[MUD-Dev] A Question on PvP and PK

[John Buehler]

Ron Gabbard writes:

> PK switches, PK servers/non-PvP servers, PvP areas, etc...

> Some people point at the number of 'carebear' servers EQ/AC has
> versus the number of PvP servers as proof that people prefer
> non-PK environments.  However, if you go over to DAoC, most
> players consider RvR the 'best part of the game' and consider PvE
> a necessary evil in order to get to RvR.  They are both very
> successful games with very large and very broad player bases.
> However, they are contradictory 'proof' of the player's desire to
> participate in PvP combat.

> Why is it that 5% of the EQ players (slightly more for AC) want to
> participate in PvP combat while 95% of the DAoC players want to
> participate in PvP combat when the games are pretty similar with
> similar customer bases?

Because the fiction of a war between the kingdoms works far better
than the EverQuest and Asheron's Call guild wars model.  You can't
speak to the enemy and the enemy comes from a different geographic
location.  They look different, etc.  There is enough 'otherness' in
the fiction for me to look at PvP opponents as the enemy.  That
suffices for me to be able to go attack them.  Or at least defend
against them.

Although the folks at Mythic shut me off from two thirds of the
player base for socialization (which at first blush seems stupid in
the extreme), they gave me a reason to socialize with the one third
that I could talk to.  And exploration in the enemy realms wasn't as
easily accomplished as exploration in my own realm, so it added a
little extra something there as well.  Oddly, the inability to talk
to my opponents helped considerably in thinking of them as rough
equals.  Once a player opens his or her mouth, it frequently messes
up both my respect for them as well as the fiction of the game.

Which is not to say that Dark Age of Camelot is ideal.  Far from it.
I've let my subscription lapse.  The basic fiction of enemy kingdoms
simply doesn't hold together forever.  Just like the pretty graphics
keep players entertained for only so long, a thin fiction of enemy
realms only kept me entertained for so long.

JB

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