Thats the best fun in Planetside, been outnumbered, some of the most fun an intense fights iv had have been fights like:
Me vs squad
3 vs yellow alert
10 vs Red alert re secure.
You can fight with even numbers on evenly balanced teams in sooo many games, Planetside lets anything happen, and you never know whats going to be out there, watching and waiting.
Planetsides 3 faction PvP also helps lessen the blow of empire population problems, you migth get hammered sometimes in a double team, but once you get pushed back far enough, another enemy will have no choice but to fight 2 factions on 2 fronts of a map.
Some of the most fun I had was outnumbered too. 20:1 k:d tower holdouts, and successful 5v20 base defenses.
But what made it particularly fun is knowing that elsewhere on the continent my 195 teammates were pushing bases specifically because we 5 players were holding against 20 enemies (leaving the enemy on the other side of the map at a disadvantage.)
It was always intentional strategy, rather than simply being outnumbered. Losing the spillover continent because it's 50vs10 was just outright not fun.
Never much concerned myself with global strategy or trying to hold land or take it. Some people get off on taking land for a sense of victory, even bother send a hate tell after they finally push you out of a base where you farmed them for half an hour. I guess victory is in the eye of the player in Planetside, because from my view i never felt like i lost Maybe its why I like it so much, who knows.
planetside did the skirmish and seige warfare pretty well, if they hadnt messed it up with the rubbish BFR's and the caverns then i think it would still be about the best MMOFPS game out there - its possible it might be even with those ridiculous additions... but i do agree, you never really felt you were losing, even when you did lose a base, the fights themselves made it all worthwhile.
I'm not sure how Lineage 2 did it, but I started off by playing Conquer Online and it was open world PVP. The ruleset there was that if you attacked a white or red named person and killed him, you'd get 10 PK points. Once you reach 30 PK points, your name will turn red. When a red person is PK'd by someone, he will drop 1-2 gear items. Once you reach 100 PK points, your name will turn black and you'll drop 2-4 items or so. These PK points go down while you wait, so you're not stuck with them forever.
When you attack a person, your name starts flashing blue, which means that you can be killed without the other person receiving any PK points. Attacking a flashing player or a black named player will not cause you to start flashing or give you any PK points.
This way people rarely killed anyone for no reason at all, and it was mostly used for getting rid of annoying people. Some used it in an unfair manner by killing you the moment you received a good drop, or right before a boss monster, but it generally worked just fine and people were able to grind monsters together and nobody touched the newbies.
You can't tie PvP especially world PvP to rewards and loot etc. It's about finding and killing your enemy. It's fun.
As soon as you HAVE to have a monetary or quantified reason to fight your enemies, to be rewarded for it, it's already not worth it to fight in the first place.
Me and a buddy grouped up on Tatooine in TOR and went Imperial hunting. Finding, fighting, and killing players of the opposing faction.
Did we get any phat loot? No.
Did we get any points or XP to buy phat loot or level up? No.
Did we have FUN and got into some great fights and show those damn dirty Imps that no where is safe?!?
Yes.
I dont know about you but phat loot would have added to my fun in the above scenario.
I would assert that world-PvP is an unstable design.
It's no fun playing the victim. So you lose the people who don't want to PvP at all to other zones/games. This removes both easy kills and innocents to defend. The game becomes more and more battleground-like and bleeds away players who don't want to play when they are the bottom. So a game with open-world PvP will die off or gravitate to being a battlefield environment.
Whether or not it is fun playing the victim, completely depends on what kind of player one is and what kind of game it is.
Some reasons for why playing the victim can be entertaining:
* If it is factionbased, it can be fun calling your high level faction members to defend your faction areas from the intruders you spotted.
* It is natural to get a feeling of satisfaction from overcoming your obstacles.
*Outsmarting and planning ahead can be very satisfying.
LOL .. most would disagree. That is why world PvP is so unpopular and taken away in WOW.
BTW, the points you are making have nothing to do with playing the victim. How can a victim overcoming obstacles? By definition, they are the ones who LOSE and got killed. And how would being a victim be outsmarting anything? The OTHER guy outsmart you, otherwise, you won't be the victim. You need a class in logical reasoning.
I thought "victim" was refered to in a more metaphoric manner: as in the "victim" of the choice to allow World PvP. In other words: those holding the lowest positions in the World PvP hierachy, those who are most likely to get ganked.
You can simultaneously leap the highest risk of getting ganked, often due to lack of power from levels and gear, and still have the possibility and the choice to attempt and succeed in outsmarting opponents.
Outsmarting, can be to survive a hunt, to avoid detection altogether or to simply make the aggressors pay more than you lost from dieing.
You are over-thinking it. Victim, in this case, means whoever on the short end of PvP .. i.e. .. those who got ganged.
There is NO WAY you can spin that being a victim is fun, if you actually stick to the English meaning of the word.
If you SURVIVE a HUNT, you won't be DYING, and won't be a VICTIM.
World PvP in the classic way is not feeling well at all, no.
The problem is that we need a new combat mechanic and probably a lot new ides to bring it back to were it should be.
I think the 'problem' is that players have already been given other alternatives.
Most "world" pvp would never have happened without an intensely bored player base. Given other alternatives for entertainment, players tend to take them.
I guess your only plan of attack to repeat "world" PVP is a short, fast level cap and nothing else to do once it's reached.
Not exactly a healthy business plan in the long term though.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I would assert that world-PvP is an unstable design.
It's no fun playing the victim. So you lose the people who don't want to PvP at all to other zones/games. This removes both easy kills and innocents to defend. The game becomes more and more battleground-like and bleeds away players who don't want to play when they are the bottom. So a game with open-world PvP will die off or gravitate to being a battlefield environment.
Whether or not it is fun playing the victim, completely depends on what kind of player one is and what kind of game it is.
Some reasons for why playing the victim can be entertaining:
* If it is factionbased, it can be fun calling your high level faction members to defend your faction areas from the intruders you spotted.
* It is natural to get a feeling of satisfaction from overcoming your obstacles.
*Outsmarting and planning ahead can be very satisfying.
LOL .. most would disagree. That is why world PvP is so unpopular and taken away in WOW.
BTW, the points you are making have nothing to do with playing the victim. How can a victim overcoming obstacles? By definition, they are the ones who LOSE and got killed. And how would being a victim be outsmarting anything? The OTHER guy outsmart you, otherwise, you won't be the victim. You need a class in logical reasoning.
I thought "victim" was refered to in a more metaphoric manner: as in the "victim" of the choice to allow World PvP. In other words: those holding the lowest positions in the World PvP hierachy, those who are most likely to get ganked.
You can simultaneously leap the highest risk of getting ganked, often due to lack of power from levels and gear, and still have the possibility and the choice to attempt and succeed in outsmarting opponents.
Outsmarting, can be to survive a hunt, to avoid detection altogether or to simply make the aggressors pay more than you lost from dieing.
You are over-thinking it. Victim, in this case, means whoever on the short end of PvP .. i.e. .. those who got ganged.
There is NO WAY you can spin that being a victim is fun, if you actually stick to the English meaning of the word.
If you SURVIVE a HUNT, you won't be DYING, and won't be a VICTIM.
You can't do world pvp and have both parties be happy all the time, someone will win and someone will lose. You can't have your cake and eat it too. In a world pvp scenario its important for people to understand that they can sometimes be the victim but there are ways to mitigate that risk and if it does happen, take it in stride.
Never much concerned myself with global strategy or trying to hold land or take it. Some people get off on taking land for a sense of victory, even bother send a hate tell after they finally push you out of a base where you farmed them for half an hour. I guess victory is in the eye of the player in Planetside, because from my view i never felt like i lost Maybe its why I like it so much, who knows.
planetside did the skirmish and seige warfare pretty well, if they hadnt messed it up with the rubbish BFR's and the caverns then i think it would still be about the best MMOFPS game out there - its possible it might be even with those ridiculous additions... but i do agree, you never really felt you were losing, even when you did lose a base, the fights themselves made it all worthwhile.
Well you didn't need to concern yourself with global strategy for the efficiency of your fight to be fun and worthwhile. Definitely didn't feel like I never lost (ie aforementioned unbalanced spillover continents) I had fun while losing most of the time, but I definitely fought to conquer continents and not just randomly randomly rush to a battle without thinking where I'd best help things out.
Caverns I though were alright except for the crackheaded ziplines. At least they provided something new to fight over -- the existing base designs were nearly copies of each other at launch, and were a big weakpoint of the game.
BFRs I felt were fine too, but I only started playing ~2 months after release (when they were basically fixed, except for one important tweak to flight BFRs.) They cost so much and were crazy slow (in a game where speed matters. a lot. I was predominantly a pilot as a result,) and then one pilot hotdropper like myself takes you down and you're out of a ride.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes World PvP is dead...and so is World PvE along with it. Devs now follow strict and rigid corporate guidelines in making MMO's and they are just not fun. I am not subbed to any MMOs and havent been now for months. Started back in 1999. I thought back then, that years later MMOs would be sooo good. I had no idea how wrong I was. Between wow and now wow in space we are spoon fed instanced garbage to eat. No thanks.
If there is a market for world PVP then someone will try it, however the quality of the game and players might well vary. I remember some quite draw dropping PvP in DAOC and WAR. Fun times
Dominus is the game i'm keeping my eye on, looks very promising but still very early stages yet. I love the ideas they've come up with and hope they'll be able to give us a very Sci-fi take on DAOC with an improved GUI and graphics. It's a big ask, but heck nothing else is tickling me at the moment.
You can't do world pvp and have both parties be happy all the time, someone will win and someone will lose. You can't have your cake and eat it too. In a world pvp scenario its important for people to understand that they can sometimes be the victim but there are ways to mitigate that risk and if it does happen, take it in stride.
Exactly. That is why world pvp is a BAD game design. A *good* game design is where all the players can have fun.
Yes World PvP is dead...and so is World PvE along with it. Devs now follow strict and rigid corporate guidelines in making MMO's and they are just not fun. I am not subbed to any MMOs and havent been now for months. Started back in 1999. I thought back then, that years later MMOs would be sooo good. I had no idea how wrong I was. Between wow and now wow in space we are spoon fed instanced garbage to eat. No thanks.
Because instanced small group content is much more fun. You don't like it .. i get it. I like it and so do millions of others. It is the trend because it works and it is fun for most. Deal with it.
You can't do world pvp and have both parties be happy all the time, someone will win and someone will lose. You can't have your cake and eat it too. In a world pvp scenario its important for people to understand that they can sometimes be the victim but there are ways to mitigate that risk and if it does happen, take it in stride.
Exactly. That is why world pvp is a BAD game design. A *good* game design is where all the players can have fun.
Except that mmorts games function entirely on "world pvp". So it is more likely that world pvp is just poorly implemented within an rpg framework. Or maybe mmorpg has been expanded to to broad a category. In an mmorts you know what the game is about. In rpgs people have WoW based expectations. EvE is a successful game that is mostly all about world pvp except that the econ system is tied to world pvp also. In DAoC you knew what world pvp was about and many people loved it. We also knew what Ultima was like.
I think that too many people consider good game to design to be what appeals to the largest common denominator. See I said largest because I don't consider those games inferior.
Good game design is design that caters to the goals of the game. That is the theoretical perspective.
The business perspective has the goal of making money, which means appealing to casual players with disposable income.
But too often people confuse the goal of the game with the quality of the design. Many games marketed towards the largest common denominator have terrible design. Some have really good design for that purpose.
The quality of the desgin, ie, GOOD game DESIGN refers to how well the game achieves the goals.
The marketability of the design refers to the amount of money you can make off it.
World PVP is a bad mechanic from a marketability perspective. That doesn't mean that all World PVP is designed poorly.
It's pretty simple...it comes down to COMPETITION.
New MMORPGs REMOVE competition among players in non-instanced zones by offering multi phases (or channels) of a single zone so that players can have unfettered access to quest monsters or other objectives.
Creating a situation where players would have to engage in open world PvP combat to secure a specific zone that spawned a particular quest monster you were hunting, or a specific objective could lead to a situation where a player might not be able to complete a quest or get a particular item.
Since many of these casual MMO gamers don't particularly like to socalize, or view having to organize with other players to achieve an objective as a "waist of time" in the limited amount of time they have to play.....they get fustrated and rage on the developers or game mechanics.
Its ALL about giving the most access to the most number of people. This is a GOOD thing for many people, but it flys in the face of competition and competing (via PvP) over anything that isn't a scripted objective based instance pvp scenario.
Lineage 2 was/is a perfect example. If the only way to get a Hammer of 1000 Truths is to hunt a specific monster that drops the materials, odds are a lot of people are going to be farming the area these monsters spawn. Since there are only a limited number of monsters that drop the item.....players have to either work cooperatively and take turns or just DUKE it out in PvP.
In a game like WOW, this scenario would present the player with their own instance...therefore no competion
World PvP in the classic way is not feeling well at all, no.
The problem is that we need a new combat mechanic and probably a lot new ides to bring it back to were it should be.
I think the 'problem' is that players have already been given other alternatives.
Most "world" pvp would never have happened without an intensely bored player base. Given other alternatives for entertainment, players tend to take them.
I guess your only plan of attack to repeat "world" PVP is a short, fast level cap and nothing else to do once it's reached.
Not exactly a healthy business plan in the long term though.
Well, isn't that because world PvP rarely really have a point in MMOs?
Instead of having realms and guilds declaring war and fight eachother for a while it is a constant zerg and ganking of noobs.
I think for one thing that constant war is actually bad for world PvP, to instead have conflicts that ends in battles and skirmishes a short time, and with rewards for the winning side would make things more interested.
FFA world PvP tend to be bad long term for the playerbase, I can agree with that but I think guilds and entire realms should be able to go to war at times. If it is all the time you will get fewer players, but if it isn't that common it have a lot more potential.
It would lead to something between a PvE and a PvP server with massive wars at times while there at other times can be complete or almost complete peace. If you could take over locations during those shorter periods battle could be both intense and actually have meaning.
World PvP today = ganking/griefing fest and nothing more sadly. PvP is fine with a game, a big problem is players use it to ruin the experience of others. It wouldn't be such a big deal if they might kill you once and be on their way, but its become so heavy in griefing that it just tarnishes the experience so greatly. Very rarely you ever see someone trying to gank someone who actually stands a chance against them.
World PvP in the classic way is not feeling well at all, no.
The problem is that we need a new combat mechanic and probably a lot new ides to bring it back to were it should be.
I think the 'problem' is that players have already been given other alternatives.
Most "world" pvp would never have happened without an intensely bored player base. Given other alternatives for entertainment, players tend to take them.
I guess your only plan of attack to repeat "world" PVP is a short, fast level cap and nothing else to do once it's reached.
Not exactly a healthy business plan in the long term though.
Well, isn't that because world PvP rarely really have a point in MMOs?
Instead of having realms and guilds declaring war and fight eachother for a while it is a constant zerg and ganking of noobs.
I think for one thing that constant war is actually bad for world PvP, to instead have conflicts that ends in battles and skirmishes a short time, and with rewards for the winning side would make things more interested.
FFA world PvP tend to be bad long term for the playerbase, I can agree with that but I think guilds and entire realms should be able to go to war at times. If it is all the time you will get fewer players, but if it isn't that common it have a lot more potential.
It would lead to something between a PvE and a PvP server with massive wars at times while there at other times can be complete or almost complete peace. If you could take over locations during those shorter periods battle could be both intense and actually have meaning.
I have to disagree on world PvP not having a point.
In Ultima Online.....world PvP was ALL PvP. But it wasn't angry kid PKs running around picking people off as they were fighting a monster. It was groups of players hunting other groups of players.
Whether you were in the faction system, or was at war with another clan......Group PvPing consisted of getting everyone together and traveling to all the "hang outs" of the enemy guild or faction.
In Lineage 2, players hunted monsters that gave the most efficient XP, or dropped a certian material that was needed in crafting. Since these monsters were limited in number and spawn points.....players fought over territory and hunting spots.
If I found myself a good hunting spot that was giving really good XP and another player rolled up and attempted to kill the monsters in my area. I'd politely ask them to leave and if they didn't, I'd engage them in combat. That guy could call in his "boys", and then I'd call in my "boys". Next thing you know.....you've got a gold old fashioned turf war on your hands.
The element of suprise and consequece is what makes these open world PvP encounters more exciting and unique than the scripted fights that happen in any given battleground, warzone, etc.
Also to the point about a game mechanic to establish an end to the match so that there is some finality in the fight....
Ultima Online had a temporary statloss system in their faction combat. If you died to an opposing faction member, your stats would go down to a level that made it impracticle to fight, as you'd get your arse handed to you. It lasted 15 min or so....and kept people from continuously pouring in to a fight.
You can't do world pvp and have both parties be happy all the time, someone will win and someone will lose. You can't have your cake and eat it too. In a world pvp scenario its important for people to understand that they can sometimes be the victim but there are ways to mitigate that risk and if it does happen, take it in stride.
Exactly. That is why world pvp is a BAD game design. A *good* game design is where all the players can have fun.
Bad for whom? If you're playing an open world pvp game then you should realize that you can't win all the time. How much of the time you do win is a mixture of skill and luck. I don't see anything inherently wrong with this, if anything it makes the game more exciting.
Unless they really screw up, Planetside 2 won't be world PVP.
World PVP in MMORPGs is bad because of ganking and zerging and progression.
Planetside had none of those things. There was no distracting PVE (no ganking), population limits were enforced in what was effectively 200v200v200 instanced PVP (no zerging), and progression was lateral (a skilled level 1 could easily kill an unskilled max-level player.) So it's not really world PVP.
The only time Planetside offered bad PVP is if your faction was underpopulated. But MMORPGs, especially in world PVP, almost always offer bad PVP where skill is swept aside by population or progression factors.
Thats because world PvP in MMO's is wrong, Planetside (2) is right.
But here you're implying that world PvP itself is bad. world PvP itself isnt bad, its the structure of linear progression that kills world PvP. If developers grew some cajones and put some skill back into gameplay, world PvP would be a totally different animal.
,And for you people who say, "well the technology doesnt exist for skilled gameplay."
GIVE ME A BREAK! A little known game made in 97 called "Asheron's Call" not only had World PvP, no classes, but a system in which people were able to DODGE projecticles. Gosh, what a novel idea everyone! Dodging projectiles? Who would of thought, instead of homing arrows we have nowadays that can phase through solid rock.
In AC, a level 30 could still stand a chance against a level 60.
I keep on saying this, and I'll keep on saying it, AC had a genius, brilliant system light years ahead of any MMO to come out in the past decade; a hybrid system with levels AND physical skill involved. Theres a reason why Darktide is considered one of the best PvP servers ever to exist.
World PvP today = ganking/griefing fest and nothing more sadly. PvP is fine with a game, a big problem is players use it to ruin the experience of others. It wouldn't be such a big deal if they might kill you once and be on their way, but its become so heavy in griefing that it just tarnishes the experience so greatly. Very rarely you ever see someone trying to gank someone who actually stands a chance against them.
It only ruins the experience of a player if they let a bad pvp experience get to them, its all about attitude. You're not going to move to a different city tomorrow if you get mugged today. Most people who play games that have world pvp are well aware of the risks, most of em actually like the idea of having a "human element" rather than the predictable grind. If they don't then why are they playing the game?
Sure people who gank try to mitigate risk, you have a pistol, are you going to get after the guy with the pocket knife or the guy with a machine gun? Seems like a fairly logical choice, no?
World pvp isn't about setting up a match of counter-strike, its just people a bunch of people in the same place and letting nature run its course.
depends what you mean by world PVP..................
theres a chunk of games coming out soon using the DAOC style model - 3 sides / teritory control / persistent / some areas pve other areas PVP
e.g.
Planetside 2
The Secret World
Guild Wars 2 (sort of)
Dominus
Firefall
Tribes ascended
which is great for people like me that enjoy that PVP style, but to others world PVP is more your UO or EVE style setup, which there doesn';t look to be to much of on the horizon (well with western decently budgeted games anyway)
World PvP today = ganking/griefing fest and nothing more sadly. PvP is fine with a game, a big problem is players use it to ruin the experience of others. It wouldn't be such a big deal if they might kill you once and be on their way, but its become so heavy in griefing that it just tarnishes the experience so greatly. Very rarely you ever see someone trying to gank someone who actually stands a chance against them.
It only ruins the experience of a player if they let a bad pvp experience get to them, its all about attitude. You're not going to move to a different city tomorrow if you get mugged today. Most people who play games that have world pvp are well aware of the risks, most of em actually like the idea of having a "human element" rather than the predictable grind. If they don't then why are they playing the game?
Sure people who gank try to mitigate risk, you have a pistol, are you going to get after the guy with the pocket knife or the guy with a machine gun? Seems like a fairly logical choice, no?
World pvp isn't about setting up a match of counter-strike, its just people a bunch of people in the same place and letting nature run its course.
World PvP was *always* a gank fest. It always was a gank fest, and always will be with the exception of scheduled clan battles, and even then, they are gank fests.
And you know what? Ganking *is* world PvP. This is the attitude that current MMO players have that killed diversity, unpredictability and excitement in MMOs. Its the entitlement mentality, everything is given to you. Everything shouldnt be given to you.
He's right, World PvP is what you make of it.
You could either rage at the keyboard, or say to yourself, "How can I prevent this from happening?"
Thats what I did in AC. When I got killed, instead of going to town with lots of people, I began to avoid towns and more specifically, roads that led to towns. I actually made sure to find short cuts through the wilderness, and make my stay in towns brief to prevent being ganked.
I find that alot more fun than doing a "daily grind". Its so unpredictable, exciting, fun. Every time I logged in, I had no idea what was going to happen. You had to think on your feet, so to speak.
You cant view as ganking as ruining other peoples experience, you have to view it as a fight for survival. Some people are sadistic yes, but you cant let that get to you. wheres your backbone? So what if you lost an item? Vow revenge, add him to your KOS list and take him out later.
World PvP was never about fair fights. It was about a fight for survival, and how you can think on your feet and think of new ways to overcome obstacles. Raging at your keyboard because you got ganked isnt going to get you anywhere. Yeah, it sucks, but its part of the game. Youre not playing Modern Warfare or Call of Duty, you're playing an MMO where youre decisions make lasting impacts.
Except that mmorts games function entirely on "world pvp". So it is more likely that world pvp is just poorly implemented within an rpg framework. Or maybe mmorpg has been expanded to to broad a category. In an mmorts you know what the game is about. In rpgs people have WoW based expectations. EvE is a successful game that is mostly all about world pvp except that the econ system is tied to world pvp also. In DAoC you knew what world pvp was about and many people loved it. We also knew what Ultima was like.
I think that too many people consider good game to design to be what appeals to the largest common denominator. See I said largest because I don't consider those games inferior.
Good game design is design that caters to the goals of the game. That is the theoretical perspective.
The business perspective has the goal of making money, which means appealing to casual players with disposable income.
But too often people confuse the goal of the game with the quality of the design. Many games marketed towards the largest common denominator have terrible design. Some have really good design for that purpose.
The quality of the desgin, ie, GOOD game DESIGN refers to how well the game achieves the goals.
The marketability of the design refers to the amount of money you can make off it.
World PVP is a bad mechanic from a marketability perspective. That doesn't mean that all World PVP is designed poorly.
That is not a very good definition. Since you can have any goal, you can justify any design.
Games are entertainment products. The best definition of "good" is whether a lot of people have fun with it.
For example, solving differential equations is fun for a very small subset of the population (i.e. scientists and mathematicans), is it good game design to put diff equations into games? Sure .. good for like 0.1% of the population but no one else will like it.
Bad for whom? If you're playing an open world pvp game then you should realize that you can't win all the time. How much of the time you do win is a mixture of skill and luck. I don't see anything inherently wrong with this, if anything it makes the game more exciting.
Losing 50% of the time is no fun. It is very easy to design a game with no losing involved. In fact, most of the single player games have no losing.
It may make the game more exciting for YOU, it is certainly not so for most players. Otherwise it won't be so unpopular.
It only ruins the experience of a player if they let a bad pvp experience get to them, its all about attitude. You're not going to move to a different city tomorrow if you get mugged today. Most people who play games that have world pvp are well aware of the risks, most of em actually like the idea of having a "human element" rather than the predictable grind. If they don't then why are they playing the game?
Moving to another city is expensive. Moving to another game costs almost nothing. There is no reason to play a GAME even if it aggragate you a little. There are plenty of games just entertain.
Well, they are not. If you look at the market, games without world pvp (i.e. WOW) is a lot more popular than ones with world pvp. The market preference is pretty clear on this one.
Comments
planetside did the skirmish and seige warfare pretty well, if they hadnt messed it up with the rubbish BFR's and the caverns then i think it would still be about the best MMOFPS game out there - its possible it might be even with those ridiculous additions... but i do agree, you never really felt you were losing, even when you did lose a base, the fights themselves made it all worthwhile.
I'm not sure how Lineage 2 did it, but I started off by playing Conquer Online and it was open world PVP. The ruleset there was that if you attacked a white or red named person and killed him, you'd get 10 PK points. Once you reach 30 PK points, your name will turn red. When a red person is PK'd by someone, he will drop 1-2 gear items. Once you reach 100 PK points, your name will turn black and you'll drop 2-4 items or so. These PK points go down while you wait, so you're not stuck with them forever.
When you attack a person, your name starts flashing blue, which means that you can be killed without the other person receiving any PK points. Attacking a flashing player or a black named player will not cause you to start flashing or give you any PK points.
This way people rarely killed anyone for no reason at all, and it was mostly used for getting rid of annoying people. Some used it in an unfair manner by killing you the moment you received a good drop, or right before a boss monster, but it generally worked just fine and people were able to grind monsters together and nobody touched the newbies.
I dont know about you but phat loot would have added to my fun in the above scenario.
You are over-thinking it. Victim, in this case, means whoever on the short end of PvP .. i.e. .. those who got ganged.
There is NO WAY you can spin that being a victim is fun, if you actually stick to the English meaning of the word.
If you SURVIVE a HUNT, you won't be DYING, and won't be a VICTIM.
World PvP .... if done correctly..... is one of the best things an MMO can offer as end game to players.
It is a shame most games overlook this or throw it in the afterthought bin...
For those losing hope on this. There are several games coming that are taking this aspect VERY seriously
I think the 'problem' is that players have already been given other alternatives.
Most "world" pvp would never have happened without an intensely bored player base. Given other alternatives for entertainment, players tend to take them.
I guess your only plan of attack to repeat "world" PVP is a short, fast level cap and nothing else to do once it's reached.
Not exactly a healthy business plan in the long term though.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
You can't do world pvp and have both parties be happy all the time, someone will win and someone will lose. You can't have your cake and eat it too. In a world pvp scenario its important for people to understand that they can sometimes be the victim but there are ways to mitigate that risk and if it does happen, take it in stride.
Well you didn't need to concern yourself with global strategy for the efficiency of your fight to be fun and worthwhile. Definitely didn't feel like I never lost (ie aforementioned unbalanced spillover continents) I had fun while losing most of the time, but I definitely fought to conquer continents and not just randomly randomly rush to a battle without thinking where I'd best help things out.
Caverns I though were alright except for the crackheaded ziplines. At least they provided something new to fight over -- the existing base designs were nearly copies of each other at launch, and were a big weakpoint of the game.
BFRs I felt were fine too, but I only started playing ~2 months after release (when they were basically fixed, except for one important tweak to flight BFRs.) They cost so much and were crazy slow (in a game where speed matters. a lot. I was predominantly a pilot as a result,) and then one pilot hotdropper like myself takes you down and you're out of a ride.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yes World PvP is dead...and so is World PvE along with it. Devs now follow strict and rigid corporate guidelines in making MMO's and they are just not fun. I am not subbed to any MMOs and havent been now for months. Started back in 1999. I thought back then, that years later MMOs would be sooo good. I had no idea how wrong I was. Between wow and now wow in space we are spoon fed instanced garbage to eat. No thanks.
If there is a market for world PVP then someone will try it, however the quality of the game and players might well vary. I remember some quite draw dropping PvP in DAOC and WAR. Fun times
Dominus is the game i'm keeping my eye on, looks very promising but still very early stages yet. I love the ideas they've come up with and hope they'll be able to give us a very Sci-fi take on DAOC with an improved GUI and graphics. It's a big ask, but heck nothing else is tickling me at the moment.
Exactly. That is why world pvp is a BAD game design. A *good* game design is where all the players can have fun.
Because instanced small group content is much more fun. You don't like it .. i get it. I like it and so do millions of others. It is the trend because it works and it is fun for most. Deal with it.
Except that mmorts games function entirely on "world pvp". So it is more likely that world pvp is just poorly implemented within an rpg framework. Or maybe mmorpg has been expanded to to broad a category. In an mmorts you know what the game is about. In rpgs people have WoW based expectations. EvE is a successful game that is mostly all about world pvp except that the econ system is tied to world pvp also. In DAoC you knew what world pvp was about and many people loved it. We also knew what Ultima was like.
I think that too many people consider good game to design to be what appeals to the largest common denominator. See I said largest because I don't consider those games inferior.
Good game design is design that caters to the goals of the game. That is the theoretical perspective.
The business perspective has the goal of making money, which means appealing to casual players with disposable income.
But too often people confuse the goal of the game with the quality of the design. Many games marketed towards the largest common denominator have terrible design. Some have really good design for that purpose.
The quality of the desgin, ie, GOOD game DESIGN refers to how well the game achieves the goals.
The marketability of the design refers to the amount of money you can make off it.
World PVP is a bad mechanic from a marketability perspective. That doesn't mean that all World PVP is designed poorly.
It's pretty simple...it comes down to COMPETITION.
New MMORPGs REMOVE competition among players in non-instanced zones by offering multi phases (or channels) of a single zone so that players can have unfettered access to quest monsters or other objectives.
Creating a situation where players would have to engage in open world PvP combat to secure a specific zone that spawned a particular quest monster you were hunting, or a specific objective could lead to a situation where a player might not be able to complete a quest or get a particular item.
Since many of these casual MMO gamers don't particularly like to socalize, or view having to organize with other players to achieve an objective as a "waist of time" in the limited amount of time they have to play.....they get fustrated and rage on the developers or game mechanics.
Its ALL about giving the most access to the most number of people. This is a GOOD thing for many people, but it flys in the face of competition and competing (via PvP) over anything that isn't a scripted objective based instance pvp scenario.
Lineage 2 was/is a perfect example. If the only way to get a Hammer of 1000 Truths is to hunt a specific monster that drops the materials, odds are a lot of people are going to be farming the area these monsters spawn. Since there are only a limited number of monsters that drop the item.....players have to either work cooperatively and take turns or just DUKE it out in PvP.
In a game like WOW, this scenario would present the player with their own instance...therefore no competion
Well, isn't that because world PvP rarely really have a point in MMOs?
Instead of having realms and guilds declaring war and fight eachother for a while it is a constant zerg and ganking of noobs.
I think for one thing that constant war is actually bad for world PvP, to instead have conflicts that ends in battles and skirmishes a short time, and with rewards for the winning side would make things more interested.
FFA world PvP tend to be bad long term for the playerbase, I can agree with that but I think guilds and entire realms should be able to go to war at times. If it is all the time you will get fewer players, but if it isn't that common it have a lot more potential.
It would lead to something between a PvE and a PvP server with massive wars at times while there at other times can be complete or almost complete peace. If you could take over locations during those shorter periods battle could be both intense and actually have meaning.
World PvP today = ganking/griefing fest and nothing more sadly. PvP is fine with a game, a big problem is players use it to ruin the experience of others. It wouldn't be such a big deal if they might kill you once and be on their way, but its become so heavy in griefing that it just tarnishes the experience so greatly. Very rarely you ever see someone trying to gank someone who actually stands a chance against them.
I have to disagree on world PvP not having a point.
In Ultima Online.....world PvP was ALL PvP. But it wasn't angry kid PKs running around picking people off as they were fighting a monster. It was groups of players hunting other groups of players.
Whether you were in the faction system, or was at war with another clan......Group PvPing consisted of getting everyone together and traveling to all the "hang outs" of the enemy guild or faction.
In Lineage 2, players hunted monsters that gave the most efficient XP, or dropped a certian material that was needed in crafting. Since these monsters were limited in number and spawn points.....players fought over territory and hunting spots.
If I found myself a good hunting spot that was giving really good XP and another player rolled up and attempted to kill the monsters in my area. I'd politely ask them to leave and if they didn't, I'd engage them in combat. That guy could call in his "boys", and then I'd call in my "boys". Next thing you know.....you've got a gold old fashioned turf war on your hands.
The element of suprise and consequece is what makes these open world PvP encounters more exciting and unique than the scripted fights that happen in any given battleground, warzone, etc.
Also to the point about a game mechanic to establish an end to the match so that there is some finality in the fight....
Ultima Online had a temporary statloss system in their faction combat. If you died to an opposing faction member, your stats would go down to a level that made it impracticle to fight, as you'd get your arse handed to you. It lasted 15 min or so....and kept people from continuously pouring in to a fight.
Bad for whom? If you're playing an open world pvp game then you should realize that you can't win all the time. How much of the time you do win is a mixture of skill and luck. I don't see anything inherently wrong with this, if anything it makes the game more exciting.
But here you're implying that world PvP itself is bad. world PvP itself isnt bad, its the structure of linear progression that kills world PvP. If developers grew some cajones and put some skill back into gameplay, world PvP would be a totally different animal.
,And for you people who say, "well the technology doesnt exist for skilled gameplay."
GIVE ME A BREAK! A little known game made in 97 called "Asheron's Call" not only had World PvP, no classes, but a system in which people were able to DODGE projecticles. Gosh, what a novel idea everyone! Dodging projectiles? Who would of thought, instead of homing arrows we have nowadays that can phase through solid rock.
In AC, a level 30 could still stand a chance against a level 60.
I keep on saying this, and I'll keep on saying it, AC had a genius, brilliant system light years ahead of any MMO to come out in the past decade; a hybrid system with levels AND physical skill involved. Theres a reason why Darktide is considered one of the best PvP servers ever to exist.
It only ruins the experience of a player if they let a bad pvp experience get to them, its all about attitude. You're not going to move to a different city tomorrow if you get mugged today. Most people who play games that have world pvp are well aware of the risks, most of em actually like the idea of having a "human element" rather than the predictable grind. If they don't then why are they playing the game?
Sure people who gank try to mitigate risk, you have a pistol, are you going to get after the guy with the pocket knife or the guy with a machine gun? Seems like a fairly logical choice, no?
World pvp isn't about setting up a match of counter-strike, its just people a bunch of people in the same place and letting nature run its course.
depends what you mean by world PVP..................
theres a chunk of games coming out soon using the DAOC style model - 3 sides / teritory control / persistent / some areas pve other areas PVP
e.g.
Planetside 2
The Secret World
Guild Wars 2 (sort of)
Dominus
Firefall
Tribes ascended
which is great for people like me that enjoy that PVP style, but to others world PVP is more your UO or EVE style setup, which there doesn';t look to be to much of on the horizon (well with western decently budgeted games anyway)
World PvP was *always* a gank fest. It always was a gank fest, and always will be with the exception of scheduled clan battles, and even then, they are gank fests.
And you know what? Ganking *is* world PvP. This is the attitude that current MMO players have that killed diversity, unpredictability and excitement in MMOs. Its the entitlement mentality, everything is given to you. Everything shouldnt be given to you.
He's right, World PvP is what you make of it.
You could either rage at the keyboard, or say to yourself, "How can I prevent this from happening?"
Thats what I did in AC. When I got killed, instead of going to town with lots of people, I began to avoid towns and more specifically, roads that led to towns. I actually made sure to find short cuts through the wilderness, and make my stay in towns brief to prevent being ganked.
I find that alot more fun than doing a "daily grind". Its so unpredictable, exciting, fun. Every time I logged in, I had no idea what was going to happen. You had to think on your feet, so to speak.
You cant view as ganking as ruining other peoples experience, you have to view it as a fight for survival. Some people are sadistic yes, but you cant let that get to you. wheres your backbone? So what if you lost an item? Vow revenge, add him to your KOS list and take him out later.
World PvP was never about fair fights. It was about a fight for survival, and how you can think on your feet and think of new ways to overcome obstacles. Raging at your keyboard because you got ganked isnt going to get you anywhere. Yeah, it sucks, but its part of the game. Youre not playing Modern Warfare or Call of Duty, you're playing an MMO where youre decisions make lasting impacts.
That is not a very good definition. Since you can have any goal, you can justify any design.
Games are entertainment products. The best definition of "good" is whether a lot of people have fun with it.
For example, solving differential equations is fun for a very small subset of the population (i.e. scientists and mathematicans), is it good game design to put diff equations into games? Sure .. good for like 0.1% of the population but no one else will like it.
Losing 50% of the time is no fun. It is very easy to design a game with no losing involved. In fact, most of the single player games have no losing.
It may make the game more exciting for YOU, it is certainly not so for most players. Otherwise it won't be so unpopular.
Moving to another city is expensive. Moving to another game costs almost nothing. There is no reason to play a GAME even if it aggragate you a little. There are plenty of games just entertain.
Well, they are not. If you look at the market, games without world pvp (i.e. WOW) is a lot more popular than ones with world pvp. The market preference is pretty clear on this one.