How are things with the ROR community?

[dansari]

Agreed with all of this. As long as you respect the dev's word as law, you'll have very little issue just having fun playing the game. If you've never played the game, it will be less visually appealing than some of the newer games coming out, but the game mechanics are simply tried and true. Everything is pretty balanced in the game, and honestly it can be really fun -- which is why a lot of veterans and new players came to play it.

[Kragg]

...and yes, roll a dwarf with a dwarven name and join a decent dwarf guild.

3rd Bitterstone are the epitome of a great community. Gotta give em that. Although their beer taste funny.

Sitting here with my marker and our Book of Grudges. Compliment, yet insulting Redhammer extra dark Brew!

[Grunklestank]

Been here 2 weeks now. I've spent all my time relearning the game and checking out different classes (i.e. I've leveled ~7 classes out of T1). As a fellow n00b, here's my response to a couple of your questions:

Having come from 6+ months on Uthgard (DAOC freeshard), I must say that the staff here at RoR is absolutely fantastic. It's 100% night & day different from the clown devs on Uth. Amazing what having real live human beings as staffmembers can do.

I'm a NA player and the primetime population is usually 200-300. I know that sounds low, but keep in mind, the atmosphere in WAR is much different than most MMOs - almost every single one of those 200 people is there to actively PvP. That's why even when there's only 30 ppl in Tier1, there is still constant action to be had. Scenario pops are slow sometimes late at night when the population is ultra-low, but even then, it's not hard to still find Open World RvR action.

Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience rolling here. Give it a try and stick with it a while. Also - tell your friends! I've been shocked at how "unknown" this server still is amongst all my MMO nerd friends

[saupreusse]

You've got to keep in mind that this server is still a toddler compared to private server old hands like uthgard or former nostalrius. Everything you find ingame can be subject to change and a lot of things surely will be changed simply because new stuff will be patched in.

[Yaliskah]

Maybe something important has been forgotten, that everybody should keep ALWAYS in mind .

This server is still (since 4 years) in Alpha Phase. This a a baby. Players can enjoy on it, and most of them forget it is still an alpha (which is good in some way).

This project is based on nothing, meaning, it has been entirely (globaly) rewriten from 0.

The team is small and works on his freetime for free. So don't expect major improvments days after days. .

If you have played on Live server, you may find some differences but we are trying to make things seriously and intelligently.

Tons of things have to be done, some we can fix, some we can't atm.

[Grunklestank]

Saup & Yal, I'm not sure if you misread what I was saying, but I was highly praising you & all the RoR staff - definitely not being critical. What you guys have done (from scratch, in your free time) is just awesome! Sure it's in alpha, and sure things aren't perfect, but what you've created is an incredibly smooth, stable, and FUN server environment.

You guys & this server might still be relatively "new", but seriously, the staff at Uthgard would be well served to take some notes from you. They created a technical DAOC masterpiece in Uth 2.0, then promptly ran it into the ground. Virtually no meaningful communication, refusing to be flexible, refusing to listen to the community, and treating players like inconvenient warm garbage isn't the way to keep your hard work up & running

Anyway, from my perspective, you guys seem to be doing things really right - keep up the great work. It's really appreciated.

[speler]

A good many replies, and all my questions answered. Thanks everyone, especialy Eathiswood for the detailed answers.

Peak time sees about 600-700 nowadays. Max peak was last summer with 1000+ players. Good action starts at 400-500 mark. 1000 is freaking epic.

Sounds pretty epic!

Yes. The level of information we get beats what you can expect in even some ptp mmo. And those guys are doing it on their free time. GMs are generally helpful, again, unless you plan on being a self-entitled moron.

That sounds quite fair. And I'm happy to see the other replies here corroborating what you said about the admins listening and responding.

Almost everyone plays at max level only now. Slowly some incentives are implemented so more people play in the lower level zone with their maxed out character. A process called debolstering.

Interesting, so Warhammer Online does have this classical MMO level-creep issue. Is the debolstering thing similar to what Guild Wars 2 have done where your stats are automatically scaled down if you outlevel the area you're playing in? (GW2 is pretty much the only MMO I've seriously gotten into) EDIT: oh wait I just realized what you mean. Debolstering is the process of encouraging people to shift over to lower levels as well. The name makes more sense now.

Depends on what you like. If you like bragging about how magnificent your WoW 3300 rating was, no one will care. the age average here, is probably 10-20 years older than most games i played. If you like talking about beer in a roleplaying manner, you'll find some mates to do it every hour of the day.

Hm, sounnds nice. I'm a 90's kid myself so probably slightly older than most gamers, though even when I was a kid I never had time for other kids who are loud/angry/salty from losing (or worse: "sore" winners). And I guess attitude compatibility is what matters more.

No. And yes. The number of player has been pretty even for months now. But a lot of people are new to WAR. Back in time a few years and 100% of the player base was old WAR player. In my book, this is good. New people are joining.

So I guess it's a sort of slow grow then. Sounds alright. I'll be one of the utterly new noobs. I kind of look forward to sinking in the deep end for a bit. As long as people aren't abusive or extremely impatient. Gosh, I'm still slightly scarred from my days with the toxic League of Legends community: "plz help pull blue" / (starts running over) "sure I'll help, but what is pull? I'm guessing blue is the mana buff monster?" / "pull blue idiot" / "uhm OK I'm attacking but what does pull mean?" / "omg" ... <deliberately runs into enemy team tower>

I hope he was asking about EU player base and not NA.

Heh, I didn't know there are different servers. Thanks for the info on numbers, everyone! I live in South Africa and will probably play on a European server given the choice. I'm hoping this game has at least some sort of antilag ability in the protocol (I mean something like in Wolfenstein Enemy Territory or a couple of Quake 3 mods). In either case, I'll see how it goes.

So my answer is a lot on the devs, and yes they communicate ingame and mostly through the news threads or the patchnotes. Also they listen to the community, which doesnt mean that they react to it instantly.

I'm writing most of this because most newcommers are a little bit reddit or 4chan or twitter triggered where you can throw **** at someones head and no real reaction is expected than maybe someone else will talk **** to you back.

This Server is the Treehouse they have build. And they throw a three year nonestop party where everyone can join in. But if you break the rules or scream at them because the beer is out expect them to react to their own ruleset.

The mainstream RoR community is really friendly, pg13 etc... though due in part by strict moderation which will either be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences.

Interesting analogy, Glorian. I can respect that. I'm generally more comfortable in more loosely-moderated places, but I hate the popular-shitpost-mob of the meme-age mindset, so it's good to know things aren't like that here. I can understand flippant support responses to shrug of support vamps; I'm a sysadmin myself (actually software dev but you know how IT can just side track and suck the time out of you). It's just that from all the stickies and glowing red text I got a slightly uncomfortable "just shutup and read and don't toe the line" vibe.

Also I stronly advise to read the Terms of Service.

Noted, and I skimmed it when I signed up. Was slightly sad to see I won't be learning how to use keyboard macros with this game, but eh, I'm still allowed bind my fancy G-key row to regular keys, right?

If you happen to ask a question in /advice, make sure to state that you are a new player - it'll greatly reduce the amount of shitposting, people basicly snap into a reasonable mode.
But be aware, people will at times engage in vivid discussions about the topic you brought up, so make sure you don't take every answer at face value.
Your best bet in regards to questions concerning mechanics, math and competitive play are the forums, most of the more sophisticated players (e.g.: our Lord and Savior, Volgo) are active on here, while the average shitposter is lingering in and littering the /advice chat with hear-say regarding mechanics, convoluted theories and realmbashing (e.g.: class x is better than class y; realm x is better than realm y - "don't bother doing x, y or z because it didn't work for me whilst pugging") - all of which is happening on here too, to some degree, but its easier tell apart.

Hahahaha, "convoluted theories and realmbashing". Sounds like every competitive RPG ever. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll give preference to the forums. Regarding game mechanics though, I'm curious: the numbers (game data) and mechanics (war-emu source) are all technically available, right? I'm guessing there's just not an established centralized place to look it up and draw conclusions?

I'm a NA player and the primetime population is usually 200-300. I know that sounds low, but keep in mind, the atmosphere in WAR is much different than most MMOs - almost every single one of those 200 people is there to actively PvP. That's why even when there's only 30 ppl in Tier1, there is still constant action to be had. Scenario pops are slow sometimes late at night when the population is ultra-low, but even then, it's not hard to still find Open World RvR action.

Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience rolling here.

Good to know.

Maybe something important has been forgotten, that everybody should keep ALWAYS in mind .

This server is still (since 4 years) in Alpha Phase. This a a baby. Players can enjoy on it, and most of them forget it is still an alpha (which is good in some way).

You've got to keep in mind that this server is still a toddler compared to private server old hands like uthgard or former nostalrius. Everything you find ingame can be subject to change and a lot of things surely will be changed simply because new stuff will be patched in.

Noted. I'm a dev myself, and know how hard it can be to keep a project (not to mention a huge one like this) running in spare time.

I know the general term "alpha version" of course, but I'm not sure what precisely that means in this context. Is it laid out somewhere, or does it just generally mean "things can be expected to break badly sometimes"?

You might need to use a more simple password. That function seems to be weird at times.

I'll check again tonight. I did reset my password a while back to something simpler. EDIT: no joy :<

My sysadmin sense tingles a little when I hear that non-alphanumeric characters trip the system up Sounds like the kind of convoluted thing I would have ached to rip out and rewrite/reconfigure. (just teasing a bit, I really do realize this is a volunteer-run project and that some things simply aren't optimal)

If you've never played the game, it will be less visually appealing than some of the newer games coming out, but the game mechanics are simply tried and true. Everything is pretty balanced in the game, and honestly it can be really fun -- which is why a lot of veterans and new players came to play it.

Thanks for the heads-up. But I play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup in pure ASCII, so graphics is no issue for me. As long as the graphics relate meaningfully to game mechanics and the UI doesn't make me curse, it's all great.

[Vajazzle24]

I agree with grunklestank on everything he posted. As an uthgard/daoc/daoc freeshard veteran the staff is night and day better than most I've experienced in the past. I played Warhammer on live and still a lot of relearning to do. Since I found this server I have seen changes/fixes weekly and a log of what has changed (can't describe how much this pleases me). Most people I've encountered are willing to help if you ask them nicely. The server is fun, this is the biggest bonus for me, even during NA time when I play.

I have gotten a few daoc friends to play (three of us 38 now) but can not fully persuade more at the moment. I'm trying my best to help populate.

[Dreadspectre]

Spoiler:

A good many replies, and all my questions answered. Thanks everyone, especialy Eathiswood for the detailed answers.

Peak time sees about 600-700 nowadays. Max peak was last summer with 1000+ players. Good action starts at 400-500 mark. 1000 is freaking epic.

Sounds pretty epic!

Yes. The level of information we get beats what you can expect in even some ptp mmo. And those guys are doing it on their free time. GMs are generally helpful, again, unless you plan on being a self-entitled moron.

That sounds quite fair. And I'm happy to see the other replies here corroborating what you said about the admins listening and responding.

Almost everyone plays at max level only now. Slowly some incentives are implemented so more people play in the lower level zone with their maxed out character. A process called debolstering.

Interesting, so Warhammer Online does have this classical MMO level-creep issue. Is the debolstering thing similar to what Guild Wars 2 have done where your stats are automatically scaled down if you outlevel the area you're playing in? (GW2 is pretty much the only MMO I've seriously gotten into) EDIT: oh wait I just realized what you mean. Debolstering is the process of encouraging people to shift over to lower levels as well. The name makes more sense now.

Depends on what you like. If you like bragging about how magnificent your WoW 3300 rating was, no one will care. the age average here, is probably 10-20 years older than most games i played. If you like talking about beer in a roleplaying manner, you'll find some mates to do it every hour of the day.

Hm, sounnds nice. I'm a 90's kid myself so probably slightly older than most gamers, though even when I was a kid I never had time for other kids who are loud/angry/salty from losing (or worse: "sore" winners). And I guess attitude compatibility is what matters more.

No. And yes. The number of player has been pretty even for months now. But a lot of people are new to WAR. Back in time a few years and 100% of the player base was old WAR player. In my book, this is good. New people are joining.

So I guess it's a sort of slow grow then. Sounds alright. I'll be one of the utterly new noobs. I kind of look forward to sinking in the deep end for a bit. As long as people aren't abusive or extremely impatient. Gosh, I'm still slightly scarred from my days with the toxic League of Legends community: "plz help pull blue" / (starts running over) "sure I'll help, but what is pull? I'm guessing blue is the mana buff monster?" / "pull blue idiot" / "uhm OK I'm attacking but what does pull mean?" / "omg" ... <deliberately runs into enemy team tower>

I hope he was asking about EU player base and not NA.

Heh, I didn't know there are different servers. Thanks for the info on numbers, everyone! I live in South Africa and will probably play on a European server given the choice. I'm hoping this game has at least some sort of antilag ability in the protocol (I mean something like in Wolfenstein Enemy Territory or a couple of Quake 3 mods). In either case, I'll see how it goes.

So my answer is a lot on the devs, and yes they communicate ingame and mostly through the news threads or the patchnotes. Also they listen to the community, which doesnt mean that they react to it instantly.

I'm writing most of this because most newcommers are a little bit reddit or 4chan or twitter triggered where you can throw **** at someones head and no real reaction is expected than maybe someone else will talk **** to you back.

This Server is the Treehouse they have build. And they throw a three year nonestop party where everyone can join in. But if you break the rules or scream at them because the beer is out expect them to react to their own ruleset.

The mainstream RoR community is really friendly, pg13 etc... though due in part by strict moderation which will either be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences.

Interesting analogy, Glorian. I can respect that. I'm generally more comfortable in more loosely-moderated places, but I hate the popular-shitpost-mob of the meme-age mindset, so it's good to know things aren't like that here. I can understand flippant support responses to shrug of support vamps; I'm a sysadmin myself (actually software dev but you know how IT can just side track and suck the time out of you). It's just that from all the stickies and glowing red text I got a slightly uncomfortable "just shutup and read and don't toe the line" vibe.

Also I stronly advise to read the Terms of Service.

Noted, and I skimmed it when I signed up. Was slightly sad to see I won't be learning how to use keyboard macros with this game, but eh, I'm still allowed bind my fancy G-key row to regular keys, right?

If you happen to ask a question in /advice, make sure to state that you are a new player - it'll greatly reduce the amount of shitposting, people basicly snap into a reasonable mode.
But be aware, people will at times engage in vivid discussions about the topic you brought up, so make sure you don't take every answer at face value.
Your best bet in regards to questions concerning mechanics, math and competitive play are the forums, most of the more sophisticated players (e.g.: our Lord and Savior, Volgo) are active on here, while the average shitposter is lingering in and littering the /advice chat with hear-say regarding mechanics, convoluted theories and realmbashing (e.g.: class x is better than class y; realm x is better than realm y - "don't bother doing x, y or z because it didn't work for me whilst pugging") - all of which is happening on here too, to some degree, but its easier tell apart.

Hahahaha, "convoluted theories and realmbashing". Sounds like every competitive RPG ever. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll give preference to the forums. Regarding game mechanics though, I'm curious: the numbers (game data) and mechanics (war-emu source) are all technically available, right? I'm guessing there's just not an established centralized place to look it up and draw conclusions?

I'm a NA player and the primetime population is usually 200-300. I know that sounds low, but keep in mind, the atmosphere in WAR is much different than most MMOs - almost every single one of those 200 people is there to actively PvP. That's why even when there's only 30 ppl in Tier1, there is still constant action to be had. Scenario pops are slow sometimes late at night when the population is ultra-low, but even then, it's not hard to still find Open World RvR action.

Anyway, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience rolling here.

Good to know.

Maybe something important has been forgotten, that everybody should keep ALWAYS in mind .

This server is still (since 4 years) in Alpha Phase. This a a baby. Players can enjoy on it, and most of them forget it is still an alpha (which is good in some way).

You've got to keep in mind that this server is still a toddler compared to private server old hands like uthgard or former nostalrius. Everything you find ingame can be subject to change and a lot of things surely will be changed simply because new stuff will be patched in.

Noted. I'm a dev myself, and know how hard it can be to keep a project (not to mention a huge one like this) running in spare time.

I know the general term "alpha version" of course, but I'm not sure what precisely that means in this context. Is it laid out somewhere, or does it just generally mean "things can be expected to break badly sometimes"?

You might need to use a more simple password. That function seems to be weird at times.

I'll check again tonight. I did reset my password a while back to something simpler. EDIT: no joy :<

My sysadmin sense tingles a little when I hear that non-alphanumeric characters trip the system up Sounds like the kind of convoluted thing I would have ached to rip out and rewrite/reconfigure. (just teasing a bit, I really do realize this is a volunteer-run project and that some things simply aren't optimal)

If you've never played the game, it will be less visually appealing than some of the newer games coming out, but the game mechanics are simply tried and true. Everything is pretty balanced in the game, and honestly it can be really fun -- which is why a lot of veterans and new players came to play it.

Thanks for the heads-up. But I play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup in pure ASCII, so graphics is no issue for me. As long as the graphics relate meaningfully to game mechanics and the UI doesn't make me curse, it's all great.

There aren't different servers, I just meant the population of the server in NA timezone. EU has probably double if not slightly more of the population during their prime time as NA's prime time.

[freshour]

If you play mostly NA times, I'd recommend to play Order to start. They usually always have an NA evening warband going and even if you can't join the main one, i'm sure you can join the off one. Destro is mostly closed groups but once you make friends they will invite you but until then.... very very unlikely.