BurningFist_EU

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secondly i my-self could be concidered a veteran and i have my own super group which is full of "MY" alts only (Thanks to my second account i can keep filling it) and its just me running it. ( has been for the last 3 years)

So i'm a N00B now? lol makes me laugh

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Read it again. Being in an SG full of alts is a sure sign of a veteran

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2nd concern will raise how are you going to beat some of the brilliant creative minds who will make every issue content seems so trival . never ever underestimate players creativity .

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The way I see it is that letting players make missions will give everyone a lot more missions than the devs could ever provide, while at the same time freeing them up to create more of the bigger stuff we all want as well. Plus, the devs will always be able to make more advanced stuff than the players simply because they have much more to work with.

One of the things that I'm looking forward to is a load of level 50 missions and arcs that I can dust of my beloved level 50s to play. Ouroboros is great but it doesn't really give you the chance to play level 50s at the level they're actually at.

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Griefing was something I mentioned but a player already has just as many (I'd even say more) ways to grief now, like you mentioned, if one so chooses, any hero can freely attack another hero in a PvE zone (If they work out how to) the difference being, a villain player can be (and most probably will be, by NPC's if no one else) attacked back, a confused hero player can't be (thankfully this type of thing is a rarety).

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My point is that once people can go into enemy zones to be an enemy, and they can't do anything enemy-like until they are attacked, the way they're going to act like enemies is to cause as much grief as they can in those zones. I'm sure this doesn't apply to all PvPers but some (too many for those of us who want to play the game our own way) are going to find ways to stretch the definition of PvP as far as they can to accomodate as much antagonism as they want.

Anyway, these are my concerns about turning PvE zones into partial PvP zones and it's obviously something we're just going to have to agree to disagree on.

I agree that the idea is great in principle but there's too much scope for abuse and too many ways for some to get their fun at others' expense. I'd hope the devs would err on the side of caution and steer away from doing something like this.

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I don't consider these forums a place where I would discuss SM/BDSM.

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There do appear to be an unusual number of people who don't discuss that here, here.

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Funny how that goes. I wonder why.

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Nobody knows what powersets it stands for?

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As far as I can see, there would be no difference between a villain player and a hero player with regards to kill stealing etc. the game already has very good methods of dealing with griefers (ie. virtually every mission is an instance).

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People will always find a way to grief (remember when that guy got his mate to Confuse him in one of the PvP zones so he could nova the RPers at Galaxy Girl before it wore off?), and letting people go into "enemy" PvE zones is asking for trouble, much of it unforseeable from where we are now.

Furthermore, once the ability the go into enemy zones for PvP came in it'd attract more of the PKer type players who get gratification solely from making other people's game as miserable as possible.

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...the ability to 'do their bit' isn't an issue when the player doesn't want to

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I've played enough MMOs to know that a lot of players never miss an opportunity to let other player know how much the 'owe' them. Whether it's hardcore players claiming they keep games running by being on 15 hours a day, or tank-type players saying they are solely responsible for the success of groups, or farmers claiming they keep prices down (even though the 'cheaper' prices are still out of reach of non-farmers). Speaking of farmer look at the bitterness on these forums whenever the subject comes up, and the same with PvP now I come to think of it, but mercifully that bitterness is kept to the forums. Once there's PvP in PvE zones that kind of bitterness would creep into the actual game. That's the sort of thing I play CoX to get away from.

As I said before DAOC has been the best PvP/PvE mixed game I've played and in that the PvE zones were PvP free areas. The only place where PvP occured was in the Frontiers, Battlegrounds and in Darkness Falls when it flipped.

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Micron said:

One thing i'd really like to see (not just for the PvP), which has been mentioned by the dev team, is the ability for both Heroes and Villains to freely roam across all zones of both factions, obviously the PvP flag for each player shouldn't be automatically 'on' apart from players in oposition teritory or free fire zones (the current PvP zones for example) but players in a home faction zone can 'toggle on' thir PvP flag by attacking an enemy player or by entering a free fire zone, with their PvP flag toggling back off an hour after their last attack on an enemy player or leaving a free fire or oposite faction zone. The only exceptions to this should be aoe powers (damage auras, pbaoe's and targetted aoe's) are ignored for PvP flag toggling and don't cause damage to any players when the caster's PvP flag is off so a player would have to make a targetted and intended attack to toggle their PvP flag on.


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Not thought about reading a little higher up the thread before replying?

Lame.

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I read that too and I still think there'd be problems. What would these level 50s be doing in lowbie zones until they get attacked? Killstealing, streetsweeping and generally getting in the way of people who want to play CoX their own way. The only way something like this could work is if all the PvE zones were level locked, meaning that heroes and villains would only be able to enter enemy zones of their own level. Even then there would be problems in the higher zones as regular PvPers with PvP builds are basically untouchable by PvE players with PvE builds, meaning that PvPers' issues with "carebear" players would become more pronounced as they won't be able to do their bit for their side.

As for not reading everything you wrote, take a look at this that I posted way back at the start of this thread:
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I used to be pretty good at CS, I'm still decent at CoD1/Allied Assault/CoD2 where they're still played, I got a pretty good rep in one of the respected WW2OL squads and I loved the RvR in DAOC back in the day and the idea of superpowered battles between heroes and villains is a really attractive idea.

Thing is in CoX it's very easy to min/max extremely uber PvP builds and I, like many other CoX players, CBA with min/maxing just to win. For me making characters in CoX is all about making characters that I'd like to read about in comics, with comic book style builds and powers, but they don't stand a chance against the munchkinised FTW builds that dominate PvP here. CoX PvP just doesn't cater for my kind of player.

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I might be wasting my time by trying to get my point understood instead of letting myself get squeezed into the rabid, headbanging anti-PvP stereotype, but in the end I'm still not in CoX for PvP. It's too imbalanced and requires me to play in ways that I don't play CoX for, and as soon as PvP starts to interfere with my game, and as soon as there's any pressure on me to go through all the tedious nonsense you have to go through to get a competitive PvP build, I'll be off.

There are much better games for PvP and when I get the itch I go to those to scratch it.

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Obviously you don't want to make it easy to get there but i think it should be possible, just imagine a team of level 50 villains turning up at atlas, quicky followed by half a dozen level 50 heroes and a few level 50 NPC's to 'shoo them off' while the strictly PvE players cheer them on alongside a few new lowbies thinking 'Wow! I want to be able to do that one day!"

Pure Heaven!

How many PvE players would'nt be tempted to join in and maybe even tag along for a counter attack in that situation!?

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There are reasons why most CoX players play CoX and not an open-world PvP game, and the fact that the above doesn't happen is one of them.

As TG pointed out pages and pages ago, PvP in CoX isn't compatible with the way many of us play the game and want to build our characters. Bringing PvP into PvE zones would be CoX's NGE and it'd alienate everyone who plays it exactly because PvE and PvP are completely separate activities.

What SteelRat said.

Pretty much every new MMO I've tried over the past few years has made teaming a fun-crushing, irritating and downright obstructive waste of time. I really don't want to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out who's got what quest and where to go to get most of them done. Like everyone else on Earth who plays MMOs I want to log in, get a team and get into action as soon as possible.

A few friends and me set up a casual-friendly guild in LOTRO on day one (The Blades of Arnor, still going strong) and even though we had loads of active members it was absurdly difficult to run a group and get everyone's stuff done. That's one of the biggest reasons I quit LOTRO, it just went against everything a game based around a damn Fellowship should be.

If the book and movie were set in the game Merry and Pippin would never have gone with Frodo because they were on the "Gather vegetables from Farmer Maggot's field" quest and would have got no XP from Frodo's inevitably unshareable chained "Meet Gandalf at the Prancing Pony" quest. In fact there'd probably have been a massive, acrimonious argument as Merry and Pippin kick off at Frodo and Sam's noobish aggroing of Black Riders.

After playing CoX all other games are just exasperating in their lack of design for teaming. I cannot fathom why MMO designers seem to lack the foresight to get teams running like they do in CoX, where everyone can see everyone's quest, the leader can select one mission from the list so that everyone knows what they are doing and where they are going and everyone gets decent XP from missions they don't personally have. It's total common sense, or so you'd think.

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I used to play Delta Force a bit, several years ago. My absolute favorite part of that game was when I could find a nice, unassuming spot with a good view to lie down and act as spotter for the rest of my team. "XY: Two ufs, east of you, moving southwards." Of course, always while I lay there I had my ears peeled for footsteps nearby, and I always had to worry about counter-snipers finding me.

That's how PvP ought to be in my book: periods of calm and deliberation and communication, interrupted by moments of pure chaos and panic.

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Yeah, that's exactly how WW2OL plays, except the chaos can last for hours and battles for days. I remember spending 90 minutes in a hedge in Belgium near a little town called Geel spotting for enemy activity, then seeing a load of Axis infantry sneaking in the lee of the canal embankment. I stayed in the hedge reporting then an Axis officer snuck into the same bush, popped his binos and started spotting our positions while I was frantically spamming global asking for the best place to stab a man to kill him instantly.

Not long after that the comms channels kicked off with reports from all over the area -
"EI est 30+ ne moving w, 2 EA + 2 262 e mov nw, opel audio se distant"
"Luft inb Geel, 3 Ju87 + 109 esc eta 5 mins"
"Axis paras 10+ drop geel AB"
"frag777 mission, your MSP spotted break sw to treeline hold fr orders"
"S Geel bridge down target saps"
"para mission Ant AF Geel def, toilets miss. PILOTS REQ!!"
"many EI w, inb geel"
"2x stug + tiger 1000yds ne trees any sappers??"
"RAF inb Geel, eta 15 mins"
"HC pull wavre AO! geel is going down!"
"Negative Geel, Wavre is priority. Hold as long as you can."
"FFS they rolling us"
"3x church arriving geel. where you want us?"
"3? lol good luck"
(yep, gibberish to most but any WW2OL vets here will recognise the situation )

I spent the last 20 minutes of that battle (which had gone on for about 3 hours from first contact) under permanent concussion, unable to move due to terrible injuries, down to no bullets and one last grenade for when the Krauts came in to take the depot I was trapped in.

Then, almost inexplicably, Axis High Command pulled the Attack Order and they withdrew. You've never seen so much joy from so few remaining defenders. Pure class. Immersive, skillful, meaningful, strategic PvP. I even got to RTB.

Erm, sorry for OT.

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PvP was there from the start but only via the arena.
The areas were there anyway, if they worked in issue 0 i don't remember, i've still not set foot in one.

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The Arenas weren't there at all until I4 or I5.

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b)majority of game population in this game are comic fans and people that come to this game for the immersion hence first they love spandex and then anything else about the game.

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But the idea of being able to have Heroes and Villains fighting each other is stil attractive to a lot of comic fans, I think.

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Its obviously fine as long as the opposite team is not also human controlled.

Dont fool yourself in the past the amount of people considering PvP an abomination due to their previous experiences is pretty big. Despite the fact that CoH is far friendlier in terms of PKing,ganking,low level ganking and so on.

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Not everyone is like that though. I used to be pretty good at CS, I'm still decent at CoD1/Allied Assault/CoD2 where they're still played, I got a pretty good rep in one of the respected WW2OL squads and I loved the RvR in DAOC back in the day and the idea of superpowered battles between heroes and villains is a really attractive idea.

Thing is in CoX it's very easy to min/max extremely uber PvP builds and I, like many other CoX players, CBA with min/maxing just to win. For me making characters in CoX is all about making characters that I'd like to read about in comics, with comic book style builds and powers, but they don't stand a chance against the munchkinised FTW builds that dominate PvP here. CoX PvP just doesn't cater for my kind of player.

That said I really loved the big PvP zone events like that one in Siren's Call ages ago and the Warburg mass event on the test server that time. The main reason for that was because there were all kinds of builds in those, including a probable majority of "character" builds, so people like me could achieve something for the team without getting immediately slaughtered by the ubber.

Looking back this was why RvR used to be so good in DAOC; everyone could find a role regardless of their build, because the uber builds were balanced by the average ones and they were never that much more powerful than average builds in the first place.

I was procrastinating from far too much work by thinking about my eventual Dual Pistols Blaster and this kinda wrote itself, so I figured I'd post here

Three Outcasts walked through the icy interior of Frostfire's lair. One of them held a smartly dressed Chinese man by his arm and forcefully dragged him into their leader's chamber. Frostfire leaned back in a high-backed office as if it were a throne, his feet up on a table in front of it. Around him stood his lieutenants and guards.

"This is him, Frosty. We found him outside and figured you'd want to speak to him," one of the Outcasts said.
"Sure, I want to talk to him," Frostfire took his feet off the table and leant forward in his seat, "You speakie Engrish, Chinaman?"
The Chinese suit offered a shallow bow and nodded.
"I come with a message from the Wo Shing Wo," he said.
"The Washing Woe, huh?" Frostfire grinned and glanced at his lieutenants to gauge their their appreciation of his joke.
"Wo Shing Wo, great Triad of Sham Shui Po, great Triad of Hong Kong."
"Alright, Chinaman, you got your five minutes. Speak."
"A man is coming, he is called Tseng Lian Yeung, called also Yeung Deadly Gun. He will kill many of your people. He will harm your interests in many ways."
"Oh, he will, will he?"
"Yes."
"And this is the message?"
"No, the message is this: Any organisation who delivers his head to to Mr. Kunzheng Lao, boss of the Wo Shing Wo will be paid $250 million."
Frostfire blinked with greedy surprise at the sum.
"That's a lot of money for one man's head."
"Yes."
"So what did he do, this Tsu- Tsun- Tse- Deadly Gun guy? He mess around with your Mr Lao's daughter or something?"

"No. The Wo Shing Wo was one of the Four Noble Triads. Together they ruled the underworld in Hong Kong, Macau and Shanghai for over 70 years. There was peace for all that time, each Triad respected the other and every gang and overseas Tong respected their wishes and their territory. If they did not they would be annihilated as warning to others. This was so for three generations, and many became rich from supplying drugs, women and protection to those who would pay."
"In Sham Shui Po there was a building, it was a temple, a bank and a fortress. Such a building had stood in same place for over a century, serving the same purpose, serving the Four Noble Triads' needs. It was... inviolate. No argument would take place there. No policeman would threaten it. The Gwai-Tsoo would not approach it. Even the red mandarins of Beijing could not assail it."
"And then came the Deadly Gun. Like Jufeng, the great typhoon, he swept through the stronghold killing many men, and fire followed in his wake. Where he went his guns blazed death. None could withstand him. Floors were awash with blood. Corridors and chambers were ruined as he passed. He destroyed the Ceremonial Temple, he collapsed the vaults, he killed all in his path. The Four Bosses called on their allies, the Luen and Sun Yee, the Hop Lei and the Red Circle but all of the men they sent against him perished."
"He killed over two hundred of our most loyal fighters on that night. And then he destroyed the stronghold. Now, of the Four Noble Triads, only one remains - the Wo Shing Wo. All this by the hand of one man, Yeung Deadly Gun, the man who will come to your city to continue his work."

Frostfire had heard stories like this before, the unstoppable hero, the legendary lawman, but few had lived up to the tales. There was something in this guy's voice though, something that carried a weight of truth beyond those other rumours. As he considered what the Chinaman had told him Frostfire realised he was afraid. He turned his face away from the man for a moment and gathered his composure.
"This guy, he's a cop? A hero? You have heroes in China, right?" He spat on the floor as if to emphasise a lack of concern.
"He is neither. Some say he was once a policeman, others say he is a devil, and others say many things besides. This, of course, is unimportant. All that matters to Mr Kunzheng Lao is the Wo Shing Wo's vengeance. All that matters to you is the $250 million he will pay for Yeung Deadly Gun's head."
"So when's he coming, this Yeung Deadly Gun?"
"We do not know. All we know is that he will be here soon."


Later that night, off the coast of Rhode Island, a Skyraider Captain swept down metal steps into the cargo hold of his ship. Two of his men flanked the well-dressed Chinese man who'd been found on the deck above. His men saluted as he approached.
"So," the Captain began in a clipped, plummy accent, "perhaps you'd be so kind as to explain your presence aboard my vessel?"
The captive bowed as he replied, "I come with a message from the Wo Shing Wo."

Not bad at all, there's some nice writing in there and the story goes along well.

The only thing that would help it read better is if it was a bit clearer about who was doing what to whom.

Eg: "The one legged surgeon is being held up against the wall above his fallen comrade" might be better if it explicitly says that Flying Pie is doing the holding.

In action-type scenes the interactions are everything, and I think it's better to state what may seem blindingly obvious than to leave it to the reader to infer the action. IMO it's better to be explicit than implicit, if you know what I mean.

Good job though, I'm looking forward to reading the next bit

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But, for the millionth time, I dont think DC online will kill this game. I think that if the devs dont get their fingers out Dc Online will kill the game.
At the moment its still in our (NCs ) court. BUT, I've seen several alarming signals lately and wantto see something positive very soon.

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Mate, this is where you keep going wrong. You're just another punter in this game, and as such you're equipped with an almost insignificant amount of knowledge about what is going on behind the scenes at NorCal. But still you extrapolate all sorts of terrible visions of idleness, ignorance and complacency on the part of the devs.

Having some experience in the videogame development world I'll give you this one for free - The CoX devs, right now, with all the competition due within mere months, are not sitting around playing pinball and smoking cigarettes. You can absolutely bet on them figuring the best way to approach the coming challenges and then rising to them. And, unlike you, they are betting their very livelihoods on the outcome. They may succeed, they may fail, but whatever happens it'll all happen based on internal decisions and pressures that you will never be privy to, not now, not ever. And if they do fail, then all that will have happened is one of the best MMOs ever made will have been superceded by something better.

Now, I'm happy to accept that in your field you are extremely good, maybe even some kind of genius, but your field here is just another subscriber to a service whose provider has a lot more riding on its future than a few hours fun each week.

A nice little story that sets itself up nicely for more to come. I really liked the dialogue too.

As has already been mentioned the run-on sentences are difficult to read. Although you can set up breathless, pacy scenes by using long sentences like that its hard to pull off while keeping focus. It's usually better to use short, self-contained sentences to get that action-scene feel.

One other thing, I'd like to read more detail on what's happening and a bit of background on each of the characters as they're introduced. Your dialogue does a good job at hinting what your characters' roles are, but a little sentence adding a bit more would go a long way.

Also, I reckon it would bring a bit more pace to the fight with the mech if you put interspersed the dialgue with bits of action, so the reader gets a better impression that the fight is going on at the same time as the conversation.

Good stuff though, loads of potential here

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What nobody seems to have recognized so far is that Matt Miller is pretty good at delivering what the players want from a different angle to general expectations.

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Except, it has to be said, a more challenging game. We've got loads of new ways to make our characters stronger and to level faster but we're still fighting the same rinse-and-repeat enemies we were fighting 3 or 4 years ago.

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Not so sure I agree. Cimerora TF, Mothership Raids, MoSTF etc are all far more challenging, but also very difficult to complete successfully with a PuG so require a lot more planning.

Sure, some things have become easier, XP smoothing for example, but that's a prelude to other things. It wasn't done "just for the hell of it" and I think you need to give NCNC a chance to show you what they can do before damning them out of hand

(added to which, "Give us a more challenging game" is NOT top of the player wants list )

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I'm not really damning them out of hand, I just wish they'd put as much thought into making enemies in normal, everyday missions more challenging and unpredictable as they do into making our progression through normal, everyday missions quicker and easier. By challenging I really mean a bit more variety in their behaviours which take a bit more variety in our tactics to overcome.

Having occasional mobs that retreat and call neighbouring spawns as reinforcements would be great. As would having spawns that draw players into "ambushes" through fighting withdrawals. Having the occasional, spawn that has unexpected powers and resistances. A sprinkling of taunt-resistant mobs in missions. Putting in more roaming spawns.

There's loads that could be done to keep us on our toes during missions, and much of it could be done for relatively little overhead. All the different improvements to our characters are great but, in the end, the better our characters become the less skill the game takes to play.

And I'm not just talking about needing more planning, or knowing the current tricks to get through tough TFs etc, I'm talking about a need for more mid-fight surprises that require a team to respond spontaneously to overcome.

I may be unique in this but I've always found the best fights are the ones that the team loses control of but manages to pull it all back together through real teamwork.

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What nobody seems to have recognized so far is that Matt Miller is pretty good at delivering what the players want from a different angle to general expectations.

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Except, it has to be said, a more challenging game. We've got loads of new ways to make our characters stronger and to level faster but we're still fighting the same rinse-and-repeat enemies we were fighting 3 or 4 years ago.

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Ghost Falcon looks like he cobbled together his costume from Ikea offcuts!, all that yellow and angled cardboard-esque pointyness going on! - I hope he kept the receipt from Icon!.

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So true. The first time I ever saw Ghost Falcon I thought to myself "now there's a guy who hit random on the costume editor."

Yeah, there are potential problems with the rewards thing but ratings will be extremely useful, both for the player who wants to find a good player-made mission and for the creator who wants more feedback than just his mates telling him it's great.

Ratings or recommendations, either's good IMO.

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On the other hand, how many people won't create anything if there's no incentive beyond just creating something?

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Not saying there should be no incentive, but making special bits of mission creating gear part of that incentive just makes it more likely that people with good ratings will always get good ratings.

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Yeah, I can see your point there. A rubbish mission on an uncommon map (for example) will still be a rubbish mission but could easily get extra points just for being on an uncommon map.

Hopefully the devs will be watching these debates for these kinds of pitfalls and adjust the way they handle the rewards/incentives accordingly.

Sure, but how many NWN module makers would have been put off from making them if there was some kind of other reward involved, like unlockable content for their modules?

Not very many I'd wager.

How many more would've created stuff for it if they could get those extra rewards?

I dunno tbh, but I bet it'd be more than those who would've been put off by them.

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If everyone's work goes public, and you don't want to risk the ridicule of the masses, then that means you don't create missions. You have been locked out of a game mechanism by that game mechanism's competitive function. If you don't want to compete, don't want the ridicule, then disallowing you from creating something while avoiding the ridicule is not going to result in more good modules, it's going to result in less people creating anything.

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On the other hand, how many people won't create anything if there's no incentive beyond just creating something? I agree that some people will be put off by the ratings/rewards system but will they outnumber the people who will take part because that system? I don't reckon they will.

To be honest I can't see the ratings and rewards system as a competitive thing anyway.

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How about a little pop up at the end, with the rating system, that says: This arc was brought to you by @[insert name here]. ?

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And then person does mission and tells SG "Hey, want to annoy @ [insert name here]? Go and petition that mission/give it a bad rating".

Nope anonymity at all times or it'll be impossible to fairly judge someone.

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But how do you judge someone if they're anonymous?

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I guess they could make it so you wouldn't be judging the mission designer, just the scenario. There could still be a list of mission designers with their average rating if necessary, but no-one would know who their ratings were scoring.

That said, even anonymously rated missions would be open to abuse as someone could post their mission then tell their SG which one it is and get them to give it top ratings regardless of whether it deserves it. Less scrupulous SGs could even set a policy of giving all non-members' missions low ratings.

I don't think there's any way to prevent people getting round the system to over- or under-rate player missions altogether, so they might just give a "post anonymously" option and let the chips fall where they may.

Even if they do offer such an option I'd still want to post with my name attached, that way people who like my missions will be able to play my others and live with the fact that I'd be open to rating griefing. I won't be making missions for the ratings rewards anyway, but maybe that's just me.

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I suspect the morality will be based on the outcome of missions. Perhaps you have a choice of rescuing or kidnapping, robbing or recovering, saving or killing? Seems the easiest way to do it.. You have an alignment meter which swings based on the outcome of missions.

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Yeah, I reckon that'll be it, nice and simple.

Hopefully it won't be too abusable in the mission generator. It would suck if, for example, some nefarious mission maker made their "good" mission outcome give an "evil" swing.

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That's exactly my point. If you make it simple, it's not just less than adequate, it sucks.

In the example I gave, you can let someone go, or kill them. Letting them go swings the metre to good, killing them swings it to evil. Now, if they can't resist then it's a basic moral choice and can be judged by a machine, but the guy is trying to escape, so it's not that simple. If he escapes because you aren't good enough to catch him, that doesn't make you a good guy, it makes you an incompetent bad guy.

Now, in the eyes of your superior, that may amount to the same thing and you get booted out of the bad guy club, but that isn't likely to get you voted into the good guy club either.

Simplify this kind of thing to the point where a computer can judge it and you trivialise it to the point where it's just a game mechanic allowing people to switch sides when they want to.

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One way of stopping this example from happening would be to not have the guy attempt to escape at all but have the mission end once the players leave the map or complete another goal further into the map, and just imply that the guy escapes afterwards unless he's been killed. If false morality swings occur it'll be as much a fault of the mission designer as with the morality system itself.

We don't yet know how any of this is going to work, or even if all this stuff will actually make it into the final expansion. But, if the tools are cleverly enough designed, there'll be some impressive results coming out from the best and most creative mission designers who work within and with the limitations of the systems. That'll probably be the biggest challenge and most fun of working with the mission designer.

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Unless it's done *very* well, then all it's going to boil down to is a formulaic system that people will maniupulat to swap sides at will, with no actual gravitas at all. Guess we'll have to wait and see

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Of course it's going to be a formulaic system. All systems in all MMOs are formulaic systems which are open to abuse or embrace depending on what you want from them.

Take the old Dreck mission, it was either an epic battle in an alternative dimension to save it from Freakshow domination, or an awesome farming level with no gravitas at all. Whichever it was was up to the players.