I really wish I had played that game at its peak, actually.
But, after playing UO, I decided that I hated the MMO formula in terms of time investment vs gain. I tried EQ/SWG/DAoC - but none of them lasted more than a couple of weeks. I just couldn’t deal with the grindy nature of them.
The irony is that WoW was the first MMO that hooked me - despite me having an identical reaction to the beta, and yet I got totally lost in that game. I’m still not sure what it was about it that pulled me in, but my favorite theory is that it was because my GF loved it - and it meant we had something to play together. Ended up being very bad for us, but it was pretty great the first year or so.
At least I tried being the best at something ;)
I PVPed (and had mains on PVP servers) in every MMO I ever played. The EQ main my SWTOR character will be named after was on Sullon Zek, the server with the most ambitiously red ruleset (PVP xp-loss?) since vanilla UO.
In retrospect, world PVP is, with the exception of EvE and a few cherry picked halcyon hours from other MMOs, an idea that was cool in theory but more trouble than it was worth in practice. I love the tension and competitiveness of PVP but I have never liked the ugly, uncompetitive and tedious gameplay it elicited from many - I’d even say a plurality - of players, who rigourously minimized risk to themselves and maximised discomfiture to others with no sense of gameplay aesthetics or sportsmanship.
With the right design (EvE) and/or player community (A WoW or EQ server populated by PVPers rather than semi-bluebies and glorified bluebie-gankers) PVP’s a swell concept. As a general rule in themepark MMOs, however, I’m happy to now take it in the context of Battlegrounds where it isn’t so dependent on the competitive spirit - or lack thereof - of my fellow MMOers.
Personally, all my hopes are with ArcheAge - even if it’s still doubtful it’ll get a US release, much less an EU one.
I think one of the reasons that EVEs PVP models is so awesome is the same reason many liked UO. You had everyone in the same ‘galaxy’. The builders, the achievers, the explorers, the thieves, the farmers, the heroes, the villains, etc…
What you end up with on a lot of the PVP-styled games is only PVP players, so it is a “unnatural” environment only filled with people interested in killing other people.
I wish we could go back to the golden days of MMO when there was only UO.
I liked Eve’s PvP. The back end of the game and the UI eventually annoyed me into leaving.
But for PvP I enjoy, there have to be consequences for losing. I wouldn’t care if it was consensual (I never did Empire piracy in Eve, although I did do some merc work and Empire wardecs), the consequences are what’s important.
I’d be all over EvE if it wasn’t just a pretty spreadsheet :)
Nah, I know it’s not fair - but I honestly feel too much of that game happens through the combination of numbers and the imagination of the players.
It needs something much more tactile and tangible - like living breathing worlds and avatars. But I have great respect for the achievement the game represents.
Ultima Online remains my favorite MMO in terms of the design as well, but it’s just too old now - and it needed a better PvP system.
Again, ArcheAge looks to be the only game on the horizon that could do what I want from the genre.
EvE is a special case in which PVP works and has always worked because (with the I suppose rather large exception of missioning in Empire) it’s fundamentally understood that a PVP-centric metagame is the entire point.
Consequences are a double edged sword, and were particularly so on DIKU MMOs. As I alluded to the downfall of world PVP in DIKUs has been risk-averse play. It encourages a lot of PVP-oriented people to gank and convince themselves it’s just the nature of the game, and the red-enough-to-roll-on-a-PVP-server-but-not-that-tough players to avoid PVP, not fight back, hide in instances, whatever.
Coming from Sullon Zek - with XP-loss for even-con PVP death, and none of the PVP level bounds from other EQ servers - to WoW, I thought the lack of PVP death penalties was an absurdity. But it did at least somewhat mitigate the cowardliness of the bluebie and the (veiled) cowardliness of the 5-man flying columns grazing on bluebies on the pretence of looking for a fight.
My pre-order was registered on the 28th of July. Though it wasn’t the exact second, I’m pretty sure the first week is going to get in early to the release.
Eh, the combat is so much more challenging with PvP. In PvE it really boils down to numbers unless the player’s an idiot. At some point a monster will have enough health and hit hard enough that a player can’t beat it, but until that point a player will nearly always beat it, every time.
PvP isn’t like that when the players aren’t too far apart in levels and gear. PvP is really knowing your class and class abilities and being able to recognize what the opposing player is doing and counter it if you can, and you have to make decisions in a fraction of a second.
If I’m getting ganked and camped I just alt-tab and browse the web for five minutes. I figure I’m getting plenty good revenge by making the other player sit and stare at his screen in boredom for five minutes waiting for me to rez while I’m reading forums, or stretching my legs, etc.
Ryslin
3910
They did already state that the head start is going to be a rolling entrance similar to how the beta did it. Cept this time you get an email the moment you can log in, thus the preload of the game for those involved.
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Pvpness
See I can see the nature of why you would want the killers around. They protect you when you are harvesting/gathering/exploring and keep the other side from being a pain. The fact is most folk who enjoy the harvest/craft/explore routine dislike the go get that red mindset. This leads to the above mentioned pvp sets where there is noone but the ganked and those ganking with no support at all.
Then comes the various friends of that get begged to join the server cus pvp is soo much fun, who do hide /only go in groups so on. Really all they are there for is support for those that want to go out to war.
It just does not work, and thou I do think the playstyle is valid I don’t think anyone should be forced to it. This leaves the pvpers with a smaller and smaller core group. I feel for you, it isn’t unlike what happens to rpers. If you want a really oddball group the rp-pvpers are way out there on the fringe.
I agree that probably the only way to make it work well would be to throw everyone on one server type(eve). I don’t see it doing well, too many expect to not work for regular content… if they have to not only press 3 buttons for the reward but learn how to dodge the incoming gank it won’t fly now.
How is some level 70 ganking me when i am level 20 any different than some guy with 7 GM skills ganging me when i have one skill at 60? Other than the fact that in uo he would also take my stuff of course.
In a level based game the douchebags stand out more because they are rarer. In a game like UO nearly everyone is a douchebag and you have to assume everyone is in order to protect yourself (thus what leads to nearly everyone being a douchebag).
I remember standing at the bank in Britain(?) and some guy runs into town yelling about playerkillers outside the mountainpass, then joining up with a posse of people to go out and fight them.
That doesn’t happen in consensual/safe “PVP”-type games.
But, as someone said a while back, that time is gone, and we’ll probably never get a MMO that has a fantasy world that seems “real” again.
Murbella:
Because you will still be able to damage that player, and can in theory kill him, or even have someone help you do it.
With a level 70 vs a level 20 none of your abilities would register a hit, not to mention he would be able to oneshot you with any of his spells, as they also scaled with his level. I dont remember exactly, but I think Corp Por did like 20 damage, so you’d need 5 hits with that to kill someone who had 100 STR (100 health).
I remember the first person me and my friend killed, we had played our characters for maybe a day, so we were pretty shit, and we found a player in full platemail /AFKing outside Trinsic in the middle of the wilderness. Since we needed the gear, and he wasn’t doing anything – and he was Grey (or maybe Red) – we figured what the hell and got his stuff. Good times.
Another time, I ran on the road to trinsic with the spoils of hours of hunting and crafting leather armor as well as making arrows for my crafted bow… and saw a chest on the road. As I ran up to it I was imobilizied by someone hiding behind a tree, who promptly kal vas flam and corp por’ed me to death then taking all my stuff. After I purchased a new keyboard, I never fell for that trick again. But it was a good trap :)
Oh yea; and if you killed that 7xGM (I only had a 6x myself, friend had 7) maybe he had a bounty on his head, so you’d cut it off and give it to a city guard to claim the reward. What other game lets you do that.
They did already state that the head start is going to be a rolling entrance similar to how the beta did it. Cept this time you get an email the moment you can log in, thus the preload of the game for those involved.
I wasn’t in the beta, but I pre-ordered the game last week. Can I download the client now and then login and start playing once I get the email, or do I have to wait for the email before I can download the client?
If you’ve registered your pre-order code you should be able to download now, or at least you could if the SWTOR web site was up. Once it comes back, log in, go to your account, and then go to pre-order. There should be a link to the client there.
It takes ingenious - and I suspect heavily sandbox/metagame dominated - game design ala EvE for the frailties of the players not to ruin things. I’m glad I PVPed but in the context of games based largely on PvE diku mechanics I’m done with it. The ratio of brilliant PVP to facepalm PVP is too high; life is too short.
Supposedly they are looking to build on that again with Pandaria - getting rid of one shot guards, providing incentives to take enemy capitals, etc. I always thought the Tarren Mill PvP scene was pretty pointless though, one big lag fest. Forget about trying to quest there, people were constantly taking out the quest NPCs and flight masters. People forget that they changed it because of all the complaints that flooded in about it.
“Hillsbrad PVP” varied from server to server and from time to time. And that sort of PVP happened elsewhere, again depending on the server and happenstance - Redridge or Duskwood were usually gankier but sometimes had the same dynamic, or the areas surrounding SM or BRD.
What all of the rose-tinted glasses are actually about was 5-15 PVPers (or occasionally more, but then it did get laggy and ridiculous) fighting 5-15 PVPers, with the harassment of people PvEing - when it happened - just being an effort to start fights (rather than that being a flimsy pretext for easy kills.)
On my server back at launch we had some pretty epic Arathi Basin wars based around Stromgarde and the roaming faction NPCs that factored into some pretty lengthy questlines. Those were awesome.
And then I rerolled on a true blue server when I got to 50 and had a week of basically no leveling progress whatsoever because the number of bored Alliance 60s outnumbered us so badly.
Open world PvP, ladies and gentlemen.
Edit: Whoops. Wrong thread. Sorry!
Teiman
3920
I use to do “facepalmingpvp” in Age of Conan. I was naked (not armour at all), and no weapons, but I was high level enough to have a fist fight with a guard, and survive a few seconds. So I was camping important npc’s, and started fight with other players with my fists. Things go quickly messy, as more guards join the fight, and other lowlevel players join the battle. Imagine fighting vs 4 or 5 low level players, followed by guards, running over houses, other npcs, fences, tryiing to poke more lowbyes in the head. (I can’t remember that withouth the music of benny hill on my head) :D
