Concerned about PVP? PVP Poll

@Postulio, when you say things like RG "wants us to PvP and we will be forced" to do things, that is so far off the mark, it isn't even on the range.

Maybe it was just poor word choice, but 'forced' is a pretty loaded word.

 

@Owain

only if you quit reading halfway through the sentence....

 

RG did say that IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE CERTAIN GOALS we would be forced to flag for PvP. I think that's totally fair, and moreover, I think those goals should be reasonably desirable. If the sole benefit of going into the spooky woods and getting flagged is that I get a shiny red apple, IF I live, then I think even some PvP lovers will be unimpressed. Once for the trophy and move on. Whereas there are enough players who will read as far as the spot where it says "this will flag you" and then turn around and ditch that task forever.

Now, if the reward was juicy enough, then the area would have a great many PvP players, and the "on the fence" crowd would really be tempted.

 

I agree MalakBrightpalm but I think that beyond the juicy apple - what matters is the conduct of the player base - I happen to believe that its not so much the being killed or losing stuff as much as players insulting you (at least for me) ... at that point it moves away from a game and becomes personal (it's really high school behavior - that's why I want to PvP but not if a-holes are plentiful)

I want my game to be challenging and fun ... I don't play a game to be insulted (nor do I come to a forum to be personally attacked for having an opinion)

 

Thats what old UO did. It FORCED the players to play in an open pvp world with thieves, killers, looters, suicide bombers etc. It didnt have two realms for PvErs and PvPers, it FORCED everyone to obey the same ruleset.
Many people who didnt like PvP still liked the game in the end and stayed.

It's a simple truth, people have to be forced to do stuff, because some stuff they'd never do themselves.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I'm sorry, I thought this was a GAME. You know, something I play for FUN because I WANT to play. Not something I have to be forced into

 

If I can't bomb you to pieces while you afk at the bank, its not a game, its crap.

 

Basically, developers and publishers started saying that any computer game using rules taken from, or similar to, pen and paper RPGs was a computer RPG. IMHO they focused on the wrong aspect, looking at the game systems developed to allow for roleplay, rather than the roleplay itself, to define the genre, but unfortunately that definition stuck.

The temptation will likely work in two ways, though. Players will be able to get the PvP exclusive rewards by doing PvP - but they will likely also be able to get PvP exclusive rewards by going offline, and perhaps using a mod to unlock PvE versions of the PvP events and rewards. Not sure which would be more prevalent, but for my part I would rather play offline than open myself to non-consensual PvP.

UO also had a huge player retention problem until Trammel was introduced, removing the forced PvP from the game.

Also, the first actual competition that appeared - Everquest - in less than a year got more players than UO was able to get in 3 years. One of the main differences was that players could effectively opt out of PvP, and most did exactly that.

And I don't think second hand accounts of how UO was can change the devs' opinions about what happened during the early days of UO. Not when they have insider info, and some were likely even engaged in trying to solve the player retention problem. Heck, RG even have an often repeated anecdote about dealing with a player unhappy with the PvP (thieving) elements of the game.

 

I don't know if it was a huge player retention problem. I don't even know if it was the open pvp world either. I think one of the biggest factors was that the game engine was from 1990.

In May of 2000, Trammel was introduced. The number of subs were still growing before and after. In Feb 2003 AoS came out adding detailed item attributes similar to other RPGs and there were a bunch of ppl subbing then. Like I said, I think it was the archaic graphics that led to the downfall of the game.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png

 

I don't understand how gold digging safely all the time satisfies you. You are making yourselves a pixel slave for just a game. You put values on those pixels and whine everytime about it. This is what made the game boring with the patch of Trammel. I still remember when Trammel brought the death of UO. Freeshards became more popular back then, I can remember I saw 150000+ numbered communities. And EA, again and again, killed another awesome game. Now they have to release expansion almost every year. Because the game 'ends', just like a single player game. You only need yourself to completely farm everything, or another 1-2 friends of yours. Now where is the online and fun part of this ? Just because of Trammel, that farm safety world, the economics of the game crashed. Not only that, it also killed the sustainability. I am not sure how many players currently play on OSI.

Those charts about UO player growth are totally inaccurate. Because back in time, that 99-ish times, not everyone was aware of the concept "Internet", PCs were really expensive and you needed a good connection, and if you are lucky, you needed to be VERY close to the servers. Awareness of internet and online games increased the number of players in UO, not that Trammel thing. Unlike now, it was untrustworthy to use money on internet. And after a while, according to the chart, that awareness spread and there was no reason to play UO while there are better MMORPGs with the same system and better graphics. UO had its own unique concept and style. That wrong step of releasing Trammel = Death of good quality MMORPGs. Consider that UO2 was released, do you really think it would outnumber WoW ? No. Because UO, after Trammel, was cloning other MMORPGs, completely mislead of its own way. Why would anyone play UO2 while there was WoW with huge community ?

I can't think of a logical argument about making yourselves pixel slaves. There is no point in infinite farming and putting values on pixels. Risk made the game exciting and Trammel changed the way that excitement goes to = Farming and being able to "end" the game.

By the way, there is ZERO fun when you activate PvP after you farmed to the max. Because it is not some kind of risk, it is just a plain duelling which affects ABSOLUTE NOTHING in the game.

 

Sincerely, you fall into the trap of thinking other people must like the same things you like, and dislike the same things you dislike.

This is simply not true. Different people have different preferences. I myself have some friends that I almost never can play computer games together with simply because our preferences don't match (some of them too focused on competitive PvP, some of them hating any kind of challenge in games, etc).

In fact, "plain dueling which affects absolute nothing in the game" is exactly what I want out of PvP. I play PvP for the challenge, but dislike having consequences for defeat. The kind of PvP I like to play is PvP that the parties can keep engaging time after time, where defeat doesn't force the player to sit out for a time or put him at a disadvantage, where victory doesn't bring any advantage. This is the kind of PvP I can spend the whole day playing (which I do from time to time).

The kind of PvP you seem to prefer, on the other hand, is the kind that drives me away from games - and it's not lack of experiencing it; I do have friends (or, rather, family) that loves that kind of PvP and attempts to drag me into it, but no matter how many times he did so, I could never enjoy it.

 

Game engine had very little to do with why UO lost players. UO graphics was outdated compared to other MMO games but the gameplay was the best ever created.

And gameplay is what matters.

UO lost loads of PvP players when Age of Shadows were introduced february 2003. The little increase you can see some months after AoS was PvE players entering trammel. Felucca lost most of their players same time. And the numbers fleeing this new UO game wastly outnumbered the ones joining.

Why play a WoW game with poor graphics when you had everquest and WoW? What was unique with UO died with Age of Shadows and that was a huge mistake by EA.

I was there experiencing my old friends and just about all PvP guilds quit the game within some months after Age of Shadows was put into the game. I tried AoS for some 2-3 months and then finally understood UO had became WoW.

Age of Shadows was what killed felucca PvP. It was a disaster for all old PvP players when UO became WoW and many of us is still searching for a PvP game as good.

 

Player retention and new players joining are two separate things. EA compromised the integrity of what made UO stand out by making it more like EQ/WOW to draw those type of players. But by that time, why would a new player choose UO over the other games when UO had crappy game engine, crappy graphics. That won't draw new players in, especially when the gameplay is the same as the other games. I think we agree on the matter. I do not think however, that the majority of people who play UO adored open pvp free for all type stuff. I think that makes a certain percentage of the players. If that was the case and there is still a huge market for those type of people, this game would be more geared towards them. The reason it is not is because I think RG is trying to dip his hand in the pockets of the casual gamer who prefers PVE type stuff and also trying to drag the open pvp type people (myself and you) into the game with a few things that will turn on the nostalgia buttons in our brain.