Do we really need PvP?

[troll16]

I started playing this game about 4 weeks after the european server was live. It was a great game (pre-patch 1) and anyone that started a character before patch 1 had a real easy time leveling especially in craft. The game was a bit too easy back then, then it became too hard and now i'm not to sure where it is at this moment in time as I've only been back about 2 weeks.

But back to PvP, Playing another game for about 5 months which is on a PvP server. PvP is great in fact I would say it was the best part of that game, if it was not present that game would have become as dull as dish water very quickly. They try to make it a bit interesting by having mobs drop pieces of armor or weapons, basically a kind of reward system, but totally unrealistic.
It always make me smile when people talk about ganking in PvP. My characters in this other game have been killed many hundreds of times in PvP but I have only been ganked once it was for about 30 minutes but had a response from my sos. So ganking is not really a major issue as far as I can see, it happens but most players are mature enough to realise it serves no real purpose and does not promote PvP. The game I am talking about (most of you will know which one I refer to) is set up to be PvP from the start, and that aspect of it works well. With that game I play on a full server and even then it can take hours in some regions to find someone to engage in PvP with.

What this game has to offer is a good community, the fact you don't end up questing all the time and generally a far more relaxed feel to the game. PvP for bored high level players? Why? Just as easy to add new lands with different and far more deadly creatures which drop excellent or on occassions supreme materials. This game is about communication, exploration not just in walking the land but exploration in craft as well.

If this game was to put too much emphasis on PvP then the qualities of the game are likely to be lost. If I had to choose a game based on PvP, then I would choose the other game which was designed for it. But having said that we don't know what effect PvP will have in this game but I have to admit, it worries me. Not because I hate PvP, I actually love PvP, but because the uniqueness of this game is likely to be lost eventually.

[thebax]

Long answer:

I moved to this game from Shadowbane. In that game, once off newbie isle, if you leve the 3 capitols (and one Tree of Life in the middle of nowhere), it was all PvP, all the time. Ganking was constant, and unending. Play for an hour, and it was going to happen, usually more than once. Any who think tempers rise on these forums have no idea what they're talking about, at worst the posters here (at least in the English speaking one) get a little stiff if European, and annoyed if American. The forums for Shadowbane were typically filled with naked hate.

I moved to Ryzom specifically because of the lack of PvP. The promised diversity offered by being able to construct your own powers from stanzas never materialized, but that mattered little. The beauty of the lands was a nice bonus, even though a person cannot explore them on their own. Mobs of supposedly equal level were vastly more powerful than I. Didn't matter, as there was no ganking, no hate, which out-weighed all of that.

Admittedly, the producers of this game are new at this, and apparently under-staffed, as a decent crew, working a standard 40-60 hour week should have accomplished alot more in a years time, and they seem incapable of discerning bad advice from good, or applying the good advice when they do listen to it, but the one saving grace, the ONLY thing that makes me stay, and differentiates this game from others in a good way, is the lack of PvP. If they are so stupid as to make this game the same as all the others that are better designed, balanced, and populated, why would anyone join or stay in this one? I probably won't.

Short answer:

No.


OOC:

[philu]

Originally Posted by thebax

Short answer:

No.

I second that.

I also agree with your long answer conclusion.

[mrshad]

Originally Posted by thebax

Long answer:

I moved to this game from Shadowbane.

...

My experience tracks pretty much with Baxter.
I am tired of PvP...of building something up just to fight to keep it from being torn down. I thought for a time PvP could work in SoR, but I have been proven wrong. It is the same every where.

If you spend time working toward a goal, you become emotionally invested in it...good or bad, it is our nature to do so. When someone else can come along and stop or destroy your work, even in a virtual setting, you get upset. Again, right or wrong, that is what happens.

Strangely, if you are set back by an AI opponent, we get less angry. I don't know why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that we know there is no actual malice in the mob.

There are much greater things SoR could do than to morph into Gankfest:Atys.

[danadita]

NO.:^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^.^:.

[holina]

Last info I remember was that although the whole of Atys will be a PvP zone -- except for cities --, a flag would also be implemented so you could set yourself PvP enabled or not. (Or did I missread it, and it won't be flagged PvP?)

I'm not too keen on Ryzom PvP either, simply because I belive Ryzom isn't built for it. Mainly cause what we would have would be Character vs. Character and not Player vs. Player. A game where as you gain more power as you gain levels isn't good for PvP imho, cause what matters is your character and not your skills as player. Add to this that in Ryzom you can shoot and heal trough walls and that there is space targeting and radar and it only gets worse.

I think -- or at least hope -- what Nevrax is aiming for with Atys-scale PvP is that PvP/FvF/GvG events, happenings won't be limited to PR but could be done everywhere. It will be more fun both for those partaking and the people sitting around and munching popcorn when it's not like a duel (no well defined challenge time but only the possibility of being challenged, more risk, more adrenaline, more fun). That said, I still would like team challenge working (or is it working?)

Anyway, time will tell how things turn out.

[manya]

In short: No

In long:

Ryzom is unique for many reasons. One of them is the absence of PvP. With it added, this game will lose part of what makes it special. I personally don't care about PvP, as long as it doesn't affect me. Yet the talk about it being added worries me a lot. Because it doesn't sound like I will remain unaffected by it and if the PvP gets too annoying, I will lose the interest in Ryzom. That would be sad.

[xenofur]

Originally Posted by holina

Last info I remember was that although the whole of Atys will be a PvP zone -- except for cities --, a flag would also be implemented so you could set yourself PvP enabled or not. (Or did I missread it, and it won't be flagged PvP?)

not exactly, it'll work like this:
the whole of atys will be voluntary FvF, participation depending on a flag you set via a npc (at least that's what the letter sounds like)
some regions will be event-crucial and will contain forced FvF, no matter wether the flag is on or off, kinda like the roots now, but on a smaller scale probably (check near the frahar hunters)
added to that side will be chosen by your personal faction fame, you will be either kami, karavan or neutral
neutral won't be able to attack anyone, and thus will be saved some trouble, since only the griefers would care to attack thoseb but in that case neutrals will be able to retaliate

[asyne]

Literally: No
Ryzom doesn't need PvP in order to exist. It could even exist without PvE, being an entirely economically based game, with harvesters and crafters being the only classes. Or in contrast, it could exist without harvesting and crafting.

However...

Baron's Theorem
Hate is good. This is because conflict drives the formation of social bonds and thus of communities. It is an engine that brings players closer together

John Hanke's Law (cited by Mike Sellers)
In every aggregation of people online, there is an irreducible proportion of ... jerks (he used a different word :-)

You could just consider the dynamics of those two statements. <overstatement>People, in order to be adiquately motivated to act in a game, must be filled with either fanboy-esque desire or rabid loathing.</overstatement> But, there is a limit to the length of wanting to get something; being that eventually you will either get it, never be able to, or lose interest along the way. Example: why do we have Kami vs Karavan? Because the direct confrontation makes alliances - powerfully bound alliances - crystallize out of the otherwise apathetic playerbase. PvP allows players to continually have the goal of being "better than the other guy," either to survive or to win (or both). PvP is one of the few things that if not featured on an online game, creates something along the lines of a chat program with statistics; there is no motivation, because there is no need for survival. People will still want to get better, but the challenge will always be the same, and so people will feel no rush. So PvP creates a dynamic play experience that makes objectives meaningful and (to a certain degree) player-created.

Plus, PvP creates an alternative output to flaming on forums. A way to...

Originally Posted by lawrence

solve personal differences with another user

[grimjim]

Originally Posted by asyne

Plus, PvP creates an alternative output to flaming on forums. A way to...

No, it doesn't settle arguments it perpetuates them, heightens them and increases tension.

Conflict is good for story but it doesn't have to take place between players to be 'good' and the jerk factor is way too big.