McTan

I am hoping to chisel my elbow and make neck breaker piercing.

Active progression runs the risk of being used as a band-aid. Games tend to put in active progression for two reasons: (1) to give players a clear "reward" system and the psychology that follows or (2) to get players to play the game to keep up. Both are motivated by a hope to get players to play, and both made moot if the game mechanics themselves encourage players to play: combat and competition. If they do, success. If they do not, then active progression can hide that problem temporarily, but leads to burn-out as players recognize that their grind is not for anything fun. This is all a roundabout way of my arguing that disciplines should go toward the SB model as much as possible. I totally agree with posters saying crafters have enough to do, fighters need more to do. Discipline hunting was a complete play-style in SB. It was different than farming, siege, ganking, mine-fights, camp-fights. Ultimately, "active" needs to be interpreted broadly. The idea of active is players in game doing things. Not all of those things need to be progression in a numerical advancement sense. It's much more interesting to make such an integral part of character-building be scarce, economic, and competitive rather than a grind. Further, the OP perspective on disciplines is necessarily incomplete, since the current system is not close to the proposed complete system, so I am very skeptical to criticisms of the discipline system as it is now.

I'd prefer if Ace focused all their PvP time, energy, and money figuring out how to improve and create pvp options inside of CWs. If I want to play an arena, I'll go play an arena game built around such a premise. Just my feelings.

I am also hoping for an overarching deity-based system. Maybe one of the "universal" ranking systems - split out by guild so guilds can build an identity around a shared deity. I am anticipating this and order/balance/chaos "universal" ranking systems, among others.

Apparently not 5.6 (just more elves), but hopefully pretty soon!

Okay, but if they were already here they really wouldn't be saying the things they are. So, a bit of a catch-22 with the way you are framing my point. I bring up their opinions precisely because they are obviously underrepresented by people active on CF forums at this moment in time. But, since I care about the game, and have spent all the money on it I ever will, I also care about people who have not spent on CF and might. Hell, I even disagreed with their assessment of what soft launch means, and stated my case for them. Whether this ends up being unproductive or counterproductive is, I guess, a matter for future hindsight. I am not sure, but I think Jah, you, and I just agreed precisely about the problem of having things called soft launch. With that, I will personally let the thread die & not respond, as it has likely given whatever value it had already.

I fully agree about the VIP. My point is that, according to their own plan, it is not the launch of the game for people who have not been following for a while. That comes after as they "funnel people" into the game through a streamlined new player experience. But, part of that new player experience will be the knowledge that some players are already playing and have tangible benefits, and the publicity that follows. I think we have to acknowledge that if the game truly starts at soft launch, then many players will be supposed to start after then, and they will not be happy to find out that others are already playing. They would feel different, I think, if the moment that ACE stops wiping is stated as the launch. Otherwise, new players, with no stock in ACE - literally or figuratively - will eye the game, find out that they are joining late, and walk away. Some say I am overthinking, and that's a perfectly valid opinion. But, I think the wider MMO community has no interest in starting games later than other players got to - it will be viewed as something analogous to P2W or an "insiders" club, right or wrong. People will want to hear about the game before the final wipe, so they can start on time. But, that means that the final wipe should be advertised widely. And we are back at the question of how and when to advertise.

Okay, but JTC literally said #3 is something like open beta, besides for them not wiping. If soft launch is launch, why not spend their advertising budget on it?

I recognize this and have three major points of rebuttal. (1) 15 years have passed since Eve Online released, and the MMO market has changed significantly in that time. One of the ways it has changed is monetization, notable in ACE's decision not to have a subscription. Another way it has changed is the advent of Soft Launches as opposed to closed betas and Launch-day. (2) I do not think the argument "but, it's not that big of an advantage" will be persuasive to many people. Additionally, I believe people working to help get bugs out before launch should not get any benefit beyond game knowledge. Ultimately, this is a PR problem. The language of Soft Launch is fairly poisonous to my guild-mates and, I'm guessing, to other MMO players. Nothing we share or say to them about catch-up and EK/CW is altering their skepticism about Soft Launch, even if it should.

I hope that you are correct, but my experiences tell me you are not. Whereas you think I am exaggerating the proportion of the people who would not want to jump in a soft launch, I think you are exaggerating the proportion of MMO players who would not mind being behind. More specifically, I think you are underestimating the amount of people who would care and also would not pay attention to when a game is going to soft launch. This discussion could include the proposition that ACE widely, widely advertise that they are going to stop wiping. But that means, using JTC's own words, soft launch becoming more like commercial launch. It's a difficult balance because if your proposition that most anyone who would care about being behind will just join at soft launch, then ACE better postpone soft launch until the game (read: performance) is great. Which also seems to counter what JTC is saying about scaling up. And makes soft launch more like commercial launch. What about winning and getting a headstart on exports and EK building, which are ostensibly not as impactful on future CWs as passive training?

Okay, but by your own admission there is nothing that can be done in your hypothetical, so let's separate the idea that the game can grow and incorporate new players from the narrative about the game having already had players before the advertised launch. As with Jetah, we must differentiate between the idea of "there are other players playing the game before me" and "there are other players playing the game before me, but I am told this is Launch." This conversation is about the latter, and how that plays in the MMO market.

No, absolutely not for a steam release 1-year after Commercial Launch. For the record, I did answer your question by stating it is irrelevant to what I am trying to discuss, which is the relationship between two moments in CF's development that have been actually brought up by developers: "Soft Launch" and "Commercial Launch." As I said in my earlier response, players joining at Commercial Launch are not joining late, players joining at this imaginary 1-year steam launch date are joining late. The game released a year prior. Players who are not joining late will be frustrated when they hear that some players joined early, and get tangible benefits from it. And I do not want a wipe after Commercial Launch, I want one after Soft Launch. ACE isn't going to spend advertising on Soft Launch, so for all-intents, it is not the launch of the game, however much it might feel that way to players already engaged in testing or the forums. You are missing my point, this is not at all about the catch-up mechanics. It's not even a thread about players joining late. It's a thread about the likelihood of players learning that there was a Soft Launch and choosing not to buy and join at Commercial Launch. And a thread about the scope of that problem. Since the Commercial Launch is where ACE is spending their marketing budget, it would appear that it is of high value, and needs a high return. In our discussion, these guild-mates are concerned that the MMO community has suffered enough Soft Launch issues, so that the advertised beginning of the game--Commercial Launch--must be a true Launch, or risk alienating the majority of MMO players, who would join after the advertisements, precisely because the majority of MMO players avoid soft launches.

I think it's okay, but would need to be temporary. Otherwise, you permanently split your community. I am not super pumped with being split from all my guild-mates who would want to join at commercial launch, so I suppose it would need to be a less than function only, rather than ranges - so they can join the "vet" server. Additionally, I think it will be very difficult to communicate accurately to new players.

I'm afraid you are employing a slippery slope. I'm not talking about every time new players join the game. I'm talking about a very specific moment that Todd laid out as "commercial launch." At the other times you are talking about, players will have to deal with the knowledge that "launch" happened already, and they are joining late. Players joining at "commercial launch" are not joining late. I think your thoughts about timing are apt, and we should explore them deeper. I am not sure that it will fix the mechanism by which a potential new player avoids buying the game because of an advantage other players have (perceived or real).

As hype for Stoneborn/Dwarf grows in MWH, most of our members who comment on CF and have not played are very wary of soft launch, especially given the passive method of character advancement. The concern is not allayed by dying worlds nor by catch-up mechanics. The concern is rooted in the health of the game, not in their personal choices of how to interact with the passive advancement. I'd love to hear more from ACE about this. In JTC's recent post on this procedure, he spells out quite clearly that the plan is a soft launch, then a commercial launch: I want to differentiate this thread from concerns about the advantage he spelled out. Notably, I think the players in my guild will likely start at soft launch. The concern is quite simply that CF will not get the population necessary to thrive by creating this schism. When new players hear about the game pre-commercial launch, during the marketing, they may be excited but will not pick-up the game due to the ultimate "Uncle Bob" situation: those early players who started at soft-launch will all have an advantage. That is, it's not that these players are coming late, in this scenario - players are starting "right on time," until they find out that a bunch of players started before they did. So, even if the catch-up tome mechanic is literally flawless, it cannot address the problem for players who opt out of the game. I tend to agree with my guild-mates' assessment of this situation. The commercial launch needs to involve a full wipe. Everyone who picks up the game at "launch" needs to have a true Day 1 experience, IMO. Otherwise, all the marketing budget will be crippled from the start, when it's attempting to persuade players to join a game late. I think the remedy is to have soft-launch be the first CW. Winners and losers get to export some unique relics and perhaps get to have their guild crest freely created (or other perks), but then the players' training is completely reset. Thoughts?