07-09-2004, 02:52 PM
a Grumples ramble, in the fine tradition of Grumple's Rambles
I was thinking about what makes PvP both fun and mandatory, and why I couldn't get behind it in DAOC, but enjoyed it so much in games like EQ.
It's assholes that make PvP fun.
They don't even have to be real-life assholes. Roleplay assholes work well too.
For example, as an Everquest player, I could think you're an asshole because you use external cheats and are generally a dick. However, you could also be a very nice person in and out of game and I could still see you as a great target worthy of slaughter because I'm playing a troll warrior and when I see you fighting troll NPC guards I can think, in character, "I need to kill this asshole."
And that drives my whole day. I'm fighting frogs in some dungeon and cherishing every boring kill because what I'm really thinking is "I hope that asshole shows up again" or "I can't wait to get my new special attack at level 25 so I can beat that asshole down". It burns me up that you're out there somewhere, being an asshole, and here I am, not kicking your ass.
When I played DAOC (when it first came out), it failed to fire me up because it lacked in both ways.
Due to the segregation of teams, I had no method to make out-of-character enemies. We had no interaction. Due to the pretty nonexistant storyline of the game, I couldn't even think of a roleplay reason to hate anyone. Okay, I'm some... little... short... thing... and there's... big... rock... guys... on the other team... and... uh? He? Called my mother something? I dunno. I can get behind the concept of a troll who hates druids because he sees them kill his beloved city guards, but I need at least a little material to work with and DAOC just didn't deliver. It was like "here's some bad guys, go fight" and there was no feeling in it.
But game functionality conditions have to be right, too...
SWG made the game world so huge that there was no reason to have a serious contention with anyone. You just sort of wandered around and did missions didn't get a chance to make enemies. Although the final nails in that coffin came from serious PvP balance issues and the fact that the PvP death penalties outweighed PvP rewards.
They had the right idea, just a bit off in terms of generating conflict. I enjoyed making roleplay-enemies out of every Rebel (scum!) I found, but that only took me so far before I realized that my chosen combat profession was never going to compete and I'd have to face a serious grind to switch and I had no real enemies to look forward to killing anyway.
EQ created a perfect PvP setting entirely by accident.
The world wasn't that big and it had a lot of "key spots". Places that dropped rare items you had to compete for or simply spots that were better than anywhere else for XP. Twisty caves and dungeons and dense forests and no radar. The place was a dream setting for generating in-character conflict, out-of-character conflict and for the physical battles. I remember fighting for hours in huge snow zones, using water and hiding places to escape, fighting enemies way more powerful than I was simply because I'm not the kind of guy who lets a little thing like a vast difference in power stop me from trying to put some asshole in his place.
But EQ messed it up for PvP by eventually drowning it in mandatory PvE. You had to keep pace with levels and equipment and "alternate advancement" to the point where you simply didn't have TIME to fight other players. EQ also sucked some of the life out of it by not really having a PvP death penalty, so that some bad guys, once they knew how things worked, would just say "kill me, I don't care" because they can just keep coming back until you're tired of it, which really sucks the life out of roleplay.
You know, I'm a big troll warrior, you're a puny halfing druid. My character hates your character for a number of perfectly valid roleplay reasons. You're not supposed to not care that I kill you. That never happens in Lord of the Rings, you know. I've read it several times and never did Frodo say, "go ahead and kill me, I'm bound right over the hill, I'll just keep coming back til you let me throw this ring in the volcano". That's not supposed to happen.
So! Let's recap.
What a proper PvP game needs:
1) A reason for people who can kill each other to interact
2) A reason for people to want to live, when faced with an enemy who wants to kill them
3) Reasonable class balance
4) Enough material for people to at least have a roleplay conflict if not a real-life personality conflict
5) Stuff to fight over that's worth fighting over
I hope WOW plans to have all this.
I was thinking about what makes PvP both fun and mandatory, and why I couldn't get behind it in DAOC, but enjoyed it so much in games like EQ.
It's assholes that make PvP fun.
They don't even have to be real-life assholes. Roleplay assholes work well too.
For example, as an Everquest player, I could think you're an asshole because you use external cheats and are generally a dick. However, you could also be a very nice person in and out of game and I could still see you as a great target worthy of slaughter because I'm playing a troll warrior and when I see you fighting troll NPC guards I can think, in character, "I need to kill this asshole."
And that drives my whole day. I'm fighting frogs in some dungeon and cherishing every boring kill because what I'm really thinking is "I hope that asshole shows up again" or "I can't wait to get my new special attack at level 25 so I can beat that asshole down". It burns me up that you're out there somewhere, being an asshole, and here I am, not kicking your ass.
When I played DAOC (when it first came out), it failed to fire me up because it lacked in both ways.
Due to the segregation of teams, I had no method to make out-of-character enemies. We had no interaction. Due to the pretty nonexistant storyline of the game, I couldn't even think of a roleplay reason to hate anyone. Okay, I'm some... little... short... thing... and there's... big... rock... guys... on the other team... and... uh? He? Called my mother something? I dunno. I can get behind the concept of a troll who hates druids because he sees them kill his beloved city guards, but I need at least a little material to work with and DAOC just didn't deliver. It was like "here's some bad guys, go fight" and there was no feeling in it.
But game functionality conditions have to be right, too...
SWG made the game world so huge that there was no reason to have a serious contention with anyone. You just sort of wandered around and did missions didn't get a chance to make enemies. Although the final nails in that coffin came from serious PvP balance issues and the fact that the PvP death penalties outweighed PvP rewards.
They had the right idea, just a bit off in terms of generating conflict. I enjoyed making roleplay-enemies out of every Rebel (scum!) I found, but that only took me so far before I realized that my chosen combat profession was never going to compete and I'd have to face a serious grind to switch and I had no real enemies to look forward to killing anyway.
EQ created a perfect PvP setting entirely by accident.
The world wasn't that big and it had a lot of "key spots". Places that dropped rare items you had to compete for or simply spots that were better than anywhere else for XP. Twisty caves and dungeons and dense forests and no radar. The place was a dream setting for generating in-character conflict, out-of-character conflict and for the physical battles. I remember fighting for hours in huge snow zones, using water and hiding places to escape, fighting enemies way more powerful than I was simply because I'm not the kind of guy who lets a little thing like a vast difference in power stop me from trying to put some asshole in his place.
But EQ messed it up for PvP by eventually drowning it in mandatory PvE. You had to keep pace with levels and equipment and "alternate advancement" to the point where you simply didn't have TIME to fight other players. EQ also sucked some of the life out of it by not really having a PvP death penalty, so that some bad guys, once they knew how things worked, would just say "kill me, I don't care" because they can just keep coming back until you're tired of it, which really sucks the life out of roleplay.
You know, I'm a big troll warrior, you're a puny halfing druid. My character hates your character for a number of perfectly valid roleplay reasons. You're not supposed to not care that I kill you. That never happens in Lord of the Rings, you know. I've read it several times and never did Frodo say, "go ahead and kill me, I'm bound right over the hill, I'll just keep coming back til you let me throw this ring in the volcano". That's not supposed to happen.
So! Let's recap.
What a proper PvP game needs:
1) A reason for people who can kill each other to interact
2) A reason for people to want to live, when faced with an enemy who wants to kill them
3) Reasonable class balance
4) Enough material for people to at least have a roleplay conflict if not a real-life personality conflict
5) Stuff to fight over that's worth fighting over
I hope WOW plans to have all this.