Gamers know not what they want...

[Megrim]

Well, perhaps a step in the right direction would be to stop calling it "griefing", since it apparently adds a heck of a lot more than that.

[Slyfeind]

Perhaps those who came up with those conclusions should not have been so dismissive of the millions of Asians playing PvP+ MMORPGs, but they were too busy blaming the players for their own crappy design failures. Actually I think WoW is a purer test than Eve. WoW's PvP servers add nothing whatsoever to the game except random griefing, yet a clear majority in every part of the world are choosing the PvP servers. Somehow we didn't turn out so different from those crazy Lineage obsessed Asians after all.

This seems to be a pitfall to me. We keep looking at Asia and saying "It's successful in the East, so we should make it in the West." Now from a business sense, we should be making MMOs here in America, and marketting them overseas, and fuck all us crazy American gamers, because we're not where the money is.

But for some reason, that hasn't happened yet, so we get more EQ clones. Meanwhile Korea is cranking out Flyff clones every week it seems, and those are doing okay. Flyff isn't a PvP game. It's a very cute, light DIKU with fuzzy kittens and pastel flowers. People are making a profit from Non-PvP Diku. (We need a name for that. Maybe Nopiku? Anyway....) So where does that leave us in the WoW observation? WoW's PvP is lighter than Lineage's PvP.

We didn't turn out so different from those crazy Lineage obsessed Asians after all; we want lighter and lighter gameplay.

The most succinct analysis of the MMORPG genre ever written. There really is nothing else to it....except different shades of implementing PvP.

Yeh, but if we're boiling things down to Akalabeth proportions, we just have two shades; PvP+ and PvP-

[Venkman]

Why does PvP have to 'mean' something? Can't it just be fun? I know I'm an anomaly, but shit, man. Win, lose, who cares, it's a game. It should be fun. The journey is the thing, not the destination and whatnot.

That's WoW Battlegrounds to a T.

Otherwise, it only matters when PvP and PvE are at odds. Like, say, in a PvE quest-based game where other players can impact you completing a quest that has nothing to do with vP.

[stray]

Sky's point of view is OK for individuals. Not very fun on a faction wide or a guild vs guild level imo. War and conquest is where it's at there, not just battles.

[Venkman]

Unfortunately (imho), war and conquest do not at all mix with persistent, unless you want a niche title. That can (and has) work(ed) of course.

[stray]

Man, persistency is the best thing about war and conquest.

Scratch that, it's the only thing. It is persistency itself that I'm really advocating for here.

The real problem is penalty and loss. Persistency doesn't necessarily need to throw the whole weight of those things against losers in order to be "persistent". You still need to make a game. Balance penalities, and more people would like it.

I don't think there are very many players who are unsatisfied with the idea of "losing" period. They just don't want to be completely humilated, homeless, and bankrupt.

[Slyfeind]

LOSING IS PART OF THE FUN!!!

I think persistent warfare could be more palatable to the masses -- and thus more profitable -- if it wasn't a case of win/lose. All sides would have to be winning, all the time, but they would just be winning different things. Lose resource nodes, and your equipment is made better. Expand your territory, and your defenses suffer. If you outnumber another team, that other team gets a bonus to experience gain. Stuff like that.

[Hoax]

The 80/20 split is rather well referenced...  but whatever.  PvP is great.  Rah.

Links please?  Somehow I missed when this became an accepted number.

[Hoax]

Why does PvP have to 'mean' something? Can't it just be fun? I know I'm an anomaly, but shit, man. Win, lose, who cares, it's a game. It should be fun. The journey is the thing, not the destination and whatnot.

Stop saying this, just fucking stop it already.  This has never added anything to any discussion yet in every thread about pvp somebody has to say it once every 2-3 pages. 

<Insert any fps here>:

example1:  Playing in a random public game with random people who you dont know at all, in a server you joined because it had good ping.

example2:  Playing for a top ten spot on a laddar in organized clan versus clan action.  You know all your teammates you have voice setup you have a plan, tactics, a leader, etc.

If you can't see how one has more M E A N I N G and is therefore more F U N to everyone I've ever known who has done both then I just give up.

[caladein]

Why does PvP have to 'mean' something? Can't it just be fun? I know I'm an anomaly, but shit, man. Win, lose, who cares, it's a game. It should be fun. The journey is the thing, not the destination and whatnot.

Stop saying this, just fucking stop it already.  This has never added anything to any discussion yet in every thread about pvp somebody has to say it once every 2-3 pages. 

<Insert any fps here>:

example1:  Playing in a random public game with random people who you dont know at all, in a server you joined because it had good ping.

example2:  Playing for a top ten spot on a laddar in organized clan versus clan action.  You know all your teammates you have voice setup you have a plan, tactics, a leader, etc.

If you can't see how one has more M E A N I N G and is therefore more F U N to everyone I've ever known who has done both then I just give up.

I actually agree with Sky here... "The journey is the thing" is what makes clan play fun. Any time I happen to be playing with my friends or clan/guildmates is bound to be more fun then when I'm playing by myself. Some of my greatest memories are the "Remember that one time when you..." stories from a scrim, not that we won the match that night.

Yes, one means more, but that's not what makes it fun. The meaning is a just a vehicle to get you to do it at all. It's what keeps you playing when it isn't fun.

[Endie]

I actually agree with Sky here...

Me too: Sky pretty much hit it on the head, and Hoax's view sounds kinda unpleasant to me.  I have things of "MEANING" in my life already, thanks.  I want PvP play, like all of my game-playing, to be anything but loaded with meaning. 

[Strazos]

I want something between WoW and Shadowbane. Is that too much to ask?

[stray]

Hoax's view sounds kinda unpleasant to me

Sounds like he's just talking about cooperation, organization, and score keeping. That's unpleasant? I thought things like corpse looting and heavy farming after a city being razed were unpleasant. Now it's just....Teams and teamwork that's unpleasant?

Personally, I don't care about leaderboards....Unless it's reflected in the game somehow (i.e. conquest).

[edit] Also, I don't like leaderboards that are focused on and solely reward individual achievement (i.e. WoW). That shit sucks, and just encourages people to play for their own personal shiny, not their faction and/or guild.

[Typhon]

Stop saying this, just fucking stop it already... 

I agree with Hoax.  Losing is not fun.  Losing is acceptable if while losing I'm learning something, and by learning I feel that I have a better chance to win next time.  i.e. I'm improving my skill.

Not caring whether you win or lose sounds to me like going through the motions so you can be out on the same field with other folks.  I hate playing against people who just don't give a shit.

Playing with/against people who care enough to improve their game is more fun (for me).

Back to the original question: I think that meaningful PvP can exists if the spoils of war have nothing to do with future success/failure on the field of combat (e.g. a gladiator game where winning increases your fame, earns you money to buy a house (and decorate it) or allows you more options to modify your avatar (a la CoX vetran rewards), but has nothing to do with the skills/weapons you have), or has an inverse effect on your ability to continue winning (as was already discussed)

[stray]

Yeah, but why think in terms of "gladiator" games when this genre is supposed to be about "massive"? Just asking.

"Meaningful" pvp to me is one that applies to the entire world, and every single tile and texture in it.

Not to say I'm advocating intrusiveness....Just scope.

[Typhon]

Yeah, but why think in terms of "gladiator" games when this genre is supposed to be about "massive"? Just asking.

IMO the massive in MMO has rarely (if ever) equated to "massive battles" with even the current state of the art.  A gladiator game could include 5x5, 10x10 and 20x20 matchups (like WoW) that involved taking/defending a castle.  Story could be created to justify taking that castle.  It could be a "land war" where holding more land made buying houses cheaper.  My argument is that the current WoW PvP is largely a gladiator game.  Except that the successful gladiators (up till now) haven't really be recognized by any in game mechanic, only those folks that played a hell of a lot of PvP were recognized by the game (by giving them access to a title and better loot).

I'm just suggesting that the game should recognize those who are successful in PvP in ways that don't degrade the ability of the losers to wage war/be successful in combat going forward (i.e. giving the winner access to loot that is significantly better than what other folks can get creates a feedback loop where the successful get more successful).  Improving player skill is the only thing that should make a player win more matches within a certain game-state (where game-state could be a certain level bracket, level of achievement, ladder bracket, etc).

[Venkman]

IMO the massive in MMO has rarely (if ever) equated to "massive battles" with even the current state of the art.

Shadowbane and Planetside for me have had VERY massive battles. The sieges I've been in within both worlds numbered in the many scores of players. I think the battles in SB where bigger than the ones in PS on average, but both really addressed my need for "massive".

Not to say I'm advocating intrusiveness....Just scope.

It is intrusive though, and has been roundly proven to not have mass appeal.

I don't think we need to discuss whether PvP is fun or compelling. We KNOW it is and can be. I actually loved SB too. The problem was that existing in that game required much more of me as a gamer than I could dedicate. And given the amount of people it managed to attract over time, I don't think I'm alone.

And FPS games aren't the best parallel either because the average gamer is not in clan warfare. It's certainly compelling and fun, but requires as much dedicated as MMO-based PvP, just differing in what one needs to learn and keep practicing at.

So, how do you make push/pull persistent rewarding PvP in a mass-marketed game? "Just make it fun" has never been the whole answer because to date it's been proven that some vaguely defined "fun" hasn't been attractive to enough players. Or we'd all be playing Halo MMO with millions of subscribers.

I see a few ways:

• The afforementioned "always winning" element, where losing on one front can mean winning on another, or in a battle of a different form.
• Not tied to a linear PvE-based advancement schema. This was SB's problem in my opinion. And DAoC for a long time.
• Don't market as PvP. Just market for being an open world. Eve is a good example. There's a LOT of PvP in very many different forms. Eve's downside is the very many factors that will keep that title forever niche.
• No levels. I really feel PvP in RPGs are held back by levels and an adjustable-stat-based combat system. Go with something where a player performs an action based on their skill and can intuit the results based on that. Maybe TR. Or Planetside done right.
• Make it Fantasy based. This CAN work. It doesn't always need that RPG = Fantasy and FPS/twitch/skill = Sci-fi. That's holding things back as much as anything else.

[stray]

Just to clarify: It's not massive battles I'm talking about necessarily though (but that is nice, when it works). I'm mainly concerned about massive effect (which is why I keep using the word conquest). Effects on the world. Because it is a world. Anything less, to me, is "meaningless". It's the difference between the War of the Roses and Bobby and Timmy getting in a fist fight at the playground.

[Akkori]

This is why the economic part of the better games is so interesting to people who don't really enjoy combat. The effects of a players part in an economy can be felt and rewarded. Reputation can as cool as it can be bad. Also, btw, games with a player driven economic system are 100% PvP! Merchant-on-Merchant wars can be nastier than the nastiest 11 year old ganker. Its a "thinking man's" PvP.

[stray]

Yeah, but I'm not too good at that . ;)  Or rather, I'm just not interested in interacting that way.

I remember when SWG launched, the best PvP was going on between weapons crafters in particular. Everyone else was just a pawn in their game.

But yeah, it's the same principle.

[Typhon]

So you want SB.  Except by all accounts SB didn't work out so well (I never played it, didn't want the pain of all the bugs).

Maybe supply lines to keep cities from extending their military presence too far form their city.  Maybe trade routes and trade guilds, as a seperate faction that was playing a different game than the free cities (just making up a faction name).  So the free cities play the conquest game, and the trade guilds play the crafting/mercantile game.  Make it so that the trade guilds benefit from there being more cities.  And give that the trade guilds a way to hire merc armies/other free cities to "discourage" a conquest-minded city from growing too strong.  Maybe the trade guilds would be nomadic, moving from city to city.

Difficult, I think, to keep an out-of-game guild from creating members in the trade guilds as well as in the free cities and just gimmicking the game.  You'd need to have the "one character per account" trick down alittle bit better.

OR, make it so that a city can surrender, and make taking other cities the goal of an attacking force (i.e. a land war).  Have the game support the conquest of vassal cities only so long as a necessary condition is sustained.  What pops to mind is: cities are captured only so long as the king remains alive - making conquest a matter of attacking and defending.  Puts a different slant on the rogue/assasin character.  Course, it could make being the king a boring affair if the king is made as a PC (which argues strongly for the king being a non-PC).

Lots of holes in that second idea, I konw.  Just trying to toss out ideas that have a negative feedback loop while still having conflict have consequence.

[Malathor]

Uh, for those of you looking for how a PvP system somewhere between SB and WoW could work, take a hard look at Lineage 2. That game may have plenty of other flaws, but its Castle/Siege system works.

[Sky]

example1:  Playing in a random public game with random people who you dont know at all, in a server you joined because it had good ping.

example2:  Playing for a top ten spot on a laddar in organized clan versus clan action.  You know all your teammates you have voice setup you have a plan, tactics, a leader, etc.

If you can't see how one has more M E A N I N G and is therefore more F U N to everyone I've ever known who has done both then I just give up.

That was a terrible rebuttal, but I've come to expect as much from you. That was a great example of organized pvp vs chaotic pvp. It's not at all what I was talking about. I used to play bf1942 in a clan, imo it's really the only way to enjoy that game.

It has nothing to do with death penalties, catass rewards, exp points, or anything else that makes mmo pvp suck so people can have a 'meaningful' experience.

[Strazos]

Yeah, I'm all for Fluff rewards for PvP - nothing that could actually impact the PvP itself.

[Jayce]

I wonder if geography is a key feature of any game that aspires to have meaningful conquest.

Maybe SB's problem (leaving aside the many and glorious bugs) was that the world was not big enough.  The map itself was small enough that one uberguild could have enough members to control it all, and deny any who opposed the ability to run away and fight another day, because there was no "away".

Contrast with Eve, in which the universe is full of places to run and hide to.  In fact, it's so big that even the biggest collections of "guilds" (corps) can only hope to control a certain region.  That makes rebuilding after a sound defeat possible, and hence a steady-state server-wide hegemony leading to stagnation and boredom, impossible (for now).

Again as Eve shows, it doesn't have to be populated with content every 5 yards, so long as the points of interest are sufficiently interesting.


edit: omg clarity

[Falconeer]

Yes, I was thinking the same as Malathor. Let's try something new here: please don't give me your opinion on Lineage 2 as a whole game, just on the PvP part of Lineage 2. Don't consider the ubergrind and/or the fact that you don't like this or that aspect of the game. Let's take it from the gamedesign side of the mirror:

What do you all think of Lineage 2 PvP? What's wrong in it, in your opinions? (Ask if you don't know how that works...)

[Akkori]

I have to admit to being *very* impressed by the size of Eve. I liked the possibility of holing up somewhere out of the way. That was one of the things... well, one of only TWO things that interested me about Dark & Light. The size of the world and 3D flight.