[MMORPG] The Lost Concepts of PvP

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by CnCGOD

The PvP in UO gave actions a major penalty. Ganking lowbies meant that higher level antis would run over you and take YOUR stuff. Being a pk was a major decision that wasn't to be taken lightly... the rewards as such were better but the risks were just as high.

Modern games seem to replace risk vs reward with time vs reward. Its sad

You're being slightly jaded now. With the old pre-Trammel UO system, the risk vs reward wasn't that high because most of the pks ran around with robes and bags of reagents. The reward for mass killing other players was far greater than their risk of 1 bag of reagents. In UO, you could get away with that kind of stuff because characters were not that item-dependent (at least not Mages).

Sure, there were players that wore top gear and went around player killing, but the majority definitely were not doing that. Also, in the game, you could easily sweep in, kill a bunch of players, and move on via recall runes. If you killed everyone in the area there was no reason to stay and wait for anti-pks to come kill you. You moved around all the time as fast as the anti-pks come.

[Lyenae]

Originally Posted by Caliane

Pvp penalties discourage active pvping. End of story.

Thats' fine. Active mindless PvP'ing is for fucking drones and fags. You don't get the rich, quality, deep PvP without consequences. If you want Active PvP where no one gives a fuck and just chain kills, there are MUCH better options outside MMO's. I want PvP that makes game history that I'll reminisce about 2-5 years down the road. I do that all the time with Shadowbane and RZ EQ. The only fucking thing I remember from spending 8 months on the WoW PvP ladder to hit R13 was when I exploited.

I think if you want good PvP games, you need to follow your gaming vision and completely ignore the 25+ year old pessimistic bunch of shitfucks who preach that MMO's need to keep getting easier. Games need to be designed for teens, the way they've always been. Don't cater to bitches who don't ahve the 4+ hours necessary to play a game. They will adapt the way they've always adapted the last 30 years of Video games.

[Duppin]

Originally Posted by CnCGOD

Ok you can have Candyland (TM) Online where everyone dances together in a circle of love. While gamers that enjoy (GASP) competition can have real games that don't protect your ePeen with eWhiteGloves.

Killing scripted monsters only lasts so long in fun. Fighting someone with a brain will always be better.

I have to agree with Vorph; posts like this are why people have such a negative perception of "hardcore PvPers".

The ridiculous feeling of superiority that people seem to get from PvP activities makes me laugh. I have a news flash for you: especially after WoW, there are a lot of very stupid and unskilled people playing MMOs.

Being able to "pwn" them is not inherently any better than being able to beat an AI encounter, and in a lot of cases, it is much easier.

[CnCGOD]

Originally Posted by Necrolyte

You're being slightly jaded now. With the old pre-Trammel UO system, the risk vs reward wasn't that high because most of the pks ran around with robes and bags of reagents. The reward for mass killing other players was far greater than their risk of 1 bag of reagents. In UO, you could get away with that kind of stuff because characters were not that item-dependent (at least not Mages).

Sure, there were players that wore top gear and went around player killing, but the majority definitely were not doing that. Also, in the game, you could easily sweep in, kill a bunch of players, and move on via recall runes. If you killed everyone in the area there was no reason to stay and wait for anti-pks to come kill you. You moved around all the time as fast as the anti-pks come.

My mage wore plate, and I had pks using vanquish bows worth a ton, I usualy just got more than I lost.

[flv]

The best pvp I've ever been involved in was when my alliance in Lineage II wanted to kill Antharas, a dragon that basicaly drops enough to equip 5 guys in top stuff, in a round of 2 hours, that dragon spawned every 8 days after being killed.

It's spawn window was known, so all the alliances planned when to go, you couldn't just go inside and kill it, the doors closed once the dragon spawned, which is 20 minutes after someone steps inside his lair, so people were waiting outside of the lair for it to be "targeteable" aka knowing it had spawned, and they waited there to kill the other alliances who tried to step in, so by the time those enemies were back and organized enough, the dragon could have spawned and the doors could be closed.

The risk on those pvps were dying repeatedly, over and over, loosing 1% every death, which many times meant hours of grinding back that XP.

Those PvPs oftenly involved around 400 people in the same spot.

So no, death risk doesn't go against pvp activity at all, if the rewards are atractive enough.

Mixing PvP and PvE you obtain that kind of pvp. People will fight just so they can kill the mob quietly.

[CnCGOD]

Originally Posted by Duppin

I have to agree with Vorph; posts like this are why people have such a negative perception of "hardcore PvPers".

The ridiculous feeling of superiority that people seem to get from PvP activities makes me laugh. I have a news flash for you: especially after WoW, there are a lot of very stupid and unskilled people playing MMOs.

Being able to "pwn" them is not inherently any better than being able to beat an AI encounter, and in a lot of cases, it is much easier.

Well, if they are that stupid... it makes me sad

[Harkon]

Originally Posted by needraRZ

>It was rare that people when around jumping people because they /shouts
>across the zone and the offending player would quickly be hunted down

This.

I'll give the example of Rallos Zek in EQ. This was a pure PVP server. Yet PVP was actually pretty rare. In fact, on introduction of the Bazaar there was more PVP in the arena than the rest of the world.

Why?

Because PVP had repercussions. If a player chose to be a PK then it was a lifestyle choice. They quickly gained a reputation, and eventually notoriety. As a mostly PVE player there were PKS I hated, and some I feared when I noticed them zone in if I was trying to PVE.

BUT. The fact that they were branded outlaws restricted their movements. It was a choice with penalties. And for this reason the server was not a gankfest.

For me, the net result was a very dangerous and real feeling world. Even better the politics between raiding guilds was very very interesting. A full scale war had serious consequences (esp. for PVE progress). I was in several 'council' discussions debating terms for war or peace. Fun times.

In someways ill agree with you on RZ. Always having to bag your shit because you were getting ganked kept the fear of the repercussions foremost in your mind. So yea if you wanted to progress on RZ in the PvE game you kept your temper in check for the most part but I wouldn't call PvP on RZ rare at all. There was ALOT of pvp or rather ganking that went on constantly.

One problem was is that some classes are always better at ganking than others and in EQ there were large differences in classes. Poor warriors had no escape mechanism, and support classes had poor DPS and had to rely on getting a lucky gate off. Then you had the wolf classes that didn't even have to risk anything to get a good shot at ganking you (IE Naked Casters). And lets not even get into the cheap moves people did to kill you too. Zoning in and having a bunch of regulators or darkenbane (if kos) getting the killing blow on you before you loaded, that was the fun shit. And then always looking over your shoulder because you took out your manastone to use, hell I didn't even feel safe doing that in a friendly raid even.

RZ was fun because of the "fear" but it also got old because your were -always- in a state of anxiety. If you let your guard down once you could lose items that were literally irreplaceable to people that were running around that had little or nothing to lose. Of course this somewhat relaxed a bit when no drop became much more prevalent however it still was too much of an annoyance for me especially when your playing a non dps class. I left for greener pastures (Quellious) and never regretted it one bit.

That being said for people that enjoy that kind of game play I think that option should be available to them. How difficult would it be to setup a single server and make it pure FFA or at least complete FFA against the opposing side? Having open pvp but not letting people gank kind of defeats the purpose of having open pvp. Give the wolves their server and let us sheep enjoy the game without the constant howling from them.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by CnCGOD

My mage wore plate, and I had pks using vanquish bows worth a ton, I usualy just got more than I lost.

You aren't even listening anymore.

Notice I said some pks ran around with the top gear, but the majority did not?

[Heavens_Myst]

Originally Posted by Harkon

In someways ill agree with you on RZ. Always having to bag your shit because you were getting ganked kept the fear of the repercussions foremost in your mind. So yea if you wanted to progress on RZ in the PvE game you kept your temper in check for the most part but I wouldn't call PvP on RZ rare at all. There was ALOT of pvp or rather ganking that went on constantly.

One problem was is that some classes are always better at ganking than others and in EQ there were large differences in classes. Poor warriors had no escape mechanism, and support classes had poor DPS and had to rely on getting a lucky gate off. Then you had the wolf classes that didn't even have to risk anything to get a good shot at ganking you (IE Naked Casters). And lets not even get into the cheap moves people did to kill you too. Zoning in and having a bunch of regulators or darkenbane (if kos) getting the killing blow on you before you loaded, that was the fun shit. And then always looking over your shoulder because you took out your manastone to use, hell I didn't even feel safe doing that in a friendly raid even.

RZ was fun because of the "fear" but it also got old because your were -always- in a state of anxiety. If you let your guard down once you could lose items that were literally irreplaceable to people that were running around that had little or nothing to lose. Of course this somewhat relaxed a bit when no drop became much more prevalent however it still was too much of an annoyance for me especially when your playing a non dps class. I left for greener pastures (Quellious) and never regretted it one bit.

That being said for people that enjoy that kind of game play I think that option should be available to them. How difficult would it be to setup a single server and make it pure FFA or at least complete FFA against the opposing side? Having open pvp but not letting people gank kind of defeats the purpose of having open pvp. Give the wolves their server and let us sheep enjoy the game without the constant howling from them.

I'm one of the people that -loved- the anxiety of playing on RZ. Typing backslash+enter literally every 10-20 seconds to see who was in the zone, always being suspicious of people you had never seen before was what made EQ a blast to me. It's not about wanting to gank people, sure I did my fair share as a druid during vanilla, but the macro-level inter-guild and inter-alliance politics were where it was at. One day you're raiding with a few other guilds trying to bring down Nagafen/Vox for the first time and the next you're hunting them down trying to bring the pain because of a number of different reasons.

For the first year or so until Do`vassir pretty much told most of one of three big alliances to leave the server or get banned RZ was the most fun I've had in any game. PvP decisions had consequence enough to cause some great drama but not so bad that they instilled fear to PvP amongst the server population.

[Harkon]

Originally Posted by Heavens_Myst

One day you're raiding with a few other guilds trying to bring down Nagafen/Vox for the first time and the next you're hunting them down trying to bring the pain because of a number of different reasons.

Ill agree that was probably one of the best things about RZ before server transfers. Ninja looting and other various PvE bullshit could actually have some repercussions on RZ as opposed to blue servers.

[Usha Starchild]

Very few of the people on these forums have actually experienced what being a PK was really like.

In UO having a Dread Lord Title and being banned from cities and being the target of ANYONE who sees you (Well after they call their 20 friends Alt-tab to ICQ for the win.)

On RZ being in one of the only real PK guilds. DB or House in Visus, you were hunted everywhere, people would constantly /who and yell whenever we were in a zone. Zones would fill up with people hunting you... I remember when We took down Nagafen we had the whole server coming up on our ass to stop us. (Sorry there was one more PK guild that kinda came after most of us quit, I think Stynkfist and a few Acending dawn joined it also)

[gestahl00]

Originally Posted by Harkon

stuff

nothing will ever beat the fear that i had on rz pvping, hitting / pretty much every 5 seconds to check the zone for kos/pkers what have you, made it intense. pvping in full droppable resist gear and fungi tunics made it even more intense. screw manaburn for ruining it!

edit: whats up old rzers?;0

[Harkon]

Originally Posted by Usha Starchild

On RZ being in one of the only real PK guilds. DB or House in Visus, you were hunted everywhere, people would constantly /who and yell whenever we were in a zone. Zones would fill up with people hunting you... I remember when We took down Nagafen we had the whole server coming up on our ass to stop us. (Sorry there was one more PK guild that kinda came after most of us quit, I think Stynkfist and a few Acending dawn joined it also)

Was it Gan hosi or whatever? I remember those guys doing nothing but rolling ganks all the time.

Vanilla RZ was probably the best times if you wanted PVP. Lots of bullshit happened but people did make names for themselves. Grayraige(sp) and crew definitely stand out in my mind till today. But he was actually a decent guy to talk to whereas some other people that came along later were total asses.

[gestahl00]

gan hosi formed and disbanded pre to ascending dawn ever existing, if stynkfyst was joining a pk guild was certainly after my time on rz!(ie after whenever aa stuff was added)

[Desx]

Originally Posted by Hardcore Cracka

Why don't you guys just play DotA? The PvP there is 100x better than WoW will ever be, and the grind takes all of 30 minutes each game. It's really a win-win situation.

Yea I've been playing dota for 7+ years now. It's the only real competition out there thats skill based, but the problem is when you get to higher level of play its the same game over and over. Same heros.. same picks.. same bans.. It only changes with new releases.

The real trick to dota is 100% team cohesion. This is a great thing to work at, but it becomes very stressful and almost irritating when people can't perform..


The first sentence I wrote in this thread was "I'm hoping someone else can help me put this into perspective." I didn't just shoot this out my ass.. I'm not very good at writing down what I have to say.