I think you balance factional pvp by making overall resources roughly equal between factions, whether that is pvp respawn timers or something like zone/battleground abilities.
You can also reward cooperative play to even things out a bit. The overpopulated factions tend to get lazy and can win with simple numbers if individual player skill and organization between players isn't incentivized.
I believe there's some balancing later on like you can't swap factions (the 120 day cooldown swap) to the faction that controls the most zones. I'm not sure this applies to starting out though, but maybe it does once factions start taking parts of the map. I think they need to take it a step forward and more actively encourage being in yellow the least populated faction though.
I think I'll be playing at release, but I'm going to take my sweet time getting to the endgame because it doesn't seem like there is much of one right now.
I'm also really uncomfortable with the things they've done that were clearly designed for future cash shop transactions.
Dungeons need a special single use key because reasons.
Dyes are single use.
Fast travel and crafting bonuses require a limited resource that has a very low cap.
Respecs also require the same resource.
You can currently buy guild crest patterns and colors on the shop. The game isn't even out.
I don't have any hope this will actually be good, but I think it'll be good enough and interesting enough to justify paying 1-3 months. So I went to preorder. And I can find a page about how I should preorder in the Amazon app.
I've already pre-ordered and am still psyched after the beta. Then again, I'm a crafting game addict. My friends and I are planning on doing nothing really more than gathering and crafting for the first few months. Not everyone digs that part, but we do. And I'll be streaming it for all of you to watch! :biggrin:
I preordered over the weekend and took it for a spin, only getting to I think level 7. I didn't really want to rush or "see it all." I mostly just wanted to get a flavor and a taste for myself, which is exactly what I accomplished.
I've heard a handful of people, both here at PA and also in various streams and on Twitter talk about the crafting in the game. I assume it gets better than the low level food crafting they teach you as part of the tutorial? And tool crafting? I made some rations, and I made myself a set of pickaxe, lumber axe, skinning knife, and etc, but that's as much as I did. And that was basically just "gather mats and click a button." There wasn't really any depth there. But again, I realize that was just the tutorial which is why I'm asking if it advances.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I preordered over the weekend and took it for a spin, only getting to I think level 7. I didn't really want to rush or "see it all." I mostly just wanted to get a flavor and a taste for myself, which is exactly what I accomplished.
I've heard a handful of people, both here at PA and also in various streams and on Twitter talk about the crafting in the game. I assume it gets better than the low level food crafting they teach you as part of the tutorial? And tool crafting? I made some rations, and I made myself a set of pickaxe, lumber axe, skinning knife, and etc, but that's as much as I did. And that was basically just "gather mats and click a button." There wasn't really any depth there. But again, I realize that was just the tutorial which is why I'm asking if it advances.
Not really.
I think what makes crafting interesting to people coming from other MMOs is that crafted items are actually useful beyond a few consumables and the rare BiS crafted item.
Yeah it's ultimately all collect mats and click button, but later crafts can use different components to influence the outcome. Anything past say level 20 has variable options for it. Add on to this that your skill alters the outcome. Someone who is level 50 in blacksmithing crafting an iron sword makes a better one than a level 10.
I miss the EQ2 crafting system. You had to make trade off decisions and play a mini game, maybe X trait gets higher and Y lower because something unexpected happened while crafting.
i think that just being able to make items that are actually useful is a quality feature in and of itself...
i miss SWG's crafting system where essentially all gear worth using was player made, and there was a high variability in quality, so you'd have people literally become professional weaponsmiths and get a reputation for it
now I know New World is nowhere near that, but the fact that the gear is actually useful seems promising
Delays are good. Means they care more about delivering a quality product than rushing to meet a deadline. This is amazing news.
The beta was even pretty good. Given how insane the public turnout was for the game, server stability was about as good as could be expected. I personally did not encounter any bugs on the way to brave level 7.
But even still, if there are bugs that need to be squashed, or balance / tuning / adjustments made based on player feedback, this is only a good thing. Even before beta ended I felt like a 1 month break was probably not enough time to do anything with the beta feedback. Software development doesn't happen over night. Or even over 3 weeks. It's a long process. And I'm very glad to see the commitment to delivering the best possible product when they do launch.
i think that just being able to make items that are actually useful is a quality feature in and of itself...
i miss SWG's crafting system where essentially all gear worth using was player made, and there was a high variability in quality, so you'd have people literally become professional weaponsmiths and get a reputation for it
now I know New World is nowhere near that, but the fact that the gear is actually useful seems promising
I'm waiting for an MMO that takes SWGs resource stat system. Its one of the only MMOs where being a prolific GATHERER could net you more fame than being a crafter because you were one of the only people on the server who still had a stockpile of super high quality ore that spawned 3 months ago that every crafter wants for PvP armour and weapons. But a system like that only really works in an environment where gear is designed to be used up and replaced, which isn't very popular.
SWG's gathering was both a blessing and a curse. Yes, it offered amazing freedom and being able to construct harvesters on nodes was a really novel and great idea. The downfall though, was that if you weren't online after a server reset or resource shuffle, you were screwed. The system was not fair for people who work 9-5 jobs and have a real life outside of the video game. Really, the only people who profited from the system were the no-lifers and the college students who could afford to cut class when there was a resource shuffle.
It was a novel idea in theory, but in practice it was kinda bad.
it depended on what you were making... if you were making weapons the resource burden was so low that you only needed one or two jackpot extractions to make hundreds of guns
and there wasn't a depletion of a resource... so you just needed to find it fast enough to get quality extractor time, nobody could goldrush you out of it... unless the pocket was so small that there was simply no room left to place extractors
god i miss that game so much. it was SO GOOD. i dont think people 100% got it in its time... lol mission terminals, lol combat fatigue.... but looking back so much about that game was genius from Day 1
On the topic of New World, I think resources within territories are the perfect way to incentivize PVP and faction territory control, and create a perpetually changing geo-political world map. If some of the territories contained rare or exclusive resources, that would be a big reason for factions to want to challenge it for conquest, or defend it.
I watched Preach's first impression video yesterday, and he voices a lot of the same concerns I have. Will the game have enough content to keep players going past the first month. What will they do to fix the 50v50 PVP Battles so that they aren't such a chaotic mess. (Basically, they need to add a bunch of side objectives to these maps to encourage people to split up and form squads to tackle multiple objectives on the map at the same time, rather than just chokepointing into the meat grinder.) And of course the game needs more/sustainable PVE as well.
Here's the Preach video if anyone wants to watch it. He covers a lot of topics and his approach is more of an introduction to the game, but I still thought some of his opinions were interesting.
Lastly, I think it might have even been somebody here on Penny Arcade that made the comment that they need to introduce some sort of mechanism for weapons and armor and crafted items to exit the economy. Otherwise, after a month of time, the value of pretty much everything player-made will bottom out. This is a concern I have as well. Hopefully it's something that the devs are considering and can introduce a solution now that they have 2 months of extra dev time before release.
SWG was another attempt from some of the people behind Ultima Online (good 'ol Designer Dragon) at a world....and I honestly miss MMOs attempting to be Worlds. Everything has been so streamlined and made more video game-like, which is fine, but it's not the same as some of the MMOs in the past.
If we're reductionist, it's easy to say hard versus easy, but it's more than that and I'm in a meeting and can't elaborate . I do miss the attempts at MMORPG worlds, though, instead of how it is nowadays.
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SWG was the opposite of a "Theme Park MMO." Most of the planets and terrain were auto-generated and then they just sprinkled in a few points of interest here and there for flavor. The strengths of that game were in its social features, city building, player community, and just the idea that you are just a citizen of the Star Wars universe, living a normal life. The fact that the game had jobs that were entirely social, such as Dancer, Image Designer, and Politician, jobs that weren't in anyway even remotely combat jobs was just unheard of.
Also the fact that the crafting professions were also entirely dedicated classes. Rather than being a paladin who is also a blacksmith, you were just a blacksmith. (Figuratively speaking). That was a paradigm shift that was mind blowing at the time, and honestly it still is. I cannot think of another game where you can just dedicate yourself wholly to crafting and selling, and be a part of the digital society without ever participating in PVE or PVP.
My "main" in SWG was a Ranger, which was more of an auxiliary support role and not really a combat specialist. I went out in the field to combat locations, and I could do okay with a carbine, because I had levels invested in carbineer. But my main role was not to do damage, but rather to provide camps and resources so other people could be successful. That kind of class design and thinking was way ahead of its time.
And anyway, to keep this slightly on topic to New World, I see so much potential in this game. I do not think 2 months is enough time to fully realize that potential before they launch. BUT! I do think it gives them enough time to deliver the bones of a game that will continue to grow and evolve and become better over time. It's got a good framework here, and as long as they don't let greed overtake them, I've got high hopes for the future.
On the topic of New World, I think resources within territories are the perfect way to incentivize PVP and faction territory control, and create a perpetually changing geo-political world map. If some of the territories contained rare or exclusive resources, that would be a big reason for factions to want to challenge it for conquest, or defend it.
I watched Preach's first impression video yesterday, and he voices a lot of the same concerns I have. Will the game have enough content to keep players going past the first month. What will they do to fix the 50v50 PVP Battles so that they aren't such a chaotic mess. (Basically, they need to add a bunch of side objectives to these maps to encourage people to split up and form squads to tackle multiple objectives on the map at the same time, rather than just chokepointing into the meat grinder.) And of course the game needs more/sustainable PVE as well.
Here's the Preach video if anyone wants to watch it. He covers a lot of topics and his approach is more of an introduction to the game, but I still thought some of his opinions were interesting.
Lastly, I think it might have even been somebody here on Penny Arcade that made the comment that they need to introduce some sort of mechanism for weapons and armor and crafted items to exit the economy. Otherwise, after a month of time, the value of pretty much everything player-made will bottom out. This is a concern I have as well. Hopefully it's something that the devs are considering and can introduce a solution now that they have 2 months of extra dev time before release.
I will say this does seem to be the case having spent time in a bunch of the starter zones due to different friends playing (and jesus christ this needs to change, actually playing with friends is pointless). There distribution of resources is very, very different. Off the top of my head wolf dens around everfall have silver instead of saltpeater and nearly no hemp, whilst the other zones have them in plenty but not the water mote plants. They are very different, but its not immediately obvious that this is the case (as it could just people being dumb and not finding it)
SWG was another attempt from some of the people behind Ultima Online (good 'ol Designer Dragon) at a world....and I honestly miss MMOs attempting to be Worlds. Everything has been so streamlined and made more video game-like, which is fine, but it's not the same as some of the MMOs in the past.
If we're reductionist, it's easy to say hard versus easy, but it's more than that and I'm in a meeting and can't elaborate . I do miss the attempts at MMORPG worlds, though, instead of how it is nowadays.
The World approach to MMO development moved to games like Valheim/Ark where you can capture that feel without having to deal with the reality of providing infinite entertaining content for hundreds of thousands of players.
SWG was another attempt from some of the people behind Ultima Online (good 'ol Designer Dragon) at a world....and I honestly miss MMOs attempting to be Worlds. Everything has been so streamlined and made more video game-like, which is fine, but it's not the same as some of the MMOs in the past.
If we're reductionist, it's easy to say hard versus easy, but it's more than that and I'm in a meeting and can't elaborate . I do miss the attempts at MMORPG worlds, though, instead of how it is nowadays.
The World approach to MMO development moved to games like Valheim/Ark where you can capture that feel without having to deal with the reality of providing infinite entertaining content for hundreds of thousands of players.
I would love to see SWG remade as an Arkheim type world. With a budget enough that they didn't have to bare bones everything.
Koster's new studio is talking some big talk about keeping the "online world" dream alive, can't wait until they announce something concrete.
I completely understand not wanting to pvp. But since the open world was mostly intended to be pvp flagged, I wonder how annoying it's going to be having mixed use.
The World approach to MMO development moved to games like Valheim/Ark where you can capture that feel without having to deal with the reality of providing infinite entertaining content for hundreds of thousands of players.
I also want it to be massively multiplayer too, though.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The World approach to MMO development moved to games like Valheim/Ark where you can capture that feel without having to deal with the reality of providing infinite entertaining content for hundreds of thousands of players.
I also want it to be massively multiplayer too, though.
Right, but, you see the issue in the second half of that paragraph, right? Ark/Valheim are designed for small groups of players to play for 200 hours in a month and then quit until a content patch comes out. An MMO with much higher running costs needs those players to play for the 3-6 months in between content patches as well.
I would absolutely just switch to a new Arkheim game every two months if there was enough diversity in gameplay to just pick up a new co-op survival game every two months.
Right, but, you see the issue in the second half of that paragraph, right? Ark/Valheim are designed for small groups of players to play for 200 hours in a month and then quit until a content patch comes out. An MMO with much higher running costs needs those players to play for the 3-6 months in between content patches as well.
But I'm saying I want a new UO / SWG. You really did stay in those games because of community because it was a world.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Well... no one stayed in those games after WoW came out.
Right, but, you see the issue in the second half of that paragraph, right? Ark/Valheim are designed for small groups of players to play for 200 hours in a month and then quit until a content patch comes out. An MMO with much higher running costs needs those players to play for the 3-6 months in between content patches as well.
But I'm saying I want a new UO / SWG. You really did stay in those games because of community because it was a world.
nobody stayed in those worlds except the hardest of fans because they did not respect your time
I'm going to guess that when most of the posts in a thread about a new MMO are people waxing nostalgically about decades old games, instead of talking about the new, that's not the best of signs.
Here's what I experienced with New World through numerous "beta tests":
Combat sucks - It's mostly just left clicking, with long cooldown skills that don't really seem to matter (at least in PvE) sprinkled in.
The open character system, where you gain weapon skills and abilities skills, with no special classes feels super generic and adds no distinct flavor to the game.
The grind is real. After about level 20, things slow down so much, and there's so little content except for repeating generic fetch/kill quests or grinding, getting to max level feels like a chore
Crafting is equally boring. It's neat for the first few levels, then very quickly becomes a chore as you have look high and low, travel far and wide for materials, which leads me to...
The world is beautiful...but beautifully empty. You run. A lot. A lot lot. You spend a lot of time traveling, hoofing it for quests, hoofing it for raw materials, and then hoofing it back to a crafting station. Getting killed while trying to travel somewhere, then having to respawn far away is soul crushing.
I personally didn't get to play PvP at max level, but for a game that's trying to hang its hat on PvP, I've not hear much, if any good things about it.
Maybe someone can counter those points, but this is coming together as a very generic, grindy, MMO with nothing compelling behind it.
I'm firmly in the "wait and see" contingent here, but I completely agree. To me, it seems that AGS has created an absolutely breathtaking world. Now they need to put a game in it. The second they release this thing, the clock starts running. If this was the early 2000s, I'd say they had a solid 6 to 9 months to get it up and running. But game development and gameplay loops are tighter now. I look forward to how this fares over the first 4 to 6 weeks after release. Some drop off in playerbase is expected, but we will have to see just how precipitous it actually works out to be.
I think at the end of the day, it's going to live or die based on the community opinion.
Well... no one stayed in those games after WoW came out.
WoW originally felt closer / an evolution of a World before it degenerated into todays theme park, though. It was also way more "modern" than UO / etc. UO was pretty old / jank graphics and system wise by the time WoW came out and also made some pretty big mistakes in its expansions.
Do I think it'd have the same reach as a WoW? Naw, sadly not....but Eve Online has survived until now and started with some UO players helping to design it way back when.
Also, Googling apparently shows UO is still going, which blows my mind just now.
XBL: Bizazedo
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I liked a lot of the systems and gameplay of Wildstar. The thing that bothered me about that game was how hard it was trying to be "WoW... but in space."
What I really want is a real sci-fi mmo. Not a fantasy sci-fi with swords in space. Wildstar had a lot going for it. But it also had some heavy misses. I didn't stick with it anytime at all, because if I'm gonna play WoW, I might as well play the authentic thing.
In other words, I would have liked for Wildstar to have done a bit more to differentiate itself from the competition in terms of setting, artwork, weapons, etc.
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You can also reward cooperative play to even things out a bit. The overpopulated factions tend to get lazy and can win with simple numbers if individual player skill and organization between players isn't incentivized.
I'm also really uncomfortable with the things they've done that were clearly designed for future cash shop transactions.
Dungeons need a special single use key because reasons.
Dyes are single use.
Fast travel and crafting bonuses require a limited resource that has a very low cap.
Respecs also require the same resource.
You can currently buy guild crest patterns and colors on the shop. The game isn't even out.
But I can't actually preorder.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I've heard a handful of people, both here at PA and also in various streams and on Twitter talk about the crafting in the game. I assume it gets better than the low level food crafting they teach you as part of the tutorial? And tool crafting? I made some rations, and I made myself a set of pickaxe, lumber axe, skinning knife, and etc, but that's as much as I did. And that was basically just "gather mats and click a button." There wasn't really any depth there. But again, I realize that was just the tutorial which is why I'm asking if it advances.
Not really.
I think what makes crafting interesting to people coming from other MMOs is that crafted items are actually useful beyond a few consumables and the rare BiS crafted item.
i miss SWG's crafting system where essentially all gear worth using was player made, and there was a high variability in quality, so you'd have people literally become professional weaponsmiths and get a reputation for it
now I know New World is nowhere near that, but the fact that the gear is actually useful seems promising
Delays are good. Means they care more about delivering a quality product than rushing to meet a deadline. This is amazing news.
The beta was even pretty good. Given how insane the public turnout was for the game, server stability was about as good as could be expected. I personally did not encounter any bugs on the way to brave level 7.
But even still, if there are bugs that need to be squashed, or balance / tuning / adjustments made based on player feedback, this is only a good thing. Even before beta ended I felt like a 1 month break was probably not enough time to do anything with the beta feedback. Software development doesn't happen over night. Or even over 3 weeks. It's a long process. And I'm very glad to see the commitment to delivering the best possible product when they do launch.
I'm on board.
I'm waiting for an MMO that takes SWGs resource stat system. Its one of the only MMOs where being a prolific GATHERER could net you more fame than being a crafter because you were one of the only people on the server who still had a stockpile of super high quality ore that spawned 3 months ago that every crafter wants for PvP armour and weapons. But a system like that only really works in an environment where gear is designed to be used up and replaced, which isn't very popular.
It was a novel idea in theory, but in practice it was kinda bad.
and there wasn't a depletion of a resource... so you just needed to find it fast enough to get quality extractor time, nobody could goldrush you out of it... unless the pocket was so small that there was simply no room left to place extractors
god i miss that game so much. it was SO GOOD. i dont think people 100% got it in its time... lol mission terminals, lol combat fatigue.... but looking back so much about that game was genius from Day 1
I watched Preach's first impression video yesterday, and he voices a lot of the same concerns I have. Will the game have enough content to keep players going past the first month. What will they do to fix the 50v50 PVP Battles so that they aren't such a chaotic mess. (Basically, they need to add a bunch of side objectives to these maps to encourage people to split up and form squads to tackle multiple objectives on the map at the same time, rather than just chokepointing into the meat grinder.) And of course the game needs more/sustainable PVE as well.
Here's the Preach video if anyone wants to watch it. He covers a lot of topics and his approach is more of an introduction to the game, but I still thought some of his opinions were interesting.
Lastly, I think it might have even been somebody here on Penny Arcade that made the comment that they need to introduce some sort of mechanism for weapons and armor and crafted items to exit the economy. Otherwise, after a month of time, the value of pretty much everything player-made will bottom out. This is a concern I have as well. Hopefully it's something that the devs are considering and can introduce a solution now that they have 2 months of extra dev time before release.
If we're reductionist, it's easy to say hard versus easy, but it's more than that and I'm in a meeting and can't elaborate
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Also the fact that the crafting professions were also entirely dedicated classes. Rather than being a paladin who is also a blacksmith, you were just a blacksmith. (Figuratively speaking). That was a paradigm shift that was mind blowing at the time, and honestly it still is. I cannot think of another game where you can just dedicate yourself wholly to crafting and selling, and be a part of the digital society without ever participating in PVE or PVP.
My "main" in SWG was a Ranger, which was more of an auxiliary support role and not really a combat specialist. I went out in the field to combat locations, and I could do okay with a carbine, because I had levels invested in carbineer. But my main role was not to do damage, but rather to provide camps and resources so other people could be successful. That kind of class design and thinking was way ahead of its time.
And anyway, to keep this slightly on topic to New World, I see so much potential in this game. I do not think 2 months is enough time to fully realize that potential before they launch. BUT! I do think it gives them enough time to deliver the bones of a game that will continue to grow and evolve and become better over time. It's got a good framework here, and as long as they don't let greed overtake them, I've got high hopes for the future.
I will say this does seem to be the case having spent time in a bunch of the starter zones due to different friends playing (and jesus christ this needs to change, actually playing with friends is pointless). There distribution of resources is very, very different. Off the top of my head wolf dens around everfall have silver instead of saltpeater and nearly no hemp, whilst the other zones have them in plenty but not the water mote plants. They are very different, but its not immediately obvious that this is the case (as it could just people being dumb and not finding it)
The World approach to MMO development moved to games like Valheim/Ark where you can capture that feel without having to deal with the reality of providing infinite entertaining content for hundreds of thousands of players.
Koster's new studio is talking some big talk about keeping the "online world" dream alive, can't wait until they announce something concrete.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Right, but, you see the issue in the second half of that paragraph, right? Ark/Valheim are designed for small groups of players to play for 200 hours in a month and then quit until a content patch comes out. An MMO with much higher running costs needs those players to play for the 3-6 months in between content patches as well.
But I'm saying I want a new UO / SWG. You really did stay in those games because of community because it was a world.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
nobody stayed in those worlds except the hardest of fans because they did not respect your time
Here's what I experienced with New World through numerous "beta tests":
Maybe someone can counter those points, but this is coming together as a very generic, grindy, MMO with nothing compelling behind it.
I think at the end of the day, it's going to live or die based on the community opinion.
Do I think it'd have the same reach as a WoW? Naw, sadly not....but Eve Online has survived until now and started with some UO players helping to design it way back when.
Also, Googling apparently shows UO is still going, which blows my mind just now.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
That said, I enjoyed Wildstar for two months, and I look forward to the first two months of launch here.
-Whelk's epitaph
What I really want is a real sci-fi mmo. Not a fantasy sci-fi with swords in space. Wildstar had a lot going for it. But it also had some heavy misses. I didn't stick with it anytime at all, because if I'm gonna play WoW, I might as well play the authentic thing.
In other words, I would have liked for Wildstar to have done a bit more to differentiate itself from the competition in terms of setting, artwork, weapons, etc.