Does a non-PvP game in a zone that has been declared PvP "faction" seem :
- Very playable
- Playable, but you have to be very careful
- Only playable as part of a group!
- To have become an area exclusively for the PK! Apart from PvP, it's impossible to play in this zone
It's no big secret that PvP brings out the worst in folks, and that test servers and beta folks tend to generally be far less mean and nasty than the average retail server population can be. History has shown that turning a previously nonpvp commonly hunted area into +PvP area, will lead to it being void of life due to griefer/ganking behaviour. History has also shown that a +PvP area frequented by friefer/gankers whenever folks did try to hunt there which is turned into a nonpvp area, will cause it to become a good source of hunting for lots of folks. Examples I cite are from AO, borg camp was changed from -pvp to +pvp and almost overnight it became a ghostland where almost nobody ever hunted compared to almost always a group or two there... BCBLBDA became a place where certain folks would nuke an entire team off the planet whenever they found someone there, and hide behind the incredibly lame "I'm protecting my uncle who lives there, you shouldn't hunt there or should find somewhere else to hunt" style excuses... it was changed from +pvp to -pvp, and almost overnight it became a good hunting area. Further tweaks went in later and it became an area folks could almost always be found at.Do the non-PvP games in the prime roots seem:
- Very playable
- Playable, but you have to be very careful
- Only playable as part of a group!
- To have become an area for the PK! Apart from PvP, it's impossible to play in the prime roots.
History has also shown a few other things... the pro die hard pvp community is very small and more vocal than almost any other group. Many times things that are implemented or not implemented due to pvp concerns, are done at the expense of making the PvM game less interesting or actively worse. Folks tend to not mind places like the land control area tower wars and tarrasque dungeon in AO, or the RvR relic things in DAOC... but are often actively pushed away from a game when someone drops in unanounced and kill them/their group or ruins their evening because they wanted to PvP. AO has shown that folks will begin to resent the game if it turns into "set your alarm and try to be on for n hours every Y hours so that we can defend our towers" like happened at some points in time during AO.
If given a choice, folks will flock to the -PvP areas and avoid the +PvP areas if at all reasonably possible... examples are Felucca:Trammel in UO or folks running all the way across another zone to avoid having to spend 5 minutes inside 2H0 or other similar +PvP travel bottlenecks in AO.
I certainly hope that Nevrax doesn't pull a repeat of patch1 with this next patch... Certain things done badly enough cannot be completely undone, and Nevrax does not have a history of happy major patches.
