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

[Dave Rickey]

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

> Maybe somebody from Shadowbane of DAoC could address this?  If you
> aren't Ks, Why place as much emphasis, both in the game and in the
> face you present to the public, on PkP as you do?

Okay, keep in mind I'm not anybody particularly important here at
Mythic, just one of several designers.  So this isn't the official
explanation, just my perspective.

The very first reason is that the "Big Three" represent an apparent
aberration in online games.  UO ran into some scaling problems, that
caused PvP issues to be overwhelmingly dominated by "Griefer"
issues.  The good guys couldn't win, because the bad guys couldn't
lose, and it turned out that once you had *enough* griefers in a
single game, they could be just as organized as anyone else, if not
more so.

And once a community culture has formed, making any significant
change to that culture takes dramatic steps, tilting the game
environment *way* away from the currently dominant playstyle.  To
deal with the dominance of grief play, UO:R split the world between
open and restricted PK areas (not non-PK, but restricted).  This
"PvP = Grief" mentality was *extremely* strong, I don't think anyone
who wasn't an active participant in the discussions of the player
community at the time can really understand how completely polarized
the issue had become (and to a lesser extent, remains), between the
players who wanted PvP for various reasons, and those who declared
that PvP was just a front for wolves, trying to ensure a population
of sheep.

That was the background against which the "Big Three" were developed
or re-developed.  However, before that, most, nearly all, online
games had been *inherently* PvP.  Not just the earlier OLRPG's,
which were mostly only incidentally PvP environments, but things
like Air Warrior, MPBT, NetTrek, the list goes on.  Even the "Casual
Games" like online backgammon are played against other players, and
that was always their attraction.

So, at one level, you have a general trend with these glaring
exceptions, all of them stemming from a single causational focus.
If you can deal with that cause, neutralize it in future designs,
the trend *should* work for you, as compared to those who are
bucking the trend.

Next, there's the "Elder Game" issue.  Prior to UO, PvP in OLRPG's
was generally the province of the "maxed out" player, once you had
exhausted the PvE environment you turned to PvP to keep things
interesting.  In spite of efficiencies of scale, it has proved
impossible to keep up with the player's ability to consume PvE
content.  The very first step towards putting the players to work
entertaining each other is to integrate PvP.  There's an inherent
pointlessness to the PvE game, you get stronger to fight stronger
NPC's to get better loot to get stronger....  PvP potentially adds a
sense of purpose to the long-time player's world.

And the last is simply a calculated risk: Since we cannot hope to
match the resources of SOE/EA/MS at generating PvE content
(regardless of inefficiencies, they can simply outspend us by an
order of magnitude), our only hope to make a significant inroad into
their market dominance is to "hit them where they ain't," and
develop a PvP-integrated environment.  The "calculated" part of that
risk comes from the first two reasons.

--Dave Rickey

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