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Design Updates to MMOG Combat Systems
In a nice bit of synchronicity, updates have been posted for the combat designs of two major Massive Games. A thread has been posted on the upcoming combat upgrade to Star Wars Galaxies, discussing design goals and opening up conversation to the game community. The initial post has been followed up by several other developer posts. Meanwhile, the folks at Blizzard have released the second part of their PvP Battlegrounds Preview. The new preview offers details on win conditions in the instanced areas and more information on PvP questing. As an aside, Blizzard is also offering 48 free hours to its customers because of the recent downtime problems.
What's up with that "48 free hours" link? The url is completely wrong:
http://slashdot.org/www.worldofwarcraft.com
16,777,216 comments ought to be enough for any forum!
Right now Alliance outnumbers Horde almost 2 - 1, and, in most cases, much more, on almost every server.
Battlegrounds will only let X number of players in from each side at a time.
This is an interesting method of population control, and balance, especially for those that don't want to wait in queues to fight pvp.
Ironically, the company that invented "The Zerg" is working to elminate that tactic in PvP!
I suppose these are the same upcoming revisions they proposed last January, which people are still waiting for. No thanks. I'm glad i got out when i did. They need to either fire the management staff or triple their developer staff. There's no excuse for how poorly managed this MMORPG is.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
I would love to see a Commander position implemented for the PVP Battlegrounds in WoW. I am referring to the top-down RTS style view that some other games (ie. Savage) have implemented allowing one person to coordinate the players below. I think this would be perfect for the Battlegrounds considering how disorganized the average players are when left to their own devices. Not to mention that, being Blizzard, I am sure they could get it right without too much difficulty. Does anyone agree that this would be incredible fun, or do you like your MMOs and RTSs separate?
As an aside, Blizzard is also offering 48 free hours to its customers because of the recent downtime problems. This, after Penny Arcade takes away the title they gave WoW, and Slashdot gripes about it. Goes to show that if enough people bitch, they listen. Apparently.
Blizzard had created alot of their own bad press by not keeping an honest dialog with their subscribers regarding their load issues and letting those playing WoW guess why they are getting lag, downtime, and long lines in the queues. All of these are symptoms of a greater problem being Blizzard probably undersized their environment because they underestimated the popularity of the game upon release. All of this is highlighted by the fact that you cannot even buy a copy of WoW in the stores because they are all sold out. Dark Age of Camelot, EQ and World War II Online also had many of the same growing pains and some of their success was based on their ability to solve early technical issues. I for one will continue to play WoW because I really like the game and I believe Blizzard has created a game that really take the genre into new areas. Blizzard can attract a loyal audience with a creative game and name recognition that is Blizzard but the clock is ticking and Blizzard must find a way to make the environment stable if they want to succeed. Creating a stable realtime environment is difficult, and a lesson most of us in the IT world have known for years. If you cant keep your users happy at some point you will become irrelevant. I hope Blizzard will surprise everyone including their critics that they succeed. WoW Subscriber on the Tichondrius Server
which one of the two are you talking about?
Livejournal went down for a bit over 1 day, through no fault of their own (their host lost all power, including backup, and most of the downtime was spent restarting and getting up to speed with over 100 servers) and they gave all paid members 2 free weeks.
That's class.
Read the thread, and the changes don't seem to be that dramatic.
I remember following the game closly pre-release on the boards (and then later all through beta).
Combat was sold as a "fast based and dynamic, full of strategy". Comparissons were made to Magic the Gathering, in the sense that you get multiple varied cards (moves) that can be played in any number of strategic ways.
Fast forward to the actual game, and it was hack'n'slash standard, let your avatar stand there beating away, and every 30 seconds or so, use your most powerful special move.
Heck, combat in the design phase, was likened to "speed chess".
MMO combat is missing two key aspects: #1 Interactivity - Give the player *meaningfull* and interesting things to do.
Strategy - Make those things actually affect the outcome. You should need to adapt to the *changing* conditions of battle. Lots of choices + lots of ways to use those choices to win.
When the definition of a tougher NPC is soley one with "More Hitpoints" and "Does more damage", then any changes you do are gonna mostly be cosmetic
Aggies
I played the SWG:JTL (Jump To Lightspeed) 10 day demo, and frankly, didn't even make 10 day's. I tried the JTL bit, and it was amusing for an evening. I tried the walk around the planet bit, and couldn't believe what I saw.
SWG is nothing more than 3D bolt-on to the old text muds, with some StarWars make-up on. You go off to fight the mob's and it's a simple turn based combat thing where you just select what move you want to do. Why couldn't they make it more like an FPS ? Walk out and shoot the Gorgs, or the Womprats or the whatevers like any FPS .
The combat in Planetside http://www.planetside.com/Has exactly this type of combat. Yes, it has it's faults but's I'd really like to see this kind of game married to an economy and roleplaying experience like the starwars universe.
If no-one else does it, one day I'll get fed up with waiting and do it myself.