The Permadeath of PvP (was RE: Hiding the Numbers (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.)

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Lee Sheldon <linearno at gte.net>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Mihaly
> Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 9:08 PM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: Hiding the Numbers (was Re: [MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.)

>>  I do not buy that explorers or socializers are necessarily in
>>  competition with each other.
 
> I agree, Matt.  The belief that all four quadrants are into
> competition is simply a killer/achiever way of looking at it.  I'd
> suggest that many of those currently working on commercial MUDs
> fall into the killer/achiever category, and share this opinion of
> explorers and socializers.  It might explain why we have a swatch
> of worlds coming out that emphasize PvP (DAoC, Shadowbane, etc.)
> despite the apparently low percentage of players who actually play
> PvP in current games.  The answer to the low PvP seems to be "They
> did it wrong.  We'll do it right."  I'd argue that no more than
> the same 20% or lower -want- somebody to do it right.  The others
> simply don't want PvP.
 
For what it's worth, I'm an EAK according to the Bartle Test, and
I'd say that Explorers are the majority around here.

PvP solves a *lot* of problems, the biggest one being the "Elder
Game".  Besides, it wouldn't just be boring making a bigger and
better EQ, it would be stupid (since we couldn't possibly match
SOE's content-generation resources, or their visibility).

There's hardly been a shortage of PvP in the history of either MUD's
or online games in general.  It was just that UO's problems
high-lighted how hard it was to get right when you scaled up, and
made a lot of players very gunshy about games that had it.

Even so, 10,000 (out of 70,000 total at the time) people tried to
log into the first EQ Racewar server.  A large minority in UO engage
in PvP on the Trammel facet through Guildwar and Order/Chaos.
33,000 signed up for our beta in the 5 days we were taking
applications (in spite of our reputation at the time as the
"invisible" game).  The *interest* is undeniably there.

It is not that players don't want PvP.  They don't want the
*aggressor* to control their play session, there's a difference.

--Dave Rickey

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