Re Moved: Re: [Meta] Re: [MUD-Dev] EQ RPG

[szii at sziisoft.com]

From: "Brian 'Psychochild' Green" <brian at psychochild.org>

> You can blame this on many things, probably.  Nerfs, short
> attentions spans, exodus of people going back to their previous
> characters on another game, etc.  From personal experience, I
> think one of the biggest problems is selfishness.  Evil is just
> sometimes too selfish to really work together.

Evil attracts the power gamers, for the seduction of power and
prestige.  In games, thus, the stronger "team" is usually the evil
team.  However, as time goes on, the evil players tire quickly if
the PvP ruleset is not good and they cannot kill people like they
want to.  Thus Good ends up winning simply by ignoring Evil, not by
triumphing, as Evils leave to seek more challenges elsewhere.

4 Good players against 4 Evil players will usually lose.  I say this
because the Evil players are of the proper combatitive mindset while
the people on the Good team are more roleplaying/PvE.  See, the Good
aspect looks down on PvP because it is, essentially, war.  PvP by
nature goes against the Good mentality.  PvP is an after thought for
many of them...enough to make a difference in battle.  "Good" people
don't fight.  They talk.  They work things out.  Obvious exceptions
to every rule, yadda yadda.

People choose evil for the lure of power, prestige, and the focus of
PvP.

I've seen it in every online game I've played, from the old BBS door
games to Tradewars (Door/Multi) to UO, EQ and AO.  I've not played
DAoC, so I cannot comment on that.  You can even see it in the
tabletop RPGs if you've ever dual-GM'd or run a "good vs evil" game
(put 4 players on each side, and move control of the big baddie to
the 4 evil players.

Sullon Zek, EQ, is an interseting server.  It's PvP, so everyone
knows that going into it.  However, you have the option of
Good/Neutral/Evil.

  Evil has the biggest populace.
  Evil has the most skilled players.
  Neutral is smaller, less skilled.
  Good is, well, sadly undergunned.

I've played chars on all three teams.  Even the Goods who CAME HERE
knowing/wanting/expecting PvP complain about it.  The Neutrals fell
way behind early on killing lowbies and PvPing.  The Evils, however,
levelled up.  They ignored a lot of (very very fun) low end PvP to
dominate the game.  People gave up "doing whatever it takes to win"
to have fun, to screw around, and to kill lowbies.  Now they while
all over the place about people on the Evil team being "bloobies"
(Blue servers = no PvP) because of the levelling.  However, Evil
dominates.  (There are a few other factors to the imbalance, but the
mindset is the key.)

The Evils went for power first, doing whatever it took to achieve
that goal.  That is what separates "Good" from "Evil" regardless of
the game/setting.  Watch what happens when, say: Star Wars: Galaxies
comes out.  I'd put money that the evil team will boost up fast and
dominate PvP.  And you cannot ignore PvP as it adds SO MUCH to the
game.  However, I've yet to see a game get PvP right/balanced and
attractive to all sides.  The closest I've ever seen is Startcraft
(which isn't really PvP) and AO actually was pretty strong in
balance but lacked in content and was/is full of bugs.....  Perhaps
Blizzard's MMORPG will get it right since they've got a strong
history of balance in their games and relatively smooth product
launches.

Only time will tell...

-Mike
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