Looting in PVP

[Slayerik]

New question for you all. Make UO (pre-trammel), use the Ultima Online 2 name for recognition (bad or good), and make it 3d. Would it be a 'success'?

I believe the sandbox factor and PVP and real player housing would prove to be successful.

[Arthur_Parker]

If you had different trammel and felucca ruleset servers, yes I think it would do fairly well but trammel would be more popular, there's no doubting that.

[Nebu]

New question for you all. Make UO (pre-trammel), use the Ultima Online 2 name for recognition (bad or good), and make it 3d. Would it be a 'success'?

I believe the sandbox factor and PVP and real player housing would prove to be successful.

Would it be fun? Yes.  Would it be a success? No.  It would certainly attract older gamers and those that have graduated from Runescape, but WoW and other games on the horizon would be too big a draw to allow this to be anything but niche (maybe 10-20k subs).

[Slayerik]

New question for you all. Make UO (pre-trammel), use the Ultima Online 2 name for recognition (bad or good), and make it 3d. Would it be a 'success'?

I believe the sandbox factor and PVP and real player housing would prove to be successful.

Would it be fun? Yes.  Would it be a success? No.  It would certainly attract older gamers and those that have graduated from Runescape, but WoW and other games on the horizon would be too big a draw to allow this to be anything but niche (maybe 10-20k subs).

10-20k seems low to me. Hell, the original UO is doing better than that, isnt it? Regardless, it would be cool in my book :)

[Jayce]

I didn't read the whole thread, so if someone already said this, I'm agreeing with them  :-D

I think that the lure of early UO, in large part, was the danger of losing your items, and only to a lesser extent the thrill of winning them.  So that makes it ironically the losing of items, not the gaining of items, that is fun.  Now of course I realize anyone who loses everything they own with no way to recover is going to be demoralized and probably going to quit.

However, the real RUSH comes from being out and tottering on the edge of the abyss, and surviving.  A red comes at you, you recall with a sliver of life.   Or you fight back and barely win.  Or you are the red, and everything's on the line.  You die, there's statloss.  You lose your vanquishing hally of wtfpwnage.  But if you win, there's another pile of loot to stash in your house against the next death.

It's ridiculously punishing and demoralizing to those who habitually lose, but to those who learn it and do well (but not too well, to keep the sense of danger), it's intoxicating.

I think this is why people - certainly why I - play PvP servers in every game, even WoW.  I have never been much of a ganker or even PvPer, but I do like the danger of there being a potential ganker around every corner.  I'm not easily demoralized and don't mind unexpected things occurring.  I guess I'm in the minority, but the relative popularity of PvP servers even in the safety and comfort of WoW says that it is less of a minority that one might think.

Regarding a new UO, who knows.  It's not the IP, it's the gameplay.  IMO Origin got a lot of stuff right quite by accident, then proceeded to scale it down and mellow it out after the Everquest model proved more popular.  If they would have stuck to their niche, UO would probably not be as popular as it is now, but the few players it did have would be maniacial in their fanaticism.  Not thinking of any names or anything. 

[Nebu]

I think that the lure of early UO, in large part, was the danger of losing your items, and only to a lesser extent the thrill of winning them.  So that makes it ironically the losing of items, not the gaining of items, that is fun.  Now of course I realize anyone who loses everything they own with no way to recover is going to be demoralized and probably going to quit.

I'd argue that the lure of early UO was that there wasn't another decent option.  Call me cynical. I know I was still playing (and designing) MUDs at the time. 

[Krakrok]

I think pxib hit on a good looting issue which was make the looter actually carry the loot. There is no reason why characters today can't visibly carry the stuff they are carrying around either visually on their character or in a backpack on their character. Make the backpack grow depending on how much loot is in it.

Also the amount of loot that you CAN carry in current games is ridiculous. If you are wearing a set of plate where are you hiding the other 5 sets of plate that you magically have on your character? If characters need more holding space than they are currently holding they should have a pack horse (this is PVP context only; don't respond about PVE). Planetside does this right to some extent.

Pxib's other idea of layered loot was also pretty good. If I am wearing layers of crap it should take time to strip that crap off to get the loot and the 'lower' the layer the longer it should take to get the loot. Instant looting + PVP is ridiculous in an RPG. When you are trying to loot you should be more vulnerable.

Looting also wouldn't be such a huge problem if every NPC you killed gave full loot. Loot scarcity is probably a main reason why people dislike looting.

EVE is full loot. The loot that you don't get is removed from the game. What is lame about EVE is that it is a zero sum game. Why should I have to destroy your 1 billion ISK ship when I would much rather capture it (without your permission)? And if I can capture it there is now loot time involved because I can only fly one ship at a time. Instead of reducing the number of ships/items in the game every time you get captured it increases the number of ships/items. Trees of Life in SB should have been capturable not destroyable. Maybe captured items take damage each time they are captured and expire after X captures.

The other thing about EVE is that YOU choose how much risk you want to take in PVP. If you want minimal risk you fly with a fully insured ship, cheap gear, and normal character power. If you want more risk in exchange for more character power you fly with more expensive uninsured ships and gear.

I prefer looting not because it deprives the other person of the loot but because it's the ding gratz for PVP. You never know what you'll get when you open the box. Beating the other character is just a sideshow for the loot. I don't like losing stuff myself so I adjust my play style accordingly and only use low cost gear to minimize my risk (be it in UO or EVE). I'm perfectly fine without loot too as long as there is some kind gain from the PVP be it faction goals (land or whatever) or personal (skills like in GW). I don't get very far in your traditional FPS before getting bored to say the least.

WoW could have the greatest PVP in the world and I still wouldn't grind the 70 levels to get to it.

[pxib]

If you released UO today, everyone would still go to Trammel.  If Trammel wasn't in, they would go to WoW.

(*snip* superior ore is available in Felucca.)
Copy/paste to every resource in UO and you have people in Felucca. Risk/reward.

To paraphrase part of Raph's Theory of Fun: the players will do whatever provides the most rewards. If what provides the most reward makes them miserable, they will feel that the game makes them miserable. If they have to do something they hate in order to get the best resources in the game, they'll do it anyway and hate the game that forced them to. For a little while folks from Trammel would take risky trips into Felucca... then they'd get sick of it and quit paying the subscription.

I cannot believe that any amount of reward will make players currently uninterested  in UO's PvP suddenly decide it's a lot of fun.

I can believe that a system could be devised which would make PvP and player looting considerably more palatable. I threw out some random ideas already. They would require design from the ground up. The whole game would need to revolve around making every battle as exciting and balanced as possible. I had hoped that this thread would revolve around discussion of that potential... and it has produced a few gems:

And yet, we have people arguing to apply a handicap (item loss) to people who are less skilled (the losers).  What kind of nonsense is THAT?

The sort that makes victims quit, and limits the venture capital that FFA PvP gets in the future.
- How do we limit the impact of that handicap without removing it?

Groups of skilled players will band together dominating weaker opponents, taking their stuff, and widening the gap even further.  Forced grouping, forced grinds to replace items, and forced grinds to have the best available skills.

- How do we stop the zerg and give casual players a chance to shine?

I'd like to suggest there is [an] important, difference between "I die and lose my stuff" and "I die and you get all my stuff".

Krakrok doesn't like the zero sum game, but imagine having to watch some smug bastard flying around in your billion ISK.
If they capture the ship (armor,  weapon, whatever), all the work you did to get it was functionally work for them.
- How do we limit big-ticket risks?

There should be situations in which you have a very low chance of victory, but it should never be zero percent.

Even LC contributes! I once rambled at length about how feeling heroic depends upon feeling like you have a chance. To lose because you made a mistake or got in over your head is frustrating, but understandable. To lose because you were doomed the moment the fight started? (Gee... why am I playing this game?)
- How do we conspire to only place players in fights they have a chance of winning or escaping?

[Riggswolfe]

Riggswolfe the point I was making was the term was originally meant as an insult to mean "you don't like pvp", even when first used.  The fact that the first people it was directed at, used a clever and humiliating pvp tactic to embrace the insult doesn't change the original intent nor what the term is commonly accepted to mean.  Carebears are cute cuddly and come in different bright colours.

And the point I was trying to make is that it was actually first used by antipk's and was later coopted by pvpers as an insult. Pretty much the opposite. Who knows what the truth is anymore, I am going from what I was told by a person who was on the server and active in the forums at the time. The story, btw, in its entirety is quite funny if you ever get a chance to read the full version of events that occured.

[Riggswolfe]

New question for you all. Make UO (pre-trammel), use the Ultima Online 2 name for recognition (bad or good), and make it 3d. Would it be a 'success'?

I believe the sandbox factor and PVP and real player housing would prove to be successful.

For a moment we'll dream and pretend a dev team gets the funding and makes this game. And that it is stable, polished, etc...

So, let's answer your question. Will it be a success? From the standpoint of making alot of money and being one of the big dogs? Not a chance. But it could potentially be an "Eve-style" success, ie, a niche game that has a core group of players that enjoy it. I doubt if it would get even Eve level of subscribers though. Pre-trammel UO was weighted heavily towards PKs over all other playing styles and it succeeded for awhile on the strength of the IP and the fact it had almost zero competition. People have too many options now to want to put up with that playstyle again and the IP is tarnished almost beyond repair at this point. (Not to mention the generation of gamers that remember Ultima is aging and has moved on to other IPs for the most part.) So basically, it'd cater to the catasses of the PK world. My prediction? Less than 50k subs once the dust settled.

OTOH Pxib has some interesting questions and suggestions in his latest post and I'm interested in what people have to say.

[Krakrok]

Krakrok doesn't like the zero sum game, but imagine having to watch some smug bastard flying around in your billion ISK.
If they capture the ship (armor,  weapon, whatever), all the work you did to get it was functionally work for them.
- How do we limit big-ticket risks?

I think this could be mitigated if there was such a surplus of hardware that winning and losing stuff was functionally irrelevant (re: full loot from NPCs). I don't know how many people here were ever at the Orc fort near Cove in UO but basically the place would get swarmed with players fighting NPC orc spawns and everyone was dying left and right. The ground was literally covered in everyone's gear and people who had died would come running back and just grab whatever they could to continue fighting.

EVE is probably not the game to implement it in but if you had something similar to EVE with it's four empire factions. You join a faction's military and war against the other factions. You're part of the military so you get a standard issue ship. However, you can trick out your ship with extra gear so when you do lose it there is a sting but it is functionally an irrelevant loss from a gameplay standpoint because of the military baseline ship as a backup. Planetside except you could trick out your gear from the baseline. How much longer would EVE battles last if instead of trying to one shot single ships on the opposite side (re: the group target thread) you were instead launching marines to capture enemy ships? You might even be able to save the economy if military hardware couldn't be bought and sold on the regular EVE market.

The same type of setup would work in fantasy RPGs as you could join the city guards who would bankroll minimum equipment. Heaven forbid that when you join an NPC guild they actually give you useful shit.

[LC]

To paraphrase part of Raph's Theory of Fun: the players will do whatever provides the most rewards. If what provides the most reward makes them miserable, they will feel that the game makes them miserable. If they have to do something they hate in order to get the best resources in the game, they'll do it anyway and hate the game that forced them to. For a little while folks from Trammel would take risky trips into Felucca... then they'd get sick of it and quit paying the subscription.

I cannot believe that any amount of reward will make players currently uninterested  in UO's PvP suddenly decide it's a lot of fun.

A theory of fun from a guy that makes unfun games. Is that irony?

It works well in Eve. Even the most hardcore of carebears will risk some of their virtual assets for the rarer resources found in lawless regions of space. A game that caters to all sides could be made easily, if you follow Eve's example.

[Riggswolfe]

Krakrok doesn't like the zero sum game, but imagine having to watch some smug bastard flying around in your billion ISK.
If they capture the ship (armor,  weapon, whatever), all the work you did to get it was functionally work for them.
- How do we limit big-ticket risks?

I think this could be mitigated if there was such a surplus of hardware that winning and losing stuff was functionally irrelevant (re: full loot from NPCs). I don't know how many people here were ever at the Orc fort near Cove in UO but basically the place would get swarmed with players fighting NPC orc spawns and everyone was dying left and right. The ground was literally covered in everyone's gear and people who had died would come running back and just grab whatever they could to continue fighting.

The problem is, that if losing your gear is functionally irrelevant then it kills the "rush" that seems to have been the driving force behind having looting pvp in the first place. If it doesn't matter if you lose your gear, then what's the point? So we're back to where we started again.

[LC]

The problem is, that if losing your gear is functionally irrelevant then it kills the "rush" that seems to have been the driving force behind having looting pvp in the first place. If it doesn't matter if you lose your gear, then what's the point? So we're back to where we started again.

It shouldn't be irrelevant, but it also shouldn't be something you can instantly recover from. About ten minutes would be a good time for recovery after a death. You could even have the local town provide him with a decent set of equipment. It would be functional, but it wouldn't look as cool as the stuff he could get from crafting or whatever. Equipment should make up maybe 10 - 20% of your character's power. The rest would be made up of player skill, and choice of abilities. It wouldn't be a huge gain for the winner, but he could break down the junk he can't use for crafting or to sell.

[Cheddar]

Neocron had a steady amount of 70k or so players before the billing fiasco.  Despite the fuck up they still maintained around 10k-20k subscribers, many who had to jump through hoops to stay subbed. 

And it had a crappy launch with little quest content.

[ahoythematey]

How is Neocron now, in your opinion?  It was a game I always wanted to try, but never got around to playing.

[Krakrok]

The problem is, that if losing your gear is functionally irrelevant then it kills the "rush" that seems to have been the driving force behind having looting pvp in the first place. If it doesn't matter if you lose your gear, then what's the point?

The point is to mitigate the losses of normal people. Take what I already do manually to mitigate my risk and make that a gameplay mechanic. You have to choose to trick out your base ship beyond what's free. I'm not advocating that there needs to be a "rush" component to it. GW has succeeded without one. FPSs work just fine and everyone runs around trying to get the 30 second quad damage. I think what I am saying though is you can provide looting in PVP without a downside for normal people and for those people that want to risk extra gear in trade for a little extra power/notoriety for the "rush" they can.

Some alliances in EVE do this manually. "If you splode fighting for the alliance we buy you a new ship." It would take a gameplay mechanic to have it gamewide though.

It would be a little like Hardcore Mode in Diablo.

[Arthur_Parker]

Riggswolfe the point I was making was the term was originally meant as an insult to mean "you don't like pvp", even when first used.  The fact that the first people it was directed at, used a clever and humiliating pvp tactic to embrace the insult doesn't change the original intent nor what the term is commonly accepted to mean.  Carebears are cute cuddly and come in different bright colours.

And the point I was trying to make is that it was actually first used by antipk's and was later coopted by pvpers as an insult. Pretty much the opposite. Who knows what the truth is anymore, I am going from what I was told by a person who was on the server and active in the forums at the time. The story, btw, in its entirety is quite funny if you ever get a chance to read the full version of events that occured.

You do know antipk's are pvper's right?  I was an anti on Europa.  Did you play UO?  I remember the screenshots being posted of the carebears, not sure if it was before I started playing or what but I do remember reading about it when I was playing.

[pxib]

Provide no easy identification of the quality of gear... and make inventories small enough that people can't hold piles of extra weapons. Folks will likely only take your armor or weapons because, by your notoriety or skill, they have come to assume your stuff must be better than what they have. Otherwise they won't have room to cart around excess junk. The main items players would want to loot are disposables: Potions, bandages, and reagents in UO's case. Things which are lightweight, small, and allow fighting to continue unabated.

Perhaps a player who dies loses all of those disposables, but probably keeps armor and weapons. The player who kills him gets the thrill of looting those unused items to carry on fighting without needing to return to town to restock. Outfitting for battle becomes a matter of considering exactly how many disposables you'll need to sustain your life without providing too much reward to those who finally manage to take it.

If death provides you with a free resurrection at a shrine back in town (or at some sort of wilderness outpost with a cache, or a WoW mailbox, or whatever) then you can't immediately restock and head back to recover your favorite battleaxe and fight on.

[Riggswolfe]

You do know antipk's are pvper's right?  I was an anti on Europa.  Did you play UO?  I remember the screenshots being posted of the carebears, not sure if it was before I started playing or what but I do remember reading about it when I was playing.

First, yes, I played UO. It was my first mmo experience and I got in one-two months after launch and played for probably two-four months (I don't remember exactly.). So I was trying to get bonearmor and learn the mechanics while everyone else were playing dreadlords and pking. UO damn near ruined me for pvp. Luckilly, later games like AC1, WOW, and others showed me that pvp that didn't punish you and reward griefers could be fun. I owe UO a deby of gratitude though, my experience with it was so horrible it took AC1 to get me back into the genre, so I missed the EQ craze, thank god.

The term carebear was coopted by hardcore pvpers and pks from what it used to be. It went from a term used to humiliate a pk guild to a general putdown against people who weren't as "hardcore" to what it is now, a purely derogatory term used to imply a person's e-peen isn't big enough for pvp. I'd say at this point the term carebear is tossed around so much that any sting it ever had is essentially dead except to total newbies.

In other words, it didn't originally refer to people who are against pvp or "the right kind of pvp" as it is now. It was much different.

ETA: I was on one of the Great Lakes servers.

[Slayerik]

You do know antipk's are pvper's right?  I was an anti on Europa.  Did you play UO?  I remember the screenshots being posted of the carebears, not sure if it was before I started playing or what but I do remember reading about it when I was playing.

First, yes, I played UO. It was my first mmo experience and I got in one-two months after launch and played for probably two-four months (I don't remember exactly.). So I was trying to get bonearmor and learn the mechanics while everyone else were playing dreadlords and pking. UO damn near ruined me for pvp. Luckilly, later games like AC1, WOW, and others showed me that pvp that didn't punish you and reward griefers could be fun. I owe UO a deby of gratitude though, my experience with it was so horrible it took AC1 to get me back into the genre, so I missed the EQ craze, thank god.

The term carebear was coopted by hardcore pvpers and pks from what it used to be. It went from a term used to humiliate a pk guild to a general putdown against people who weren't as "hardcore" to what it is now, a purely derogatory term used to imply a person's e-peen isn't big enough for pvp. I'd say at this point the term carebear is tossed around so much that any sting it ever had is essentially dead except to total newbies.

In other words, it didn't originally refer to people who are against pvp or "the right kind of pvp" as it is now. It was much different.

ETA: I was on one of the Great Lakes servers.

No offense, but it sounds like you started a little late and were slow to figure out the basics. Everyone else playing Dreadlords and PKing? GTFO of here...I'll say it for the last time, PKs/gank groups weren't the majority. It might have seemed that way if you decided you wanted to only hang out at hot spots but right there it sounds like you got murdered once, lost some gold, broke your keyboard, and quit. I'm sure it happened to others, you aren't alone. Some Most people just can't handle the danger. It's ok. MMOs have taken the safe route from there on, I'm just saying there IS an playerbase (probably a 'niche') out there for those that want that back. Or would like the rush if they tried it.

[Roac]

The issue with UO Dreads or similar PK types is that their visibility is much, MUCH greater than the average player.  If only 1% of your population are the Dread type, you will have a game that looks mostly like a no man's land. 

[Arthur_Parker]

Riggswolfe, let's just agree to disagree.

[slog]

This is a great thread.  Any developer who is considereing Looting in PvP (or any kind of open PvP) that reads this will realize what a horrible idea it was and will run away as fast as possible.

[Riggswolfe]

No offense, but it sounds like you started a little late and were slow to figure out the basics. Everyone else playing Dreadlords and PKing? GTFO of here...I'll say it for the last time, PKs/gank groups weren't the majority. It might have seemed that way if you decided you wanted to only hang out at hot spots but right there it sounds like you got murdered once, lost some gold, broke your keyboard, and quit. I'm sure it happened to others, you aren't alone. Some Most people just can't handle the danger. It's ok. MMOs have taken the safe route from there on, I'm just saying there IS an playerbase (probably a 'niche') out there for those that want that back. Or would like the rush if they tried it.

I started a little late so yes, other people had a couple of months of experience on me. And I didn't get PKed at hotspots, I got PKed literally every single time I walked out of the city. On my server, the PKs basically circled the cities like vultures especially during peak times of play. I got pretty good at escaping/hiding/surviving but one loss was enough to set me back for days, since I didn't have the advantage of a guild or anything at that time. I probably got murdered 20 times or so before I quit. Why keep playing if I could never get ahead? I got grandmastery in a few skills, and made it up to the rank right below Brightlord or whatever the "good guy" rank was, but I was never able to get ahead. Sure, I put stuff in the bank but I never had enough of a stash to be able to recover quickly from the inevitable seven on one gangrape.

If I remember right, I quit right around the time they were first beginning the murder system. At the time I played PKing was literally the most effective way to skill up and get loot and so it was very, very rampant on my server. Even though the murder system got added it still hadn't had much of an impact on PKing when I quit.

Since I've grown to have little problem with pvp as long as it is not rewarding to the 12 year old sociopaths. Pvper != PK. I'd consider myself a pvper who grows more fond of it by the day, but like most people I won't expose myself to a pk environment again.

As for your last statement, duh, almost every post I've made has said there is a niche market for your preferred playstyle. It's never been denied. I don't think it is a big enough niche that you'll see a company invest enough money to have a stable, fun game. But that's just me. The best that can be hoped for is once again, an Eve-style game, but even Eve doesn't cater to your playstyle everywhere, and that is probably the best you'll get.

Edited to remove some redundancy in my long ass post.

[Riggswolfe]

Riggswolfe, let's just agree to disagree.

Fair enough

[Valmorian]

Some Most people just can't handle the danger. It's ok. MMOs have taken the safe route from there on, I'm just saying there IS an playerbase (probably a 'niche') out there for those that want that back. Or would like the rush if they tried it.

"Danger"?  What is this romantic nonsense?  There's no "Danger" here, just annoying busywork when you lose items that you had to spend time to get. 

Incidentally, I hear trepanation is also popular amongst a certain percentage of the population.

[ajax34i]

It works well in Eve. Even the most hardcore of carebears will risk some of their virtual assets for the rarer resources found in lawless regions of space. A game that caters to all sides could be made easily, if you follow Eve's example.

I've NEVER been to 0.0 in anything other than a shuttle.  3 years of playing, absolutely no interest.  I do not care about "rarer resources", or "end-game gear"; if it's not fun to get it, I won't bother.  EVE caters to all sides, but the carebears stay in the center, and the PvP'ers get out and go occupy the lowsec and 0.0 space.  In fact, PvP'ers have to resort to war decs to get carebear targets, that's now much the carebears hate getting out of their high-sec no-risk homes.

You'll have to define "fun" and what you consider "proper PVP", and as soon as you do, you should realize that a very small minority considers the two together.

[Surlyboi]

A theory of fun from a guy that makes unfun games. Is that irony?

It works well in Eve. Even the most hardcore of carebears will risk some of their virtual assets for the rarer resources found in lawless regions of space. A game that caters to all sides could be made easily, if you follow Eve's example.

Show me on the looted corpse where the carebear touched you.

Was it your e-peen?

[Nebu]

One thing that I think people forget when they get nostalgic about UO is that the game was a once-in-a-lifetime gaming phenomenon.  The UO world contained ALL kinds of gamers slammed together into the same game world.  This is a dynamic that was unique to UO and gave it some of that "feel" that we don't see anymore.  You had RP'er, hardcore pk's, anti pk's, etc. all coexisting.  Given an option to live in a new world, the gamers quickly split.  I believe that were you to re-create these game worlds again, it just wouldn't have the same feel that original UO had for just this reason. 

Creating games with a hardcore pvp experience will attract primarily hardcore pvp'ers.  While I love to play PvP and enjoy hardcore PvP, I can only take the juvenile behavior that often accompanies it in small doses.

[Furiously]

Riggswolfe, let's just agree to disagree.

Fair enough

Riggswolfe - I'll agree with you.

I love PvP but UO wasn't PvP for me. In EvE I have to chose to leave .5 or higher space. Sure I can still get ganked in higher sec space, but it's unlikely. UO was pure gank squads from my eye. I hear about this great PvP that UO had at higher levels of wars and such, I never saw it. I just saw 7 people running around steamrolling anyone they could.

[WindupAtheist]

Slayerik, everytime you post you sound more and more like the PVP equivalent of some deranged Everquest catass pining for the bad old days of punitive corpse runs and twelve-hour spawn camps, so let me clue you in:  Nobody but hardcore Vanguard fanboys and the people who still miss ninties UO enjoy timesinks.  And that's all you're really talking about, a timesink.

[Sky]

One thing that I think people forget when they get nostalgic about UO is that the game was a once-in-a-lifetime gaming phenomenon.  The UO world contained ALL kinds of gamers slammed together into the same game world.  This is a dynamic that was unique to UO and gave it some of that "feel" that we don't see anymore.  You had RP'er, hardcore pk's, anti pk's, etc. all coexisting.  Given an option to live in a new world, the gamers quickly split.  I believe that were you to re-create these game worlds again, it just wouldn't have the same feel that original UO had for just this reason. 

Creating games with a hardcore pvp experience will attract primarily hardcore pvp'ers.  While I love to play PvP and enjoy hardcore PvP, I can only take the juvenile behavior that often accompanies it in small doses.

You say wise things I agree with.

[Morat20]

A theory of fun from a guy that makes unfun games. Is that irony?

It works well in Eve. Even the most hardcore of carebears will risk some of their virtual assets for the rarer resources found in lawless regions of space. A game that caters to all sides could be made easily, if you follow Eve's example.

No it doesn't. The bulk of the players in EVE reside in fairly high-sec space, and many have never even visited 0.0 space.

There are entire corps of "carebears" who never fly below .4, and spend 95% of their time in .8 or higher.

[Nija]

One thing that I think people forget when they get nostalgic about UO is that the game was a once-in-a-lifetime gaming phenomenon.  The UO world contained ALL kinds of gamers slammed together into the same game world.  This is a dynamic that was unique to UO and gave it some of that "feel" that we don't see anymore.  You had RP'er, hardcore pk's, anti pk's, etc. all coexisting.  Given an option to live in a new world, the gamers quickly split.  I believe that were you to re-create these game worlds again, it just wouldn't have the same feel that original UO had for just this reason. 

There were other options at the time - but neither of them wore the Ultima brand name. (Meridian 59 and Darksun Online)