow.
it can but in different regard
if it succed and good game get relased, it will be proof, that KS way for niche games is viable way to go.
That statement is generally true.
However, 'WoW players' also want something 'Fresh' because they do in fact jump on every new game looking for another place to call home.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Wildstar will be one of these "temporary wow expansion" games.
What third faction...?
Hate to break it to you but the Warhammer universe is very much a two faction universe (when we talk about any sort of cooperation happening) Order vs Chaos (later called destruction) unless you class the more or less un-aligned races such as Woodelves, Skaven, Lizardmen and Ogers as a faction.. but they were not exactly working together.. they were as stated pretty much unaligned and fought on their own terms for what ever goal they had.. this goal just happend to align with this or that faction from time to time.
Do tell.. what third faction.?
This have been a good conversation
As law vs chaos vs evil. (there is no good alignment in warhammer) dark elves working with warriors if chaos makes bigger all sense.
It would make even more sense as an 11 faction game. Just favour every army in war has a long history of being at war with the others, except for empire vs dwarfs.
The 2 sides thing is a very recent development.
Guess I will have to dig up something on the 'net just to prove this. Yay. I was around while WAR was in Dev. I was around when they said it would have 3 factions. I don't know shit about GW, the IP it was based on. I just know what was planned for the MMORPG itself.
I remember when they said it would release with only 2 factions instead.
EDIT: My best inquiries were met with Error 404 pages. So, in essence, I don't care if you believe me or not. I know what I know.
1 kept it in the old world, so they could have a seamless map instead of ROFL copters.
2 had 3 sides. Law - empire and dwarfs, chaos - beasts of and warriors of, evil - orcs and goblins.
3 got rid of the city seige. Have a central city like praag that all 3 factions can hold (without a need to reset)
4 had one big rvr area instead of loads if lakes.
5 made the dungeons all like the non instanced / pq based mount bloodhorn
6 made the dungeon rewards better. Like endgame dungeon gear on a par with rr 60 pvp gear.