Personally, I've always felt that the core issue with PvP is that more than half the players will feel like they're not winning most of the time, get frustrated, and quit. A fellow player is a very tough difficulty curve - there's a reason why real life fighter pilots get to be an ace at 5 kills and this is a big deal. In a game about accumulation, another human brain can be insurmountable barrier that kills the difficulty curve and undermines the flow. Everything else is just fallout from this core problem.
If Shadow Bane was launched right, polished, and run and supported correctly, we would still be playing the game this very day. It truely was the only PvP game since UO for us PvPers!
Zerackus Undead Lords
You just sunk water with that ridiculous statement.
Darkfall is what Shadowbane should of been without the game crippling bugs.
How is it ridiculous? Darkfall didn't exist when SB came out, thus his statement that it was (past tense) "the only PvP game since UO for us PvPers" is a reasonable one. If anything I would have clarified the type of PvPer being referred to, which is the group interested in having relatively high material risk (territory, city, items, gear).
I really don't think that comment was serious
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site : http://mmodata.blogspot.be/ Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Shadowbane WAS the best PVP system. It's class system was extremely open ended. Instead of having 3 "trees" everyone could alot their points in a way that was 'flavor of the day' or in a unique way and still be viable. The community was pretty tight even if there was some hardcore inter-personal politics on each server that just added to the drama. Shadowbane's downfall was it's grind and it's look aged like dairy. What variety there was in game play and number crunching, just wasn't there in personalization or look. If they'd have looked at equipment variety and kept innovating the maps and sub-game enhancements. We'd still be talking about it today. It may have not have gotten 30 million subscriptions, but we'd still hear about it. Honestly, playing as Alpha the minotaur on Mourning for a good 9 months I can say it was defiantly one of the best pvp experiences I've had with a mmorpg. I can share a variety of stories that are way more interesting than.. "Bobby wasn't geared for this instance but we pwned it anyway." I mean I was there when the Blood Axe Clan's giant city got SWAMPED by the Brotherhood. I was there when UHC stormed the BoD's city and I had to switch sides because old guildies were protecting their city fervidly against people using exploits and I knew about it. Stacking aside, still one of the best mmorpg experiences I think anyone could have had.
Though SB is still one of my all time favorites, I doubt you were there in the beginning. Because lag, crashes to desktop, and exploits made the large scale massive battle unplayable for most people. Still love the game and the overall concepts more than most things I have played, and good post!
I was only there in the beginning actually. Beta'd with Bone Dog and went axe barb mino right off the bat. Then bow aracoix scout. While I had some lag issues I didn't really have the same problems most people did. It made me wonder if the servers were near Washington, DC. My loc.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
In my opinion isn't that PvP fail but that free PvP is mostly boring. Games that haven't pure PvP but organized form of it, such as DAoC or RF Online, are mostly enjoyable and playable. And a PvP or RvR (RvRvR) game that has some ideas from classic PvE games (the mostrly boring genre) such as dungeons with great rewards can fail because gamer that can play a lot have a little (sarcastic) more benefits than "evening" players.
A PvP or RvR/RvRvR game must can playable from all gamers so no dungeons, an epic armour, epic weapons (both weapons and armour must be questable) and... this is the game. BTW people must (not can but must) have some rewards from PvP or RvR/RvRvR and i think that the Mythic's idea about Realm Points and Realm Abilities can be the best solution ever. Or other kind of rewards, but not weapons and/or armour pieces.
Personally, I've always felt that the core issue with PvP is that more than half the players will feel like they're not winning most of the time, get frustrated, and quit. A fellow player is a very tough difficulty curve - there's a reason why real life fighter pilots get to be an ace at 5 kills and this is a big deal. In a game about accumulation, another human brain can be insurmountable barrier that kills the difficulty curve and undermines the flow. Everything else is just fallout from this core problem.
QFT. Add to that the MMO mentality that fight must end up in a kill.
Take a competitive market game like EvE. You win some, you lose some but you are hardly ever "killed" as such, you rather surrender and find success other way. This applies to a degree to EvE spaceship combat too. Yet still, sucess is measured by a mass of kill mails.
Unless the PvP proponets come here and gloat about how they kept losing but it was so much fun or how they hunted this one guy whole day until he finally escaped and how exciting it was we won't have real fun PvP game.
But for god's sake, I wish reporters like you would check into the facts before spouting off about the "astounding success" of Eve Online "omgspacegamesandboxwith300ksubstheymustRULE!!!11!!!!1". They are not a 300k subscriber game. In my guesstimation (calculated completely in my butt from the number of players I've known and the number of alts they had), they've got around 1/4 of those numbers of long-term players
While this may be (in fact I'm fairly sure it's not) the answer you like, it is the correct one: the measure of a success for an MMO is financial. Whether a game has 300,000 subscribers or 30 very dedicated multiboxers, the income for the developer is the same. You may of course not want to play such a game, and if many agree with you, their subscriber numbers will reflect that.
Yup, you're right, it's not an answer I like, but not for any personal agenda on my part. It's because this is MMORPG.com, not Bloomberg.com. Isn't the measure of the success of a game to players its popularity with other players, not it's financials? I mean, who wants to be told a game is a huge success only to excitedly log in to play with all of those other people and find - 30 multiboxers with 10,000 accounts each?
The problem I see is that with other games you can just shrug off the minute numbers of multiboxers who sell themselves on getting multiple accounts and assume subscriptions = players. But Eve is different. CCP actively sells as many multiple accounts as it can, so there's (in my unscientific observation) huge numbers of multiboxer accounts. So my point is, that throws the measure of "success" out of whack for this particular game.
'Nuff said, I won't beat this scrapped spaceship any longer. Thanks for your reply though, and it was definitely an interesting article to read.
An article by a whinning carebear imo No risk of loseing things = no challange , resources should be limited to make mining , PvE and more of the carebear activity inteesting. For me , this is the perfect mmo formula, this way you have a reason to kill and cant go serialkiller beacese if you do you'll make enemies, who have a habbit of uniting against you. In that kind of mmo , you have to adopt, make friends, join guilds simply socialise... If you are not playing for that , than go play an RPG , why spoil the fun of other people by whinning?
Let me clear something up for all you 'hardcore' players out there.
Hardcore game play means there is real risk involved in PvP. Many games have hard core PvP and I have no issue with them whatsoever. Why? Because they're fair and balanced.
Unbalanced, open, hardcore PvP is what's called a 'gankfest'. It's only enjoyable by sociopaths and people with severe anger issues. Games that employ this type of play always fail to deliver lasting, enjoyable PvP. Why? Because once you run out of people to gank, there's nothing left to do.
The irony of all this is, that because these trolls can't learn to keep their mouths shut, games will eventually be devoid of the very things they find enjoyable.
Personally, I've always felt that the core issue with PvP is that more than half the players will feel like they're not winning most of the time, get frustrated, and quit. A fellow player is a very tough difficulty curve - there's a reason why real life fighter pilots get to be an ace at 5 kills and this is a big deal. In a game about accumulation, another human brain can be insurmountable barrier that kills the difficulty curve and undermines the flow. Everything else is just fallout from this core problem.
Hmm, allow me to offer a counter-observation. When I logged into Planetside as a total noob from the EQ1 / Morrowind RPG world, I knew that I didn't know nuthin', and I anticipated learning the hard way. And boy, did I get my butt kicked. Over and over again lol.
But, I wasn't alone. I was fighting with a lot of other people to accomplish an objective, and my side wasn't always losing. I could see other people who were the same color as me losing too, but also winning. Because of that, no no matter how hard I got pwnt, I felt like it was MY fault, not my opponents. I wasn't good enough to do what the people around me were doing.
But, having so many others around meant that I could focus on my own gameplay and get better. It wasn't catastrophic when I got killed, because 100 other people were there fighting too. And I did get better, eventually holding an average 3/2 K/D ratio - not an ace by any means, but I was generally effective and useful to my side. And I still didn't mind getting killed even in a 1 on 1, because knowing that I was competent only meant that the other person was better and deserved respect for his win.
Now contrast this with most other games' PvP, where it's all about setting yourself and your personal buddies up to gank one or small groups of opponents. I get P.O'd when I get ganked by someone camping the frickin' newbie zone, and not at myself. I regard it as THEIR fault that I wasn't able to put up a good fight or even win, because heck, I'm in a loincloth with a newbie leafblade, y'know?
So that's totally lame to me, and I do then exactly what you say - quit the game and go look elsewhere.
But for god's sake, I wish reporters like you would check into the facts before spouting off about the "astounding success" of Eve Online "omgspacegamesandboxwith300ksubstheymustRULE!!!11!!!!1". They are not a 300k subscriber game. In my guesstimation (calculated completely in my butt from the number of players I've known and the number of alts they had), they've got around 1/4 of those numbers of long-term players
While this may be (in fact I'm fairly sure it's not) the answer you like, it is the correct one: the measure of a success for an MMO is financial. Whether a game has 300,000 subscribers or 30 very dedicated multiboxers, the income for the developer is the same. You may of course not want to play such a game, and if many agree with you, their subscriber numbers will reflect that.
Yup, you're right, it's not an answer I like, but not for any personal agenda on my part. It's because this is MMORPG.com, not Bloomberg.com. Isn't the measure of the success of a game to players its popularity with other players, not it's financials? I mean, who wants to be told a game is a huge success only to excitedly log in to play with all of those other people and find - 30 multiboxers with 10,000 accounts each?
The problem I see is that with other games you can just shrug off the minute numbers of multiboxers who sell themselves on getting multiple accounts and assume subscriptions = players. But Eve is different. CCP actively sells as many multiple accounts as it can, so there's (in my unscientific observation) huge numbers of multiboxer accounts. So my point is, that throws the measure of "success" out of whack for this particular game.
'Nuff said, I won't beat this scrapped spaceship any longer. Thanks for your reply though, and it was definitely an interesting article to read.
Not a chance in hell. Sorry, I like ALOT of folks on this site and (there are a handful that I'd bury on my friend's land or feed to hogs) but I'd much rather play a game like EvE with 30 multi-boxers and have fun than play WoW with 11 million individuals (which that isn't the case there either) and be bored out of my mind with the gameplay.
The only thing that a product having alot of users means to me when talking software is that it isn't complicated to use. It's easy. It's accessible. It requires little planning or thought to master. It has a very shallow learning curve. Human beings all too often take the path of less resistance.
WoW is that path, EvE is not.
Checkers is that path, chess is not.
Now, I will agree that a hefty number of sales does speak to the quality of the product, but not in relation to other products that may be equally good but require more thought to use. WoW is a solid game. No argument from me. That said, you can't ask the question "is it better than EvE" and use the resulting answer as a measure FOR ANYONE ON THIS PLANET other than the guy you just asked. We all like different things in varying degrees.
11 million people (or so) love playing WoW. If WoW was the only choice for playing an MMO I'd find another hobby, and I've been playing MMOs since 1997. *shrug*
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Shadowbane was a amazing game for what it did good, and that was pvp. The game allowed freedom to really come up with amazing templates and to defeat 1v3+ odds if you knew your game. One player could make a real impact there. I can remember times where I would kill guild master before they could place a bane stone or while they were planting a tree and come out with more enjoyment then any game since or prior.
It was a true griefers wet dream I admit but as I fit that format I enjoyed it. The game's freedom out weighted its flaws.
This whole article sounds to me like somebody who got killed in PvP and wants more PvE.
PvP games take way more to balance out than a PvE game. Patches need to come a lot quicker and frequently than PvE games. To many bugs can be game breaking, expecially when the other player has a bug in their favor. The over powered classes need to be delt with quickly. The rate of patching and fixing things in PvP games is what kills them, not the brand of PvP the game brings to the table. WAR is the best example of this. Choppy gameplay and a product that felt unfinnished. It's not the quality of PvP it's the little things that kill it.
Shadowbane had one thing no other game to date has had - CREATIVE FREEDOM!! Players and guilds had to think, lol what an amazing concept!!!
It was not another boring, uncreative cookie cutter game. Every single game to date is really just a clone of UO. Copy and paste+some new technolgies, a different name, a few different races, dumb down the pvp, dumb down charactor selection, ect ect BORING!!!!
Shadowbane's devolopers were creative thinkers far ahead of the uncreative boring cookie cutter developers putting out more of the same dumbed down crap coming out to-date.
Shadowbane had 1000’s of character combinations. Not all the mindless cookie cutter toons that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer.
The small scale combat was amazing complex, there were probably close to 100 different spec groups for small scale pvp 40 vs 40 ish. Not all the mindless keyboard spamming that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer.
The large scale combat (100 vs 100 with some as large as 400 vs 400)) was intense with many smaller battles raging around it. Other MMO’s other nothing that even comes close to Shadowbane sieges. They offer safe boring same scale combat with very little for tactics involved, because at the core the character’s them self’s are boring uncreative cookie cutter toons.
Shadowbane is a one of a kind game and was yrs ahead of its time.
At some point in the future another team of truly creative developers will make a sandbox like SB that works at release.
SB had over 100k paying customers and was in the top 10 games sold the yr of its release. That was a first for an MMO at the time.
The player base IS there, but the company with the balls and creative thinking is missing.
Your article is several things like all the other MMO's out their right now safe, cookie cutter, boring and uncreative.
What did you copy and paste then change a few names?
Before you write another rag like this, try being open minded and objective.
The reason why PvP ever has to fail is because the illusion that balance is needed. Champions Online is a mess because they listened to the DUMBEST and LOUDEST of their community from BOTH sides of a USELESS conversation. Caps aside; if they'd have followed the Champions Pen and Paper model more, and listened less to the scorned mmorpg community and more to the video game community over all. They'd not be in the mess they're in. The game's good as it stands now. But in beta when the shift of the argument and numbers tweaking moved toward the direction it ended up taking. It was painful to watch. PvP in a mmorpg should be the basis of all mmorpgs simply due to the nature of the beast. Should is always be log in, spam attacks, die, spawn, spam attacks, die, spawn? No, and it's that loop developers are stuck in that causes everything they touch to fail. Interaction and story are more important than any stat, bit of coding, or balance number crunchers for pvp and a successful community.
I found this interesting, and the posts about Shadowbane PvP, and the posts from someone who mentioned that they like their PvE and PvP separate.
So the perfect game could have let's say 2 continents or something like that. One continent is a safe zone all PvE with storyline/quests, dungeons, rep grind, raids, etc. The other continent is where you can have open pvp with small scale and mass scale pvp battles, create and destroy cities, etc. The game doesn't attempt to balance classes for PvP, and doesn't really try to balance them for PvE either (just making sure that each basic role can perform their job with the right equipment perhaps).
Both continents would have mobs and ways to craft, bank, auction, etc. Death penalty for the PvP continent is the possibility of losing items in your inventory and damage to equipment, and death penalty in the PvE continent is losing experience points, and getting damage to equipment.
Four basic classes or one template class that can be developed in thousands of different ways. Absolutely no instanced PvP. The incentive for playing on the PvE side of the world would be for the storyline, quests, raiding, dungeons, pets/mounts from rep grinds, safety, etc. and the incentive for playing on the PvP side of the world would be for fun and for the thrill of PvP. PvE and PvP separated, but in the same game so if you get bored of dungeons you can go and kill other players, and if you get bored of killing other players you can go raid a dragon or try to get a new mount, so it would keep players interested for a long time.
I know it kind of sounds like what a lot of games attempt, but I think a game that had a separate, but deep PvP and PvE experience would work well. Am I on the right track? Does this sound like it could work?
-------------------------- Playing: FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS My Rig: GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
Shadowbane had one thing no other game to date has had - CREATIVE FREEDOM!! Players and guilds had to think, lol what an amazing concept!!! It was not another boring, uncreative cookie cutter game. Every single game to date is really just a clone of UO. Copy and paste+some new technolgies, a different name, a few different races, dumb down the pvp, dumb down charactor selection, ect ect BORING!!!! Shadowbane's devolopers were creative thinkers far ahead of the uncreative boring cookie cutter developers putting out more of the same dumbed down crap coming out to-date. Shadowbane had 1000’s of character combinations. Not all the mindless cookie cutter toons that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer. The small scale combat was amazing complex, there were probably close to 100 different spec groups for small scale pvp 40 vs 40 ish. Not all the mindless keyboard spamming that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer. The large scale combat (100 vs 100 with some as large as 400 vs 400)) was intense with many smaller battles raging around it. Other MMO’s other nothing that even comes close to Shadowbane sieges. They offer safe boring same scale combat with very little for tactics involved, because at the core the character’s them self’s are boring uncreative cookie cutter toons. Shadowbane is a one of a kind game and was yrs ahead of its time. At some point in the future another team of truly creative developers will make a sandbox like SB that works at release. SB had over 100k paying customers and was in the top 10 games sold the yr of its release. That was a first for an MMO at the time. The player base IS there, but the company with the balls and creative thinking is missing. Your article is several things like all the other MMO's out their right now safe, cookie cutter, boring and uncreative. What did you copy and paste then change a few names? Before you write another rag like this, try being open minded and objective. Pelton
NO matter how creative SB is/was, (and I agree it was a great game) it doesn't change the fact it was a financial failure for reasons unrelated to its creativity and in the end, that's the only yardstick that really matters. (esp in the context of the original article)
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Aeroangel could be on the right tract. I have not the biggest fan of meaningless pvp but if a game could recapture the thrill of old DAoC multifaction rvr I would at the very least give it a look. I just want a purpose for the pvp other than to ruin someones days until they unistall
Good read. Hit on some important issues. PvP is one of my passions. It's a heck of a lot of fun to go up against other MMO players online. They're smarter, faster and more unpredictable than NPCs. Team PvP is my absolute favourite thing to do in an MMO. It's also nice end-game while waiting for the next expansion. So, having a decent PvP system really adds a lot to your game.
Man you're so right about the nerfs. The last game I left has turned into a ghost town on most servers because of a massive pvp revamp that had one main focus: NERF
Assassins had their attacks nerfed. Those with hold powers had their holds nerfed. Slow powers were weakened to the point that they weren't noticeable. Buffs were nerfed, as were all heals. Travel powers? Heh. Some were switched off all together. That's more than just a nerf lol; that's extinction. Others were drastically nerfed all around.
On top of all that, even activating an attack would cause you to suffer a movement penalty. So, throwing an immobilize on someone would actually hold the caster lol. It was the height of absurdity.
And to make matters worse, the game had just introduced crafted power enhancements. Recipes for these sets were rare and expensive. Getting a whole set of enhancments would give your character some nice perks. They were generally small, but every little bit helps in PvP ^_^. When the powers were nerfed and/or switched off, all the shiny new enhancements that people had just searched the world (or paid a bundle) for were rendered useless.
Wow, did the forums erupt. This wasn't just your usual, "hey man, don't nerf one of my powers." When I left the game, the complaints about the PvP revamp were 300 pages long. That's pages, btw, not posts. Look above to see why so many people were so passionate. They pretty much screwed everyone.
Why would they do this? Apparently to cater to people who like standing still and button mashing for 3 minutes until someone, mercifully, dies. No strategy, no custom pvp builds, no 3D movement, no holds, no stealth attacks, no traps, no arial combat, no team cooperation...zilch, nadda. Just button mash. Why did they say they wanted to do this? Well, I guess some of the button mashers thought that the pvp game was too complicated...too difficult to master. Oh, and they wondered why a doctor couldn't win a one-on-one battle with an assassin 0_o. So, everyone enjoying their pvp, their powers, their builds and their enhancements was thrown under the bus to cater to the button masher(s) and/or doctors that wanted to kill ninjas.
The result? Most of my pvp friends quit. Not thousands though lol (that was a funny comment). Now I'm told that all the servers I used to play on are ghost towns. I hope the button mashers enjoy the game while it lasts, and that the PvE folks can find someone to group with, which apparently is becoming more and more difficult.
Oh and to the devs that read these threads: 300 pages of "wth man, you ruined your whole game" might contain some valuable insights -_^.
The player base IS there, but the company with the balls and creative thinking is missing.
Before you write another rag like this, try being open minded and objective.
If the player base IS there, how come SB still closed after going F2P? How come PvP-oriented MMOs haven't been as successful as PvE-oriented MMOs and even in titles like EvE where PvP is very possible do the bulk of players stay in secure, non-FFA PvP areas?
It's because PvP isn't for the majority of players, especially FFA PvP. I know there is a theory that the perfect PvP game would revolutionise the genre, but it requires the 'perfect' game and that isn't realistic.
SB had some good ideas that were extremely poorly executed. The sb.exe notification that occurred every time the game crashed was notorious. It's nice that SB had a good game in theory, but the execution was awful.
The player life cycle of PvP MMOs often ends up looking like:
1) Pre-launch: much epeen waving about how people will be uber and crush all that oppose them.
2) Launch: Guilds and individuals scramble to get in and advance more quickly than those around them in order to hold more PvP power.
3) A Little While Post-Launch: Many players complain that the PvP isn't what they imagined in their heads - that it isn't the perfect PvP MMO. This will be a mix of launch bugs, player over-expectation and probably exploits that haven't yet been ironed out. The sheep start to leave.
4) A Little Bit Longer Post-Launch: Patches start stamping out both real and perceived power imbalances. Players who didn't get to use those imbalances complain. Those who did get to use them also complain, but are also smug at already benefiting from them. The sheep continue to leave, as do some of the wolves who find out they aren't ever going to be alpha wolf.
5) Longer After Post-Launch: The dust has settled a bit, the wolves realise most of the sheep have gone and there are only other wolves to fight. There probably aren't enough wolves to make the title financially viable; the devs start work on making the title more attractive to non-hardcore PvPers.
This isn't a cycle that is going to break in the foreseeable future.
I hate Shadowbane for the sole reason that it has made me quit MMOs. I can't seem to find another to challenge me the way SB did, in & out of the game with its fast-paced PvP rush, builds, group templates, strategies & backstabbing politics. 2 good things remain; i can say I had the best gaming time of my life & now that it's over i can spend some (my wife's words) quality time with the family.
First off the devs have to decide is the game balanced around pvp, pve (solo) or pve (raid). You can NOT balance the classes and game with all three. Sorry Blizzard, not gonna happen no matter how much you tweak and nerf. Pick ONE and balance according to that. City of Heroes, for example, is balanced (pvp or otherwise) with respect to team vs teams. They pretty much expect that you'll be grouped with at least 3 other people, so they balance accordingly. DAoC balances more towards pvp, as that is the primary focus of the game is it's RvR.
It also depends on the type of maket you're going for. Western games tend to prefer pve and only light pvp. Eastern gamers are the opposite. Not saying all Westerners are "carebears" and Easterners are "gankers", just the majority tends to fall into the previous catagories. Make a game that's hardcore pvp and you'll alienate a lot of Western gamers.
The pvp also needs to be relavant to the game and (are you listening Blizzard?) have a point. DAoC does pvp rather well in this respect as there are not only the usual personal ranks, but capturing keeps and relics actually benefits everyone. Unlike WoW where if Horde wins AV 100 times, that does absolutely nothing for the guy questing in EPL.
Shadowbane had one thing no other game to date has had - CREATIVE FREEDOM!! Players and guilds had to think, lol what an amazing concept!!! It was not another boring, uncreative cookie cutter game. Every single game to date is really just a clone of UO. Copy and paste+some new technolgies, a different name, a few different races, dumb down the pvp, dumb down charactor selection, ect ect BORING!!!! Shadowbane's devolopers were creative thinkers far ahead of the uncreative boring cookie cutter developers putting out more of the same dumbed down crap coming out to-date. Shadowbane had 1000’s of character combinations. Not all the mindless cookie cutter toons that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer. The small scale combat was amazing complex, there were probably close to 100 different spec groups for small scale pvp 40 vs 40 ish. Not all the mindless keyboard spamming that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer. The large scale combat (100 vs 100 with some as large as 400 vs 400)) was intense with many smaller battles raging around it. Other MMO’s other nothing that even comes close to Shadowbane sieges. They offer safe boring same scale combat with very little for tactics involved, because at the core the character’s them self’s are boring uncreative cookie cutter toons. Shadowbane is a one of a kind game and was yrs ahead of its time. At some point in the future another team of truly creative developers will make a sandbox like SB that works at release. SB had over 100k paying customers and was in the top 10 games sold the yr of its release. That was a first for an MMO at the time. The player base IS there, but the company with the balls and creative thinking is missing. Your article is several things like all the other MMO's out their right now safe, cookie cutter, boring and uncreative. What did you copy and paste then change a few names? Before you write another rag like this, try being open minded and objective. Pelton
NO matter how creative SB is/was, (and I agree it was a great game) it doesn't change the fact it was a financial failure for reasons unrelated to its creativity and in the end, that's the only yardstick that really matters. (esp in the context of the original article)
In regards to the links related to Eve I'd like to point a few things out. While interesting to read the entire story about the Goonswarm vs. BOB doesn't provide any insight about actual gameplay or its quality at all. It shows some griefers who trick people to pay a fee to join their guild and rip them off, they take advantage of someone in the BOB guild and get their log in and passwords and steal their items. That happens in every game, and it does nothing to show off EVE. In fact its a turn off.
MMORPG.com columnist Scott Jennings writes this look at two ways that including PvP in your MMO can end in complete disaster. Nothing starts more arguments on MMORPG-focused message boards and blog postings than the topic of Player vs. Player. Call it PvP, RvR, PK, whatever you like, it is the subject that will rouse more passions than any other, bar none. For some reason, some people really like killing other people. And other people really don't like being killed. Go figure! I've written several blog postings about it myself, as has anyone who's written about MMORPGs for more than fifteen seconds. Invoking PvP is the Godwin's Law of gaming discussions - in any discussion of game design, the longer the thread, the probability that someone will introduce PvP as either the reason for its subject's success or failure approaches 100%.
Creative directors and their designers make up the vision, not just anyone... well unless you are at Valve. A rule of thumb is that you HAVE to be passionate about the vision or else you have games with NO vision. The publisher and producers are there to complain about if that vision will not reach a wider audience. IF we are just going for the largest target audience, then ALL games will be the same casual experiences. PvP is at its core, user generated content. You can reach end game and quit because there is nothing to do... which is where PvP becomes a necessity. User generated content, it keeps players active while new content is being developed. Any system done horribly can break a game, not just pvp.
Comments
Can't talk about that, sorry.
Personally, I've always felt that the core issue with PvP is that more than half the players will feel like they're not winning most of the time, get frustrated, and quit. A fellow player is a very tough difficulty curve - there's a reason why real life fighter pilots get to be an ace at 5 kills and this is a big deal. In a game about accumulation, another human brain can be insurmountable barrier that kills the difficulty curve and undermines the flow. Everything else is just fallout from this core problem.
You just sunk water with that ridiculous statement.
Darkfall is what Shadowbane should of been without the game crippling bugs.
How is it ridiculous? Darkfall didn't exist when SB came out, thus his statement that it was (past tense) "the only PvP game since UO for us PvPers" is a reasonable one. If anything I would have clarified the type of PvPer being referred to, which is the group interested in having relatively high material risk (territory, city, items, gear).
I really don't think that comment was serious
If you are interested in subscription or PCU numbers for MMORPG's, check out my site :
http://mmodata.blogspot.be/
Favorite MMORPG's : DAoC pre ToA-NF, SWG Pre CU-NGE, EVE Online
Though SB is still one of my all time favorites, I doubt you were there in the beginning. Because lag, crashes to desktop, and exploits made the large scale massive battle unplayable for most people. Still love the game and the overall concepts more than most things I have played, and good post!
I was only there in the beginning actually. Beta'd with Bone Dog and went axe barb mino right off the bat. Then bow aracoix scout. While I had some lag issues I didn't really have the same problems most people did. It made me wonder if the servers were near Washington, DC. My loc.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Add Mortal Online to the list
In my opinion isn't that PvP fail but that free PvP is mostly boring. Games that haven't pure PvP but organized form of it, such as DAoC or RF Online, are mostly enjoyable and playable. And a PvP or RvR (RvRvR) game that has some ideas from classic PvE games (the mostrly boring genre) such as dungeons with great rewards can fail because gamer that can play a lot have a little (sarcastic) more benefits than "evening" players.
A PvP or RvR/RvRvR game must can playable from all gamers so no dungeons, an epic armour, epic weapons (both weapons and armour must be questable) and... this is the game. BTW people must (not can but must) have some rewards from PvP or RvR/RvRvR and i think that the Mythic's idea about Realm Points and Realm Abilities can be the best solution ever. Or other kind of rewards, but not weapons and/or armour pieces.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
QFT. Add to that the MMO mentality that fight must end up in a kill.
Take a competitive market game like EvE. You win some, you lose some but you are hardly ever "killed" as such, you rather surrender and find success other way. This applies to a degree to EvE spaceship combat too. Yet still, sucess is measured by a mass of kill mails.
Unless the PvP proponets come here and gloat about how they kept losing but it was so much fun or how they hunted this one guy whole day until he finally escaped and how exciting it was we won't have real fun PvP game.
While this may be (in fact I'm fairly sure it's not) the answer you like, it is the correct one: the measure of a success for an MMO is financial. Whether a game has 300,000 subscribers or 30 very dedicated multiboxers, the income for the developer is the same. You may of course not want to play such a game, and if many agree with you, their subscriber numbers will reflect that.
Yup, you're right, it's not an answer I like, but not for any personal agenda on my part. It's because this is MMORPG.com, not Bloomberg.com. Isn't the measure of the success of a game to players its popularity with other players, not it's financials? I mean, who wants to be told a game is a huge success only to excitedly log in to play with all of those other people and find - 30 multiboxers with 10,000 accounts each?
The problem I see is that with other games you can just shrug off the minute numbers of multiboxers who sell themselves on getting multiple accounts and assume subscriptions = players. But Eve is different. CCP actively sells as many multiple accounts as it can, so there's (in my unscientific observation) huge numbers of multiboxer accounts. So my point is, that throws the measure of "success" out of whack for this particular game.
'Nuff said, I won't beat this scrapped spaceship any longer. Thanks for your reply though, and it was definitely an interesting article to read.
Let me clear something up for all you 'hardcore' players out there.
Hardcore game play means there is real risk involved in PvP. Many games have hard core PvP and I have no issue with them whatsoever. Why? Because they're fair and balanced.
Unbalanced, open, hardcore PvP is what's called a 'gankfest'. It's only enjoyable by sociopaths and people with severe anger issues. Games that employ this type of play always fail to deliver lasting, enjoyable PvP. Why? Because once you run out of people to gank, there's nothing left to do.
The irony of all this is, that because these trolls can't learn to keep their mouths shut, games will eventually be devoid of the very things they find enjoyable.
Hmm, allow me to offer a counter-observation. When I logged into Planetside as a total noob from the EQ1 / Morrowind RPG world, I knew that I didn't know nuthin', and I anticipated learning the hard way. And boy, did I get my butt kicked. Over and over again lol.
But, I wasn't alone. I was fighting with a lot of other people to accomplish an objective, and my side wasn't always losing. I could see other people who were the same color as me losing too, but also winning. Because of that, no no matter how hard I got pwnt, I felt like it was MY fault, not my opponents. I wasn't good enough to do what the people around me were doing.
But, having so many others around meant that I could focus on my own gameplay and get better. It wasn't catastrophic when I got killed, because 100 other people were there fighting too. And I did get better, eventually holding an average 3/2 K/D ratio - not an ace by any means, but I was generally effective and useful to my side. And I still didn't mind getting killed even in a 1 on 1, because knowing that I was competent only meant that the other person was better and deserved respect for his win.
Now contrast this with most other games' PvP, where it's all about setting yourself and your personal buddies up to gank one or small groups of opponents. I get P.O'd when I get ganked by someone camping the frickin' newbie zone, and not at myself. I regard it as THEIR fault that I wasn't able to put up a good fight or even win, because heck, I'm in a loincloth with a newbie leafblade, y'know?
So that's totally lame to me, and I do then exactly what you say - quit the game and go look elsewhere.
While this may be (in fact I'm fairly sure it's not) the answer you like, it is the correct one: the measure of a success for an MMO is financial. Whether a game has 300,000 subscribers or 30 very dedicated multiboxers, the income for the developer is the same. You may of course not want to play such a game, and if many agree with you, their subscriber numbers will reflect that.
Yup, you're right, it's not an answer I like, but not for any personal agenda on my part. It's because this is MMORPG.com, not Bloomberg.com. Isn't the measure of the success of a game to players its popularity with other players, not it's financials? I mean, who wants to be told a game is a huge success only to excitedly log in to play with all of those other people and find - 30 multiboxers with 10,000 accounts each?
The problem I see is that with other games you can just shrug off the minute numbers of multiboxers who sell themselves on getting multiple accounts and assume subscriptions = players. But Eve is different. CCP actively sells as many multiple accounts as it can, so there's (in my unscientific observation) huge numbers of multiboxer accounts. So my point is, that throws the measure of "success" out of whack for this particular game.
'Nuff said, I won't beat this scrapped spaceship any longer. Thanks for your reply though, and it was definitely an interesting article to read.
Not a chance in hell. Sorry, I like ALOT of folks on this site and (there are a handful that I'd bury on my friend's land or feed to hogs) but I'd much rather play a game like EvE with 30 multi-boxers and have fun than play WoW with 11 million individuals (which that isn't the case there either) and be bored out of my mind with the gameplay.
The only thing that a product having alot of users means to me when talking software is that it isn't complicated to use. It's easy. It's accessible. It requires little planning or thought to master. It has a very shallow learning curve. Human beings all too often take the path of less resistance.
WoW is that path, EvE is not.
Checkers is that path, chess is not.
Now, I will agree that a hefty number of sales does speak to the quality of the product, but not in relation to other products that may be equally good but require more thought to use. WoW is a solid game. No argument from me. That said, you can't ask the question "is it better than EvE" and use the resulting answer as a measure FOR ANYONE ON THIS PLANET other than the guy you just asked. We all like different things in varying degrees.
11 million people (or so) love playing WoW. If WoW was the only choice for playing an MMO I'd find another hobby, and I've been playing MMOs since 1997. *shrug*
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Shadowbane was a amazing game for what it did good, and that was pvp. The game allowed freedom to really come up with amazing templates and to defeat 1v3+ odds if you knew your game. One player could make a real impact there. I can remember times where I would kill guild master before they could place a bane stone or while they were planting a tree and come out with more enjoyment then any game since or prior.
It was a true griefers wet dream I admit but as I fit that format I enjoyed it. The game's freedom out weighted its flaws.
Darstar
Kieffer
Gyois
Hing4life
This whole article sounds to me like somebody who got killed in PvP and wants more PvE.
PvP games take way more to balance out than a PvE game. Patches need to come a lot quicker and frequently than PvE games. To many bugs can be game breaking, expecially when the other player has a bug in their favor. The over powered classes need to be delt with quickly. The rate of patching and fixing things in PvP games is what kills them, not the brand of PvP the game brings to the table. WAR is the best example of this. Choppy gameplay and a product that felt unfinnished. It's not the quality of PvP it's the little things that kill it.
Shadowbane had one thing no other game to date has had - CREATIVE FREEDOM!! Players and guilds had to think, lol what an amazing concept!!!
It was not another boring, uncreative cookie cutter game. Every single game to date is really just a clone of UO. Copy and paste+some new technolgies, a different name, a few different races, dumb down the pvp, dumb down charactor selection, ect ect BORING!!!!
Shadowbane's devolopers were creative thinkers far ahead of the uncreative boring cookie cutter developers putting out more of the same dumbed down crap coming out to-date.
Shadowbane had 1000’s of character combinations. Not all the mindless cookie cutter toons that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer.
The small scale combat was amazing complex, there were probably close to 100 different spec groups for small scale pvp 40 vs 40 ish. Not all the mindless keyboard spamming that all the other boring uncreative MMO’s offer.
The large scale combat (100 vs 100 with some as large as 400 vs 400)) was intense with many smaller battles raging around it. Other MMO’s other nothing that even comes close to Shadowbane sieges. They offer safe boring same scale combat with very little for tactics involved, because at the core the character’s them self’s are boring uncreative cookie cutter toons.
Shadowbane is a one of a kind game and was yrs ahead of its time.
At some point in the future another team of truly creative developers will make a sandbox like SB that works at release.
SB had over 100k paying customers and was in the top 10 games sold the yr of its release. That was a first for an MMO at the time.
The player base IS there, but the company with the balls and creative thinking is missing.
Your article is several things like all the other MMO's out their right now safe, cookie cutter, boring and uncreative.
What did you copy and paste then change a few names?
Before you write another rag like this, try being open minded and objective.
Pelton
Eve isn't full loot. It can be full loss if you don't take precautions but it's not full loot.
Same thing considering the point being discussed. You lose everything when you die.
I found this interesting, and the posts about Shadowbane PvP, and the posts from someone who mentioned that they like their PvE and PvP separate.
So the perfect game could have let's say 2 continents or something like that. One continent is a safe zone all PvE with storyline/quests, dungeons, rep grind, raids, etc. The other continent is where you can have open pvp with small scale and mass scale pvp battles, create and destroy cities, etc. The game doesn't attempt to balance classes for PvP, and doesn't really try to balance them for PvE either (just making sure that each basic role can perform their job with the right equipment perhaps).
Both continents would have mobs and ways to craft, bank, auction, etc. Death penalty for the PvP continent is the possibility of losing items in your inventory and damage to equipment, and death penalty in the PvE continent is losing experience points, and getting damage to equipment.
Four basic classes or one template class that can be developed in thousands of different ways. Absolutely no instanced PvP. The incentive for playing on the PvE side of the world would be for the storyline, quests, raiding, dungeons, pets/mounts from rep grinds, safety, etc. and the incentive for playing on the PvP side of the world would be for fun and for the thrill of PvP. PvE and PvP separated, but in the same game so if you get bored of dungeons you can go and kill other players, and if you get bored of killing other players you can go raid a dragon or try to get a new mount, so it would keep players interested for a long time.
I know it kind of sounds like what a lot of games attempt, but I think a game that had a separate, but deep PvP and PvE experience would work well. Am I on the right track? Does this sound like it could work?
--------------------------
Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
NO matter how creative SB is/was, (and I agree it was a great game) it doesn't change the fact it was a financial failure for reasons unrelated to its creativity and in the end, that's the only yardstick that really matters. (esp in the context of the original article)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Aeroangel could be on the right tract. I have not the biggest fan of meaningless pvp but if a game could recapture the thrill of old DAoC multifaction rvr I would at the very least give it a look. I just want a purpose for the pvp other than to ruin someones days until they unistall
Good read. Hit on some important issues. PvP is one of my passions. It's a heck of a lot of fun to go up against other MMO players online. They're smarter, faster and more unpredictable than NPCs. Team PvP is my absolute favourite thing to do in an MMO. It's also nice end-game while waiting for the next expansion. So, having a decent PvP system really adds a lot to your game.
Man you're so right about the nerfs. The last game I left has turned into a ghost town on most servers because of a massive pvp revamp that had one main focus: NERF
Assassins had their attacks nerfed. Those with hold powers had their holds nerfed. Slow powers were weakened to the point that they weren't noticeable. Buffs were nerfed, as were all heals. Travel powers? Heh. Some were switched off all together. That's more than just a nerf lol; that's extinction. Others were drastically nerfed all around.
On top of all that, even activating an attack would cause you to suffer a movement penalty. So, throwing an immobilize on someone would actually hold the caster lol. It was the height of absurdity.
And to make matters worse, the game had just introduced crafted power enhancements. Recipes for these sets were rare and expensive. Getting a whole set of enhancments would give your character some nice perks. They were generally small, but every little bit helps in PvP ^_^. When the powers were nerfed and/or switched off, all the shiny new enhancements that people had just searched the world (or paid a bundle) for were rendered useless.
Wow, did the forums erupt. This wasn't just your usual, "hey man, don't nerf one of my powers." When I left the game, the complaints about the PvP revamp were 300 pages long. That's pages, btw, not posts. Look above to see why so many people were so passionate. They pretty much screwed everyone.
Why would they do this? Apparently to cater to people who like standing still and button mashing for 3 minutes until someone, mercifully, dies. No strategy, no custom pvp builds, no 3D movement, no holds, no stealth attacks, no traps, no arial combat, no team cooperation...zilch, nadda. Just button mash. Why did they say they wanted to do this? Well, I guess some of the button mashers thought that the pvp game was too complicated...too difficult to master. Oh, and they wondered why a doctor couldn't win a one-on-one battle with an assassin 0_o. So, everyone enjoying their pvp, their powers, their builds and their enhancements was thrown under the bus to cater to the button masher(s) and/or doctors that wanted to kill ninjas.
The result? Most of my pvp friends quit. Not thousands though lol (that was a funny comment). Now I'm told that all the servers I used to play on are ghost towns. I hope the button mashers enjoy the game while it lasts, and that the PvE folks can find someone to group with, which apparently is becoming more and more difficult.
Oh and to the devs that read these threads: 300 pages of "wth man, you ruined your whole game" might contain some valuable insights -_^.
If the player base IS there, how come SB still closed after going F2P? How come PvP-oriented MMOs haven't been as successful as PvE-oriented MMOs and even in titles like EvE where PvP is very possible do the bulk of players stay in secure, non-FFA PvP areas?
It's because PvP isn't for the majority of players, especially FFA PvP. I know there is a theory that the perfect PvP game would revolutionise the genre, but it requires the 'perfect' game and that isn't realistic.
SB had some good ideas that were extremely poorly executed. The sb.exe notification that occurred every time the game crashed was notorious. It's nice that SB had a good game in theory, but the execution was awful.
The player life cycle of PvP MMOs often ends up looking like:
1) Pre-launch: much epeen waving about how people will be uber and crush all that oppose them.
2) Launch: Guilds and individuals scramble to get in and advance more quickly than those around them in order to hold more PvP power.
3) A Little While Post-Launch: Many players complain that the PvP isn't what they imagined in their heads - that it isn't the perfect PvP MMO. This will be a mix of launch bugs, player over-expectation and probably exploits that haven't yet been ironed out. The sheep start to leave.
4) A Little Bit Longer Post-Launch: Patches start stamping out both real and perceived power imbalances. Players who didn't get to use those imbalances complain. Those who did get to use them also complain, but are also smug at already benefiting from them. The sheep continue to leave, as do some of the wolves who find out they aren't ever going to be alpha wolf.
5) Longer After Post-Launch: The dust has settled a bit, the wolves realise most of the sheep have gone and there are only other wolves to fight. There probably aren't enough wolves to make the title financially viable; the devs start work on making the title more attractive to non-hardcore PvPers.
This isn't a cycle that is going to break in the foreseeable future.
I hate Shadowbane for the sole reason that it has made me quit MMOs. I can't seem to find another to challenge me the way SB did, in & out of the game with its fast-paced PvP rush, builds, group templates, strategies & backstabbing politics. 2 good things remain; i can say I had the best gaming time of my life & now that it's over i can spend some (my wife's words) quality time with the family.
PvP is the volatile point for any MMO.
First off the devs have to decide is the game balanced around pvp, pve (solo) or pve (raid). You can NOT balance the classes and game with all three. Sorry Blizzard, not gonna happen no matter how much you tweak and nerf. Pick ONE and balance according to that. City of Heroes, for example, is balanced (pvp or otherwise) with respect to team vs teams. They pretty much expect that you'll be grouped with at least 3 other people, so they balance accordingly. DAoC balances more towards pvp, as that is the primary focus of the game is it's RvR.
It also depends on the type of maket you're going for. Western games tend to prefer pve and only light pvp. Eastern gamers are the opposite. Not saying all Westerners are "carebears" and Easterners are "gankers", just the majority tends to fall into the previous catagories. Make a game that's hardcore pvp and you'll alienate a lot of Western gamers.
The pvp also needs to be relavant to the game and (are you listening Blizzard?) have a point. DAoC does pvp rather well in this respect as there are not only the usual personal ranks, but capturing keeps and relics actually benefits everyone. Unlike WoW where if Horde wins AV 100 times, that does absolutely nothing for the guy questing in EPL.
NO matter how creative SB is/was, (and I agree it was a great game) it doesn't change the fact it was a financial failure for reasons unrelated to its creativity and in the end, that's the only yardstick that really matters. (esp in the context of the original article)
So sad, but so, so true.
That's life though I guess......
In regards to the links related to Eve I'd like to point a few things out. While interesting to read the entire story about the Goonswarm vs. BOB doesn't provide any insight about actual gameplay or its quality at all. It shows some griefers who trick people to pay a fee to join their guild and rip them off, they take advantage of someone in the BOB guild and get their log in and passwords and steal their items. That happens in every game, and it does nothing to show off EVE. In fact its a turn off.
Read Jennings: How PvP Can Break Your Game.
Creative directors and their designers make up the vision, not just anyone... well unless you are at Valve. A rule of thumb is that you HAVE to be passionate about the vision or else you have games with NO vision. The publisher and producers are there to complain about if that vision will not reach a wider audience. IF we are just going for the largest target audience, then ALL games will be the same casual experiences. PvP is at its core, user generated content. You can reach end game and quit because there is nothing to do... which is where PvP becomes a necessity. User generated content, it keeps players active while new content is being developed. Any system done horribly can break a game, not just pvp.