Would like to hear peoples thoughts on why PVP has never really evolved in MMO's since DAOC set the bar so high, none have really come close and definitely nothing has bettered it.
Because it didnt set the bar so high, it set it LOW.
PvP in DaoC was the first game to provide carrot on a stick PvP. It placed it in a nice safe little area away from everything else which led directly to battlemaps in other games. The buffs and rewards provided in DaoC led to the ladder/ranking systems in games today and since DaoC was gear based, it created the PvE for PvP gear crap we have today. It also created the zerg fest we have today as well along with the take the easy road mentality of taking an objective and then leaving it for the next without defending...just take take take for quick gain, gain made meaningless outside of the cheap carrot rewards they brought.
DaoC was the cause of todays problems because before DaoC, people PvPed for fun and the challenge. And no, I dont expect you to get it because if you think DaoC had great PvP, you had no real PvP experience before it. Freaking themepark PvP...gawd damn.
Played Asheron's Call from release in Nov 1999 till DAoC released in 2002 (and on and off over the years) but In my opinion DAoC style PvP is a helluva lot more fun, rewarding and feasible then the open world gankfests that games prior to DAoC featured. Theres a reason why games which featured Open World PvP have consistently failed (barring EVE) and thsoe that featured consentual PvP continue to dominate.
AC had 9 PvE white server and only 1 red PvP server.
UO didnt grow population until Trammel came along.
DAoC flirted with full open world PvP servers and 1 of those servers shut down within a year and the other was a ghosttown 6 months after it opened.
WoW's PvE servers always outhumbered PvP servers by a 2-1 margin.
I could go on and on but alas I won't because you probably still don't understand.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Played Asheron's Call from release in Nov 1999 till DAoC released in 2002 (and on and off over the years) but In my opinion DAoC style PvP is a helluva lot more fun, rewarding and feasible then the open world gankfests that games prior to DAoC featured. Theres a reason why games which featured Open World PvP have consistently failed (barring EVE) and thsoe that featured consentual PvP continue to dominate.
AC had 9 PvE white server and only 1 red PvP server.
UO didnt grow population until Trammel came along.
DAoC flirted with full open world PvP servers and 1 of those servers shut down within a year and the other was a ghosttown 6 months after it opened.
WoW's PvE servers always outhumbered PvP servers by a 2-1 margin.
I could go on and on but alas I won't because you probably still don't understand.
Congrats, you had to fall onto a red herring to defend DaoC, proof you have no ground to stand on.
Sorry, but if you feel you must act like the only PvP options are FFA open world and hand holding themepark carebear PvP, its just more proof why the genre is what it is...games today are made for YOU...yet even YOU are complaining about it.
AC had 9 PvE servers that you could flag on and partake in when YOU wanted to PvP and not one single battle in that crapfest that was DaoC could match the skill level of PvP in AC1. Guess thats why Hybernia protested in MASS for the imbalance and being ignored.
UO may not have grown until Trammel came along but it still had MORE PLAYERS THAN DAOC EVEN BEFORE TRAMMEL!
WoW, WoW is DaoC on roids, crap PvP carrot on a stick designed for people that need something shiney to do something...which, BTW...even had PvP going on the PvE servers.
You could go on, but you still havent said a thing to defend the crapfest that was DaoC, a game that wasnt even the fourth most popular MMO of its time...EQ1, UO, SWG...and Lineage all had more players...and how many games after DaoC chose to go the "lets place 3 factions at war in closed off areas and have them fight over neverland" route? Oh yeah...all around crap.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
1 - WoW. That game was the 1st big hit in the 21st century, mmorpgwise. Since then, basically all the big companies have tried to make something similar. so if you try to copy....(excuse me for the WoW fans) crap, most likely crap is what you'll end up with offering
2- DAoC was ahead of its time PvPwise, i'm pretty sure that if DAoC came out basically at same time as WoW, it would have had bigger success than it did ( not saying it woulda have sold more than WoW, but woulda been more popular) (and lets keep NF out of the subject, witch was a reason that it started going wrong)
3 - There's more PvEers out there than there's PvPers. so companies tend to aim for the mass. DAoC was a Niche game in a way, so will be CU, but the people that will give more love to PvP oriented games will be more truthful to their favorite game for a long long time, its simply not the same type of players.
4 - games have been following the same kind of "pattern" as the movie industry. lots of special effect, visually awesome, but lots of them lack a good story. For this part, i think we're slowly getting out of that pattern. Seeing the hype on games like CU, Shourds of the avatar (basically the next new UO) and ESO, and some other games made by smaller studios as well, my hopes are finally getting up again.
5 - its a generation thing, and this generation of teenagers is mostly (NOT ALL OF THEM, really no discrimination here) a generation that wants everything fast, with as less "work for it" as possible. once again, WoW got that, with basically a trail of crumbs that guide from the "YOU ARE HERE" to the "TREASURE IS HERE"
And finally
6 - Big studios. They aim for the money, pure and simple, so, they offer lots of "bling bling", nice visual effects, makes their game quite easy for the mass that wants easy games, leaving the more ..."serious" or "mature" players behind.
And luckily for us, some people like MJ are "serious" gamers too, so they ll do their very damn best to make a game for those of us seeking somethnig more than icing on a cake.
+1
I was going to reply with just, "World of Warcraft" but you actually typed out a reason too.
My name is Plastic-Metal and my name is an oxymoron.
The largest problem with PvP is the player. We just don't agree on what makes it good. Some people swear by EVE and its PvP. Others still herald DaoC as the best. People yet still swear that UO was the best. The numbers outright show that WoW is the most popular PvP created in MMO space. I think that, in WoW's special case, that has more to do with the variety of player and PvP styles it caters to. Thats the big thing, we all disagree on what PvP is most fun. Even in a genre dedicated to it, FPS, we cannot agree. I hate most objective matches, but love TDM and Hardcore. But, obviously, there are enough people who do like things like Kill Confirmed because its still present.
For MMO gaming, I like my PvP mostly slower paced. I like for what I'm doing to matter more than my reaction speed. I also like interactions on my terms more than I like PvP "battlegrounds" any day. Random awesome PvP moment is always more fun to me, especially if it held meaning. Like a guy that killed my while I was harvesting ore, and I come back to take revenge. It also makes those moments where you save an enemy matter more too. Its something I wish more MMO's would embrace. Yes i can kill the other faction, but let me heal em too. Let me forge those bonds in the field, or break them. It makes the PvP a choice, and choice always feel better.
I think alot of the problem is people use PvP as a catch all term when it can mean very different things.
To me, 'pure' PvP you can kill anyone, anywhere (mostly). IMO, not very fun. It becomes gank fests where you have to join a large guild to survive or be crushed by everyone. You are forced to sometimes team or submit, not to win; but to survive. The kiddies who play the most and can act out how ever they want with no real concequences try to ruin the experience for everybody else for their personal pleasure.
DAOC introduced RvR...call it PvP lite or what ever. It was forced TEAM based PvP with limitations. IMO, this was the most fun because it forced you to work together in a community (ie what we have been missing!) withen a set of boundries/rules to win. It is a team based sport. Winning as part of a team is much more fulfilling. Knowing you had to get so many different people from different places all faced the same direction and moving together built that community people want...and winning cemented it together.
WOW pvp (and many games since) all feature variations on PvP-lite, but NOT the team based RvR. While I often enjoyed the open world pvp in WoW, the battlegrounds, arena's and other such events quickly sucked the fun right out of the game. It became all about the grind for the next level of gear...because gear > all.
For DAOC, ToA messed up the gear progression. Pre-toa the best gear was crafted 100% masterwork, though generally most people ran 99% due to the time/cost of 100. You MIGHT have a few drop pieces (jewerly) but all your armor and weapons generally where crafted. Maybe a drop from dragon or raid etc. ToA added a whole new level of gear that you had to participate in or you lost. But even after completing ToA (I was full suit, ML10) half of my armor and weapons where crafted, not dropped.
For CU, their needs to be a hard gear cap. That is obtainable, with effort but not stupid amounts. Crafted gear would be the best. Then, as a newly minted character with a good base set of gear you are competative. Sure, you don't have all the neat tricks, toys and abilitites that an experienced character does, but your not instant dead due to them having twice your hitpoints and half the cast time on spells, all due to gear progression. A group of newly minted characters in good crafted gear should be a force to be reconed with, not a speed bump.
And their need to be concequences for LOSING in PvP (RvR). A wait, a long run back, losing a keep or relic. Something. In WoW etc, people stopped caring about trying because their was no concequence for failure.
The largest problem with PvP is the player. We just don't agree on what makes it good.
That's as much a 'problem' as people liking different ice cream flavors. The problem isn't in having different tastes, but in the arrogant stance that styles other than the one they prefer are wrong, bad, or fail, rather than accepting something isn't made for them and moving on to something that is.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The largest problem with PvP is the player. We just don't agree on what makes it good.
Replace "PvP" in that statement with "MMOs", and you have the beginnings of a justification for this website.
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.
It's not about appealing to FPS players. I was pretty much exclusively an FPS player before DAOC and DAOC's RvR sucked me in and I for the most part haven't played FPS games since 2001.
If anything, it's the reverse problem. Companies try too hard to make their PvP/RvR systems appeal to players who don't really enjoy fighting (and especially losing to) other players. That's how you get games like WAR or GW 2 and probably TESO where the focus is on fighting keep gates and there's minimal or no progression or the only progression is gear.
Taking empty keeps and earning shiny armor is what makes PvP appeal to non-PvPers but as we've all seen it also makes PvP suck.
This is turning into a 'My Dad is better than your Dad' sort of thread, except substitute Dad for MMO.
But anyways, here's my quick take on things: The diehard DAoC fanboys loved the structure of DAoC. They think its the best. But of course they think its the best because they were playing it. If they didn't think its the best, they wouldn't be playing it.
Likewise, a person playing WoW arena and getting rank 1 season after season will say that WoW arena is the best. Additionally, an EVE player that has been a part of hundreds of battles with other Corps will say that EVE's pvp is the best.
So simply saying your game is the best isn't really going to verify that claim. I think there should be other factors to look at, like how popular the game was, how long did it maintain its subs, how happy were the players with the devs, ect.
Just realized - its like an argument between sports fans:
One guy says hockey is the best sport. Another guy says basketball is the best sport (but only college basketball!) and other guy says soccer (football) is the best sport.
Nobody really loses anymore, almost impossible to make misakes, don't really have to think much about character building if at all, everything is instant gratifcation, you can do most things without ever talking to other players, theres rarely any place for new players because "pvp" just grinding stronger gear . . .
What I have been sorely missing is a kind of slower paced, strategic RvR / PvP which requires the co-odination of a whole realm and not just a zergfest or fastest twitch finger style of play.
What made vanila DaoC great was the need to co-ordinate your attacks, organise relic runs etc. I also was quite fond of WAR before they removed the forward Fortress capture..and btw. anybody remember the 8 hour Alterac Valley battles in WoW before it became a contest of "which zerg runs fastest to the opposite side of the map and kills the General"
Bottom line, I'm missing meaningful open world RvR, where your actions have consequesnces that last longer then 5 minutes, where you need to work as a realm to deploy your forces properly, etc. There is nothing wrong imho with having to battle several days/weeks in order to get to an objective (see enemy capital capture in WAR before they removed Fortress).
A prime example for meaningless RvR is the past-fortress WAR, it was simply ridiculous, realms could take turns a few times a day to capture the enemy capital, you were portalling all over the maps in an instant to just flip objectives. This was utter boring crap at this stage.
I might be in the minority here, but what I'm looking for is Open world RvR that requires planning, server wide co-operation, a bit of patience and at the same time skill for the players on the ground to capture and hold their objectives. If this is rewarded with better gear / skills and fluff for those who make the effort to become good at this...more power to their ellbow !
The largest problem with PvP is the player. We just don't agree on what makes it good. Some people swear by EVE and its PvP. Others still herald DaoC as the best. People yet still swear that UO was the best. The numbers outright show that WoW is the most popular PvP created in MMO space. I think that, in WoW's special case, that has more to do with the variety of player and PvP styles it caters to. Thats the big thing, we all disagree on what PvP is most fun. Even in a genre dedicated to it, FPS, we cannot agree. I hate most objective matches, but love TDM and Hardcore. But, obviously, there are enough people who do like things like Kill Confirmed because its still present.
For MMO gaming, I like my PvP mostly slower paced. I like for what I'm doing to matter more than my reaction speed. I also like interactions on my terms more than I like PvP "battlegrounds" any day. Random awesome PvP moment is always more fun to me, especially if it held meaning. Like a guy that killed my while I was harvesting ore, and I come back to take revenge. It also makes those moments where you save an enemy matter more too. Its something I wish more MMO's would embrace. Yes i can kill the other faction, but let me heal em too. Let me forge those bonds in the field, or break them. It makes the PvP a choice, and choice always feel better.
+1
I love the 2nd paragraph where you talk about the slower pace. To me if its too fast paced it becomes a kind of mix between rpg and fps, wich is not my favorite. and thats one of the factor that made me love DAoC, thats the main reason (after you made me think about it) that i prefer DAoC CC style than WAR style, it's more suited for an mmorpg, plain and simple.
Give me time to appreciate whats going on, give me the closest possible to the feels of old tabletop RPGs, and I'll die happy in the game.
Bowbow (kob hunter) Infecto (kob cave shammy) and Thurka (troll warrior) on Merlin/Midgard DAoC Thurka on WAR
PVP stopped having consequences worth a damn. That's why I swear by EVE 's and UO's take on PVP and to the poster who said he likes PVP being slower paced that's what EVE PVP ease though you have to keep your cool under fire quite allot.
Age of Wushu's system sounds to be like a decent way to do PVP for the average or casual MMOer, not too heavy on consequences but if you grief people like a WoW-type grieftard you will get punished for it (I am still laughing my ass off at the guy who complained in a thread on here that he got put in jail for 72 in-game hours for griefing 30 people).
UO PvP was crap? You must've not been proficient at it. It required an understanding of swing and casting delays to be good at it. However, once you got the hang of it, it was quite fun. I had good times as a PK in that game.
Well, I was pretty good but admittedly, not great. If you have to be better than I was to have enjoyed PVP in UO, then that explains a lot about its fortunes.
I actually agree with just about everything said in this thread, though I disagree that it was DAOC that ruined PVP in MMO games. I think it was EQ that ruined PVP in MMO games.
If you recall, the "pvp switch" was supposed to fail. It was supposed to be "hackable" and it was also supposed to be completely undesireable by MMO gamers. The tremendous success of a "carebear" PVE game at attracting new players to the MMO genre probably is what ruined PvP for MMO games.
The good thing about CU is that there will be no PVE (or at least PVE will be a meaningless side show). So, they'll really be able to focus on getting PVP right.
EDIT: And they don't have to worry about catering to or attracting "Carebear"/PVE gamers, which is good for PVP gamers.
I think for open world pvp where it went wrong was giving huge bonuses for taking keeps and no negatives for losing keeps.
The focus in a pvp game should be killing people, so the most amount of "points" should be acquired by killing people. This forces zergs to find zergs and stop them by killing and thus getting more points, usually happens at choke points or keeps.
Also need to ensure taking keeps from another realm hurts them to a degree, they need to WANT to defend that keep.
Comments
Played Asheron's Call from release in Nov 1999 till DAoC released in 2002 (and on and off over the years) but In my opinion DAoC style PvP is a helluva lot more fun, rewarding and feasible then the open world gankfests that games prior to DAoC featured. Theres a reason why games which featured Open World PvP have consistently failed (barring EVE) and thsoe that featured consentual PvP continue to dominate.
AC had 9 PvE white server and only 1 red PvP server.
UO didnt grow population until Trammel came along.
DAoC flirted with full open world PvP servers and 1 of those servers shut down within a year and the other was a ghosttown 6 months after it opened.
WoW's PvE servers always outhumbered PvP servers by a 2-1 margin.
I could go on and on but alas I won't because you probably still don't understand.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Congrats, you had to fall onto a red herring to defend DaoC, proof you have no ground to stand on.
Sorry, but if you feel you must act like the only PvP options are FFA open world and hand holding themepark carebear PvP, its just more proof why the genre is what it is...games today are made for YOU...yet even YOU are complaining about it.
AC had 9 PvE servers that you could flag on and partake in when YOU wanted to PvP and not one single battle in that crapfest that was DaoC could match the skill level of PvP in AC1. Guess thats why Hybernia protested in MASS for the imbalance and being ignored.
UO may not have grown until Trammel came along but it still had MORE PLAYERS THAN DAOC EVEN BEFORE TRAMMEL!
WoW, WoW is DaoC on roids, crap PvP carrot on a stick designed for people that need something shiney to do something...which, BTW...even had PvP going on the PvE servers.
You could go on, but you still havent said a thing to defend the crapfest that was DaoC, a game that wasnt even the fourth most popular MMO of its time...EQ1, UO, SWG...and Lineage all had more players...and how many games after DaoC chose to go the "lets place 3 factions at war in closed off areas and have them fight over neverland" route? Oh yeah...all around crap.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
+1
I was going to reply with just, "World of Warcraft" but you actually typed out a reason too.
The largest problem with PvP is the player. We just don't agree on what makes it good. Some people swear by EVE and its PvP. Others still herald DaoC as the best. People yet still swear that UO was the best. The numbers outright show that WoW is the most popular PvP created in MMO space. I think that, in WoW's special case, that has more to do with the variety of player and PvP styles it caters to. Thats the big thing, we all disagree on what PvP is most fun. Even in a genre dedicated to it, FPS, we cannot agree. I hate most objective matches, but love TDM and Hardcore. But, obviously, there are enough people who do like things like Kill Confirmed because its still present.
For MMO gaming, I like my PvP mostly slower paced. I like for what I'm doing to matter more than my reaction speed. I also like interactions on my terms more than I like PvP "battlegrounds" any day. Random awesome PvP moment is always more fun to me, especially if it held meaning. Like a guy that killed my while I was harvesting ore, and I come back to take revenge. It also makes those moments where you save an enemy matter more too. Its something I wish more MMO's would embrace. Yes i can kill the other faction, but let me heal em too. Let me forge those bonds in the field, or break them. It makes the PvP a choice, and choice always feel better.
I think alot of the problem is people use PvP as a catch all term when it can mean very different things.
To me, 'pure' PvP you can kill anyone, anywhere (mostly). IMO, not very fun. It becomes gank fests where you have to join a large guild to survive or be crushed by everyone. You are forced to sometimes team or submit, not to win; but to survive. The kiddies who play the most and can act out how ever they want with no real concequences try to ruin the experience for everybody else for their personal pleasure.
DAOC introduced RvR...call it PvP lite or what ever. It was forced TEAM based PvP with limitations. IMO, this was the most fun because it forced you to work together in a community (ie what we have been missing!) withen a set of boundries/rules to win. It is a team based sport. Winning as part of a team is much more fulfilling. Knowing you had to get so many different people from different places all faced the same direction and moving together built that community people want...and winning cemented it together.
WOW pvp (and many games since) all feature variations on PvP-lite, but NOT the team based RvR. While I often enjoyed the open world pvp in WoW, the battlegrounds, arena's and other such events quickly sucked the fun right out of the game. It became all about the grind for the next level of gear...because gear > all.
For DAOC, ToA messed up the gear progression. Pre-toa the best gear was crafted 100% masterwork, though generally most people ran 99% due to the time/cost of 100. You MIGHT have a few drop pieces (jewerly) but all your armor and weapons generally where crafted. Maybe a drop from dragon or raid etc. ToA added a whole new level of gear that you had to participate in or you lost. But even after completing ToA (I was full suit, ML10) half of my armor and weapons where crafted, not dropped.
For CU, their needs to be a hard gear cap. That is obtainable, with effort but not stupid amounts. Crafted gear would be the best. Then, as a newly minted character with a good base set of gear you are competative. Sure, you don't have all the neat tricks, toys and abilitites that an experienced character does, but your not instant dead due to them having twice your hitpoints and half the cast time on spells, all due to gear progression. A group of newly minted characters in good crafted gear should be a force to be reconed with, not a speed bump.
And their need to be concequences for LOSING in PvP (RvR). A wait, a long run back, losing a keep or relic. Something. In WoW etc, people stopped caring about trying because their was no concequence for failure.
That's as much a 'problem' as people liking different ice cream flavors. The problem isn't in having different tastes, but in the arrogant stance that styles other than the one they prefer are wrong, bad, or fail, rather than accepting something isn't made for them and moving on to something that is.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Replace "PvP" in that statement with "MMOs", and you have the beginnings of a justification for this website.
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.
It's not about appealing to FPS players. I was pretty much exclusively an FPS player before DAOC and DAOC's RvR sucked me in and I for the most part haven't played FPS games since 2001.
If anything, it's the reverse problem. Companies try too hard to make their PvP/RvR systems appeal to players who don't really enjoy fighting (and especially losing to) other players. That's how you get games like WAR or GW 2 and probably TESO where the focus is on fighting keep gates and there's minimal or no progression or the only progression is gear.
Taking empty keeps and earning shiny armor is what makes PvP appeal to non-PvPers but as we've all seen it also makes PvP suck.
DAOC Live (inactive): R11 Cleric R11 Druid R11 Minstrel R9 Eldritch R6 Sorc R6 Scout R6 Healer
This is turning into a 'My Dad is better than your Dad' sort of thread, except substitute Dad for MMO.
But anyways, here's my quick take on things: The diehard DAoC fanboys loved the structure of DAoC. They think its the best. But of course they think its the best because they were playing it. If they didn't think its the best, they wouldn't be playing it.
Likewise, a person playing WoW arena and getting rank 1 season after season will say that WoW arena is the best. Additionally, an EVE player that has been a part of hundreds of battles with other Corps will say that EVE's pvp is the best.
So simply saying your game is the best isn't really going to verify that claim. I think there should be other factors to look at, like how popular the game was, how long did it maintain its subs, how happy were the players with the devs, ect.
Just realized - its like an argument between sports fans:
One guy says hockey is the best sport. Another guy says basketball is the best sport (but only college basketball!) and other guy says soccer (football) is the best sport.
Nobody really loses anymore, almost impossible to make misakes, don't really have to think much about character building if at all, everything is instant gratifcation, you can do most things without ever talking to other players, theres rarely any place for new players because "pvp" just grinding stronger gear . . .
I'm just gonna stop I could keep going all day.
What I have been sorely missing is a kind of slower paced, strategic RvR / PvP which requires the co-odination of a whole realm and not just a zergfest or fastest twitch finger style of play.
What made vanila DaoC great was the need to co-ordinate your attacks, organise relic runs etc. I also was quite fond of WAR before they removed the forward Fortress capture..and btw. anybody remember the 8 hour Alterac Valley battles in WoW before it became a contest of "which zerg runs fastest to the opposite side of the map and kills the General"
Bottom line, I'm missing meaningful open world RvR, where your actions have consequesnces that last longer then 5 minutes, where you need to work as a realm to deploy your forces properly, etc. There is nothing wrong imho with having to battle several days/weeks in order to get to an objective (see enemy capital capture in WAR before they removed Fortress).
A prime example for meaningless RvR is the past-fortress WAR, it was simply ridiculous, realms could take turns a few times a day to capture the enemy capital, you were portalling all over the maps in an instant to just flip objectives. This was utter boring crap at this stage.
I might be in the minority here, but what I'm looking for is Open world RvR that requires planning, server wide co-operation, a bit of patience and at the same time skill for the players on the ground to capture and hold their objectives. If this is rewarded with better gear / skills and fluff for those who make the effort to become good at this...more power to their ellbow !
+1
I love the 2nd paragraph where you talk about the slower pace. To me if its too fast paced it becomes a kind of mix between rpg and fps, wich is not my favorite. and thats one of the factor that made me love DAoC, thats the main reason (after you made me think about it) that i prefer DAoC CC style than WAR style, it's more suited for an mmorpg, plain and simple.
Give me time to appreciate whats going on, give me the closest possible to the feels of old tabletop RPGs, and I'll die happy in the game.
Bowbow (kob hunter) Infecto (kob cave shammy) and Thurka (troll warrior) on Merlin/Midgard DAoC
Thurka on WAR
PVP stopped having consequences worth a damn. That's why I swear by EVE 's and UO's take on PVP and to the poster who said he likes PVP being slower paced that's what EVE PVP ease though you have to keep your cool under fire quite allot.
Age of Wushu's system sounds to be like a decent way to do PVP for the average or casual MMOer, not too heavy on consequences but if you grief people like a WoW-type grieftard you will get punished for it (I am still laughing my ass off at the guy who complained in a thread on here that he got put in jail for 72 in-game hours for griefing 30 people).
Well, I was pretty good but admittedly, not great. If you have to be better than I was to have enjoyed PVP in UO, then that explains a lot about its fortunes.
I actually agree with just about everything said in this thread, though I disagree that it was DAOC that ruined PVP in MMO games. I think it was EQ that ruined PVP in MMO games.
If you recall, the "pvp switch" was supposed to fail. It was supposed to be "hackable" and it was also supposed to be completely undesireable by MMO gamers. The tremendous success of a "carebear" PVE game at attracting new players to the MMO genre probably is what ruined PvP for MMO games.
The good thing about CU is that there will be no PVE (or at least PVE will be a meaningless side show). So, they'll really be able to focus on getting PVP right.
EDIT: And they don't have to worry about catering to or attracting "Carebear"/PVE gamers, which is good for PVP gamers.
I think for open world pvp where it went wrong was giving huge bonuses for taking keeps and no negatives for losing keeps.
The focus in a pvp game should be killing people, so the most amount of "points" should be acquired by killing people. This forces zergs to find zergs and stop them by killing and thus getting more points, usually happens at choke points or keeps.
Also need to ensure taking keeps from another realm hurts them to a degree, they need to WANT to defend that keep.
That is all.
Ozek - DAOC
Niix - Other games that sucked
1) Many games have been a good vs evil mirror match (boring, often one-sided)
2) PvP in many games is a zerg-based personal gear grind rather than a strategic campaign of conquest