Well, you don't get PKed in Shadowbane anymore, either. Maybe we should consider the similarities that allow for your PK free mining. Like, numbers.
/sigh
i've found Darfall to have a pretty good amount of players, at least so far..
what else ya got?
I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
No idea, but if it is 20k, divide that by 2 servers, thats 10k a server. I'd say thats a pretty healthy community per server, and my odds of getting PK'd should be pretty good, unless of course every single player isn't a PK, or there isn't one hiding behind every rock.
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Well, you don't get PKed in Shadowbane anymore, either. Maybe we should consider the similarities that allow for your PK free mining. Like, numbers.
/sigh
i've found Darfall to have a pretty good amount of players, at least so far..
what else ya got?
I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
No idea, but if it is 20k, divide that by 2 servers, thats 10k a server. I'd say thats a pretty healthy community per server, and my odds of getting PK'd should be pretty good, unless of course every single player isn't a PK, or there isn't one hiding behind every rock.
That makes sense on the numbers. Their servers are made for 10k.
I did beta Darkfall. When players are around, someone will PK you. That's the game.
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
believe i said "pretty good", and I was using it to describe the server i play on..
War as you said, may have that many players, double or triple that of DF, but i could log on to certain servers and see barely no one for extended periods of time.
My interest in my gaming isnt how many players a game has, but if the server population is healthy.. The first MMO i ever played , allowed 500 people on a single server, and it was packed. Worked for me ; )
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Originally posted by Amaranthar Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business. But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I fail to understand how the victims can't get smart.. If you keep getting pk'd in the same area, and yet, you keep going to said area, solo, expecting a different outcome... Perhaps try and be a lil smarter than the PKs? Perhaps get some "scouts" of your own? Stop being a victim?
Perhaps take your money and play a game where random strangers can't decide for you which parts of the game you're paying for you can access at any given time?
Nah, that's crazy talk!
(Sure, the designers limit access to various aspects of the game as well, whether by quests, 'high level' zones, lockouts, class/race/skill barriers, or whatever. The key is, THEY have a need to make sure the limits they impose present you with goals and challenges which they also give you the tools to eventually overcome. You having a good time is their first, last, and only concern -- when you stop having a good time, they stop getting paid. On the other hand, for the most part, other players do not care if you have a good time, and a good number of them will cut off their nose to spite your face, putting a tremendous amount of effort into finding ways to make sure other players do not have fun, even if it gains them nothing.)
In other words, why should I *bother* going to all that effort to "not be a victim", when there's dozens of games where I don't have to worry about it? What's the point of saying "This is an amazing sandbox world! You can do ANYTHING!", when, in actual practice, the only actions I can take are chosen for me by other players, and I have to change my playstyle, choices, and actions to suit them? you realize that they are in the same situation right? they can also be ganked by anyone else, hell, if someone in a 10 man corporation kills me for absolutely no reason and i lose my precious ship (which in fact i have 4 more in my hangar) i can get my 150 man alliance to declare war on them. boy wasnt that a bad idea to attack me... now these guys are losing 5-6-7 times more than that little ship. my alliance has strict rules not to engage certain alliances, or people because we know they have high connections and can hurt us bad if we piss them off. there are also politics. Non Agreesion Pacts, sease fire periods during negociations, bribery etc...
In other other words, playing in a sandbox is no fun when everything you make is kicked over by the bully, unless you are smarter than the bully, in which case you can kick his ass 10 times fold. and if your goal in the sandbox is to "build a sandcastle" if you are able to build a grand sandcastle and have an advantage over someone else because you have one, then be prepared to defend it with your life. not "find some friends to go fight the bully"thats why you pay someone to do that for you with the ressources the sandcastle produces for you, you might as well go find another sandbox. Otherwise, you let the bully decide how you're going to play.like it said it works both ways. bait the bully and kick his ass. or create a wall of rocks around your castle so the bully has to work 2x as hard to get to you. You don't want to fight then dont have anything worth getting into a fight.; he won't let you NOT fight. would a noble (back in the days) walk around the forest showing off all his jewels and richness having alarge bag of gold strapped to his belt with no weapons on him wearing fine clothing without a single guard with him? i doubt it. he would get immediately killed and robbed. he brought instead 12-20 guards. armed to the teeth. same thing in full loop pvp games. YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN A FULL LOOT PVP GAME, YOU BOUGHT THE GAME, YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL.
Screw him. Take your bucket and shovel and go somewhere else. Let him stand alone in the sandbox, whining that no one wants to fight him. most of the time its the grieffers that whine the most when they lose their stuff, because they spend their time killing new players or anyone that knows better not to carry anything expensive, thus are not crafting their own armors or making their wallets fatter. while the guy who plays an adventurer goes out and kills mobs gets materials, finds plants crafts stuff, the guy that got grieffed can replace his stuff 10 times over. and when the guy (with money) can buy and set a trap for the grieffer, the grieffer dies and he just took a huge loss and can't replace his shit. so full loot pvp is about being smarter than your enemies, and beeing nice to your friends, because they will be the ones who will come to your rescue when time needs.
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." (Ayn Rand)
when i play a game, i find it more "fun" if i can actually lose. what fun would a football game be if both sides win? chess tournaments would have everyone as a winner.
there is no point in winning in a game knowing you can't lose
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
Originally posted by Amaranthar Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business. But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
It works perfectly in Darkfall so your dead wrong.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Originally posted by Amaranthar Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business. But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
We need that in MMORPGs and in our worlds.
I agree with most of the points you've made in this thread. Quoting you for emphasis.
You need a very Diverse World to sustain a population in a FFA Full Loot system.
History has proven FFA PvP games and servers dwindle and die. A smart Player Killer doesn't stick around in a losing situation, so once he is on the bottom of the talent pool he will eventually figure it out and leave.
Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty
I know I can't handle it. I like PvP, but I also like being able to respawn and get back in the action, not go back to farming for equipment.
One distinct difference between PvPers and PvE players is that PvPers prepare and plan for loss. PvE players rarely do. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, just a difference. There is nothing to prepare for in most PvE games as there is little or no risk, consequence or loss.
For example, a WOW player will buy a mount or gear as soon as he has the cash to do so. The item is permanent, so it matters not if there is a backup plan or reserve cash. Even if the durability on an item hits zero, it still remains and does not disappear.
On the other hand is the PvPer. In most cases, they will make sure they have more consumables stocked away for the next battle and cash or extra gear in preparation for possible (and likely) damage or loss. It is extremely rare, even in PvE-focused MMOs, for most PvPers to go into combat without insurance cash or gear squirreled away.
Mylon, I wouldn't say you can't handle it. I'd say it simply conflicts with how you play games.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed.
So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed. So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
I have a full time job, a wife, a 13 year old daughter, play less than 2 hours a day for certain..
I can go kill mobs and get enough gold to buy new gear.. I can mine for a bit today, sell my resources.. Or perhaps kill a PK, and get his gear (gasp!)
Everytime we go out to that harsh world, we don't lose everything, only to go out 10 minutes later, and lose it again, unless your playing foolishly.
Us "kids" just don't sit here mindlessly wasting time farming most of the day for our $15 a month..
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed. So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Originally posted by LynxJSA Mylon, I wouldn't say you can't handle it. I'd say it simply conflicts with how you play games.
FPS games are PvP without full loot, yet they're still quite fun. Well, okay, so there is looting in most but there's no farming required for the guns so it's no big deal. Warhammer was decently fun, when people were willing to at least try to open world PvP instead of quit as soon as they saw their side losing (and thus further the problem). And there's no looting in that.
Mylon, I wouldn't say you can't handle it. I'd say it simply conflicts with how you play games.
FPS games are PvP without full loot, yet they're still quite fun. Well, okay, so there is looting in most but there's no farming required for the guns so it's no big deal. Warhammer was decently fun, when people were willing to at least try to open world PvP instead of quit as soon as they saw their side losing (and thus further the problem). And there's no looting in that.
PvP can be perfectly fun without it.
I hope you didn't get the impression that I was saying it wasn't fun without looy drops. From your description there, it sounds like you like matches - CTF, Deathmatch, One Man Army, etc. Looting and preparing for combat conflicts with your playstyle. I was not saying that I felt there was anything wrong with how you play your games.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Comments
/sigh
i've found Darfall to have a pretty good amount of players, at least so far..
what else ya got?
I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Once upon a time....
/sigh
i've found Darfall to have a pretty good amount of players, at least so far..
what else ya got?
I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
No idea, but if it is 20k, divide that by 2 servers, thats 10k a server. I'd say thats a pretty healthy community per server, and my odds of getting PK'd should be pretty good, unless of course every single player isn't a PK, or there isn't one hiding behind every rock.
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
/sigh
i've found Darfall to have a pretty good amount of players, at least so far..
what else ya got?
I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
No idea, but if it is 20k, divide that by 2 servers, thats 10k a server. I'd say thats a pretty healthy community per server, and my odds of getting PK'd should be pretty good, unless of course every single player isn't a PK, or there isn't one hiding behind every rock.
That makes sense on the numbers. Their servers are made for 10k.
I did beta Darkfall. When players are around, someone will PK you. That's the game.
Once upon a time....
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
believe i said "pretty good", and I was using it to describe the server i play on..
War as you said, may have that many players, double or triple that of DF, but i could log on to certain servers and see barely no one for extended periods of time.
My interest in my gaming isnt how many players a game has, but if the server population is healthy.. The first MMO i ever played , allowed 500 people on a single server, and it was packed. Worked for me ; )
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Once upon a time....
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
Perhaps take your money and play a game where random strangers can't decide for you which parts of the game you're paying for you can access at any given time?
Nah, that's crazy talk!
(Sure, the designers limit access to various aspects of the game as well, whether by quests, 'high level' zones, lockouts, class/race/skill barriers, or whatever. The key is, THEY have a need to make sure the limits they impose present you with goals and challenges which they also give you the tools to eventually overcome. You having a good time is their first, last, and only concern -- when you stop having a good time, they stop getting paid. On the other hand, for the most part, other players do not care if you have a good time, and a good number of them will cut off their nose to spite your face, putting a tremendous amount of effort into finding ways to make sure other players do not have fun, even if it gains them nothing.)
In other words, why should I *bother* going to all that effort to "not be a victim", when there's dozens of games where I don't have to worry about it? What's the point of saying "This is an amazing sandbox world! You can do ANYTHING!", when, in actual practice, the only actions I can take are chosen for me by other players, and I have to change my playstyle, choices, and actions to suit them? you realize that they are in the same situation right? they can also be ganked by anyone else, hell, if someone in a 10 man corporation kills me for absolutely no reason and i lose my precious ship (which in fact i have 4 more in my hangar) i can get my 150 man alliance to declare war on them. boy wasnt that a bad idea to attack me... now these guys are losing 5-6-7 times more than that little ship. my alliance has strict rules not to engage certain alliances, or people because we know they have high connections and can hurt us bad if we piss them off. there are also politics. Non Agreesion Pacts, sease fire periods during negociations, bribery etc...
In other other words, playing in a sandbox is no fun when everything you make is kicked over by the bully, unless you are smarter than the bully, in which case you can kick his ass 10 times fold. and if your goal in the sandbox is to "build a sandcastle" if you are able to build a grand sandcastle and have an advantage over someone else because you have one, then be prepared to defend it with your life. not "find some friends to go fight the bully"thats why you pay someone to do that for you with the ressources the sandcastle produces for you, you might as well go find another sandbox. Otherwise, you let the bully decide how you're going to play.like it said it works both ways. bait the bully and kick his ass. or create a wall of rocks around your castle so the bully has to work 2x as hard to get to you. You don't want to fight then dont have anything worth getting into a fight.; he won't let you NOT fight. would a noble (back in the days) walk around the forest showing off all his jewels and richness having alarge bag of gold strapped to his belt with no weapons on him wearing fine clothing without a single guard with him? i doubt it. he would get immediately killed and robbed. he brought instead 12-20 guards. armed to the teeth. same thing in full loop pvp games. YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN A FULL LOOT PVP GAME, YOU BOUGHT THE GAME, YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL.
Screw him. Take your bucket and shovel and go somewhere else. Let him stand alone in the sandbox, whining that no one wants to fight him. most of the time its the grieffers that whine the most when they lose their stuff, because they spend their time killing new players or anyone that knows better not to carry anything expensive, thus are not crafting their own armors or making their wallets fatter. while the guy who plays an adventurer goes out and kills mobs gets materials, finds plants crafts stuff, the guy that got grieffed can replace his stuff 10 times over. and when the guy (with money) can buy and set a trap for the grieffer, the grieffer dies and he just took a huge loss and can't replace his shit. so full loot pvp is about being smarter than your enemies, and beeing nice to your friends, because they will be the ones who will come to your rescue when time needs.
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men." (Ayn Rand)
when i play a game, i find it more "fun" if i can actually lose. what fun would a football game be if both sides win? chess tournaments would have everyone as a winner.
there is no point in winning in a game knowing you can't lose
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
Once upon a time....
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
We need that in MMORPGs and in our worlds.
Once upon a time....
It works perfectly in Darkfall so your dead wrong.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
We need that in MMORPGs and in our worlds.
I agree with most of the points you've made in this thread. Quoting you for emphasis.
You need a very Diverse World to sustain a population in a FFA Full Loot system.
History has proven FFA PvP games and servers dwindle and die. A smart Player Killer doesn't stick around in a losing situation, so once he is on the bottom of the talent pool he will eventually figure it out and leave.
Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty
I know I can't handle it. I like PvP, but I also like being able to respawn and get back in the action, not go back to farming for equipment.
It works perfectly in Darkfall so your dead wrong.
Perfectly ?
me thinks he is right.
full loot in darkfall,come here mate and show me how you for example carry 10 full plate armors 500 stones and fight same time.
Generation P
nm
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One distinct difference between PvPers and PvE players is that PvPers prepare and plan for loss. PvE players rarely do. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, just a difference. There is nothing to prepare for in most PvE games as there is little or no risk, consequence or loss.
For example, a WOW player will buy a mount or gear as soon as he has the cash to do so. The item is permanent, so it matters not if there is a backup plan or reserve cash. Even if the durability on an item hits zero, it still remains and does not disappear.
On the other hand is the PvPer. In most cases, they will make sure they have more consumables stocked away for the next battle and cash or extra gear in preparation for possible (and likely) damage or loss. It is extremely rare, even in PvE-focused MMOs, for most PvPers to go into combat without insurance cash or gear squirreled away.
Mylon, I wouldn't say you can't handle it. I'd say it simply conflicts with how you play games.
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People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed.
So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
I have a full time job, a wife, a 13 year old daughter, play less than 2 hours a day for certain..
I can go kill mobs and get enough gold to buy new gear.. I can mine for a bit today, sell my resources.. Or perhaps kill a PK, and get his gear (gasp!)
Everytime we go out to that harsh world, we don't lose everything, only to go out 10 minutes later, and lose it again, unless your playing foolishly.
Us "kids" just don't sit here mindlessly wasting time farming most of the day for our $15 a month..
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
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I love full loot, because it goes both ways.
I'm not here to complete my forum PVP dailies.
FPS games are PvP without full loot, yet they're still quite fun. Well, okay, so there is looting in most but there's no farming required for the guns so it's no big deal. Warhammer was decently fun, when people were willing to at least try to open world PvP instead of quit as soon as they saw their side losing (and thus further the problem). And there's no looting in that.
PvP can be perfectly fun without it.
little darkfall example ,its PvE PvP game
full loot PvE ,wheres that?
for example,you chop more trees than anyone else in 1 hour ,why dont you get their loot ?
Generation P
Without having read the numerous replies to the OP's post, what would it be like if you could only loot say 2 items or say 20% of the items?
FPS games are PvP without full loot, yet they're still quite fun. Well, okay, so there is looting in most but there's no farming required for the guns so it's no big deal. Warhammer was decently fun, when people were willing to at least try to open world PvP instead of quit as soon as they saw their side losing (and thus further the problem). And there's no looting in that.
PvP can be perfectly fun without it.
I hope you didn't get the impression that I was saying it wasn't fun without looy drops. From your description there, it sounds like you like matches - CTF, Deathmatch, One Man Army, etc. Looting and preparing for combat conflicts with your playstyle. I was not saying that I felt there was anything wrong with how you play your games.
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