[MMORPG] The Lost Concepts of PvP

[Tullaeniel]

Originally Posted by Lyenae

Same shit different day.

We get it, you want to kill people and have the advantage, it gets you off, who cares.

[Ghiest]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Who will win at CS or StarCraft? A person that plays 6 hours a day or a person that plays once a week? Can you really use the "time-invested" argument because it applies to everything, not just video games. Chess, sports, music, grades in school, etc...

Actually I used to know the european no.2 quake3 dueler (won lots of prizes and shit) who used to play about 2-3 matches a week of about 20-30minutes each, some people are just blessed with skill in it. Some people no matter how much they practice are still going to be shit ... like me in FPS these days, cod4 I can't hit a damn barn door but 5-6 years ago I was ranked no.2 (in Europe ofc) in TDM for quake2. I've seen plenty of gifted players in my time so I don't think pure skill is about time invested what so ever really.

But I'm sure that's another discussion.

[Venjenz]

Once again with the bottom line...

If the badass, meaningful, awesomesauce PVP game had serious, legit market potential...someone would convince the venture capitalists out there to fund it. They haven't.

Pretend I am the venture capitalist, and you have an idea for "Pure Win: The Gank Wars" the PVP MMO that is so fucking killer that merely touching the box will regrow hair faster than Rogaine. Sell me on why I should fund it. Tell me in dollars and cents what my ROI will be, and time to realize both payback of initial investment, and time to realize 5, 10 and 20% profits. Give me the comps using all the PVP games in existence in the current market. Convince me that unlike Vanguard, Hellgate and the other flops of the last few years, you have a game that can actually sell boxes and maintain subscriptions long enough for me to make money on the money I gave you.

And don't use opinion. Give me the stats on games with your brand of PVP, and tell me the subscription numbers, cost to develop, deploy, maintain, etc, and compare those games with your game to give me an idea of what I need to pull off in order to make money.

Basically, give me market research that extends beyond "WoW pvp sucks donkey balls, and UO was the straight shizzle!!"

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Venjenz

If the badass, meaningful, awesomesauce PVP game had serious, legit market potential...someone would convince the venture capitalists out there to fund it. They haven't.

EVE Online? As far as I remember EVE online is one of the few games with a constantly growing subscriber number and the only time it was on a standstill was the release of Burning Crusade.
The game clearly shows that there are enough players interested in this kind of gameplay. Now imagine a fantasy setting instead of space ships (alot bigger target audience!) and a combat system that is fun (this also means more subs). And your only real competitor is EVE online right now, because the old school of MMOs is considered a niche nowadays.

In the end it is just a matter of time until some good hardcore pvp games emerge. Once you are into it... you will always like it. Its not like you enjoy that kind of gameplay and a year later decide that you like raiding more and pvp sucks. And the pvp population is constantly growing. There is a reason the marketing of AoC and WAR feels pvp centric. There is a reason that 50% of all wow (and other games) players are on pvp servers. It is not like the MMO population is growing and the part that likes pvp stays the same.
We will see more pvp focus in the upcoming games (actually we already do) and it is only a small step to a good pvp system and maybe even risk vs reward (doesnt need to be player loot).

Personally and without any proof.. I think that in some years the domination of everquest mmos will slowly die down and we will finally see innovation make a comeback in MMOs. And then eventually freedom (and pvp) will make it back into some games.
The first step is the realization that wow-clones cannot beat wow in being wow. You cannot create a MMO that works like WoW and seriously think its going to be a big hit. It doesnt work.

[DeusEx]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

EVE Online? As far as I remember EVE online is one of the few games with a constantly growing subscriber number and the only time it was on a standstill was the release of Burning Crusade.
The game clearly shows that there are enough players interested in this kind of gameplay. Now imagine a fantasy setting instead of space ships (alot bigger target audience!) and a combat system that is fun (this also means more subs). And your only real competitor is EVE online right now, because the old school of MMOs is considered a niche nowadays.

Have you really played EvE Online? 70% of the population stay within Empire which is basically a PvP protected zone (you can PvP but police ships will spawn and attack the aggressor very quickly, while the gates will be closed for him so he can't escape). The next big chunk is so called 0.0 space, protected by the big alliances (kinda uber guilds), which means it's basically even safer than empire. Hostilities usually happen only on the current front lines, making all the backward space carebear paradise.

Oh and then we have the proud, the few the pirates. These poor souls sit in so called low sec space. And they sit there camping their gates... alone. Why? Because no one goes to low sec anymore, except pirates and the occasional clueless newbie. So they sit in low sec, bored out of their mind and complain on the forums, that low sec and small scale PvP is dead.

EvE is not that much different from EQ or WoW really. You have the uber guilds in 0.0, and their warfare really mimics PvE raid mechanics more than anything else (including insane farming and logistic requirements), then you have the casuals in Empire, playing for themselves or staying in their small carebear corps, and you have the whiners in low sec that bemoan that there is no meaningful PvP, because no one comes to them getting killed (occasionally one of the 0.0 alliances will roll through, which will ensue in wave of whining from the pirates that the alliances are "blobbing").

See the pattern?

[Venjenz]

Lots of jibbah jabbah, but no meat in the sandwich.

Give me a budget to make the game, expected sales, expected annual cost, revenue, profits, etc. Compare to other games already on the market, ones in development and their budgets, ones that failed and what was the budget, reasons for failure, etc.

Explain to a non-gamer why they should fund your game, and know ahead of time that the person holding the bag of cash will have had someone on their staff examine the industry, all of the myriad flops of recent years, and how much money companies like Sony have watched go up in smoke. So convince me and my staff of hardocre cynics that you have the winning formula.

Gotta have the numbers though, because just saying "look at EVE" isn't numbers. The players of EVE have years of time invested in that game, so what makes your game so great that they'll walk away from it? WoW players stray off to VG, AoC, etc, but they come back quickly once the game they're hoping to defect to becomes stale, typically in fewer than three months, when the new game goes on life support (i.e.- a drain on my profits).

So how is your game better, different, newer, prettier, cooler, etc? How can I be guaranteed to make money? Not Blizzard-Vivendi money, but at least 10% annually on my investment, which I can get a lot of other ways, with a lot fewer headaches. Make that sale to a venture capitalist, and try to get past the fact that hardcore PVP is a niche market whose most popular game has maybe enough total subscriptions to keep a polished graphically pleasing PVP MMO running month to month, not to mention my profit.

Try and make that sale.

[Lyenae]

Thread is about why current MMO's suck at PvP bro, not about making a sale.

[Grozmok]

It's relevant if good PVP makes money, and currently, it does not.

Without the proper budget, a "good", "challenging", and "rewarding" PVP game can not exist, so all other argument is pointless, unless it somehow ties these two together: how can one make a game that contains those three points, but will not result in its fanbase leaving (or not joining in the first place), resulting in profit for the business.

When you have an answer for that, you will have your perfect PVP (and possibly, through the same logic, MMO altogether) game.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

EVE Online? As far as I remember EVE online is one of the few games with a constantly growing subscriber number and the only time it was on a standstill was the release of Burning Crusade.
The game clearly shows that there are enough players interested in this kind of gameplay. Now imagine a fantasy setting instead of space ships (alot bigger target audience!) and a combat system that is fun (this also means more subs). And your only real competitor is EVE online right now, because the old school of MMOs is considered a niche nowadays.

In the end it is just a matter of time until some good hardcore pvp games emerge. Once you are into it... you will always like it. Its not like you enjoy that kind of gameplay and a year later decide that you like raiding more and pvp sucks. And the pvp population is constantly growing. There is a reason the marketing of AoC and WAR feels pvp centric. There is a reason that 50% of all wow (and other games) players are on pvp servers. It is not like the MMO population is growing and the part that likes pvp stays the same.
We will see more pvp focus in the upcoming games (actually we already do) and it is only a small step to a good pvp system and maybe even risk vs reward (doesnt need to be player loot).

Personally and without any proof.. I think that in some years the domination of everquest mmos will slowly die down and we will finally see innovation make a comeback in MMOs. And then eventually freedom (and pvp) will make it back into some games.
The first step is the realization that wow-clones cannot beat wow in being wow. You cannot create a MMO that works like WoW and seriously think its going to be a big hit. It doesnt work.

I haven't actually played Eve. Judging by the other post, its similar to Lineage 2 in regards to the effects of loss based pvp on player actions. And I know it has massive time sinks for those big ships.

I suspect however Eve's success is very much do to the lack of competitive sci-fi MMO's to compete with. And I would call it a success. I suspect if the upcoming next-gen mmo from Blizzard really is Starcraft mmo, go ahead and consider Eve dead when that comes out.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

See the pattern?

Guess what, the old pvp games were not random slaughter and carnage on every corner with fountains of blood rising from every spawn point and the streets choked with death and corpses.
And yes, I played EVE for a year or so.

And as I already said multiple times I think EVE is pretty much perfect, beside the combat mechanics (f1 f2 f3 f4; pos warfare). It has everything that a good pvp game should have.
What you ignore is that the safezones are not hard-coded. You are free to attack anyone in empire, you can declare war on other corps and kill them in empire all day long.
You ignore that carebear regions in 0.0 work that way because they were created by players. No hardcoded safezones. If the carebears are save, then it is because of their alliance offering that kind of protection. Not the game.
If people want to raid that area, they can do it.

See the pattern?

Originally Posted by Venjenz

Try and make that sale.

Why bother? Even if I would take my time to write all that down - you wouldnt make that game or give me enough money to find a team. I am not going to waste hours of my time writing it "for the fun of doing it".

[DeusEx]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

What you ignore is that the safezones are not hard-coded. You are free to attack anyone in empire, you can declare war on other corps and kill them in empire all day long.

You ignore that carebear regions in 0.0 work that way because they were created by players. No hardcoded safezones. If the carebears are save, then it is because of their alliance offering that kind of protection. Not the game.
If people want to raid that area, they can do it.

You have to pay ongoing fees for empire war decs, that costs can be prohibitive for a small PvP corps, not to mention, the famous EvE University vs. Privateers war dec cost exploit.

And of course you "can" raid the 0.0 carebear zones. But either you will fly through them encountering no one, because they're moon mining through a POS or, if you've got enough fire power to actually be a threat to the POS, you will be raped through the defenders jump bride network and capital hot drops. The only prospect is full blown POS war with capital fleets.

These are all mechanics put willfully by CCP in place to curb the effects of unconsensual PvP. There are even WoW like BGs in place now (called faction warfare zones) with a different PvP ruleset.

What I'm trying to show is that even when EvE is touted as a full player loot PvP game, it's company goes out of their way to appease the non or less PvPing part of their subscriber base, because that is where the money is.

[Venjenz]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

Why bother? Even if I would take my time to write all that down - you wouldnt make that game or give me enough money to find a team. I am not going to waste hours of my time writing it "for the fun of doing it".

EXACTLY!

Thanks for so eloquently summing up why there isn't the pure awesomesauce PVP game the proponents in this thread keep describing/lamenting/wishing.

Not only would I not give you that money, neither will anyone else, so sayeth the market. Venture capital for big ideas on the Internet or with games isn't all that easy to come by these days.

So it will either be a freeware, dikumud/shard thing, or it won't exist at all. This is my point to Dumar. Meaningful PVP or whatever the holy grail according to ex-UO gankers happens to be doesn't exist because of money. Not because the world is gimp and nobody understands the glory of the well executed PK, but because of money.

So if you want the game you envision, get to coding. See how far freeware tools and your spare time take you. Embrace your inner entrepeneur!

[gremlinz273]

So your point is, there is no money because the world is gimp and nobody understands the glory of the well executed PK?

[Bizanich]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

You have to pay ongoing fees for empire war decs, that costs can be prohibitive for a small PvP corps, not to mention, the famous EvE University vs. Privateers war dec cost exploit.

Eve war costs are negligible. It's only when you start deccing a lot of corps at the same time that it gets out of hand, otherwise, it might as well be free.

Originally Posted by DeusEx

And of course you "can" raid the 0.0 carebear zones. But either you will fly through them encountering no one, because they're moon mining through a POS or, if you've got enough fire power to actually be a threat to the POS, you will be raped through the defenders jump bride network and capital hot drops. The only prospect is full blown POS war with capital fleets.

Untrue. Groups like Burn Eden and even Outbreak at times show the large empires in 0.0 can be raided quite successfully.

Originally Posted by DeusEx

What I'm trying to show is that even when EvE is touted as a full player loot PvP game, it's company goes out of their way to appease the non or less PvPing part of their subscriber base, because that is where the money is.

Now, this is true. You spew a lot of bullshit that's innacurate to try and make this point, sadly, and that hurts your argument, but the underlying fact that the sheep can't be hunted by the wolves constantly is so very very true and that even CCP has to appeal to the carebears in the game.

I agree with a lot of you, you can't do a hardcore, no safe zone, heavy on the penalties, PvP game. People want to play games to have fun, for the most part, and suffering setbacks in a game is not something a lot of people will put up with....and yes, I was a Dread Lord in UO .

That being said, I do believe PvP is vital to MMO's and don't believe Warcraft would've done as well if it was all PvE and no Horde vs Alliance. The trick is how to improve the PvP past what WoW has, not to reminisce about the old days of UO....glorious though it was

[Horse]

WoW's $$$ strength and basic PVP weakness is that it catered way too much to soloists instead of organized teams.


WoW's group pvp, if you get 1 of each class/spec and pit the two sides against each other is fine. They just need to get rid of the concept of racials for ultimate balance, but it is minor. We had a ton of fun in AV, WSG and AB... eventually EOTS. But they're not so amazing that it is excusable to have 4 maps which sorta, kinda cater to group play over the course of the game. I mean what does being on a PVP server really mean anymore? It's 100% entirely about impossible, unbalanced matchups in open world rather than about gathering folks of a similar mindset to skirmish.



Somewhere along the lines, the battlegrounds turned into a cesspool of grinding. You couldn't reliably queue as a group without getting ridiculous queue times because casual tim and his rogue in greens is where the $$$ is.

WoW's PVP was relegated to the arenas. So now my guild of 50 was broken up into a bunch of subgroups *EVEN COMPETING AGAINST EACH OTHER.* What the fuck, really? The arenas are not what the game is balanced around, and people would get pissy when all the priests were taken for PMR. All the dru/war pal/war were successful, what have you. A lot of exclusion happened.

So to reiterate this:

WoW has literally zero guild PVP options


Now, directly comparing this to warhammer. You can immediately queue as one or two groups and it actually speeds up your queuetimes, like it fucking should, since you're minimizing the number of slots needing to fill.

As your groups are in the scenarios (aka the arenas) they gain points towards unlocking gear (aka arena gear) as well as unlocking new scenarios (aka the arenas). So where WoW has a whopping 3 arenas, right about the time where you're already getting a stale feeling out of WAR's arenas you're at the next batch.

Along these same lines, as you're waiting in queues you could be sitting in a public quest area and progressing in PVE. Instead of hoping you can get to some gathering node in WoW before the queue pops. All the while, you're constantly gaining experience which in turn strengthens your guild and in a tangential manner increases the power of your groups.


Who knows. It could fall apart, get stale & immediately repetitive. The PVE is bad and that's not a fallback (tho funny that wow is PVE with a PVP fallback, really, unless you're one of the few arena tards. And it is few, look at the numbers on how many teams/active players there are). I'm not waving this WAR is the greatest flag that is always brought up.

But the concept that it is catering to guilds and organization rather than how fast AD-FUCKING-HD Timmy can burn someone down on their rogue they got for christmas is hope that some of it might cause the return some of the group centric play to WoW.

I personally love destroying piece of shit "invincible 1 on 1 through 3 on 3" classes in large group play.

Unfortunately the requirement of coordination equals less accessibility. Less accessibility equals less profits as people playing solo or in smaller groups will simply constantly lose, such is the case if you're not a part of a guild that can queue and roll AV, for instance.


That's the split. We'll see how WAR fares when people discover that entering into a scenario or RVR solo is not fun, and that they need to find a group/guild/coordinate shit. Even with all of the open group advancements and such, it is still not something you can pop on and do in a few seconds like in wow.

But has anyone besides the aforementioned 1v1 god classes had any fucking fun doing this in wow?