OH, AND EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH PVP IN ONE PITHY PARAGRAPH! [Author: wirehead]

Reading over my last update I see that I forgot to include this:

PvP/PKing, while often referred to as the only reason to play such games as UO and AC, is also a failure when it comes to immersion/roleplaying. The reason why is simple – in all of these games, there’s nothing to fight over. ORPG designers seem content to stay with a “we built it and now they’ll come” strategy. Unfortunately, the best most PVP guilds have managed to come up with is “let’s kill these guys, because they suck and we don’t like them”. While many wars in real life may have started because of this, it doesn’t make for a very immersive environment. In fact, it encourages gangland style behavior – the only way to win is to dominate, physically and psychologically. To make them your bitch (and we won’t even start on the male rape psychosis that taps into).

To fix this, you’d have to give the players something to fight about besides who is raping who. I wonder if anyone is working on this.