Developers versus Bloggers Rd. 2 – Forts and how you wish they would just die

Hello my friends!!  Here we are once again with a new week ahead of us.  So to all of you who are slyly joining me through computers in offices, cubicles, warehouses, clinics, hospitals, bathrooms (really?), mobile laptops in motor vehicles, and wi-fi enabled Starbucks…I think we can all agree that…

Wouldn’t it have been great had you been able to gather a few of your friends this morning, take your alarm clocks, carry them out into a field and then smash ‘em to pieces with baseball bats like the copier-scene in Office Space?  I am going to fulfill that dream someday, I swear I will.  Anyways, on to Warhammer news!  Our trusty bloggers have posted up day 2 of their dev questions and answers.  Well, everyone except for Shadow-war…who is experiencing some kind of spouse aggro I believe.  That’s a Hero-level mob so everyone be sure to extend him some sympathy. 

http://www.weritsblog.com/2010/04/mythic-trip-combat-and-careers.html

http://gaarawarrgabs.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/mythic-answers-your-twitter-questions/

http://mykielwar.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/friday-night-webcast/

http://www.shadowwar.sidelinedsbywifeaggro.wordpress.com

So what do you guys think?  Some interesting info in there, but like always, I find myself more fascinated by the things they couldn’t tell us yet.  I also love when we get answers like, “Yes we think Chosen/Kotbs resistance auras are way too powerful but we have not plans to fix them just yet.”  lol  That will be sure to set a few people’s hair on fire.    I am happy to hear that the Warlord encounter is now 100 percent RvR driven and “is nothing like you see in the game currently.”

It really makes me itch to check out these new City Sieges, though.  I’m either going to be forced to bring my Shadow Warrior out of exile or start leveling one of my alts pronto.  It also seems that Mythic is trying to figure out the best way to bring Forts back into the game.  Ahh, Forts…you guys remember Forts, right?

Yes those…they were fun weren’t they?  As for bringing them back, I fear the only real way to do it is to ensure that we don’t have everyone going there at once.  How do you do that?  I’m not sure, but maybe you they could pick two Forts and have them part of the first stage of the City Siege.  You have to take both forts at the same time, thus spreading people out and making the battles less of a clusterf**k.  I don’t know, it’s not an easy question to answer.  Anyone else out there have a good idea of how we can bring Forts back to Warhammer Online without causing aneurysms?

Can everyone win in a world where everyone wins?

Props to Backseatdev for throwing up a post that really strikes at the heart of a recent trend, not only with Warhammer Online but with other MMOs as well.  First off, the post…

http://www.backseatdev.com/2010/04/there-are-no-losers-just-people-who-dont-win-warhammer-online/

He has a point there, does he not?  Think about it.  As MMO are thrust more and more into the limelight of mainstream gaming, developers everywhere are facing difficult decisions regarding how to ensure that everyone who plays can get something out of it.  This is naturally why MMOs get easier over time.  Things like veteran player attrition can cause Devs to adjust leveling curves, tone down the number of more advanced or elite monsters, and give us mounts at an earlier level to help  newer players get around with greater ease.

The more people play a game the more pressure there is for developers to find a way to please everyone.

In Warhammer Online, we see a trend towards throwing out rewards for every possible outcome.  The line has become blurred between winner and loser because everyone is constantly winning, whether they really are or not.  On some levels I can understand this, because you want to help give players incentive to participate in a certain activity.  But if you take away the divide between winning and losing then why should the player care what happens?  How are you investing the player in the outcome when they are lavished with rewards for losing?  Some of this has come about because the very culture around MMOs has changed.

*puts on his old-man voice*

Back in the day, we are all just geeks that were thrilled to jump into these little worlds and didn’t give crap if we were constantly being rewarded for the things we did.  We were just happy to be there, to have the opportunity to live out our adventurous dreams.  We also ate dirt, killed bears with branches, and walked to Qeynos uphill – both ways – and in seven feet of snow.

*takes off old-man voice*

Now the culture around MMOs is much more centered around “Give me , give me, give me!”  We want our phat loots and we want them now, to hell with having to earn them.  Companies see this kind of attitude and they look for a way to give people what they want.  MMOs are a business after all, and the primary function of a business is to make money so it can keep on doing what it is doing.  So we as gamers have to ask ourselves collectively…who is really to blame here?

We vote with our wallets and that is the chief language of any economy.  No amount of forum screaming will ever drown out the power of the dollar, euro, etc.  MMOs are no longer just a small niche, they are no longer the little kid in the corner who has wedged himself in there just so in order to keep people from seeing what he is doing.  The bigger MMOs get the more we will find that the cater to the lowest common denominator.  It is a simple fact.

Now again, I do understand the new developers to continue to make their games accessible.  This is important to the evolution of any MMO and I do not get as crazy over things like (they lowered the level requirement for mounts) as some do.  But I, like many other, do recognize the way things are going and wish we could find a way to stop it.  Most of what we do in MMOs has no meaning anymore because everyone is a winner.

So how can I win in a world where everyone wins?  How can I find value in what I am doing if we keep trimming around the edges of achievement until it becomes meaningless?  How can I get back some of that awe and wonder that I used to experience when traversing these virtual worlds?

For myself, the answer lies somewhere in the middle ground.  It’s completely possible to create an MMO that offers a little something to everyone.  We can still do that without taking away the meaning by throwing rewards out like they were candy.  At least we could have done that when the culture around MMOs was different…when being there was enough…when we didn’t need attention paid to us every five seconds.

So perhaps we, as gamers, just need to look in the mirror?

Developers versus Bloggers Rd. 1

For those who didn’t hear about it, Mythic recently announced that a few lucky and dedicated bloggers would be invited to the Mythic offices for two days of WAAAAGGGGHHH!!!  Here is part of the Herald post. 

Everyone knows that here at Mythic Entertainment we love our blogging community. The close and personal ties that each of these wordsmiths have to WAR is a constant source of inspiration and motivation to all of us here in the studio. As a continuation of our close relationship to the WAR Blogging community we’ve selected four of our most active bloggers to receive a special trip this week (April 8th & 9th ) here to the Mythic Entertainment studio; Gaarawarr from Gaarawarr Gabs, Werit from Werit’s Blog, ShadowWAR from Shadow-WAR and last, but certainly not least, Mykiel from the always NSFW P-O-D-C-A-S-T!

But wait, there’s more!

As part of the BLAAAGHER invasion, they will have the opportunity to sit down, mano e mano, with the WAR Design team to grill them with any question they can think of, with an emphasis on the 1.3.5 patch.

Round 1 of the developer discussion has concluded and our trusty bloggers-in-arms have posted up their first round of questions and answers.  So without further ado…

http://gaarawarrgabs.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/mythic-answers-your-twitter-questions/

http://mykielwar.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/367/

http://shadowwar.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/mogwai-dont-feed-them-after-midnight/

http://www.weritsblog.com/2010/04/mythic-day-1.html

This is a great thing that Mythic is doing, by the way.  They have always shown a love for their blogging community, whether by posting blog highlights on the Herald or initiating some wonderful viral marketing campaigns to hype up interest for things in development.  In the past, Mythic would mail little gift packages to bloggers that were riddled with clues to upcoming content.  A good example would be the stuff they sent to Keen and Graev…

More developers could truly learn from Mythic’s example with stuff like this, as is it only serves to foster a stronger community around the games they develop.  As for the actual answers to the questions, I found most of it to be about what I expected.  Sometimes the answers were vague and that was no surprise…other times they stated that no PvE content was being talked about because they are focusing so heavily on getting the PvP in order…and again this was no surprise.

So let’s get to it then!!  We are all waiting on pins and needles to hear the details regarding the new endgame City Sieges that will be unveiled in patch 1.3.5!  It’s no secret that during Beta the City Sieges were hyped up to the ninth degree.  I still remember hearing the Mythic crew talking about these huge, epic moments where one army will pour into the streets of the enemy’s city and attempt to burn it to the ground.  Alas, the end result was not quite what we were hoping to see.

Instead of massive PvP in City Sieges, we were given a WTF-dose of PvE and competing Public Quests in order to lock down the city.  Needless to say, this did not go over well with an RvR hungry crowd eager to smash their enemies faces into the dirt.  But there is light at the end of tunnel, as Mythic is now retooling the sieges so they will be PvP-centric.  We did get a few answers regarding the sieges but they were few and far between on Day 1.  They will still be instanced, of course, but I honestly don’t know how that can be avoided at this point.  There are just way too many people trying to cram in there and it would be a slideshow if they did not instance things.

Werit got an answer regarding the PvE bosses from City Sieges, as we learned that some will stay and others will be shown the door.  We also found out that there will be penalties for leaving your current City Invasion instance, something that is surely put in place to dissuade people from hopping around like schizophrenic bunnies as they do now.  The City Siege timer will still be in place as well, but it will be variable and somewhat close to the current 1 hour timer.  Emblems and insignias will be coming to City Sieges too, and we will earn them much like we do in current RvR.

But that’s about all for (Day 1) City Siege info, however.  I can’t wait to hear the results of Day 2 and will write more once the information gets out there.  Thanks to the bloggers for fielding our questions and to Mythic for hosting this event!  Till next time…