Monthly Archives: March 2006

Sparse comment on DAoC

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After one week trying, I was finally able to join a group in DAoC. We still sit and wait for the majority of the time and I got less than 2k or RPs in total, but at least it was something.

The problems I see are still the same. From a side the RvR should be made more alive, because right now the game is extremely specialized into 8vs8 groups and nothing else. From the other the game needs some value in the PvE side because the shameless use of the instances dumbed everything down to an unacceptable level. A game with just PvP cannot survive and the success lies in the blend between the two.

In the first case (making the RvR pivot some more around the keeps and sieges, the actual RvR) my idea on the open PvP model could be easily adapted to achieve the same goals:

What about rewarding more RPs the more you fight closer to a keep?

Think to it like a ‘gravity center’, toward which people are attracted.

It would also help casual players to find groups more easily since not the whole game would be based on 8vs8 specialized, closed groups.

This idea could work for a very simple reason:
If they reward A LOT more RPs for conquering towers and keeps, we could arrive at a scenario where the realms AVOID each other to keep farming RPs while fighting just the guards (since long sieges would be an useless delay that both sides would like to avoid).

Instead if the keeps are transformed into gravity centers that multiply the RPs the closer you are, the points would still come from the “direct kills”, so promoting the actual PvP instead of players vs guards.

The idea is to use the keeps and towers as “gravity centers”, or “hot spots”. Conceiving the PvP activity as a weight that needs to be attracted toward the keeps, working as a “focus”. A “rubber band” that keeps trying to pull you back through the incentive to the RPs. So that fighting around and inside the keeps would become more desirable than how it is right now.

This could work, it could make the RvR more accessible for the casual players, make the groups a little more varied and less specialized. There would be some minor problems to adapt other parts of the game that were planned on different premises (like Agramon) but nothing that it is impossible to solve.

The point is to “valorize” that unique RvR model that DAoC can offer. This model is less about specialized 8vs8 and more about the broader level of sieges and keeps warfare. The strategy would be about making this part more desirable, since right now it’s the worst way to get RPs.

Other minor things that I would like to see fixed/adjusted:
– The emote spam. It shouldn’t be too hard to add a 10 seconds cooldown to each emote to prevent excessive spam. It would also make the animations more smooth instead of having them overlapping unrealistically. Ther same for the sound emotes.
– The jump code. This needs to be completely rewritten from scratch. Right now there’s just the “lag-jumping” with people flying to the sky and then rubberbanding back to the ground. You could see a player on a horse jumping in the place and fly six meters in the air. This is a problem that is in the game since release and that is also related to the z-axis movement that looks horrible even underwater. It should be fixed once for all.
– The horses. Make the model tilt accordingly to the inclination of the terrain. DAoC has already the code to do this, it just needs to be applied to the players mounts.
– Boats. This is the most badly impemented system in the whole game. The controls to use and move the boats are terrible, the movement is always jerky and the rubberbanding a constant (along with players falling in the water or ‘ghosting’ everywhere). The idea would be to rewrite the controls so that the movement is “twitch”. You apply the exact same scheme of the movement of a car. With simple acceleration routines, reverse gear and reduced turning rates. It would be enough to make the situation much better.

About The PvE I have some ideas, I have already explained a few. It’s hard to wrap everything up because the PvE side needs to be heavily reorganized and this approach wouldn’t work well with all the different expanasions, plus the one in development (that I’m dreading). I’m quite sure that Mythic isn’t going to fix anything so that they can push a new model right into Warhammer.

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Grimwell back on Grimwell

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It seems that Grimwell is back home.

Good because I never migrated to Gamergod, so he never “sold” that idea to me. What he says about the gaming media is far from surprising, one wonder what else he expected to find.

A couple of years ago I was also writing news and some comments for an italian site and left without an inch of drama as they told me to just report the news as they arrived without commenting them or dig the truth behind. I think I did a good service for the site for the time I was there (about a year) and simply left when it wasn’t anymore a possibility.

Anyone can post a press release and regurgiate PR material, but very few people in gaming can tell it like it is.

It’s not a news that game journalism is not possible. The game companies have the full control over what is released. It’s not public domain, it’s their private property and they can even menace you if you happen to find unauthorized screenshots as it happened to me with WoW’s exp. If you want to be able to write previews and join betas you are forced to be their tool. Or have friends and infiltrates in the company. Everything else is useless, there’s nothing to report if not what is already under everyone’s eyes. You are the game journalist of your socks.

(and so what matters is not anymore the “news” itself, but an opinion. The subjectivity. That particular point of view of who writes.)

Even here I believe who is losing more are the game companies themselves, not the players. It’s the games that are going to suffer because the quality always stands out. You can hide the dirt under the carpet but you are going to have it come out somewhere else and hurting you even more. The problems are better discovered as soon as possible and promptly addressed instead of hidden. This is why if I was at the head of a big project I would push to go fully open and honest. I would go HUNT the beta testers I need between those who know the genre and I believe will give me honest, unbiased opinions and ideas, and beg them to join. The community and the feedback are a precious resource for the game itself, to narrow down, discuss those problems before it’s too late to solve them. Hyping things and repeating “it’s beta” doesn’t work, it’s not useful. Those are the people who should be left out. The criticism can help to move forward. The more direct and honest is the relationship, the best is for the whole project.

My point is that the companies themselves should go hunt that type of relationship instead of favoring the asslickers. If they don’t want, their loss.

Lum:
I think a lot of why community dialogue in these games suck is actually because there isn’t a mature media that holds game companies to account. That’s what helps keep governments honest in the real world, and it’s a balance that doesn’t exist in the virtual one. So you see the effects instead of community relations subverted by public relations efforts.

Grimwell lists various types of “game journalists”. Between those I’m the one who writes to have a taste of that part of game development that is inaccessible to me. “The ladder to see the stars”. Even if I cannot understand why one couldn’t desire to develop games without being interested in celebrity. For sure I don’t consider myself a journalist, nor I’m interested in becoming one.

The total, unrestrained freedom I have is a strength, because I’m not influenced in any way. The point of view is subjective and completely honest. There are no filters and I naturally escape every form of control because I’m always on my own personal search.

I leave the political battles to someone else. I’m just one who believes that honesty and unbiased journalism are a need of the industry first and the community after.

For reference, give a look at this as well.

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The Lead Designer

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I take an occasion to write down some notes about what I believe should be the role of a “lead designer” in a mmorpg. I know that things don’t work this way, but take this as another critics to the industry.

A lead designer for a game is the one directly responsible of the whole project, the one more exposed and that risks more. The one accountable for it. At the same time it’s one of the most exciting position but this should come at a price. His main duty is to observe, take the game as a whole, in all its part, even the most peripheral. Observe it as if it was on the palm of his hand. All the work he does should be at an high level only. He should never write a line of code, a script, a quest line or a character skill. His duties are elsewhere and not directly involved in the implementation. He supervises the implementation and the “flow”, but then the duty to make things work as expected is a responsibility exclusively of the team leads.

The second most important duty is about the communication. The communication happens in two moments, both equally important and part one of the other as two faces of the same medal:
– Communicate, and make communicate, toward the inside: between the developers and different departments, between the team leads.
– Communicate, and make communicate, toward the outside: to the community. Gather feedback, encourage discussions, contribute. With an active role.

Know, understand and dialogue with both these sides is essential and a direct duty of the lead designer without third parties working as filters.

The first part is also divided into two moments. There’s a first moment where every developer or designer should participate in regular meetings. No group of devs should work isolated and everyone should be involved when it comes to lay down plans and set a strategy. During these meetings there aren’t roles or distinctions between the devs. The situation about the whole project is presented and ideas are gathered from everyone. Things are organized and planned roughly. Everyone can participate and comment on all levels without restirctions. Every dev in the company should be made aware about how things are going and what the goals and the priorities are so that everyone can feel part of the project and can follow the progress. Here the lead designer can work as a moderator.

Then there’s a second moment. The main group without distinction is broken into “departments” with one “team lead” responsible of each. Once the overall goals are set, the different activities are assigned to the teams and on this second level everything is planned in detail. The schedules are set and the workflow organized. Each team is supposed to know exactly what are the goals to reach and the deadlines. Past this level the implementation becomes a complete responsibility of the team leads and the lead designer isn’t anymore involved.

The lead designer continues to dialogue constantly with every team to follow directly the work, but without directing that work. He is supposed to supervise the activities, monitor if the goals are reached, but the details of the design and practical implementation are a responsibility of specialized designers that are assigned to the specific teams. The lead designer is responsible for the design only at the high level, working in coordination with everyone else, as a communal effort. For example the identity of the classes are set, the skills and their effects are set. Precise descriptions are written down of the intended result. But the lead designer will NEVER decide if a fireball will do 50 damage instead of 80. He sets the goal, how the skills are supposed to behave and interact in the game and the idea of the intended balance. But the implementation of those goals is a duty of the different teams and responsibility of the team leads. During the tests the lead designer will monitor if the work of the team reached the intended goals or not. If the balance doesn’t feel right or if the implementation produces unintended results the lead designer forces a reiteration, underlining what didn’t work. But he is never responsible of that reiteration. He just sets goals and supervises the work, reiterating it till the result isn’t satisfying.

Then there’s the communication toward the outside, to the community. The duty of the lead designer doesn’t overlap with the duty of the community managers, but he still needs to maintain an active role, without third parties working as filters. Without passively gathering feedback. The lead designer should promote directly the discussions, participate to them, ask for feedback. Even comment and analyze other games. The players are made part of the development, made aware of the strategies of the development, the intended goals. Before these goals go in production. The first feedback comes directly from the community and things are discussed BEFORE they are set in stone.

The first reiterations happen here.

I always believed that it is a duty of the lead designer to dialogue directly with the community. Not a possibility. A duty. I don’t think that it’s possible to do a good work without doing it or doing it through third parties. I believe it’s an essential part of that role that cannot be opted out. If you don’t value this, if you don’t want to bother or if you cannot sustain the exposition and the harsh attacks you simply aren’t suited for this position.

These games don’t belong anymore just to the developers. It is important that the community is made aware of the development, integrated with it. Dialogue directly with it. This not for the benefit of the community itself, but for the benefit of the development. This is a crucial part of the development that till now has always been dismissed and underestimated. It’s important that it gets back its relevance and value. Developers and community are part of the same unit.

That “unit” that goes under the direct responsibility of the lead designer: observe and communicate with the system, where the system represents the unit of the two parts (developers + community).

A mmorpg is a “system” made by those two parts. Both essential. Both object of the work of a lead designer.

The lead designer is the creative director of the project. He is committed to it for ALL its life cycle. As a sacrifice.

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Rigging Raph to make him say what I want to say

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Continuing on the line of immersion, mechanics and metaphors.

From “A Theory of Fun” (the actual book, not the site – Chapter 4 – What Games Teach Us):

Formal training isn’t really required to become a game designer.

I went to school to be a writer, mostly. I believe really passionately in the importance of writing and the incredible power of fiction. We learn through stories; we become who we are through stories.

If games are essentially models of reality, then the things that games teach us must reflect on reality.

Sadly, reflecting mathematical structures is also the only thing many games do.

The “coordination” between mechanics and metaphors is all there. Those are the reasons that justify why they ARE distinct, but they SHOULDN’T be thought as disctinct. Hence why I find the distinction not as a useful one (and why I backed off on the discussion about “what is what”).

It’s all there. We learn through stories and those stories are myths and symbols. This part is cultural, so arbitrary and much more “powerful” than the strict mathematical, functional level. It’s that impact and viscerality that makes this part stronger and much more effective. It communicates better. Hence why I said that this is where even this medium is going. We are in for the stories. In games: to be part and live those stories. Living stories = immersion. Be there. No interfaces or filters. So the simulation as: direct tie between mechanics and metaphors. A transparent experience.

The mathematical structures are worthless if they get in the way of the communication. The sphere of the emotional impact.

We are back at the essential premise that games are about learning. And the ethical problem about what we teach. So learning is still essentially about communication. Communicating something about us. That we have in common, that we can recognize, that we can share. And the best communication, the most convincing and even honest, most direct one is through the emotions.

Games are like drugs because we are addicted to the emotions. In every form. Even in the form of an artificial drugs.

But it’s not the “pornography” of the emotions to be the strongest element. It’s not the “image”, it’s the “idea”. What the form suggests us, what we carry within and that we can recognize outside. A desire, a wish, a symbol.

So games are essentially “worlds of ideas” that are replicated through a “form”.

Raph:
I suppose you’d say I come down on the ludological side, because I do grant a certain sort of primacy to mechanics. That’s why I tend to call everything else “the dressing” — it’s the stuff that orbits the nucleus, which is the game mechanics.

When Raph says that, he becomes a pornographer.

He reveals the explicit image and forgets about the idea. He sets that hierarchy that he wanted to avoid. He denies the symbolic and, then, emotional level.

Creditgate

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Taken directly from F13:

Psychochild:
More recently, I was told by a former developer that Turbine will not be including the names of people who left before launch to the credits of Dungeons & Dragons Online. If true, this is a really sleazy move on Turbine’s part. Some of the developers had put a lot of effort into early development, and had worked on the project for the majority of its development. To leave them out is to try to deny their role in the game. No matter how the game turns out, they should have the right to have their names associated with the project. Obviously, information like this gets out so the people won’t be completely forgotten, but it’s nice to have your name on the project “officially”.

Ken Troop:
You (this is a global you) may think the plan was ungenerous, or needlessly stringent, but I’m amazed there was a furor over this. I doubt strongly that the people who left care as much about whether they get an Acknowledgement credit than some of the people still here apparently do, *mostly people who are not even on the D&D team currently* (this is the part that really amazes me).

And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit…they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.

As a final note, and something that seemed to go unremarked during all this melodrama — I applaud giving full Design credit to Phillip Speer, Brent Walton, Ryan Schaffer, Ian LaBrie, Tim Lang, and Thatcher Risom. 6 people who came to us for a few months from QA and made a critical difference when it counted in helping this game make it. More than anything else, I’m glad they were recognized for it.

Jason booth:
This morning I had an interesting realization about my roles over the years at Turbine. I flirted with the Creative Director position several times, but each time backed away from the role at some point, sometimes after having the role for a while. For me, it was a naturally attractive position. I’m the type of person who not only has and recognizes good ideas from others, but am someone who can get them implemented either through my own perspiration or the inspiration of others. I always seemed to have the teams ear, and I think it was primarily because they had mine as well.

But what I realized this morning is that in this particular environment the management of the company was more interested in my ability to sell things to the team than my ability to rationalize the correct answer from the team. In fact, there was a repeating pattern of behavior that showed as much. What they wanted out of a CD was someone to sell whatever shlock was tossed down from high above on the mountain regardless of if it made sense or not; a yes man with the teams ear. A CD in this environment would be part used car salesmen, part fall guy. To be able to sell it, they’d need to be someone who had credentials with their team; but inevitably, it would be their credentials which would act as fuel, burned away on a given task. And thus, with each flirtation, an uncompromising position would be forced, and I’d back away from the position rather than compromise my beliefs or relationship with my team.

Now; DDO has shipped. It is what it is, but what it isn’t is a game with a proper credits list. In management’s infinite wisdom, it was deemed that anyone who was not with the company at the moment of ship would have their credit on the game revoked, regardless of if they wrote like half the game code or not. Quite a few of us bailed on that project due to a wide range of very valid reasons, as for myself, I was interviewing with Harmonix while being offered the CD position at Turbine, and when I backed away from the position yet again quickly turned in managements eyes. I was not willing to tote a line of action I didn’t believe in.

The only rational reason for not giving people their rightful credits is that those involved are acting out of petty and spite. In fact, Ken’s post on the matter seems to confirm it. You can reason the whole thing here, but I’ll pull out the poignant part for you:

“And if some of those people who had left did care that strongly, if it was or is that important, *to them*, to get a credit…they could have stayed and finished the game. A fairly simple calculation.”

It’s sad, because many of the people who were not credited were incredibly talented individuals who I loved working with (and some I currently work with again at Harmonix). Many of the things which made that game work at all can be directly attributed back to these people, who worked their asses off for the company. Crediting them doesn’t diminish the credits of those still hard at work on the game.

Perhaps they see it as a way to scare employees into staying, but I think this type of treatment speaks to the type of environment and executives that make someone want to leave a company in the first place, don’t you?

I wonder how old is Ken Troop. Looks like fourteen at best to me.

Lum also makes a good point:

It also means the uncredited people involved are screwed over when looking for work; many companies won’t recognize that you’ve worked on the game if you’re not in the printed credits. Obviously, yes, you can say “I worked on Whamadoodles Online for 4 years on the network client-server architecture” but without a printed credit an employer could ask why, and generally you don’t want to have the whole “my supervisors were buttheads” conversation during a job interview.

It’s not the first time I bring up the problem of authorship. It reminds me the lawsuits in the comics industry against DC and Marvel. The whole thing between Alan Moore vs DC, Neil Gaiman, the creation of Image by McFarlane, Jim Lee & co. and all the rest. Even in these cases the companies felt free to use the work belonging to those authors as they wanted and without even paying them.

I think there’s a twofold problem here. The problem of authorship itself and the fact that there’s way too much bunny hopping between the projects to avoid commitment and responsibilities.

And I’m criticizing both sides here.

EDIT: A comment from Stormwalts, in the same thread:

I sincerely doubt the decision was Troop’s to make. He’s a very decent guy, and he works hard to make sure his people are happy and respected. He practically gave the ACDM team bonuses out of his own pocket when MS refused to. Of the various people I worked under at Turbine, I was happiest under him.

I can’t say much more, although I will note that such a decision is entirely consistent with the management strategy of Certain People in the upper echelons of the company. Who are, incidentally, the reason I am no longer there myself.

Shadowbane runs naked in public! Eww!

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Shadowbane is naked. Shadowbane is free.

“Free” as completely free. Free to log in again and play if you canceled long ago, free to create brand new accounts. Free.

Existing users can now open up their Account Manager and their accounts will now be working, allowing them to play Shadowbane for free! This does include those who had previously canceled accounts!

In addition, those who wish to try out Shadowbane for the first time will also be able to. All you have to do is create a new ubi.com account and then click on Add a Subscription, and you will have free access to the lands of Aerynth! This is not a Free-Trial subscription and it will not run out in 15-days. This is completely free!

No longer will players, existing and new alike, be charged to adventure in the lands of Aerynth!

This means that from now Wolfpack stopped completely to receive any form of income from the players. It’s quite obvious that this is only one half of the “news”. With the other half probably following in the next few days as Sachant anticipates:

The announcement Ashen put up is not the official one we’ve been waiting for. That announcement will have more information for people. You’ll just have to be patient and put your curiosity on ice for now and be happy with free access.

So Shadowbane is free, but it’s the other part of the news to be significant. It’s quite obvious that da money need to come from somewhere and I really cannot imagine what’s their plan. Advertising wouldn’t work, micropayments in a game heavily competitive wouldn’t work. Selling exp pack and chasing Guild Wars? I’m not sure it’s viable. Wolfpack is mirroring Mythic and already working on some sort of sequel. I don’t believe they are going to waste resources on Shadowbane when along these years the support has always been bland.

Or maybe it will be as a bridge to a “Shadowbane 2”? It’s unlikely considering that whatever Wolfpack is cooking should be still in early development, so more in need of founding than empty hype.

I’m curious. Where’s the trick?

(hmm, I wonder where I put the box.. Maybe I should wait to see what’s the deal.)

EDIT: From Ashen Temper, no ads. Still no other half of news, though:

Funny thing is, a player posted about putting in-game ads into the game. Made me think of putting them on the death tunnel (the graphic you see when you are teleported to your bind spot when you die). It could be something like:

This Death has been brought to you by Coke!
While you wait to respawn, now would be a good time to get a Coke and a smile!

Of course, we could then go the Richard Prior version of advertising Coke :D

But to answer your question, no, there are no in-game ads of any sort.

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Less than 5% of the players go to raid, I wish

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From Nick Yee (and from a reasearch on WoW):

3.6% of all observed characters spent more than an hour in raid content over the month of January.

“I want to believe”. I REALLY wanted to believe.

I was ready to close an eye and use that piece as a wonderful occasion to rant again against a utterly stupid model of development that just goes nowhere. But what Nick Yee writes is largely bullshit and this time the bullshit is even too easy to detect.

His previous research was also completely off, isolating cases from the context when it was instead the context to be the most important element and the one that was interesting to observe. Extrapolating theories from aseptic environments is just an excellent way to see what you want to see. You can prove everything and nothing and along the years there will be an endless cycles of researches that just contradict each other. Rigged points of view.

This time what that test seems to say is also completely wrong. Of course is not the test itself to be wrong, but its interpretation. What they did was to track unique characters. The problem is that a character doesn’t represent in any way a player or an unique account. It’s kind of obvious that there is a majority of alts that aren’t ALL involved in raid content even if the player is actually a raid player. The equivalence that 3.6% of all observed characters represents a 3.6% of unique accounts is just plain wrong. Of course this isn’t what Nick Yee wrote but it is what everyone else would assume by reading what he wrote.

The point is that the test just says nothing useful and nothing that could be used on a concrete discussion (typical bullshit of academic discussions). We already knew that there’s a disproportion between raid players and those who don’t raid, but we still don’t know exactly how significant this disproportion is and the test throws just more smoke in the eyes. I could have five characters, one of them being my main with which I raid most of the time, while the other four are used to dick around, play at the auction house or characters that I logged in once and then forget. This test would still say that 1/5 of the characters raid, we assume that 1/5 of the players raid, but this is wrong because in this example I am still a raid player that raids for most of the time.

Nick Yee can track the characters, but he cannot track the behaviour of a single account. So these tests are bullshit, they don’t say anything useful or more reliable than the assumptions we already made without running tests. Things we already know.

The truth is different. The truth is that WoW transitioned many players to the hardcore group. Players that weren’t like that and that finished to adapt to the game, dragging their friends in as well. WoW has the “merit” to have made the raid content much, much more accessible and widespread compared to other games. This is why the debate between casuals and hardcore is so strong today. WoW exposed this problem because before the “casual group” didn’t even exist. We were ALL hardcore. Only the catasses used to play mmorpg. This genre was closed and specialized.

WoW brough the revolution, it broke the mold. It took the genre and demonstrated how narrow it was, how many limits it had. But at the same time it exposed a bigger problem that before was only latent. To that problem Blizzard wasn’t able to answer. But there’s a merit there, the merit to have gone past everyone else and having encountered a problem that noone else had to solve.

This cannot be denied and it’s part of that “intellectual honesty” that doesn’t allow me to just jump on the badwagon and attack Blizzard using bullshit data as a proof. I just cannot do that, despite there are huge flaws in how these games are developed and despite this could have been a perfect occasion for another stab.

We already knew there’s a pyramid, we already knew that the current mmorpg development is retarded and narrow sighted, we already knew that Blizzard’s development is now clueless. But the data in that test isn’t significative and only confuses some more the situation, hiding what really matters.

I thought it was a good idea to point this out before everyone else and their sister start to wave that test as a proof of I don’t know what. I had a post open on Q23, with the title written, before I discovered that it was just bullshit. So this is for all you bloggers. Just think a second before going on a crusade on this. I stopped right in time.

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DAoC needs a lead designer

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I was sleeping, then I woke up and I remembered that there were two things I forgot to write:

1- DAoC needs a lead designer. I don’t care who he is or from where he comes. I don’t care if he is hired from outside or recycled within Mythic but there’s the need for one. One person. One that fills just that role. I don’t care if the position is already somewhat covered by a producer or a content lead. DAoC need someone that does just that. Someone that is responsible for the whole game, that follows and studies it, that is fully, exclusively committed to it and nothing else, that plans and directs both the expansion and the live patches. Someone responsible of a “vision” and where the game goes in the long term, not just from month to month. Someone accountable for the game, who has the duty to understand the game, its weaknesses, its strengths. Someone that keeps track of every element in the game, its systems and revise, reconsider them and decide what new ideas should go in. Someone that talks with the community and dialogues constantly with it, someone whose duty is EXCLUSIVELY this one. Not to write quests, not to write code, not to produce. Just live and breathe game design full time and in the name of this single game. That and only that. Not a group of guys, just one. A pure lead designer. Someone committed and accountable of what the game is and will be. Someone at the wheel who has the duty to understand what is going on and that is responsible of his decisions.

2- No, the Herald Feedback doesn’t work. Using the Herald Feedback is like digging an hole in the ground, put your face into it and talk. Have you seen “In the Mood for Love” of Wong Kar-Wai? It’s the same thing, like telling a secret that will never be told.

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DAoC speaks for itself, you just need to listen to it

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I fixed my UI and logged in to look at the situation.

My usual server (Lamorak) is dying so I decided to get on one of my oldest characters on Merlin (a wizard) to see if I was able to do something. This server has always been the most popular and now also on the bigger cluster so I thought it was easier to join a group and do some RvR. I didn’t have any particular expectations, I just wanted to do something and have some fun.

I expected it would take a lot more time to reconfigure the quickbars and get used again to the character but my wizard is still quite limited as I remembered it, so I just needed slots for the two bolts, a direct damage and AOE. That’s pretty much all I can do beside the occasional buffs and situational realm skills like “Purge” or “Mystic Crystal Lore”. But getting used was also the smaller problem.

There were quite a bit of characters moving around the border keep, so I started to look for a group to join. I flagged myself in the LFG window for RvR and broadcasted in both the border keeps “wiz LFG” and even joined the frontier battlegroup (which remained completely silent and realtively deserted for all the time I was there). Well, the result is that I sat there doing nothing for two hours. Not a biggie since I was watching TV (elections in Italy are at the beginning of April and I’m following the debates), I didn’t try so hard to get a group but I still used all the functionalities I had available still with no luck.

After the two hours I was finally able to get in a random group that sat there beside me at least half an hour before inviting me and we waited there another 10+ minutes for a cleric. In the meantime a random Mid player ran in while we were all half AFK and started spamming pbaoe attacks, killing me and some other players before we could even blink. Then the cleric finally arrived and we moved. We took a boat and traveled to the Mid land, lost people in the process, waited for everyone to regroup and reached a Mid tower with the silly idea to try to take it.

We killed a few guards and dropped a ram. A couple of minutes later I see all at the sudden some explosions on myself and I wasn’t even able to turn that I was already hugging the ground dead, with the rest of the group joining me shortly after. We release, other two drop out of the group ranting against Mythic favoring Mid and Hibs and I decide as well that I had enough boredom for the day and quit.

That’s all that happened in two hours and twenty minutes I passed logged in, and I say this because it isn’t exactly a special case, even if not one of the best. Early today I played as well, I was able to find a group relatively quickly and there were 2+ groups chatting and fairly organizing, working to attack one of hibs keep from an alb tower. It was still rather boring but at least we were doing something, killed some guards and threw some fireballs to random target even if I didn’t see any Realm Points. I also passed a bunch of time playing tennis with a trebuched, shooting at the Hib keep wall.

I believe these experiences say a lot about the game and shouldn’t be dismissed. You can even laugh at me and how incompetent I am about the game. In nearly five hours I passed logged in I think I’ve got less than 1k of realm points. But I believe this is instead something that even other players experience and at the end there’s a problem if you log off bored and frustrated. It’s not something that should dismissed and it should be instead examined attentively to figure out if there is a problem, where it is and if it’s possible to mitigate it or even solve it. Or this is what I would do if I had an executive power on the game.

Because what matters is that beside special cases I continue to see a trend in what I have described that remains constant for every day I play, or try to play the game. The RvR moves slowly, the actual fights are less than 10% of the time you spend in the game and nearly always are resolved in a matter of seconds without even giving you the time to figure out what happened, even less to react or plan a strategy. Of course the game is frustrating when you wait so much time for an encounter and then die even before figuring out what happened. The rest of the time is passed reforming, waiting for people, sitting in the keep, repairing stuff or waiting repairs, killing guards and shoot keeps/towers with siege engine, which is another form of rather boring grind when it goes on for a long time with no actual change.

Without trying to polemize too much I believe that the responsibility is half of the players and half of Mythic. I really cannot understand why everyone decides to sit in front of a keep for more than half an hour, I would still prefer to be steamrolled ten times in a row than just sit there doing nothing. There are radical problem in the community, this is sure. It’s not acceptable to have to remain lfg for hours, this is a symptom of a serious problem for a game, in particular for one that promotes and is focused in a social activity like the RvR in DAoC. The more time passes the more the community closes on itself and implodes. No more groups organizing together, but just single groups independent one from the other, completely closed to the outside and extremely specialized.

This is the evolution of DAoC. Smaller, consolidated groups with lot of experience in the game but that only stick to the exact same type of gameplay. Rinse and repeat. Isolated from everything else. This is a community that doesn’t welcome returning veteran players, even less brand new players that may give the game a try. It’s an old, isolated and stagnant community that appears to be able to only lose players and slowly crumble. Inverting this negative trend doesn’t seem possible and in fact Mythic is building the graal of the “new world”, Warhammer, that will magically fix every problem.

The community is just too closed, specialized, used to the consolidated routine. It doesn’t welcome or integrates new players and as it always happen with stagnant water it can only start to smell and slowly dry out. The advantage is that the group of players that are still there is so used to the game that it will hardly leave it. They have their roots in the game, these roots are deep and it is actually surprising how well DAoC is “holding” if you factor all these elements together.

This makes sense if you see what happened with the “classic servers”. They were a success at launch but not as successful as I expected. They address some fundamental problems and, still, the players didn’t accepted them in the long term and they are slowly dribbling out. The idea didn’t “catch” as I expected. Why? I believe as a result of what I wrote above: the community is so self-absorbed, so tight that what drives the game further is not anymore the worth of game itself, but the “habit”. DAoC became the symbol of that immobility. The community inherited and mirrored the identity of the game, it became its face and expression.

The point is that the community isn’t truly responsible and aware of its form. Instead I see this more like a process of adaptation to the game that now reflects it. A mask that shows the exact same features of the face behind. Two levels overlapping. The community carries the “message”, but the message comes from the game. The community only adapted and voiced it. It expresses it, but it wasn’t really responsible of it.

This is why the polls aren’t going to work with DAoC. What the community is expressing runs deeper than that and requires a more attentive observation to really understand what it is going on. It isn’t an easy situation at all because now countering this negative trend would mean try to eraticate and go against a mindset.

So we go back at the last year AGC. What Jeff Hickman says makes sense if you look at it in the perspective of what I said:

For whatever reason, we make a change and it alienates people.

This is true. Particularly true in DAoC, the classic servers are an example. There is nothing wrong in them. They were a brilliant idea, maybe late, but a positive one. The players still didn’t fully accepted it. I believe we could all agree to ascribe the reasons of that “failure” to the fact that DAoC’s consolidated playerbase just didn’t want to leave its ties behind to restart from scratch on a new server and adapt and reform to it. They didn’t accept “change” even if it represented a significant improvement of the game. The game was just less important than what was consolidated, the background of the community.

I always think about what could have happened if the situation was reverted. If the consolidated servers were the classic ones and the new ones were the ToA-enabled. My bet is that it would have been a complete disaster and that wouldn’t be enough players even to keep one server up. To this Mythic reacted fairly well, as they saw that the classic servers were also stagnating, they decided to address the ToA problems directly everywhere instead of nourishing the split (which was always a bad idea. Alternate ruelesets just don’t work).

Now we have a community that is “intolerant” to everything. Good changes, bad changes. Whatever Mythic does is wrong. If Mythic does nothing it’s also wrong. So what? The point is that the community is expressing a discomfort that needs to be interpreted (as my weak attempt here). Really solving the problem isn’t easy at all, again because the real issues are buried deep. Extremely deep, to the point that you are risking a lot if you try to reach them and solve them. And why Mythic should afford this risk? Because it pays back if they do it properly and have the will to do so.

I don’t know. I can just observe and explain my point of view. “Fear change” is something that the community IS expressing, but I don’t believe it’s an absolute rule. It’s just a consequenece of many factors, the consequence of how the game developed along these years.

Mythic already decided to support the game without sudden shifts or revolutions. They understood that the players are still there not for the game itself, but for a nostalgic value and for the consolidated, isolated community that doesn’t accept any intrusion or disruption, even if it is finalized to an improvement. I quoted Lum a million of times when he writes how much more important is the community compared to the game. DAoC is reflecting this. Even the good changes are refused. But Mythic here could make a terrible mistake that is probably going to repeat with Warhammer since it’s independent from the game: the communities are portable. If the people are there for the people and not for the game, they’ll also leave eventually and will never come back. When these solid ties break they cannot be anymore reformed because the returning veterans will always find a cold community that doesn’t recognize and accept them anymore. Again the stagnating water can stay there for a long time, but it can only dry up.

Sadly I’ve learnt how Mythic observes, thinks and acts along these years. I often attacked them because it’s since when Dave Rickey left that they keep stabbing the game, unable to interpret correctly it needs and weeps. I was always there, partly weeping along, partly trying to support it the best I could. I have many ideas about how to invert the negative trend, in particular I think that it needs to pass through a reorganization of the PvE. The community needs to be stimulated again, made active and interested again, not just ranting and passively suffering along. Part of this process would take place outside the game because it’s also there that Mythic killed its community with a lack of involvement and discussion. The non-communication between the parts that brought directly to just too many misunderstandings and incomprehensions. Inverting this trend would be about having a precise plan, not just feeding the players a buch of polls and working on the patches like in a slapfight. The game needs a direction, a “will”. Ideas, discussions. It needs to draw again the interest. Enthusiasm. Creativity. It needs to be reactive, learn quickly, gain dynamism and life.

But then I know this won’t happen. Mythic is betting everything and then more on Warhammer. It’s their way to somewhat wipe the disaffection of the community. It’s a way to negate it happened. It’s a way to avoid to acknowledge the responsibilities and start anew. With the illusion that everything will be different and that they can rise a new DAoC and be praised again. Return at the center of the attention. But the truth is that avoiding those problems means making them even stronger and have them run back over with a stronger intensity. Deeply enrooted problems don’t go away if you look elsewhere and think you can ignore them. They will undermine every new project, no matter how much money you throw at it. No matter of the shiny new brand and virginal community to fool.

What I see, and I wrote many times, is that Mythic is not learning nor able to observe and interpret correctly the needs of their games. They just keep garbling the messages they receive and react inappropriately. It’s a company that was too complacent about their original success and now too arrogant and blind to figure out the next step.

It’s a pity because DAoC deserves much, much, much more. It’s a wonderful game and it’s completely unacceptable to see it sinking as a nicher product than Eve-Online. It has the potential to compete with the best and instead it is moving more and more toward the smaller. It’s like throwing away one of the best games in this genre that still has a lot to say. In particular when Warhammer is exhibiting the exact same mistakes, the same arrogance.

Lum is gone, when he was at Mythic at least I had some faith. He wasn’t there at the wheel but I’m more than sure that he had a very important and positive influence on everyone. I can put my hand on a fire and say that he contributed with far more than some lines of codes on the server, even if his title didn’t attest this. When he was there I still had the small hope that there was someone reading my rants. It meant nothing, of course, but at least I could believe in an implicit, tacit dialogue, agreeing, disagreeing. With him gone I just feel like talking, still a lot, but to a wall.

In short:
– Too much time passed idling or waiting in RvR compared to the actual action that is resolved in a matter of seconds (or less)
– Difficulty to join groups and play the game, hinting that there are deeper problems
– A stagnant, highly specialized community that remains relatively impermeable to both new players and veterans
– The “fear change” expressed by the community is a mask and the expression of a discomfort that needs to be interpreted
– Mythic’s inability to observe and interpret correctly the signs that both the game and the community are sending
– Warhammer, inesorably, will exhibit these problems right from the start, risking another false step
– Lum is gone and took the faith that was left with him