Personally I found PVP too repetitive and tiresome, but thats just my personal taste. How many times can you conquer/defend the same keep over and over until it grows boring? I want a bit PVP, but generally I prefer a grand story being told through quests and adventures with a group of friends, meaning PVE. I vote here on the idea if both are at their best as I can imagine it. Sure there is bad PVE and bad PVP, but if both are as good as they can be, its still PVE which is way more interesting for me. Maybe partially also because I dont like so much fighting against other people. Yeah yeah, call me carebear, I just enjoy working WITH people more than fighting against them.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
PVP will be bad if a game is poorly designed just as much ans PVE will be bad in a poorly designed game the main problem today is that almost all games have a shitbox design as they are just trowing them together to keep the investors happy
games have to be properly designed around the aspect you are going to go with you cant just trow PVP on as an after thought its like makeing a box with some monsters and then 2 days from launch add in a little box off to the side and make it a PVP zone it just wont work and its pretty much what i think the current main stream games (with a few notable exceptions) do
i love to PVP but it has to be done right there has to be longterm consequences and reasons to being a player killer there cant be gear based progression there cant be levels there cant be auto target all those sorts of things are poor design features for casual players and they dont work for PVP it just turns it into PVE except 50% of the time someone gets bent
If I want PvP action then I will go play Call of Duty - World at War or Team Fortress 2.
I dislike PvP in RPG games. The reason is simple. PvP supports winning at any cost. And that means pulling every dirty trick in the book out. And they do. They'll look for gliches, hacks, grossly unfair matchups in numbers or power, etc. That just translates into being oppressed. Isn't there enough oppression in the world already?
When I get on an online RPG I don't want to be aggravated by some griefer (they call themselves "PvPers") who kills my character or property because he thinks its fun.
I get on an online RPG because I want to struggle in concert with my fellow gamers against some massive monolithic force of evil or good.
I mean, really, struggling against another player is the RPG equivalent of struggling against a pickpocket or a mugger. Sure it could be a challenge, but it's hardly heroic as compared to struggling against an undead god or something. So it's just a vapid sort of pointlessness that detracts from the real point of the game.
Every game that has PvE with PvP, it is the PvE players that get crapped on.
How, you say?
For one good example, we're the ones who get nerfed against mobs because the PvPers need "balancing" against each other.
We ether get nerfed so we don't do as much damage to the mobs, or we get buffed to the point where mobs are a too easy cakewalk because the PvPers have to keep the "my e-peen should be bigger than yours" teeter-totter going up and down.
Another way is the story/realism value.
How realistic is it that a healer can kill a mob as efficiently as a combat toon? Well, can't have a healer actually dependent on teams, because that healer has to be able to stand toe-to-toe with a warrior in one-on-one PvP.
What I'd like is fully PvE. And then really PvE as in large scale wars, organized like in LOTR movies. Enormous battles, where two factions fight each other with all kinds of jobs, 200 people per battle and each a HQ. Where arrows fly over warriors' heads to cover their charge, where the keep has a front door (gate) that has a certain amount of HP, and when you get inside you need to kill their boss (could be brain-computer or old fashioned king). No PvP but fully dedicating the game to the mass to not seperate people from each other too much.
This makes the game attractive because every MMO has PvP in it, every single game and none are created to be fully PvE. If so, the first game (when succesful) would be a pillar in PvE games.
A game should be pure PvP, or not at all. Every game that has PvE with PvP, it is the PvE players that get crapped on. How, you say? For one good example, we're the ones who get nerfed against mobs because the PvPers need "balancing" against each other. We ether get nerfed so we don't do as much damage to the mobs, or we get buffed to the point where mobs are a too easy cakewalk because the PvPers have to keep the "my e-peen should be bigger than yours" teeter-totter going up and down. Another way is the story/realism value. How realistic is it that a healer can kill a mob as efficiently as a combat toon? Well, can't have a healer actually dependent on teams, because that healer has to be able to stand toe-to-toe with a warrior in one-on-one PvP.
You already know that about 95% of mmo community just like pve and if with no risk some pvp.
You can clearly see you are also a pve fan why constantly bring this up while you know majority just dont like pvp much specially if its risky?
First you have all kinds of different pvp style games.
secondly you eather like it or not, becouse majority like pve with little bit of pvp as almost all mmo's have, don't mean pvp is less importend.
Becouse almost all mmo's its after thought implemeting pvp:WoW-EQ2-lotr are big examples of that there core gampley why game was build is pve and a after thought in those games is pvp to pls some fans.
WoW and EQ2 are no pvp games there is no risk involed dont delute yourself plaese.
But games like UO-AC(even tho that game was pve its one best pvpsytems implemented)EVE and now Darkfall are core pvp with pve.
For those games all players will say pvp is most importend and pve is just a desert.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I like PVE more than PVP, but thats its only my personal opinion since i prefer to cooperate with ppl to compete with...(maybe because i use to play support roles , such as healers and so)
Btw , i think that more games should have that Cooperative scenarios that Guild Wars Had... i didnt play anything more storydriving :P
The expcetion is DAOC...I just love the idea to go fight the enemy realms to keep my realmates safe... but they were the enemy and every realm was united vs them, so it made ppl to be more friendly with their realmates (Or at least before TOA was releases it was this way)
So i voted more PVE than PVP
Have a nice day everyone (And soz for my english )
PvE is absolutley the best thing mmorpgs has. I love PvE and have been an active PvEr on WoW and I've cleared absolutley all the content there is in game. I hate PvP, I mean I really do not like it, Im not that crap on it since my arena team is around 1800 rating, but its still boring, I do 10-15 Arena games every week just because I have nothing else to do anymore. So with other words, PvP should be an option in every game just because there should be more than one thing to choose from in mmorpgs.
Mmorpgs now days that are fully concentrated at PvP or RvR or whatever. Well there aint as much interest for those games cause they are strictly PvP and nothing else.
McAllen has summed up this argument wonderfully in my view. True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO. Having played the game tho, I think EVE Online is one MMO where this is reversed. EVE is an extremely well served and properly PvP game spoiled by a minority (albeit a growing minority) element that gets far more coverage than it deserves thanks to eagerness of griefers to brag and the contentment of PvPers to just get on with playing their own game.
I play WoW mostly now on their normal and normal RP servers in order to avoid the griefers that MMO's attract and I never PvP in an MMO. There are however, many people in the guild I belong to that thoroughly enjoy the PvP arenas and battle areas that WoW provides on the normal servers. You would think that they would be playing on the WoW PvP servers too but every single one of them say when asked that there is no way they would ever join a PvP server because of all the griefing and ganking that goes on.
For my own opinion PvE and PvP are needed for a MMO to be a good game but PvE content must be given priority over PvP content to make it a successful game. Where there is PvP it has to be done in a way where griefing of the player base at large, not just PvE only players, is at least extremely difficult to carry out in the same way that has been done in WoW or self-policed by the player base in the same way as has been encouraged in EVE Online.
Loved some hard battles in Guildwars: Factions, PvP can be extremly exiting. But it can also be incredible boring with Zerging and griefing (my best PvP memory is when I turned a Korean griefer into a chicken in the Linage beta, dang there was so many griefers there).
Gentleman style PvP like in Guildwars is very funny, and WAR and Daoc have it's good points too. But most game have really bad PvP, so the odds are I will wait until Guildwars 2 to really start again.
PvE can be really fun, when you have a really hard dungeon with a good group. Problem with it is that many games are kinda too easy for my taste.
I like 75% PvE with 25% PvP, and few "battlegrounds".
My hopes for the future with this mix are game like GW2, World of darkness online and MO.
"True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO"
So what is your definition of a true pvper. Is it the guy who sits waiting at a spawn point loaded up with all the expensive equipement they can purchase and buffed to the hilt if possible. I don't think so.
Problem with pvp in most MMO's today, it is not really pvp, it is mvp (money vs player). Those with the cash, whether they go outside the game and purchase gold or do it in game still dominate the play not a players kill. In almost all of these games equipment and in some cases buffs override skill in a large way. Wow is just as bad as any of them, with the right amount of gold, guilds will fall all over you to take you to get any item you desire.
Problem in today's MMO's is that people want those fancy items and they want them to be more than just bling which unfortunately pretty much unbalances any aspects of pvp that the developers put in the game.
So yes, I long for the old days of UO, where skill ruled and equipment was secondary. And don't give me that lame answer that Darkfall is coming. All that game is is a 2nd rate attempt at recreating the old UO experience with lots of bugs to be found and exploited.
They constant PvP'ers are some of the most vocal about conformity. One of the best signatures I've ever seen is: 'Nerf scissors. Paper is working as intended.' - Rock That is, in perfect summation, the attitude of every PvP'er I've ever met in game. Now, obviously I've not met everybody, but if my experience is 100% negative, how many others are too?
And PvP'ers are always talking about how much more exciting it is ... no ... their death penalties are the same. They risk the same for the 'reward' of smack talking. That's why games keep score of PvP kills/deaths/ratios, etc. If it really was just about the challenge ... why keep score?
If PvP'ers were REALLY interested in the challenge aspect, they'd demand that developers limit character creation to a single character and then ban their CD-Key when that character dies. But I bet they won't go for that. And perma-death is too bad for them too. XP loss is just silly because they all careen through the game on XP marathons.
As I've said, I REALLY don't like it. But a PvP'er pays the same fee I do so who's opinion is worth more?
Personally, I wish people had to chose PvP or PvE at character creation (or maybe level 5 or right after the tutorial or some other early milestone).
They'd have different skills, different bonuses, different penalties, and you'd know this right up front. You could even limit the different NPCs they could interact with. How much interaction would be created if the endgame PvE raid yielded the PvP best item and an RvR RAID yielded the best PvE item? Maybe some PvP can't go into some cities ... maybe some PvE can't either ... How much social interaction would be created by PvP merchants risking it to run from the exclusive cities to the shared ones?
I think they keep trying to force two squares into the same hole, at the same time. They either don't fit, or one is pushed through before the other --- and both lack for it. Developers need to see that one is a square and one is a circle, put them both in the right spot and the game is more diverse and fun for everyone involved.
I don't think there is a debate, i think both PvE & PvP are essential aspects of any MMO.
you don't have to debate importance of content (i.e. PvE) to keep players interests. what was mentioned earlier is the developers use of PvP to provide an alternative to end game content , by providing PvP.
Hardcore PvP'ers will insist on free for all and perma death and their own servers etc...so why not give it to them. Bigger MMO's will provide this for those who want it, but it is only a small portion of the total MMO community.
Most want a way to kill time , by kill'in friends as a distraction from there usually PvE routines.
The problem with any PvP is balance. Balance means ensuring the sides have a close to equal chance against most of the character types/classes available with any given character type/class. Invariably one or more classes will emerge as Uber or alpha for any game system. The struggle to balance PvP is a constant one for any developer and the stakes are high.
PvP'ers are aways first to cry "Nerf" to any changes and rant and threaten to leave. Also changes/fixes to either PvE or PvP sides can adversly effect the other with un-intended consequences.
Though PvP seems a necessarily evil, the real evil is the damage it can do to the viability of any product if it is not done right...i.e. if they can't walk the balance tightrope.
I agree with many of your observations but I'm going to have to take exception to this. There are many players in Eve Online who are fundamentally decent people. Many of these don't even care all that much for PvP. What's interesting and exciting to them is the possibility of danger and the dynamism that brings on a global scale. It wakes you up, keeps you motivated and focused and sharpens not only your survival but political skills. You pay attention to the big picture as massive alliances wage war in 0.0 because that could impact you indirectly. Legends that last forever are actual historical fact on single server Eve. The vast majority of players may never have personal contact with earthshaking battles or clever scams but we all feel like we're part of that world and, whether personally vested or not, tend to have heroes and villains whose adventures we keep up with - and I'm not talking about the fictional ones. Not everyone needs to feel like a big fish. Alot of us enjoy being clever little fishes that know when to fight and when to hide and when to fasttalk like Han Solo on crack. It's being part of something that means something that's most exciting.
I'm not saying everyone in Eve is a d-bag. Heck *I* play Eve. My point is, not everyone enjoys the "danger and dynamism" of d-bags around every corner. It makes me sick, personally, physically sick. It's like being told every morning that, on your way to work, a sniper is out there, hunting you...you don't know where he is, you don't know when he'll strike, but he's giggling in savage fury at the thought of spraying your brains all over the inside of your car.
Is that "fun"? It might be, for some. And even for them, it might be for a few days. But only the most sadistic of people would find that fun all the time, and most people hate it. Even in Eve, everyone in my corporation utterly despises PvP. That's why I enjoy L4D and other FPs's...I log in, I know they're waiting for me, because I'm waiting for them, then I log off and go play something less stressful.
The fundamental difference is in the definition of "fun". I have a friend who ties a rubber band around his ankles and jumps off of bridges and calls it "fun". I call it "idiocy", because I see no RoI for it. He fundamentally does not understand why I don't see it as fun, he simply can not comprehend it. Meanwhile, I curl up with a magnifying glass and paint figurines for hours, or read a book, and to me that is "fun" and he calls it "boring as hell". Again, he fundamentally can not comprehend why I would consider that fun.
The people who need the more extreme versions of fun are wired to never understand any other type of fun. The guys at my office who are SERIOUS softball players, practice 4x a week, do pushups on the field, play every season, etc have very unflattering things to say about those of us who take our beers out into the outfield when we play and don't keep score. It's the exact same behaviour seen when a PvP player is trying to explain to a PvE one that any MMO without PvP is boring, stupid, and unsuccessful, and any time the PvE player has an example (WoW, with 12 million players, more than 10 million of which are on non-PvP servers), they insult the WoW playerbase for not playing a "real" MMO.
IMHO, it comes down to the definition of "respect". PvP players have no respect for people who do not play games with "danger and dynamism". To a PvP player, respect is earned by killing each other and proving it. PvE players don't NEED to dominate their foe to have fun. We don't NEED it to be personal. We don't NEED to be #1. PvP players consider that downright unAmerican.
"True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO" So what is your definition of a true pvper. Is it the guy who sits waiting at a spawn point loaded up with all the expensive equipement they can purchase and buffed to the hilt if possible. I don't think so. Problem with pvp in most MMO's today, it is not really pvp, it is mvp (money vs player). Those with the cash, whether they go outside the game and purchase gold or do it in game still dominate the play not a players kill. In almost all of these games equipment and in some cases buffs override skill in a large way. Wow is just as bad as any of them, with the right amount of gold, guilds will fall all over you to take you to get any item you desire. Problem in today's MMO's is that people want those fancy items and they want them to be more than just bling which unfortunately pretty much unbalances any aspects of pvp that the developers put in the game. So yes, I long for the old days of UO, where skill ruled and equipment was secondary. And don't give me that lame answer that Darkfall is coming. All that game is is a 2nd rate attempt at recreating the old UO experience with lots of bugs to be found and exploited.
As I said in my post, True PvP'rs aren't even in MMO's, they're in Counterstrike, or Ghost Recon, or Call of Duty, games specifically designed to pit people against each other. They go there to fight with equals and hone their skills, or just trash talk with peers.
Let me give you a perfect example of the typical MMO PvP'rs...In Eve, when you destroy a ship, you "own" the cargo in the wreck, but you don't own the actual wreck. Someone can fly up and salvage (strip the valuables) from the wreck and as long as they don't touch the cargo, there is nothing you can do but yell in impotent rage, because if you shoot the guy, the "police" show up and kill you for being evil. So you're in the middle of a mission, surrounded by bad guys, and someone scans down where you are, flies in, and starts salvaging your wrecks and there's nothing you can do.
Now, if they touch the cargo in the wreck, you get what's called an aggression timer, which means you have the right to shoot them without the "police" jumping in. So you do, in your righteous vengeance, because he's stealing from you. However, when you shoot him, he (and everyone in his fleet) has the right to shoot you back, and that's when you find out he brought 8 friends with him, all cloaked, sitting in your mission deadspace, and they giggle in sadistic glee while they rend you and your ship to pieces, then loot and salvage it before your eyes.
There is a corporation in Eve called "Tears Extraction Services", and this is what they do, all day, every day, 100's of other people's missions a day, raking in a massive fortune on the misery of others. They *LIVE* for you to be mad at them and yell impotently at them. They *THRIVE* on "can tipping" (what I described above) and getting you to shoot at them so they can steal your crap. They are not playing the game, they are playing *YOU*. And CCP loves every last one of them, modifies the game such that they actually have an easier time of it and you are screwed.
That is the typical MMO PvP player. They are not there for the thrill or challenge, not there to compete. They are there to prey on the unsuspecting. Who wants to fight a fair, challenging fight, when you can beat up kids for their lunch money?
And this is why Eve has 250k people and not 12 million. This is why no MMO with non-consensual PvP will ever be 1/20th as popular as WoW, because all it takes is a really bad expeirence to turn someone away from an MMO to another, and non-consensual PvP is the most common "really bad experience" there is. Eve may have 250k players, but I know there are over a million ex-Eve players and most of them have stories just like these.
The main problem is that most MMORPG players are in one of two groups. The first are the casual players, the second are the serious gamers. The former group wants to have fun and will spend some effort to improve their equipment. The latter group spends too much time working every last iota of power from their characters and equipment. If they can improve something by 0.1%, they'd do it as they race their way to max level. Now in PvE having the two groups mix isn't a bad thing. But in PvP the serious gamers have a huge advantage over the casual gamers. Since casual gamers are in the majority it means the serious gamers often have no one to fight but the casuals. Whether that's a good or bad situation depends on the player. But for casual gamers, it's a bad thing. Casual gamers will get slaughtered and have a bad experience that can turn them away from the game.
So unless there's a way to separate the serious from the casual gamers, PvP will be a problem.
(I think EVE is for serious gamers only whether they PvP or not judging from the responses I got when I asked about how EVE was.)
I don't hold it against someone if they're a serious or casual player. Everyone has their own thing. But I don't like it when the two groups mix and one group justifiably feels cheated at the end of the day.
The main problem is that most MMORPG players are in one of two groups. The first are the casual players, the second are the serious gamers. The former group wants to have fun and will spend some effort to improve their equipment. The latter group spends too much time working every last iota of power from their characters and equipment. If they can improve something by 0.1%, they'd do it as they race their way to max level. Now in PvE having the two groups mix isn't a bad thing. But in PvP the serious gamers have a huge advantage over the casual gamers. Since casual gamers are in the majority it means the serious gamers often have no one to fight but the casuals. Whether that's a good or bad situation depends on the player. But for casual gamers, it's a bad thing. Casual gamers will get slaughtered and have a bad experience that can turn them away from the game. So unless there's a way to separate the serious from the casual gamers, PvP will be a problem. (I think EVE is for serious gamers only whether they PvP or not judging from the responses I got when I asked about how EVE was.) I don't hold it against someone if they're a serious or casual player. Everyone has their own thing. But I don't like it when the two groups mix and one group justifiably feels cheated at the end of the day.
Eve is definately a PvP game. CCP puts PvE content in, then makes it PvP anyway. For example, they added a huge string of missions called COSMOS, storyline missions that are done single player (the rewards can't be shared), but they added them in the middle of a low sec system where PvP player pirates hang out and gate camp. It's like putting a watering hole directly under a deer blind. I have visions of the CCP devs going "Ok, now watch this...here comes an innocent PvE player, he just wants to quietly do his missions...he has no idea...BOOM, HAAHAHA! I bet he never saw THAT coming!"
And sadly, at the end of the day, it's always the PvE player that's cheated while the PvP player mocks them. The good news is, the PvE player then quits the game, stops giving them money, and games that brag about how good their PvP is (WAR, AoC) die horribly within 3 months of release, consolidate down to half their servers, and developers are taught quite brutally that there are 2 choices: Make a PvP game, or make money. Hopefully Venture Capitalists will realize and stop funding these atrocities so good games can be made.
PvP games are bad business. Why? Because any game where 1 player can deliberately, and with forethought of malice, convince another player to stop paying you money is bad business. That's like adding PvP to McDonalds. If other customers had the right to jump you at the door and kill you, most people would go to Burger King.
PvP players already have good games to play, 100's of them, from Madden to Call of Duty, Mario to Left 4 Dead, the market is FILLED with games for competitive players to experience dynamic content. Go shoot each other and leave the carebears alone :P
"True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO" So what is your definition of a true pvper. Is it the guy who sits waiting at a spawn point loaded up with all the expensive equipement they can purchase and buffed to the hilt if possible. I don't think so. Problem with pvp in most MMO's today, it is not really pvp, it is mvp (money vs player). Those with the cash, whether they go outside the game and purchase gold or do it in game still dominate the play not a players kill. In almost all of these games equipment and in some cases buffs override skill in a large way. Wow is just as bad as any of them, with the right amount of gold, guilds will fall all over you to take you to get any item you desire. Problem in today's MMO's is that people want those fancy items and they want them to be more than just bling which unfortunately pretty much unbalances any aspects of pvp that the developers put in the game. So yes, I long for the old days of UO, where skill ruled and equipment was secondary. And don't give me that lame answer that Darkfall is coming. All that game is is a 2nd rate attempt at recreating the old UO experience with lots of bugs to be found and exploited.
As I said in my post, True PvP'rs aren't even in MMO's, they're in Counterstrike, or Ghost Recon, or Call of Duty, games specifically designed to pit people against each other. They go there to fight with equals and hone their skills, or just trash talk with peers.
Let me give you a perfect example of the typical MMO PvP'rs...In Eve, when you destroy a ship, you "own" the cargo in the wreck, but you don't own the actual wreck. Someone can fly up and salvage (strip the valuables) from the wreck and as long as they don't touch the cargo, there is nothing you can do but yell in impotent rage, because if you shoot the guy, the "police" show up and kill you for being evil. So you're in the middle of a mission, surrounded by bad guys, and someone scans down where you are, flies in, and starts salvaging your wrecks and there's nothing you can do.
Now, if they touch the cargo in the wreck, you get what's called an aggression timer, which means you have the right to shoot them without the "police" jumping in. So you do, in your righteous vengeance, because he's stealing from you. However, when you shoot him, he (and everyone in his fleet) has the right to shoot you back, and that's when you find out he brought 8 friends with him, all cloaked, sitting in your mission deadspace, and they giggle in sadistic glee while they rend you and your ship to pieces, then loot and salvage it before your eyes.
There is a corporation in Eve called "Tears Extraction Services", and this is what they do, all day, every day, 100's of other people's missions a day, raking in a massive fortune on the misery of others. They *LIVE* for you to be mad at them and yell impotently at them. They *THRIVE* on "can tipping" (what I described above) and getting you to shoot at them so they can steal your crap. They are not playing the game, they are playing *YOU*. And CCP loves every last one of them, modifies the game such that they actually have an easier time of it and you are screwed.
That is the typical MMO PvP player. They are not there for the thrill or challenge, not there to compete. They are there to prey on the unsuspecting. Who wants to fight a fair, challenging fight, when you can beat up kids for their lunch money?
And this is why Eve has 250k people and not 12 million. This is why no MMO with non-consensual PvP will ever be 1/20th as popular as WoW, because all it takes is a really bad expeirence to turn someone away from an MMO to another, and non-consensual PvP is the most common "really bad experience" there is. Eve may have 250k players, but I know there are over a million ex-Eve players and most of them have stories just like these.
Oh I don't disagree, Eve's pvp rules are convoluted and obtuse at times in the protected areas of high sec. Silly might be a better word. Once you get to low sec and 0.0 though things change. Personally been living in 0.0 for years and I very rarely ever pvp. If you know what you are doing you can generally avoid pvp most of the time.
But I will still say that no FPS has ever given me the excitement UO generated prior to the massive changes in age of shadows. I am still waiting for a game to come close to that. And I do not care if it only has 100-200k people.
My first exposure to PvP was when about 10 years ago a rolled up a character on darktide the Ac PvP server.
There i was with a few lvl 3 players running around outside the start zone with a lvl 89 player ganking us repeatable when we asked him why he would spend so much time wasting a few noobs he replied because he could....that sum's up PVP attitudes. Players will lower themselves to there base actions as allowed by the game because they can.
Anyone going into that environment should be aware of that fact. This will turn off 90% of the non pvp oriented players who coincidently make up about 90% of the MMO populations.
PVP is not everyone's cup of tea so they always has to be an element of safe PVE for games to succeed.
In general, I love WoW's PVE but despise its PVP. I just don't find the PVP fun. As a healer, I'm simply and quickly locked out of the fight or burnt to a crisp before I can do anything. I DID like PVP for a long while before resilience, but I'm not sure that it's the resilience mechanic that ruined it for me, so I certainly won't gripe about that. However, even with how much I generally despise PVP in WoW, I find it quite enjoyable to roll a rogue on a PVP server and fight the opposite side while I'm leveling.
However, WAR's pvp (which I wish I could play well on my own comp) is absolutely amazing to me. I love it. I'm pretty sure I half-killed my computer running it at a terrible framerate just because I enjoyed it so much. Each archetype was a blast for me.
I loved LOTRO, but the PVP in that game seems to me like a bad joke. But I've still heard that there are people who enjoy it and actually play the game specifically for that, so for Turbine and the game community it's probably good that the game has a touch of PVP.
The answer, then? Gah, it depends, for goodness' sake.
Playing: Single-player games Awaiting: Stargate, Star Trek, assuming the burnout has passed Retired: WoW, BC, LotRO, DDO, CoH/V, EVE, WotLK, WAR
If I was to use one word to describe my view of a true PvPer it would be 'competitor'. I think of the person who actually wants a competition with another person(s) in order to show that, given all reasonable things set as equal as possible it's his skills at the game and the use of his/her character that are superior to the other guys. I think of the professional CS, Starcraft and C&C players and they people who aspire to be like them. That's my definition of a true PvPer.
Unfortunately they invariably aren't the ones taking part in the PvP aspects of most MMO's. They're playing the FPS's and RTS's that have multi-player PvP options. MMO PvPers are basically bullies who PK because they can with no reprisal. The vast majority of MMO PvPers will run away screaming from a fair fight from the few occasions I've seen them come up against one. The only reason they're playing is so they can make other peoples gaming experience as miserable as possible. Why they would want to do this is best asked of them but the plain and simple fact is they are the worst kind of bullies because they carry out their campagns of virtual terror anonimously and so are protected from their victims and the consequences of their actions. There is no come-back to them personally for their victimisation of other players. If your average Griefer carried out in real life what they do in MMO's there would probably be an a good few more people in jail than there are now.
Proper serious PvP can be a big asset to a MMORPG but, in my view, it has to be and additional feature to the main PvE content and highly controlled in order to prevent it from being used as a means of bullying for whatever reason. Like many, from what I've seen of various games the situation is far from perfect in any game and down-right shamefull in others (I think of my brief experiences of Lineage II) but I think the way Blizzard have handled PvP in WoW is the best I've seen so far which is why I play that now.
Nothing wrong with PvP...so long as it's on another server (preferably another game <g>:), totally consentual & a very minor focus of the game's development. Anything else leads to or simply is ganking, griefing, pking, killstealing, corpsecamping & general asshattery at its worst. It also encourages sociopaths & redheaded stepchildren to breed, which is never a good thing.
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Read through three pages that represented what I call "drek" in favor of PvP.
Never interested me. Can't stand the mind behind those sort of players crowing "Raped you!" or "You're pwned!".
I find it distasteful. And no, I DON'T have to justify that - it's just distasteful
Seems to me they never got out of that adolescent phase of proving themselves - whatever that means.
PvPers also are the most QQ bunch I've ever read on forums. Each PvP class consistently and constantly call for the nerfing of other classes as they each want a "one-shot" kill. Eventually a game goes to drek, even in PvE, as all classes get so nerfed that killing a same level NPC mob is a PITA.
Gaming has a long way to go, and unfortunately we don't have the processing power, or bandwidth, yet to make them what they should be. A story you stick to from beginning to end with the people you start with.
Anything else isn't really a game, just an arena or boxing ring wthout the consequences of RL.
In the meantime I will not play a game that doesn't have the two separated. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it, and I don't take part in it.
I have a feeling that the silent majority feel the same way, but get tired of the PvPers flaming anything they attempt to say on the subject.
Comments
Personally I found PVP too repetitive and tiresome, but thats just my personal taste. How many times can you conquer/defend the same keep over and over until it grows boring? I want a bit PVP, but generally I prefer a grand story being told through quests and adventures with a group of friends, meaning PVE. I vote here on the idea if both are at their best as I can imagine it. Sure there is bad PVE and bad PVP, but if both are as good as they can be, its still PVE which is way more interesting for me. Maybe partially also because I dont like so much fighting against other people. Yeah yeah, call me carebear, I just enjoy working WITH people more than fighting against them.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
PVP will be bad if a game is poorly designed just as much ans PVE will be bad in a poorly designed game the main problem today is that almost all games have a shitbox design as they are just trowing them together to keep the investors happy
games have to be properly designed around the aspect you are going to go with you cant just trow PVP on as an after thought its like makeing a box with some monsters and then 2 days from launch add in a little box off to the side and make it a PVP zone it just wont work and its pretty much what i think the current main stream games (with a few notable exceptions) do
i love to PVP but it has to be done right there has to be longterm consequences and reasons to being a player killer there cant be gear based progression there cant be levels there cant be auto target all those sorts of things are poor design features for casual players and they dont work for PVP it just turns it into PVE except 50% of the time someone gets bent
If I want PvP action then I will go play Call of Duty - World at War or Team Fortress 2.
I dislike PvP in RPG games. The reason is simple. PvP supports winning at any cost. And that means pulling every dirty trick in the book out. And they do. They'll look for gliches, hacks, grossly unfair matchups in numbers or power, etc. That just translates into being oppressed. Isn't there enough oppression in the world already?
When I get on an online RPG I don't want to be aggravated by some griefer (they call themselves "PvPers") who kills my character or property because he thinks its fun.
I get on an online RPG because I want to struggle in concert with my fellow gamers against some massive monolithic force of evil or good.
I mean, really, struggling against another player is the RPG equivalent of struggling against a pickpocket or a mugger. Sure it could be a challenge, but it's hardly heroic as compared to struggling against an undead god or something. So it's just a vapid sort of pointlessness that detracts from the real point of the game.
A game should be pure PvP, or not at all.
Every game that has PvE with PvP, it is the PvE players that get crapped on.
How, you say?
For one good example, we're the ones who get nerfed against mobs because the PvPers need "balancing" against each other.
We ether get nerfed so we don't do as much damage to the mobs, or we get buffed to the point where mobs are a too easy cakewalk because the PvPers have to keep the "my e-peen should be bigger than yours" teeter-totter going up and down.
Another way is the story/realism value.
How realistic is it that a healer can kill a mob as efficiently as a combat toon? Well, can't have a healer actually dependent on teams, because that healer has to be able to stand toe-to-toe with a warrior in one-on-one PvP.
What I'd like is fully PvE. And then really PvE as in large scale wars, organized like in LOTR movies. Enormous battles, where two factions fight each other with all kinds of jobs, 200 people per battle and each a HQ. Where arrows fly over warriors' heads to cover their charge, where the keep has a front door (gate) that has a certain amount of HP, and when you get inside you need to kill their boss (could be brain-computer or old fashioned king). No PvP but fully dedicating the game to the mass to not seperate people from each other too much.
This makes the game attractive because every MMO has PvP in it, every single game and none are created to be fully PvE. If so, the first game (when succesful) would be a pillar in PvE games.
Precisely this.
Again a pointless arguement.
You already know that about 95% of mmo community just like pve and if with no risk some pvp.
You can clearly see you are also a pve fan why constantly bring this up while you know majority just dont like pvp much specially if its risky?
First you have all kinds of different pvp style games.
secondly you eather like it or not, becouse majority like pve with little bit of pvp as almost all mmo's have, don't mean pvp is less importend.
Becouse almost all mmo's its after thought implemeting pvp:WoW-EQ2-lotr are big examples of that there core gampley why game was build is pve and a after thought in those games is pvp to pls some fans.
WoW and EQ2 are no pvp games there is no risk involed dont delute yourself plaese.
But games like UO-AC(even tho that game was pve its one best pvpsytems implemented)EVE and now Darkfall are core pvp with pve.
For those games all players will say pvp is most importend and pve is just a desert.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
I like PVE more than PVP, but thats its only my personal opinion since i prefer to cooperate with ppl to compete with...(maybe because i use to play support roles , such as healers and so)
Btw , i think that more games should have that Cooperative scenarios that Guild Wars Had... i didnt play anything more storydriving :P
The expcetion is DAOC...I just love the idea to go fight the enemy realms to keep my realmates safe... but they were the enemy and every realm was united vs them, so it made ppl to be more friendly with their realmates (Or at least before TOA was releases it was this way)
So i voted more PVE than PVP
Have a nice day everyone (And soz for my english
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PvE is absolutley the best thing mmorpgs has. I love PvE and have been an active PvEr on WoW and I've cleared absolutley all the content there is in game. I hate PvP, I mean I really do not like it, Im not that crap on it since my arena team is around 1800 rating, but its still boring, I do 10-15 Arena games every week just because I have nothing else to do anymore. So with other words, PvP should be an option in every game just because there should be more than one thing to choose from in mmorpgs.
Mmorpgs now days that are fully concentrated at PvP or RvR or whatever. Well there aint as much interest for those games cause they are strictly PvP and nothing else.
McAllen has summed up this argument wonderfully in my view. True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO. Having played the game tho, I think EVE Online is one MMO where this is reversed. EVE is an extremely well served and properly PvP game spoiled by a minority (albeit a growing minority) element that gets far more coverage than it deserves thanks to eagerness of griefers to brag and the contentment of PvPers to just get on with playing their own game.
I play WoW mostly now on their normal and normal RP servers in order to avoid the griefers that MMO's attract and I never PvP in an MMO. There are however, many people in the guild I belong to that thoroughly enjoy the PvP arenas and battle areas that WoW provides on the normal servers. You would think that they would be playing on the WoW PvP servers too but every single one of them say when asked that there is no way they would ever join a PvP server because of all the griefing and ganking that goes on.
For my own opinion PvE and PvP are needed for a MMO to be a good game but PvE content must be given priority over PvP content to make it a successful game. Where there is PvP it has to be done in a way where griefing of the player base at large, not just PvE only players, is at least extremely difficult to carry out in the same way that has been done in WoW or self-policed by the player base in the same way as has been encouraged in EVE Online.
Both PvE and PvP have it's good points.
Loved some hard battles in Guildwars: Factions, PvP can be extremly exiting. But it can also be incredible boring with Zerging and griefing (my best PvP memory is when I turned a Korean griefer into a chicken in the Linage beta, dang there was so many griefers there).
Gentleman style PvP like in Guildwars is very funny, and WAR and Daoc have it's good points too. But most game have really bad PvP, so the odds are I will wait until Guildwars 2 to really start again.
PvE can be really fun, when you have a really hard dungeon with a good group. Problem with it is that many games are kinda too easy for my taste.
I like 75% PvE with 25% PvP, and few "battlegrounds".
My hopes for the future with this mix are game like GW2, World of darkness online and MO.
"True PvPers in MMOs are the exception rather than the norm in the PvP community of your average MMO"
So what is your definition of a true pvper. Is it the guy who sits waiting at a spawn point loaded up with all the expensive equipement they can purchase and buffed to the hilt if possible. I don't think so.
Problem with pvp in most MMO's today, it is not really pvp, it is mvp (money vs player). Those with the cash, whether they go outside the game and purchase gold or do it in game still dominate the play not a players kill. In almost all of these games equipment and in some cases buffs override skill in a large way. Wow is just as bad as any of them, with the right amount of gold, guilds will fall all over you to take you to get any item you desire.
Problem in today's MMO's is that people want those fancy items and they want them to be more than just bling which unfortunately pretty much unbalances any aspects of pvp that the developers put in the game.
So yes, I long for the old days of UO, where skill ruled and equipment was secondary. And don't give me that lame answer that Darkfall is coming. All that game is is a 2nd rate attempt at recreating the old UO experience with lots of bugs to be found and exploited.
I really dislike PvP for a lot of reasons:
They constant PvP'ers are some of the most vocal about conformity. One of the best signatures I've ever seen is: 'Nerf scissors. Paper is working as intended.' - Rock That is, in perfect summation, the attitude of every PvP'er I've ever met in game. Now, obviously I've not met everybody, but if my experience is 100% negative, how many others are too?
And PvP'ers are always talking about how much more exciting it is ... no ... their death penalties are the same. They risk the same for the 'reward' of smack talking. That's why games keep score of PvP kills/deaths/ratios, etc. If it really was just about the challenge ... why keep score?
If PvP'ers were REALLY interested in the challenge aspect, they'd demand that developers limit character creation to a single character and then ban their CD-Key when that character dies. But I bet they won't go for that. And perma-death is too bad for them too. XP loss is just silly because they all careen through the game on XP marathons.
As I've said, I REALLY don't like it. But a PvP'er pays the same fee I do so who's opinion is worth more?
Personally, I wish people had to chose PvP or PvE at character creation (or maybe level 5 or right after the tutorial or some other early milestone).
They'd have different skills, different bonuses, different penalties, and you'd know this right up front. You could even limit the different NPCs they could interact with. How much interaction would be created if the endgame PvE raid yielded the PvP best item and an RvR RAID yielded the best PvE item? Maybe some PvP can't go into some cities ... maybe some PvE can't either ... How much social interaction would be created by PvP merchants risking it to run from the exclusive cities to the shared ones?
I think they keep trying to force two squares into the same hole, at the same time. They either don't fit, or one is pushed through before the other --- and both lack for it. Developers need to see that one is a square and one is a circle, put them both in the right spot and the game is more diverse and fun for everyone involved.
I don't think there is a debate, i think both PvE & PvP are essential aspects of any MMO.
you don't have to debate importance of content (i.e. PvE) to keep players interests. what was mentioned earlier is the developers use of PvP to provide an alternative to end game content , by providing PvP.
Hardcore PvP'ers will insist on free for all and perma death and their own servers etc...so why not give it to them. Bigger MMO's will provide this for those who want it, but it is only a small portion of the total MMO community.
Most want a way to kill time , by kill'in friends as a distraction from there usually PvE routines.
The problem with any PvP is balance. Balance means ensuring the sides have a close to equal chance against most of the character types/classes available with any given character type/class. Invariably one or more classes will emerge as Uber or alpha for any game system. The struggle to balance PvP is a constant one for any developer and the stakes are high.
PvP'ers are aways first to cry "Nerf" to any changes and rant and threaten to leave. Also changes/fixes to either PvE or PvP sides can adversly effect the other with un-intended consequences.
Though PvP seems a necessarily evil, the real evil is the damage it can do to the viability of any product if it is not done right...i.e. if they can't walk the balance tightrope.
just my 2 cents....
I'm not saying everyone in Eve is a d-bag. Heck *I* play Eve. My point is, not everyone enjoys the "danger and dynamism" of d-bags around every corner. It makes me sick, personally, physically sick. It's like being told every morning that, on your way to work, a sniper is out there, hunting you...you don't know where he is, you don't know when he'll strike, but he's giggling in savage fury at the thought of spraying your brains all over the inside of your car.
Is that "fun"? It might be, for some. And even for them, it might be for a few days. But only the most sadistic of people would find that fun all the time, and most people hate it. Even in Eve, everyone in my corporation utterly despises PvP. That's why I enjoy L4D and other FPs's...I log in, I know they're waiting for me, because I'm waiting for them, then I log off and go play something less stressful.
The fundamental difference is in the definition of "fun". I have a friend who ties a rubber band around his ankles and jumps off of bridges and calls it "fun". I call it "idiocy", because I see no RoI for it. He fundamentally does not understand why I don't see it as fun, he simply can not comprehend it. Meanwhile, I curl up with a magnifying glass and paint figurines for hours, or read a book, and to me that is "fun" and he calls it "boring as hell". Again, he fundamentally can not comprehend why I would consider that fun.
The people who need the more extreme versions of fun are wired to never understand any other type of fun. The guys at my office who are SERIOUS softball players, practice 4x a week, do pushups on the field, play every season, etc have very unflattering things to say about those of us who take our beers out into the outfield when we play and don't keep score. It's the exact same behaviour seen when a PvP player is trying to explain to a PvE one that any MMO without PvP is boring, stupid, and unsuccessful, and any time the PvE player has an example (WoW, with 12 million players, more than 10 million of which are on non-PvP servers), they insult the WoW playerbase for not playing a "real" MMO.
IMHO, it comes down to the definition of "respect". PvP players have no respect for people who do not play games with "danger and dynamism". To a PvP player, respect is earned by killing each other and proving it. PvE players don't NEED to dominate their foe to have fun. We don't NEED it to be personal. We don't NEED to be #1. PvP players consider that downright unAmerican.
As I said in my post, True PvP'rs aren't even in MMO's, they're in Counterstrike, or Ghost Recon, or Call of Duty, games specifically designed to pit people against each other. They go there to fight with equals and hone their skills, or just trash talk with peers.
Let me give you a perfect example of the typical MMO PvP'rs...In Eve, when you destroy a ship, you "own" the cargo in the wreck, but you don't own the actual wreck. Someone can fly up and salvage (strip the valuables) from the wreck and as long as they don't touch the cargo, there is nothing you can do but yell in impotent rage, because if you shoot the guy, the "police" show up and kill you for being evil. So you're in the middle of a mission, surrounded by bad guys, and someone scans down where you are, flies in, and starts salvaging your wrecks and there's nothing you can do.
Now, if they touch the cargo in the wreck, you get what's called an aggression timer, which means you have the right to shoot them without the "police" jumping in. So you do, in your righteous vengeance, because he's stealing from you. However, when you shoot him, he (and everyone in his fleet) has the right to shoot you back, and that's when you find out he brought 8 friends with him, all cloaked, sitting in your mission deadspace, and they giggle in sadistic glee while they rend you and your ship to pieces, then loot and salvage it before your eyes.
There is a corporation in Eve called "Tears Extraction Services", and this is what they do, all day, every day, 100's of other people's missions a day, raking in a massive fortune on the misery of others. They *LIVE* for you to be mad at them and yell impotently at them. They *THRIVE* on "can tipping" (what I described above) and getting you to shoot at them so they can steal your crap. They are not playing the game, they are playing *YOU*. And CCP loves every last one of them, modifies the game such that they actually have an easier time of it and you are screwed.
That is the typical MMO PvP player. They are not there for the thrill or challenge, not there to compete. They are there to prey on the unsuspecting. Who wants to fight a fair, challenging fight, when you can beat up kids for their lunch money?
And this is why Eve has 250k people and not 12 million. This is why no MMO with non-consensual PvP will ever be 1/20th as popular as WoW, because all it takes is a really bad expeirence to turn someone away from an MMO to another, and non-consensual PvP is the most common "really bad experience" there is. Eve may have 250k players, but I know there are over a million ex-Eve players and most of them have stories just like these.
The main problem is that most MMORPG players are in one of two groups. The first are the casual players, the second are the serious gamers. The former group wants to have fun and will spend some effort to improve their equipment. The latter group spends too much time working every last iota of power from their characters and equipment. If they can improve something by 0.1%, they'd do it as they race their way to max level. Now in PvE having the two groups mix isn't a bad thing. But in PvP the serious gamers have a huge advantage over the casual gamers. Since casual gamers are in the majority it means the serious gamers often have no one to fight but the casuals. Whether that's a good or bad situation depends on the player. But for casual gamers, it's a bad thing. Casual gamers will get slaughtered and have a bad experience that can turn them away from the game.
So unless there's a way to separate the serious from the casual gamers, PvP will be a problem.
(I think EVE is for serious gamers only whether they PvP or not judging from the responses I got when I asked about how EVE was.)
I don't hold it against someone if they're a serious or casual player. Everyone has their own thing. But I don't like it when the two groups mix and one group justifiably feels cheated at the end of the day.
PvE is static, while PvP is dynamic.
Eve is definately a PvP game. CCP puts PvE content in, then makes it PvP anyway. For example, they added a huge string of missions called COSMOS, storyline missions that are done single player (the rewards can't be shared), but they added them in the middle of a low sec system where PvP player pirates hang out and gate camp. It's like putting a watering hole directly under a deer blind. I have visions of the CCP devs going "Ok, now watch this...here comes an innocent PvE player, he just wants to quietly do his missions...he has no idea...BOOM, HAAHAHA! I bet he never saw THAT coming!"
And sadly, at the end of the day, it's always the PvE player that's cheated while the PvP player mocks them. The good news is, the PvE player then quits the game, stops giving them money, and games that brag about how good their PvP is (WAR, AoC) die horribly within 3 months of release, consolidate down to half their servers, and developers are taught quite brutally that there are 2 choices: Make a PvP game, or make money. Hopefully Venture Capitalists will realize and stop funding these atrocities so good games can be made.
PvP games are bad business. Why? Because any game where 1 player can deliberately, and with forethought of malice, convince another player to stop paying you money is bad business. That's like adding PvP to McDonalds. If other customers had the right to jump you at the door and kill you, most people would go to Burger King.
PvP players already have good games to play, 100's of them, from Madden to Call of Duty, Mario to Left 4 Dead, the market is FILLED with games for competitive players to experience dynamic content. Go shoot each other and leave the carebears alone :P
As I said in my post, True PvP'rs aren't even in MMO's, they're in Counterstrike, or Ghost Recon, or Call of Duty, games specifically designed to pit people against each other. They go there to fight with equals and hone their skills, or just trash talk with peers.
Let me give you a perfect example of the typical MMO PvP'rs...In Eve, when you destroy a ship, you "own" the cargo in the wreck, but you don't own the actual wreck. Someone can fly up and salvage (strip the valuables) from the wreck and as long as they don't touch the cargo, there is nothing you can do but yell in impotent rage, because if you shoot the guy, the "police" show up and kill you for being evil. So you're in the middle of a mission, surrounded by bad guys, and someone scans down where you are, flies in, and starts salvaging your wrecks and there's nothing you can do.
Now, if they touch the cargo in the wreck, you get what's called an aggression timer, which means you have the right to shoot them without the "police" jumping in. So you do, in your righteous vengeance, because he's stealing from you. However, when you shoot him, he (and everyone in his fleet) has the right to shoot you back, and that's when you find out he brought 8 friends with him, all cloaked, sitting in your mission deadspace, and they giggle in sadistic glee while they rend you and your ship to pieces, then loot and salvage it before your eyes.
There is a corporation in Eve called "Tears Extraction Services", and this is what they do, all day, every day, 100's of other people's missions a day, raking in a massive fortune on the misery of others. They *LIVE* for you to be mad at them and yell impotently at them. They *THRIVE* on "can tipping" (what I described above) and getting you to shoot at them so they can steal your crap. They are not playing the game, they are playing *YOU*. And CCP loves every last one of them, modifies the game such that they actually have an easier time of it and you are screwed.
That is the typical MMO PvP player. They are not there for the thrill or challenge, not there to compete. They are there to prey on the unsuspecting. Who wants to fight a fair, challenging fight, when you can beat up kids for their lunch money?
And this is why Eve has 250k people and not 12 million. This is why no MMO with non-consensual PvP will ever be 1/20th as popular as WoW, because all it takes is a really bad expeirence to turn someone away from an MMO to another, and non-consensual PvP is the most common "really bad experience" there is. Eve may have 250k players, but I know there are over a million ex-Eve players and most of them have stories just like these.
Oh I don't disagree, Eve's pvp rules are convoluted and obtuse at times in the protected areas of high sec. Silly might be a better word. Once you get to low sec and 0.0 though things change. Personally been living in 0.0 for years and I very rarely ever pvp. If you know what you are doing you can generally avoid pvp most of the time.
But I will still say that no FPS has ever given me the excitement UO generated prior to the massive changes in age of shadows. I am still waiting for a game to come close to that. And I do not care if it only has 100-200k people.
My first exposure to PvP was when about 10 years ago a rolled up a character on darktide the Ac PvP server.
There i was with a few lvl 3 players running around outside the start zone with a lvl 89 player ganking us repeatable when we asked him why he would spend so much time wasting a few noobs he replied because he could....that sum's up PVP attitudes. Players will lower themselves to there base actions as allowed by the game because they can.
Anyone going into that environment should be aware of that fact. This will turn off 90% of the non pvp oriented players who coincidently make up about 90% of the MMO populations.
PVP is not everyone's cup of tea so they always has to be an element of safe PVE for games to succeed.
Oversimplification sucketh much.
In general, I love WoW's PVE but despise its PVP. I just don't find the PVP fun. As a healer, I'm simply and quickly locked out of the fight or burnt to a crisp before I can do anything. I DID like PVP for a long while before resilience, but I'm not sure that it's the resilience mechanic that ruined it for me, so I certainly won't gripe about that. However, even with how much I generally despise PVP in WoW, I find it quite enjoyable to roll a rogue on a PVP server and fight the opposite side while I'm leveling.
However, WAR's pvp (which I wish I could play well on my own comp) is absolutely amazing to me. I love it. I'm pretty sure I half-killed my computer running it at a terrible framerate just because I enjoyed it so much. Each archetype was a blast for me.
I loved LOTRO, but the PVP in that game seems to me like a bad joke. But I've still heard that there are people who enjoy it and actually play the game specifically for that, so for Turbine and the game community it's probably good that the game has a touch of PVP.
The answer, then? Gah, it depends, for goodness' sake.
Playing: Single-player games
Awaiting: Stargate, Star Trek, assuming the burnout has passed
Retired: WoW, BC, LotRO, DDO, CoH/V, EVE, WotLK, WAR
If I was to use one word to describe my view of a true PvPer it would be 'competitor'. I think of the person who actually wants a competition with another person(s) in order to show that, given all reasonable things set as equal as possible it's his skills at the game and the use of his/her character that are superior to the other guys. I think of the professional CS, Starcraft and C&C players and they people who aspire to be like them. That's my definition of a true PvPer.
Unfortunately they invariably aren't the ones taking part in the PvP aspects of most MMO's. They're playing the FPS's and RTS's that have multi-player PvP options. MMO PvPers are basically bullies who PK because they can with no reprisal. The vast majority of MMO PvPers will run away screaming from a fair fight from the few occasions I've seen them come up against one. The only reason they're playing is so they can make other peoples gaming experience as miserable as possible. Why they would want to do this is best asked of them but the plain and simple fact is they are the worst kind of bullies because they carry out their campagns of virtual terror anonimously and so are protected from their victims and the consequences of their actions. There is no come-back to them personally for their victimisation of other players. If your average Griefer carried out in real life what they do in MMO's there would probably be an a good few more people in jail than there are now.
Proper serious PvP can be a big asset to a MMORPG but, in my view, it has to be and additional feature to the main PvE content and highly controlled in order to prevent it from being used as a means of bullying for whatever reason. Like many, from what I've seen of various games the situation is far from perfect in any game and down-right shamefull in others (I think of my brief experiences of Lineage II) but I think the way Blizzard have handled PvP in WoW is the best I've seen so far which is why I play that now.
Nothing wrong with PvP...so long as it's on another server (preferably another game <g>:), totally consentual & a very minor focus of the game's development. Anything else leads to or simply is ganking, griefing, pking, killstealing, corpsecamping & general asshattery at its worst. It also encourages sociopaths & redheaded stepchildren to breed, which is never a good thing.
They say that right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That's true, even for a blind man. ^DareDevil^
Read through three pages that represented what I call "drek" in favor of PvP.
Never interested me. Can't stand the mind behind those sort of players crowing "Raped you!" or "You're pwned!".
I find it distasteful. And no, I DON'T have to justify that - it's just distasteful
Seems to me they never got out of that adolescent phase of proving themselves - whatever that means.
PvPers also are the most QQ bunch I've ever read on forums. Each PvP class consistently and constantly call for the nerfing of other classes as they each want a "one-shot" kill. Eventually a game goes to drek, even in PvE, as all classes get so nerfed that killing a same level NPC mob is a PITA.
Gaming has a long way to go, and unfortunately we don't have the processing power, or bandwidth, yet to make them what they should be. A story you stick to from beginning to end with the people you start with.
Anything else isn't really a game, just an arena or boxing ring wthout the consequences of RL.
In the meantime I will not play a game that doesn't have the two separated. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it, and I don't take part in it.
I have a feeling that the silent majority feel the same way, but get tired of the PvPers flaming anything they attempt to say on the subject.