Porygon said:Naunet said:For protection from the elements... and for fashion! :D
Isnt your armor enough protection from the elements.
No..In rain, the padding underneath would get soaked and be uncomfortable, there were many joints, and openings in armor. Not to mention in cold climates, metal armor gets cold and just makes the wearer even more cold, of course knights did not run around 24/7 wearing their armor either.
But cloaks/capes were not worn in battle, they typically were more of a status symbol, the more ornate or the more rare the material the higher the status of the wearer.
Tanix said:Kaeldorn said:@Tanix it's a fair and realistic concern given what's happened to MMO's in the past, although VR's stance on this subject breeds confidence. They have specifically stated that they do not believe in any MMO becoming 'the WoW killer' or 'the next big thing,' but what they do believe is that the future for MMO's is in focusing on appealing greatly to a smaller target audience as opposed to trying to reign everyone in and not really making anyone feel like it's the perfect game for them due to concessions that were made to appease different focus groups.
They believe that an MMO can be niche and still successful.
My concern is not their intent (I believe they honestly intend to do as they say), rather it is what happens when people begin to flood in and you have the "death by a thousand cuts", or rather "appeals" begins. It isn't the blatant requests for change that are the issue, rather it is the subtle requests that slowly build to the same result. What killed most MMOs of the past didn't happen over night, it was a very slow process that began early on (This process was present even in EQ from day one where people kept asking/debating for changes that slowly had an effect on the game).
Now I am not saying various changes argued for EQ early on were bad (I would rather avoid that discussion in this specific thread), rather my point is that some were made not for the "health" of the game, rather for the result of what a player may have wanted or saw as beneficial to them personally in play (most "convenience" changes aren't argued from a position of one seeking a cheat/hand out, but rather from the position that it makes the game more accessible to the player in their given situation). The point is that it will be a very difficult road for VR as many of these requests will be shrouded in various arguments that are claimed with honest merit, yet will be coming from a public that does not share the same goals as VR has stated (which is evident by some of the arguments we even see in this forum now).
The reason that happened in EQ was because WoW came out, with it's, arguably, more "casual friendly" approach compared to EQ. When the more casual gamer left the, arguably, "harder" (read "less casual"), EQ for WoW, SoE did everything that they could, over time, to appeal to that crowd in order to compete for "your" subscription dollars. Traditionally, MMOs have needed hundreds of thousands of subscribers in order to stay afloat due to the high infrastructure and maintenance costs. Pantheon speficially, has chosen to go with the "cloud" based model, don't even get me started on the whole term "cloud", to save infrastructure and maintenance costs. That is a great move for a small company. They can, literally, still make a profit with tens of thousands of subscribers rather than hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Everything else is gravy. This allows them to be able to stick to "their moral compass" a bit more than a large studio with massive overhead.
COULD they start caving in to the requested changes? Sure, they could. WILL they? They aren't inclined to do so at this time. They understand that "their way" is intended to appeal to a limited subset of players. A niche market.
Kalok said:Tanix said:Kaeldorn said:@Tanix it's a fair and realistic concern given what's happened to MMO's in the past, although VR's stance on this subject breeds confidence. They have specifically stated that they do not believe in any MMO becoming 'the WoW killer' or 'the next big thing,' but what they do believe is that the future for MMO's is in focusing on appealing greatly to a smaller target audience as opposed to trying to reign everyone in and not really making anyone feel like it's the perfect game for them due to concessions that were made to appease different focus groups.
They believe that an MMO can be niche and still successful.
My concern is not their intent (I believe they honestly intend to do as they say), rather it is what happens when people begin to flood in and you have the "death by a thousand cuts", or rather "appeals" begins. It isn't the blatant requests for change that are the issue, rather it is the subtle requests that slowly build to the same result. What killed most MMOs of the past didn't happen over night, it was a very slow process that began early on (This process was present even in EQ from day one where people kept asking/debating for changes that slowly had an effect on the game).
Now I am not saying various changes argued for EQ early on were bad (I would rather avoid that discussion in this specific thread), rather my point is that some were made not for the "health" of the game, rather for the result of what a player may have wanted or saw as beneficial to them personally in play (most "convenience" changes aren't argued from a position of one seeking a cheat/hand out, but rather from the position that it makes the game more accessible to the player in their given situation). The point is that it will be a very difficult road for VR as many of these requests will be shrouded in various arguments that are claimed with honest merit, yet will be coming from a public that does not share the same goals as VR has stated (which is evident by some of the arguments we even see in this forum now).
The reason that happened in EQ was because WoW came out, with it's, arguably, more "casual friendly" approach compared to EQ. When the more casual gamer left the, arguably, "harder" (read "less casual"), EQ for WoW, SoE did everything that they could, over time, to appeal to that crowd in order to compete for "your" subscription dollars. Traditionally, MMOs have needed hundreds of thousands of subscribers in order to stay afloat due to the high infrastructure and maintenance costs. Pantheon speficially, has chosen to go with the "cloud" based model, don't even get me started on the whole term "cloud", to save infrastructure and maintenance costs. That is a great move for a small company. They can, literally, still make a profit with tens of thousands of subscribers rather than hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Everything else is gravy. This allows them to be able to stick to "their moral compass" a bit more than a large studio with massive overhead.
COULD they start caving in to the requested changes? Sure, they could. WILL they? They aren't inclined to do so at this time. They understand that "their way" is intended to appeal to a limited subset of players. A niche market.
True, but I even noticed this problem when EQ was originally released. It comes in the form of class balance arguments and to be fair, I have seen some of it here already (in the forum). Now granted VR has been clear with a lot of their vision, but it isn't the blatant challenges I am worried about, but the suggestions that come in the form of subtle balance suggestions. Maybe I am a bit too skeptical, but after years of this, it isn't without some merit. That said, I do think they intend to try and stay on course, but I do "cringe" from time to time on various discussions I have read over the years here.