Conquest of the Horde

Spoiler'd due to possibly controversial content and language.

(12-09-2012, 08:34 AM)Vladdy Wrote: [ -> ]Hell, he's mostly a strict family man who'd rather be fishing or making more children.

No. Bro has fourteen children. HE'S DONE. :P

(12-08-2012, 10:23 PM)Grakor456 Wrote: [ -> ]You'll find that many GMs try to focus on the ideas of realism, having things make sense and strictly adhere to lore. To your average GM, players should be intimidated by large and imposing enemies like Doomguards.

So I suspect I qualify for that green paint after all.

I’m focusing the first part of this specifically on GM/players, since that was what the OP specified, even if the thread’s gone a bit further than that.

Part of the GM/player high/low divide is probably due to the fact that you all have seen the far end of the high fantasy power spectrum and had to tell people to tone it down, or work out the rules and say “No, this is too much. This character can’t do that. X can’t do Y. Stop arguing, please, this is just how it needs to be.” You, having seen the extreme side of the high-powered high fantasy level, are, understandably, a bit jaded.

Xigo’s (valid) point about defeat=drama is another unfortunate side effect of your position as moderators for this kind of community. As was mentioned several times in this thread already, people in general don’t handle losing well, or being shown up, or anything that makes their characters seem inferior to anyone else’s. Individuals can handle stuff like that; the people you know and trust, etc etc. But most of us wouldn’t trust someone we’d never met before to RP that way. Or, at least, you wouldn’t after the first couple of times. As GMs, you’re the ones that have to answer those complaints when things like that happen, and go “No, your character can’t do that. It’s not fair for everyone else.” People resent that, and theeeeen the jadedness comes, eventually. It would just be easier to manage if everything was low fantasy, low power, grimdark everyone-can-die-at-any-time-every-fight-could-be-your-last. Some people would prefer that. But that is not the setting we're playing in, and trying to make it so is...not fair.
And that was a sweeping exaggeration. Not saying that CotH's GMs are part of a conspiracy to turn Warcraft into low-tech Dark Heresy.
That I know of.

That’s my opinion/impression.

I’ve always preferred high fantasy, personally. Not going to get into detail why, as I specifically remember typing it out several times in various other threads, but as long as the lore/power/your flashy new spell is all internally consistent to the realm (WoW) that we’re in, then go crazy. I like being able to whip out an impressive spell that's flashy and looks awesome and wipes half the bad guys out. Some people don't. I also know I personally don’t mind people having characters that beat mine, for the most part, but that’s really neither here nor there.

I also think it’s important to remember when comparing WC3/WoW/the lore and reasoning behind that Blizzard is, first and foremost, making games to appeal to whatever market will make the most money. Us roleplayers are not that market, and I think it’s important for everyone who goes “Oh Blizzard is so lazy for not making lore about that” or “so lazy of them to not have put X in” to keep that in mind. The fact that they have put so much lore out is great. We can fill in the rest or work around it.

I originally meant to talk about the power scale. Whoops. Got a bit sidetracked. Games. An RTS is just not going to compare perfectly to an MMO. There's no two ways to cut it. PCs in WoW don't have a real place in WC3. Something about fighting what’s supposed to be a huge war and only having two dozen units on the field is something to keep in mind as well. I think Starcraft 1 is a better example of that PC/NPC hero/generic foot soldier divide, as well. Basic Jim Raynor marine had higher stats than a regular marine, and could probably take three or four of them alone without dying (which was permanent, by the way; no altars), but there were also waaaaay more units on the field as well, so they had less of an impact (unless you had Zeratul, in which case GG NO RE). Population cap of 200 vs. WC3’s 90. That’s more in tune with how most people handle PCs, particularly during events.

I never looked at a ghoul and said “I wanna play as that,” though. That Dark Ranger, though? Oh, hell yeah, I’d play that. That’s part of why I actually picked up WoW RP and still have never had a chance to do so.

I’m never good with closing big posts like this when they don’t have a coherent goal beyond rambling about my general thoughts, which is usually why I don’t post them, but…

Yeah.

(12-09-2012, 07:19 AM)Xigo Wrote: [ -> ]Powerful characters ('heroes') who always win are boring. Strange new powers never before seen in the lore do not add much to anything, besides the 'oooh, ahhh' factor. Enemies should be threatening, not just things you go 'meh, ten kobolds, time to curb stomp them'.

As Grakor pointed out in teamspeak yesterday, it's ironic that I enjoy low-power characters, as Ara'Gazhi is one of my favorites (a decidedly high powered doomguard). Why? Because with him, I had an antagonist who no other character should feasibly been able to beat in a fair fight. At least, that was my intention when playing him. To provide an adversary who would defeat you if it came to a physical battle. To bring that fear of defeat to characters that normally chuckled their way through fights while killing a man every turn in a fight.

However, people hated me for it, and decided that a doomguard was just as powerful as every other character. My time playing Ara'Gazhi strongly colored my point of view towards the general populace of CotH. That most people are selfish. No one's happy with a defeat. No one's happy with the bad guy having a victory for a change. No one's happy with an antagonist being in a position of power. No one's happy with losing an event, or wiping during an event. No one's happy with the GMs disagreeing with them, and for some inexplicable reason treat discussions about whether something's ok or not ok as a fight with a winner and a loser. Whenever someone perceives loss, drama comes along.

I'm weary of this. Defeat is an important part of any character's development. Always winning is always boring.

Pretty sure at the point you were playing Ara'ghazi, Tavren and his group were pretty much stomping most everyone into the dirt. In fact, I do remember that one battle right outside of BB that effectively killed off like... ten people total, maybe more? Most of them good guy types too. And then there were all the smaller type battles that were largely just ambushes and what not.

And then there were the other antagonist groups too. I think at that point, there were enough antagonist types who were in plenty positions of power and doing their fair share of winning too.

And when you constantly play a doomguard, who was bound to a warlock of fairly average/normal power skill wise, people are going to assume that he's actually quite low on the totem pole of demon power. Regardless of how he was actually bound/summoned/whatever.

It's not so much people hate villain types winning or anything, or even some high-powered demon showing up every so often; it's when that demon is always present, wrecking someone's face. Loses the novelty rather quickly. And makes you want to avoid any such area.

And when you put it all together, no one really likes playing against a demon they can't win against just because he decided to pop into that area today. It's not like it was some set up story line thing, or even some random chain of spontaneous events. It was just a Tuesday and the demon was bored. You can imagine why some people playing fairly low-powered warrior types would get a little bit miffed on that.

(Which, to be honest, was what it basically was back in the day. Fairly low-powered characters going about and doing their thing. There were probably only a few prestige. And only a few people doing the whole high-end powered types... and a lot of them were killed off with ease by Tavren and his crew then.)

Funnily enough I'm very adverse to both the gritty and often somewhat unpleasant (in my own opinion) grimdark and the oversaturated noblebright.

This isn't something we can strike in WoW, of course. When it comes to WoW I do very much enjoy the idea of playing heroes; one of my favorite concepts, especially visually, was the paladin in Warcraft III. Most of the paladins I make are innately based off of them in some way or another.

That being said, I've always found struggles on a smaller scale to be more interesting and cinematically better. I like it when a paladin faced with a small handful of undead comes out battered and bruised. When you make the foes serious on a small scale, the larger ones become all the greater of a conquest to defeat.

I just like smaller fights more, and I like it when the lower power is the norm. It's the difference between "Yeah, I killed a crypt fiend today. Let's go get drunk." and "LOOK FRIENDS, WE RETURN VICTORIOUS FROM OUR HUNT WITH A TROPHY OF OUR SPIDERY FOE. LET US FEAST LIKE GODS."

...I think I've used that example before. But I still like it. It's more fun when even 'smaller' victories can be celebrated in grand ways.

Probably off-topic by this point. Ah well. Just giving some opinions.

(12-09-2012, 08:58 AM)Caravan Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-09-2012, 08:34 AM)Vladdy Wrote: [ -> ]Hell, he's mostly a strict family man who'd rather be fishing or making more children.

No. Bro has fourteen children. HE'S DONE. :P

UNLIMITED ADOPTIONS!

I would comment on the matter of Vladdy's children, but I fear that doing so will result in me being shot.

I mean. Vladdy is right. Children are good.

(12-09-2012, 11:14 AM)Psychyn Wrote: [ -> ]I would comment on the matter of Vladdy's children, but I fear that doing so will result in me being shot.

I mean. Vladdy is right. Children are good.

No need for the correctional center now. I mean what?

@Caravan: ......Tree bark. That will feed a family of 14 and more! (Hopefully. Maybe.)

Alright, before this gets derailed about Mark's children, I'm gonna toss in my own opinion.

You all know I love my anime. You all know I enjoy throwing in some elements of it here and there inside of my rp. But, I don't go around summoning multiple clones of myself and using a Bankai to rip through countless heartless(undead). I firmly believe in a middle ground.

You have high-fantasy wow, and low fantasy middle ages. Why isn't there a mid-fantasy? I've read through all these post's and there hasn't been a mention of a middle level fantasy. So far it's either we play as the common foot soldier, or a hero running around with the power level of over 9000. So I ask you, why can't we just be the better then your average soldier? Why can't we look at a Doomguard with the amount of fear one would expect from seeing one of those, but push past it and take it down with two or more of your allies.

Now, on the topic of no one likes the hero who never looses, I agree. I think we need more deaths going around. To be honest, more events should have a death figure in it. We as a server truly have brushed off death as a fleeting figure. And much of what we do has a chance of death, so instead of keeping everyone alive by the end of it, people should die. Some probably wont like this, they don't like the idea of a character they've had for so long die because of rolls/situation/etc. But I would like it. I would let each and everyone of my characters die in such a way simply because that has realism.

So, the topic was the rift between GM's and players, and I felt like getting those points above out, but it's really seems to me more like no one can find a middle ground. Both sides are firm in their beliefs and don't want to have to budge. Mind you this is a generalization. There are plenty of times when a compromise has been met, but for the high vs. low fantasy, they don't seem to have the mid-fantasy done. Perhaps we should all come together, GM's and players, old and new, and find this middle ground to end this debate once and for all.

I think the majority of GM's try to put more realism in the game because of the ridiculous amount of badass characters that don't have a single flaw and are the best at everything they do. Talking with a dialect doesn't make you flawed, and neither does doing things that aren't standard to your class...

Which seems to be how everyone treats that. I mean, it's pretty mind numbing to me how fights become an "ego" waving contest. Substitute ego for a certain male bodypart, and you've got the just of what I'm saying here.

I think one of the big reasons that drama comes with loss is because character death seems to be thrown around far too -often-. Surprisingly. Why not work together to come up with more interesting things that could happen? Story telling as a cooperative art is a more constructive way to look at battle.

People who throw events too. Try to come up with something interesting for something to happen to your players should they fail, rather than just warning them that they could die. Maybe they get captured and get to rp their way out of it? I don't know. Something that is fun and keeps the rp going rather than putting an instant end to it. Character death has a place, but, it is kind of extreme.

And, while that was slightly off topic, I think it is still valid to the conversation at hand. Heh.

Just sayin'.

Please don't punch me.

I haven't seen a single unexpected death in months, besides throw-away characters, so I'm kinda surprised how this has become a topic at all.

---

EDIT: Worth to note that we have CWs for a reason. If people didn't see their deaths coming with that... Well, nothing can make them expect it, then.

(12-09-2012, 12:10 PM)Rowgen Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't seen a single unexpected death in months, besides throw-away characters, so I'm kinda surprised how this has become a topic at all.

It has happened.

(12-09-2012, 12:10 PM)Rowgen Wrote: [ -> ]I haven't seen a single unexpected death in months, besides throw-away characters, so I'm kinda surprised how this has become a topic at all.

Doyle got blown up during a failed assassination of Celen on Ratchet on the rocks..

Seems quite unexpected to me..