Weeks to go and I still can’t decide…

August 12, 2008 – 11:26 am

Pepsi or Coke? The Big Mac or herb-roasted pheasant? Open RvR or Core?

If you’re a long time reader of this site, it might shock you to see me questioning that which has pretty much been a given since I started blogging about WAR. I have always firmly planted my feet on the side of Open-RvR but now that I’ve really put some thought into it, I’m not quite so sure.

What could have possibly put me on the fence on this issue? How could a true greenskin be straddling the line of mice and men? Let’s break down my tangled thought process…

If I see an enemy, I want to be able to attack him. I’m not a lore junkie or fluff monkey, but I think it’s pretty obvious that WAR is fundamentally about eviscerating your opponents. You have your arch nemisis (racial pairing) and a couple other guys you don’t particularly like the smell of (your pairing’s allies). The entire game, especially PvE, forces you to be a racist (but not in the RL bad way). You must accept it or just not bother playing.

I’m not afraid of being ganked either, and even though levels/ranks make a difference in WAR, there are mechanics in place to prevent highbies from preying on lower-bies. However, I really hate wasting my time. If I’m grinding out my last bit of influence in a public quest and a bunch of enemies raid it, which is well within the Open RvR ruleset, I will be marginally annoyed. However, if these public quests become impossible to complete due to repetitive griefing, well, that’s when my blood will start to boil. The same goes for normal quest routes.

This would be a non-issue if I ignored PvE altogether, but I don’t think I can bring myself to do that. I’ve said before that if all you do is participate in PvP, I think you’ll find that it becomes just as grindy as overly-repetitive PvE. I want to mix it up from time to time. I wouldn’t consider myself an explorer in the least, but I am interested in varied adventuring and achievement methods.

Finally, I think there will be enough RvR on the Core servers to keep me satisfied. The game is equally designed to offer players the best integrated PvP (let’s call it RvR) the MMO world has ever seen no matter what server-type you choose. In World of Warcraft, I had to play on a PvP server to gain any sense that my faction was at war with another faction. If WoW didn’t offer PvP servers, I probably wouldn’t have played it at all. Coming fresh out of DAOC (actually, stale is a better description), I still needed continual fixes of PvP.

Many people have been turned off by PvP servers in Age of Conan, World of Warcraft, and Everquest, but let me assure you, the Open RvR servers won’t be nearly as bad. You’ll always have a few bad apples trying to spoil your fun, but I rarely enountered douchebags in Dark Age of Camelot, and this game is aiming to be DAOC 2.0. Mythic has seems to have a magical recipe that prevents them from being overly bothersome in their MMOs, WAR included.

I guess what it all comes down to is that I don’t feel as though I’d really be missing out on something if I chose either server ruleset that wasn’t counterbalanced by something else. Yes, I could kill every single Dwarf I saw in the game no matter where they were in the open-world, but I’d also have to deal with the annoyance of people harassing me when I wanted to get something specific done. And even that is counterbalanced by the fact that I would probably progress faster on an RvR server because of the additional XP generated by all the stunties I’d be mashing while I PvE’d. But if I rushed through too much of the content, I might miss some key pieces of gear or experiences.

So yeah… it’s not nearly as cut and dry for me anymore! :S

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Post tags: opinions, RvR, Warhammer Online

24 Responses to “Weeks to go and I still can’t decide…”
Here is something to look at. If you have a decent group of friends or guildies, then you can effectively stop any type of ganking that might occur. Good help is always hard to find.

Going to an Open server kind of makes me nervouse because I started WoW on a PvP server, and hated the ganking, but not the PvP. So I am a little worried about the ganking but not that worried as I have a good guild and a good guild alliance to work with to wreck some damage to and little greenkin that THINKS he can smash this stuntie.

By Brotik on Aug 12, 2008
I’m going Core rules. Why? WAR is so cram packed full of PvP and not so much PvE, at least in the endgame. I’m a guy who likes to do his PvE in peace and really don’t care if I can’t kill the greenskin that is farming beside me.

By thrstn on Aug 12, 2008
Do I smell a new podcast soon? hehe.

By Enndr on Aug 12, 2008
I’m starting to lean more and more towards Core, why? Open will cause at least in the earlier tiers less focus in the RvR zones because they are so small. As we get into Tier 3 & 4 however I think that effect will dissipate because the zones are dominated by the RvR section, but at this point there is hardly a difference between Core and Open, your flagged almost all the time.

By `Zypher on Aug 12, 2008
You can always make a character on each type of server and stay with the one you like the best.

By Railith on Aug 12, 2008
Snafgz, man, you have my support. What it boiled down to for me was that I dig PVP but sometimes I like to mull around and explore the game without getting into a fight (esp when I’m solo, as a support class). In an Open Serv, there’s never a break. In a Core serv, you get all the pvp-perks you could want and a break when you want it too.

By Thade on Aug 12, 2008
This was something my guild and our alliance have discussed at great length.

We overwhelmingly settled on the Core rule set, despite the fact we always settle on PvP-oriented servers in games.

Some of this was already touched on, but this was our rationalization.

1) WAR was built with the core rule set in mind AND as an RvR-focused game. There should be no shortage of areas to fight. And, we do not know how the game will work without that core focus.

2) An Open RvR server will cause people to find the most suitable terrain for open field combat, wherever it may be. This may hurt one realm’s ability to pve and may cause focus to shift away from Mythic’s RvR objectives. This happened in DAoC - Old Frontiers Emain.

3) From the content that has been released so far, you can apparently still flag yourself for open combat on the core rule set if you want. And, I think you are automatically flagged for combat if you enter an enemies pve area. Effectively, the core rule set is closer to WoW’s PvP rule set, just with fewer contested areas. The Open RvR ruleset would be like a WoW PvP rule set with every zone being contested.

With Core rule set, you have choices. Open RvR just removes some of those choices.

By Alby on Aug 12, 2008
Impossible to even consider the two without seeing a complete map layout of RvR, neutral and protective areas and having them outline the Core rules for neutral zones. I’ve yet to see a solid description of those rules.

The Core system as its decribed is already an almost exact verson of WoW’s PvP servers (minus the pending actual implementation of neutral zones).

All Open RvR seems to do at the moment is allow the opposing side the ability to jump you in Protected Zones. I basically call this the Asshole Enabler feature.

What are you doing in their protected zone? There are no keeps, there are no areas designed for you to compete for. If you are there you are one of two things. Curious (The Core system allows you to be there) or a griefer.

My opinions are based around basically ignoring the Neutral zones because there is no solid outline for the rules of handling these zones for the Core ruleset.

By Bo on Aug 12, 2008
To the above poster, there is a video by mythic that shows the map of a racial pairing region of the game, explaining at length the pve only vs rvr/pvp zones in each tier. It really helped me to understand the concept of Warhammer, since I too come from daoc and loved the natural separation of pve/rvr. Just search Youtube for war videos.

By coppertopper on Aug 12, 2008
I was actually going to do Open-RvR, but am leaning towards Core now, after contemplating how the chicken feature will work on Open-RvR. I don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference for RvR either way, but it might decrease my ability to enjoy some non-RvR aspects.

By Sithlet on Aug 12, 2008
I have come to the same conclusions as Alby, especially points one and two. I couldn’t have explained my view any better.

By Davadoff on Aug 12, 2008
Originally I wanted to join up with the open RvR. I come from the PvP server in DAoC and had a blast using the whole world of DAoC as the battle fronts. In this setting there were many more battles that usually lasted a few minutes tops: Smash, loot, run, repeat. not much focus on keeps or frontiers… just killing and lots of it!

I’m looking forward to the core servers because i beleive there will be a ton more focus on what needs to be done to progress the realm and eventually sack a city. I think Open RvR will be less motivated to battle over objectives thus decreasing the community support.

In conclusion, I believe the core ruleset will provide the best RVR battle front and insures a server devoted toward the common goal. I could be wrong but Open server sounds more like a server devoted to strait up murder-death-kills than actually running PQ’s,senerios, and sieging fortresses.

By Gompers on Aug 12, 2008
Personally, I was in the same boat. I than began to think about the negatives that are set in stone for Open-RvR. -Public Quest attempts could be ruined. Than I looked at the flip-side, the positives…which is when I began to remember the countless memories I have in past mmos of little battles taking place in the middle of nowhere, begging friends to come help you with revenge, tricking the ganking newb into walking into a trap full of friends, breaking the monotony…I than realized that most of my Open-RvR concern stemmed from the actual leveling process and ended once I reached endgame (which most people spend most of their time at, duh). That made the choice easy. Open-RvR all the way.

By Rokk on Aug 12, 2008
The way I see it, is you ARE able to kill anyone of the opposing faction that you see on sight, even on the Core servers, if you stay in your area. I’m not the type to go looking for a fight in their area anyway, and likewise, I wouldn’t want that to happen to me. So if they stroll over into my zone, I can attack them, but its more likely that that will be a rarity, and the RvR zones will more than suffice.

By Timm on Aug 12, 2008
I want to do something like 75% PvP and 25% PvE. But I want to do 25% PvE, not 25% trying-to-PvE-while-avoiding-ganking. That’s why I’m going core.

And what some people are saying about the game design favoring core is absolutely right. I had no idea for a while that they even had PvP servers, from what they described it didn’t seem like they were necessary (still doesn’t).

By boatorious on Aug 12, 2008
They don’t have PvP servers. They have an Open RvR system. PvP would be orcs killing orcs.

By Bo on Aug 12, 2008
way i see pvp servers are for 5 year olds who like ruining other poeples fun the game is mainly pvp eny way i do like xploring all areas but killing some one 30 lvls lower just causes animosity ( how meny times on WOW have i heard %^$& hord or allies ganking ^&%$ and poeple crying for help should be enough pvp for all i admite if i got ganked to sate my anger i woud go into low pvp area n kill hords of players one person can create a chain reation of hate and game ruining

By wraith knight on Aug 12, 2008
So the video I was referring to is Warhammer Online Production video #3:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=warhammer+online++video+podcast+%233&search_type=&aq=f

And the following (#21) explains how the above fits into the big RvR picture:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=warhammer+online++video+podcast&search_type=&aq=f

I just don’t see the problem being not enough RvR in the core ruleset servers = )

By coppertopper on Aug 12, 2008
In War, you don’t get to choose your fights. Likewise, in WAR you shouldn’t be able to. All is fair in love and WAR!

Can you imagine running into an Order player in game and not being able to kill him/her because they haven’t flagged? This scenario will happen a lot if you roll Core.

So, stop playing around and join Widespread Panic so you can RvR with us in BSIG!

By Aikau on Aug 12, 2008
We totally copped out with our RP decision. But eiter way I’d have gone with Core, so I can have a bit of a break from it all.

I know full-on PvP is more ‘hardcore’ but I’m old enough to realise I need a slower pace

By arbitrary on Aug 13, 2008
Core FTW Imho; cuz the game was originally developed to have ONLY core servers, Open RvR was implemented only due to tester’ Whines

and anyway, i think in Core the RvR will be better, focalized on zones, and not a zerg Warband rush onto all map like in the Open RvR

By Sardar on Aug 13, 2008
I agree that stereotypes either way are pretty bad. It sure seems to me that given what we know so far, both rulesets will be viable.

I go where my guild goes, honestly, but if I had a choice, I’d lean Core. I played on plenty of pvp servers, and these days, I just don’t have the time to play. When I log in, I don’t want to be forced to log out because I can’t do what I want to do. Whether or not that is wussing out is honestly irrelevant when you take into account what people’s priorities are.

By BC on Aug 13, 2008
Core servers will have objective focused PvP. Open servers may degenerate into roving bands of players looking for kills, ignoring major objectives in favor of easy kills.

The only thing you can’t do on Core is go to the opposing PvE areas to find people to gank. On a core server you can STILL fight in PvE areas, but in the opposing realm PvE area your enemy must choose to attack you or choose to run around flagged. If they’re in your zone they’ll be flagged and are fair game!

Long story short, unless you’re a ganker there is no difference between core and open. I think a lot of “hardcore” players will be disappointed they can’t use the term carebear anymore.

Koroh

By Koroh on Aug 13, 2008