Warhammer Q&A
Good Warhammer Q&A over on Slashdot.
I'm curious as to how they're going to resolve:
Josh Drescher, Associate Producer: Fundamentally, Warhammer Online is about real, meaningful conflict. When we say "war is everywhere," we mean it. From the earliest portions of the game straight on through to the high-end invasion campaigns, players will have the chance to take part in robust, meaningful PvP. The options that exist on the market at the moment really treat PvP like a dangerously "extreme" element of the MMO experience and go to great lengths to make it appeal only to a limited percentage of players. Part of this is out of necessity - poorly conceived PvP can be devastatingly off-putting to new players who set one foot out into the world and get murdered on the spot by griefers. So we see some games that restrict PvP to specialized servers or to high level characters in remote areas or that force players to queue up for an hour to go and play through "safe" content that exists outside of the persistent world entirely. It's no surprise that most MMO players eschew PvP for the traditionally more well-implemented PvE experience.
with:
Realm vs Realm (RvR) Game play. Warhammer Online allows you to level your character entirely through RvR game play, just as you can through PvE, if you choose to do so.
Perhaps:
Our game is laid out in such a way that players will have the chance to jump right into the fray if they so desire, but it also offers (through specific lines of quests) a chance for more cautious players to slowly get accustomed to the added danger and excitement of facing off against something other than NPC's. Some early quests will simply ask you to enter an RvR-flagged region of the world to hunt for a specific NPC or accomplish some task. Later, you'll be asked to enter an actual contested battlefield area and contribute to your army's efforts. Eventually, you'll be asked to go out and hunt down an actual player. By that point, we're confident that players will be enjoying themselves so much that they'll be 100% ready to go out and take part in the larger-scale RvR content in Warhammer Online.
So it seems that you can level your character "entirely through RvR…just as you can through PvE," but that at some point PvP will be unavoidable.
Which can only mean one thing: Playable NPCs. Taking a chapter from Middle Earth Online's playbook, after earning a certain number of "AFK points," players will be able to login as the guy that sells siege materials, or the guy that sells swords. You can't really do anything except stand there and sell siege materials and swords, and you can't really communicate because all of your responses are scripted, but rest assured that you will spawn in a PvP area and be able to enjoy all the benefits of being in an actual PvP area, and still enjoy the immunity that being a static NPC provides. You'll have plenty of time to catch up on your reading or watch a favorite DVD as the sounds of "You don't have enough money to buy that" and "You can't use that, are you sure you want to buy it?" stream through your speakers.
Those boys and girls up Fairfax way; thinkers every goddamn one of 'em!
November 30th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
Hmm I read the article, and the question that is beginning to stir for me is how they will balance the realms. Here’s the thing - I don’t like playing evil characters. That in itself doen’t mean much, but playing CoH and having tried CoV and not liked being a villian I find that there are a fair number of people out there who are like me. They don’t care how good the gameplay might be on the dark side, they aren’t going to play it because they don’t like being evil even in makebelieve. OK so the carebare goody-twoshoes pussies aren’t going to play in the realm of destruction - no big deal right? Wrong. My cousins, who will be trying Warhammer Online with me don’t care which realm we’re in, but we will all be playing the good guys because I won’t play badguys. So here one goody-twoshoes drags at least 5 ( possibly as many as 9 )other people with him because of an ethical descision. One that will be made repeatedly among other circles of friends. It doesn’t matter how many open minded individuals there are out there who wouldn’t mind trying the bad guys - many, many of them will be bound to people they care about who won’t play an evil character.
The thing I think Mythic is missing here is that in DAoC none of the realms could actually be seen as any more or less evil than any of the others. You could play all realms and not feel like you hate the character you are playing and would rather just see him/her expire in a slow painfull manner. WAR on the other hand is very clear on the matter. One side is good, one is evil. A lot of people who didn’t mind playing a Midgard Troll will have VERY different opinions about playing a murdering, raping, pillaging, disease spreading Evil character. They will bring their ambivelent friends to the light with them. Enough so that realm imbalance is pretty much gaurenteed. I don’t see any reasonable mechanism that Mythic can try that will seperate people from their goody-goody friends. Given that, I anticipate a realm imbalance that will leave the bad guys sucking wind, and the hoards of good guys looking for someone to beat down.
December 5th, 2006 at 8:05 am
To Sweetmeat:
I feel you will have the people go to the “evil” side of WAR for similar reasons as the good. An example would be my friend who has played tabletop Warhammer for years. He plays Orcs and certainly wants to play one in the MMORPG. By that principle he will drag myself and others to the darkside.
Beyond the ideals of good and evil I believe you will also find players making characters based upon which side is less broken. If it turns out that at launch the good side is incredibly nerfed you may find people playing the evil side just to have an advantage in gameplay.