What's on the horizon?

[Slayerik]

I really have no idea what you are talking about. The existence of "safe" areas in Eve? That it has captureable objectives?

As for "safe" areas in Eve-  Eve can be as dangerous or as safe as the individual player would like it to be.  If you stay in high sec space and run with the right corp you might not ever die from PvP.  That isn't really "open world PvP".  Open world PvP would suggest that you would absolutely have to put yourself at some risk to play the game. 

And then these guys die to me suicide ganking them while they most their loot...and taking all their earnings from the last year. Or they run missions with the most expensive shit in the game, and I scan your ship, track you down, and 5 of my buddies obliterate you before the cops can come.

I still love you Eve, even if you aren't fun to play with anymore.

[Yegolev]

Agree.  Nowhere is safe in EVE, although many people would like you to think there is somewhere to hide from danger.

[Kageru]

I've done a PoS shoot.... though since I'm in teeny little nooby ships most of the time I go orbit a gate for an hour.. Eve is *fun*.

But it can be impressive. And it's the objectives that trigger some of the epic battles. This differs from Warhammer (only played the trial) in that the open world battles there were a bit more abstract. I think you had some sort of bar and maybe got a realm bonus if it was full, but it didn't come close to the possibility of losing control of the Eve station that had all your stuff in it and was your source of income.

And Eve empire is safe enough that people can graduate and share the challenge level. Any game that kicks you out into the arena straight after the tutorial is going to have some severe retention problems.

[Margalis]

Stuff like Call of Duty sells great, so at what point does PvP go from desirable to undesirable?

Call of Duty is also one of the "easiest" multiplayer shooters. It has a ton of autoaim, rewards you for losing and the overall design of health/damage/maps makes results highly variable where low skill players can take out high skill players relatively frequently.

Also multiplayer COD PvP modes are *only* about PvP. If you kill a player you aren't preventing them from doing something else because there is nothing else, the only reason to play is to PvP. It's much more similar to arenas than open-world PvP where you can kill players that are not currently interested in fighting other players.

[Malakili]

Stuff like Call of Duty sells great, so at what point does PvP go from desirable to undesirable?

Call of Duty is also one of the "easiest" multiplayer shooters. It has a ton of autoaim, rewards you for losing and the overall design of health/damage/maps makes results highly variable where low skill players can take out high skill players relatively frequently.

Also multiplayer COD PvP modes are *only* about PvP. If you kill a player you aren't preventing them from doing something else because there is nothing else, the only reason to play is to PvP. It's much more similar to arenas than open-world PvP where you can kill players that are not currently interested in fighting other players.

So why can't those principles be applied to large scale planetside-like PvP?  I mean, I've been enjoying BlackOps multiplayer for PC quite a bit (on hardcore mode admittedly, so that might make some of those health/damage mechanics you mentioned change, I'm honestly not even very sure of how the normal mechanics are, I only tried it once).  Its set in the cold war, set it in eastern europe somewhere, give me a bunch of stuff to fight over, and I'd pay a monthly fee for that without sweating the details.

[Margalis]

So why can't those principles be applied to large scale planetside-like PvP?  I mean, I've been enjoying BlackOps multiplayer for PC quite a bit (on hardcore mode admittedly, so that might make some of those health/damage mechanics you mentioned change, I'm honestly not even very sure of how the normal mechanics are, I only tried it once).  Its set in the cold war, set it in eastern europe somewhere, give me a bunch of stuff to fight over, and I'd pay a monthly fee for that without sweating the details.

I think the problem with that specific example is the problem APB ran into - offering a paid service that competes with popular free services is not such a hot idea.

COD multiplayer is incredibly popular and free. A PvP MMO shooter would get compared to COD and the conclusion would probably be lower quality plus costs more - not a good combo. (See Hellgate also)

As long as COD is as popular as it is and remains free I have trouble imagining a super successful PvP FPS MMO.

[Malakili]

So why can't those principles be applied to large scale planetside-like PvP?  I mean, I've been enjoying BlackOps multiplayer for PC quite a bit (on hardcore mode admittedly, so that might make some of those health/damage mechanics you mentioned change, I'm honestly not even very sure of how the normal mechanics are, I only tried it once).  Its set in the cold war, set it in eastern europe somewhere, give me a bunch of stuff to fight over, and I'd pay a monthly fee for that without sweating the details.

I think the problem with that specific example is the problem APB ran into - offering a paid service that competes with popular free services is not such a hot idea.

COD multiplayer is incredibly popular and free. A PvP MMO shooter would get compared to COD and the conclusion would probably be lower quality plus costs more - not a good combo. (See Hellgate also)

As long as COD is as popular as it is and remains free I have trouble imagining a super successful PvP FPS MMO.

Hellgate hardly seems like an attempt at that market.  But I guess I see your point.  I basically just want World War 2 Online but with faster paced gameplay, and maybe that kind of ongoing persistent war thing isn't as desirable for most people as it is for me. When I was playing that game regularly, I loved being able to check in on the map while I wasnt playing, see what cities were being fought over, keep up with our squad's plans on the forums, and so forth. 

[Margalis]

I used to play a lot of Shattered Galaxy, an MMO RTS, and I liked it for similar reasons. Though that was free to play with paid extras. Even though gaining and losing territory didn't matter that much in the end it was still fun to feel like you were fighting in an ongoing war.

I'm actually really surprised that nobody has tried to do an updated take on that game.

[Malakili]

I used to play a lot of Shattered Galaxy, an MMO RTS, and I liked it for similar reasons. Though that was free to play with paid extras. Even though gaining and losing territory didn't matter that much in the end it was still fun to feel like you were fighting in an ongoing war.

I'm actually really surprised that nobody has tried to do an updated take on that game.

A lot of people over on the End of Nations forums are former SG players (or current SG players), though from what I can tell EoN is actually going to not really be a true successor to SG like a lot of us want :(