f13.net

Ever since WoW's Honor System patch and subsequent Battlegrounds addition, I've been playing less WoW and I'm probably close to canceling.  Despite my anticipation for the system, I wasn't happy with its implementation.  It seems many players aren't happy either, but no system will please everyone anyways. 

It reminds me that DAOC underwent a similar thing with New Frontiers.  The game experienced a rapid cancellation rate from players who weren't happy with NF(and you can see the drop on Sir Bruce's charts).

Is the same thing happening with SWG's combat upgrade?

The point is, perhaps drastic changes to an MMO's game mechanics, no matter how badly the fanbois want it, never ends up being a good thing.  You have one chance of getting things right.  It comes before release.

We've yet to see the results from WoW's battlegrounds implementation and I really doubt your canceling (along with a few others here) indicates some sort of mass exodus.  We're not the norm remember.  Anyhow, I don't consider battlegrounds a change in the core mechanic in the same vein as DAoC revamping the fronteirs or SWG's combat "upgrade".  PVP was never an integral part of my playing experience, so it was more of just something additional to do, akin to releasing a new dungeon.  I suppose on a PVP server it might shift some of the traditional action away from what is was, but you're still giong to get people griefing dungeon entrances and rogues ganking people in the plaguelands.

But, I agree that a drastic game chance to the point of overhauling a core system can result in a population swing.  Not always negative in the business sense, however.  I seem to recall UO doing better post Trammel despite that change being one of the more universally reviled events in our community's history.

Edit: I don't really like the system either.  It was implemented without a lot of factors taken into consideration. Things done half way often fail to meet expectations.  But perhaps if I hadn't hit burnout really hard at the time of it's introduction, I would have been willing to stick with it a bit longer. 

This surprises me.  I am having a hoot in Warsong and I would say I play in that instance about 2 times a week.  With such minimal gameplay it has given me "grunt" (sergent equivalent on Alliance?) status.  For 2 gold gave me a neat pvp/pve trinket that can break fear / stun / poly.  I have to retain the "rank" by doing some pvp each week - but this seems the sweet spot I am guessing - for minimal gameplay time in pvp you get a very decent reward.

Compared to my "pvp" experiences in Shadowbane and EQ (arena) so far I like it better.  Have not been to Alterac yet though - understand there are some problems.  As a horde player, my Ques are likely shorter as well (but hey, that's why I chose Horde in the first place).

Keeping an eye on CoH to see what they do with CoV.  Sounds like Cryptic, uncharacterstically, has fumbled with arena use in CoH.

I don't know if it was the Honor system, but that patch coincided with a serious drop in my play time, which eventually led to my cancellation. The grind in the late 40s got to be too much- nearly all my quests were Elite/Dungeons, so I couldn't solo them. The rest of the quests were spread out across the map so I spent much of my playtime staring at the ass end of a Wind Rider.

There's a rumour of approx. 50k subs + post-CU, but I expect this mostly due to former players coming back to kick the tires or newbies looking for a jag-on after Episode3.  The reality is some like it, and there's seems to be more people playing (never as many in the first year).  But I never see more than maybe 10 people in the Coro Starport on a Fri night.  I presume they are all on Wookie world, which I haven't bought and won't.

So it seems:
--there's a net increase
--there's an unforgiveable amount of bugs in new combat and all the expansions quests
--GCW PvP is still broken (no tracking of sides)

I expect there will be a decrease in activity and eventually subs as the novelty of the CU for new and returning players wears off, and Wookie world content is finished.  So meh.

Nope sorry, there are no easy excuses.

The whole PvP implementation sucks and I took it as a personal crusade since May of the last year. It *objectively* sucks. That's not an opinion.

WoW's PvP had a HUGE potential, that's the point. There was a lot to do and instead we got the worst of the worst. So no excuses, and I saw this coming since the first details in January (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/452).

I think implementation (and I suppose testing) is the problem, not necessarily change itself. As a player I know I've scratched my head a few times, wondering why in the world devs make the decisions they do (e.g. ToA). 

I got bored playing on a pve server on my horde rogue at 53 (and a few 20somethings), so I left for a pvp server and got an alliance hunter to 48 (and my shirtmaker priest to 24) when the "honor" patch went in. 

Since the honor patch encouraged repeated ganking, questing no longer was fun for me, so I quit playing.  Sub runs out in July, I think.

I'd be back if they'd implement the system they talked about pre-launch - honor _and_ dishonor.  Player justice systems have always appealed to me.  I particularly liked how some npcs would not have anything to do with dishonorable players, and other players of the same faction could pk dishonorable players.  Alas, this was not what the honor system turned out to be.

The pvp on WoW was some of the worst I've ever seen, in terms of being unfun.  Not that I've seen that much, but rvr on DAOC was hugely better, as was the pking on the mud I used to play on.

I had such hopes, too.  Sigh.

I really don't get the hate for the pvp. I think its MUCH more fun than DAOC RvR. Woot, lets be forced to find the perfect group so we run around in Emain so I can spend most of my fight mezzed. Granted, I didn't mess with NF much because, lets face it, the game was long in the tooth when it finally arrived along with the magic that was ToA. Do you people not remember CC's in DAOC? Or the constant LFG shit? It was soul-killingly stupid.

I have fun in WoW. I have lots of fun in Alterac. The thing that needs most improvement is the imbalance, which is something EVERY game faces. What are you pissed about? The fact they added a PvP grind? Honestly, my bet is that you people that are pissed were on PvP servers, and you're really quite naive if you couldn't read the writing on the wall there. PvP servers have always equalled ganking. You knew the system would incentivize it as every MMOG in history has.

The honor system doesn't objectively suck, and as usual HRose is still an idiot.

I didn't spend any time looking for a group or running around Emain.  I spent most of my time in the Midgard frontier defending or taking keeps, and was in a guild/alliance that was interested chiefly in defense since we were outnumbered 2x1 by the Albs.  It was a lot of fun.  ToA was an awful expansion, agreed, and it ruined me for NF such that I never really got into it.  But before ToA, pvp in DAOC was a great deal of fun.  (Afterwards, it was moderately fun for me only in the battlegrounds - but not fun enough to keep me paying $15/month or whatever).


I expected the honor system as it was advertised - complete with dishonor.  Not a system that encouraged ganking.  It's really stupid to introduce a system where people are rewarded when they gank xpers.  The 60's ganked the 50's who ganked the 40's who ganked the 30's...

Maybe ganking is fun for the ganker (I've never found it so).  It's certainly not fun for the gankee.  There was a HUGE difference before and after the honor system patch on pvp servers for those who were not yet 60.  Being farmed for points when you're 8 levels below others is just plain stupid.  Farming others for points when they're 8 levels below you is just plain stupid.  Rewarding people for doing so is just plain stupid.

Maybe I am naive, but I continue to hope for a pvp system that incorporates human behavioral traits in such a way as to encourage the type of play that I want in a virtual world - which means not farming points, whether it's Emain or Alterac.  I had great hopes for the WoW honor/dishonor system.  It's too bad Blizzard didn't stick to their original idea.


I haven't played the new battlegrounds, because I quit playing soon after the honor patch, so maybe the honor system doesn't objectively suck.  It does, unequivocally, suck for me.

My point was the people that are bitching are the ones on PvP servers. And they are bitching about ganking, which is essentially EXACTLY what the PvP ruleset encourages simply by existing. PvE servers, which are in the majority, have zero problems with ganking. Battle is confined to the BGs.

In short, all the PvP server people knew this was coming. Even if you believed in "dishonor" it certainly wasn't going to stop the people from picking on people lower than they are. That was the nature of the beast. As a 60, you aren't rewarded heavily for killing people much lower than you. It's only the PvP servers complaining about dishonor, because with the BG's in PvE servers, they don't care anymore.

Dishonor was a retarded idea and im personally glad it was scraped.  There was just as much ganking before the honor patch, all honor did was move 90% of the fighting to one zone.  I don't get the hate either, i thought pvp was much better after the honor patch and a shit load better than that now that battlegrounds are in.  When they fix all the problems with them its going to be even better.  My play time has skyrocketed since the bg patch.

The original point of the honor system was to discourage ganking. That's why it was called the "honor" system, and that's why people are pissed.

This is like the Bush administration: Hey, we lied about going to war, but you should have figured that out, so it's no biggy!

Hey, we promised an honor system and delivered the opposite, but you should have figured out the system was impossible, so no biggy!

I doubt the honor/dishonor would have worked - which is why they shouldn't have announced it until they had it working in a test environment at least. The whole name honor system is retarded - gank system would be a better name. Or kill points. Frag meter.

The mechanics of WoW PVP are great.  The classes are as balanced as you'd find anywhere and tactics and "spell order" matter in determining outcomes.  It's the Honor System and BG's that suck.  I could PvP for a moderate amount of time week in and week out and basically go nowhere.  Hell, if I had to put effort into anything for small gains or maintain a status quo but face possible decay on temporary neglect, I may as well hit the gym.  Furthermore, you never know until the end of each week whether your efforts paid off or not.  If PvP is to be turned into a points grind, at least let the results accumulate instead of being erased every week.  Note, it doesn't help that I play a priest, so PvP rewards for caster itemization suck anyways.

Also, I play on a pvp server.  The pvp dynamics pre-Honor patch settled down to where you could run into a "red" and not be sure what would happen because the pvp wasn't worth anything.  Most times, you'd ignore each other.  Sometimes, you got sucked into a blood feud lasting for hours.  Now, it's just automatic fighting because of CP.  I've done more than my share of ganking, I don't find it appealing, but I feel compelled to because of the CP.

I loved the concept of DAOC RvR (and I'm probably headed back there) because the outcomes affect the whole server and get everyone involved.  You simply don't get that in instanced battlegounds.

I don't think we are far from seeing server wide bonuses for pvp wins in the BGs. I think once they tweak the systems to where they are winnable in a decent amount of time, you're going to see records tied to server wide rewards. I personally think that would be a great way to get the underpopulated servers to actually get into Alterac. Say, for example, whoever won the most current Alterac BG earned a 5% xp bonus for his faction in PvE, and if you were underpopulated, you won 10% each time you held the BG. I think that would really bolster attendence, just as an example.

Exactly.  Pre-honor patch, the pvp servers were actually pretty calm, and it seemed to me to be a more enjoyable experience to play.  Meeting a red didn't automatically mean a fight.  Sometimes a wave and moving on would happen, sometimes a dance, sometimes a fight, sometimes each ignoring the other.  It seemed more like opposing realms that don't get along rather than constant all-out war.

The ganking occurs because it's encouraged and rewarded.  I don't like ganking nor being ganked, so I quit playing.  I also don't like the pve servers, because it feels contrived - the whole alliance vs. horde thing.  I guess I like not knowing exactly what will happen - it feels more organic to me in a virtual world.

Hmm, it seems strange to me that there wouldn't be ganking all the time on PVP servers regardless of honor. Wouldn't you always want to keep the opposing group out of your areas and away from your lands regardless of level?

There was tons of ganking before the honor system, i don't know what pvp servers you all played on because in both the ones i did there was no "calm", there was no question wether a red would attack you or not.  It was always pretty simple to tell: if they where higher than you they would attack, if they had more numbers than you they would attack, if you where busy fighting a mob they would attack.  None of that changed.  And frankly anyone playing on a pvp server that complains about ganking needs to STFU, you don't go to an rp server and complain about the rping fags.

I agree that if you're on a PVP server, you should always expect to be attacked or to attack.

As for complaining about RPing on an RP server, you're allowed to complain once it crosses a certain line (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-earthenring&t=106173&p=1&tmp=1#post106173).

On my server, a lot of times Alliance would /wave and go on their way, and Horde would do the same. You could always count on certen guilds to attack on sight. It was a lot of fun. Now, you know they will ether run or attack. Always.

I hate the honor system. It promotes Honor Grinding and solo play. And if you want any kind of decent rewards from it, you need to pvp atleast 2 to 3 hours a day. And to get high end stuff your talking about 8+ hours a day, forever. Also, with dishonor, you can no longer take over enemy towns, or you will get DKs. My friend got 5 DKs and instantly ranked down. Another friend got 10 DKs and instantly ranked down. Basicaly they are forcing every one in to very steralized, safe pvp. And its not fun. For a PVE server I think the system is great, but for a PVP server, it sucks.

As to a mass exodus, I dont think its that drastic, but since release we have probably had 10 people quit the game, from my guild. Since the Battlegrounds patch, we have had almost 20 people quit the game. Or not play very much because they feel it is sucking the fun away.

I personally am on the verge of quitting also. And its a bummer, because I really liked the game.

All I can say for the PvP servers complaining about the rewards, did you really expect to be billy-badass-champion-of-the-horde by pvping for an hour a day? Either the game was going to be based on ranks between players, or simple numerical ranks independant of player input. In scenario two, that would mean everyone and their pet would be a Master General Uber whatever after a period of time. IMO, that's stupid. All chiefs and no indians. At least in this system, the crazies who pvp the most, and therefore would obviously have the most knowledge of it through simple time investment, are going to be the top ranked officers.

So unless you want to hold a popularity contest to promote your officers, I think the system is working just fine.

But your thinking is based on everyone being 60.

My real life is more demanding on my time than when I was an EverQuest player, so I didn't make it to 60 in WoW before the honour system was introduced on my PvP server. I therefore became a target for higher level people, who now stood to gain more than amusement from killing me, and the game became unfun and unplayable. People who reached 60 before the honour system was implemented had a much easier time. Why the fuck should I now be required to find a group for safety and/or level 60 friends to watch over me, when other people didn't? Another win for the catasses (consistent theme with WoW, remember the "highest level wins" contest in open beta?).

It made me lose interest in WoW. Then my guild on the PvP server broke up and my friends restarted on a Normal rules server (I refuse to call it PvE, because it's not), so I joined them. Much more fun, plenty of PvP raiding, battleground skill and more.

  I haven't stepped foot in the BGs yet, but then, I'm still playin catch up to everyone else in my guild. I'm a quest whore, have to finish every one I pick up, so I frantically try and get all the green ones done before they hit grey. Which in the end, slows me down.

 As far as changes since implementation, I haven't really noticed any to be honest. I play Horde on Sargeras, and it seems like the same amount of ganking/city camping still happens. Ya know the ol if its red its dead rule.  Alliance still run in and own Freewind Post, Sun Rock Retreat, and well, pretty much anything but our capitals. 

 My only gripe about the whole thing is placement of alliance entrance in Hillsbrad. Used to be, they were so concentrated on destroying Tarren Mill that you could quest in peace, almost counting on them not being anywhere but at the city. Now theres an alliance highway that makes questing impossible for lowbies because the 60s run by and one shot. All day long. But that is my only complaint. At least they finally put guards on the zep towers so its harder for alliance to shut down our travel.

Don't play on a PvP server. It's stupid (and your own damn fault).
Just like every other game since EQ (except Shadowbane which have it's own set of problems... and Eve, which I find hard to classify as a game) WoW is a PvE game with PvP bolted on... anybody picking a PvP-server with that ruleset asked for it. Apart from the queing, BG s working as intended on the vanilla servers and people enjoy their ranks.
And just like any other thing in the game you need to grind for... it's optional content. I for one survives just fine without raid-drops and stuff gained by having a high rank.

And it's been said before, these games aren't supposed to last forever. Nothing is. They stop being fun for all of us eventually. It's a game - move on.

The idea that anyone who plays on a pvp server deserves whatever sort of shitty behavior occurs, and that no one has the right to complain about anything that happens (except those who play on pve) is unmitigated bullshit.

Now, it's a given that the lowlifes will populate a pvp server.  But a pvp server does not have to mean that anything goes as far as behavior, and frankly, it's wearing thin to continually run across this meme here.

The honor/dishonor system was originally advertised as being a way to give people incentives to pvp in a non-gankable way.  The honor system, as put in - without dishonor for ganking, without even knowing immediately what the results of pvping are - is the complete opposite of the original idea in that it _rewards_ and thus encourages dishonorable killing.

People who played on a pvp system have a legitimate reason to feel ripped off.

Sure, one solution is to not play on a pvp server.  Another solution is to quit playing altogether. 

Saying one has no right to complain is akin to saying one has no right to complain about any game - just stop playing.  Which is patently ridiculous.

I continue to have a glimmer of hope that one day some game will get pvp right. 

You're missing our point. You have every right to complain about some things. When there are bugs, when there are problems in the game that are unbalancing, etc. What we are saying is that you CHOSE a variant ruleset server based on the idea that the strong will prey on the weak anywhere anytime. Then, you bitch about encouraging ganking. My point is simple, even if they offered dishonor, it wouldn't stop the ganking of people in certain zones that is happening now. The 50s would still jack the 40s on down the line. Nothing would be different except for the fact you may not get as many 60s in 30 zones. If that is happening a lot, those people are simply assholes who would still gank you.

Get this if you get nothing else. Dishonor wouldn't have stopped the ganking. Not even close. So just stop looking at it through rose-colored glasses, and stop telling us there was a nice happy land of reds not ganking each other before the system. That's the unmitigated bullshit.

Any kill that gives rewards under the current system would still give rewards with dishonor.  If you are level 48 and get ganked by a 60 guess what? even with dishonor you are still a honorable kill.  All dishonor would have added is lowbie griefers.

I'm not sure that the bitching is about ganking so much as the fact that the game isn't fun.  People (some people, anyway) signed up for PvP servers understanding that there would be ganking going on, and they're fine with that.  What they're not fine with is the changes to that mechanic with the Honor System and all, and they'd like to see the game become more enjoyable.  If you're saying that they deserve punishment for selecting a PvP server, I'm not sure what kind of a response you'd be happy with.  You can't just jump up and shout "STOOPID, YOU SO STOOOOOPIIIIIID" and expect it to generate a useful conversation.

To go back to the original post, I think that yeah, most dramatic changes to a game are going to loose players, especially im MMORPGs, where you've got characters who persist through these changes.  Personally, when I rolled up a character, I thought PvP sounded like great fun, so I played on a PvP server for a while.  I hated it, so I changed to a normal server to avoid the ganking.  I haven't played since the Honor System went online, but I have friends who have, and all you have to do is say the words "Tarren Mill" and they collapse into a gibbering, frothing heap.  They wanted a game with minimal PvP, and they got it, put X number of hours into advancing their character, but now, suddenly, they have Alliance soldiers razing their town every half hour as a result of "improvements" to the gameplay.  That, I think, is the major problem with the Honor System and with most drastic changes to MMORPGs: when the designer changes the world like that, a lot of people are going to find that the character they spend forty hours levelling up is no longer fun, or feasable, or whatever.  The "right" way to implement major changes like this would be to make them optional, like the Battlegrounds.  Nobody bitches about the battlegrounds, because nobody is forced into them, and the effects they have on people who don't participate (like, maybe the guy you're facing has a slightly more uber sword or something) are minimal.  The wrong way to implement changes would me to make them mandatory, like the Honor System.  There is no way for players to opt out of the Honor System; the devs just descended from on high one day and said "Hey, guess what, now people will be rewarded for killing you, have fun" and it was so.  Regardless of your opinion of PvP, that's not the ideal way to treat your players.

No, YOU are the one missing the point. Blizzard promised many times that they were very aware of the strong preying on the weak and were introducing the honor system to correct that.

Your logic is akin to the following: I hand you something and say it's water, you drink it, it's poison, you die, and it's your fault.

The mistake people made was taking Blizzard at their word and assuming they would deliver what they promised. Or did you miss the 5000 or so posts to the tune of "this isn't the system you promised and now I want to move to a PvE server."


Making shit up is fun isn't it. Here, let me change this around for you:

Any kill that gives rewards under the current system would make your machine catch fire with dishonor.

Makes just as much sense. Since we don't know how dishonor would be implemented, it's stupid to make claims about it. However the Blizzard releases on the subject make it clear that the original point of the honor system was to discourage that sort of thing.

Listen to yourself Margalis. Blizzard promised x and delivered y. Blizzard said it was water and you got poison. At what point do you think that people on this site became jaded towards developers and don't believe, nay KNOW, that will be the standard case.

I'm not saying Blizzard didn't fail to follow through. I'm not even saying that you shouldn't feel gipped by the game for what's going on. What I am saying is that PvP without ganking and/or the crap you deal with is a pipe dream. You can argue that we don't know the system because it was never applied, but even then, it's a simple matter. Suppose every kill under your lvl is dishonorable. What you've done then is shift the power to the lower levels. They can then attack with impunity. Does that make for better PvP? What about groups of people? What about who attacks first? What about attacking first, and then people assisting? It's a series of fucking loopholes, it DOESN'T WORK. Get over it. The system was broken from the get-go.

While Blizzard originally said there would be dishonor they changed their mind a long, long time ago (in MMORPG years). Complaining about it now is kind of useless. This is also why they don't tell us anything concrete about upcoming stuff. They got burned badly when they said they couldn't figure out how develop to an exploit-free dishonor system so now they just keep their mouths shut.

Gotta agree with Paelos on this one.  Anyone who believed that Blizzard had the magical cure to stop griefing in PVP just because the promised they could, was fooling himself.  Instead of poison in the analogy, let's use the less fatal example of urine.  Now let's say for the past several years, MMO devs have been offering you glasses of urine claiming they're water.  Then Blizzard comes up to you with a cup filled to the brim with a warm, steaming, yellowish liquid telling you it's some nice refreshing spring water and you make the mistake of guzzling it down.

The rest of us have two options.  We can get pissed off at the guys who keep trying to trick us into drinking urine, but that never seems to do much good, or we can tell the latest victims not to drink the fucking urine next time.  You're right Margalis, the mistake people made was taking Blizzard at their word and assuming they would deliver what they promised.

Blizzard's proposed "dishonor" system would have prevented exactly jack and shit.  It's penalties were positively trifling compared to the "statloss" system of UO, and that never prevented shit either.

No, the idiot mistake people made, was (yet again) believing that it was possible to graft a PvP system onto a PvE designed game and that Blizzard would somehow succeed where everybody else failed.
That might be understandable if WoW was your first ever MMOG, but anybody posting on this site and part of this community should really know better by now.

The word that popped into my head when I read your first few lines was "bullshit", same word someone else used. People who instantly say "well don't play on a PvP server" must be playing alone. I play MMORPGs with a large group of people who have been guilded together since 1999 (some since 1997). The majority chose a WoW PvP server, so I went with them and I don't regret it, because they continue to add fun, skill and knowledge to my gaming experience.

When we started on the PvP server, the honour system as implemented had not been announced. The printed game manual describes what we knew: that there would be an honour/dishonour balance system to discourage ganking. The abandonment of dishonour was announced later, and the actual honour system was not revealed until months after that. The implementation was also supposed to occur shortly after launch, not six months later when everyone was established on their servers.

I tire of repeating myself, but the short reply is:

No sane person expected that to happen.
now where does that put you?

Maybe I am the exception, but for me ganking was worse before the honor patch.  After the patch, most Alliance chose to fight it out in TM and I was actually able to quest in Hillsbrad on an alt with very few deaths.  The same goes with STV, everyone was too busy in the mass fights and later in the battlegrounds to camp Horde quest areas. 

I know that a guildie was on the edge of quitting because he made a beeline for the quest areas in Hillsbrad.  After showing him the out of way path to avoid the mass zergs he was able to finish up his quests very easily.   :-P

Oh man, who'd have thought a free-for-all PVP server (or as close as you're gonna get in WoW) would turn out to be rife with grief-ganking?   :roll:  Welcome to the harsh realities of eight years ago, geniuses, and where the hell have you been this whole time?

That sort of shit was BOUND to happen, and bound to pick up as time went by and the proportion of leveled-up people looking for something to do increased.  A PK in UO couldn't enter town, was vulnerable to attack by everyone, and could face either days of macroing or serious damage to their character skills if they died, and that never stopped them.

That doesn't mean we can hope/expect something better.

I don't have (hardly any) problems with ganking in BF2 or Guild Wars. Don't have problems with it in EVE.

The way this is reading to me - people at first complained that there was no reward or motivation for PVP. Gankers were just killing anything at random, because there were was nothing in place to direct them. So they put in a reward system. That's what the hardcore pvpers were asking for. Reward system = catass paradise. So now the gankers are killing everything rather than just killing at random.

Am I wrong, or does the new system not discourage the killing of low level npcs? That seemed to be the biggest complaint I was hearing in the pre reward days - that gankers were killing all the quest NPCs for no reason. So now they are ganking players instead, and we still have complaints.

Anyone who plays on a pvp server has to know going in that the server is going to attract the lowest common denominator of pvp players. If you want controlled and semi consenual pvp - play a pve server. If you want gankfest - play pvp. What were you people expecting? That they would patch in some sort of massive town control, world affecting, Shadowbane type system?

Even if you were expecting that, do you really think that would make the pvp any less ganky? The only example of open pvp I have ever seen come close to working was AC Darktide, and that was only because so there were almost no controls on pvp whatsoever. This forced players to actually adapt thier own rules, and for a while, it balanced out. You're never going to see that in a game that tries to make pvpers follow a bunch of hardcoded rules.

I play on a PVE server btw, and I love the battlegrounds and the current pvp implementation. I do honestly feel bad for those of you that aren't enjoying it.

I play on an RP server and the new changes simply rock - I spent all weekend on raids.  Died non-stop and immediately rezzed and jumped back in.  This is the kind of PvP I love the most - no penalties other than the shame of dying and the time lost running back in.

I never had any interest in playing on a server where PvP is non-consensual.  There is only one outcome, and it's the same outcome I've seen since my MP BBS days: unrestricted PvP always involves serious ganking.  Always.  Never seen the exception.

Dishonor points or no the cheap thrill too many get from their inherent need to be lame and self-delusional just guarantees it.

You who are pissed off on the PvP servers - come over to a normal/RP servers.  It's exactly the same gameworld and the protection from ganking is built-in.

Don't you hate it when you come into a conversation, and everyone's said what you were going to?

It's also frightening that WUA is sounding reasonable and more even-keeled than some of you in this thread.  Make the crazy stop.

WUA has his moments. Mostly because he can refrence UO in some fashion that makes sense.

Let's review the lessons of WoW:

Levels in PVP suck.
Balance in PVP is extremely important.
Population imbalance is deadly to PVP.
Most people prefer to have a choice in whether they get ganked or not.
Casual, solo play helps build subscriptions, but time-sinking catass-enriching achievement schemes lead to disgrunted players.


 
Oh and Lowbie grief is bullshit. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it is a MUCH MUCH less disrupting thing than high-levels ganking low levels. There are also ways around it, but even if there weren't LOWBIE GRIEFING IS NOT AN ISSUE ON PAR WITH HIGH-LEVEL GANKING. That is a myth, perpetuated by bitter catasses who want to "earn" their levels and think 1 level 60 should be able to kill infinite level 20's.

Eventually it leads to EX-players, which is when the powers that be start to give a shit.

Someone asked about the SWG CURB earlier -- We have the DEVS actually posting irregularly on the forums now.  My favorite is where Blixtev admits that some Daze effect is a MAJOR problem and rife with grief, and he'll fix in in a month or two. :)  All this from the CURB that was supposed to fix everything.  They are still changing end-game templates after people have spent a year+ trying to achieve them.  They all lie.

Hanzii, who is that woman in your sig?  I keep thinking I know who it is but can't place it.

Shockeye, are you saying any large, structural charge to a game post release is bad, regardless of the merits of the change?
Big changes always alienate more players that it attracts?

That's why I started this thread, dammit.

Yeah, I am all sort of confuzzled.
So answer the question.
Big changes are bad, even if the changes are good?
Do you think it would have helped CU if the changes implemented in progression?
RvR update for DAoC seems like a counter example.

I guess you've never been on a kazzak raid.  Thats the only instance of lowbie griefing there is atm, but thats because there is no dishonor system.  I don't consider high level ganking an issue at all, the danger of being killed at any time you step out of the safe zones is basically the one and only reason to play on a pvp server.  You don't lose anything other than a couple minutes of your time at most, and you voluntarily chose to put yourself in that situation, thats NOT an issue thats the expected result.  Of course lowbie griefing is a myth atm since there is no dishonor, but the lowbie kazzak griefers prove that if there was a way a throwaway low level char could be use for griefing it would be rampant.

People shouldn't have to be experts in MMO games to make decisions. And for people on PvP servers they've invested a lot of time in their characters before the honor system came out.

That's one of the roots of the problem with making changes. People invest a lot of time building up a character, being in a guild, etc, then one day their character is nerfed or the rules are changed and their server isn't fun anymore or the item they spent months getting is now worthless, or whatever.

I've been thinking about making an online tactical battle game and that's one of the things I've been thinking about, how do you introduce rule changes and nerfs in a way that makes sense to the players? Because any time you change anything some people are going to be unhappy. Even if you don't nerf anything and just make some classes better, you've basically made the other classes worse.

There are a lot of things you can do. Allow people to choose to play under the old rules. (Maybe on special servers) Or do something like this: Items eventually break, and the new versions of X overpowered items are worse, but the old versions are still overpowered until they are eventually used up. (Which they would be eventually anyway)

Changes to online games are inevitable and should be planned for up front. If people really hate the honor system Blizz should just offer a few servers running pre-honor system with the understanding the servers will never be updated. Allow people to transfer to that server for free, and allow them to transfer back at a later time if they so choose.

Very famous and accomplished gamedesigner. Picked her for Raging Douchebag Week and never got 'round to changing the avatar, because nobody cared enough to comment...

Well I'll say it. I'd do her.

Is that the one that slept with her bosses to get her tits done, or was a man but became a woman and got his/her/its tits done?

Which is one of the main reason all games with offical boards quickly turn into "gripe of the moment" cesspools.  Any change is going to be perceived as negative by someone.  Even if you make something EASIER, the players who made it though before now feel slightest that somehow you've reduced their e-peen.  You still can't let the whiners stop you from making changes that benefit the game as a whole.  That's where having a good communication strategy with your subscribers and actual informed people doing the communicating can work wonders.  Notice I didn't say it had to be two way communication...


Too expensive to maintain 20 different varieties of servers and rulesets so I don't see this happening much.  PvP vs PvE servers are about the extent of what we get today as far as divergence.

Items eventually break, and the new versions of X overpowered items are worse, but the old versions are still overpowered until they are eventually used up. (Which they would be eventually anyway)
While I agree with your premise, this situation still favors those who can farm the best equipment or the moment i.e. catasses.  Remember the mana stone anyone?


One of the best arguments for having games with actualy ending world states is just this sort of situation.  Whether it's SB that should have reset a server world every X months to games that have cyclic states built into them like mtgo expansions instead of EQ style expansions.  For exmaple, don't take everything you had before and then add 3 new classes and 10 new zones on top it; replace 1/4 of what you had before (especially the broken, not working right, not fun, or too popular parts) with new stuff (hopefully designed more intellegently the first time around based on lessons learned during live).  I think I heard this called "rolling content" as opposed to "aggregate content". 

But, you'd have to set the stage for this style of game from day 1, and market it accordingly to manage player expectations.  Else, bile will flow like water...

Xilren

Stevie Case (Killcreek)?

I didn't start this thread. I only questioned whether it was sane to expect people not to attack other people willy-nilly on a PVP server.

/lightbulb.  Thanks, that was driving me nuts.

I was hoping for something like this from SB, during beta there were discussion of events that might make certain classes no longer available, but adding new ones.

IMO, you'd have to do this in a game with a relatively short advancement as far as time input goes, like SB, or a low advancement game.  You'd also want to work out some way to take the old characters out of the world.  If they were already very underplayed/buggy classes, okay, but if they are bugged and inherently overpowered, so you want to take them out, how do you get rid of the existing characters?  I suppose you could have a story explaining a major nerf (priests of Blahbla are now much less powerful due to the recent death of their deity at the hands of the overgod, Meh) and then change the client to allow no new priests of Blahbla to be made.  The characters could still be played, as much less powerful than before, but perhaps as a novelty, like people who gather all the 'rares' in other games.

I agree that the possibility of this happening should be made known pre-launch and on the box(it's a FEATURE!), and forwarning of such happenings should be made in both in-lore story and outside of the game in plain English.  Rather than a 'persistant' world, where everything stays the same, I'd rather have a dynamic world, where things change, and the players know and expect that.

Alkiera

Yes it is Killcreek. Digging around in the rathole that is the intarweb brought up this nugget of funny that Lum wrote in regards to Killcreek and Playboy.

Yes, if they change a central rule of play that players have based their character advancement on. That way respec lies. Even small changes, like Funcom changing a MA attack in AO - the only reason many MAs put points into Parry - so that it either became useless or no longer based on Parry, I forget which, causes big uproars among those affected.

In other words it pisses off all the people who jump on whatever is considered to be the uber template at the time when said template then gets nerfed by the changes.

Speaking of WoW and the PVP grind stuff.

I cant link because the site seems to be down. A dev just posted that the PVP rewards will now be baised on HIGHEST ever rank, not highest current rank. So once you earn your pvp reward, you can keep them.

I love the PvP, and I love Alterac Valley.  I did it four times last week, from start to finish.  This despite the fact that I'm only 52 and perfectly gankable by almost everybody else in the instance.  The only thing I dislike is that most of the mobs are red to me, but that's to be expected at my level.

Ah that would be a nice change its one of the reasons most of the folks I know are doing altarac valley instead of trying to rank up. They liked the rewards and knew that at least they would always have access to them if they lost pvp standing.

Gaining ranks currently is so freaking obscure the thought of finally gaining some levels only to lose it again really sucked whatever interest I had in gaining ranks.


kaid

I was never interested in getting ranks, because I'm far from a catass and knew they would be dominated by the most urine-reeking of them all.  I just enjoy the mass PvP, especially in the context of a pitched battle, complete with fortifications.

I raked up 2,200 HKs in just four nights.  Though that seems a lot to me, I well imagine that I probably have to have at least 100,000 to compete.  Fuckit, not interested.  For me, it just make me smile to sheep a lvl 60 Shaman and watch him get surrounded by six alliance warriors and rogues.

Same here - I'm just pleased to have PvP where damaging my character isn't on the table.

It seems to me making the rewards permanent will lead to more grinding though, especially in the short-term.

It will be less grinding in the long term because once they have what they want, they will relax.  When they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, yes, they will grind even harder to get there, but once they've gotten it, they're done.

With the old system, it was a matter of grinding more than everybody else.  There was no end in sight, and when you gave up, you lost everything.  Suck, suck, suck.

So which of these lessons are WoW-specific?

And actually, the Killcreek story you posted wasn't supposed to be funny. I was actually being serious. Have you ever looked at the eyes of most porn stars? Dead zone.

I don't think any are WoW-specific. WoW is just the 800-pound gorilla that brings these issues into stark relief. It is a fun game until these issues get in the way.

All of them. And for fun, since we're talking about the MMOG industry, we'll look back at this list on this day in 2006 and change "WoW-specific" to whatever the next game is that completely ignored the lessons of past MMOG's in the rush to release.

One of the things I find unappealing about the current WoW PvP system is the disjoint of the instanced battlegrounds with the virtual world.  Maybe the Blizzard designers could have implemented some sort of worldwide Horde vs Alliance thing, but since they knew there were serious A/H population imbalance issues, could that have forced them to go for the instanced route?

Or they'll just quit for the next new shiny.  I think devs are crazed to chase the adrenalin-driven as their primary content customer.  Especially for something like WoW.

I forgot how big of a pussy Joe Sixpack is. Thanks for reminding me, thread!

lol catass lol

PS:   :rock:

Not even. Like the guy who was going to quit because he couldn't walk down the fucking road near Southshore without getting ganked. Yet didn't know he could go up and around Alteraac or whatever. HARDCORE RETARDS. #1 reason why all these mmo games currently out suck, and the games for the next 4-6 years will suck.

I haven't played WoW in a while (not since before battlegrounds and the honor system), but the problem I'm hearing clearly stems from the simple fact that killing other players is now directly rewarded.  I initially started on a non-PvP server with some friends, but when I got to around level 25, and spent a day in Stonetalon, watching horde players and occasionally being watched by them, but never actually being able to *attack* them if I felt they were intruding on what I had deemed as my territory, I quit and went to a PvP server.  I had quite a bit of fun there, and although there was occasional ganking and such, it was pretty easy to move to a different area when those who I had no chance of EVER defeating showed up and started killing me.  And I had great moments like being able to defeat an entire enemy group that attacked me once.  However, in neutral territory, I tended to leave the Horde players alone and in turn be left alone by them.  In areas I deemed to be 'ours' (as a Night Elf, Ashenvale and Felwood were primary among these), I'd go out of my way to kill any Horde in the area.

In areas like Stranglethorn Vale, Desolace, Tanaris, etc, I'd leave them alone, and more often than not, I'd get left alone in return.  There were the occasional unprovoked attacks, and blood feuds (Hey, there's soandso, I owe him one!), there was definitely the feeling of 'hostility without open WAR' that the story claims.  It was working pretty well.  Rewards for killing others has made the mutual wariness policy nonexistent, it sounds like.  Worst part is that the major complaint about the PvP servers that I *did* have - the guards in supposedly 'neutral' towns like Gadgetzan and Booty Bay being 100% ineffective at stopping conflict within the 'neutral' towns - is still there, according to what I've heard.  Hey, take a lesson from EQ, morons, if you can't make guards smart enough to path to roofs/water, make them warp, or "You will not evade me, roof_ganker_0653!"

Basically, putting in rewards for PvP is good for non-PvP servers, and bad for PvP servers.  On non-PvP servers it encourages people to not be cowardly and put up their PvP flags more often.  On the other hand, on PvP servers, all it does is encourage a 'kill anything that moves' policy.  Not that I'd really want a dishonor system either. Not about punishment for ganking, just don't fucking encourage it any more than simply ALLOWING it.  Most of the people I knew who played there were fine with allowing unrestricted PvP.  Occasional ganking wasn't that big an issue to us.  But having the honor system encouraging killing anything that moves....now that's a problem.

As for the original topic, I think there is a good point there.  Whenever a game massively changes significant fundamental features, at the very least, a huge portion of the population that actually enjoyed the old game leaves.  Whether a new (possibly bigger) portion of population that now enjoys this new game arrives or not is questionable.  If UO had kept the early days of penalty-free PvP or even the Dread Lord/red name days, I would have played it much longer, and so would a lot of people.  However, a lot of other people probably would not have.  They may have gotten the better part of the deal with what they did, and they may not.  The best deal would be if there are going to be massive changes like that, separate one or more servers (however many the demand for them requires) to NOT have those changes.  You keep both groups.  As long as the population that wants the old rules is sufficient to sustain one server, you probably end up ahead on profits.

It's a tradeoff I am willing to take.  Products need to evolve.  Of course some changes are probably dumb (New Coke, Phase One comes to mind).

Blizz always intended an honorable kills system.  The problem is that the dishonorable system is non-effective.

I'm not sure I agree with this.  People choose PvP or PvE servers because they (presumably) like PvP or PvE.  Why would you want to encourage people on a PvE server to "not be cowardly and put up their PvP flags more often"?  If they wanted PvP, they should play on a PvP server; that seems to be the point of separating them like that.  Instead, what you get (according to what I heard, which is second hand, so probably exaggerated) is a system where you're rewarding a behavior that is severely restricted, so the PvPers have to goad the PvEers into combat.  Unable to attack directly, they try to fry the quest givers, the bat riders, the merchants, et cetera, until the PvE player is so pissed off that he's going to go PvP just to get those bastards back.  So, you've turned a marginally peaceful PvE server into a roiling sea of PvP malice and bitterness, which is not what the customer signed up for.

On a PvP server, on the other hand, I don't know that giving rewards for PvP is itself the problem.  There was a lot of fighting going on before the honor system, and there's a lot more of it going on afterwards.  If you like the PvP, I don't see how this is a problem.  I'm not sure how the 'hostility without open WAR' that you're idealizing is somehow better, mechanically, than the more aggressive combat post honor system.  So back in the day, sometimes people would bow to each other and go on their separate ways without fighting, but now they always attack each other.  So?  How does this bowing crap make the game more fun?  I don't get it.

Which isn't to say that I disagree that there are problems with the honor system.  I just don't know that these are them.

Because open, all-out, rewarded, "hot" hostilities turn players into remorseless and robotic killing and ganking machines.  I can play an FPS for that experience.  You don't run around as a "casual" group anymore: you're forced to become a search and destroy gank group to survive.

PvP on the pre-Honor PvP servers was much more exciting IMO because you never knew how encounters would turn out.   Furthermore, your actions and decisions could have repercussions on the next hour or 2 of your gaming(very similar to UO in the early years).  Bowing to each other is an example of one possible outcome that you and a potential opponent came to.  You're both thinking the same thing and that  should put a smile on anyone's face, like being able to comprehend a few words from a foreigner.

Because PvP makes your penis bigger, and it's the sacred duty of every PvPer to make you goddamn carebears quit being such pussies.  Or something.

Try levelling up a new toon on a pvp server to see how bad it is.  I don't know what it's like for people who are already 60, since I got to 48 on pvp after quitting a pve server at 53 for many of the same reasons as the guy above.

I don't recall much bowing or waving prior to the honor patch, just more ignoring - particularly between 60s and those under.  Far less ganking.  Before the patch, it occurred.  After the patch, the 60's camped the 50's levelling spots, the 50's camped the 40's spots, the 40's camped the 30's levelling spots...

See how that goes?

Call me a carebear, but I prefer pvp that's actually, you know, fun.  Sure, you don't lose equipment or points or anything at all, just time.  But I prefer not to spend my time that way.

See, that's a complaint I can understand.  I think it's different from the one Koyasha was making, but yeah, that is a problem I can see with the honor system.  Getting your ass kicked all the time because someone else has a higher number than you is not fun.  The day I am elected CEO of Blizzard, this will be the second thing I try to fix.

What I don't get is the idea that getting ganked some of the time (e.g. pre-honor PvP servers) is better than both never getting ganked (e.g. PvE servers) or always getting ganked (e.g. post-honor PvP servers).  Did that make sense?  Sounded better in my head... Anyway, assuming for a mintue we could curb the lowbie ganking, why would that uncertainty of "Am I going to be attacked or not" be better than being certainly safe or certainly in danger?  If you enjoy the PvP, I'd think you'd like the game with more PvP fights, wheras if you don't enjoy the PvP, I'd think you'd like it best with none (like, on a PvE server).  I'm just curious about what kinds of features people see present or lacking in games that have, say, ten PvP battles per hour, rather than fifty (or whatever).

Edit:  To try to clarify this mess a bit:  Ganking lowbies is, I think, something that probably ought to be looked at regardless of how much PvP is going on, because it isn't fun to have happen at all.  Yeah, it's more frustrating to be ganked by a high level fifty times per hour than one, but even if you were only getting ganked once per hour, it would still (in my opinion) be a good idea to try to cut down on it, because it's still causing some frustration (though relatively slight).  However, the argument I'm hearing from a lot of PvP players implies that there's something here that's making the PvP frustrating, but only after a certain point.  I'm wondering what that something is; I don't think it's just ganking lowbies, because that doesn't fit the profile.  It's frustrating at any point, it just gets worse the more frequent it gets.  If that was the big problem, we'd see a huge emigration to the PvE servers, where the lowbie ganking is basically nil, but we're not seeing that, so I'm guessing it's something else.   Am I making any sense?  This is frustrating to write...

I think I know where you're going with that.  And I have a short answer for you: People like the uncertainty presented by the situation of someone who could beat you walking by.  That uncertainty adds excitement.  Also, there is a proper social interaction that occurs (like the kind that hundreds on this board argue for during the instance vs. uninstances debate).

Edit: Reread what I posted and it makes less sense than Kail.  Ah well, back to my hookah.

MrHat's post just above this is exactly right.  It's the uncertainty.  This is why games with dice or cards are fun at all.  If everyone at a casino was assigned a number between 1 and 60 when they walked in, and no matter how good your hand was, someone with a larger number than you beat you, there would be no point to playing poker.

This is why so many people find PvE combat so boring, because it lacks uncertainty.  They know that there are approximately 3 NPC enemy behaviors in every MMO, and EVERY mob will use one of them.  In most games now, there's a big sign(or the equivilent) over every mob's head telling you EXACTLY which of the 3 it will use.  There is very little uncertainty in it.  You are nearly guaranteed a win, or guaranteed failure.  There is very little between those states.

PvP is more exciting, therefore, because you have no idea whether that Night Elf that runs by is looking for horde to kill, or just trying to get back to a quest NPC, or looking for his groupmates, or running a ring of harvesting nodes, or what.  Because while PvP could happen, there wasn't an obvious incentive to engage in it, and so they sometimes decided they were too busy doing something else to bother killing the passing orc.  Other times, they had nothing better to do, and would engage in combat.  Now that there is an obvious incentive to PvP, killing the passing orc player looks more worth the time to stop and do.

Basically, it's better because it makes you stop and think.  With PvE servers, you know that unless you /pvp or attack something, that Night elf can't touch you.  No need to worry about it.  With PvP servers with the Honor system, you know that that higher than you Night Elf is GOING to attack you, 99% of the time, because hey, you are free Honor points.  Pre-Honor, the odds were much closer to 50:50 than 100:1, I'd guess.

Admittedly, I haven't played WoW since beta, but that's my understanding of the situation.

Alkiera

Bingo.

It's since January (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/452) that I repeat this.

Honestly. Tell me something about this implementation of the PvP that you'd salvage. There's NOTHING. It's all crap. The Honor system is one of the most broken, unfun and stupid system ever created and the evidence that the Battlegrounds are a disaster is in the fact that they are down in most of the servers.

There isn't a single point where Blizzard hasn't failed about the PvP. And this was already obvious as they started to reveal more and more details. But this isn't again an unavoidable destiny. This game has a huge potential to deliver one of the best PvP experience ever. I loved how the PvP servers behaved before Blizzard started to wreck them. They only had to move from that point instead of ruining everything.

There's absolutely nothing to save beside the actual gameplay. The action itself. But everything related to the systems, rules, rewards, means etc.. It's all completely messed.

In fact that's the very first mistake but the resons why this was an error are different from those you explain (http://www.cesspit.net/drupal/node/721):
The rule that they completely inverted is the following:
- It's OUT of the BG that you CAN reward for goals and CANNOT reward for direct kills. (persistent environment)
- It's IN the BG that you CANNOT reward for goals but CAN reward for direct kills. (instanced environment)

And there are a bunch of reasons I explain in the link that brought to those points, like the fact that the BG is directly "consensual" and so making the "diminished returns" just retared since the players are there to fight and kill each other, while outside rewarding for a kill in an environment where the PvP is just an aspect becomes an OOC system that transforms everyone in a bag of points you HAVE to collect. So favoring the free ganking and all the other forms of griefing that became so popular.

Think about it and you'll see how's the PvP on a PvP server can really be just about griefing.

These are the design changes I suggested back then:
- REMOVE the "diminished returns" on Contribution points inside the BGs.
- Boost up the goal-based rewards to a level that farming consensually CPs points outside won't offer a benefit.
- Save the persistence of a BG, preventing it to reset even if there are no players inside. (Alterac)
- Add dynamic structures to slowly realign/reset the BG (like temporarily boosting the defenses of the losing faction till they are able to recapture their headquarter).
- REMOVE the points for direct kills outside the BGs.
- ADD goal-based PvP systems to the world outside the BGs like conquerable graveyards, towers, escort/assault missions etc..

But if the leveling areas are camped by people ten levels above you it's no uncertainty in PvP anymore either: You will at some point get 0wned by some PvP rank whores. And you in turn will take out your frustrations on someone ten levels below you. It's not PvP, it's schoolyard bullying you pay per month to "enjoy".

the RP-PvP servers might be able to fix that somewhat though.

(Oh, and can we please get back to using "gank" for "gang kill" - i.e. overwhelming someone with numbers - and using "grief kill" or something for when someone kill someone who doesn't standa a chance because of the level difference?)

But you miss directly the point. The core of the question is about the reward. It's the reward that codifies the behaviour and dictates how the player should react.

Before the Honor system there weren't "leveling areas camped by peope ten levels above you", or better, there was plenty of ganking but it was the PLAYER to choose to be an ass and grief you. From that point you could react and make your choice but that player wasn't rewarded for that.

This means that the behaviour wasn't codified within a system. You could CHOOSE if to attack someone else or not. There was no gain and no loss, just the meta-level of the roleplay. Even if you didn't care about the roleplay. So there was a possibility of a choice because the system was freeform. It had the *players* as the focus of the gameplay and it wasn't "yet another advancement path" to grind.

In the current system if you think you can win a fight, you are going to attack. Because it's about "bag of points". Before it was just a possibility within that precise context and this helped to build a tension. The PvP in WoW has always been at worst just a minor loss of time. It cannot go worst than that. But it still opens a whole new stack of possibilities that just do not happen in a PvE server. The best moments in the game I had have been about PvP sistuations always "new" that happened to me. Not planned ahead.

The PvP was a way to add to this game the "world" component that it misses, where are the players the focus and not just the infinite advancement path. It was a toy with some depth and an infinite stack of possibilities.

Now it's all gone because the choice of the players has been replaced by an advancement system that strictly dictates how you should behave and that favors the cheap ganking.

What he said.

The problem isn't uncertainty. It's the CERTAINTY that if you get attacked by the level 60 when you are level 40 and trying to level, you WILL be killed. It's a complete certainty. Whereas before there was an incentive to attack, the 60 may or may not attack. Now, since he has an incentive to attack, he will attack more times than he won't, and you are certain to be killed.

I think that's pretty much what we said.  Uncertainty, or in other words, the lack of certain death, is what made the pre-Honor situation better than the post-Honor system.

Alkiera

Explain to me the incentive for a 60 attacking a 40? That's not an honorable kill.

E-peenage?

In fact it isn't in THAT situation that the game changed. It's in the situation of five same levels going around to gank random players they find.

Try to go into BRD without getting MC into the lava, it's impossible. On my server BRD is perma camped and each raid/instance run is a nightmare.

The point is that when you think you "can" win (because you are five levels above, because you have uber equip or because your group is bigger) you are going to attack, if you think you'll lose, you flee.

The behaviour of 99% of the players is codified in that two-ways formula. Before the Honor sysyem (that is already horrible on its own) the situation was way more rich and fun to play.

Mainly, it's because you're so busy ganking everything else, you don't bother paying attention to level.  (a side-effect of the Honor System completely altering encounter behavior) That, or you had a bad day getting ganked, and you want to take it out on someone.

If you kill enough 40s, some of them are going to get their mains, which _are_ honorable kills.

--GF

Aren't there Dishonorable points for killing "gray" players?  There certainly is for NPCs.

No, that was removed from the Honor System because a bunch of pussy hardcore l33t whiners were afraid of "lowbie grief."

A shame.  I always did enjoy a good "Bob Swarm" back in the ye olde UO days.  Throwaways ftw - zerg keke!