I'd think that an RTS MMO would have to be reset after a certain point though. There would be a large possibility of resource monopolization after a few months of joyful chaos.
You know for the longest time BoB were the dominant power in 0.0 which would never be toppled. However like all internet people, eventually someone said "fuck that noise" and now they're on the retreat.
MMO's aren't fun if you don't allow persistent world progress and some type of history to develop. You need large power blocks so they can eventually shatter. I'm not a fan of trying to make everyone feel like a special unique snowflake, and much more a fan of stressing that you need to actually be worth something to be considered as such. Ironically, a lot of people know this and adapt.
MMO's aren't fun if you don't allow persistent world progress and some type of history to develop. You need large power blocks so they can eventually shatter.
I think this is the biggest failing of modern MMOs. They are getting farther and farther away from persistent worlds.
re: MMORTS
I don't understand why more (any really) companies have not tried this, given how popular RTS games are. I think Shattered Galaxy did pretty well.
If this was true, every server on UO would have been dominated by a small group, same with Shadowbane and Eve Online.
With the exception of EvE, you didn't have game design that allowed for that at the guild level. EvE China however is dominated by a single guild. And who says the Goons won't attempt to grab it all (and then blow it up for the chaos)?
Personally I like the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za idea wherein russians go one way around the galaxy, goons go the other, and there will be an epic clash when we meet on the opposite side of the universe.
I asked in the WAR thread and it seems like they'll have as much of a penalty for death as wow. Some people love it, but run/die seems pointless to me if you don't get something in return off the guy you just killed, even if it's not corpse looting.
*or the corpse spawns items lootable by the opposite faction upon death which are only available through pvp
Shattered Galaxy was also mind numbingly frustrating if you didnt have high level units.
Verant/SoE/Whatever was working on a RTS MMO like 7 years ago, but it never saw the light of day, i think was called sovereignty or something like that.
At least speaking in WoW terms... it would be rather spiffy to be able to get some kind of benefit from your world PVP kills, at least of similarly-leveled characters. Maybe a rep-grind where you have to get badges from bodies within three levels of yourself, with diminishing returns on whether they show up on the corpse or not so camping becomes a waste of time.
Especially since you'd actually have to get to the corpse instead of gank-and-run.
I liked Shattered Galaxy even with low-tech units. It was a pretty damn fun game, though the whole resourcing aspect wasn't really panned out.
I think it could work quite well, since in areas where you didn't have players overseeing things the game would play more like RTS missions (i.e. smash your way through static defenses) but in direct PvP the ability to reinforce your front lines and stuff would be awesome.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
This is why I think an RTS MMO would be excellent. The only balance factor would be resources, but a fool and his money would soon be parted anyways and an intelligent new player would be at a severe advantage.
There's no legitimate reason for levels / skillpoint disparity /etc in a PvP focused mmo. Let the actual player's skill at moving his mouse/pressing buttons/selecting good equipment be why he wins, not time played. Shadowbane was pretty close to this since it was so damn easy to level to max, and the equipment disparity was extremely minimal between incredible gear and crap gear.
This is pretty much what I've been thinking while reading this thread. If one is going to really build the kind of hardcore pvp game from the ground up, you need to really get rid of all pre-conceived notions. So, why should the proposed game be an RPG?
Pros:
Levelling/ Attaining gear or other things is something for people to do when not pvping, which is something of a necessity.
People like RPGs, it's a great feeling to grow and develop in power, wealth and influence.
Getting into your character can be a contributing factor to wanting to keep him alive (although this doesn't necessarily have to go hand in hand with the experience, levels and equipment version of rpgs)
Ensures that players have something they could be designed to lose upon death.
Cons:
It necessitates the possibility (and, as such, inevitability) of uneven fights. (For the hardcore pvpers: Should a person be able to kill somebody just starting out? Is this integral to your vision of this game?)
It's a component in the game that is always completely divorced from skill, and usually chance as well- this is antithetical to just about any other type of recreational competitive activity in the history of humanity, except maybe gambling. But it's no fun to gamble with someone far out of your income tax bracket, anyway.
Brings with it a lot of associated ideas that may not be ideal to this game. (character classes, archetypes, etc.)
One question I'm having trouble with is this: in a game designed to keep every individual player around the same power level, how do we make the things that people do other than pvp compelling enough to bother with? I have pretty much zero experience with anything not a blizzard game, so bear with me here.
There's also a lot to consider about what the combat should actually be like- mmorpg combat always seemed odd to me, compared to fighting games or tactical games, but the constraints of lag make certain things unworkable there.
The key, of course, is to make every part of the game fun- otherwise, why would people play it? This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be penalties for dying, just that those penalties shouldn't stop you from playing, or from attempting to strike back at your assailant. I definitely like the idea of significant gains being possible (and/or likely) through pvp, but you'll need to ensure that can't be abused by two friends killing each other, or one guy dual boxing and killing a bunch of drones with his main.
Anyone have a brilliant, industry-changing idea they want to share?
I think you could stretch an RTS idea quite far. The trick would be make your safe zones play a little bit more like Sim City/Settlers in terms of simply building profitable enterprises, and then moving towards a nations outskirts it would become more combat-orientated.
The real key is making sure infrastructure and the economy are important - people need to be encouraged to build and manage supply chains etc. without doing the boring hard work of them, as is the current deficiency with the process in EVE.
One question I'm having trouble with is this: in a game designed to keep every individual player around the same power level, how do we make the things that people do other than pvp compelling enough to bother with? I have pretty much zero experience with anything not a blizzard game, so bear with me here.
Well, Guild Wars broke out of a lot of genre conventions similar to what you describe. Players are all pretty much equal in "power:" there is a low, hard level cap, HP and energy (and regen) are essentially the same for everyone of each class, everyone ends up with max stats weapons and armor easily. And that's in both PVP and PVE. The differentiation comes in with class and skill choices (you choose up to 8 skills to bring into combat), and then a small amount of customization available for your weapons/armor, intended to complement your skill choices.
So GW's solution was to offer a level playing field for both 1) a robust skill-based competitive PVP (between guilds, alliances, or small teams), AND 2) a great and largely soloable set of PVE campaigns. But -- and this is the important bit -- the two were pretty much entirely separated. They shared the same skills/weapons/armor, but hardcore PVPers never had to touch the PVE side of the game and vice versa.
It was a nice compromise, and it obviously worked well for them (3 million boxed copies of the 3 campaigns sold, I believe), but it was a severe compromise. But it had the effect of letting PVErs do their thing (questing, rp'ing, collecting, whatever) without any chance of griefing. And everyone was free to engage in as much of the organized PVP as they liked.
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This is in interesting argument, and although I have never really taken part in the "old school hardcore" MMO's that are being mentioned I do find the idea intriguing.
The one issue I do have is that the majority of those arguing for "Real PVP" come across like dicks, with the constant abuse "whiny bitches, fuck you carebares, abloo abloo" how are we supposed to react to what may actually be the core of a good idea?
Take Eve as a model and convert it to a human level seems to be the best idea so far, for those not into space combat (not even fantasy per se, I still hancker for a zombie apocalypse mmo). I can see the flaw in PVP in WoW of course, it is mostly dull grinds or spreadsheet cookie cutter arena stuff, but they are trying to push for it with Halaa and the new zone in WotlK, give it a "point" so to speak by allowing the control of a resource or zone.
The guy who pointed out the Wolves are usually just Jackals a few pages back was spot on, so in order to fuck over the 12 year old anger managment cases, make "Real PVP" only applicable for those of the same level, you outgear or outskill him..fair enough, but no "ganking teh lowbies lolz" for you. See how many of them whinge that killing people who present NO challenge is fun and that we are whiny bithces etc..
The guy who pointed out the Wolves are usually just Jackals a few pages back was spot on, so in order to fuck over the 12 year old anger managment cases, make "Real PVP" only applicable for those of the same level, you outgear or outskill him..fair enough, but no "ganking teh lowbies lolz" for you. See how many of them whinge that killing people who present NO challenge is fun and that we are whiny bithces etc..
Ah, this brings up another inherent design flaw in the a "Real PvP" based game.
In order for it to work well, the playing field needs to be mostly level for all players. Obviously people who have been playing longer need perks, and you can't just have everyone not enhancing their character while running around fighting everyone else with no gear. No one would go for that.
What it needs is something again parallel to EVE, but not like EVE. The way skill progression there works, ignoring the real-time training annoyance factor altogether, is that for the most part, players grow horizontally, not vertically. Once you hit a certain point in learning your race of choice's various weapons/armor/support skills (which takes roughly 2 months, not a bad time frame to hit "endgame levels" so to speak) the only way your character grows is in versatility. New shiptypes, different (not better) weapons, different combat roles. It's no longer about getting stronger so you can gank the little guy, it's just expanding your repertoire.
Sure, you can get marginally better damage or ROF, if you want to take the support skills from level 4 to 5, but since each skill level means an exponential gain in training time, with some skills you're looking at 18-25 days real time waiting for that extra 5% missile damage. Worth it? Fuck no. But that's the potential difference between two players over ~4 months old flying anything below a Battleship in EVE, 5%. There's Tech II guns as well, but they really don't make that much of a difference themselves.
This is the kind of system that needs to be in a full PVP game. Gaining versatility over gaining power. Fuck levels, it needs a skill system. EVE has it, UO had it, and it worked. Why won't anyone (willingly) do this now? Simplicty. "I want to be level 60" is a lot easier of a goal than saying "I want to raise these skills to x and x and y so I can be a duel wielding sorcerer who can also tame horses" People like levels, and they like to level up. You get that little graphic and you can say "DING!" in guild chat to annoy the piss out of everyone else who doesn't give half a shit. It's rewarding. And rewarding keeps people playing. +0.01% to Horse Mastery doesn't.
I wouldn't mind having high risk PvP, but it would have to be limited. Perhaps implemented in specific war zones, where if you lose your life you lose your items. This way you can choose to gear up (or down) for the occasion and you wont get your day ruined by a group of 5 assholes camping you for hours and stealing all your shit.
Of course, there would have to be some incentive and reward to go to these war zones. Perhaps City warzones where you can siege cities, but not without a cost?
There are many possibilites to pull it off, but I'd never want to play in a MMO where you can get your shit camped and stolen everywhere, at all times.
I wouldn't mind having high risk PvP, but it would have to be limited. Perhaps implemented in specific war zones, where if you lose your life you lose your items. This way you can choose to gear up (or down) for the occasion and you wont get your day ruined by a group of 5 assholes camping you for hours and stealing all your shit.
Of course, there would have to be some incentive and reward to go to these war zones. Perhaps City warzones where you can siege cities, but not without a cost?
There are many possibilites to pull it off, but I'd never want to play in a MMO where you can get your shit camped and stolen everywhere, at all times.
There are too many assholes out there
No one does. EVE, UO, Shadowbane, and even AoC (should they choose to allow looting) all have safe zones.
Gear and level need to be a factor to keep people playing an MMO, but, if you want a game that is PvP centric, you're going to have to find a way to reward player skill more than player items, otherwise it will just be a contest of "Who put in the most time"
There's two ways I can see doing this, the micro and the macro way:
Micro: Major changes would have to be made to the way one controls their character in an MMO for this. Auto-attack would have to be removed, every attack would need to be able to be tied to a button or a button combination. All attacks would need to be dodgeable or blockable, either by using a block button of simply moving out of the way of the attack. Get rid of a % chance to dodge, a % chance to hit. Have any of you guys ever played Rakion? It was kinda crap, but, it had some good ideas. As a mage in that game, if I tapped forward twice and then clicked my mouse I'd shoot a row icicles out of the ground in front of me. If it hit, it would juggle the opponent, but they could side step the whole attack if they saw it coming, leaving me terrible exposed during the moves long recovery time. If an enemy was blocking, I could run up close and throw them. If you played smart against a predictable player, you could avoid getting hit, avoiding the fact the opponent is stronger then you entirely.
Problems: Lag. Seriously, the only thing holding back something like this is lag. If avoiding attacks and lining up your attacks is key, losing from lag would be amazingly aggravating.
Macro: Large scale tactics and coordination between players will be rewarded. Weaker players grouped together and playing correctly can beat higher level players. Basically, if you took EvE, slowed it down, and introduced elements of battlefleet gothic is the idea I'm going for here. Guns that only shoot from the side of the ship, armor facing values, slow turning speeds, torpedoes with travel time to block off paths. Suddenly the positioning of your fleet becomes key for overlapping fields of fire, anti-fighter support, hiding smaller ships in the shields of bigger ones, etc. The team that plays smarter, even if they are outgunned, ought to win.
Problems: Lag again, seriously. Fucking latency and shit. Large scale battles + lots of variables = server death.
So summarize, the real thing holding back MMOs is latency and lack of creativity on Devs parts.
I'd love to see an MMO where every battle is like a game of chess. You get different pieces as you advance in the game, different boards, things like that. But winning would be mainly about outplaying your opponent. If it fit into the games lore, it wouldn't even seem that strange.
Woah woah woah. I just backread the first two pages and I had to post this.
Lossless PvP sucks, and it's mostly just added in for newbie PvPers who don't want to lose anything.
Back in UO, mages would carry a max of 20 of each reg they needed to fight, would wear cheap leather that was made by their mule on the same account or a different account. Fighters would wear stuff made by their blacksmiths.
I guess the trend that MMOs are taking now (which is why I stopped MMOs once UO was sold to EA) is that epic items are the way to go, and once you get them you shouldn't lose them. Kind of like achievements. That's fine for some people.
Me? I would rather stalk that guy and take it from him by one of many ways (like in UO). Trammel was made in UO for this purpose, to allow people who did not want to PvP a way out. This was fine until almost everyone who had anything moved there, and everyone who wanted to fight with nothing had nothing.
I always want to go back to playing UO. The rush is still there if you get into it, and the game is HOW old?
I mean, you are walking in the forest and you see two or three names pop up on the side. Are they going to attack you? Are they running after someone? What are they doing? Hell, in UO the only safe zone was wherever you were hidden in your house. Back in the good days, you could be looted by a thief in town at the bank, you could have fireballs shot through your window, you could even have your house stolen. But you know what, it's just a game and not everyone is always a winner or a loser.
A lot of arguments I see are that people don't think it would be fun because they are always losing. I don't know about you guys, but when I lose I try to figure out WHY I lost. Was it because I didn't DP my dagger? Was it because I didn't carry enough regs? Am I not strong enough for these people? Best thing about UO was that except for a few things, you could ALWAYS get away from a fight.
Another thing: In UO, except once they started to add dopey weapon enhancements into the game, everyone COULD be equal. There were no classes (as there shouldn't be in modern MMOs.. we're past Everquest guys). You were given a set of about 50 skills, and you could raise whichever up to 100, that was it. If you didn't want to be a mage anymore, you 8x8'd Anatomy and whatever you needed for a few days, and there you were.
In today's MMOs there are hundreds of people in the same area that can't even interact with each other except to either heal or talk to. It's boring.
I know I keep referencing UO but in my opinion it was THE MMO to play, and no game has touched it.
In UO, I never got away from a fight and whenever I saw names approaching they inevitably attacked me. If you weren't part of a gank squad, you were a hapless victim. There was no penalty for killing hapless people, and there were very minor benefits, and it happened with a handful of clicks, so everyone died. The only reprieve you would get is sometimes you would show up between two gank squads who are at odds-- then, you live as long as it takes them to realize you are not a member of either organization and you can get double-ganked.
It was not the game to play in Felucca. I despised it and most everyone that I played with despised it. Do you know what the subscription peak for UO was back in those days? 5,000 or so. It went up tenfold immediately with the advent of Trammel, steadily shot up, and peaked at 500,000 with Age of Shadows, from where it has mostly stayed constant with the caveat less and less of those accounts are unique.
It's fine that this is how you get your enjoyment, but it's just not financially-feasible or feasible in any way really to create the game you enjoy as an MMORPG. There are other genres more easily-adapted to REAL MEN'S PvP, where us little 'carebears' won't get in the way of your fun; this is just not your genre. Do you not realize that when you flatline the skill and gear advancement, it ceases to be an RPG as we know it?
You are creating an MMO, yes, but an MMORPG it will not be.
Me? I would rather stalk that guy and take it from him by one of many ways (like in UO).
I get that fix by playing games like Oblivion.
I get no satisfaction out of ganking some random sucker I chance upon. I can do it with no remorse in a single player game because there's no one to offend.
a PVP game needs a reason to kill someone besides the fact that you can just because their name is red.
Not to keep harping on it, but this is why I liked DAoC so much. Once you went into the frontiers no one had any expectation of being spared from a gank. Whole thing was set up as a big evolving war and maintaining an advantage in the war was the reason to kill everyone you came across.
I dont gank in WoW because the only reason to gank is to inconvenience somebody. Theres no personal gain from it.
a PVP game needs a reason to kill someone besides the fact that you can just because their name is red.
I think this is one of the ways that you can tell when PvP is fundamentally worthless in a given game-- when the gankee doesn't even attempt to fight back or flee (which aside from being something I sometimes do, is something I see other people do occasionally). When it is easier and more valuable to lie down and die, an incentive needs to be inserted so that at least people will understand that PvP realms mean PvP is expected.
If you knew where you were and what you were doing, it was pretty easy to get away from a PK or whatever. Either use Hiding (all my characters had at least 50 hiding) or have a marked rune nearby and use a Recall scroll. If you did need to get into a fight, have a few Paralyze scrolls handy to slow people down (unless they had trapped bags).
Do you guys not shoot other players in online shooter games? I know that's a terrible example but if you are going by the "I don't want to ruin someone's day" excuse, not letting them live in a game is somewhat as bad.
I didn't really attack newbies in UO, I went after people who I knew were somewhat well-placed in the game. After playing a few years you knew when to attack someone and when not to.
I know that UO had terrible subscription numbers, but it was such a niche game that the people who were enjoying it loved it. Maybe the shard I played on was different, but Pacific wasn't bad with gank groups. Yeah you got ganked once in a while, yes it definitely did suck, but it was a game and what did I lose? Some armor, some money, and some regs.
I sometimes fire up UO and hop on a PvP shard just to have some fights. You don't get that with WoW or EQ2 or anything like these new fangled games.
Do you not realize that when you flatline the skill and gear advancement, it ceases to be an RPG as we know it?
Umm, what? There are plenty of roleplaying games, in all media, that do not have skill and gear advancement. One-shot games at GenCon wouldn't exist. MUSHes wouldn't exist, either. A lot of roleplaying purists eschew gear and skill advancement entirely (regardless of medium), as "the (role)play's the thing".
As far as UO (and I'll preface this by saying that UO got a lot of things right), the most distinct memory I have about the game is that someone managed to assassinate Lord British using an exploit during the Beta. Unfortunately, the game was pretty much a sandbox for exploiters and metagamers. Most people moved on to bigger and better things when they were tired of not being able to actually play the game (or at least, the aspects of the game that they might have enjoyed). Most gamers that I know don't want to play the game of "Run Away!" every time they log in (unless the point of the game involves actively running away from things, like PacMan).
Do you guys not shoot other players in online shooter games? I know that's a terrible example but if you are going by the "I don't want to ruin someone's day" excuse, not letting them live in a game is somewhat as bad.
It is a terrible example, yes. Apples to Oranges. An equivalent offense is Spawn Camping in certain FPS games. You eliminate the other person's ability to play. Eventually, they are simply not going to play that game anymore.
There's a huge divide between "playing to win" and "playing for fun". The population of folks who "play to win" is very small compared to that of people who "play for fun". The equivalent example would be a tournament-level Street Fighter player or a Chess grandmaster. Because this population is small no matter what game you are playing, it is unlikely that you will be able to populate a full server of MMO players with this kind of mentality and have the population sustainable. And the trick is, the vast majority of people who play video games play for fun. And to make an MMO, well, you need subscribers. Unlike FPS (where you need 2 to 16 players in most games) or fighting games or chess (2 players), you need hundreds, if not thousands, of people playing at the same time.
In UO, I never got away from a fight and whenever I saw names approaching they inevitably attacked me. If you weren't part of a gank squad, you were a hapless victim. There was no penalty for killing hapless people, and there were very minor benefits, and it happened with a handful of clicks, so everyone died. The only reprieve you would get is sometimes you would show up between two gank squads who are at odds-- then, you live as long as it takes them to realize you are not a member of either organization and you can get double-ganked.
It was not the game to play in Felucca. I despised it and most everyone that I played with despised it. Do you know what the subscription peak for UO was back in those days? 5,000 or so. It went up tenfold immediately with the advent of Trammel, steadily shot up, and peaked at 500,000 with Age of Shadows, from where it has mostly stayed constant with the caveat less and less of those accounts are unique.
It's fine that this is how you get your enjoyment, but it's just not financially-feasible or feasible in any way really to create the game you enjoy as an MMORPG. There are other genres more easily-adapted to REAL MEN'S PvP, where us little 'carebears' won't get in the way of your fun; this is just not your genre. Do you not realize that when you flatline the skill and gear advancement, it ceases to be an RPG as we know it?
You are creating an MMO, yes, but an MMORPG it will not be.
this just goes back to what i was saying before. the game was too hard for you/thousands of other people, so they opted for the easier choice.
trammies are what we call you people. and we despised you. we didn't give up just because we got ganked a couple thousand times. we let it fuel us, motivate us, and eventually came back and fucked people up.
whenever a group of my friends gets together and UO comes up, we always talk about how great the game was back in '98 because of the thrill of it. my friend has fond memories of running away from reds in Ratman Valley while profusely swearing. that's what makes a game for me, when you actually talk about events that happened in the game nearly 10 years later.
i promise you, i don't talk about shit when it comes to WoW. "remember when i get that piece of T2? that was great!"
uh, no.
and of course it's still an RPG even if you have an open loot system. UO had the best system to date, but you know what happened? EQ came along with a completely inferior system, and everybody copied it because people are pussies. plain and simple. MMOs copied the linear format, and bam, instant shitty MMOs everywhere.
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most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Perhaps I am off base here, but what kind of reasonable exchange of ideas about PvP can be had when the very topic is a loaded statement " real PvP" which implies that anything aside from what the OP suggests isn't really PvP? It's a biased loaded adjective and thats fault number one.
Fault number 2 being human nature. " Oh nononon, I don't want to blindly go around ganking newbs or blobbing folks! I want to be in character about it and gain things from it!" but its a lot like communism - it's a flipping great idea on paper but people don't work that way, you're gunna have some infinitesimally small percentage of people playing reasonably while the vast majority get all " Leets on the carebears! ::hehehe, snort, calling people carebears makes me cool!::" It doesn't work, MMOs are a business, they've tried the open PvP thing and guess what? Nobody wants it (ok, both of yall want it).
So yeah, despite the fact I still haven't heard a definition beyond " I want to kill people" this whole " real" PvP thing is a joke. No such thing exists, if it did exist you couldn't recognize it, if you could, you couldn't communicate it with anyone - so there.
All I know is I loved my house right near the Chaos Shrine. Only place where reds could rez and I had a spot a few screens away. Good times. Made a lot of friends.
EQ came along with a completely inferior system, and everybody copied it because people are pussies. plain and simple. MMOs copied the linear format, and bam, instant shitty MMOs everywhere.
Don't forget Diablo 2 and the krns that copy it daily.
Hahns, we're not talking about those sorts of roleplaying games or scenarios because ... well, it's just completely off-base. Yes, those are valid criticisms but those aren't RPGs, those are tabletop roleplaying games, MUSHes, and MUDs. Don't conflate an already loaded thread.
As for getting away in UO, every PK just-about was a Mage and they would spam Reveal or area-of-effect spells, so Hiding was worthless. That, and the fact that Stealth was impossible to get to viability in that era (minimum 80 Hiding, and a minimum of 80 Stealth to never fail when wearing leather armor or less only). That, and the fact that they could just run around on their horses and when they "shove something invisible aside," you're dead.
Also, it really is impossible to get logical discourse going in this thread because there is just so much hateful, despising bias being thrown around. It's absolutely despicable, and the fact you're calling millions of people "pussies," "carebears," "failures," "cowards," and "lamers" just for doing what they enjoy to do is disgusting. This thread is disgusting, because your definition of REAL PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER only exists so that a set of pejoratives can also exist that make you the king of the goddamn hill.
This thread was dead on arrival. Anything that isn't what you want, despite being by far the more successful games with far more happy subscribers, are "shitty games." Anyone who doesn't enjoy the PvP you want, despite your desires being nebulous and unsubstantiated, are cowardly carebears who deserve only to be mocked.
Threads like this are the reason that a lot of people get off thinking those who grief ceaselessly in MMOs have real-life mental issues.
In any case, if "Real PVP" was popular enough to warrant a game made for it, then it would be made. But golly gee, I guess us pussy carebear whiner scrubs are the majority market share. Which of course leads to games like WoW, CoX, etc. It's business 101 here folks, the biggest and easiest group to cater to will be catered to.
I actually like the PVE part of WoW. The dungeons, raids (when they go well) and even the group-pvp
I mean if I want a fair PVP game, I can just fire up an ego shooter
that's why i hate the general masses who play MMOs.
also, as far as a definition of "real" pvp, i always take it as realistic
as in, i can kill you in real life, not without consequences, but i can still do it and possibly gain something from it. so i should be able to do the same in an MMO.
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someone said true love was dead
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MMO's aren't fun if you don't allow persistent world progress and some type of history to develop. You need large power blocks so they can eventually shatter. I'm not a fan of trying to make everyone feel like a special unique snowflake, and much more a fan of stressing that you need to actually be worth something to be considered as such. Ironically, a lot of people know this and adapt.
Presuming finite resource points.
If one realm started to dominate, the other two would gang up on them. Think it's a good self-fixing system.
And it would be so much more interesting after all these CRPG MMOs.
re: MMORTS
I don't understand why more (any really) companies have not tried this, given how popular RTS games are. I think Shattered Galaxy did pretty well.
Personally I like the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za idea wherein russians go one way around the galaxy, goons go the other, and there will be an epic clash when we meet on the opposite side of the universe.
I asked in the WAR thread and it seems like they'll have as much of a penalty for death as wow. Some people love it, but run/die seems pointless to me if you don't get something in return off the guy you just killed, even if it's not corpse looting.
*or the corpse spawns items lootable by the opposite faction upon death which are only available through pvp
Verant/SoE/Whatever was working on a RTS MMO like 7 years ago, but it never saw the light of day, i think was called sovereignty or something like that.
Especially since you'd actually have to get to the corpse instead of gank-and-run.
There just needs to be a good incentive to keep the odds better, and the consequences less horribly frustrating for t'eh nooblets.
Even things like "bounties" would work well enough.
I think it could work quite well, since in areas where you didn't have players overseeing things the game would play more like RTS missions (i.e. smash your way through static defenses) but in direct PvP the ability to reinforce your front lines and stuff would be awesome.
Planetside.
10six was. There was some rabid guy earlier in the thread drooling all over it.
It failed.
This is pretty much what I've been thinking while reading this thread. If one is going to really build the kind of hardcore pvp game from the ground up, you need to really get rid of all pre-conceived notions. So, why should the proposed game be an RPG?
Pros:
Levelling/ Attaining gear or other things is something for people to do when not pvping, which is something of a necessity.
People like RPGs, it's a great feeling to grow and develop in power, wealth and influence.
Getting into your character can be a contributing factor to wanting to keep him alive (although this doesn't necessarily have to go hand in hand with the experience, levels and equipment version of rpgs)
Ensures that players have something they could be designed to lose upon death.
Cons:
It necessitates the possibility (and, as such, inevitability) of uneven fights. (For the hardcore pvpers: Should a person be able to kill somebody just starting out? Is this integral to your vision of this game?)
It's a component in the game that is always completely divorced from skill, and usually chance as well- this is antithetical to just about any other type of recreational competitive activity in the history of humanity, except maybe gambling. But it's no fun to gamble with someone far out of your income tax bracket, anyway.
Brings with it a lot of associated ideas that may not be ideal to this game. (character classes, archetypes, etc.)
One question I'm having trouble with is this: in a game designed to keep every individual player around the same power level, how do we make the things that people do other than pvp compelling enough to bother with? I have pretty much zero experience with anything not a blizzard game, so bear with me here.
There's also a lot to consider about what the combat should actually be like- mmorpg combat always seemed odd to me, compared to fighting games or tactical games, but the constraints of lag make certain things unworkable there.
The key, of course, is to make every part of the game fun- otherwise, why would people play it? This doesn't mean that there shouldn't be penalties for dying, just that those penalties shouldn't stop you from playing, or from attempting to strike back at your assailant. I definitely like the idea of significant gains being possible (and/or likely) through pvp, but you'll need to ensure that can't be abused by two friends killing each other, or one guy dual boxing and killing a bunch of drones with his main.
Anyone have a brilliant, industry-changing idea they want to share?
The real key is making sure infrastructure and the economy are important - people need to be encouraged to build and manage supply chains etc. without doing the boring hard work of them, as is the current deficiency with the process in EVE.
But I don't design video games, I would love a viable MMORTS to be designed.
Well, Guild Wars broke out of a lot of genre conventions similar to what you describe. Players are all pretty much equal in "power:" there is a low, hard level cap, HP and energy (and regen) are essentially the same for everyone of each class, everyone ends up with max stats weapons and armor easily. And that's in both PVP and PVE. The differentiation comes in with class and skill choices (you choose up to 8 skills to bring into combat), and then a small amount of customization available for your weapons/armor, intended to complement your skill choices.
So GW's solution was to offer a level playing field for both 1) a robust skill-based competitive PVP (between guilds, alliances, or small teams), AND 2) a great and largely soloable set of PVE campaigns. But -- and this is the important bit -- the two were pretty much entirely separated. They shared the same skills/weapons/armor, but hardcore PVPers never had to touch the PVE side of the game and vice versa.
It was a nice compromise, and it obviously worked well for them (3 million boxed copies of the 3 campaigns sold, I believe), but it was a severe compromise. But it had the effect of letting PVErs do their thing (questing, rp'ing, collecting, whatever) without any chance of griefing. And everyone was free to engage in as much of the organized PVP as they liked.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
The one issue I do have is that the majority of those arguing for "Real PVP" come across like dicks, with the constant abuse "whiny bitches, fuck you carebares, abloo abloo" how are we supposed to react to what may actually be the core of a good idea?
Take Eve as a model and convert it to a human level seems to be the best idea so far, for those not into space combat (not even fantasy per se, I still hancker for a zombie apocalypse mmo). I can see the flaw in PVP in WoW of course, it is mostly dull grinds or spreadsheet cookie cutter arena stuff, but they are trying to push for it with Halaa and the new zone in WotlK, give it a "point" so to speak by allowing the control of a resource or zone.
The guy who pointed out the Wolves are usually just Jackals a few pages back was spot on, so in order to fuck over the 12 year old anger managment cases, make "Real PVP" only applicable for those of the same level, you outgear or outskill him..fair enough, but no "ganking teh lowbies lolz" for you. See how many of them whinge that killing people who present NO challenge is fun and that we are whiny bithces etc..
Ah, this brings up another inherent design flaw in the a "Real PvP" based game.
In order for it to work well, the playing field needs to be mostly level for all players. Obviously people who have been playing longer need perks, and you can't just have everyone not enhancing their character while running around fighting everyone else with no gear. No one would go for that.
What it needs is something again parallel to EVE, but not like EVE. The way skill progression there works, ignoring the real-time training annoyance factor altogether, is that for the most part, players grow horizontally, not vertically. Once you hit a certain point in learning your race of choice's various weapons/armor/support skills (which takes roughly 2 months, not a bad time frame to hit "endgame levels" so to speak) the only way your character grows is in versatility. New shiptypes, different (not better) weapons, different combat roles. It's no longer about getting stronger so you can gank the little guy, it's just expanding your repertoire.
Sure, you can get marginally better damage or ROF, if you want to take the support skills from level 4 to 5, but since each skill level means an exponential gain in training time, with some skills you're looking at 18-25 days real time waiting for that extra 5% missile damage. Worth it? Fuck no. But that's the potential difference between two players over ~4 months old flying anything below a Battleship in EVE, 5%. There's Tech II guns as well, but they really don't make that much of a difference themselves.
This is the kind of system that needs to be in a full PVP game. Gaining versatility over gaining power. Fuck levels, it needs a skill system. EVE has it, UO had it, and it worked. Why won't anyone (willingly) do this now? Simplicty. "I want to be level 60" is a lot easier of a goal than saying "I want to raise these skills to x and x and y so I can be a duel wielding sorcerer who can also tame horses" People like levels, and they like to level up. You get that little graphic and you can say "DING!" in guild chat to annoy the piss out of everyone else who doesn't give half a shit. It's rewarding. And rewarding keeps people playing. +0.01% to Horse Mastery doesn't.
Of course, there would have to be some incentive and reward to go to these war zones. Perhaps City warzones where you can siege cities, but not without a cost?
There are many possibilites to pull it off, but I'd never want to play in a MMO where you can get your shit camped and stolen everywhere, at all times.
There are too many assholes out there
No one does. EVE, UO, Shadowbane, and even AoC (should they choose to allow looting) all have safe zones.
There's two ways I can see doing this, the micro and the macro way:
Micro: Major changes would have to be made to the way one controls their character in an MMO for this. Auto-attack would have to be removed, every attack would need to be able to be tied to a button or a button combination. All attacks would need to be dodgeable or blockable, either by using a block button of simply moving out of the way of the attack. Get rid of a % chance to dodge, a % chance to hit. Have any of you guys ever played Rakion? It was kinda crap, but, it had some good ideas. As a mage in that game, if I tapped forward twice and then clicked my mouse I'd shoot a row icicles out of the ground in front of me. If it hit, it would juggle the opponent, but they could side step the whole attack if they saw it coming, leaving me terrible exposed during the moves long recovery time. If an enemy was blocking, I could run up close and throw them. If you played smart against a predictable player, you could avoid getting hit, avoiding the fact the opponent is stronger then you entirely.
Problems: Lag. Seriously, the only thing holding back something like this is lag. If avoiding attacks and lining up your attacks is key, losing from lag would be amazingly aggravating.
Macro: Large scale tactics and coordination between players will be rewarded. Weaker players grouped together and playing correctly can beat higher level players. Basically, if you took EvE, slowed it down, and introduced elements of battlefleet gothic is the idea I'm going for here. Guns that only shoot from the side of the ship, armor facing values, slow turning speeds, torpedoes with travel time to block off paths. Suddenly the positioning of your fleet becomes key for overlapping fields of fire, anti-fighter support, hiding smaller ships in the shields of bigger ones, etc. The team that plays smarter, even if they are outgunned, ought to win.
Problems: Lag again, seriously. Fucking latency and shit. Large scale battles + lots of variables = server death.
So summarize, the real thing holding back MMOs is latency and lack of creativity on Devs parts.
I'd love to see an MMO where every battle is like a game of chess. You get different pieces as you advance in the game, different boards, things like that. But winning would be mainly about outplaying your opponent. If it fit into the games lore, it wouldn't even seem that strange.
Lossless PvP sucks, and it's mostly just added in for newbie PvPers who don't want to lose anything.
Back in UO, mages would carry a max of 20 of each reg they needed to fight, would wear cheap leather that was made by their mule on the same account or a different account. Fighters would wear stuff made by their blacksmiths.
I guess the trend that MMOs are taking now (which is why I stopped MMOs once UO was sold to EA) is that epic items are the way to go, and once you get them you shouldn't lose them. Kind of like achievements. That's fine for some people.
Me? I would rather stalk that guy and take it from him by one of many ways (like in UO). Trammel was made in UO for this purpose, to allow people who did not want to PvP a way out. This was fine until almost everyone who had anything moved there, and everyone who wanted to fight with nothing had nothing.
I always want to go back to playing UO. The rush is still there if you get into it, and the game is HOW old?
I mean, you are walking in the forest and you see two or three names pop up on the side. Are they going to attack you? Are they running after someone? What are they doing? Hell, in UO the only safe zone was wherever you were hidden in your house. Back in the good days, you could be looted by a thief in town at the bank, you could have fireballs shot through your window, you could even have your house stolen. But you know what, it's just a game and not everyone is always a winner or a loser.
A lot of arguments I see are that people don't think it would be fun because they are always losing. I don't know about you guys, but when I lose I try to figure out WHY I lost. Was it because I didn't DP my dagger? Was it because I didn't carry enough regs? Am I not strong enough for these people? Best thing about UO was that except for a few things, you could ALWAYS get away from a fight.
Another thing: In UO, except once they started to add dopey weapon enhancements into the game, everyone COULD be equal. There were no classes (as there shouldn't be in modern MMOs.. we're past Everquest guys). You were given a set of about 50 skills, and you could raise whichever up to 100, that was it. If you didn't want to be a mage anymore, you 8x8'd Anatomy and whatever you needed for a few days, and there you were.
In today's MMOs there are hundreds of people in the same area that can't even interact with each other except to either heal or talk to. It's boring.
I know I keep referencing UO but in my opinion it was THE MMO to play, and no game has touched it.
It was not the game to play in Felucca. I despised it and most everyone that I played with despised it. Do you know what the subscription peak for UO was back in those days? 5,000 or so. It went up tenfold immediately with the advent of Trammel, steadily shot up, and peaked at 500,000 with Age of Shadows, from where it has mostly stayed constant with the caveat less and less of those accounts are unique.
It's fine that this is how you get your enjoyment, but it's just not financially-feasible or feasible in any way really to create the game you enjoy as an MMORPG. There are other genres more easily-adapted to REAL MEN'S PvP, where us little 'carebears' won't get in the way of your fun; this is just not your genre. Do you not realize that when you flatline the skill and gear advancement, it ceases to be an RPG as we know it?
You are creating an MMO, yes, but an MMORPG it will not be.
I get that fix by playing games like Oblivion.
I get no satisfaction out of ganking some random sucker I chance upon. I can do it with no remorse in a single player game because there's no one to offend.
a PVP game needs a reason to kill someone besides the fact that you can just because their name is red.
Not to keep harping on it, but this is why I liked DAoC so much. Once you went into the frontiers no one had any expectation of being spared from a gank. Whole thing was set up as a big evolving war and maintaining an advantage in the war was the reason to kill everyone you came across.
Do you guys not shoot other players in online shooter games? I know that's a terrible example but if you are going by the "I don't want to ruin someone's day" excuse, not letting them live in a game is somewhat as bad.
I didn't really attack newbies in UO, I went after people who I knew were somewhat well-placed in the game. After playing a few years you knew when to attack someone and when not to.
I know that UO had terrible subscription numbers, but it was such a niche game that the people who were enjoying it loved it. Maybe the shard I played on was different, but Pacific wasn't bad with gank groups. Yeah you got ganked once in a while, yes it definitely did suck, but it was a game and what did I lose? Some armor, some money, and some regs.
I sometimes fire up UO and hop on a PvP shard just to have some fights. You don't get that with WoW or EQ2 or anything like these new fangled games.
As far as UO (and I'll preface this by saying that UO got a lot of things right), the most distinct memory I have about the game is that someone managed to assassinate Lord British using an exploit during the Beta. Unfortunately, the game was pretty much a sandbox for exploiters and metagamers. Most people moved on to bigger and better things when they were tired of not being able to actually play the game (or at least, the aspects of the game that they might have enjoyed). Most gamers that I know don't want to play the game of "Run Away!" every time they log in (unless the point of the game involves actively running away from things, like PacMan).
It is a terrible example, yes. Apples to Oranges. An equivalent offense is Spawn Camping in certain FPS games. You eliminate the other person's ability to play. Eventually, they are simply not going to play that game anymore.
There's a huge divide between "playing to win" and "playing for fun". The population of folks who "play to win" is very small compared to that of people who "play for fun". The equivalent example would be a tournament-level Street Fighter player or a Chess grandmaster. Because this population is small no matter what game you are playing, it is unlikely that you will be able to populate a full server of MMO players with this kind of mentality and have the population sustainable. And the trick is, the vast majority of people who play video games play for fun. And to make an MMO, well, you need subscribers. Unlike FPS (where you need 2 to 16 players in most games) or fighting games or chess (2 players), you need hundreds, if not thousands, of people playing at the same time.
this just goes back to what i was saying before. the game was too hard for you/thousands of other people, so they opted for the easier choice.
trammies are what we call you people. and we despised you. we didn't give up just because we got ganked a couple thousand times. we let it fuel us, motivate us, and eventually came back and fucked people up.
whenever a group of my friends gets together and UO comes up, we always talk about how great the game was back in '98 because of the thrill of it. my friend has fond memories of running away from reds in Ratman Valley while profusely swearing. that's what makes a game for me, when you actually talk about events that happened in the game nearly 10 years later.
i promise you, i don't talk about shit when it comes to WoW. "remember when i get that piece of T2? that was great!"
uh, no.
and of course it's still an RPG even if you have an open loot system. UO had the best system to date, but you know what happened? EQ came along with a completely inferior system, and everybody copied it because people are pussies. plain and simple. MMOs copied the linear format, and bam, instant shitty MMOs everywhere.
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Fault number 2 being human nature. " Oh nononon, I don't want to blindly go around ganking newbs or blobbing folks! I want to be in character about it and gain things from it!" but its a lot like communism - it's a flipping great idea on paper but people don't work that way, you're gunna have some infinitesimally small percentage of people playing reasonably while the vast majority get all " Leets on the carebears! ::hehehe, snort, calling people carebears makes me cool!::" It doesn't work, MMOs are a business, they've tried the open PvP thing and guess what? Nobody wants it (ok, both of yall want it).
So yeah, despite the fact I still haven't heard a definition beyond " I want to kill people" this whole " real" PvP thing is a joke. No such thing exists, if it did exist you couldn't recognize it, if you could, you couldn't communicate it with anyone - so there.
Don't forget Diablo 2 and the krns that copy it daily.
As for getting away in UO, every PK just-about was a Mage and they would spam Reveal or area-of-effect spells, so Hiding was worthless. That, and the fact that Stealth was impossible to get to viability in that era (minimum 80 Hiding, and a minimum of 80 Stealth to never fail when wearing leather armor or less only). That, and the fact that they could just run around on their horses and when they "shove something invisible aside," you're dead.
Also, it really is impossible to get logical discourse going in this thread because there is just so much hateful, despising bias being thrown around. It's absolutely despicable, and the fact you're calling millions of people "pussies," "carebears," "failures," "cowards," and "lamers" just for doing what they enjoy to do is disgusting. This thread is disgusting, because your definition of REAL PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER only exists so that a set of pejoratives can also exist that make you the king of the goddamn hill.
This thread was dead on arrival. Anything that isn't what you want, despite being by far the more successful games with far more happy subscribers, are "shitty games." Anyone who doesn't enjoy the PvP you want, despite your desires being nebulous and unsubstantiated, are cowardly carebears who deserve only to be mocked.
Threads like this are the reason that a lot of people get off thinking those who grief ceaselessly in MMOs have real-life mental issues.
I mean if I want a fair PVP game, I can just fire up an ego shooter
that's why i hate the general masses who play MMOs.
also, as far as a definition of "real" pvp, i always take it as realistic
as in, i can kill you in real life, not without consequences, but i can still do it and possibly gain something from it. so i should be able to do the same in an MMO.
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do