f13.net

Here are some of the things that the dev team are working on right now for PVP in WoW.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-pvp&T=3115&P=1&ReplyCount=55#post3115



I really like making levels mean less. We will see.

My opinion is that some of the "balancing" will require drastic changes to core gameplay.  I don't understand why they didn't keep some of these things in mind when they originally designed the game.  Perhaps "PvP tuning" is a good excuse that lets them incorporate the latest and best features of other games out there now.

My other concern is that with all this coverage, after reading about WoW for a year or whatever, when the game finally gets released I'll feel like I've already played it, and won't bother.

The most important point is about providing reasons to fight.

Then it's valuable that they see instants, root spells and levels differences as problems. Still way faster than Mythic at realizing basic problems. I couldn't desire more.

As I said, it's not the dream-game but is way above everything already on the market. By far.

You can always make the same spells work somewhat differently in PvP and PvE. For example a spell that roots an enemy for 30 seconds might root another player for 5...you can come up with some hokey explanation. I think that is a better solution than expecting the exact same stuff to work in PvE and PvP.

The difference is in PvP, everyone has to be having fun. In PvE, only the players have to be having fun. The goblin getting wailed on can't complain.

If I didn't know this thread was about WoW, I would have thought someone dug up a three year old DAoC one. That feature list is almost precisely the same as half the stuff I read prior to and following launch. I'd expect Blizzard of all people to be able to learn from the challenges of their forebears, particularly since they seem to have no problem recognizing good things to rip off from them :) (and yes, as their forebears ripped off from others...)

What do you WoW player folks think? Is WoW a game that can actually have good integrated PvP? All along I've seen a hugely-quest-based fun RPG with stats and EQ everywhere. Recently though (at least as far as I've seen) is this push to integrate PvP. But just like in EQ, and DAoC early on, it feels like a force-fit, an attempt to increase their already astronomically-estimated accountbase another 2-5%.

Anyway, is Blizzard doomed to toss a crapload of resources at something so often proved to be enjoyable by a statistically irrelevant number of players? Or are they just a few tweaks away from doing right what so many others have not?

A PvP system relies completely on the structure. Right now there's no structure since there's no purpose or reward (aside griefing by killing NPCs).

For now Blizzard fixed two issues of DAoC: balance and interrupts.

For the rest we have to wait. I play exclusively on the PvP server but still at level 14 and I've never seen anything PvP-related. Anyway, I like the fact that the PvP happens in the real world and not on a special zone.

If Blizzard attaches a conquest system *inside* the actual world they'll have a damn wonderful system.

Boy, nothing spells a good time like a PvP death penalty. WTF are these retards thinking? Why would anyone except griefers want a PvP death penalty. Even the subhumans who played EQ and thought it was fun couldn't want this shit.

There are huge, and I mean, huge letters on the forums from PvP guilds and one of the number one things they request is a PvP death penalty.

::shrugs::

I guess I'm still looking for an impression on just why there's any focus on PvP at all in Wow.

WoW stood the chance of being addictive but not requiring an EQ-level of addiction just to be competitive within the game. Now it sounds like they're going to focus on integrating a system that arguably hasn't ever been perfected. Worse, it's for a subset of players within a niche genre already with too much saturation.

I don't doubt Blizzard could make a compelling MMO PvP game. I do doubt it'd be as fun as PS, but it sounds like WoW PvP has the same problem as PS: not compelling enough for long enough for enough people to pay long enough. It happens.

Yet, it's happening in a PvE game at the expense of the PvE game. They should stick with what WoW wanted to always be. They could have made an EQ killer. Now I'm worrying they've set themselves to defeat games orders of magnitude less successful.

But I'm hoping I'm wrong. This is the first game I'm actively avoiding the beta on because I'd like a totally new experience. I just hope it doesn't become DAoC. I tried it again last week, 30 months after a quit. It took me all of 5 minutes to remember why I quit, and another 25 minutes before I realized how much time I shouldn't have spent hoping otherwise.

Well, I am playing on the PVP server also. Level 25 Undead Warrior. I have just started going to a little town called Hillsbrad. Now, for non-pvp players this is just another town to get a bunch of quests in. On the PVP server is is one of the biggest places where the Horde and Alliance clash. First, it is a fairly small zone and there are base camps for both the horde and alliance. What makes it a real drag is the quests, and now, lets see who can figure this out, and if it take your more than 10 seconds.

Horde quests in Hillsbrad start around lvl22 and go to around lvl28

Alliance quests start around lvl 28 and go to 38 or so.

Anyone see a problem with this? We have a highly contested zone, with quests in the same area. Needless to say, it is a slaughter.

I got killed more times today, when I started questing in Hillsbrad, than my entire time of playing WoW to date. Now, some times itsd a real drag to be soloing a quest at 25 and have 2 lvl 38+ alliance run up and kill me. But hey, its the PVP server and I know full well Hillsbrad would be nasty.

A few times I have had level "??" alliance characters (?? means they are more than 15 or 20 levels above you) come up to me, and salute me, and run off. Makes you actually have a slight glimmer of hope for the MMOG player. Untill 45 seconds later when 5 lvl 40+ come and kill you, then spam /taunt emotes at your body.

There are some problems with the Mage class right now in that they have so many options. Mages get HUGE damage spells, Roots, Stuns, and Invisibility. They are the PVP kiddie class of choice.

Also, being Undead I am immune to the Mages polymorph (used to be sleep) but the Paladin and Priest classes to special holy damage on undead, and have REALLY nasty undead holds and fears.

There are enough safe zones for lower levels to get going with out to much grief, but it IS war out there on the PVP server. And come release, I wouldnt have it any other way. Well, ill take that back. On the PVP forums there are a vocial minority yelling, and whining, and screaming for much harsher death penalties. Like item loot, and major exp loss. That is about the studidest thing they could do to a PVP server that is really fun, and the death penalty is light enough that you dont really mind dying all that much.

From what I have seen, the PVP will work, and it will be fun.

They did already. What is important is the pace of the development *after* the release. WoW is already aimed to be an huge hit no matter what, they already achieved that status. But the real quality of the game in the long distance really depends on how much they'll be able to offer. Because the game will need to grow without having to wait for another five years for an expansion or a major patch.

They already got EQ and FFXI, now they are going after DAoC.

Yes, and I recognize a lot of those guilds. And I wouldn’t trust them farther than I could reach out and physically punch them.

So now what exactly about a PvP death penalty is going to get the average player to engage in PvP? I can understand EQ players wanting it, but what about normal people? You know, those of us who aren’t repressed masochists too scared to admit we want a stern father figure to tie us up and probe our colon with a bottle brush while they tell us it’s “fun”. Which would be anyone who thinks EQ past level 30 is fun.

I ask again, what's the appeal to people besides mass gankers and griefers? 'Cause I'm just not seeing any. And if any of you are thinking of replying "It's more challenging that way", do me a favor and just call yourself "naive" or "f4g" - because you're one of the two.



Then to be honest, they’ll fail horribly at that. As marginal fan and player of DAoC, I can say there is literally nothing “better” or even as good in WoW as there is in DAoC when it comes to what DAoC players are looking for. A game that by all reports has de facto mandatory grouping and a death penalty in PvP is not going to steal the sort of people still playing DAoC. Heck, with the new engine in Catacombs, DAoC is even the best looking game coming out, if that’s where your interests lay. People may try WoW, but when they find out that it’s still tripping over it’s dick involving issues that DAoC solved years ago, they’re not going to be terribly forgiving.

As development of WoW rolls on and on, it looks more and more like a poorly planned clusterfuck cobbled together out of the worst parts of a lot of current games.

I completely agree, I only hope that this is because they are in beta atm, but it does not appear as if these issues will be adressed in the "near future".

It sure seems to me as if Blizzard has a shitload on their plate, and at the rate the patches are coming, WoW will either see a completely pre-mature release in December or we won't see retail until mid-late 2005.

Grrrr.   Take a good PvE game.  Add PvP because "hey, why not."  Then develop the PvP game at the expense of the PvE, both in terms of developer time and game design.

It sounds like the WoW community is at the same place the DAoC community was when Mordred was being developed.  IE hardcore.

I think everyone is looking at a pvp death penalty the wrong way.  Instead it should be looked upon as a bonus for the victor in a pvp encounter.  There should be a reason to engage in pvp just as there is a level up result for pve.  The hardest part is to make the negative effects of dieing in pvp minor enough so as not to put the non-guilded player off while at the same time significant enough to keep the pvp guilds interested (Corpse runs are bad, item loss although I like it myself put a lot of people off, exp penalty is terrible, some type of forced time out would probably be best).  The bonus should be small because no matter what it is a small group of players/guilds will dominate pvp and that should be factored in.

When I first read about DAoC RVR, I liked the idea of the opposing sides not being able to communicate (that removes a lot of negative factors in pvp).  I also assumed there would be some kind of rare drops from the defeated, e.g. you kill a Dwarf player, search his corpse and maybe find a mithril token, a map of a mine or extremely rarely a dwarf crafted weapon, something that can add to the ecomony..  As the sides are not able to communicate the fact that the Dwarf was not actually carrying any of this stuff and it's been created from thin air as it is for mobs becomes less obvious.

This type of random drop system worked extremely well in AC for PVE, AC was the only game where I witnessed players continued to loot mobs well below their level for anything other that cash, as there was always a chance of a good rare drop even from something much lower level.



I totally agree with you here, I have been given access to a beta account by a friend and not even downloaded the client.  The problems with pvp listed are obvious to anyone who played DAoC as said above, just by reading the pve skills feature list, crowd control, instant cast spells powerful in pvp, who would have thought?  

Next they will discover that area effect spells are quite powerful, archers do well as range > melee etc etc, I don't even know if they have stealth users  in WOW but if they do I wouldn't like to be a stealth using character 3 months after release when the nerf bat hits.

If they want it to be a bonus for the victor, they can just have player corpses generate dwarf scalps and a little coin.  Anything that involves experience loss (or god forbid de-leveling) is just a kick in the balls for the loser, and provides no benefit, no bonus, for the victor.  Unless that victor gets his rocks off by kicking puppies.

In arthur's defense, he was meaning exp gain for the winner of course.  Common knowledge seems to be that you can't give one side exp without the other losing it or it is too exploitable.

Kill limits would help get around this, where killing the same person a third time nets no exp or something.

Cash rewards for the death unlimited won't work as they will clusterfuck the economy with half the people two boxing to kill their second account for endless monetary gain.  Again you can put a kill limit on this as a sort of fix.

Everyone seems to have a beta key that they are too cool to use.  Send them over here then.  My wife would love to play and I would not mind checking it out at all.

If the combat is fun it could be a good game.  If the combat isn't fun it will suck donkey balls.  Quests are nothing but excuses to get people to travel and fight things.  Travel is rarely fun after the first time, so the game will boil down to whether it is enjoyable to wack moles or not.

I like wacking them in CoH so far.  The quests enhance the combat, but without the good combat the quests themselves would just be grind.

[edited to add:]
Terribly written post, sorry about that.  Anyway, to clarify, I don't think the idea of pvp loss is a good idea in a level dominated game.  Hell, in any game really.  Even if the reason you are losing is because you suck, that sucky player will quit if they lose too much on death.  Why should anyone care?  Because the sucky player actually gives a positive game experience to the slightly less sucky player that kills him.

Just make the rewards limited so you can't gank the same person time and time again for significant gain.  Hell, you could have the server check credit card names and billing address before giving exp even.  If either match, no exp.

They need PvP to justify their decision to divide the factions in the first place.  Divided factions makes zero gameplay sense in a PvE game.

Of course, the only reason they divided the factions was because that's what the lore suggests.  Making gameplay decisions subservient to lore considerations (especially when the lore was generated for a different genre of game) is stupid.

Really, they should have made the game based on the Diablo franchise rather than the WC franchise.  Then you have no need to divide the player base.  But DiabloOnline only gets you the Diablo+EQ+various EQLite games fanbase.  WoW gets you all those plus some Warcraft players.



It does.  Though I suspect that Blizzard thinks that they can convert RTS players into MMOG PvPers, which is much more than a 2-5% increase.


That being said, they have noted on the boards that they will balance PvP by changing how spells/abilities work in PvP, and not changing how they work in PvE.  It still sucks enormous amounts of development time.  Considering how slowly Blizzard puts out content, and how quickly content gets chewed up in this genre, that is a big downside of PvP.

That's exactly what I was trying to say in my normal hamfisted manner, plus theres a lot more potential for logical and interesting item drops from enemy players.  

Though as Alluvian points out there would have to be some form of limit to the prevent farming with 2 accounts, maybe only generate an item for the victor upon death 5 times a day for each character, I guess that would be easier than trying to cross reference accounts to prevent it.



Well to be fair he's already sharing it with 2 other people plus I don't have a lot of free time at the moment, hence my reluctance to get involved in another mmorpg.  I have signed up for the Europe Beta so if I get in I will share that if you are not in by then.

I second Alluvian's call to all of you who are to cool to use your CD keys to donate them. I know at least one or two members of F13 who would like to play and I've got 2 non-F13 friends who are chomping at the bit, taking over my computer every time they come over.

Really, this whole debate just goes back to my whole issue with PvP. It takes resources from the gameplay I like. I still say, make a game PvP from the getgo, or make it PvE. Period.

Frankly before they start going thinking of big balance issues such as instant spells they first REALLY need to finish adding in core game features like the talent system.

Right now there are two types of spells instant and channeling I think they call it. Instant is just that instant click the button the spell fires off and is difficult to impossible to iterupt. Channeling at the moment except for the talent system for mages if you take any damage at all your spell goes poof.

It does not take a brain surgeon to know that in a fast pvp environment channeling spells are worse than useless. May as well not even have the things in pvp as you will rarely if ever get a chance to use them. It should be no shock people rely on the spells that function and that spell casters who have more of these will rely on them.


The talent system for mages adds the ability to give you percent chance ability to still cast chaneling spells after taking damage. Once all casters get this people will start being able to cast the bigger harder to use spells and rely less on instants.


Removing or reducing instants now before seeing the final impact of the talent system is a very good way to ride DAOC's maniacle pvp balancing run away train.

I am of the opinion if you make a game pve and add in PVP this late in the cycle its probably best to go the eq route. Give some limited variations between how spells work on players when cast by other players but do not change pve balance to improve the afterthought pvp.  Trying to balance things for pvp and having that effect pve will only make pve less intersting while not really helping pvp very much.


Kaid

I'll tell you why I do it. Simple. It is fun. There are kinds that need to be worked out, and a lot of balance issues, but even with all that, it is fun.

It seems to me, a lot of you guys who have not played the game, are calling it EQ reskinned. Well, it doesnt FEEL like EQ when you play it. Thats what the two warring side bring I think.

I personally dont need a reason to PVP, some sort of Real Points or slight exp would be nice, but I just have fun PVPing, and that is enough for me.

Unlike DAoC, even when dealing with a higher levelk player, it is very rarely insta-death. A 1 on 1 battle (which I have had many in the wilds) lasts around 45+ seconds, and at higher levels there are a bunch of heal potions and stuff. Also, player skill does play a big roll.

Also, to the guy who hasnt player but said grouping is necessary. Thats totally untrue. Yes for some quests, you do need to group, but they are marked "Elite" so players know they have to group. I think out of about 100+ quests I have done, about 10 have been Elite.

Other than those I have soloed about 85% of my time, and doing fine. I thinkI might actually do better solo. It really depends on what quest you are on, weather solo or grouped is optimal, but 100% can be done grouped, and about 95% could be done solo.

No, there are three types.

Instant, Channeling, and Regular.

The regular spells have a cast time. Once you click the cast button a little bar comes up, and starts moving. Usually taking between 1 second and 6 seconds depending on the spell. If you get hit while this bar is moving, you lose some of the gain in the bar. So unlike channeling spells, you dont totally lose you spell if hit, but it will take longer to cast if you are getting wailed on. Thats why when fighting mages as a warrior, I use Duel Wield to maximize the amount of times I hit, making it take much longer for them to cast.

Ah I did not know there was the third category all people ever mention on the boards is the first two. Still given your tactics if you were on the receiving end of a dual wielded attack would you ever bother to use anything but instants?

Given that they want to limit crowd control more than it already is in pvp most fighters are going to get up to melee range with the casters. Nothing is more annoying than being a punching bag without the ability to defend yourself.

My guess is due to that layout whichever  caster has the most instants will likely be the caster you see in pvp.


kaid

NOOOOOOO, REALLY?!?!?!?!?!

It's not like every other fucking game with PVP ever enabled in any part of the world hasn't already proven this over and fucking over again. Crowd control spells in PVP absolutely fucking destroy any semblance of PVP balance unless they are either disabled for PVP or greatly tooled with to make sure the fights aren't "Mez first = teh win!" type of battles.

EDIT: Any idiot that advocates a HARSHER penalty for PVP needs to be locked naked in a room with a rabid homosexual giant ferret that's been on shore leave for 600 HUNDRED YEARS.

PVP should never, and I mean, NEVER have a death penalty associated with it other than the occasional drop of loot... UNLESS, you want to punish anyone who participates in PVP. And in that case, Lineage 2 has it right (you attack someone, you are attackable by everyone, etc.). If you want PVE players to never PVP or go in PVP areas, make good and sure you put a masochistic death penalty on it, because that'll damn sure keep them away.

Honestly, every bit of this shit has already been learned and proven by EQ, DAoC, Shadowbane, UO and SWG. It sounds to me like the Blizzard fuckers haven't learned to stop listening to the hordes of retarded fanbois that infest their message boards.

Design by Message Board Warriors and Furor-Wannabes. Yeah, that'll make a good game.

Yeah, man.  Totally outrageous for them to have mez in PvP because they haven't recoded every spell to act differently in PvP when we are 4+ months away from release.  I should ask for my money back.

This thread is why not having a NDA was the worst idea ever.

Edit: The first test of the faction PvP system in the beta test doesn't have spell rebalancing specifically for PvP.  SHOCKING I TELL YOU.  It's almost like they wanted to test core faction combat functionality before balancing it.  OH MY GOD WHAT MORONS.  Maybe they even want to implement talents for each class before rebalancing every spell and ability for PvP used?  OMG RETARDED MONKEYS ON CRACK!!!1111!!!

Considering how easy it is to get back up and running after you die, you pretty much need to have some penalty for PvP death.  Otherwise, you are right back where you died, at full health and mana, a minute after you die, because there are respawn points everywhere.  It is impossible to have any territory control with that situation.  Some kind of penalty needs to happen, whether it be making you respawn way back in your race's garveyard, a timeout, or whatever.

At least they are realizing NOW that there is a problem, unlike say SWG and the knockdown exploits. Recognizing that there is a problem is step 1. A lot of people never make it that far. (Not a response to El Gallo)

My point, whether the game is in release or not, is that anyone even considering adding PVP to a level-based, PVE-centric game should have already known about crowd control spells. It's like Step 1: How to Fuck Balance in PVP: Crowd Control Spells.

As for a penalty for PVP death, I wasn't aware that the death-zerg rush was a valid tactic. I suppose I'm so used to PVE games where death means respawning at least 5-15 minutes away from where you died. In that case, a time out before you can PVP is good. I just don't consider that much of a penalty. When I hear penalty, I'm thinking exp. loss.

I've always wondered why PvE games don't just create a separate set of hotkeys for PvP spells.  Most games have multiple hotbars, so setting up a pvp hotbar would be no big deal.  Also, this would allow a separate set of testing and avoid some of the worst pve vs. pvp spell problems.  Nerfing effects/damage for spells in pvp seems to produce a negative vibe.  Creating "new buttons" for the nerfed spells may be a solid alternative.  

Just a thought really... though I stand by a statement I made on waterthread many moons ago: noone has successfully made a pve game with balanced pvp to date.  I expect Blizzard to give it a good shot, but let's face it... WoW is directed toward those that enjoy pve catassing goodness.

Yeah, it is a different mindset having such an unbelievably light PvE death penalty.  And yeah everyone there knows mez fucks up PvP (especially since the resists system is rather spotty at the moment).  I think they just wanted to make sure that the AvH server actually worked before balancing seriously for PvP.  If they have this after release, I'll be flaming along with you, brother.

Damn, did we just say the exact same thing twice, once with flames and once with sweet nothings?  <3

Best lagging game for sure. It doesn't even need Catacombs.

About the rest I've learnt in these months to wait what Blizzard really introduces, without guessing for the worst beforehand. In general they react in a good way and if they do something lame they adjust it.

Everyone knew all these problems, as I joined the beta some of my posts were exactly about the difficulties WoW would have encountered in the PvP due to the focus on PvE. At least they have on track those problems and I'll wait to see how they shape the game.

They aren't completely deaf and blind at finding and addressing the problems.

Are they turning collision detection on in WoW?

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!




I do not know, but as you can probably tell, my bet's on "No."

Make a Ritual involving 3 Paladins or 3 Shaman and call it "Desecration".  It desecrates the graveyard so that only the dead from one side can spawn there.

Edit: Spelling is hard.

I can see it now...narrow path, giant high level character, teeming mob of lower level critters, highbie goes AFK and watches the carnage as the lowbies he followed get torn to ribbons with no escape route.

Wasn't there an old school EQ dungeon where this was possible? It sounds familiar.

Blackburrow.  Gnoll trains. Good times.

Upper Guk has the same problem. It just takes one "fatty" (original model Ogre) to block the exit. The froggy trains there weren't as immense as the Blackburrow ones though.

The zone from lowerguk (dead side) to upper guk was the worst I encountered.  A single fatty could easily block in that entire side of the zone.  It usually happened when someone went afk while zoning, meaning they popped in and were in the way until they returned.  The trains to that zone line may not have been huge in number, but the sheer terror inspired by end game (at the time) froggies abusing a pile of players was something to behold.  If I remember correctly the froggy wizards could even cast ice comet.

I now smell of long forgotten catass.  I shall have to bathe.

There's a new school dungeon where it's possible : all-of-them-in-CoH (well, not so much in the open air parts - but you get the idea).

Which is what triggered the question.

CoH are planning to have pvp - surely they won't turn off collision detection?  Which reminded how annoying it is not to have collision detection in DAoC. Which in turn made me wonder if our favourite DAoC PvP clone has same....

Death penalties are good, as long as they aren't too harsh.  In games like UO, where equipment is all common, simply dropping everything on death was a good penalty.  It forced the player to take a timeout to re-equip.

Asheron's Call had a good death penalty system where a player would drop a number of items, based on level.  But players could carry high priced, unimportant "death items" which would drop before their real equipment.  Everyone was in need of death items to protect their own gear, so if that's all you got from a kill, it was good.  AC also had a progressive penalty on skills for each death that took XP gain to get rid of.

I guess that's why I play Counterstrike instead of Quake.  I like the death penalty.

The Warcraft games were all about PvP.  I'd expect the World of Warcraft to be pretty heavy on PvP.

 The warcraft games were RTS, not MMO. Do you see the difference? And in the last one, the races are at an uneasy truce by the end. I hate this particular attempt to justify PvP as it has no basis in reality.

As for PvP death penalties, I really don't care since I will probably never play on the PvP server. Let all the freaks consume each other and pull those guilds that write all the letters about death penalties to their server. Leaves the civilized people alone to have fun.

Please look up the terms "MMO" and "reality".



Next week our traumatised guest speaker will be a 42 father of 4 from Portland, describing a near death experience in the Minoc mountians and how the events of that day have haunted him ever since.

Now you are playing dumb to troll him, Arthur Parker. You realize he meant reality of the game lore, or in other terms consistency of the game world.

Of course, I don't necessarily agree because the uneasy truce can be broken in a 30 second cut scene of the WoW trailer. But then I don't want to play on PvP servers without rock solid accountability either.

Did he, are you sure?  He comes across as that bat fuck insane to me, so I wasn't sure.

Oh wait, hold on, you agree it was a stupid statement too, you just want to be focus on one element of it's stupidness instead of my attempt at gathering the stupid up in one bundle and dealing with it all at once, I see, carry on.

I mean what I said. Nothing more, nothing less. I share his view on PvP-worlds, but I'm not accusing all PvPlers to be sociopathic PKers. But enough are so that the interruptions they cause overshadow the positive effects you have from being able to truly interact with your fellow players.

Since the days of the great migration of Roleplayers out of Everquest I say the problem isn't with the games, but with the players. As long as the developer doesn't have the courage to protect me from sociopaths by revoking their accounts, they have to develop workarounds so that those sociopaths can't do too much damage in the game.

WoW will be a hotbed of stupidity, judging from the Battlenet clientelle. Every
way to grief other people will be used in abundance.

It is a pretty widespread view that PvP servers drain some of the most antisocial fuckups from the regular servers.  It's certainly true in EQ.  Have you ever read the Sullon Zek boards?

While I can't really argue this, it's also possible to some degree that "teh stupid" on the other servers just don't post.  

It's true that pvp brings some of the most anti-social gamers to the table, but I often prefer it as it commonly brings the most skilled as well.  Believe me, nothing is more fun than killing some asshat in a pvp situation... it gives a small feeling of accountability.  Now in a game like EQ where there really is no place for pvp (we all know that it was a patched in after thought), the whole thing ends up being pretty meaningless.

Are you truly this stupid? I mean, can you have so few functioning brain cells or are you being intentionally ignorant? I didn't mean the god damn game was real you dumb fuck. I meant that in the game's lore, in the background alot of people actually played through the races are at peace! Now, if they introduced the scourge as a playable faction or the burning legion, then you'd have an excuse. As it is, people like you are why I don't mind PvP servers (other than the resources they drain) because they get the dumb shits off of my server.

I am not going to bother to respond to the rest of your post since it is merely more drooling from a subhuman ape. Carry on all.

Just read this on the official forums:

"Also, the quest team is planning on adding PvP quests in the future. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them in our Quest Forum. ~Kat"

Now I'm just curious.

There's absolutely no fucking way they can implement pvp quests without griefing.

Though, consensual pvp quests could be interesting. You sign up to be hunted, then an unknown player goes to the station and signs on to find you and kill you. You won't know til your attacked. That could be an interesting way to kill an hour or 2.

This could work on a battleground but not on the normal world. It's impossible to actually find someone else without a super radar. Bounty quests could be fun but they have that problem.

Removed because I was being more of a dick than usual.

Then make it a kill a named mob vs. defend the named mob quest.

AP, did you forget your meds today?  I think that the guy's only point initially was that you are not forced by the WC lore & prior WC games to make WoW PvP.  The point isn't that you CANNOT have PvP in WoW, just that you don't HAVE TO HAVE IT to have WoW make sense with the other games.  But I guess you've been dying to use those carebear slams you copied from the WTFMan front page 3 years ago pretty badly.



The comment about PvP being why other MMOGs are slow paced is off base, but you started flinging shit long before that.

Exactly!  Why does PVP in a MMOG have to be the exact same as what has been done before?  There are so many ways to make PvP more fun in WoW than any other MMORPG that has come before.  Those are one of the kinds of quests that would be great for PvP.  Add in a squad based restriction, where when you die...you leave the instance...and you could have a really competitive game that would only add to the WoW experience.

There are MANY other PvP game types that could be added.  Tournaments, Ladders, FFA Deathmatches, Team Deathmatches...etc.

DAoC already has defend the named mob vs attack the named mob quests in the frontier. At least it *did* have them, not sure if they were ever translated into NF.

Either way, the player base ignored them.

Probably because most players just wanted to do endless, aimless 1fg vs 1fg roaming in emain 24/7.

I was amazed at some of the whining going on on the DAoC Vault boards about this very subject, proclaiming that 8v8 PVP was dead thanks to New Frontiers.

Strangely enough, I spent a lot of my time in the battlegrounds last night with dick in the dirt from a roaming group of 5-6 Hibernian gankers that were doing exactly that extremely well (though I suspect their bard had a radar program).

I'm just flabbergasted that all some of these muttonheads want to do is the Emain shuffle all goddamn night long.

I suppose my main issues is that I am extremely cynical about PvP play and the players. You'll see long detailed posts ranting about the challenge and the danger.

Then you log into a PvP server or play early UO and see the reality. Gang mindset in action. Groups waiting to gangrape single or duo players and then taunt them after they die. I've seen it every single time I've given a PvP server a shot. I saw it in UO. (In fact, that was almost all UO was at the time I left.)

So forgive me if I'm more than a little cynical when I see these same posts being written on the WoW forums and on here about the greatness of PvP. The challenge. Etc.

My other primary issue with PvP comes from how it impacts PvE indirectly. Primarily through whining from PvPers about how spell X or ability Y makes class Z unbeatable in PvP. The devs then bring out the nerf bat, usually to heavily, and the class gets gimped for PvE.

I don't think it is possible, at least with the current MMO design style, to balance both playstyles within the same game. I really don't. One has to be good at the expense of the other.

DaoC is perhaps the only game I've ever heard of that even comes close to pulling it off. At the expense of an incredibly boring PvE portion of the game.

I suppose my feeling is, let PvP players have their own server. I'm all for that. When I'm feeling masochistic I'll even log on and be gang raped by the roving gangs of Max level players hunting newbies. BUT. They take what they are given. They don't whine. They don't cry nerf. They realize that their playstyle is an afterthought unless the game is designed from the ground up to be PvP. WoW, like the majority of games out there was not. If it was PvP probably would have been tested much earlier than phase 3 of beta. Battlegrounds would at least be PvP-free zones across the world.

Ok, enough ranting.

DAOC comes as close to perfect PVP as I think we're going to get. Perhaps not perfect in always balanced etc, but perfect in the overall execution. PVP is completely consentual, PVP is anonymous in that you don't see names until the combat is done, there is no cross realm communication so no trash talking, there are no penalties for getting pwned but huge carrots for participating and doing well.

Therein lies the problem with some players. They want to do the "Emain shuffle" because it's the easiest way for an 8 man gank group to get fucktons of RPs and get to RR10L10 the fastest. Yes, there are players whose sole goal is to obtain the highest "level" in the game. The good part is that there are many more players who just enjoy RvR and aren't really all the worried about the numbers that are racking up each time they kill someone.

See, I enjoy racking up realm points; I love the tinkering of abilities, and I'm absolutely smitten with the idea of getting experience for PVP kills in DAoC. But I'm also there trying to defend or retake the keep, trying to disrupt attacks by cutting supply lines and hitting from the rear. I enjoy the tactical and strategic aspects of it.

Why make PVP just another fucking level treadmill as a playstyle?

DAoC's PVE isn't boring because their powers are balanced for PVP; it's boring because it takes a long time and there really isn't a lot of different strategies for it that I've seen.

I proposed a PvP system for WoW here:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-pvp&T=4216&P=1&ReplyCount=0#post4216

This sucked me out of lurkdom.  I've done better than read the SZ boards, I played on the server.  Started at its release,  played for 8-10 months, and got to 57 on a mage (with neligble AA points) before I burned out on the leveling.  It was the best experience I've had in EQ.  There was a lot of problems, and the devs started to add some pvp features and then seemed to completely forget about it (leaving some things halfway implemented), but, for me, it was way better than regular EQ (I only ever got to about 20 on a blue server before quitting because I was bored out of my mind).

Anyways, the big trolls on the boards were often guys you rarely saw in game.  I remember this one dude, Vigg, amusing troll on whatever the current SZ board was at the time, always had some variation of "batboy" as his icon picture.  This was a guy who must have gotten several thousand posts in a couple months, almost all of them (sometimes amusing) complete bullshit, or just plain trolling.  But in game he just had some low level bard on the evil team that I think I saw maybe once ever.  The same with a lot of the other trolls.  There was an entire evil guild (I've forgotten its name) that had a reputation of posting a lot of dumb stuff on the boards.  In the game they were pretty much a non-factor that never got a lot of members to high levels.  The people/guilds who were a force on the server didn't really troll or spam the boards, though sometimes arguments/flames between them did happen.

The point being that a board isn't necessarily represenative of the server.  I suppose your statement is still literally true, those guys were attracted to SZ (and probably some of the other Zeks before that) instead of the regular servers, but if the implication is that the posters you saw on the SZ boards were typical of the people in game, then I'd disagree.   They were a pretty small minority, and usually a non-factor in game.

Sullon Zek made Fansy (http://www.notacult.com/fansythefamous.htm) possible. That in and of itself is a point in its favor. If you are going to grief, do it with style!

Since I'm posting, I might as well reply to this too.  That way my playstyle when I played (though, admittedly, I haven't played in 1.5 years, so I can't comment on the current state of the game). I enjoyed that playstyle.  

As to why, well, I'm not much of a social player.  The two primary things I like about mmorpgs are advancement and fighting other players.  The emain schuffle combined those things.  I liked looking at the list of realm abilities and saying "ooh, I could get that" and then going out and earning enough to buy it through ganking other players (or, since I was a druid, more like my group ganking others while I healed).  

I've always liked the idea of advancement in mmorpgs, the idea of levels (or some sort of numeric advancement).  Hell, I like levels in PnP games.   Its just the reality of leveling in mmorpgs that leaves a lot to desire.  There was probably a time when getting to 60 in EQ and getting lots of phat lewt sounded like a good idea, but the reality of grinding all that exp then going on raid after raid left me cold and ensured it never happened (I got close in exp on SZ, as my earlier post mentions, but I always had shit for equipment because I couldn't stand camping and raiding).  But the emain schuffle was like a revelation; finally here was a game where I could advance by having fun, by doing something I actually enjoyed, fighting other players, rather than struggling to stay awake while my group killed spider after spider.  I liked it so much, it was all I wanted to do in game.  I didn't care about dragon or DF raids, relics and fort taking was kind of a necessarily evil, but put me in an emain group while a good mid or alb group was around and I could have fun forever.  (The only reason I ever quit was the issues associated with being in the lowest pop realm on a low pop server: Hib/Palomides).  It might have been a treadmill, but if grind is a state of mind, it was never a grind for me, because I never felt it.

Running around emain in a group, or even with a zerg, there was constant action (on a good night), and that was fun.  But when I played, taking forts tended to be either boring or frustrating.   When we attacked a fort, often there would be no one there, so we'd beat on the door for awhile, and either no one would show up and it'd fall, or we'd get some alb zerg SOS'ing into the fort and we'd have to retreat.  Compared to that, running around emain was perfect.  But maybe NF has fixed all this, I don't know.