cross-faction-communication
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Tamriel Infinium: Fictional loyalty in Elder Scrolls Online
On many occasions, my guild members have talked about different aspects of MMOs, MMO culture, and of course, what makes our guild work as well as it does. The simple answer to the last question boils down to common bonds and shared interests, just as with any group of friends, I'd imagine. And when we seriously decided to take this guild we made beyond the borders of just one game, we discovered new hurdles to overcome. Although the roots of my guild extend far beyond one MMO, it kicked off seriously only in Star Wars: The Old Republic and has since extended to Guild Wars 2 and Neverwinter. Many of my friends have expressed more than a fleeting interest in The Elder Scrolls Online, but faction selection could pose a problem for us. I always liked Imperials in the other Elder Scrolls games. One member wants to relive his Skyrim adventures and play a Nord. And of course, we have that hold-out who will play nothing but elves (or the closest approximation) in whatever game she's playing. Although I very much want these players to play whichever race they will have the most fun playing, it places the guild as a whole in an interesting position: With so many conflicting loyalties, which direction does the guild head? The Elder Scrolls Online created a solution within its guilding system. Does the ESO system encourage loyalty to a faction or is factional loyalty just fictional loyalty?
Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls Online's factional divides
The Elder Scrolls Online's Tamriel hosts many races that are generally segregated from each other. Nords of Skyrim usually stick to their northern frosty mountains. Argonians settle in their Black Marsh. Khajiit rest in Elsweyr. But we know from playing other Elder Scrolls games that individuals of all races most definitely move around the map, mostly adventurers like our possible TESO characters. It is very possible from a canon perspective that my Redguard will wander through Morrowind. Unlike other faction-based MMOs, TESO has an interesting plan for those players with wanderlust. For today's column, I've found a community member who explains some of the implications of factional divides for us. I'm also interested in how you will personally handle some of these factional issues.
RIFT is breaking down faction walls and normalizing PvP in 1.10
"In 1.10, change is happening in a big way," RIFT CM James Nichols proclaimed on the forums. He then went on to announce that RIFT's two competing factions, the Guardians and the Defiant, will start to make steps toward unification in the final pre-expansion update. According to Nichols, while the two factions will remain philosophically opposed, they recognize the greater threat to the world and are coming together. For players, this means that there will be a lot more inter-faction communication and interaction. To start with, both factions will be able to join together for public groups, trading, the dungeon finder, raids, instant adventure, and weddings. The team also has plans to open up chat channels, quest sharing, guilds, friends list, and more between the two sides. There will be exceptions to some of these features on PvP servers, however. RIFT is also preparing to implement PvP normalization, which means that all players competing in PvP will do so with the same stats and no benefits from gear. Trion Worlds promises that there will still be "meaningful PvP progression" but that this should put the emphasis on skill rather than gear. [Thanks to Warbs and Marc for the tip!]
Some Assembly Required: How to screw up your sandbox
Between bouts of Global Agenda, Age of Conan, and a stack of single-player games, I've been taking my own advice lately and looking for a new sandbox. The end of Star Wars Galaxies is forcing my hand, and I figured I'd better start now if I don't want to be stuck with nothing to play on December 16th. While there is a veritable ton of different sandboxes to choose from, I must admit to being a bit frustrated with nearly all of them. If it's not one thing, it's another, and most are such glaring deficiencies that I can't help but wonder what was going through the minds of the development teams during the construction process. Join me after the cut for a few things you should consider if you're making an MMORPG sandbox.
SWTOR's James Ohlen says no cross-faction communication [Updated]
At Comic-Con this year, Star Wars: The Old Republic Game Director James Ohlen told us that in current testing, all cross-faction communication was open. While the developers were confident that communication methods would change before the game launched, the team wasn't sure which exact channels would be available for cross-faction messaging. In an interview with TenTonHammer, James Ohlen has now indicated that cross-faction communication had changed. Is this good or bad? We will let you judge for yourself with a direct quote from the article. Ohlen replied to a question about sending items to cross-faction alts via mailboxes. Currently no, you have to do it the old fashioned way through the mailbox, but only if they're the same faction. There are multiple reasons why we don't want the different factions to communicate with each other. We had the big argument that this isn't like Horde and Alliance, we all speak Galactic Standard so we should just allow it. So we actually did allow it for a little while. The argument against it was that, what happens is people start saying inappropriate things to the other side. That's just the way it is when you're on a different side and you gank each other, people tend to say inappropriate things. To be fair, the question only concerned mailboxes. Ohlen later clarified in the interview: "You won't see the other faction's chat at all, so they can't chat with you and you can't chat with them." We know for certain there will be a large group of SWTOR fans upset about this design choice because it will inhibit their style of gameplay. We will look for further clarification on this subject, so stay tuned to Massively for more information. [Update: Georg Zoeller has clarified the issue in a post on the official forums. We've included his response behind the break.]
Wings Over Atreia: Shakespeare in Aion
OK, OK, maybe Shakespeare is a bit melodramatic, but the idea of taking on a role and playing it out on a stage is not a foreign idea -- even in Aion. It just so happens that this stage is not under your feet but in virtual space instead. Besides, I happen to love Shakespeare, so props to me for mentioning him in a gaming column! Now, I am the first to admit that NCsoft doesn't make it easy for a gamer to roleplay in Aion; there are scant few tools to support this style of play. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Despite this dearth, there is in fact a whole community comprised of legions both large and small as well as individuals. These players use personal connections and a player-created chat channel in-game as well as external tools such as the Aion Roleplayers website to bind themselves together and support the community as a whole. So what exactly is roleplay, and how viable is it in the world of Atreia? Exit stage left (past the cut) to define RP, debunk some RP myths, and explore RP in general Aion.
Guest Post: Guild wars pit friend against friend
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. World of Warcraft is a social game. Blizzard made this clear with the recent addition of the Real ID system. I myself have made use of this. Being an officer in several small roleplaying guilds on both Alliance and Horde sides of Cenarion Circle (US), I have found that there is a great bit of planning and organization required in running official guild wars. Currently, the Alliance guild I am an officer in is in a heated battle with a Horde-side guild. Both are roleplaying guilds. Both guilds (in the roleplaying sense) have similar ideas -- both are pro-Horde/pro-Alliance, respectively. One may hate the other side more than the other, but the hate is there. These guild wars bring a certain fun dynamic to the game. Having a sworn nemesis, whether it is for a character of your creation or a friend from an opposing faction, is just a great way to enjoy the game. Plotting someone's demise, thinking of strategies to take him down? It adds another layer to an already multifaceted world. However, there are a few tips I have noticed that really help with these particular battles. Some things come in handy in a roleplaying context; others focus on fair play, so that people will want to continue to the "war" and not just want to ignore/report your taunts!
The Queue: Prelude to drunken frivolity edition
Welcome to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Allison Robert is your hostess today.I think the title is fairly self-explanatory, n'est-ce pas?Radioted asks...With the recent implementation of faction change thinning the walls between Horde and Alliance all the more, has there been any talking bubbling up of implementing cross-faction mail, even if only fore stuff like heirlooms?Battle.net 2.0 will allow cross-faction chat, but we haven't heard anything concrete concerning cross-faction mail. Wryxian has mentioned that it's something they'd like to do, however. Heirloom items do transfer with your character if you switch them from Horde to Alliance and vice versa, and right now that's the only way to get an heirloom to your cross-faction toons.
Battle.net 2.0 to allow cross-faction communication
As noted in my previous article on the subject, the new and improved Battle.net won't affect only StarCraft II -- among other things, the Real ID feature will allow you to see what other Blizzard games your real-life friends or acquaintances are playing, should they desire it. But that's apparently not the only perk for WoW players. Blizzard recently announced that migration of WoW accounts to Battle.net accounts will soon be mandatory, and posted a FAQ about it on the official website; one detail immediately caught my eye...What will change in World of Warcraft after the forced migration? The core gameplay experience will remain unchanged as a result of the migration. However, you'll be able to take part in all of the new Battle.net features, such as cross-realm, cross-faction, and cross-game chat. That's right. Got a friend that plays Horde and you play Alliance? You'll be able to talk to them from inside WoW, even if they're on a different server. Heck, even if they're playing StarCraft II or Diablo 3, you'll still be able to chat with them. How cool is that?To quell some concerns that'll surely get posted in the comments, the extent that others can utilize your Real ID is completely up to you. You decide who gets to see what information and to what extent -- if you want your best friend to be able to see what game you're playing or what server you're on, you can do that, but you can also prevent your annoying cousin from pestering you to play StarCraft II while you're raiding. No, Jeff, I actually can wait for you to "pwn" me. Gots to get me some purps.
Why the language barrier might be a good idea after all
It seems to come up quite often. Someone wants the language barrier bought down. Even if it requires questing or skilling up, they want to be able to talk to the other faction. It would even make lore sense, since at the least, Undead and Blood Elves should probably know common, and Thalassian is probably close enough to Darnassian that someone who knows one language should probably be able to get the gist of the other. That said, Blizzard's held pretty fast to the principle of squelching cross-factional communication. The only way you can make yourself known to the other side is with the default emotes, or sometimes with a bit of creative typing that can only convey crude messages. Honestly, at one point I was pretty gung-ho on removing the language barrier. As an RPer, a big part of the fun for me is being able to talk, act out scenes, say stuff in character, and all that. It was sort of annoying sometimes that I could be in an epic struggle with, say, a guild of Undead assassins, but any actual communication we made, be it OOC arranging of the storyline and in-game events or IC trash talk, would have to all be on message boards and email. It loses some of the spontaneity of in-game interaction. That said, lately I think I've decided that I'm fine with the current of level of cross-faction communication. Talking to the other side would cause more trouble than it would be worth.
