15th May 2004, 12:21 AM
The concept of PvP to me has always seemed very badly implemented in a LOT of games. They all allow anyone to kill anyone at all times. Considering how the majority of people playing those games are rude, a lot, and I mean a LOT of new people are going to be turned off simply because they get slaughtered and have no defense at all to prevent it.
Now, newer games have finally put a stop to this VERY terrible game design flaw. Some like FFXI outright disabled it completely at first, but now they have a tournament, so the only people one can kill are those who also took part in it, and are thus willing combatents. World of Warcraft's system is interesting. Simply put, they just put up a couple servers with completle PVP enabled. The rest will have it disabled unless you are in certain regions that are in conflict or something like that, and even then you can only fight against people who are part of another nation.
Just a couple games I've played have what I think is the best system yet. Basically, you just turn on PvP in your options if you want to take part in it. If you have the option on, you can kill or rob anyone else with the option on, but you can also BE killed or robbed. If it's off, you are totally immune to other players, but can't attack or rob anyone yourself. Of course, there's the occasional moron running up to you and DEMANDING that you turn it on so they can steal your stuff (why they think I'd do that is beyond me...), but it's really the best way so far. I am fully aware that it's more realistic to be able to kill absolutely everyone, but honestly, fun over realism any day of the week for me.
On a side note, some people are mad at Blizzard for not making ALL servers full PvP. Apparently, their idea of fun is not just attacking people who are fully wanting to engage in PvP combat, but in stalking and killing people who don't want to fight them at all. Seriously, those people are the ones I never try and play with.
By the way, can you guess that I've been sampling various MMORPGs lately? I haven't payed for any of these things yet, but I have had some fun trying out demos and watching friends play who happen to own a couple of them. Also, a few are completely and totally free anyway.
Guild Wars... I really didn't try this as much as I would have wanted to, so I'm afraid my opinion just isn't developed enough to be worth while. So far, it seems like a basic beat them up with nothing much to offer besides. The guilds the game takes it's name from were disabled, so I couldn't sample that part. Anyway, it's likely too late by now, but I really don't think I even figured out what I was doing in that game. It was fun killing stray beasts, but that's about all I could do.
Now, newer games have finally put a stop to this VERY terrible game design flaw. Some like FFXI outright disabled it completely at first, but now they have a tournament, so the only people one can kill are those who also took part in it, and are thus willing combatents. World of Warcraft's system is interesting. Simply put, they just put up a couple servers with completle PVP enabled. The rest will have it disabled unless you are in certain regions that are in conflict or something like that, and even then you can only fight against people who are part of another nation.
Just a couple games I've played have what I think is the best system yet. Basically, you just turn on PvP in your options if you want to take part in it. If you have the option on, you can kill or rob anyone else with the option on, but you can also BE killed or robbed. If it's off, you are totally immune to other players, but can't attack or rob anyone yourself. Of course, there's the occasional moron running up to you and DEMANDING that you turn it on so they can steal your stuff (why they think I'd do that is beyond me...), but it's really the best way so far. I am fully aware that it's more realistic to be able to kill absolutely everyone, but honestly, fun over realism any day of the week for me.
On a side note, some people are mad at Blizzard for not making ALL servers full PvP. Apparently, their idea of fun is not just attacking people who are fully wanting to engage in PvP combat, but in stalking and killing people who don't want to fight them at all. Seriously, those people are the ones I never try and play with.
By the way, can you guess that I've been sampling various MMORPGs lately? I haven't payed for any of these things yet, but I have had some fun trying out demos and watching friends play who happen to own a couple of them. Also, a few are completely and totally free anyway.
Guild Wars... I really didn't try this as much as I would have wanted to, so I'm afraid my opinion just isn't developed enough to be worth while. So far, it seems like a basic beat them up with nothing much to offer besides. The guilds the game takes it's name from were disabled, so I couldn't sample that part. Anyway, it's likely too late by now, but I really don't think I even figured out what I was doing in that game. It was fun killing stray beasts, but that's about all I could do.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)