Will PvP harm or help?
Maybe Nevrax are thinking money?
(Not a dig, I'd love them to get out of their financial difficulties.)
The addition of PvP will not lower dev workload by obviating the need for story/content.
Look at all the work having to be done to change healing and armour, to add new systems for jewellery and racial resistances etc. Almost every change on the ATS has become a pressing issue because they've decided to prepare for full PvP.
The changes won't be 100% perfect and, until they are (ie "forever more"), the forums will light up with the newly created problems of PvP balance. (This isn't just a posibility, it will happen. Look at the forums of any full PvP-enabled mmorpg if you haven't experienced this yourself).
Sure the game could do with a tweak or two from it's current state but add in PvP and the tweaks are no longer "nice to have", they become "must be fixed immediately". PvE healing could maybe do with a few changes but we can wait a couple of months with no harm being done. If PvP healing needs changes then characters will die and players will be unhappy immediately. The 'time to fix' drops to almost nothing when characters lives are at risk.
The majority of the current players don't want PvP, so not only must PvP issues be fixed immediately they must also not adversely affect this non-PvP majority. The 'difficulty to fix' increases hugely when two separated systems can be affected in different ways by a single fix.
Let's ignore all the above and pretend that enabling full PvP doesn't increase the Nevrax workload and satisfies the PvP crowds desires.
The addition of PvP does not decrease the need for story/content.
Even the people that want PvP want story/content too (there are much better game systems out there for pure PvP). The majority of the playerbase, who don't want PvP, haven't got anything new to play with at all - indeed some of the existing stuff may have now become off-limits.
When it comes to the day-to-day, Nevrax will now have two audiences to satisfy: players working against the environment and players working against players. When it comes to the storyline, Nevrax have the same audience they always had. Surely this has to increase the work the devs have to do?
PvP doesn't help players make their own content.
In a perfect game, both sides of a conflict can be in on the rationale and enjoying the fight. In the real game, you only need one 'jerk' to ruin the whole thing. I've been involved in player-driven PvP in several ways in the live game as it stands now. It works well when it's consensual (duels or arenas with lack of outside interference) and when it isn't (Prime Roots areas) it ends with the arrival of a 'jerk' and with griefing, slanging matches, hurt feelings and vendettas.
People play in persistant worlds for the emotional attachment to a growing character. Killing a character in Atys (or any MMORPG) is fundamentally different from killing some guy in Counter-Strike. Fundamentally. Emotions are heavily involved.
There seems to be just one thing that we all agree on. Ask around in-game and there is a major consensus;
the best thing about the Saga of Ryzom is the people.
This is the one thing that sets Ryzom above the rest. Why add in opportunities to set the players against each other? Why promote a risk to this unity, the one feature that puts this game #1 in the market?
The bottom line of the financial problems I see lies simply in these questions;
Will making the whole map pvp attract a quantity of new players?
Will making the whole map pvp make a quantity of existing players quit?
This whole thing seems like an awful lot of work (to implement and then maintain) to try and temporarily appease a small portion of the players, while risking the enjoyment of the majority. I'd like this time spent elsewhere.
Don't you need one hell of a good reason to open Pandora's Box?
