Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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Gate camps! just find a nice bottle-neck like Gibraltar and blockade the fuck out of it.
Archeage
- Thread starter tad10
- Start date
Good post and I can't even say you are wrong. It is really just a matter of opinion.
One the market, I feel that the MMO market and the MOBA market is a lot more incestual than you think. Some ancedotal evidence: (1) almost every major MMO dedicated site out there (including this one) has a forum or post dedicated to League of Legends, (2) when a new server or MMO opens up, try to get the name of any League of Legends champion, and (3) every one of my MMO crew (probably over 50) plays League of Legends as basically a rebound game. Play a MMO hardcore, get sick of it, play LoL until the next MMO, and finally (4) a significant number of the interviews of pro players start "I played World of Warcraft and got bored...".
On wolves v sheep. I think you are somewhat missing the point about the wolves/sheep notion. It's not a description of relative strength. The sheep aren't sheep because they aren't good at fighting. They are sheep because they have no interest in fighting. A wolf lives by fighting and is very interested in it. The old way of thinking breaks down because I think there are enough wolves out there to make a MMO for them. Now, some of the other points you raised...like whether or not there are mechanics in place to keep the playing field level enough (it doesn't have to be perfect, but does have to be close enough to be fun) can be handled by good design. Some levers that are particularly helpful for PvP games are "defenders advantage" environmental features (to mitigate the power of overt aggression), limited guild size with guild centered rewards (to keep power conglomeration in check), and territorial control with a garrison strucuture (to mitigate no-cost force concentration). Note that PvP "sports matches" like LoL have all of these levers as well. They are just better designed.
Anyway, good post. My personal opinion is that MMOs share the same playerbase generally (and can learn a LOT from) MOBAs when it comes to PvP.
edit: fixed typos
Yes, from what I understand, the whole system is basically set up like this.
1. Continent 1 has a whole lot of X resources, but not Y resources. Continent 2 has a whole lot of Y resources, but not X resources. Carrying resources in a safe manner is inefficient due to inventory space. Instead, you want to convert resources to "packs" for bulk transport. When you have a Pack, you walk very, very slow unless you have a vehicle. A donkey is one vehicle, but cant cross water. A ship is another vehicle that can cross water and can carry tons of stuff.
2. So, the high level way to make money is to get a bunch of resources that are common in your region, load them on a big boat and head across the ocean to turn in your resources where they are most valuable. Its like playing the AH in WoW, except there is a catch. The ocean, like most high level zones, is open PvP. In addition to Pirates, the entire other faction can attack you. And the Pirates know the easiest ports from one continent to the other just as much as you do. An easier way to make money than collecting the X and Y resources, is to steal X and Y resources. If you sink a ship, or take control of it, you can unload the packs and put it in your ship, thereby taking all of the resources.
3. One of the problems of being a Pirate is that I don't think the first option to make money is available any more. You can't easily gather resources for transport because you dont have easy access to X or Y anymore (where before, you had easy access to 1 of them). So, to make mass money, you need to steal from others. One of the benefits of being a Pirate is that you have 2x the number of potential targets.
And straight up piracy is just part of the "infamy" system. Another aspect is stealing stuff. So, one of the ways to get X and Y resources is to grown them. You can plant stuff pretty much anywhere and then let it grow. There were people in my guild that never directly pirated because they didnt have enough people on, but instead just ran around to random islands and stuff and tried to find people that were running the equivalent of basement weed farms. You can protect your crops with a scarecrow, but that is relatively inefficient. For the mom and pops that are in high traffic areas, they all do it. But there are also risk takers who go to some random island for a few hours and try to grow a huge batch of something needed without any protection. They just rely on the fact that they are in the middle of no where and hope that no one comes along. Well, while your out sailing the seven seas, you can stop by the islands, see if you can find the lonely farmer and either take his stuff while he stands there powerless, you can kill him and then take his stuff, or you can even just tell him to pay you gold to leave him alone (which a lot of people will...at least in Korea).
So there are a lot of options if you want to be a straight "pirate playstyle," but here is my warning. On paper, it sounds pretty much perfect. In practice, there is a LOT of sailing around doing nothing. You might play 4 hours and not get anything. So it takes a special person / guild to want to do it full time. The standard "on demand, OMFG 6 min Queues" PvPer probably wont really find it fun. If you were the type of person that felt camping Pzyjn was fun, then you probably will do fine with being a Pirate. If you bitched because your guild mates were 8 min late for a pre-planned raid, then its probably not for you in practice, no matter how enticing it seems on paper.
Not really. I think EVE does this, and there have been Fantasy MMOs that tried to do this: a la Shadowbane and Darkfall. The problem is they lacked the technical competence to realize their design into a tech reality.
MOBAs are an interesting thing. I believe there is an overlap capability for those and MMOs, but so far MOBAs are built around single serve sessions where as MMOs which use many of the same mechanics are built around character attachment. As single serve as MOBAs are, it's interesting so many of their players grind and play more than most MMO people. There's gotta be an MMO niche that can scratch that need.
Ridas, I also am glad Hartsman is here. I don't agree with all his design decisions, and still am ticked he didn't revamp EQ2s terrible combat, but his writing is excellent, he's down to earth, and I trust the guy to deliver what he says he will deliver. Hurry up and finalize the language fixes and roll out Alpha for 20 bucks on Steam, Scott! I'm sure it can top Rust and DayZ!
It depends on what you find satisfying. Me and my buddy Norck play like every game together. We are primary PvP first kind of guys, but we often times find situations where we like different types of PvP. Norck is almost a full on BG / Arena kinda guy. For him, PvP is a showcase of individual skill and there is nothing more sweet than overcoming your foes by outplaying them. While I like that kind of PvP and can play it for years (ala WoW Arena), my favorite kind is more strategic and political PvP. For those that played with me in TERA, it was obvious that I got my thrills in fucking other guilds out of Nexus. If they we had 10 and they had 40, I didn't think "for sparta, just be better than them" I went out and formed alliances so that we could bring 60. I had no interest in a "fair fight" and instead, worked really hard to leverage relationships and give and ask favors from the people that could keep us on top of scene. So for me, ArcheAge is probably more in line with my style of PvP than it is, say Norcks.
I am not sure what camp you fall into. There are no BGs or Arenas. I am told there never will be because they don't want to take the wind out of world pvp. In theory, this can create interesting and dynamic political intrigues. In practice, it probably means someone like PRX is going to try to lock you down so you can't do shit or Nagafen is gonna zerg your ass 8-1 while you are trying to do the Kraken. One thing that you can do in ArcheAge that isnt really available in other games is that you could probably make good gold as a legit mercenary. Just sit by your faction's port with a full group of decked out PvPers and offer to ride with a large cargo ship for the delivery and defend if it anyone attacks. You could probably make a "living" doing that and not have to raise sheeps.
Here is one of my favorite pirate videos from the guild called DontWorry. They have a few of them. The first 2 minutes are them sailing down on gliders from mountains into port cities (where you turn in your resources) and attacking groups of people while they turn in packs. Starting at like 1:50, they decide to go for a ship. They take control of it and then fight their way out of the town. They aren't really straight going for the resources here, but instead just trying to cause as much chaos as they can. Still, it shows that boarding a ship and stealing its cargo has a lot of mechanics around it that make it fun/exciting.
Its a fun video in any event:
(Note that you can't keep someone ship when you steal it. They keep the blueprints, so can resummon it. You just can control it and prevent the owner from de-spawning it until you are done with it.)
Its a fun video in any event:
(Note that you can't keep someone ship when you steal it. They keep the blueprints, so can resummon it. You just can control it and prevent the owner from de-spawning it until you are done with it.)
After watching that video I need this game , Hartsman sell me some alpha like everyone else is doing.
This one shows a little more of the actual Ship to Ship combat:
There is a bit of an intro, but at 1:40, you see a rival ship attack Advaita, a srs business Russian guild during early (OBT era) ArcheAge. A large group of opposing faction were basically joy riding and opened fire on an Advaita ship, killing them all instantly. The rest of the video is Advaita extracting its revenge (thus the song lyrics, Personal Responsibility). The best part, IMO starts at like 2:00. It shows Advaita using a fast skiff to catch up to the enemy galley. The skiff doesn't have any cannons, so they cant ship to ship fight the enemy like you saw on the dontworry video, but they have a harpoon. They fire a harpoon from the skiff at 2:05 that, once it hits, allows them to pull right along side of the galley. From there they board the ship and proceed to wreck its crew. They take over the ship and start to use it against the others that are responding to the attack.
Advaita doesnt just have the small skiff crew though, they have a few galleys there too. Its fun to see the Advaita guy jumping from ship to ship directing the battle. Note that one of the changes they made in Patch 1.0 is to make the gliders a little less part of core pvp gameplay. There is apparently more of an animation lock to them now and they are harder to get off in the mix of battle. Although flying around like a madman seems kinda fun, I think its probably a good change, since it was a little much in this video.
The dontworry video and this video sold me on the PvP in ArcheAge and prompted me to start playing in Korea. Being a non-Korean speaker in a pretty passive "under the radar" guild, i never got to go full boar on the PvP, so I could just watch from the sidelines. I am hoping that once the English version comes to the U.S., guilds like PRX will get into the game like the Russians did and make interesting server drama like this happen.
I keep seeing the ships with the red sails and thinking that a Nagafen flag would look pretty sweet on it.
If only there was action combat, I would be SOOOOO sold on this game! ARGH its like a dagger through the heart.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
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lol. Action combat is a hard pass for me usually. Eqn may be the only exception because I want to check out storybricks.I keep seeing the ships with the red sails and thinking that a Nagafen flag would look pretty sweet on it.
If only there was action combat, I would be SOOOOO sold on this game! ARGH its like a dagger through the heart.
Apparently the Japanese version of archage is the tits. Seems like Trion should just copy their changes.
Anyway, I think Trion has cash flow issues since defiance tanked, it should solve those issues by selling alpha to aa for 35.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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Of course there is overlap, try getting any Game of Thrones name through though, same deal.
Plenty of MMOs even feature team sport "pvp" as one of their selling points. So there is your overlap. The essence of MMO pvp imo is risk of loss and consequence. That's absent from LoL and that's absent from WoW and most other MMOs. I wouldnt consider WoW a pvp game. It's a game with pvp. Not sure if the distinction matters to many people. Personally I played LoL nearly every day for somewhat over year - but it's a very different animal from playing EVE. I question that the majority of those team sport enthusiasts would enjoy the inherent unfairness of MMO pvp for long. You play alot of asian MMOs, there's some hardcore stuff in some of those. Do you really think that would fly with more then minority of the LoL crowd?
Where I seee more LoL - MMO overlap is that both have distinct roles for classes that would be applicable to both pve and pvp. I could see a LoL style game that's just hubs and instances without the pretense of an open world doing well, featuring both pve and pvp. Kinda like GW1. Does that count as an MMO (imo, it doesnt)?
Yeah I realize it's a sore subject for some, but in Trion's current state , if they did sell alpha access with bold disclaimer "This is Alpha It's going to be buggy" , I bet they could get a decent number of folks drop 30-40 to get it and play. EQL obviously isn't PVP oriented at all , GW2 has worn off on a lot , and Darkfall , well , it was Darkfall.lol. Action combat is a hard pass for me usually. Eqn may be the only exception because I want to check out storybricks.
Apparently the Japanese version of archage is the tits. Seems like Trion should just copy their changes.
Anyway, I think Trion has cash flow issues since defiance tanked, it should solve those issues by selling alpha to aa for 35.
No idea how close they are to being able to push a larger alpha/early beta out though.
I'd be fine with half gibberish translations.
The next MMO to reach WoW levels of players will be F2P, it's just a matter of implementing in a way that users don't feel punished for not spending money.
No idea, but sounds like it would be fun to try.Is there a afk timer? Take the ship to some corner of the ocean and just sit forever, so he can't summon a new one
Raes
Vyemm Raider
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I think you're getting a little too lost in your whole wolves/sheep analogy. You can't compare MOBA's to mmo pvp either, they are completely different. Sure, the vast majority of mmo pvpers are wolves, not because they "live by fighting", but because they prey on the weak/defenseless (sheep). Most pvp is not on equal terms. The aggressor almost always has the upper hand, be it by gear, levels, or sheer numbers. Otherwise, they wouldn't have initiated combat in the first place. Sure, occasionally groups of pvpers will fight each other, but most of the time, it's just a gank. You know that word, right? Been around since UO? Short for "gang kill"? Anyways, that's what Bartle was referring to in his article. Most people don't want a fair fight, they want easy prey, and when the easy prey leaves, the "wolves" don't stick around to fight each other.
It's weird how things get lost over the years. They are all "pvpers" now, but some people seem to have forgotten there is actually a difference between a pvper and a pk or a griefer.
Given the market for MOBAs vs the market for MMO PVP, I believe there are more actual 'fair', 'Frontiers' PVPers versus the UO Krazy Klown gankers longing for the days of camping dungeon entrances.
The problem is the gank FFA types tend to be the noisiest, because that group as you said isn't about the fair fight, but about griefing. I actually think games need that kind of player, because the best part of UO was the Anti PK vs PK fights, plus the worry factor. If a game found a way to use reputation properly, have a good PVP design, and somewhat protect it's normals and allow some danger for the idiots and an avenue for the white knights to all play together then it'd really go a long way to morphing the MOBA people and MMO PVPers.
It definitely can be done. I'm hoping Camelot Unchained does a lot of things right, as it is purely focused on PVP in a manner that should attract a lot of different types.
I think it might be you that isn't quite up to speed on how pvp has evolved since the UO days. Most PvPers and especially PvP guilds are acutely aware of the impacts of over aggression. A perfect example was on Tera. The pvp guilds would fight over nexus and would intentionally ask its allies to sit out unless outnumbered. Even full scale PVP guilds like PRX work very hard to maintain its relationship with the server. Most complaints you see about pvp games these days seem to be that you CANT be antisocial any more or everyone will gang up on you.
Your thoughts are basically what I was talking about when I say that my generation of gamers views pvp very differently than the newer generation. I urge you to try to get into a decent pvp mmo and test the dynamics yourself. It's not like UO or even Sullon Zek anymore. The player base as a whole seems to have matured (often times to my dismay).
Most respectable guilds are looking for good fights. Not lopsided wins. The last thing people want is to PvD down a bunch of doors and cap maps on the first day because you are stuck pulling your pud for a week until the next reset only to win on the first or second day.
In games like this where the world doesn't reset its all the more important. You don't want to bottom feed everyone out. You want to win but you also want to fight not just steam roll everything. No fun there.
In games like this where the world doesn't reset its all the more important. You don't want to bottom feed everyone out. You want to win but you also want to fight not just steam roll everything. No fun there.