Dan Gray :
I can’t say I agree, Scott. I think there are legions of people out there who could enjoy a PvP oriented MMO, as soon as someone releases one that isn’t terrible.

I guess EVE Online qualifies – it has both PvE and PvP, with the most attractive resources in areas where PvP is completely open. Last published subscriber numbers were around 230k, and based on the somewhat higher server populations I guess it is 250k or more today.

I suppose with PvP in that context Scott did not refer to RvR but exclusively to the DAoC PvP Dred servers, and Camlann in the case of Europe.

I did play on Camlann for nearly a year and my impression was that players left the server mainly because of a combination of issues such as regular camping of teleport spots, regular bashing of low level toons, and probably mostly due to the absence of any remotely meaningful PvP, which on standard DAoC servers would have been the wonderful RvR concept, relic raids included. So yes, (free-for-all) PvP in DAoC was an afterthought and poorly implemented indeed.

Free-for-all PvP is a completely different thing than the consensual PvP you’ve got on DAoC standard servers, or even WoW for that matter.

In NA/Europe there are some MMOs that have a PvP system that do work on a consensual basis, and successful ones it seems. Free-for-all PvP on the other hand so far only seems to work great in Asia and maybe okay in a couple of other countries such as Greece or Russia (which is both, Europe and Asia).

Shadowbane had other issues than the PvP concept, poor movement options (which the absence of WASD or other keyboard movement options is; in NA/Europe) and major stability issues to say the least. Actually the game needed major improvements on almost every level, so in the case of Shadowbane I couldn’t blame the PvP concept.

Mourning/Realms of Krel/Whatever… was a whole different story anyway.

Dedicated PvP servers in most other modern MMOs are just the same as in DAoC, meaningless afterthoughts.

Fury was a different story, more like Guild Wars and with consensual PvP, but unfortunately it was just… boring, so it failed.

I still see plenty of room for a well done PvP centric MMO, but it has to be done right, and with goals to go for (just like in any successful FPS). Some interesting PvE options would definitely come beneficial in an MMO as well. Maybe in such a game even character death could be made fun or satisfying in some way (think high score lists or TF2 death screenies!).

I’ll always have a special fondness for UO but the age of innocence in which it first appeared is long since past. Many who played recall it fondly but they also swear never again.

I think PvP centric games can be made to work but developers are still experimenting with the rulesets and trying to find that elusive combination that has broad appeal and makes for a great game. There have been games with some interesting ideas but none have hit the mark yet the way World of Warcraft hit the PvE mark. Someday a developer will stumble upon that magic combination but I doubt anarchistic free for all pvp games will be it.

Speaking from beta experience, the game is awesome sauce. Everything has a sense of achievement and reward due to the ease of which it can be lost – but its not a 24/7 gank fest. The world is huge, and there are lengthy runs to get to various interest zones, which spreads players out.

Sure, people gave it a shot because it *might* have been cool, but anyone who paused to think about it should have realized that grinding levels in an FFA PvP in a game where levels meant everything was going to be a hellacious experience for anyone who wasn’t rolling deep 24/7. The fact is the hardcore community has been so desperate for a game catered to us that we will take nearly anything offered, and that includes abortions like DAoC Mordred.

The comparison you’re making, while not entirely misguided, has flaws as at a very basic level. There will always be those that can’t handle losing loot or having their e-progress otherwise halted; but with the options that exist in the market today their needs are almost entirely sated by titles like WoW.

On the other side of the fence Eve has very substantial penalties for death and they have continued to grow slowly but surely, year after year. Will there be some initial Darkfall bloat and fall-off? Definitely. But the ability of the devs to address major issues is what long term success will hinge on, just like any other game.

Short Version: Don’t confuse what hardcore players are willing to try for what they’ve been looking for all along.

Did they use their own money or someone elses money? If it’s someone elses money then what the designers want becomes secondary to what the owners want. Owners are generally interested in making money.

I am not a spokesman for the company, or the game. What I can tell you is that none of the feedback or what people think about the game will EVER matter to the people who designed it. This is how they want it, they don’t want 8 million users. They were a bunch of old time UO scrappers.(man there was a lot of euro-programmers that played uo, the only ones I ever remembered that hated dying so much were the Germans)

This game has been made for the people who enjoyed watching and looking over there shoulders in UO, enjoyed the heart pounding, no rules, lose your stuff, lose your house, start over, get some friends come back and kill, vigilante style, open world, fuck you pvp.

Many of us will play it, many will try it, many will whine about it, many will try and change it. But seriously no one gives a shit what you think. And the funny thing is the game is more stable and has been more stable for a year now than Warhammer has been after almost a year.

Pretty sad considering the budgets of the 2 games.

Its ALOT easier to build and add to a stable engine, then to some daoc2 clone that can barely handle 60 on 60 battles in this day and age when EQ could put a hundred in a zone a decade ago and have the same lag.

Todd Ogrin :
It’s something of a shame that, for many MMO PVPers, good old-fashioned “losing” is no longer a consequence severe enough to be considered worthy of their attention. Losers must not only lose, but also suffer in some tangible, “meaningful” way. Thank you, persistent world!

You do need something more, otherwise you are just playing halflife. In which case why are you paying $15/month?

In DAOC I didn’t enjoy destroying new or bad players unless the odds were ridiculous. 8v50+ was about the minimum before I would enjoy destroying a zerg of bad players, and I would chalk up the challenge to the “look how many people they had” thing. The embarrassment of them having the entire zerg killed by our 2 or 3 DPSers was enough. When it came to good players I could collect more points for them (because they were higher rank and died less).

Honestly, nothing ever replaced a good old fashioned looting like we had in UO. I miss the days of finding a small guild down in a really tough dungeon and helping them out by dragging the worst monsters in the dungeon to them. Actually, looting accomplished two things… it made sure you were fighting a person and not his gear (hello WOW!) and it also made sure there was a risk/reward. Too many games out there have none of this.