[MUD-Dev] Summary of PvP attempts?

[Brian Hook]

At 09:34 AM 6/12/01 -0700, Trump at vividvideo.com wrote:

> against a level 12 player.  None.  Even avid PvP/PK players choose
> to go "carebear" because the system is so utterly broken.

The system isn't broken, it's simply a by-product of trying to
extend a single-player advancement mechanism and making it relevant
in a competitive multiplayer environment.  Most RPGs emphasize
character advancement through the acquisition of items, levels and
skills.  This is how you progress.  Granted, this may be a
pig-headed stubborn old-fashioned way of doing things, but for
better or for worse, that's just how it is.

And if you accept the general notion of "the longer I've played, the
better I am because of in-game acquisition of skill and items", then
someone that is level 12 _should_ beat someone that is level 8
pretty much all the time.  If not, then that level 12 person is
going to be rather miffed (assuming she's not entirely incompetent).

Any game that depends on non-player skill (without being completely
random, a la roulette) is going to have this effect.  Skillful
players with unskilled characters will be upset that they're
defeated by unskilled players with skilled characters.

> The popularity of games like Quake and even Starcraft attest that
> players are certainly not disinterested in PvP where the sides are
> equal and everyone is there to fight.

Maybe it's time to coin the term "CvC" for "character-vs-character",
because that seems to be a different concept than PvP and mixing the
terminology really gets things confused.  Effectively, you're saying
that PvP aficionados dislike games that emphasize CvC competition
where character attributes matter more than player skill.

Quake and Starcraft and HL:CS and Tribes 2 etc. etc. all pretty much
depend on player skill modulated by the player's hardware and net
connection.  The character (as such as it was) didn't have any
intrinsic ability.  However, even in Quake's rather bizarre form of
persistence (acquiring and holding items/spawns) you would see other
players get severely pissed at camping or item hoarding (a typical
example: grabbing and holding onto a BFG and denying everyone else
access to it).  They would cry out "unfair! unfair!".

This is probably the same thing as a skilled Quake player
complaining that he should be kicking everyone's ass in Everquest,
which demonstrates that they completely miss the point of that
game's advancement dynamics (i.e. YOU don't matter, your character
does).

Brian Hook

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