Best MMO PvP you ever played?

TLDR- FFA pvp encourages grouping/socializing and causes players to improve their characters more quickly and take gameplay more seriously. In UO, the light/dark choices were the unscripted moment to moment decisions on how you played your character, not branching dialog trees. Wall of text, beware. Nostalgic example from UO. I miss you Rosie.

2 more points about UO / FFA pvp / corpse looting and why they were good in pvp mmos.

Previously, I mentioned how raising the risk encouraged greater self preservation than risk free pvp. This not only makes the game more exciting and meaningful for some, it also has a few other related affects on gameplay.

1) It encourages you to get better as a player quickly. When you are a noob, you are vulnerable, and people don't like that feeling. If you can get ganked at any time with some consequence you really feel, you are more strongly motivated to avoid getting ganked. Thus, you try harder to protect yourself, which means you may take leveling, gearing, etc more seriously right from the get go. There is a stronger and different type of motivation contributing to your leveling and play in addition to just wanting to level and get loot. It's about self preservation, so you take it more seriously and try harder.

2) It actually encourages social interaction by necessity (see example). Again, it's self preservation kicking in. You are less likely to solo, more likely to find trusted allies right away. If you don't you'll be vulnerable. Instead of ignoring that player that just entered the area you are farming in, you probably want to approach them and find out their intentions. It's not safe to ignore a random player on the edge of your screen. It also makes you remember and care about player's names instead of treating people as random toons, since you want to know who is a friend and who is an enemy as much as you can.

Imagine this scene: You are in your special ore cave that you traveled far and wide to find. This is a special place because it is off the beaten path, remote and thus, somewhat secure. Most importantly, it's full of ore, but no other players around. You took great precautions to find this place, and you happily mine your ore, very satisfied that you had found such a wonderful, safe, hidden spot to farm. Well, after a while, your faithful llama named Rosie that you tamed from a wild animal is loaded full of ore and you need to make the trip to town. It's a long, and dangerous trip, and anyone could be a potential bandit. You're carrying a llamafull of ore, and that would make a very attractive mark for any brigands.

About half way home, you run into some traveler. You scan your memory or handwritten list to see if you recognize the name. You don't know who they are, or their intentions. They are dressed in a nondescript robe masking their identifying features, so you couldn't tell if they are a magic user or fighter type. Will they kill you and take your ore and have their way with your much beloved llama? Or are they just another traveler hunting deer? You just don't know, it's intense and exciting. What do you do? You're equipped for farming / mining right now, not really fighting. They hold all the cards and could kill you in a second. The traveler walks closer. So, you introduce yourself, chat them up, try to evaluate and establish rapport. Hell, you could even ask or hire them to help escort you to town. Maybe they'd be less likely to kill you since really, as far as you know, they'd really like all the ore you just clearly farmed and a new llama. The point here, apart from nostalgia (I miss you Rosie!), is that you interacted with that player because, if you didn't, they might interact with you (and your llama) in a way you wouldn't appreciate . (This example is for those of you who never played UO or other ffa games)

I suppose really, it boils down to this: Fear is a good motivator to encourage grouping and socializing in mmos. That sounds a lot more evil than it should, but I've been playing my sith a lot, I guess. Sadly, it also opens the door to sycophants to kill your llama.

To be fair to the other side of the coin...Example 2, you returning home alone from a hunt, and come across a naked noob leading a lamafull of loot across an open field. Now you have to decide, do I attack, or help? Could they have friends nearby etc etc. But look at that fat llama and it's overflowing orebags. Score!

You find some of these choices in the light dark PVE questlines in swtor, but when it's unscripted and the decisions could actually affect your character, it's just on another level. In UO, the light dark choices were your moment to moment decisions, not branching quest dialog trees.

Risk free pvp is like watching GI Joe, fun and exciting. FFA pvp is like watching Saving Private Ryan, it's just more broadly and deeply emotionally engaging experience on so many levels.

-IG

We really need a Dark Age of Camelot 2. I think were over due for a game with 3 sides.

Nuff said. I enjoyed those.

I really don't understand the DAOC fanboism. Maybe I'm just blessed by not having rose colored glasses. I remember it being an incredibly flawed game with a unique setting and feel, but I would not put it anywhere near the #1 best MMO of all time.

Potbs. Loved the tactical ship combat in that game. The RvR was intense sometimes though and really wears you out.

For me it was the Everquest 2 PVP when it barely was added onto the game. All open world, no warzones, there was so much pvp, and the group pvp was amazing. Everyone had a role, healers, tanks, dps, support, Crowd Control. It actually made the PVP more appealing then any other game where it was just a kill this guy kind of game. Ofcourse there was ganking, but when people would group up, eveyone started making groups. I remember the great pvp for twinks and for the end game raiders that was available. It actually made raiding funner for me because I would have a reason to geart up to fight against the rest of the endgame players. Contested mobs would be fought over by all 3 factions of the game, to the point I wouldn't be able to fall asleep or else the other faction would get the raid mob. I'm too lazy to post my whole experience but this can show the mayhem that would happen.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...73172923631927

I only wish the guy had a sick game machine to handle a the raid vs raid over a contested raid mob. Great Fun x_X. Oh EQ2 Had the best graphics as well.

x_X I feel like a fan boy

+1 for DAoC and Planetside. PvP in mmo's since then have been an endless bummer.

I will admit to loving Planetside. One of the best MMO experiences of my life. That and possibly UO pre-carebear rulesets.

DAoC easily trumps pretty much every game out there for fantasy based pvp..it should be the standard for any game with intentions of having faction based PvP. Population is not what it used to be but the games still active.

UO though for the best world pvp..mainly because once upon a time it was really a 'world'..not just another item whore game like it has become. Some of the free servers are pretty good though..so its not dead.



Oddly they both are often the most mentioned MMO's that people want to see sequels to.

Dunno whats what with a DAoC2..but Richard Garriot is in the process of making what for all intents will be UO2(google it, etc)..so there is hope the WoW syndrome(WoW is a great game but it has sucked away alot of life in the MMO's) will be broken and we will get back to MMO's with depth, menaing, and pvp like pvp used to be.

For me the best pvp was vanilla BG´s.

Everyone could play there, no matter if you were a tank, healer or dps. Also the class did not matter at all, everyone had the same right to be at a BG. All had their jobs, so to speak. Not like today with Arena´s where some specs are automatically disqualified, or some combos totally overpowered.

But also the available gear was a lot better balanced. You could either pvp in rank & reputation gear, in pve gear or in raid & craft gear. There was no garbage like Resilence, so that automatically 1 group of player had an advantage - like today at wow.

The rank system was fun, with every rank that you climed you got something new. Mounts, tabards, set items.

Last but not least, everyone could be countered. A fear could be dispelled, so could a sheep - a stun didnt automatically mean that your dead, the damage output as a whole was very moderate and you could always come back, after a first hit. Also this is at wow today, a big problem as you just die in stuns, fear´s or whatever CC there is.


Was that pvp perfect? No it was not, but it was still the best MMO pvp ever. TBC, AoC, Rift, War and so far also SWTOR are unable to achive this. I am still waiting for an MMO puplisher that does eliminate the weak points of that old ranksystem and develops it a bit further. It just was awesome.