I am very happy to see that yesterday’s topic garnered such fantastic responses. It’s no surprise to me that the vast majority of you decided that gameplay is more important to you than graphics. Let’s move on to part 2 now which focuses on the different forms of PvP. In today’s market players are showing that they want and care about PvP in their games. Some games literally revolve around the player vs. player interactions. But there are several types of PvP and choosing which type you enjoy most is the focus of this post. Below are some examples of PvP. Feel free to pick one or create your own form of PvP.
- FFA PvP. Winner takes all. No restrictions on who or when I can attack! RAAAWR!
- Realm vs. Realm style. I like knowing who my allies are and fighting for a cause.
- Guild vs. Guild. My guild is better than yours!
- Battlegrounds. PvP is an afterthought for me and I want it in controlled environments. (think LOTRO)
- No PvP. Carebear stare!
- Other (Please explain!)
I’m in love with RvR. Ever since Dark Age of Camelot introduced me to the idea that I could fight with others of my realm/faction, for a cause greater than myself, I have not been able to truly enjoy any other form of PvP. I like knowing who my allies are and I like that sense of “realm pride”, which is really only a strong form of community, that forms when you fight alongside other players. This is somewhat of a tangent, but in RvR I love attacking objectives like Keeps or towers and then defending them for hours/days/weeks against the other realm’s attackers. I enjoy that push and desire to take relics or major objectives that signifity a true “victory”.
I really dislike when PvP becomes an afterthought. In LOTRO PvP was really ignored and pushed off into this little corner of the map where those interested could bash eachother on the head for a couple hours before getting bored. It felt neglected and removed from the rest of the game. World of Warcraft was the same way for a long, long time. At release Blizzard ignored pvp and went through several different iterations and attempts before settling on their e-sport system. Not my cup of tea, but a lot of people enjoy the bigger emphasis on PvE.
FFA PvP is interesting and brings with it a similar sense of community that you can get in RvR. It’s just a lot more political and chaotic. AC: Darktide, Mordred/Andred, and now even Age of Conan’s FFA rulessets offer a sense of free-for-all. And while I’m on the topic of AoC, you also have a dash of that guild vs. guild stuff to consider.
So, what say you? Which style of PvP would your ideal MMO have – or- are you a carebear and want your ideal mmorpg to have no pvp at all? There’s no wrong answers here. Once you have decided on which you prefer, try and combine it into a sentence with your choice from part 1. Here’s mine:
“My ideal mmo would emphasize amazing gameplay over graphics and would be centered around a RvR style of PvP.”
First of all, I completely agree that PvP should never be an afterthought. Either integrate PvP as an important part of the game, or leave it out entirely and market it as a PvE game. I’m willing to play a purely PvE game as long as I know what I’m getting. (I.e., Sometimes I like sheep, they’re soft and cute and playfully dim-witted, but don’t try to sell me a sheep in wolf’s clothing!)
Second, if a game is going to have PvP, I’m a big fan of Realm vs Realm play. I’m not a player who is typically drawn to large guilds, and fighting side-by-side with strangers towards a common goal is a great way for some of us less social players to meet people and make friends. Even in Warcraft, I met a bunch of cool people when I was active in Arathi Basin [when it first came out] and in small-scale Bone Waste skirmishes. (Yes, I know bone wastes was pretty lame by RvR standards, but on our server it was the best RvR around .)
Also, I’m sure I’m in the minority here, but I really don’t mind instanced RvR. Yes, Warcraft battlegrounds left a LOT to be desired, but I think this is largely because (a) They weren’t integrated into the game at launch [afterthought]; (b) There were only four maps [after 3.5 years!]; and there was little reason/incentive to participate. However, despite their flaws I have many fond memories of instanced PvP and I’m a firm believer that if a game launched today with instanced RvR on a large number of well-designed maps, that it could be a lot fun.
“My Ideal MMO will have gameplay over graphics, and have little PVP having it in a controlled enviroment.”
I liked LOTROs PVP because I could decide when to fight other players or to play through the actual game. I don’t like to be in fear of being attacked by a random person. I personally love how EVE has done their PVP, placing 0.0 space as a kind of wild west fronteir where everything goes and you can forge whole empires over the 0.0 space yet if you sdidn’t want to do that you always have the higher sect. That kind of controlled enviroment is awesome. And I hoped that Age of Conans border kingdoms were like that.
Carebear to the core. I want no part of PvP. I can tolerance its presence if it’s not forced on me. But looking back on games I’ve gotten the most enjoyment from, they’ve had no PvP at all, at least on the server I chose.
Oops and forgot to follow instructions.
My ideal mmo would have gameplay over graphics and would have little to no PvP.
I would say that my ideal mmo must have a good balance between pvp and pve, the player should have the choice whether he plays only pvp or pve or both and he should progress in his character development equalliy no matter which style he choses. Furthermore I prefer the RvR style here, I don’t want to see a potential enemy behind every player I come across. And I like the idea of big battles, sieges, infiltration and all that kind of stuff, but it should be well organised, ganking should not be possible for instance(or at least kept at a minimum).
Conclusion:
“My ideal mmo would have gameplay over graphics and should concentrate on both, pve and pvp(RvR), giving the player the opportunity to chose his way to play.”
guess I went a bit off topic there =p whatever…
(once again sorry for my poor english -_-)
“My idea mmo would have gameplay over graphics and should provide an indepth PvP that offered rewards rather than grief.”
Basically PvP whether its in an RvR setting or just real world one on one, a player needs to get something for his victory. But it should be a world of equals. You should be rewarded for killing an unskilled or lower level opponent, that should bring shame.
Sorry, I meant to say, you Shouldn’t be rewarded for killing an unskilled or lower leveled opponent. This act should be considered shameful and must recieve some kind of penalty.
What would really stun me, is a Fantasy MMO integrates EVE’s safety rating system.
I guess the closest this came was Runescape’s “Wilderness” which I think is still a really nice implementation. The deeper into the wilderness you get, the greater the gap between your levels there can be to attack someone.
A cool addition would be to make more dangerous areas have much more valuable items, maybe more profitable grinding (exp is gained faster in danger zones). Something to balance a plater’s greed and fear
Balancing greed and fear creates it’s own gameplay. Additional ‘content’ that the developer doesn’t have to develop.
My ideal game would have graphical beauty, and depth in gameplay, with guild vs guild PvP based on the feature that better players in a smaller guild would beat a larger guild of worse players.
Sorry for double comment, this should have been included in the first one: The reason I don’t pefer RvR is because, although in theory, it works, often in practice it doesn’t. Case in point – WoW – you have, I think I read, on average, twice as many alliance as you do horde. This means world PvP is a pure zerg-fest, with alliance winning out every time. Battlegrounds are fine, but I prefer world based PvP, and I like the keep/city/siege system in AoC, providing you have a competent guild, you don’t need a huge guild, just a skilled one, to really enjoy that mechanic.
Now that Gordo mentions it, I really want to add that:
PvP does not depend on gear. A skilled player should be able to beat 2 or 3 poor players of the exact same level and gear.
Either complete carebear (ie. cooperative) or RvR – I’m a DAOC girl at heart ;p
I will have to go with other. I don’t care so much about the limits of who could attack who. For convenience, I would like to have some type of “own group” immunity from AoE damage, but that is about the only limit that I require.
I like the idea of Faction based or RvR, but I would like factions to be more fluid. I should not be stuck on one side just because a choice I made a character creation time says so. Also I am a fan of player created factions as well (guilds and alliances)
What I do not like in most current implementations of PvP is the fact that the character’s level is the primary factor in deciding the combat. Sure if the difference is small (less than 5 levels) it isn’t a guarantee, but there is a point at which the lower level player can not do anything to the higher level player.
Ideally, a noob should be able to affect a veteran player. Sure the vet will stomp down the noob, but he will take some damage along the way. What I like from EVE is that a half dozen or so noobs in cheap ships are a threat to a veteran in some of the more expensive ships.
This kind of brings up the topic of Zerging as well. To me greater numbers makes strategic sense. However the game should reward this type of tactic when it useful. The trick is to find the fine line between needed and ganking.
So to conclude: “My ideal MMO would be a nice looking but still fun (aka non-frustrating) game with PvP were players can contribute regardless of level.”
A lot of good points from folks here. There is probably too much for me to say about my own opinion on this so I should make it a blog post but heres some of the main things:
Like Oakstout says: reward people for being more powerful opponents, gradually penalize them for beating on weaker ones. (no rewards for a few levels beneath and negative rewards for more than that)
Skill based pvp such as aiming to cast spells on asn so on. Spellborn, Tabula Rasa are examples of weakly imagined (early) versions.. better stuff to follow for sure.
I do enjoy what Lotro’s pvp has become and I don’t resent the fact that it is nonexistent anywhere but one very large and complex area that is an absolute war zone with no player limit or tactics limit or whatever except around the spwan points there are deadly guards (AoC could learn from this) and at the starting zones. (Wow could learn from this). Yes it needs Collison detection and seige weapons and mounted combat and all that crap.
As far as free for all that cna be fine as long as there are guards and stuff in the streets of town.
My favorite would probably be RVRVRVRVRVR lots of differnt factions instead of just two (yawn) You still know who your friends are(your own faction) but this way you need to watch your back for your other foes lest they take advantage of the fact your attacking someone and attack you! 🙂 Course they need surveillance of some kind and so on. Some game where spies can occur would be interesting though not necessarily successful due to lots of whining from the waambulance forums 🙂
The shapeshifter class in Chronicles of Spellborn comes to mind. What if you could COMPLETELY copy the look and feel and language and chat of an enemy for a while, just to survey and it was possible to detect you but not easy, not just a push of a button?
Well heres wishing something exciting and new comes out soemtime 🙂
This is why I love topics like this! It’s really forcing people to think about what they like and in doing so many of you are making the connection between other mechanics and features. Dependence on gear will be another topic this week but it really goes to show how these various aspects of game design really come into play.
So many great thoughts out there guys. Keep it up. 🙂
The ability to chose sides not based on race but on alignment and actions in gameplay would be really neat too.
Thallian’s mentioned of RVRVRVRVRVR got me thinking; how awesome would a multiple faction system with changable alliances be? With some sort of ingame polling system, every member of the faction has a vote that they can use to influence the direction the faction moves in – that could be, declaring war on another faction, calling a treaty with one for trade and resources, teaming up with one to crush another. And I like the idea of fluid factions as well, where you can change faction, at a certain cost, of course.
Hey, now that’s not a bad idea! If a game could release with 8 realms balanced like WAR’s Order vs. Destruction or WoW’s Alliance vs. Horde and they were given the ability to ally, declare war, trade, or conquer (in a sense of taking capital cities like in WAR) then it could be a LOT of fun. It would certainly be a massive undertaking though to create a balanced system of that magnitude.
It would – there’d be the obvious problem of 2 factions combining forces to decimate another… Though, I’d like to hope that with enough players, fairness should come out on top, and if a faction were looking like being crushed, they’d summon the aid of another faction to save them.
I don’t know if you’ve played it, but in Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War: Soulstorm, the single player campaign is based on a similar approach to this; except from it’s all against all. Now… I’ve heard whispers of a Warhammer 40K MMO in the pipeline. It has the background story as WAR does, it has the possibility for endless content – a massive planetary war taking place would make a great backstory, with each team vying for control.
Another way this had been implemented in the past was Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri; another game with multiple factions, all vying for control on a new inhabited planet. You could use diplomacy, economy or simply brute force to get to the top, on your own or as part of a co-operative.
i think i’ll stick with the RvR 🙂
and i agree too that PvP should never be an afterthought.
FFA its just not me, i like to know who i fighting with, and i enjoy more playing any kind of game with friends/guild.
I too have heard whispers of this Warhammer 40K but I think its a long ways off yet in development land if it indeed is at all being made. Thanks Keen and Gordo. I really think it is doable since many of the AAA MMO’s make like 6 or 8 different races and starting areas anyways, why not just make 6 different factions and one starting area for all races that quickly branches into more than that based on your choices and which faction you choose to ally with. SWG kinda had this a little with three factions: Rebels, Neutral, and Empire. Not saying they should go that route but its an idea.
I think a W40K MMO would have each race/faction (synonymous in this case) starting from its own base – a safe area, where the player would commence training, until entering the battleground proper (start of PvP). However, underneath this top layer, would be the inter-factional relationships. You could trade resources, or try to steal them or kill for them. It would add a new layer of gameplay with loads of different options, as well as keeping the game dynamic and fresh. Of course, keeping the factions balanced would be of utmost priority – new players shouldn’t read the forums, see ‘Race A’ are winning everything, I’ll join them, as it would snowball to produce a hugely unbalanced and unfun game.
apparently there is one under developement. I stand corrected. (Not that I said there wasn’t :P) http://www.pcgamer.com/archives/2008/04/42908_-_warhamm.html
Personally, I prefer RvR because I like the team/social aspect of MMOs. I don’t want to be constantly paranoid as to whether someone will attack me or befriend me; I want to know for certain.
Most of the folks in my guild, though, (formed in Shadowbane), prefer FFA, because they don’t want anything to do with “the idiots.” FFA also lends itself greatly to Roleplaying, which, in turn, can be used to set up one of those RvRvRvetc situations. The only problem is when people won’t play along, which is why there’s enforced RvR (a necessary evil). If you could make a FFA PvP that actually gave benefits to those who allied with their realms/were “responsible” with their PvP, I’d say that’s the way to go. (In other words, to go along with my post yesterday, “my ideal MMO contains a set of designer tools than enable a player to create their own content, roleplay, and PvP with optional mechanics, per server, that encourage alliances and responsible PvP.”)
But, this being a far from ideal medium etc, RvR seems about as reasonable as it’ll get.
Hmm yeah well balance is something that is influenced by numbers and skill. You can jury-rig one of those as a developer but you cant really jury rig the other one. I have noticed though that the more skilled players (at least in lotro and wow) gravitate towards the harder one to win with because they enjoy a challenge if nothing else. Does this auto balance things out?
A little but the bias isnt strong enough to totally do that. Developers have to help out in the long run (not through nerfing if possible!). Make the underdogs a little more powerful.. carefully, slowly until you get it right.
Its a fine art not a thing you hit with a sledgehammer of 5% this and 5% that.
thats a good idea DM
Do you mean this article http://www.gamesradar.com/f/warhammer-40000-online/a-20080502174245201051/p-2?
If so, yeah it is under way. I wonder how they’ll do it. I really hope they try something different with the factions; the way the background info is written would lead to a dynamic relationship between them; different on different servers as well.
DM it sounds like you’re talking about EVE 🙂
EVE is a game I’ve never gotten into, but it seems like if you have the patience and staying power to really get into it, you really get into – it’s full of power struggles between corporations, fights over resources, and although it’s FFA PvP, if you attack someone you shouldn’t it can cause dire consequences for you and other members of your corporation.
What also makes PvP interesting for me is that there is something worth fighting for. In Conan you can set up a battle keep, but what does that really do for you other than make you a target.
In SWG (pre-CU) a player could pick which side to fight for (if at all.) As one side took control of more areas, the more powerful it changed the world. (Well in theory) So why limit that to a fixed number of Dev created factions? Let players create empires that rise and fall.
Yes this sounds like EVE, but I really do think that EVE has a lot of good fundamental concepts on PvP. It just can be really boring at times.
Heh, I couldn’t do a space craft themed game. But, like someone said above, if EVE could only be fantasy-themed…
🙂
To be honest, I think a space themed game could be just as immersive as fantasy based – I just think that none of the sci-fi MMOs out at the moment are particulary accessible.
AO: Confusing skill system, horrible graphics, clunky UI.
EVE: Main problem I found is I couldn’t empathise with my character – you never see it, you never talk to anyone. You’re just a ship. Besides that, it’s incredibly confusing, needs a good Corp to be sucessful, and travelling around can take ages.
… These are the only two I’ve experienced firsthand.
But, W40K is an easily accessible IP, with some decent graphics (Dawn of War’s engine would do!) and well thought-out gameply, it could attract me!
I’m rife with inner conflict over PvP…
I’ll just say that it needs to be Meaningful PvP (or what Syncaine called “impact PvP” awhile back) in that there needs to be some actual purpose beyond “lolz i pwnd j00!!1!”
I never did DAOC so I only have a vague understanding of RvR but I will say it needs to be *bare minimum* RvRvR, in other words: a minimum of three hard-coded factions. Look at the RTS genre, it was A vs. B for years and years (still is, actually) yet Starcraft came along with 3 and turned things on its ears! MMO’s are still in this A vs. B mentality which is just too simplistic to have meaning.
But the game needs to have a valid, meaningful PvE game on top of it. I’m an old-school pen-and-paper guy, so to me RPG intrinsically means PvE.
Good point Scott. I think Starcraft is a prime example of a RvR at it’s best (different genre I know, but MMORPGs, and RTS have some similarities). And for people who didn’t play Dawn of War: Soulstorm, the campaign I was referring to was similar to Starcraft, except there were 9 races, not 3.
Pirates of the Burning Seas just came out and has four factions. Three “National” factions that can win the map. And the Pirate faction. (Technically the pirates can win as well but very unlike)
@gustavef That part’s good, but too much sailing like Zelda wind waker = bad and instanced battles = 🙁 (makes me sad)
@Scott … good points on RVR. I am just wondering about the old school rpgs being pve.. are they really? I mean its you versus the monsters.. who are controlled by..the Dungeon Master right? So if hes clever or not its still kinda pvmp (player versus monster player) Now its good pvmp if hes a good DM and deadly pvmp if hes crazy or sadistic, but you get the idea. Notwithstanding I love to DM and I love D&D when I have the time (which I haven’t for a long time, due to a particular wonderful female :P)
@Thallian: I never said it was fun 🙂 Though there are some interesting things to learn from there as well on what did and did not work for PvP.
PvMP is something I would like to see more of. There was something nice about just jumping in to a creature and not really worrying about dieing so much. EQ tried something like that a long time ago. From time to time a wondering mob could actually be a player. LotRO put this in its own little zone.
It would make PvE a bit more exciting. You never know when the creature you are attacking could be controlled by a human and as easily tricked in to the standard taunt and tank tactics.
@Thallian: yes, I absolutely consider a GM to be “the Environment” since he’s playing the role of anything and everyone other than the band of Player Characters. He’s using Actual Intelligence rather than Artificial Incompetence but the point still stands: he’s outside the realm of being a Player.
I do enjoy LOTRO’s PvMP even if it’s not truly “meaningful.” Turbine’s devs are huge DAOC fans and it shows with their implementation of keeps and the contested raid dungeon which either side needs to control in order to enter the raid. If the other side gets control of the keeps (RvR-ish?) while you’re down there, they can enter and chase you down for PvP action inside the raid. The expansion is promising more PvMP zones and advancement (sounds like we get to level our creeps from 50 to 60?) so should be a good time.
Keen, do questing next! There are some MAJOR changes that need to be made!
Touching on what Oakstout was discussing earlier, what does everyone view as a good reward/penalty system for PvP, with respect to individual players. To partake of PvP it’s going to be assumed we’re in it for *something* aside from “just because.” Honor points? Corpse Looting? How to discourage ganking or PKing lowbies (if we’re in a levels-based game)? The F2P game Perfect World has (I think) a sort of FFA PvP system starting at level 30 but if you kill someone much lower than you (or he never fights back) you become “red named” and if you’re killed while red-named you stand a high chance of losing some gear.
I’m very, very interested in Earthrise, which is bringing back the skills-based, sandbox game mechanics, but it’s also FFA (truly FFA, you can attack your own faction) with full corpse looting of non-insured gear, which… I dunno about that.
Eh, you most likely not like my reply because I like a little bit of everything and don’t like to choose between them all. I support FFA, but with restrictions. Aka exp or honor loss for killing people way lower than you, and also like WoW has it with certain parts safe areas for certain people and open parts for everyone. I support battlegroun type play too but not over open world PvP or anything else. I think open world is the best way to do it, if guilds want a battle they usually do it out of vengeance and revenge anyways.
Also, I think the system that Conquer Online had was useful too. Too much PKing and you would turn red named and loss items, even more and you are black name and loss everything. This would lead to players setting up their own head hunters to get revenge. Something similar to that would be cool too.
I can’t believe you didn’t give an option of modified FFA a la Ultima Online. To me, that is the holy grail of freedom PvP (even though I do like the suggestions of several factions and alliances and voting).
UO had the system in place where you could attack whoever you liked but at a cost – a murder count or at the risk of going red or being flagged. I felt that this system promoted a feeling of “we could attack some random schmuck but dont have to and wouldnt unless..” as opposed to regular true FFA servers where everything goes. I think it is about freedom and making choices…
Heh, I’ll be greedy!
My ideal MMORPG would have amazing, fantasy-stylized graphics, rich content, wonderful game mechanics, and focus on meaningful three-way RvR.
My ideal MMO would have both amazing graphics and innovative gameplay. It would allow for complete carebear PvE, including soloist play, but preferably with ways to contribute to “the greater battle,” and focus on RvRvMP/E.
What the heck was that last word? Well, two major realms, so you know who to side with and who to hate. Something like Law/Order vs Chaos/Destruction. Possibly with factions (racial? guild?) that could shift alliances either way.
And the last would be the Neutrals/Some Stronger Force that may force good and evil to side against them. Using a 40K example, Tyranids come to mind. Computer-controlled environment/enemies, plus monster-play. Hop in, drive a monster, maybe even command computer mobs to swarm players.
There would have to be safe zones as well as contested zones, so the option would always be there to remain totally untouched by PvP – but the promise of reward egging people out to beat each up.
Low to zero personal penalties for losing – sorry, griefers, my ideal MMO is not yours. If people get discouraged from playing, there will be no more opponents, and the game will die. Something has to keep encouraging people on to fight each other, and that’s greed and fun combat.
My ideal mmo would emphasize amazing gameplay and graphics in equal ways and would be centered around a Guild vs. Guild style of PvP
Visuals are important to me. Just dig back to some of my older entries on my old livejournal ( http://enydo.livejournal.com/ ) and you can see all the screenshots I’ve played with and posted. However, I’ve never really favored one art style over another: I love the lush, realistic quality of age of conan, but I also really enjoy playing older games (or less realistic looking ones, like Wow).
What makes a game look good? For me, it’s pretty simple: it just has to look cool relative to the game world. You know, there’s a level of bad-ass-ness to everything in a game. Do the spells look cool? I had trouble getting into LOTRO because despite the fact that the world was beautiful, the spell and ability effects left much to be desired – my character never really felt that powerful. Do the monsters and bad guys look scary? Etc etc etc.
There’s only been one MMO so far that has turned me off so much graphically that I’ve really been unable to play: Tabula Rasa. No matter what settings I play at, the game always gives me graphical lag, the textures are flat and not detailed, and there are some bad clipping issues that I’m surprised haven’t been resolved at this stage.
All that being said, when it comes to PvP, I’ve always done it pretty casually. Most of the PvP I’ve experienced has been faction or realm based, which is what I enjoy most. It gives your side a sense of pride when you win and gives you a reason to unite. I cannot imagine playing on a pvp on Age of Conan – that dog eat dog mentality seems ridiculous.
In summary, gameplay is equal to graphics for me I guess. Again, graphics meaning the level of badaddery or coolness. PvP is all about realm vs realm.
I think RvR is too restrictive and can get too unbalanced as time goes on, if you have players you will always have an unbalance more people going for bad guys, more people going for good guys. This was shown in POTBS where the servers are done by country and they found out if you were in the UK you would always go for the English faction which meant that every other faction had zero or very few numbers which meant in a war the UK would always win.
I think it should be Guild Versus Guild like EVE has done it, and if they did a Fantasy MMO or even a sci-fi MMO that this this system and it wasn’t as complicated as EVE it would be an awesome game.
@W40K MMO
I have this bad nightmare where im in a basic brown tunnel dungeon “thinning the local population of space rats” with my bolter of +2 dmg vrs space rodents. Please be kind to this license THQ.
Love the ideas above about planetary war and RvRvRvRvR.
For RvR I wish they would go the full way and add in the good stuff from FPS shooters. We got the basic capture the flag/control point maps. Can you please take it a bit further and give us some command and control stuff from Battlefield. Thought Alterac Valley was a great map but without any way of letting people sort themselves out and a team commander its just not going to work.
More stuff for the 40k game…
In my dreams guilds form Marine Companies and alliances are Space Marine Chapters. PvP should be drop pod strikes on enemy colony worlds. The game should have most of the BF2142 game mechanics: can form squads, squad leader can give orders / place position attack markers on the map, squad/guild leader can call in off map help. People gain points for following orders and taking positions on the map. Use these points to come in as terminator marines or other special units. Would be great if they could use some form of mission based maps like Quakewars.
I like both PvP and PvE… but not at the same time. In fact, I’ve come to thje conclusion that my ideal PvP and ideal PvE cannot co-exist in the same product.
So, my ideal PvE game would not have any PvP at all. It would just be an opportunity to have adventures with other people in an evironment that is carefully designed to be fun. Essentially, the task of providing me with entertainment falls almost exclusively to the designer.
My ideal PvP game can have PvE, but the focus of the game would be squarely on PvP. In a massively multiplayer game I prefer PvP that is centered around large factional conflict, with direct player against player combat being only one of the means to that end. Ideally, everything you accomplish in the game would would benefit your faction and hurt the enemy factions. The entertainemnt value would come primarily from other people playing, not designer-created content.
Fascinating… you do seem to steer towards WAR now, hm?
@mr. gamer 🙂 Keen (and plenty of others) have pointed out already that it could come in the same product but yes its not likely on launch day for budget reasons and so on.
How it could be accomplished could be different servers (ffa,pvp,pvmp,rvr,love and peace, whatever) or different parts of the world or “shards” of a world like different dimensions that loosely or strongly influence each other but that each have different rule sets. There are of course lots of options in between but we like to categorize things into discrete descriptions so people don’t get confused. You could even let players just pick in game how to flag themselves and let them all romp on the same server..
You could have the flag change after an amount of time or you could pick it on character creation and NEVER change it 🙂 I think that’d be fun as well. I’d dabble until I found one I liked then stick with it. (with different rewards based on which one you picked)
I would like a stylistic MMO that has a solid and optional RvR based system.
Thallian, I really don’t think so. Making a PvP-centric game invloves design choices far beyond a simple setting of flags that control the ability of the players to attack each other. It involves tradeoffs that are incompatible or harmful to the PvE experience. Same goes for making a PvE-centric game in regards to the PvP experience. Even if you use the same setting and artwork in developing both PvP and PvE playests, the aggregate design differences would result in 2 very different products. I suppose you could stick them in the same retail box under the same brand-name… but it would make more sense to sell the separately.
This is not to say you couldn’t find some sort compromise between PvE and PvP in one game design, but neither experience would be ideal. Since we’re trying to imagine our perfect game here, I’m forced to propose 2 variants: one for each playstyle that I enjoy.
oh ok …fine :^) I misunderstood the context of your comment.
I agree Mr. Gamer. I think making a game that has the perfect PvE content, and perfect PvP content is impossible. They overlap on many levels, and therefore, it’s best to focus on one or the other. Sadly, that would sell less games, and so companies will always try to include both, to reach a wider market.
A factional approach would, for me, allow the best compromise, as you could team up to achieve PvE goals, and find an enemy faction for similar PvP goals.
PvP in an MMO environment is possible, but when you start to add PvE aspects to that same MMO, the PvP starts to get wonky, imbalanced and overall less enjoyable. How many MMOs with PvE have a balanced PvP environment, where certain classes/builds aren’t “OP”, or where gear/level isn’t a heavy factor in who wins? PvP is something that needs a strict ruleset to be fun for all participants, and that ruleset varies significantly when compared to a PvE game’s ideal layout. When you start to mix the two into a single game, it becomes har dot manage, and inevitably one (or both) parts of the game begin to suffer… WoW comes to mind when I say this.
I remember an old game SOE made, “PlanetSide,” that had the right PvP concepts behind it. It was an MMOFPS dedicated solely to PvP, and when you created a character, you chose one of three empires and were given the basic weapons and equipment needed to survive. As you leveled, you got access to more tools, but in the end, level was a non-factor in whether or not you succeeded. You could kill level 20 players at level 2 if you had the skill to back it up. Leveling was important, but it wasn’t something that would make you untouchable to newbies in the game… that’s probably what made the game to appealing to me back then.
Basically, my ideal MMO makes a choice: it’s either a PvP MMO, or a PvE MMO. When you start to mix and match (like WoW has chosen to do), you start to fail… and failure is not ideal, my friend.
People love to quote this japanese game designer stating that PvE and PvP mix like oil and water – they don’t. But modern MMOs always try to cater to both to attract more customers. In the end, both aspects suffer because of the other. While a lot of people here seem to agree on this, I doubt we can expect a fully PvP or PvE oriented mmo anytime soon.
First time I post on your blog guys 😀
I think PvP/PvE/RvR are very small facets and relate in a very weak way to the chore of the game. I will try to throw in another perspective on my perfect MMORPG.
1. Currency: none. Money should be inexistant in an MMO. If you want to picture the perfect MMO as a type of utopia, then money has to fly as it has no place in a virtual utopia. It also has the huge advantage of putting gold buyers out of business.
2. Levels: inexistent. Darkfall is the first game to try to take a step forward in this direction. Once again, the chinese can kiss goodbye their power leveling services.
3. Graphics vs gameplay. No real competition here. Any player with the most basic level of education will prefer gameplay over graphics. I am sorry to say this, but you would have to be a real douche to take graphics over gameplay.
4. Trading: not available. This may sound like an inconvenience, but it relates to what I think should be the epicenter of a good MMORPG:
0. CRAFTING. Maybe I should have started with this. Crafting IS what makes an RPG R. P. G. It means that the game will be strongly ITEM CENTRIC. Asking that a game be not item centric is ludicrous. The main thing that should make you play the game in the 1st place is improving your character. RPG. Ring a bell? Whether you do that to do better in PvP/PvE/RvR is up to you, but a complex and in-depth crafting system should be the heart of an MMORPG. Trading between players should be disabled because I strongly believe everyone should craft their own stuff, and the resulting character be a result of their direct actions and struggles. No more ‘I only have gathering professions to make money lolz’ bullshit. CRAFTING should be the means to achieve in PvP/PvE/RvR endgame or whatever the hell you like to play.
The rest is gravy.
I disagree with what you say about LOTRO PVP, Yes it may be in a contained environment BUT it can’t be open world, it’s simply not possible, LOTRO is a lore based game, it has set rules it has to abide by as it’s based of a pre created world, so for example there were never any recorded battles in the most part of Eriador (the area in which LOTRO is based) in the third age, meaning you can’t have open world PVP in the game as it would break the Lore, and turbine has a binding legal contract to stick with in certain boundries to keep the world as true to Tolkien’s world as it can.
So to say LOTRO’s PVP system is an after thought is wrong entirely, the fact that it’s there is amazing.
1. they had to think of a way around the lore to include it (looking into other aspects of tolkiens work to see for area’s it could be included)
2. they included a full rank system from 1-15 which is still to date involving players.
3. they then had to think of a way to include the opposition since the game is centered around a storyline which follows the normal LOTR one they developed monster play which has seen numerous improvements.