Why I may get banned soon

Maybe I should congratulate her again (did that in another old post where she ranted about some forum rules) to her new dream job as moderator on the EQ2 forums...

 

I've been banned again. I knew it was going to happen. I'm pretty sure when bubble gnome's cry their tears trigger the report button. I've already removed everything DBG from my machine. I'm not going back to the forums again.

 

Breanna is even more report-happy than Sigderp and she has the dubious honor of being the one and only (ever) person on my ignore list.

I have never, even once, seen her post anything that wasn't utterly vapid and without value - even for a delusional Bubble Gnome(tm).

 

I read your post. Seriously....

The time I was banned it was on the weekend. "Forum Mod 2" was the red name (or something like that).

Note:

For those who are curious, AoC is currently stress testing their servers and tuning action combat mechanics (the game allows for both action and tab targeting - you build your toon how you like to play - tab stuff will be tested later) in a BR arena.

I believe in the next couple of weeks, they are going to open up the alpha to everyone who registers an account if you want to check it out.

I can't wait for this game. And to you, DBG? Well, good riddance.

This guy has the info about the open alpha event. He is also in the loop about lots of stuff. Very informative posts.

This stream from the event shows how the action combat and the itemization works.

Edit: to make the post somewhat understandable and coherent, found a better event stream.

Not sure how the other BRs work, but the storm constricts to make the battle field increasingly smaller.

 

I've been half paying attention to AoC for a while. I'm still at the stage where I'm having a hard time buying in to the sales pitch, but I'm not ignoring it. There are a few games being made that look interesting, SoH and CU are the only two I'm really paying attention to right now.

 

I know a number of people are turned off by the pvp aspects of aoc. I like pvp, so no worries for me, anyway.

In any case, the griefing penalties are super steep. Wat too costly to do it. Will just have to see though.

What I'm looking forward to are the cool systems: combat, classes, crafting, seiges, regionalized economies, node development and other sandbox elements, etc.

There is enough "different" going on to really have my attention.

P.S.
I always feel like I'm derailing (because I am derailing) when I bring up our other options, so I started a thread in the Coffee House section.

Just sort of one place where folks can discuss other games so we can all get/give some feedback/awareness.

 

I was just about to ask...but you answered my question. PvP - it's out as an option for me then (I detest PvP with a passion). Bummer....

FFXIV seems to be my go-to game post-EQ2. Unless something else comes out that doesn't have horrific time-wasting grind, PvP, and has a decent storyline. Basically, something that is actually FUN.

 

I can't stand PVP either. I'm still happily playing LOTRO. My husband also decided to get back into it which makes it even more fun.

 

PvP I situational for me. My problem with open world PvP is that there is no way to keep it 'fair' (because fair is a myth). So either the players need to suck it up and have fun as is or the company needs to steer into that skid and not promise things they'll never be able to adequately deliver.

 

Game has PvP.
Non-PvPers get sick of griefing, scream for PvP flag.
PvP flag instituted.
Majority of player base flags "no PvP".
PvPers whine about "no content, the game is dying".

 

PvP makes the game more challenging and exciting but also can make it very frustrating and annoying. Perhaps if there was a level limit of your victim so that they can have a chance to fight back (ie only attack people with 5 levels of you, higher or lower). I do know that you also need to be sneaky, underhanded and cunning. Was on a pvp server in WoW long ago. I played a warlock who was geared to survive ganking and would get jumped by a Horde rogue (or others, but usually rogues) only for it to find that I had 2 rogues, a stealthed NE hunter and priest near me to keep me alive and to kill that ganking rogue. We did this so often that the gankers started crying on the forums and got laughed at by the real pvpers. And most of the posters who supported us were Horde! So if you do wish to play, learn to group with others and use your abilities to the max, for the gankers will also. Bullies HATE a fair fight, so let them think its in their favor... when its really in YOURS!

 

Because too many devs seem to be infatuated with the idea of PvP for some reason...

 

This observation might annoy a few people, but I think that's part of my place in life.

There are two groups of MMO players that seem to perpetually have an inflated opinion of both themselves and their play style. They think that because they focus mainly or solely on one aspect of the game that it's as important to other players and the game itself as it is to them. That the devs in most games have often spent a larger portion of their resources catering to these two playstyles over what the 'casual' players are doing doesn't help. When the devs incentivize these two play styles to draw or force casual players to participate in them it muddies the waters ever more. Many players will participate in one or both of these play styles on their own, but not as a main focus of their gameplay. Unless they're missing out on whatever incentives the devs have used to encourage participation many average players often seem to not care much at all if they miss out on either play style. The primary participants of these two play styles also tend to be the most vocal, abrasive, complaining, persistent voices in a community. The two offending play styles are raiding and PvP. Both of which can be extremely fickle as well, especially PvP players known for jumping ship to a new game at the drop of a hat.

Yet devs keep catering to these two groups almost to the exclusion of what must be the majority of their paying customers. It worked out well for games like Wildstar and Darkfall... Did anyone ever pay attention to how much money people in Homeshow used to throw at the game? When Player Studio was still healthy there were people re-arranging their monthly budget to sometimes throw hundreds or thousands of dollars at decorating or buying houses. I wonder what the average player spends in games like SWTOR, GW2, or ESO to look pretty each month? I guess now EQ2 has some players paying to upgrade a character or two, but I can't imagine even with DBG's monetization schemes it compares to what SOE had set up a few years ago. Talk down to the crafters, the decorators, or just the vain and complain about a waste of resources while asking for a rebirth of the golden era that never really was of PvP or better high end content. It's all good.

At least with PvP it takes less to script players killing each other than it does a coordinated group playing Dance Dance Revolution with mobs for a few months until a new shiny content comes along. So that makes a little bit of sense.

/r

This is why I'm taking a break from MMOs for a while.

 

Agree that game devs many times focus too many resources on these groups to the exclusion of other groups that are perfectly willing to spend money. Also agree that (not all but most) PvP'ers tend to move on to a new game as soon as something exciting comes along. I think open world PvP of the past has been glamorized and some people forget how utterly frustrating it can be. I remember getting killed by large groups while I was out harvesting in UO before they upped the penalties for PK'ing and I almost quit the game. A one on one fight is one thing, but what inevitably happens in open world PvP is PvP guilds form and run around en masse killing lone players just trying to play the game. That's not fun and it's not even a challenge. I was young then and so I was willing to fight back where I could and kept playing, but I'm at the point now where I have ZERO desire to even try a game with open world PvP. It's why I'm still playing LOTRO (as well as the lore).

Yes I know there are some newish games w/o open world PvP like ESO - tried it and I can't deal with the movement/camera/mechanics.

Also regarding raiders, I remember one time hearing someone from the SoE days saying how tiny the percentage of players are raiders. If that's true, it's so hard to understand why that's where their focus went. Maybe as casuals have given up as I have, the percentage of raiders is higher of the playerbase left? It's kind of crazy that one person leaving the company can ruin the game for a set of players but honestly the game hasn't been what it was for me since Domino left, although to be fair I was already starting to have issues with the game before she left. I do feel like when she left the voice of the tradeskillers/decorators went out the door with her.

 

Castegyre is quite right, of course. (Am a "casual raider".) The thing is, those two groups have one thing in common: They are noisy, and are happy to tell the devs what they do or don't like. The greater mass of players don't speak up and thus get drowned out.

 

The unwashed 'casual masses' tend to 'speak' silently, with their wallets. Rather than try to figure out why subscribers leave or stop paying in large clusters (generally just after major content releases), they continue to grease that squeaky, fickle wheel.

 

Had a friend of a friend play UO when it first came out and he spent lots of time getting his magic resistance to 100, he said that last 5 % took forever as it would only go up a single 0.1% at a time or so. So that when he got attacked by a mage, most of his spells did little effect and he could kill them as a warrior (if I remember right) but after people started complaining about how 100% GM level magic resists were too overpowering and they couldn't kill anyone, it was changed to be much weaker. After a few such event, my friend's friend left the game and never went back.

 

I think the way AoC is addressing the flagging/ganking problem is kinda cool.

One if the big problems with pvp is ganking. Well, let's say I'm out tooling around harvesting or doing pve stuff. My name is painted green (meaning not in pvp mode). Well, if Rhodris attemps to remove my face, and I don't fight back:

1. She can leave me alone.

2. She can kill me, at which point I'll drop a few harvesting resources and she'll be currupted, meaning, she drops her GEAR when everyone see's her big glowing red name and decides to enjoy a Rhodris burger (And don't forget, there is no decay on corruption other than death or religious repeatables intended to be a huge timesink, and.....currupted players are identified on bounty hunter maps, and....currupted players have their capabilities degraded; higher curruption score = higher degredation.....serial gankers might as well just hand over their cool stuff, cause they are gonna lose it to other players).

3. She can sit there while i decide what I'm going to do. I.e. she's lost the advantage of surprise, which is almost everything in pvp gank land.

The point is, yes you can attack a green name, but, why?