Potjeh wrote:I'm pretty sure that devs prefer discovering all the griefing opportunities now rather than further down the line. Chernobylians may be a bunch of antisocial dicks, but they're performing a vital function in testing of this game.
True, but look at what's going on. I see neither Jorb nor Loftar acknowledging that this is an issue, not even tacitly through patches. I guess time will tell, as I don't know what type of schedule they have set for themselves. Yet I don't think they want to turn their game into an Eve Online-style winner-take-all sandbox -- it's a game style the Goons, on the other hand, seek to impose on all games they play. CCP (the makers of Eve) were clever enough to harness that game play of the Goons -- or at least it thought it was. I wonder if they would have had second thoughts if Band of Brothers had been killed last spring, leaving the Goons with uncontested supremacy over Eve. Lopsided politics is what killed off Shadowbane, for instance.
If Jorb and Loftar said out of hand: Here is what we want our game to be, a harsh, brutal, dog-eat-dog world, I'd know what to expect. Shadowbane, Darkfall and Eve all cultivate this. But what I'm sensing here is perhaps a situation similar to Ultima Online, where every "old schooler" waxes nostalgic over the endless possibilities of the game, and can still be lamenting the introduction of Trammel. Yet Trammel saved UO, because what most of the "old schoolers" actually enjoyed in UO fell into the category of unintended consequences. Trammel's introduction just proved that Origin wasn't willing to go that way. It's the same ambiguity which prevails here, and I'd like that settled.
The other problem I see is when Goons are masquerading as the game's biggest supporters (see here). And I will state for the record that it is the Goon presence in this game which makes me reluctant to donate any money to keep it going.