I have tried a lot of PvP MMOs, from starting out on Vallon in EQ to Darkfall, and I have come to the conclusion over a lot of years that PvP in these games will always suck. It seems great on paper, but it's always crap, and the attitude and culture it breeds in them is worse. Much better for me to play PvE MMOs and get my PvP in FPS games actually designed for them. The two, to me, do not mix at all well and are only included in modern MMOs due to the myth that they are what made WoW huge.
Well said. I too thought they never mixed really, and it's just because of some myth they are always added now.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Key to this is reward, if you want a large group to really care then the objective be it a castle, a town or just a patch of grass needs to include loot or some reward such as improved skills or monetary gain. In a game like wow all the best rewards are in PvE so no matter what happens this will be the main focus.
Although I agree you can have great RvR without this, it can only be beneficial to provide additional draw to the PvP RvR area. Just my thought...something like if you hold the castle for a whole day then you get access to faction based items etc...
On the other hand, seeing dark elves teamed up with high elves and Ogres fighting along-side halflings kind of kills the lore. Everquest was this way (except on Tallon Zek and Vallon Zek team PvP servers) despite the deep faction system in place in that game. It really didn't affect me, but still, when I'm thinking about PvP in a traditional fantasy game, I like the pre-determined factions.
Except that in Lineage 2's setting, Dark Elves and Light Elves aren't presently 'at war' with each other. Nor are Orcs with Humans, Dwarves with anyone else, etc. There's racial tensions, and wars fought in their past, sure... but not all out war. They're races who aren't necessarily fond of each other coexisting in the world. So, there's really no lore being broken there, beyond what a player might assume there to be because Dark Elves are always automatically considered enemies of Light Elves in any fantasy setting that includes them.
For me, pre-determined factions introduces too many restrictions in other areas of the game. Again, it precludes any kind of dynamic player-driven situations from taking place. Dynamic, player-driven content is always more intriguing and interesting to me.
To each their own I guess, eh
I very much enjoy the politics and negotiation from games like EvE that you speak of, and believe that you could have some factions that were inherently good, while others were inherently evil, and a myriad of other races/factions that were neutral, mercenaries, or mix-breeds.
Fine... as long as they're allowed to freely negotiate and interact with each other. What I don't like is when pre-determined factions are restricted from communicating, interacting, etc at all. Things like language barriers between factions in WoW... even while you can freely understand every word an enemy faction member is saying to you if they're an NPC. So, I can't understand the Orc standing in front of me who's being played by a person, but I can understand another Orc standing 10' away perfectly. Seems a tad contrived.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Not a PvP enthusiast! Having said that I do have some questions to address the PvP centric players like some of those in the above posts.
!) Do you select a game primarilary because of the PvP?
2) How much influence does your 'liking' for a genre steer you in selecting a particular game.
3)When engaging in your favorite PvP play, what level of interest do the surroundings (ie environment) have on your play, including things that affect your actual play?
4)Does ganking and PKing play a significant part in your decision about PvP? Positive or negative?
5) Do you feel (strongly or care less) that PvP play should provide better rewards than PvE or crafting?
6) Should the 'death penalty' be applied equally to PvP and PvE (as well as severe loss to crafting)?
7) Do you feel all PvP should be wide open (OP and uinrestricted) or separated?
8) Do you have little or heavy interest in PvE along with PvP? How much interest in the game world (lore and strory) hold for you compared to PvP?
All these questions relate to the topic of PvP. As someone who doesn't care much for it but believe it to be a necessary part of an MMO in order to support a game I happen to like, I wonder how those to whom PvP is essential feel about these things? Just thought I would ask!
A little bit late for comment, but I've just read this article and replies below, got few conclusions.
First of all, I find RvR PvP concept pointless, totally opposite to Isabelle. I really don't get how people find any justification for being enemy for like half of the server and ally to another half just by a single choice, you've made at first day you launched your account.
Another thing is, PvP means a lot, it's different in every game. Hell, it's even different if you look at people and see what are they writing. Making final statement about liking or disliking PvP is really blurry, you should be obligated to point out which game made you PvP fan or antifan. Many games have terrible game mechanics that doesn't support PvPing and make players interaction horrible when it comes to Player vs Player combat. PvP as a concept is really awsome, there is nothing more challenging than fighting a real human. There is nothing more demanding than cooperation during team vs team (or some zerg) encounter. Period. The point is- game should stop you from killing people that are not willing to fight back, but in the same way- offer you a chance to kill very limited amount of players you have desire to get rid off- you shouldn't be competely safe after you leave safe zone, it's all about to find a balance between pointless slaughtery and carebear land, where the only thing you can do in order to hurt other player is to insult him on chat. Second thing- PvP shouldn't reward you with any artificial points that can be exchanged for items or any other ingame goods, PvP should *have* a reason (starting from a conflict about PvE area, right to kill world boss that has just spawned and ending up with honrable 1vs1 match), not be a reason itself.
The game that offered me the closest PvP conditions I've just pointed out was Lineage II, I guess this game even shaped my point of view on this case. People who tend to hate L2 for being too gankers friendly failed to realise that they are part of the bigger world and they simply can't act like careless beings and walk everywhere they want without taking responsibility. They also failed to see, that game never rewarded gankers, those people who were griefed had a great chance to step up and challenge douchebags they hated. It was their choice to give up.
That game got so many things right, the balance between PvP and PvE, the PvP itself, the different classes, the combat system (no general cooldown, reactive styles). Sad to see that no developer kept the formula but instead made games for the instant gratification or instant action crowd.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Faction based PvP is nice in some regards, but in others a more open system like in EVE or Darkfall is nice too. The main benefit i saw from faction-based systems were the sense of community, of belonging to something, and fighting for the sake of something bigger.
In the more open games, you don't care so much about random players in the game, only people who are a part of your alliance. This leads to ganking weaker players, scams, etc being more commonplace. However, the politics between guilds/clans/corps becomes more involved.
I think a good PvP game needs to come somewhere inbetween; encouraging factions but not restricting people to abide them. I'm also a big fan of unfair combat instead of the even teams Esport type, even if I'm usually on the other side of it, as it just feels more "real" in a sense. Fighting against the odds is where half of the fun comes from for me, and it provides a lot more challenge than a fair fight ever could. I enjoy the thrill of being the weakling or outnumbered guy trying to escape, or trying to overcome my diasdvantages and pull out an epic win.
I play FPS games for quick, even tests of skill. I play MMOs to experience something bigger.
GW2 serverVserverVserver seems to be what you want and the devs have even stated how they love DAOC pvp and will try to bring that element into the game, it is also nice that the battles last a week and then you are matched up with 2 other servers based on server skill (im guessing win/loss ratio) this seems like a nice feature. not too much info is out on gw2 pvp so we will have to see how it plays out
Comments
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Key to this is reward, if you want a large group to really care then the objective be it a castle, a town or just a patch of grass needs to include loot or some reward such as improved skills or monetary gain. In a game like wow all the best rewards are in PvE so no matter what happens this will be the main focus.
Although I agree you can have great RvR without this, it can only be beneficial to provide additional draw to the PvP RvR area. Just my thought...something like if you hold the castle for a whole day then you get access to faction based items etc...
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Not a PvP enthusiast! Having said that I do have some questions to address the PvP centric players like some of those in the above posts.
!) Do you select a game primarilary because of the PvP?
2) How much influence does your 'liking' for a genre steer you in selecting a particular game.
3)When engaging in your favorite PvP play, what level of interest do the surroundings (ie environment) have on your play, including things that affect your actual play?
4)Does ganking and PKing play a significant part in your decision about PvP? Positive or negative?
5) Do you feel (strongly or care less) that PvP play should provide better rewards than PvE or crafting?
6) Should the 'death penalty' be applied equally to PvP and PvE (as well as severe loss to crafting)?
7) Do you feel all PvP should be wide open (OP and uinrestricted) or separated?
8) Do you have little or heavy interest in PvE along with PvP? How much interest in the game world (lore and strory) hold for you compared to PvP?
All these questions relate to the topic of PvP. As someone who doesn't care much for it but believe it to be a necessary part of an MMO in order to support a game I happen to like, I wonder how those to whom PvP is essential feel about these things? Just thought I would ask!
I've just posted my comment to a different article ( http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/4954/page/1 ), I think it fits to this one also, so I will just quote myslef:
A little bit late for comment, but I've just read this article and replies below, got few conclusions.
First of all, I find RvR PvP concept pointless, totally opposite to Isabelle. I really don't get how people find any justification for being enemy for like half of the server and ally to another half just by a single choice, you've made at first day you launched your account.
Another thing is, PvP means a lot, it's different in every game. Hell, it's even different if you look at people and see what are they writing. Making final statement about liking or disliking PvP is really blurry, you should be obligated to point out which game made you PvP fan or antifan. Many games have terrible game mechanics that doesn't support PvPing and make players interaction horrible when it comes to Player vs Player combat. PvP as a concept is really awsome, there is nothing more challenging than fighting a real human. There is nothing more demanding than cooperation during team vs team (or some zerg) encounter. Period. The point is- game should stop you from killing people that are not willing to fight back, but in the same way- offer you a chance to kill very limited amount of players you have desire to get rid off- you shouldn't be competely safe after you leave safe zone, it's all about to find a balance between pointless slaughtery and carebear land, where the only thing you can do in order to hurt other player is to insult him on chat. Second thing- PvP shouldn't reward you with any artificial points that can be exchanged for items or any other ingame goods, PvP should *have* a reason (starting from a conflict about PvE area, right to kill world boss that has just spawned and ending up with honrable 1vs1 match), not be a reason itself.
The game that offered me the closest PvP conditions I've just pointed out was Lineage II, I guess this game even shaped my point of view on this case. People who tend to hate L2 for being too gankers friendly failed to realise that they are part of the bigger world and they simply can't act like careless beings and walk everywhere they want without taking responsibility. They also failed to see, that game never rewarded gankers, those people who were griefed had a great chance to step up and challenge douchebags they hated. It was their choice to give up.
Add another vote for DAoC-type PvP (RvR).
That game got so many things right, the balance between PvP and PvE, the PvP itself, the different classes, the combat system (no general cooldown, reactive styles). Sad to see that no developer kept the formula but instead made games for the instant gratification or instant action crowd.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Faction based PvP is nice in some regards, but in others a more open system like in EVE or Darkfall is nice too. The main benefit i saw from faction-based systems were the sense of community, of belonging to something, and fighting for the sake of something bigger.
In the more open games, you don't care so much about random players in the game, only people who are a part of your alliance. This leads to ganking weaker players, scams, etc being more commonplace. However, the politics between guilds/clans/corps becomes more involved.
I think a good PvP game needs to come somewhere inbetween; encouraging factions but not restricting people to abide them. I'm also a big fan of unfair combat instead of the even teams Esport type, even if I'm usually on the other side of it, as it just feels more "real" in a sense. Fighting against the odds is where half of the fun comes from for me, and it provides a lot more challenge than a fair fight ever could. I enjoy the thrill of being the weakling or outnumbered guy trying to escape, or trying to overcome my diasdvantages and pull out an epic win.
I play FPS games for quick, even tests of skill. I play MMOs to experience something bigger.
GW2 serverVserverVserver seems to be what you want and the devs have even stated how they love DAOC pvp and will try to bring that element into the game, it is also nice that the battles last a week and then you are matched up with 2 other servers based on server skill (im guessing win/loss ratio) this seems like a nice feature. not too much info is out on gw2 pvp so we will have to see how it plays out
I'm not a fan of instanced battlegrounds being the bread and butter of PvP for a game. They have their place, can be fun, but as side-lines.
Open World PvP (where it's available to everyone, not just cap players nuking lowbies in lowbie land) is where it's at for me.
Wherever you go, there you are.