Part 1: A Brief History of and the problems with Camping
Camping. It is an issue that is talked about with great passion. Just take a look at the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes forums and you can see the intensity of the debate. Most people have an opinion of it, either loving or hating it. Personally, I love camping for experience and loot.
The newest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) out on the market, EverQuest2 (EQ2), World of Warcraft (WoW), and Star Wars Galaxies (SWG), have taken a different approach to camping. In short, they brought out the Louisville Slugger of “Nerf” bats and ended it almost entirely. Even EverQuest (EQ) has modified the way camping now works.
The real question is: “what does camping bring to the table for the player and for the game design team?” For the answer, we need to go back to the beginning and look at how camping has evolved from EQ to present day MMORPGs to see where Vanguard may end up.
In the Beginning...
Originally, camping started off as a way to gain experience. New characters starting off their EQ lives traveled to their starting zone of choice and began pummeling countless mobs. If this was the player’s first character they usually found it enjoyable and why shouldn’t they? They got to meet new people and learn the game as well as learn the mechanics of their class and their fellow adventurers classes. Reputations and relationships begin to form that could last years, both inside of the game and out.
As groups of people were gaining levels and experience they found new spots to experience and grind in. No longer was there just experience to be gained, but the chance to score treasure and riches, otherwise known as loot. With loot in the picture, the economy began to expand quickly. It came to the point were people would camp specific spots for exceptional loot, not only for themselves, but to turn around and sell to other players. While this may have seemed trivial at lower levels, such items as Shiny Metallic Robes (SMRs) and Short Swords of the Ykesha (Yaks) became items that many players sought after, in turn driving the early EQ economy.
The Dark Side of Camping
Many people think that camping named mobs for any length of time is wrong to begin with. Camping not only generates excitement, but competition as well. There are other emotions that come with camping. Some players camp particular mobs only for financial gain, either inside the game, or out. This has enraged many online gamers who frown upon companies or players that exploit games for their own financial gain. These companies have set up elaborate “platinum laundering” schemes so as not to get caught and subsequently banned.
Unfortunately, this competition also leads to a practice known as kill stealing or KSing. For example, a player soloing or a group of people would be camping a particular mob. Out of nowhere comes a player or group that barges into the area and kills the mob almost instantly after it has spawned and then collects the loot. People can wait hours or days for particular mobs to spawn. So when a player or group gets KSd, it causes great consternation and anger.
I am unashamed to admit that I camped “The Great Oowamp” in Timorous Deep for 8 hours a day for several weeks. I would load up on Chipped Bone Bracers and Batskull Earrings and then make my way to North Freeport where I would “Cash In”. The mob dropped a lot of other loot as well, but many spell casters wanted these two items in particular. During my camps I never “blocked” people from joining me or rolling for the loot that dropped. Unfortunately, this friendly atmosphere seemed to be more the exception than the rule as time went on.
In time, competition almost always rears its ugly head. Players rush to their computers and mobilize to certain spots in the world to camp the particular mob they are hoping to slay. It is a giant race to see who can set up the camp first, and thus have “rights” to the mob according to a loosely followed camp etiquette. Everything remained relatively civil until at some point camping became incredibly personal. Entire dungeons would be quarantined by a powerful guild (or guilds) of the server. The same group of players would continuously camp the same mob without letting other players have a chance at the item it dropped, sometimes without so much as a word to the other players. Later on however, they would only be all to happy to sell the other players the item for platinum. There was a particular mob that brought this behavior to a head and changed the complete dynamic that was camping. It is undeniably, the worst camp of all time…ever. Ragefire.
The "camp" for Ragefire was both legendary and unforeseen.
Ragefire...
The Ragefire camp was incredible in every sense. The wait for the spawn could last from 2 to 6 days, and if the server went down, the timer would reset and start all over again. So horrendous was this camp, that it made international headlines with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Competition was high and KSing of Ragefire happened more than most GMs care to admit. People waited for months (
article 1 and
article 2) After a barrage of complaints the way Ragefire was spawned was changed which allowed more players to loot the item that was so sought after.
...and the Plane of Time
The situation surrounding the Plane of Time (PoT) was no picnic either. At the time of release for the Planes of Power (PoP) expansion, PoT was not ready for players to experience. On my particular server, Veeshan, we had a guild that had been ready to enter Time for over 4 months. However, instead of that guild progressing forward and working through PoT, they had to camp and farm the elemental planes. It was frustrating for other guilds that were ready to experience the elemental planes, but couldn’t because all of the bosses in those zones were permanently camped (perma-camped) by this guild. For the record, I am not blaming the guild for continually taking out all the boss mobs in the elemental planes, it only made the guild that much more ready to compete in Time.
By the time the first guilds got into the PoT, the other high power guilds on the server breezed through the elemental planes. There were spoilers and strategies that could be accessed by anyone. They too, had been loading up on loot in the tier below the elemental planes so that when the time came, they would be ready to advance. While the lower tier guilds worked through the elemental planes, the high-end guilds worked through the problems in the PoT. Here again, came the problem of perma-camping as PoT could be cleared once ever three days.
Sony Online (SOE) develops the “ROT” and the instance.
After a short time it became apparent that other guilds were being denied access to PoT because the power guilds of the server would clear PoT every three days and then revert to XP grinding in the elemental planes. SOE’s unofficial response was to put PoT on a rotation of the guilds that were ready to experience the zone. The guilds cycled through PoT and everyone got their fair share of loot, however, as more guilds joined the rotation, the guilds had to wait longer for their turn.
SOE recognized the bottleneck and turned PoT into an instanced zone where every six days any guild could enter and farm loot. Moreover, they made it easier for guilds to access PoT. New guild members didn’t have to camp or “experience” all the other zones leading up to the PoT; nor did they have to gain flags, and otherwise go through the hoops that the original power guilds had to. Instead, people who were not flagged for Time could wait for their guild mates who were flagged to zone in. After so many flagged guild mates were in the zone, they too could zone in without the flag. During phase three of PoT they could loot an item, do a quest, and then were flagged for time, avoiding all the weeks it took everyone else to get flagged.
So there you have it, some background and history on the game mechanic of camping. In part two we’ll look at Sigil’s response to the camping phenomenon and more specifically some probable ideas on how they plan to reduce the negative effects of it.
