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Large Alliances Could Monopolize Everything
ArchivedUser
Guest
One thing that is recurrent in all player driven MMOs is how larger guilds can easily come together and take control over large resource pools and ensure monopoly over them. For example, there was this mmo, released july 7th last year, and it had a system that allowed three guilds to ally up, and join forces. Moreover, it also had open world PvP zones where players can attack each other in an open manor much like AoC. What three guilds did in the EU server was that they came together, and took control over this entire map. (3 guilds =650 ppl). In this map, there was an item called "Demonic Tier Ore", which was a vital resource that was required for crafting high tier PvP gear. So, no one other than that alliance, in the whole server, had access to high tier PvP gear. This resulted in only their alliance gaining that resource, giving their players a huge advantage in PvP, and furthering their dominance. This wasn't fun for the players monopolizing as well. I know that because i was an officer in one of those three guilds. We kept winning because no one came close to being as strong as we were, which made the game less fun due to loss of conflict. This is just a simple example, but the idea is that strong guilds with large number of players can ally up for economic monopoly over some resource, or some system. In AoC terms, These player can siege competing metropolises to ensure theirs is the only one running. They can run smaller metropolises out of business since they can attack every Caravan coming out of it, or even siege them. I know it sounds far fetched, but this can happen, and i am certain some of you have even experienced this to some degree in one game or another. This is a huge concern for me simply because competition is a good thing. You should never have the ability to expel competition in a game. It just removes purpose, and without purpose, there is no reason to do anything. As Steven said in the kickstarter video, AOC is about " meaningful conflict" and meaningful conflict can't be achieved with monopoly. I hope someone is listening, and i also hope that something like this is prevented by interpid studios.
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If it were in the game, that would force people to move to other nodes and naturally end up being the competition.
I've seen big alliances come and go in games and that's half the fun. Choose your friends wisely and just have fun!
Stealthy rogues do have their place...................
CylverRayne
(SilverRain)
I think with the Devs collective experience they will do their best to prove you wrong. Much will also rely on the players. Players also have a role to play in combating others who like to ruin games and other people's enjoyment.
There's going to be too much randomness in the world. Having control over one area won't really allow a monopoly, because whatever resource is in that area that someone is trying to control will exist somewhere else in the world.
Regarding sieges, a guild, or even an alliance of guilds, will not be able to endlessly siege anyone else trying to get powerful. One, you will have to have a continual influx of resources in order to maintain your own node, and at the metropolis level, I'm guessing that isn't going to be cheap. Plus, in order to siege a node, it costs just as much as it takes to build a node up. And the sieges will also have cool down timers, which specifically prohibits endless sieging.
As far as the ganking thing goes, the devs have repeatedly stated they do not want a murderbox game, and I would like to think they aren't going to create and release a game they don't think is fun themselves. Moreover, we don't even know the extent of the corruption system. How punishing will the first kill be? Will corruption only apply to that character, or to the account? How quickly will the attackers gear break or be lost? I don't know if the corruption system will work or not, but until more details are released, I'm not going to worry about it either.
That's one the key points of the game I think. Large alliances could dominate and run a server. It could be peaceful and glorious and everyone loves it. Or people could hate it and subvert and undermine that empire. That's the beauty of choice and the node system.