New Realm Types

[Bolty]

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics...ealmtypes.shtml

Standard Player vs. Environment Server
Players have the ability to attack almost all opposing faction NPCs including vendors and quest givers. If a player attacks an opposing faction NPC, players of the opposite faction are then able to target and attack that player. Whenever an NPC is attacked, players who share the same faction as that NPC will receive a system message indicating that a specific town is under attack.

I like this, but the abuse potential is high. My level 39 mage walked on over to the gnome/dwarf newbie area and had a ball whacking the NPCs there (in the current phase you cannot attack vendors or quest givers). However, I could have easily massacred vendors and quest givers, and there wouldn't be a dang thing any of the newbie players could have done to stop me. And as long as you can climb any mountain in the game, you can easily sneak into these newbie zones and have a field day.

-Bolty

[MongoJerry]

Interesting idea that they have. I have the same reservations as you, but I can see how this could work out, depending on several factors:

1. What's the respawn rate on quest-giving NPC's and vendors?
2. Are quest-giving NPC's and vendors going to get a level boost and/or get boosted to "elite" status?
3. What are the levels of town guards who might respond to an attack on a vendor or quest-giver?
4. Will everyone in the entire faction receive the system message indicating that a spcific town is under attack no matter where they are?


I'm purely speculating here, but I think that Blizzard is imagining this situation for the one you mentioned: You, an evil lvl 60 horde mage enters Goldshire and start destroying vendors and quest-givers, while mocking all the newbies who can't do anything to stop you. Meanwhile, a system message gets sent to all Alliance players that Goldshire is under attack. A small posse of Alliance players stream out of Stormwind (on mounts) to come to Goldshire's rescue. Outnumbered, you run out of mana and die. The posse now turns the tables on the griefer by guarding your corpse *and* the cemetary where you'd respawn at if you decided to take the exp hit. Bored after failing to retrieve your corpse too many times, you log off for a while, hoping that eventually the guard gets let down. Meanwhile, after five minutes, all of the vendors and quest-giving NPC's will have respawned and life returns to normal in Goldshire.

What's more, I imagine that whole guilds will spring up with their first duty being to defend faction towns. They could set up scouts in certain towns, and when a town get attacked, the scout can determine how big the invasion is. If it's just a lone mid-level guy that the scout can handle himself, he can send a message to the posse channel that he has everything under control. If he needs more fire-power, however, he can send a message, saying, that he could use a posse, and whoever has volunteered to protect that village can instantly hearthstone back to that village and clear the invasion. However, if the invasion turns out to be a massive raid, then the scout can call all availalable faction members to help.

All-in-all, I think this can work. Can griefing occur? Sure. But no more than, say, Helcular's Revenge. And, the newbies being griefed won't be dying themselves. They'd just have to wait for a respawn to get what they need -- or go to Stormwind or something if the respawn is taking too long. I think this could actually be fun. It certainly would give high level characters something interesting and fun to do.

Yes, yes, there will likely be found a hundred ways that will be found to abuse and grief with this system. But I think with the right tweeking, it could be a fun element added to the game.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yes. And there are a large number of people (as we know from D1 and 2) who would love camping the newbie areas and making life hell for those just getting started. Now we get to find out if Blizzard gives a damn and if they have a clue. If Max really spoke for the company, then the first is doubtful. And, with the possible exception of SC/BW, the second remains to be seen.

Is the concept that people will abandon their quests and go back to the newbie area to protect the NPCs really valid? Or is it as stupid as I think it is? I know I'm a pessimist -- but maybe that's too upbeat when dealing with Blizz. :)

We'll see.

--Pete

[Guest]

Only let players attack npcs with in a reasonable level range(maybe 10% of player level, or even better 10% higher than player level).

Set the NPCs in zones so they are equel to lower than the players they serve.

[lemekim]

Hmmm I wonder what kind of loot we can get from the King of Stormwind...

[DeeBye]

Hmmm I wonder what kind of loot we can get from the King of Stormwind...

A ballpoint pen, an empty Bic lighter, and two expired bus transfers.

MARK MY WORDS!

[apandapion]

I still think that a pvp system with two factions is doomed to failure. DAoC's (which I've never played) system of three sides sounds more stable.

[Nystul]

Is the concept that people will abandon their quests and go back to the newbie area to protect the NPCs really valid?

In Elwynn Forest, absolutely. In newbie zones where the capital cities are complete ghost towns (e.g. Darnassus) it is a bit harder to tell. But then, I'm not sure if Teldrassil is even raidable... is it possible to swim there from the mainland?

On the faction PvP servers, this aspect will fit right in, and even making it to an enemy newbie zone should be pretty tough. On the normal servers this feature does deserve a bit of skepticism, because for one thing I don't really see the point of it and for another thing the players may not be able to pre-emptively defend their turf. It seems likely that griefing newbie zones might be more of a threat on normal server than the PvP one, whereas on the PvP servers every contested area will be something of a war zone where questing may be a completely different and far more difficult experience than what it is right now.

[Guest]

I think they will just give some sort of PvP bonus to the weaker side.

This is a very effective method for controling people who care most about PvP. It ussually keeps the balance at 60/40 or better. Plus with the Tauron and even to a lesser degree the Orcs and Trolls being made into "misunderstood good guys", I think both sides will be fairly popular.

[Little Faith]

I still think that a pvp system with two factions is doomed to failure.  DAoC's (which I've never played) system of three sides sounds more stable.

Um, I suppose the final product will have more than two sides.



And by the way, the flaw with this system is that it builds upon solidarity within the factions. And as you might also know solidarity is not one of the most remarkable traits amongst gamers.

I think the generic high-level player will think something around the line of "I owe these n00bs nothing!". The only ones who would join up were the ones who were not doing anything else at the moment. Still a scheme like Mongojerry's could maybe work out if there were a big enough constant pool of idlers that could be attracted.

[apandapion]

I think they will just give some sort of PvP bonus to the weaker side.

This is a very effective method for controling people who care most about PvP. It ussually keeps the balance at 60/40 or better. Plus with the Tauron and even to a lesser degree the Orcs and Trolls being made into "misunderstood good guys", I think both  sides will be fairly popular.

People tend to join the winning side of a war, not the losing side. That bonus better be signfiicant enough to let the combatants handle 2 to 1 or even 3 to 1 odds, because that's what the losers will be facing.

[Guest]

DAoCs artifacts of course are in effect the opposite of what I suggested. Because of this DAoC has always had population problems.

PlanetSide however implemented bonuses to the weak side(mostly extra hit points) and over all became very balanced.

Of course if you purposfully try to make side gimp through weak poiwers and skills, you will have problems, but havening watched 2 years f DAoC I noticed that realm/server strength is more attractive to most players than class strength.

[MongoJerry]

Interesting quote from a Blizzard employee on the official forums:

You can't really take over newbie areas because the guards beat up level 60 characters. I was taking 356s when I tested it. I was like uh that's not going to happen. I suppose if you round up enough people it might be possible.

These posts and some others of the same vein seems to indicate that there will be high level guards in newbie zones to protect NPC's and vendors, so it looks like it will be hard for an individual or a small party to grief a newbie zone too much even if there weren't protector player guilds. Of course, if someone organizes a 100-person raid, well, that's another story. :D

However, it seems that not all towns will be guarded with very high level guards:

when you attack the npcs, guards show up to help. So you have to fight them also. I gave taking over Crossroads a shot and it looked very dooable. I forgot to see if you could kill the gryphon guy. That would rule =]

I don't know if this means that an individual could take over crossroads or if you'd need a party. Anyway, it sounds like newbie towns will be protected well but not-so-newbie towns won't be protected quite as well. Of course, the Blizzard employee also reminds us:

What exactly is your complaint? That NPCs can be attacked? Keep in mind this is a test and if there are things that people don't like and we don't like, we'll change them! The goal certainly isn't to grief players who just want to be able to play vs the monsters/computer.

[BEEFMOTRTON]

I would be very surprised if they haven't fixed the pathing bug by next push so I doubt that part will be an issue.

As for graveyard camping, I would be very surprised if it took more than a couple of corpse runs to get out of wherever you needed to, unless you were seriously gangbanged and they had players with slowing/rooting abilities in every direction from which your corpse would appear.

[Thecla]

I like this, but the abuse potential is high.

It's interesting and if it works, great. At least PvP is still entirely consensual on the PvE servers.

But I also worry that they may be underestimating the potential for griefing, however they try to implement the system. (No one ever went broke by underestimating the potential for griefing in MMORPGs: organized guild raids laying waste systematically to the other faction's npc's, even with high level guards in newbie zones; the development of large faction imbalances on different servers; and who knows what else...)

Honestly, I think they would be better off with pure PvE servers. They can always tweak the the PvP servers.

[apandapion]

I would be very surprised if they haven't fixed the pathing bug by next push so I doubt that part will be an issue.

Pathfinding is always an iffy issue. It takes too much cpu power to do it right in an online game for the thousands of monsters that exist. Pathfinding is almost never good, always just varying levels of bad.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Actually, if you number each node using an N^3 algorithm, path finding becomes a lot easier, almost trivial. But then the storage space breaks the bank. You can trade space for time or vice versa, but TANSTAAFL :)

--Pete