right now, you can play AC/Darktide if you want. this game and server is still kicking after all this years. this server is pk heaven- not easy to play and very hostile server (read the warning message before entering the server). as for the future, I'm still waiting for an open world pvp to play (not sandbox or themepark game), time will tell if there will at least one.
ps...as others have mentioned, another option is to play Darkfall, most of the hardcore pvp guilds from Darktide, UO, and Shadowbane are playing there including KOC and Blood.
MMORPG games played: M59-2 years, AC/Darktide-5 years,Shadowbane-3 years, SWG-1 year, WOW-1 year, and GW1-4 years.
It seems every mainstream game nowadays push out the "leveling hubs, pvp zones/battlegrounds" formula. The hardcore games are left in the dust and die off. Why are there no mainstream games with hardcore pvp that mimics real life better? it is the 'unpredictability' factor that keeps a game addicting.
I was recently thinking about a reallly old game I used to play called xenimus. The game was lacking in all possibly ways except PvP, it was very addicting. I could jump anyone at any time using spammable teleport spell (think dbz combat). You could also invis yourself, it would hide your characters model and name, only showing a silhouette.
Would you play a hardcore pvp game with the following main concepts?
1. A large open world : Non-streamlined and non-linear, no leveling hubs, no sense of being pushed in a certain leveling direction. You find your hunting spots, you never know where other people are at. You could be killed at any moment. Absolutely no NPC's teleporting you to a leveling zone. What we had in xenimus was a location recording system to move around using town portals (which others can enter as well)
2. Open world PK/PvP. Kill anyone on sight as you wish, perhaps a system of "good karma and bad karma" but ultimately, there is no punishment such as being 'red named' as many games do.
3. Semi equipment drop on death. Can be prevented with some special items but those are harder to find.
No, they won't make it, and if they do it will remain a tiny niche such as Darkfall has. The games aren't popular because people don't have control over their character. Games are meant for entertainment, not annoyance. Developers learned this and it's why you don't see any hardcore PvP games released in this day and age.
Do I think they need to make them? Sure, why not. I won't bother though when better options for entertainment is out there. As will a large majority of online players. People play what is fun, getting ganked by basement dwellers is not fun for the vast majority of gamers.
The last full hardcore PvP game I played was Shadowbane. Do you know why? Because I was 16 and angsty.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV Have played: You name it If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
On a slightly off-topic but relevant note: Citadel Studios (former devs from Ultima Online) are working on their own MMO, Shards Online, which will allow players to customize every aspect of their world (think how moddable minecraft is, you'd be able to do that just much easier since they will be providing the tools). This means that you can make your desired hardcore pvp/pk world and fine tune every aspect of it. They are currently running a kickstarter and an "ask me anything" on reddit.
The reason I mention this is simply because they have some great ideas/stances on pvp and general gameplay mechanics that I think the OP and people like him would like. Their AMA on reddit has some great responses about pvp as well.
Here's a short quote from one of the pvp responses:
Tim:As Lord British learned during his assassination in the original UO Beta at the hands of Rainz: there will always be griefers! There will always be trolls!
One of the greatest lessons in our time on UO was discovering where the lines between unanticipated (possibly fun, emergent) gameplay and actual abuse were drawn.
On our official Shards rulesets the players themselves will have just as much power to fight back against trolls and griefers (verbally, physically, magically, and economically) as UO, if not more.
We're working on making criminality quantifiable in the actual game
Parallel to that, we will not tolerate true abuse: there's a reason that modern online MMOs have customer service and game masters. We will enforce a safe environment that still allows an immersive experience without allowing out-of-context threats.
The default ruleset is very free and in-game consequence driven, and it can be customized to disable or alter PvP and other systems that give rise to classic troll behavior.
You'll never be able to stop all trolls - we prefer to give players enough in-game tools to deal with them themselves!
Derek: This is one of the advantages of supporting multiple rulesets. Shards Online will have both casual and hardcore official rulesets. Our hardcore official ruleset will be very reminiscent of the old UO days. We have already started on the rogue skills and fully expect to allow players to pickpocket each other (as long as they don't get caught!).
PvP in the hardcore rules will depend on how safe the area you are in. Some areas are filled with guards and the slightest attack on another player will mean sure death. Other areas, guards will be more sparse or perhaps nonexistant and players will be able to attack each other more freely.
Even better with custom rulesets, player run servers can decide just how much player aggression they will tolerate and how quickly and often the guards react.
Tim:One thing people don't necessarily understand is that the idea of including PvP in the default rulesets for Shards Online (it's customizable) is that it allows us to create closer approximations to real-world systems.
When you think about gameplay design, think of the problem with doors - how many games have you played where you could level a small army with your weapons, but are forced to find a key that opens a wooden door?
In the SO game mechanics we are forced to deal with everything we can think of that can happen to that door: can its lock be picked? Can it be blown up? Stabbed? Set on fire?
Now extend that line of thinking to PvP: it's really easy to solve the problem and just not let players attack one another. But what about indirect traps like explosion potions in chests?
We subscribe to the "witnessable action" model of morality enforcement: did someone see or hear you do it? This allows us to create complex and unpredictable gameplay that still isn't massively exploitable (there will always be exploits, and we will find them and fix them - or at least give them our blessing and developer support).
They've gone into it a bit more than that during their livestreams but that gives some pretty good insight on their direction. But again even if you don't like it you can tweak it however you want once the game is done being developed.
cool. thanks for the info. I miss UO because I played AC/Darktide instead. This game looks interesting. I will follow this game and see what happens.
MMORPG games played: M59-2 years, AC/Darktide-5 years,Shadowbane-3 years, SWG-1 year, WOW-1 year, and GW1-4 years.
I see these discussions and the more I look at the core of the argument I am beginning to understand that this is a battle of ideologies.
Group A - Wants the developer to take complete care of them and be responsible for their safety and well being.
Group B - Wants to be independent and have the developer give them toolsets so they can take care of the problems themselves.
I am solidlly in group A. When i use an entertainment product, i expect the provider to give me fun. I don't play games to solve problems of others' behavior.
I see these discussions and the more I look at the core of the argument I am beginning to understand that this is a battle of ideologies.
Group A - Wants the developer to take complete care of them and be responsible for their safety and well being.
Group B - Wants to be independent and have the developer give them toolsets so they can take care of the problems themselves.
I am solidlly in group A. When i use an entertainment product, i expect the provider to give me fun. I don't play games to solve problems of others' behavior.
I'm sure you can make the connection to the 2 ideological groups I am referring to.
Some people and developers refer to "solving problems" as emergent gameplay and the value of this is never ending, fresh and unpredictable content.
What you prefer to have is basically financially unsustainable for devlopers and publishers and is vividly portrayed in the mmo industry currently.
The failure of devs to fully commit to type B and remain reliant on type A for a playerbase and income even though it is financially unsustainable to constantly produce static content at a pace to retain paying customers. Slowly but surely spectacular fail after spectacular fail the industry is finally starting to get it. It is a shame they have bashed their brains in along with their investors profits over almost the last entire decade.
Maybe we will see some relief soon.
It is rather interesting to see the corellation of the two ideological groups I mentioned and how the financial data is similar.
I see these discussions and the more I look at the core of the argument I am beginning to understand that this is a battle of ideologies.
Group A - Wants the developer to take complete care of them and be responsible for their safety and well being.
Group B - Wants to be independent and have the developer give them toolsets so they can take care of the problems themselves.
I am solidlly in group A. When i use an entertainment product, i expect the provider to give me fun. I don't play games to solve problems of others' behavior.
I'm sure you can make the connection to the 2 ideological groups I am referring to.
Some people and developers refer to "solving problems" as emergent gameplay and the value of this is never ending, fresh and unpredictable content.
What you prefer to have is basically financially unsustainable for devlopers and publishers and is vividly portrayed in the mmo industry currently.
The failure of devs to fully commit to type B and remain reliant on type A for a playerbase and income even though it is financially unsustainable to constantly produce static content at a pace to retain paying customers. Slowly but surely spectacular fail after spectacular fail the industry is finally starting to get it. It is a shame they have bashed their brains in along with their investors profits over almost the last entire decade.
Maybe we will see some relief soon.
It is rather interesting to see the corellation of the two ideological groups I mentioned and how the financial data is similar.
Solving other behavioral problems as emergent gameplay? No thanks. Never ending is not a value to me. Fun *is*. And all content is unpredictable (even the professional produced one) if you go through it only once. In fact, drama from players (like loot/camp drama back in EQ) is VERY predictable. Good story scripting (like in Dishonored, is a hell LESS predictable than camp drama).
And you have lots of assertion with no evidence. LoL don't ask players to solve "emergent" problem (if you don't count combat tactics as a problem .. and if you count that, all games have it), and it makes $600M in 2013. TOR does not ask players to solve "emergent" problems and made $200M+ in 2013.
I doubt there is any support to say there is no money in group A. Heck, take a good linear game like Deus Ex (yes, i know there is side-quest, but 90% of the game is linear) and they make lots of money.
On average the concept of the open world, non-consensual PvP game has been in a constant state of devolution since Ultima Online. This is most visible in the marketing for these games. Consider this ancient advertisement for UO:
Neverminding the 1998 production values, the focus of the advertisement is a fantastical world that promises the player adventure, freedom, and choice. Yes, there was open and largely unrestricted PvP - this was an aspect of the game. Build a castle, sail a ship, slay a dragon, run a blacksmithy, be a bard, be a barkeep, murder other players. There were choices and opportunities to appeal to a wide variety of gamers.
Banner 2 - Hardcore gaming REINVENTED - Do you have what it takes?
Darkfall, during its development, frequently claimed to be inspired by, and largely seeking to emulate, UO - but that isn't the game they made. Instead, they distilled UO down to a single aspect and, in a vacuum, made a game centering around that solitary feature, with all else as an afterthought.
Darkfall has always focused on being "hardcore" - so hardcore, in fact, that it clearly alienated too many potential customers to maintain financial viability.
I think there absolutely is room for a popular, successful, open-world MMO, including one featuring non-consensual PvP as a feature, but so far, the developers seeking to make such games are simpletons with a tunnel-vision focus on "hardcore PvP" as THE feature, at the expense of all else.
I see these discussions and the more I look at the core of the argument I am beginning to understand that this is a battle of ideologies.
Group A - Wants the developer to take complete care of them and be responsible for their safety and well being.
Group B - Wants to be independent and have the developer give them toolsets so they can take care of the problems themselves.
I am in Group B but unfortunately so far no developer has given me the ability to punch the ganker in the face through my monitor. Heck, I would just settle for the ability to put a ganker's account in a "prison" for a month or two.
In a way it is sad that most PvPers prefer to be cuddled by the developers and do not want any serious consequences in their games.
For a PvP game to work, it has to be more than PvP. . . hardcore PvP has to be more of a sideshow than the main action; the main action has always got to be roleplay, or crafting or dungeons.
The problem is, PvPers are never satisfied with only FFA PvP. It always has to be more...
Then they'll want trophies for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want looting for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want to be able to own large chunks of the game world, setting them aside for their exclusive use, or else PvP "means nothing."
And by the time they are done, the virtual world is nothing more than a clan vs clan PvP battleground, with no place for anyone else who isn't part of an exclusive clique.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
For a PvP game to work, it has to be more than PvP. . . hardcore PvP has to be more of a sideshow than the main action; the main action has always got to be roleplay, or crafting or dungeons.
The problem is, PvPers are never satisfied with only FFA PvP. It always has to be more...
Then they'll want trophies for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want looting for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want to be able to own large chunks of the game world, setting them aside for their exclusive use, or else PvP "means nothing."
And by the time they are done, the virtual world is nothing more than a clan vs clan PvP battleground, with no place for anyone else who isn't part of an exclusive clique.
Somebody earlier missed these points when replying to a post of mine.
If a developer is going to create a game with open world player vs player combat there must be more than just combat. Most of the games that feature OWpvp are shockingly unremarkable and lacking in all areas aside from just killing people.
If a developer can make a mmo with a variety of fun features and creative objectives to do outside combat and has the funding to make the game look astounding built atop the foundation of OW conflict. It would be a very successful game...
The problem is it will probably never happen because Mmo's are big business now and you would be viewed as foolish if you weren't implementing the features that were going to get you the most subscribers... even if the reality is you will only have these type of players for 2 months tops.
If "success" is measured in "World of Warcraft" standards, then most resoundingly. No. These features, as much as the vocal minority would have you believe otherwise, are niche. Could a game with these features have a limited amount of success based upon the amount of people who actually want a game with that feature set? Of course...
------------------------- "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
The OP's response alone is pretty much never going to be popular. I'd try Darkfall as your niche game. It's probably exactly what you'll be wanting as soon as the game is fixed a bit more.
Calling anything "Hardcore open-world PK/PvP" immediately makes everyone think PK/Griefer/Kill arena fest. It's never going to be popular with the masses.
What you need to do is create a game that includes a grand amount of safety and a grand amount of open-world feeling. In a sense, you can "max-out" in the protected zones or open zones. The only difference will be the best items will require the greatest risk (open zones), but you can have mediocre items in the protected zones. I'm not sure if ArcheAge is doing it like this or not, but as far as I'm concerned AA has the correct "FFA-pvp-sandbox" format... SO FAR.
For a game like this to be popular, you need a portion of it to be a safe haven. Afterall...real-life does have these.
A company just needs to R&D this to get it right, but it can be done. Especially with the over saturation of themeparks.
Failure is relative, but it seems like a lot of people forget that the idea has been done, and in the MMORPG genre has been out performed in both popularity and financial performance by less "hard core" systems. It seems to be fine for games that are less persistent than MMORPGs, but not so much for MMORPGs and their persistent worlds.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It seems every mainstream game nowadays push out the "leveling hubs, pvp zones/battlegrounds" formula. The hardcore games are left in the dust and die off. Why are there no mainstream games with hardcore pvp that mimics real life better? it is the 'unpredictability' factor that keeps a game addicting.
I was recently thinking about a reallly old game I used to play called xenimus. The game was lacking in all possibly ways except PvP, it was very addicting. I could jump anyone at any time using spammable teleport spell (think dbz combat). You could also invis yourself, it would hide your characters model and name, only showing a silhouette.
Would you play a hardcore pvp game with the following main concepts?
1. A large open world : Non-streamlined and non-linear, no leveling hubs, no sense of being pushed in a certain leveling direction. You find your hunting spots, you never know where other people are at. You could be killed at any moment. Absolutely no NPC's teleporting you to a leveling zone. What we had in xenimus was a location recording system to move around using town portals (which others can enter as well)
2. Open world PK/PvP. Kill anyone on sight as you wish, perhaps a system of "good karma and bad karma" but ultimately, there is no punishment such as being 'red named' as many games do.
3. Semi equipment drop on death. Can be prevented with some special items but those are harder to find.
What you want is a Griefer MMO LOL. Why would anyone want to play with those people whose only joy in life is to grief others? Why would anyone want to play a game where they can lose the equipment they have worked for? Griefers are a very minority population and will never be able to support a game let alone noone will want to play with them.
Failure is relative, but it seems like a lot of people forget that the idea has been done, and in the MMORPG genre has been out performed in both popularity and financial performance by less "hard core" systems. It seems to be fine for games that are less persistent than MMORPGs, but not so much for MMORPGs and their persistent worlds.
May be MMORPGs need less persistent worlds to be successful. And yes, failure is relative.
Griefers are a very minority population and will never be able to support a game let alone noone will want to play with them.
Not to mention griefers don't want to be griefed themselves. It is an inherent unstable situation, and it is of no surprise that no sane devs will spend money on this.
I kind of liked Pirates of the Burning Seas' PvP. It wasn't open world, until one side started attacking a port city. They could drive the port city into contention, and a big red circle is drawn around the port. Open PvP is allowed inside the circle.
Too bad if you had your factories and warehouses in that port city, you'll have to subject yourself to PvP to get to them now.
If enough contention was created, the port would go into a 24x24 instance battle where the port can be "flipped" to the attacking side.
I vote for undocumented feature... you create your character and are happily leveling or whatever and decide to go jump off this cliff to the water below. Low and behold you die due to falling damage. But wait, there is no resurrection button? What the hell? That's right, your character just died. Sad isn't it, sitting there floating upside down in the water staring at the little fishies. But it gets's worse, you see all your stuff in a pile beneath your body, glowing like a pot of gold. Nooooo! All my stuff.
Good news is, you can create a new character. Bad news is, the character name you chose is now locked for 24 hours. If you're lucky you can get it back tomorrow... assuming someone else doesn't beat you to it. Your gold and all that was associated with your character is now gone. No XP, no bank, no nothing. Back to square one. This time around you play it a little wiser, a little safer, but alas, some wolf pack takes you out while questing. It could be worse, not really.
Third go around and you're making good time, level 30 and moving into the contested areas. Some high level comes along and one shots you. DAMN YOU! Here we go again.
Personally I love the irony in all of this... not much different than running the same dungeon, battleground, or raid ad-naseum... the only difference is, instead of repeating content for gear or a title, you do it to get beyond where your last character left off when it died. Could take a considerable amount of time to get anywhere in game. Oh the challenge. Makes raiding look like a joke. Gives new meaning to "days played" doesn't it.
Maybe farming or building a house isn't as cool an idea when it could all be gone in an instant. One slip off a cliff, one pull too many, one other player...
You people think too small. You don't really want death, you just want other peoples death.
Comments
right now, you can play AC/Darktide if you want. this game and server is still kicking after all this years. this server is pk heaven- not easy to play and very hostile server (read the warning message before entering the server). as for the future, I'm still waiting for an open world pvp to play (not sandbox or themepark game), time will tell if there will at least one.
ps...as others have mentioned, another option is to play Darkfall, most of the hardcore pvp guilds from Darktide, UO, and Shadowbane are playing there including KOC and Blood.
MMORPG games played: M59-2 years, AC/Darktide-5 years,Shadowbane-3 years, SWG-1 year, WOW-1 year, and GW1-4 years.
No, they won't make it, and if they do it will remain a tiny niche such as Darkfall has. The games aren't popular because people don't have control over their character. Games are meant for entertainment, not annoyance. Developers learned this and it's why you don't see any hardcore PvP games released in this day and age.
Do I think they need to make them? Sure, why not. I won't bother though when better options for entertainment is out there. As will a large majority of online players. People play what is fun, getting ganked by basement dwellers is not fun for the vast majority of gamers.
The last full hardcore PvP game I played was Shadowbane. Do you know why? Because I was 16 and angsty.
Currently Playing: ESO and FFXIV
Have played: You name it
If you mention rose tinted glasses, you better be referring to Mitch Hedberg.
MMORPG games played: M59-2 years, AC/Darktide-5 years,Shadowbane-3 years, SWG-1 year, WOW-1 year, and GW1-4 years.
I see these discussions and the more I look at the core of the argument I am beginning to understand that this is a battle of ideologies.
Group A - Wants the developer to take complete care of them and be responsible for their safety and well being.
Group B - Wants to be independent and have the developer give them toolsets so they can take care of the problems themselves.
Life IS Feudal
I am solidlly in group A. When i use an entertainment product, i expect the provider to give me fun. I don't play games to solve problems of others' behavior.
I'm sure you can make the connection to the 2 ideological groups I am referring to.
Some people and developers refer to "solving problems" as emergent gameplay and the value of this is never ending, fresh and unpredictable content.
What you prefer to have is basically financially unsustainable for devlopers and publishers and is vividly portrayed in the mmo industry currently.
The failure of devs to fully commit to type B and remain reliant on type A for a playerbase and income even though it is financially unsustainable to constantly produce static content at a pace to retain paying customers. Slowly but surely spectacular fail after spectacular fail the industry is finally starting to get it. It is a shame they have bashed their brains in along with their investors profits over almost the last entire decade.
Maybe we will see some relief soon.
It is rather interesting to see the corellation of the two ideological groups I mentioned and how the financial data is similar.
Life IS Feudal
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Solving other behavioral problems as emergent gameplay? No thanks. Never ending is not a value to me. Fun *is*. And all content is unpredictable (even the professional produced one) if you go through it only once. In fact, drama from players (like loot/camp drama back in EQ) is VERY predictable. Good story scripting (like in Dishonored, is a hell LESS predictable than camp drama).
And you have lots of assertion with no evidence. LoL don't ask players to solve "emergent" problem (if you don't count combat tactics as a problem .. and if you count that, all games have it), and it makes $600M in 2013. TOR does not ask players to solve "emergent" problems and made $200M+ in 2013.
I doubt there is any support to say there is no money in group A. Heck, take a good linear game like Deus Ex (yes, i know there is side-quest, but 90% of the game is linear) and they make lots of money.
On average the concept of the open world, non-consensual PvP game has been in a constant state of devolution since Ultima Online. This is most visible in the marketing for these games. Consider this ancient advertisement for UO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CyO7ur6QnI
Neverminding the 1998 production values, the focus of the advertisement is a fantastical world that promises the player adventure, freedom, and choice. Yes, there was open and largely unrestricted PvP - this was an aspect of the game. Build a castle, sail a ship, slay a dragon, run a blacksmithy, be a bard, be a barkeep, murder other players. There were choices and opportunities to appeal to a wide variety of gamers.
Compare that to the rotating banner ad on the Darkfall website:
Banner 1 - Prepare for EPIC BATTLES Made for PvP!
Banner 2 - Hardcore gaming REINVENTED - Do you have what it takes?
Darkfall, during its development, frequently claimed to be inspired by, and largely seeking to emulate, UO - but that isn't the game they made. Instead, they distilled UO down to a single aspect and, in a vacuum, made a game centering around that solitary feature, with all else as an afterthought.
Darkfall has always focused on being "hardcore" - so hardcore, in fact, that it clearly alienated too many potential customers to maintain financial viability.
I think there absolutely is room for a popular, successful, open-world MMO, including one featuring non-consensual PvP as a feature, but so far, the developers seeking to make such games are simpletons with a tunnel-vision focus on "hardcore PvP" as THE feature, at the expense of all else.
I am in Group B but unfortunately so far no developer has given me the ability to punch the ganker in the face through my monitor. Heck, I would just settle for the ability to put a ganker's account in a "prison" for a month or two.
In a way it is sad that most PvPers prefer to be cuddled by the developers and do not want any serious consequences in their games.
I agree with Minuszer.
For a PvP game to work, it has to be more than PvP. . . hardcore PvP has to be more of a sideshow than the main action; the main action has always got to be roleplay, or crafting or dungeons.
The problem is, PvPers are never satisfied with only FFA PvP. It always has to be more...
Then they'll want trophies for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want looting for kills, or else they'll have "no incentive" to PvP.
Then they'll want to be able to own large chunks of the game world, setting them aside for their exclusive use, or else PvP "means nothing."
And by the time they are done, the virtual world is nothing more than a clan vs clan PvP battleground, with no place for anyone else who isn't part of an exclusive clique.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Somebody earlier missed these points when replying to a post of mine.
If a developer is going to create a game with open world player vs player combat there must be more than just combat. Most of the games that feature OWpvp are shockingly unremarkable and lacking in all areas aside from just killing people.
If a developer can make a mmo with a variety of fun features and creative objectives to do outside combat and has the funding to make the game look astounding built atop the foundation of OW conflict. It would be a very successful game...
The problem is it will probably never happen because Mmo's are big business now and you would be viewed as foolish if you weren't implementing the features that were going to get you the most subscribers... even if the reality is you will only have these type of players for 2 months tops.
-------------------------
"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
DayZ
Rust
7 Days to Die
Even Minecraft can be played that way.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
The OP's response alone is pretty much never going to be popular. I'd try Darkfall as your niche game. It's probably exactly what you'll be wanting as soon as the game is fixed a bit more.
Calling anything "Hardcore open-world PK/PvP" immediately makes everyone think PK/Griefer/Kill arena fest. It's never going to be popular with the masses.
What you need to do is create a game that includes a grand amount of safety and a grand amount of open-world feeling. In a sense, you can "max-out" in the protected zones or open zones. The only difference will be the best items will require the greatest risk (open zones), but you can have mediocre items in the protected zones. I'm not sure if ArcheAge is doing it like this or not, but as far as I'm concerned AA has the correct "FFA-pvp-sandbox" format... SO FAR.
For a game like this to be popular, you need a portion of it to be a safe haven. Afterall...real-life does have these.
A company just needs to R&D this to get it right, but it can be done. Especially with the over saturation of themeparks.
Failure is relative, but it seems like a lot of people forget that the idea has been done, and in the MMORPG genre has been out performed in both popularity and financial performance by less "hard core" systems. It seems to be fine for games that are less persistent than MMORPGs, but not so much for MMORPGs and their persistent worlds.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
What you want is a Griefer MMO LOL. Why would anyone want to play with those people whose only joy in life is to grief others? Why would anyone want to play a game where they can lose the equipment they have worked for? Griefers are a very minority population and will never be able to support a game let alone noone will want to play with them.
May be MMORPGs need less persistent worlds to be successful. And yes, failure is relative.
Not to mention griefers don't want to be griefed themselves. It is an inherent unstable situation, and it is of no surprise that no sane devs will spend money on this.
I kind of liked Pirates of the Burning Seas' PvP. It wasn't open world, until one side started attacking a port city. They could drive the port city into contention, and a big red circle is drawn around the port. Open PvP is allowed inside the circle.
Too bad if you had your factories and warehouses in that port city, you'll have to subject yourself to PvP to get to them now.
If enough contention was created, the port would go into a 24x24 instance battle where the port can be "flipped" to the attacking side.
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2025: 48 years on the Net.
I vote for undocumented feature... you create your character and are happily leveling or whatever and decide to go jump off this cliff to the water below. Low and behold you die due to falling damage. But wait, there is no resurrection button? What the hell? That's right, your character just died. Sad isn't it, sitting there floating upside down in the water staring at the little fishies. But it gets's worse, you see all your stuff in a pile beneath your body, glowing like a pot of gold. Nooooo! All my stuff.
Good news is, you can create a new character. Bad news is, the character name you chose is now locked for 24 hours. If you're lucky you can get it back tomorrow... assuming someone else doesn't beat you to it. Your gold and all that was associated with your character is now gone. No XP, no bank, no nothing. Back to square one. This time around you play it a little wiser, a little safer, but alas, some wolf pack takes you out while questing. It could be worse, not really.
Third go around and you're making good time, level 30 and moving into the contested areas. Some high level comes along and one shots you. DAMN YOU! Here we go again.
Personally I love the irony in all of this... not much different than running the same dungeon, battleground, or raid ad-naseum... the only difference is, instead of repeating content for gear or a title, you do it to get beyond where your last character left off when it died. Could take a considerable amount of time to get anywhere in game. Oh the challenge. Makes raiding look like a joke. Gives new meaning to "days played" doesn't it.
Maybe farming or building a house isn't as cool an idea when it could all be gone in an instant. One slip off a cliff, one pull too many, one other player...
You people think too small. You don't really want death, you just want other peoples death.