If there is one thing I still regret about Darkfall, it’s AV not making the now-gone MVP forums public after they did away with the program; a lot of good ideas and discussions all gone because I don’t think AV knows how to update or manage their forum software. More to today’s point; one of the ideas thrown out that had a good amount of backing was the idea of seasonal servers that would reset and could be ‘won’ based on different point systems. That sound familiar?
Imagine if AV had beaten Crowfall to the punch with one of their major features? Classic AV though; get a good idea, sit on it, and then end up going with something else (worse) instead. Moving past that little bit of amusement, lets talk the idea itself.
The biggest and most obvious fact is that everyone who plays an MMO on day-one loves it (bugs/crashing aside). There is just something about that ‘new world’ feel that works, and I think anyone who has played an MMO day-one can relate. Crowfall being able to replicate this feeling, especially with random geography on each world, is huge.
It’s huge for current players getting a built-in motivator to kick it up a notch, and its huge for former players and potential new ones as it gives everyone a ‘start this day’ indicator similar to the launch of an expansion.
The downside is perhaps similar to eating candy, maybe too much of a good thing isn’t that great? Right now I don’t see that being the case for me personally (the start of a new Civ game is always enjoyable for me, even after dozens of games), but the MMO space is a little different, so we will see.
The other downside is the counter-effect; when you know a world is set to end, only those truly invested in the ending (likely the winners) will stick around. Everyone else will likely be long gone, and so I can see worlds ending not in a final epic battle, but in days or weeks of cleanup by the winners. And if the cleanup time is lengthy or a pain, I can foresee even winning to be more grind than reward, and that overall would be a huge problem (think EVE null territory battles; some epic fighting, then a bunch of structure grinding).
I’m curious to see how Crowfall handles things in this regard, but overall I still like the general idea for the game.
Hardcore Casual 
WAR taught this lesson as well. When it becomes clear that one side is going to win, people stop fighting. Sure there are exceptions, but by and large it was true.
If there’s only one level of conflict, then only one side can win. If there are multiple levels of conflict, then a person can be part of a losing group, but still win awards at an individual or other level. Realistically speaking, the best way to keep everyone interested is to make it so that being part of the losing alliance gives you a slight to moderate advantage in winning the individual prizes.
How do you feel about the “game over” reset and that they said a PVP game cant be done without one or it ends up stale?
I ask about that specificaly because they site EVE which I think proves them wrong on that point. DAOC does as well. Difficult, but not impossible IMO.
Agree, its difficult but not impossible.
On the other hand, if you design from the ground up with resets in mind, you should be able to do something do get around the issues and create something more interesting than some random MMO deciding to do resets or starting a new server.
The update they sent out today somewhat addresses this issue; the items/resources you place in the vault scale with how well you and your side do in a world; the better the more stuff from the vault you can take off that world and bring back to your home world. I like it.
Is the “side” you choose locked in from the start? This sounds like the mechanic in FW in EVE which resulted in people switching back and forth between between sides (by rolling multiple alts and switching the bulk of their playtime back and forth) Same thing is possible here; roll an alt on both sides, play semi-equally until it’s clear which side is going to win, then everyone switches to that side and cashes in huge.
I.e., the mechanic intended to prevent early dominance killing the balance, actually worsens it.
Just based on the info they provided, the reward you ultimately get at the end is based on what you did during the entire campaign, and balanced so that switching sides (if possible, not sure) or coming in late would not yield much if anything.
We’ll see if the design holds up against player actions to try and game the system.
Yea I was about to reply to your post Syn when I saw this reply. They mentioned how and where you end up in the rankings at the end of the world will determine percentage incomes of your Embargo vault.
I like that a lot. Means you need to fight to the bitter end, unlike games like Guild Wars 2 where the fight is basically over after a few days of Oceanic guilds conquering US-only servers.
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It’s sad that you fall into the group of players claiming that the original Darkfall was much better than UW and would do splendidly. Maybe you should reconcile with Jonah.
Are you talking to Az or me with that? Guessing Az since this is a reply, but just making sure.