I disagree. I think that there is a great deal of explicit racism occurring in games, and implicit racism that is then brought out by players.
GTA is a good example of explicit racism at least what is marketed. I have never played it myself (genre doesn't interest me), but every commercial I've ever seen shows a black or Latino as the main character that is driving over people, shooting police and beating up prostitutes. From what I've seen every role in that game is stereotypical racism.
WoW is a good example of implicit racism. The whole basis of the faction war between Alliance and Horde is due to differences in races that escalated over time. What's worse are the PvPers that constantly call out in chat "Let's go raid [opposite faction city].... because they're [Horde/Alliance]."
Really MMOs are the best and worst forums of racism. Everyone is anonymous and we accept each other as the character presented in the game. For the most part race, gender, religion and political affiliation never factor into chatting, raiding or any other group activity. When they do it immediately causes friction.
While I agree that no developer explicitly puts racism or sexism in a game, I think general negligence of not including all possible races in key roles is occurring. I blame most of this on appealing to the historically primary consumer, those with the most disposable income and the most free time for gaming: young, white males.
WoW has made a major breakthrough in attracting female gamers (30% last I heard), and I'm expecting that is having some influence on development. As internet and gaming becomes more available and attractive to a wider diversity of races, I think we'll eventually see a more accurate reflection of real life in gaming.
I don't think you have to focus on angry republicans. There are dozens if not hundreds of groups that would and may attempt it. As someone stated in chat last night, "They'd have to knock on alot of doors." In other words, if he was killed, I doubt that as many people that voted for him would be mourning. I'd just hate to see him turned into a martyr.
I'm dreading what the next few years will hold and how our country will change. I simply hope the media tears into him just as they've done every other president and we get the truth exposed somewhere in between journalistic sensationalism.
I predict an assassination attempt within a year. I certainly hope it does not succeed because then he'll be considered a martyr and things will just get worse.
Here's my real life comparison, and where I think MS should look for improvements.
February 2007 I purchase a new PC, Intel E6600, 2GB RAM, dual 384Mb video cards. I decide to give Vista a try. After an hour of loading, a single reboot takes 2-3 minutes. Finally getting to the desktop, I find dual screens will not work without a registry hack, my 15Mb FIOS connection has been brought to a crawl (20 min. for a 60Mb file) and the constant UAC warnings drove me crazy.
I reload XP SP2 and fully patch it in less than an hour. Both screens work from the start and look better when I download the 60Mb driver in 30 seconds. I load all my applications and restore my data. Boot time, 40 seconds.
Now it's been 20 months and I still get to the desktop ready to load a browser, e-mail or a game in less than a minute. Add to this that I can leave it on weeks at a time with no issues, and I'm pretty pleased.
I think MS needs to go back to the XP model and look at how they can improve from there.
Another sign that they are jacking with the original story/timeline.
What I noticed is that Chekov is there. He shouldn't be. Chekov didn't join the crew until the second year (season) of the mission. So if this story is set when Kirk first takes over the Enterprise, Chekov is no where in sight, probably still at Starfleet Academy.
I'm getting tired of Hollywood's visions stomping all over my paradigms and re-writing (fictional) history as I know it. Obviously nothing is sacred.
...as long as EA doesn't assimilate NASA, shift non-NASA developers onto the ISS project, drastically increase the production cycle, overwork the astronauts and launch the shuttle way before it's ready. You can't patch in space.
No, War is not WoW; they have very different approaches. War is PvP centric, while WoW is PvE/co-op centric. They are attracting very different crowds. I like how the article points out that War is KEAS while WoW is EASK.
Looking at the charts in that third article, War is not affecting WoW and vice versa (at this early stage). I think the people tired of WoW already left, but I'll wager they come back for the expansion and we'll see WoW top 12 million in 6 months.
There's plenty of room for numerous MMO's catering to millions of players. It's not the same pool of one million that UO, EQ, DAoC and SWG fought over. Actually, it may be that same one million who are never satisfied and hop from game to game, but about 9 million players are WoW players, not MMO players.
When I saw Will's presentation and the concept artwork/videos, I was thrilled at how cool Spore would be. It looked like Black & White type of indirect control, Civ style of management and a major twist to go forward and backwards in evolution. As soon as I saw "EA," I wrote it off as lost. EA screws up everything they touch. Sounds like they ruined Spore, too, what could have been a blockbuster game of the decade.
I hope they do drop PC games because they suck at it. They can focus on consoles which have no influence in my universe at all.
...how exciting it was playing a new game with new classes and new areas, I think it's hubris for them to think that they aren't going to lose a lot of their player base.
You just described the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and the reactions of players in the beta test. Of course new and different is exciting. Sounds like you are an explorer type.
I've been playing MMOs since 1997. This sort of statement occurs every time a new MMO comes out. "This is better than that." "It's what the players have always wanted." "They'll see how wrong they are when X people leave."
What really surprised me is that when WoW came out and really did kill UO and EQ, very little was said.
I'm sure Warhammer will appeal to a great many people, probably several thousand people who grew tired of WoW. Yet everything you described has to do with PvP. You do realize that WoW has a great deal more to offer besides PvP, right? Despite what PvP players think, all games do NOT center around PvP and the 20% (if that) of players that participate in PvP.
If Warhammer comes out and attracts every single PvPer off of every single realm in WoW, whoo buddy, will I be celebrating. Finally, general and trade chat will be quieter without idiots ignorant of the local defense channel blathering about the rogue in the AH. If the battlegrounds stand empty and all the PvP realms are shut down, then finally, MY vision of what WoW should be will come true.
From what I've seen of Warhammer (features, trailers, gameplay videos, screenshots) it's just another WoW knockoff trying to appeal to a subset of the MMO population. I'm sure it will do well IF they have high standards of quality and implement it well. I seriously doubt it will threaten WoW.
While I have optimism that people living 1000 years may reach their full potential of improving the human race, who will decide who gets longevity? Ideally it should be available to everyone that wants it, but in the real world money and governments would dictate this.
How do you expect governments to manage this or better yet, do you have any plan to keep governments or companies from controlling who can and cannot receive longevity?
Once some people have it and they reproduce, will the longevity condition be passed on or will they need to go through "treatment" as well?
Definitely not a monopoly from the legal standpoint, but EA's size and capabilities gave them first choice of nearly all potential games.
If a new Harry Potter movie was coming out, who would the marketing/franchising people go to first to have a game made? If a small studio earned a contract for a game, produced a good product that sold then EA would buy the studio, assimilate the talent and produce quick, lower quality sequels. They DO have a monopoly on the sports with ESPN and the official leagues locking into "EA only" contracts.
This merger puts another big dog in the arena. Now companies have two choices to produce games, and I guarantee there will be bidding wars between them. When the "EA only" contracts expire watch those sports leagues go visit Blizzard and entertain the idea of "what can you do for us?" Oh, yes. It will have an impact.
As for Blizzard's quality... they've been producing top notch, highest quality games for over 15 years now. They have never, ever shipped an unfinished product that needs to be patched as soon as you insert the CD into your computer. EA has done that repeatedly because the ship date is more important to them than the quality. I think Blizzard has an excellent model of development that scales well. I don't believe their quality will drop at all.
I think the report is pulling it out of context. I just read the entire law and did word searches for "computer," "data" and "repair." Everything I'm reading from it indicates this applies to security personnel who are deliberately searching for data or performing forensics.
What this may inadvertently do is protect consumers from snoopers in Geek Squad searching for and copying data when they're repairing. In other words, if you're just there to repair it, then that's all you do. Fix the hardware, fix the OS or fix the application. The data is not your concern and is now off limits legally.
Find something you WANT to do and LOVE to do. If it's artwork look for an entry level graphics artist job. If it's writing look for a job with a publisher or a newspaper. If it's finance look at a bank or securities company. Main point is don't make the computer the center of your work. The computer is a tool - that's all. Focus on what you want to do for WORK (i.e. the rest of your life). Use your computer knowledge to your advantage like a skilled craftsman uses his tools.
Until you find that nirvana, by all means apply at a medium to large company as desktop support. That will give you experience and open the doors to all manner of possibilities, but mostly in IT. The best thing is it will give you time to figure out if working with computers is really what you want to do.
As for salary, it greatly depends upon the part of the country you are in. Boston and San Francisco pay the most, but the cost of living is the highest, too. Midwest states are generally the lowest with a matching cost of living. Expect a degreed but non-certified desktop support position to be between $35k and $45k a year.
I agree with you mostly. Yes, most account hacks occur because someone had a weak password, downloaded a trojan, shared their account or some other security breach that would end in termination in the corporate world.
However, I also blame WoW's very weak password authentication system. It only supports up to 15 character, alpha-numeric, limited number of symbols and is not case-sensitive. I have mine as difficult as possible and I change it monthly.
Still, I'll be buying one of these fobs because every layer of security helps.
1. It's a video game only owned by X number of people.
2. All of the adults owning this game bought it for such content anyway.
3. A large percentage of owners have no idea about the lawsuit or that they could get any money.
4. A large percentage are teenagers who are not going to explain to their parents why they can get money for the game because then the parents' might have some clue of what the game is about.
5. A certain percentage don't even know how to mod it to see the extra content.
If you start with a small percentage of the population and start applying these factors, 3,000 people sounds about right. I'd wager all of those filing for payment are either hypocrites who just want the money but still will play the extra content or they're parents who had no idea what they were buying.
Your "core IT work" just described what I do and have done for the past 14 years (prior to that was desktop support, etc.). I'm a Sr. System Administrator currently in a large company. Smaller companies where you ARE the IT department do require a wider variety of skills, but being a SysAdmin supporting hundreds of servers in a large company.... boring day in and day out.
No, I'm not confusing IT with help desk. What I'm saying is that regardless of skill or title level, you end up with people who are following a script and only doing a routine of functions they were taught. Very few of us have the skill to troubleshoot rare or new problems or design ways to eliminate current and future problems.
Yes, I am totally burned out on IT. Have been for years. Computers are tools and should be used FOR jobs not BEING the whole job. I'd still recommend anyone considering a career in IT to turn away and do something else, anything else. Learn how to use a computer, but don't let it be the main purpose of your job.
IT in general is already a crap-service industry. Have you called ANY help support line lately? Those people on the front line are supposed to have some skills to determine the actual problem, but instead they read a script and take whatever actions the script says.
If you can finally get to a second or third level person who is REALLY supposed to be skilled, they're still reading from a script and making best guesses. If there were a database that could store all the possible problems and intelligently choose the solution, those support people would not be needed.
I think that manual occupations (construction, sewing, sculpting) take a great deal more skill than IT.
Twenty four years I've been doing IT. I completely agree with them. IT, for the most part is boring. I've moved up steadily in title, salary and responsibility. Still it's the same underneath: fix something, educate people how NOT to break it again, people break it, repeat.
What's made it much, much worse is how much clerical work we have to do now due to regulations and general ignorance of people new to the industry. We have to document everything so that our job can be outsourced to someone less skilled and willing to work for less. We have to have reviews and justification only because the CIO wants to pretend he has some clue about what's going on. What should be a 10 minute fix turns into a two week red-tape fest. Then they have the nerve to ask why I'm not getting more done.
If ANYONE asks me if the IT field is a good choice for a career, I solidly reply "Hell, no. Run the other way and get a job *making* something that is useful or a job *helping* people."
I've been trying to leave IT for the past 10 years, but where else will I find a job that pays so much for such little work?
I don't doubt you, but I simply feel you missed a great deal. I have an image of someone making a long journey to the Grand Canyon, walking to the edge, looking over it for 5 minutes and then leaving saying "Okay, I've seen it."
When WoW first came out there were 2500 quests per faction. Each faction has three different starting zones and those zones are completely different play up to level 20. From 20 to 60 there are numerous paths to take to see different zones and different quests. When BC came out, the quests doubled at least and provided another new starting zone with a new 1-20 experience for each faction. Add to that the PvP opportunities (I don't PvP either) and all the instances, really the game is endless.
It is simply unfathomable to me how anyone, even playing only one character could possibly experience everything this game has to offer. That's why I get the impression that people simply gloss over everything or skip major amounts of content entirely.
I don't question that there is a lack of new content, but I don't think it is necessary when those complaining haven't bothered to look at all the old content.
First and foremost, this is a rumor. As the FA suggests, it could be a doctored screen since "PvP" is listed twice and having a title like "Quest Dude" is not in keeping with Blizzard's style.
Even if it does get implemented, I don't see this as a system for "grinding." I also play LotRO on those rare occasions when I don't feel like playing WoW. Yes, this appears to be exactly like the Deeds system. In LotRO those are not achievements you intentionally pursue; they're objectives that you just happen to complete while you're playing, or you might complete most of them and discover "If I visit that one last farm, I'll get X." I'd see this having the same effect in WoW. I doubt the rewards for such easily achievable tasks would be great either, just like in LotRO. They're beneficial, but they're not game altering or anything that you cannot play without.
Regardless, we'll keep playing with or without any rewards because playing the game and having a good time is the reward.
Yes, I did incorrectly state my point. Yes, there are players who want to PvP. What I meant to say that most (based on my UO, DAoC, AC, WoW & LotRO experience) fantasy MMORPG players do not want to PvP. Still it's a big factor in all of those titles and more so much so that it becomes apparent that a great deal of development resources and time are spent trying to fix, balance and improve the PvP system instead of developing the entire game further or adding more PvE content.
Absolutely I don't have to play PvP-based MMO's, and I don't. I could tell from websites, reviews and beta tests that Lineage, GuildWars and Conan were all centered around PvP so I avoided them. It is disappointing to me that I am unable to explore another world, stories and gameplay that I would enjoy and pay for if the PvP were not there.
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GTA is a good example of explicit racism at least what is marketed. I have never played it myself (genre doesn't interest me), but every commercial I've ever seen shows a black or Latino as the main character that is driving over people, shooting police and beating up prostitutes. From what I've seen every role in that game is stereotypical racism.
WoW is a good example of implicit racism. The whole basis of the faction war between Alliance and Horde is due to differences in races that escalated over time. What's worse are the PvPers that constantly call out in chat "Let's go raid [opposite faction city].... because they're [Horde/Alliance]."
Really MMOs are the best and worst forums of racism. Everyone is anonymous and we accept each other as the character presented in the game. For the most part race, gender, religion and political affiliation never factor into chatting, raiding or any other group activity. When they do it immediately causes friction.
While I agree that no developer explicitly puts racism or sexism in a game, I think general negligence of not including all possible races in key roles is occurring. I blame most of this on appealing to the historically primary consumer, those with the most disposable income and the most free time for gaming: young, white males.
WoW has made a major breakthrough in attracting female gamers (30% last I heard), and I'm expecting that is having some influence on development. As internet and gaming becomes more available and attractive to a wider diversity of races, I think we'll eventually see a more accurate reflection of real life in gaming.
I was playing WoW and trying to ignore all the political clap-trap. Big surprise there.
I don't think you have to focus on angry republicans. There are dozens if not hundreds of groups that would and may attempt it. As someone stated in chat last night, "They'd have to knock on alot of doors." In other words, if he was killed, I doubt that as many people that voted for him would be mourning. I'd just hate to see him turned into a martyr.
I don't think Obama has as much honor or virtue in his whole body as Dr. King had in his pinky finger.
I'm dreading what the next few years will hold and how our country will change. I simply hope the media tears into him just as they've done every other president and we get the truth exposed somewhere in between journalistic sensationalism.
I predict an assassination attempt within a year. I certainly hope it does not succeed because then he'll be considered a martyr and things will just get worse.
I pray to God I'm proven wrong.
February 2007 I purchase a new PC, Intel E6600, 2GB RAM, dual 384Mb video cards. I decide to give Vista a try. After an hour of loading, a single reboot takes 2-3 minutes. Finally getting to the desktop, I find dual screens will not work without a registry hack, my 15Mb FIOS connection has been brought to a crawl (20 min. for a 60Mb file) and the constant UAC warnings drove me crazy.
I reload XP SP2 and fully patch it in less than an hour. Both screens work from the start and look better when I download the 60Mb driver in 30 seconds. I load all my applications and restore my data. Boot time, 40 seconds.
Now it's been 20 months and I still get to the desktop ready to load a browser, e-mail or a game in less than a minute. Add to this that I can leave it on weeks at a time with no issues, and I'm pretty pleased.
I think MS needs to go back to the XP model and look at how they can improve from there.
What I noticed is that Chekov is there. He shouldn't be. Chekov didn't join the crew until the second year (season) of the mission. So if this story is set when Kirk first takes over the Enterprise, Chekov is no where in sight, probably still at Starfleet Academy.
I'm getting tired of Hollywood's visions stomping all over my paradigms and re-writing (fictional) history as I know it. Obviously nothing is sacred.
...as long as EA doesn't assimilate NASA, shift non-NASA developers onto the ISS project, drastically increase the production cycle, overwork the astronauts and launch the shuttle way before it's ready. You can't patch in space.
No, War is not WoW; they have very different approaches. War is PvP centric, while WoW is PvE/co-op centric. They are attracting very different crowds. I like how the article points out that War is KEAS while WoW is EASK.
Looking at the charts in that third article, War is not affecting WoW and vice versa (at this early stage). I think the people tired of WoW already left, but I'll wager they come back for the expansion and we'll see WoW top 12 million in 6 months.
There's plenty of room for numerous MMO's catering to millions of players. It's not the same pool of one million that UO, EQ, DAoC and SWG fought over. Actually, it may be that same one million who are never satisfied and hop from game to game, but about 9 million players are WoW players, not MMO players.
When I saw Will's presentation and the concept artwork/videos, I was thrilled at how cool Spore would be. It looked like Black & White type of indirect control, Civ style of management and a major twist to go forward and backwards in evolution. As soon as I saw "EA," I wrote it off as lost. EA screws up everything they touch. Sounds like they ruined Spore, too, what could have been a blockbuster game of the decade.
I hope they do drop PC games because they suck at it. They can focus on consoles which have no influence in my universe at all.
...how exciting it was playing a new game with new classes and new areas, I think it's hubris for them to think that they aren't going to lose a lot of their player base.
You just described the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and the reactions of players in the beta test. Of course new and different is exciting. Sounds like you are an explorer type. I've been playing MMOs since 1997. This sort of statement occurs every time a new MMO comes out. "This is better than that." "It's what the players have always wanted." "They'll see how wrong they are when X people leave."
What really surprised me is that when WoW came out and really did kill UO and EQ, very little was said.
I'm sure Warhammer will appeal to a great many people, probably several thousand people who grew tired of WoW. Yet everything you described has to do with PvP. You do realize that WoW has a great deal more to offer besides PvP, right? Despite what PvP players think, all games do NOT center around PvP and the 20% (if that) of players that participate in PvP.
If Warhammer comes out and attracts every single PvPer off of every single realm in WoW, whoo buddy, will I be celebrating. Finally, general and trade chat will be quieter without idiots ignorant of the local defense channel blathering about the rogue in the AH. If the battlegrounds stand empty and all the PvP realms are shut down, then finally, MY vision of what WoW should be will come true.
From what I've seen of Warhammer (features, trailers, gameplay videos, screenshots) it's just another WoW knockoff trying to appeal to a subset of the MMO population. I'm sure it will do well IF they have high standards of quality and implement it well. I seriously doubt it will threaten WoW.
How do you expect governments to manage this or better yet, do you have any plan to keep governments or companies from controlling who can and cannot receive longevity?
Once some people have it and they reproduce, will the longevity condition be passed on or will they need to go through "treatment" as well?
If a new Harry Potter movie was coming out, who would the marketing/franchising people go to first to have a game made? If a small studio earned a contract for a game, produced a good product that sold then EA would buy the studio, assimilate the talent and produce quick, lower quality sequels. They DO have a monopoly on the sports with ESPN and the official leagues locking into "EA only" contracts.
This merger puts another big dog in the arena. Now companies have two choices to produce games, and I guarantee there will be bidding wars between them. When the "EA only" contracts expire watch those sports leagues go visit Blizzard and entertain the idea of "what can you do for us?" Oh, yes. It will have an impact.
As for Blizzard's quality... they've been producing top notch, highest quality games for over 15 years now. They have never, ever shipped an unfinished product that needs to be patched as soon as you insert the CD into your computer. EA has done that repeatedly because the ship date is more important to them than the quality. I think Blizzard has an excellent model of development that scales well. I don't believe their quality will drop at all.
I think the report is pulling it out of context. I just read the entire law and did word searches for "computer," "data" and "repair." Everything I'm reading from it indicates this applies to security personnel who are deliberately searching for data or performing forensics.
What this may inadvertently do is protect consumers from snoopers in Geek Squad searching for and copying data when they're repairing. In other words, if you're just there to repair it, then that's all you do. Fix the hardware, fix the OS or fix the application. The data is not your concern and is now off limits legally.
Until you find that nirvana, by all means apply at a medium to large company as desktop support. That will give you experience and open the doors to all manner of possibilities, but mostly in IT. The best thing is it will give you time to figure out if working with computers is really what you want to do.
As for salary, it greatly depends upon the part of the country you are in. Boston and San Francisco pay the most, but the cost of living is the highest, too. Midwest states are generally the lowest with a matching cost of living. Expect a degreed but non-certified desktop support position to be between $35k and $45k a year.
However, I also blame WoW's very weak password authentication system. It only supports up to 15 character, alpha-numeric, limited number of symbols and is not case-sensitive. I have mine as difficult as possible and I change it monthly.
Still, I'll be buying one of these fobs because every layer of security helps.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/06/26/blizzard-authenticator-to-be-introduced-at-the-worldwide-invitat/
I submitted this last week, but it was rejected. I'm guessing because WoW Insider is not considered a reliable source.
After all wouldn't we all enjoy seeing Steve in pain and being controlled by Bill?
1. It's a video game only owned by X number of people.
2. All of the adults owning this game bought it for such content anyway.
3. A large percentage of owners have no idea about the lawsuit or that they could get any money.
4. A large percentage are teenagers who are not going to explain to their parents why they can get money for the game because then the parents' might have some clue of what the game is about.
5. A certain percentage don't even know how to mod it to see the extra content.
If you start with a small percentage of the population and start applying these factors, 3,000 people sounds about right. I'd wager all of those filing for payment are either hypocrites who just want the money but still will play the extra content or they're parents who had no idea what they were buying.
No, I'm not confusing IT with help desk. What I'm saying is that regardless of skill or title level, you end up with people who are following a script and only doing a routine of functions they were taught. Very few of us have the skill to troubleshoot rare or new problems or design ways to eliminate current and future problems.
Yes, I am totally burned out on IT. Have been for years. Computers are tools and should be used FOR jobs not BEING the whole job. I'd still recommend anyone considering a career in IT to turn away and do something else, anything else. Learn how to use a computer, but don't let it be the main purpose of your job.
If you can finally get to a second or third level person who is REALLY supposed to be skilled, they're still reading from a script and making best guesses. If there were a database that could store all the possible problems and intelligently choose the solution, those support people would not be needed.
I think that manual occupations (construction, sewing, sculpting) take a great deal more skill than IT.
What's made it much, much worse is how much clerical work we have to do now due to regulations and general ignorance of people new to the industry. We have to document everything so that our job can be outsourced to someone less skilled and willing to work for less. We have to have reviews and justification only because the CIO wants to pretend he has some clue about what's going on. What should be a 10 minute fix turns into a two week red-tape fest. Then they have the nerve to ask why I'm not getting more done.
If ANYONE asks me if the IT field is a good choice for a career, I solidly reply "Hell, no. Run the other way and get a job *making* something that is useful or a job *helping* people."
I've been trying to leave IT for the past 10 years, but where else will I find a job that pays so much for such little work?
When WoW first came out there were 2500 quests per faction. Each faction has three different starting zones and those zones are completely different play up to level 20. From 20 to 60 there are numerous paths to take to see different zones and different quests. When BC came out, the quests doubled at least and provided another new starting zone with a new 1-20 experience for each faction. Add to that the PvP opportunities (I don't PvP either) and all the instances, really the game is endless.
It is simply unfathomable to me how anyone, even playing only one character could possibly experience everything this game has to offer. That's why I get the impression that people simply gloss over everything or skip major amounts of content entirely.
I don't question that there is a lack of new content, but I don't think it is necessary when those complaining haven't bothered to look at all the old content.
Even if it does get implemented, I don't see this as a system for "grinding." I also play LotRO on those rare occasions when I don't feel like playing WoW. Yes, this appears to be exactly like the Deeds system. In LotRO those are not achievements you intentionally pursue; they're objectives that you just happen to complete while you're playing, or you might complete most of them and discover "If I visit that one last farm, I'll get X." I'd see this having the same effect in WoW. I doubt the rewards for such easily achievable tasks would be great either, just like in LotRO. They're beneficial, but they're not game altering or anything that you cannot play without.
Regardless, we'll keep playing with or without any rewards because playing the game and having a good time is the reward.
Absolutely I don't have to play PvP-based MMO's, and I don't. I could tell from websites, reviews and beta tests that Lineage, GuildWars and Conan were all centered around PvP so I avoided them. It is disappointing to me that I am unable to explore another world, stories and gameplay that I would enjoy and pay for if the PvP were not there.