[MUD-Dev] Summary of PvP attempts?

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Neil Brown wrote:
> --- Matt Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:
 
>> This is the #1 reason why I have little interest in playing any
>> MUD that isn't based on PvP. It's also the #1 reason why PvP
>> games won't be as big. The average person is average not because
>> of some conspiracy to keep him down, but because his abilities
>> and knowledge are average. No one wants to be average.

> Those statements make it sound like you're trying to draw a
> correlation between people who don't want to play PvP and people
> with a substandard intellect.  I think it's a big mistake to
> assume that this is the case.  I don't enjoy playing PvP games -
> it's just not my style - and not to toot my own horn, but I also
> don't believe that I am intellectually challenged ( though, I
> suppose the argument can be made that most morons don't think
> they're morons either ;).  In my non-PvP EQ adventures, I've met
> plenty of interesting, witty and apparently bright people.  In my
> brief trips to the EQ PvP servers, I've met plenty of dumbasses.
> There's definitely something different between people who play PvP
> and people who prefer not to, but I don't think it's intellectual
> capacity or skill level.

I wasn't implying that. I am however implying that a PvP game is
more difficult to get good at, because the bar keeps raising
itself. I'd imagine advances in AI will change that, but it's not
close yet. No computer in existence is going to beat a skilled
politician in an election for instance, and in Achaea's case, for
instance, no one has written an AI that can fight even passably
well. They can defend, but they attack like jokes (defence is more
reaction whereas offence requires strategy).

In any case, I would say the average PvP player is more capable than
the average PvE player, at least in my experience, but that doesn't
say anything about an individual PvP player or PvE player, of
course. It's just that in most PvE games, the bar is set very
low. It's designed for everyone to be able to succeed. In a PvP game
on the other hand, there can be only one Jordan, and most people
can't be him no matter how much time they put in and how hard they
try. Big PvP success is just beyond most people's capabilities,
because it requires being better than many other people.

--matt

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