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Reserved Excitement and High Hopes
H0urg1ass
Member EpicPosts: 2,380
After spending an hour on their official page and gobbling up all the information I could find, I ended up sitting here at my computer with my mind reeling, and I think I actually made a "Squeee!" noise.
FINALLY, a game other than EVE which is based around the economy as the core principle. It's what makes EVE such a great game; the fact that "crafters" underpin all other activities in the game. You can't fly a ship in EVE unless someone else built it, and I hope that same principle carries over to this game nearly verbatim.
IF, and that's a big IF, this game can pull off all that's it promising, then I'll have a nerdgasm. It's exactly the game that I've been pining away for, for years. I kind of wish it was a fantasy setting insted of a sci-fi setting, but I'll take it either way.
My reservations are threefold:
1) The Hero Engine. I realize that this engine is actually the finished product, and that BioWare used a pre-beta version of it and then hacked it to pieces to make the TORTANIC. However, I'm still slightly reserved based on that. The network layer will have to be PERFECT. Why do I say that? Because when you removed instanced PVP and let people fight anywhere, then you get the EVE effect, which is people bring ever larger groups of friends to fight their enemies. The TORTANIC version of the Hero Engine can barely render 12 people fighting in one space... I expect mass PVP in this game to exceed hundreds of people in one area.
2) The two-ruleset plan. I'm not too keen on this. It's already going to be a niche game, so why create two rulesets which further divide up the playerbase? The devs are going to do do what they want to do, and this won't change by release, but I really wish they'd just use the "hardcore" ruleset as the only ruleset and let the girly men go back to their hand holding, no death penalty games.
My fear is that two different rulesets will end up becoming one ruleset in the end, because the vast majority of people prefer the path of least resistance. PVP servers are always less populated than PVE servers on every game that has decided to split their ruleset. Most people will gravitate to the easier ruleset, leading to low pops and difficulty in finding pvp on the "hardcore" server. At which point they'll just get merged into the sissycore server.
3) For the love of gaming. DO. NOT. RELEASE. BEFORE. READY. That's my final reservation. This game promises a LOT, and if it can't deliver on the vast majority of it on release date, then people will run screaming. The hardest thing to get a modern gamer to do, is come back to something that wasn't ready at release... and why should they? The next hottest thing is always just around the corner. If you don't captivate the player with a good product right away, then the chances of getting them back later is usually pretty low.
Other than those three points, I'm really excited about this game and can't wait to play it when it's fully ready to be released.
Comments
I also have high hopes, but I temper that with reservation as well.
Regarding your concerns:
1. We of course will have to wait and see how the performance of the game is during high player density moments (PvP, raids), but the devs have stated that it was a texture issue (if I remember correctly) that contributes towards SWTOR's poor framerates. That game has very high texture counts.
2. They almost have to have 2 different server ruleset servers. No way to know how this will play out yet due to an unkown in how many people are going to check this game out at release. There will be death penalties on the normal server, it just won't involve player looting. Item decay will be there and other forms of hinderence associated with death. If the game had a hardcore only server ruleset, it would for sure lower the amount of people who would even try it by a large margin. I love PvP, love open world PvP, but I will be playing on the normal server. Not because I'm a sissy or looking for easy-mode....just because it's the type of PvP that I think would be most fun. It's still open world, still has city sieges, still will be getting ganked and zerged, just no player looting.
3. Bugs will no doubt be in game, and I'm sure they realize that any game breaking inbalances, exploits, or broken mechanics are things they need to focus on identifying and fixing before release. Let's just hope there aren't a ton to begin with and the Alpha and Beta testers will help identify and report these.
I am super pumped about this game, but for me 2 of the above concerns are expected concerns for any game. I'm mostly concerned about them being able to pull off the more complicated combat. I hope it's not bad. I don't need WoW quality smooth combat, but it can't be like pre-cu SWG either.
Waiting on: The Repopulation
Yeah, I've heard that about SWTOR too, but I played that game for, well I don't remember how long. It was more than a month and less than three months, but during that time the textures were absolutely horrible. I mean you could walk up to most objects and count the polygons. That's a bit of hyperbole, but it was almost that bad. lol
Yeah, we don't know how many people will try it out yet. I realize that there are pretty decent death penalties on the regular servers, but being an eight year EVE veteran, I'm highly partial to full looting. IMO, full looting leads to a more robust economy. The more stuff that players have to replace, the more work it creates for crafters, which stimulates the in-game economy quite wonderfully.
I, and I'm sure all of my EVE corporation, will be on the hardcore server, but that's because after eight years of losing everything when you die, it doesn't really bother you as much. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but if you're self sufficient, it's not hard to replace. I plan on having two accounts (as long as they don't frown upon that sort of behavior) and one will be my cash cow, crafter/marketeer and the other will be my PVP'er. I just hope the hardcore servers end up being dead.
Oh sure, I agree, you can never avoid release bugs. I find that people can live with bugs, as long as the content promised is the content available on day one. I was part of the Age of Conan fiasco back in '08 (Sounds like a damned war story. lol) and literally 50% or more of what the box cover said would be in the game, simply wasn't there... in any form. Bugs are one thing, but broken promises tend to cause people to clamp their wallets shut. That's mostly what I'm worried about if the game releases too early. But then again, these guys are working on pennies a day from what I understand, so at some point they may just have to put out what they have in order to recoup some costs.
Heck yeah, I'm super excited about it too. After everything I've read, they seem to have put a lot of thought into the combat system. Considering that it's the one thing you're doing the most in pretty much any MMO in existence, I'm betting they're working their tails off to get it right. I'm less worried there than I am with game performance at release.
All I heard was... "Well aren't you just a little lolly pop triple dipped in psycho."
Not liking the whole two server rulesets, Hardcore vs Carebear. I personally will go to the full loot server, not because I am a big PvPer and enjoy ganking, but because as someone else pointed out. The economy will be better.
I enjoy crafting but I enjoy a good fight where feelings get hurt. In a non-full loot PvP game people will just get mad and grief you over and over dieing and call you everything under the sun. In a full loot PvP, you kill them they die, they have to regear and comeback, not insta-return ready to fight. Used to drive me nuts in SWG. And it was the ONE feature I liked in Mortal online.
I look foward to The Repopulation but I to have reservations about the game. Mainly about the community that will horde into it on launch like all the new things on the market. After the plague of locusts die off and the few surviving players are left, I hope that the developers dont listen to those locusts and just follow a pre-planed development cycle, fixing bugs, and exploits, but adding new features in a steady and decent pace. Without jumping around tweaking this or nerfing that, because some ganker 12 year old with 10 of his best middle school friends say that its OP or UP.
So much crap, so little quality.
Yeah im not a griefer, i dont play mmorpgs to be the best, just to have fun. I feel full loot adds so much to a game thats built around it that its something for me thats hard to be without. Lacking the risk in pvp, lacking having to watch my back...i hate the lackadaisical runnin around the world, to and from pve spawns that no risk games offer, even if its ffa pvp...the full loot needs to be there.
With that said it will suck if the games not built around it, which im not conviced it is.
Also, catering to both crowds is going to be a hot mess, as i said the game needs to be built around and for full loot to work, and a pve server wont work well under the same principles if the games built for full loot.
What makes this all worse is..if this games not a smashing hit past the first month, which i dont think it will...a small niche crowd divided by ruleset servers is going to be horrible.
Id love to get hyped about this game, been down this road before, and watched from the sidelines ever since at what happens. High quality themepark with boring tired mechanics or sandbox with awesome mechanics thats never finished and made by a basement crew of developers constantly behind what needs to be done, always taking the easy route of ignoring the basics and adding fluff instead. Either way the game fizzles out rather quick.
Wish these guys luck, but to me, this is just going to be another earthrise or dawntide until proven otherwise. If this things not done and polished at launch its never going to be. Not sure i want to get sucked into another sandbox that could have been while the niche fanclub grasps on to the hope of it being great over the next 5 years...like so many others.
Nothing irks me more than developers who are soft on their vision as to what game they are making, Xyson sufferd from this. If these developers cant choose a ruleset and focus on it, i have little hope.
They did choose a ruleset and its what they call the normal server. Everything is being built around that. They would like to have a second (hardcore) server at launch if there is enough comunity to have 2 stable servers. The hardcore ruleset will just be more dangerous, with more risk involved. Things like everyone being in active military and can't turn that off, and there will be some sort of player looting. All of this for the (HC) will be desided later as they are focusing on the normal server until they are happy with it. I wouldn't expect any details on the (HC) server until much closer to launch.
All I heard was... "Well aren't you just a little lolly pop triple dipped in psycho."
I dont think it constitues as hardcore vs carebear. That is the kind of elitest attitude that puts me off pvp in the first place.
I have alot of hopes for this game. Mainly because I am really tired of the gear treadmill that other games put you on. Even if its 80% of what the developers say they are doing I will be pretty damn happy.