But something is turning off most MMO players from PvP games, besides Eve are games like that only small niche games besides games with separate PvP like GW 1 & 2.
My theory as I said before is the powergap, not really the ganking in itself, what is your take?
I am still certain it ain't because MMOers are a bunch of wusses, there must be something in the PvP games that makes them less fun (but that Eve at least got partly right).
That's your theory because that's how World of Warcraft added PVP to it's solo content leveling game. That's not a very good design.
I cut my PVP teeth in UO, which for it's flaws everyone started out pretty much the same and then you specialized by your actions. I learned then that such games weren't 'solo' activities.
It shouldn't be 'fun' to do anything by yourself in a game designed to be a social massive multiplayer experience. Back to the point tho' my favorite MMO experience was in Shadowbane. It wasn't a very pretty game, had its flaws, but anyone could attack anyone and even pissing off your guild had consequences.
Teamwork mattered, war mattered, choices you made had weight with them. I remember one guy caught a friend and I out rune hunting and killed us, there was a level difference between us but we went two to one with someone higher level and held our own.. But we ultimately lost and that was that. 3 months down the line the guy was on our side in a battle.. My buddy and I marked him, waited for the victory celebrations after a successful bane and then we ganked that guy (matched levels with him by then and grew as players) and took his stuff in front of everyone and had a nice little riot break out.
I mean ultimately there's just different types of players. On a pvp server in WoW if I was leveling say in Stranglethorn and a high level started camping I'd just log out and go do something else with someone else elsewhere and that was that. As casual a game WoW was I never understood why anyone submitted themselves to corpse camping.. I mean at the very least even the most diehard 'i lvl 1 character at a time' sort of player had a farm / market mule they could spend 15 minutes on and avoid the problem.
To your post specifically I don't think a game that has two people in the same world 90 levels apart being so grossly different from one another is a very good design. I'd rather see more Dungeons & Dragons style 'power levels' for avatars. Look a level 7 Wizard in D&D has an edge up on a level 3 Fighter we all know, but not that much. More or less each D&D character grows in utility and adventure ability as well as combat prowess.
If more MMOs would focus on the massive multiplayer aspects of the design we'd have something better for the pvpers and pvers alike. As it stands the whole of the MMO world has followed a pretty flawed design and could turn to table top designers for another look at how to plan multiplayer games.
I was actually thinking of Meridian 59 and Lineage, never played Wow.... And EQ about the corpsecamping.
But yes, I agree with you, the multiplayer aspect is far more important than soloing.
Still, if we are talking pen and paper games Shadowrun would be a way superior game compared to D&D, it have just the right powergap together with way more flexibility than any D&D version.
If you had read my initial post on page 3 you would have seen that I was exactly going for multiplayer, with guildowned dungeons and castles where the game is more focused on what you build together than what gear you wear.
I do think we agree on most things though, ut for a good PvP game the focus should be multiplayer PvP (even though lonely assassins and scouts sneaking behind enemy lines in wartime can be fun and useful). Skip PvE, skip soloplay and focus the crafting more on stuff like building a dungeon full of traps for your guild and similar things.
But something is turning off most MMO players from PvP games, besides Eve are games like that only small niche games besides games with separate PvP like GW 1 & 2.
My theory as I said before is the powergap, not really the ganking in itself, what is your take?
I am still certain it ain't because MMOers are a bunch of wusses, there must be something in the PvP games that makes them less fun (but that Eve at least got partly right).
Easy answer is that the majority of players want a PvE environment. I think all the data proves this. I think PvP is best suited to games like FPS's and MOBA's.
I know I loathe PvP in any form and even though I know I am in a small demography the majority only want consensual PvP but enjoy PvE more. Especially when leveling or progression. Hardly anyone wants the hassle of interrupting progression to deal with PvP when the much easier solution is to separate the 2 through alternate means. Such as Instanced PvP or RvR areas.
There is no proof at all for that, just that current PvP designs (besides Eve possibly) doesn't work.
The first FPs games like Doom were PvE focused as well, but Quake 2 first and Counterstrike proved how fun PvP was to the FPS players.
What people want is fun and good game design, and the PvP games have so far failed deliver that. A big reason is that almost all of them either tried to copy UO (like MO) which had it's point but was far from that good and EQ/Wow which were made for PvE.
MMOs need a game that does for us what Counter strike did to FPS games.
Looking on failed things and saying something is impossible is a mistake, if the Wright brothers would have done that we would have to take the zeppelin if we wanted to fly and so on. What you do need to do instead is to look on games where PvP actually is fun and popular and figure out a way to take that into a massive RPG game.
But something is turning off most MMO players from PvP games, besides Eve are games like that only small niche games besides games with separate PvP like GW 1 & 2.
My theory as I said before is the powergap, not really the ganking in itself, what is your take?
I am still certain it ain't because MMOers are a bunch of wusses, there must be something in the PvP games that makes them less fun (but that Eve at least got partly right).
That's your theory because that's how World of Warcraft added PVP to it's solo content leveling game. That's not a very good design.
I cut my PVP teeth in UO, which for it's flaws everyone started out pretty much the same and then you specialized by your actions. I learned then that such games weren't 'solo' activities.
It shouldn't be 'fun' to do anything by yourself in a game designed to be a social massive multiplayer experience. Back to the point tho' my favorite MMO experience was in Shadowbane. It wasn't a very pretty game, had its flaws, but anyone could attack anyone and even pissing off your guild had consequences.
Teamwork mattered, war mattered, choices you made had weight with them. I remember one guy caught a friend and I out rune hunting and killed us, there was a level difference between us but we went two to one with someone higher level and held our own.. But we ultimately lost and that was that. 3 months down the line the guy was on our side in a battle.. My buddy and I marked him, waited for the victory celebrations after a successful bane and then we ganked that guy (matched levels with him by then and grew as players) and took his stuff in front of everyone and had a nice little riot break out.
I mean ultimately there's just different types of players. On a pvp server in WoW if I was leveling say in Stranglethorn and a high level started camping I'd just log out and go do something else with someone else elsewhere and that was that. As casual a game WoW was I never understood why anyone submitted themselves to corpse camping.. I mean at the very least even the most diehard 'i lvl 1 character at a time' sort of player had a farm / market mule they could spend 15 minutes on and avoid the problem.
To your post specifically I don't think a game that has two people in the same world 90 levels apart being so grossly different from one another is a very good design. I'd rather see more Dungeons & Dragons style 'power levels' for avatars. Look a level 7 Wizard in D&D has an edge up on a level 3 Fighter we all know, but not that much. More or less each D&D character grows in utility and adventure ability as well as combat prowess.
If more MMOs would focus on the massive multiplayer aspects of the design we'd have something better for the pvpers and pvers alike. As it stands the whole of the MMO world has followed a pretty flawed design and could turn to table top designers for another look at how to plan multiplayer games.
I was actually thinking of Meridian 59 and Lineage, never played Wow.... And EQ about the corpsecamping.
But yes, I agree with you, the multiplayer aspect is far more important than soloing.
Still, if we are talking pen and paper games Shadowrun would be a way superior game compared to D&D, it have just the right powergap together with way more flexibility than any D&D version.
If you had read my initial post on page 3 you would have seen that I was exactly going for multiplayer, with guildowned dungeons and castles where the game is more focused on what you build together than what gear you wear.
I do think we agree on most things though, ut for a good PvP game the focus should be multiplayer PvP (even though lonely assassins and scouts sneaking behind enemy lines in wartime can be fun and useful). Skip PvE, skip soloplay and focus the crafting more on stuff like building a dungeon full of traps for your guild and similar things.
Shadowrun? Any d6 system has min maxers over power other players very easily. I got a physical adept that can tear down the dragons in the game on paper.
I would like to see a game where classes had as much utility as SRs.
Regardless I don't think separating it is key. We've tried that for awhile now and no one's happy. I think it's time for MMORPGs to live up to every letter of the acronym with some meaning. They should have evolved as FFA Sandboxes with excellent PVE & PVP systems, but really they're still young as a genre. You have to have every element working well to move pass the current stalemate.
I mean look at azz.. The game he wants gets released 2 to 4 times a year. AAA content laden PVE games come down the pipeline and fall off the same ledge over and over again and people ask why.. It's because we're not getting full games.
We're not even getting slices of a pie. We're getting flour over there, eggs over here. When really they should be mixed.
Separate has gave us a decade of very stale and terrible game design. I can make as strong argument that PVE only shines in single player offline games.
Making PVE only MMOs has ran its course and it's time for people to start recognizing each other in games as something more than raid ratings.
There's a lot territory for the medium to explore by offering a strong PVE game along side a strong PVP game in a sandbox environment. If you take away one from the other then you'll keep making the same games over and over and overs.
MOBAs lack something RPGers are looking for. Themeparks lack something that gamers are looking for.
Co-op games can actually be fun and so can PvE only MMOs. I agree that themepark MMOs have been less than perfect the last 12 or so years but that doesn't mean you can't make them fun at all. Look on Asherons Call or Evequest (who did have a little PvP but the focus was still PvE).
What I am saying is that mixing them both is 10 times as hard for a good game as focusing on either, and we all seen nerfs and other crap for one of them that makes the other feeling pointless, and classes or builds that only are good in one or the other.
I am not saying you can't mix them and with a huge budget, a great team and the perfect mechanics it could be awesome but few MMO devs have all that and in that case you could make a game that nails one of them or do a half @ssed worked on both.
And separating both things but still have them in is better than just slap a PvP server on a PvE game but it still ain't good.
So the theory goes that the wolves need sheep. The problem is unlike the distant past the sheep have grazing ground that don't include wolves. So the question is how can we attract the sheep to where the wolves like to hunt? At the moment you can't there are too many options for the sheep to opt out of the wolves hunting grounds.
Even if you make a game where the "carebears" have options they (we) always have the option of not having to deal with all the crap that comes with FFA. I doubt you can make it so attractive that the "carebears" will put up with the crap simply to provide you with the sheep you desire. Why the hell would the "carebears" play that game when there are so many alternatives that don't require you to put up with bullshit?
I recently left Darkfall and a few people started to say bye to me in the general chat when I left. The only thing that ran through my mind at that moment was - You need me, I don't need you so I closed the client immediately.
I helped their new ppl and answered questions over and over which were repetitive for nothing in return but trying to build a community. I put goods on the auction house for ppl to use at decent prices. I never moaned once to anyone who attacked me in the wild though it put me behind. I never whispered them and told them what a piece of shit they were to take something instead of earning it.
I still think that it's their loss when I left. I took one less person to gank out of their world. They offered me nothing in return to stay because I was trying to be in a community which didn't want one. Now I get to find another place to be involved in a community while they will only continue to drive people away from them and now even I'm not around to answer questions for them keeping more ppl around.
I don't really consider myself a carebear though. I'll PVP like a maniac but I can't stand unfair fights and I'm not into jumping people at a weak moment like when they are fighting mobs. I don't feel like I need that advantage because I know how to play these games. Many people in that game need that advantage to play and feeding the ego of the "bad" isn't a prize.
That game was the third time I gave a free for all PVP game a chance. I think that what pisses me off most about them is that they are a microcosm of reality. Like Diogenes I'm seeking that honest man. When the rules are removed and you are allowed to act as your character dictates, I don't like that so many humans only seek to ruin another for personal gain. It's not the loss of pixels that piss me off, it's knowing that without x and laws people are freaking animals and though they won't admit that they need a guiding hand to smack theirs when they treat other humans wrong because they lack self control when they can rise while pushing another fellow human in the mud, they exhibit this behavior repeatedly each place I encounter the scenario. I don't like that the majority of humans NEED eternal or mortal punishment to act right. You see, doing the right thing when no one sees it is big for me. In my younger days I imagined anarchy and I expected the cream to rise to lead a nation of people who didn't need someone to tell them right from wrong. I see now that it was a true pipe dream. The majority of people are so enraptured by selfies and personal gain that they can't get beyond the thought that someone earned something they can't have because they won't work hard enough. It's all a mirror on society to be in those environments and experience human depravity. How are we ever going to populate new planets - visit first to build prisons before the populations come? This human condition is really stifling our progress. I don't like it - I don't like it all.
I think for the sake of this truly heartfelt post in thread that was started by a fan of mmo's that somehow have spun out of control with kill ip madness. I applaud the choice of Tracy Chapman's masterful music to bolster an important issue in today's mmo genre. Thank you Torgrim and a standing O from me to greenreen!
I have yet to see a truly large-scale successful pvp-centric mmo. Now, I'm sure one will come. That will be an experience where justice has an inkling of chance to control what, now, is nothing but a gankfest. I've played Lineage 2. That is emotion personified and stress infinitely felt day by day. I even returned to reintroduce myself to one of the most hauntingly beautiful mmo soundtracks in existence. It is arguably still one of the best open world pvp mmo's to have survived 10+ years. My heart was stolen many times there. Yes, and I suppose the madness took me for a time because I found myself hunting down those "animals" that just gave up on their characters and went "purma-red".
Outside of Dion one June afternoon, I had a chance to speak to one of the infamous "reds". He was just sitting there in the fields, but apparently no one around that area came near but me. My heart was racing as if this was a real-life encounter and I was going to exact revenge.Bloodly, mindless killing for the sake of low level players. I hit him and he didn't fight back nor did he run, Something stopped me at that moment. I stopped and asked him why he ruined his character. He told me. I shall not go into the details of what he told me, but I can tell you that his story wasn't too different from several infamous characters that roamed dungeons and fields of old Gustin server. I would have to say that some of these players simply project a frustrating reality they seem to have difficulties dealing with in real life.
Somehow Gary Jules, "Mad World" comes to mind here. It was so sad. I came across no less than half a dozen individuals with very similar stories; Anger lived out in two worlds...emptiness. "When people run in cirlcles it's a very, very mad world..." I left L 2 after three straight years and 7 days a week grinding, dying, cursing the ganks, whooping it up when my alliance kicked ass and took our first castle, weeping inside when one of my first online fighting friends left because she couldn't take the daily shit, and finally saying good-bye because I had to fight the worst ganker in the history of mankind, cancer. I left L 2 and went to WoW. The world keeps on spinning, but there are people out there that have troubles they show it in the way they attempt to express themselves..we often dislike them--maybe we should stop, "sit and listen"
I agree that a truly balanced mmo contains both pve and pvp elements. There needs to be a way to accept both and feel that those that pvp understands that there are consequences. I suppose we need to stick by a justified and solid set of consequences when those angry, silly, and mindless gankers try to hand their bad day to us.
I suppose I'm an old grizzly bear that actually cares. I look to Archeage and marvel at it's beauty and the possibilities. I wonder however, if the type of "in your face" pvp is going to sink this ship before it leaves it's moorings. We shall see...
Alyn
All I want is the truth Just gimme some truth John Lennon
Shadowrun? Any d6 system has min maxers over power other players very easily. I got a physical adept that can tear down the dragons in the game on paper.
I would like to see a game where classes had as much utility as SRs.
Regardless I don't think separating it is key. We've tried that for awhile now and no one's happy. I think it's time for MMORPGs to live up to every letter of the acronym with some meaning. They should have evolved as FFA Sandboxes with excellent PVE & PVP systems, but really they're still young as a genre. You have to have every element working well to move pass the current stalemate.
I mean look at azz.. The game he wants gets released 2 to 4 times a year. AAA content laden PVE games come down the pipeline and fall off the same ledge over and over again and people ask why.. It's because we're not getting full games.
We're not even getting slices of a pie. We're getting flour over there, eggs over here. When really they should be mixed.
Yeah, but a good sniper still could kill your phys ad with little effort. In a regular MMO that is impossible.
I don't want separation, I want only PvP or PvE. Do one thing and do it great.
If you do PvP game, let players run the dungeons, towns and castles. With that you could design a great game focusing on just that aspect, no balancing for the PvEers, no classes that feels pretty useless (tanks comes to mind) if you have classes and so on.
That isn't half a game at all.
Sure, if someone actually can pull of a game that do both great they should but I never seen that game since I started playing Meridian 59 to now, it is way easier to make a game with only one type. If you actually can make a PvP game that get a million+ gamers then we could talk about adding PvE but right now the PvP aspect of MMOs really needs fixing and lets focus on getting that right.
Shadowrun? Any d6 system has min maxers over power other players very easily. I got a physical adept that can tear down the dragons in the game on paper.
I would like to see a game where classes had as much utility as SRs.
Regardless I don't think separating it is key. We've tried that for awhile now and no one's happy. I think it's time for MMORPGs to live up to every letter of the acronym with some meaning. They should have evolved as FFA Sandboxes with excellent PVE & PVP systems, but really they're still young as a genre. You have to have every element working well to move pass the current stalemate.
I mean look at azz.. The game he wants gets released 2 to 4 times a year. AAA content laden PVE games come down the pipeline and fall off the same ledge over and over again and people ask why.. It's because we're not getting full games.
We're not even getting slices of a pie. We're getting flour over there, eggs over here. When really they should be mixed.
Yeah, but a good sniper still could kill your phys ad with little effort. In a regular MMO that is impossible.
I don't want separation, I want only PvP or PvE. Do one thing and do it great.
If you do PvP game, let players run the dungeons, towns and castles. With that you could design a great game focusing on just that aspect, no balancing for the PvEers, no classes that feels pretty useless (tanks comes to mind) if you have classes and so on.
That isn't half a game at all.
Sure, if someone actually can pull of a game that do both great they should but I never seen that game since I started playing Meridian 59 to now, it is way easier to make a game with only one type. If you actually can make a PvP game that get a million+ gamers then we could talk about adding PvE but right now the PvP aspect of MMOs really needs fixing and lets focus on getting that right.
Any Adept knows about snipers and how cheap Sixth Sense is.
Also knowing it's easy to go one way or the other doesn't apply because too often people still try and blend a little of each together.
There's plenty of game systems in play elsewhere outside of the current MMO content providers to prove such a systems can work well together. Healthy LARPing communities are proof.
A good sandbox that gets beyond 'pve' and 'pvp' as opposing forces will finally actually make a MMORPG.
So the theory goes that the wolves need sheep. The problem is unlike the distant past the sheep have grazing ground that don't include wolves. So the question is how can we attract the sheep to where the wolves like to hunt? At the moment you can't there are too many options for the sheep to opt out of the wolves hunting grounds.
Even if you make a game where the "carebears" have options they (we) always have the option of not having to deal with all the crap that comes with FFA. I doubt you can make it so attractive that the "carebears" will put up with the crap simply to provide you with the sheep you desire. Why the hell would the "carebears" play that game when there are so many alternatives that don't require you to put up with bullshit?
You are completely right. A PvP game needs only wolves but the mechanics needs to be so good and fun that it actually turns many former sheep to wolves.
Having PvEers and crafters that basically only are for killing and maybe crafting gear to PvPers just isn't fun.
Combat needs to be pretty fair at least for that to work, few players including many people who actually enjoy PvP would bother spending 2 months of being ganked just to be able to play the game on somewhat equal footing with the "wolves".
Any Adept knows about snipers and how cheap Sixth Sense is.
Also knowing it's easy to go one way or the other doesn't apply because too often people still try and blend a little of each together.
There's plenty of game systems in play elsewhere outside of the current MMO content providers to prove such a systems can work well together. Healthy LARPing communities are proof.
A good sandbox that gets beyond 'pve' and 'pvp' as opposing forces will finally actually make a MMORPG.
My sniper also have magic though, with expertize on masking me from different things. .
And yes, almost all games try to add a little PvP or PvE depending on it's main focus and it always suck.
MMO PvP needs a great PvP game that proves the concept. Once we actually knows exactly how a good PvP MMO should be we can think about making something similar with good PvE as well.
And yes, there are mechanics that would work in for example pen and paper RPGs and not just Shadowrun. Warhammer fantasy RPG would work fine as well, or BRP for that matter. The problem is that while MMOs originally were made by roleplayers that isn't the case anymore, and even those original roleplayers could only see D&D.
I disagree. FFA-PVP is not indicative of wider human behaviour as it is a) only enjoyed by a minority of gamers, and b) a medium in which those things you may find incredibly important in real life are entirely expendable. I would say that someone's action in a game are probably a quite huge exaggeration of their likely personality in real life. That said, the minority of people who enjoy ganking are unlikely to be the sort of people I would want to know inside or outside a game.
With regard to morals being an act of restricting instincts I think you are entirely incorrect. We are a social animal and we have evolved such that having reciprocally beneficial relationships is a requirement to survive. That is where morals derive from, our natural requirement to help those around us and in return receive help. Morals are not trying to suppress natural instincts, they ARE natural instincts.
The problem with the design of most FFA PVP games is that it puts people into an entirely artificial construct devoid of any of the risks associated with real life, and thus allows players to behave in a manner entirely unassociated with real life.
Well, I see no real difference regarding consequences in your and my view. You just add, that most people behave even worse in MMOs because it's an artificial environment. And I agree with this. In my opinion that results directly from the lack of real sanctions and severity. After all you just can stop playing, so all is kind of reversible.
But you take your general ruleset everywhere. This ruleset doesn't change just because "it's only a game". Humans learn many things by simply playing. And it's not something genetic or inborn but learned based on certain requirements for your survival. You behave well because you get rewarded for or experience sanctions if you don't. That's called education. And part of this reward is that you are allowed to stay in your social environment which is extremly important because we are social animals.
Morale is not an instinct. It's only a limiter for it. That's why morale conceptions aren't the same all over the world and vary over short periods of time, even in a single society. You learn them with every experience you make in your social environment. Instincts on the other side don't change that much and that fast. And they are part of your inborn behaviour program. That's why they change very slowly. A real instinct is e.g. gorging your food. Highly recommended a few hundred thousand years ago if wild animals just wait to make you their next meal while you are distracted with eating. So you better hurry. But nowadays not really necessary. And still many people tend to gorge. It just takes really much time to get rid of these inborn programs. A faster way (kind of a transition mechanism to change your inborn behaviour program) is education as system of reward and sanctions to limit that instinct. And so is morale as a subset of your education for other instincts ....
And because morale isn't something fixed you can choose to reject it in games, because "it's not real". If you aren't (unlike in real life) forced enough to stick to the rules, it's even highly likely you do so. But If you behave against your normal morale conceptions, you will notice it nontheless and maybe even feel a bit akward. Our disagreement in that point don't change the implications regarding MMOs though, so we might just agreee to disagree ...
While I'd like to have another Shadowrun based MMO (the closest ever being Neocron 2 DoY), I'd also rather have someone step into the world of Rifts, which hasn't been done on any scale yet, and was an outstanding p&p game with a lot of options that would work fairly well out of the box in pve/pvp/both.
Problem is, carebears don't like pvp because they get ganked. It's ok that they can solo faceroll (or gank) everything in their single player MMO world, because that makes them feel powerful. The main catch is, it's not always a level or gear problem between pve-ers and pvpers, it's the fact that the pve crowd has gotten lazy to the point where if they die once, they'll spend an hour googling how-to's and youtube vids on how to defeat X mob. No such tutorial exists against another player, who isn't just a collection of a few kill-me-for-dummies scripts. I wonder how many mobs wish they could quit *insert MMO here* because they're constantly getting 'ganked' by overgeared and overleveled players that have a whole manual for how to defeat them.
EVE online is a true FFA Sandbox game that has been sustainable for many years... it does NOT have a "PVE base" and it's the main example as to why your premise is wrong. I'm sick of PVEer acting like the sacred overlords of MMOs. You guys just don't GET open world PVP and you should stop trying to shape every MMO out there to YOUR needs. There's plenty of carebear games.
Well, that's pretty much the opposite of being right.
So the theory goes that the wolves need sheep. The problem is unlike the distant past the sheep have grazing ground that don't include wolves. So the question is how can we attract the sheep to where the wolves like to hunt? At the moment you can't there are too many options for the sheep to opt out of the wolves hunting grounds.
Even if you make a game where the "carebears" have options they (we) always have the option of not having to deal with all the crap that comes with FFA. I doubt you can make it so attractive that the "carebears" will put up with the crap simply to provide you with the sheep you desire. Why the hell would the "carebears" play that game when there are so many alternatives that don't require you to put up with bullshit?
You are completely right. A PvP game needs only wolves but the mechanics needs to be so good and fun that it actually turns many former sheep to wolves.
Having PvEers and crafters that basically only are for killing and maybe crafting gear to PvPers just isn't fun.
Combat needs to be pretty fair at least for that to work, few players including many people who actually enjoy PvP would bother spending 2 months of being ganked just to be able to play the game on somewhat equal footing with the "wolves".
There are ways to get fair in PVP even in PVE focus game.
For example make 2 type of HP and 2 type of damage .
Let call "Red hp" are PVP hp and "blue HP (shield) + red hp" are PVE hp
The weapons deal 2 type of damage PVE damage and PVP damage .
While you can continue raise PVE damage and HP , PVP damage and hp remain low or only raise a little.
That way even low level players can stand change again the old time with high gears player.
Over the years some people have asked for a true sandbox game with FFA PVP in a fantasy setting, these PVPers want to gank how they please they want to wreck havoc without any form punishment, and the same people ask why these games cant grow and flurish.
Well I hate to say it, you need the PVE crowd to get this rocket of the ground, if the game is mostly PVP based well then you get same kind of people you are, and the game turns into a somewhat hardcore niche PVP battleground MMO with low population.
This chewed old mantra that these game developers of these games says " the gameworld is open for you, do what you like, build, craft, explore,war," yadda yadda yadda, always turns out to be a big fat gankfest.
A good and solid PVE system with PVP rules pretty much like IRL makes the PVEer stay, look at EVE true It's still niche but IMO It's beacuse It's set in space wich alot of people dont like but CCP made a good balance.
A good and sound PVE foundation with plenty of things to do as a PVEr will make a good and fun FFA PVP game, Ultima Online started it but sadly along the way, something happend and the game developers forgot the foundation of a good balanced game.
PVE crowd are the key for this not the problem.
Just my 2 cents on the matter, just needed to get this down
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
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Originally posted by jesteralways490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
How much I dislike the term niche in context of MMOs, having x subs does not make it a mainstream.
Mainstream or niche implies product properties and EVE is very much different from anything on the market.
You are completely right. A PvP game needs only wolves but the mechanics needs to be so good and fun that it actually turns many former sheep to wolves.
Having PvEers and crafters that basically only are for killing and maybe crafting gear to PvPers just isn't fun.
Combat needs to be pretty fair at least for that to work, few players including many people who actually enjoy PvP would bother spending 2 months of being ganked just to be able to play the game on somewhat equal footing with the "wolves".
There are ways to get fair in PVP even in PVE focus game.
For example make 2 type of HP and 2 type of damage .
Let call "Red hp" are PVP hp and "blue HP (shield) + red hp" are PVE hp
The weapons deal 2 type of damage PVE damage and PVP damage .
While you can continue raise PVE damage and HP , PVP damage and hp remain low or only raise a little.
That way even low level players can stand change again the old time with high gears player.
But i haven't see any MMORPG use this system .
That is actually a rather good idea, far better than splitting the PvP and PvE zones physically....
It would also make things harder for the type of player that watch you PvE and jump in just after the fight when you are damaged.
Not perfect but it would work way better than any system I seen so far.
While I'd like to have another Shadowrun based MMO (the closest ever being Neocron 2 DoY), I'd also rather have someone step into the world of Rifts, which hasn't been done on any scale yet, and was an outstanding p&p game with a lot of options that would work fairly well out of the box in pve/pvp/both.
Problem is, carebears don't like pvp because they get ganked. It's ok that they can solo faceroll (or gank) everything in their single player MMO world, because that makes them feel powerful. The main catch is, it's not always a level or gear problem between pve-ers and pvpers, it's the fact that the pve crowd has gotten lazy to the point where if they die once, they'll spend an hour googling how-to's and youtube vids on how to defeat X mob. No such tutorial exists against another player, who isn't just a collection of a few kill-me-for-dummies scripts. I wonder how many mobs wish they could quit *insert MMO here* because they're constantly getting 'ganked' by overgeared and overleveled players that have a whole manual for how to defeat them.
Rifts is an interesting idea, since your powerarmor have the same HP all the time and your characters HP cant take a single MD it would probably even up the field for PvP as well, and the world is pretty fun. All for that.
But I don't think there is so much about tutorials as it is that in most PvP games you have zero chance of winning many fights, no matter what you do. If you take that away the PvP numbers should rise a lot even if you still wouldn't get in everyone.
Originally posted by YoungCaesar I love this thread logic, FFA pvp games can only survive if carebears stay, but why would carebears play a FFA pvp game in the first place?
if you look through the thread you will find plenty of people who dont pvp much or at all but still play eve, a FFA PVP game. It's a good game so people play it, and the benefits to the game of having (sort of) ffa, namely the economy being in a constant state of needing crafted goods, overrides the drawback of having a gank chance when undocked.
and again, I didnt touch pvp in eve from 2007 til i would say 2010 and didnt get ganked once during thosde 3 years. only got pvp'd once in that time from a war target.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
Can't really claim a product is mainstream just based on it's sub number?
WoW and dozens of WoW clones are very much mainstream, I doubt anyone would disagree with that.
Than look at EvE and what it offers. It could hardly be a more different mmorpg. Neither is there a single other released mmorpg that we could claim it's a clone of EvE, or even similar.
Doesn't seem very mainstream to me. You're looking for a different word I'd say.
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
LOl .. ONE 490k game is not niche? Do you know how many gamers are there in the US?
How many play LoL, WoT, D3, WoW, GW2, .... even TOR?
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
LOl .. ONE 490k game is not niche? Do you know how many gamers are there in the US?
How many play LoL, WoT, D3, WoW, GW2, .... even TOR?
Did you even read the topic? This is about MMORPGs.
I think you bring up the main issue. Those "PvPers" aren't looking for just pvp, they want to be griefing others and just generally screwing over others for no reason at all. To me, THIS is the huge issue with open world pvp. Without reason to behave it just becomes a griefing fest, those who have an advantage will use it to win every fight they can against those with no chance. Its not pvp at all, a 2 year old can do the stuff those "hardcore pvpers" try to push as being good.
A good PvP MMOrpg sandbox would need a way to stop that pathetic act and make pvp meaningful and epic. Otherwise its just Grand Theft Auto going around on a killing spree without any reasoning without any of the fun and random elements to spice things up while doing so. I feel a good majority of players like PvP to an extent, they just dislike "Griefing" (killing those who can't fight back for no reason but to annoy people). I think if you pitched the idea of an open world battle between two factions battling out even numbers, very few would ever say its bad. It just unfortunately ends up coming down to "Griefing" being some players sad attempt to feel good.
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
LOl .. ONE 490k game is not niche? Do you know how many gamers are there in the US?
How many play LoL, WoT, D3, WoW, GW2, .... even TOR?
Did you even read the topic? This is about MMORPGs.
Over 400 million MMORPG players all over the world (400.000.000 was in 2012, probably even more nowadays).
490.000 play EvE.
Do the maths...
And LoL, WoT, WoW, GW2 and TOR are classified as MMOs by many review sites, industrial research companies, and even this site.
Comments
I was actually thinking of Meridian 59 and Lineage, never played Wow.... And EQ about the corpsecamping.
But yes, I agree with you, the multiplayer aspect is far more important than soloing.
Still, if we are talking pen and paper games Shadowrun would be a way superior game compared to D&D, it have just the right powergap together with way more flexibility than any D&D version.
If you had read my initial post on page 3 you would have seen that I was exactly going for multiplayer, with guildowned dungeons and castles where the game is more focused on what you build together than what gear you wear.
I do think we agree on most things though, ut for a good PvP game the focus should be multiplayer PvP (even though lonely assassins and scouts sneaking behind enemy lines in wartime can be fun and useful). Skip PvE, skip soloplay and focus the crafting more on stuff like building a dungeon full of traps for your guild and similar things.
There is no proof at all for that, just that current PvP designs (besides Eve possibly) doesn't work.
The first FPs games like Doom were PvE focused as well, but Quake 2 first and Counterstrike proved how fun PvP was to the FPS players.
What people want is fun and good game design, and the PvP games have so far failed deliver that. A big reason is that almost all of them either tried to copy UO (like MO) which had it's point but was far from that good and EQ/Wow which were made for PvE.
MMOs need a game that does for us what Counter strike did to FPS games.
Looking on failed things and saying something is impossible is a mistake, if the Wright brothers would have done that we would have to take the zeppelin if we wanted to fly and so on. What you do need to do instead is to look on games where PvP actually is fun and popular and figure out a way to take that into a massive RPG game.
Shadowrun? Any d6 system has min maxers over power other players very easily. I got a physical adept that can tear down the dragons in the game on paper.
I would like to see a game where classes had as much utility as SRs.
Regardless I don't think separating it is key. We've tried that for awhile now and no one's happy. I think it's time for MMORPGs to live up to every letter of the acronym with some meaning. They should have evolved as FFA Sandboxes with excellent PVE & PVP systems, but really they're still young as a genre. You have to have every element working well to move pass the current stalemate.
I mean look at azz.. The game he wants gets released 2 to 4 times a year. AAA content laden PVE games come down the pipeline and fall off the same ledge over and over again and people ask why.. It's because we're not getting full games.
We're not even getting slices of a pie. We're getting flour over there, eggs over here. When really they should be mixed.
a yo ho ho
Co-op games can actually be fun and so can PvE only MMOs. I agree that themepark MMOs have been less than perfect the last 12 or so years but that doesn't mean you can't make them fun at all. Look on Asherons Call or Evequest (who did have a little PvP but the focus was still PvE).
What I am saying is that mixing them both is 10 times as hard for a good game as focusing on either, and we all seen nerfs and other crap for one of them that makes the other feeling pointless, and classes or builds that only are good in one or the other.
I am not saying you can't mix them and with a huge budget, a great team and the perfect mechanics it could be awesome but few MMO devs have all that and in that case you could make a game that nails one of them or do a half @ssed worked on both.
And separating both things but still have them in is better than just slap a PvP server on a PvE game but it still ain't good.
So the theory goes that the wolves need sheep. The problem is unlike the distant past the sheep have grazing ground that don't include wolves. So the question is how can we attract the sheep to where the wolves like to hunt? At the moment you can't there are too many options for the sheep to opt out of the wolves hunting grounds.
Even if you make a game where the "carebears" have options they (we) always have the option of not having to deal with all the crap that comes with FFA. I doubt you can make it so attractive that the "carebears" will put up with the crap simply to provide you with the sheep you desire. Why the hell would the "carebears" play that game when there are so many alternatives that don't require you to put up with bullshit?
I think for the sake of this truly heartfelt post in thread that was started by a fan of mmo's that somehow have spun out of control with kill ip madness. I applaud the choice of Tracy Chapman's masterful music to bolster an important issue in today's mmo genre. Thank you Torgrim and a standing O from me to greenreen!
I have yet to see a truly large-scale successful pvp-centric mmo. Now, I'm sure one will come. That will be an experience where justice has an inkling of chance to control what, now, is nothing but a gankfest. I've played Lineage 2. That is emotion personified and stress infinitely felt day by day. I even returned to reintroduce myself to one of the most hauntingly beautiful mmo soundtracks in existence. It is arguably still one of the best open world pvp mmo's to have survived 10+ years. My heart was stolen many times there. Yes, and I suppose the madness took me for a time because I found myself hunting down those "animals" that just gave up on their characters and went "purma-red".
Outside of Dion one June afternoon, I had a chance to speak to one of the infamous "reds". He was just sitting there in the fields, but apparently no one around that area came near but me. My heart was racing as if this was a real-life encounter and I was going to exact revenge.Bloodly, mindless killing for the sake of low level players. I hit him and he didn't fight back nor did he run, Something stopped me at that moment. I stopped and asked him why he ruined his character. He told me. I shall not go into the details of what he told me, but I can tell you that his story wasn't too different from several infamous characters that roamed dungeons and fields of old Gustin server. I would have to say that some of these players simply project a frustrating reality they seem to have difficulties dealing with in real life.
Somehow Gary Jules, "Mad World" comes to mind here. It was so sad. I came across no less than half a dozen individuals with very similar stories; Anger lived out in two worlds...emptiness. "When people run in cirlcles it's a very, very mad world..." I left L 2 after three straight years and 7 days a week grinding, dying, cursing the ganks, whooping it up when my alliance kicked ass and took our first castle, weeping inside when one of my first online fighting friends left because she couldn't take the daily shit, and finally saying good-bye because I had to fight the worst ganker in the history of mankind, cancer. I left L 2 and went to WoW. The world keeps on spinning, but there are people out there that have troubles they show it in the way they attempt to express themselves..we often dislike them--maybe we should stop, "sit and listen"
I agree that a truly balanced mmo contains both pve and pvp elements. There needs to be a way to accept both and feel that those that pvp understands that there are consequences. I suppose we need to stick by a justified and solid set of consequences when those angry, silly, and mindless gankers try to hand their bad day to us.
I suppose I'm an old grizzly bear that actually cares. I look to Archeage and marvel at it's beauty and the possibilities. I wonder however, if the type of "in your face" pvp is going to sink this ship before it leaves it's moorings. We shall see...
Alyn
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
John Lennon
Yeah, but a good sniper still could kill your phys ad with little effort. In a regular MMO that is impossible.
I don't want separation, I want only PvP or PvE. Do one thing and do it great.
If you do PvP game, let players run the dungeons, towns and castles. With that you could design a great game focusing on just that aspect, no balancing for the PvEers, no classes that feels pretty useless (tanks comes to mind) if you have classes and so on.
That isn't half a game at all.
Sure, if someone actually can pull of a game that do both great they should but I never seen that game since I started playing Meridian 59 to now, it is way easier to make a game with only one type. If you actually can make a PvP game that get a million+ gamers then we could talk about adding PvE but right now the PvP aspect of MMOs really needs fixing and lets focus on getting that right.
Any Adept knows about snipers and how cheap Sixth Sense is.
Also knowing it's easy to go one way or the other doesn't apply because too often people still try and blend a little of each together.
There's plenty of game systems in play elsewhere outside of the current MMO content providers to prove such a systems can work well together. Healthy LARPing communities are proof.
A good sandbox that gets beyond 'pve' and 'pvp' as opposing forces will finally actually make a MMORPG.
a yo ho ho
You are completely right. A PvP game needs only wolves but the mechanics needs to be so good and fun that it actually turns many former sheep to wolves.
Having PvEers and crafters that basically only are for killing and maybe crafting gear to PvPers just isn't fun.
Combat needs to be pretty fair at least for that to work, few players including many people who actually enjoy PvP would bother spending 2 months of being ganked just to be able to play the game on somewhat equal footing with the "wolves".
My sniper also have magic though, with expertize on masking me from different things.
.
And yes, almost all games try to add a little PvP or PvE depending on it's main focus and it always suck.
MMO PvP needs a great PvP game that proves the concept. Once we actually knows exactly how a good PvP MMO should be we can think about making something similar with good PvE as well.
And yes, there are mechanics that would work in for example pen and paper RPGs and not just Shadowrun. Warhammer fantasy RPG would work fine as well, or BRP for that matter. The problem is that while MMOs originally were made by roleplayers that isn't the case anymore, and even those original roleplayers could only see D&D.
Well, I see no real difference regarding consequences in your and my view. You just add, that most people behave even worse in MMOs because it's an artificial environment. And I agree with this. In my opinion that results directly from the lack of real sanctions and severity. After all you just can stop playing, so all is kind of reversible.
But you take your general ruleset everywhere. This ruleset doesn't change just because "it's only a game". Humans learn many things by simply playing. And it's not something genetic or inborn but learned based on certain requirements for your survival. You behave well because you get rewarded for or experience sanctions if you don't. That's called education. And part of this reward is that you are allowed to stay in your social environment which is extremly important because we are social animals.
Morale is not an instinct. It's only a limiter for it. That's why morale conceptions aren't the same all over the world and vary over short periods of time, even in a single society. You learn them with every experience you make in your social environment. Instincts on the other side don't change that much and that fast. And they are part of your inborn behaviour program. That's why they change very slowly. A real instinct is e.g. gorging your food. Highly recommended a few hundred thousand years ago if wild animals just wait to make you their next meal while you are distracted with eating. So you better hurry. But nowadays not really necessary. And still many people tend to gorge. It just takes really much time to get rid of these inborn programs. A faster way (kind of a transition mechanism to change your inborn behaviour program) is education as system of reward and sanctions to limit that instinct. And so is morale as a subset of your education for other instincts ....
And because morale isn't something fixed you can choose to reject it in games, because "it's not real". If you aren't (unlike in real life) forced enough to stick to the rules, it's even highly likely you do so. But If you behave against your normal morale conceptions, you will notice it nontheless and maybe even feel a bit akward. Our disagreement in that point don't change the implications regarding MMOs though, so we might just agreee to disagree ...
While I'd like to have another Shadowrun based MMO (the closest ever being Neocron 2 DoY), I'd also rather have someone step into the world of Rifts, which hasn't been done on any scale yet, and was an outstanding p&p game with a lot of options that would work fairly well out of the box in pve/pvp/both.
Problem is, carebears don't like pvp because they get ganked. It's ok that they can solo faceroll (or gank) everything in their single player MMO world, because that makes them feel powerful. The main catch is, it's not always a level or gear problem between pve-ers and pvpers, it's the fact that the pve crowd has gotten lazy to the point where if they die once, they'll spend an hour googling how-to's and youtube vids on how to defeat X mob. No such tutorial exists against another player, who isn't just a collection of a few kill-me-for-dummies scripts. I wonder how many mobs wish they could quit *insert MMO here* because they're constantly getting 'ganked' by overgeared and overleveled players that have a whole manual for how to defeat them.
Well, that's pretty much the opposite of being right.
The only thing true about the title is sandbox and FFA. In a sandbox it is free for all to do as they want. PvP and or PvE.
Not sure why when sandbox is used people automatically say its pvp.
There are ways to get fair in PVP even in PVE focus game.
For example make 2 type of HP and 2 type of damage .
Let call "Red hp" are PVP hp and "blue HP (shield) + red hp" are PVE hp
The weapons deal 2 type of damage PVE damage and PVP damage .
While you can continue raise PVE damage and HP , PVP damage and hp remain low or only raise a little.
That way even low level players can stand change again the old time with high gears player.
But i haven't see any MMORPG use this system .
490K+ subscribed players is not niche. EVE is very much mainstearm, despite how i don't like it as it is, i must admit that EVE is a very popular mainstearm mmo.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
How much I dislike the term niche in context of MMOs, having x subs does not make it a mainstream.
Mainstream or niche implies product properties and EVE is very much different from anything on the market.
That is actually a rather good idea, far better than splitting the PvP and PvE zones physically....
It would also make things harder for the type of player that watch you PvE and jump in just after the fight when you are damaged.
Not perfect but it would work way better than any system I seen so far.
Rifts is an interesting idea, since your powerarmor have the same HP all the time and your characters HP cant take a single MD it would probably even up the field for PvP as well, and the world is pretty fun. All for that.
But I don't think there is so much about tutorials as it is that in most PvP games you have zero chance of winning many fights, no matter what you do. If you take that away the PvP numbers should rise a lot even if you still wouldn't get in everyone.
if you look through the thread you will find plenty of people who dont pvp much or at all but still play eve, a FFA PVP game. It's a good game so people play it, and the benefits to the game of having (sort of) ffa, namely the economy being in a constant state of needing crafted goods, overrides the drawback of having a gank chance when undocked.
and again, I didnt touch pvp in eve from 2007 til i would say 2010 and didnt get ganked once during thosde 3 years. only got pvp'd once in that time from a war target.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Can't really claim a product is mainstream just based on it's sub number?
WoW and dozens of WoW clones are very much mainstream, I doubt anyone would disagree with that.
Than look at EvE and what it offers. It could hardly be a more different mmorpg. Neither is there a single other released mmorpg that we could claim it's a clone of EvE, or even similar.
Doesn't seem very mainstream to me. You're looking for a different word I'd say.
LOl .. ONE 490k game is not niche? Do you know how many gamers are there in the US?
How many play LoL, WoT, D3, WoW, GW2, .... even TOR?
Did you even read the topic? This is about MMORPGs.
I think you bring up the main issue. Those "PvPers" aren't looking for just pvp, they want to be griefing others and just generally screwing over others for no reason at all. To me, THIS is the huge issue with open world pvp. Without reason to behave it just becomes a griefing fest, those who have an advantage will use it to win every fight they can against those with no chance. Its not pvp at all, a 2 year old can do the stuff those "hardcore pvpers" try to push as being good.
A good PvP MMOrpg sandbox would need a way to stop that pathetic act and make pvp meaningful and epic. Otherwise its just Grand Theft Auto going around on a killing spree without any reasoning without any of the fun and random elements to spice things up while doing so. I feel a good majority of players like PvP to an extent, they just dislike "Griefing" (killing those who can't fight back for no reason but to annoy people). I think if you pitched the idea of an open world battle between two factions battling out even numbers, very few would ever say its bad. It just unfortunately ends up coming down to "Griefing" being some players sad attempt to feel good.
And LoL, WoT, WoW, GW2 and TOR are classified as MMOs by many review sites, industrial research companies, and even this site.