Post by logahmmed » Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:44 pm
It would certainly keep the game from just being a race to join a coalition and then the worlds are just little more than a battle between a few players. It'd add a new dynamic that would, well, be FUN to play.
It'd also keep some of the stronger guilds NOT in a coalition in the game longer. When it comes time to start going after them, bigger coalitions may take pause. What if the Barbarians hit in the middle of a campaign? It wouldn't just be a wave of domination then. And, frankly, it'd be fun seeing guilds at war having to lay down their arms against one another to deal with the coming waves of NPCs.
EDIT: Plus, from a business standpoint it'd make sense, too -- if you reduce the speed at which players are knocked out, you increase the amount of time they're committed to the world. The longer they're committed, the more likely they'll be willing to spend gold to maintain their ability to continue with the world they've invested so much time in. It requires no trickery, no bait-and-switch, nothing that people would conceptually be upset about (you're always going to have someone complaining about X, Y and Z whenever their cities are getting decimated, but the game's the game).
Strong NPCs late in the game -- not just a temporary nuisance, see: EVE Online for inspiration on NPC invasions -- provide surprises, allow for the potential of unlikely alliances, and because they're NPCs, they're always on, so players are gonna have to remain on their toes or may wake up to find some of their cities have taken serious hits. When guilds can sense that their dominance is on the horizon, and then oh, snap, barbarian hordes, they're much more likely to do whatever needs to be done in order to salvage that dominance. I.e., spending gold.
It would certainly keep the game from just being a race to join a coalition and then the worlds are just little more than a battle between a few players. It'd add a new dynamic that would, well, be FUN to play.
It'd also keep some of the stronger guilds NOT in a coalition in the game longer. When it comes time to start going after them, bigger coalitions may take pause. What if the Barbarians hit in the middle of a campaign? It wouldn't just be a wave of domination then. And, frankly, it'd be fun seeing guilds at war having to lay down their arms against one another to deal with the coming waves of NPCs.
EDIT: Plus, from a business standpoint it'd make sense, too -- if you reduce the speed at which players are knocked out, you increase the amount of time they're committed to the world. The longer they're committed, the more likely they'll be willing to spend gold to maintain their ability to continue with the world they've invested so much time in. It requires no trickery, no bait-and-switch, nothing that people would conceptually be upset about (you're always going to have someone complaining about X, Y and Z whenever their cities are getting decimated, but the game's the game).
Strong NPCs late in the game -- not just a temporary nuisance, see: EVE Online for inspiration on NPC invasions -- provide surprises, allow for the potential of unlikely alliances, and because they're NPCs, they're always on, so players are gonna have to remain on their toes or may wake up to find some of their cities have taken serious hits. When guilds can sense that their dominance is on the horizon, and then oh, snap, barbarian hordes, they're much more likely to do whatever needs to be done in order to salvage that dominance. I.e., spending gold.