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General: The Return of Three Faction PvP
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
One of the inescapable facts of life is that "there ain't nothin' new under the sun". In today's column, MMORPG.com Industry Relations Manager Garrett Fuller takes a look at the return of a "new" old feature, three-faction PvP. Check out Garrett's thoughts and then weigh in with a few of your own in the comments.
Why the three tier system works in simple, there is no Good vs. Evil. Everyone has an equal fighting chance, and no one side is more righteous than the other. If one side overpowers the other two, most of the time the other two teams join to defeat the greater enemy. Once that enemy is eliminated the two survivors battle it out. Back in the old days of DAOC, there were many fights where Midgard and Hibernia formed temporary alliances to defeat Albion. Once that was over, the fight continued to see who was truly king of the zone. There were even times we just went our separate ways and decided to fight another day.
Read more of Garrett Fuller's The Return of Three Faction PvP.
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Comments
Back in 2011 Dark Age of Camelot introduced a PvP system where three factions were at war.
damn i musta played a real early beta version..
You can also look up W v W v W in GW2.
Oderint, dum metuant.
I am stll wayting for a game with 5 or 7 factions..... And where your ingame actions make which faction you join
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Once again Planetside was failed to be mentioned
That's because Planetside is simply more of an FPS game and less of an MMORPG.
Anyways, I cannot wait to experience GW2's 3 server PvP, because the concept is entirely new to me and from what we know, it seems to be very promising.
Yeah, world vs. world sounds awesome! I mean, if you like the idea of herding cats, which is basically what large scale PvP like this winds up being. Anything over 100 people just winds up being mass chaos (and even 100 people is pushing it most of the time).
Posting to confirm that I officially endorse a return of three faction pvp.
Now we only need a game which implements it in a truly open world pvp way. (At least on pvp servers). Rather than restrict it to dedicated mega-battlegrounds separated from the "real" world.
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Prime, Battle for Dominus might have also been worth a mention in this article.
Prime will be the next big 3 faction PvP game that is not Faction Vs. Photocopy Vs. Photocopy.
Did the OP play DAOC..?
Because it was Realm vs Realm. (PvP is not correct)
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It's also the first 3 polygon model graphics game it seems. V_V
Just took a peak on their site to see what its all about. I sure hope they are in pre-beta because it still looks kind of bland and simple, graphics and animation wise. Reminds of of prerelease DF footage tbh.
http://www.primeonline.com/media/videos/
(Not that graphics are everything but it sure helps if stuff looks immersive and "right")
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Sooooooooooooo obvious question. How do you make sure one faction does not become dominant? It is easier to split 50/50 then 33/33/33 in a mmorpg. That is why this genre died out and never worked past DAoC
No, actually you are wrong. With two sides, there is nothing to stop the dominant side. With three sides, the two underdogs can cooperate against the dominant side if they so choose.
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My favorite PvP times are when things start off pretty organized, where everyone was trying to either work together with the other factions briefly and then it all breaks down and chaos just erupts.
This sounds like fun. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
MY biigest hope is the secrect world for an A title 3 faction pvp.
Ultima Online back in like.. 2000? 2001?
It was the best PvP system I have ever seen.
Was post-Trammel split so it was only on the PvP mirror of the world, Felucca - I think there were 4 or 5 factions and they weren't restricted by race or anything.
You could switch but there was some measure of population balancing as in you couldn't switch to the highest-population faction.
Territorial control, conquest, sieging of cities, even the hiring of NPC guards and the placing of traps etc.
It was truly epic, and over a decade ago in a 2D+ game.
Sad isn't it?
They did SO many things right that no one else since has ever done.
You don't force people from different races into set factions, players have to be able to choose their faction independantly of racial choice. That way it matters more and is easier to balance. You can force people to NOT join a faction if race isn't involved. Why is it important? People pick the "evil" race or the "sexy" race 9/10 of the time so you ALWAYS have population imbalance.
Seperate race from faction and all of a sudden you can limit who can join what and when = more balance = better system.
This is true in 3 faction PvP, but not necessarily WvWvW ..such as GW2. The whole point of their W v W v W is for there to be 1 winner and 2 losers, so I don't think teaming will be relevant, especially since you only have 2 weeks to win the "battle" before it resets. With 3 worlds, 1 prize, and no long-term for cooperation its more of a "faction FFA".
Prime BFD is the true return of 3 faction PvP. It still has a long ways to go, but so far, what they have going on is very promising.
Yup, in that sense it's "three faction structured pvp", as in: a huge, two week battleground match. Still beats the same thing with only two factions though.
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hmm. Planetside 2, Prime: Battle for Dominus, and The Secret World are all three faction PvP mmos. Guild Wars 2 is not a three faction game. Sorry but the three server battles dont make it a 3 faction pvp mmo.
PVP and factions are done incredibly cheap,they are done to meet minimum standards,not make for great gaming.
Ever play AOE?It uses 3-4 faction warfare,but the maps are very small,so how do these devs figure making gigantic game worlds with 2-3 factions is ok?What i would like to see is some realism,example a North American faction,a Euro faction,Scandinavian faction,Asian faction ect ect.This is the type of design that would actually encourage good faction game play.It is pretty much what put Eve on the map.I wouldn't consider Eve a good game by any stretch,but it had giant battles invovling homelands,we have all seen how many people get all patriotic over anything even gaming.
A perfect example is EQ2,the PVE version has lots of factions,definitely more than 2 or 3.They obviously know it takes more to make a better game,but like all mmo's right now,the pvp structure is just there,it has no effort put into it at all.
No DAOC is/was not even close to being any good,i think too many old schoolers,just can't let go of their "first" or past gaming.Myself i am always looking beyond to maybe something better,last thing i want is gaming to return to any of the old stuff i have seen,it is all extremely outdated game play.
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Many of us would disagree with you, however you are entitled to hold a minority opinion in the matter.
Prime BFD does sound like another good attempt to resurrect 3 faction PVP and Planetside 2 as well.
As the OP mentioned, one major component of the success of DAOC's system was the importance of controlling Darkness Falls. In the game's later years the dungeon's relevance in terms of making gold became irrelevant, and it did largely devalue the 3 faction PVP system from it's golden age.
Many players like myself will only PVP "for cause" and no, fighting for realm honor isn't that big of a deal. But put the control of valuable resources or my guilds keep on the line and now I have real incentive to come out and PVP.
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Dark Age of Camelot was and still is the only MMO in my opinion to get three way player vs players right. Sure they called it Realm vs Realm but the core concept was three groups of people fighting over castles, keeps, relics and even the dungeon.
Guild Wars 2 might just pull off resurrecting the core concept of DAoC RvR and that was the three groups of people fighting for castles and keeps. I would be so happy to see this style of PvP again. From the few tidbits of information from the developers we know the following of GW2's WvWvW system: each server gets their own home map that are connected with one central map, there are castles, keeps, and various other points to fight over and control, their are supply lines that must be defended (this is mixing PvE elements into a PvP environment), and the ability to level all the way from 1 to 80 purely off WvWvW combat.
Between GW2 and The Secret World it seems three way PvP is returning in some form and I hope both games succeed in bringing it back, it has been sorely missed since DAoC.
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The two faction system is the worse construct to hit MMORPG's ever. It's like asking your game... from design to implementation... to be hampered by balance concerns.
What made DAoC great was three distinctly different realms where no one was the 'evil' ones. Sure, Albion had the luster of Arthur and could easily be viewed as the good guys, but the Hibernians and Midgardians could take equal pride in their realms.
There were plenty of issues with DAoC, and especially balancing became a nightmare as time progressed, but what people miss about DAoC is not only the RvR but also the way it enticed communities to work together for a common purpose. My hunter spent many a night out in Old Emain just scouting and reporting enemy movements, and as long as Midgard reigned supreme I did not care that I hardly earned a realm point all night, and the pride of watching your guild banner fly over a castle made wasting a platinum on wood to reinforce the gate worth the expense.
There were many things that made DAoC special, and three faction RvR certainly is the way to go. I am intrigued by The Secret World and the fact that the seem to have made a persistent PvP zone similar to DAoC's frontier. Final verdict has to wait until release though. Hopefully, Funcom has learned their lesson from the mistakes made on AoC, and implemented better systems on this one.
Once again trumpetting DAoC as the highest evolution of MMOs. Slow down here champ.
First off you're mistaken if you don't think there was "Good" vrs. "Evil" in DAoC. THEY CALLED IT DARK AGE OF CAMELOT! The Albions were the "good guys" fighting to preserve King Arthur's Camelot days against the invaders from Hibernia and Midgard.
Second there were plenty of DAoC servers where one faction just completely dominated due to population. There was nothing that magically split the DAoC population into thirds on every server. In fact there were several where Albs outpopulated the Mids and Hibs put together. Maybe from time to time the two underpopulated realms could get together and do something, but it was so rare you remember it a decade later.
Third not every MMO setting or IP lends itself to multiple factions and I think that World of Warcraft has proven that more people play MMOs to PvE than to PvP or RvR.
Fourth those "glory days" where the realms fought each other in DAoC actually lasted about a year. If you played from launch you know that "realm pride" started to die the day they introduced realm points into the game. This started the inevitable fall towards Group v. Group rather than RvR (the vaunted 8 mans) and the three faction feel of the game broke down into two realms ... 8 mans v. Zergers.
Fifth if two is bad and three is good than why wouldn't five be the bomb? Why not nine factions? Better yet why not everyone be their own little faction ... oh wait .. that's open PvP and that's too "hardcore".
Please stop looking at it through rose colored LCD screens. The reasons for DAoC's success have nothing to do with the number of factions etc. It had to do with the community it drew and the spirit of that community. Stop giving game mechanics the credit for what we human beings built in a cyber world. Kindly remember that DAoC wasn't mainstream, was never meant to be mainstream and it released today would be a dud. It was made for table top roll playing game afficianadoes who had access to the internet, not the twitter kids.
Please let DAoC lie where it belongs in the mass grave of MMO passed and stop dredging it up. If you like a game mechanic, say you like a game mechanic for these reasons, not because your all time favorite game did it and you're praying someone else will make you DAoC 2.
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