When looking at the biggest MMOs in the west, PVP is only a side attraction at best, a checkbox so to speak, its not growing at all, nor will it ever imo. Or look at it another way, whenever servers get trimmed from games, its always the PVP servers that are ghost towns and get shuttered first. I don't think this trend will change anytime soon.
But, I suppose along with many articles on this site nowadays, the OP is trying to blur the traditional MMORPG with shooters with quite a narrow minded view to make a narrative, so skewed pieces like this seem to make sense in that scope.
The biggest problem with PVP in a traditional MMORPG is balance, the MMO is about building your char up in skills and gear over a long period of time, so you have all these characters in different levels of gear, and by its very nature you're going to continually have lopsided, uneven and unfair events, and while some will tolerate this in order to climb that ladder, history in the MMORPG realms shows conclusively that most won't. Its a problem that's plagued the genre as long as its been about and with literally 100's of systems conceived, tried and failed, I can't see anything changing soon.
Instanced, low commitment, quick PVP matches have always been hugely popular with the general more casual gaming public. That's not really new. In the old days that was the exclusive domain of lobby shooters.
MMORPG PVP was a very different kind of thing in those same old days and has always been a niche for those who are more interested in large persistent battles where the inherent imbalance created by leveling, classes and gear disparities are minimized because it's much more about the group than the individual. In order to be competitive it also requires the much higher commitment level that MMORPGs demand.
Scenario PVP in MMORPGs was a shooter concept that was imported into the genre initially by WOW (and yes, DAOC battlegrounds were a whole different thing usually misunderstood by those who didn't play it) but I've never confused it with real MMORPG PVP no matter how common and popular it became. And it has always been a bit of a controversial kludge in this genre because it can't really compete with the balance of FPS or MOBAs in an activity that is all about the individual (or at best small group.)
What I see happening these days is games that are at their core lobby shooters importing MMORPG concepts into their game play in a way not unlike what WOW did when it imported the lobby shooter concepts. This, for some reason, seems to confuse the shit out of people who don't have a solid historical grasp of the differences.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Back in the olden days, when dirt was clean, there were MUDS, Multi User Dungeons, the text-based predecessors to modern MMOs. In most of them, you had to choose whether you preferred to be a "deadly" or a "peaceful" when you rolled your character.
If you were a deadly, you were perma flagged for PVP. You could kill a peaceful, but you'd suffer some nasty consequences if you did, or if you attacked a player a certain number of levels below you. I was typically a peaceful. Even in MMOs i avoided pvp, but I became really good at it in WoW for a while.
The biggest problem PVP in MMOs faces is the balancing act between PVP and Character Progression. Any meaningful gains that a player might make in the MMO can't show up in the PVP mode unless there is a level cap of some kind or accepts the disparity in power between players. Generally, any disparity is considered unpopular because it is perceived as unfair, so developers generally make smaller and carefully managed instances for PVP to mitigate this. I'm not sure I'd call this the age of PVP though, more like the age of experimentation with PVP.
Scenario PVP in MMORPGs was a shooter concept that was imported into the genre initially by WOW (and yes, DAOC battlegrounds were a whole different thing usually misunderstood by those who didn't play it)
And were a helluva lot more fun than the instanced battleground stuff that has come since. God, that was a great idea that should've been included in every MMORPG since (along with Darkness Falls).
Scenario PVP in MMORPGs was a shooter concept that was imported into the genre initially by WOW (and yes, DAOC battlegrounds were a whole different thing usually misunderstood by those who didn't play it)
And were a helluva lot more fun than the instanced battleground stuff that has come since. God, that was a great idea that should've been included in every MMORPG since (along with Darkness Falls).
Yeah. Those DAoC BGs were a great addition that came at the right time when there was already a large level 50 population that dominated the real RvR.
I was in DAoC from launch so I leveled my first character back in the days before BGs when we could get 60 or 80 level 20ish players trying to capture a regular keep only to wipe at the keep lord lol. It felt like a hell of an accomplishment on those rare occasions when we succeeded. Otherwise we just duked it out for hours in Emain Macha.
I leveled my Reaver playing a lot on those BGs though. Such a simple concept: a persistent 24/7 eternal 3-sided battle for control of one keep... loved it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I miss the old EQ days when my enchantress would enter a zone on the zek server and people would start screaming there is a chanter in zone and people would start zoning out. Ah the day i morphed into a wood elf and went to Faydwer killed a woody then morphed to a dwarf and helped hunt that nasty night elf down
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
I have and will always be addicted to pvp. Right now I must feed my need with a lil' TPS(EC), Moba(Smite) but I'm hoping games like CF and CU will let me get all I need from MMO's once again.
I am not sure it is wise to characterise what MMOs are doing now by referring so much to a game that is not out yet. Lets see CF launch before we start talking about its influence on the genre.
There is no dotted line that connects open world PvP MMOs and Battle Ground games, the later have far more in common with FPS than anything else.
I agree with everything he said about esports mind you. A generation of obese esport kids will take over from the jocks at college.
In terms of MMORPGs, many upcoming games do have a heavy PvP focus, especially in terms of open world. When the dust settles we'll see how many of them actually remain. I don't see the interest in games heavily focused on PvP to be anything but niche, and I doubt that niche is large enough to support all of them. Ideally at least one will survive so open world PvP fans will have more choice.
Ah good ol' Cotswold bridge. I miss Mordred pvp in DAoC, the most fun I've ever had in an mmo. Even with all the treachery of people infiltrating enemy guilds to ruin them from within, and charging other guilds admission to master level encounters. Wouldn't trade that for any boring battleground, or the like. haha
Edit: Why use a screen shot of DAoC, then only mention Crowfall in the "modern pvp" part of the write up? Camelot Unchained anyone? Also some PvP'ers don't care about pve, to some of us pve is only a means to end so I can PvP.
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But, I suppose along with many articles on this site nowadays, the OP is trying to blur the traditional MMORPG with shooters with quite a narrow minded view to make a narrative, so skewed pieces like this seem to make sense in that scope.
The biggest problem with PVP in a traditional MMORPG is balance, the MMO is about building your char up in skills and gear over a long period of time, so you have all these characters in different levels of gear, and by its very nature you're going to continually have lopsided, uneven and unfair events, and while some will tolerate this in order to climb that ladder, history in the MMORPG realms shows conclusively that most won't. Its a problem that's plagued the genre as long as its been about and with literally 100's of systems conceived, tried and failed, I can't see anything changing soon.
MMORPG PVP was a very different kind of thing in those same old days and has always been a niche for those who are more interested in large persistent battles where the inherent imbalance created by leveling, classes and gear disparities are minimized because it's much more about the group than the individual. In order to be competitive it also requires the much higher commitment level that MMORPGs demand.
Scenario PVP in MMORPGs was a shooter concept that was imported into the genre initially by WOW (and yes, DAOC battlegrounds were a whole different thing usually misunderstood by those who didn't play it) but I've never confused it with real MMORPG PVP no matter how common and popular it became. And it has always been a bit of a controversial kludge in this genre because it can't really compete with the balance of FPS or MOBAs in an activity that is all about the individual (or at best small group.)
What I see happening these days is games that are at their core lobby shooters importing MMORPG concepts into their game play in a way not unlike what WOW did when it imported the lobby shooter concepts. This, for some reason, seems to confuse the shit out of people who don't have a solid historical grasp of the differences.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
If you were a deadly, you were perma flagged for PVP. You could kill a peaceful, but you'd suffer some nasty consequences if you did, or if you attacked a player a certain number of levels below you. I was typically a peaceful. Even in MMOs i avoided pvp, but I became really good at it in WoW for a while.
I was in DAoC from launch so I leveled my first character back in the days before BGs when we could get 60 or 80 level 20ish players trying to capture a regular keep only to wipe at the keep lord lol. It felt like a hell of an accomplishment on those rare occasions when we succeeded. Otherwise we just duked it out for hours in Emain Macha.
I leveled my Reaver playing a lot on those BGs though. Such a simple concept: a persistent 24/7 eternal 3-sided battle for control of one keep... loved it.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
There is no dotted line that connects open world PvP MMOs and Battle Ground games, the later have far more in common with FPS than anything else.
I agree with everything he said about esports mind you. A generation of obese esport kids will take over from the jocks at college.
Edit: Why use a screen shot of DAoC, then only mention Crowfall in the "modern pvp" part of the write up? Camelot Unchained anyone? Also some PvP'ers don't care about pve, to some of us pve is only a means to end so I can PvP.