Pride can be a very motivating factor in MMORPGs like Camelot Unchained. Many players out there will often say “it’s just a game”, but if that player has been utterly owned by another, even though they might not admit it, their pride has likely been bruised. This small action can often lead to massive consequence in games where players can enact war on one another. Just look to The Mittani’s Sins of a Solar Spymaster articles for EVE Online if you need a fine example of just how bitter and prideful war can be between players, a fact not lost on City State Entertainment founder Mark Jacobs. After all, he is responsible for Dark Age of Camelot and the RvR tales it has inspired.

Jacobs recently penned a new blog for Camelot Unchained to talk about the 10th Founding Principle for the RvR-based MMORPG - pride. Jacobs wrote about the importance of pride in realm, guild, and personal accomplishments, and the responsibility that the developers have to make each realm attractive and unique to avoid imbalance and homogenization, one of many elements to help inspire player pride. And through pride comes conflict.

"Racial pride is an important part of realm pride and just as with the realms, we have to construct each race to be unique, interesting, and appealing to gamers. If prospective players do not connect with each realm’s races, they probably will not join that realm and if enough players feel that way, well, there will be a massive realm imbalance and that alone could doom the game to failure. Lore and backstory will help but it has to go even further than that with the individual races. As we did with the realms, we will not homogenize the races and, as we are following the rock, paper, scissor approach, every race must have their own advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses, etc."

Read Jacobs' full blog for more.

Source: Foundational Principle #10 – Pride, pride, everywhere pride...