State of the Game, Whats coming for ORvR - Snap reaction

So Mark Jacobs has made his state of the game address.

If we get through the fluff what does he actually say.

1.2.1 also contains the initial Keep Upgrade system (more on this below), more improvements to T3 in terms of content and experience and the Combat and Careers team will give some extra loving to the Archmage, Shaman, White Lion, and Marauder, another Live Event and much more

All good, especially healer love.

We are also working on a new ORvR Influence bar which is filled by killing players and unlocks higher renown ranks in T4. We also want to improve XP, Renown and Influence Rewards for fighting other players apart from those bars.

The detail will make or break this, we will have to see what more we can learn.

We are also looking at implementing a “Nemesis” system which tracks the top 20 enemy players that kill you and which will give you rewards for hunting them down.

I can see this being very popular. I have already been thinking how best to use this system. should I pick as healers, all high renown players or players with high play times. I can see this being fun.

We want to make BOs more relevant and necessary for the Keep take to Zone Capture progression.

Interesting, with some great potential, short on actual detail

Our current plans include putting in a Keep Upgrade system that encourages guilds to claim and upgrade Keeps. These upgrades would be usage upgrades, not just visual upgrades. We are looking at giving interesting and useful things to guilds who upgrade Keeps; defense improvements, guilds rewards, etc. We also want to put in more attacker options, more attacker abilities, and experiment with new types of siege warfare. Down the ramp (a pun a day and all that) a bit, we are also working on putting in an additional ramp to the Keep Lord room in every Keep and Fortress in the game.

Could be fluff, could be great, we need to see the detail. An adtional ramp will be a great move.

players will no longer be able to bypass other players in City Selection and you will no longer have City Instances which are 40 vs. 0!

About time.

I suspect that some people may get very annoyed about the lack of detail and it does read as if Mark was backed into a corner and wrote this against his will. Overall, lots of potential and I am optomistic. Mythic do seem to be concious of flaws in the game and they are trying to address them.

Multiple personality gamer

I love a good flame war. Back in the day in Everquest we called them NAG, Nearly Anything goes posts. In WoW we had our own community forums long before the official ones went up. The best read threads were always the juicy fights, the name and shames.

My forum personality is split though.

On certain forums Rugby and Theorycraft I tend to be civil, conscientious helpful. On class specific forums I tend to approach things the same. I am all for the sharing of information and knowledge and these forums allow that (not that I don’t get distracted)

But in certain Threads my better angels take a vacation, temptation rears its head and I am quite happy to dive right in. Sometimes its goading an individual that is ripe for harvest so that his rage explodes across his keyboard ( I am disturbingly talented at this). Another is catching someone talking about a subject they haven’t a clue about and slowly illustrating their ignorance. My favourite of these was a poster pontificating on Alexander the Great’s military tactics on which I based one of my Masters Degrees.

My personality in MMO’s suffers a similar spilt, in PvE I am calm(relative term) and in PvP I am consumed with passions. In PvE I think I would be characterised as helpful .I enjoy getting angry, I enjoy the stress of close games and I love banter across vent as the game gets hectic and tempers rise. It makes the victories sweeter. Fortunately while I burn hot I don’t burn long. In fact I can switch back to normal mode pretty handily. On the other side I can often be the peace broker between others,

These various personalities are similar to the real me (does the real me write this?) but they are different too.

Lots has been said about how the anonymity of the internet allows us to do what we may not normally do.

I think the more interesting question is why we create the personalities we create. Why will I goad someone on a forum? Why will I get real pleasure for destroying my foe in a PvP battle?

Is it is simple as releasing the demons we normally keep hidden? I am not sure it’s merely about letting go. In some way that is too passive, I don’t open the cage and let them out. I create and polish them and while they are similar it’s their differences that make me wonder. My forum persona can be the most vicious. I looked at some posts I made over 4 years ago and I was surprised and some of it.

I think back to some of the arguments I have had over vent, some raging screaming matches.
The thing is, I don’t have many regrets. I enjoy the rough and tumble of debate and if it gets rambunctious and frays at the edges, so be it. We live in a such a victim culture that it might do us no harm to push the edge out as adults. Its no harm to be passionate, there are too many grey men and John Majors in MMO’s. They are more holier than thou hypocrites in games and games forums than at an abstinence rally.

So by all means create you own persona, at least have one

I can take it, can you?