Firor has created dozens of online MMOs over the years, and knows how 3 faction PvP is supposed to work.
Faction lock is absolutely essential, and anyone who played an RvR game knows it.
Dozens of MMOs? Which ones I am curious. They have already broken faction locks
Yeah he made DAOC and 11 terrible ones. Remember Aliens Online? Yeah, that was Firor. What a luminary...lol.
And clearly Firor disagrees with Tiber. It's not essential and it's no longer a part of ESO.
Well Firor's initial design for this was setting things in place for the RvR component of the game. But if the game is more PvE centric all those design ideas can go through the window and let the bland dungeon crawling begin.
The faction locks are a proven RvR design concept from DAoC, the same reason why Camelot Unchained is going with the same approach. It provides easier enemy/faction identification and realm pride (my team > all the other scrubs).
Firor and Marc Jacobs were the bigheads of RvR design. They are only doing what they know it works.
Faction lock, no faction lock, meh doesn't concern me either way and I still don't understand how it impacts gameplay.
And when people say stuff like "Faction pride" that's fine, if the faction still exists, then you can still have faction pride . . . it's not racial pride.
The is the exact point I've made in other posts. There are just some people, no matter how much reason and logic you throw at them, that simply can't understand a concept. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being trolled when I read posts like this, but this is a great example of what I'm talking about.
This person obviously hasn't played DAoC, and I can't exactly hold that against someone. It is a shame though, that this person refuses, or can't understand how faction lock can affect game play.
It's quite simple really, and the first point ties into the second point. Racial locks sort of allow the player, leveling from one to max, to become familiar with his or her surroundings. This includes the environment, this includes NPC's, and most importantly, a certain set of races that a player has a chance to party with. Think of it as having a group of friends for the past ten years that you hang out with all of the time. You become familiar. Then let's say, some other group of people that you don't know comes along and tries to take your twinkies. You probably wouldn't like that, right? Wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that if your friends took some of your twinkies, you'd probably not care too much? Is it not unreasonable to believe you would be a lot more pissed off at a random stranger?
So back to having pride... The above example is one reason as to why racial faction locks promote emotion. One of those is pride. But the example shows how you can really dislike a group of players because they are unfamiliar with you. DAoC did this very well. It was one of the big reasons why most people who played it, claim it as one of the best PvP MMO's in the history of gaming. It provoked excitement and nervousness at the same time. In DAoC, the whole leveling process and the players in it promoted a general dislike for other races and factions. It gave you the feeling of being in a sort of family, even if you didn't know the guy standing next to you on the battlefield.
I'm curious as to how someone can't even understand the concept of faction unlock ramifications. I mean, I understand if the lore or back story isn't important to you. But, you have to be able to realize that there is a whole mess of lore that was developed regarding faction locked alliances. You have to be able to at least comprehend the idea that unlocking alliances at this point will fly directly in the face of all of that lore. That lore tells you that these alliances are largely three different races, or four with Imperials. All of the quests tell you this as well, on your way to max level. Then you get there, and you are fighting alongside all of these characters that you were told you were supposed to hate.
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
The more unique and different your faction is from the other sides the better. Anything - environment, architecture, music, types of mobs, races, classes, etc., emphasizes the "us vs. them" mentality that is what it's all about. Compared to DAoC this game was already a bit light due to the open spec system: the classes are not unique to an alliance... anything else that takes away from that just further dilutes the possibility of this feeling like a world.
People seem to be all over the place about what they think makes GW2 WvW feel sort of meh. I think it's two things: no differentiation of races for alliances and the inclusion of scenario PvP. Both of those things make it hard to forget that it's just a game and what you do in it doesn't matter. GW2 feels totally like a game. DAoC had more of a world feel to it. This one now is somewhere in between,
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Firor has created dozens of online MMOs over the years, and knows how 3 faction PvP is supposed to work.
Faction lock is absolutely essential, and anyone who played an RvR game knows it.
Dozens of MMOs? Which ones I am curious. They have already broken faction locks
Look at Mythic's MUD and MMO history, and then look at Interesting Systems Inc. and Interworld productions, and their MUDs.
And no, they have not totally broken faction locks. Publishers have been forcing Firor's hand on a lot of core design elements, and its obvious. Initially the game wasn't going to have instanced and phased dungeons, or focus on a singleplayer storyline. It was going to be about social grouping and public areas and organic quests, like the good games that Firor and Mythic made before. Now they changed it to be more WoW like, and its exactly those features everyone is complaining about in beta.
I'd guess changes get forced as when enough people bitch and moan things get changed .. mmo's are affected by whoever shouts the loudest and that can lead to unfortunate changes. I tried WoW for a bit and saw it happen a few times on there, after that whenever i saw arguments like that I avoided them lol .. to depressing
So problems with the game already are probably caused by what was and what will be the playerbase
I'd guess changes get forced as when enough people bitch and moan things get changed .. mmo's are affected by whoever shouts the loudest and that can lead to unfortunate changes. I tried WoW for a bit and saw it happen a few times on there, after that whenever i saw arguments like that I avoided them lol .. to depressing
So problems with the game already are probably caused by what was and what will be the playerbase
That's just it. I feel that many won't be the player base. They are just finding faults with the game because they are looking for them. There's no guarantee that there''s any interest in playing the game even if changes are made.
Developers keep forgetting that and the cycle continues. Screw what the 'players' want. Make your game. Make it fun. And people will play. The aforementioned players aren't necessarily potential customers. Many are just looking for a distraction until they can beta test the next game or play a F2P if nothing else is available.
They were probably massacred in the last survey and have changed things accordingly. Now the real question is by how much? How casual has the game gone to sell more? That's the real question.
Did Zenimax set out to create "a DAoC style mmo" but have instead created "just a game". (Maybe they thought they could do both.)
Subtle difference maybe but as Iselin says above in a game with "realm pride" you would spend gold on catapults and rams; you would drop your PvE tasks and throw your self at a guard to get rezzed closer to the action. Pretty much everyone would. There wasn't the clear cut PvE vs. PvP mentality. There was even a hint of this in WoW when in launched - not quite the same more like easy mode PvP on PvE servers perhaps but a hint nevertheless. And the key thing that realm pride fosters - from a business point of view - is subscribers.
Have Zenimax however created "just a game". A very good game for sure but ultimately something that people will play and then leave. And maybe they would anyway, so many games come out these days that people move on before they get the chance to "invest in the realm".
TESO subscription will hurt sales - it will sell millions rather than the tens of millions Skyrim sold or e.g. latest GTA (35M+). Yet if it isn't enough of an mmo to keep a large body of subscribers more than a few months it won't do as well as it could financially. I hope it does well enough but I have doubts.
(And no I do not advocate F2P micro-transactions rather higher box price if necessary / paid DLC / premium membership approach).
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
I don't think so at all. We "get it" just fine.
I didn't play DAoC but I played Lineage 2 for 4 1/2 years.
And in lineage 2 you could drop gear. You could drop gear by being killed by a mob or if you kill another player (at the time) you could drop gear if you were then subsequently killed.
so you know what people did?
They would drop party and race across the world if their guild mate died and dropped ANY gear. Why? Because this stuff was expensive and they were your "mates".
My whole Lineage 2 "career" was spent racing to one part of the world or antoher for a guild mate or alliance mate. There were always wars and many times you would be rushing to the aid of your fellow guild/alliance members.
One of my best memories was that a party was pk'ed in the Tower of Insolence and the entire alliance marched up that tower, killed everything in site while we came across our fallen fellows and then destroyed the guild at the top who attacked our people.
We had plenty of pride, we just didn't need a faction for it we had our actual members. People we knew, people we crafted for, spent evenings gathering mats for, going red for them because we KNEW them.
Not because they happened to make a character in "our side".
What some people don't get is what this pride actually is. It's not "a faction" or "a race" it's a feeling of cameraderie, of fellowship, because of actually interacting with these people, of having these people put you before them and you getting the chance to do the same.
So we understand just fine. We don't need factions for this pride, all we need are our guild/alliance mates who we know and have interacted with and a cause.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Next time, wait until a game gets released, so you can see for yourself that it is in accordance with your wants and expectations before you become a loyal fan.
I understand this thought process. But the problem is this was a very basic core design of the game they promoted for a very very long time. I dont follow Wildstar but its kinda like Wildstar 2 months before launch removing the color things on the ground that you have to dodge out of in combat. That is a core feature in their game so you cant remove that without it really changing the game totally. But like i have said before when other people arent happy, the devs can make the decisions they want because its their game and we as customers decide to buy or sub based on their decisions. I will still buy but put a huge damper on my excitement.
Faction un lock is down to 2 things..
- Balance. Are the racials out of balance such that allowing each faction to have every thype of character in their team gives them an excuse not to addres the imbalance ?
- Marketing. Yet more concessions to the types of player that dont want a virtual world with too many "annoyances" like having to make meaningful choices that you later have to live with because they have consequences. We sell more and keep more people happy if they can be who they want to be.
It is bullshit. This stuff undermines MMORPGs for a large percent of players that enjoy and understand the basis of rivalry and role play within MMORPGs.
To the fella above.
On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character.
Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.
So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
SOME players are like that but a huge % are not.. see above on the unrelenting trend to make everything solo able and casual friendly. If there was so much spontanious friendship going on where is the NEED for the focus on Solo and Casual content ? You just hook up with your many friends and get content done...
The simple contention is ... why bother with a story at all if you are going to let it disintegrate into farce before you lauinch the game. how much effort is put into defining distinct races and alliance to then sweep it all away and let everyone mix and match like a person dressing themselves from a charity shop or jumble sale.
Many people require faction story AT THE VERY LEAST to help them identify with the virtual world and their characters place in it. Sod reading all the quest text and pages of lore .. I just need to know i am an X in Y and these are my enemies. This is my homeland it needs defending ... off we go .....
Why bother having locked races and faction for years only to go throw it away weeks before release of the game ? Dont you just design and promote it that way top start with.
I love games where you can drop stuff and people form strong bonds and guilds to fight other guilds or individuals that threaten their interests. ESO isnt that .. when I cant ..drop anything or go to the outskirts of your city and PK your ass or pillage your territory.
F2P here we come but only after we have robbed you of $100-$200 to test a buggy game so it is good for F2P and all the horrendous compromises to the whole essence of the lore and premise of your MMORPG world and the genre itself...
This is nothing new. It is the SWTOR with hindsight rollout of the latest AAA MMORPG.
At least in SWTOR there the developers were plausibly surprised and saddened when the project crashed and burnt into F2P mess it did .
This time around it is all planned why else would you screw your fan base with lore changes on this scale and concessions to exactly the sort of player that is attracted to F2P model where little johnny gets what little johnny wants or to established guilds where this is a concession so Big Billy doesnt sod off to someone elses guild becasue they are in Faction V ?
There is a difference between designing the game such that it can be transitioned to a different pay model at some point in its lifecycle and screwing over the basic design foundations of the lore / storyline as a concession to that from the start. I couldnt give a toss if they want all this when it is F2P becasue I wont be there and neither will a decent chunk of the people that want sub based AAA MMORPGs.
Dont give this cross faction bullshit to us now... we will sod off immediately or several months earlier than we would otherwise.
there would have to be a good community like Daoc had in order for there to be faction pride. sorry to say but no matter what the mechanics of this game are, there will not be faction pride.
those days are long gone in any mmo. sure you may have certain players or like-minded guilds that would care about that but in general, i just dont think the new generation of mmo players care.
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
I don't think so at all. We "get it" just fine.
I didn't play DAoC but I played Lineage 2 for 4 1/2 years.
And in lineage 2 you could drop gear. You could drop gear by being killed by a mob or if you kill another player (at the time) you could drop gear if you were then subsequently killed.
so you know what people did?
They would drop party and race across the world if their guild mate died and dropped ANY gear. Why? Because this stuff was expensive and they were your "mates".
My whole Lineage 2 "career" was spent racing to one part of the world or antoher for a guild mate or alliance mate. There were always wars and many times you would be rushing to the aid of your fellow guild/alliance members.
One of my best memories was that a party was pk'ed in the Tower of Insolence and the entire alliance marched up that tower, killed everything in site while we came across our fallen fellows and then destroyed the guild at the top who attacked our people.
We had plenty of pride, we just didn't need a faction for it we had our actual members. People we knew, people we crafted for, spent evenings gathering mats for, going red for them because we KNEW them.
Not because they happened to make a character in "our side".
What some people don't get is what this pride actually is. It's not "a faction" or "a race" it's a feeling of cameraderie, of fellowship, because of actually interacting with these people, of having these people put you before them and you getting the chance to do the same.
So we understand just fine. We don't need factions for this pride, all we need are our guild/alliance mates who we know and have interacted with and a cause.
Reverse that part in red for me. You saw it work in Lineage 2. I saw it work in work in DAoC.
Then I saw it almost work again in WAR... and I haven't seen much of it in WOW, Rift and specially not in GW2 where "Server Pride" is non-existent.
Have you managed to see the same degree of pride created organically by players in any game after Lineage 2? Do you think that's possible in a 2014 themepark without the game systems steering you in that direction? If you do, you have more faith in the 2014 MMO players than I do.
Originally posted by baphamet
there would have to be a good community like Daoc had in order for there to be faction pride. sorry to say but no matter what the mechanics of this game are, there will not be faction pride.
those days are long gone in any mmo. sure you may have certain players or like-minded guilds that would care about that but in general, i just dont think the new generation of mmo players care.
And this is exactly why I think that game systems that encourage it are even more important today than they were 10 years ago.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character.
Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.
So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
Except we had it in Lineage 2, if you wanted to accomplish certian important milestones you had to group and in some instances HAD TO raid, and Lineage 2 was probably one of the most "non-casual" game ever made.
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character.
Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.
So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
Except we had it in Lineage 2, if you wanted to accomplish certian important milestones you had to group and in some instances HAD TO raid, and Lineage 2 was probably one of the most "non-casual" game ever made.
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
You're talking about "more pride". I'd be happy with SOME pride in today's games before I even think about more pride. And yes, we need systems to make it happen. Players and even guilds left to their own devices will be selfish. It isn't just geographic and racial locks that help: Grouping and especially playing with the same people day in and day out help. Just how do you make that happen in one megaserver?
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
The more unique and different your faction is from the other sides the better. Anything - environment, architecture, music, types of mobs, races, classes, etc., emphasizes the "us vs. them" mentality that is what it's all about. Compared to DAoC this game was already a bit light due to the open spec system: the classes are not unique to an alliance... anything else that takes away from that just further dilutes the possibility of this feeling like a world.
People seem to be all over the place about what they think makes GW2 WvW feel sort of meh. I think it's two things: no differentiation of races for alliances and the inclusion of scenario PvP. Both of those things make it hard to forget that it's just a game and what you do in it doesn't matter. GW2 feels totally like a game. DAoC had more of a world feel to it. This one now is somewhere in between,
I think a big part of where you fall on this argument depends on how important you weight PVE vs PVP in this game. If you weigh PVE much more important than PVP than things like faction locks and limited guilds between factions fragments communities and makes it really hard to organize large groups of people coming into the game together. I know if I polled 100 members in my guild about preferred faction that the three factions would be pretty much equally represented based on preferred race and there are a small number of people who feel so strongly about playing a particular race that they would rather do it outside the guild than not at all. For those people offering a way to remove the faction lock even if I don't like how they went about doing it is a good thing.
On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character.
Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.
So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
Except we had it in Lineage 2, if you wanted to accomplish certian important milestones you had to group and in some instances HAD TO raid, and Lineage 2 was probably one of the most "non-casual" game ever made.
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
You're talking about "more pride". I'd be happy with SOME pride in today's games before I even think about more pride. And yes, we need systems to make it happen. Players and even guilds left to their own devices will be selfish. It isn't just geographic and racial locks that help: Grouping and especially playing with the same people day in and day out help. Just how do you make that happen in one megaserver?
Well, I definitely will give you that. I miss games where the world was about you and your guild members and about your relationships to everyone you met.
Now it seems that these games are more about "take quest, run to glowy bit on the map, do something, come back, get reward, rinse and repeat".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
The more unique and different your faction is from the other sides the better. Anything - environment, architecture, music, types of mobs, races, classes, etc., emphasizes the "us vs. them" mentality that is what it's all about. Compared to DAoC this game was already a bit light due to the open spec system: the classes are not unique to an alliance... anything else that takes away from that just further dilutes the possibility of this feeling like a world.
People seem to be all over the place about what they think makes GW2 WvW feel sort of meh. I think it's two things: no differentiation of races for alliances and the inclusion of scenario PvP. Both of those things make it hard to forget that it's just a game and what you do in it doesn't matter. GW2 feels totally like a game. DAoC had more of a world feel to it. This one now is somewhere in between,
I think a big part of where you fall on this argument depends on how important you weight PVE vs PVP in this game. If you weigh PVE much more important than PVP than things like faction locks and limited guilds between factions fragments communities and makes it really hard to organize large groups of people coming into the game together. I know if I polled 100 members in my guild about preferred faction that the three factions would be pretty much equally represented based on preferred race and there are a small number of people who feel so strongly about playing a particular race that they would rather do it outside the guild than not at all. For those people offering a way to remove the faction lock even if I don't like how they went about doing it is a good thing.
Yeah. I understand what you're saying.
Like I said, this is a really old debate in ESO forums. Even among people who play both, single player ES games and MMOs, there are differences of opinion depending on whether you approach ESO as an MMO or an ES game.
The vast majority of ES leaning players have hated faction lock from day one. The vast majority of ex DAoC players who were attracted to this game liked it.
The original PVP-centric design of the game was more to our liking - and even then I would have preferred that the PVE also be done on a server (campaign) basis just so that we would continue to play with the same people in PVE that we were fighting next to in Cyrodiil.
It's just an opinion but I consider putting your own personal race or faction selection above the guild/group decision as just another example of the self-centered approach to MMOs that is now the norm... and IMHO, I don't think it's a good trend.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Originally posted by Sovrath Originally posted by DrDwarfTo the fella above.On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character. Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
Except we had it in Lineage 2, if you wanted to accomplish certian important milestones you had to group and in some instances HAD TO raid, and Lineage 2 was probably one of the most "non-casual" game ever made.
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
the gamers that played Daoc and L2 are not the same gamers that will play TESO in general. i remember when wow first launched, me and my guild mates that came from Daoc and EQ tried to play that game with the same mentality.
nope. the popularity of wow (and battle.net kiddies in general) ushered in a new breed of mmo gamer that now dominates the mmo community and they don't care about things like faction pride and honor.
your best hope is to find a guild that cares about the same things you do and fight for the honor and reputation of your guild.
because the faction as a whole isn't going to care, regardless of any racial lock, class lock, or anything else.
that's just the current state of the mmo community as a whole, the way i see it at least.
Faction lock, no faction lock, meh doesn't concern me either way and I still don't understand how it impacts gameplay.
And when people say stuff like "Faction pride" that's fine, if the faction still exists, then you can still have faction pride . . . it's not racial pride.
The is the exact point I've made in other posts. There are just some people, no matter how much reason and logic you throw at them, that simply can't understand a concept. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being trolled when I read posts like this, but this is a great example of what I'm talking about.
This person obviously hasn't played DAoC, and I can't exactly hold that against someone. It is a shame though, that this person refuses, or can't understand how faction lock can affect game play.
It's quite simple really, and the first point ties into the second point. Racial locks sort of allow the player, leveling from one to max, to become familiar with his or her surroundings. This includes the environment, this includes NPC's, and most importantly, a certain set of races that a player has a chance to party with. Think of it as having a group of friends for the past ten years that you hang out with all of the time. You become familiar. Then let's say, some other group of people that you don't know comes along and tries to take your twinkies. You probably wouldn't like that, right? Wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that if your friends took some of your twinkies, you'd probably not care too much? Is it not unreasonable to believe you would be a lot more pissed off at a random stranger?
So back to having pride... The above example is one reason as to why racial faction locks promote emotion. One of those is pride. But the example shows how you can really dislike a group of players because they are unfamiliar with you. DAoC did this very well. It was one of the big reasons why most people who played it, claim it as one of the best PvP MMO's in the history of gaming. It provoked excitement and nervousness at the same time. In DAoC, the whole leveling process and the players in it promoted a general dislike for other races and factions. It gave you the feeling of being in a sort of family, even if you didn't know the guy standing next to you on the battlefield.
I'm curious as to how someone can't even understand the concept of faction unlock ramifications. I mean, I understand if the lore or back story isn't important to you. But, you have to be able to realize that there is a whole mess of lore that was developed regarding faction locked alliances. You have to be able to at least comprehend the idea that unlocking alliances at this point will fly directly in the face of all of that lore. That lore tells you that these alliances are largely three different races, or four with Imperials. All of the quests tell you this as well, on your way to max level. Then you get there, and you are fighting alongside all of these characters that you were told you were supposed to hate.
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
It's mainly modern WoW players and their generation that don't understand how gameplay influences social behavior or mindset. The same ones that can't imagine how an MMO would work without instances.
Faction lock is a tried and true mechanic, starting in the 80s through MUDs all the way to DAoC and now this. It is essential to making PvP feel more important. Nothing is stopping you from just rolling a character on a different server.
I think a big part of where you fall on this argument depends on how important you weight PVE vs PVP in this game. If you weigh PVE much more important than PVP than things like faction locks and limited guilds between factions fragments communities and makes it really hard to organize large groups of people coming into the game together. I know if I polled 100 members in my guild about preferred faction that the three factions would be pretty much equally represented based on preferred race and there are a small number of people who feel so strongly about playing a particular race that they would rather do it outside the guild than not at all. For those people offering a way to remove the faction lock even if I don't like how they went about doing it is a good thing.
Yeah. I understand what you're saying.
Like I said, this is a really old debate in ESO forums. Even among people who play both, single player ES games and MMOs, there are differences of opinion depending on whether you approach ESO as an MMO or an ES game.
The vast majority of ES leaning players have hated faction lock from day one. The vast majority of ex DAoC players who were attracted to this game liked it.
The original PVP-centric design of the game was more to our liking - and even then I would have preferred that the PVE also be done on a server (campaign) basis just so that we would continue to play with the same people in PVE that we were fighting next to in Cyrodiil.
It's just an opinion but I consider putting your own personal race or faction selection above the guild/group decision as just another example of the self-centered approach to MMOs that is now the norm... and IMHO, I don't think it's a good trend.
Putting personal preferences for faction ahead of community is self-centered but at the end of the day this is a game not a social experiment that we all want to play to have fun so I'm not going to judge a person harshly for it. I don't know about you but I don't play games to recreate my responsibilities in the real world I do to get away from them. Games with lots of mechanics that limit options can be really enjoyable but there is a very fine line there that has to be walked. It's very easy to cross that line and create a game that you have to fight to enjoy more than just play to enjoy.
ESO is banking on PVP for it's endgame, that is clear. There is not going to be a ton of endgame PVE content launch day especially for large groups so this game will live or die on how popular Cyrodill is. My personal opinion is this was probably not a wise move on Zenimax's part given it's fan base but it is what it is. The problem with faction locks is you guys lost that fight a long time ago when they let you craft and wear gear cross race. The distinction of being a particular race in a faction on the PVP battle field is really minor compared to wearing unique gear and that's been known for awhile that every race will be able to wear any gear. I think it's also safe to say that all the racial skills will be blurred into equivalence if not by launch day shortly afterwards as PVP players abuse even the slightly advantage until it's nerfed.
I do see the point and I can understand it. I think this is why TSW has PVP gear that you wear when your in the PVP zone so as to allow PVE players their freedom while still creating a sense of faction when in the PVP zone.
I do see the point and I can understand it. I think this is why TSW has PVP gear that you wear when your in the PVP zone so as to allow PVE players their freedom while still creating a sense of faction when in the PVP zone.
Nah. They did it for optimization purposes. They came out and said that.
You're absolutely right about the conflict faction lock creates. The difference here is that I see it as a good thing. Players shouldn't always get what they want. My guild went Aldmeri Dominion. I wanted to be a Dunmer. I decided to look at Bosmer and decided I could play it.
All of a sudden I had to pay attention to the theme of the game. I'm an adult. I'm not a child. I have way too many other responsibilities than to worry about not being able to play a certain race. Maybe I'll play an alt, maybe I won't. The point is I saw ESO as more of a virtual world as it forced me to read up on the races and learn what the heck was going on. It wasn't just window dressing. It had a real impact on choice. Like games used to. Single player RPGs constantly have theme restrictions interwoven in game design. Why in the world of mmoRPGs that doesn't apply, I think it's laughable.
So many games make changes all for convenience or the fear that someone somewhere might not buy it because it's missing x choice.
Can we even look at MMOs today and see examples of how theme impacts game design? Does that even exist anymore? Maybe that's why some people are annoyed at this decision. I have a strong feeling that this isn't the only change they made to appeal the I want everything and I want it now crowd. Just wait...more is coming. They got boxes to sell.
Also. How come Wildstar isn't getting this sh*t about race locks? Last time I checked they have unique races attached to a faction as well.
I do see the point and I can understand it. I think this is why TSW has PVP gear that you wear when your in the PVP zone so as to allow PVE players their freedom while still creating a sense of faction when in the PVP zone.
Nah. They did it for optimization purposes. They came out and said that.
You're absolutely right about the conflict faction lock creates. The difference here is that I see it as a good thing. Players shouldn't always get what they want. My guild went Aldmeri Dominion. I wanted to be a Dunmer. I decided to look at Bosmer and decided I could play it.
All of a sudden I had to pay attention to the theme of the game. I'm an adult. I'm not a child. I have way too many other responsibilities than to worry about not being able to play a certain race. Maybe I'll play an alt, maybe I won't. The point is I saw ESO as more of a virtual world as it forced me to read up on the races and learn what the heck was going on. It wasn't just window dressing. It had a real impact on choice. Like games used to. Single player RPGs constantly have theme restrictions interwoven in game design. Why in the world of mmoRPGs that doesn't apply, I think it's laughable.
So many games make changes all for convenience or the fear that someone somewhere might not buy it because it's missing x choice.
Can we even look at MMOs today and see examples of how theme impacts game design? Does that even exist anymore? Maybe that's why some people are annoyed at this decision. I have a strong feeling that this isn't the only change they made to appeal the I want everything and I want it now crowd. Just wait...more is coming. They got boxes to sell.
Also. How come Wildstar isn't getting this sh*t about race locks? Last time I checked they have unique races attached to a faction as well.
Because it doesn't have a pre-existing IP with opinionated fans of the IP with strong ideas about what is and isn't "true ES."
Btw... good description of what you went through making your decision and how it enriched the game for you...you get it.
I also highlighted the "virtual world" bit because that's a big part of it, IMHO. There's difference between MMO virtual worlds and "just a game"... and it has f**k all to do with my real life.
Something else occurred to me: those of us who have done time in the armed forces have a deeper appreciation for "pride" as well as large scale RvR/AvA. In DAoC one of my guild mates was a sergeant in active duty when he played. The guy was an awesome RvR group leader because the small and large unit tactics translate really well for this type of game play and they came naturally to him.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Because it doesn't have a pre-existing IP with opinionated fans of the IP with strong ideas about what is and isn't "true ES."
Btw... good description of what you went through making your decision and how it enriched the game for you...you get it.
I also highlighted the "virtual world" bit because that's a big part of it, IMHO. There's difference between MMO virtual worlds and "just a game"... and it has f**k all to do with my real life.
Something else occurred to me: those of us who have done time in the armed forces have a deeper appreciation for "pride" as well as large scale RvR/AvA. In DAoC one of my guild mates was a sergeant in active duty when he played. The guy was an awesome RvR group leader because the small and large unit tactics translate really well for this type of game play and they came naturally to him.
I think with some people it is about "what is true Elder Scrolls" but you made a good point some time back that "true elder scrolls is what they say it is considering they have made many changes since the first Elder Scrolls game".
so "true elder scrolls" is up for grabs.
I think for many people it's about how elder scrolls games have played and Elder Scrolls Online doesn't quite give you that experience.
As far as the "armed forces" and "pride" I imagine there is some truth to that but probably based upon a very specific type of pride.
I've never been in the armed forces and my time has been spent in probably the most diametrically opposed activities aka "The Arts".
And the level of pride, especially for large group activities is through the roof. Have you ever heard the expression "The Show Must Go On"?
that's not just an expression that is a way of life such is the dedication to the cause that people put into their work. There are stories of people breaking limbs and still finishing their performance, being sick and still doing what it takes because they have such great dedication and pride in what they are doing.
I imagine there are many instances of pride in people's work from day to day and now their performance affects others.
However, the armed forces does have it's own way of doing things.
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Because it doesn't have a pre-existing IP with opinionated fans of the IP with strong ideas about what is and isn't "true ES."
Btw... good description of what you went through making your decision and how it enriched the game for you...you get it.
I also highlighted the "virtual world" bit because that's a big part of it, IMHO. There's difference between MMO virtual worlds and "just a game"... and it has f**k all to do with my real life.
Something else occurred to me: those of us who have done time in the armed forces have a deeper appreciation for "pride" as well as large scale RvR/AvA. In DAoC one of my guild mates was a sergeant in active duty when he played. The guy was an awesome RvR group leader because the small and large unit tactics translate really well for this type of game play and they came naturally to him.
I think with some people it is about "what is true Elder Scrolls" but you made a good point some time back that "true elder scrolls is what they say it is considering they have made many changes since the first Elder Scrolls game".
so "true elder scrolls" is up for grabs.
I think for many people it's about how elder scrolls games have played and Elder Scrolls Online doesn't quite give you that experience.
As far as the "armed forces" and "pride" I imagine there is some truth to that but probably based upon a very specific type of pride.
I've never been in the armed forces and my time has been spent in probably the most diametrically opposed activities aka "The Arts".
And the level of pride, especially for large group activities is through the roof. Have you ever heard the expression "The Show Must Go On"?
that's not just an expression that is a way of life such is the dedication to the cause that people put into their work. There are stories of people breaking limbs and still finishing their performance, being sick and still doing what it takes because they have such great dedication and pride in what they are doing.
I imagine there are many instances of pride in people's work from day to day and now their performance affects others.
However, the armed forces does have it's own way of doing things.
It's true, there are many different kinds of pride and many different activities that foster a sense of community. Some people find it easier than others to embrace community and team goals.
I only meant that the military mindset and its brand of "us vs. them" translates very easily to small scale ground war simulations - even those with magic and medieval artillery ... which is how I view organized RvR.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
Well Firor's initial design for this was setting things in place for the RvR component of the game. But if the game is more PvE centric all those design ideas can go through the window and let the bland dungeon crawling begin.
The faction locks are a proven RvR design concept from DAoC, the same reason why Camelot Unchained is going with the same approach. It provides easier enemy/faction identification and realm pride (my team > all the other scrubs).
Firor and Marc Jacobs were the bigheads of RvR design. They are only doing what they know it works.
The is the exact point I've made in other posts. There are just some people, no matter how much reason and logic you throw at them, that simply can't understand a concept. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being trolled when I read posts like this, but this is a great example of what I'm talking about.
This person obviously hasn't played DAoC, and I can't exactly hold that against someone. It is a shame though, that this person refuses, or can't understand how faction lock can affect game play.
It's quite simple really, and the first point ties into the second point. Racial locks sort of allow the player, leveling from one to max, to become familiar with his or her surroundings. This includes the environment, this includes NPC's, and most importantly, a certain set of races that a player has a chance to party with. Think of it as having a group of friends for the past ten years that you hang out with all of the time. You become familiar. Then let's say, some other group of people that you don't know comes along and tries to take your twinkies. You probably wouldn't like that, right? Wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that if your friends took some of your twinkies, you'd probably not care too much? Is it not unreasonable to believe you would be a lot more pissed off at a random stranger?
So back to having pride... The above example is one reason as to why racial faction locks promote emotion. One of those is pride. But the example shows how you can really dislike a group of players because they are unfamiliar with you. DAoC did this very well. It was one of the big reasons why most people who played it, claim it as one of the best PvP MMO's in the history of gaming. It provoked excitement and nervousness at the same time. In DAoC, the whole leveling process and the players in it promoted a general dislike for other races and factions. It gave you the feeling of being in a sort of family, even if you didn't know the guy standing next to you on the battlefield.
I'm curious as to how someone can't even understand the concept of faction unlock ramifications. I mean, I understand if the lore or back story isn't important to you. But, you have to be able to realize that there is a whole mess of lore that was developed regarding faction locked alliances. You have to be able to at least comprehend the idea that unlocking alliances at this point will fly directly in the face of all of that lore. That lore tells you that these alliances are largely three different races, or four with Imperials. All of the quests tell you this as well, on your way to max level. Then you get there, and you are fighting alongside all of these characters that you were told you were supposed to hate.
I guess I'm confused here. How does one not possess the ability to even understand the concept? It really doesn't matter if you believe it's a big deal or not. But to not even be able to recognize why people are annoyed? That is a whole new level of... I don't know.. complete unawareness. I'm being nice I guess.
Yeah. I too have a hard time understanding how some don't get it.
All I can think of is that it takes a certain level of "getting into" the MMO before one realizes what makes the game fun or not. The concept of faction pride and being willing to make some sacrifices for your faction - such as dropping a PvE group to go defend, or spending your gold on a siege engine - seems to be lost on some,
The more unique and different your faction is from the other sides the better. Anything - environment, architecture, music, types of mobs, races, classes, etc., emphasizes the "us vs. them" mentality that is what it's all about. Compared to DAoC this game was already a bit light due to the open spec system: the classes are not unique to an alliance... anything else that takes away from that just further dilutes the possibility of this feeling like a world.
People seem to be all over the place about what they think makes GW2 WvW feel sort of meh. I think it's two things: no differentiation of races for alliances and the inclusion of scenario PvP. Both of those things make it hard to forget that it's just a game and what you do in it doesn't matter. GW2 feels totally like a game. DAoC had more of a world feel to it. This one now is somewhere in between,
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Look at Mythic's MUD and MMO history, and then look at Interesting Systems Inc. and Interworld productions, and their MUDs.
And no, they have not totally broken faction locks. Publishers have been forcing Firor's hand on a lot of core design elements, and its obvious. Initially the game wasn't going to have instanced and phased dungeons, or focus on a singleplayer storyline. It was going to be about social grouping and public areas and organic quests, like the good games that Firor and Mythic made before. Now they changed it to be more WoW like, and its exactly those features everyone is complaining about in beta.
I'd guess changes get forced as when enough people bitch and moan things get changed .. mmo's are affected by whoever shouts the loudest and that can lead to unfortunate changes. I tried WoW for a bit and saw it happen a few times on there, after that whenever i saw arguments like that I avoided them lol .. to depressing
So problems with the game already are probably caused by what was and what will be the playerbase
That's just it. I feel that many won't be the player base. They are just finding faults with the game because they are looking for them. There's no guarantee that there''s any interest in playing the game even if changes are made.
Developers keep forgetting that and the cycle continues. Screw what the 'players' want. Make your game. Make it fun. And people will play. The aforementioned players aren't necessarily potential customers. Many are just looking for a distraction until they can beta test the next game or play a F2P if nothing else is available.
They were probably massacred in the last survey and have changed things accordingly. Now the real question is by how much? How casual has the game gone to sell more? That's the real question.
Did Zenimax set out to create "a DAoC style mmo" but have instead created "just a game". (Maybe they thought they could do both.)
Subtle difference maybe but as Iselin says above in a game with "realm pride" you would spend gold on catapults and rams; you would drop your PvE tasks and throw your self at a guard to get rezzed closer to the action. Pretty much everyone would. There wasn't the clear cut PvE vs. PvP mentality. There was even a hint of this in WoW when in launched - not quite the same more like easy mode PvP on PvE servers perhaps but a hint nevertheless. And the key thing that realm pride fosters - from a business point of view - is subscribers.
Have Zenimax however created "just a game". A very good game for sure but ultimately something that people will play and then leave. And maybe they would anyway, so many games come out these days that people move on before they get the chance to "invest in the realm".
TESO subscription will hurt sales - it will sell millions rather than the tens of millions Skyrim sold or e.g. latest GTA (35M+). Yet if it isn't enough of an mmo to keep a large body of subscribers more than a few months it won't do as well as it could financially. I hope it does well enough but I have doubts.
(And no I do not advocate F2P micro-transactions rather higher box price if necessary / paid DLC / premium membership approach).
I don't think so at all. We "get it" just fine.
I didn't play DAoC but I played Lineage 2 for 4 1/2 years.
And in lineage 2 you could drop gear. You could drop gear by being killed by a mob or if you kill another player (at the time) you could drop gear if you were then subsequently killed.
so you know what people did?
They would drop party and race across the world if their guild mate died and dropped ANY gear. Why? Because this stuff was expensive and they were your "mates".
My whole Lineage 2 "career" was spent racing to one part of the world or antoher for a guild mate or alliance mate. There were always wars and many times you would be rushing to the aid of your fellow guild/alliance members.
One of my best memories was that a party was pk'ed in the Tower of Insolence and the entire alliance marched up that tower, killed everything in site while we came across our fallen fellows and then destroyed the guild at the top who attacked our people.
We had plenty of pride, we just didn't need a faction for it we had our actual members. People we knew, people we crafted for, spent evenings gathering mats for, going red for them because we KNEW them.
Not because they happened to make a character in "our side".
What some people don't get is what this pride actually is. It's not "a faction" or "a race" it's a feeling of cameraderie, of fellowship, because of actually interacting with these people, of having these people put you before them and you getting the chance to do the same.
So we understand just fine. We don't need factions for this pride, all we need are our guild/alliance mates who we know and have interacted with and a cause.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Faction un lock is down to 2 things..
- Balance. Are the racials out of balance such that allowing each faction to have every thype of character in their team gives them an excuse not to addres the imbalance ?
- Marketing. Yet more concessions to the types of player that dont want a virtual world with too many "annoyances" like having to make meaningful choices that you later have to live with because they have consequences. We sell more and keep more people happy if they can be who they want to be.
It is bullshit. This stuff undermines MMORPGs for a large percent of players that enjoy and understand the basis of rivalry and role play within MMORPGs.
To the fella above.
On the one hand we get people arguing that MMORPGs need to become more casual and solo orientated. Do anything in a group or solo, sod the NEED to group to accomplish progression or get the better stuff in game. Just let little Johnny have it because unlike big johnny he's not mature enough to be able to deal with reality that if you play more you get more and to be able to square that with their own sense of pride in their character.
Letting people play whichever race in whatever faction is this in action. Little Johnny wants, little Johnny gets. Because it apparently sells more product.
So apparently we all don't need false walls put in place to aid our sense of community because it is all built on actual relationships between friends. Groups of "friends" coming together to fight or cooperate with other groups of friends and we therefore we don't NEED any messy lore or story to get in the way of that. IT is bullshit !
SOME players are like that but a huge % are not.. see above on the unrelenting trend to make everything solo able and casual friendly. If there was so much spontanious friendship going on where is the NEED for the focus on Solo and Casual content ? You just hook up with your many friends and get content done...
The simple contention is ... why bother with a story at all if you are going to let it disintegrate into farce before you lauinch the game. how much effort is put into defining distinct races and alliance to then sweep it all away and let everyone mix and match like a person dressing themselves from a charity shop or jumble sale.
Many people require faction story AT THE VERY LEAST to help them identify with the virtual world and their characters place in it. Sod reading all the quest text and pages of lore .. I just need to know i am an X in Y and these are my enemies. This is my homeland it needs defending ... off we go .....
Why bother having locked races and faction for years only to go throw it away weeks before release of the game ? Dont you just design and promote it that way top start with.
I love games where you can drop stuff and people form strong bonds and guilds to fight other guilds or individuals that threaten their interests. ESO isnt that .. when I cant ..drop anything or go to the outskirts of your city and PK your ass or pillage your territory.
F2P here we come but only after we have robbed you of $100-$200 to test a buggy game so it is good for F2P and all the horrendous compromises to the whole essence of the lore and premise of your MMORPG world and the genre itself...
This is nothing new. It is the SWTOR with hindsight rollout of the latest AAA MMORPG.
At least in SWTOR there the developers were plausibly surprised and saddened when the project crashed and burnt into F2P mess it did .
This time around it is all planned why else would you screw your fan base with lore changes on this scale and concessions to exactly the sort of player that is attracted to F2P model where little johnny gets what little johnny wants or to established guilds where this is a concession so Big Billy doesnt sod off to someone elses guild becasue they are in Faction V ?
There is a difference between designing the game such that it can be transitioned to a different pay model at some point in its lifecycle and screwing over the basic design foundations of the lore / storyline as a concession to that from the start. I couldnt give a toss if they want all this when it is F2P becasue I wont be there and neither will a decent chunk of the people that want sub based AAA MMORPGs.
Dont give this cross faction bullshit to us now... we will sod off immediately or several months earlier than we would otherwise.
there would have to be a good community like Daoc had in order for there to be faction pride. sorry to say but no matter what the mechanics of this game are, there will not be faction pride.
those days are long gone in any mmo. sure you may have certain players or like-minded guilds that would care about that but in general, i just dont think the new generation of mmo players care.
Reverse that part in red for me. You saw it work in Lineage 2. I saw it work in work in DAoC.
Then I saw it almost work again in WAR... and I haven't seen much of it in WOW, Rift and specially not in GW2 where "Server Pride" is non-existent.
Have you managed to see the same degree of pride created organically by players in any game after Lineage 2? Do you think that's possible in a 2014 themepark without the game systems steering you in that direction? If you do, you have more faith in the 2014 MMO players than I do.
And this is exactly why I think that game systems that encourage it are even more important today than they were 10 years ago.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Except we had it in Lineage 2, if you wanted to accomplish certian important milestones you had to group and in some instances HAD TO raid, and Lineage 2 was probably one of the most "non-casual" game ever made.
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
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
You're talking about "more pride". I'd be happy with SOME pride in today's games before I even think about more pride. And yes, we need systems to make it happen. Players and even guilds left to their own devices will be selfish. It isn't just geographic and racial locks that help: Grouping and especially playing with the same people day in and day out help. Just how do you make that happen in one megaserver?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think a big part of where you fall on this argument depends on how important you weight PVE vs PVP in this game. If you weigh PVE much more important than PVP than things like faction locks and limited guilds between factions fragments communities and makes it really hard to organize large groups of people coming into the game together. I know if I polled 100 members in my guild about preferred faction that the three factions would be pretty much equally represented based on preferred race and there are a small number of people who feel so strongly about playing a particular race that they would rather do it outside the guild than not at all. For those people offering a way to remove the faction lock even if I don't like how they went about doing it is a good thing.
Well, I definitely will give you that. I miss games where the world was about you and your guild members and about your relationships to everyone you met.
Now it seems that these games are more about "take quest, run to glowy bit on the map, do something, come back, get reward, rinse and repeat".
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
Yeah. I understand what you're saying.
Like I said, this is a really old debate in ESO forums. Even among people who play both, single player ES games and MMOs, there are differences of opinion depending on whether you approach ESO as an MMO or an ES game.
The vast majority of ES leaning players have hated faction lock from day one. The vast majority of ex DAoC players who were attracted to this game liked it.
The original PVP-centric design of the game was more to our liking - and even then I would have preferred that the PVE also be done on a server (campaign) basis just so that we would continue to play with the same people in PVE that we were fighting next to in Cyrodiil.
It's just an opinion but I consider putting your own personal race or faction selection above the guild/group decision as just another example of the self-centered approach to MMOs that is now the norm... and IMHO, I don't think it's a good trend.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I know the Elder Scrolls Lore so "faction lock" doesn't fit in but that horse has been beaten to death.
Do some research before you speak if you are going to start spouting "casual" in response to one of the most arduous games ever made that fostered close relationships and die hard enemies.
What promotes more pride: artificial groups made because the developers "said so" and in this case have nothing to do with the elder scrolls games or groups of people who found each other and actually strive for like minded goals because "they" said so?
the gamers that played Daoc and L2 are not the same gamers that will play TESO in general. i remember when wow first launched, me and my guild mates that came from Daoc and EQ tried to play that game with the same mentality.
nope. the popularity of wow (and battle.net kiddies in general) ushered in a new breed of mmo gamer that now dominates the mmo community and they don't care about things like faction pride and honor.
your best hope is to find a guild that cares about the same things you do and fight for the honor and reputation of your guild.
because the faction as a whole isn't going to care, regardless of any racial lock, class lock, or anything else.
that's just the current state of the mmo community as a whole, the way i see it at least.
It's mainly modern WoW players and their generation that don't understand how gameplay influences social behavior or mindset. The same ones that can't imagine how an MMO would work without instances.
Faction lock is a tried and true mechanic, starting in the 80s through MUDs all the way to DAoC and now this. It is essential to making PvP feel more important. Nothing is stopping you from just rolling a character on a different server.
Putting personal preferences for faction ahead of community is self-centered but at the end of the day this is a game not a social experiment that we all want to play to have fun so I'm not going to judge a person harshly for it. I don't know about you but I don't play games to recreate my responsibilities in the real world I do to get away from them. Games with lots of mechanics that limit options can be really enjoyable but there is a very fine line there that has to be walked. It's very easy to cross that line and create a game that you have to fight to enjoy more than just play to enjoy.
ESO is banking on PVP for it's endgame, that is clear. There is not going to be a ton of endgame PVE content launch day especially for large groups so this game will live or die on how popular Cyrodill is. My personal opinion is this was probably not a wise move on Zenimax's part given it's fan base but it is what it is. The problem with faction locks is you guys lost that fight a long time ago when they let you craft and wear gear cross race. The distinction of being a particular race in a faction on the PVP battle field is really minor compared to wearing unique gear and that's been known for awhile that every race will be able to wear any gear. I think it's also safe to say that all the racial skills will be blurred into equivalence if not by launch day shortly afterwards as PVP players abuse even the slightly advantage until it's nerfed.
I do see the point and I can understand it. I think this is why TSW has PVP gear that you wear when your in the PVP zone so as to allow PVE players their freedom while still creating a sense of faction when in the PVP zone.
Nah. They did it for optimization purposes. They came out and said that.
You're absolutely right about the conflict faction lock creates. The difference here is that I see it as a good thing. Players shouldn't always get what they want. My guild went Aldmeri Dominion. I wanted to be a Dunmer. I decided to look at Bosmer and decided I could play it.
All of a sudden I had to pay attention to the theme of the game. I'm an adult. I'm not a child. I have way too many other responsibilities than to worry about not being able to play a certain race. Maybe I'll play an alt, maybe I won't. The point is I saw ESO as more of a virtual world as it forced me to read up on the races and learn what the heck was going on. It wasn't just window dressing. It had a real impact on choice. Like games used to. Single player RPGs constantly have theme restrictions interwoven in game design. Why in the world of mmoRPGs that doesn't apply, I think it's laughable.
So many games make changes all for convenience or the fear that someone somewhere might not buy it because it's missing x choice.
Can we even look at MMOs today and see examples of how theme impacts game design? Does that even exist anymore? Maybe that's why some people are annoyed at this decision. I have a strong feeling that this isn't the only change they made to appeal the I want everything and I want it now crowd. Just wait...more is coming. They got boxes to sell.
Also. How come Wildstar isn't getting this sh*t about race locks? Last time I checked they have unique races attached to a faction as well.
Because it doesn't have a pre-existing IP with opinionated fans of the IP with strong ideas about what is and isn't "true ES."
Btw... good description of what you went through making your decision and how it enriched the game for you...you get it.
I also highlighted the "virtual world" bit because that's a big part of it, IMHO. There's difference between MMO virtual worlds and "just a game"... and it has f**k all to do with my real life.
Something else occurred to me: those of us who have done time in the armed forces have a deeper appreciation for "pride" as well as large scale RvR/AvA. In DAoC one of my guild mates was a sergeant in active duty when he played. The guy was an awesome RvR group leader because the small and large unit tactics translate really well for this type of game play and they came naturally to him.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I think with some people it is about "what is true Elder Scrolls" but you made a good point some time back that "true elder scrolls is what they say it is considering they have made many changes since the first Elder Scrolls game".
so "true elder scrolls" is up for grabs.
I think for many people it's about how elder scrolls games have played and Elder Scrolls Online doesn't quite give you that experience.
As far as the "armed forces" and "pride" I imagine there is some truth to that but probably based upon a very specific type of pride.
I've never been in the armed forces and my time has been spent in probably the most diametrically opposed activities aka "The Arts".
And the level of pride, especially for large group activities is through the roof. Have you ever heard the expression "The Show Must Go On"?
that's not just an expression that is a way of life such is the dedication to the cause that people put into their work. There are stories of people breaking limbs and still finishing their performance, being sick and still doing what it takes because they have such great dedication and pride in what they are doing.
I imagine there are many instances of pride in people's work from day to day and now their performance affects others.
However, the armed forces does have it's own way of doing things.
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
I know, the QQ has been so hilarious and awesome since they announced the pre-order. YUM.
It's true, there are many different kinds of pride and many different activities that foster a sense of community. Some people find it easier than others to embrace community and team goals.
I only meant that the military mindset and its brand of "us vs. them" translates very easily to small scale ground war simulations - even those with magic and medieval artillery ... which is how I view organized RvR.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED