Monday, July 14, 2008

Warhammer PVE: truth or lie, do or die.

Keen had a post up recently that explores a concern we both share: PVE in Warhammer. In last month’s newsletter, Mythic let us explore their new instance. Admittedly, the thing looks awesome. I have to say though, despite my glee while watching their video, I had one main thought above all else when I dug into the video: It’s about time.

I love the idea of RVR, I really do. It looks fun, engaging, and that it’s going to involve a lot of PVE by itself. On the other hand, and don’t kill me here, RVR strikes me as large scale, purpose driven, PVP. I know, I know, there’s more to it than that, but as someone who entered the MMO market with WoW, I guess I’m sheltered.

Thus far, the hype around WAR has been RVR-centric and why shouldn’t it be? At its core, WAR will be an RVR game. After all, war is everywhere. That’s awesome in my book but players will burn out eventually. It can’t be prevented if there’s only one core past time to a game. If your game is PVE centric, players will burn out on the grinds. If it’s PVP centric, they’ll burn out on the repetition of battle. PVP is fun as hell, sure, but you can get saturated on anything if you do it enough (oh Chinese buffet, how I miss you).

So, I’m nervous when we’re only getting little hints about PVE content because it’s “an RVR game at its core.” That’s fine but in order for this game to survive in the long term, they need to put in a LOT of PVE content to satisfy the portion of the player base who doesn’t want to RVR or scenario all the time.

Mythic is putting in dungeons. Cool dungeons. Dungeons that are streamlined and that, at least in part, can be done by everyone in your realm! I love that idea, but how long will it last? Will 70’s be content with this type of scenario? I’m not so sure.

There’s a definite audience for raid content and right now WAR is only offering the king encounters. Nice concept, awesome design, coolness. Enough to keep the raiders satisfied? No. I’m no raider but many of my friends, in-game and out, are. They enjoy the scripted events and mastering the encounters. They enjoy the scheduling and teamwork. The king encounters are not schedulable and as such not masterable based on the players dedication.

So, no, the king encounters are not enough to pull any of the hardcore raiders away from any of the other options out there. The smaller dungeons won’t be enough either. The RVR is a niche, albeit cool, concept but simply not enough for people not prone to PVP anyways. WAR is a pvp/rvr game but that doesn’t mean they should shove pve’rs off to the side.

So hell yes, it’s about time they started putting some focus on the PVE. We need more of that kind of stuff in all of the hype that’s being pushed for this game. Personally, I can’t wait to play it either way, but I want to see this game be all it can be. If they neglect such a big piece of the MMO puzzle, they will in no way shape or form make a long term dent in WoW. They’ll be a “vacation” spot like how Age of Conan turned out to be for so many. I look to WAR as having such huge potential that I’m a little concerned that let down may be inevitable. I truly believe that this game could be great though. If they do it right.

Now, I part from Keen in one main way in regards to PVE. I don’t think raiding treadmills are the worst thing in the world. On the contrary, I think that they help push MMOs towards long term sustainability.

Should your time and work be devalued by “the next big instance”? No. Absolutely not. Should raiding be driven by a desire for loot and not fun? Adventure? No.

However, one thing these treadmills do accomplish is to keep people hooked. It keeps them aspiring to be able to tackle the next chunk of content. And it draws new players in. I hate the idea that gear has become the defacto reason why the majority of people want to progress in games. That’s not what this genre should be about. It’s high fantasy. It’s battle. It’s wars and dragon slaying. It’s adventure and not colored adornments to your character.

Perhaps this is the reason why Mythic is avoiding raid content. Perhaps not. Either way, they should be looking towards raids and not away. Put a new spin on raid progression, Mythic! You have our support! Well… mine anyways.

The scope of this article is too narrow to delve into my ideas on how to solve the treadmill dilemma and how to avoid player burnout. Suffice it to say though, it can be done and I’d love to see Mythic be the one to do it. The last thing we want is for people to get to max level and have different flavors of only one thing to do. People will want more than that and I think we should start asking for it a little more.

Until next article loyal readers…… WAAAGH!

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