Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Tred]

One of these days Zehn is bound to have a really shitty idea but until then...it's only gay of the balls touch rangoth.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by rangoth

The entire idea behind pvp(and why I like games like Dota/HoN so much) is that it's ALWAYS starting on even ground. But because I only play wow 6 hours a week means I will win 1/60 games against a dude who plays 50+ is fucking stupid. It always fucking has been stupid. For shit's sake listen to what he is saying.

I like PVP to be incorporated INTO the world. Much like Tallon and Vallon Zek did, with the factions having open PVP across the world and battling for resources and control of non-instanced zones. Given that it was open world combat PVE and PVP blended together, if your faction was controlling a dungeon then they were also getting those loots from that dungeon and your faction was not and thus you might be losing ground on the gear front, but that is your factions own fault and you are simply losing the game, suck it up.

At least with TZ PVP had a point, you were not doing some random battleground, you were fighting for the actual PVE elements and both PVP and PVE were not separate like they are in WOW which IMO is a huge mistake and leads to alot of the issues WOW is having with the two separate systems. PVP and PVE should not be separate, they should both be intertwined, if you succeed at PVP you should have more access to PVE elements and as such those PVE elements lead in turn to greater power in PVP.

What would also work is an outright Rallos Zek type of PVP and simply make guilds be the major factions allowing them to compete for control of zones and resources. That is IF you want to have true, meaningful, and brutal PVP. EVE does this and what they do could work in a fantasy based MMORPG albeit on a smaller scale.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Tropics

I like PVP to be incorporated INTO the world. Much like Tallon and Vallon Zek did, with the factions having open PVP across the world and battling for resources and control of non-instanced zones. Given that it was open world combat PVE and PVP blended together, if your faction was controlling a dungeon then they were also getting those loots from that dungeon and your faction was not and thus you might be losing ground on the gear front, but that is your factions own fault and you are simply losing the game, suck it up.

I think that is a stupid concept and mentality.

So what do you do when the other half of the population that can't do shit leave the game and you have no one left to curb stomp? Fucking stupid.

I have no problem getting my teeth kicked in during PvP...I would only give myself a B- or so at PvP, I am NOT good at it. But if I loose I want it to be because the other guy is better, not because he has double my stats from gear.

The only reason you want that kind of game is because you can play all day in whatever uber PvP guild you are part of and own the server.

That being said, I am ok with, and in fact even FOR, open world meaningful PvP. Objectives, castles, dungeons, whatever....but there should not be a gear thing involved. Make the reward something else.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by rangoth

That being said, I am ok with, and in fact even FOR, open world meaningful PvP. Objectives, castles, dungeons, whatever....but there should not be a gear thing involved. Make the reward something else.

Control of a zone does not mean you are going to be left with nothing to do. I take it you did not play a server like Tallon Zek in EQ. If you had you would know that while you might not have "easy" access to Lower Guk because the dark elves controlled it you did have access to Mistmore or Unrest because your side controlled the zone. In Kunark the darkies controlled Sebilis for the most part while the light side of thing (the other 3 factions combined in an alliance) controlled Karnor's castle. That meant if a group of lights wanted to fight in Sebilis they had to fight their way in and get the control of the zone from the darkies, and often exactly that happend. This PVP meant WAY more in my mind and got alot more of my interest then some meaningless castle siege that gives the winning side +5% to experience gains for the next 6 hours or allows the looting of some goofy shards that can buy PVP gear.

The reality is I played as a gnome, which were factioned up as the shorties, the halflings, the gnomes, and the dwarves. We were underrepresented as a faction but the dark elves, trolls and ogres were by far the largest population so very quickly the light races allied against the dark races and thus balance was created, not through the actions of the game designers, but through the actions and politics of the community that played on that server, and that is one heck of alot cooler then anything I have seen happen in WOW which allows nothing of the sort.

The reward is not "gear" as you mention, it was control of the zones and their use, and while your side will undoubtably control some zones you wont control all, that said nothing stops you from getting a group together of good players and fighting your way in and controlling that zone that is normally not controlled by your faction. It happened many times on Tallon Zek and when I was a part of groups that did that it meant 1000 times more then any meaningless PVP crap in WOW that I could give a rats ass about because of it's pointlessness.

[vynde]

Originally Posted by rangoth

I think that is a stupid concept and mentality.

So what do you do when the other half of the population that can't do shit leave the game and you have no one left to curb stomp? Fucking stupid.

I have no problem getting my teeth kicked in during PvP...I would only give myself a B- or so at PvP, I am NOT good at it. But if I loose I want it to be because the other guy is better, not because he has double my stats from gear.

The only reason you want that kind of game is because you can play all day in whatever uber PvP guild you are part of and own the server.

That being said, I am ok with, and in fact even FOR, open world meaningful PvP. Objectives, castles, dungeons, whatever....but there should not be a gear thing involved. Make the reward something else.

Actually it's a pretty good idea and the Zek servers (I played only on sullon really) worked very well because of everything he said. Could I, a newbie with banded armor and a runic carver, take out an entire legion of the goods? Nope, but the evil faction could and almost on a nightly basis there was a big conflict over a territory. If we lost, that meant I had to skedaddle over to some unpopulated and less than optimal leveling zone. It made pvp meaningful, and the meaning was not in the gear to me at least.

I don't think he said that ALL servers should be like that, but the pvp servers should be like that. If it's not a gear imbalance, then it'll be a class imbalance, if it's not a class imbalance, then it'll be a population imbalance. PVP in mmos for, I'd say almost all of them, are fucking clunky shitty systems that will wanna make you rip your hair out. However, that does not stop them from being fun.

You said "make the reward something else", well, unfortunately "fun" is not something that developers are goign to bet on. Gear progression is a way to keep people playing, and more importantly to keep them paying. I don't agree with this in any way, but that is what they practice now.

edit: damn you tropics stop stealing my thoughts and posting them before me.

[Twobit Whore]

Sorry bud, but you are living in the past if you think any game that allows one group of people to essentially dictate dev-created content and effectively limit and/or cut-off large sections of the game from another group based solely on what particular race you happened to roll on what particular server will succeed in the current Western market. This is simply not what mainstream games are going to do. Accessibility sells.

Hell, it didn't even succeed back in your glory day. The first servers in EQ to get consolidated were the 4 PvP servers. And this was pre-WoW explosion.

[vynde]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Sorry bud, but you are living in the past if you think any game that allows one group of people to essentially dictate dev-created content and effectively limit and/or cut-off large sections of the game from another group based solely on what particular race you happened to roll on what particular server will succeed in the current Western market. This is simply not what mainstream games are going to do. Accessibility sells.

you must not take everything said about the "territories" to be too literal. there were many zones that were mostly accessed by one group, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

In fact all that needed to be done to take over a territory was the thought of "hey let's take over x instead of y tonight", and just about any decent group could do it, or at least for a few hours. On some parts of the day, it may have been the good races owning a dungeon, and on certain parts could have been the evil side.

So, I wouldn't really say that people were truly limited or cut off from seeing any content. Just because you may not see to the end of one dungeon one night, doesn't mean that's what the game IS and there is no way to change it.

Hell, it didn't even succeed back in your glory day. The first servers in EQ to get consolidated were the 4 PvP servers. And this was pre-WoW explosion.

Back in the day DAOC and SWG, maybe even planetside to a certain extent, were promising or delivering better pvp combat than EQ. No matter how you slice it, EQ is really a PVE game. The Zek cluster was definitely an interesting experiment, and it was pretty fun when you had more than a hundred people playing.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Sorry bud, but you are living in the past if you think any game that allows one group of people to essentially dictate dev-created content and effectively limit and/or cut-off large sections of the game from another group based solely on what particular race you happened to roll on what particular server will succeed in the current Western market. This is simply not what mainstream games are going to do. Accessibility sells.

Hell, it didn't even succeed back in your glory day. The first servers in EQ to get consolidated were the 4 PvP servers. And this was pre-WoW explosion.

EVE does this, it works really really well in that game and created a HUGE thread that spanned a entire huge war that took place in that game and lead to the downfall of the largest guild in existence.

What I would like to see is elements from what EVE created in a MMORPG although lesser in scale. You can create the same type of control of resources and areas in a fantasy based MMORPG and base the PVP around those elements.

As a shorty fighting in South Karana for the good camping grounds such as the Aviaks I got a real rush out of PVP, which was not just combat but also stealth and simply being aware of my surroundings at all times to be sure I was not about to be killed by a darkie. And I can still remember the day when darkies came to force me out and a call to my guildmates caused a group of high level shorties to come to the aviak roost and lay waste to the darks. This in turn led to a huge battle about 4 days later with over 50 people on each side battling for control of South Karana, I have NEVER felt the rush I had fighting in that battle in any PVP experience in WOW, not even close. In comparison WOW PVP is a bland meaningless structured experience.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by vynde

you must not take everything said about the "territories" to be too literal. there were many zones that were mostly accessed by one group, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

In fact all that needed to be done to take over a territory was the thought of "hey let's take over x instead of y tonight", and just about any decent group could do it, or at least for a few hours. On some parts of the day, it may have been the good races owning a dungeon, and on certain parts could have been the evil side.

So, I wouldn't really say that people were truly limited or cut off from seeing any content. Just because you may not see to the end of one dungeon one night, doesn't mean that's what the game IS and there is no way to change it.

Yeah by no means was anyone truly cut off from the content, it was just tougher to do it as a opposing faction.

I remember to this day the group of us that went to Lower Guk to camp for robes and Ykesha's, we had a strong group, went into Guk and killed all the darks on the way in, and then we were able to camp and hold the 2 spawns for about 2 hours until we were bind rushed over and over again by a single darkie that caused our healers and casters to go OOM and then we were swarmed by a group that was waiting a ways back and killed.

The ONLY problem EQ had was that they did not implement changes that made bind rushing and corpse camping impossible. It could have been done, somehow forcing a player to loot and scoot for a set amount of time, 15 minutes or so. If a game was so inclined they could make the loser of a PVP encounter respawn in a variety of locations close to the place they post the PVP encounter, a slave camp, a jail, a gladiator arena, and then have a quest type of thing that is required to get out of that area and back into the world. It would make sense, you lost the fight, got sold to slave traders, and now you must get free, steal your gear back from the slave traders, kill the leader of the slave traders, and then be on your merry way. During the time that you are in the quest to get out of the PVP loss area you are non-PVP flagged. This would have stopped corpse camping and bind rushing as anyone who died would be at least 20 minutes from showing up again.

[Ngruk]

The PvP loser idea is a cool one, the first 5 or so times you do it. Then it becomes BB fodder as the worst game mechanic ever.

There are, imo, a billion really cool ideas like this, but once you think them through in real world play experience, they become the suck and are nothing more than time sinks..

[Zehn - Vhex]

The PvP loser idea is a cool one, the first 5 or so times you do it. Then it becomes BB fodder as the worst game mechanic ever.

There are, imo, a billion really cool ideas like this, but once you think them through in real world play experience, they become the suck and are nothing more than time sinks..

This is why on the 4th day God invented the gimmick server. Zone control is fun but it's not something to base an entire game around. But creating a special server for zone control for the people that enjoy it as well as the hundreds/thousands that would like to try it out?

I mean, there's a ton of things you can do really with the concept. Just like zombie mod, wc3 mod, surf maps kept games like CS fresh over the years. If you can spare the development time and resources, shit like this is insanely popular in every other atmosphere.

Personally I had more fun on EQ's perma-death server for the few weeks it was up then I had in all of the LDoN expansion. Sometimes a new twist on an old favorite is just what we need.

[rangoth]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Sorry bud, but you are living in the past if you think any game that allows one group of people to essentially dictate dev-created content and effectively limit and/or cut-off large sections of the game from another group based solely on what particular race you happened to roll on what particular server will succeed in the current Western market. This is simply not what mainstream games are going to do. Accessibility sells.

Hell, it didn't even succeed back in your glory day. The first servers in EQ to get consolidated were the 4 PvP servers. And this was pre-WoW explosion.

Agree 100%. I'm sure there is some portion of population that would want this, but it is not huge and it damn well isn't large enough to sustain long term large growth. After one side gets beat down hard for a long enough period of time they leave and when there is no one left to own, the fun is over.

I am ok with the seperate server idea, but please don't make this default. I will not even consider any game that does.

[Cybsled]

Project M on EQ1 Test was the best time I ever had on a server, but I could easily see how the gimmick would wear off.

Unless they made it like Left4Dead versus.

"A Corehound's on Zoey!!!!"

Control of a zone does not mean you are going to be left with nothing to do. I take it you did not play a server like Tallon Zek in EQ.

I remember us saying this when our guild would clear all the content with good gear in EQ1.

"So what if we have a lock on NToV and Avatar of War and Sleepers? There's still WToV and that druid circle dragon and, uh, Dain!!!"

Translation: lol enjoy your shit loot while we pimp ourselves out

[Zaphid]

The good way to think your mechanics to the end is to imagine how could you abuse it. PR talk like:"Battle for the control of the zones to win access to some of the most terrifying enemies you can encounter in realm of XYZ " turns into:"Some people will probably never experience this now matter how hard they try"

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

This is why on the 4th day God invented the gimmick server. Zone control is fun but it's not something to base an entire game around. But creating a special server for zone control for the people that enjoy it as well as the hundreds/thousands that would like to try it out?

Zone control is shit if your game isn't designed for it.