Uh oh… burnout

I started to feel the hints of burnout today when playing Warhammer Online.  It’s a dreaded feeling.  It usually signals the end of my stay in a MMORPG when I start to feel the dread of having to log in.  It usually starts with feelings of “oh, I’ll just play this instead” and then eventually leads to ache in the upper part of my stomache that rests with me all day while I stare at the icon of the game I’m burning out on.  I know that I’ve reached full burnout when I log into a MMO and walk around and try to do something but actually want to just log off.  I haven’t reached full burnout in Warhammer yet and I don’t want to!  However, I know what’s causing it.

Every time I log into the game I end up doing the exact same thing.  That’s a HUGE problem.   I want to refer you to a few past blog entries that I’ve made and show you the cycle.

From my Blog entry when I quit LOTRO:

This decision to stop playing LOTRO was not necessarily difficult or easy. It was more of a circumstance of boredom and a lack of direction or things to do. For the third time since I began playing most all my friends have quit the game. I’m certain that if I kept playing I would make more friends and they would eventually quit but to be honest I’m tired of the repetition.

And one of the best explanations that I have ever made about repetition in MMORPGs comes from my blog entry when I stopped playing PotBS:

The simple and unavoidable fact of the matter is that I am left without choices. Choices are important in a mmorpg because without them repetition sinks in. Repetition is the cancer equivalent in mmorpgs. It will break down and destroy the very basic enjoyable things in a game when it sets in.

The lack of real decisions in-game and the reptition of acts, however fun now, always leads me to burnout.  I believe that this is true for everyone out there (whether they admit it or not), with the only difference being the amount of time it takes to realize or have these feelings set in.

This feeling has begun in Warhammer Online.  Every time that I log in I do the exact same things.  I log in and run the same old redundant quests or I grind mobs for the kill collector just to be able to participate and contribute to RvR (as that is my goal in the game).  I queue for the same scenarios that always pop and they always go the same way: we either totally dominate the enemy PUG or the enemy totally dominates ours.    Playing in T3 or T4 is all the same.  Keep swapping is so rampant these days that it feels like we avoid the enemy more than we fight them.  Everything is moving 100x faster than it should be too.  We rush to a flight master and race on our mounts to a keep to take it then we rush to a battle objective to take it and wait 3 minutes or race to a second to double cap then race back to get the points for the first.   Every single time I log in this is the only form of gameplay that I find.

There’s no sense of immersion in the world.  There’s no sense of growth and development.   Everything that I do in-game feels superficial and unimportant.   There is no depth to the game right now and it’s killing my enjoyment.  Warhammer feels less like a Role Playing Game and more like an arcade game.  That’s not necessarily a BAD thing.  World of Warcraft felt the same way.  Most MMORPGs developed post-WoW in this new era of MMORPGs feel this way.  Each game has their own clever way of disguising this feeling.  For WoW it was the treadmill grinds and for LOTRO it was the story mixed with the treadmills.  For WAR it’s the constant realm WAR.   The problem that I’m having right now is that WAR’s realmwar is starting to feel like a treadmill.

This can be fixed!  I have an immense reserve of optimism stored up.  A huge part of that comes from actually KNOWING that a realm war can be more than a superficial treadmill.  Dark Age of Camelot – a game made by Mythic Entertainment – succeeded in this many years ago.  Surely Mythic knows what made that game special and successful at what it did… surely they didn’t just fall upon it by accident.  My greatest fear right now is that Mythic is scrambling to figure out what exactly it was that made DAOC tick and they’re drawing a blank.

The announcement coming 1-29-09 will hopefully address my concerns.  I hope that it adds depth to the realm war and character development by giving the player more choices and content.   I’m enjoying the little things in WAR, but repetition and the lack of real choices are beginning to “break down and destroy the very basic enjoyable things” of the game for me.  I truly believe that it’s going to take more than adding a couple systems here and there.  I think it’s going to require very large parts of the game to change and major overhauls to be done.

I’m willing to ride out the growing pains because of the potential.  If I felt that the game had no potential then I would have jumped ship a while ago.  I’m going to continue playing my Ironbreaker (Lvl 31) on Phoenix Throne and my Squig Herder (Lvl 30) on Dark Crag.  Both of those characters have a ways to go before they hit that invisible wall in T4 where the lack of choices and extreme repetition sets in (right now I’m only experiencing part of it with them).  Hopefully by that time the problem will be solved. 

UPDATE:  I’ve come to the conclusion that playing WAR as it’s ‘meant’ to be played is what’s leading me to burnout.  I’ve recently altered the way that I play and completely gone against the grain and it’s yielded amazing results.  I’ve found a tiny pocket of what made DAOC special by avoiding zergs, BO’s, and keeps entirely.  Read the two blog posts above this one to learn more.

  • Having only played WAR for a short while now, I have yet to feel the burnout symptoms, but I can definitely see where they could come from. The PvE could use a revamp, but it is a RvR focused game, so I’m not too worried. I do find scenarios sort of redundant after a while and long for change. I’m sure Mythic knows the secret to their success and are working on way to implement it. The 1/29 announcement is keeping me on edge too, so that is nice.

  • I don’t know that there’s really a lack of things to do in WAR, it’s just that there are clearly “most efficient” ways of getting things done and if you’re like me, you like doing things the most efficient way possible (gaming OCD?).

    In any login session you could:

    – Do PQs
    – Do normal quests
    – Do kill collector quests
    – Use Tome Titan or simply explore to find all the unlocks
    – Collect trophies
    – Collect specific gear (plenty of item sets from Tome PvE sets, dungeon sets, or RvR sets)
    – Do scenarios
    – Do open RvR
    – Join a WB as a follower to take the reigns and lead it
    – Work on your crafting
    – Experiment with various skills, morals, tactics, specs, etc.
    – Go crazy, dye your gear purple, and start screaming like a weirdo around the capital city 😛

    Even though I identified all those options, I don’t participate in even half of them because I have determined the fastest way from A to B and I get tunnel vision. I might be wrong, but I think you and I have similar gaming philosophies.

    There’s really quite a bit to do in WAR, so I think part of this might be you limiting yourself.

  • All I do is RvR, and I never do quests or kill collectors… so I am not sure why you are doing that.

    A game isn’t a marriage. Taking breaks and playing other games is perfectly fine and the way I think games are meant to be played.

  • What struck me, in reading your post, is that you have identified a recurring pattern in your MMO bouts — and that your narrowing down to do the “same thing over and over” leads to burnout. As Snaffy pointed out, it isn’t that there’s a lack of variety of things to do in WAR, just that you’ve narrowed yourself down to a small segment of the game that you choose to do — whether that’s because you’ve grown disatisfied with the other parts, identify a particular activity as the best route to advancement, or whatever.

    A pattern suggests that no matter what future titles you try, you will most likely fall into the same end result, sooner or later, due to a similar approach to the game. Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate how you play the game and try a new angle or develop a new mentality of looking at it?

  • I think that they focused too much on gear and rewards in this game, trying to mimic an aspect of WoW. Back in Pre-ToA when everyone thought the game was awesome, you didn’t raid for gear because CRAFTERS could MAKE the best gear so screw repetitive dungeon raids, keep takes mattered, you could XP on mobs for a bonus in RvR land near keeps, and we had the Darkness Falls rvr dungeon mechanic, and we had Relics that benefited your entire realm, etc.

    I didn’t feel the need to grind PvE unless leveling a character or farming cash for Spellcrafted gear which was guaranteed to be obtained cause I didn’t have to worry about luck of a roll or some random loot dropping.

    I joined keep raids because they were fun and dynamic, whether playing a caster or climbing ladders as a rogue. I also joined keep raids because they benefited my realm.

    I liked hanging out in DF when I wanted money cause I could grind and have the fear of some stealther ganking me, so I took keeps to help others on my team have access to DF as well.

    My guild led relic raids all the time to make sure our Realm had bonuses.

    Now in WAR all the reasons to go out to the pvp zones is about personal gain, and its random rolls on gear instead of a Token System and dissappointing rp gains in oRvR pvp vs keep takes. Further, my efforts don’t help us gain anything tangible, and feels futile because there is no real effect other than the chance at getting some stupid gear and some realm points.

  • Howdy,

    I’m curious to know how many hours most folks play per week. Currently I’m at about 12 hours a week.

    My brother (who isn’t “Married with Children”) played a hell of a lot more then me and was burnt out for almost the exact same reasons has you have stated…

    I believe he called it “Mid-evil Counter Strike”.

    Doody

  • @Snafzg: I’m going to go down your list and in bold, right after each point, comment.

    – Do PQs – I do. Over. and over.
    – Do normal quests – I do. Over and over. (I’ve written about why this bothers me in the past).
    – Do kill collector quests – Again, I do, because it’s more exp than questing sadly.
    – Use Tome Titan or simply explore to find all the unlocks –Tome unlocks are worthless and mean nothing to me. I have no interest in wandering around aimlessly getting xbox live style achievements – i just don’t. I will happily acknowledge that to some this may be interesting, and this is legit content for them, but not for me in a “WAR is everywhere” game.
    – Collect trophies – I have all trophie slots full with trophies i like already. Other than that, why?
    – Collect specific gear (plenty of item sets from Tome PvE sets, dungeon sets, or RvR sets) – In the process of “warding” to do this. insert treadmill here.
    – Do scenarios I do. See post
    – Do open RvR – I definitely do this the most. However, we all know the flaws here which could be the root of all the problems.
    – Join a WB as a follower to take the reigns and lead it Did you really put this on the list as “something to do”? 😛
    – Work on your crafting Err, there’s crafting in WAR?! Ohhh you mean scavenging and apothecary – done that
    – Experiment with various skills, morals, tactics, specs, etc. I don’t consider this “something to do” since I know exactly what is best to use already.
    – Go crazy, dye your gear purple, and start screaming like a weirdo around the capital cityIf this is on a list of “stuff to do” then there simply isn’t enough “stuff to do” 😉

    @Syp: I absolutely have pegged precisely what I want out of WAR. I want a Realm vs. realm game where people set out to conquoer territory and do battle against one another in an immersive world. I want to feel part of the world and participating towards this greater goal instead of skipping across the surface like a stone being skipped across a lake. And it isn’t variety i’m worried about… as Snafzg’s list shows variety can come in many forms.. it’s the quality of variety. It’s sorely lacking.

    @Couric: Thank you for posting. You hit the nail right on the head. 🙂

  • Odd, I feel opposite to you and to Couric. Since about level 28, I’ve spent the vast majority of my time doing ORvR, and it has yet to get old. Is there a lot of keep swapping? Sure, but we get a hell of a lot of battles with Destro as well. Last night was a prime example of it, we ran around, hit the hornets nest a bit, and we got a reaction. Keep defense ensued. Hell, I see more people wanting to defend a keep now instead of taking them, because the ticks are so good.

    I have almost zero reason to go do PvE stuff. Even the exp is only slightly better. I made 20% in warband in about 3 hours last night, to ding level 32. I hope things sort out on your server or something, because conflict is rocking on Ironfist.

  • @Andrew: I felt the exact same way you’re feeling my first time through. I even felt it my second time through. However, as I’ve now leveled 4-5 characters to level 30+, I have lost that perception. I expected that though, and I don’t blame Mythic for that. However, when characters reach the end-game it becomes apparent that everyone eventually hits this “wall” at 40. After hitting it, you will remake a character and find that you hit it much sooner the second, third, and fourth time through because you know what to look for.

    This goes back to what I said in the blog entry though: “I believe that this is true for everyone out there (whether they admit it or not), with the only difference being the amount of time it takes to realize or have these feelings set in.”

    It’s that “okay, now what?” feeling combined with the “ugghh, this again”.

  • I can tell you that I started experiencing burnout symptoms in T3. The main reason? Tor Anroc. The scenario pops about 90% of the time, and based on numbers I have kept for my own amusement, Destruction LOSES Tor Anroc about 91% of the time on my server.

    Now, you may say that T3 destro simply sucks on my server, but in just about every other scenario, the W/L ratio is much closer to 50/50.

    The only thing I can tell is Order has better knockbacks, and they are winning more because of the lava kills. Don’t know for sure, don’t really care.

    What I do care about though is Tor Anroc is about the only scenario that pops for me, and I can’t get hardly any experience when 91% of the time, Destro is loosing. And not just loosing, but loosing by scores of 500 to 20, or 500 to 50 or 500 to 100. You don’t get XP, you don’t get Renown, and it becomes one heck of a grind to get out of T3.

    And on top of that, the keep swapping is annoying too. I actually enjoy battling, but getting a WB to commit to facing the enemy is like trying to get a kid to give up his Halloween candy. Some of the best nights I have in oRvR are spent in one keep, with epic siege fights. But these nights are few and far between.

    One change however, could drastically alter how oRvR runs. By making Keep Defense just as profitable and enticing as Keep Siege, they could eliminate the keep swapping in one fel swoop. Give the same rewards for a successful keep defense as they do for taking a keep.

    That would go a long way to fixing the burnout issue. That, and fixing the T4 end game issues. 😉

  • Hehe, replay the best games ever made 4-5 times and I’m sure you’ll get burned out on those too. The post-40 game in WAR is not nearly as excited as it could be, I’ll grant you that. What are your expectations? In your ideal game, how many dozens of interesting things would keep you occupied?

    You’re right though, the endgame options are kind of bleak atm.

    What are my goals as a rank 40? Well, I apparently need wards if I want to compete in any of the dungeons or fortress/city raid, so it’s off the the IC dungeons since Conqueror gear is nigh impossible to get on my server. I need realm ranks to make my character stronger, and since you get the most efficient stream of it from trading BOs and Keeps, that’s all anyone really does on my server unless they’re pushing for a fort (which they rarely do). I need a lot of ingredients for talismans, and the easiest way for me to get them as a Scavenger is to grind mobs in PvE. I’m only really aiming for one RvR influence reward, which is elite and that’s a heck of a lot of grinding if I want it any time this century.

    If I’m looking for the most fun I can have in RvR, I duo up with a Shammy friend or a few guildies and we roam the RvR lakes hoping to find a challenge. While very fun, the scarcity of such small scale RvR prevents it from being very worthwhile from a numbers perspective.

  • @Keen – I’ve had the exact same feelings about WAR. My main character is at character rank 40 and renown rank 39. The end game is starting to get very repetitive and “grindy” with no real sense of purpose.

    I’ve maxed out my character rank so the only progression is through RVR and gearing up through instance dungeons which can be frustrating when nobody is on.

    I’ve participated in fortress seiges and haven’t found them to be fun. Taking keeps became boring a long time ago. The tier 4 scenarios are getting to be boring as well and aren’t fun unless you are in a premade group.

    The issue that I’m having is there is nothing to do solo in endgame. If I log on during primetime, the game is fun. If I log on during off hours, there seems to be nothing fun to do. It’s frustrating how much the fun level of this game varies from one day to the next.

    I’ve already cancelled my subscription but have 3 weeks left of playing time. If I don’t see a compelling reason to renew within those three weeks, I’m gonna move on to something else. Up until today, I’ve been patient but now I feel that I’ve given Mythic more than enough time to fix and polish the game.

  • I know what you’re talking about. I mean we spent 2+ hours aoe grinding the other day and while we both gained a ton of xp it was far from what I consider fun. I completely get your viewpoint and I’ve hit that wall in other games as well as this one. Then again once I get to 40 I have a ton of fun roaming in ORvR with guildmates. The game really does get fun once you do reach T4 and are a respectable level as long as you group with people you enjoy running with.

    I think you should put up with the grind for a couple more levels and if T4 ORvR isn’t what you want then you’ll know, but until you hit 34-35 it’s hard to gauge what the endgame content is like on PT (or any server).

    I know you’ve played several classes, but maybe try playing a different one? I switch between my WL, RP and several low level alts just to keep things fresh while still doing endgame instances and ORvR. It changes the scenery, allows me to meet new people and keeps things interesting concerning which class I’m playing. I think this game really does force you to either grind to RR80 or roll an alt. I happen to enjoy many of the classes in WAR so I don’t mind rolling alts for fun and just leveling them up casually through RvR.

    I’m not telling you anything new here, just bringing up points. I was burned out with WAR on my WL so I took a week or two off and when I came back I split my time between my WL and RP.

  • @Werit: Well, right now on my level 30 Squig Herder I can’t do anything in T4. Everyone is so geared out that I don’t stand a chance (I’ve tried, with much frustration)

    T3 open-rvr is nothing but Keep swapping (just like T4) and RvE is so excruciatingly boring.

    T3 Scenarios, like I said, are always one sided. 500-10 Destro or 10-500 Order. The result is either a boring win or a frustrating loss. The rare close battles are just too rare.

    Thus, I PvE at level 30/31 until such a time that I can compete in T4 RvR. Hopefully by the time that I get there the problems will be fixed.

    This is an example of one of the problems.

    Now, looking at T4’s end-game is another.

  • What the endgame needs is some sort of Arena type of battle system that pits perfectly even 5v5 combat.

  • “T3 Scenarios, like I said, are always one sided. 500-10 Destro or 10-500 Order. The result is either a boring win or a frustrating loss. The rare close battles are just too rare.”

    I agree. Mythic needs to put in a system that put players of similar skill level against each other so the fights are close. I’ve been on both sides of dominating and losing in scenarios. Either way, it is boring.

  • Honestly your list sounds to me like an MMO to a T. any and all of them are this way. on Phoenix Throne in T4 there are pushes to flip zones everynight. that sounds like meanigful RvR to me.

    I dont mean to be rude here but what it sounds like to me is youve fallen in love with the idea of what you think Darkfall will bring. This will bring boredom much faster to you than anything else because a person always wants that one perfect thing.

    Here is what i have learned in MMO play, they are all the same with different dressing. My favorit if i was to name it would be Asherons Call, to me it seemed the best, but in reality its because it was the first and i have nostalgia. I no longer expect the holy grail from MMO’s i simply expect them to be my outlet of time for awhile.

    IMO darkfall will suffer from the same sorts of things that shadowbane failed at and others. Concept is totally different than how people actually play. in theory it should be awesome but since people control everythign it normally gets limited to what those same people will do. Shadowbane ended up a whine fest and a political war more than anything else, sandbox is great until everyone in the sandbox plays one way that leaves your way out.

    Here is what me and my alliance do in RvR. we look at the zone that order is trying to flip, and we hit a different zone. this hinders their ability to flip a zone and is a guaranteed way to get some resistance but not the whole force. between that and instance runs and helping 36+s get to 40 that occupies my time pretty well, but i also was not anticipating WAR and didnt play DAOC and had no expectations of WAR.

    sorry for the rant and i mean no disrespect, just commenting on what i see and read here almost everyday, keep up the good blog.

  • @JenoSidhe: Nah, this has nothing to do with Darkfall. That game will have its own set of issues pertaining to its design and sandbox design. WAR has its specific issues that are very unique to it. WAR is in limbo land right now in my eyes. It’s stuck between DAOC and WoW and achieving neither the immersive realm war or the carrot on the stick. The best way I can describe the feeling is “superficial” – lacking depth either way.

    It sounds like you have a lot of fun with your alliance. But what if that’s ALL that you do for the rest of your time playing WAR? I’ve flipped every zone a dozen times. I’ve sieged Altdorf. I still need to do some of the PvE dungeons, but I’m currently barred from those until I can get the wards.

    You’ve made good points JenoSidhe, and they’re valid, just not quite the explanation for what’s happening with my burnout.

  • Keen, intelligent people burn out once in a while, they need new stuff to keep them interested! 🙂

    So I will try to help you: Try Mount & Blade, awesome lightweight yet still complex game in a medieval setting. Become a lord and crush your enemies. I suggest a strong warhorse, investing in plate armor, lance and morningstar. 🙂 Link. http://www.taleworlds.com/

    Alternatively, give Fallout 3 or Left 4 Dead a try. These RPGs have a tight and interesting STORY, while offering a very vast game world to explore.

    This might give you back your taste for single player games, as I fear that 2009 will become a dull year for MMO(RPG?) players.

  • @Keen: Not that is matters, but here is how I spend my time… as we have the same RvR interest.

    I play for about ~7 hours a week. I log in, and check for ORvR. If there is some going on with actual opposition, I get involved. If not or if I only have a half hour or so, I do some scenarios. Sometimes they are lopsided, sometimes they are not.

    That is pretty much it. I don’t play everyday. To me, it is a great hobby game as I can be casual like that.

  • Well I have bad news for you. It gets worse as time goes by. The more MMORPGs I play the quicker I get burned out on them.

    I put it in part of the current philosophy on leveling. When a game is new, there are a lot of people around you. The population is fairly well distributed at the lower tiers. But as time goes on the population spreads out though out all tier also starts to cluster in a few specific areas.

    This means after a while you playing the same game in the same area all the time because that is where the action is. Or you find yourself pretty much all alone in areas which were meant to have a decent amount of activity.

    For example, maybe one PQ a chapter is every really done to completion regularly. There are few options for RvR (basically only one scenario a tier is active) and PvE is just lonely.

    I tried WoW again recently with a level 1 character. All the starter areas were practically desolate wastelands. And even if there was another new character, it was most likely an alt on a power level/twink track.

    IMO, EVE is the only game where things still feel alive and active regardless of what level of character you are. Newbs and veterans can be in the same area doing something productive for each of them.

    Not that I still play EVE. Every time I think about going back I know that I will have to spend about 10 hours just figuring out what is what again and to get a feel for the market again. It is not a “casual” game 🙂

  • I think people might be misunderstanding Keen’s dilemma. RVR is the aspect of the game he appears to love the most (i.e. “I want a Realm vs. realm game…”). It is the “choices” within that specific aspect of the game that are lacking, not the “choices” within the game as a whole. Sure he has choices to go do other things besides RVR but the question is does he really want to do them. From the sounds of it, I don’t think so (at least not over and over, all the time).

    With regard to the lack of choices within the RVR aspect of the game, this is something I’ve been reiterating over and over again. People wanted RVR and keep combat to be like a game of chess, yet what they are getting is tic tac toe. They want depth and complexities to it. They don’t want a straight forward approach to taking something over, they want multiple options to take something over in different ways.

    Here’s a quick example. Microsoft Allegiance was a sci-fi game that incorporate FPS combat and RTS leader management in one game. It was phenomenal. The game allowed you to overcome your opponent by force (i.e. mass attack), economy (i.e. destroying their miners), or even stealth (i.e. scout sneaks in to enemy home sector and drops teleporter beacon to allow ships to jump in for sneak attack). It was really up to you decide which path you’d like to take. This is exactly the variety and choices I find lacking in WAR.

    “Hehe, replay the best games ever made 4-5 times and I’m sure you’ll get burned out on those too.”

    Disagree. Some of the best games I’ve played are FPS’s and they can be played over and over a million times even on the same maps, yet the experiences are always new and there are always way to improve yourself. If you’re talking about MMO’s specifically however, then ya I totally agree with you.

    In a sense, what Mythic should have done is built RVR first as the game’s core, get it right, and then slowly build other components around it logically (i.e. crafting, economy, etc). From what I’ve seen, it seems like they did the reverse, with RVR being the last thing they worked on (almost as an afterthought which is really weird considering their history).

    “Here is what i have learned in MMO play, they are all the same with different dressing.”

    For the most part, he’s right. As I noted above, most MMO’s fail on depth. The most enjoyable games with “epic” moments to them have always been FPS’s where your own skill determines your success, not your characters. Darkfall is not a full FPS but it sounds like it has components of it, therefore it might fare better in this regards, but in doing so, it obviously won’t be for everyone.

  • i have played many many mmorpgs, before they come out i build them up in my mind, its going to be the next great thing it will replace the one game i really loved. they never do tho.

    i still go on playing them, not sure why, War did not work for me at all tho no matter how much i wanted it too. AoC was the same, liked it better and still like it better then War, but did not work.

    been reading your blog for awhile, i know this was coming. playing WoW gave War a lil more life for you. but the burn out in War was going to happen sooner or later. i just knew soon as you went back to War full time it would happen.

  • I feel exactly what keen is right now. I’ve run 3 different toons into the high 20’s low 30’s and I need some motivation for end game pretty bad. Right now it seems leveling to the end of tier3 is more fun than taking one of my 30’s all the way to 40. I just don’t see much a point for it though I hope to achieve it before stopping playing. For one I don’t want to pve much at all, and raiding/instances aren’t what I’m interested in, I do like sieging keeps and pvp though so that is what I hoped to have something special to do with when I hit 40. Right now nothing out there making me go ooohhhhh I need to get 40, so I’m on my third alt.

  • “IMO, EVE is the only game where things still feel alive and active regardless of what level of character you are. Newbs and veterans can be in the same area doing something productive for each of them.”

    Totally agree. Be amazing to see a fantasy-based world created by CCP that followed the same concepts and implementation as EVE Online. I love the immersiveness and environment of EVE, it’s just that I really wanted the combat to be FPS-like (similar to Microsoft Allegiance).

    If CCP ever creates a Halo-like component to the game, as has been rumoured (i.e. planetary combat), then I’d be all over it in a second.

  • I logged in tonight and did some amazingly fun RvR on my Ironbreaker with a guildy. He and I ran around as a duo and took people out who straggled behind. Some of the best times I’ve had since beta. It’s stuff like this that I really enjoy in WAR. Heck, I’m going to write a blog post on this later to highlight why I enjoyed it.

  • @JenoSidhe
    I think you have a point burnout (although not necessarily keens burnout)is often at it highest when a new greener horizon appears.

    @Keen
    Nowadays people talk about MMO’s not MMORPG’s and they are right because the RPG side has long since gone.
    Wotlk is the closest people have come for years they did a brilliant job of making a world which changed as you passed through it. It was only that 80 where the illusion broke and the grind set in again.

    “Everything that I do in-game feels superficial and unimportant”

    i like that WaR allows participation in it the endgame RvR from a early level, but it can create a feeling of powerlessness in people. To give a comparison imagine if a level 60 tried to take part in arenas vs 80’s.

    I think this problem is particularly common in DPS classes and to a lesser extent tanks, as healers kinda come with a certain amount of ingame power built in.

    Atm WaR meta game is full of bandit gangs of players running around and looting and pillaging with no real goal.

    The NPC faction leaders are really not worthy of the name becuase the one thing they never do is lead.
    The realm i’m on has been lucky in that some real leaders have started to emerge for both destro and order, and the quality of RvR has noticeably improved.

    Id love to see something like WoWs BG wkends, perhaps taking the form of something like a quest to capture a particular pairings fortress which gave huge amounts of XP and RR.

    similarly i think warcamps should have quest givers who give out a quest whos aim is the capture of the zone in which they are located in, with a suitably large xp & RR (possibly zone influence too) bonus. Something as simple as this would give people the incentive to defend zones not just keep trade. Not only that it would be piss easy to implement

    WaR is at its worst when its just groups of people running around with no real goal, when it gains focus its alot more enjoyable (at least to me anyways)

  • Keen,

    I think this calls for a DAOC vs WAR post !

    Lets help them figure out what Daoc did right and how
    it could be applied to WAR

    Ask not what Mythic can do for you, but what can you do for Mythic.. 😛

  • Yeah. I never played much DAoC but for its time it seemed more– I dunno, full of wonder than WAR has.

    I’ve just finally left WAR, I still have time left on my account and I was logging in occasionally but just standing around not feeling motivated with the game at all.

    IMHO, it’s a cardboard cutout in most of the areas Snafzg listed. It’s like Mythic did the bare minimum for X feature because they were expected to have it as an MMORPG. Crafting = perfect example.

    The real meat for WAR is in the RvR. Even the Scenarios, well I’m beating that dead horse but I don’t see why I’d play a sub game, etc. blah blah. So it’s the RvR. But Keep trading was getting boring fast.

    Bottom line, they could spiff up RvR just to get it to where everyone says DAoC was and maybe even beyond, but I just don’t feel like sticking around waiting for it to get fixed. If they had more quality things to do, other distractions that weren’t so half-hearted, I could wait longer for Mythic to complete their core game.

    As it was, I didn’t feel like I was paying to Beta test. I felt like I was playing an Alpha state game, because they’re still frickin’ designing it. =P

    /rant

    I know I’m coming across as a negative nancy having just quit the game, but that’s pretty much how I feel about it at the moment. Mythic does a lot of clever things, but they don’t seem complete… yet.

  • As I have stated before,

    Key things in an mmorpg such as leveling Must involve more players than 1 in dynamic roles such as grouping to level, grouping to progress in any manner. This naturally does everything an mmorpg needs to survive. Produce naturally occurring interaction between players which in turn creates friendships and REASONS to want to log in and play the game.

    I saw this problem early on in WAR and is why I quit before I threw 15 dollars down the drain. Adding insult to injury is WAR’s instanced pvp which not only draws players away from world pvp which is and should be important in pvp mmorpgs but it also disconnects the player from the world. Those two aspects alone combined with poor dungeon design totally killed the game for me. Anyways lets cross our fingers for Darkfall being good.

  • As much as I like soloing, I have to agree with you sicc. Grouping is core to the survival of a game over the long run. I still play EQ and it’s gotten less and less entertaining over time.

    I remember when LDoN came out and you had to have 3 or more people to even play in it. During that time I grouped more than ever with people I didn’t know. It was a lot of fun.

  • I agree with what you say, which is what has prevented me from getting into any MMO in the past. It’s repetition dressed up. But I also understand that the true content comes from the players and there, even in an MMO, the players who seek to engage in something richer than zergs and grinds are in the minority. Particularly when you can randomly ninja loot just by showing up somewhere…
    But I must say that at least on my server (Ironclaw) there is some great skirmishing and exciting struggles in scenarios that keep me grindin in between. I feel like I’m living for the next pop. This is mainly thanks to some great guilds and leaders, but isn’t organised community the real core of any MMO? I recently got a friend hooked and even just working through quests together is a huge improvement.
    In the end I guess every game has a life span, we are lucky that Mythic invest so much in extending WARs.