Post by Zeli on Nov 18, 2006 9:01:55 GMT -5
sources
HR Gamer: home.hamptonroads.com/blog/index.cfm?uid=3
Only-WAR: only-war.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6090
HR Gamer: home.hamptonroads.com/blog/index.cfm?uid=3
Only-WAR: only-war.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6090
Please note that the game is currently in extremely early Beta and the following things may change substantially before release. Also realize that we only have rudimentary knowledge of many aspects of game play, so do not look to this as an extensive guide to how WAR will play at launch.
Speaking of launch…
1. Lauch Window
During our interview with Mark Jacobs, he mentioned October ’07 as the target release date.
John Tanner: October sounds good to me for a few reasons. The top one being that even if they miss that window, they’ll have an extra month to get out before the holiday rush. Not that they have to release around the holidays, but hey, that’s game business.
Brian Frappier: I was surprised by October, because that’s the DAOC anniversary and you’d think they’d want some space…perhaps they’ll launch on the anniversary and do a bundle deal or something.
Adam Fulton: As long as the game doesn’t suffer from being rushed to completion to beat the deadline, I honestly don’t care what time of year they release it.
2. Collision Detection
Collision detection is in the game. In current form, by default, collision detection is off until you enter an RvR/PvP encounter. At that time collision detection is toggled on not only for enemy characters, but allies as well.
John Tanner: Outstanding! This takes care of so many problems with existing MMORPG PvP combat. Assist train? Forget about it. You can’t assist train on someone completely surrounded (by enemies or friendlies). This also makes defensively played tanks a little more useful. “Yo’, beefy dude, go stand in front of the fella’ in a robe and make sure nobody rips out his spleen.” I won’t even go into the potential of routing large forces by use of strategic choke points.
Brian Frappier: Friendly CD but without any of the “idiot blocking a vault door” griefing – sounds good. I can’t imagine enough friendlies getting together to block off the entry to a PVE zone – you have TEN seconds before you are actually flagged when entering a PVP zone – 10 seconds into the zone the blockage could literally be 500 characters wide, depending on the area! And who can sit there that long with enemies crashing down around you, anyway? Excellent.
Adam Fulton: “…all that matters is that two stood against many. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request: grant me revenge…” This is going to be fantastic. Finally, formation tactics will actually be viable in pvp situations. Imagine two battered dwarven Ironbreakers holding a breach in a keep wall, keeping a horde of Greenskins at bay while ranged fighters and healers lend their support. Not to mention the fact that I will no longer have to stand helpless as the enemy melee dps line passes right through me like ghosts and massacres my caster support.
3. Group Size
Though not official, and still undergoing tweaks, group size seems to be hovering around six players.
John Tanner: Six is a reasonable number. It balances between allowing too many people, making a full group hard to fill out, and too few slots, leaving no room for friends.
Adam Fulton: One of my biggest problems with WoW and FFXI was the idea that a lot of players had of the “perfect group.” Several classes (notably WoW’s Hunters and – in the early days -- Warlocks) were viewed as an unnecessary addition to a group even though they could add so much to a group’s makeup. With the focus on fewer class types in WAR (four per race, mixing “core” and “support”), six seems like a reasonable number.
Brian Frappier: Six sounds good. Means less stacking of archetypes as well. (DAOC: healer, healer, utility, dps, dps, dps, dps, dps).
4. Siege Warfare: Make it stop!
Siege warfare is an integral part of WAR. Sacking an enemy city is a huge draw for the game, but how do you kick the enemy out when it’s all over? They were obviously strong enough to beat you once, what keeps them from sticking around? Many MMO’s fall to the NPC guard crutch. In other games you might see a series of rapid-spawning-super-guards do the cleanup work for your team. Not in WAR. The proposed system of enemy removal goes as follows: Over time, during an occupation, the strength of defending forces begins to multiply. After a while, the doors close to enemy reinforcements and at that point it becomes a war of attrition. In theory, this allows much smaller forces (or even an individual) to eventually send an invasion force packing.
John Tanner: “Ok, we get it. You took our city. There are five hundred of you and my single group is getting its %^* kicked. Yeah, you’re the man. Now could you please move on? No? That makes me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.” I think what Mythic is proposing here could revolutionize the way MMO’s approach siege. If my team of six could eventually grow so strong that we were able to kick an invasion force out on our own, all of my visions of MMO grandeur will have come true. I can see the forum bragging posts now…
Brian Frappier: This is definitely interesting. Not only is it possibly the PERFECT way to end sieges while still requiring player interaction, it ALSO means they are definitely looking at implementing some sort of level/power scaling system! Forgive my excitement, but that means entering lower-tier zones will definitely be possible!
Adam Fulton: Awesome. I can’t wait to see this in action, and it will be a great way to tie the player closer to their character, as they get more and more frustrated with being killed over and over while trying to throw the enemy out of the city, their character gets angrier and stronger. How cool is that? I just hope they incorporate siege breaking victories into the Tome of Knowledge somehow.
5. Death Penalties
Death in an MMO can be a very disheartening event. Losing a level, your gear, or a chunk of experience can make you want to throw up your hands in frustration. Though no clear details were forthcoming, the dev team was quick to say, “The only thing you’ll lose is a little time.”
John Tanner: I took this to mean that you’ll just need to run back out from a spawn point. I didn’t get the impression that they meant experience loss. Adam?
Adam Fulton: The vibe I got from the devs while we were talking about death in WAR was that they definitely weren’t interested in drastically punishing players for death. No mention was made of experience or item loss, though that could change. Frankly, I’ve always been of the opinion that there should be consequences for death, but some developers took it a bit too far. I’m looking at you, Everquest…
Brian Frappier: I remember discussion about insanity points that made you weaker in x or y way – something like DAOC’s rez sickness. Glad to see they are sticking to the non-punishing PVP of DAOC.
6. Voice Communication
When asked directly about voice communication, we were met coy smiles and slightly red faces. Electronic Arts has done impressive things with voice in the BF2 series, so it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine it integrated into WAR. The official line; “We haven’t ruled anything out, and we are still looking into it.”
John Tanner: This has been a point of much debate among the masses. Personally, I’d like to see some sort of group oriented built-in voice communication – with the ability to turn it off, of course. It’s the next logical step, and I hope Mythic takes it.
Adam Fulton: This is one of the few things DDO did right, in my opinion. It had its quirks, but integrated voice chat made running with a pickup group an almost pleasant experience (or rather, the idea of a pickup group didn’t send me into fits of frothing-at-the-mouth convulsions). Possibly because hearing an actual human voice attached to a group member strips away a layer of anonymity that comes with playing on the internet (see John Gabriel’s Greater #$@%wad theory).
Voicechat in WAR would be a great asset, if it’s implemented in a way that makes third party voice com programs unnecessary. DDO didn’t allow for guilds to set up voice coms, only parties. Most MMO guilds today have dedicated Ventrillo or Teamspeak servers that they use for chatty chatty even when not grouped. If WAR takes the logical step and grants voice coms to guilds in game, it will cut out a lot of time and effort for players, as they’ll no long have to exit or alt-tab from the game to go through the tedious process to get their coms set up for every new voice server.
Brian Frappier: Hmm, Mark Jacobs has always been vehemently against built-in voice chat. Evidence of EA flexing it’s muscle? However in this case it’s for the good – this will help PUG players (or just people that don’t want to rent/pirate a voice server) immensely.
7. Tome of Knowledge
Dynamically updated as the character experiences new encounters, quests, and beasts, the Tome replaces plain old quest logs with something more. It’s elegant in its design, with clickable prompts appearing on screen as new entries become available. The Tome will contain quests, locations of interest and a bestiary, and more. Player titles will be granted by the Tome at certain intervals, depending on the title. We were also told of a “Bragging Rights” section of the game that players can show others for…er…bragging.
John Tanner: This was the most impressive sight I saw all day. The Tome is so much a part of the experience that you lose yourself to it. I found myself clicking every log link that came up, just to see what had been added. I just can’t wait to see how much gets fed out to the Herald.
Adam Fulton: From what I saw, this thing is going to be extremely useful and a lot of fun to explore. And the bragging rights section? Gold. What MMO player doesn’t like to show off, after all, otherwise why have all the phat loots?
Brian Frappier: Interesting – not sure what I expect from this, other than that I hope Mythic gets this ALL on the Herald from the start. We are likely to see a limited version (that should still blow away the DAOC Herald) but I want EVERYTHING about my character available via XML. Everything.
Still to come: Hands-on Play Impressions
Speaking of launch…
1. Lauch Window
During our interview with Mark Jacobs, he mentioned October ’07 as the target release date.
John Tanner: October sounds good to me for a few reasons. The top one being that even if they miss that window, they’ll have an extra month to get out before the holiday rush. Not that they have to release around the holidays, but hey, that’s game business.
Brian Frappier: I was surprised by October, because that’s the DAOC anniversary and you’d think they’d want some space…perhaps they’ll launch on the anniversary and do a bundle deal or something.
Adam Fulton: As long as the game doesn’t suffer from being rushed to completion to beat the deadline, I honestly don’t care what time of year they release it.
2. Collision Detection
Collision detection is in the game. In current form, by default, collision detection is off until you enter an RvR/PvP encounter. At that time collision detection is toggled on not only for enemy characters, but allies as well.
John Tanner: Outstanding! This takes care of so many problems with existing MMORPG PvP combat. Assist train? Forget about it. You can’t assist train on someone completely surrounded (by enemies or friendlies). This also makes defensively played tanks a little more useful. “Yo’, beefy dude, go stand in front of the fella’ in a robe and make sure nobody rips out his spleen.” I won’t even go into the potential of routing large forces by use of strategic choke points.
Brian Frappier: Friendly CD but without any of the “idiot blocking a vault door” griefing – sounds good. I can’t imagine enough friendlies getting together to block off the entry to a PVE zone – you have TEN seconds before you are actually flagged when entering a PVP zone – 10 seconds into the zone the blockage could literally be 500 characters wide, depending on the area! And who can sit there that long with enemies crashing down around you, anyway? Excellent.
Adam Fulton: “…all that matters is that two stood against many. Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request: grant me revenge…” This is going to be fantastic. Finally, formation tactics will actually be viable in pvp situations. Imagine two battered dwarven Ironbreakers holding a breach in a keep wall, keeping a horde of Greenskins at bay while ranged fighters and healers lend their support. Not to mention the fact that I will no longer have to stand helpless as the enemy melee dps line passes right through me like ghosts and massacres my caster support.
3. Group Size
Though not official, and still undergoing tweaks, group size seems to be hovering around six players.
John Tanner: Six is a reasonable number. It balances between allowing too many people, making a full group hard to fill out, and too few slots, leaving no room for friends.
Adam Fulton: One of my biggest problems with WoW and FFXI was the idea that a lot of players had of the “perfect group.” Several classes (notably WoW’s Hunters and – in the early days -- Warlocks) were viewed as an unnecessary addition to a group even though they could add so much to a group’s makeup. With the focus on fewer class types in WAR (four per race, mixing “core” and “support”), six seems like a reasonable number.
Brian Frappier: Six sounds good. Means less stacking of archetypes as well. (DAOC: healer, healer, utility, dps, dps, dps, dps, dps).
4. Siege Warfare: Make it stop!
Siege warfare is an integral part of WAR. Sacking an enemy city is a huge draw for the game, but how do you kick the enemy out when it’s all over? They were obviously strong enough to beat you once, what keeps them from sticking around? Many MMO’s fall to the NPC guard crutch. In other games you might see a series of rapid-spawning-super-guards do the cleanup work for your team. Not in WAR. The proposed system of enemy removal goes as follows: Over time, during an occupation, the strength of defending forces begins to multiply. After a while, the doors close to enemy reinforcements and at that point it becomes a war of attrition. In theory, this allows much smaller forces (or even an individual) to eventually send an invasion force packing.
John Tanner: “Ok, we get it. You took our city. There are five hundred of you and my single group is getting its %^* kicked. Yeah, you’re the man. Now could you please move on? No? That makes me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.” I think what Mythic is proposing here could revolutionize the way MMO’s approach siege. If my team of six could eventually grow so strong that we were able to kick an invasion force out on our own, all of my visions of MMO grandeur will have come true. I can see the forum bragging posts now…
Brian Frappier: This is definitely interesting. Not only is it possibly the PERFECT way to end sieges while still requiring player interaction, it ALSO means they are definitely looking at implementing some sort of level/power scaling system! Forgive my excitement, but that means entering lower-tier zones will definitely be possible!
Adam Fulton: Awesome. I can’t wait to see this in action, and it will be a great way to tie the player closer to their character, as they get more and more frustrated with being killed over and over while trying to throw the enemy out of the city, their character gets angrier and stronger. How cool is that? I just hope they incorporate siege breaking victories into the Tome of Knowledge somehow.
5. Death Penalties
Death in an MMO can be a very disheartening event. Losing a level, your gear, or a chunk of experience can make you want to throw up your hands in frustration. Though no clear details were forthcoming, the dev team was quick to say, “The only thing you’ll lose is a little time.”
John Tanner: I took this to mean that you’ll just need to run back out from a spawn point. I didn’t get the impression that they meant experience loss. Adam?
Adam Fulton: The vibe I got from the devs while we were talking about death in WAR was that they definitely weren’t interested in drastically punishing players for death. No mention was made of experience or item loss, though that could change. Frankly, I’ve always been of the opinion that there should be consequences for death, but some developers took it a bit too far. I’m looking at you, Everquest…
Brian Frappier: I remember discussion about insanity points that made you weaker in x or y way – something like DAOC’s rez sickness. Glad to see they are sticking to the non-punishing PVP of DAOC.
6. Voice Communication
When asked directly about voice communication, we were met coy smiles and slightly red faces. Electronic Arts has done impressive things with voice in the BF2 series, so it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine it integrated into WAR. The official line; “We haven’t ruled anything out, and we are still looking into it.”
John Tanner: This has been a point of much debate among the masses. Personally, I’d like to see some sort of group oriented built-in voice communication – with the ability to turn it off, of course. It’s the next logical step, and I hope Mythic takes it.
Adam Fulton: This is one of the few things DDO did right, in my opinion. It had its quirks, but integrated voice chat made running with a pickup group an almost pleasant experience (or rather, the idea of a pickup group didn’t send me into fits of frothing-at-the-mouth convulsions). Possibly because hearing an actual human voice attached to a group member strips away a layer of anonymity that comes with playing on the internet (see John Gabriel’s Greater #$@%wad theory).
Voicechat in WAR would be a great asset, if it’s implemented in a way that makes third party voice com programs unnecessary. DDO didn’t allow for guilds to set up voice coms, only parties. Most MMO guilds today have dedicated Ventrillo or Teamspeak servers that they use for chatty chatty even when not grouped. If WAR takes the logical step and grants voice coms to guilds in game, it will cut out a lot of time and effort for players, as they’ll no long have to exit or alt-tab from the game to go through the tedious process to get their coms set up for every new voice server.
Brian Frappier: Hmm, Mark Jacobs has always been vehemently against built-in voice chat. Evidence of EA flexing it’s muscle? However in this case it’s for the good – this will help PUG players (or just people that don’t want to rent/pirate a voice server) immensely.
7. Tome of Knowledge
Dynamically updated as the character experiences new encounters, quests, and beasts, the Tome replaces plain old quest logs with something more. It’s elegant in its design, with clickable prompts appearing on screen as new entries become available. The Tome will contain quests, locations of interest and a bestiary, and more. Player titles will be granted by the Tome at certain intervals, depending on the title. We were also told of a “Bragging Rights” section of the game that players can show others for…er…bragging.
John Tanner: This was the most impressive sight I saw all day. The Tome is so much a part of the experience that you lose yourself to it. I found myself clicking every log link that came up, just to see what had been added. I just can’t wait to see how much gets fed out to the Herald.
Adam Fulton: From what I saw, this thing is going to be extremely useful and a lot of fun to explore. And the bragging rights section? Gold. What MMO player doesn’t like to show off, after all, otherwise why have all the phat loots?
Brian Frappier: Interesting – not sure what I expect from this, other than that I hope Mythic gets this ALL on the Herald from the start. We are likely to see a limited version (that should still blow away the DAOC Herald) but I want EVERYTHING about my character available via XML. Everything.
Still to come: Hands-on Play Impressions
