Massively re-arms for WAR: State of the opinion address

Mark Jacobs just released his WAR State of the Game announcement. I think this is a pretty important one because next week marks WAR's 6-month anniversary. Here are my thoughts about it.

I found the intro paragraphs to be pretty standard for this type of announcement. On the plus side he's admitting that WAR isn't where they'd like it to be but he balances that by patting his own back. I realize he needs to say these things for shareholders, but comments like this always make me roll my eyes: "Given the proximity of these two releases, I think it is pretty safe to say that these represent one of the largest (if not the largest) amount of new content, tweaks, adjustments, etc. to any MMO over the course of several months." I simply love how someone can spin nearly 1,000 bug and polish fixes into a good thing (especially at the six-month point in the game's life cycle). It is and it isn't, y'know?

Anyway, on to the meat and potatoes of the SotG. Mark mentioned 11 key areas of focus for the next few months. Here are my impressions of these sections (find his original text in the official SotG letter).

1) Client/Server performance in RvR

I'm not sure if their game engine is borked, their servers suck, or if the programmers just can't interface them properly, but live performance is nowhere near where it should be. Performance rocked in beta and it rocks on the test server but everything goes to hell when Mythic pushes things live. I'm glad this is one of their top priorities because awesome gaming rigs shouldn't choke on WAR when they can run way more resource intensive games amazingly.

Oh, and please fix the casting lag/glitch please that has plagued us since release. It's just brutal.

2) Bug & Polish

Bugs and polish are getting a lot better lately. They're almost at where I'd expect them to be for a AAA MMORPG (and what I was hoping for at launch).

Re-tooling the Ward system sounds interesting too. Personally, I don't find it overly complex nor do I have much of an issue with how they currently work. My only complaint about Ward gear is how you get it in the current system. Right now, you need to have a horseshoe up your @$$ due to the random number generation system. Contribution is still broken to my knowledge, so even that doesn't have an impact.

3) Open RvR in general

Open RvR is getting better and better as the game progresses but it can still benefit from a lot of the things mentioned here.

I'm a bit confused about yet another RvR influence bar but maybe it will be tied to RvR as a whole rather than just specific zones. Influence leading to higher renown ranks though? That seems a bit redundant. Why not just raise the cap on renown ranks?

Still no mention of a token system for RvR Ward loot. Bummer. Hope you like horseshoes.

An RvR section for the ToK seems like a no-brainer and I'm glad they're finally adding it. Dammaz Kron is a nifty add-on and I'm sure there's even more potential to be found.

The "Nemesis" system sounds cool too. I wonder if this will tie in with the "Fame" system Mark mentioned in a previous State of the Game.

4) Keeps in general

Making keeps more dynamic is something players have been requesting for a while, so I'm glad to hear they'll be rolling these changes out soon. The new Zone Domination system gives people a reason to attack and defend keeps; now they just need to make the experience more fun and interesting.

5) Keep Defense

The more reasons to defend the better! I would like them to work on a way that makes defensive reward ticks a bit more noticable in keep battles though. There are many times I'm defending and I am not noticing any renown/inf ticks for defending. A larger announcement and timer could solve this.

Oftentimes I don't want to chase an enemy away from a keep radius because I might lose out on said ticks. I'd be even more angry if I missed out on a gold bag.

6) Battlefield Objectives

As long as it doesn't become a game of BO-swapping again, I am happy with this. Right now BOs serve no meaningful purpose. There has been plenty of discussion about the potential things BOs could provide in WAR from buffing and debuffing nearby keeps to becoming special siege merchant hubs.

7) Zone Capture

Zone Domination seems to have fixed most of the issues I have with zone capture mechanics, so I don't really know what else they could do to drastically improve things. I guess the ZDS could be refined, but I doubt we'll see an entirely new mechanic take it's place (or supplement it).

8) Zone Capture rewards

Again, this sounds good. It's a bit anti-climactic when you take a zone right now. The last time we took one, I was rewarded with absolutely nothing-not even renown or influence. You should get something extra for taking a zone and these seem like viable options. A chance at Conqueror gear would be warmly welcomed too.

9) City Raiding for fun and profit

This is probably the biggest complaint people have about WAR's endgame right now. I have no desire to waste my time attacking or defending a city because 1) it isn't even remotely fun, 2) it isn't nearly rewarding enough, and 3) it is affected by performance issues and bugs.

The entire point of WAR is to sack your enemy's capital but it doesn't actually feel like a sacking once you're there. It's basically a public quest PvE grind with very little RvR action. The proposed changes sound good. The lopsided instance fix is also a good change.

10) Career Balancing

Career balance is hard enough when you have 6 classes. It's a monster issue when you have 24 classes. You simply need to get it right or as close to right as possible. You don't need to balance each class 1 for 1 but you do need to balance the realm for realm.

Mythic is doing a fairly good job with balance but I have noticed some nerf-buff-nerf swaying. Shamans and Archmages have needed tweaking since release, so hopefully they finally get the attention they deserve. White Lions and Marauders are probably going to be re-tooled and slightly improved as well since the Slayer and Choppa are coming out soon.

WAR is two completely different games in T1-T3 and T4. Area of Effect CC is especially brutal in T4 when you take into account that Mythic actually wants tens to hundreds of people fighting each other at once. It's not very fun to spend an entire fight locked down by CC until you die.

CC is necessary to add some stategy to combat, but it shouldn't completely dominate RvR like it currently does.

11) Scenarios

Scenarios were one of the biggest complaints people had about WAR when it first launched and I'm sure it contributed heavily to population decline. They sucked people out of the real world because they were simply the best way to progress. The trouble is, they got boring and repetitive very fast.

It is very rare to have a scenario pop these days, even a special live event scenario (on most servers). Scenarios were never nerfed but there was such a stigma attached to them and open RvR was buffed up so much that they became completely empty.

Scenarios can be good if experienced in moderation. I think Mythic will have a hard time trying to pitch scenarios nowadays. They can provide a great jump-in and jump-out experience but they can never be made so fun and rewarding that they overshadow open RvR again. For that reason, I think they will play a very minor part in WAR's future unless people are forced to participate in them by some sort of zone locking mechanic.

Unfortunately, most people don't like being forced to do something.

Conclusions

Overall, I feel this State of the Game paints a good future for WAR. I said earlier that 1.2 and 1.21 will fix nearly 1000 bugs six months after the game was released, but at this point it's really just water under the bridge. Should Mythic have dealt with these things a long time ago? Yes. Should the game have been released in its original state? I would say no. But hey, what can you do about it now?

You can only move forward and hope people give you another chance.

These changes will go a long way toward providing an opportunity for that to happen. Mark also mentions the new Tomb Kings zone at the end of his letter and I have a feeling it will get a lot of people excited. It has me excited and I'm one of the most negative/pessimistic WAR subscribers out there (some might call me a realist-Doh, there I go being cynical again).

WAR will be six months old in a week. I hope these changes are implemented quickly and efficiently because to be honest, WAR isn't getting any younger. Some MMORPGs have been able to build up and sustain a fairly strong player-base in their sophomore, junior, and senior years after mediocre launches (e.g., EQ2, EVE, LotRO) and there's no reason to believe WAR can't do the same.

At the end of the day, this is all just talk. Communication is always appreciated, but actions do speak louder than words. The next few months should be interesting to say the least.