See you in Ultima Online… no, Shadowbane… uh, DAOC… hey, SWG… wait, Horizons…. Vanguard?… Darkfall! YEAH! Totally see you in Darkfall, newb!

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Scott Jennings| 171 Comments

It’s nice to know that the rabid hardcore still exist, and still hate you.

So how do these games become more accessible to the drooling masses? Easy! Just implement grinding, level treadmills, restrict any and all competition whatsoever. These systems are intentionally in place to prevent anyone from over-achieving or failing. I recently saw a WoW ad that said “Come join 8 million heroes!” Suddenly every single player is automatically a hero? Essentially, most MMOs are designed so anyone can hop on a game, gain levels and pay $15 US per month for their instant hero status.

These designers don’t want to reward players for their achievements. They just want to make every mouth-breather who logs on think that they’re special, for fear that they’ll quit playing at any sign of disappointment. And even worse, they expect us all to be morons.

Ah, for the days when games violently punched you in the throat and dared you to keep paying them money.

The problem with hardcore PvP games is, as has been often said by myself and others, that while many think they are of the hardcore, few actually are. And while the spectre of being killed repeatedly with no recourse, your home sowed with salt and your guild banners used for tablecloths for the meal of human jerky you kindly donated to may sound nice at first, the bloom tends to fade from the rose when you realize that no, you’re probably never going to be the guys carving the jerky.

Which isn’t to say that Darkfall won’t TOTALLY ROCK YOUR FACE, because honestly I haven’t a clue. But the rhetoric from their fans sure looks familar!

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  • http://www.fourthfightergroup.com No.6

    KFS1 is right. If you want hardcore PvP go away from RPGs and head over to WW2O (or WarBirds or Aces High or Targetware or IL-2) and go fight people where there is no ‘grind’ or even level but only your own talent at doing 3d aerial geometry and energy management on the fly (pun intended).

    As everyone else has noted though, a challenge is not even vaguely like what the ‘hardcore PvPer’ wants. He just wants to abuse people while they pay for the privilege.

    Oh, and you want hardcore? The plural of ‘forum’ is not ‘forumae’ dammit (see the sidebar). It’s ‘fora.’ Pwned by Latin. :p

  • http://www.exanimus-guild.com Mist

    Personally, what I see from hardcore PvPers is that they just want a not-insignificant part of the gameworld that is open, dangerous, theirs to fight over, and not bound by any artificial rules of fairness. They don’t want to chase people out of the entire game, just have their not-too-little personal playground within it. And given how much time, money and effort certain game companies have spent on giving hardcore PvEers (raiders) their personal playgrounds within their worlds, I can see where hardcore PvPers feel slighted in those games.

  • kalain

    For the FPS analogy, I’ll bring you in to the typical Random FPS Server:

    Team 1:

    Pubbie 1
    Pubbie 2
    Pubbie 3
    etc etc

    Team 2:
    Clannie 1
    Clannie 2
    Clannie 3
    Clannie 4
    Pubbie 12

    Honestly kids, how often do you see people on an FPS server playing a random match go “you know what? This is an unfair team balance. I’ll switch away from ganking morons with my clannies and fight an uphill battle!” Hey, it happens. My tribe did it on our own server, but we recognized that the love of playing with each other meant that on an average public server, we’d end up subconciously stacking the odds in a way that we couldn’t lose.

    Why aren’t hardcore pvp MMOs very successful? Because you want me to pay $15 a month to sit around playing against a stacked deck with the only option to stack my deck more to win. Witness EvE, where the appropriate method of breaking a camp is to bring a bigger gate crashing party. Where any “huh, they’re pretty mean” is solved by “let’s bring more guns.” and eventually devolving into system cap reaching ship spam fests.

    Meaningful pvp is a fluid term that can only really be balanced in a population capped instanced form. Anything else means I can just bring four times as many people as you have and let that be my skill based system. And I don’t really think the hardcore pvpers want that (though they might not mind if their 8 people roll a solo pvper, at least none of them saw the parallels in daoc during it’s omg8v8omg heights)

  • JuJutsu

    Why do [b]companies[/b] spend time, money, and effort? To make money?

    “I’m not sure why anyone developing a large scale MMO – with all its attendant development costs – would choose to embrace only the skill engagement vector. Developing a game for only the TRUE hardcore isn’t exactly a well-worn path to profitability.”

    “This is because every sane developer has learned this lesson: griefing and ganking doesn’t just lose you the $15/mo from the person who was griefed. It has a multiplicative effect, creating an environment in your game, and a reputation outside your game, and people tend to steer clear.”

    Lord knows there are lots of options for PvP games. But the ‘hardcore’ is never satisfied. Why? IMO Isildur nailed it “Because the people who want fun competitive PvP are already playing fun competitive PvP, in GW and in WoW and in EVE. The people who want to gank are waiting for the Next Big Failure to come along, to let them grief noobs for a few months before it shrivels up and dies..”

  • Pacer Dawn

    In PvP situations, you have to have your winners and your losers. To make the game enjoyable for the hard core PvP crowd, they have to win more than they lose. But in order to do that, you have to have players who lose more than they win. Hands up, who wants to pay $15 per month to be owned all the time? You cannot have a server of nothing but hardcore PvP’ers who win most of the time, there has to be some losers who almost always lose. And that’s the problem. Nobody wants to pay to be the losers.

    CS, BFII, UT… these are all great examples of skill based PvP that people enjoy, but they have several major advantages over online MMO’s. You don’t have to pay a monthly fee to play them. You immediately have a team when you log on, rather than having to go looking for one or chance it solo. It’s one factor play-straight PvP only, and not a mix of PvP and character building. As others have said, the game world isn’t persistent. People get more powerful though skill in FPSs, not by items, which would not happen in an MMO (unless you removed all items, in which case what would be the point of having a persistent world?).

    And, the most important difference I think is that there is NO PENALTY FOR LOSING in an FPS. The losers don’t really LOSE anything, which the hard-core insist must happen to make MMOG PvP any good. When you lose in an FPS, you get right back in as if nothing had happened. If you want hardcore, you play the ladder and tourneys. But even then all you “lose” is the right to play the next winner, you can still jump into another non-ladder match and play away. No progress is lost at all, no real penalty to speak of. To be on par with modern FPS’s, losers in the perfect PvP MMOG would have to have no penalty for losing, but I’m pretty sure you be hard pressed to find any hard-core MMOG PvP pundit who would agree to that.

    In WoW, that is what you have. You have competitive PvP, with others of the same level, with winners and losers, in an environment where you can just jump into the next game. And, surprise surprise, there *is* skill involved. Yet, this author seems to think that is all bad for some reason (probably because everyone has a chance to win).

    The hard-core PvP’er thinks there is a market for hard-core PvP and thinks that nobody is trying to fill the niche, but the reality is companies are trying to fill it every day. I can’t name a current MMOG that doesn’t have some form of PvP in it. Some even dedicate entire servers to hard core PvP. Yet the hard-core PvP’er constantly finds fault with each attempt and complains again that nobody is trying to fill the niche.

    The only way to satisfy the hard-core PvP crowd is to find sheep who are willing to pay to sacrifice themselves for the hard-core player’s fun and not complain that the game is broken because they are not the ones always winning.

    Do that, and only then will you have your perfect PvP MMOG.

  • http://haven.thratchen.com isildur

    ‘I can’t say PoBS pvp is worth it, but hey nice to see at least one of their devs read lum’s blog.”

    I’m old-school biyotch

  • Axecleaver

    The positive feedback loop in pvp has to change. I’m talking about pvp rewards — skills, gear, whatever — that the winners get which makes it easier for them to win.

    This discourages those people like myself in the middle third of pvp skill. I’m good enough to beat the truly horrible players, but not good enough to beat the remotely competent. By the time I’ve got enough skill not to embarrass myself, I’m so far behind in the gear race that I can’t hope to compete.

    PvP rewards should be nonconsequential to actual pvp performance.

  • JJC

    Tuebit, you claimed that ladders some how gave FPS games a persistant type world. I was merely pointing out the flaw in that statement. Since you are still claiming that ladders in FPSs make it persistant that would then make chess a persistant game. Ladders are scoreboards and nothing more. The next game you play the score starts out zero – zero. In a persistant world each game would add on to the next so that losing by twenty would put you down twenty in the next game. This is not the case in a FPS.

    FPS games are based around the concept that the playing field is going to be leveled at the end of the match. This allows the designers to make things that wouldn’t fly in a persistant world due to the differences in such a world. You say they could balance the items out, and of course they would, but then it really stops being a FPS because the nature of the design has changed.

    Are there people who would enjoy a persistant FPS world? A few. Enough to make it economically viable at the going rate of online games? Not a chance. This gets back to my point about costs and the resturant analogy used in the article. When you are in a 5 star establishment you pay 5 star prices. So the question you must answer is how many people are going to be willing or able to pay 5 star prices to be served up as dinner for the other patrons? Who is going to pay to be the sheep for the wolves? Unlike a FPS, once you get behind you stay behind and nobody is going to pay Spago prices to eat McDonalds.

  • yunk

    But I think you could add rewards if you also add a competition class system. For instance in amateur auto racing there are various classes you can compete in. In Solo racing you even race street cars as a timed event, and the classes are based on whether you added things like bars to the frame under your car to add stability, etc.

    In a game, if you have so much of certain rewards already, you could get bumped up to the next class of competition, and fight others of that level. Perhaps, you could forgo those benefits and go down a level, but maybe the reward system would have diminishing returns to discourage that and encourage people to go up a level once they’ve won enough.

    This way players could get rewards but so would everyone else they’re competing against. Though that would break the “resets every time”. But if the classes were narrow enough, would that be good enough?

    Not really a tournament, just ranks really.

  • http://kfsone.wordpress.com/ Oliver kfsone Smith

    WW2O isn’t an FPS, it has FPS infantry play in it, but its a PvP-only simulation in which infantry are just one part, with armor, air and naval forces. It is “balanced” in the time-honored PvP tradition of rock-paper-scissors. You might come round the corner and find another infantry, or you might come round the corner and find a column of tanks. Heck, the first time you spawn in you might die before you’ve got your bearings to some 5in shell fired from a destroyer off-shore before you clicked “launch”. It’s that hard core.

    As for persistence… Its world is a map of Europe (1/2 scale) over which campaigns are fought – lasting from 4-20 weeks. Given that the game is solely PvP, persisting beyond where one side owns the entire continent would be kind of pointless :)

    But its a thorn in the side of the ‘hardcore’, because it is hardcore, not the namby-pampy carebear stuff of WoW and Eve with their healing and their shields etc.

    WoW and Eve aren’t “core” – they’re mainstream. WW2OLs PvP make’s Eves look like PvE. You want to kill that enemy tank? You have to put joules of energy into something explosive inside the vehicle. There’s no auto-aim, no guided missiles. You have to see him, you have to get the shot off at him, and you have to actually *put* the round where its going to hurt. Not some targetting system you bought.

  • http://antipwn.wordpress.com Requiel

    A couple of things I’d like to mention.
    Firstly, and I’m just throwing this out there as a little factlet, on the ‘hardcore’ PvP server for DAoC Europe, cheating was significantly more rife than on other servers. In addition the incidence of ‘go straight to permaban do not pass go, do not collect 200RPs’ cheating such as radar, fly hacks, speed hacks etc was much, much higher than on other servers. The levels of CS intervention for griefing, significant cheating and severe harassment were astronomical – especially given the lower average population and the more relaxed harassment rules in place. Now I’m certainly not claiming that every hardcore PvPer is automatically a cheating scumbag but, when you have a game where you can only really advance by winning against other players (which can be y’know, hard), then many players will go beyond a line that they probably wouldn’t cross in a PvE or PvP-lite game.

    Secondly, what is skill? Hardcore PvPers generally mean better twitch reflexes, the ability to mash the right buttons in the right order at the right time. If I’ve spent months networking to get invited to the most productive PvE raids and got better gear as a result or if I’ve made sure that all my friends are playing at the same time as me so your opted 8 man gets rolled repeatedly by me and my 47 friends then guess what? I’ve just outskilled you, adapt or die – now that’s hardcore.

  • Brian

    I really dont understand the view that the only desire of pvpers is to gank. I agree there is a playerbase that enjoys ganks, but i dont agree thats the whole of people who want pvp. I considered my self a pvper on Uo, but what i miss arn’t ganking, its the rivalrys between players.
    I played uo with a group and fondly rember retelling tales of pking, house looting, and later factions. Theres a quality that uo added to pvp (completly accidently) that i can most easly relate to grand theft auto, or oblivion, in that theres times that the random events that unfold tell a great story competly by chance.
    After playing wow for 2 years, i find i don’t enjoy listening to peoples storys. To try and make a point of all this: Im a gamer that is hoping that some game comes along that combines all the elements of the game to make a pseudo story to PvP
    I never really minded being ganked, the suspense I felt trying to place a house with 50 hours of work in my bag was worth it. Nor has any game matched the feeling of having killed a pk that killed you for months, turning is head in, and a nice 2 mill reward. Not that eather of these systems were that great in implementation, but they both had a hand.

  • Merlyn

    I think what we’re looking at is a griefer who calls himself a PvP’er. This person isn’t looking for a fair, even PvP fight, or even something remotely resembling it. He wants to be the cock of the walk and beat down everyone who comes around, and if he does lose a fight, he wants to be able to come right back and beat down the winner.

    I played UO on Siege Perilous, so I remember what it was like to huddle in a house with the doors locked while 20 reds surrounded the house looking for corners to cast spells on me through. They weren’t looking for a fair fight. If an equal number of blues showed up, they’d scatter and regroup to pick on them one by one. I was in Shadowclan and watched hordes of folks show up at our fort with dragons and min/maxed toons and equipment to beat down a bunch of RP’ers who wanted to have fun. Granted, we fought well and put up a good fight, but they weren’t looking for an even match. They wanted to win.

    And that’s what this RedMorgan wants. He wants to be a wolf. Unfortunately, without sheep, wolves starve.

  • Jessica Mulligan

    It has been pretty well established by experience that non-consensual PvP tends to drive away more players than it attracts from commercial MMOs in the West, for all the reasons noted in this thread. How many more examples do we need?

    The obverse of that is *not* necessarily that consensual PvP will attract more players to your game; it depends on the context of the consensual PvP within the game. Bad execution can kill any feature (if you’ll pardon multiple puns).

    I’m not even sure that what is wanted is pure combat PvP so much as opportunities to cooperate in competition; as GregC pointed out to me in a conversation not long ago, looking at it as “my guys versus your guys” is probably a better way of viewing it. That doesn’t necessarily have to take the form purely of combat.

    Just a thought…

  • Knurd

    Look at all the folks defending their negative-sum games. heh.

    Let the good times roll. Let them knock you around.
    Let the good times roll. let them make you a clown.

    Let them leave you up in the air.
    Let them brush your rock-and-roll hair.

    Let the good times roll.

    Your fucking margin doesn’t account for the mass; so, I’m sorry that you have to deal with it in a business-fashion, you fucking, hard-core, indignant, donkey-kongs.

    The entertainment industry has to cope with more than you. I’m sure you think your notions are special, but you are quickly becoming a minority, if you weren’t already. Negative-sum games simply drive away players, and in that, consumers.

    Your “realistic” or “challenging” mechanics are nothing, but unentertaining to the modern society. So, once again, you must figure out how nerdiness can get you laid, in a business sense. “Am I clever enough to get this person to play? Or, perhaps, can I make a game that you plug into and get return from? Otherwise, you diddle yourself, while ganking. Onanism; plain and simple.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love virtual worlds. I simply know that there is a place for them, and not much return of investment; provided:

    -you create a large, comfortable, newb environment
    -let those newbs attain an end-game that is reasonable and pleasant to a healthy economy (if you have an economy)
    -let the newbs talk to each other

    The folks who think the hard-core players are still driving the industry will be pressured in the future (or the now); when their player base is composed of those fidgety, fickle, folks who demand instant entertainment.

    “Virtual Worlds” will remain a niche, as they always have been; because people want entertainment, not alternate realities. They’re still too scared to step into that abyss.

  • http://www.f13.net sinij

    I also find it funny that so many years after UO people still nurture and cherish their favorite misconceptions about PvP. Its time to let it go, you no longer need to ‘protect your playstyle’ and lash out every time PvP is mentioned, nobody going to take away your gazillion of Diku spin-offs. We know PvP is not for you, we heard you first million times you frothed about it. You have to learn to accept fact that there will be things you disagree with and that they will exist regardless of how you feel about it.

  • http://www.f13.net sinij

    >>> It has been pretty well established by experience that non-consensual PvP tends to drive away more players than it attracts from commercial MMOs in the West, for all the reasons noted in this thread. How many more examples do we need?

    I disagree. What do you have for data? UO example that now over 10 years old? How about counter examples of SB and EvE? You make PvP title with open PvP to appeal to PvPers, you don’t make it to appeal to PvErs. Will it be niche? Yes, but what isn’t compared to WoW?

  • http://www.polarorbit.net Andrew Crystall

    Eve was fun for some years. I was a frigate pilot with a remarkable success ratio. In the Great Northern War, we fought for over seven months, scoring a massive kill ratio overall. And at the end? The people we defeated began planning how they’d get back. Despite losing so badly.

    Now, Eve is bleeding long-term players.

    There are, of course, reasons for this. The server’s lagged for large scale combat for literally years. I was there when a 200vs250 battle (BoB vs F-E/Allies and Shinra, in P3EN-E) had minimal lag. It then went downhill, and has stayed there.

    There has been grind introduced into the combat with starbases. Sitting around for hours in a huge ship shooting a starbase is both essential for a lot of things in Eve, and yawn-inspiring.

    And yet only NOW is it starting to decline, with a refusal to address any UI issues, UI bloat from an annoying “heat” mechanic (even for non-users of “heat”), and even more grind in the PvP.

    Hardcore PvPers are very loyal. It takes a lot to drive them away. Why do some companies *try*, when the game is partially pitched to them?

    Eve’s slow burn success, in the past, is something to look at with interest. (For reference, very few of the old PvPers care about the CS “scandles” because faith in the impartiality of CCP and their CS is near-nonexistant for years among them in any case… oh, that says something too…)

    I personally gave up Eve a year ago because yet another font change made it actively painful for me to read. Hint to other games companies: PLEASE check your game on common CRT’s as well as TFT’s.

  • http://www.exanimus-guild.com Mist

    “It has been pretty well established by experience that non-consensual PvP tends to drive away more players than it attracts from commercial MMOs in the West, for all the reasons noted in this thread. How many more examples do we need?”

    WoW has plenty of non-consentual PvP, more than half the servers in the US Europe Korea are PvP servers, which are pretty much open, non-consentual PvP in 95% of the areas past level 20, and in everywhere but the capital in the expansion. So you can’t say non-consentual PvP drives away THAT many people, as long as the penalty for death is only a few minutes of your time.

    “I’m not even sure that what is wanted is pure combat PvP so much as opportunities to cooperate in competition; as GregC pointed out to me in a conversation not long ago, looking at it as “my guys versus your guys” is probably a better way of viewing it. That doesn’t necessarily have to take the form purely of combat.

    Just a thought…”

    This part is very much dead on, however. This is why so many of the most hardcore, oldschool, whatever you want to call them, PvPers are playing… Astro Empires right now, either on the side or as their main game. A game with no combat controls, just building and assigning fleets and entirely strategy and resource management and politics.

  • JuJutsu

    What do they have for data?! jeebus, these are people that make and run games, they have data coming out the wazoo. And once again, its not about PvP it’s about FFA PvP.

  • =j

    Full disclosure: I do not PvP. I am no good at it. Therefore, I do not enjoy it. I avoid games that place a strong emphasis on PvP. I tend to quit games that incorporate PvP into their character progression post-release.

    I feel that I need to point out a counter example to the “no one wants to be sheep” argument. DAoC. Assuming the three realms are balanced, RvR gives any one person a 66% chance of being on the pwnd end of the stick. Sometimes you are the zergball, but usually you’re the bug. Yes, there are the uber 8-man groups. Or FotM uber stealth build. Or guys that just have godlike ability / coordination / dedication. But for J. Random Player, you will lose more than you win.

    Naturally, this is just in the theoretical perfect world of game design. In practice, servers tended to differentiate until one realm ruled the other two with near-impunity. The “losers” migrated to different servers, if not entirely different games.

    And on the gripping hand, the punishment for “losing” is much lighter in DAoC than even the lightest “hardcore” PvP standard.

  • kalain

    Using SB and EvE as examples of commerical success in the current (heck, even just before WoW) market is silly.

    They’re niche games. I may LIKE eve (pos mechanics aside), but they’re not leading the charge.

    WoW’s the most successful pvp game, but can’t that be from the fact that pvp in wow is meaningless fun? Killing someone doesn’t hurt them in any way, and barely benefits you. The complaint from the initial post seemed to be that WoW wasn’t really a hardcore pvp game, which I’d agree with.

    EvE is. EvE has a very small playerbase in the grand scheme of things. They did a great job of growing their name and making a great game, it just lacks mass appeal. I know a lot of people who would play it if it didn’t have 0.4 and lower systems, too. But EvE’s economy would Break on a pve server.

  • http://www.corpnews.com Andrew Crystall

    Kalain, are you aware of Eve’s subscription numbers? (165K, off a peak of 175k, as last I recall) It’s not WoW, but neither is it niche (Niche is ATITD and Star Sonnata).

    And I was fairly good at WoW PvP. I just found it boring.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Cyndre

    I actually think I have read each of these 72 comments before 30 times each in the past ten years. The arguments are the same, the venom is the same, and the absolute nostaligia of times gone by is the same. Hell I remember EQ and UO with fondness and regret, but my memories very infrequestly conjur up the absolute trash I had to endure. Corpse run, ganking, item loss…

    Times change, the industry evolves and the market expands. Good things in my opinion, but the ‘hardcore old school’ vs. the ‘carebear new school’ debate has grown so tired and is more regurgitated than a flys dinner.

  • Red Morgan

    I appreciate the reply and feedback on this blog, even though not all of it was very constructive.

    First off, I was writing my article with disenfranchised MMO players in mind. I know that if you’re looking to make money, another EQ clone or Korean grindfest is the way to go. The intent of the column was to muster up support in the community so we can make a skill-based open PvP game profitable, particularly our champion– Darkfall. I think it’s time for us to grow out of the mind numbing gameplay that is the standard for most games today.

    I think it should be noted that many of us don’t support a game that allows us to victimize other players, so much as we want to have an environment of good sport and competition. Some of us remember the meaning of the “game” part of MMORPG and want something more than what amounts to a graphical chat room.

    Sorry so many of you took offense to the mouth-breather part! lol

  • LanMandragon

    I will respond to the OP since trying to wade through all of these would simply be far to difficult. The OP say’s “And while the spectre of being killed repeatedly with no recourse, your home sowed with salt and your guild banners used for tablecloths for the meal of human jerky you kindly donated to may sound nice at first, the bloom tends to fade from the rose when you realize that no, you’re probably never going to be the guys carving the jerky.” The fact of the matter is that there IS recourse in a full pvp and full loot sandbox world like Darkfall. There is NOT in a world like WOW with fast respawn no consequence PVP.
    Your options are manyfold. You could respawn, reequip, and kill and loot the player that killed you. You could take out a bounty on his head. You could go to War against his guild and take their city. You could, if you were politically inclined, weasel your way into getting either the player or their whole nation KOS.
    The reason that you feel that you are “human jerky” and that there is “no recourse” is because you have been indoctrinated into this WOW clone mentality, where there IS NO RECOURSE. What we as PVP’ers want, is a world in which there is consequences to our actions. It’s not about griefing, it’s not about spawn camping, its about having the option to have recourse against those people doing those things, about having the freedom to decide who we want to kill, when we want to kill them, and how we want to do it.

  • Sullee

    What strikes me is how much elitism has poisoned MMO design. It is a negative force and ultimately drives away customers.

    It is pretty easy to take pot-shots at the self-proclaimed (lol) hardcore PvP’er. We know (and did back in the mud days) that wolves only get off killing sheep. Which to refute a post above me.. yes, it IS about griefing.

    IMO the core of the issue is this elitist mentality which the genre has catered to and even supported. Worse than in PvP is raiding which in a game like WoW involves devoting an inordinately large amount of developer resources to an insignificantly small percentage of the player population. A major result of this is the validation of an elitist pecking order that was poorly designed years ago.

  • Sullee

    What strikes me is how much elitism has poisoned MMO design. It is a negative force and ultimately drives away customers.

    It is pretty easy to take pot-shots at the self-proclaimed (lol) hardcore PvP’er. We know (and did back in the mud days) that wolves only get off killing sheep. Which to refute a post above me.. yes, it IS about griefing.

    IMO the core of the issue is this elitist mentality which the genre has catered to and even supported. Worse than in PvP is raiding which in a game like WoW involves devoting an inordinately large amount of developer resources to an insignificantly small percentage of the player population. A major result of this is the validation of an elitist pecking order that was poorly designed years ago.

  • http://www.anvilsociety.com/splash.php Brilliant

    Sure, there is no example of a successfull competitive game on the market. Quake, street fighter, counter strike, starcraft etc arent competitive games with 20% of the player ruling 80% of the others and they arent successfull and arent played by millions of users daily.

    Exactly.

    There is a staggering piece of the overall gaming market that grindfest MMORPGs just do not appeal to. Generally gamers play multiplayer games to, you know, compete!

  • JuJutsu

    “What we as PVP’ers want, is a world in which there is consequences to our actions.”

    Such a world exists; its called the Real World. And the consequences of your actions are that most of us don’t show up. And apparently it doesn’t take long for the sheep in wolves clothing to bail out. And then there’s not much money to be made and the people that make games focus on PvP that doesn’t drive away customers.

    So who’s left out in the cold? That fraction of PvPers that demand “… the freedom to decide who we want to kill, when we want to kill them, and how we want to do it.”

    Tough luck sport, welcome to a world with consequences.

    But not to worry, there is RECOURSE! You’ve been indoctrinated into believing that you are an oppressed group. Not so. Your options are manyfold. You can convince a venture capital fund or an Angel Investor, or an entertainment companyto give you millions of dollars to create a game just like you want. Put together a presentation [remember the 10/20/30 rule] and start polishing your elevator spiel.

  • Zornath

    Regardless of where one stands on this issue, it’s an important debate to have. Myself, I think the most important thing to remember here is that an entirely open PvP environment has not yet been tested in the current gaming climate. The closest we have is EVE online (and some private Ultima servers), which is doing well enough, and is certainly a quality game, but I’m certain is hindered by the fact that most gamers want an actual WORLD to walk around in (which is why I quit). I’ll admit that I found the rhetoric of RedMorgan’s column a little on the hostile side, since I think there is a very strong and LEGITIMATE market for games like WoW. I myself find them boring and repetitive, but I can see why many like that sort of game. Obviously they do, since they’ve voted, en masse, with their wallets.

    But anyhow, the point I’m trying to make here is that it’s kind of pointless to apply any grand theories to games such as Darkfall (although fun and sometimes even rewarding intellectual exercizes), without first admitting that they are pure conjecture. Personally, I think every gamer should be praying for a successful Darkfall release so we can see how their concept will work. People speak about it just being a place with a few hardcore wolves, and a bunch of sheep who get frustrated and inevitably quit. While that may well happen, I’d like to at least find out if that theory is correct. Personally, I agree with LanMandragon that Darkfall will provide a world where actions have consequences, and where every player will be able to find a way to defend themselves, be it through combat or guile. Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing Darkfall in action, because, regardless of the outcome, the world of online gaming will be better for it.

  • http://www.darkfallonline.com Draugh

    And yet, judging from the number of people who flock to Darkfall, it’s a style of gameplay that people still do find appealing because it can’t be found anywhere else due to terrible game developer decisions and incredibly whining by the vocal minority who constantly taunt devs with “If this game demands player skill, I won’t buy it”. Of good PvP games, EVE comes close, but the real-time skill progression is a large time sink that I hope Darkfall rectifies. As much as people bemoan the bloodthirsty PK’s of UO, I’ve seen griefing there and I’ve seen griefing in WoW, and the griefing in WoW was 1000x worse because you have absolutely 0 recourse, especially if someone is on your side. If someone camped you, you either spirit rezzed (effectively useless for 10 minutes) or you logged out for a while. What kind of game experience is that? Is it fun spending most of an AV match fighting alone against the enemy while 1/4 or 1/3 of your team is AFK in the cave? Is it fun running the flag in WSG while a hunter runs near you with Aspect of the Pack on typing “lol!” again and again? All the restrictions that game devs put it to ‘prevent griefing’ only work to make griefing more viable than ever.

    WoW’s PvP was never fun, WoW’s PvE was never fun. The game as a whole was terrible simply because it totally removed any semblence of skill by simplifying it’s combat system to the point where any idiot could play it effectively. And the worst part is that game developers seem to think we like this style of gameplay! I don’t consider myself skilled playing any of WOW’s classes, or any other classes in other games, because I know what I can and can’t do, and rarely do I have many options at all. In a situation, I either have 1 option, or 0 options. Bo. Ring.

    Protip: If you feed someone shit for 10 years, they’ll eventually adopt a taste for shit. Some will eventually forget what real food tastes like and begin to crave shit, and they will swarm through the known metaverse devouring all the shit that is spewed at them. Some will return to shit that they prefer. But it doesn’t change the fact that some of them, when faced with a t-bone steak, will recognize it as superior to the shit, and they will enjoy it. Darkfall, to the hardcore PvPers, is that t-bone steak. For some people, that t-bone is WoW, or EVE, or WAR, or AOC or whatever else is made/popular. The rest will continue to look for their steak.

  • Red Morgan

    “Tough luck sport, welcome to a world with consequences.”

    Well it is tough luck when an industry fails certain consumers. I don’t know why you’re so smug about the fact that a solid base of gamers have been neglected. Enjoy the glory of the Uwe Boll-esque quality of games like Vanguard, while I have nothing to play. Winrar!

  • John Moore

    “Protip:If you feed someone shit for 10 years, theyll eventually adort a taste for shit.”

    I’m no expert, and I enjoy the discussions here. But I have to responde to this statement. It is without a doubt the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The consumer knows when they are being fed shit. If you think people can’t decide what is fun and what isn’t fun, you live in a fantasy world. It doesn’t matter if anyone here likes or hates WOW, but it doesn’t have the numbers it does because people are trained to like the taste of shit. The consumers are having fun with it. You seriously underestimate people if you say they don’t know what they like.

  • kalain

    I find EvE’s subscriber numbers to be wierd if you play it.

    It’s exceedingly common for people to have 3-4 accounts, because “leveling” is one per account, you can’t effectively have a combat character and an industrial alt on the same account.

    I will say it’s niche. Niche doesn’t mean 20k players, it just means it’s a small subset of the overall market. Caters to a relatively minor playstyle.

    I LIKE eve, I just think it’s not anywhere near a mainstream game even if they did do a wonderful job increasing their playerbase.

  • Merlyn

    Your options are manyfold. You could respawn, reequip, and kill and loot the player that killed you. You could take out a bounty on his head. You could go to War against his guild and take their city. You could, if you were politically inclined, weasel your way into getting either the player or their whole nation KOS.

    riiight. That didn’t work in UO, the griefers left the field before the anti’s arrived, or they simply ganked the heck out of the few antis that did show up. The griefers never travelled in small groups, they were always in a mob.

    Or, in WoW, you’d beg for help and maybe two people would show up…or, if you liked Southshore/Tarren Mill the folks that did show up just turned the whole zone into a war and made it impossible to actually fight.

    Full PvP systems work when things are fair…like in an FPS, where there is no real way to get a permanent inherent advantage other than skill. In an RPG, where character skills and equipment play a role in PvP, there will always be someone stronger and more powerful who will prey on the weaker.

  • http://gawain.diaryland.com Gawain The Blind

    Draugh:
    Protip: If you feed someone shit for 10 years, they’ll eventually adopt a taste for shit. Some will eventually forget what real food tastes like and begin to crave shit, and they will swarm through the known metaverse devouring all the shit that is spewed at them. Some will return to shit that they prefer. But it doesn’t change the fact that some of them, when faced with a t-bone steak, will recognize it as superior to the shit, and they will enjoy it. Darkfall, to the hardcore PvPers, is that t-bone steak. For some people, that t-bone is WoW, or EVE, or WAR, or AOC or whatever else is made/popular. The rest will continue to look for their steak.

    Did you ever know that you’re my hero, and everything I would like to be?

  • http://haven.thratchen.com isildur

    “incredibly whining by the vocal minority”

    NINE. MILLION. PLAYERS.

    kthx. Bye.

  • http://thenoobcomic.com Gianna

    I believe that there is a viable market for a ffa pvp game that will attract more than people who miss Minoc miner jerky and chanting about azzrape outside the gates of Trinsic. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but simplifying ffa pvp to a wolf v sheep scenario where the sheep leave in droves causing the collapse of a server reveals some ignorance of the actual demographics/politics of pvp servers. You’ll usually have:

    1 – pks/pk guilds who level as fast as they can at first to get ahead of the pack and then kill them at their hearts content.

    2 – ‘good guys’, usually large guilds/alliances that have a small core of dedicated players who can keep up in level/gear/skill – busy protecting large numbers of followers, who find safety in numbers and zerg tactics a viable alternative to getting slaughtered as soon as they leave town.

    3 – ‘visitors’, i.e. people who dip their toe in the ffa server and- after getting ganked by Azzr4p3r and Supafly a few times – decide that if you don’t succeed the first time, then skydiving and ffa pvp are not for you.

    4 – ‘pregamers’, i.e. the people who live in the forums of ffa pvp games before they are released (the ‘shadowbane community, the ‘darkfall community’), using them as wishing wells for all the things that they’d like to see in the game of their dreams – and can we please have infernal ponies that fart fire? and viking ninjas? Also, they tend to have a completely distorted idea of how a ffa pvp server actually plays out and tend to outdo each other in outlandish requests for a game as hardcore as possible – asking loudly for permadeath, or possibly for people who break into your house and punch you in the throat every time you get pked in game. Once the game is out most of them become type 3 players and are never heard of again (until a new ffa pvp game is announced and forums are made available).

    and last but not least, unfortunately, you have:

    5 – players who are very talented at finding bugs and hacks that they can exploit to get ahead, and who actually make it their life’s mission to do so – often starting from closed beta. As long as it’s something moderately annoying like bunnyhopping, jump healing etc., most people deal – but when it’s a gamestopping massive gold dupes like in SB (and I heard that the same dupe bug resurfaced in Vanguard) then other players start leaving.

    There are enough people of types 1, 2 and – again, unfortunately – 5 to make a ffa pvp game financially viable (although niche) as long as it avoids the pitfalls that kill pvp servers:

    A. Game-breaking exploitable bugs.
    You can design the most fun game in the universe, but if a very small number of players finds a bug that gives them an insane advantage on everyone else, and it doesn’t get fixed fairly quickly, people will leave. There’s no bug/hack free game, but there’s a limit of tolerance past which people will take their custom elsewhere.

    B. Lack of turf worth holding/conquering/defending/destroying
    This is what killed Andred/Mordred in my opinion. You can camp bridges or run around the map hoping to meet someone you don’t like only for so long before what’s on TV becomes more interesting. FFA pvp players like to be territorial and are passionate about games where they can fight over turf. Especially “good guys” guilds. See how different it is from your black and white picture of ‘sheep v wolf’? See also how this kind of gamestyle is NOT catered for by W0W-style pvp (and mind you I’m not slamming it, I like arenas, but WoW pvp and ffa pvp are like apples and oranges). SB had it right on this regard, they had excellent understanding of what people want about territory, unfortunately it was implemented so badly that people left because of (A).

    There are other things that will tick people off, such as poorly thought out death consequences (either too light or too heavy), being unable to talk mad shit in tells, shout, ooc, etc. to all and sundry, skill/class balancing and so on, but I think that what I listed above as A and B are the main causes of ffa pvp servers’ untimely death.

    Darkfall is already going to avoid B by design, if they avoid A I think that there will enough people to make it successful (even if way less than for mainstream pve/lite pvp games).

  • BloodyViking

    I think this is a very interesting debate even though some people seem caught in the past.

    When I first saw Darkfall’s list of features I thought “WHOW! FINALY!” but that feeling sombered somewhat after reading up on the game’s history and rumors of being near vaporware. 10/10 for vision 1/10 for execution.

    I think much of the debate so far has been people defending their PvP-lite gamegrinds and how the PvP centric games are not economicaly viable. Personaly I started laughing when Jessica used the term “non consensual pvp”. It just seems so constructed and artificial, sorry.

    PvP centric MMOG might be considered a niche product, thats fine. But there is no reason why it shouldnt be economicaly viable. The problem that seems to be festering in the MMOG genre right now is poor technical planing and poor management. After 10 years the technical solutions and server stability issues should have been resolved. I dont care about top notch graphics so much as I care about gameplay and sound technical solutions.

    The genre needs to get a kick in the ass out of the WoW-ditch and start making new games with depth and meaning. We need to get more games with different aproaches to gameplay and character development. A game developers main goal should always be to make the best possible game, not the game that brings in the most $. Because if your game ends up being great, you might still make the big buck.

    I’m crossing my fingers and toes for Darkfall being released, but I’m not holding my breath. I just wish more companies could think outside the box and try to focus on making good games first, instead of following the holy $.

  • Merlyn

    I just wish more companies could think outside the box and try to focus on making good games first, instead of following the holy $.

    Not gonna happen. No money in it, and any public corporation in the US is required by law to focus on giving their shareholders the highest rate of return on their investments.

    Now, if some insanely wealthy private individual decided to blow money on a losing investment over a long period of time, a non-standard game might get published, but that’s highly unlikely.

  • http://thenoobcomic.com Gianna

    Sorry for the upcoming numbered lists, I work as a tech writer and it’s destroyed me – I can only think in lists now.

    I believe that there is a viable market for a FFA PvP game, that will attract more than just the few nostalgics who miss Minoc miner jerky. The reduction of ffa pvp to a wolf vs sheep scenario where the sheep leave in droves causing the server to collapse ignores the actual demographics/politics of a ffa pvp server.

    You’ll usually have:

    1 – pks/pk guilds who level as fast as they can to get ahead of the pack, so that they can turn around and peekay it when they max out.

    2 – “good guys”, usually large guilds/alliances that have a small core of dedicated players trying to keep up in level/gear with (1) – protecting large numbers of less effective followers, who find safety in numbers, zerg tactics and the warm, fuzzy feeling of being the guys in white hats a viable alternative to getting slaughtered while on their own.

    3 – “visitors”, i.e. people who dip their toe in the ffa pvp server and decide – after getting ganked by Azzr4p3r and Supafly at the town gates – that if you don’t succeed the first time, then skydiving and ffa pvp are not for you.

    4 – “pregamers”, i.e. people who take permanent residence in the forums of ffa pvp games before their release (the “shadowbane community”, the “darkfall community”), using them as wishing wells for all the things that they’d like to see in the game of their dreams – and can we have infernal ponies that fart fire? And underwater viking ninjas? They don’t seem to have a clear idea of how ffa pvp actually works, because they outdo each other in outlandish requests for a game as hardcore as possible, where death in pvp results in permadeath of your character, or possibly where masked men break into your house and punch your grandmother every time you lose a fight. Once the game is eventually released, they quickly become type 3 players and disappear – until a new ffa pvp game is announced and makes its forums available to the public.

    5 – the enemy no. 1 of any game, i.e. the guys who make it their life’s mission in finding out any possible bug/hack/exploit that will give them an advantage.

    Even after 3 and 4 have left, you should still have enough players of type 1, 2 and – unfortunately – 5 to make a ffa pvp game financially viable.

    So what kills ffa pvp servers? I think that there are two major culprits (but I can’t resist putting them in another list! Somebody help me):

    A – Gamebreaking bugs/hacks/exploits
    No game is bug free, especially at release – but while most players will grudgingly put up – or sometimes enthousiastically embrace – minor stuff like bunnyhopping, perching on “unreachable” roofs, etc. they’ll tend to cancel their subscription if their enemy suddenly seems able to dupe insane amounts of gold or teleport their towns underwater.

    B – No turf worth defending or conquering
    FFA PvP players are very territorial, for the simple reason that fighting over turf is more fun, and for longer, than running around the world at random in the hope that you’ll meet someone you don’t like with their pants down. This is what killed Andred/Morded, probably. It’s also what ensured the long-standing success of AC1 Darktide, where guilds clashed for town control. Shadowbane had the right idea, but it was brought down by (A).

    There are other things that will tick players off, such as balance issues, or not being able to talk mad shit to their adversaries, or death penalties that are too light/too heavy, but I believe that it’s mainly (A) and (B) that make ffa pvp servers wither and die – rather than the exodus of the gankees. If there are turf wars and not too many bugs, you should have enough players even after that. Darkfall already promises (B) by design, if they can make the game solid enough to avoid (A) they have a good chance of making a financially viable game, never mind that it’s niche.

  • BloodyViking

    “Not gonna happen. No money in it, and any public corporation in the US is required by law to focus on giving their shareholders the highest rate of return on their investments.

    Now, if some insanely wealthy private individual decided to blow money on a losing investment over a long period of time, a non-standard game might get published, but that’s highly unlikely.”

    I guess that might be the core problem in the gaming industry right now, same as Hollywood. Creativity is spurned and suppressed if falls outside the industry “standard”. And it falls to outside forces to broaden and redefine the “standard” time and time again. While the mainstream industry only exploits something that has already been successfully (financialy) done.

    From a business standpoint I can understand the risk vs reward argument. But from a game developers viewpoint it must be a nightmare. Rehashing the same old shit with zero room for creativity must be depressing (unless the job pays so well it doesnt matter).

    Hopefully someone will have the balls and the means to try new things in fun new ways before I die of utter boredom.

  • Surly

    I am totally going to rock your face.

  • http://www.darkfallonline.com Tasos F.

    We can keep the “hardcore pvpers” out of our games by designing around them. They will test your design and technology to the limit therefore they need be cut out, segregated, or treated as a marketing afterthought when market saturation is achieved. It’s their own fault after all, they’re asking for too much.

    It’s a real challenge to create a game that can handle every play-style within its’ context. When a group of game developers decide they’re going to make a violent MMOG (most are) they make the conscious decision of not allowing their users to challenge each other freely. It has little to do with the users themselves.

    So we can keep blaming players for design and technology shortcomings and instantly labeling – (therefore limiting) games trying to cater to a wider audience as “hardcore”. But how is that progressive?

  • JuJutsu

    From Raph Koster’s post about a managing director at an investment bank at the casual gaming conference…

    “Why the interest? Because it looks like these are games that draw recurring revenue from mass audiences, as opposed to drawing recurring revenue from hardcore audiences or no revenue from mass audiences. And costs are low. He specifically says that the Holy Grail is not World of Warcraft, because it’s too small and based on subscriptions.

    Heydon’s slides are available here (PDF). One slide claims that in 2007 there were over $135m raised for this sort of project, and he lists some of the ones that raised the most money. Even scarier, he projects almost a half a billion dollars in acquisitions happening in 2007. Yikes.

    So what’s the Holy Grail in his opinion?

    MySpace YouTube Maple Story Skype Habbo Hotel = 100 million users.”

    The suits with the big bucks don’t want another WoW because it’s too small? Recurring revenue from hardcore audiences [not just FFA PvP types but also the hardcore PvE players] isn’t enough? The FFA PvP market that some claim is economically viable turns out to be a rounding error to the suits.

    Your best hope is with a rapidly advancing technology that drives costs way down so that you get the ‘long tail’ of small niche games. I may be forced to join you; I’d rather get ganked by Azzr4p3r than check into Habbo Hotel ;)

  • http://www.exanimus-guild.com Mist

    “MySpace YouTube Maple Story Skype Habbo Hotel = 100 million users.”

    This is getting stupid. That’s pretty much not a video game, thats like comparing apples and oranges. Maybe its good though, people can go making their social spaces, based on the outstanding lie of the Second Life success story, and other people can make big expensive violent games about being the snot out of other things and each other. Considering the movie industry is dominated by large, expensive, violent movies, I really doubt that market is going to dry up in video game entertainment.

  • http://kfsone.wordpress.com/ Oliver kfsone Smith

    “What we as PVP’ers want, is a world in which there is consequences to our actions. ”

    But not so keen on having to deal with the consequences of 200 other people’s actions.

    The basic premise of “core” PvP is that consequence = control. ShadowBane, some have argued, allowed entirely too much consequence – burn your house down and salt the earth it stood on so you can never restore it. Eve, some argue, allows tedious consequence – if the enemy blows up your ship, agrinding you ago.

    There is a place for hard-to-mid core PvP, but those MMO games are going to be smaller, more elitist, more specialized. Many people think they can point to the success of PvP shoebox games as proof of market potential. CS, UT, etc, have a very localized, in-your face, quick-rebound type of personal impact. “I can pwn j00″ that evaporates as you scale it up. What sells BF1942 is that you can be Rambo. When you start to scale up the numbers – like OFP or RO – interest begins to dwindle.

    The fundamental issue is that in PvE, every one can be a hero. But in PvP your players become your content. When you have 8 players in a server, you get your turn at being the consumer rather than the consumed fairly frequently. Scale it up to the 200-500 player battles in something like BattleGround Europe and the time each player spends as content increases.

    SWG has some pretty hardcore, consequential PvP. But it also manifested “Time as Content” in the form of its dancing, musician and doctor classes. I was always impressed by the number of people who actually did play those classes, despite a dearth of content for them. However, clearly what they enjoyed was the positive interaction with other players. In short – their time as content was content to them.

    Unfortunately, in PvP, time as content generally means getting your butt whipped, trying to escape with your tail between your legs, seeing your corpse looted, being camped or ganked, etc.

    PvPers desire persistence, but they don’t like being persisted upon. Call it “ganking”, call it “camping”. Those are manifestations of persistence the cures to which seem to be just as unpalletable to the PvPer as the problems themselves.

  • http://www.exanimus-guild.com Mist

    I don’t know why people keep using Shadowbane as an example. It had graphics straight out of the 1980s, and client bugs that made the game entirely and completely unplayable.

    EVE is a much better model. EVE showed that if you make the game world large enough, AKA very, very large, you can prevent the wolves from starving each other out.

  • Red Morgan

    I think it’s often a mistake to assume that an open-pvp game results in nothing but a bloody grief-fest. That’s not what most pvp fans are looking for. If Darkfall had nothing to offer but perpetual fighting, I wouldn’t be a fan. Content such as crafting and quests can all be enriched by allowing players to do as they please.

    I briefly played 9Dragons, mostly because I love old kung fu movies. The gameplay was on par with every other MMO and the community had some really great people in it. So there was some enjoyable content, but I was awfully dissatisfied with it. With restricted pvp, there was no player driven content. The world was incredibly 2D without that extra dimension of human drama.

    I think most advocates of skill based pvp games really want is a rich world where players fill in the content that the devs can never provide. You really can’t have that unless you give players the freedom to struggle with each other.

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