BioWare's Damion Schubert talks about Endgame and PvP at Austin GDC.

While not revealing anything about the game he is working on at BioWare, Damion Schubert led a discussion at Austin's Game Developer Conference on MMO gameplay and design considerations with which developers grapple. While citing many examples in the current crop of top tier MMOs (World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, and EVE Online among others) Damion got into more details about a few of the bigger issues. Most of the information returns to the hot buttons of almost all forums such as the endgame content and the PvP. Understandably, Damion emphasizes the importance of planning for the endgame content, but what I found interesting were his six general rules for PvP:

"Listed were Schubert's six general rules for PvP conflict in MMOs, which we'll list nearly identically as how they were presented during the talk. First, PvP-focused endgames always excite the imagination more than PvE engames, players that aren't as hardcore think they are, five percent of a game's population can destroy the other ninety five percent, teamwork and numbers dominate, fairness matters more than in PvE, and losing repeatedly sucks."

A good read about the constant tug-of-war between gameplay and game design, if you have a few minutes stop by IGN.com.