Warhammer Online: Why the Casual Player Should Welcome Back PvP, PT.1

RvR is coming! Quick, act casual!

By Brock "Brokain" Ferguson

In the past few years, there have been very few games that have included PvP as a part of the main game itself. Usually, a MMOG will be released and you’ll have the PvP (Player vs. Player) servers separated from the PvE (Player vs. Environment) servers. The “hardcore PvP” separated from the “Casual”. Given the perceived mindset of the two, it’s not hard to see why it happened this way.

Now, Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning is on the horizon and will once again bring together PvP/RvR and PvE play on the same server. If you ever played Star Wars Galaxies, you'll remember having PvP and PvE both on one server. You would choose Empire/Rebellion and go to town on each other. It's the last game I remember playing that included both in the same world on all servers. There was rarely a time when you could walk though Theed without seeing some form of PvP taking place.

When you combine two styles that are as dichotic as PvP vs. PvE, there are always questions. One of them being "Isn't it a good thing for the worlds of PvP and Casual play to be split apart?" With casual players recently dominating the MMOG market, you would think so. A place for PvP and a place for PvE, each separate from the world the other exists in. However, in my opinion, limiting your options is a bad idea and hurts more than it helps.

As a casual player, there's always that one point where you think to yourself "PvP... you know, I think I might want to try that out a bit." So you head over to the PvP server, take the time to make the character, then you have to take the time to level that character up, then you have to figure out how PvP is different from PvE in combat. You get killed over and over by groups of people five levels higher than you and get frustrated and head back to the comfort of the PvE server This is where not having PvP on the same server begins to become a problem.

Not all casual players totally hate the idea of PvP. As a matter of fact, I know several casual players who enjoy PvP, as long as they don’t have to do it all the time. It’s nice to be able to get your feet wet in the pool once in awhile without having to get totally submerged. However, when PvP exists only on a separate server, you have no choice but to be submersed in PvP, all the time wondering if there’s someone stealthed behind you while you’re questing, ready to jump out with three friends and “make you squeeeeel like a pig, bwah”. Sometimes, you just don’t want to deal with the stress.

Also, in order to be good at PvP, you have to know your class and abilities, know your enemies class and abilities, and then put that knowledge to use in the middle of a fight where everything is quickly moving around. This takes an investment of serious time and research to find the best build for your abilities, test your moves in PvE and PvP combat, etc. So now, instead of trying to level one character to endgame, you’re working on two and as most people can attest to, leveling a PvP character tends to be more time consuming than leveling a PvE character. Most casual players don’t want to invest that much time in something they just want to do for a change of pace.

Being able to jump in and out of PvP gives a player the chance to experience what PvP is really like (and no, duels don’t count). There’s nothing like getting jumped by one or two enemy players out of nowhere and that feeling of excitement when you actually manage to beat them in combat, especially if it’s a lopsided fight. It’s a feeling of accomplishment that you can only get when something is on the line, in this case, your virtual life. I’ve seen casual players turn into PvP monsters from being able to “dabble” in PvP for awhile.

Even if you choose to focus your play on PvE, Warhammer Online has set it up so that you won’t be left behind when you decide you're ready to PvP. With the ability to swap out your combat tactics to a PvP set and the fact that the gear you’ll get while questing in PvE will be comparable to what the PvP player will be getting, you’ll still be able to jump into PvP at level 30 or 40 with pretty much the only handicap being skill. By combining the two playstyles onto one server and giving the casual player the freedom of choice to either PvP or PvE, EA Mythic is introducing PvP to a group of players who more than likely would never have gotten involved for more than a few levels were the servers separate.

Tomorrow we wrap this up! Make sure to come check it out!

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