Comments on: WAR’s Realm Imbalances

By: WorldEater

WorldEater — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:08:47 +0000

I’m going to play the hell out of Order and Chaos both.

One suggestion for Mythic would be take a note from Blizzard’s page – let there be incentive to play the underpopulated faction.

In WoW the incentive to decrease battleground queue times sent PVPers to Horde in droves. This served to balance the disparity somewhat, but also ensured that there was incentive to play the underrepresented faction.

if 1) Players have a reason to go to the minority and/or 2) the play experience is not diminished by playing the minority then I dont see the initial draw to Destruction impacting the game negatively.

From this post it sounds like they are already thinking in these terms (”Mythic has promised ‘incentives’ to try to keep the factions balanced…”) I think these guys are way ahead of you. :) trying to make classes more appealing in terms of power, appearance, or hype I think is a really bad way to approach the solution.

- Eater of Worlds

By: Da Newz - June 12 « Waaagh! A Warhammer Online Blog

Da Newz - June 12 « Waaagh! A Warhammer Online Blog — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:56:16 +0000

[...] MMOG Nation analyzes what a population imbalance could do to WAR. [...]

By: heartless_

heartless_ — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:50:27 +0000

The poll is useless. What we need is a survey.

What class will you play?
What days of the week do you play?
At what times?
Doing what activity?

I think we are a bit off from getting peak concurrent player numbers. There are WoW servers where the number of characters is equally balanced at level 70, but the concurrency numbers show a 2:1 imbalance at prime time.

For WAR it will be very important to compare concurrency numbers, not just pure numerical counts.

By: Billzo

Billzo — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:06:57 +0000

I’d probably do that to if I was in beta. I wonder if that takes something away from the whole “magic” of RvR. Obviously if you have a chance at knowing an unknown known (haha) you’re gonna take it, like seeing how the other side in a PvP centric game works so you’ll be ready. But, I guess to me that seems like reading the cheat guide for a game.

I was also wondering after I posted last night whether or not Mythic is getting enough data about Order’s balance and whatnot if a majority is playing Chaos. I suppose they could do a few tests where they make everyone split half-half and do an Order siege on a Chaos city or things like that, but I’m not sure.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:32:15 +0000

Billzo: That’s exactly what I’m going to do; going to play Order when I get into the Beta because I know I’m going to be a Destruction-boy in Live.

By: Billzo

Billzo — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:51:44 +0000

Could also be that because it is a beta, and not the actual full game, people that normally are attracted to the good side try out the evil side knowing that a beta is only temporary and will switch when the game goes gold.

Maybe some of those hardcore players you mentioned, Michael, will play on the good side, but are taking this opportunity to familarize themselves with the evil side’s layout and whatnot. That faction lock for whatever faction you choose on whatever server you choose is still planned, right?

By: Snafzg

Snafzg — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:23:37 +0000

I agree with you 100%. The potential is there for imbalance and if things end up that way – look out. Bad news. However, these results don’t tell us how the chips will land so it’s a bit too early to freak out about it.

I just hope EA Mythic has the foresight to put population balancing mechanisms in place before the game launches because most of the people who buy this game will stick with the same servers they rolled on launch day. Without some kind of guidance, they may never balance out.