Concerned about PVP? PVP Poll

One or two guys out of almost 25000 contributors. I think we can rest easy.

 

Just for entertainment, try and imagine the converse of the hardcore PvP sentiment:

Hello, I'm a PvE RPer, and I propose that there is no PvP, and that open-RP is instated in such a way that all players are forced into non-consensual RP. If you are not forced to be RP'd into submission by my superior imagination, then I will complain.

 

Oh, I like this suggestion! I submit myself to your superior RP, but I do want to PvP .
RP-PvP, oh yeah!

 

So if I am flagged both for open PvP and RP, when I kill someone, I can't say "Learn to play, nooooob!", but instead I have to say, "Learneth thou to playeth the game, oh inexperienced one!"

 

Are /spit and /teabag roleplay? I think they are.

 

Ah, but /teabag is seriously TWISTED, and most players aren't properly ROLEPLAYING that twistedness. How sick would you actually have to be to want to DO that to a recently mutilated corpse of a fallen enemy?? On an open battlefield no less!?!? In forced non-consensual RP, anyone using that emote would have to maintain their degenerate status, and could not, for instance, merely buy food. No, no normal rations for them, they'd have to buy deep fried babies!! Nor could they sleep in normal bedrooms, they would have to spend a lot on all the extra chains and manacles. AND they'd have to roleplay never bathing. NOT bathing would be insufficient, they would have to ACTIVELY not have bathed, purely via roleplaying and emotes.

 

Thats not true. I loved the PvP concept UO had. And i was not the every day average PK that roamed the lands...
Most of the times i loved it when ppl asked me in IRC to come to dungeon x or y to come help them because there was a PK hanging around killing them...


Old UO player (played it for 8 years)
Crazy Scriby
Great Lakes

 

And where do you get that information from? Other PvE players?

What would be more right is that some of the PvE crowd didnt like the UO PvP concept. The PvP players on the other hand still search for a PvP game as good as old UO.

So your wrong in your assumption that "no one really liked the open world pvp concepts that these games had". When UO were wowified with Age of Shadows february 2003 all those PvP players went to UO freeshards instead. Some of those freeshards had +50000 members on their boards so the interest for this kind of PvP very much existed then and still exists.

Edit: One of those freeshards actually have +150.000 members on their board and that is a UO freeshard! So as i said, there is alot of interest for these kind of PvP games but the sad part is that no AAA company have so far understood the demand.

 

I kinda doubt that, since that would be more than the number of players UO had before Trammel was introduced. Unless everyone registered for the freeshard is also automatically registered for the board, and player registers never expire, in which case that is not really much of a measurement; back in 2011, for example, Free Realms surpassed 20 million registered players, a metric that if taken alone would make it as successful as WoW.

 

Yes i doubt all 150K would actually play this freeshard and your right they dont expire but it confirm there is alot of interest in these kind of PvP game. Why bother get a membership on this board if your not interested? Those players have been searching for a PvP game as good as old UO was but since no AAA company develop these kind of games they instead played the freeshards or the games from indie companies.

And remember this was just one of the freeshards. There's been thousand of them out there.

And yes a successful UO2 could easily outnumber pre trammel subscribers. More potential players have computers nowadays and EvE is an example of the demand for these kind of games.

Seems WoW isnt doing as good as it used to, they lost 1.9 million subscribers in 3 months.

 

I don't think so, given that many of the people that played in pre-trammel UO were there for the MMO experience - which, at the time, couldn't be had anywhere else - rather than for the PvP. Also, I sincerely believe EVE is "hogging" so many of the players interested in a MMO with non-consensual PvP that it's starving other similar games, in the west at least (Asia seems to have quite a few games focused on non-consensual PvP, and Latin America - where I live - seems far more receptive of them than the US).

There's a possibility we might actually find that out, though. Pathfinder Online is being made with a similar development model to EVE (and intentionally so, as the devs have confirmed multiple times), but with a medieval setting. It also aims to have a lot of what old UO players say they liked - non-consensual PvP, player looting and stealing, real consequences for the player's actions, a strong incentive to join together in groups without making it impossible for solo players to thrive, a strong sandbox element where players can make a real difference in the game world and player crafting is supposed to be the main source of gear, etc. While I'm not going to play it - the non-consensual PvP, coupled with player looting and stealing, is a complete deal breaker for me - I'm keeping an eye on it because all other elements really interest me.

 

Thanks for the tip, will have a look at it.

 

Funny enough, computer RPG games, traditionally, had none, and promised none of the features you list.

What you describe there is largely a 90s evolution of RPGs. Computer RPG games have been around since the late 70s and what was expected from them was a stat/numbers based battle system with skill and stat progression. Plot and stories, for over a decade, were little more than "find the amulet in the dungeon" or "kill the evil sorcerer". Few exceptions aside, that was all an RPG was. As time went on, RPGs began having more in depth story lines and some games even shifted the gameplay focus from fighting to story telling. As time went on further, game play focus has been shifted from in depth story telling to freedom of pace through the story line, however little impact you may actually have. Currently RPGs are a mix of some of the earlier ideas with rare games focusing on certain aspects over others. RPG is a genre that keeps evolving and to be fair, no one can claim what it is, or should be. Unless you are a game developer, at which case you just have to go and make your own.


Btw, I absolutely agree with the rest of your post. As a PvPer/PK, I still fall into option 3, and actually always play several characters so I can experience the game through different ways. Both valiantly and dastardly. Sadly this game at this point is planned on having only a single character slot available to you, so I bought extra account.

 

But we are not in a hardcore PvE RP environment. Richard Garriott has gone on record several times that he wants us to PvP and we will be forced to if we want to accomplish certain things or do certain quests. It is not like we all just came in here looking to change the game...

So really, your exercise is misleading.

 

I would agree with you when it comes to electronic games, but when I think of RPG's I don't limit them to video games. Dungeons and Dragons was around in the 70's and since that game here have been numerous other incarnations of formal and informal Role Play Games ranging from MUDs (Beastwars Transformers... Yes, I did that.), IRC text based RP, AOL text based RP, White Wolf, Big Eyes Small Mouth, and LARP's just to name a few of the non-electronic options. Electronically speaking, RPG's with the features I described are not traditional, but "Gaming" has a much older richer history than just what modern video game developers have started. ::shows off her "Geek Pride" pin::

 

@AuroraWR

Right, but we are talking about an electronic video game RPG here, not IRC text based, tabletop or even MUD.

I'm not really arguing anything, like I said, CRPGs have evolved. I read it in a book.

 

As a fellow tabletop gamer, I hear ya, but I don't think the CRPG world will be ready for that kind of depth or complexity for a LONG time. Completely exempting the issues of emoting and living your life, the wild and crazy things that people's characters in other systems and setting get into, most people I've encountered in non computer RPG environments want to significantly affect the world they are in. They don't start playing so that they can be shopkeep's assistant 2793A, they want to be the HERO. And that means changing the world. In a group of 5, or even of 40 (for the bigger larps) there is room for one or two to rise up and really be amazing. The group as a whole gets to "change the world" and represent the 5, or 40, most influential people in the region, and set things right, or doom us all, or whatnot, as they see fit. But even a small CRPG has hundreds of thousands, even millions of players, and if they were ALL world changing heroes, the world would be unrecognizably changed on a weekly basis. So CRPG's focus on a more static world, in which we are epic enough to matter, but not enough to take over, and give us a stable world in which our deeds don't cause HUGE changes. Now you add in the inability of the game to represent various more extreme aspects of role play game worlds, such as creating your own new spells (My spell converts an enemy into a permanent undead servant, and I use it as my primary attack!) Building your own despotic countries (there is a tax on hot women who don't sleep with me of two kidneys and a head, payable when the guards catch you...) developing your own fighting styles (my bizarre form of ninjitsu allows the practitioner to conceal and use a ship's cannon, while moving silently and evading the eyes of the unwary), or how about designing your own flying ships?? (I don't think any of you need any help at all imagining how supid bad this could get)

In the CRPG world, I think it's wise to focus on what you can do that will happen and won't rage out of control. Three million fellow geeks can do a LOT of damage with a simple idea.

 

Hey MalakBrightpalm,
I was simply clarifying my earlier definition of RPG from an earlier post to postulio. I was not implying that the kind of depth in non-electronic games, or even private UO shards with smaller player bases, was practical here.

Also, not everyone who likes to RP in that much depth needs to play a complete HERO, which I say from experience from playing games where people were unique but happy to play simpler characters. Though I suspect many people in a game that complex would like to be a HERO.

 

Speaking of misleading, that is a WHOPPER of a misleading post you just dropped in a steaming pile. RG has actually stated that any PvP quests will be purely optional, and will have no serious impact on the main storyline. The quests are intended to introduce PvP to PvE player, and provide a carrot so players who otherwise would not PvP get a chance to try it and see if they like it.

 

@Owain

Not sure what you found misleading or have a problem with... All I said was some parts will require PvP, if you choose to partake. It is obviously optional if that is the case...

Whether or not the quests and areas are major to the story or not isn't relevant, key phrase was "if we want to..."

It looks like you're just picking a fight here, I really didn't imply anything past exactly what I wrote, every word of which is true.