1781

Addition to last post, maybe something is being done:

We have some important hot fixes as well that we are working on as well that affect open RvR. We’ll talk about them as soon as they are ready to go. They will bring a smile to the face of the many people who have been asking what steps we are going to take to help make open RvR more inviting to people. And no, we didn’t nerf scenario exp, rp, ASAP, ok?

1782

You know, I wouldn’t mind it if the 1-40 leveling was simply really brisk. Why not let me get to level 40 in 60 hours of play? Do that and I’ll have 3-4 characters at level 40.

Then you make the alternate advancement stuff time-consuming so players at level 40 have something to do.

No matter what you do in this game, if there aren’t enough players in tiers 1-3 there is very little incentive to mess with the keeps or really do anything besides press on to get to tier 4.

1783

But the goal of the game should be populating all the zones, not just push to level cap as quickly as possible.

1784

hope it comes soon…9 days till exit.

1785

my biggest complaint is the lack of open RvR. I know that this is a big issue, and that Mythic knows about it (and I am hoping that they “fix” the problem). I hate trying to get things going in the Battleground, but NOBODY wants to do anything…I get tells that I should just join a scenario instead.

The best thing about this game is when I do finally stumble onto a big open RvR battle…so much fun. But those times seem to be far and few between…

Also, how will the capital cities that were cut, affect RvR when they are brought in? In other words, how will the Greenskins capital city affect the Inevitable City as far as attacking the capitals?

Chris

1786

I got the impression that the capital cities were redesigned so that each side will always just have the one capital. I.e. the extra cities weren’t postponed, they were cut from the design altogether. Here’s the production video podcast that discusses the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G6d7TFVoy4

1787

How are they going to convince players that the lower tiers are worth hanging around in compared to tier 4 where you can fight for the capital cities? The reality is that the endgame is the big carrot dangling in front of players and most MMO players are going to min max the experience to get there as fast as possible.

1788

Exactly. This is true in all of these types of MMOs I think–as long as you CAN advance, people WILL advance. And face it, staying at level 12 is not advancing. Now, in DAOC, with the level-based BG system they had there, people did stay in Thidranki (20-24 BG IIRC) forever, but that was largely because 1) you could /level and get an instant level 20 character, and 2) there was always a fair amount of RvR going on there, whereas the frontiers were often barren on many servers. But it was ultimately pretty unsatisfying I think, for most.

Keeping all tiers populated means, to me, having such good class/career design that people will want to level up several different archetypes or realm choices to get to the endgame, thus ensuring a constant stream of people leveling up. That means making leveling relatively smooth and fast, and keeping the end game interesting enough so that it makes sense, say, to want to complement your melee character with a caster for instance.

1789

Yeah, I’ve had my epiphany- I haven’t enjoyed levelling up my character for the last three levels. The PvE quests have absolutely no hook to them. I just click ‘yes’ and then look at the map to see where the hell I’m meant to be going; the text of the quest is meaningless because it’s been strung out over so long that I no longer care. At least LoTRO had a story arc with each of its book quests. In WAR, it’s just an un-fun grind doing Public Quests by myself (and I’m on the most popular Oceanic server!).
The RvR is a joke because it doesn’t happen until a guild moves into gear (which isn’t often) and even then the numbers are lop-sided enough at any given time to make each keep a fait accomplis or a waste of time. The whole stairway thing is just lame.
The scenarios at the moment are piss-weak too, with a certain guild going AFK every match, our side is constantly two or three people down per match. I only ever see two different scenarios out of five queued that I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with either the players or the programming that shoe-horns me into these matches.
I don’t see myself gritting my teeth for another 18 levels just to see the end-game. Mark is right- either make the the mid-game enjoyable in its own right or let me zoom through to the fun part. The middle is just purgatory.

1790

I hope you’re reporting the AFKers!

1791

hmm…I am positive I have read that the other capital cities were going to be brought back in. It was the classes that were cut that they were not sure about bringing back in. Unless, of course, something has changed…which it always could.

Chris

1792

There’s always this battle between developers and players. Developers want to draw out the leveling process so players don’t chew through content too quickly, while players want to see their characters become more powerful, get new abilities, and get the really cool looking armor, so they want to rush to the cap. Why would any player want to stay a relatively weak level 20 when he could be a more powerful level 40? (In DAoC you did have people sitting in Thidranki, but many of them would have told you they enjoyed the RvR there better than the endgame RvR.)

So Warhammer players are looking for the shortest path to level 40, and right now that seems to be running scenario after scenario and questing while waiting for the scenario to pop, and finding one PQ per chapter and camping it until their influence bars are filled and they get the rally master rewards and then not bothering with the other PQs.

1793

There is less incentive to rush to the level cap in WAR than in WoW. There isn’t a huge difference in the things you can do at 40 than at 20.

1794

Patently not true. There are great story arcs across all of the PQ quest chapters, which you admit to not reading. But it’s there. And it’s good; at least the Chaos, Empire and High Elf stories I’ve followed so far.

I’ve also not had any problems with the Scenarios or RvR ‘lakes.’ I guess it’s server dependent.

1795

I still have no idea why they cripple high rank players when entering lower Tiers, especially on Open RVR servers. Allow everyone to go everywhere, except possibly Tier1, make the RVR objectives meaningful to ones side or guild, and give the lower rank players some chance at competing with higher rank players entering their lower zone.

The tough part is making RVR objectives meaningful. WoW has shown that a pathetic +5% XP or +5% damage buff isn’t going to do it. Who cares? RVR Keeps and castles and towers (whatever they are) should give the guild that takes them a continuous flow of coin and guild XP(RP), and give all guilds on that side a lower trickle. Sure this promotes same-side competition, but that’s fine, and certainly goes with the Greenskin lore!

I’m sure they can come up with something better than what they have now.

1796

Yeah, I must admit that my RvR experience has been extremely awesome so far.

What I’m curious about though is in this latest patch they say this:

In order to promote realm and population balance, some realms on some servers will now award their players with a +20% bonus to renown and experience. This is not a permanent bonus, but rather a temporary incentive to promote balance. Realms currently offering this bonus are marked on the server list with a colored icon; blue for Order and Red for Destruction - Check the Herald for the latest list!

That’s awesome! except there’s no list.

1797

Oddly, the sold-out Collectors Edition is now available again at GoGamer: http://www.gogamer.com/viewproduct.htm?productId=41118279&categoryId=65223

I don’t know if this is just cancellations being put back in the system, but I don’t expect to see this stick around for long.

1798

Yes there is. You can attack capital cities and get the best loot in the game once you are in tier 4.

Also, it appears that the keep battles are going to be underpopulated in tiers 1-3, so if you want open world RvR, it looks like tier 4 is where you want to be.

1799

I was looking at some ideas I wrote two years ago and they seem still valid.

For example, what if in open RvR players or a guild could put a banner on the objective. Then all the kills that happen in the proximity of the banner (at a decently wide radius) start to be worth more points (for both defenders and attackers). Also make the objective blink on the map for all players, so that they know that THERE ARE players there who are defending, and it’s not just empty.

For each kill the defenders manage, some of the points go into a “bounty pool”, and in order to “collect” these points the attackers have to conquer the objective themselves.

Basically the objective works like a magnet. Players converge there because fighting close to the objective builds a bonus over time. Then players are encouraged to conquer the objective because the larger pool of points is there (while preventing exploits because switching objectives between factions without any actual fighting brings almost no points).

It’s a way so that more activity leads to more points, like a natural convergence. If there are fewer players, you stick for scenarios, but when you reach a critical mass of players, the open RvR becomes more desirable.

1800

Serious question, why don’t you take up programming?