Permanent lockouts

[kweedko]

Suggestion: Maybe it could work to make side switching possible everytime a city fight was going on. This way, everytime the campaign resets, you could switch to the other side and play there for as long as a city is taken again.

And after firs siege everebody gonna xreal to winning side to farm empty cities by cd

Wouldnt be possible because it would be allowed AFTER the fricking city fight is over :^) dont find problems where there are none. and if you do i will deny them and say its ryans fault.

Then they switch before city fall, and don't come back to the loosing side, farming next city sieges that what i mean.

[bwdaWAR]

I've always been a supporter of a short (1-6 hours) lockout against crossrealming, but the one week long, and especially the permanent lockout would be not to my liking at all, and, judging from posts from the locked thread mentioned above (and many other threads on the topic before), many people agree with me for some of these reasons.
Whenever someone complains about crossrealming, they will always describe someone switching sides immediately, to benefit from whatever situation has developed in the game. Not for playing the other side after a long break (longer than most players spend in the game at a time), and certainly not for having characters on both sides. But the long lockout timer would effectively prevent people playing characters on both sides at all. Is there any actual reason to do that other than, well, narrowminded generalisation of the term "crossrealming" instead of identifying what exactly the problem is before going for the torches and pitchforks?

There is a lot of talk about "realm pride", and no doubt it has its merits, but... Whenever I see the term, two things come to mind: all the blatant whining posts, ingame or otherwise, about this or that class/ability that show a clear lack of understanding how the class/ability works, and these upstanding members of society; the darker side of the so-called "realm pride". The playerbase isn't filtered by anything at all when joining, so without doubt there are many people with the type of mentality that breeds this kind of behavior, where support for one's liked realm/team/group of any type is more about mindless hatred for everyone else - sadly that's something humans are very prone to.
As mentioned many times in the other thread, people who play a single realm are more likely to be very biased as they don't even experience the "other side" and it forever remains "the enemy" in their minds; seeing the game from the other side of the fence as well can change that perspective quite a lot.
In a recent staff application thread it was specifically requested that the applicants play both sides for this very reason; many current staff members have characters on both sides.
Which brings up another topic, specifically testing and game experience. This is a PvP game, and what better way to learn the game mechanics of your opponent, and whichever side you picked first, than playing there too? That information is not secret in any fashion, and this is what you do in other PvP games as well. This same is true for game testing that we're currently, in theory at least, all doing.
A part of the game experience angle is the content. Both sides have different content, PvE especially, but the class and PvP area designs aren't identical either. If players are restricted, or practically restricted, to only one side of a single server, they can only experience half of the game. This is the part that's most unappealing to me personally, as I like to explore all the content a game has to offer, including the various classes; but even people without 8+8 characters might enjoy a class that happens to be on the other side. Ultimately, this is a computer game, for people to have fun with for a few hours a day they can afford with their jobs, families or other real life activities. It's not about being part of a nation, complete with a clear enemy image, with rock-solid allegiences and branding anyone suspected of sympathising with the enemy a traitor and dispensing harsh punishment to such disloyal elements. At least so I hope.

[saupreusse]

And after firs siege everebody gonna xreal to winning side to farm empty cities by cd

Wouldnt be possible because it would be allowed AFTER the fricking city fight is over :^) dont find problems where there are none. and if you do i will deny them and say its ryans fault.

Then they switch before city fall, and don't come back to the loosing side, farming next city sieges that what i mean.

but they cant switch before city fall.

[Akalukz]

24 hr lock, no rewards for 24 hrs once you switch sides.

[Tesq]

Spoiler:

I've always been a supporter of a short (1-6 hours) lockout against crossrealming, but the one week long, and especially the permanent lockout would be not to my liking at all, and, judging from posts from the locked thread mentioned above (and many other threads on the topic before), many people agree with me for some of these reasons.
Whenever someone complains about crossrealming, they will always describe someone switching sides immediately, to benefit from whatever situation has developed in the game. Not for playing the other side after a long break (longer than most players spend in the game at a time), and certainly not for having characters on both sides. But the long lockout timer would effectively prevent people playing characters on both sides at all. Is there any actual reason to do that other than, well, narrowminded generalisation of the term "crossrealming" instead of identifying what exactly the problem is before going for the torches and pitchforks?

There is a lot of talk about "realm pride", and no doubt it has its merits, but... Whenever I see the term, two things come to mind: all the blatant whining posts, ingame or otherwise, about this or that class/ability that show a clear lack of understanding how the class/ability works, and these upstanding members of society; the darker side of the so-called "realm pride". The playerbase isn't filtered by anything at all when joining, so without doubt there are many people with the type of mentality that breeds this kind of behavior, where support for one's liked realm/team/group of any type is more about mindless hatred for everyone else - sadly that's something humans are very prone to.
As mentioned many times in the other thread, people who play a single realm are more likely to be very biased as they don't even experience the "other side" and it forever remains "the enemy" in their minds; seeing the game from the other side of the fence as well can change that perspective quite a lot.
In a recent staff application thread it was specifically requested that the applicants play both sides for this very reason; many current staff members have characters on both sides.
Which brings up another topic, specifically testing and game experience. This is a PvP game, and what better way to learn the game mechanics of your opponent, and whichever side you picked first, than playing there too? That information is not secret in any fashion, and this is what you do in other PvP games as well. This same is true for game testing that we're currently, in theory at least, all doing.
A part of the game experience angle is the content. Both sides have different content, PvE especially, but the class and PvP area designs aren't identical either. If players are restricted, or practically restricted, to only one side of a single server, they can only experience half of the game. This is the part that's most unappealing to me personally, as I like to explore all the content a game has to offer, including the various classes; but even people without 8+8 characters might enjoy a class that happens to be on the other side. Ultimately, this is a computer game, for people to have fun with for a few hours a day they can afford with their jobs, families or other real life activities. It's not about being part of a nation, complete with a clear enemy image, with rock-solid allegiences and branding anyone suspected of sympathising with the enemy a traitor and dispensing harsh punishment to such disloyal elements. At least so I hope.

exept ppl can't have a good experience out fo sc if the game keep be 1 overzerging side and the other that get the short edge.

[Dabbart]

Sau's idea is a clever one. But it could lead into Genni's thoughts, that people might "let" the end zone farm occur rather than try and defend, to let them get off this damned realm! Go ahead, fight like hell over the middle zones, give em the end zones once it's clear they are going to win, fight in the city then Xrealm to whatever side you feel like.

I would still like to have a PvP based timer. If you want to login to order to check your AH or friends list, and farm some PvE, then switch to destro when people actually login to go fight that should be fine. How is any PvE an issue in regards to "Xrealming"?

And a seperate thought, It could be cool to see an AAO based login. So you have a hard-cap time on switching realms, unless 1 side is outnumbered by X%, in which case timers are temporarily lifted until the X% is alleviated. For example: You are logged into Destro side, and you notice order has AAO. Check the Forums, and you see that destro/order is at 50/50, you can't switch sides during your timer. If however, destro is 70/30 over order, then you ONLY swap TO order until the numbers get back to 55/50 or less. Note: This DOES have the possibility of leaving guilds trying to swap over in a group the potential to get split up, 3 of the 6 relog, then the other 3 can't cause the pop numbers are more equal now. This would be a positive, as active Xrealming on largish scales should always be frowned upon. Imo.

Is that possible to code? I doubt it. And Genni's point on people swapping to disallow any "end-game" content could come to fruition... But since it would only count those actually logged in, and not only those participating in the actual ORvR, it should be simpler to handle...

On OPs topic of forcing a hard delete of 1 side... I only have destro currently, so I'm a little biased on that. If you want to be super hardcore on NO XREALMING then a week timer would be the way to go. Forcing deletions might have a longterm negative effect upon playercount... Or it might lead to people actively caring about their realm and guild far more than currently. You will HAVE To find a way to communicate and coordinate. You can't just swap cause your realm is full of handicaps today...


My 2 cents.

[bwdaWAR]

Spoiler:

stuff

exept ppl can't have a good experience out fo sc if the game keep be 1 overzerging side and the other that get the short edge.

Yes, I forgot that from the wall of text. How would the server staff manage the playerbase potentially becoming permanently unbalanced in one side's favor? I remember some posts pointing out that this happened on the live servers. Only allowing new accounts on the weaker side? I can't really imagine a lot of people wanting to play a game where you can't even choose which side you want to play on.

[Telen]

I for one am currently doing the storylines on des as I never got round to them on live. I was also hoping to do the pqs when they are fixed. I dont mind timers but a total lockout would pretty much force me to play the side I consider the enemy from live and abandon the race I played on TT. Lockout length or reward loss wouldnt bother me but Id really like to have access to the other side just as its half the game content.

[Eathisword]

Permanent/very long realm lockout would be nice. Then again, it would suck. I feel both options appeal to completely different kind of players. Hence, I propose a modified version of a proposal made several times in different threads about this :

Make player chose between 2 types of account.

1- could be called Realm Pride, where a player voluntarily locks himself to a realm forever, gaining some permanent bonuses : increased renown gain, unique skins, unique mounts, unique titles. This would be good for the prideful population, the RP people, the guilds and alliance that want to push for every zone lock possible.

2- could be called the Skirmisher or the Brawler, where a player decides he wants an account that can log on both side, declining all of the above bonuses and getting a permanent renown gain penalty. This would be good for the people that just want to get a good fight no matter the reward.

I think this way, we would avoid coercing a lot of the population as people would chose for themselves what is more important to them, all the while stabilizing the realm population a little bit, as I believe, most casuals would chose Option 1, to get cool stuff and faster renown (avoid falling to far behind the more hardcore people that might decide to play both realm to farm AAO and have the kind of fights they want).

[Aethilmar]

My $0.02...

If you implement a lockout, it should only a couple of hours at the most and it should encourage people to switch to the underdog side to even things out i.e. no lockout if you switch but lockout to switch back. I, personally, have just started leveling some Destro toons b/c Order zergs (when they happen) are no fun. I play this game for the Lore, the fights and the character progression in that order. So if you come up with a solution that lets me have reasonable character progression on the losing side, then I am a happy camper.

As noted by others, having a lengthy lockout may just kill your populations. Sometimes I like to play my SM for a long time. Sometimes I like to character surf. Once I get some higher level Destro I'll feel the same about them and not being able to do so will be annoying in general and I'll just go play something else once that happens. Also, there is a very real danger with lengthy timers of locking in imbalances for large periods. The benign form of this is accidental lockin that demotivates one side and results in unopposed zone farming. The sinister form is guilds using out of game channels to coordinate imbalances for the week to farm zones.

As noted by others, finding ways to motivate people to take the field on the over matched side would be preferable. There have been multiple schemes put forth and I'm confident you guys have other ideas. Of course, there will always be exploits to those which means GM intervention or live with it.