Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Star Wars: The Old Republic: PvP Interview
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
During a recent visit to EA's Redwood Shores studio for Star Wars: The Old Republic "Immersion Day", MMORPG.com Community Manager Mike Bitton had the opportunity to sit down for a PvP-centric chat with Bioware's Emmanuel Lusinchi. Check out the discussion and then leave a comment or two below.
MMORPG.com: Can you give us an overview of the Warzones you’ve revealed so far?
Emmanuel Lusinchi: We’ve talked about two. One is Alderaan. The story behind it is there is an extremely powerful cannon in the base and both sides want to capture it to help with the war and they send a dropship, each side sends a dropship, and before you can capture the cannon you have to shoot down the other ship so that they stop sending reinforcements, and to do that you try to capture three turrets, and every time you capture a turret it will turn and start shooting on the enemy ship. Once their shields are down the ship crashes and you win the engagement.
Read more of Mike Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic PvP Interview.
)
Comments
So, for all those people who weren't paying attention or chose not to believe it, here is confirmation of open world PvP and PvP servers.
I thought his take on leveling through PvP was interesting. I got the impression that he was like "Yeah, you could. I think. Do you suppose anyone would want to?".
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Very cool interview. Seems like we're getting a lot of info out of BW over the past couple of weeks. Exciting stuff.
He was unwilling to comment about guilds or large groups being able to control areas, so I'm wondering if they might have control zones that swing back and forth between the factions.
I find it lame there will be safe zones, guards and measures to prevent griefing on PvP servers. I have a feeling PvP won't be restricted in the Mists.
Good info in this interview. The idea of the 8v8 having Star Wars objectives is top idea.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
As long as the Open World PVP areas are large and have reasons to be in there it will be fine. DAOC is still the best as it offered very very large areas to PvP (RvR) and no one was "forced" to pvp, yet when you went into those areas it was on. Now throw in some decent objectives to capture & hold that have meaning and this could be some decent PvP. It won't live up to DAOC but it could be decent.
Great interview.!
Just straight up info and no hype just the way I like it.
I didn't know the name of the 2nd Warzone was "Void Star"... sounds pretty cool
Sounds very good so far.
I like how tanks will play their roles in PvP.
Overall I could say PvP will be fun the way they are going with it.
Sure a few tweaks here and there will happen and need to so they can keep everything in balance.
Sounds very fun, but that said, it sounds very much like every other canned BG setup out there (WoW, Rift, etc etc).
That said, I like that setup anyway, it is just definitely nothing new.
Something I would like to see added to the pvp in this game are vehicles, even if they are more like NPC mobs or something (ATST style spawnable vehicles) though controllable would be even better, and first person pilotable would be the best, though I really doubt we will see that.
Sounds to me like a straight up clone of current systems. BG's/Warzones/Warfronts/Scenarios whatever with restricted open world PvP. Tank abilities like WAR. Progression through PvP. Hopefully the open world PvP has some merit, and equal advancement.
There needs to be a reason for people to seek out PvP in the open world rather than take themselves out of the world for scenarios and instanced sport like matches or else we will end up with servers just like in every other game. Top heavy with barely any open world action where everyone sits at a final hub and just queues up all day for instanced content.
It is lame, it wastes the world content, and after a server has been around long enough the players are only using 10% of the games content and most of them are instanced out of the world. It makes for some really crappy servers, and it is an old school system that should be addressed.
Anyways nice interview.
Thanks for the write up, Mike.
*wants to know more about open world pvp*
Having safe zones even on 'contested' planets is something I don't really like a lot. I hope that they won't make the worlds feel too much restrictive. V_V
Also hoping on rp-pvp servers.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Safe zones at spawn points are a must have for me. Travel points too. I mean maybe not safe zones at travel points, but gaurds at travel points would be ideal so that they CAN attack you, but they likely won't live through it.
OGM Bioware actually know why open world pvp exists and is needed.
"Another one is a kind of PvP that naturally occurs when people don't like each other meet somewhere on the planet."
Finaly, a company with brains that knows the root and roots of design and mechanics.
I effing love bioware
Exactly, and guards would be a great ingame way of controlling pvp in areas where pvp is not so much wanted but you should still have the choice, even if it is a very unwise one. Rather than block it with hardcoded game mechanics restricting you completely to attack.
Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm! *gurgles*
My brand new bloggity blog.
Objective based pvp. it isn't like this is anything new. It just needs to be fun so players will keep playing it. We'll see.
For me the fun PvP is the non-objectice one. You see another player and kill him, just for the fun of it. Imagining someone blowing steam behind his screen after you wasted him a number of times is objectitive enough for me. That's why TOR having PvP servers is excellent news.
Okay, not a bad interview, enjoyed the warfront write up from yesterday.
Here's my concern. As I've been watching this game for some time now I had decided to play a Sith Inquisitor with the understanding it would be focused on CC with some DPS.
The CC mechanics seem like they're so hampered that playing a CC class (if indeed this is one since in the warfront write up it was identified as a healer or at least the sorcerer advanced class was (?)) will automatically gimp you to death.
Considering the versatility of tanks that seems like it might be a better choice or a straight melee dps sith like mike played. I think breakout abilities on top of a diminishing returns bar that grants full 8 second immunity when full seems like a bit much.
It seems like they nerfed AoEs in general. I know that Mythic (Warhammer) devs were brought in for PVP. It seems like they're taking the Warhammer "lessons" to extremes. I guess we'll see.
EDIT: Especially when you consider several of the reviewers from the WF talking about how there is no real big burst damage it seems like CC would play an even greater role to force someone to take hits. This is especially true if you're a traditionally squishy caster.
Currently Playing: Perpetuum
MMOs Played (most time spent to least): World of Warcraft (BG/Open world PvP focused), Lord of the Rings Online (PvMP focused), Warhammer Online (BG PvP focused), Global Agenda, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online (PvP focused), Runes of Magic, Allods, Aion, Fallen Earth
As long as guards aren't so completely powerful that they can't be overcome by any means, then I'm okay with that as a deterrent. Once a town guard hands you your ass it stops feeling like you're any kind of Hero, and you start to wonder why your faction isn't employing these powerhouse badasses on the crucial missions they saddle you with.
Thats really a good point. I kinda liked how they did it in DCUO, where the guards could be killed but they couldn't kill YOU either, their ability was just to knock you back like 2 blocks if you got too close or attacked. With enough people you could kill them, but it also didn't make you feel any less powerful.
"if you're getting a lot of badges by doing your role that you picked for yourself, so, it's a score that unlocks titles, PvP titles, and it's a way, not only for players to compare between themselves, but also for us to keep track who is dedicated to PvP, who is really good at PvP, and we can use that for the matchmaking system to know which players to put together when the Warzones are started."
Really cool. Nice.
I had a question to the people who played the PVP. Can you guys compare the particle effects with Rift's PVP?
Guild Wars 2's 50 minutes game play video:
http://n4g.com/news/592585/guild-wars-2-50-minutes-of-pure-gameplay
Everything We Know about GW2:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/287180/page/1
Seems like most other mmo pvp systems.
I was hoping for a Planetside type pvp myself. The Star Wars universe would be perfect that type of pvp.
I lead (past tense!) a fairly successful guild in WAR and played it from launch through the bad and the good times as far as PvP goes and so I've seen the WAR PvP situation through all the steps forward and the curious steps backwards. I can tell you with confidence that the PvP felt like someone had documented all the things that went right and all the things that went wrong and were very cognizant about both when developing the PvP for this game (at least when it comes to Warzones).
No this is not DAOC, you will not have a "CC" class capable of shutting down entire groups of players for extended periods of time, it's also not early Warhammer where players are pinballing around everywhere either. The CC use felt, honestly, right on the mark. Very tactical, not too long, but long enough to make the impact it was intended to do, to take targets out of the fight just long enough to give you the edge and turn the tide of battle. Even Emmanuel, who was intently observing our PvP matches, noted that it wasn't a "stunfest" in my interview with him.
With that said, the Inquisitor does have some fairly powerful CC. There is one whirlwind ability that will take someone out of the fight for a good deal longer than your typical stun, however, it breaks on damage so that's the tradeoff. This wasn't an issue for us as we would call out who we'd be taking out of the fight this way and no one would attack him for the duration but it might be a bit less friendly in pick up groups (the visual is fairly obvious though, so you might eventually only have to worry about people casting AOEs and breaking it on accident, or just your garden variety dumb player).
Briefly on AOE damage, there definitely wasn't a Bright Wizard/Sorceress issue present in the level 20 PvP we did. I can't say how things are later, but people weren't blowing up en masse or anything like that. There wasn't anyone hanging back just melting entire skirmishes themselves.
Meh, seems ok I guess. I would rather have full item looting and no safe zones at all so I can grief people and watch them cry more because thats what I love to do. Grief, grief and then grief so more. Don't really care to be honest.
Nice to see they have put a lot of thought into pvp with some unique mechanics instead of just tacking something on.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
W00T! This answers all of my PVP questions and concearns. Further proof that Bioware "gets it" and is not leaving any type of player in the cold.
Any idea when we'll be shown/told more about open-world RVR (aka persistently-available, open-world non-instanced, objective-based, large PVP zones)? It sounds like it's in but I'd like to be 100% sure, it's the main thing that would draw me to TOR...