So, let's be clear on a few things before proceeding:
1) I'm not going to answer any questions in this topic apart from what is contained in my letter. This topic is for discussion of the oRvR letter only. I'm not being rude, uncaring, etc. but everyone here knows that if I go off-topic just once, this thread will devolve into lots of "Look at my issue" posts and arguments about those posts and this thread will be rendered useless.
2) I've said multiple times that the letter only details some of the things that we are working on. It is very clear about that so I don't think that we need to see any more "Mythic needs to fix this/address this/etc." in this thread as per (1) and (2). Also, please keep in mind that the odds that we are already paying attention to your oRvR issue(s)is quite high as oRvR is the focus of a number of people at Mythic and not just me.
3) In regards to one slightly off-topic issue (crashes), the game is very stable and is not crashing a lot, so any statements saying the servers are crashing like crazy are simply not true. I'll post more on this when I get some additional information from the team but the fact is that the servers are still stable. The "server stability" message that people are talking about I'll explain in more detail once I get some more information from the team.
4) In terms of the whole "my letter is fluff stuff" well, that's simply not true. This thread is probably at least 50/50 in terms of "Give us more stuff in oRvR" posts so I doubt that those people think that it is fluff even if all that was in it was us adding some shiny new stuff to the game. However, considering that my letter makes it clear that the changes include everything from experience gain, renown gain, item game, keep upgrades, new systems and titles, I'm not sure how that stuff can be considered fluff. The whole point of these additions/changes is to make leveling through oRvR more rewarding and faster and not simply to give people a shiny new toy every 5 levels or so.
5) In terms of the fame system being a new grind, no, not at all. It is intended to be the oRvR equivalent of the ToK for PvE but geared to oRvR. It is meant to be a compliment to the other oRvR reward systems but like I said, kicked up a few notches.
6) In terms of "This is not what the player base wants", well, the player base, as usual in any MMO, wants a lot of different things. Some players want more gear, other players want titles, others want experience, etc. and some want everything and more. However, in one of those rare instances where almost the entire player base wants one thing, I believe it is simply that the player base wants more people to engage in oRvR. In order to do that, we will use a variety of systems, rewards, etc. to get people into oRvR. If want we are doing/planning on doing isn't enough, well, we'll keep trying and add more incentives. There is no singly "silver bullet" that will get more people into oRvR instantly that also doesn't mess things up more in the long term. We've already done a lot to get more people into oRvR and we'll continue to do a lot more over the next few months and beyond.
7) In terms of "If we don't do this tomorrow, we're out of business" stuff, well, sorry, that's not how these things work. No MMO developer designs, tests and deploys major system upgrades quickly. Sometimes they have them already in the works/developed before they talk about them but apart from that, adding systems as complicated as the ones we're adding can't happen overnight here and they don't happen anywhere else either. We're upgrading a lot of things over the next few months in oRvR as well as the rest of the game and no developer's resources are unlimited. No MMO ever sprung completely done from the developer's head and WAR is no exception. We're working a lot of things besides these oRvR additions and we'll keep churning out content as fast as we can. The entire team is still focused on the LIVE version of WAR so it's not like we are being distracted by anything else.
8) On the "Why is this stuff taking so long?" it's only two months since we've launched and we have two major patches already in testing. The first is 1.0.6 with a ton of C&C changes/fixes and 1.1 with new content, fixes, etc. 1.0.6 is nearing final and I hope that 1.1 will go LIVE more quickly than 1.0.6 did. However, we are going to test and iterate on our patches longer than we did at times with DAoC precisely because we don't want to repeat some of the mistakes we made then. Unlike in DAoC, the decisions we are making on a lot of these issues are not being made simply by one individual but rather being talked about and vetted from multiple people within Mythic. There are times when I do say "We must do this, period" but I prefer to get people's thoughts, ideas, feedback, etc. before we undertake any major changes. And in terms of other people on the team, they have to get buy-in and sign-off on anything big. Again, we are not going to repeat some of the mistakes that we made with DAoC. If this means it will take a little longer, so be it. We need to get it right as opposed to simply getting it now.
So, those are some of my thoughts and additional comments for now.
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
So, let's be clear on a few things before proceeding:
3) In regards to one slightly off-topic issue (crashes), the game is very stable and is not crashing a lot, so any statements saying the servers are crashing like crazy are simply not true. I'll post more on this when I get some additional information from the team but the fact is that the servers are still stable. The "server stability" message that people are talking about I'll explain in more detail once I get some more information from the team.
Mark, servers ALWAYS crash or lag to death when we attempt a Fortress-siege when zones are locked down. This happens on all servers, happend EVERY time we have attempted to. Happens everytime on other servers awell.
Happens mostly on EU servers, but US are experiencing it aswell.
1) When a faction locks down a zone; and go to the fortress either is gonna happen:
1a) After 1st door are smashed down, 50% on 2nd, server crashes. (Sometimes even campaign resets)
1b) After 1st door are smashed down, 50% on 2nd, everyone gets a minimum 10 second lag aswell as if you get knocked down you never get up, die from invisible rain of fires 500 yards away from Fortress etc.
1c) People finally leave the zones because its truly unplayable, for both sides, 4th time in a row for Karak Eight Peaks on EU now. First time server crashed and reset campaigns, 2,3,4th time we got the imbalag which made both sides quit because its impossible to take over a fortress with 10-30 seconds lag on both sides.
2) We have several realms posting this issue in several forums aswell as here and WHA, but we have got ONE reply of times when we have emailed all EA/GOA/Mythic representatives on the forums, that was MagnusGOA who actually read his mail and forwarded it to the techguys, but it has been silent since that. Why do you say the opposite, servers are stable, why do they crash or lag to death each time when we attempt a fortress? Worked fine just some month ago, its not our computers, its serverlag.
3) When are you gonna give us a real answer about this, since Fortresses and progressing to the capitalcities is the maingoal and purpose of the entire RvR-Campaign, and we can't simply do it now because all the servers are broken when it comes to this.
The community actually demands an answer about this, Ive seen threads about this popping up like mushrooms in a forest on the forums in a rapid haste now lately, and this is the disheartening spirit of oRvR, and the reason why more and more people on our server and many other servers quit do oRvR until its fixed.
Saying the servers are stable when they do this each time ppl attempt a fortress on all servers, its really not understandable for me or any other.
All I can say is what I have already said and that is based on the reports I have the servers have not been crashing regularly as you suggest. I'll get an updated report from GOA as well but based on what I've heard from the guys here, this is simply not the case in the US.
All I can say is what I have already said and that is based on the reports I have the servers have not been crashing regularly as you suggest. I'll get an updated report from GOA as well but based on what I've heard from the guys here, this is simply not the case in the US.
Mark
Ow god.... that's gonna open a can of worms
LOL, maybe. However, since I just spoke to both the RvR and engineering teams and got the scoop from them, I know what I said is true. Have the servers crashed ever during the last week, yes. Have they crashed every time during a Fortress siege, no. We have fixes going up today to one of the problems and we hope to have fixes to another of the problems this week as well.
All I can say is what I have already said and that is based on the reports I have the servers have not been crashing regularly as you suggest. I'll get an updated report from GOA as well but based on what I've heard from the guys here, this is simply not the case in the US.
Mark
Ow god.... that's gonna open a can of worms
No doubt.
Fortress sieges are not in a playable state at the times I have attended. I never experienced all out crashes, but I can say that the chat was full of complaints about lag and performance issues.
Keep sieges can get very bogged down performance wise when a decent amount of people show up.
I hope these statements aren't eluding to the fact that the devs think that the performance in these areas is currently at an acceptable level.
((edit after reading above post. Glad to see work continues on performance))
Keep in mind (no pun intended) that crashes and performance are two different things. We are constantly working to improve the client's performance and will continue to do so.
All I can say is what I have already said and that is based on the reports I have the servers have not been crashing regularly as you suggest. I'll get an updated report from GOA as well but based on what I've heard from the guys here, this is simply not the case in the US.
Mark
Ow god.... that's gonna open a can of worms
LOL, maybe. However, since I just spoke to both the RvR and engineering teams and got the scoop from them, I know what I said is true. Have the servers crashed ever during the last week, yes. Have they crashed every time during a Fortress siege, no. We have fixes going up today to one of the problems and we hope to have fixes to another of the problems this week as well.
Mark
That's the stuff people want to hear ^^
No doubt but I had to check with the team before I said anything about it.
It seems like he sidestepped the issue regarding server crashes during Fortress sieges.. I dont think the entire server crashes, just definately the Fortress zone (and possibly all the T4 contested zones).
I mean, if the game was expecting a city seige once a month or so, but we havent even seen a successful fortress siege in 2 months, let alone 2 successful fortresses in a 12 hour window to unlock the city (outside of some midnight shenanigans to bypass the population crashing the Fortress seige).
He most likely sidestepped it because he doesn't have a definitive answer as to why it is being caused, what the resolution will be or what the time frame is. Or possibly all three.
From reading some of the dutch forums I know (well read anyway) that at least EU-Karak Hirn and EU-Karak eight peaks have had crashes during large battles/fortress sieges as well.
Edit" For maybe more specific answers from GOA if you're gonna ask them anyway
I was contacted by Mythic customer support, and the issue has been cleared up! Mythic was more than happy to assist me, and were very courteous, prompt, and professional about it.
I cannot express how impressed I am with the level of customer support I recieved.
I'll be playing on the Azazel server as a black orc, feel free to private message me and I'll throw ya my character name when I think of it!
Mr. Jacobs THANK YOU AGAIN! And, I supplied your department with all information regarding the issue, including the Walmart store details.
LOL, you're welcome. FYI, we're reaching out to that specific Walmart as well to talk to them.
WAR tends to be fun in an inverse relationship with how much or fast you're trying to grind.
I had a great time killing fools in Saphery tonight, though my performance was unusually bad. I think it really is time for more RAM and a second video card.
Is this something you've seen firsthand? I've seen WHA run the spectrum of "broken" to "runs amazing" for SLI, and no talk of ATI Crossfire setups. Maybe the solution is to sneak a 4870x2 past my wife...
I'm not running SLI, but was able to snag a 280. Everything I've seen on the forums regarding SLI has been a complaint or a 'turn it off' solution. I will definitely keep my eyes open for a better answer though.
WAR tends to be fun in an inverse relationship with how much or fast you're trying to grind.
I had a great time killing fools in Saphery tonight, though my performance was unusually bad. I think it really is time for more RAM and a second video card.
Is this something you've seen firsthand? I've seen WHA run the spectrum of "broken" to "runs amazing" for SLI, and no talk of ATI Crossfire setups. Maybe the solution is to sneak a 4870x2 past my wife...
I'm not running SLI, but was able to snag a 280. Everything I've seen on the forums regarding SLI has been a complaint or a 'turn it off' solution. I will definitely keep my eyes open for a better answer though.
I just discovered the $270 4870 1gb. That'd be a decent improvement over my 4850 and not ridiculously priced - nothing is on par other than the 280, and the only better card is the 4870x2 for a few hundred more. From what I see, the 1gb tears up WAR too.
1) The servers are not crashing all the time, they are not crashing every time someone takes a fortress and that they aren't even crashing every day. We have lots of servers out there and let's say that we averaged one crash a day across all servers in North America. Would you call one total crash a day across 25 servers a regular occurrence? Or worse would you say that servers are crashing constantly? Again, I'm not talking about one crash per server per day, just one crash per day. And BTW, we haven't had that many total server crashes over the last week.
2) When people were talking about lag and performance, those issues are usually client related. I'm not blaming players, I'm simply saying that lag/performance issues are usually client-side software related not server-side software related. Sometimes they can be server-related (heavy message spam) but not usually. Optimizing our client-side software to support ever greater number of people in RvR areas is a constant challenge. The same holds true for any game that seeks to have our scale of battles, effects, etc.
3) I did separate zone/region crashes from server crashes. There is a rather big difference between them but even region crashes don't happen constantly and their numbers are consistent with the server crashes.
4) I did say that I was going to get the latest info from GOA to see if their latest data is different than ours.
5) I also did say that we had a fix going in today for one of the problems and we hope to have another fix in later this week and that I'll talk about it more after I get all the data.
That's exactly what I said and what the team told me. Please don't attempt to put words in my mouth or say that I'm calling people liars when I haven't done that. That's really poor form.
I just discovered the $270 4870 1gb. That'd be a decent improvement over my 4850 and not ridiculously priced - nothing is on par other than the 280, and the only better card is the 4870x2 for a few hundred more. From what I see, the 1gb tears up WAR too.
50-60fps on full in sieges? Yes please.
Sounds like a deal, go for it. Keep in mind, these new behemoth cards are using a lot of power, so if you decide to do crossfire you're going to need a rock solid PSU w/2 6-pin and 2 8-pin connectors for them. The EVGA 280 came with a written warning cautioning me against using the included converter cables for any long period of time. (I'm using them since my PSU can handle it, however, the card does act strange at times so YMMV.)
So... anyone have any tips for completing the ORvR requirment for the Heavy Metal Event? I've been doing it on my tier two Zealot... and tier two open RvR areas are completely barren as far as I can tell.
I just discovered the $270 4870 1gb. That'd be a decent improvement over my 4850 and not ridiculously priced - nothing is on par other than the 280, and the only better card is the 4870x2 for a few hundred more. From what I see, the 1gb tears up WAR too.
50-60fps on full in sieges? Yes please.
Sounds like a deal, go for it. Keep in mind, these new behemoth cards are using a lot of power, so if you decide to do crossfire you're going to need a rock solid PSU w/2 6-pin and 2 8-pin connectors for them. The EVGA 280 came with a written warning cautioning me against using the included converter cables for any long period of time. (I'm using them since my PSU can handle it, however, the card does act strange at times so YMMV.)
Yeah, I'm on an average 500w; that would definitely go up with anything beyond what I have now.
Honestly, I've never been sold on the concept of of SLI/CF, but figured I'd take a look in this round as costs are low. But this 4870 1gb seems to outperform CF'd 4850s, especially in VRAM hungry games like WAR.
Mythic, Go in your wife's purse and find your nuts. Then use them to make some hard decisions about which servers you need to close now. Dammit, I dont want to play another game....why are you letting us down?
I dread and look forward to that day. It's the day Mythic fully owns to making mistakes, makes a good, hard choice that will sustain the game, and the WoW community's dregs flood every WAR discussion in the world with idiot laughter.
I dread and look forward to that day. It's the day Mythic fully owns to making mistakes, makes a good, hard choice that will sustain the game, and the WoW community's dregs flood every WAR discussion in the world with idiot laughter.
I dont see why they need to close the server, if people want to play on Low Pop servers so they can PvE their way into the Capital, I say let them.
Hmm... is tier three ORvR active at the moment on Red Eye? If so, I suppose I could hop on my Magus, travel to a tier three area, and try my hand there. As I've already checked tier one and two, which appear to be ghost towns in that regard.
Mythic, Go in your wife's purse and find your nuts. Then use them to make some hard decisions about which servers you need to close now. Dammit, I dont want to play another game....why are you letting us down?
The whole character transfer thing seems stupid, especially now that a destination server has become a transfer server...wtf? Really should just merge servers.
These server transfers confuse me. They take the population from a server with low amounts, and allow people to transfer to several different servers. Isn't that just going to kill the source server?
These server transfers confuse me. They take the population from a server with low amounts, and allow people to transfer to several different servers. Isn't that just going to kill the source server?
yes that is the point. WAR becomes more fun with more people.
A quick post and then I have to head out. This latest round of transfers is, in most cases, not an attempt to move low pop servers but rather an attempt to build higher pop servers from med/med pop servers. What we're hoping will happen is that with these moves the oRvR opportunities on those servers will be even better and more plentiful than they currently have on those servers. The servers that people we are asking people to move from have the lowest population of their type.
As I've said before, we recognize the importance of oRvR to our game and this is just one of the steps we are taking to try to encourage more people to partake in it.
Perhaps no one transferred over, or perhaps not as many as they wanted. Still I agree that Averhein should be absorbed instead of transferred from, that way the ones left behind won't be stuck in low pop limbo til the next round of transfers/merges.
Hiryu02 on
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
Posts
I certainly don't trust you on that point. I never had one!
rabble rabble rabble
Mark"
I mean, if the game was expecting a city seige once a month or so, but we havent even seen a successful fortress siege in 2 months, let alone 2 successful fortresses in a 12 hour window to unlock the city (outside of some midnight shenanigans to bypass the population crashing the Fortress seige).
MWO: Adamski
Thanks a lot.
Indeed. Saving the rest of us from brain-melting ventures into the dregs of the internet.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
Edit: hell, up until this weekend, ffs.
I'm not running SLI, but was able to snag a 280. Everything I've seen on the forums regarding SLI has been a complaint or a 'turn it off' solution. I will definitely keep my eyes open for a better answer though.
no. BAD.
Source
* Badlands
* Averheim
* Bretonnia
Destination
* Ungrim
* Gorfang
* Ironfist
* Volkmar
I just discovered the $270 4870 1gb. That'd be a decent improvement over my 4850 and not ridiculously priced - nothing is on par other than the 280, and the only better card is the 4870x2 for a few hundred more. From what I see, the 1gb tears up WAR too.
50-60fps on full in sieges? Yes please.
Sounds like a deal, go for it. Keep in mind, these new behemoth cards are using a lot of power, so if you decide to do crossfire you're going to need a rock solid PSU w/2 6-pin and 2 8-pin connectors for them. The EVGA 280 came with a written warning cautioning me against using the included converter cables for any long period of time. (I'm using them since my PSU can handle it, however, the card does act strange at times so YMMV.)
Yeah, I'm on an average 500w; that would definitely go up with anything beyond what I have now.
Honestly, I've never been sold on the concept of of SLI/CF, but figured I'd take a look in this round as costs are low. But this 4870 1gb seems to outperform CF'd 4850s, especially in VRAM hungry games like WAR.
I dread and look forward to that day. It's the day Mythic fully owns to making mistakes, makes a good, hard choice that will sustain the game, and the WoW community's dregs flood every WAR discussion in the world with idiot laughter.
I dont see why they need to close the server, if people want to play on Low Pop servers so they can PvE their way into the Capital, I say let them.
MWO: Adamski
The whole character transfer thing seems stupid, especially now that a destination server has become a transfer server...wtf? Really should just merge servers.
yes that is the point. WAR becomes more fun with more people.