Do we really need PvP?

[ajsuk]

And a few people agenst PvP just make snidy coments

I know bud.

PvP has been around forever, whats the big problem?
Some people like it, some people don't.. You have a choice to take part or not.. Whats the problem?

<< and this isn't a big PvP lover. I hardly ever do take part in it.

[art3an]

/puts on the "truth-teller hat" (as so many else in this thread seem to already have)

There are, in general, two basic arguments pro pvp:

1. Pvp is fun; manily because it provides a challenge to the game that no scriped npc-character is able to do in the same way. No level of deep thought; it's basically just a matter of taste on what a given person percieves as fun.

2. Pvp adds to the realistic feel of the game (every good rpg setting must have some sort of realism to it). In any given conflict, there is the last but possible option of finding a settlement through the swords. In addition, humanity have been practicing this for ages; nothing strange with it.

Personally, I think both arguments are valid, and I believe in them. Though, as been pointed out several times already, there are certain possible consequences derived from pvp: pvp balancing tend to "un-balance" pvm; the possebility of pvp attracts players who will exploit/grief the systems/players; and, the "grimjim argument": pvp may cause an unequal distribution of developer resources.

There are very few "facts" in this the matter, and, a piori, very little can actually be said.

However, the devs seem to have defined the path of SoR (which, in itself, is a good thing) and, no doubt, large-scale pvp will be introduced to SoR.

/leave truth-teller hat on the ground (it gets caught by the wind, up in the air, out of view)

Personal opinion: Fun! Let's see how it plays out! Might be good, might be bad; only one thing is true indeed: we will not know untill we have tried.

[drizzeth]

I am glad this thread doesnt directly influence Nevrax' choice about how to implement outposts and the attached PVP.

I really hope for Nevrax that they will manage to do it in a way that brings back all those people waiting for pvp and outposts or something new in general.(content)

For everyone: pvp im sure will be a consentual matter.

For others: we are finally getting that outpost and kami/karavan story weve been told about since our first days of beta testing.

Faith is a nasty thing tho, we will see how many people come back to see part of the promises realised.

Same goes for the community after the pach, in the end we will see how it turns out. Im sure it turns out just fine tho.

now im out of this thread i think, been so long running dscussion
you never know tho, i might feel inclined to join in again

[art3an]

now im out of this thread i think, been so long running dscussion

Ghaaaa.... How come I'm always the one to arrive when all action is gone, the music has stopped, the place is gettin cleaned and people are leaving :/

[vutescu]

And the script is there by pure chance? Never been touched by a human mind with the will to "harm" you?

Of course I was. But I don't want to have this kind of behaviour everywhere. I'm sick of it IRL. Why should I have it in a computer game?

Bottom line. I mind my own bussines, PvP mind theirs. As long as they can't harm me against my will is ok. I'm not there to play "moving target" for them, you know...

[troll16]

It seems that every thread that contains a mention of PvP degenerates to a Pro/anti PvP argument. Sometimes with constructive posts but on the whole not so constructive.

There was 3 threads I could have posted this in but chose this one.


There is no way a PvE gaming style can affect anyone else in a negative way. But there is every chance that PvP play style will have a negative impact on PvE game style players. Something that I have seen PvP players deliberatly ignore even though they know it to be true.


Having said that there is no point having a pro/anti debate any longer. The game was advertised as having PvP content and so it will have PvP content.


What I would like to see is Nevrax making some kind of statement as to how they intend to implement the PvP into the game, how it's going to work all areas effected etc. If this has already been done maybe someone can point us in the right direction.


The only constructive debate on PvP as I see it would be how can PvP be implemented as to have a limited damaging effect on the PvE players. So as to try and bring the two sides closer together.


Personally I would like to know more about what Nevrax has planned so that I can decide if it's a game I wish to continue or not as I only play this game with PvE in mind.

[basicart]

There is no way a PvE gaming style can affect anyone else in a negative way. But there is every chance that PvP play style will have a negative impact on PvE game style players. Something that I have seen PvP players deliberatly ignore even though they know it to be true.

say theres a large PvE guild out there camping all supernode spawns, how are the smaller guilds ment to get some of the action? Like say large guild has 6 250 PR diggers smaller guild has 1 is it ok to let the big fish take everything? or can the smaller guilds / guilds with less 250 harvesters fight for a slice of the pie?
I know we can all dig up whats there then split it but it hardly ever works out that way unless ya got close guild ties and such. And say 1 guild has 1 person there another has 15 would the 1 get a equal share?
I know you think PvPers are forcing there style of play on you but it also feels to the PvPers that you are forcing your style of play onto them. Theres plenty of other places to goto non pvp for items ya need and such if you really dont want to take part in pvp at all. So you cant really say you are missing out of content. Cos in that sence i dont goto WL / US to dig sups cos theres patrols there and i have no intrest in fighting them so does that mean im missing out on content?
Atys is a big place there room enough for all styles of play imo.

[oauitam]

Ghaaaa.... How come I'm always the one to arrive when all action is gone, the music has stopped, the place is gettin cleaned and people are leaving :/

I'm only posting to give you a devil's advocate to play with I stopped posting once highly pro-PvP people came in agreeing that it made no sense for the Nevrax company. So, I'm ignoring the question 'do we need pvp' and just addressing quotes.

Whats the problem?

This might take up to 30 pages to answer. Luckily you've got those pages in front of you here with the problem explained in several different ways.

Never been touched by a human mind with the will to "harm" you?

This is the crucial difference between PvE and PvP. After all, they're both PvSomething! The fact that we feel there is a 'will to harm' in one setting, and none in the other, is the very basis upon which the divide lies.
[Real life metaphor: murder v manslaughter (UK legal terms)]

1. Pvp is fun; manily because it provides a challenge to the game that no scriped npc-character is able to do in the same way. No level of deep thought; it's basically just a matter of taste on what a given person percieves as fun.

PvP is fun must be the sine qua non of its existence. Personally, when it's done well (a couple of my personal faves and reasons follow), I find it a blast.

My only alteration to the quote would be "...because it can provide a challenge...". A problem often cited would be the rarity of this level of challenge actually being the case in individual situations. Ryzomified examples would include;
nuking a harvester
team v individual
prepared v unprepared
multi-250 v highest-level-100
Maybe thought could be given to how it could always provide the kind of challenge we want? (Level limits or something?)

2. Pvp adds to the realistic feel of the game (every good rpg setting must have some sort of realism to it). In any given conflict, there is the last but possible option of finding a settlement through the swords. In addition, humanity have been practicing this for ages; nothing strange with it.

I have two issues with this section, but none with the "realism".

Firstly, an amicable settlement must be the rarest of beasts. True, you can batter your opposition until she somehow gives up (maybe the end of the conflict is forum flaming or a cancelled account or, at the least, the end of the fun for at least one of the parties). I'd like to think that most of us have outgrown the kiddie notion that might has anything to do with right. Conflict and bad feeling never appear to end just because the fighting stops.

Which brings me to the second issue. Since a few days after 'humanity started practicing this' it tried to find a way to stop it! (eg homeland defence and United Nations, or police forces in the case of internal affairs.) The methods fall back on appeal to higher powers and acceptance of general 'rights of man'. Our 'higher power' would be Nevrax, and the game system it implements would be one method of enforcing these rights. GMs/CSRs could be seen as the police.

Player police is a nice notion. It's been thought about since the early days of MMORPGs. It has never yet worked, which is not to say it can't, but it has so many things working against it in a game setting that don't apply in the real world.
Some examples include;
The guaranteed right to anonymity of the criminal
The lack of effective sanction
The paucity of resources to man the police
The willingness of possible recruits to indulge in PvP
The unlikelihood of omnipresent, 24/7 policing
Taxes levied by some higher power to reimburse the police for using their time in a way they don't choose to spend their free time

So I agree with half of the view. The 'infringing others rights' is realistic and easy to implement but the 'preventing others rights from being infringed' doesn't seem to be cheap or easy. So an important question is, do we want to implement one without the other?

There are very few "facts" in this the matter, and, a piori, very little can actually be said.

A priori we can say nothing - we are inventing a world here. However there is a large and growing amount of data we can use to draw a posteriori facts. Lots of games have tried PvP in lots of forms.

I would say that PvP works very well in Guild Wars and Dark Age of Camelot, which both contain areas of 100% non-consensual PvP. [Vital to the success of both these games seems to be that entering such an area is 100% consensual and that there is such a miniscule benefit to victory there that PvE people lose nothing but the ability to 'have a look around' those environments.]

Consensual PvP worked in Asheron's Call, in as much as there was a PvP-flag. Flagged and non-flagged players couldn't interact in almost any way so the only interfering issue was the spam, lag and kiddie-sp34k.

Where non-consensual PvP has been a dismal failure, for both players and company bank balance, we could take the prime example of UO. (Incidentally, this was where there was the initial brightest hope for some kind pf player police). I'm not sure if anyone who experienced this in any capacity, player/CSR/dev, has any fond memories of it. One of the few good things we can take from this is the warning it gives us when considering PvP in future cases, like this one.

However, the devs seem to have defined the path of SoR (which, in itself, is a good thing) and, no doubt, large-scale pvp will be introduced to SoR.

In and of itself I don't think having a defined path is a good thing. Like anything else, it is only good in so much as it helps produce good results. Sticking to a design just because 'because it is in the design docs' shows an extremely shallow way of thinking.

Iteration occurs in documentation and design just as it does in development. Our end-product, in game design, is hopefully 'fun for as many as possible' or something along those lines. If following a design is going to result in bad effects then it is the design that should be modified. Shouting, "but it was in the design, darn it!" isn't the way to reach a satisfactory product.

I completely agree that the way we are progressing at the moment it does seem that large-scale PvP will be introduced to SoR.

Personal opinion: Fun! Let's see how it plays out! Might be good, might be bad; only one thing is true indeed: we will not know untill we have tried.

Well, I agree, it might be good though I fear it might be bad. And another thing that is 'true indeed' is that we have a large and ever-growing amount of experience that should be a very good predictor to how it turns out without us having to risk all on just trying it to see.
[I started posting on this thread because of the financial situation of Nevrax and my love for Atys. I'm not convinced they have the money to allow themselves the luxury of finding the most controversial area in MMORPGdom and just "trying it to see".]

Faith is a nasty thing tho ... Im sure it turns out just fine tho.

Faith can be a nasty thing, it's what you have to fall back on when rationality fails. And I wholeheartedly agree with what you meant to say;
I fervently hope it turns out just fine.

[oauitam]

say theres a large PvE guild out there camping all supernode spawns, how are the smaller guilds ment to get some of the action? Like say large guild has 6 250 PR diggers smaller guild has 1 is it ok to let the big fish take everything? or can the smaller guilds / guilds with less 250 harvesters fight for a slice of the pie?
I know we can all dig up whats there then split it but it hardly ever works out that way unless ya got close guild ties and such. And say 1 guild has 1 person there another has 15 would the 1 get a equal share?
I know you think PvPers are forcing there style of play on you but it also feels to the PvPers that you are forcing your style of play onto them. Theres plenty of other places to goto non pvp for items ya need and such if you really dont want to take part in pvp at all. So you cant really say you are missing out of content. Cos in that sence i dont goto WL / US to dig sups cos theres patrols there and i have no intrest in fighting them so does that mean im missing out on content?
Atys is a big place there room enough for all styles of play imo.

I won't go into all the finer points of your argument (I've just spent far too long writing another post, sorry) but I can try and clarify some people's concerns.

(By the way, you came up with a great example of PvE infringing on PvP that I personally had never considered before. Thanks! For the record, I couldn't disagree with you more, but it's a great example.)

I think in this particular thread we have, for the sake of argument, tried to avoid addressing the issue of whether the current non-consensual PvP areas are a good or a bad thing. When people have got into specifics I think it has been in addressing the worry of worldwide PvP areas.

I am putting words into other people's mouths here but, the concern seems to be, if the whole of Atys is under the same rule system as Windy Gate then there isn't "room enough for all styles of play".

[Of course we don't know what the worldwide rules will be yet. All we know is that something PvP-ish will be worldwide. I think that's why we tried to stick to the topic of 'does ryzom need pvp'.]

[drizzeth]

Originally Posted by drizzeth:
Faith is a nasty thing tho ... Im sure it turns out just fine tho.

If you quote me please be so kind as to not take 6 words from a sentence about one subject and then 8 words from a sentence about a complete different subject as to generate a quote of something i never said in a context i never meant.

the original quotes:

For others: we are finally getting that outpost and kami/karavan story weve been told about since our first days of beta testing.

Faith is a nasty thing tho, we will see how many people come back to see part of the promises realised.

Same goes for the community after the pach, in the end we will see how it turns out. Im sure it turns out just fine tho.

Now they are back into their context.

Please use quotes in the context they are meant by the original poster, do not abuse them to make a collage of words fabricating a quote the original poster never meant, thank you