Folks,

Over the last few months I’ve spoken about our continued focus on improving our open RvR systems. While we have taken some major steps in the last month, we believe that there is much more we can do to encourage people to take part in oRvR throughout the entire evolution of their character(s). Over the next few months we have some very exciting changes and additions taking place. Please note that as always, this does not represent everything that either we are doing or thinking about doing, just what we, as of now, plan on adding to WAR.

We have a number of major initiatives planned for oRvR in WAR. Please keep in mind that these changes/systems apply to oRvR only and not to scenarios. This is not all we are working on but these do reflect the majority of oRvR additions that we are currently working on/planning for the next few months.

First, we have created an RvR Influence system. This system is designed to reward our oRvR players with lots of new stuff that you can only get through oRvR. This will be a complimentary system to our PQ Influence system. This system is already implemented in 1.1 and is scheduled to go LIVE along with that version in December.

Second, we want to improve the visibility that players have into oRvR and make it easier for players to get involved in the action quickly and easily. We have a number of wide-ranging changes going into our map and travel systems to allow players to better understand the state of oRvR in our game and also allow them to get to the action faster. We have already taken one step with putting a Rally Master in each Warcamp but we will also add the ability for people to have a second bind point to make it even easier for players to move around the maps. We will also make it easy for players to see where players from their Realm are engaging in oRvR, a Campaign HUD for all tiers and other improvements. We will also improve Tier-wide messaging about what is going on in Battlefield Objectives and Keeps. Other additions include changes to the UI, in-game manual improvements, map enhancements, and a few other changes.

Third, we want to provide greater incentives to players to participate in oRvR. In order to accomplish this we will be adding additional layers to the questing system of oRvR including the addition of Keep Quests, “Daily Event Quests”, Chained RvR Missions, improve the initial Tome Unlocks and other oRvR-oriented Events. We will also improve our BO itemization. Our goal is to provide players with even more incentive for participating in oRvR than we have already.

Fourth, we want to encourage guilds to take and control keeps, and we will continue our work on adding better rewards for Guilds who own Keeps as well as the addition of a system of Keep upgrades. This system will be added to the game in several stages beginning in the late winter.

Finally, we will begin work on a global oRvR “Fame” system that will be tied directly to the Tome of Knowledge which will provide more rewards, titles, experience, etc. for participating and being successful in oRvR. This system will provide even more incentives for people to participate in oRvR than the current systems and one that fits nicely both with the ToK’s concept as “This is your life” as well as an additional advancement and reward system.

Please keep in mind that these additions are subject to change and given the nature of these changes/improvements, they will not go LIVE until we have thoroughly tested them. However, these are crucial improvements to WAR and are being treated as such by the team.

Finally, I want to close this out with a brief explanation about the role that we believe that oRvR should play in WAR. It’s really as simple as this, oRvR should be a major focus for leveling, item gain, etc. in WAR. Some of the systems are already in place and in Tier 4, oRvR is alive and well. On other Tiers, however, oRvR is not being engaged in as often as we had hoped when we launched WAR. Our goal is to ensure that oRvR is the place where players can level the fastest, get the best items and overall, have a great time while doing it. It is supposed to be riskier, more challenging but ultimately, more rewarding than any other place within WAR. What is outlined in this letter are some of the ways we plan on making this happen over the next few months and beyond.

As always, we thank you for your patronage and support. We won’t let you down.

Mark

Folks,

So, let's be clear on a few things before proceeding:

1) I'm not going to answer any questions in this topic apart from what is contained in my letter. This topic is for discussion of the oRvR letter only. I'm not being rude, uncaring, etc. but everyone here knows that if I go off-topic just once, this thread will devolve into lots of "Look at my issue" posts and arguments about those posts and this thread will be rendered useless.

2) I've said multiple times that the letter only details some of the things that we are working on. It is very clear about that so I don't think that we need to see any more "Mythic needs to fix this/address this/etc." in this thread as per (1) and (2). Also, please keep in mind that the odds that we are already paying attention to your oRvR issue(s)is quite high as oRvR is the focus of a number of people at Mythic and not just me.

3) In regards to one slightly off-topic issue (crashes), the game is very stable and is not crashing a lot, so any statements saying the servers are crashing like crazy are simply not true. I'll post more on this when I get some additional information from the team but the fact is that the servers are still stable. The "server stability" message that people are talking about I'll explain in more detail once I get some more information from the team.

4) In terms of the whole "my letter is fluff stuff" well, that's simply not true. This thread is probably at least 50/50 in terms of "Give us more stuff in oRvR" posts so I doubt that those people think that it is fluff even if all that was in it was us adding some shiny new stuff to the game. However, considering that my letter makes it clear that the changes include everything from experience gain, renown gain, item game, keep upgrades, new systems and titles, I'm not sure how that stuff can be considered fluff. The whole point of these additions/changes is to make leveling through oRvR more rewarding and faster and not simply to give people a shiny new toy every 5 levels or so.

5) In terms of the fame system being a new grind, no, not at all. It is intended to be the oRvR equivalent of the ToK for PvE but geared to oRvR. It is meant to be a compliment to the other oRvR reward systems but like I said, kicked up a few notches.

6) In terms of "This is not what the player base wants", well, the player base, as usual in any MMO, wants a lot of different things. Some players want more gear, other players want titles, others want experience, etc. and some want everything and more. However, in one of those rare instances where almost the entire player base wants one thing, I believe it is simply that the player base wants more people to engage in oRvR. In order to do that, we will use a variety of systems, rewards, etc. to get people into oRvR. If want we are doing/planning on doing isn't enough, well, we'll keep trying and add more incentives. There is no singly "silver bullet" that will get more people into oRvR instantly that also doesn't mess things up more in the long term. We've already done a lot to get more people into oRvR and we'll continue to do a lot more over the next few months and beyond.

7) In terms of "If we don't do this tomorrow, we're out of business" stuff, well, sorry, that's not how these things work. No MMO developer designs, tests and deploys major system upgrades quickly. Sometimes they have them already in the works/developed before they talk about them but apart from that, adding systems as complicated as the ones we're adding can't happen overnight here and they don't happen anywhere else either. We're upgrading a lot of things over the next few months in oRvR as well as the rest of the game and no developer's resources are unlimited. No MMO ever sprung completely done from the developer's head and WAR is no exception. We're working a lot of things besides these oRvR additions and we'll keep churning out content as fast as we can. The entire team is still focused on the LIVE version of WAR so it's not like we are being distracted by anything else.

On the "Why is this stuff taking so long?" it's only two months since we've launched and we have two major patches already in testing. The first is 1.0.6 with a ton of C&C changes/fixes and 1.1 with new content, fixes, etc. 1.0.6 is nearing final and I hope that 1.1 will go LIVE more quickly than 1.0.6 did. However, we are going to test and iterate on our patches longer than we did at times with DAoC precisely because we don't want to repeat some of the mistakes we made then. Unlike in DAoC, the decisions we are making on a lot of these issues are not being made simply by one individual but rather being talked about and vetted from multiple people within Mythic. There are times when I do say "We must do this, period" but I prefer to get people's thoughts, ideas, feedback, etc. before we undertake any major changes. And in terms of other people on the team, they have to get buy-in and sign-off on anything big. Again, we are not going to repeat some of the mistakes that we made with DAoC. If this means it will take a little longer, so be it. We need to get it right as opposed to simply getting it now.

So, those are some of my thoughts and additional comments for now.

Mark

Jezyk angielska,troodna jazyk, co Czerpnia?Polonska toze trodna, prawda?
Powiedzialbym ci "pierdol sie kmiocie" ale poziom endorfin nie pozwala mi na tak negatywna wypowiedz. Moze zagraj destro na K8P?

xones - narzekają wszyscy uzależnieni od innych mmorpg - szczególnie WoW czy L2... bo WAR to nie WoW, nie ma tego, tamtego, najlepeij aby to był WoW pod inną nazwą wtedy by nikt nie narzekal...

dla mnie gra zaczęła się naprawdę na 40lvl, chociaż wiele osob po zrobieniu "endgejma" dalo sobie spokój rozczarowani tymże... no coż, jak się wynosi oczekiwania zbudowane na innych, swoich "ulubionych" mmorpg to nie dziwne, że rozczarowuje...

Jak ktos mi powie ze levelowanie w WAR ssie, to napluje mu w twarz

Dla mnie problem jest to ze trzeba levelowac. W ten czy inny sposob trzeba bic expa. To sie zrobilo troche nudne :<

Ja tam levelowania prawie nie czuje. Wczoraj byl fajny task w heavy metal i wszyscy siedzieli w RvR. Nawet nie zauwazylem kiedy zrobilem prawie caly level. Dwa dni wczesniej poszli z gildia robic PQ i tez w okolo godzine zrobilem pol levela.
Mowa o lvlu 35+, bo na nizszych to juz zupelnie szybko leci.

Oczywiscie levelowanie renownu trwa dluzej (chyba ze ktos grinduje SC odpowiednim jobem), ale nie trzeba miec lvl 80 odrazu.