ALFA vs WOW

[danielmn]

Difference- WOW has paid dedicated people to add new content and update.
ALFA has non-paid dedicated people that do what they can when they can.

I appreciate the WOW sentament, but I'm looking under the hood and I see no feasable way to make ALFA "tick" like WOW. THere's only so much free time peeps are willing to spend non-paid to make the gameplay what it is. That said, I think we do a good job of it.

*Steeltoes clunk off*

[AcadiusLost]

There are certainly merits in examining what parts of the MMO experience "work" in terms of player satisfaction, and considering in what ways ALFA might benefit from that wealth of experience, where appropriate.

The achievement point is a good observation; I believe this is one area we might be able to make some progress in for ALFA, if we can devise ways to support/track progression along lines that don't directly augment PCs statistically, and make IC sense. The central persistency database can work well for this sort of thing, remembering the names of the PCs who spend the most time in a given area, and adding them to random speakstrings of the NPCs for example. ("Have you met John Conner yet? That fellow is at the bar all the time!", or "Aldus Magehand has really been hitting the books lately.") I'm sure there are plenty of ways that sort of thing could be set up; the challenge is to keep it from becoming an incentive to OOC behaviour (Most Goblins killed, most loot sold to a given merchant, etc).

For what it's worth with regard to interface, WASD (keyboard-walking) optimizations came in with the last NWN2 patch (1.22) which all of ALFA's servers now run. We haven't done much testing with high player counts and multiple players holding the walk keys simultaneously, but it shouldn't pose the sort of lag problems that it did with earlier versions of the game.

[Duck One]

Difference- WOW has paid dedicated people to add new content and update.

That's fair, but you also don't have the burden of servicing 10,000,000 in 23 languages either. Then why is ALFA trying to create a realm as big and vast as WoW? Why are thre builders working on 6 different servers when all that effort could be going into one? Why not one thriving server rather than 6 relatively empty ones? One thing ALFA could learn a bit from WoW is their management of server density: having enough players to make a server thrive before adding the next. Community is a huge part of the success of their model. You can log in, get in a guild, socialize, trade goods, and play PvP without using any of the server content. There are always plenty of people on, but not so many that performance suffers.

I would think that in a place where role playing is king, community would be given the highest priority, and server density would therefore trump vastness. ALFA doesn't have to "tick like WoW", but it could do well to understand what attracts and retains players and try to make decisions with that in mind.

[Brokenbone]

<SNIP>

The achievement point is a good observation; I believe this is one area we might be able to make some progress in for ALFA, if we can devise ways to support/track progression along lines that don't directly augment PCs statistically, and make IC sense. The central persistency database can work well for this sort of thing, remembering the names of the PCs who spend the most time in a given area, and adding them to random speakstrings of the NPCs for example. ("Have you met John Conner yet? That fellow is at the bar all the time!", or "Aldus Magehand has really been hitting the books lately.") I'm sure there are plenty of ways that sort of thing could be set up; the challenge is to keep it from becoming an incentive to OOC behaviour (Most Goblins killed, most loot sold to a given merchant, etc).
<SNIP>

Figuring out the speakstring business could lead to some cool results. Spitting out the names of people who achieved maybe this or that common or uncommon static, or alternately, failed in miserable death, could be interesting for ambience. "I heard <INSERTNAME> really gave the <INSERTCRITTERS> the ol' what for out in <INSERTLOCATION>!!" or "Raise a glass to <INSERTNAME>, pretty sure the <INSERTCRITTERS> made a feast of him on a <DAY/NIGHT> just like <TODAY/TONIGHT> *wipes tear*"

[Duck One]

The achievement point is a good observation; I believe this is one area we might be able to make some progress in for ALFA...

The way I invinsioned this working is with faction and factional prestige. Do enough quests and your prestige crosses a certain threshold, and things start to happen. Consider:

Titles: NPC dialogues are modified to refer to PC's by a prestige title
Access: "restricted" areas become open (like access to the guild hall)
Perks: Nominal services are performed at a discount

Since ALFA has permadeath, how about a monument to fallen PC's who have achieved a certain prestige level? How about modifying the dialogue of the bard in the tavern to tell the tale?

These kinds of things work best if you let players know in advance that these status elements are available so they can have a goal.

[Zakharra]

Hey Kest, I mentioned WAR first! So if people want to try it out, talk to ME!

(( Just FYI, the reason that we care is that if you get 6 people to join, you can get a manticore or griffon mount. Hmmph. ))

Truth be told, I've not played WAR in over a month because I am sick of unbalanced servers. Still, the engine is great. And Kest, we have *very* similar UIs (though I don't use the waaagh shock bar you have at the top, and I use a HUD combat thingy etc,, but still, very close).

Yeah. The Horde is usually outnumbered by a 2-1 average, 5-1 on one servers, but it's still fun. I'd like to try WAR, but no money. Oh well.

The way I invinsioned this working is with faction and factional prestige. Do enough quests and your prestige crosses a certain threshold, and things start to happen.

That would be great! To be able to build rep that gives you rewards like previously restricted goods, maybe a discount on potions, armor repair (does ALFA have armor/weapon damage?), perhaps some quests that those that don't let people with the high rep have access to them.

Having skills you can use ingame would be nice too. Being able to mine ore, skin animals, pick herbs, find rough gems, being able to turn these things into usable goods..

[Mikayla]

For the people who wonder why we are comparing ALFA with WOW or WAR ... well ... I think we all acknowledge that ALFA and WOW/WAR are very different products. Indeed, I would go so far as to say WOW and WAR are different enough to warrant a thread of their own (in another forum far far away of course). But in the end, for us, they are identical in one salient respect: They are both ways to spend our free time.

On that basis, they have to compete equally. In short, which is more fun? I love role-playing, and I don't think anyone can say different (my current PC on NWN2/ALFA has a 20 CHA and her highest skill is perform - in some 30-40 hours of game play, she is has been in combat exactly 3 times and killed exactly 3 orcs - she is ALL about the social interaction of role-play) - BUT - even though there is no role-play in WAR (at least on my server) its still fun, and sometimes, much more fun than ALFA. Why? Well, many of the reasons mentioned previously (I think Duck summed it up VERY well). There is always something to do, always other people on, and, most importantly, always something to achieve which is just out of reach but coming close (another level, another realm-rank, a better weapon, a better mount or better armor, new access to a new dungeon that has better loot, etc. etc.). Even after 6 months of really intense play, my PC who has maxed out her levels still has LOTS to get, and there is always something just around the corner to keep you hooked (right now, I am just a few realm-points away from my next realm-rank, 55, and I get ... well .. forget the details!).

ALFA provides a different kind of fun. The role-play I get with Mr. Duncan, Zak, Kiyoti, and others in the Aurilian group is unheard of in WAR. But ...

... in 30-40 hours of play, I've not seen any real DM time, not done much of anything, in fact, I sit around and talk mostly. Which is mostly what I want to do ... but ... it would be nice if there were other things to do. Now, you say, a lot of this is my fault - I built a social oriented drow. Well, true enough! But .. if I built a dark elf on WAR (and I did) then there is a whole world available and open to her. Not so in ALFA. So, sometimes its hard to work up the enthusiasm to log into ALFA. I know there is not going to be any DMing, we are not likely going to go on any adventures (and with 6 hit-points, I wouldn't survive them anyway), and its not likely going to change (at least for me) for another 5200 experience points. Again, my problem for choosing drow (and for setting up the ECL system the way it is - I advocated for it) but regardless of whose fault it is, in the end, ALFA is still competing against WAR (and Fallout 3) for my spare time. And sometimes ALFA loses. Like, you know, for the previous 8-9 months.

So, the point of all this is to reinforce something Duck said - don't dismiss WOW and other MMOs out of hand. Take a deeper look at them, see what they do right, and then adopt those things which are appropriate for ALFA. Not every good feature of an MMO is appropriate for a hard-core role-play permadeath world like ALFA (if we had WAR-style respawns here in ALFA I would never come back to play) but some things can be learned from them (like always having something to hook your players into coming back, lots of static content for when there is no DM, etc. etc.) MMOs have a lot to offer - if they didn't, 10s of millions of people wouldn't be hooked on them!

[Hialmar]

How can you decry the cartoon style of WoW on one hand and praise the cartoon style of LotRO on the other? How does that work? Characters in LotRO looks like claymation dolls...

Well I suppose it depends on your preferences.

LOTRO characters are realistic to me. WoW ones aren't.

YMMV

[johnlewismcleod]

Player A: "whoa...hey dude...where'd you get that self-propelled vorpal booma-rang from?"

Player B: "Man...my homey made it for me. What level are you"

Player A: "72...you?"

Player B: "Oh, dude...you can't use one of these till your 90, but I got another homey who could make you a sniper musket of never-miss."

Player A "Cool dude, how much?"

Player B: " 500k, I think...lemme text him right quick...hold on"

Player A: "Sorry, dude...my bad...I need to go catch a dragon ride to the PvP Arena...got some freinds waiting. I'll check you later"

Player C: "what up, dude?"

Player B: "Oh, man...never mind. I thought I had one of your muskets sold, but that lamo doesn't know how to RP...F*** him."

Player C: "..."

Player B: "hey man...loan me a musket...I'm going to hide on the ridge and snipe him with it . He'll be soooo pissed!"

Player C:



*drops shovel...runs away from hole*

[Rotku]

[Aelred]

Last year I logged over 3 months of gametime on LOTRO. The graphics are the most realistic I have seen out there. Moria and now Lothlorien are absolutely breathtaking. The game designers have outdone themselves by putting alot of Tolkien lore and details into the game. For me it is an incredible experience being in those places I read about and making my own stories in them. Being a classical musician in RL I immersed also myself in the LOTRO music system that supports multiple part music.
I normally dual box two characters at the same time and actually bought 4 lifetime accts so that I could play quartet music by myself. I play on the US RP server(Landroval) and though there is some quality RP going on, there is very little of it.

NWN2 to me is ugly and clunky and frustrating. The camera movement is lame. Walking animation is ridiculously bad. The face models we have are 90% ugly. They never implemented mounts. It is a true shame they did not do a better job making this game when we all know they could have. But alas - it is still the only game out there where you can actually world build with D&D rules.

Although it is not Forgotten Realms I always wonder why we never got a serious RP group going in D&D Online. (great graphics and D&D basics) Though I suppose it would have brought alot of frustration trying to RP in a place where the majority are not RPing and just running past you doing quests and deeds.

[Hialmar]

Ah good I thought I was the only around here who loved Tolkien and LOTRO's rendering of Tolkien's world.

Too bad we are not on the same servers

About D&DO, I played it a little during beta but I had trouble understanding the rules. They are so far from D&D3... Maybe they look more like D&D4 but I don't know enough of D&D4 and D&DO to be able to compare.
The game was quite nice but it was a lot like Guildwars to me: lots of instances and very little to do in the truly massively multiplayer part. However I didn't play a lot and never left the first big town so...

[Aelred]

It would be cool to play with another alfan in LOTRO but yest we are on diff servers and also the US servers dont connect with the european servers.

I too tried Guildwars for a bit. The graphics were really nice and the animations amazing. I played a monk and when you did his /dance emote he would do a long and intricate series of Tai Chi moves - smooth as silk. Everytime it would remind me how clunky the NWN2 movements are and get me pissed at the NWN2 designers for not doing a better job. I hated how anything outside of town in Guildwars is instanced and how everyone in town displayed their ridiculously random cosmetic pets...it was like a circus.

[AcadiusLost]

I believe animations are editable via a toolset plugin, if anyone wants to try their hands at improving on the walk and other animations; never tried such myself, so I can't say how challenging it might be. The new sneak one isn't bad (even if it doesn't show for other players).

[Burt]

WoW (and for that matter, all MMORPGs I've played) is a soulless timesink. It can be entertaining, but never emotionally involving. There is no sense of attachment to the characters, world or plot. It is a shallow grind upon which I wasted more time than I care to admit. If someone asked me what good memories I have of playing WoW I could count them on one hand. In ALFA's case, I'd need to grow more limbs. We win by a huge margin.