Inokis

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they fight neither farming nor PL'ing, they just crack down on outliers who exceed their acceptable rate of progression.

to use their own (poorly defined) terminology, they fight "exploits".

Farmers and Pl'ers pay their sub like everyone else which means its in the devs best interests not to impose unreasonable sanctions on them. The game isn't big enough to alienate sizable demographics and emerge unscathed.

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I think the reason ppl keep lumping the farm/pl crowd in with the exploit crowd is because so much of it is done through the exploit mechanics as of late. A lot of people also equate the act of powerlevelling as an exploit because it isn't part of the intended play philosophy a lot of people hold on to.

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Well, it's a question of blending the elements right, I guess. Phantasy Star Online's lobby system bothered me quite a bit. I never really felt a sense of community there; if it wasn't for the friends that dragged me to the game...well, y'know.

Guild Wars was slightly better for me, but I still...didn't really like how they handled towns and cities. They just felt like a really weak movie set, rather than something actually real. The fact you could blink between channels kinda killed immersion for me, oddly. Maybe I'm just weird.

Granted, I've heard folks say CoH's instanced mission map system means our city zones are pretty much glorified lobbies anyway. I guess there's some truth to that. Hell, look at Cimerora. But the game as a whole feels different to me.

'course, that's an entirely subjective opinion. I guess when you come down to it, I just like discrete servers rather than all the technical fiddling of global environment systems. That's not a rational preference...but I do feel that way, and I bet others do as well. I'm not saying the majority of folks think like that, just, well, I'm probably not alone.

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I think you are right. It has to be something that will be used, that is beneficial to the player base and is as efficient for gameplay as the typical shard architecture.

I have no clue if itll ever happen but if/when I ever get my mmo ideas off the ground this is the type of system I would like to try and see if it will work to the benefit of the community.

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A decent ramble, but the issue is, the game is on the RPers' side. This game focuses on the journery from 1-50 rather than endgame content, and even in that endgame content there's few raids and no race to get the best gear and loot.

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That's the whole point of MMORPGs.

If your goal is that end-game content is all that's meant to be played, and early content is just filler, then using any kind of leveling mechanic is bad design. If the goal is to play and have fun with level 50 content, then you remove the levels, start everyone out with all of their abilities, and then let them play that content immediately. It's not an MMORPG though, it's just another action games.

This game doesn't concentrate on the lower levels over the higher levels. There's just about as much to do at any of the levels, with level 50 having its own assortment of missions, arcs, task forces, trials, etc.

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This is one of the reasons why some people dislike the WoW model. At least in Everquest, the game was all encompassing, the grindfest that it was. WoW is just a grindfest to acheive raid and pvp content. Everything in between is just the means to get there.

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And the way they expand the game, by raising the level cap, seems totally counter-intuitive and wasteful. It makes all the previous level cap's content, which would have taken months of development time and millions of dollars, all becomes obsolete.

The devs in this game seem to be trying to make content in a way in that it gets as much mileage as possible, nothing goes to waste. It doesn't always work (Shadow Shard), but I think it's a good attitude for both fun and profit.

...which leads us back to why they fight farming and PLing, because all the content they worked so hard on is getting ignored.

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The only way around the obsolete content phenomenon once you raise the cap is to have linear progression, but people hate linear progression as well. It stagnates the gameplay.

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What the OP is describing has been used for a long time in Phantasy Star Online games. The way they handle names, is that EVERYONE could name themselves "John Wayne", but each person is given a Number and an "ID" that is behind it (Similar to Global Names that we have in CoX).

So, if I see a ton of "John Wayne"s and I know my friend is on his char named "John Wayne" what I could do in Phantasy Star Online is switch the display to include (or only show) the ID behind it. If it displays both, it does as "John Wayne (Chioko)" with Chioko being my friend's ID name which is -unique- to my friend.

When you log into Phantasy Star Online game, you pick a character, then you pick a (my terminology may be off here.. been forever) 'Realm' to go to, this is a generic descriptor for location. Aka, US, Japan, Korea, etc (But they're named something else, the description for it lists a specific language typically). From there you can choose any World (think Channel) to join. At -any- time while playing the character can switch which World they are on, like changing the channel on a TV.

It basically allowed for people to congregate on a specific place for their language, and then once they've made friends to choose a specific world (Channel) to meet up with that would be "theirs" if they picked a low population one.


It's really quite something to experience for one-self, and in my not so humble opinion, the Phantasy Star Online games have had the absolute best "server" system possible. Because we could have the "unofficial RP" gathering place (aka Virtue), the place for people that enjoy a thronging crowd of hard core gamers (aka Freedom), and whatever else have you. In addition, it allowed for people to escape from griefers with a flick of the switch by changing channel (As the game had no way to search cross channels, there was no way for the griefer to follow unless they guess correctly). Though, I should also note all of the fighting in Phantasy Star Online takes place in Instanced zones (Similar to outdoor maps for CoX).

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I played Phantasy Star Online BB for about 4 or 6 months. Now that you mention it the ID system would be a perfect way to get around the naming issue and still free up toon names for anyone to use.

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A decent ramble, but the issue is, the game is on the RPers' side. This game focuses on the journery from 1-50 rather than endgame content, and even in that endgame content there's few raids and no race to get the best gear and loot.

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That's the whole point of MMORPGs.

If your goal is that end-game content is all that's meant to be played, and early content is just filler, then using any kind of leveling mechanic is bad design. If the goal is to play and have fun with level 50 content, then you remove the levels, start everyone out with all of their abilities, and then let them play that content immediately. It's not an MMORPG though, it's just another action games.

This game doesn't concentrate on the lower levels over the higher levels. There's just about as much to do at any of the levels, with level 50 having its own assortment of missions, arcs, task forces, trials, etc.

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This is one of the reasons why some people dislike the WoW model. At least in Everquest, the game was all encompassing, the grindfest that it was. WoW is just a grindfest to acheive raid and pvp content. Everything in between is just the means to get there.

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Yes but the information was there, it is their own fault if they couldn't be bothered to read it.

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it doesn't matter if they read it or not.

Post all the "don't eat people" signs you want on the Savannah, lions will still do it- that's their nature.

Players will find efficient reward paths.
If developers don't want them to, it must be coded into the game.
Asking doesn't work, period. It never has, it never will.

Their release of AE was like throwing a deer into the lion cage and then having a screaming fit when it got eaten.

Gamers acting like gamers is predictable and understandable.
All the fault here lies with the devs, the alleged 'adults' who threw a huge fit when their paying customers didn't use a toy they way they wanted them to.

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Why is this thread so long when this was posted on the first page? Giving people the means for an easy path then expecting them not to use it 'because they say so' seriously doesn't understand their market.

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... the people who didn't heed the devs wouldn't find themselves in the predicament they now find themselves in if they had simply 'obeyed the rules'.

If you leave a treat on the counter, and you tell Jimmy its not for him, and Jimmy eats it anyway hes' gonna get spanked.

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Maybe people that have been around awhile, but today alone some bratty little kser was going around 'helping' when obviously no help was needed and they didn't seem to understand the concept of 'don't ks people who aren't in your team'.

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There is no such thing as "KSing" in this game. You get credit for the kill if you've done something like 25% of the damage to a mob. So does the other person. And the XP is divided based on the amount of damage you've done.



To the thread in general... after spending months of my personal time helping people out in game... I'm tired of all the people that get pissed at my presumption. I've seen way too many "noob newbs" out there.... too many people that act offended if you offer advice and information. So I gave up.

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OK, but by them interfering after a few misses, they take the xp for theirs and I'm left with none. That to me defines KSING.

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the tech for one single massive game server wasn't around in early MMO history. it became the norm to have separate shards, and it stuck around.

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This. There are plenty of practical reasons for having multiple discrete game worlds and player communities, but inertia and player convention explains it the same as anything else.

It bears mentioning that most games with single-world environments have less competition for names than CoH does. Guild Wars requires you to give your characters a first name and last name. Others do this as well. But with a superhero game, a lot of folks are competing for similar-sounding stuff.

Anyway. The other thing is this; once you've chosen to do a separate 'server' system, you're stuck with it. When an MMO announces that it's merging servers, this is perceived as a sign the game is dying. It's fine if you START with a single global world, but you can't change your mind afterwards. It looks bad.

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I only mentioned single server worlds as one of the common models for MMOs. I'm not a fan of single server worlds personally. I would like to see the possibility of people being able to pick and choose their servers at whim rather than be tied to a choice when they make a toon. I've been the victim of having to reroll toons because people I know landed on a diff server. It would be so much more convenient just to hop over to where they are rather than have to start a new toon over. This is the main drive behind the sep character server.

However, games like to charge for server transfers, it brings in revenue. That may be another reason why the current shard models persist more than other models.

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Is this thread even on topic anymore? Yeesh.

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That depends on which point you count from. Its on topic relative to the replies in the last two pages

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Of course the people asking for inherent Stamina and/or Health are (IMHO) missing the fact that if EVERYONE gets it automagically then the devs will just have to rebalance everything to account for the extra end everyone now has

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It needs to remain a choice. I don't see the need for it to be inherent because as people have stated there are builds that can be played without it.

If the Devs want to do the work of rebalancing for innate Stamina then thats their call but it seems like its more work than it needs to be. Once everyone has it and runs missions after a rebalance and find they are now in the same boat they were before they had it, because more difficult mobs means more end cost per fight or that more skill costs means more endurance per cast...then they may wish that it was no longer a mainstream skill since its just absorbed as part of the game mechanic.

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this is just a related observatory rant, not aimed at anyone specifically, just triggered by more detailed information people have posted:

There are so many topics about people who don't understand why the penalties happened for doing this kind of stuff. The more I read the mechanics of what it took to use the MA in the manners they were being used, the less I believe that the people making the arcs had no idea it wasn't as intended. There have been so many arguments about it, mostly bashing the devs for taking unwarranted action, and then I read posts detailing what it took to get the XP farms. I don't see how anyone can be so naive as to think that they weren't doing anything that could be seen as bad.

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It was most likely because it worked.

The Devs Issued and Released a Product, that we all pay for.

Some Peeps found the flaws in the Product and used them to their gain.

The Devs never intended to have Rikti Comm Officers act the way they did, it was a complete oversight on their part, when the "Special" versions were included in the MA. That was their fault, as they should have realized the differences in the Spawn of that Critter.

However, you most likely own a Hammer. It is a tool used to drive nails into wood, commonly used to build things.

It can also be used as a weapon.

Was it the intent of the maker of the Hammer that it should kill? No.

It was the person using the Hammer that decided to use it as a weapon.

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It wasn't just Rikti Comm Officers.

When someone tells you not to use a hammer except for hitting nails or prying nails, and you do it anyway and it turns out to be a weapon, then you suffer the consequences.

Accuracy.

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On another note, I wonder how big the server rooms are?

I know our main one at work is rather big, im curious to see how big they are in the game industry

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I've never visited an on site data center. I know some companies, like Blizzard contract their servers out to AT&T.

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Our character data is on each individual server, yes. If it was all on one server, it might be too much for any one server to handle with all the trades, xp, inf, and everything else changing constantly. That's why there is a different system for global chat... another for the market... another for AE...

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Thats another good point to make. Its possible that its just simply too much data for all the characters to be stored in one server. However, couldn't you just add more computers to the cluster serving the data to compensate?

[/ QUOTE ] Sure, but then you'll open up ways to manipulate the data and cause massive duping to occur.

Plus, just imagine the data lag between all the servers. Check out how long it takes Leveling Pact XP to apply to your character, then think about if it did that for every single aspect of your character.

Having the data on the same server that uses it is the best idea.

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However, that is applying this game with its current model in that scenario. There's no design you can think of from the ground up where the character data is as efficient to load and read from its own server as it would be from a specific shard server?

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Our character data is on each individual server, yes. If it was all on one server, it might be too much for any one server to handle with all the trades, xp, inf, and everything else changing constantly. That's why there is a different system for global chat... another for the market... another for AE...

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Thats another good point to make. Its possible that its just simply too much data for all the characters to be stored in one server. However, couldn't you just add more computers to the cluster serving the data to compensate?

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side note: You can chat cross-server already via global tells and global chat channels.

there are a few "single world" games out there now

Guild Wars is the only one that comes to mind at the moment, but it's system is set up a bit different than most would like. there are common areas, and there are "instanced areas," areas that, once you leave the common areas, are only populated by you and your party.

it could work, but it would mean the common areas would be constantly flooded (Think Atlas Park on a Saturday night during a new issue launch on Freedom x20) and the instanced areas would be void of other players to interact with. That interaction is what makes a lot of our game experience fun for a lot of people. I know I enjoy flying up and watching a new player take out their first group of hellions, or running past someone who just hit a level on that green Tsoo they decided to kill as they were passing by on their way to a mission, there's something about that kind of experience that makes the game more fun for a lot of people. On a "Shardless world" at least the way it's done now by NC in Guild Wars that kind of stuff wouldn't happen.

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the way I envision it is that the only common areas would be outside of the game world in the lobbies etc. Wherever you logged off at would be stored and you'd log back into that zone from whichever server you were on. Say for example you logged off in Grandville. The database would store your game location as Grandville. Once you chose your server you would then log back into Grandville. The coordinates would be stored int he same manner. I am not thinking anything similarly to Guild Wars. I've played guild wars but thats not the system I'm envisioning. I'm not talking about a shardless world. the shards would exist for the game content. The characters would be their own sep shard so to speak.

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It's foreshadowed in hidden glowies in the Ouroboros Story Arcs. Go 'round and introduce yourself to the Menders, if you haven't yet (but be warned: most of these tasks don't grant XP to high-level characters).

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AHA, so thats what the mysterious letters I got from the crates in those two arcs were implying. I thought they were going to be used later in the arc as I found them, since they weren't a listed objective, but you got objective credit once you found them.

I had to google this to even know WTH you guys are talking about. When was this even announced?

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Stamina is basically a prerequisite on all of my builds, including those with Quick Recovery. Anyone who doesn't take it, and expects the team to compensate should have their harddrive melted, and their subscription account be Generic'd, along with all of their characters.

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I woudln't go that far, but I think both my post and yours reflect similar views regarding teaming and Stamina.

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...y'know, that actually sounds like an interesting idea.

A problem might be though is that in the current model, characters are tied to one server, which helps establish community and a character for each server.

This game's already set up to use the servers the way it does and it can't be changed, but I'd kinda like to see a server model like you suggested, as an experiment at least.

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As would I. I forsee it kind of like a hybrid of RPG lobby and World server. Preworld there would be your characters and such. You could talk to other players via lobbies or chat rooms, organize guilds, decide which server to login to for whoever you wish to play with at the time. Once in the game if you are in a guild, people would be able to see which guild members are on which server in both the preworld and server world. Friend lists would work globally similarly to the global tells in Everquest (you can send people tells across diff servers in EQ and all SOE games. IE I can send someone playing SWG a tell from Everquest etc...)

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the tech for one single massive game server wasn't around in early MMO history. it became the norm to have separate shards, and it stuck around. There are benefits to that obviously, if a server goes down, others are still available so the whole community doesn't suffer. The name thing Spazz mentioned is also a pretty standard reason given.

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True, if the character server went down everyone would be unable to play. Another good point.

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I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that it lets people use the same name.

i.e. Spazz on Freedom and Spazz on Virtue.

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That is a valid reason I honestly hadn't thought of. Good point.

...implement server systems where the character is tied to that server? It seems to me creating a character server where guilds, and such is stored separately from the game servers is more sensible. So far the MMO model dictates either:
<ul type="square">[*]Everyone plays in the same gameworld/server, or[*]Everyone plays on different servers but all characters are tied to the chosen server[/list]It has always made more sense to me to keep characters on their own server so that they can login to whichever server has the most or little population as they choose on a whim. Is there any reason why games don't adopt this model?

this is just a related observatory rant, not aimed at anyone specifically, just triggered by more detailed information people have posted:

There are so many topics about people who don't understand why the penalties happened for doing this kind of stuff. The more I read the mechanics of what it took to use the MA in the manners they were being used, the less I believe that the people making the arcs had no idea it wasn't as intended. There have been so many arguments about it, mostly bashing the devs for taking unwarranted action, and then I read posts detailing what it took to get the XP farms. I don't see how anyone can be so naive as to think that they weren't doing anything that could be seen as bad.

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You remember it your way, I remember it mine.

I clearly remember ...

... hitting level 23 and buying some level 25 DO's, because I had to slot something and that was what I could afford when the old ones went red. All my Accuracies were SO's, but only about 1/3 of my Damage was.
... people not buying TO's or DO's so they could afford their SO's. Level 21 and not a thing slotted except with drops.
... people farming Mary MacComber for the SO drops.
... personally hunting those few Family that hung out in Steel by the IP gate, because level 20's dropped 1/3 DO's (level 19s dropped like 1/100 or something) and I needed the money.
... Being really excited when I found out that I could combine three SO's already in the power to make an SO++, because that meant I could get by with delaying 1/3 of my purchases to level 28.
... going to a new server, and building a "sugar momma" toon who got on teams with high-level characters, and asking them for DO's or TO's they would otherwise delete. Yeah, I had a Force Fielder that went with strangers for tips. I'm not proud. I had an SG to feed.
... making enough inf for my 45 and 50 SO's during level 41. Not "40 and 41", even. I was making ten times as much as I needed.

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Presently I'm lvl 39, I can sell stuff to vendors in between the 5 levels required for upgrade and afford my next SO's. I don't want to get into IO's until I reach a point where the only thing my Infamy is going towards are upgrades.

At one point the system was such that you couldn't get enough infamy through vendors to even do that much?