Mark Jacobs weighed in a little bit on the subject of mounted combat in Warhammer Online yesterday on the Warhammer Alliance forums:
Folks,
Just remember what I always say, nothing is in any game until you see it actually in the game and the game is LIVE. We’ve all seen too many promises/hopes/plans from all game developers, including Mythic, about what will be in a game at launch and well, many times those promises are unfulfilled. So, don’t get too worked up about a feature(s) in another game until we all see it when the game is launched.
There are some substantial technical issues surrounding mounted combat, especially in an RvR game that hopes to have lots and lots of people actually fighting against each other. Throw collision detection into the mix and that makes it even more *interesting* for the developers. Anyone who thinks it is easy has simply never looked at the problem long enough.
Mark
I actually haven’t been expecting WAR to have mounted combat at release, or even ever. I’ll be interested to see if AoC actually has this feature and if so, how it actually work. I still think we’re a ways off from mounted combat in an MMO. It was just a few years ago that everyone thought it was awesome to be able to pay some silver and ride a horse-on-a-track in DAoC. EQ2 came along with free range mounts and flying-on-a-rail griffons. Then in WoW we had free range mounts and then flying mounts. Then Vanguard (finally!) got mounts right by allowing you to customize things with horseshoes, tack, saddlebags, etc.
But full blown mounted combat is another thing altogether. I hope we get there in the next several years. I would love to have my mount be like my second character with stats, equipment, health, battle abilities, etc. We’ve come a long way with mounts in the last few years, so here’s hoping that AoC and/or WAR will try to innovate in this area as well to move things along a bit further.
Tags: EA/Mythic, Warhammer
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December 13th, 2007 at 8:08 pm - Edit
AoC actually does, and they’re taking it pretty seriously. It’s one of a handful of reasons my ears are starting to perk up around that title. Here you go…
http://bildos.blogspot.com/2007/12/age-of-conan-and-mounted-combat.html
December 13th, 2007 at 9:35 pm - Edit
Nice! I’ll definitely check that out Bildo - thanks for the link.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:52 am - Edit
I for one hope they dont add mounted combat in Warhammer.
The complexity of it will force the developers to release a rather “basic” form of mounted combat which most likely only will lead to unbalanced and unfair combat scenarios.
For instance.
-Will mounts have health and are they damageable?
-Can a rider be thrown from the mount, for instance with pikes and lances. (thats some serious physics to account for all scenarios)?
-Can ppl on foot defend against a mounted attack?
Three simple questions that actually require months and months of both scripting and mindstorming.
So imo they should focus on balancing the combat on foot and have mounts only for transport.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:04 am - Edit
It also gives an unfair advantage for ranged classes.
Ranged simply need to stay on their horse while firing arrows/magic.
Melees will have no option but to mount and try to get the ranged on the horsebacks themselfs.
Which lead to mounted combat as the only option.
January 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm - Edit
I think is great idea. In Aoc - as i heard - this will be an essence of combat.
In battles guild vs. guild if you are on foot, you will be probably dead after few moments…
I hope i will see similar model in Warhammer Online
January 29th, 2008 at 5:13 am - Edit
There wont be mounted combat in Warhammer Online.
And thank god for that.
Mounted combat is far to hard to calculate and get working properly.
The pitfalls are simply to many to get it into the game without disturbing balance and gameplay.
And as I previous wrote it simply makes unmounted combat inferior to mounted.