Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Fog]

It's a fair point. WoW has done a good job at making long-lasting PvP content in the form of some good game types and lots of long-term gear rewards from PvP. But at the same time, if you count up man-hours of design and development, holy shit! How much more work have they done on PvE than PvP? Ten times as much? Fifteen times?

Frankly, I don't understand why they don't spend more time on PvP, because I think it is, at the very least, a significant portion of WoW's appeal to levelcapped players. It took them two years to put in simple deathmatch arenas with a win/loss record, after spending a year and a half implementing some only very slightly innovative gametypes (other than AV, which was a genuinely cool, novel, and big PvP arena.)

You'd think they'd at least make some new goddamn maps for the arenas every month or two, huh?

EDIT: It's true that WoW released with near-nonexistent raid content -- MC was such a shitty raid zone that it barely counts as content anyway. However, it still had a huge amount of very complete and polished solo and group content, complete with great scripted encounters, from 1-60. That's as PvE as anything, and it was the main selling point at release. Better raids are a natural progression.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by James

. . . What I think we can all agree on, however, is that it wasn't finished when it was released. That much should at least be blatently fucking obvious. So let's see the direction they went from there -- wait, what's this? They developed PvP systems and rankings along side raid content in a successful manner, and refined their development process in BC to the point that those participating in both areas of the game is greater than it ever was before? NO?!?!?! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! YOU GOT TO BE FUCKING SHITTING ME.

Well at least now you are discussing. But you still, as others, ignore the fact that HALF the servers were PVP from DAY ONE. Those on the pvp servers were killing each other as they leveled and still do so to this date. Blizzard EVENTUALLY decided to institute the honor system and then BGs. And what that did was bring PVP to the PVE servers, since all you had were the spontaneous world battles at ss/tm and the barrens. And now people on PVE servers can do BGs and arenas, get pvp gear and do PVE without the grief. But that doesn't change the fact that half the servers STILL ARE AND REMAIN PVP. So half are pvp servers and the other half now has more pvp than when the game started. HMM, where does the focus lie?

[Mannorai]

Is it just not feasible to have two teams working on both aspects of gameplay and to keep PvE and PvP on separate servers so everyone can play the game with like-minded people and actually enjoy it?

[Desx]

Ah well.. I miss the old games where you killed people and took all their shit.. and they killed you and took all your shit. So then you get your friends together and dominate.. and then they get theirs... and by the end of the night one person(s) has everything and is a badss until the next day when hes gang banged by 20 people.. then it all happens all over again.. the good ole days.

[Rezz]

The vast majority of PVP servers filled up on release and post release because the general consensus amongst most hyped players before release lay in the concept that PVE servers only contained PVE, and that PVP servers contained both. So when half the servers are PVE, that is half the population that wanted to PVE. When half the servers are PVP, that is a portion of half that just wanted PVP and a portion who wanted to do both, PVE and PVP. You're sort of glossing over that fact with the "half the servers are pvp, thus the focus is pvp!" argument.

I vaguely remember momentous bitching when BGs went live from the PVP community because then PVE servers that aren't populated by asshats got to enjoy mass pvp that PVP servers vastly considered was their property. I'll relent, the focus of the game isn't PVE and fuck PVP, it's more along the lines of "The game is PVE, and if you want to you can PVP as well."

Otherwise, every server at release would have been PVP. Since all PVP servers contain lots of PVE as well. Choices are a good thing, but you have to understand the reasoning why people made those choices, not just "lol it says PVP, the people there only play for pvp!"

[Ngruk]

Originally Posted by Desx

Ah well.. I miss the old games where you killed people and took all their shit.. and they killed you and took all your shit. So then you get your friends together and dominate.. and then they get theirs... and by the end of the night one person(s) has everything and is a badss until the next day when hes gang banged by 20 people.. then it all happens all over again.. the good ole days.

Problem is, from a business perspective, those were the good old days for about 100-300K people at most. That's saying that every person in UO felt that way, which they didn't, but UO was the ONLY option at the time.

Once EQ came out, and then others, how many people left those 'good old days' memories? Lots.

Not being a PvP guy UO was what I played, because it lived in a vacuum. It was fun for me, to a point. there is ABSOLUTELY something PVP offers that PVE does not and that was real life AI and a sense of foreboding every time you left the safety of a town guard, and later in game even when STANDING next to a town guard.

I don't miss the 'good old days' one bit.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Rezz

The vast majority of PVP servers filled up on release and post release because the general consensus amongst most hyped players before release lay in the concept that PVE servers only contained PVE, and that PVP servers contained both. . . !"

No, the vast majority on the pvp servers knew exactly what it was, a pvp server where you can kill each other while playing the game. The people who went PVE wanted to just play the game with out fear of being randomly attacked. The whole point of the game is Horde vs. Alliance, but there was a market for people wanting a carebear experience.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

. . . I don't miss the 'good old days' one bit.

Wussyboy ;p

Tho actually I never liked the harsh pvp ruleset games either. I really do like how WOW set it up where you can go pvp server and fight, or you can go pve server and explore the content and again pvp brought through their BGS and Arenas, except they need to expand those damn maps more.

My heart NEVER raced when I would kill mobs as I leveled. My heart usually raced whenever I got attacked by another player.

[Rezz]

Question Max, does your heart race when you get ganked with zero chance of survivability? And by race, do you mean it's exciting or frustrating? I'm interested on your actual stance on world pvp.

That's the thing I notice about everyone who misses "the good old days" in regards to mmos and pvp. The only people who miss it were those (generally) who were big on the ganking/exploiting side of things, and rarely if ever on the fair fight side of things. I don't care how hardcore you think/thought you were in any mmo, nobody enjoys or gets excited when they are killed with zero chance at retaliation. The only racing is the blood pressure rising.

I'm still fairly certain you are wrong Max in regards to WoW, though I think it's more of a perspective issue than an actual disagreement. You're looking at the PVP as what players do, hence it being the draw. I'm looking at the game mechanics and content organization and saying PVE is the draw. My only contention is the game would still be doing pretty well if it didn't incorporate any pvp whatosever, but without npcs and the entire leveling/content side of things, the game would be a super half assed counterstrike impersonation and nobody would play it.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Rezz

Question Max, does your heart race when you get ganked with zero chance of survivability? And by race, do you mean it's exciting or frustrating? . . .

When I got ganked with zero chance of survivability I shrugged. But when you entered a red zone from a safe zone there absolutely was more excitement to it. I had many "fair" fights and they were a hell of a lot of fun. I left the pvp server for the pve one once they started the whole ill-thought out honor system and when BGs came out since then I didn't want to just get farmed for honor, which was happening.

[Darph]

[Rezz]

Originally Posted by Maxxius

When I got ganked with zero chance of survivability I shrugged. But when you entered a red zone from a safe zone there absolutely was more excitement to it. I had many "fair" fights and they were a hell of a lot of fun. I left the pvp server for the pve one once they started the whole ill-thought out honor system and when BGs came out since then I didn't want to just get farmed for honor, which was happening.

Woops, I was referring to UO. But I catch your drift.

[Twobit Whore]

I don't think anyone can plausibly deny that PvP is hugely popular in WoW. Did it bring more people to the game than it otherwise would have? Almost undeniably so.. but the one thing it did show is that while many people out there may enjoy PvP in an MMO they enjoy it under controlled circumstances. No itemloot, no exp penalties, no long timeouts.. just pure unadultered brawling where you could choose when and where to participate.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

... but the one thing it did show is that while many people out there may enjoy PvP in an MMO they enjoy it under controlled circumstances. No itemloot, no exp penalties, no long timeouts.. just pure unadultered brawling where you could choose when and where to participate.

Yup.

[Maxxius]

Watching CNBC now and they just had a segment on MMORPGS. They even mentioned Curt's name, so Curt you might want to get a replay of it. The analysts were basically arguing how MMORPGS would wipe out the console market heheh.