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General: Mayson's Musings: How to Kill a Giant
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
In this edition of his column, Keith "Mayson" Sarasin takes a look at how PvP could be used to try to kill the giant that is World of Warcraft with its 8 million subscriber base.
I stopped viewing PvP as a mechanic of a game a long time ago. Many people believe that PvP is something that is added to boost sales and try to strike at a market that developers believe is very small. I now view PvP as a sort of litmus test of the team that will be working on the game. When a guild makes a decision to move from game A to game B they look for certain criteria. I know many guilds that left games like Shadowbane and UO to move to World of Warcraft. They knew that PvP was an afterthought but what the developers still don't seem to have figured out is that the PvP market didn't just expand a little in the last four years, it exploded.
Read the whole article here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
My blog:
if you go for PvP you'll be disappointed, good thing for wurm otherwise we'd have the "camp teh n00b area", as it is mainly crafting.
edit: there is a non-PvP server and a PvP server.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
I know I wouldn't like to lose my Gear when I PvP.
Honestly, I believe he is wrong about this theory.
IMO, a PvP System that Rewards the Winner and does give nothing to the loser will cause more People to like it, than a System where you can lose your Precious stuff (no matter how easy it is to get).
And Because I think that way, there is a Group of Developers that knew this loooong before that guy.
Mythic Entertainment (Now Mythic EA).
This game the guy dreams of is actually pretty close of being released, with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning in Q1 2008, only even better than his vision ^_^
Yea because we all know Shadowbane is just so popular by letting you destroy entire player cities that are empty because a majority of that cities players are asleep. I severely doubt a rewards / risk system is going to kill wow. I had my fill of rewards / risk style games with UO back in the 90s where just walking outside the city could lose you an entire days worth of work.
Honestly I wonder sometimes who comes up with this stuff? I guess its a good thing its an editorial and not a fact.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Hey Elgareth,
I appreciate your comments and would like to address some of the things that you mentioned. There is an important medium between full risk and reward (ie, losing all your gear) and rewarding players for their participation. I am not suggesting that all games should follow the path of full open loot but I am suggesting that the community does want what real life mirrors, risk and accountability. A dynamic world one that changes with players competing for resources via wars and sieges is the quintessential image of a concept that could shake the foundations of WoW.
WoW has set a bar that no one will reach until new concepts are thought of and reached. PvP has undergone an evolution in the last couple of years and much of the community wants more. The question at hand is what company will deliver it and deliver it correctly?
Thanks for you contrasting comments. Remember the gamer makes the game.
Notice: The reviews expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Mayson
I will admit that this style of game play is not for everyone. However consider yourself a minority from this point out. Before you hit the reply button, read the rest of what I am about to say
Shadowbane had many things that worked well but programming and fundamental errors caused its demise NOT the people getting upset because they lost things. The way you implement something like player cities and asset destruction is by making items readily available without the countless hours of work it takes in games like WoW to obtain. This system implemented into World of Warcraft would not work because WoW is a PvE based game with careful undertones of PvP. WoW has ignited the PvP based and its the same base that will carry the industry for years to come.
Notice: The reviews expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Mayson
Oh please. Shadowbane did so badly for the same reason most FFA or highly open PvP games do.
The concept itself and the people such games attract are far too destructive toward the game,themselves, and the "community".When you can do anything you want, with little to no consquences far too many people will take the easy route far too often.
Its why gankings are king in such games.Why even odds fights are the oddity , instead of the rule.Why exploiters are so drawn to such games, with the need to win anyway they can.
Now all that said, i really would like another game along those lines to be made.Becuase it gives said player type a place to act that way, far from the majority of the MMO customer base.
Like Eve does.
Risk and reward is a prominent concept of a dynamic world. It is my belief that the more development companies move away from stringent limitations and regurgitated raid and PvE content in their games, the more they are stepping into the next era of gaming. For me it isnt just about PvP.....its about the accountability and realism that comes with PvP.
And please....dont argue that you aren't playing games for realism and that you are playing for "fun". You are playing for entertainment.....and entertainment is art.....and all art immitates LIFE. Games, like movies and books tell us things about ourselves and immerse us in a different world. Players must be allowed to create the flow of their own stories in games like these, and in order to do so limitations such as long grinds and addictive gear based PvE content will have to go the way of the do-do.....
These are methods that companies use to keep you consistently paying for a subscription.....What happened to making the most intense and fascinating game we've ever seen? Have we forgotten that this pinnacle is what all art should strive for?
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
There are some things that I would like to address here that are obviously logical fallacies. You said "The concept itself and the people such games attract are far too destructive toward the game, themselves, and the "community". When you can do anything you want, with little to no consequences far too many people will take the easy route far too often."
I feel that this is not an opinion but a stab at a community. I have known many players that are stable well rounded people who play these games. I myself am persuing my PHD in Psychology and got involved in the gaming industry to study addictions. When you make an unfair characterization like you did that is not adding to the discussion but implying that these people are blood thirsty destructive people.
The other thing I would like to point out is you said "you can do anything you want, with little to no consequences far too many people will take the easy route far too often." This is the reason why risk and reward PvP is SOOO essential to mmo's. Without a warfare and sieging aspect to games you have gankers kill without consequence. In a player run and player driven community the player could rally their guild against the guild that the ganker is involved in!
Notice: The reviews expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Mayson
So you say you want a UO revolution...
The problem with this age old mmo argument is that both sides are correct.
There is a need for a sandbox style game that doesn't have overly restrictive rulesets that damper a gaming experience.
But also those overly restrictive rulesets are a direct result of thsi so called "risk, reward" scenario you speak of. In a game, much like early UO, which I have many fond/terrible memories of, there is no real risk reward in the pvp. It is simply chaos. It's one thing to state that people will "police" themselves, and in UO it did happen occasionaly, but in reality it's always the marauding band of murderers who wiped out mass amounts of people ,collecting all the loot and depositing, well before anything was done about it. Your game is only intended to be pvp centric, because the normal player can not, and will not, play in this type world.
I mean honestly in old school UO what was the real risk of being a murderer? Their was no death penalty. They would have stashed the vast majority of player loot long before anyone killed them. So what, praytell, is the real risk here? That after you have performed dozens of gankings with your group of thugs, or dozens of slaying of unsuspecting newbs and crafters, that you might get killed once or twice. It was precisely the same way with stealing in UO. A thief could run around naked, stealing to his hearts content, with little risk involved. If he was killed than it didn't matter he didn't lose anything afterall. If he was successful all the better.
You also speak about the "realism" such games bring to bear. While this is the case in some aspects, it also is a very, very big fallacy in others aspects. When was the last time you were murdererd by a group of 3-5 people while going to work? Why doesn't this happen in real life? Because there are risks involved in doing such things. I know you could argue that players can set up these types of things themselves. But this is just not feasible. It just does not work this way in a game world unless rulesets are set in place to aid players to achieve such things. Players themselves can not be "police" for many reasons. I even have proof to back up my statements. Trammel was not created because griefing was contained by players.
Now with all that said I still think that the 3rd generation MMO will be a succesful hybrid of this sandbox style game, but will incorporate a realistic set of rulesets to aid players who don't want to have to be police or have their entire gaming experience dedicated to PVP.
How you might ask? Here are a couple game play designs that I have drawn out in the past that try to address this issue.
Allow a sandbox, non-item centric game. Allow for any play-style but add risks for the playstyles that are easily abused. Below is a rather watered down version of a gaming concept I have been working on.
PVP:
All three starting races are at war with one another. This does not mean that it is a FFA pvp ruleset.
There are only two ways to kill another player without reprecussions. The first is for a player guild to declare war on another player guild(see guilds). The second, and most broad, is to join the racial army. All three races have an npc controlled army which can attack any other member of an opposing racial army.(see army).
Players may not attack, without penalty (see criminal system), others of the same race, or others not in an army(referred to as civilians), unless a guild war has been declared. Or a mutual duel has been accepted.
If one does kill another character, outside of this ruleset, then the criminal system is called into effect(see criminal system).
Guards in Racial cities will only aid characters being attacked by criminals, or Hostile Npc's. I.E. Those who are being attacked by someone outside the three acceptable pvp modes described above.(see criminal system)
Racial Cities have much tougher guards than the maximum contested territory city guards.
Guards in Territorial Cities will attack any criminals, hostile npc's, any opposing race entering the territorial city.
Players killed by another player character do not lose experience points. Except in the cases of criminals (see criminal system).
When a character dies all of thier belongings drop with them.
Players dying to another player are afforded a death penalty (see death).
If a player has recieved damage from a player, player minion, trap, etc..., then no matter what deals the finishing blow that player is still considered killed by a player.
CRIMINAL SYSTEM
There are two levels of the criminal system. The first level is Criminal Status and the second is Murderer Status.
CRIMINAL STATUS
Criminal Status is obtained by the following ways:
A) Attacking another player outside the acceptable terms of pvp. (see pvp)
C) Lock picking a item outside acceptable terms of stealing. (see stealing)
D) Looting any player outside the acceptable terms of looting. (see death)
Criminal Status results in the following consequences:
A) Character with criminal status will be killable by any other character without consequence for that character.
C) Guards will no longer protect the character against attackers inside city limits.
Criminal acts resulting in criminal status are recorded on an individual basis. Criminal Status lasts according to the number of criminal acts the character has performed. For every 12 hours (RT) a character spends in game 1 recorded criminal act fades. When the recorded number reaches 0, Criminal Status is over.
MURDERER STATUS
Murderer status is obtained by only one way. This way is to kill another character outside the acceptable terms of pvp. (see pvp)
Murderer Status results in following consequences:
A) Characters with murderer status will be killable by any other character without consequence for that character.
C) City guards, including territorial guards, will actively attack on sight any character under murderer status attempting to enter a city.
Murders resulting in Murderer status are recorded on an individual basis. Murderer Status lasts according to the number of murders performed. For every 48 hours (RT) that passes, while the character is actually in game, one murder count passes. When this count reaches 0 Murderer Status is over.
DEATH:
Players corpse stays behind at spot of where the death occured. These remains retain all of the belongings that were with that character at time of death.
A player's remains may be looted by any players with no penalties under the following circumstances:
1) It is the player himself looting his own remains.
2) The player is given permisson via a command to loot their corpse. This command is used via the chat box. /release playername
3) The player who expired is a member of his racial army and the looter is a member of an opposing racial army.
4) The player who expired was under a Criminal Status or Murderer Status.
5) The player was in a guild that was at war with another guild. An opposing member of this guild may loot with no penalties.
A player's remains looted outside of these circumstances results in a Criminal Status per each illegal loot.
A player's remains may be resurrected by certain spells or skills that allow for such. Resurrection involves teleportation back to the remains and under certain circumstances some experience loss recovery,and/or death penalty negation. (See Spells and Skills)
Death by player's inside of PvP ruleset (see pvp) results in no Experience Penalty but instead a Death Penalty will be enacted.
Death of player's under the Criminal Status recieve normal experience loss regardless of death circumstances and also a Death Penalty. (see criminal system)
Death of player's under the Murderer Status recieve a experience loss of 1 and 1/2 times normal experience loss regardless of death circumstances and also a Death Penalty. (see criminal system)
Death Penalties are dependent on the number of deaths that occur. They are calculated and removed on a 15 minute (RT) timer. The following is the preliminary effects of the Death Penalty.
1) -3 to all attributes for a period of 1 minute (RT).
2) -5 to attributes for 1 1/2 minutes (RT).
3) -8 to attributes for 2 minutes (RT)
4) -8 to attributes and -1 to all skill rankings for 3 minutes.
5) -8 to attributes and -2 to skill rankings for 5 minutes.
6+) same as above line but lasting for 8 minutes.
Death by npc's result in experience loss but no death penalty.
Experience Penalty is yet TBD, but should slide higher with level progression.
Sorry for the length. And this is an older version but I think it could incorporate allowing anything, but slaping on appropriate risks for abusive gameplay.
Oh please. Shadowbane did so badly for the same reason most FFA or highly open PvP games do.
The concept itself and the people such games attract are far too destructive toward the game,themselves, and the "community".When you can do anything you want, with little to no consquences far too many people will take the easy route far too often.
Its why gankings are king in such games.Why even odds fights are the oddity , instead of the rule.Why exploiters are so drawn to such games, with the need to win anyway they can.
Now all that said, i really would like another game along those lines to be made.Becuase it gives said player type a place to act that way, far from the majority of the MMO customer base.
Like Eve does.
[/quote]
You are making an assumption without any facts to back it up. A lot of people love to use the downfall of Shadowbane as an example as to why FFA PvP, open loot, and asset destruction don't work, but they have no actual numbers to back this up. For those of us who played from beta till recent days; we know better than to suggest that a dynamic world does anything other than create a devoted and loyal playerbase. Shadowbane collapsed because of poor customer service, structural problems, server lag, crashes, dupes, and all around holes in the game that made it a piece of technical swiss cheese. I never heard any significant group of people quit because they "lost" something but I heard people cancelling their accounts daily because a CCR told them their tree of life couldnt be replaced after it had been deleted by a bug from the last patch or because the lag literally made the game unplayable for days at a time.As far as your claim that PvPers in an open environment are far too destructive to the community and the game itself. Well....thanks really Mr. original. Thanks for subscribing to the most overadopted and underproven carebear ideology toward PvPers. Way to stereotype us and support the heinous view that we are some sort of "disease" on our environment. I write articles about people like you....and it always gets a good laugh out of a true gamer.
With little to no consequences? You have NO IDEA what kind of consequences and accountability a truly dynamic and open world offers....clearly. Games like WoW where there is supposedly limitations on these things see the worst kind of pimply faced 13 year old griefer as the dominant force.....why? Because its just like anything else in life....the criminal is going to BREAK THE LAW. And now the game mechanics will do nothing but effectively make any possible recourse from the victim IMPOSSIBLE. The griefer will find a way to grief you no matter what game you are playing. The question is.....can you do anything to stop him. This is the truth about MMORPG's.
In addition:
1. You have no evidence whatsoever that exploiters frequent games like Shadowbane above any other type of MMORPG.
2. A true competitive sportsman rises to a challenge and looks for new frontiers to conquer. Hannibal Barca didn't become famous for winning "even numbered fights" against the Romans. If that was all he did hed have been erased by time.
3. The most humorous parts of your post come when you insinuate that there is less "ganking" in games like WoW than in games like Shadowbane. Maybe on PvE server there is....but heck... I wouldnt know. I prefer my enemies to fight back.
Edit-quote function not working on these boards 4tl.
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
While I think using UO is a good reference in this situation, I also believe that UO was far from perfectly executed. And more often than not this hurts our case these days as many people say "OMG look at Ultima" to support an argument as to why this "doesn't work". Games have developed a lot since Ultima and so have the ideas surrounding them. The idea that we can't create the ideal dynamic world without stringent rules because it didn't work in Ultima is ridiculous.
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
I agree with you and thats not what I was saying. I was simply using it as basis for the grounds of FFA pvp rulesets. I don't think that these types of games can't work in fact I think they can and are the future. Just not FFA pvp rulesets.
You also state that games, and ideas for such, have evolved since UO. Here I find that I disagree with you. I think games have de-evolved since this time. Granted I haven't played games like EVE so I speak mainly of all the big budget games.
This is why new ideas that incoporate a sand-box style (which includes sandbox pvp) type game can work but needs new, real ideas.
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
In regards to Shadowbane:
I find that it atleast attempted to create the right type of game. Or present new ideas for such.
I think, and perhaps you could answer this, that they fell into what the original poster was saying wouldn't work in this type of atmosphere. By which I mean you can not have an item centric game and non-restrictive pvp. I ask you if Shadowbane was not, in the end, an item-centric game. Before you belittle me for my arrogance here me out. Does not the equipment of character, say in games like WoW, not get replaced by player cities in Shadowbane. The problem is the time/resources involved in attaining something that can be relatively easily taken away. This is why I would call Shadowbane a item-centric game. You might not be spending all your game play attaining character items, but you are spending that same time/resources on an item. This makes it difficult when said item is taken away. Granted I played if only for a limited time frame but that is my theory and it could be wrong.
i could no more convince the FFA PvP crowd of the kind of player said games far too often attract than I could convince certain "Fan" types their game of choice is poor.
And like those fan types , many of the FFA PvP crowd will choose to take offense at the simple truth.
Fortunately, games like Shadowbane,AC(the darktide server ) , Roma Victor,Eve etc,, give prime examples in MMO history of the destructive nature of far too many players of said oriented games.Even that holy grail of PvP for many enthusiasts,old UO, in which an exploiting PvPer killed a DEV during an event ,simply becuase he found a way he could.
As does the subscription and retention numbers for said games even when compared against the dismal numbers of other NON-PvP oriented MMOs.
Playing a FFA or very open PvP MMO is very much like playing on an open server for a FPS.The amount of people you run into that are simply out to cause annoyance or grief to others as their path to fun is simply too high.
A lot of people argue that Shadowbane cities were easy to siege but they took a large amount of effort to take down if built correctly. Honestly in my opinion Shadowbane cities were much easier to build than to take down. Most large well built cities took 5 or 6 sieges AT LEAST to go down with usually a much numerically larger force.
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
www.revolutiong.com
Stand up and take part in the evolution of MMORPG's.
This doesn't mean create Shadowbane 2 or UO2 it means rethinking how to properly implement dynamic changes to a world.
Notice: The reviews expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the reviews of MMORPG.com or its management.
Mayson
Flame on!
My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing
Ah Keith the editorial slanted heavily in the pro-pvp favor.
The simple fact is pvp can make or break a game. Do it too much and you will lose the casual players, do it too little and the hardcore types become unhappy.
PvP is not a requirement for a successful game, just look at EQ1 and City of Heroes/Villains. They have pvp but it's rather limited and not really that actively participated in. Yet, both games are still running along with plenty of subs. Not 8+ million subs to be sure, but pre-WoW their numbers would be considered "successful" easily.
Take games that are heavy into pvp, Lineage 2 and EVE come to mind, and you see they have good subscription numbers, just they seem to be centralized outside of north america. Lineage 2 is quite popular in asia but didn't nearly hit it off as well in the states. EVE is a well made game, but isn't boasting huge sub numbers. Both of these games are more in their own little "niche" and are geared towards the more hardcore pvp types in that niche.
Let's look at WoW and their huge amount of severs. Of the 221 servers (not including test servers and such) there are 104 pvp servers (RP or otherwise). This means that 117 servers are non-all out pvp, but a more restricted pvp ruleset. This would clearly show that although many like pvp, there is a huge customer base for a "pvp when I want" gamestyle.
Personally I thought DAoC had the best pvp system to date. Too bad they sold out to EA.
The concept sold people to Shadowbane, the engine, however, ran people away. Shadowbane also paid for itself and then some, even with all the bugs and problems the engine had.
I totally agree with Mayson. It will only take a tiny rock to down the giant, and it will be a race between Darkfall Online and the game SBG is creating to do that. Well, and Warhammer online.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.