Tobold's Blog
Friday, March 23, 2007
 
Mark Jacobs interview on MMOG Nation

I'm looking forward to Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning. The only reason I'm not writing about it is that I'm not in any beta for it, and can only report second-hand news. But if I had to place bets on the most successful MMORPGs coming out in 2007, WAR would come right behind LotRO. Only that I'm not 100% convinced yet that the WAR release date won't be delayed into 2008.

Anyway, to feed you at least with the above-mentioned second-hand news, MMOG Nation has a nice interview with Mark Jacobs on WAR and other subjects. Quote: "Question: What do you think Warhammer does 100% better than anything else?

Mark: Oh, our RvR. That’s something we did obviously quite successfully with Dark Age of Camelot. If you talk to our players, even players of other games, they think that Camelot’s implimentation of RvR and PvP was the best in any MMO."


And yes, it was. DAoC had by far the best PvP around. Too bad I hate PvP, and even the best PvP isn't terribly attractive to me. But as there are a lot of people that do like PvP, I can see how WAR could become quite a big success. Personally what I always liked about RvR was how optional it was, you could keep out of it if you wanted to, or just participate when you felt like it. Nevertheless that system doesn't solve the principal problem of how to balance classes to be equally strong in PvP, but different as well as equally interesting in PvE.

I must admit that I'm not a big Mark Jacobs fan, because in the past he has said some very stupid things about RMT, basically blaming evil players of trying to destroy his perfectly designed game worlds. I have always believed that RMT should be considered as unintended consequence of bad game design, and that the game developers are at least as much responsible for it as the gold farmers are. And apparently Mark is now at least recognizing that the only way to keep the gold farmers away is to have a different game design. He says "A guiding principle is something like, in this case, design the systems to discourage farming, and limit impact that gold farming companies can have on the game.", but refuses to go into the details of how such a system could work. I'm quite interested with what he comes up, and whether it works.

But the guy still has some very unrealistic views, based on a "developers are the new gods" attitude which often ends up clashing with what the players believe. He says: "I’m a real big believer in EULAs. EULAs are what help keep these games online. The day that developers in the United States lose the ability to enforce our own EULAs, is the day that MMOs will start to dissappear. These companies are breaking our EULAs, they’re flouting them in our face, their behavior’s in our face, saying “we can do whatever we want”, and I’m sorry, that’s just wrong." Well, if it's "just wrong", then why doesn't he go and sue IGE and all the other gold farming companies? It seems to me that the developers lost the ability to enforce their EULAs long ago. And that is because they wrote things into these EULAs that try to extend the rights of the developers and limit the rights of the players to an extent which is not compatible with the US legislation. They can't enforce their EULAs for the simple reason that these EULAs wouldn't hold up in court. It would take a brave soul and a huge amount of money to clear the question of virtual property rights in US courts far enough to enable writing enforcable EULAs.
Comments:
Having played warhammer (the tabletop game) for about 18 years, this is THE game I've always wanted to play. I'm hoping to have got through all the WOW content I want to see when it gets released.
 
Lucky for us I think the writers of this game have pulled back for more content, polish, oomph, to take on WoW. (Or at least I hope so.)
 
Nevertheless that system doesn't solve the principal problem of how to balance classes to be equally strong in PvP, but different as well as equally interesting in PvE.

Yeah, this is one of the gripes I have with wow (and previously mentioned).

It irks me that pve mages get a gimped invis, because of pvp considerations.

It always seems that pve suffers when classes are balanced for pvp.

I do agree with MJ that farmers are, at the very least, demoralizing.

Oh, and have you checked out Rome Rising yet?

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_heroes]Here's their Wiki.[/url]
 
To Mark "king of arrogance" Jacobs - those evil, evil gold selling companies - how dare they use a capitalistic system to make money (and meet a sorely unmet need). I completely forgot that all game companies are just making games for the gamers. Thanks for reminding me that game companies and their CEOs are just here to make the world a better place so we can all hold hands and sing Kumbya My Lord. None of you guys live in big houses, drive nice cars, have multi-million dollar retirement plans - I am sure all of you guys probably do this work for free. I know, it’s your game, your idea, etc, etc, ad nasuem - but didn’t the gold sellers have an original idea too? Boy, thanks so much for clearing that up. Those dastardly gold sellers. Capitalism sucks. I wonder that the real estate market is like in Cuba.

BTW, Mark, in case you forgot, you are not curing cancer - you are making a video game. Just FYI. Do something noble and we might feel sorry for you
 
Oh, please. Don't put capitalism up on a pedestal. It's morally neutral, like breathing air. Everyone engages in it from fuzzy teddy bear manufacturers to white slave traders, and their customers. A game company head is no more a hypocrite for opposing fellow capitalist gold farmers than a car dealership owner would be for objecting to the crack house next door -- engaging in lots of capitalism, mind you -- hurting his business.
 
So you can pick and choose who is allowed to participate in capitalism? When it is quite clear that RMT is NOT illegal in any way, shape or form? It's a video game. It is not a noble experiment. It is not going to end hunger. Comparing the sale of a digital sword to the sale of crack cocaine is akin to comparing Marc Jacobs to God. Sounds like to me you might want to get a life outside of the video game world. Keep telling youself, it's just a game, it's just a game, it's just a game....
 
Oh, I don't know about the crack cocaine analogy. Paying good money through illicit channels to get ahead in a mere game ... who doesn't have a life again? ;)
 
So you don't have a life if you play the game and you don't have a life if you participate in RMT - seems like we should just ban video games all together. Maybe read more books.
 
Blizzard could get rid of the gold farmers if they really wanted to.
Just get a GM character to wander round the world, make note of who the farmers are (so easy to tell), and then ban them.
Alternatively, just monitor the obvious farming areas, such as graveyards in Duskwood, Satyr areas in Felwood, Yetis in Winterspring,
Ogre areas everywhere and Dragonkin areas everywhere, see who is farming, and then - ban them. Easy.
 
"Just get a GM character to wander round the world, make note of who the farmers are (so easy to tell), and then ban them."

Well, they already ban them once they randomly mail gold in 100 gold increments to random people. You underestimate the gold sellers' persistence. If you order 100 gold, you'll most likely get it in random amounts at a time from different characters. 17 from one guy, 22 from another, 3 from another and so on.
 
The farmers could be looked at in a different light. They are at a win-win scenario if you consider:
1.) they love to play the game to the max, efficiency being the max.
2.) they are rewarded greatly, in respects to having to do physical work for earnings.

Now take the risk/reward formula, and put the "american gamer demand" catalyst into the equation and its easy to see why the banning of even 100 farmers, doesnt prevent the other 38,000 playing WoW (profitting even slightly) from abusing/living how they choose.

It is even soo political as the company itself sets up a very profesional business model for success (advertisements, delivery, production) they even own elaborate high-rise buildings devoted to their successful overseas operations (IGE-do a seach).

It becomes very difficult to enforce EULA's on a individual basis (as farmers dont care if u ban 1 or 100 of their accts) because there is a natural breakpoint which keeps farmers in the green, and companies(blizzard, Sony) in the red and that fine line is REAL PLAYERS GET BANNED FOR PLAYING LEGIT, just like REAL players get banned for playing the game in a different way (farming). There is too much gray area, and too much Supervision required to prevent the inevitable from happening on any game that sports RL value for its INGAME items/services... because any company that dumbs its game down to a zero-value for the time/effort/items/worth ingame brings the gameplay/game itself down to a crappy game (sort of like offering only a "high score" as the only reward... aka dance dance revolution)


It is not easy to enforce strict no-farming policies, and EULA's create a trap for both the company and the players/farmers involved as it becomes a moneysink if anyone litigates... which unless the game has ingame value... not many lawyers will even litigate at all (holds no value in court).
 
Too bad you are looking forward to this game, the managers in charge are running it into the ground just like Imperator and they are starting to hemorrhage developers like crazy. Methinks EA has another studio sweep and clear in its future.
 
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