by Jeff Woleslagle on Sep 10, 2009
Loading... is the premier daily MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
One of the emerging MMO trends we saw at PAX 2009 was this
idea of indirect PvP (or PvPvE). We'll explore how the idea has
evolved and whether or not formalizing PvPvE will make PvP
more attractive to co-op PvE players in today's Loading... PvPvE... vP?
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/41"Biggest movers today:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2036"Important
Dates
Much has been made of Aion's PvPvE concept and how the Abyss will
impact players who perhaps got a little too used to playing a co-op PvE
game. In the video
released yesterday, Assoc. Producer Lani Blazier eased our concerns
with the risk-free "training camp" being developed and her demo of
PvPvE instance design, where the two factions beat back the
NPC-controlled Balaur along separate but connected paths on a race to
the final area (or perhaps you choose to help the Balaur against your
enemies to sabotage their progress). Lani also showed the
Dark Poeta instance, where the final boss scales to your faction's
instance performance. If you take 2-3 hours to clear the zone, you'll
get a better boss and better loot, whereas if you just run it for
completion in an hour, you'll get a lesser boss (and, of course, lesser
loot).
The idea of indirect PvP also popped up in
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74239"> The Secret
World demo, where Ragnar Tørnquist explained that the three
secret societies have a sort of gentleman's code regarding open PvP -
they don't go around killing each other, especially with the war
against the Big Looming Evil (TM) raging. In the game's overworld, most
of the PvP shenanigans revolve around defacing the other societies'
headquarters - raising your flag above their HQ, making a thousand
copies of your butt on their copier, tying up their call center with
questions about Prince Albert in a can, that sort of thing. Things get
more serious down below in Hollow Earth, where everyone's fighting over
control of anima nodes to power the fight against Big Looming Evil. But
indications are that the three societies aren't the only ones
populating Agartha and Hollow Earth, and chances are you'll have to
deal with more than the PvP threat.
Finally, Rusty Williams explained the Pirates of the Burning Sea's new
skirmish system as being, again, a risk-free introduction and training
ground for port actions - a part of the game that's set to explode with
the introduction of port governance in the
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74016">coming
expansion. In port actions, of course, you'll be dealing with
AI-controlled enemies and faction enemies, so there's an element of
indirect PvP here too.
Three games may or may not make for a trend, but there's little doubt
that developers are catering more to the PvP crowd* nowadays. They're
also doing a few things - i.e. the training camps - to bring PvE
players into the fold too. Call it PvPvE, call it indirect PvP, two
player factions is company, but a third NPC faction fighting for
control of the same area might be a crowd. Don't get me wrong, I'm a
big fan of the mustache-twirling interloper letting the two parties
wear themselves down before he makes his move. It's a fun,
strategically clever element that makes for a great story a lá Yojimbo
or For a Few Dollars More.
But if (and that's a big if) the "vE"in PvPvE is
meant to make the idea more appealing to PvE-oriented gamers, it's a
failure, and here's why. PvE gamers don't hate the idea of PvP as much
as they hate the idea of enaging an AI-controlled monster only to be
facerolled by a faction opponent waiting in the wings. Indirect PvP
encourages and formalizes the practice. If you're that kind of gamer,
that's great - by introducing mechanics to support your gamestyle, PvP
becomes much more interesting and worthwhile. If you're not, PvP
becomes all the more scary and complicated. For a subset But this idea
of skirmishes / training camps could help, so long as it's a lot more
fun that it sounds.
Completing PvE objectives to advance the PvP cause is nothing new -
just about every game having an appreciable PvP side (with the
exception of LotRO, which does an awesome job of keeping PvP separate
from core gameplay) has its share of this. I guess my contention is
that it's never really been an indispensible part of the endgame
before, and if it's geared toward making a PvP endgame more accessible,
it might be the right idea but wrong execution. Agree / disagree?
Here's the part where you take the PvPvE discussion
to our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46184">Loading...
forum.
* Welcome to the first ever Loading... footnote (world first!).
I have to disagree with WoW Producer J. Allen Brack's
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/73567/page/4#morepvp">comments
that there's no such thing as a PvP or a PvE player, that players are
just looking for the fastest path to more achievements. That might be
true in an established and hugely popular game like WoW. But in
less-settled games where players are still playing the game (instead of
letting the game play them), I think players definitely have a
pre-defined style and preference that you part them from at your peril.
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=589">Aion
General Discussion
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46135">Rate
your open beta experiences so far
Aion's
in open beta, and many have flocked to crowd the lands of Elysea and
Asmodae, an event which, unfortunately, seems to have resulted in a lot
of flocking lag for some players.
Whether you're lagging or,
like me, completely lag-free (can I get an amen?), Sepharious would
like you to lay in your vote and voice your opinion on your Aion beta
experience thus far. Will you be purchasing the game and firing it up
come September 22, eager to achieve Daeva status and stretch your
wings? Are you mostly unimpressed? Or are you still undecided?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46135">Talk
about it!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"The most fun for me is
just watching the laughably bad chat filter destroy common words like
'class' and 'fun.'"
- Reavi
"So
true! I was going to turn off the filter, but now I see it as a
minigame. I try and decipher which letters have been taken out. Some
words are tough; I find myself wanting to buy a vowel."
- Medeor
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
MMO Coverage from PAX 2009
More from PAX
Aion'sMore Ten Ton Hammer Features:
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/aion/previews/patch1.5highlights">AionGiveaways:
EarthHottest Content:
FirstThanks for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer network!
- Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and the Ten Ton Hammer team