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Player-vs-Player Systems Examined
Brendan Drain over at Massively has an in-depth look at PvP systems in general, using a comparison of two very different games in an attempt to find the ideal. EVE and Age of Conan are two very different games, yet each has their pros and cons to PvP. Is there a perfect middle ground to be had? "EVE Online and Age of Conan are both heavily PvP-oriented MMOs and while they take vastly different approaches to PvP, both approaches are successful in their own way. The high-consequence PvP in EVE leads to infrequent but meaningful conflicts with adrenaline pumping and guns blazing. In contrast, PvP in Conan is a fast-paced fantasy deathmatch where it's as fun to have your head chopped off as to burn someone alive. Where EVE Online would have me biting my nails nervously when attacked, Age of Conan has me laughing as a maniac smashes my head in with two clubs."
Guild Wars has a good PVP system as far as "competitive PVP" goes, but it's of no consequence to the players' characters, and that I think is the distinction the story is trying to draw. So, GW falls into the same PVP category as does the Conan MMO in that there is hardly a "death penalty" when killed in PVP, whereas in EVE (as far as I know) there's a significantly bigger one. Maybe not as bad as in Ultima Online, but I think it's felt.
World of Warcraft, as far as I know, is also much like Guild Wars / Conan in this regard.
I wonder how Guild Wars 2 is going to approach competitive PVP, given that they don't plan on having a real level cap. Maybe PVP will be even more removed from PVE than it is now, which I don't doubt given the bigger rift ArenaNet keeps on creating (now with the PVP-specific skill settings, etc.).
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any game which incorporates level advancement, gear advancement, or delegates specific abilities to specific classes will always be fundamentally flawed when it comes to pvp.
differences in level and gear will almost always be the determining factor in the outcome of a pvp encounter, and certain abilities will always be more powerful than others. Since they will be limited to one class or a subset of classes you will always have one class which is "overpowered".
the only balanced pvp is accomplished through FPS games where everyone has the same abilities, stats, and the ability to equip any weapon in the game.
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Who cares about that? What about the nudity???
Even nostalgia isn't what it used to be, eh? ;)
;)
Or in this case, are you sure you've played the same UO I've played?
You know, the one with exactly zero quests (the escort quests, dumb and boring as they were, got added later) and not much more to do than run around trying to get some species extinct? That is, if you got past the gangs of gankers camping the town exits for newbies to kill?
The one where you could max your strength by just dropping and picking a fucking coin all night? Or others by just assigning that skill to every single key on the keyboard? Where one skill (magic) did more than all other skills combined, so everyone maxed that one with a macro before going and doing anything else? And where by comparison, another skill (tinkering) was useless for anything other than trapping chests and leaving them around, hoping that some newbie would open them? Great balance there, eh?
The one where crafting was as freaking useless as to only be able to produce coloured versions of the bog-standard items that cost cents at any vendor? While any humanoid around the map dropped better ones and magical ones?
Yeah, that's got to be some great adventure/RPG. Misses all the idea of either adventure or RPG, any way you define RPG. It didn't have either the story of Japanese (and recently Bioware) CRPGs, nor the character advancement of traditional US RPGs, so I guess it must be great.
Or remember how the world got full of houses everywhere, including with a tree poking through the roof, filling every single bloody space, including where the game still pretended was some virgin-ish wood or mountain top? So you'd have wolves and ogres spawning and edging their way between houses, pretending that's their habitat? Yeah, very immersive world that.
Quality of the player base? You mean, how half of them were clones of the same ganker in a death shroud with the same a polearm and the same magic spells? Or how they camped the mines for anyone foolish enough to get encumbered with ore, so they can gank them right next to the town? Yeah, that was some inovative roleplaying there.
Remember the about a quarter of the population who even bought disposable accounts to scam and grief, and had whole website rings dedicated to sharing tips on how to drive a newbie off the game? Amazing idea to RP someone who can magically steal your items through walls, or who can abuse a bug to take your items in a trade without giving anything, by just dragging yours in a container before aborting the trade.
And grinding to achieve the biggest castle and the most status-symbol items, now that's _totally_ unlike the grind to the top of kids these days in WoW
Heh.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Ah yes. Griefing and being a general asshole just because you can is what TRULY defines PvP.
*rolls eyes*
"Or even better, up and quitting the game because his loss was so devastating."
And that's what people did, which is why they changed UO, and is why no one else has ever done that again.
That's PvP alright. It's also why I don't play UO or similar games- I have a life, and so can't compete with a bunch of 14-year-old, 12+ hour-a-day playtime gankers and spawn campers who enjoy ruining the experience for others simple to prove how l33t they are. I get it, you're better than me at the game. That's nice, but I'm not going to play a game where I have to be the hardest of hardcore to even be allowed to join.
People like you are *why* WoW has 10 million+ subscribers and none of the MMOs catering to the hardcore PvP crowd have gone anywhere at all. (Ok, EVE seems to be doing fairly well)
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
And that "fantastic PVP" was a major reason why UO was left in rot. When newer games came along with fancier presentations, the only thing UO had left was its rules which wasn't enough to keep many. Many games that have come afterwards and tried to push these sort of free formed anarchy systems tend to do rather poorly. I too played UO and abandoned it immediately when Everquest released because I recognized the lack of general rules of engagement on all "shards" was going to attract a certain gamer population I didn't care to hang around.
I personally don't care for PVP (if I wanted that sort of "frag fest", I'd play something else) but if WoW is "lame" then many players out there really wants "lame". In the end, it looks like that many don't want "real PVP" if it behaves like UO. Only the hardest of the hardcore PVP/PK-er likes these "options". Why would anyone market to them since they make up such a small segment of the market?
Personally I think EVE has it the "most correct". If you are going to engage in PVP, make sure you mean it because there are all sorts of secondary consequences to just engaging in PVP combat let alone if you win. Since EVE has a small population and the game itself is structured to create strong interpersonal relationships (not all of them friendly), you will not get far if you PVP just to be a jerk because "your reputation proceeds you".
Yup. I remember the huge stealing nerf that came down, and one of the commentators at Lum the Mad summed the cause up as: "Thieves couldn't keep it in their pants." The same principle applied to open PVP there too, which is why the open PVP regions turned into ghost towns as soon as the PVE-only regions opened. The gate-gank squads that surrounded the gateways between PVE and PVP lands certainly didn't do their cause any help.
If it were a game to them, they'd be having fun instead of farming and level grinding.