e-sports explosion!

I read this NYT article about e-sports blowing up today, apparently there is an e-sport tournament in Seattle starting today <removed>

Way back I remember MA having a tournament and amazingly someone just happened to hit a big jackpot while it was being recorded

Apparently it wasn't enough to get people hooked on PE e-sport tournaments. I don't remember them doing anything else after that. It seems that the e-sport world has passed MA by.

I guess compet is their idea of getting a toenail hold on it.

I've been fascinated by all of the people streaming on twitch since I returned, apparently a lot of pro e-sport gamers do that also. I also noticed that when anything interesting is starting to happen the cameras go off

I wonder how many others that play PE also compete in other e-sport tournaments?

I know If they would have had this option 30 years ago I would have been in the thick of it, alas all my quarters went into consoles in the bars, we just got drunk and competed against each other to have our initials listed on the high score on the machine

This is what I wanted EUWBC to be when I started doing it. I may have been the first person here (perhaps the only one at the time) who thought that the future of big game events was not in getting participants to pay in and compete against each other for the prizes, but to focus on the spectator aspect and make it something that people would want to watch for entertainment, in the same way that traditional sporting events work.

I was right, but EU was not at the time, and has not yet become, an appropriate medium for that kind of event, for a number of reasons, not least of which is a lack of interest from the developers.

Oleg said:

This is what I wanted EUWBC to be when I started doing it. I may have been the first person here (perhaps the only one at the time) who thought that the future of big game events was not in getting participants to pay in and compete against each other for the prizes, but to focus on the spectator aspect and make it something that people would want to watch for entertainment, in the same way that traditional sporting events work.

I was right, but EU was not at the time, and has not yet become, an appropriate medium for that kind of event, for a number of reasons, not least of which is a lack of interest from the developers.

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I have to admit, I am really surprised by its growth. Not only tournaments but Twitch also. My first thoughts were, "Who the hell wants to watch someone else play when they could just go play themselves, its not like they have to wait their turn to drop a quarter???" But, I came up with a number of reasons after thinking about it for a while. You and many others where right on the money. I however am again on the sidelines watching it happen. But that in itself is fascinating to me. How can you be right on something and miss it? That story could fill volumes that nobody really wants to read about

But the prize pot for the game which shall not be named is $18 million. That's just incredible - where are we going wrong!!

gwit said:

But the prize pot for the game which shall not be named is $18 million. That's just incredible - where are we going wrong!!

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Exactly, MA's little jackpots are peanuts compared to the cheddar going to the players of that game which shall not be named. Where *they* went wrong is sponsors and excitement! Who wants to watch someone grind the same fucking mob over and over and over until they get a little swirly. That's about as exciting as watching concrete set.

The closest thing in this game was/is? Land Grab. I think it was late 2005 I went to my first land grab. I thought that was so much fun! It was so exciting to see everyone gearing up for this epic battle, and then it started. Looking back it's hard to remember all the bugs and exploits and everything, but it was a lot of fun shooting and dying, revival killing, etc. trying to capture the land areas and see the socs pulling together and seeing the strategy at play all over the map with the anticipation of finding out who was going to defend the land area the longest and keep the land for another cycle. THAT was fun and exciting! Well, that and seeing Marco get blown away because he forgot to put god mode on, that was heeelarious

I don't know if MA could ever work it out all of the problems with PVP and make it fun, fair and interesting again, but that was the closest thing I could think of that MA could do to make it entertaining for participants and an audience that might pay to watch which would fund a payout for the winning socs, or groups, teams, whatever.

Mac said:

snipped......old style land grab awesome......snipped

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Absolutely completely agree!!

The Old style LG was awesome to watch and I mean awesome.

For someone who was pretty new to the game back then it was just about the coolest thing I'd seen.

There was one marker with a small safe zone nearby over looking the 'valley of death' that people could watch from and it was packed with people.
It was a real spectator sport.(though you could always die and just not revive but that also made a mess on the field and I don't know that the participants found that very helpful).

But due to server load/lag etc it didn't last long and I always felt that was a great loss (understandable at the time though).
There was none of the structures etc to use for cover/tactics and so on and yet it was still great to watch.
Different Socs making a run at it,regrouping and even making pacts with other socs to clear the claim.
There was a lot of politics and side wrangling involved as well.

I wonder if the servers could put up with an audience these days.
Now that we have all the vehicles/pets/new toys etc it could be a memorable thing to see and I think people would talk about it for a while.One of those 'I was there when...' moments.

Seeing the abilities of some of the best players with the best equipment in action with the tension of the claim marker timer ticking away is something I wont forget.

MA could really kick a goal if they managed to make it an in game stadium type thing for the rest of us plebs to watch and amaze at.


EDIT:The trick was knowing which Marker to watch or should I say which one Warants were going for.

EDIT 2:On thinking about it more MA can look through the eyes of any player/mob etc so they could just as easily set up a few 'cameras' around the fort/marker/whatever and play them on in-game screens at a stadium type place or just a major population centre,that could still be fun.

But instead of land grab how about just a clear financial reward. The $1 million tournament - that would bring players to the game.

To be honest, I don't know if EU is the right type of game for a really large e-sports tournament... or MMOs in general.

Generally, most of the really big e-sports games are MOBAs and shooters, where all players have the same starting conditions. An MMORPG where some players have spent 10 years perfecting their characters and others are just starting would perhaps feel a bit too... predictable?

Obviously, it's possible to have tiers for different levels of competitors, but there are problems with that as well. Not to mention how difficult it could be designing the contest/tournament in a way that it attracts not only players, but is interesting enough to watch (even for non-players).

Mac said:

How can you be right on something and miss it? That story could fill volumes that nobody really wants to read about

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Story of my life. I also invented dubstep and the Wii, in my own head

Even more impressive, the 18 million prize money was funded by the community, as it is every year.

I like that other game quite a lot, been playing for years, and the things you see them do makes your head explode. Such reflexes to quickly execute very complex routines and combos.

I see no difference with any other sports, these kids do things that very few can do. If you catch one of the keyboard cameras while on a heavy combat it looks like they are playing a piano, only faster than most piano players can pull

Maybe one day EU will catch up with the times and do something similar, who knows.

It's not all reflexes, a lot of it is spatial awareness i.e. keeping track of multiple targets and the area surrounding the player while moving. Not everyone is capable of it at a high enough speed.

Nighthawk said:

To be honest, I don't know if EU is the right type of game for a really large e-sports tournament... or MMOs in general.

Generally, most of the really big e-sports games are MOBAs and shooters, where all players have the same starting conditions. An MMORPG where some players have spent 10 years perfecting their characters and others are just starting would perhaps feel a bit too... predictable?

Obviously, it's possible to have tiers for different levels of competitors, but there are problems with that as well. Not to mention how difficult it could be designing the contest/tournament in a way that it attracts not only players, but is interesting enough to watch (even for non-players).

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NO, absolutely not. The concept of "everyone has to have equal chances" is so eighties.


Seems to me, EU already has most of the components needed to make it exciting. For participants on almost all levels. What EU can't possibly afford is the spectators inside warzone. This would create serious technical problems. Luckily, setting up automated ingame video feeds is easy task on CryEngine2.
We would also need a counter that keeps track how many avatars are on each server that locks up the area if the safe max limit has been reached.

All the rest we already had once. LG's where multiple LA's were defended at once. Strategy, politics, alliances, all this will come naturally. OK, there will be a certain minimum skill level most likely, a total noob is not very useful in battle but u don't have to be an uber to be part of this either. The more reason to skill up for the next LG.

So why can't EU do it again - on a whole new level, with streaming and all? Imagine a stream with 10-15 channles. I can't see any reason why not.
It could go big. I mean, really BIG. If they only weren't so damn lazy and unimaginative...

It have been going for a couple of years and the Koreans likes competitions in Starcraft I think. We have had some broadcasting from different compensations in Swedish tv. But it mostly FPS and RTS that are suited for this kind of competions. EU is not really a game to have any competition in. It also must be games that many plays so the audience understand what is going on.

billairboy said:

EU is not really a game to have any competition in.

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Yes, EU has failed miserably with setting up servers for LG. As soon as the number of players per server exceeds a certain number the whole thing just collapses. All true.
Then again, it has worked in the past. There's ways to overcome all technical problems if it was taken seriously. It has not been taken seriously for years and that's a management decision. It doesn't bring in immediate income, or rather, too little compared to the efforts required to solve the problems, set it all up and maintain it.
Which is shortsighted. Since we lost the old spectacular LandGrabs EU is like monster with it's head cut off. To be among the Top Twenty and hope to make some profit out of your longterm investment is not a realistic goal for most people. Nowadays the endgame is just - skill up, join WSS, share the income from LA's. That's an endgame? I mean, really? C'mon... Whoever remembers the old LG's will agree, that's a pathetic ghost of what we had once.

billairboy said:

It also must be games that many plays so the audience understand what is going on.

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In StarCraft u have to play the game to really understand what's going on on the stream. PvP in EU is pretty straightforward - grab a gun and shoot the other guy. What's there not to understand?
Ok, maybe the fact that players can be at very different skill levels? That some are in fact heavily armored War Elephants and others just a Spearmen in the light armor.
Suppose we add special color markings on the avatars? Kinda player classes, according to total skill or sth. Could be only visible on video stream.
Or maybe not... As long as u know that all players are not equal it's pretty much self explanatory as it is, imo.

jod said:

Absolutely completely agree!!

The Old style LG was awesome too watch and I mean awesome.

For someone who was pretty new to the game back then it was just about the coolest thing I had seen.

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Yes it was! It was like a booster shot for me to want to skill and gear up to participate. The first one was just about me seeing what was possible. By the second one, I had a pretty nice kit. I had a full set of Shadow+6A plates, a RJ+Dante and an ML35ME+Dante and an EnBlade-12 that could one shot people with who didn't have melee protection The only thing I was missing at that time was an uber fap, and I was working on getting that. Plus I joined Shaolin, that was a great soc that was able to compete and hold off the hordes and keep the three LAs we had at that time (iirc). We had a lot of people who really enjoyed PVP and some like Akoz had a great kit with mod fap, etc. It was soooooo much fun just being able to be a part of it all! The point being, that there was a lot more reason for me to gear up and skill up for then to be able to participate in LG, than just trying to maximize my eco to break even off grinding some fucking mob until my eyes bled.

jod said:

There was one marker with a small safe zone nearby over looking the 'valley of death' that people could watch from and it was packed with people.
It was a real spectator sport.(though you could always die and just not revive but that also made a mess on the field and I don't know that the participants found that very helpful).

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Your right, it was a big spectators sport for everyone interested, I know there were people who would say, oh I can't compete so I am not even going to go look at it and they stayed at their grinding, but there were other feeder socs that would participate to show off what they could do to help the main soc, that gave even lesser geared and skilled players a part to play. Also, even if you didn't have any of that, the fact that there would be random roving bands of players or individuals just out there sniping and skirmishing and revival killing added to the wonderful chaos of it all

jod said:

But due to server load/lag etc it didnt last long and I always felt that was a great loss (understandable at the time though).

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Agreed, the game would just lag out completely! you would CTD, you would get stuck rubber banding, the likes of which we don't see now, it was horrendus lag, the worst case scenario was when the marker tank would CTD

jod said:

There was none of the structures etc to use for cover/tactics etc and yet it was still great to watch.
Different Socs making a run at it,regrouping and even making pacts with other socs to clear the claim.
There was a lot of politics and side wrangling involved as well.

I wonder if the servers could put up with an audience these days.
Now that we have all the vehicles/pets/new toys etc it could be a memorable thing to see and I think people would talk about it for a while.One of those 'I was there when...' moments.

Seeing the abilities of some of the best players with the best equipment in action with the tension of the claim marker timer ticking away is something I wont forget.

MA could really kick a goal if they managed to make it an in game stadium type thing for the rest of us plebs to watch and amaze at.


EDIT:The trick was knowing which Marker to watch or should I say which one Warants were going for.

EDIT 2:On thinking about it MA can look through the eyes of any player/mob etc so they could just as easily set a few 'cameras' around the fort/marker/whatever and play them on in-game screens at a stadium type place or just a major population centre,that could still be fun.

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I don't think newbies who weren't there can even get a sense of how epic it was by us sharing this little bit about it. Time has pretty much erased all my rage about the things that totally pissed me off about participating and for the most part just the good memories of participating remain. I just wish they had done more to improve it so it was a better and bigger part of the game so everyone could know what it was like.

We have now some events like the never ending migration where people in game participate as a group that gives a sense of community, but a proper land grab was really amazing at doing that.

As some had mentioned, there was downsides that prevented people from participating, the same story of hey, why should I bother, the same people are going to get it that have it now, nothing I can do will change that. I guess that is true to an extent. But I could say, over time I have seen socs come and go, and players come and go, and gear change hands. Things change. You could have a chance if you committed and participated , but it needs MA's support and resources to make it work and design it in such a way that people could be spectators and cheer for "their team". Something I have not seen them even interested in doing.

gwit said:

But instead of land grab how about just a clear financial reward. The $1 million tournament - that would bring players to the game.

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What do you mean by "clear financial reward" ? How do you propose that would work? What is your idea? I gave the example of Land Grab, something that is already in game that could be reworked to actually work if it was done right, or at least it might be a step in the right direction. What would you propose we could do to entice people to want to watch to get a $1m tournament? Buy 100 clicks of condition crafting on some crazy expensive BP that any noob could click on for $1m prize? I guess that could appeal to some???

Nighthawk said:

To be honest, I don't know if EU is the right type of game for a really large e-sports tournament... or MMOs in general.

Generally, most of the really big e-sports games are MOBAs and shooters, where all players have the same starting conditions. An MMORPG where some players have spent 10 years perfecting their characters and others are just starting would perhaps feel a bit too... predictable?

Obviously, it's possible to have tiers for different levels of competitors, but there are problems with that as well. Not to mention how difficult it could be designing the contest/tournament in a way that it attracts not only players, but is interesting enough to watch (even for non-players).

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I agree it might not be in the current form, but the challenge is to make it so that it is. I think that is the opportunity MA has missed out on. MA has totally missed this opportunity. A long while back they had people competing 1v1 for some prize, well that was great for those few people involved, but what was missing was a way to make it an epic competition for all involved to participate or at least have the feeling of participating along by rooting for "their team" as a fan by investing their time and resources for the end game like a real life sports fan would. I look at the fanatics that follow real sports, I don't know why that psychology wouldn't translate ingame for some heroic figures or societies in the game the same way to compete for prize money, bragging rights, etc.

I don't know if LG is the way, I am just giving that as an example, something already in game that could be worked on. What's your suggestion?

Oleg said:

Story of my life. I also invented dubstep and the Wii, in my own head

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Gratz, that and $5 bucks will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks

At my age I have too many to count

Oleg said:

Story of my life. I also invented dubstep and the Wii, in my own head

Click to expand...

I did in fact invent the smartphone with a friend. We were very young and entered a competition and our suggestion was to update the current mobile phones with calendars, alarms and other functionality (this was waaaaaay back when phones were, well, phones).

Here I am twenty years later and I still have that shitty first prize 30$ coupon somewhere, so I know that feeling...

Angel O2 Mercer said:

Even more impressive, the 18 million prize money was funded by the community, as it is every year.

I like that other game quite a lot, been playing for years, and the things you see them do makes your head explode. Such reflexes to quickly execute very complex routines and combos.

I see no difference with any other sports, these kids do things that very few can do. If you catch one of the keyboard cameras while on a heavy combat it looks like they are playing a piano, only faster than most piano players can pull

Maybe one day EU will catch up with the times and do something similar, who knows.

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Actual game play in PE is pretty lame in comparison to a lot of other games.

People will laugh when I talk about playing that other fantasy game with alliance and horde factions, but the fact that they allow you to do real auto-follow, keybinds, limited scripting ability and game approved multi-boxing gave me an entirely different dimension to play with.

I was able to set up multiple PCs and use some third party software utility to sync it all so I could drive my main toon off one PC, and have the rest of a 5 character team for either PVE or PVP use. I knew one guy who was running a 10 character team for doing 10 man raids by himself, some guy was running like 32 characters which was insane and for no other purpose but just to prove he could, but it was interesting.

With a 5 character pvp team you could go into the battle grounds and compete with other teams and be competitive with groups who were controlled with 5 different people or other multi-boxers. It was a really fun niche, and not always effective depending on who your opponents were, and eventually people caught up with it and would destroy you once they saw what was up, but it was fun blowing up other teams while it lasted

I still don't get why MA lets us have keybinds and auto-follow (not that it really works) but doesn't allow multi-boxing, what should they care, its all decay to them whether I play one or multiple toons.

SpikeBlack said:

It's not all reflexes, a lot of it is spatial awareness i.e. keeping track of multiple targets and the area surrounding the player while moving. Not everyone is capable of it at a high enough speed.

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And just when you think your getting good and start getting a little confidence, along comes someone else who just blows your doors off

Fifth said:

NO, absolutely not. The concept of "everyone has to have equal chances" is so eighties.

Few months ago Joda often streamed his mining runs in PvP4. One day a ragtag team was gathered trying to take him down. We were 5 ppl from different levels. Every single one of us was way below his level, no match in 1vs1 or even 3vs1 against his skills and gear. Then again, as a team... yes it still was kinda Mission Impossible but with a good coordination and some luck there was a slight chance we could have pulled it off. And that was quite enough for us.
Now, Joda was streaming with a delay. From one of his globals we figured out how big exactly this delay is. From this we managed to figure out where he most likely is and set up an ambush.
Our 1st attempt failed. Joda, old fox, changed his stream delay. As a result the hunters became the hunted and our whole little war campaign ended with a total disater... Was it fun!? ​

Seems to me, EU already has most of the components needed to make it exciting. For participants on almost all levels. What EU can't possibly afford is the spectators inside warzone. This would create serious technical problems. Luckily, setting up automated ingame video feeds is easy task on CryEngine2.
We would also need a counter that keeps track how many avatars are on each server that locks up the area if the safe max limit has been reached.

All the rest we already had once. LG's where multiple LA's were defended at once. Strategy, politics, alliances, all this will come naturally. OK, there will be a certain minimum skill level most likely, a total noob is not very useful in battle but u don't have to be an uber to be part of this either. The more reason to skill up for the next LG.

So why can't EU do it again - on a whole new level, with streaming and all? Imagine a stream with 10-15 channles. I can't see any reason why not.
It could go big. I mean, really BIG. If they only weren't so damn lazy and unimaginative...

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I agree with you that the stub is here, they just need to make it a priority and work on it if they want to. As much as I would like it, I don't have much faith in MA's ability to do it.

But I do wonder, what would another planet partner be able to do with the concept? Or, something like Monria where there is not much activity at the moment? What if it was off on its own set of servers just for the purpose of battles between socs? where other participants could watch on the in game screens from anywhere else in the world, or off twitch or whatever.

Fifth said:

Yes, EU has failed miserably with setting up servers for LG. As soon as the number of players per server exceeds a certain number the whole thing just collapses. All true.
Then again, it has worked in the past. There's ways to overcome all technical problems if it was taken seriously. It has not been taken seriously for years and that's a management decision. It doesn't bring in immediate income, or rather, too little compared to the efforts required to solve the problems, set it all up and maintain it.
Which is shortsighted. Since we lost the old spectacular LandGrabs EU is like monster with it's head cut off. To be among the Top Twenty and hope to make some profit out of your longterm investment is not a realistic goal for most people. Nowadays the endgame is just - skill up, join WSS, share the income from LA's. That's an endgame? I mean, really? C'mon... Whoever remembers the old LG's will agree, that's a pathetic ghost of what we had once.

In StarCraft u have to play the game to really understand what's going on on the stream. PvP in EU is pretty straightforward - grab a gun and shoot the other guy. What's there not to understand?
Ok, maybe the fact that players can be at very different skill levels? That some are in fact heavily armored War Elephants and others just a Spearmen in the light armor.
Suppose we add special color markings on the avatars? Kinda player classes, according to total skill or sth. Could be only visible on video stream.
Or maybe not... As long as u know that all players are not equal it's pretty much self explanatory as it is, imo.

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/agree with all of this.

I am just pointing out that MA has missed the boat. I don't think I am alone in wishing they hadn't. I am also pointing out that I wish they put some thought into doing more than coming up with some pokemon game to make up for it. I did not skill up my avatar and buy gear so I could play compet in another platform not related to my avatars development. That is taking their eye off the ball as far as I am concerned. Start another company if you want to do that, don't drain resources from this game that I am invested in to create some other game that I don't give a shit about, that just annoys the piss out of me that they are doing that while opportunities in THIS GAME are left to fallow.

WhiningSkeptic said:

I did in fact invent the smartphone with a friend. We were very young and entered a competition and our suggestion was to update the current mobile phones with calendars, alarms and other functionality (this was waaaaaay back when phones were, well, phones).

Here I am twenty years later and I still have that shitty first prize 30$ coupon somewhere, so I know that feeling...

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Gratz on first place! I think

I keep thinking about those references to Colonel Sanders who was 74 when he "made it", so as long as your still ticking you have some time to get there (at least that is what I keep telling myself).

@

"Reason
2.14/reply"

I am an avid DO*A2 fan and wanted to share my interest/opinions with fellow entropians here, but I have deferred from doing so after trying to start a discussion in off-topic last year around TI4 because the mods shut it down instantly. They twist the rule of 'advertising' other games to completely isolate any (healthy) discussion(s) about games other than Entropia. It's stupid, childish, and something that taints this forum.

That being said, I don't think this game has enough skill or action (gameplay wise) to entice many people to watch and/or partake in.

Hypnotyk said:

I am an avid DO*A2 fan and wanted to share my interest/opinions with fellow entropians here, but I have deferred from doing so after trying to start a discussion in off-topic last year around TI4 because the mods shut it down instantly. They twist the rule of 'advertising' other games to completely isolate any (healthy) discussion(s) about games other than Entropia. It's stupid, childish, and something that taints this forum.

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You won't get an argument out of me on that!

Hypnotyk said:

That being said, I don't think this game has enough skill or action (gameplay wise) to entice many people to watch and/or partake in.

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Maybe not in its current form, but is there anything else that could be improved or added to make it so?

Mac said:

You won't get an argument out of me on that!



Maybe not in its current form, but is there anything else that could be improved or added to make it so?

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Skill. Any by that i mean skill in the form of game play. We don't have any skill shots (arguable with skilldeks/vrex) or exciting gameplay at all. Its literally shoot shoot shoot heal shoot shoot shoot. The game is too dull at the moment in comparison to other games, especially in the same category (MMORPGs). I wish they would do instance/raid implementations in this game, I think beacons would be a good start. Assign some roles (healer, dps, tank) for the group and start rewarding people for the role they play. Perhaps you can give (L) armor that offer good buffs for the role and can only be used in instances.. say increased heal or crit etc. Whatever they do, it needs to change from what it is today if you want to see some competitive play and/or following on twitch

Hypnotyk said:

Skill. Any by that i mean skill in the form of game play. We don't have any skill shots (arguable with skilldeks/vrex) or exciting gameplay at all. Its literally shoot shoot shoot heal shoot shoot shoot. The game is too dull at the moment in comparison to other games, especially in the same category (MMORPGs). I wish they would do instance/raid implementations in this game, I think beacons would be a good start. Assign some roles (healer, dps, tank) for the group and start rewarding people for the role they play. Perhaps you can give (L) armor that offer good buffs for the role and can only be used in instances.. say increased heal or crit etc. Whatever they do, it needs to change from what it is today if you want to see some competitive play and/or following on twitch

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Right, I and many others have mentioned many times before how lame and boring our game play is here.

I would like instances and raids, I enjoyed that in other games and would like to see how it could be implemented here, but I'm just not sure how that would relate to the kind of e-sport tournament activity the NYT article is talking about.

Also, when you raid bosses in other games, your sure to get some kind of epic item drop off a raid boss kill and typically as groups gear up and get the fight down it becomes easier until they have them on farm. I am not sure how that would work with the current RCE loot structure.

Mac said:

Right, I and many others have mentioned many times before how lame and boring our game play is here.

I would like instances and raids, I enjoyed that in other games and would like to see how it could be implemented here, but I'm just not sure how that would relate to the kind of e-sport tournament activity the NYT article is talking about.

Also, when you raid bosses in other games, your sure to get some kind of epic item drop off a raid boss kill and typically as groups gear up and get the fight down it becomes easier until they have them on farm. I am not sure how that would work with the current RCE loot structure.

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Easy. They do it already today with UL items dropping rarely from beacons. You can also have these quests that require you to grind these instances until you loot a rare item that allows you to turn it in for your choice of item. They are already devaluating UL items, this would be no different. However, this would encourage more PED cycling in-game while adding a new layer of fun