I dont know about the rest of you people, but I'd rather wait for the game to pass the QC
tests with flying colors. Rather than it passes by 1 point and Rush deployment. Mostly because
the way how people demanded that Nexus get shipped out ASAP or we'll /quit.
Because of that, the Event(s) are having some issues to the point where there was 6 forum
posts one of them still on going at 26. Where its bugged or not even close to being playable
for random amount of people.
TDLR: I'd Rather wait for a fews weeks/month(s) for BGs to be deployed with out
so many issues than to have it Rushed deployed WITH issues. So chillax and let them
do their
Actually, I think if they didn't push out Nexus like they did there would be even more grumbling/quitting because of lack of stuff to do. As crappy as it is, it's providing 2 hours of alternative playtime for level-capped players on the 3 most-played days.
But that's still only a maximum of 6 hours a week of "something else to do". Even for people (like me) with full-time jobs/school, that's not a lot for an MMO. 1 BG would provide a theoretically unlimited amount of time per week.
As someone mentioned, the BGs in kTERA did exist, but they sucked so they were pulled. The "livestream"s people can watch are on youtube and are old. They do show easily fixable flaws, like not having a separate spawning area.
I just think Asian games are in general more PVE focused than western games. I wish I knew more about other Korean MMOs and whether they have BGs, but I'm thinking probably not.
The only other asian MMO I have experience with that tried pvp was ffxi after awhile. It was pretty pointless (but that goes to the list- ffxi has more pvp content than TERA too- that's right the game where you can't jump nor duel). It's probably a cultural thing where they are more coorperatively-driven and we are more competatively-driven in general. The feeling I got from the ffxi pvp was:
1. They don't know how to do this
2. It's meant to be light-hearted fun, whereas here PVP is srs business.
Also, I think the last thing player's that enjoy the game (like me) should be doing right now is "chillaxing". It's much harder to get players to return to a game than to retain them, and once a reputation is set it's hard to shrug off. I still think of how big Warhammer really could have gotten had it not lost half it's playerbase in 3 months (and for basically 3 simple reasons, which I mentioned before) and forevermore cemented a reputation of "failure".
TERA has an unprecedented window here to improve the game, just following a total over-hyped failure (SWTOR), in between WoW expansion cycles, and before Secret World and GW2 comes out, but it's not going to last forever and every day that passes that another bored player leaves because of lack of things to do, the worse for the game. I'm hearing terrible things about Secret World (not surprised because I know funcom), but the fact that it is "something different to do" will be sufficient to pull some from this game if they are bored.
Another example of how tenuous this window is- Rift is introducing a server vs.server conquest system next week. I'm personally thinking about checking it out after this month's sub runs out, not because I want at ALL to return to tab-targetting combat, but simply because I want stuff to do when I'm playing an MMO.
LIke I said before, the answer doesn't HAVE to be BGs, it's just that BGs are by far the easiest and proven way to increase engaging playtime.
EME is probably pretty excited that they actually pulled off transitioning this game to the western market, and they're clearly talented and savvy. They're small and the profit margin is probably huge. Knox seems a bit overly unconcerned with the state of the game in the reddit responses, probably because financially they'll probably be fine no matter what. The fact that they transitioned a game from Korea and had a stable release IS a success no matter what happens, but it could be much more.
I would suggest however that TERA is a potential goldmine with it's combat (I personally see as much potential for growth as I did with Vanilla WoW because yes, the combat is just that good), and future imported games are probably not going to be as good or have as great of a "hook" as the combat system in this game.
After reading the reddit discussion from Brian Knox, I was a little dissapointed that battlegrounds are not being pushed forward. I was also pretty shocked that they will only be for level 60s. That means that leveling alts will still be through the same weak quest system (Knox's words).
The combat is dying for PVP, even if it opens a can of worms of balancing.
Plus PVP content (battlegrounds) are dev friendly because they are endlessly repeatable and different every time depending on who's playing. This means lots of hours of gameplay for minimal dev effort.
I mean heck I played Rift for an entire month just doing battlegrounds and grinding out pvp gear. That required a total of 5 small maps to be developed for 1 to 2 months of playable content.
And what the game really needs right now is about 1 to 2 months of alternative playable content to get us to full implementation of the ktera update.
Even literally ONE battleground would mean an amazingly efficient dev/playtime ratio and add a lot to the game. If you have one done, shove it out!
Plus, please reconsider making them 60 only. Even a crappy deathmatch with zero objectives battleground available in 10 level brackets would go a LONG way to alleviating the lack of alternatives for leveling alts.
The last possible thing that should be done is 'rushing' any content. That is what other companies do, and that is part of the reason their content stability pales in comparison to a team who pushes for quality.
After reading the reddit discussion from Brian Knox, I was a little dissapointed that battlegrounds are not being pushed forward. I was also pretty shocked that they will only be for level 60s. That means that leveling alts will still be through the same weak quest system (Knox's words).
The combat is dying for PVP, even if it opens a can of worms of balancing.
Plus PVP content (battlegrounds) are dev friendly because they are endlessly repeatable and different every time depending on who's playing. This means lots of hours of gameplay for minimal dev effort.
I mean heck I played Rift for an entire month just doing battlegrounds and grinding out pvp gear. That required a total of 5 small maps to be developed for 1 to 2 months of playable content.
And what the game really needs right now is about 1 to 2 months of alternative playable content to get us to full implementation of the ktera update.
Even literally ONE battleground would mean an amazingly efficient dev/playtime ratio and add a lot to the game. If you have one done, shove it out!
Plus, please reconsider making them 60 only. Even a crappy deathmatch with zero objectives battleground available in 10 level brackets would go a LONG way to alleviating the lack of alternatives for leveling alts.
The last possible thing that should be done is 'rushing' any content. That is what other companies do, and that is part of the reason their content stability pales in comparison to a team who pushes for quality.
Well then they shouldn't have released a Western MMO without Battlegrounds.
The game has already been rushed. They could've waited for the ktera patch and released what would be considered a fully fleshed out MMO by today's standards (with Nexus as a Raid and refined battlegrounds, not to mention a second viable tank for PVE content).
But obviously the window for release was picked because it was months away from any other major releases.
This is as bare-bones and linear an MMORPG I've ever played (minus FFXIV), and I've played all the major releases dating back to ffxi.
I fear you, like the vibe I get from the Knox AMA, don't sense how soon this window of opportunity to fully-flesh out the game is going to shut forever.
I guess you could take a year and a half to completely remake the game and offer free time to people in the meantime like SquareEnix did with FFXIV, but neither EME nor Bluehole has the resources nor attachment to the franchise to be willing to do that.
Besides, I'm not talking about devloping a raid map, or new zone, or anything that would take too much time. I'm talking about creating or releasing a simple BG to start with just as the first of what I hope are many alternatives to playtime coming down the line.
In the meantime, we are getting more refinements to the Vanarch system.
I would say in hindsight it would have been much better to get their hands on the full QoA patch before releasing the game, but they probably wanted to get in before GW2 instead of getting in after. Again, in hindsight, I think it would have been better to get in after, but it is what it is. Yes, I think this game was rushed.
I would say in hindsight it would have been much better to get their hands on the full QoA patch before releasing the game, but they probably wanted to get in before GW2 instead of getting in after. Again, in hindsight, I think it would have been better to get in after, but it is what it is. Yes, I think this game was rushed.