by: Tony "RadarX" Jones
While Player vs Player content in Tabula Rasa has always been a controversial subject, there are those who live for engaging other players in combat. Clan wars, squad battles, or even simple duels bring not only joy but satisfaction to the hardened veterans of this type of warfare. Furthering the cause are Kole and Wardlaw of Live Fire Sports who are creating the first wide scale organized competitive ranking system in the game. I managed to catch up to these two promoters of PvP and sneak in a few questions.
Ten Ton Hammer: I really appreciate you guys doing this. Let's just begin with your site. Where did you come up with the idea to put it together? Is it to jump start interest in PvP or fill in motivation gaps for the current system?
Kole: We hope to jump start people's interest in PvP and to keep motivating clans to compete. This all started out after I had offered to organize a group of referees to oversee PvP events in response comments on one of the community forums (Planet TR) complaining about the exploiting of PvP mechanics. Out of the blue Wardlaw messaged me about having the script for a PvP ladder and we just went from there. I guess our philosophy has been "why wait for the game code to be changed, when we could make a change ourselves".
Wardlaw: I played Asheron's Call:Darktide for 7 years and that game was void of a PvP Ranking system. I worked with a guy who developed a game plug in to auto-track kills, I created the site to list the data and provide top 10 listings for clans, PvP, etc.
Once I played TR, I immediately fell in love with the PvP, but then I read the issues with the "Official" PvP rankings and thought my prior experience could be put to great use with TR. I hope they take our ideas and run wild with them I'd be more than willing to allow our site to be R&D for the Devs as they hammer out an internal PvP ranking system.
Ten Ton Hammer: I'm sure that could be extremely valuable to them for data. Do you think sites like these will draw more developer attention and encourage changes to the current system such as ranking and rewards?
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Kole: Sites like ours show the developers how much community interest there is in PvP and what kind of PvP game play is popular. The devs have been very helpful and participated in previous events I've planned so I have no doubt they are going to have some involvement in Live Fire Sports too.
Ten Ton Hammer: Let's hope they do, because I know how important this content is for some folks. What kind of motivation is there to participate? Are there prizes for the tournaments at this point or are we looking at bragging rights?
Kole: To encourage more people to get involved we are offering prizes. For smaller events we're dipping into our own pockets and looking to NCsoft/Destination Games for some vanity prizes. However, we're in the works with companies like Ideazon, Razer, Logitech etc. to offer advertising in exchange for prizes for larger events. We'd also be very proud if we could give event winners NCsoft game cards.
And prizes won't just be for tournaments. For specific ladders, depending on the support we get, we're looking to offer ladder leaders prizes every 3 or 4 months.
Ten Ton Hammer: Sounds like a great plan! Do you think a privately run ladder/tier system could work in other MMO games?
Kole: Private kill boards have been very popular in EVE, personally motivating me to aim for the top of the standings. Wardlaw has experience running a board for Asheron's Call:Darktide.
Wardlaw: Yes, I think it would be equally popular in any game, especially those games where people are looking for activities to engage in beyond PvE
or just to get a brief respite from PvE.
PvP Ranking was a huge hit in Darktide when I ran Darktide Dispatch. People loved using the site as a scoreboard. Prior to Darktide Dispatch, players talked themselves up a lot in forums and chat. The Dispatch showed who were real PvP threats and who were just big talkers. It was a really fun time. However, for a privately run ladder/tier system to work, you must have the blessing & assistance of the Game Developers. In Darktide, the Developers provided key information so we could develop a 3rd party application, called "Vogue", that would report any PvP kills witnessed by the player running the plug in.. it would log the victim, victim level, victim guild, killer, killer level, killer guild, # of friendlies, and # of enemies. As a result, that data was put into a formula and weighed score was rewarded based on the combat scenario. We had a really elaborate system for rating PvP activity but none of it would have been possible without the Game Developer support.
Ten Ton Hammer: How much overhead is involved? How many people are needed to run something like this?
Kole: We just went live last week. A lot of our work is currently focused on letting the player base know we exist and getting them signed on. Right now its just Wardlaw and I but we're going to need community liaisons and referees. Anyone who's interested can drop off an application at http://www.livefiresportsleague.com/apply.php
Ten Ton Hammer: We'll be sure to check that site out. How does the PvP in Tabula Rasa stack up to other games? The obvious choices such as Guildwars and WoW come to mind.
Kole: I'm an FPS fan and I love how combat feels in this game versus Guildwars. I also like how free you are to PvP because of the shared world versus Guildwars arenas. It's also more organic than combat in EVE and doesn't make as big a bent in your wallet when you lose.
Wardlaw: TR was the first MMO to make me retire all 5 of my Asheron's Call:Darktide accounts (others tried were WoW, DaoC, CoX, SWG, Guild Wars, Asheron's Call 2). TR has amazing PvP, it involves Tactics, Strategies, and Player Ability it's less dependant on gear or macros. Darktide PvP was appealing to me for various reasons you had to defend your "XP grinding spots", ability to move your character directly affected combat performance (dodging missile attacks, magic attacks, etc), utilizing your environment also directly affected combat performance (using objects to block missile attacks, magic attacks, bottlenecking opponents, etc), teamwork plays a huge role in PvP (target calling, prepping targets, concentrating fire, etc), etc. Most of these features are found in TR PvP, which is why I found it so appealing.
The Wargame Tracker Scoreboard is a great substitute feature to provide substance to PvP since there is no looting from PvP kills. I love the character control system of the game and aiming mechanics. I enjoy being able to fight in the familiar locations rather than being relegated to a secluded arena. I love the dynamic, tactical aspect of Combat in TR. For example, We had a clan war where we were outmanned 2:1 or 3:1 and we are aren't a small clan at 15-30 players online each night. To be efficient our clan already operates in sub-groups of 12 and we divided those into squads of 3 and 4, then we ran guerrilla tactics against the larger force... the smaller squads allowed to perform lightning quick, precision attacks against the larger group. That particular war is one of my fondest PvP memories to date in TR.
Be sure to continue to page 2 for the conclusion of this interview!
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