With the release of Amazon’s New World, the debate about how to get more players to flag up for world player versus player has again been raging. The New World sub reddit and official forums have been consistently abuzz with players asking, pleading for, and demanding buffs to bonuses for opting in to PVP. A common justification is that better bonuses would inspire more players to opt in… including those who prefer PVE and don’t want to PVP. Is this better? In this video, we break down how not to incentivize players to flag up for world PVP.
Tag: pvp
Should You Play New World?
Amazon’s New World is an upcoming MMORPG set loosely in the colonial era with a supernatural (distinctly not high-fantasy) twist. The player shipwrecks on the mysterious island of Aeternum and discovers three (player) factions vying for survival and dominance of an uncharted island full of pirate zombies and choppable trees. The game features action combat, as is common in newer MMOs, instead of the older but still popular tab target of WoW or FF14. The game, while having a variety of types of content such as PVP, PVE and gathering, is very much not for everyone. Those expecting a WoW-clone or wanting the heavy survival or hard-core PVP elements of the early builds might be disappointed. Who then, is this game for?
(more…)Is it Pay to Win?: World of Warcraft
Welcome to ‘Is it Pay to Win’ – a column where we examine a game and decide if that game is has aspects of pay to win and to what extent. Check out Is it Pay to Win?: Defined to see how we break down the components of pay to win (p2w), such as pay for advantage, pay for convenience, and pay for cosmetics.
World of Warcraft is a game that needs no introduction, but, we’re going to do it anyway. World of Warcraft or WoW is one of the worlds preeminent MMORPGs. It has a purchase cost (buy to play), a monthly subscription (pay to play), a token that can be bought with cash and sold for in game currency, and cash shop with game services and cosmetics.
Scoring:
- Pay for Power: 3/5
- Pay for Advantage: 5/5
- Pay for Convenience: 3/5
- Pay for Cosmetics: 4/5
- Pay to Win: 3.4/5
Continue reading to see a game description and how we came up with those scores.
(more…)Mage Main & Covenant Choice for Shadowlands
The straw poll results are in. Looks like I’m going mage. To be fair, the decision wasn’t just made – particularly given that mage has been leading the poll essentially the whole time. It was interesting to see DK come from behind to tie for second place. Now… I was originally just planning on using this poll for main, but, given that I’m probably going to play 3-4 total characters (alt friendliness pending), AND I wanted to play one of each armor type (mostly for those sweet legendary sets), this poll sets up an ideal top 4.
I’ll likely make a post about the others later, but this one will go into, just a little bit, about my specialization and covenant choices. Information about Mage Covenant choices, specs, with some links to pertinent information and videos are below.
(more…)Shadowlands: Covenants Are Horrible and Really Cool
The idea of covenants is a great RPG premise. Going to a new world, meeting the people that live there, finding a group that you connect with and joining forces with them to help their cause and increase your power… perfect role playing game opportunity.
The idea of covenants is a terrible MMO premise. Locking important power gains – that will likely be unable to be balanced from one covenant, class, spec, or even type of content to the next – behind long grinds and with limited access is not the way. Particularly for an expansion that is supposed to be focusing on player agency, telling us that we cannot choose between the pool of options available based on the content we are doing is really against what seems to be the goal.
(more…)WoW: Is Ashran The Worst Thing to Happen to PVP?
I started out wanting to write a nice little opinion piece on the new PVP zone. Right after launch (well, after the launch DDOS/lag fest/6 hour queues fiasco) and leveling to 100, the zone clearly had some issues – but what new feature doesn’t? So, I waited. Like the first 2 hours of the queue I am currently in to get into the zone I waited patiently for issues to be hammered out, balanced to be restored, etc. But a month after the release of Warlords the zone is more and more abhorrent. It’s past the point where I can feel the issues are bugs and more so that they’re working as intended. It’s not balanced, it’s “required” (I’ll get to that) and it’s just not fun. So, instead of writing a nice opinion piece about a feature I was once so excited about – there’s a rant incoming. (more…)