Looting in PVP

[Nebu]

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

Excellent point.  I stand corrected. 

[SnakeCharmer]

I often wonder if that when people think back to the good ol' days of UO, EQ, and such that they aren't completely delusional about something else.  We were all younger, all much more carefree.  Didn't have 'real' jobs to worry about (for the most part), no 'real' responsibilities.  UO or EQ was first to give that 'omg this is awesome' to many of us (brave new MMO world).  Probably had a little less extra weight around the middle.

Now many of us are older.  A little heavier.  Married.  Divorced.  Kids.  Job.  Less free time. 

Now that there IS a game (Vanguard) that brings back those old hardcore memories of EQ and UO, noone is rushing back to embrace the catass of a an updated pretty version.  I know I personally don't have the free time on my hands when I was 23.  Hell, I don't have the free time I had 2 years ago.  I lasted a week in Vanguard, until I said to myself "Um. Yeah. Fuck this.", cancelled, then played with my dogs and baby boy.

It's like some MMO midlife crisis.  It's not the GAME you want back, per se, but it's that time of your LIFE you want back.  Freud and Pavlov would have a field day with MMO gamers....

[ajax34i]

Now that there IS a game (Vanguard) that brings back those old hardcore memories of EQ and UO, noone is rushing back to embrace the catass of a an updated pretty version. 

You have to look at the targetted demographic of a game to be able to draw conclusions as to why, and "older people with responsibilities" (which we are now) aren't really the targetted demographic.  Most MMOG's are still aimed at the teen / early 20's demographic, and there are plenty of people that fit the category even if we're not in it.

You can say that the game has no appeal for people outside its target demographic, but you can't generalize that to "no one".

[pxib]

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.

You're probably right, but I'll try once more before I abandon ths thread.

The PK/Victim model is broken. Period. If the strong can always eat the weak, the weak will leave. Sane humans don't play games in order to fight a long losing battles against overwhelming odds. Peoples throughout history who have fought against overwhelming odds have done so for only three reasons:
- They had lost their minds.
- They were being paid extremely well, and needed the money.
- Their only other choices were a quick death by execution or a slow death by despair.

Only the first group would do it as a fun way to relax after work.

Like Nebu says (and Nija specifies), UO was the only massive multiplayer option at the time. Everyone on this board is aware of how addictive and exciting massively multiplayer games are, even when you just want to play solo in them. The choices were "play some niche game my friends have never heard of", "go back to grinding Masters of Orion II", or "stick with the community in UO." Enough players bit their tongues and stuck with the third (and enough new players arrived) to keep the PK/Victim model going far longer than it would have under any other circumstance.

PK/Victim: Broken. Scares away customers. Scares away venture capital. Period. Fun as it is to argue, the issue was decided seven years ago when the only game to ever seriously allow it literally split in half and players fled to the half that kept them safe. EVE, popular as it is with this crowd, is not a good counter-example. Aspiring to produce the next EVE is like aspiring to produce the next Meridian 59. Nobody is going to dump $30 million on an idea that has never been on the top of the charts. They want to make the next WoW.

What I'd rather argue is whether PK/Victim can be turned into exciting PvP without killing the high. I agree with Slayerik that the risk of losing made the few times I ever won (or even successfully fled) in games which made death at the hands of a player supremely dangerous were SUPREMELY REWARDING. They did not make up for the dozens of times that proceeded them where I realized my death was inevitable and simply bent over to receive my azzrape. Like Riggswolfe, when I quit I was so turned off that I missed EQ altogether and didn't play another MMOG until Dark Age of Camelot.

Is it possible that a game could be created in which there was real risk, to keep the "I defied the odds" high, but which could still maintain a mass market interest in not to being ganked? If so, how?

I'm not interested in whether carebears are gay. Those gay carebears pay developers' salaries.

Is there a model that would get them PvPing?

[Slayerik]

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.

You play WoW for your timesink fix.

UO was as much of a timesink as any game out today. Im guessing people left because in the middle of their gold farming they could be killed and looted. I think thats the bottom line. Don't get in the way of teh phats. That wasn't a problem for me because A. I banked often - B. I found out of the way places to hunt - c. I had a hot-key for recall - D. I was in an anti guild and fought back

WUA, timesinks are universal. UO's timesink was friendlier than many out today to get competitive gear. Difference was, your miner could get azzraped.

Forgive me for being deranged and timesink lover. You hit the nail on the head.

Regardless,  lets agree to disagree on this one before someone calls someone a fag and feelings get hurt :)

[Riggswolfe]

Is it possible that a game could be created in which there was real risk, to keep the "I defied the odds" high, but which could still maintain a mass market interest in not to being ganked? If so, how?

I'm not interested in whether carebears are gay. Those gay carebears pay developers' salaries.

Is there a model that would get them PvPing?

The closest I can think of is a system where you get rewards in pvp and lose them in pvp. IE, some sword or other tangible reward you can get by pvping, but it is also losable if you are killed in pvp. I'd also make this item usable in pve to make it valuable beyond just the pvp battlefield.  Perhaps even a system like WoW faction points, but when someone kills you they get a percentage of your faction points. You'd have to be real careful though, or else you once again end up with a situation where one side gets an insurmountable advantage and the game falls apart. Maybe set a cap, both in how much you can get and how much you can lose in a day.

This might have some self balancing, in that the good pvpers are also going to be primary targets because they will give the best rewards for being killed. Still, I don't pretend to have the first idea on how to keep this all balanced and working.

[Riggswolfe]

UO was as much of a timesink as any game out today. Im guessing people left because in the middle of their gold farming they could be killed and looted. I think thats the bottom line. Don't get in the way of teh phats. That wasn't a problem for me because A. I banked often - B. I found out of the way places to hunt - c. I had a hot-key for recall - D. I was in an anti guild and fought back

Your are mostly right, however, the part I think you're somewhat missing is that for most players UO was a larger timesink than even today's games because of the assraping. You sink a bunch of time into mining or acquiring gear, then if you get assraped, you lose it all and suddenly that timesink counter is reset to zero.

[Slayerik]

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.

Dude, we get it. You dont like being PKed or even having the danger of it. Some people do, be it a much smaller piece of the pie. Please quit blurting out the same shit.

On a side note, i don't know what trepanation is or care to. Keep your hobbies to yourself :)

[cosapi]

Items lost in UO were easy to replace yet useful and worth something. It would take a matter of minutes to get re-equiped. Not to mention you could effectively take part in unique forms of player to player interaction from the moment you logged in with a brand new character.

If you want a game to produce unique opportunities which you would otherwise not have the benefit of experiencing. Sometimes a game needs to be unfair or purposely unbalanced. Otherwise you could end up with the same shit repackaged a dozen times.

It is possible to design a game around the concept of losing items, and be a success.

Besides, what if other games decided you no longer lost anything? What if you never died in oregon trail? Never got a snake bite, never had your wagon break down, never got sick, never attacked by bandits, never ran out of food, never got caught in a storm, and always crossed rivers without consequences? Wouldn't it be boring to be provided with the same uneventful results everytime you played? Always guaranteed to cross the 1800s US with the same boring results? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of a game producing unique opportunities in the first place?

I think one of the main issues with freeloot pvp games tends to be. Certain groups want freewill and other groups want to police those who take actions without consequences. It's hard to say where a resolve lies in this. You can't police everything other people do, since it's rather impossible. And when you try to police everything others do, that would defeat the purpose of having freewill, eg: Trammel. Essentially resulting in what was once a unique gaming experience into nothing more than a game where everyone's on the same team. And it's just easier to pass it off and forget about it and take the easy way out and copy another diku.

[ajax34i]

[Is it possible that a game could be created in which there was real risk, to keep the "I defied the odds" high, but which could still maintain a mass market interest in not to being ganked? If so, how?

Is there a model that would get carebears PvPing?

I believe the mechanics in such a game would have to:

1.  Prevent ganking (200 vs. 1, gatecamps, and in general situations where you have no chance). Whether it's done via battlegrounds like in WoW, or some mechanic that simply prevents situations where a group of many can attack a solo or a group of very few, or a level mechanic where high levellers cannot attack newbies, the absolute removal of ganking is a prerequisite. 

2.  Minimize the loss of a player's control over his or her character.  I'm not talking about roots, fear, and stuns, but rather, being stuck in pvp land when I don't want to, being corpse-camped and re-killed as soon as I respawn, etc.  No griefing.

3.  Provide activities that the "carebear" finds interesting.  Those who can't stand PVP still play EVE because it also provides PvE content that they find entertaining.  The PVP aspects of the game can then be interwoven with the PvE, and I think they will be accepted as long as 1. and 2. above are in place.

[Jayce]

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.

Dude, we get it. You dont like being PKed or even having the danger of it. Some people do, be it a much smaller piece of the pie. Please quit blurting out the same shit.

On a side note, i don't know what trepanation is or care to. Keep your hobbies to yourself :)

I think we're coming down to the same notion we have come to before: the wolves want a sheep and wolf game, and the sheep don't want to be part of it (besides a small portion of idiots like me :) )  A wolf and wolf game would be OK, but the lesser wolves end up being sheep, and they like it even less than the real sheep do.  Hence you end up with server ghosttown a la Shadowbane.

[Furiously]

Items lost in UO were easy to replace yet useful and worth something. It would take a matter of minutes to get re-equiped. Not to mention you could effectively take part in unique forms of player to player interaction from the moment you logged in with a brand new character.

Yea - I guess I shouldn't value my time at all. I should be happy to spend 60 minutes finding vendors with gear, or damn - the one I just bough from has now been sold out. I have to find a new one, 30 minutes of searching later, and one more pvp gank squad later I am re-equiped and out of money again.

I'm glad you enjoyed your UO experiences. I recall making a throwaway character who robbed from people at the bank and I got some guys housekey, I wandered over to his house and messed his stuff around, it was all crap. I go back to the bank and start listening to him whining to a GM about how he went LD and I just felt bad for the guy. Maybe if he had some regents instead of a huge stockpile of cloth I would have enjoyed stealing from him more.

For me - it was always about knowing that there was another person playing and how "un-fun" losing all your items and having to replace everything was. I loved the chase and the fight. I just didnt want to spend the hour or two finding gear again.

If I could have bought insurance for gear replacement, or had a vendor where stuff I needed was always there, I would have played a lot more. It was just a PITA to replace my gear EVERY day.

[Valmorian]

Dude, we get it. You dont like being PKed or even having the danger of it. Some people do, be it a much smaller piece of the pie. Please quit blurting out the same shit.

Again you demonstrate just how much you DON'T get it.  I'm fine with PvP, I love games that have PvP aspects to them.  I'm just pointing out how insane and game breaking penalizing the loser of a contest with a loss of material is.  Can you imagine a series of Rummy games where the loser of the last game starts with a smaller hand size?  How about a series of chess matches where the loser begins each game with a loss of material?

It makes no mathematical sense to design a game that punishes the loser by making them more likely to lose.

Furthermore there IS no "danger".  Danger isn't even remotely involved with online gaming, except in the cases where player A kills someone in real life for that sword of awesomeness that was ninjalooted from him.

[Arthur_Parker]

Losing items never bothered me because I have an amazing ability to hold grudges for years, while simultaneously being blessed with a totally unrealistic belief in my own ability to get even.  I guess I'm just naturally lucky.

[Surlyboi]

Dude, we get it. You dont like being PKed or even having the danger of it. Some people do, be it a much smaller piece of the pie. Please quit blurting out the same shit.

Furthermore there IS no "danger".  Danger isn't even remotely involved with online gaming, except in the cases where player A kills someone in real life for that sword of awesomeness that was ninjalooted from him.

That's the thing that always gets me about the PK "hardcore" types. They equate the threat of losing their l3wtz with danger. I've had enough shots fired at me in anger to really not find anything an MMO or pretty much any other computer game can throw at me "dangerous". Is there really that little to their experience that they can get off on that stuff?

[Nebu]

That's the thing that always gets me about the PK "hardcore" types. They equate the threat of losing their l3wtz with danger. I've had enough shots fired at me in anger to really not find anything an MMO or pretty much any other computer game can throw at me "dangerous". Is there really that little to their experience that they can get off on that stuff?

I think the experience was more like what you get from a movie.  You know those scenes... where you know something is going to happen... so you're anticipating the event when all of a sudden... a cat jumps up.  That kind of danger.  It was some intangible that any second all the time you spent that play session would be lost.  I guess the tension wasn't all that different from early EQ when you were deep in some dungeon farming a named and knew that any second you could get run over and have to face a 6h corpse run to get your stuff back.  That's funny... I never really saw the similarity with that before, but it's there.  The danger is more derived from a fear of losing time than anything else.  It just pisses you off more in a PvP environment because you know that another player took the stuff rather than it rotting in the bottom of some dungeon. 

Edit: I've been shot at a few times in my life as well... that's an indescribable feeling, isn't it?

[LC]

It makes no mathematical sense to design a game that punishes the loser by making them more likely to lose.

Furthermore there IS no "danger".  Danger isn't even remotely involved with online gaming, except in the cases where player A kills someone in real life for that sword of awesomeness that was ninjalooted from him.

But it makes sense to create a game where the loser wins?


I wonder how monopoly would work if you received a loan from the bank every time you went bankrupt.

[Riggswolfe]

It makes no mathematical sense to design a game that punishes the loser by making them more likely to lose.

Furthermore there IS no "danger".  Danger isn't even remotely involved with online gaming, except in the cases where player A kills someone in real life for that sword of awesomeness that was ninjalooted from him.

But it makes sense to create a game where the loser wins?


I wonder how monopoly would work if you received a loan from the bank every time you went bankrupt.

Are you functionally retarded LC? Noone is talking about a game where the loser wins. To use your monopoly analogy, Valmorian is saying that it would be like a monopoly game where everytime you lose you start with less money the next time you play.

He's not saying the loser should win. (An Oxymoron if I ever heard one.) He's saying the loser should not be punished for losing.

Really, this thread has descended to den-level retardation now and I'm not sure why I keep posting except that when I reply to you it reminds me of poking a rabid monkey who has gnawed on the bars until his mouth is full of bloody foam. It's kind of fun.

[ajax34i]

I think he means a system like in Poker, where the loser loses, but NOT the ability to draw cards or use aces in their hands or anything related to the actual game.  In MMOG's, losing items or even in-game cash reduces your ability to play the game, whereas if they penalized you $15 RL every time you lost a PVP encounter, it would still hurt after a while, but not your ability to play the game at the same level and with the same setup / items that you played with before.

[Riggswolfe]

I think he means a system like in Poker, where the loser loses, but NOT the ability to draw cards or use aces in their hands or anything related to the actual game.  In MMOG's, losing items or even in-game cash reduces your ability to play the game, whereas if they penalized you $15 RL every time you lost a PVP encounter, it would still hurt after a while, but not your ability to play the game at the same level and with the same setup / items that you played with before.

Bingo! Now if we can figure out something like "poker chips" to use in MMOs we can make some progress.

ETA: This is why I'm somewhat excited about WAR. Losing realm territories and being able to loot the other guys cities with everything resetting eventually sounds to me like the closest we've come to this. Losing matters, but it doesn't cripple you as a player.

[Arthur_Parker]

Everyone keeps replying, years later, because UO obviously did something right, there are two types of players and we just don't get on.

I think simply put.
 
1. Everyone liked being able to change the world in UO.

2. Most people don't like players who can affect them in any way. 

Sadly you just can't have 1 without accepting 2.  Or to put it another way you can't be good if there is no evil.

Trammel was a very popular boring game.

[LC]

Are you functionally retarded LC? Noone is talking about a game where the loser wins. To use your monopoly analogy, Valmorian is saying that it would be like a monopoly game where everytime you lose you start with less money the next time you play.

He's not saying the loser should win. (An Oxymoron if I ever heard one.) He's saying the loser should not be punished for losing.

Really, this thread has descended to den-level retardation now and I'm not sure why I keep posting except that when I reply to you it reminds me of poking a rabid monkey who has gnawed on the bars until his mouth is full of bloody foam. It's kind of fun.

Let me change my analogy. What if going to jail in monopoly was just a free trip to the opposite side of the board, or when you run out of money the bank just gives you more? That's basically what you are wanting out of PvP. I doubt many people would want to play such a boring game.

I was wrong, he isn't looking for a game where the loser always wins, but he is looking for a game where losing is impossible.

[LC]

sorry duped...

[Nebu]

Let me change my analogy. What if going to jail in monopoly was just a free trip to the opposite side of the board, or when you run out of money the bank just gives you more? That's basically what you are wanting out of PvP. I doubt many people would want to play such a boring game.

I was wrong, he isn't looking for a game where the loser always wins, but he is looking for a game where losing is impossible.

You mean like WoW or FPS?  Yeah... not many people want to play those games.  In both the penalty for losing is the time it takes to get back into battle (or the free trip across the board in your analogy).  If I understand correctly, what you want is the penalty for losing to be the time it takes to get back into battle + the time it takes to replace your stuff.  Wanting a harsher penalty for the losers is fine, you just have to realize it won't be very popular.

Did I miss something?

[tazelbain]

It makes no mathematical sense to design a game that punishes the loser by making them more likely to lose.

Furthermore there IS no "danger".  Danger isn't even remotely involved with online gaming, except in the cases where player A kills someone in real life for that sword of awesomeness that was ninjalooted from him.

But it makes sense to create a game where the loser wins?


I wonder how monopoly would work if you received a loan from the bank every time you went bankrupt.

Even worse would be that you had go out get more monopoly money after each time you lost so you could play again.

[LC]

Let me change my analogy. What if going to jail in monopoly was just a free trip to the opposite side of the board, or when you run out of money the bank just gives you more? That's basically what you are wanting out of PvP. I doubt many people would want to play such a boring game.

I was wrong, he isn't looking for a game where the loser always wins, but he is looking for a game where losing is impossible.

You mean like WoW or FPS?  Yeah... not many people want to play those games.  In both the penalty for losing is the time it takes to get back into battle.  If I understand correctly, what you want is the penalty for losing to be the time it takes to get back into battle + the time it takes to replace your stuff. 

Did I miss something?

WoW's PvP is popular because they made it into another way for the animals to acquire more shinies without any risk. It's just another grind. The results mean nothing, and it is completely seperate from the game world. Try finding some world PvP in WoW. 

In an fps you normally lose the ability to play after you die. In others (tribes for example) you do have to spend time reequipping when you die. In one of the most popular fps (counterstrike) you lose your equipment, and have to spend more of your limited funds to purchase more. Counterstrike on an unlimited cash server sucks because almost everyone is running around with AWPs which gets very BORING.

[Surlyboi]

In an fps you normally lose the ability to play after you die. In others (tribes for example) you do have to spend time reequipping when you die. In one of the most popular fps (counterstrike) you lose your equipment, and have to spend more of your limited funds to purchase more. Counterstrike on an unlimited cash server sucks because almost everyone is running around with AWPs which gets very BORING.

Fortunately not as BORING as reading your self-righteous, "I'm the king of the jungle" postage.

Now pardon me while I go spawn camp some newbs 

[Nebu]

WoW's PvP is popular because they made it into another way for the animals to acquire more shinies without any risk. It's just another grind. The results mean nothing, and it is completely seperate from the game world. Try finding some world PvP in WoW. 

In an fps you normally lose the ability to play after you die. In others (tribes for example) you do have to spend time reequipping when you die. In one of the most popular fps (counterstrike) you lose your equipment, and have to spend more of your limited funds to purchase more. Counterstrike on an unlimited cash server sucks because almost everyone is running around with AWPs which gets very BORING.

As funny as this sounds, I think we agree more than we disagree.  I like games with a high risk vs. reward build.  I want the tough things to obtain to take skill rather than time.  I also want the rare things in games to be just that, rare.  The problem is that people want a way to choose the level of risk vs reward that they feel comfortable with.  This is why PvP has slowly lowered the penalty for deaths... most people don't want a high risk, high reward system.

I'd very much like to play a game where the risks were great (and skill based) and the rewards greater.  I just have to come to grips with the fact that I'm different than most gamers in what I want and/or find fun.   So the closest I think I'll find is a game that has the full spectrum of risk and reward and I'll just have to create my own game within the game.  It seems that, for now, the way risk gets implemented in mmogs is just by requiring raids and juicing up mob hps.  Most of those can be overcome with time rather than ability. 

[LC]

As funny as this sounds, I think we agree more than we disagree.  I like games with a high risk vs. reward build.  I want the tough things to obtain to take skill rather than time.  I also want the rare things in games to be just that, rare.  The problem is that people want a way to choose the level of risk vs reward that they feel comfortable with.  This is why PvP has slowly lowered the penalty for deaths... most people don't want a high risk, high reward system.

I'd very much like to play a game where the risks were great (and skill based) and the rewards greater.  I just have to come to grips with the fact that I'm different than most gamers in what I want and/or find fun.   So the closest I think I'll find is a game that has the full spectrum of risk and reward and I'll just have to create my own game within the game.  It seems that, for now, the way risk gets implemented in mmogs is just by requiring raids and juicing up mob hps.  Most of those can be overcome with time rather than ability. 

We like to create our own high risk/reward through cheating. It's the only way to make these bland games palatable. I still hope to see a game I can have fun in without changing the rules someday.

[Jayce]

We like to create our own high risk/reward through cheating. It's the only way to make these bland games palatable. I still hope to see a game I can have fun in without changing the rules someday.

So let me just make sure I have it straight.

You cheat because every game out there to date, despite being pretty bland, is in fact worth playing if you can figure out some way to make them fun using exploits.  You exploit the fun into it.  It was there, latent in the original game, but in ever case to date, the devs couldn't recognize it.

Meanwhile the animals, who (poor things) don't realize that the games they play and love are in fact, pretty boring are off chasing their meaningless shinies, while you and your friends find the REAL and MEANINGFUL bugs and exploit them so that you can wait for the robot jesus game that's no doubt going to come one day and will be so cool you won't cheat any more.

Right?

[LC]

We like to create our own high risk/reward through cheating. It's the only way to make these bland games palatable. I still hope to see a game I can have fun in without changing the rules someday.

So let me just make sure I have it straight.

You cheat because every game out there to date, despite being pretty bland, is in fact worth playing if you can figure out some way to make them fun using exploits.  You exploit the fun into it.  It was there, latent in the original game, but in ever case to date, the devs couldn't recognize it.

Meanwhile the animals, who (poor things) don't realize that the games they play and love are in fact, pretty boring are off chasing their meaningless shinies, while you and your friends find the REAL and MEANINGFUL bugs and exploit them so that you can wait for the robot jesus game that's no doubt going to come one day and will be so cool you won't cheat any more.

Right?

You read my mind. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

[Rithrin]

I'm really not sure how much use I'll be in this thread, but...

First off, I'm not a PK. But I love PvP. I hate spawn camping newbs, or steamrolling the little guys with my friends, or killing people while they're afk. Hell I don't even like to attack people. What I do love, oh so much, is defense. One of the funner experiences I've had in PvP lately was in EvE: My corp was flying some freighters with resources and whatnot to start building a POS in low sec space and we had a contingent of ships escorting the two freighters. We thought we had set out while the local pirate corp was mostly offline, so off we went. Boy were we wrong, halfway through this little trip they came upon us after exiting a warp. Now they were in no condition to take us all out, but they certainly could do some damage and get some valuables especially from the freighters. We lost a freighter and some cruisers, they did the loot n' run while we took out stragglers.

Now, what was the point of me saying all this? Seems like pretty standard PvP fare, yes? Point is that it was movie-like, transporting valuables, flying escort, routine business, and then suddenly being decended upon by a swarm of space pirates. Missiles flying left and right, lazers, explosions, ship wreckage scattering, frantic commands being flung over Vent. And then the inevitable "Damage report!" while rallying for another attack.

Down to the serious business now. This cannot happen in an AI-only encounter. There's always going to be some algorythm that the players will figure out to get around it. Players are still the most devious, most clever (Well.. some at least) opponents you can ever hope to face. They know that frieghter has the good stuff in it, they can see its weaknesses and exploit it to the most. Currently AI scripts seem to only go so far as "Attack whoever did the most damage to me" and "Spam Ability_01".

Next up, yes we DID indeed lose materials and ships. But luckily they're easy to get back, every single piece is easy to get back. Of course unless you have the uber rare mods equipped, which conveniently only give slight bonuses over the regular versions. This allows for people to jump right into combat with cheap stuff and still make a difference. You're only 10% less powerful than the guy who's played for a year longer than you, maybe a little more if he's risking his uber nigh-unreplaceable gear.

Which leads me to the fact that although I was a complete newb and was flying around in the first Assault Frigate I could fly, I still affected the battle. At no time in EvE have I ever felt that I "couldn't get away" or "didn't stand a chance". They actually used a good model in that game, small ships have the innate ability to resist the BFG5000's that shoot down capital ships because they're so small. So in essence the weak are handicapped to an extent. Not so much that they can kill the more experienced player, but they always have the option of escaping. And the handicap is not so much that the experienced player can't kill the handicapped guy, just that he still has to put effort into it (warp destabalizing them, getting them in an easy to hit trajectory, etc). Currently almost all pvp games allow the catass extraordinaire to comepletely demolish the new guy just by pointing at him - I'm looking at you, DIKU!

Last, but not least, this little skirmish pirate raid I mentioned served a purpose. It was NOT pointless. And no, the point was not "to get our stuff". It created content. Now instead of getting a mission from an NPC, essentially we had the option of a multitude of "quests": 1) Revenge on the pirates! Reclaim our stuff! (Or what's left of it) or 2) Retreat, rebuild and retry! or 3) Engage in diplomatic negotiations with the local mega corp for possibile protection or resource reimbursment! or 4) Improvise! Get some of the bigger ships to pick up what's salvagable and continue the haul! or-  You get my point.

To summarize:
1) Movie-like conflicts
2) Options in combat to allow for strategy
3) Uber gear and skills give slight advantages.
4) The weak (Generally the new) are handicapped in defense, but not offense.
5) No DIKU.
6) Allow the creation of content for both the winner and the loser.

There are all things that I feel are needed in order to inject the fun back into the free-for-all PvP.

Hope I touched some points here you never thought possible didn't think of during the course of this discussion.

[rk47]

Movie like conflict? Wtf, u mean like last night when I was just questing in Stranglethorn...and suddenly I spotted this Blood elf Warlock. We both stared at each other getting our spells ready and the rain suddenly came down?  :-D I like that kind of shit too, very rare to find.

[Rithrin]

Movie like conflict? Wtf, u mean like last night when I was just questing in Stranglethorn...and suddenly I spotted this Blood elf Warlock. We both stared at each other getting our spells ready and the rain suddenly came down?  :-D I like that kind of shit too, very rare to find.

Precisesly, I'm not saying WoW doesn't have those moments. In fact, I loved some of the world PvP. Like a couple times when it was just me in a cave when I heard the stealth sound and knew it was on between me and Mr. Rogue. Then the next couple of minutes are us trying to trick eachother into doing something stupid.

[Surlyboi]

Christ, this guy thinks he's in the fucking Matrix.