As the discussion in the Prisoner's Dilemma thread seemed to be getting a bit off topic I decided to post here in response to some of the PvP discussion that was going on.
The debate seemed to be over whether or not PvP could be "meaningful". Some people claim that PvP will never be meaningful, others are saying that for PvP to be meaningful there must be some sort of painful penalty involved. I think the issue is that there are different PvP implementations and based on what a player wants from PvP they are more likely to be interested in one type over the other.
As I see it there are two major types of PvP in MMOs. The first is PvP as a sort of fun "mini-game" or an alternate way of spending your game time. The second is having PvP as a core gameplay element. There are several games with rulesets that offer the first of these, a few that offer the second, and a few more that fall somewhere in between.
The "mini-game" implementation is usually appealing to folks that want to PvP as a fun way to spend their time playing, mostly as a means of testing their skills against those of other players. You could call this "PvP for PvP's sake". There is typically a reward for killing others and very minimal consequence for being killed. Examples of games with this sort of ruleset are: WoW, DAoC, Guild Wars etc.
The PvP as a core gameplay element implementation is usually appealing to folks who enjoy PvP providing additional social interaction to their game. PvP implemented this way can add things like territorial control and politics. It can allow players the means to police their world and enhance social elements such as reputation by introducing consequences for one's actions. There are not many games that offer this type of play and typically those that do are fairly flawed in other respects. This is why you tend to find players who desire this type of gameplay bitching that there is no meaningful PvP in the first type of game. Examples of current games that include this are: Shadowbane, and EVE.
There are a few games that offer rulesets that fall somewhere in between. These are typically PvE games with a PvP element tacked on generally in the form of alternate ruleset servers. These types of games usually appeal more to folks who desire the second type of PvP games but tend to fall a bit short of expectations which again has these folks bitching about the lack of meaningful PvP. They usually incorporate a bit stiffer penalty for PvP actions than the first type but fall short of the well balanced risk/reward system needed for the second type. Example of games with these types of rulesets include: Everquest (the Zeks), Vanguard (PvP rulesets), Everquest 2 (PvP rulesets), Lineage 2, etc.
Which of these rulesets is better or more fun is wholly in the eyes of the player. WoW's PvP for example may not be very meaningful within the game world however as its aim is more as a mini-game or alternate means of gameplay it does exactly what it aims to do. For those who are looking for PvP to provide the fun of testing their skills against other players what WoW offers is more than adequate. Asking WoW to offer something more is pretty futile as it does exactly what it is designed to do and probably what the majority of the WoW audience is looking for.
My personal interests usually fall in with the second type of game. I want PvP to have a meaningful impact on social interaction within the games I play. I don't care about who I can kill. I feel PvP shouldn't really be about killing so much as about enacting consequences. The problem is that for this to work you have to have a good balance of risk vs reward. This gets pretty complicated when you take into account that the reward doesn't have to be something tangible within the game world. Some people simply like to kill others. So part fo the reward for these folks is the pleasure of killing someone else. Without any means to put this type of behavior in check these folks would ruin the game play experience of the rest of your population.
To counteract this players should be encouraged to care about their reputation within the game world. The easiest way to do this is by implementing some sort of fairly harsh penalty for dying. This can be anything from exp loss to item loot. It really depends on the way the game is designed. The most important part of this is that it has to affect all players equally with no means of avoiding the penalty. There can be additional consequence built on top of this such as reputation potentially affecting a person's guild as well. For instance in Shadowbane if certain members of a guild acquired a bad reputation, there was a high potential that another guild might burn their town to the ground. Thus the actions of individuals can result in consequences that affect the guild as a whole.
A huge problem with this type of game is that while harsh penalties for dying work fairly well once the game has been in action for a while, in the early stages of gameplay it can discourage large numbers of players from quitting. Folks who like to cause others grief for their personal amusement will not yet have reached the point where their reputation matters to them. If anything at this stage the fact that dying incurs such a large penalty will encourage these types of players to kill more than usual as they have more potential to cause grief. This is why most "hardcore" ruleset PvP games/servers tend to start out with a massive population and then see a huge decline in numbers over the initial gameplay period. Many find themselves upset over being the target of these types of players and quit before making it to the point where reputation becomes meaningful.
Once this initial phase passes if risk and reward have been balanced properly these types of games will allow for PvP to have a more meaningful role. *shrug*
The debate seemed to be over whether or not PvP could be "meaningful". Some people claim that PvP will never be meaningful, others are saying that for PvP to be meaningful there must be some sort of painful penalty involved. I think the issue is that there are different PvP implementations and based on what a player wants from PvP they are more likely to be interested in one type over the other.
As I see it there are two major types of PvP in MMOs. The first is PvP as a sort of fun "mini-game" or an alternate way of spending your game time. The second is having PvP as a core gameplay element. There are several games with rulesets that offer the first of these, a few that offer the second, and a few more that fall somewhere in between.
The "mini-game" implementation is usually appealing to folks that want to PvP as a fun way to spend their time playing, mostly as a means of testing their skills against those of other players. You could call this "PvP for PvP's sake". There is typically a reward for killing others and very minimal consequence for being killed. Examples of games with this sort of ruleset are: WoW, DAoC, Guild Wars etc.
The PvP as a core gameplay element implementation is usually appealing to folks who enjoy PvP providing additional social interaction to their game. PvP implemented this way can add things like territorial control and politics. It can allow players the means to police their world and enhance social elements such as reputation by introducing consequences for one's actions. There are not many games that offer this type of play and typically those that do are fairly flawed in other respects. This is why you tend to find players who desire this type of gameplay bitching that there is no meaningful PvP in the first type of game. Examples of current games that include this are: Shadowbane, and EVE.
There are a few games that offer rulesets that fall somewhere in between. These are typically PvE games with a PvP element tacked on generally in the form of alternate ruleset servers. These types of games usually appeal more to folks who desire the second type of PvP games but tend to fall a bit short of expectations which again has these folks bitching about the lack of meaningful PvP. They usually incorporate a bit stiffer penalty for PvP actions than the first type but fall short of the well balanced risk/reward system needed for the second type. Example of games with these types of rulesets include: Everquest (the Zeks), Vanguard (PvP rulesets), Everquest 2 (PvP rulesets), Lineage 2, etc.
Which of these rulesets is better or more fun is wholly in the eyes of the player. WoW's PvP for example may not be very meaningful within the game world however as its aim is more as a mini-game or alternate means of gameplay it does exactly what it aims to do. For those who are looking for PvP to provide the fun of testing their skills against other players what WoW offers is more than adequate. Asking WoW to offer something more is pretty futile as it does exactly what it is designed to do and probably what the majority of the WoW audience is looking for.
My personal interests usually fall in with the second type of game. I want PvP to have a meaningful impact on social interaction within the games I play. I don't care about who I can kill. I feel PvP shouldn't really be about killing so much as about enacting consequences. The problem is that for this to work you have to have a good balance of risk vs reward. This gets pretty complicated when you take into account that the reward doesn't have to be something tangible within the game world. Some people simply like to kill others. So part fo the reward for these folks is the pleasure of killing someone else. Without any means to put this type of behavior in check these folks would ruin the game play experience of the rest of your population.
To counteract this players should be encouraged to care about their reputation within the game world. The easiest way to do this is by implementing some sort of fairly harsh penalty for dying. This can be anything from exp loss to item loot. It really depends on the way the game is designed. The most important part of this is that it has to affect all players equally with no means of avoiding the penalty. There can be additional consequence built on top of this such as reputation potentially affecting a person's guild as well. For instance in Shadowbane if certain members of a guild acquired a bad reputation, there was a high potential that another guild might burn their town to the ground. Thus the actions of individuals can result in consequences that affect the guild as a whole.
A huge problem with this type of game is that while harsh penalties for dying work fairly well once the game has been in action for a while, in the early stages of gameplay it can discourage large numbers of players from quitting. Folks who like to cause others grief for their personal amusement will not yet have reached the point where their reputation matters to them. If anything at this stage the fact that dying incurs such a large penalty will encourage these types of players to kill more than usual as they have more potential to cause grief. This is why most "hardcore" ruleset PvP games/servers tend to start out with a massive population and then see a huge decline in numbers over the initial gameplay period. Many find themselves upset over being the target of these types of players and quit before making it to the point where reputation becomes meaningful.
Once this initial phase passes if risk and reward have been balanced properly these types of games will allow for PvP to have a more meaningful role. *shrug*
