3921

There was a previously scheduled extended maintenance set for today. I can’t recall when it’s coming back online, but I presume they are gearing everything up for launch!

I can’t recall how long the maintenance is supposed to run, but if you need to get to something on the website, I’m sure it will be back online well before the start of early access.

[Edit] And it looks like it’s already back up now :-)

3922

Absolutely agreed. I don’t really understand all the talk of how PvP adds “strategy” and “excitement” in the context of a game like SWTOR or WoW. There’s no strategy or excitement involved when a level 50 attacks my level 25 character. The level 50 wins. It’s numbers and time spent playing, not a test of skill. If it was like a fighting game or hack and slash and a lower level/less equipped character could still win a fight against an attacker by playing smart and quick, that would be different. But that game isn’t SWTOR, and possibly does not exist.

3923

In a world full of people like the oldschool “sportsmanlike” PvP guilds there’d be little high-on-low killing, and even less repeat killing. Stomping/chasing off a few people once was a reasonable way for a PVP group to throw down the gauntlet in a contested leveling area.

In practice though, one always saw risk-minimizing behavior from medicore reds and mediocre blues alike, with the result that world PVP tended to be pretty sad stuff from the point of view of people who want lots of interesting fair-ish fights. And unfortunately, there are a fair number of genuinely sadistic people drawn to any environment where they think they can wring some suffering out of other people in anonymity. Hardcore PVP types will sometimes argue that the dedicated, nasty griefers toughen the community up and teach it a valuable lesson… about something or other. But honestly, who wants to be a part of these peoples’ jollies?

I remember one video on youtube by a Minecraft griefer demolishing people’s lovingly crafted multiplayer servers, and he had this sort of whispery, pervily gleeful voiceover as he did it. It reminded me of that teenager in the 80s or 90s who went on an arson spree and made creepy videos of the fires with the same kind of commentary. I really don’t need hands on contact with that aspect of the human psyche to have fun. They and I do not need to touch at any point.

3924

Boils down to levels being a stupid bad mechanic that needs to go the way of the dodo. Dunno why we still have levels, but yep they’re there.

In old full world PK muds you’d need to grind for a while to get PK ready, but max level definitely wasn’t where the PK happened. A lot had some low level point where leveling gave minimal rewards and took loads of effort. Which was smart, because fuck leveling. So people would grind just enough and start fighting.

EVE has a lot of risk minimization behavior, but in 0.0 there are techniques you can use to fuck em anyway. Stuff like hot drops and dictors make fleeing harder and reinforcing easy, so even a tiny fight can turn into a major brawl.

And then you have empire where people sit on a station undock and “pvp” with neutral repping that can dock instantly if they get fired on. Which is also dumb.

I think a big issue with a lot of modern non-space based pvp is that there isn’t a viable escape mechanism if you’re getting the shit kicked out of you. Like, in EVE if your ass is getting beat and you’re fast or wily enough, you can burn off and warp out – meaning you’re hard to chase if you stay in system and the other guy doesn’t have probes. And you can web people to prevent them getting range to get out of scram range, and jam them with drones (if you can carry em) to get them to break lock so you can flee. In Perpetuum, if your ass is getting beat and you’re slower, you’re basically fucked. And if you’re faster, well, you’ve got good odds of being impossible to catch.

This was an issue in WoW too. For the brief time I played it, I managed to get around it by either fearlocking people (lolol) or playing as a Drood, turning into a cat and gtfoing. My only really memorable world pvp experience in WoW was as a drood, where I was getting chased around by a group of pukes in some jungle place at around level 30. They were mostly higher level, but since I was faster and craftier I was able to split em up and eat em one by one. Well, until a higher level guy showed up, at which point I ran like hell.

So levels are gay and I’d like a different progression mechanism ploz. Also something like Mark and Recall from Morrowind, with the ability to stop the person casting it.

WAR was another problem entirely. For the first few weeks it was great. I had fun leading gangs around and pvping in the lakes. But then it turned into chain running empty keeps at max level and I was like f that because I don’t want to get to max level and I DO want to fight people. Plus people just weren’t really interested in fighting because the rewards were fairly minimal. So if we didn’t have a dominant group, people would just eff off to pve and I was like wat.

Hoping GW2 has this shit down. And I was all excited for SWOTTER until I found out that A) space was a PVE tunnel shooter and B) the pvp wasn’t world. I still love (and occasionally play) full PK muds.

And while EVE can be ok, I’d love a fantasy version that isn’t completely the gay. What, I likes being the wizzard.

3925

PK muds had a really interesting way of dealing with this problem. First, most folks were sportsmanlike. But the devs figured that was a stop gap solution because players are generally cunts. So a clan in every region would be made a justice clan, with full warranting powers. And killing warranted folks was worth QP (which is a serious pain in the cock to get, but necessary to move up the ranks). So sameside lowbie killers would get warranted and hunted the fuck down.

In a modern graphical MMO, you could let players do anything but make it so that some stuff generated a warrant on you for whatever clan controlled the area. Hunting down warranted people gives you points you can use for nifty looking gear with clan colors/logo. And warranted people in said region get attacked by npc guards. Bam, insta solution to the problem by tying goodie bags to doing the nice thing.

3926

EQ actually had Bind (anywhere) and Gate, which was a 5s cast that sent you back to your bind; it was casters only but it was definitely a huge thing in PVP. There were also spells called Fade and Shadowstep that were like a random-direction of WoW’s Blink, with a larger range and (as I recall) rather more effectiveness, unless you got unlucky and reappeared very close-by.

3927

Stolen from Neogaf’s thread. I don’t think the “what classes benefit from these crafting types” is totally ironclad, although they are the ones that benefit most.

5RHuG.jpg800×450

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and do Biochemistry/Bioanalysis/Diplomacy. Tighter squeeze for money, but I wouldn’t have to start diplomacy from scratch if diplomacy products started getting expensive on the AH, or bind-on-pickup ones were introduced post-launch.

3928

Hmm, see as a Smuggler, I feel somewhat obligated to go for treasure hunting and underworld trading…just as a role play device.

I am assuming that might be overkill for one toon?

3929

Not overkill as such, but they don’t really synergize; you’d have to buy the other parts for artifice or cybertech, and if you wanted at least one crafting skill you’d be ruling out slicing, which is a great for cash for people who aren’t committed to crewskills as a big deal.

3930

Hmm, I need to really read up on the skills- maybe we need a crafting/skill thread for builds and such.

3931

Well, honestly, we aren’t doing anything else here. From what I understand DPS and healing builds are both ok for Scoundrels/Operatives (which play quite similarly.) I specced my scoundrel heals. Even so the AC is basically positional melee DPS, aka a backstabbing rogue, it just backstabs with a shotgun. Biochem makes stims, adrenals, healthpacks and implants, and is as such probably the most popular crafting class for the AC. Cybertech, for grenades and such, is also kind of appealing.

Purple grenades, stims, and grenades have unlimited reuse; however, getting the schematics would either be dumb luck or require quite a bit of reverse-engineering, which is a money-sink, so not necessarily a great idea until higher level.

3932

Oh my, where did they come up with those crafting names? They come off like bad sci-fi dudebro speak.

-Tim

3933

From EU stuff, primarily. So you’re not exactly off-base.

3934

For me it’s not about strategy it’s about variety and, yes, excitement. The fact that someone twice my level can come by and kill me makes the ludicrously boring questing less boring. I have to always think of where I can run, IF I can run, and how to avoid being a target. Then, when I’m higher level, I can return the favor. I understand how this isn’t for everyone, but for me, 99% of what you do in most standard MMOs is repetitive button mashing, and without the thrill of the hunt–and yes the danger of being ganked–it doesn’t do much for me.

Not that I won’t play pure PvE stuff, just that I won’t play it for long.

3935

You should play mmo that your character have 5% chance of dying every minute…

THE THRILLLLLLL…

3936

And where have you ever played a mainstream MMO with world PvP where this was the case? Never. Sure, some zones some times you have to simply log and come back later, or move to a new zone, but eh, you rolled on a PvP server, you asked for it. And that’s the bottom line–if you don’t want to be ganked, don’t roll on a PvP server. I have zero sympathy for carebears on a PvP server. None whatsoever.

3937

I’m guessing idrisz has put in his pvp, as have I, so the “death to the carebears” stuff rings a little hollow. EvE etc is fine in that it’s built around a bare metagame in which sportsmanship is genuinely superfluous and a social PvP dynamic basically functions.

Diku MMOs aren’t. In WoW or EQ, sportsmanship was not superfluous, it’s a pretty major component in how interesting PVP is for everyone. A 60 ganking people below 50, outside of the context of maybe running people out of an area and killing one or two people once to summon defenders - and that’s like, 2005-6 when this stuff was still important to PVP - is maybe tolerable.

Just going around killing dudes in Ungoro or better yet STV? That’s contemptible and boring on the 60’s part and only mildly “perilous-interesting” for the 30s-50s characters, who gets to feel like a tough survivor. The 30s-50s “going back and doing it to others later?” Yeah, see above, contemptible and boring. It was never possible to bottle the freewheeling idealized world-pvp of Hillsbrad because the playerbase, red and blue, wasn’t there doing it. The social dynamic imposed by the EvE economy wasn’t there; the players weren’t all dedicated reds, and progress in the game was - especially back when World PVP was still big - entirely based on PVE grinding, not PVP itself. (It didn’t grant XP or, for a long time, even loot.)

3938

Look, it’s really simple. If you don’t want to PvP in the wild, don’t roll on a PvP server. Why should I have any sympathy for people who, with full knowledge of the ruleset, want to play on a PvP enabled server yet insist on complaining about getting ganked? The way I see it, by rolling on a PvP server you in effect give consent to any and all PvP actions within the rules and technical limitations of the game. I don’t agree with the idea that you can roll on a PvP server and expect PvP with conditions that aren’t enforced in the rule set, stuff like fairness or no ganking or whatever. It’s all or nothing.

That doesn’t mean you should necessarily be a rank ganker, or that you can’t experience some chivalry, but you can’t expect anything but the worst if you choose to play on a PvP server. Given that all modern games offer fully consensual battleground style PvP, there’s absolutely no reason for anyone to roll on a PvP server unless they in fact can tolerate all the crap that happens. That’s all I’m saying. I have nothing but respect for people who don’t want to PvP in the wild, and certainly wouldn’t call them “carebears” or whatever. But people who knowingly play on a PvP server and then complain, yes, I do have less respect for them, because it’s like signing up for a rugby team and being upset that people are roughing you up.

3939

Who are you explaining any of this to? I did 1-60 as Alliance on Archimonde in '05, that’s a Ph.D in gank tolerance. Everything I’ve written has been about why most of the PVP in EQ and WoW is inherently less pleasant for all involved than in a game which has PVP integral to its game systems rather than tacked on to a bunch of obligatory PVE tasks outside the context of a defense/offence/economy/rentage metagame like EvE.

Saying a 60 killing people in STV without some compelling reason (calling over some 60s in the same zone eg) is contemptible isn’t complaining, it’s describing. My red PVP experience was not enhanced by inhabiting a server with those people at level 60. If anything I found it more contemptible then then when I was the 30 in STV.

3940

just for the record, I’m currently are on Blackrock, which one of the biggest PVP server in WoW.

but there is almost no difference playing on PVP and PVE server as far as Wow concern, people are too busy leveling/questing to bother with pvp. anyone who steps out the line and randomly attack people get corpse camp by 4-5 bored 85.