Did The Wrong Message Get Attached To The PR Pidgeon?

When you go about developing anything, it’s important to keep in mind the overall goal, since that’s what the client will be expecting. Normally you will be touching base with the client on a regular basis, just to be sure you are all still singing from the same hymn-sheet. Now in Mythics case, they are developing things for a client base, which doesn’t have a massive say in what gets done. The main responsibility is to deliver something which is fun and says what it does on the packet. So in the process of building X, then need to be sure that the message they are conveying about X ties into what they are going to deliver.

Which dovetails me nicely into LotD.  A few days ago I was reading around my small list of blogs and undertook my daily visit to Bootae’s Bloody Blog, where he had put up his initial review of LotD, upon which I commented a couple of times, and which ultimately generated this post.

Now pretty near the front was the question & answer “Has LotD delivered the RvR heaven we were promised? No. In fact make that a resounding no, with a daemonic reverb effect and 100ft flaming letters”. Now this is a strong statement, which had me slightly perplexed and to which I asked, “Where was it stated that LotD would be a nirvana to RvR?”. Now obviously bootae had absorbed this message from the various videos/interviews, in the preamble to LotD and so had Undoch. Is this just an isolated misunderstanding or had other players misunderstood the message being delivered by Mythic blah blah blah PR? It’s a concern to be honest.

My overall impression was that LotD was PVE orientated, with a slightly different spin on mainstream RVR. What with the Purge, Instance Raiding and the subtle sneak attacks that could be undertaken, by logging a group of destruction/order characters off and coming back on, when order/destruction were more relaxed, an hour or so later. But the RVR heaven that Bootae & others felt they were being promised, certainly not.

This new zone, is a prize to be fought over in mainstream RVR. It’s that very same mainstream RVR that may ultimately become the victim if LotD becomes to successful. Now I would normally give Mythic some credit for anticipating the effect this addon would have, initially and long term. But given the apparently simplistic process for flipping control of the Lotd, I am not so sure. You dominate 2 zones and it’s back in your hands. Which is fine and dandy, but what happens if the other side get bored of LotD and starts defending their keeps, which some servers could do with their disproportionate populations. To which you reply, well people will be dying so the resource points will being accrued that way. Not much use if the wrong side are dying.

I am sure we have all had evenings where not matter where you go, you are overwhelmed and hammered into the ground. Well that could happen. Though maybe I am doing Mythic a disservice and the resource points awarded per kill will start going up the longer LotD stays in your foes hands.

Maybe developers generally should throw out their plans to their server populations before they get to stuck into coding, so they can be given a bit of a sanity check. I know that’s never going to happen, but it’s worth bearing in mind, that a set of clever ideas doesn’t always equate to great product.

As a free addon I think LotD is good and offers the potential for some seriously sneaky cunning, for whom that will appeal to/motivate a small subset of players, but still it’s nice and fresh at the moment. I wouldn’t anyone to think I was ungrateful, especially the goblins at Mythic, but please make sure you aren’t sending mixed messages.