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A WoW Player's Guide To Warhammer
With Warhammer Online just around the corner, Zonk wrote up a guide which compares it to the current top dog of the MMO market, World of Warcraft. He highlights the fact that despite the appearance of "War" in both names, Warhammer is much more focused on the struggle between factions, in gameplay and artistic style. Warhammer's open beta started on Sunday, doing well in the US but stumbling in Europe. The full version launches on Sept. 18th, but people who pre-order the game will be able to access live servers up to four days before, thanks to Mythic's head-start program. Mythic CEO Mark Jacobs recently launched a blog to answer questions about the game.
Guild Wars got my money because it works on Linux.
Savage got my money because it works on Linux.
Defcon got my money because it works on Linux.
NeverWinter Night got my money because it works on Linux.
There are many more but you get the idea.
If you want my money, make sure it works on Linux!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
"PvP is a much more important part of..."
Ok, so they got a focus group together, and looked on the internet, and people said "More, better PvP!"...
Too bad the niche hardcore players are the only people who speak up in those forums. Here's a big hint to everybody making this type of game: All those casual players that make Warcraft and Diablo crazy, stupid successful.... They play for the co-op and social aspects. They don't PvP. People who post on internet forums and create feature wishlists for these types of games (probably 90+% of the people who read this) aren't representative of the bulk of players no matter how vocal they are, or how important they think they are. If you cater to those players, and "being the next WoW" (in terms of paying playerbase) is your goal, you will fail.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with developers targeting Linux, Linux heads need to stop pretending like they are a major market. Linux on the desktop isn't all that common, and Linux on the desktop in a gaming situation is extremely rare. Thus this idea that developers really need to be targeting Linux is silly. To me it seems Linux is finding it's stronghold in business type markets. That's wonderful, but not a target for games.
People only want to enjoy the game, not get their char ganked by some "PvP elite".
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
As long as it is possible, someone will do it, if only for teh LoLz.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
If you didn't like WoW's battlegrounds and/or Arena, probably not. The PvE side of the game is fun, but definitely not the focus. I'd argue that the PvE side of WAR is even more grindy than WoW's since it has a definite end. WAR is really the PvP lover's WoW in a lot of ways.
That said, I think its a blast.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
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And your laundry list of "features" pretty well demonstrates the difference. People play MMOs to have fun with other players. What you would make a good solo game for a micromanager.
Just consider your "ecology"
So what happens when a griefer guild shows up and slaughters all the wolves and bears in your forest? How do prevent this or can they even?
economies: much as I hate to admit it (I like the idea of a player economy as well), player based economies are actually very destructive to game enjoyment. The "Auction Hall" global market with instant results just provides massive encouragement for goldselling services and the resulting rampant inflation. The more resources and money supply is controlled by the publisher, the more the econommy winds up in control of the goldsellers.
If it is so darn "not difficult", why haven't you written your own game and have a few hundred thousand subscribers already?
However, the idea of allowing players to have a real impact on the game world is a good one, but once again darn near impossible in an MMO. Making real changes requires that new content be constantly generated to replace that which is no langer valid. Example: THe players have finally ended the zombie chicken infestation at Farmer Brown's. No longer will zombie chickens trouble the farm. Ever. So what new content do you propose for the beginning characters? Perhaps they could work on the rat infestation over at Farmer Smith's? What if someone gives Farmer Smith a pregnant cat(reproducing)? Oh the ecological horrors - plus the destruction of more content intended for beginning players.
Just ramp up those examples for "end game" content and you get a glimmer of the problem. It just takes too long to come up with new storylines/adventures. So players making real changes in games like this will be best done as solo games.
Or the games will have to have multiple "sub-games" built into them to keep folks occupied. (See Eve Online) which does have a failry robust and involved (although unfortunately corrupt) economy and PvP system.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Like others have intoned, the real problem with this sort of dynamic and open system is people. A percentage of players in online games feel free to act in ways they would never think about in the real world because there are no real consequences for negative actions (worst that can happen is a ban). As such, they feel free to perform actions which, if done in the real world, would merit anywhere from a punch in the nose to lengthy jailtime.
Until this fundamental problem is addressed in some manner, online games will and must remain fairly tightly controlled affairs. Otherwise, chaos will reign and the vast majority of gamers will leave for greener and more pleasant pastures. With the enormous cost of developing MMOs, that's just not something most developers are willing to risk.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Compelling PvP cannot exist without these 3 things:
Conflict, consequence and subjectivity.
Players must have a struggle and fight for something in the game. This creates a conflict that players will get involved in and fight over.
Players must feel repercussions for their decisions. Jumping and ganking the wrong people will result in total destruction of everything you and your friends have built by the community you have violated.
Finally, the sides must not be clearly defined at the beginning of the game. Your allies shouldn't be a gameplay decision based on what side of a coin you flip. Alliances need to be built out of a common desire to survive. You cannot possibly have a real hatred for an enemy just because your predisposed to them. But more importantly, you are forced to ally with those you may not want to because you are on the same side.
These static gameplay issues are the same reason WAR will be as interesting as WoW in terms of PvP and that is to say it won't be. Well, it will be fun objective based, tactical PvP.
But the game lacks *real* conflict, any type of consequence and subjectivity.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
This is possibly the truest thing I've ever heard.
Mmm-hmmm... sounds like the typical grief player who developers in most MMOs have to spend thousands of man-hours to code against.
We all know and love the Korean game Lineage 2, where the people who were getting banned were not the botters and the GY campers. Neither were the people with the third party trainers to keep their name white (as opposed to purple or red if they wounded or PK-ed someone.)
It sold great in Korea, but after people realized there was nothing to be gained there other than ganking newbies to steal their stuff (In L2, if you were killed by another player, there was a chance they could loot your weapon and armor, and losing a weapon basically meant rerolling.)
The people that got banned in L2 were the people who complained about the game.
That is not PvP. That is grief play, which apparently some people like because they have no abilities to succeed anywhere else MMO related. Same with the people in WoW in PvP servers who sit stealthed at the Barrens, Westfall, or Ashenvale borders waiting to gank newbies crossing into contested territory for the first time.
I guess some people just like it. Great for them. The mainstream players who actually wouldn't mind a chance at levelling will pass the grief-prone MMOs by or remain with WoW.
Griefing is why Everquest 1 died so fast as soon as WoW came out. There was no penalty for training in EQ1, where you could pull the majority of mobs in a zone and then either suicide, feign death, or merely hit a zone line. Then all those mobs would promptly attack other people, likely causing a group or raid wipe. Everquest 2 fixed the problem with instancing and leashing, but it was too little, too late. Griefing is also why UO died. To the average MMO player, why should they pay their cash and put in time to play a MMO when all they end up with is someone else's loot or HK, and nothing to show for it?
Blizzard learned this lesson, which is why they have success. I think WAR also has this lesson as well. Unless games have a way to keep griefing to a minimum, people will pass it up.
The reason that previous games with ecology (E.g. UO) have failed was because the ecology was too simplistic. When I played UO when it was new, the realities of the day were far, far, different then what is capable now. Those were the days of the Pentium II!
Doing a game with real ecology today does not mean that griefing players would not try to wreck it for everyone. Of course they would! The difference is that today you could have many different stable equilibriums and the players actions would only be the catalyst for pushing the environment between states. As in Newton's "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction."
In other words, it can't be as simple as there are bears in the woods or there are no bears. The lack of bears would have to allow for other species a chance to flourish. The starting point of the ecosystem would just be one of many possible scenarios and would be the one the designers felt was a good starting point.
For even more interest the starting points need not even be stable. The designers could select a state that they know will move to correct itself naturally and that would make things even more realistic.
I've played both games quite a bit, and I think this is a great post. Just reverse the logic on everything he said, and its 100% accurate!