Tier 1/2

[Rubino]

I've been levelling an Engi the past couple of days and in the scenarios I've noticed that 2/3rds of the classes chosen by destro are casters.
Of these the majority are WE's, then those little yoda types and those skateboarders - the rest appear to be mostly Maurders.

In Tier 1 it's generally a whitewash against them - they're unbalanced and while they tend to work together (mostly alts I think) they're easy to disrupt enough to break any tank.
In Tier 2 they have (as an individual) better resists and therefore it's much harder to bypass the front line and harass.  Their tanks appear well setup and they are much more of a PIA.

I noticed that in both tiers they have more borderline characters to the tier above - whereas Order had middle-tier characters.
Which I think indicates that Destro are levelling them faster or sticking to the lower Tier for longer to maximise kills.

Destro had more guilded players in Tier 1 than order.  Most of the order players, while some are alts, weren't part of a guild.
The play style of Order was organised but it's hard to tell if they were experienced War players or if they were just from other MMO's.

I would guess from chats I had with them that it was about 50/50.  Some were into War but were Alt'ers (people who have a ton of alts) - usually part of a small guild where a majority of their friends didn't like/couldn't play (due to lag/client issues) War. 

Tier 1/2 RvR has been slow - while in Tier 1 the BO's have the usual flip-flop between order/Desto - I've not seen much change-over of the BO's & Keeps in Tier 2.
In Tier 1 it's easier to have/get-together a small group to take the BO's - in Tier 2 it takes a larger, more organised group to take the keeps.  Which again reflects the mid-tier characters of Order.

The main counter for Order I think, is to expand alliances to include much smaller Guilds and therefore have a broader reach of online players.
Players who have a carry-over guild from other MMO's are reluctant to join another Guild when their friends have account and might play again in the near future.

Just my take on the lower Tiers.


Edit: Post coffee Spel check

[Mangala]

Hey from heathrow!

Perfect take on lower tiers imo Rubino.

Just look at Env's sig and you can see the way things are currently and extrapolate from that the following:

t4: Destro mains dominate - will change subject to the T3
t3: Order owns it mainly and on a regular basis. Huge fights, nay EPIC fights everynight. Majoirty of all order players are in this bracket - I'd say the main levelling pack is 2 levels at most from leaving it properly.
t2: Early destro alts are here as well as rerollers and early order alts. Destro will be alts of people whove done this once before and know all the tricks.
T1: Too early to call - but as you say seems like alt destro mainly - probably with a fresh batch of order alts rolled in there too, but all levelling as guild groups in the main, or groups of closeknit buddies.

Seeing this this early in the games life is discouraging, but I assume (road to hell and all that) that as the main order T3 pack hits t4 destro will temporarily abandon the lower tier alts they have and get back into the action up top, giving order a chance to do to T1/T2 what we have been doing to T3 of late.

[Gunnarr]

To me it looks like people in this game play much more alts than I'm used to in WoW.
Looking at myself, I can't seem to stick it out on one character for extended periods of time, either - while I traditionally level one character at a time.
Also, pulling ahead of the pack isn't really anything to try for in WAR - you'll just end up in an abandoned T4 and have no other option but to PvE - the least attractive option in my opinion, since it'll mean grinding phase 1s of PQs by yourself.... 
In short, I'm not sure reality is ordered as neatly as you suppose it is, Rubino - I'd say there will be many people with 3-4 alts, especially looking at the scenario crews, since most alts will choose this road to level them up and have some fun while doing it. Even so, your analysis certainly has merits, since it won't matter at all if a certain toon is someone's second or fifth alt.

I blame: mindnumbing PvE, and too few (experience) rewards for ORvR.

[Pythias]

At this moment, i am very unsure about the future of WAR.

Perhaps it's just my complete lack of experience with other MMOG (except WoW which i started to play in May 2005, when it was already established title). After an initial hype, this game failed to keep the critical mass of players per server to fuel further progress. I haven't seen enough ppl in area to finish PQ in ages, neither on my lvl31 main nor on my lvl12 alt  WAR world is mostly deserted, except perhaps for T3 scenarios and ORvR. Even in T3 there are dull evenings without real ORvR (keep siege with no defense is just PvE) and unless you want to play Toss-an-Orc, you may need to wait a while for scenario pop up (altho the dominance of one scenario is less distinct in T3 than in other tiers).

Sorry for offtopic rant ... This is not intended to be a whine. I like the game so far and think it has some potential. But i'm a bit pessimistic how is Mythic going to revive the sharply declining interest which has a cumulative effect since the game is based on mass action. I'm more prone to believe that T1/2 characters are mostly alts of T4 players who wait for "some change which will make stuff more entertaining" in T4. Even if those are new players in T1 / T2, they're still going to hit the T4 barrier.

Am i just a WoW-spoiled brat? Do you think WAR has good future?

[Jeremiah]

Couple of interesting blogs about this phenomena:

http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1601
http://syncaine.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/the-bored-wow-player-wave-comes-and-goes-leaving-empty-servers-behind/

Basically suggesting that WoW has spoiled everyone by making us want it all and want it now and believe the way to "win" an MMO is to min/max your way to whatever the highest level is.  What's depressing about this is that it means for those of us who want to resist the min/max tide we may not get the choice.

[Pashur]

This is a good thread and thanks for the blog links.
Like others I have found myself totally alone at lvl 22. There are no open parties for PQs etc. I have soloed stage 1s many times just to get the gear.
I remember in Troll country some 10 levels ago, a huge amount of people and lots of PQs to join.
Now I find playing and leveling my main really boring so I usually log an Alt in Tier 1 or play my destro chars, all < lvl 11.
It thought we had a population density curve with all mains at lvls >30 and Alts around lvl 10 and that is why I was so alone, but maybe people are in fact leaving.
I imagined that if I reached tier 4 there would be lots of action but maybe that is a vain hope reading Pythias post.
Anyway, I will keep playing WAR and see what happens. I wish the professions were more fun and rewarding then it would have kept me busy while leveling.

[Torgal]

I think WAR's just fine. I've read a lot of worrying and whatnot about population levels declining. I don't see the point in speculating, or worrying about a game's future. If you like it, continue to play and as long as there's others who do then you will have a server to play on. Also rejoice, because if all you have to worry about is whether you'll be able to play WAR in 6 months then you're doing better than I am.

It's just another viral internet thing, all the departing WoW kiddies decry WAR as a failure, then all of a sudden people are worried about the game's future etc etc. All it does is harm the game in the long run, if people hear about how the game's on it's way out they are more likely to stop playing themselves even if they still enjoy the game. If it's got no future then why should I continue developing my character?

We'll call it the AoC effect, but it looks to me like AoC is alive and well. The people who enjoy it are still happily playing, with the added bonus that it's no longer everyone's favourite pastime to slate their game.

Regarding people doing PQs and stuff? I did PQs in maybe the first 4 or 5 chapters on my dwarf, as soon as I hit T2 that was it. Nobody doing PQs, grind stage 1 ahoy! This was during the height of the server population, when we were queueing to get in every night. It's been the same since. It's not like that's a new phenomenon. We all know that PVE in this game stinks, scenarios and open RVR are literally the only worthwhile thing (Gunbad is fun, I'll concede). There's plenty of that around. I'm quite sure I didn't imagine those massive T3 and T4 warbands that I was in clashing around the world the last couple of weeks.

Sorry to continue the derail. I actually typed a response to this thread earlier but deleted it because it was rantey (no healers in T1/T2 = we lose 75% of games).

[Rubino]

I love the game - signed up for 6 months already.
One of the people I met in T1 was a WP with 16 alts!

The biggest problem is content - there isn't enough of it, the quality of the quests is low and the teething bugs annoy people; mobs not spawning, bonuses not being applied.
It's a great platform - just needs a little more shine.

My biggest concern is that desto appear to killer-rank their alts for as much mayhem as possible - whereas order tend to loll about and don't put as much effort into their chars.
I guess destro go for the "I-Win" approach whereas order go for the I enjoy.

[Gunnarr]

In that case I don't think destro is doing a very good job. I'm winning slightly over 50% of the scenarios I play (or so it feels at least)
This goes both for the games on my RP (where I feel I have more influence on the score, perhaps) and on my BW (only T1), where I'm hugely dependent on other players.

[Caradir]

I guess destro go for the "I-Win" approach whereas order go for the I enjoy.

aye the scenarios show this due to destro at certain times having lots of high levels for the tier where as order seem to be spread out more.

personally i play any game for fun, people who play hardcore play it like its a job which is no fun.

what gets to me is the sheer slowdown in levelling that 20 brings, the 20s seem a drag so i get bored and roll yet another alt level it to 12 then roll another lol

[Angelor]

Im struggling with the level 25-30 thing, and the ctds and that at times I lose fps.

Hoping all this will be sorted in a few patches, but I might play less until they are done.

[Caradir]

well fallout 3s making me play less at the mo

my new favourite weapon Deathclaw Gauntlet kerrsplatilicious

[Pythias]

Quick update regarding T4: there's increased activity in ORvR. Yesterday, there was a nice fight going on in Dragonwake, we fought off destro sieging our keep repeatedly. Then moved to Thunder Mountain and tried to lock the zone. First it looked we might succeed but it was getting late and it seems that destro is generally more active in the later night hours (after midnight CET) and they were pushing us back. Since scenarios generate victory points for their relevant pairing, i happened to play 3 scenarios yesterday and none of them was SP 

[vacuum]

To me it looks like people in this game play much more alts than I'm used to in WoW.

That's because unpopulated tiers are really boring, and even with population, Tier 3 & Tier 4 are still boring for non-RVR content.

I blame: mindnumbing PvE, and too few (experience) rewards for ORvR.

QFT.

[Stephen]

I dislike T4 intensely. My choices seem to be:

1) do scenarios (and get farmed by a destro group with many more 40s than us);
2) do open RvR (and get farmed by a destro group with many more people and many more 40s than us);
3) be the only person in the whole tier doing PvE.