2008 sure looks a lot like 2004 in MMO land.

Posted on October 20, 2008 by SynCaine

If you were given a budget of $500 million, a proven veteran dev team, a stable and established engine, 4+ years, and the worlds largest feedback group; what kind of MMO could you make?

Would your list of highlights include 5v5 PvP combat using PvE rules? Additional tiers of raiding using recycled boss tactics? One new PvP map, plus a failed remake of an existing map? A single zone remake, with all other non-endgame content untouched? One attempt at a world event (that failed), and the introduction of daily quests, an ‘innovation’ that has yet to be picked up by other MMOs?

My recent angst towards Blizzard has little to do with WoW itself, as it’s a great MMO, and far more to do with the fact that WoW is no better (and some could easily argue worst) than it was in 2004. In 2004 WoW turned MMO gaming on its head and made everything else on the market look ancient by comparison. EQ2 seemed like a relic compared to WoW in 2004; it was a buggy, unplayable mess. EVE Online was a massive failure at launch, seeming arcane and inaccessible. Pre-2004 MMOs were clearly ‘the gen before WoW’ games, given a pass because ‘that’s just how it was in the old days of MMOs’. But now it’s 2008, and EQ2 is alive and greatly improved, packed with new content outside of the traditional ‘grind quests’ formula that fans are eating up (and posting giant pictures of (joke, relax)). EVE has grown into the largest single server world, is a completely different beast than the tradition ‘quest and grind’ MMO, and has had some of the most memorable moments in MMO history, not to mention being one of the best looking games out. And we have WoW, which will soon see a bump up to 80, a resetting of raid gear, and the long promised but now not-so-hero class. Same broken economy, same grind-it-out crafting, no housing, same graphics engine, etc. Yes the details are being changed, class skill x is being turned into y, etc, but what real game-changing bullet point features are we getting, or have gotten?

Blizzard is more than capable of so much more. Look how quickly they’ve begun adding features after WAR’s successful release. You can bet your house that WoW is getting PQs soon. The Deathknight’s Tortuge-like start anyone? But it’s 2008, why are we only seeing these changes now? This is the MMO market, and we expect our MMOs to evolve and provide content continually, that’s why we pay our $15 a month, right?

I look at Blizzard in the same way I look at Microsoft right now, dealing with Vista compared to Apple and OSX. Windows has been a POS for years, but until Apple started actually gaining market share, MS never did a thing, and now we have this great Vista scramble. Blizzard played it super safe, only giving WoW customers tiny crumbs of content for 4 years, and is just now starting to scramble and improve WoW. And like MS, the additions to WoW are very ‘MacOS’ looking changes. You have the biggest and best supported dev team in the market, and the best you can do is cull features from the competition?

My hope is that like MS, Blizzard will see a hit to their business for playing it so safe and ignoring the customer base. Until players stand up and make a statement (with their wallets) that we won’t accept paying $15 for the same game since 2004, and $45 for +10 to level grind every 1.5 years, why do we expect any new developer to really go out and take a risk. 11 million accounts tell them MMO gamers are sheep, happily grinding daily quests and raid tiers, licking up the scraps you toss them every 6-12 months. And like MS, if the only changes we see being made are to copy features to lure customers back, we have only ourselves to blame for the state of MMO gaming.

And before you make a ‘but WAR is just like WoW too’ comments, realize this is not about how great WAR is. I’ll leave that to opinion and other posts. In my personal opinion, WAR is DAoC 2.0, and will be more so once some of WAR’s issues are sorted out (nerfed scenarios). Whether you see DAoC 2.0 as a good thing or not comes down to again opinion. WAR won’t do much for you if you don’t enjoy PvP, but if you do, it’s hard to argue WAR has not delivered on that front. But again, this post is not a WAR vs WoW post, but rather my view of MMO gaming since 2004, and what the clear and overwhelming market leader has done with it. Lets try to focus the discussion on that, and leave the WAR flames for the other posts, okay?

Posted in Age of Conan, Combat Systems, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, EVE Online, Housing, MMO design, PvP, Rant, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 27 Comments

Mythic and Blizzard go at it. Round one review!

Posted on October 17, 2008 by SynCaine

To borrow a quote: “Shit just got real”

Seems it did not take long for the gloves to come off, and for Mythic and Blizzard to go at it. Lum has a good collection of the relevant quotes (like him, I’m too lazy to gather them all, and since he has done so already, I’ll just Blizzard him and borrow here), but I would like to focus on the original interview with Jeff Kaplan that got this all started. Similar to an earlier post found here, let’s break this down a bit (comments in bold):

“I tried to get into the ‘Warhammer’ beta, but I didn’t try to sneak in!” Kaplan said with a laugh. (A laugh because he is not part of Blizzards biggest department, the Center for Game Design Borrowing) “I became friends with [Mythic creative director] Paul Barnett at Leipzig two years ago. Paul, [Mythic executive producer] Jeff Hickman and I were hanging out because we were all stuck in a small booth for three days straight.” (Those three days of notes paid off too, have I told you about our all new focus on our ‘core’ Horde vs Alliance gameplay?)

Kaplan explained that he and Barnett became such good friends that he invited him to Blizzard’s offices several times. (How else can we fix WSG stalemates and give AV yet another unsuccessful remake?) And when the beta for the “WoW” expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” was ready to go, he asked Barnett for a list of Mythic staffers to send beta keys to. (Come check out Lake Wintergrasp and tell us how close to an RvR lake we are, and what we need to do to get it just like WAR. Seriously now, RvR lakes, Lake Wintergrasp… why not just call the zone Lake Warhammer and get it over with) “And then I’m like, ‘Hey if you got any beta keys for ‘Warhammer,’ that’d be awesome,'” Kaplan said. (Kaplan is correct, beta was indeed quite awesome, as is release. Can’t be wrong 100% I guess) “But [Barnett] said that Mark Jacobs wouldn’t let me into the beta.”

I asked Kaplan why he thought he and other Blizzard employees weren’t allowed into the “Warhammer” beta. “That’s a great question,” he said. (Haha yes great question captain obvious, I wonder why you would want to keep features that sell your game away from the developer who has made a business out of copying other products) “I’m always fascinated by betas in general (and so is the Center of Game Design Borrowing) and [non-disclosure agreements] and how tight-lipped they tend to be. It’s Blizzard philosophy that if you’re really confident in your game, then you have nothing to worry about. So I guess that would be my big take away from that.” (Glad that he restated Mark Jacobs approach to beta’s and their NDA timeline, even more relevant now that WAR has launched and delivered)

When it comes to other games’ betas in general, Jacobs had told me that his employees are not allowed in betas if it violates the terms of the non-disclosure agreement. Kaplan explained that Blizzard is the same way. “We don’t prohibit our employees from joining other games’ betas unless it violates that beta’s rules,” he said, “but we don’t really prohibit other developers from being in our betas.” (How would Blizzard operate if they stayed out of other MMO betas? We would get one expansion every 5 years at that rate. Now if only someone had made a game with a shaman and a paladin, one on each side, and shown Blizzard how to balance that, we would not have BELF Paladins and gnome Deathknights. I blame the MMO community, how can Blizzard improve WoW if we don’t solve the issue first!)

Now that “Warhammer Online” has been out for almost a month, I wondered if Kaplan had gotten a chance to try it. Even though he’s been busy working on “Wrath of the Lich King,” he revealed he has spent a little time with it. (I wonder what he has done more, played Lake Warhammer-grasp or done RvR in WAR?)

“My character is like level 13 right now, and I’m playing Destruction on a server that’s imbalanced,” he said, referring to the factions in the game. (If only WAR had the awesome balance that Horde and Alliance had for all those years. You know, that great balance that lead to cross-realm queues, server transfers, and certain launch servers taking months to become playable. Let’s also not mention the 2 hour+ login queues months after release, the hours long queues for AV, and the amazing balance that comes from a 14 hour AV game. You guys NAILED balance!) He also said leveling his character has been going a bit slowly. “I’m at the point where I’m thinking about quitting because it feels like the best way to level up is in the battlegrounds,” he explained. (Quick, someone refer a friend, skip the best content, buy farmer gold, and start raid grinding. Oh wait wrong MMO…)

“But it takes me 30 to 45 minutes to get in the battleground queue. (No, that’s been fixed, within a month of release. How’s that WSG balance issue going?) And then when I’m not in the queue, I’m trying to do the Public Quests. But I find that I’m either griefing (griefing, really? WTF are you talking about…) other people in the Public Quests to try to get influence, or that there’s just nobody there.” Kaplan said he’d switch servers but all his friends were on that server. “I just feel like we picked wrong, unknowingly.” (So wait, all your friends are on the server, but when you try to do a PQ, you are solo? What are you playing, WoW? At Rank 13, you can get help in a PQ from almost anyone rank 10-20. How dare an MMO feature group content that requires a group!? Quick remove all elite mobs and dumb this whole game down)

I also wondered what Kaplan thought of the game’s user interface; it’s undeniably similar to (the player made mods in) “World of Warcraft.” “I think game developers just want to evolve systems, and people take a lot of inspiration from other games that have existed,” Kaplan said. “The ‘WoW’ (community) interface did a lot of things, and I think people would be silly not to learn lessons from it. (Like not implementing obviously good ideas like scrolling combat text, raid party interfaces, enhanced mailbox options, etc for months/years into your game, and breaking all those mods with each patch, letting your player base re-download everything each time) Any savvy game developer is going to play a lot of other games and pick from the best. (We just happen to focus our core business around that) It definitely looks very familiar.”

With “Warhammer Online” now up to 750,000 subscribers, was Kaplan concerned about losing throngs of “WoW” players? “We would obviously be concerned with losing people to [“Warhammer Online”] but at the same time, the game stands to bring new people to the MMO market,” he (quotes Mark Jacob again) said. “I think if anything, we can stand to benefit. If you happen to come into that game as your first one, and you’ve never played ‘WoW’ before, I think ‘WoW’ is going to be really exciting when you try it out and feel how different the combat is (everyone loves getting one shot, or stun locked, or fear locked. Have you seen how fun it is to bunny hop across WSG? You can’t find that level of amazing PvP just anywhere) and just the general [Player Vs. Environment] systems of the game.” (Which we are not focusing on anymore, since we are going back to our ‘core’ gameplay of Horde vs Alliance, right? Plus at the stupidly increased XP gain, you won’t even notice that annoying 1-79 gameplay we have tried to bury.)

He added, “We don’t want a scenario where there’s no other MMOs and ‘WoW’ is the only kid on the block. I don’t really think that’s healthy for games in general.” (And would be disastrous for us. What will the hundreds of people in the Center for Game Design Borrowing do if they don’t have other MMOs to leech off of? We have expansion promised to break (one a year, we swear) you know.)

A little competition certainly couldn’t hurt “WoW,” could it? (Hurt, ha. That’s how business gets done!)

This should be interesting to watch. Clearly everyone knows which side I’m on, after having played the raid treadmill for 3+ years before finally waking up, but even with my highly bias view, I don’t understand what ground Blizzard has to stand on here…

Posted in beta, Combat Systems, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, Rant, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 23 Comments

Dear EQ2 bloggers

Posted on October 17, 2008 by SynCaine

STOP POSTING A MILLION SCREEN SHOTS OF YOUR DAMN HOUSE, NO ONE CARES!

Thank you,
-People on slow connections trying to read blogs

Posted in EQ2, Random, Rant | 14 Comments

Warhammer Online: State of the Game

Posted on October 17, 2008 by SynCaine

Today was going to be a non-MMO post day and I was going to talk about Civ 4: Colonization, but then Mark from Mythic put out his State of the Game letter, and well yea, Colonization will have to wait (it’s a good game so far, I’ll play it some more over the weekend, but bottom line: if you like Civ, you will like Colonization)

The letter is all about the upcoming 1.1 patch, which will bring a ton of improvements and expansion to WAR. Mark did not state a specific release date, but considering we have had hot fixes or small patches daily, I doubt this will be a “WoW will have hero classes shortly after release” type of deal (sorry, still bitter about that one…)

The big huge news is the addition of two tank classes, the Black Guard (dark elf) and the Knight of the Blazing Sun (empire). I’m guessing they will share a similar game mechanic and be mirrors, but it will be interesting to see what that mechanic will be. This will also spur a whole new wave of alts to be created, so the lower tiers should see a nice population increase shortly after the patch, making it much easier for totally new players to get into the game. I’m guessing in addition to people rolling the new classes, guild mates will roll other alts to join them, so hopefully we will see some lower tier balance. This will also work again when Mythic adds the final two cut classes, leading to another wave of alts in lower tiers. Not a bad side effect for cutting a few classes before release.

The other interesting bit for me was the mention of influence gain and rewards in RvR areas. I’m guessing this will work similar to chapter influence rewards, but will likely be for each race’s tier rather than chapter. When I read this, I got a sort of “of course they should do this, duh!” feeling, the same kind of thing when I read about PQs. Hopefully this will get more people into world RvR in each tier, and will further reduce the current MMO mentality of “hit the level cap, then play for fun” that too many people are sucked into.

The mail system will be improved, which I honestly could give two shits about as I don’t play WAR as a mail simulator, but everyone bitching about it might finally shut up and we can return to discussing actual issues that matter in a game about RvR. The really amazing thing is everyone’s perception of the issue. WoW had a shitty mail system as well, and only be “incorporating” (look another word for steal) mods made by players did WoW get a good mail system. (and hotbars, and party interface, and raid interface, and anything else related to the UI) Lets give credit where it’s due, to all the mod makers since 2004 that due to their hard work do we have a somewhat standardized MMO UI. Without its open modding system, my guess is WoW UI improvements would have arrived as promptly as hero classes and shaman/paladin balance.

Back to the letter, Mark also mentioned further plans to balance server populations, including free character transfers. The interesting thing is he mentioned the opportunity to go from a low pop server to a med pop one, in addition to going from a high pop to a med pop. This leads me to believe they might be thinking about closing some of the really low pop servers, and brining them back up one at a time when needed. I’m sure once people hit Rank 40 and play around with the top end RvR, some would jump at the chance to restart on a fresh server. This would also lock in all of the original servers into stable populations, giving each server the optimal number of people to support the focus of the game, RvR. Each new server opened up after would be a great opportunity for new and old players alike to experience that ‘launch rush’ that we had, where you get to move through the tiers with the majority of the server.

All good stuff, now lets see when/how it’s delivered.

Posted in MMO design, Warhammer Online | 6 Comments

Significantly insignificant interview with Blizzard

Posted on October 16, 2008 by SynCaine

Gamesindusty.biz has an interview with Paul Sams of Blizzard that’s worth checking out. Not for any factual reason, but because of the entertainment it provides. In true Blizzard fashion, Sams does his best to avoid any actual mention of an MMO outside of WoW, although he is somewhat forced at times by the questions. The first question of course is the ‘headliner’ of the interview:

Q: Did you notice a drop off in World of Warcraft users when Warhammer Online launched?

Paul Sams: Not significantly, we’ve certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we’ve seen some amount of reduction of use. The good news is that we’ve seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving – they’ve already returned.

There’s some great PR work in that response. First, the amount leaving was NOT significant (what exactly is significant when more than 50% of your base is in Asia, where WAR was not release?) yet the amount returning IS significant… right. And it’s not just that the people returning are significant, but just the ones who stated they are leaving for WAR. Considering many people pay for more than a 1 month sub, and that it’s only been about a month since WAR’s release, what percentage of the population are we talking about here, a few hundred, perhaps a couple thousand? How many of those multi-month WoW accounts are dormant right now due to WAR, but don’t show up in the canceled status report? How many people (like me) just quit, without going into detail on why I’m done with the raid treadmill that is set to restart on Nov 11th?

The fact is, we won’t know anything about the numbers until 3-6 months from now, when all long term subs have had a chance to expire, and both games have settled into their respective spots. When you give a significant portion of your upcoming expansion as a patch (3.0), of course some of those already-paid accounts are going to check it out. Just like many are looking forward to another 10 levels of PvE grind before they again are ushered into raid/die endgame. That’s all short term stuff, and at a price of $15, it’s not unreasonable to expect some back and forth before things settle down.

This bit I found somewhat amusing:

Q: As the leading MMO, there have been a number of other developers Blizzard has inspired. Are there any business or products outside of the gaming industry that inspired you?

Paul Sams: Well I think certainly there are a lot of developers that would say that there are certain popular movies and certain popular comics and novels what have you that were an inspiration to them. Like all the companies that make the types of games we make, Tolkien was certainly an influence. All of the product offerings in our business have in some way shape or form being influenced by Tolkien and have been influenced by a variety of other incredible creators that have come before us.

Tolkien huh… Odd that your orcs don’t look much like Tolkien orcs, but they sure do look like another fantasy IP’s orcs… It’s too bad the question was not a bit more direct, but it’s cute to watch Sams deflect it and give the general ‘movies comics and Tolkien’ response. What comic/movie had a ToK in it? That idea got added rather quick into WoW huh? And what exactly did Tolkien have to do with influencing Lake Wintergrasp and the switch back to your ‘core’ gameplay of Alliance (Order) vs Horde (Destruction)?

It’s of course unreasonable to expect Blizzard to come out and say “yea we looked at WAR, they have some great stuff, so we scrambled to duct tape as much of that onto WotLK as we could”, but to just outright pretend you are the only MMO in town is a bit much.

Posted in MMO design, Random, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 5 Comments

Phoenix Gate and RvR ogranization; good times.

Posted on October 15, 2008 by SynCaine

Phoenix Gate (PG) is an interesting scenario in Warhammer Online. On the one hand, it’s very Warsong Gulch-like in that it’s basically a game of capture the flag, with the two flags being on opposite ends of the map. It’s also WSG-like in that stalemates can occur, and little real progress is made until the 15 minutes are up and the scenario ends. This generally happens when both sides are full of me-first players looking to WoW-grind xp and renown by running head first into the enemy. At some point they will realize that’s actually a terrible way to get good xp/rr, but for now, the clowns continue to charge. (Notably this has been getting better since launch, as players are catching on to the differences between WoW and WAR PvP, but you still see it too often)

PG is NOT like WSG in a number of other, very important ways. For starters, the map is far more open and not nearly as linear as WSG. Related to this, the location of the flag is in an open field, and not in a base-like structure. This is important because it makes it far easier to grab the flag and keep the game moving, since you can attack from multiple angles, and the defenders might be distracted enough on one front to allow a second team to swoop in and grab the flag. The design of the map also allows for multiple escape routes with the flag, each with its fair share of advantages and disadvantage.

The overall focus on offense rather than turtle-like defense generally keeps a game of PG moving (WoW-minds aside), and if one side is noticeable more organized, games end quickly. It’s entirely possible for a team to cap a flag, and grab it again on respawn with another member, scoring in rapid succession. The key to PG, and scenarios in general, is organization. Have tanks run in first, draw the enemies attention, and then provide ample support from the healers on the hills or hidden behind the front line. DPS classes also have to know when to engage, and when to fall back and protect healers. Even a greatly out-ranked and out-geared team will succeed with good teamwork, due to how tough tanks are, and how powerful healing is compared to dps output.

That final point, about skill being greater than rank/gear, is perhaps why scenarios are so popular in WAR. Yes it helps that they offer great xp/rr, but along with that they offer very satisfying gaming moments. Nothing is more rewarding than keeping a tank alive versus five other players as your DPS chew up the back ranks, leading to a crushing victory. However these great moments are not exclusive to scenarios, but rather to WAR RvR in general, which is why it’s important for Mythic to encourage players to get out into the RvR lakes and mix it up. Given the torrent of successful patching (almost daily fixes and improvements since launch day), I’m sure a solution is coming shortly, and we can finally have a good balance of scenario AND open world RvR.

Posted in MMO design, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 17 Comments

My thoughts on BlizCon? Pay only $3 and find out below!

Posted on October 14, 2008 by SynCaine

BlizCon has come and gone, leaving behind a whirlwind of… microtransactions?

Yes, it would seem the company raking in the cash with WoW intends to go the way of the asian and charge you a few cents/dollars for useless crap, or perhaps even better, make you pay for stuff to compete. LFG “must have $3 sword and $8 armor set, pst” “Onyxia attunement, now only $2!”

In addition to confirming microtransactions in WoW, Bliz also announced you get to buy StarCraft 2 three times to get the full game. The spin? It’s going to be ‘better’ content if they make you buy it three times. What’s next, five different versions of Diablo 3, so they can make each class ‘better’ for the sucker… err customer? The monthly fee for B.net access is right around the corner…

As I’ve said before, I love Blizzard games. Rock and Roll Racing was fantastic, and basically every game since has as well, up to about the time WoW added space aliens and said ‘F the lore, here are some shinies’. I can’t help but think the recent merger with Activison (and becoming a publicly traded company) has had a strong influence in this recent ‘bleed them dry’ approach. At some point, it’s going to backfire, and Blizzard will go from a ‘must buy’ name to a ‘must avoid’ company, in much the same way people avoid games with heavy DRM software (hi Spore). At that point though, most of the top executives will have sold all their shares, and will be looking at another name to scoop up and pillage, leaving behind a husk of a company and plenty of angry gamers.

Posted in Random, World of Warcraft | 5 Comments

Slow down, learn to play nice, and actually enjoy the game.

Posted on October 14, 2008 by SynCaine

As Warhammer Online continues to mature, players are learning the game and figuring out what they prefer to do in-game. The current ‘flavor of the month’ seems to be mass scenario spamming, with players queuing and re-queuing over and over to rank up as fast as possible. While sitting in that queue, they complain that the only viable content in WAR seems to be scenarios…

I’ve played MMOs long enough to understand some players will do whatever activity yields the greatest reward, even if that activity is beyond mind numbing. Some people are just there to ‘max out’; it’s what drives them and anything that might delay that (like having fun) is a roadblock. You don’t really design an MMO around that crowd though, as regardless of the content, they will burn through it and demand more, all the while looking towards the next shiny new game making promises.

The problem with that crowd is that early in a MMO’s life, they set the pace and influence the rest of the player base. Joe Casual sees a Rank 40 run by, finds out that player just played scenarios for 16 hours a day, and thinks they need to queue at all times in order to keep up (not knowing that regardless of what he actually does, Joe will never actually catch the hardcore player) In our race to stay current and not fall behind, we often sacrifice fun and playing the game WE like to play, which is rather silly. Extra silly if the stuff you are skipping happens to be some really great MMO content, ie: Public Quests.

The common knock on public quests is that without a group you can’t do them, and that it’s too difficult to actually find a group. Now unless I’m playing the game with the world’s greatest ‘find a group’ luck, I just don’t think that’s true. What is true is often enough, if you stumble across a PQ, odds are you won’t find a group right there at the PQ ready and waiting for you. Sometimes you do, but often you won’t. But just because the group is not there waiting for you does not mean PQs are ‘the sux’ and you need to go back to grinding scenarios. Building a PQ group might take a bit of time and some patience. Make a call to your guild, hopefully you get a few members that way. Look for other open groups, or start your own, and slowly build a group up while questing or completing phase 1 of a PQ. More often than not (unless you are trying this at 3am, or have greatly out-Ranked the server) you will eventually get enough people to actually finish a PQ. Try to keep the group together, convert it into a warband, and let it grow. Knock off as many PQs as you have time for, you will be surprised how quickly PQs go with a group going from one PQ to another.

As Warhammer Online is still relatively new, players are still learning not only the game mechanics, but also the game’s social structure. WoW has taught us to have a group ready for an instance, and if you don’t have one already, don’t bother. That’s just not the case for WAR, as groups can grow at a more modest pace and still be successful. You can do some RvR objectives with 2-4 people, and if you get 5-6, hit up some PQs. Get 12+, take back a Keep. Every zone has PQs, objectives, and Keeps (beyond tier 1), so you always have content around you, just be smart and learn how best to access it, rather than jumping on the current trend and keeping yourself away from the game world for 90% of the time.

Most importantly, remember that the ‘good stuff’ starts at Rank 1 in WAR, not at the level cap. Don’t feel the pressure to max out and get to the ‘real game’, because otherwise you will miss most of it in the rush.

Posted in MMO design, Warhammer Online | 18 Comments

More ‘same MMO, different players’ talk.

Posted on October 10, 2008 by SynCaine

Continuing today’s theme of ‘are we even playing the same game?’, I want to talk about my recent experience in tier 1. Two old buddies from WoW recently started playing Warhammer Online, and to help them catch up, I rolled a shaman to join them in some PQs and scenarios. I fully expected a dead, empty world, and saw the exact opposite. Just to put everything in context, this was on Thorgrim (low pop), Destruction side.

The goal was to catch them up, so we more or less skipped questing, and gathered to do some PQs in the first 3 chapters of both the chaos and greenskin areas while we waited for scenarios to pop. It’s not that questing was slower,  but we wanted to get into group content quickly, and the best way to do that across different level ranges was to do scenarios (thanks to bolstering) and PQs (as they are fun regardless, and the influence and bag loot helps get your lower level buddies caught up quick).

While running PQs, we often had 2-3 random people join up, sometimes for a short amount of time, others for 2-3 PQs. Scenarios popped frequently, and we even saw Alter of Khaine pop among the usual mass of Nordwatch, no doubt thanks to the ‘queue all’ button recently added. The scenarios were full of lower rank (6 and under) characters, and some players were clearly very new to WAR (those are the ones that running ahead of the group as a squishy, jumping around like they did in WoW) It’s interesting to watch higher rank characters, as they have seen what works in WAR RvR, and move as a group, as the newer players still adjust and try to play WAR like WoW.

With the recent announcement of WAR hitting 750k subs, I can’t help but think that player progression through the tiers is far slower than we first expected. I thought at this point most players would be finishing tier 2, entering tier 3, but my feeling now is most players are still messing around in tier 1, perhaps starting to enter tier 2. I think it varies server to server, but my guess (so I can be wrong, again) is that in a month or two, players will be evenly spread, with some tier 4 happening, but still plenty of action in the previous three tiers.

Posted in Warhammer Online | 3 Comments

Same game, different players.

Posted on October 10, 2008 by SynCaine

One of the more interesting aspects of playing an MMO, and then reading others accounts of playing that same game, is that two people can basically be playing two different games. Tobold hates playing his healer in RvR, and looks forward to playing his tank. I not a huge fan of playing a tank in RvR, but love my two healers. (DoK and Shaman)

The things that he hates, like being the first target, are challenges I enjoy, and things he is looking forward to with his tank I view as somewhat annoying. My issue with the tank is you get ignored, due to high survivability and somewhat lower dps, while his issue with the healer is you get too much attention and die often. I don’t go into a scenario or keep raid and expect thanks for healing, while as a tank I do understand it’s basically my job to manage agro, and if a Keep lord is running rampant, I f’ed up. If a healer goes down from a dps class, it’s the tanks fault for not taunting and providing an escape for the healer. I also view a healer as somewhat more self sufficient than a tank, in that I can heal myself and run away, while a tank depends on his healers to stay in the front, blocking and taking damage. If healer are still up and a tank goes down, you blame the healers.

Tobold and I have discovered quite a while ago that we are two very different MMO players (he is a carebear, I’m not (joke, relax)), but even so, our completely different take on a very specific issue in WAR is interesting, and points out how difficult it is to design an MMO for the masses. How many players does Tobold’s view represent, how many does mine, and which segment do you target? Can you hit both? Is the game somehow ‘flawed’ because we are on opposite ends, or is that just the nature of the beast, and a display of the versatility in WAR?

Posted in MMO design, RvR, Warhammer Online | 4 Comments