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  1. #141
    Dreadlord Rife's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    "Value" comes down to personal taste.
    This.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Depends on the quality of the content. If I blow through all tier in 2 months- maybe. But I am lead to believe that isn't actually the case for many in Warcraft. And I know it is absolutely true in Rift.
    I found in WoW I'd go hardcore when new content came out and smash through it for oceanic placements or server firsts/seconds and then find myself looking at months of boredom from the raiding scene. This was back before hardmode versions of everything so that once you cleared a raid, you were done. Gear didn't mean much because by the time you needed it again it was all easily upgraded in the next tier of content. Tier sets were another matter though . Needed to look like a boss. Once heroic modes replaced difficult content I wasn't raiding as much and had no inclination towards downing the same boss with the same mechanics but more HP more damage or whatever the case maybe. IMO Ulduar was the best mix of hard/normal modes.

    I started raiding in Rift about the same time Hammerknell came out. Amazing instance. Hardest content I'd ever done for the most part. Took me and the guildies quite a while to get through there. All one difficulty aswel, so when you saw someone geared out in HK armour you knew what they went through to get it. Good times.

    If GW2 5 man dungeons are as hard as the developers are making it out to be then I think people will be playing for longer than most people did in WoW/Rift raids. It's not the size of the groups that make it fun or hard. It's the content.

    Dynamic events and finely tuned 5 mans might even be like nothing most of us raiders have come accross simply because everyone will be in equal-ish gear. Developers won't have to factor in groups with an extra 50% DPS from gear levels alone when balancing an encounter. The scope of players that the content must be tuned for will be very small compared to what we are used to. No more bosses made for groups in full blues and full epics that have to be hard for both groups. Or bosses that favor this particular healer because they can HoT while CC'd or whatever the case may be. The same can be said for PvP too. Balancing such a small gear-envelope will be much easier than trying to make rogue vs mage somewhat balanced for PvP blues players and 2500+ arena games.

    I have a feel that is way off topic....

    Can't refute the numbers. Box sales alone can support an MMO for years if it sells well. Factor in the micro/cosmetic transactions and you've got a situation in which you really cannot fail from a $ standpoint.

  2. #142
    "It's not the size of the groups that make it fun or hard. It's the content."

    Good to see when other people understand this. I see so many people who automatically think 5 people = easy. Dark Souls is made for one person and is hard as nails, difficulty can be as easy or as hard as the developer wants it to be for any number of people.

  3. #143
    Deleted
    It's no different to games like league of legends, which nobody can argue has be massively successful.

    Admittedly LoL is quite a bit more full on, with a lot more things that you feel compelled to pay for, but its the same type of thing.
    Last edited by mmocb1023c3147; 2012-02-19 at 03:37 PM.

  4. #144
    The most recent batch of MMO's were all bad. Why? Because 1 year after release they were not attracting very many new players.

    League of Legends is an example of a good game. It continues to attract new players. I have no idea when it came out but in our guild we have more people on now than 6 months ago. Can't say that about my Rift guild.

    GW2 will have to be good for its B2P formula to work. If it is attracting new players 1 year in, maybe not the same numbers at release but new and old players joining to play through the various expansions, then it will work and make money.

    I admit I didn't like GW2 at first, but it has grown on me and their concepts for the game seem to be good.

  5. #145
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Fernling306 View Post
    The biggest thing IMO is that they recently changed some wording to make it possible to sell anything in the game that doesn't give an advantage over those "through the investment of time", so we are looking at the possiblity of them selling gear and so on.
    Huge thread from GW2guru

    http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/...es-t27513.html
    Very ominous. The second any consumable ends up in the GW2 store is the moment it gets classified as a PtaG (Pay-to-avoid-Grind) game. And that means that it will lose a large percentage of its potential sales, as the PtaG target group in general don't buy games. If you want to release a PtaG game, you aim at the F2P market and not the B2P market.

    It is basic psychology. When people pay for stuff, they expect to get everything in full unless they very explicitly sign up for the bargain sale. If suddenly someone can pay more and get more, then the people who thought they bought it all rightfully get pissed off.

  6. #146
    Quote Originally Posted by Rife View Post
    I found in WoW I'd go hardcore when new content came out and smash through it for oceanic placements or server firsts/seconds and then find myself looking at months of boredom from the raiding scene. This was back before hardmode versions of everything so that once you cleared a raid, you were done. Gear didn't mean much because by the time you needed it again it was all easily upgraded in the next tier of content. Tier sets were another matter though . Needed to look like a boss. Once heroic modes replaced difficult content I wasn't raiding as much and had no inclination towards downing the same boss with the same mechanics but more HP more damage or whatever the case maybe. IMO Ulduar was the best mix of hard/normal modes.
    I haven't stepped into a Warcraft raid in almost 3 years. It might be 2 1/2-- whenever Ulduar was released that's when I quit. But from what I have seen of my guild's Warcraft chapter, it seems a very small % of Warcraft's population were/are able to clear Heroic raids.

    When I last checked WoW Progress Firelands was the hot [harhar pun!] new raid. I don't know what that Dragon Souls [or whatever it's called] raid is all about. But it doesn't seem like many progress through that content in sub 3 months.

    So I'd say there are more than a few players who have yet to even complete the content Blizzard put out. If one is simply tired of raiding, then that is another matter totally.

    I started raiding in Rift about the same time Hammerknell came out. Amazing instance. Hardest content I'd ever done for the most part. Took me and the guildies quite a while to get through there. All one difficulty aswel, so when you saw someone geared out in HK armour you knew what they went through to get it. Good times.
    The average Rift guild is unable to complete half of Hammerknell. It took the top progression guilds months to clear HK. In that time span Trion put out two separate instanced raids, master mode and 4 open world raids and a zone 2x as large as the previous largest zone. That does not include the features unrelated to raids & endgame either in that same time span.

    So to touch back on an earlier point; in terms of value per sub cost, I would say there definitely are MMOs out there providing a service of exemplary quality. Monthly.

    Subs ain't dead. Though it's a business model that works for fewer & fewer games these days.

  7. #147
    Bloody. Brilliant. Video.


  8. #148
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    The average Rift guild is unable to complete half of Hammerknell. It took the top progression guilds months to clear HK. In that time span Trion put out two separate instanced raids, master mode and 4 open world raids and a zone 2x as large as the previous largest zone. That does not include the features unrelated to raids & endgame either in that same time span.

    So to touch back on an earlier point; in terms of value per sub cost, I would say there definitely are MMOs out there providing a service of exemplary quality. Monthly.
    I do have to give a nod to trion on this reguard. Dispite the fact that they produced what was in my mind an unspectacular wow clone with a newish gimic they at least churn out content to give you value for the sub. I honestly dont recall seeing any MMO do that since the days when I played Asherons call. AC had monthly story updates, some bigger than others but you knew every month that there'd be something new. At least with that modle of sub you get to see what your paying for each month and can make an informed decision on if the quality is good enough to be worth it to you. Much better than 6+ months of subs with no content with a mystery box of content at the end.

    Still I prefer the B2P model. If I dont like the content I'm not obligated to buy it just like if I chose not to buy an expansion to a single player game and wanted to stick with the base game instead.

    Who is John Galt?

  9. #149
    Deleted
    They will make tons of money through micro transactions and box sales, I expect a new ''expansion'' at least once a year.

  10. #150
    Quote Originally Posted by Rife View Post
    I started raiding in Rift about the same time Hammerknell came out. Amazing instance. Hardest content I'd ever done for the most part. Took me and the guildies quite a while to get through there. All one difficulty aswel, so when you saw someone geared out in HK armour you knew what they went through to get it. Good times.
    Hammerknell wasn't difficult at all. It just had a steep gear requirement and the retarded mechanic of having to have resistance gear grinding on top of that. A massive time sink... The next thing about Hammerknell was that you needed good play (not flawless, but good) from everyone all the time - with 20 people odds are someone is going to fuck up and wipe the raid.

    This about RIFT (and WoW) pisses me off endlessly:

    "The jungle’s never been more hellish
    Do you have the skills, the fortitude, and the gear to battle through 11 supercharged bosses, countless minions, and mortal peril at every turn?"
    I simply don't understand why so many people seems to think because content is more powerful (hits harder, has more HP) that it's more difficult? It isn't. River of Souls is easy, Hammerknell is easy, WoW is easy - it's always ONLY about a PREDETERMINED and VERY PREDICTABLE fight. There are a set abilities that never varies (overly) and predictable damage.

    In fact it's hard because it's easy I think... People read too much into an encounter and in all guilds I've been in, it comes down to some sort of superstition (Onyxa deep breath anyone?) and people who are bored of their role in the raid that fucks up and everyone wipes and looses attention a bit and more wipes happen.

    I'm not out to bash you in particular Rife, and I'm sorry if I came across like that (wasn't my intention). I'm just really fed up with reading posts about how hard WoW and RIFT are. I quit them because they are equally easy when it comes down to it:

    1) "Get a bit higher than the minimum required gear for the instance (to minimize whatever RNG might happen on the few random splash dmg and minor mistakes people are bound to make in their healing/dps/tank rotation)"
    2) "Perform your niche role in the raid"
    3) "Pray everyone performs as well as yourself"
    4) "Profit"

    It's never more complicated than that - exactly because fights are NOT dynamic.


    Anyhow back on topic: Yes Anet can pull it off. NO a MASSIVE serverpark doesn't cost €140k a day. Yes selling 6.5 million boxes of GW1+extras+cash shop netted Anet enough money to build GW2 while maintaining and expanding GW1. Yes NCSoft is a lender of capital that Anet will return with the box sales probably quite fast.

    Lastly I laugh at the WoW fanboys that think a new MMO should be like WoW to be successful. I'm pissed at myself for letting Blizzard cheat me out of my money. I'm never going to buy or play another subscription based game again. It's very close to stealing and basically should be outlawed
    Last edited by Hellgaunt; 2012-02-19 at 08:56 PM.

  11. #151
    Quote Originally Posted by Hellgaunt View Post
    Hammerknell wasn't difficult at all. It just had a steep gear requirement and the retarded mechanic of having to have resistance gear grinding on top of that. A massive time sink... The next thing about Hammerknell was that you needed good play (not flawless, but good) from everyone all the time - with 20 people odds are someone is going to fuck up and wipe the raid.
    The gear reqs were able to be met with enchants.

    It was a supremely challenging raid, IMO. I say this as a previous EQ 1 and 2 progression raider and progression raider from classic to Ulduar Warcraft. No less valid than your claim HK was marginally difficult, of course. If you were in Voodoo, SO or Maximation-- cheers then.

    Objectively, many more would be able to clear HK than in actually do currently. Which has seen nerfs and higher gear thresholds by now. Reminds me of those claiming on the Warcraft boards Heroic Ragnaros was cake. The reality being only small % of players were able to down him. But every forum poster claims to have taken H-Ragnaros down while making pancakes on a portable stovetop. >.>

    I killed Akylois with Way of the Mountain up while painting my toes. Keenblade says, what up.

  12. #152
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    Objectively, many more would be able to clear HK than in actually do currently.
    What I'm saying is, RIFT and WoW and SW:TOR all subscribe to the same predictability that is scripted encounters. They never change, they follow the same pattern (because they must due to game design) of tank'n'spank and the only hard part of those games are getting 20 people to perform within the tight pattern. The individual person on the raid isn't challenged with decisions but just need to follow their rotation and avoid shit on the ground.

    Call me arrogant if you want, but all I'm saying is I'm fed up with that type of games. So to me GW2 can only be a success because it actually involves dynamic fights which CHANGE based on what you bring to the battle and how you play it - GW2 is not merely glueing some lore-monster to a 'tank' due to some arbitrary threat numbers (tell me why tanks needs to be the least dangerous individual in any raid? If I was a big powerful boss I wouldn't hit the target that gets healed and avoids 70% of my attacks, and on top barely damages me, I would use my abilities intelligently...) and then spamming the same rotation all the time (which is why the games are so easy and boring to me - and I played all 3 roles equally much).
    Last edited by Hellgaunt; 2012-02-19 at 08:56 PM.

  13. #153
    Ultimately its very hard to make a PvE encounter difficult. You are fighting a scripted event, and by nature these are predictable. Even with RNG you still know all the things the boss will throw at you. He wont suddenly change up his tactics either. So unless an encounter features a random wipe moment (essentially screwing over a raid without them having ANY chance) you only wipe because someone fucked up. Or you are not ready to deal with the static damage the boss needs and deals and simply need to hop back on the gear threadmill some more.

    I am hoping GW2 will mix it up a bit, even tough it will be scripted events they're mobs already sound pretty "smart". Kiting a melee? Maybe they will have their bosses complex enough that they can even have a level of adaptation to the group who is attacking him. But i doubt itll go to extremes.

    So atleast i hope the fights have interesting mechanics and they try plenty of new things. And besides that ofcourse i hope bosses look bad-ass. Kinda disapointing and anti-climactic to be in an EPIC raid and all you do is dps a Giants butt for 5min while all his animations are basicly just his Autoattack.
    But atleast the few bosses ive seen did look VERY cool.

  14. #154
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    If you were in Voodoo, SO or Maximation-- cheers then.
    .
    Here's the secret ingredients to building a world class guild:

    1) Get a core of 3-5 people that are really good at situational awareness and knows how to read a combat log after a fight.
    2) Make sure those 5 people are on the raids and are good at organizing their subgroups.
    3) Have 1-2 strong leaders that commands the raid with authority (to keep momentum running).

    Bang. Everything in those games are really easy.

    I've been 1+2+3 in my past. And I tell you now, that the hardest part in WoW and RIFT is to get 20 odd people to not make a single glaring mistake for 5-19 minutes of combat. Now, the reason many players don't get to see and complete those encounters is because they don't belong to 1+2 or 3. In RIFT there aren't that many active raiding guilds so naturally most players in RIFT are in unorganized guilds without the motivation to grind the gear needed for entry level raiding.

  15. #155
    Quote Originally Posted by Hellgaunt View Post
    What I'm saying is, RIFT and WoW and SW:TOR all subscribe to the same predictability that is scripted encounters.
    I know what you are saying- it's frankly, junk.

    The hook of encounter design in Rift/TOR/WOW is they are logistical puzzles. That is the challenge. Challenge is not that suddenly Kil'Jaden turned into a helicopter out of the blue forcing the Shaman to tank as shit got real.

    There is a massive amount of ignorance by the low gamer in understanding game design. Even more so when gamers transpose their own sour grapes/personal irks onto that design.

    Demon Souls is a rather tough game for most. A handful of people on an internet forum saying, "LULZ easy game" doesn't really warrant a lot of intellectual respect. By the same measure, and as objectively as we can be about a concept such as 'difficulty' [dubious at best], top end raid content is usually beyond the capacity of most. Which in the case of Hammerknell specifically was true for all but a handful of players.

    At one point there were only 60-90 or so players who even seen what Aklyois looked like.

    Very easy stuff. Back to painting my toes, here comes a wave.

    all I'm saying is I'm fed up with that type of games.
    The root of your claims revealed.
    Last edited by Fencers; 2012-02-19 at 09:09 PM.

  16. #156
    The hook of encounter design in Rift/TOR/WOW is they are logistical puzzles. That is the challenge. Challenge is not that suddenly Kil'Jaden turned into a helicopter out of the blue forcing the Shaman needed to tank as shit got real.
    That would make the best encounter ever.
    Pokemon FC: 4425-2708-3610

    I received a day one ORAS demo code. I am a chosen one.

  17. #157
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    At one point there were only 60-90 or so players who even seen what Aklyois looked like.

    Very easy stuff. Back to painting my toes, here comes a wave.

    The root of your claims revealed.
    Closing comments from me here as well (I'll try to frame it in a way so it doesn't seem like needing to get the last word) :P

    Ultimately it's just bad game design. Either making content so easy that everyone can do it (Blizzard) and just optionally vary the 'difficulty' level, or B make just one 'difficulty' (TRION) and only let the most well-organized see it. Either way if I'm not in a guild, which forces me to play 3-4 nights minimum on raids during progression and 1-2 nights after that - in a type of gameplay that feels very much like work (grind your consumeables, wetstones, enchants) and never being personally challenged or (rarely, when it's my turn to get loot and my item drops) net any sort of personal reward either - I don't get to see the content that my money is going to, and that is very unsatisfying and basically stealing. Or, if following the Blizzard way, my content is dumbed down to the point that there is no point to doing it other than for the gear that is irrelevant come next expansion...

    Hence my opinion (why did I even feel a need to explain that?)!

    Anyway - I speak my mind freely, and I don't try to hide my opinions either. The above is not me claiming anything, I'm postulating perhaps, but I'm also providing valid arguments that anyone can go and test the truth of - as you did and acknowledged.

    Anyhow happy painting
    Last edited by Hellgaunt; 2012-02-19 at 09:33 PM.

  18. #158
    With LFR, blizzard can make the current tier as easy as they want without nerfing it in the future and have Normal mode and Hard mode more difficult (to something like rifts standard where it actually takes more then 3 hours to beat an entire raid).

    Nerfing content isn't going to make more players do more raids, they focus on raids too much. WTB pokemon tournament.
    Pokemon FC: 4425-2708-3610

    I received a day one ORAS demo code. I am a chosen one.

  19. #159
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    The hook of encounter design in Rift/TOR/WOW is they are logistical puzzles. That is the challenge. Challenge is not that suddenly Kil'Jaden turned into a helicopter out of the blue forcing the Shaman to tank as shit got real.
    Wouldnt such a drastic change of the fight, so suddenly, actually challenge the players more? Not a matter of routine practise but pure improvisation to an unexpected situation. That is still pretty hard in an MMO.

    For example, i remember some very epic fights ive had in Skyrim. Fighting retreatingly up a mountain while battling a Draugr Scourgelord (yah hes a pretty big deal if your low level). He's using his dragon shouts and im trying to dodge and attack at any opening i get. Ultimately reaching the top with a cliff, i manage to circle behind him avoiding his attack and Unrelenting Shout his beefjerky-ass off the cliff.

    That is not the kind of fight you can get in a game like WoW because there is no room for such open fights. At best they can build in some random mechanics. But the fight against Artas is going to be pretty much the same, while my fight with that pissed off mummy couldve taken many diffirent forms and routes.

    Thats the diffirence between a scripted event and giving a mob traiths, skills and a certain behavior and just letting it do what it does best. Sadly, that last wouldnt work to great in a game like WoW, to many people. So hopefully the smaller "raids" from GW2 might make fights more interesting aswell.
    Afterall its easier for a small group to communicate and adept to a sudden event then it is for a large 25man raid.

  20. #160
    Quote Originally Posted by terrahero View Post
    Wouldnt such a drastic change of the fight, so suddenly, actually challenge the players more? Not a matter of routine practice but pure improvisation to an unexpected situation.
    Not without knowing the specifics. Maybe Kiljaden's helicopter adds are no big deal or can one shot the Shaman. Stuff happening at random isn't quantifiable as harder expressly. Comes down to the specifics of the encounter and player reaction- which can be just as bad in improvisation [unscripted] as in recognition [scripted].

    Natch, that sort of stuff isn't the design goal of scripted encounters seen in WoW & similar games. Which is fine for what it is- a logistical puzzle, essentially.

    (This is actually the opposite of objectively bad design by the way.)

    Thats the difference between a scripted event and giving a mob traits, skills and a certain behavior and just letting it do what it does best. Sadly, that last wouldn't work to great in a game like WoW, to many people. So hopefully the smaller "raids" from GW2 might make fights more interesting aswell.
    Indeed. Merely a different system though. Certain game design facilitates that type of open encounter(s). Which is hella fun as well.

    How much more fun one finds an unscripted encounter over a scripted one is [of course] subjective taste.

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