Petition - Scrap Guild Cities.

[-tomhet-]

this wow based forced faction system negates the positive efects of ffa system.

when factions are forced on players the norm is people will converge to strongest faction, i think tsw as a good example of that.

current guilds system takes in all races and classes, meaning any guild accomodates everyone, and allow you to customize to some degree your own player city wich is great feature wich i hope they develop further.

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despite looking the same i place great distinction in border kingdoms and tradeskill areas.

-border kingdoms are totaly disfunctional, i think they would benefit greatly in becoming a perpetual faction based battlefield warzone similar to what happens in tsw pvp maps.
main reason is ffa pvp doesnt seem to work to promote stable competition for battlekeeps
like i mentioned several times those areas would be great to have some forced faction system with multiple solo/group/raid objectives in each of those zones.
meaning 3 zones for pure massive pvp objectives with forced faction choosing on entering.

-tradeskill areas are a totaly diferent thing, they provide player built cities.
i proposed already many diferent things to happen there

.expansion of crafted cities buildings to cultural themed buildings

.adding nodes for player build cultual open world homes cultural themed with simple locks like tortage harbour
http://imageshack.us/a/img191/6404/w...picture003.jpg

.adding tents with faction representatives issuing offensive quests objectives in diferent guild cities, like destroying enemy faction tents in enemy guild cities.

.temples with added possibility to choose a god, and priestess issuing quests to destroy other guilds temples in sieges or in guild cities destroy oposite gods decorations

.thieves guild issuing quests for invading enemy guilds and steal items inside guild city

.guilds with highest renown get invaded by npc's wich players can aid to invade it
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=184927

the whole zone be pvp enabled independant of server and maybe even along side border kingdoms those regions be cross shared to all servers so for example a guild on crom could go inside a fury based guild for mischief.

all of this part would give more strenght to guild vs guild open world without forcing factions in anyway like you sugest but by integrating them in a ffa manner.

meaning integrating ffa and factions in a way they mutualy suport more open world content promoting player generated content via guild hatred

i simply dont want any luck to be part of new crafting system so whatever system revolving around crits is proposed i wont even want it at all.

>>>>edited for easier read <<<<<<

[Aell]

this wow based forced faction system negates the positive efects of ffa system.

when factions are forced on players the norm is people will converge to strongest faction, i think tsw as a good example of that.

current guilds system takes in all races and classes, meaning any guild accomodates everyone, and allow you to customize to some degree your own player city wich is great feature wich i hope they develop further.

Too illegible, only read part. TI:ORP? Possibly a new Intarwebz abbreviation?

First question - what positive effects? Don't get me wrong, I love FFA PvP. Crom is the first time I've ever rolled PvE and I already feel weird. What, I can read quest text? That can't be right!

But as a certain barbarian is fond of saying, "you have to be realistic". All FFA PvP gets from the wider population is crying and unsubbing. Allies, however few, would be a really good way to prevent that. Beyond the fact that many players (including me) are trolls and misanthropes, FFA has no advantages. None.

Secondly, you boost undersubscribed factions. Outmatched less than 2:1? Supplement PC faction members with NPC faction members. Outmatched 10:1 or more? Supplement PC faction members with Elite NPC faction members and watch the tide turn.

If Kurt2013's ability to change faction is implemented, it wouldn't take long to achieve equilibrium.

The current guild system includes many but excludes far, far more. We have to look beyond what we want and forwards toward what equates to more subscriptions. Currently, the guild system and especially guild cities are bars to content. They encourage unsubs.

That is a bad thing. Needs fixing.

[Kurt2013]

I would like luck and risk be part of a craft system. But the essential point is, that the PLAYERS should be able to decide how much luck and risk influence they want...not the game. For example, there could be stones involved adding the chance for the desired result, thus lessening the risk. But there could also be a risk involved, dependand on how powerful the item is, what quality materials are used and what the crafter skill is. Knowing funcom, i fear the critical system will only have positive effects possible, depending on how big your guild is or how grindy you play (thus enabling luck, but without a risk factor)...

With risk involved, they could reduce the grind factor, when it comes to gather stuff and a powerful rare item, would really be rare...not common as Aell feared.

[-tomhet-]

First question - what positive effects? Don't get me wrong, I love FFA PvP. Crom is the first time I've ever rolled PvE and I already feel weird. What, I can read quest text? That can't be right!

main positive side is absolute freedom for players to make theyr onw faction aka guild

But as a certain barbarian is fond of saying, "you have to be realistic". All FFA PvP gets from the wider population is crying and unsubbing. Allies, however few, would be a really good way to prevent that. Beyond the fact that many players (including me) are trolls and misanthropes, FFA has no advantages. None.

hate is great pvp promoter, i power of "i hate you" has been underestimated, if guild officers could issue simply kill them *******s from x guild type quests i could hate people better <3

Secondly, you boost undersubscribed factions. Outmatched less than 2:1? Supplement PC faction members with NPC faction members. Outmatched 10:1 or more? Supplement PC faction members with Elite NPC faction members and watch the tide turn.

i sugested something similar to happen in open world capturable objectives with npcs helping sides to prevent player abuse.
also for sieges having npc's to help would be nice to prevent abuses by players doing ghost sieges and afk'ing
and as well with faction npc's atacking guild cities with highest renown but allowing players to join in breaking down a player guild city(with asure reconstruction after event)
so yeah i totaly think npc's helping in certain circumstances would integrate nicely to prevent pvp exploiting.

The current guild system includes many but excludes far, far more. We have to look beyond what we want and forwards toward what equates to more subscriptions. Currently, the guild system and especially guild cities are bars to content. They encourage unsubs.

That is a bad thing. Needs fixing.

sorry but its realy not accurate at all, there are around plenty of guilds of all shapes and sizes to accomodate all sort of players already.

like i tried to writte and did reedit to make it clearer is guild content should be further promoted integrating factions to promote more hatret between guilds and more open world pvp content, either by sneaky incursions in oposing guild cities to destroy oposing factions buildings/tents, destroy temple statues, steal items, or kill enemy guild officers and members.

seriously one of my favorite things in pvp servers was always to try and park my ranger inside enemy guild cities to kill them inside their own city .

[Amabala]

The OP's idea of factions isn't a bad one. It has been proven to work in several MMO's, WoW being the most obvious example. It could certainly be added to AoC if the devs wish it (and have the community support to spend the time/resources on implementing it).

But as noted by others in this thread, game factions like this will simply be a different form of creating groups that team up against others. On a PvP server the largest faction as chosen by players at character creation will be dominant rather than the largest guild. On a PvE server it would needlessly add a restriction on who can team up for raids and groups (for if it doesn't then what's the point of having these factions to begin with?). And as noted by others, gameplay factions should not exclude forming guilds for social reasons although faction restrictions would likely make this troublesome.

It also raises the question of whether a player should be restricted to placing all alts in the same faction as the first toon rolled or be able to choose different factions with each new toon. It would seem that the first option is needlessly restrictive, and the second would allow some players to work against a faction simply by logging onto an alt of the opposing faction and making 'mistakes' that would allow his preferred faction to easily win.

Had the game included this feature from launch, I'm sure we'd be fine with it, but I see more trouble than it's worth in trying to add it five and a half years into the game.

[cins]

It's true that a factional divide is kind of neat in MMOs. It's true that FFA PvP is a dumb thing when you consider what sort of people play MMOs. It's true that blocking/restricting new player access to any part of a game with a grindwall is a bad thing. But none of those really have much to do with removing guild cities. Sure, the amount of grinding needed to build a full city is ****ing stupid but that can be solved without throwing the baby with the bathwater.

While it'd be immeasurably awesome to have a new expansion that adds a sort of Cimmeria+Aquilonia+Stygia vs Vanaheim+Nemedia+Kush sort of thing into the base game, FC doesn't have either the will or the millions of moneys needed for it.

[Kurt2013]

It's true that a factional divide is kind of neat in MMOs. It's true that FFA PvP is a dumb thing when you consider what sort of people play MMOs. It's true that blocking/restricting new player access to any part of a game with a grindwall is a bad thing. But none of those really have much to do with removing guild cities. Sure, the amount of grinding needed to build a full city is ****ing stupid but that can be solved without throwing the baby with the bathwater.

...

Explained what i was trying to say with better words

They have resources to develop completely new games and update other babies, so i am not buying that argument.

As said earlier, you can have both. Such a faction system with a selfregulating mechanism and not enforcing actions, would be a good pvp addon imo...and could finally bring life to open pvp and some reason to keep playing for victim and killer alike.
Let's hope funcom takes heed and adds tests for factions on the race server...then moves it to rage and fury. No need to add these faction on all servers at once.

[Aell]

While it'd be immeasurably awesome to have a new expansion that adds a sort of Cimmeria+Aquilonia+Stygia vs Vanaheim+Nemedia+Kush sort of thing into the base game, FC doesn't have either the will or the millions of moneys needed for it.

If I were GD, I'd do it in instalments.

First move would be race-appropriate versions of all classes. And I'd allow players to change race.

Then I'd go ahead with the crafting/gathering revamp and I'd use that to swap the current gathering zone elite instances for quest areas.

Then I'd stamp hard on goldsellers. For economic motivation to work, you have to have an EVE-style grip on your economy. This is not hard and works wonders.

Then I'd reintroduce Heroic Ratings and level the PvP playing field utterly by making PvP gear cosmetic only.

Then I'd start to introduce the new quests and zones without launching the new races yet, just to make sure that they integrate nicely.

Then I'd resurrect the Racial server and introduce the new races and Factions, with no guild cities/instances.

Then I'd throw in player housing as detailed above.

That would be AoC Unchained.

Then I'd go ahead and solve the Wizard Problem because I'd be feeling pretty smug by then. But the Wizard Problem is an issue for yet another different thread.

If anyone makes one titled "What is the Wizard Problem" I'll explain it and then, after you've all given up, I'll tell you how you solve it.

[Petridish]

Aell, I like you, and I like your ideas. Keep it up.

[cins]

First move would be race-appropriate versions of all classes.

Unlocking all classes for all races would be simple enough and is perhaps something we as players should start to demand. And any muppet who wants to cry "lore" at me about potential Aquilonian Tempests of Set should direct further inquiries at the existent Cimmerian Dark Templars...

I'd buy a whole new expansion (even at a full new game price) to be able to play a Harbinger of Ymir from the frozen Vanaheim, a Draconic Templar of Nemedia or a Stygian Snake Shaman. Sadly even hoping for such simple paintjobs on existing classes is %99 certainly wishful thinking.