Gaiscioch Chapter Requirements

Hey Everyone,

I know there have been a lot of you that are curious about how we go about choosing chapters and there is a science behind what we do. I have noted over 130 items in our compatibility list. There are currently 25 items that are *REQUIRED* in any game before we will even evaluate it. These are:

• Guild Size Limit / Large Guild Friendly - Must have over 500 players allowed per guild if alliances are in game. If alliance are not in game must allow 2,000 players per guild.
• Alliance System - A Method of Grouping Guilds (If Guild Size Limits are In Place)
• Progressive Gearing - Tiered armor sets.
• Raid Style Dungeons - Must have dungeons which require skill and numbers to complete.
• Multi-Group UI - Must provide a raid interface for multiple groups.
• Need / Greed Loot or Individual Based Rewards
• RvR Casual Friendly (Drop in / Drop out 24/7) - No Battle Scheduling
• RvR Zone Cap - Must allow more than 500 per side
• RvR Accessible at 90% of levels - Must be able to access RvR within the first few levels of the game.
• Siege Gameplay (Rams, Castles, Trebs)
• Zone Limit (Players per Zone) - Must allow over 500 people per zone
• Responsive Developers - Must be open for dialog with our community
• Community Forums - Must have a method in which customers can interact with developers officially.
• Logable Recipes - Crafting Items not random. Must follow pattern.
• Crafting Professions - Minimum of 5 Crafting Professions.
• Drop In/Drop Out Content - Able to play during a lunch break and be productive
• Emotes
• Local Chat Channels (say)
• Backstory Available out of Game
• Fantasy Based (Swords & Shields)
• Opt-In PvP - No forced PvP.
• Leveling through PvP
• Kid Friendly - E or T Rating.
• International Friendly - All territories can play together
• No Casual Punishment (mandatory play) - Such as crafting requiring you to log in every 12 hours or your crafted items go bad, or losing your chance to complete content because you can't play 6 hours straight, etc.

Now as I said. These 25 items open the door to evaluate the product. The Evaluation gives us a score based on over 130 items denoting the compatibility score. If it scores over a 75% then it's up to whether we find it "Fun and Enjoyable". This needs to be a game we can see ourselves playing for 5+ years. If players get tired of playing during testing this is a bad sign. 

Now the full list of items has been provided to Zenimax Online for their internal team. I also will be passing this on to any other canidate. The biggest thing we look for is something that will keep all 5 playstyles enjoying their game. Raiding/PvE, Sieging/PvP, Casual/Social, Roleplay, and Crafting.

So there you have it here's some insight to the very very very first checkpoint a game has to pass. Of course games that have a Celtic style realm are always favored. 

Foghladha

As a footnote: This list was compiled from the short comings of the previous games we've launched into. As things make themselves painful apparent we add them to the list. 

» Edited on: 2013-03-27 13:00:14

» Edited on: 2013-03-27 13:11:01

Good to know. I had an idea on what some of the requirements were but it's nice to see a list.

The full list is much much much longer but these are the "Required" list.

Interesting. TY for sharing that, been curious.

So based on this list currently only GW2 fits? Well except for the alliance system. The only game coming out that seems to fit is ESO based on what we know at this point? Archage has issues with the no casual punishment and Neverwinter misses on the RVR.

Yes eso is the only one coming to market that possesses moat of these on paper. We need to see actual implementation before we say anything final.

another requirement Ben actually has to like the game lol

That comes later clan. Honestly my big selling point is the devs. How they react to people at conferences, by email, and by phone. You can tell a lot by how much a company values its community. But yes a game could score 100% and still fail the final is it interesting and fun test.

Also, on a totally unrelated note. The game needs to have plenty of cliffs in the PvP area that Fog can jump off of and somehow convince the 50+ people following him to jump as well.

Well, Fog's "Lemming Runs" are not PvP restrictive - he needs them in PvE areas also. 0)

Ironically if strictly perceived I believe GW2 fails almost a quarter of these.

» Edited on: 2013-03-05 05:10:25

Well, we probably aren't going to find perfect, but at least we know what we want to aim for. Also, the hardest thing to figure out when we actually get a crew in on a test is if the promised things are really going to happen if we are not seeing them in testing.

As I said gaspera, these were generated after lessons learned from rift and gw2. If rift and gw2. Had these thing it would have gone a lot smoother.

I understood Fog, that is why I found it ironic. I strongly agree with the list and was surprised to find just how many things from it GW2 lacked.

As was I. Gw2 on my first assessment was a 76% while rift was a 74% warhammer online (original version) was a 82%.I havent run the numbers since I added about 30 new items.

My wish would be to have Housing on the list. It really makes a big difference in how it makes you feel that you belong and are part of the world; I hate being "homeless", unless I choose to be roleplay-wise.

Housing is not required but it's on the list. There are over 130 things on the master list including housing. But in the end, housing isn't going to make life easier in a game from a management standpoint. While it's wonderful to have we can't justify it being a "requirement" most games add it in after launch. Heck DAOC, WAR, RIFT all created housing after launch.

Thanks for sharing this Fog, interesting info to know. So glad you are looking out for us as a family and working to find games we all can enjoy and call home :)

Someday we'll come across a game that we can just flourish in, in all that we do. I look forward to that day. Only downside is that recent statistics have shown that players don't play games long term anymore and that they are becoming less likely to pay to play a game. Personally I think it's not that people don't want to play a game long term there just isn't a game that holds our attention long term anymore. I would love nothing more that to play the same game for 5 to 10 years. But there needs to be something to hold the public's interest.

Very interesting, thanks a lot, Fog ^_^

Agreed, that was a good read. I always did wonder what would be the deciding factors to a chapter and that was an informative read.

Why is there no reference to PVE raiding on the "required" list? Are the raiders to be phased out?

» Edited on: 2013-03-06 04:43:57

Good question, Shawntor. I thought I saw that the first time, but just went back again to really look at it. Only thing I see with the word raid in it is being able to make raid groups. Funny thing is what I consider a raid isn't even what Rift has though that is where most of PVE raiders are. I consider that end game dungeon running so it is a nice end game deal with need to upgrade gear to move from one dungeon to the next. What I remember as raiding is huge boss mombs that you would go in with like 50 people to take down and even then you could wipe. And we did this a lot without voice chat to help. ::chuckles:: Dating myself, but I think the first EQ really knew what a raid was. Just my opinion though which is definitely subjective. ;)

I agree with your assessment of raiding in general Briseadh. I remember days of 50 man raid groups myself. I also believe that those of us who still yearn for the very large groups are in such a minority these days in the gaming world, that we'll probably never see that type of play again from any AAA title. The masses prefer the "smaller" large raid groups now, usually 20-25 people, and less complicated and time consuming instances. Profit drives every decision.

This probably goes without saying, but a good guild management window is a very excellent thing to have. SWTOR did not have a great guild management interface, and it's made it harder to do admin things in game.

Keep in mind this isn't the whole list. I have sat with Fog while writing this and PVE Raiding is on the list.

» Edited on: 2013-03-06 09:27:20

Items 3 4 5 and 6 are all from the raiding list. There are many more and count for 500 of the 2700 points. Keep in mind these are base requirements. Also I mention raiding specifically in that post.

Please remember this is the BASE list to even get us to look at a game. This is no way the full list. These are The Required in value. The list is broken into 5 categories. Required (50pts), Critical (25pts), Needed (10pts), Wanted (5pts), and Added Bonus (1pts).

War got housing? I remember DAoC's houses, they were so special then, and you had yards to fix up, too. Rift waited too long, but they did hire Emily Taylor as I sugguested they should way back before launch and I'm guessing from the video's I've seen they work a lot like EQ2's. Yeah, I realize housing is on a "nice to have" list, but if it's in game at launch it helps with retention.

War had a leaders hall. Lamest housing ever

Just a note - Zone Limit (Players per Zone) - Must allow over 500 people per zone This one is more difficult than might initially be imagined for an MMO to manage/handle. In fact, most today cannot without some form of "big iron" implementation (e.g., shared shards or Eve's massive architecture). I understand why this one is on the list for the family, but until the next big leap in tech that allows for expanded LODs, texture buffering, and on-the-fly culling (as opposed to preset or user preference options), this one is going to be rare indeed. Aside: Most games have a maximum server concurrency of 2500.

» Edited on: 2013-03-06 16:58:09

Daoc, war, and rift all allowed 500 people per zone. Gaiscioch proved it :]

Even Everquest had a large pop cap for their zones. 500 sounds about right, but it might have been higher. GW2 seems to force overflow at about 200-ish.

I have been playing Tera lately, it has a lot of flaws but the action combat style was what gotten me hooked with the game. Again like I said, the game has many flaws and it will never be a candidate for Gaiscioch's chapter choice. What I am trying to say is, for me personally the combat need to be fun and engaging. RIFT was okay until I turn into a mostly PvP player, by which time I found SWTOR instanced PvP and combat a lot more fun than RIFT. I was playing on a RP-PvP server in SWTOR until the game population plummeted. Then I started playing some GW2 when Gaiscioch started GW2 chapter. GW2 has too few active skills for my liking, the instanced PvP (sPvP) was quite unimaginative as well. I haven't make it to level 80 after all these months... I still log in here and GW2 some times 'cause I miss Gaiscioch. Missed the days when the guild raid Meridian, the Telara Saga. I wish there will be a game where I can play actively with the guild again soon.

» Edited on: 2013-03-07 00:11:27

Regarding raiding, we went into a lot more detail on the list than what you see here. We looked at the feedback from the raiding post inviting gaiscioch to contribute their views and fine tuned from there. The list is extensive and all-encompassing of the needs/wants of the guild. We put a lot of time into research before launching into a game and usually spend 6-12 months planning behind the scenes, as we did with GW2. It is not an exact science, but we try to feed back as much as possible to the developers in advance. What they then do with the game upon release may be a different story!

As a member who plays mainly for the raiding aspect of any MMO, I'm happy to learn that raiding will be a deal-breaking level requirement. As a raider,I might be an unintended consequence of the Rift experiment. Many of us are, but we're here now and we love the family as much as any of you official family members. The lack of a SPECIFIC mention of large group PVE raiding had me worried. Thank you for the clarification.

Yeah if we werent including raiding guild wars 2 would be quite the contendor. Were looking for the offspring of guild wars 2 and rift. Atm Elder Scrolls Online has all of the requirements on paper.

Elder Scrolls looks to be pretty good, any idea when it might be released?

Late 2013