The Switch - Lessons from another game

[mrcalhou]

I thought the "reward" for choosing open war was...OPEN WAR. No more silly safe zones that you hate so much for you or your enemy. You guys want full blown warfare without being held back by carebear limitations, well there you go.

Now you need an incentive to fight? I thought the FFA WAS the incentive. You guys are just out looking for a good fight right? You want to play your little war games with others who enjoy tit for tat, back and forth pitched battles. You want to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women, right?....

Or was that all just BS to cover your real desire to be able to harvest QQ tears from people who don't want to play the sociopath game?

Go back and read my posts.

[Dubanka]

I thought the "reward" for choosing open war was...OPEN WAR. No more silly safe zones that you hate so much for you or your enemy. You guys want full blown warfare without being held back by carebear limitations, well there you go.

Now you need an incentive to fight? I thought the FFA WAS the incentive. You guys are just out looking for a good fight right? You want to play your little war games with others who enjoy tit for tat, back and forth pitched battles. You want to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women, right?....

Or was that all just BS to cover your real desire to be able to harvest QQ tears from people who don't want to play the sociopath game?

No. You're actually completely wrong. Sorry to dispel your delusions, but most of 'us' arent 15 and living in our parents basement.

Most of us don't play for others tears (however comedic they may be at times).

We play, the way we play, because there is no foe like a human foe.
We desire to play an mmo like an rts. Where you have a strategic metagame includes resource management, character development, city building, territorial expansion, politics and tactical engagement (pvp).

For the most part plain 'pvp' bores us. Been there, done that, many many times before. It's simplistic, formulaic, and generally at some point repetetive.

The dynamics we desire, are pvp with player driven consequence. Send one of mine to the hospital? i send 3 of yours to the morgue. YOu come back and raid my city? i burn yours to the ground. and when you mesh the other elelments mentioned above in there, it becames a very intricate dance between what you could do, what you can do, and what other others think and believe you will do.

Sorry, but we're no more sociopathic than any player on a team sport. We're just at it to 'win', and will utilize whatever tools are available to do so.

No, ffa pvp is not incentive. An open world is just a background. Without underlying game mechanics that integrate the logistics, operations, combat and diplomacy aspects of the game...we'll we can just pvp anywhere.
Yes, we're looking for a good fight, but we can get that anywhere, we're lookign for more.
Yes, we want pitched battles, but you can't have pitched battles unless they mean something, and for them to mean something players need to be INVESTED in what they are fighting for.

but yes, if we see you, and you're not us, we'll probably kill you...or at least try.

sorry bout that...you were in the way.

[Proto]

No, we're all sociopaths living in our parents basements with shotguns and trenchcoats.

[Proto]

dubanka talks like a politician, bla!, bla!, bla!

Nonsense.

Dubanka is the lobbyist.

I am the politician.

[mrcalhou]

No. You're actually completely wrong. Sorry to dispel your delusions, but most of 'us' arent 15 and living in our parents basement.

Most of us don't play for others tears (however comedic they may be at times).

We play, the way we play, because there is no foe like a human foe.
We desire to play an mmo like an rts. Where you have a strategic metagame includes resource management, character development, city building, territorial expansion, politics and tactical engagement (pvp).

For the most part plain 'pvp' bores us. Been there, done that, many many times before. It's simplistic, formulaic, and generally at some point repetetive.

The dynamics we desire, are pvp with player driven consequence. Send one of mine to the hospital? i send 3 of yours to the morgue. YOu come back and raid my city? i burn yours to the ground. and when you mesh the other elelments mentioned above in there, it becames a very intricate dance between what you could do, what you can do, and what other others think and believe you will do.

Sorry, but we're no more sociopathic than any player on a team sport. We're just at it to 'win', and will utilize whatever tools are available to do so.

No, ffa pvp is not incentive. An open world is just a background. Without underlying game mechanics that integrate the logistics, operations, combat and diplomacy aspects of the game...we'll we can just pvp anywhere.
Yes, we're looking for a good fight, but we can get that anywhere, we're lookign for more.
Yes, we want pitched battles, but you can't have pitched battles unless they mean something, and for them to mean something players need to be INVESTED in what they are fighting for.

but yes, if we see you, and you're not us, we'll probably kill you...or at least try.

sorry bout that...you were in the way.

This.

[Soulwanderer]

I thought the "reward" for choosing open war was...OPEN WAR. No more silly safe zones that you hate so much for you or your enemy. You guys want full blown warfare without being held back by carebear limitations, well there you go.

Now you need an incentive to fight? I thought the FFA WAS the incentive. You guys are just out looking for a good fight right? You want to play your little war games with others who enjoy tit for tat, back and forth pitched battles. You want to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women, right?....

Or was that all just BS to cover your real desire to be able to harvest QQ tears from people who don't want to play the sociopath game?

You thought a lot of stuff that was wrong then, didn't you? If all we wanted was PvP there are a ton of other games where we could have it that are much further along toward a finished product than this one. Even FPS games are designed completely around PvP with little to no grind at all. It's the risk and reward potential that makes a game like this worth playing, and if you don't have experience in playing one then you don't know the thrill of what you were missing.

Yeah, the first time you lose a city that you worked hard on is rough, and depending on the quality of the guild not everyone can take it. But what you lost teaches you what you did wrong. You rebuild, better than last time. You work on your weaknesses as a group and get better. If you need more advice... well, contrary to what a lot of non-PvPers like to portray, those that will be playing a game like this for PvP are in the majority just regular people. I've helped a lot of newer guilds learn the mechanics of game play and what they needed to do better either after taking their city or just killing them and taking their things in the open field. Later on some of them came and took a crack at my city, and I was thankful for it because fighting a good fight on your own doorstep to protect what's yours can be hands down the most gratifying thing you will experience in an MMO. Those walls? They aren't just there to look pretty. Guards at the door aren't just there to wave goodbye as you leave. Every bit of time investment put into fortifying a city means nothing if no one ever takes a stab at attacking it.

This isn't about crafters vs PvPers. Some people will have a stronger bend on war than others, and that's fine... but this is guild vs. guild (or tribe vs tribe), not carebears vs PvPers, because everyone will have to be both. You farm resources to make stuff. You make stuff to be ready to defend yourself and your claims/ideals/territory/city. You PvP to defend and obtain resources so that, once again, you can make stuff. It's a cycle, and every guild is going to be engaged in it. If you pull one stage of that cycle out you will not end up being very happy in this game for long imo. There is no PvE or Questing to swap out with the PvP/territory control aspect of the game, and I don't think it's the devs intention to make this a PvE game trying to compete with WoW in their own arena.

If you haven't had the opportunity to play a real territory control style MMO, don't knock it before you try it. Knowing that the time you invest into making items for your guild or city, or that having a fun conversation after a scrap over a junk pile that results in an alliance, can be the deciding factor in a fight for resources or to keep your home will be so much more worth your monthly investment than than just making everything look pretty.

[Salvadore]

I thought the "reward" for choosing open war was...OPEN WAR. No more silly safe zones that you hate so much for you or your enemy. You guys want full blown warfare without being held back by carebear limitations, well there you go.

Now you need an incentive to fight? I thought the FFA WAS the incentive. You guys are just out looking for a good fight right? You want to play your little war games with others who enjoy tit for tat, back and forth pitched battles. You want to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of the women, right?....

Or was that all just BS to cover your real desire to be able to harvest QQ tears from people who don't want to play the sociopath game?

SO...lemme get this straight...

The pvp tribe that declares themselves as "warring" has no safezones, but can enjoy the potential that there MIGHT be another tribe somewhere that declares themselves as warring...and they COULD war? They cannot, however, raid the neighboring "peaceful" tribe due to them having a safezone. They can only pvp IF the peaceful tribe members come looking for it or get caught outside of their safezone.

The carebare tribe right next to the pvp tribe declares themselves as "peaceful". They can raid the pvp tribe any time they want. They start to lose? run right back to the safezone, no real risk, pure potential gain. They also have access to the "ffa pvp" that the "Warring" tribe has as well.

Both types have the same incentives. One, the peaceful, has unbalanced protection and no real means of consequence for their actions. That is absolutely lopsided and unbalanced. Why would anyone declare themselves as warring then? Just exploit and abuse the peaceful setting like everyone else!

[jumpshot]

The carebare tribe right next to the pvp tribe declares themselves as "peaceful". They can raid the pvp tribe any time they want. They start to lose? run right back to the safezone, no real risk, pure potential gain. They also have access to the "ffa pvp" that the "Warring" tribe has as well.

Both types have the same incentives. One, the peaceful, has unbalanced protection and no real means of consequence for their actions. That is absolutely lopsided and unbalanced. Why would anyone declare themselves as warring then? Just exploit and abuse the peaceful setting like everyone else!

Ya!

The games I was involved with had zergs as well. Any time they abused their size and started flexing their muscles too much, various others would mount up and stop them. It was also very common that an organized tribe could easily beat a zerg with 2:1 or even 3:1 odds. Recruiting everyone you can and inflating as big as you can actually has many negative consequences in itself.

Good point, although I disagree with your math.

[Sirius]

No, we're all sociopaths living in our parents basements with shotguns and trenchcoats.

This is Sirius's mother and I just wanted to say I wish he didn't play this game so much, because he always kicks the cat after he tries to "gank" some poor player and fails.

But Proto, I am happy at least that he plays with such a smiling, well-dressed man who likes cats and obviously has all his priorities in the right place.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make sandwiches for my darling Sirius, whose fixation on harassing nice ordinary people troubles me deeply and will probably one day be the subject of a newspaper interview cataloguing all of the seemingly innocuous details that, in hindsight, could be seen to have eerily foreshadowed that horrible event at the Denny's just off of County Line Road.

::burp::

Goodness me, I feel light-headed. Was I telling the future again?

[Sirius]

Good point, although I disagree with your math.

There is an alternative form of math. It's called "Calimath".

No matter what the question is, the answer is always 3.5 full groups.