Is the game big enough for the Ogres to fit?

[Tarax the Terrible]

I don't know if you have noticed this but the introduction of the Ogres has caused something of a new phenomenon in the game.

I don't think I am revealing more than I should when I say that the Ogres like to kill stuff.
A lot of stuff.
As fast as they possibly can...

So we are seeing Ogres up to Myth sized charging through smaller areas that most other players of a similar size would not think twice about visiting. They are able to clear them out fast and move on. Sparkle Orcs, Watching Orc Camp, Haven Dwarves, etc etc nowhere is left unmolested.
But this leaves something of a wasteland behind in their wake for the smaller players or lone wolves than would have relied on those areas to grind. And if the Ogres are busy and on a mission they are not that likely to stop and talk to the smaller players either.

Now I have heard certain lowbie areas like water krougs are not worth the Ogre's visiting, but other even weaker areas are. (Going by the headless corpses lying around) They are not quite there yet in the intended (make it pointless for them to go here) offsets. But then if you change that now new Ogres are at a disadvantage compared to the old.

The idea behind the Ogres and their desire to hunt fast is innovative and interesting, it gives them something to shoot for and keeps them very busy. But seems to be having some side effects...

If you are playing on your own around hero upwards the choices for places to go to grind effectively start to get limited. If they are being cleaned out regularly by bigger players and your not being able to find yourself a nice grinder it is likely going to cause some people to loose interest.

[Bromen]

I kind of like how Everquest and WoW has a faction system that allows players to enter
certain areas of the game. I wonder if a similar system would work in Genesis.

-b

[Tarax the Terrible]

To keep the Ogres out you mean?
Just fit a gate only 4 horses abreast will fit through, they won't be able to squeeze through.

Its good these areas are seeing life apart from questers and the occasional player.
The ogres are having their fun.
Not sure how much of a frustration it is for others as I do not kill in those places much myself.
I rarely do any grinding at all if I am solo.

But when I asked someone recently how the solo grinding was going they said their favourite area was no longer worth visiting because it was always full of Ogres.

[Tarax the Terrible]

You have a point.
Or what is the alternative, quadruple the size of Gont?

[Rhynox]

Castaneda kills much faster than I, even though I am bigger. I know I am not supposed to kill them fast, but he kills probably at 3x my speed.

The thing with the Sparkle orcs camp is that it is not newbie friendly, they are fully equipped, teamed, have a special attack and athere are very few small orcs, most are wanderers or bigger. I doubt anyone below expert and without a good guild could handle them.

[Tarax the Terrible]

I have seen the _tiny_ orcs in the original camp lying around as headless corpses.
Orc babies and children in Cadu.
Those kobolds in Terel which are super puny.
Kind of a funny situation going on in the game if some huge sized players are killing in areas like these.
(Most Ogres I have seen have been pretty huge..)

I guess they have to to keep up with what others are doing / have done.
And smaller Ogres have to be able to join the fun too of course.
So it seems to be quantity, quantity, quantity ahead of quality for them.

If they got more incentive to go for quality ahead of just plain quantity maybe they would be less of a slave to their addiction.
Or maybe those massive Ogre killing machines greatly enjoy making split second kills in the hundreds.

[Aeg]

The ogre guild is an interesting guild. It has some great concepts with natural side effects. If you have obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies, then the ogre guild is perfect for you. Your kill records are kept and statistics are always in easy reach. It gives people reasons to play the game: "I want to get this ability/title/rank/statistic-something/fame/self-confidence, so I'm gonna kill as many X as I can!" "I want to have 50,000 X skulls!" This provides for an active guild; players with a mission. The natural side effects are that ogres don't team very well together, because every ogre wants the desired skull. The guild tends to create solo players who grind for statistics (not necessarily stat growth). (A myth ogre emptying the hobbit smials isn't really gaining much xps.)

Now, fully knowing the side effects, I think that this guild is a great addition to Genesis. It gives that type of player a home. My personal belief is that we need to code great things (concepts, guilds, abilities, ect..) that give a certain player-type the desire to play, even if that player type has a population of 2. Is Genesis too small for the ogres? No, but we also cannot have legions of ogres ravaging the countryside.

There are, of course, other reasons, but I feel that I made my point.

[Rhynox]

Wizards forgot about those ogres that want to improve but want to be neutral. The only way to harvest dwarven skulls in numbers are in the Haven camp (protected by the Clan) or killing neidar guards in the plains (these too are protected), which gets them into our target list. Garwain had to raid Xak Tsaroth to kill the dozen dwarves that inhabitat there every day until he got tired and left.

[Aeg]

Yes, and the Shire for hobbit skulls and the gnomes near the inventor guild for gnome skulls. Those short races... unfortunate side effect.

[Rhynox]

Yeah, but those areas aren't protected (well, maybe the smials but the rangers care very little about them since their "war system" doesn't include any penalty for losing the five hobbits in a smial). I still think 100k skulls is a pretty high number, from what I remember only Pharaxes managed to get them and then quit when the BDA was recoded.