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Topic: MMORPGs with PvP are impossible (Read 10370 times)
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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This is a pretty circular argument. I can't be a troll that hates orcs and attacks them because they don't exist - even though I AM the troll, I DO hate orcs, and I have a mace handy...
Well if all you say is true, then why aren't you attacking then? Since you aren't attacking, something you say must not be true. Either you're not a troll (though the game confirms you are), you don't have a mace (i can see it), or you don't hate orcs. Well, i suppose there are alternative explanations. Your character may be a blowhard, or a wuss. I guess the ultimate choice of explanation is yours. Personally, I wouldn't choose those explanations for my character myself. I'd just realize that orc hating trolls can only exist when they also have the trait of being a blowhard/wuss and not wanting to have a wuss troll, i'd just not make a orc hating troll. In retrospect, I guess that troll hating orcs CAN exist, but only when they have other character flaws that prevent them from carrying out on that hate. Again, this is just my personal RP explanation for why you don't attack. I'm sure there are others. Or you can roleplay an orc-hating troll by not grouping with them and making rude gestures behind their backs.
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rscott
Terracotta Army
Posts: 46
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Little things like that DO inhibit freeform roleplaying. .
Of course. But the more explained, the more thought out, the more detailed a world is, the less free form RP can happen. Knowing nothing about a world, you could easily think that a sci-fi character would work or a fantasy character could work. As soon as i pin down the world to tolkein, or whatever, i have reduced the number of valid characters that could be played. I could then elaborate on the races. Thats a reduction as well. I could define the races history. That would reduce the RP options. An in depth world is good. Personally i find the current crop of worlds as being bland, generic. They aren't worlds, their props. Theres no history (though interestingly enough, i kind of liked eq2 because i could remember what similar areas were like in EQ1, in a sense, there IS a history there). I think that each race, each god, each npc, all parts of the world should be given much better treatment than they have been. Will that reduce freeform RP options. Sure. But the ones that remain viable will be all the more better for it. Margalis: "But you can make this sort of silly argument for anything, which defeats the idea that something is a world." No matter how i read this, it comes out strange, could you elaborate?
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Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335
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It's circular reasoning.
I say "how come I can't do X" You say: "Because X doesn't exist in the game." I say: "Well then how is that a world?" You say: "Because the world is just defined as lacking those things."
So, that brings me back to my original point:
"I really fail to see how adding consensual battleground type of areas boxes anyone in or is a barrier to anything. If you don't like it, don't participate."
As I said, you can come up with some goofy backstory to explain it. I guess I have no problem with what you are saying, but it doesn't address my original point.
Somehow the fact that I can't attack an Orc is ok, the fact that I magically get tired swimming is ok, the fact I can't kill you in your sleep is ok, but having consenual battlegrounds breaks immersion and isn't a world anymore?
I can't kill Orcs for a reason. I can't kill you in your sleep for a reason. (I guess in your terms, "sleep" does not exist in this world) And, I should be able to perform restricted, competive PvP for a reason - fun is the common reason.
Once you have a fun mechanic, then you can worry about justifying it in your genero-fantasy world. There are plenty of ways to do so.
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vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
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rscott
Terracotta Army
Posts: 46
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Okay. I didn't say that battlegrounds can't be given an RP justification. So i didn't know that was the point you were arguing. And even if i did, i don't think it would be circular, just inconsistent. But thats not important.
I think i would prefer that the integration of a battleground be more thought out, perhaps change the world alot more to allow them to fit more seamlesly. Granted, this is tough when the game was out for several months, and they stick in battle grounds so people don't get owned by all the level 50s.
"Somehow the fact that I can't attack an Orc is ok, the fact that I magically get tired swimming is ok, the fact I can't kill you in your sleep is ok, but having consenual battlegrounds breaks immersion and isn't a world anymore? "
While i am not arguing this point myself. Can't you step back a bit and see how at least in a trivial sense this is kind of understandable. Being not allowed to kill other humans, getting tired, not being allowed to kill others in their sleep are all things at least i've grown up accepting. Its a small jump for me to see that as a given in a game. Having a battle ground the way DAOC does it is foreign. Perhaps its just a matter of what examples you've chosen, but among the examples you've listed, most are a small jump from what i've become accustomed to, what i could easily get immersed in, whereas the battleground takes a bit more work.
Now arenas, with some sort of ladder tournament, with divisions that you could sign up for, some sort of testing and weigh in, that would be easier to swallow, easier to be immersed in. Though granted they won't give you the group combat feel that the battlegrounds did.
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11844
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The only difference between pvp by fighting avatars in daoc and competing widget shops in swg and competing template builders in eq is one of speed of play. All of them are MMORPGs, all of them have some form of pvp. To limit yourself to saying 'it's only pvp if it works this way' and 'it's only a MMORPG if it does exactly this' because 'it lacks this RL possible function and so isn't a complete pvp system or a complete world' is dumb. No game models the entire universe. Simplifying and limiting the mechanics are the only way any game becomes functional. This applies to non-competitive and well as competitive play. Yes, there are restrictions on what you can RP. So? There are restrictions in the way a good GM will let you RP in DnD as well. Actions in role playing *games* are always, and have always, been restricted in order to maintain the game for other players and deal with whatever limitations the rule set has. Every game ever created includes capacity for competitive play. Play where players compete versus other players if you will. Some proportion of them are MMORPGs. Some proportion of MMORPGs are considered 'successful' by their customer base. Ergo it is possible for MMORPGs to include pvp. I can't kill you in your sleep for a reason. And the reason is that the game offers a limited range of characters for you to role play. The guy who kills people in their sleep is not one of them. This is no different to playing dungeons and dragons. Trolls that want to attack Orcs In Kotor I can't disembowel Carth the moment I see him. No matter how much I want to. But Carth is part of the environment. Does that mean kotor is not a proper pve rpg? Of course not. Limited pvp in daoc or whatever is the same principle.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335
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Now arenas, with some sort of ladder tournament, with divisions that you could sign up for, some sort of testing and weigh in, that would be easier to swallow, easier to be immersed in. Though granted they won't give you the group combat feel that the battlegrounds did. I think that would be a phenomenal endgame. It would take little effort to implement versus adding new content, and lasts for a lot longer. There are games that stay popular for years based on their competitive aspects without needing any new content at all. (Adding new content is a losing endgame battle) But, I don't see how arena's and battlegrounds differ. Just make a battleground an area set aside for competition, and allow large goups in it. Maybe a giant walled in prairie or something. 2 teams enter, one team leaves. It would just be an arena but much larger in scope.
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vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
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Koyasha
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1363
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For all the talk about levels not mattering much, I think, for sustainability, that level limits will have to be implemented. We may be able to deal with enemies 5-10 levels higher(which is the case this early into release) in the newbie contested areas, but it'll be a different ballgame when many more people are running around as level 60. By the time this happens, with any luck, they'll have implemented PvP rewards. Not that I agree with leaving the system out and launching incomplete (I've gotten pretty annoyed at games that launch incomplete, CoH and FFXI being the exceptions), but there's a chance the rewards system will arrive right when this would be becoming a problem. Then people will have a reason to go fight those their own level, and perhaps something discouraging them from camping lowbies.
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-Do you honestly think that we believe ourselves evil? My friend, we seek only good. It's just that our definitions don't quite match.- Ailanreanter, Arcanaloth
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WindupAtheist
Army of One
Posts: 7028
Badicalthon
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I did play one online game that was 100% PvP, with characters that developed slowly over time. It even had roleplaying, and all the battles were balanced in terms of character stats. It was a text-only boxing sim, where you created fighters who would have fights scheduled for them against opponents of equal stats. Winning would earn you "bonus points" that went towards additional stats, while taking punishment (even in victory) would get you "injury points" that counted against your stats. You would script a fight strategy using a language very much like BASIC, and on fight day you would receive a blow-by-blow text account of the match. IE...
If score > 12 - round then 1/1/18 (outside)
Means that if your corner thinks its fighter has an essentially invincible lead on the scorecards, he'll focus entirely on defense and try to run out the clock. Some folks would try to write strategies that were hundreds of lines long and would self-adapt to anyone they were up against, while others would scout out their opponent in detail and write a five-liner specifically to beat them. Was great fun for about a year. People would roleplay on the "press release" board, all the fights were balanced, and the outcome was determined by player intelligence.
EDIT: I played for a year, the game itself is quite old and is still around.
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"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig." -- Schild "Yeah, it's pretty awesome." -- Me
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Nebu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 17613
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I did play one online game that was 100% PvP, with characters that developed slowly over time. It even had roleplaying, and all the battles were balanced in terms of character stats. It was a text-only boxing sim, where you created fighters who would have fights scheduled for them against opponents of equal stats. Winning would earn you "bonus points" that went towards additional stats, while taking punishment (even in victory) would get you "injury points" that counted against your stats. You would script a fight strategy using a language very much like BASIC, and on fight day you would receive a blow-by-blow text account of the match. IE... Sounds like the Avalon Hill Board game named Title Bout (1979). It's a good idea and a fairly balanced method for PvP but as you have pointed out, there are some holes (i.e. the RNG plays a large roll in the deciding the winner and player skill can, at best, be used to counter discrepancies in the RNG outcomes). The game has been made into text by several different people, but I rather prefer playing the old board/card version. Not to derail the thread... just a nice visit down memory lane.
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"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
- Mark Twain
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WindupAtheist
Army of One
Posts: 7028
Badicalthon
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I managed to crack the world top 50 at heavyweight in this game, had a fair number of fights. Random factors could decide a very close fight, but you never felt like you'd been cheated, really. If it were close enough that a cut or a weird call from the ref made the difference, then your victory would have been far from certain anyway. Had fun knocking out a particular "elite" manager's rising heavyweight with a three-line fight plan, because I had pored over the text accounts of his previous fights until I could guess his stats and knew what he would most likely try to do against me.
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"You're just a dick who quotes himself in his sig." -- Schild "Yeah, it's pretty awesome." -- Me
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