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Grail #2 - Destructibility - and PVP
Bidwood
Member Posts: 554
I got back from vacation and finally got around to watching the full SOE Live reveal for EQN. Well, in the process of watching... but had to stop and comment on this.
Note - the grail is "destructibility" not "voxel engine". According to Georgeson, it's about being able to destroy anything, anywhere, any time.
The first example he gave was a PVP scenario with catapults blowing player castles apart.
From an interview with Terry Michaels, Senior Producer:
"Biggest question I've heard so far: What's the deal for PvP?"
"So, we haven't announced anything about PvP. We are going to have PvP. It will absolutely be in our game. We aren't talking about the details yet. We will be announcing that in the near future."
"Er. No chance you could at least tell me if there'd be open world PvP?"
"Uh." A furtive pause "I can say that there'll be all kinds of PvP?"
So why aren't they ready to say anything? I see two possibilities...
1.) They haven't figured it out yet. Highly unlikely. You don't plan for one of the 4 holy grails of your game being "destruction" for more than a year without thinking about the implications. PVP comes hand-in-hand with being able to destroy "anything, anywhere, any time". And whether you want PVP in your game or not, you need to think through the implications of how players will mess with each other in a voxel-based sandbox.
2.) The PVP reveal will rock many players to the core. Highly likely. SOE wanted to generate some hype about the 4 grails first as lots of people just shut down when they hear the term "open-world PVP" and refuse to reconsider. SOE Live was not the venue to announce this, as a lot of the legacy players have been burned bad by griefing in the past and don't want to ever be subjected to it again. BUT someone who is really looking forward to the full package could be enticed to try something new. After all, it's free. I can't speak for everyone here, obviously, but some of you have said you would try it and there will definitely be systems in place to limit griefing.
So yeah. Still predicting open-world PVP. I bet much of Norrath will come with lots of security, like hi sec in EVE. With the other continents being completely free for anyone to build on and govern how they see fit.
Does anyone else have newer information/dev quotes to discuss?
Comments
At 6:40 Georgeson talks about it a bit. He can't comment much but suggests we look at the reveal presentation and think about how all the systems he described could be applied. He says two of the leads on the team have been designing a ton of interesting ideas... and he seemed extremely excited talking about this - moreso than at any point in the reveal.
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/everquest-next-interview-dave-georgeson/
Been thinking about this too.
My take from the information released so far is there might well be area's were there is open PvP but I see it happening more on the frontiers.
So the game starts in a tent village that is the founding of Qeynos. The area that has been 'settled' is effectively safe for everyone. And as people earn plots of land, build up the city and expand the borders that safety expands. They mentioned that people can change access to their own plots of land from completely open to destruction to everyone down to none at all.
But go out further out I think safety will become less and less certain. It will be the shady area's of unexplored land where potentially there 'could' be open PvP.
Still not sure though as a lot of people, as shown but the number of posts if the EQN threads so far, are just not capable of being able to let go of their pre-conceived idea's to allow the game to be what it is trying to be. listening to the lore sections and tying in all the discussions so far, including the Storybricks involvement and the 'life of consequence' I had a really funny feeling they they may have actually nailed it. Certainly when they speak they are confident and while it may just be talk, they are basically putting the company, entire franchise and their livelihood's on the line.
In my head I can see the game they want to make. Hell it has been rattling around in my head for over 10 years and I have been writing game design documents and idea's for these very idea's and I am excited as hell, I mean REALLY excited at what the future will hold.
likeliest of scenarios:
Server Type
PVE
PVE RP
PVP
PVP RP
PVP - Faction/allignment
They talked about spinning up something like 200 Landmark servers. I don't think spinning up another server with a different PvP rule set is going to be a big deal. I don't think there's any reason they wouldn't have all those rule sets, and possibly more. I mean, why not? It's not going to substantially increase their costs, so as long as there are enough players for each of the server types, spin up another one.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If they can afford to design and implement all of their ideas for PVP for just a couple of servers, sure. But if it's an important part of grail # 2 - destructibility - then I don't see how you take it out without damaging the game they think will keep players coming back for more.
But as you've seen... SOE doesn't need them to let go of their pre-conceived ideas. They've pissed off a lot of people with the gameplay, UI, art style, lack of trinity/levels, etc... Which shows they have a vision that they believe will be profitable and they're going to stick to it.
From the Class panel Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVqv78MfJus
18:20
"I'd like to ask, the classes and abilities, will they work the same way in a pvp environment as a pve environment?"
"What a great question. So we are, we're not releasing a lot of information about how pvp stuff will work and this falls into the realm of that. We'd love for there to be a clear relationship between the abilities you use in the overworld and the abilities you use in pvp, and we think that potentialy all the destruction and things make pvp a different lanscape than any one of us has seen, but we'll have more information about that in the future. That's a great question."
Sounds like instanced pvp to me.
Wouldn't expect it any other way. The game is F2P and no one wants to see their work destroyed at the whim of another just for giggles. Instanced PvP is the only way to go if they want to keep the bulk of their consumers.
People who think that they will be able to destroy other's creations is both wishful thinking and dellusional.
They talked about spinning up something like 200 Landmark servers. I don't think spinning up another server with a different PvP rule set is going to be a big deal. I don't think there's any reason they wouldn't have all those rule sets, and possibly more. I mean, why not? It's not going to substantially increase their costs, so as long as there are enough players for each of the server types, spin up another one.
If they can afford to design and implement all of their ideas for PVP for just a couple of servers, sure. But if it's an important part of grail # 2 - destructibility - then I don't see how you take it out without damaging the game they think will keep players coming back for more.
Destructibility doesn't refer to PvP in particular, it just refers to the destructibility of the environment in general. Removing PvP doesn't affect destructibility.
It is certainly something to consider, but in the open world things getting destroyed will be no more or less than things getting destroyed in PvE. Some things will not be destructible, and the world will heal everything else and that will be that. Unless they add things like player keeps or open world housing that can be destroyed through PvP, then PvP and destructibility will be two separate mechanics.
There's no reason they couldn't have PvP zones, where building and destroying are centered around PvP. In that case the addition of world PvP wouldn't change a whole lot. There would just be servers with OW PvP, but the meaningful PvP would still happen in the contention zones.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I recall someone else saying something very similar to this for the last few month. Oh wait, that was me.
Player made structures can only be destroyed by NPCs. They said that already. So PvP destroying your property is a moot point.
Also, the Landmark servers are not a player interaction server like the normal servers are. It is like a giant minecraft where you go around digging up resources and remaking your world and making houses and castles and catacombs as you see fit. It is not a world filled with monsters where you can gain skill points and Tier up... and it definitely will not be a place for PvP.
I see PvP working in the live servers the way they have it in other EQ games: You request a battle, and if the person accepts, you battle each other. Or you declare war on another guild, and members of those 2 guilds become KoS to each other, there could be colleseum locations where everyone who goes into the area is flagged for battle and finally, they could have entire servers with PvP rulesets while others only have the PvP I have mentioned before.
If you believe this game is just a big PvP centric hall where you could go about and gank to your heart's content, I believe you are going to be terribly disappointed. EQ has never been about that, and I doubt it will change any time soon.
PvP, is not one of their "holy grails", so don't expect them to put as much into it as some might want. If you want to PvP only, stay in your current games. If you want a different style of gameplay, please, feel free to join.
the problem with that is, in general, you just can't turn the pvp off in a sandbox, or just turn it on for that matter. Usually sand box pvp systems are deeply embedded to the core of the game.
Congratulations.
But it has nothing to do with what is being discussed.
The question is will PvP be OW PvP or not and the fact that PvP can include destructibility doesn't mean it is OW PvP.
If the actual design was FFA PvP only on 1 continent that could still include destruction but it wouldn't be OW.
So congratulations for speculating on a possible thing that might happen but it isn't like it actually confirms anything.
Why can't you? Is it impossible to code 100% no PvP in an area, against certain classes or faction affiliations? You can have a deeply embedded PvP system encoded into the game but that doesn't stop you having additional rules that supersede the ability to PvP anywhere with other rules.
the problem with that is, in general, you just can't turn the pvp off in a sandbox, or just turn it on for that matter. Usually sand box pvp systems are deeply embedded to the core of the game.
Why not? A Tale In The Desert operates without any combat PvP, so does Istaria apparently. Ditto for Ryzom. PvP combat is not a necessary component for a sandbox to exist. Not even an MMORPG sandbox. It can be turned on or off as the developer wishes. It just depends on how they design the game from the beginning. You wouldn't turn PvP off in Darkfall or Eve because they were designed they way they were from the beginning. In SWG having PvP flags worked just fine because they designed it in from the beginning. SOE hasn't said what they are starting with, but right now, it's a blank slate.
There are lots of options for SOE. They could have meaningful PvP only in certain zones while in the rest of the world it depends on the server's rule set. They could stick to the standard PvP rule sets and people would pick the rule set they like with no PvP zones. There's no requirement that PvP be the core game mechanic, so there's no reason that SOE needs to attach themselves to that idea.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Not what I'm saying. I'm saying you can't just flip a switch and turn a sandbox pvp rule set off. You can't just flip a switch and say go for it either. Having pve, and pvp servers would take a lot of resources.
So for the folks who don't believe we'll have open-world PVP:
Do you think the PVP reveal, whatever it is, will be less different/shocking than things like horizontal progression, lack of the trinity, action combat with limited UI, etc?
We will be able to destroy player items on pvp servers. It's almost a certainity.
I'm going to say that PvP will be like EvE, and what you can't destroy is personal housing. What I think we will be able to destroy are guild assets and player made cities out away from NPC areas.
I think that PvP is going to play a large part in the game, and it won't be instanced. Again, I will accept defeat if upon the PvP reveal they state otherwise.
Just because a lot of things not seen before doesn't mean that because OW PvP is out there that it is likely.
From all the information available I expect PvP with limitations, what those limitations are though we still do not know. It might be hard coded restrictions such as mentioned in the presentation like permission rights to land also having an application for PvP or that their consequence system is REALLY on the ball. i.e. if you are a murderer the Storybricks AI knows to hound you and harrass you with guards and put you in jail and lock away the key for a very long time.
I have to say I lean to option 1 - based on this; they will have pvp, but weren't ready to say what it is, I think if they knew, it would be part of the reveal. But perhaps they are waiting to draw out the hype. So, supplementary to that is the 'we aren't worried about balance, we're worried about fun' - if they aren't balancing for pvp; then pvp seems to be an after thought. And I'll end with this; that's what pvp was in EQ and EQ2 - unbalanced after thought - so they have a history of doing this.
So that's my guess - this isn't going to be the ow fl pvp power house some want - I think pvp will be almost like a supplementary game or mini-game.
I hope I am wrong.
No it wouldn't be part of the reveal. They just wanted to announce the game and show the features that make EQN unique. They specifically avoided giving any real details about pvp or pve. They know exactly what they want to do. Over the next couple months the info will be released.