PVP in RvR Appeal

LoganKonlan

The only PVP that I ever spend HOURS playing was WoW BG. The weekends where I would just NOT leave and que for match after match was when AV games would go for hours. Especially when the ultimate creatures could be summoned...Ivus or Lok'holar. Those were fun (to me.) I had twinks, played WSG and AB endlessly. I also tried pvp in SWTOR and RIFT...meh, couldn't hold my interest.

I've never played DAOC or a realm vs realm type pvp (I have GW2, but never queue). My main "fear" of pvp is the gankfest...it gets so frustrating to me and is just not fun when a higher level continually beats me down...so I don't typically like open world pvp or opportunities where that situation can arise. Not complaining, just saying how I react to that sort of thing.

However, I realize that point of view has closed off my mmorpg enjoyment of some or all games that offer this type of play. I certainly read posts where the argument is made that pvp is better than fighting mindless/programmed npc's or players in a set "battleground/arena" type environment. I want to experience what other players see in this type of Darkfall pvp.

With ESO on the horizon and CU reaching its funding goal, I don't want to miss these awesome games but can't get passed the pvp aspect(s). I like the getting flagged part when in enemy territory, but I also like "safe" areas if I just what to quest.

What am I missing about open world or games that only focus on pvp?

Illius

I can't speak for the other games but I can chime in regarding how DAoC was/is. 

Battlegrounds were added about 1 year into the game for people of various levels to be able to compete on a more fair level.  These battlegrounds are not exactly as you know them from your games.  They were zones put away for a specific purpose that you would teleport to via ingame teleporters that would "summon" you to the level appropriate BG for you.  The main difference lies in that it was not a game about capture the flag or death match but rather of open field warfare which included 1 keep (castle) that one of the 3 realms could control.

These BG's never had a cap on the number of players that could enter either. They would come and go as they please. It was never a set 40 vs 40 type setup but rather as many allies as you can cram in there to attack/defend the keep.  You might be thinking that the numbers would get out of hand but they never really did.  It was not unusual to have 25 people per side (times 3) in a particular BG doing a variety of things be it attacking the keep with siege weapons/their own weapons, or defending the keep from said attackers, or as the third realm usually did they'd find a way to mess with the whole entire thing adding yet another layer of complexity to the situation.  There would also be roaming groups running between the center keep and the portal keeps that would bring people into the place for the purpose of picking off reinfocements or people bringing materials to repair the holes blown into the walls of the center keep.

These BG's only had one limitation to them and that was the level range of the people fighting in them.  All of them usually had a 5 level range to make the fights that much more fair without making them completely even.  Typical ranges were 15-19, 20-24, 25-29... you get the idea.  Sure someone entering into a BG at level 15 would be hard pressed to fight head on with someone who was lvl 19 but you had the option of grouping up, or running with the pack and still contributing to the whole experience while getting experience gain for the kills you get or help get.  This in turn would slowly make you more powerful until you were one of the people at the top level.

Now when it comes to the actual RvR aspect, you basically take this and scale it up in numbers of players as well as areas to fight.  You could go into the RvR are at level 5 but it would be pointless because the mobs were equivalent to that of level 40 players and up.  There really was no reason for you to go out there so that takes away the whole "beaten down by higher level players" out of the equation.  Dark Age of Camelot had the main part of the land sealed off from invaders.  They could never come and find you while you were low level minding your own busyness trying to kill that beatle over there to get to level 4 so you never had to worry about it.  PvP in that aspect was in the end voluntary.  However once you do take it upon yourself to level to max (50) and go out into the RvR zone you were fair game for any of the people from the other 2 factions.  If you knew what you were doing you could catch straglers and fight them one on one, others chose to take a full group of coordinated players that would take on larger numbers of less coordinated people and win, while others chose to "zerg" in large roaming armies of colse to 100 people and would start beating down the doors of whatever keep they came across hoping to claim it for their realm to gain bonuses for everybody on their side.

I have not really played an Open PvP game myself to know much about it, but perhaps what I've written up above might give you some insight as to how it worked in other games you mentioned.