PVP and Roleplay, are the mutually exclusive?

amalric

A basic question, but one that I finbd myself answering and asking often. I believe to say one must exist without the other is short sighted and wrong. I also find that I am in the minority in this view.

I find myself, an avid PVPer, and also an ardent RPer, talking to friends on both sides of this topic. On one side are my PVP pals, who cannot understand why anyone could play a game without player conflict, and think those who are "care bears" are just plain vanilla. At times I find myself agreeing. On the other side are my RP friends, who cannot understand how anyone would want to game with individuals who they find immature, and have no desire to pay good money to run into "griefers" every night.

I understand both sides of this, but I cant agree with them. here is what I wish I could find, my holy grail:

An MMORPG that has a solid roleplay background, that is deep and immersive, yet allows for player driven roleplay to dominate. One that allows for escellent social interaction, and has a fine sense of community. I would want this game to have fefwer classes and races than usual, to promote class balance, and I would want a fast paces balanced PVP system to be at the center of this concept. balance classes for PVP prior to PVE.

I have yet to find this mix. WOW has earned some of my respect with its healthy and balasnced PVP system, but it lacks a lot of the community feel I felt in other MUDs. EQ2 is a wonder to look at, yet has no PVP at all, and if it was introduced I doubt it could be balanced given the number of classes. I played virtually all the 1st generation fantasy MMORPGs, but never found what I wanted. Perhaps it is something I wont ever find.

In any case, what do you all think? Am I insane for believing that PVP, if well done, actually enhgances Roleplay? Am I wrong in thinking roleplay reasons for PKing actually enhance the sense of purpose for PVP?

I wonder, and wait.

Amalric

Velgar

If you have NWN( yes I know it's not a MMORPG), there a lot of online server which offer both pvp and roleplay at the same time. Such a server is City of Arabel, you might want to check it. Here's the link:
http://www.nwncityofarabel.com/

It's a nice server with lot's of roleplay, but you'll find that it's hard to pvp just for fun because death have a extremely harsh penalty( we're talking about a few lvl when you're lvl 5). So it's usually preferable not to make too much ennemies.

So my answer to your question is no, pvp and roleplay are not exclusive. In fact, if done right I think it had a lot of depht to an RP game.

Anofalye

Nearly, because roleplaying is losing efficiency.  PvP is about efficiency.  Yet, per say, it is not, in theory, exclusive.  Unless you roleplay a happy trigger killer, you will likely not be roleplaying well if you succeed in the PvP however.

 

PvP add a magic touch to the roleplay when peoples do roleplay...

boeskyle

Nice insightful post there amalric.

There should be some middle of the extremes, but that would have to be innovative game design (such as Mourning's Fame, guards with AI, and other routines), fair and enforced guidelines so all enjoy the immersiveness the designers have developed, mature players, and an effective reporting/monitoring system.

On one extreme could be players seeking the fun and challenge of pure PvP.  They take time with toon build templates of min/maxing statistics and skills, have guilds with a crafting side working together (muling to alts even), dual boxing, teamspeak, etc.  Essentially any and all tools allowed under the game's EULA and other player rules . . . . just short of exploiting.  Thus they can gank and zerg and all the forms of PvP conflict.  Also, their chat styles fall towards l33t speak (dewd, u got cash, plz pl me).

The other extreme are the social roleplayers that delve into the game's lore about races, dieties, and "classes" they are gaining skills in.  They play-out those statistics and skills and are more focused on the social aspects, which does hinder any PvE or PvP action.  Some Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds emphasize this, but they are monitored by game masters (called dungeon masters or DMs).

I am looking forward to games with roleplayed PvP.  To be honest, I hate the term PvP because that implies player conflict and only characters are in the games - thus should be CvC or RP PvP.  The characters should have goals - racial, faith (diety), territorial based - that are designed into the game.  There are attacks against other characters (and supporting NPCs) to take over a town or resource.  The closest example would be a 4X RTS (like Age of Kings) but where the units are PCs and NPCs.  Mourning, Darkfall Online, and Dark and Light seem to have that.

Attacking other characters with the main purpose of looting them makes little sense to me and opens the door for grief-like actions (such as patrolling chokepoints).  However, some players enjoy camping monster spawns and portals, just waiting for opportunities to PvP.

There has to be a purpose to player killing, more properly called character killing (should be CKing not PKing).  Some games have a buffer where the character is staggered or unconscious, which would still give that sense of winning and looting opportunities.  Games that have such a system would add a dynamic to RP PvP (CvC) action.  Look at it another way, killing another character is an evil act and in a land with social standards (territory based) and gods, such actions have consequences (again, game design, similar to real life).

I think the newer games will reward both play styles, if only to keep their MMORPG niche and retain subscribers.  The action PvPers have their content and and roleplayers too.  Players able to balance both will have the best, rewarding playing experience (such as in Mourning, especially for roleplaying).  It all depends on the immersiveness factor the developers have created for the game and that players recognize and support, all of which is monitored (developers and players).

A game could (in theory) be popular with PvPers with minimal lore, races, and graphics as long as the combat system (fighting, looting, and death) are tailored to PvP action.  Oh, and character appearances.  That would not appeal to me, but would to others.  A land of rpking, zergfests, and ganking on the side.

happydan20

I think they both have what the other lacks.  PvP systems are always ruined by the players in that you can't enforce honorable activity in nearly every pvp setting its about getting 3 times as many guys to go after things a third of your level.

If the "morality" of roleplaying, if you had to be verbally accountable for your kills (assuming people would all follow this) that would aid greaty.

On the rp side of things it "speeds up" leveling as they arent just sitting in a bar making gah gah faces at each other.  It gives rp justification to leveling as your training to fight or protect yourself. 

It slows down the negetive community impact of pvp, while giving the rp direction and a little more level speed...  I'm all for it.

zensaber

I'm not really in to RP because you have to spell everything right and stay in character witch I find hard to do. But I'm with the PvP thing. A game with out PvP is just really borning, I like PvP because it's based on the players skill more then the gear or level, so if your good you can shine.

ianubisi

Once again, how a person defines roleplaying goes a lot toward how one views one's actions and the actions of others.

I posit that everyone is roleplaying, regardless of their mannerisms, speech, topics of conversation, or attitude. I usually find that most ardent roleplayers are conformists, and mandate conformity from everyone else...to the extreme of elitism, where antithetical views are heretical. That's all well and good, but the world is filled with diversity...and a fantasy realm open to thousands of players cannot be contrived into the narrow scope of expectations defined by a few individuals.

In the end, you are all avatars in an imaginary world...thus, you are all roleplaying.

Tannayr

The only game I have really seen take hold of this idea is Shadowbane. Before you flame and say there was no role play in Shadowbane, think about this. There was a storyline, but not really, so you role played yourself. Everything was player built, and you had rulers, inner council, as well as guild members. You could choose to RPK (Random Player Kill), but the communication between most guilds was so tight that no one would invite you if you were an RPKer. There was also a KoS system, where a cities guards would kill anyone on the list on sight.

A game like Shadowbane is the only way that I can see RP and PvP being able to be mixed together well. The players have to basically run the whole thing in a sense, that is the RP, you can do conventional RP if you like.

Yes Shadowbane is dying, but that's due to the no quests thing. But, I believe DnL will probably be a good bit RP and PvP, it will definetely be worth a shot.