With all the fuss doing the rounds currently as mythic prepare for the slayer/choppa event + whatever gonna go on on valentines day i find myself oddly uninterested.
I can't explain it, I really should be interested, im a life long meele dps player and the valentines day event looks like it may be based on the lore of the two classes i play in WaR.
But for whatever reason its all a bit 'Meh' atm.
perhaps my enthusiasm will pick up when whatever it is goes live
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Lich King Frozen
Today i froze my WoW account. Which after playing steadily since its European release means i find myself surprised to be doing so.
This made me think about what fundamentally has changed about wow which would make me want to stop playing.
As far as i can tell its all about the story.
Two types of storytelling happen in WoW the story the game tells you, and the story you create for yourself.
From 70-80 WoW excelled at telling you a story, the us of phasing really made the quests stick with you, what Syp says here i think amounts to pretty much exactly what phasing brings to the table a constant visual reminder of the quest progress .
Sadly all good things must end and after you hit 80 they pretty much do. To give them credit Blizzard tried hard producing some of the best storylines in the game in the final zone (icecrown), the problem is that these last 2-3 evenings in total at best and then the grind begins in earnest and the game stops telling you stories.
This is where in WoW the players own experiences used to take over, Raiding used to be about creating your own mythology, your own heros and villians. I can talk for hours to guildys about our raids in WoW and tbc but when i comes to Wotlk conversation dries up.
Its not that the dungeons are badly designed and i think for a 'entry level' raid they are very well tuned.
the problem is we are stuck at reception and not allowed into the rest of the building. Easy difficulty is fine if once you got past that there something else to do, but in wow atm the only thing to do is farm more gear, or try for achievements.
It was the challenge of defeating bosses which gave meaning to the my pre wotlk play in wow. We wern't the elite and we certainly didn't put in as many hours as many guilds did but that made us all the prouder when we got somewhere.
Making WoW casual friendly is fine imo, but what should go are gear check fights like Brutallus.
If Uldar had been in game when wrath launched i doubt id still be writing this.
Im sure i will go back to wow at some point(which is why the accounts frozen not canceled) but not until the endgame offers a real challenge again.
This made me think about what fundamentally has changed about wow which would make me want to stop playing.
As far as i can tell its all about the story.
Two types of storytelling happen in WoW the story the game tells you, and the story you create for yourself.
From 70-80 WoW excelled at telling you a story, the us of phasing really made the quests stick with you, what Syp says here i think amounts to pretty much exactly what phasing brings to the table a constant visual reminder of the quest progress .
Sadly all good things must end and after you hit 80 they pretty much do. To give them credit Blizzard tried hard producing some of the best storylines in the game in the final zone (icecrown), the problem is that these last 2-3 evenings in total at best and then the grind begins in earnest and the game stops telling you stories.
This is where in WoW the players own experiences used to take over, Raiding used to be about creating your own mythology, your own heros and villians. I can talk for hours to guildys about our raids in WoW and tbc but when i comes to Wotlk conversation dries up.
Its not that the dungeons are badly designed and i think for a 'entry level' raid they are very well tuned.
the problem is we are stuck at reception and not allowed into the rest of the building. Easy difficulty is fine if once you got past that there something else to do, but in wow atm the only thing to do is farm more gear, or try for achievements.
It was the challenge of defeating bosses which gave meaning to the my pre wotlk play in wow. We wern't the elite and we certainly didn't put in as many hours as many guilds did but that made us all the prouder when we got somewhere.
Making WoW casual friendly is fine imo, but what should go are gear check fights like Brutallus.
If Uldar had been in game when wrath launched i doubt id still be writing this.
Im sure i will go back to wow at some point(which is why the accounts frozen not canceled) but not until the endgame offers a real challenge again.
Friday, 23 January 2009
GIVE ME A ZONE CAP QUEST OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!!
OK perhaps not death,ill take cake instead. but if we dont get a change to the RvR system as it is i expect some sort of compensation.
Paul Barnet i know that you and your swarm of underlings are out there somewhere in the great ocean of the internet swimming from site to site like some giant over enthusiastic tyranid fleet devouring all that the blogging community has to say, so hear my call!
Here's a idea for WaR which fits your famous “It’s so obvious that I should have thought of that!” criteria (although it 100% not genius).
You can solve the current keep trading problem, and encourage more fortress sieges with one incredibly simple change.
Add a quest which gives a significant amount of XP, RR and RvR influence for the capture of a zone.
The fine details don't matter much, but here they are anywaysClick to read more
Im not sure what the appropriate amount of XP or Influence would be but lets say you gave 15,000 Renown points for a zone cap.
"woooo there" i here people say "that's a helluva lot of Renown" but you can easily earn 2-3k in a SC so i think that this is a fair amount for capturing a zone.
Id also say that the quest should scale
lets say use the chaos/empire paring as a example
for destro:
Chaos wastes: 10,00 Renown
Pragg: 15,000
Reikland 20,000
with fortress current problems i feel quest to cap them would be wrong because people would be excluded. But if mythic can stop that there would be no reason not to introduce them in the future.
also a quest to 'breech the walls of aldorf' or similar would be nice but not essential.
There! Isn't that almost sickeningly simple!
I know this is far from a subtle or nuanced idea but it is 'actionable' if myhtic wanted to they could have this in place in days. most changes ive seen would take a while to bring in.
& i know i can think of 1 shockingly simple flaw >_< but since its a problem with mythics overall RvR system rather than this specific idea, so im gonna ignore it.
Note: I tried to use 'a idea' rather than my idea here because im sure someone somewhere has though of this before, its just so obvious. Nevertheless i think its a idea worth trying to champion.
(bonus points for those who spot the reference from the 1st line)
Paul Barnet i know that you and your swarm of underlings are out there somewhere in the great ocean of the internet swimming from site to site like some giant over enthusiastic tyranid fleet devouring all that the blogging community has to say, so hear my call!
Here's a idea for WaR which fits your famous “It’s so obvious that I should have thought of that!” criteria (although it 100% not genius).
You can solve the current keep trading problem, and encourage more fortress sieges with one incredibly simple change.
Add a quest which gives a significant amount of XP, RR and RvR influence for the capture of a zone.
The fine details don't matter much, but here they are anywaysClick to read more
Im not sure what the appropriate amount of XP or Influence would be but lets say you gave 15,000 Renown points for a zone cap.
"woooo there" i here people say "that's a helluva lot of Renown" but you can easily earn 2-3k in a SC so i think that this is a fair amount for capturing a zone.
Id also say that the quest should scale
lets say use the chaos/empire paring as a example
for destro:
Chaos wastes: 10,00 Renown
Pragg: 15,000
Reikland 20,000
with fortress current problems i feel quest to cap them would be wrong because people would be excluded. But if mythic can stop that there would be no reason not to introduce them in the future.
also a quest to 'breech the walls of aldorf' or similar would be nice but not essential.
There! Isn't that almost sickeningly simple!
I know this is far from a subtle or nuanced idea but it is 'actionable' if myhtic wanted to they could have this in place in days. most changes ive seen would take a while to bring in.
& i know i can think of 1 shockingly simple flaw >_< but since its a problem with mythics overall RvR system rather than this specific idea, so im gonna ignore it.
Note: I tried to use 'a idea' rather than my idea here because im sure someone somewhere has though of this before, its just so obvious. Nevertheless i think its a idea worth trying to champion.
(bonus points for those who spot the reference from the 1st line)
Wednesday, 21 January 2009
The Battle for Battle Objectives.
Regis arbitrary and Syp have all been writing about about the future of battle objectives recently, and Regis and Arbitary have both come out as strong advocates that villages may be the answer.
Now while these are all great bloggers i have to say that this time i feel in the words of Ned Flanders they are "wrong didley wrong"
There are to me at least allot of reason why this wont work but im going to stick to what i think are the two biggest( mainly since these are the ones which need the most explanation otherwise id just but a quick note on them in a comment).
Click to read more
The flow of the campaign.
One of the great strengths of mythics RvR system is that it has a clear end objective and that flow that encourages more and more RvR.
Your aim is to take the other realms capital everything between that is just a speed bump to be overcome.
Once a army looses it sense of common purpose it will start to fragment.
Currently the biggest interruption of this flow is the time it takes to turn over a zone, but i would suggest that the new zone domination mechanic should end this.
This sort of fast paced war with constantly moving fronts makes for a interesting meta game. One problem the current slow state of RvR doesn't lead people to consider is that while maintaining the flow of a 'offensive' is good allowing a blitzkrieg is bad (at least in terms of making a fun game).
The reason allot of people dislike BO's currently is that they feel they discourage actual RvR fighting. There really is no reason to defend a BO unless you are very close to locking a zone.
What will often happen is that outnumbered side will typically take up residence in one keep while to offensive force captures the undefended Bo's(On Karak-Hirn the most commonly used capture sequence ive seen is Keep BO BO BO Keep BO).
One way of looking at BO's real function is took consider what would happen if they didn't exist.
Currently BO's act as time sinks, they buy defenders time to get into a keep or to return to a zone before it is locked. remove that and the meta RvR just becomes a case of who can get the biggest zerg up and destroy keeps the fastest before someone can react.
Because of their simplicity there is really no difference between a 6man group or a warband group in the overall speed that a BO is taken.
I guess what im trying to say is that defenders need the breaks in fighting that capping a BO provides in order to mount a proper defense.
Arbitary talks about how RvR doesn't currently teach people the skills needed, but essential capital cities in a contested state rely upon the exact same things (BO 's and SC's) to quote the herald
the only difference is the chronology of when public quests play a part.
Tactical Justification?
To pick off where i started on a comment on W&W
Keeps are built to protect villages, villages don't protect keeps.
It really is that simple.If a village was attacked its populace would typically retreat to the keep. In fact allot of medieval villages were built just outside castle walls.
If you look at real medieval warfare forces would basically never fight in the open unless there numbers were roughly even. In some cases if there was a area with good natural defensive quality's (like a valley or hill) sometimes a force would make a stand but generally the simple rule was castle and keeps exist for one reason and one reason alone: Somewhere to retreat to when you can't win a open battle.
So is wrong to pillage a village?
Well people want to pillage and that's understandable and to me at least a good thing to be aiming for in your game design. Anyone who has play WoWs Wrath of the Lich King expansion will tell you that the one great innovation blizzard introduced has been phasing. They way that the world changed about you anchored you in the narrative in ways that most mmos including WAR fail at miserably.I think the desire for villages is at heart a desire for this sort of feeling of impacting the world which is atm lacking from war before the city siege stage.
What i would dearly love on one level is the same to happen as when a city is locked down, that when a zone becomes locked the entire opposing factions half of the map is taken by the victors and new variation on the public quest which had been active in that area spawn as players of the defeated faction being unable to enter or respawn in it.the problem with this is that it just doesn't work with the way fortress battles are fought. What use is this sort of transformation if it can be reversed less than 1hr, equally the 24 hour duration of the capital siege is completely unusable.
But there is one area which had no use outside RvR
that generally have a unique look and which could easily be made into a interesting fight.
and that is warcamps.
Let say when u cap a zone the defeated realms warcamp becomes a PQ with a 15-20min timer on it. There is a 3 min timer on the flight master before he despawns. Player from the defeated realm cannot enter the RVR area, and if they die do not respawn.
This would work as a reward for the winners in the form of getting to loot & burn the opponents base, and at the same time allow the defenders some time to regroup before the next zone is assaulted. Participation in the PQ could contribute influence to players RvR influence pool. And since there would only be 1 PQ it would lead to far less fragmentation than happens currently.
Soooo long story short. Regis you had it right 1st time. Warcamps good. Villages bad. At least in my opinion anyways :D
Now while these are all great bloggers i have to say that this time i feel in the words of Ned Flanders they are "wrong didley wrong"
There are to me at least allot of reason why this wont work but im going to stick to what i think are the two biggest( mainly since these are the ones which need the most explanation otherwise id just but a quick note on them in a comment).
Click to read more
The flow of the campaign.
One of the great strengths of mythics RvR system is that it has a clear end objective and that flow that encourages more and more RvR.
Your aim is to take the other realms capital everything between that is just a speed bump to be overcome.
Once a army looses it sense of common purpose it will start to fragment.
Currently the biggest interruption of this flow is the time it takes to turn over a zone, but i would suggest that the new zone domination mechanic should end this.
This sort of fast paced war with constantly moving fronts makes for a interesting meta game. One problem the current slow state of RvR doesn't lead people to consider is that while maintaining the flow of a 'offensive' is good allowing a blitzkrieg is bad (at least in terms of making a fun game).
The reason allot of people dislike BO's currently is that they feel they discourage actual RvR fighting. There really is no reason to defend a BO unless you are very close to locking a zone.
What will often happen is that outnumbered side will typically take up residence in one keep while to offensive force captures the undefended Bo's(On Karak-Hirn the most commonly used capture sequence ive seen is Keep BO BO BO Keep BO).
One way of looking at BO's real function is took consider what would happen if they didn't exist.
Currently BO's act as time sinks, they buy defenders time to get into a keep or to return to a zone before it is locked. remove that and the meta RvR just becomes a case of who can get the biggest zerg up and destroy keeps the fastest before someone can react.
Because of their simplicity there is really no difference between a 6man group or a warband group in the overall speed that a BO is taken.
I guess what im trying to say is that defenders need the breaks in fighting that capping a BO provides in order to mount a proper defense.
Arbitary talks about how RvR doesn't currently teach people the skills needed, but essential capital cities in a contested state rely upon the exact same things (BO 's and SC's) to quote the herald
"You fight for control over the City just like regular open world zones. A City Scenario is available to join from anywhere in tier 4 as well as within the City. Capture the Objectives in the City to earn Victory points over time and remember to always kill the enemy players you come across as it all contributes to Zone Control in the City."
the only difference is the chronology of when public quests play a part.
Tactical Justification?
To pick off where i started on a comment on W&W
Keeps are built to protect villages, villages don't protect keeps.
It really is that simple.If a village was attacked its populace would typically retreat to the keep. In fact allot of medieval villages were built just outside castle walls.
If you look at real medieval warfare forces would basically never fight in the open unless there numbers were roughly even. In some cases if there was a area with good natural defensive quality's (like a valley or hill) sometimes a force would make a stand but generally the simple rule was castle and keeps exist for one reason and one reason alone: Somewhere to retreat to when you can't win a open battle.
So is wrong to pillage a village?
Well people want to pillage and that's understandable and to me at least a good thing to be aiming for in your game design. Anyone who has play WoWs Wrath of the Lich King expansion will tell you that the one great innovation blizzard introduced has been phasing. They way that the world changed about you anchored you in the narrative in ways that most mmos including WAR fail at miserably.I think the desire for villages is at heart a desire for this sort of feeling of impacting the world which is atm lacking from war before the city siege stage.
What i would dearly love on one level is the same to happen as when a city is locked down, that when a zone becomes locked the entire opposing factions half of the map is taken by the victors and new variation on the public quest which had been active in that area spawn as players of the defeated faction being unable to enter or respawn in it.the problem with this is that it just doesn't work with the way fortress battles are fought. What use is this sort of transformation if it can be reversed less than 1hr, equally the 24 hour duration of the capital siege is completely unusable.
But there is one area which had no use outside RvR
that generally have a unique look and which could easily be made into a interesting fight.
and that is warcamps.
Let say when u cap a zone the defeated realms warcamp becomes a PQ with a 15-20min timer on it. There is a 3 min timer on the flight master before he despawns. Player from the defeated realm cannot enter the RVR area, and if they die do not respawn.
This would work as a reward for the winners in the form of getting to loot & burn the opponents base, and at the same time allow the defenders some time to regroup before the next zone is assaulted. Participation in the PQ could contribute influence to players RvR influence pool. And since there would only be 1 PQ it would lead to far less fragmentation than happens currently.
Soooo long story short. Regis you had it right 1st time. Warcamps good. Villages bad. At least in my opinion anyways :D
Imagine If.... Wards were Talismans
Imagine If.. will be a weekly series of posts written in the style of a WaR herald post introducing a new fictional feature to the game.
Wards are here to stay like it or not. But lets look at a different way they could be implemented (which Syp quickly touched upon).
Patch IF1.0 New features: Talismans of Warding
Due to customer feedback on the ward system and the success of the introduction of RvR influence pools we have decided to introduce a new system which will allow more players access to higher levels of content.
Changes to current sets
The Superior Ward and The Excelsior Ward have been partially merged, both will reduce damage in Sub-Boss encounters and King Fights by 10% and can stack up to 5 times.
In addition The Excelsior armor sets will increase damage and healing in King encounters by 2% and can stack up to 5 times.
Talismans of Warding
From IF1.0 onwards you will be able to supplement the wards offered by Tier RvR & Dungeon set with Warding Talismans which can be slotted into any gear of your choice. All warding talismans are classed as Semi-Unique, meaning you can have maximum of 2 of the same talisman equipped in your gear at once
Ward Talismans come in 3 levels, each level is unlocked upon reaching the required renown rank. The wards are available from different vendors depending on the power level of the ward read below to find out about their locations.
Click to read more
Lesser Talisman of Warding:
Provide the lesser ward effect which will reduce damage in High Level City Dungeon and Fortress encounters by 10% and can stack up to 5 times.
Sold By: Keep Provisoner.
Keep Provioners will spawn in The Keeps of any of the Pre-Fortress Zones (ie: Chaos wastes is the order pre fortress zone for order in the empire/chaos pairing) after the zone has been locked.
Requirements:Rank 35-40 and Renown Rank 30
Greater Talisman of Warding:
Provides the Greater ward effect which will reduce damage in The Lost Vale and City Invasion PQ encounters by 10% and can stack up to 5 times. The Greater Ward effect also includes the Lesser Ward effect
Sold By: Fortress Provisoner.
Fortess Provisioners will spawn inside a enemy fortress once they have become captured.
Requirements:Rank 40 and Renown Rank 40
Superior Talisman of Warding:
Provides the Superior Ward effect will reduce damage in Sub-Boss and King encounters by 10% and can stack up to 5 times. The Superior Ward effect also includes the Lesser Ward and Greater Ward effects.
Sold By: Siege Camp Provisioner.
Siege Camp Provisioners will spawn inside Capital city Battle Objectives once they become captured.
Requirements:Rank 40 and Renown Rank 50
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
The importance of staying connected
Like many WaR players i'm taking this evening off to watch Obama's inauguration on the news.
1stly a quick clarification i'm a Brit and so i have a wide blue expanse of distance both physically and emotional from these events.
I'll refrain from any political comments but suffice to say i think it was a pretty damn good speech.Instead i'll just take 2 things which perhaps our community can take to heart:
1st: "greatness is not a given it must be earned"
Forum's and blogs have a reputation for at their worst being whine fests. To often people see something they want and if they can't achieve it easily the whine begins.
People need to remember that nothing in any MMO has any intrinsic value. Even the most awesome item is nothing more than a collection of pixels and data. People need to start valuing the journey not just the destination.
2ndly "people will judge you on what you can build not what you destroy"
In a recent interview on Fires of War Paul Barnett stressed the importance of constructive criticism, as a community we need to focus not just on the bad but on the good. That when we do talk about the bad we should try and understand why these decisions have been made, that they have not been made lightly, that hindsight is a wonderful thing, and that its not always easy to fix them.
Anyways the ceremony is over im off to play a bit of WaR.
Finally Jospeh Lowery speech was great and showed one last thing, that even at the most serious of times a sense of humor is a great thing.
1stly a quick clarification i'm a Brit and so i have a wide blue expanse of distance both physically and emotional from these events.
I'll refrain from any political comments but suffice to say i think it was a pretty damn good speech.Instead i'll just take 2 things which perhaps our community can take to heart:
1st: "greatness is not a given it must be earned"
Forum's and blogs have a reputation for at their worst being whine fests. To often people see something they want and if they can't achieve it easily the whine begins.
People need to remember that nothing in any MMO has any intrinsic value. Even the most awesome item is nothing more than a collection of pixels and data. People need to start valuing the journey not just the destination.
2ndly "people will judge you on what you can build not what you destroy"
In a recent interview on Fires of War Paul Barnett stressed the importance of constructive criticism, as a community we need to focus not just on the bad but on the good. That when we do talk about the bad we should try and understand why these decisions have been made, that they have not been made lightly, that hindsight is a wonderful thing, and that its not always easy to fix them.
Anyways the ceremony is over im off to play a bit of WaR.
Finally Jospeh Lowery speech was great and showed one last thing, that even at the most serious of times a sense of humor is a great thing.
Monday, 19 January 2009
Just One Question
i don't know about you but i always find my mind completely blank every Monday.
but i've set myself a target of posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and gawd dang it i'm gonna stick to it.
Thankfully occasionally inspiration sometimes arrives out of the blue or in this case the comments box.
The comment slightly confuses me on many levels, and have no idea if it is that Barnett bloke or not.
1. If it is him, what on gods earth is he doing looking at my little blog
2. If not him, there are better places to pretend to be him than my little blog
but for the purpose of this it matters not. Thank you whoever you are.
the topic for today shall be
"If you could ask Paul Barnett one question what would it be?"
Question:
Would you consider releasing a expansion which did not increase the level cap?
Click to read more
Why ask:
The traditional MMO model has been to expand vertically adding more and more levels and more skills. The disadvantage of this is that the older areas become more and more deserted and the skill pools become more and more bloated.
From a simple financial perspective it allows the manufacturer to sell the original game plus Xpac to anyone new who wishes to play.
The carrot & stick of leveling is such a staple of the genre to not do it would be suicide for a PvE game to release a Xpac without them.
But WaR is a RvR game what your opponents will always be humans not scripted encounters.
To me at least what will keep me interested is not 10 more levels of PvE but my increasing the variety & challenge of RvR.
Instead of 10 more levels the effort was instead put into things like a greater variety of siege weapons and destructible walls. There is also scope for work on the inner keeps and fortress's to make them more visually interesting and tactically varied.
Increasing the Renown rank cap and opening up extra skills & tactics is to me a better way than just boosting everyone's stats 10 levels.
Id personally love a system which when you captured a zone allowed you to enter the opposing player PvE areas and loot & burn there towns or similar. WoW made amazing use of the phasing system and there's no reason why it couldn't be put to work here.
Also while it didn't matter that Onyxia became Soloable in WoW but if Karl Franz becomes soloable its a whole different kettle of fish.
anyways that's my post for today now i just need to find something to write about for Wednesday >_< . Im off to get rank 30 on my DoK
but i've set myself a target of posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and gawd dang it i'm gonna stick to it.
Thankfully occasionally inspiration sometimes arrives out of the blue or in this case the comments box.
Barnett here, always gud to know who the Orc heads are :)
The comment slightly confuses me on many levels, and have no idea if it is that Barnett bloke or not.
1. If it is him, what on gods earth is he doing looking at my little blog
2. If not him, there are better places to pretend to be him than my little blog
but for the purpose of this it matters not. Thank you whoever you are.
the topic for today shall be
"If you could ask Paul Barnett one question what would it be?"
Question:
Would you consider releasing a expansion which did not increase the level cap?
Click to read more
Why ask:
The traditional MMO model has been to expand vertically adding more and more levels and more skills. The disadvantage of this is that the older areas become more and more deserted and the skill pools become more and more bloated.
From a simple financial perspective it allows the manufacturer to sell the original game plus Xpac to anyone new who wishes to play.
The carrot & stick of leveling is such a staple of the genre to not do it would be suicide for a PvE game to release a Xpac without them.
But WaR is a RvR game what your opponents will always be humans not scripted encounters.
To me at least what will keep me interested is not 10 more levels of PvE but my increasing the variety & challenge of RvR.
Instead of 10 more levels the effort was instead put into things like a greater variety of siege weapons and destructible walls. There is also scope for work on the inner keeps and fortress's to make them more visually interesting and tactically varied.
Increasing the Renown rank cap and opening up extra skills & tactics is to me a better way than just boosting everyone's stats 10 levels.
Id personally love a system which when you captured a zone allowed you to enter the opposing player PvE areas and loot & burn there towns or similar. WoW made amazing use of the phasing system and there's no reason why it couldn't be put to work here.
Also while it didn't matter that Onyxia became Soloable in WoW but if Karl Franz becomes soloable its a whole different kettle of fish.
anyways that's my post for today now i just need to find something to write about for Wednesday >_< . Im off to get rank 30 on my DoK
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