open-world-pvp
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The Daily Grind: What was your best open-world PvP experience?
As someone who usually stands on the outside of the whole PvP scene, I'm often curious about the appeal and goings-on of fighting endlessly against other human opponents, especially in MMOs. People seem to talk highly of open world battles and epic moments, although my experience has been limited to being corpse camped on a World of Warcraft server and taking part in many confusic and hectic keep battles in Warhammer Online. So sate my curiosity today and tell me a time when you had your best open-world PvP experience. What happened and why was that such a treasured memory? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Warlords of Draenor encourages the return of free-form world PvP in Ashran
World of Warcraft players who pine for the "good old days" of open world PvP may get to sup from that cup again come Warlords of Draenor. The devs are whipping up a new island, Ashran, that pulls upon lessons from past PvP zone designs to create something that encourages as close to the real open world PvP experience as one can get (and still have it designed). Ashran is for level 100 players who want to pop in and engage in up to 100v100 battles. Unlike past PvP zones, players won't have to join a raid group to partake in the fun and can choose between world and objective-based PvP. "We want players to get caught up in the moment and become emotionally invested in the outcome of each new encounter, whether it's just getting the drop on a member of the opposite faction player or getting revenge for a stolen kill," Blizzard wrote. The team also previewed another one of Warlords of Draenor's zones with Gorgrond. Gorgrond is an area split between the themes of creation and destruction and the biomes of heavy flora and barren wasteland.
Some Assembly Required: Pre-NGE SWG's proper sandbox PvP
A few weeks ago I ranted at indie sandbox devs who continue pumping out poorly conceived FFA PvP games. I didn't have any wordcount left at the end of that novella to propose any solutions, so I'm going to do that today. And hey, it's pretty simple, at least conceptually. All a dev team needs to do is iterate on Star Wars: Galaxies' pre-NGE PvP system.
The Art of Wushu: Rewarding good and bad deeds
Last time, I mentioned that I might talk about the new school instances in Age of Wushu's Infinite Scrolls expansion, but the truth is that very little is known. I haven't done them (I'm guildless and I'm not really looking), and the guilds that have done them are very closed-mouthed about what is in the dungeons. I've heard they're pretty easy, if it's any condolence. However, I do have something more fun to talk about, and that's killing other people. You guys may have noticed, but I like PvP a lot. Infinite Scrolls released a new system called Big Jianghu that rewards people for open-world PvP. I have wanted more consequences for PKing for a long time, so I was really excited about this feature. Unfortunately, as with many things in the new expansion, I was bound to be disappointed.
Tamriel Infinium: Does The Elder Scrolls Online revolve around PvP?
At the conventions this summer, the ZeniMax staff gave us only a taste of what The Elder Scrolls Online will offer us in the PvE department. Massively's staff appeared to enjoy that PvE side of the game well enough, but why didn't ZeniMax show off PvP? Probably because that part of the game is not complete enough for public consumption. But if rumors are to be believed, beta testers have begun testing the PvP systems that will eventually appear in the launched game. And developers have begun to talk about the ESO PvP systems extensively, although we still don't know a whole lot. After examining our limited knowledge of ESO PvP, I have to wonder whether PvP is still the primary focus of endgame (though even if it's not the primary focus, it will likely consume a large chunk of development resources all the same). We already know many of the systems coming at launch and one that will be introduced shortly after, so let's break them down a bit.
Latest ESO AMA talks titles, Shadowscales, and sieges
It's time again for ZeniMax Online to field community questions about The Elder Scrolls Online, and this week's Ask Us Anything post covers a wide range of topics from lore to PvP to raw game mechanics. Included in the entry are details regarding three-faction warfare, access to guild stores, the details of becoming an emperor, and plans to balance between factions. ESO players will be able to participate in open sieges on controlled keeps, with the option for two competing factions to team up against the controlling faction or to battle the whole thing out in open warfare. Fans of smaller-scale PvP will be happy to hear that ESO will offer "lots of chance encounters" for open world combat and big-picture strategists will likely welcome the news that factions disadvantaged by numbers will receive special bonuses to help keep resource capturing fair. Smaller details are also discussed; titles are still in consideration, achievements will exist for large quest chains and other feats, and Shadowscales will show their reptilian faces in various ESO locations.
PAX Prime 2013: Dragon's Prophet adds frontier system, new zone, and mounted combat
The timer only has a few days left until Dragon's Prophet emerges from its beta cocoon and becomes a fire-breathing butterfly. Does that faze the devs? Not so much; they're quite excited to take this dragon-taming MMO to the big leagues. You might think you know everything about Dragon's Prophet from our hands-on impressions, although that's just part of the story. The team is adding a serious amount of new content and fixes for launch day that nobody's seen yet... and we've got the full scoop.
The Nexus Telegraph: Courting PvP in WildStar
PvP is pretty darn problematic for modern MMOs. Part of this is a balance issue. Creating a PvP environment that's actually fair is a challenge all by itself, and creating one that's unfair does not exactly foster a spirit of lively competition. But part of this is the nature of players. You have players who run the gamut, from people who don't want anything to do with PvP (mostly due to players on the other end of the spectrum) to players who assume that PvP is a mandate to do nasty things to unaware participants (especially people on the other end of the spectrum). WildStar is stepping into this minefield, and as we all know the game is trying to provide something for everyone from the top down. So today I want to look at what we know about the game's PvP and how various camps can be courted with the overall mechanics of the game.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR PvP solutions
I will freely admit that I do not have all the answers. I also admit that I believe that BioWare is trying to change the face of PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic. But I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the efforts so far have failed to the point that I said it would be more worthwhile for the PvP team to just stop in its tracks. PvP needs a fundamental refocus almost from the ground up. If the team continues to build on the currently shoddy foundation, the whole game will fall under its own weight. Last week, I talked about some of these foundational issues, but I don't like presenting a problem without also representing possible solutions. But first, let's get an understanding of what players are looking for. I could present the things that I personally want, but that will help only those who play SWTOR for the same reasons I do. We wouldn't have 500,000-plus players in the game if everyone thought the same as I do. So let's take a quick look at player motivation before diving into the solutions.
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR reinvents the Ilum wheel
For about a year, Star Wars: The Old Republic fans have been waiting to see how the BioWare design team would reinvent Ilum. The first incarnation discouraged PvP by making the objectives give no PvP incentive. It was easier, faster, and more beneficial for players to just ignore enemy players. The second incarnation failed even harder. At the time, there was a major disparity between the two factions, so the larger faction would easily overpower the smaller faction. This did not actually encourage PvP either because the smaller faction just stopped showing up and only the larger faction benefited from the zone. At that point, BioWare decided to remove all objectives from the area and work on a revamp. Last Tuesday, players were introduced to the third incarnation of the Ilum PvP zone. This time around, the zone contains a mix of group-on-group PvP, world bosses, and of course, PvE fetch/kill quests. How does it stack up to the previous incarnations? How does the reputation grind and Gree event fit into this equation? Should former players return to the game to try out the changes?
Hyperspace Beacon: Givin' SWTOR props
All MMOs could use improvements, but that doesn't negate what they have done right. And despite the negativity, SWTOR is doing well. In fact, in a recent forum post Systems Designer Damion Schubert said that the free-to-play push was working quite well: "The success of the market (and it has been quite successful) has given us the time and resources to do some ambitious things on Makeb and plan some very ambitious things beyond." Without even looking at the specific numbers, I can tell that the Cartel Market cash shop is working really well because of the sheer number of items I see on the Galactic Trade Network (auction house). As much as I hate to admit it, if the Cartel Market does well, so does the rest of the game. I also see other hints that BioWare might be changing up its game a little bit. Direct discussion with the community appears to be on the rise, and BioWare has also admitted and is attempting to properly fix its mistakes. In the wake of Stephen Reid's departure, direct communication had become lax, and besides Ilum, I don't remember BioWare ever truly admitting to mistakes. Let's take a look at a few of the changes BioWare has already made this year. Maybe it will give us a clue as to where SWTOR is going in the near future.
Star Wars: The Old Republic confirms same-gender romance, more endgame content
Executive Producer Jeff Hickman is riding in the new year with a bold state of the game letter for Star Wars: The Old Republic. In it, he not only trumpets the benefits of free-to-play but addresses several pressing questions from the community and gives a few hints at Update 1.7 and the Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion. Hickman says that F2P has done well by SWTOR, although he doesn't deliver specific numbers: "The game is incredibly healthy with an ever increasing number of players who are actively playing (the servers are rocking!)." He also said that players will soon see changes to "a special PvP area," a lot more content for endgame customers, improvements to Ilum, and the ability to copy characters to the test server. Regarding PvP, Hickman indicated that pure open-world PvP will not be coming to the game any time soon. Finally, the state of the game address confirms that same-gender romance will be added to SWTOR in the expansion, although it will initially be confined to interactions with NPCs and not companions. "I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future," Hickman said.
Defiance takes the lid off of its open world PvP
"Player vs. player in Defiance is like nothing console players have ever seen," promises Trion Worlds Creative Lead Bill Trost. "Everything's different, everything's fresh, every time you play." Thus begins Trion's latest Defiance dev diary, this one focusing on the game's open world PvP system. The team has dubbed this system the Shadow War and said that it is integrated fully with the game's PvE experience. Players have a choice whether to participate in it or not, but the action will be happening across a shared landscape. Why is it this way? The devs say that they didn't want a typical FPS experience, in which players went through a solo campaign and then hit the reset button for multiplayer. The progression between PvE and PvP is the same, although there are special outfits for hardcore PvPers. We've got the full dev diary for you after the break, so don't be shy!
Cold, tired, and dead: Hands-on with PlanetSide 2's newest continent
PlanetSide 2 is a game that's all about huge maps and war on an epic scale. The MMOFPS title's continents are massive -- dozens of times larger than the average first-person-shooter map and packed with structures to dominate, vehicles to crash, and enemy players to kill. For the last few weeks, players have been content to murder one another in the various environments of Indar, the only continent available when the beta went live, but everything changed over the weekend. Now, there's a new kid in town: a vast, frozen wasteland that brings new challenges and new stories to the game in a way that Indar perhaps never could. It's called Esamir, and I gave my life (several times) to control and defend it. This is my PlanetSide 2 story.
Leaderboard: Open world vs. instanced PvP
In the great coliseum where PvP warriors go to clash metal and drench the sand with blood, there are two doors. One leads to a place where open world PvP is embraced; the other leads to instanced PvP. Each warrior must make his or her choice which door to step through, and once that decision is made, there is no going back. Except there totally is. Open world PvP has the allure of PvP happening anytime, anywhere. Theoretically, players can vie for control of towns and regions, amassing in large armies to sweep the land of unclean filth. Or they can just zerg a spot and be zerged in return. Instanced PvP is attractive for its tightly controlled setting. The teams are usually evenly matched in numbers, and clear objectives for winning are given. So out of the two flavors of MMO PvP, which is the superior one? Vote after the jump and then back up your decision in the comments!
Hyperspace Beacon: Six things SWTOR and GW2 can learn from each other
As I'm sure most of you can guess by the title of this piece, I spent a little time in another MMO this weekend. That doesn't mean that I will be trading in my Jawas and Wookiees for Asura and Charr. However, I will admit that Star Wars: The Old Republic does not contain everything I want from an MMO. That's also not say that Guild Wars 2 has all those missing elements. But I believe there are quite a few things that both of these great MMOs can learn from each other to make the overall MMO experience better for everyone. Before I begin this breakdown, I should state that this is not a comprehensive list of everything that I liked and disliked from either game. At the same time, I want to also state that, besides the 20 or so minutes at trade shows I had with the game, this weekend marked the first time I've spent any serious time in Guild Wars 2. My opinion here is far from complete, and my experience is really based on the first 10 levels of GW2. Lastly, I'd like to say that Wookiees will always be cooler than Charr!
Seven Souls Online open beta brings open PvP, new zones
Free-to-play betas are something of a running joke around these parts, and it's not uncommon to see such games undergoing prolonged testing periods for months (or even years). Seven Souls Online might be breaking that mold, though, as the title is heading into open beta tomorrow after the conclusion of its closed beta that began earlier this year. The NEOWIZ title is heavy on martial arts action, and the new beta will raise the level cap to 40 as well as introduce the new Dragonscale Valley zone, the Inferno dungeon, and open-world PvP combat. Said PvP becomes available at level 31, and you can learn more about Seven Souls -- as well as sign up for beta -- on the game's official website. [Source: NEOWIZ Games press release]
Age of Conan's Craig Morrison talks conquest vs. competition
PvP is a naturally contentious subject, particularly when focused on its various flavors in the MMO space. Everyone thinks they know best, and whether they're arguing for a three-faction system, full loot, or open-world objectives, the discussion often devolves into verbal throw-downs every bit as violent as their in-game counterparts. Age of Conan game director Craig Morrison recently waded into the fray via his personal blog, and he says that defining PvP in an MMO context involves separating the wish for conquest from the wish for competition. Morrison touches on several interesting aspects of MMO PvP, including a bit of history relating to the arenas and battlegrounds that are usually reviled by hardcore player types. "The needs of accessibility dictated that designers try and find a way to accommodate the appeal of the conquest style of play while also retaining the fairness of the competitive desires of the players," he explains. Ultimately, Morrison offers a bit of hope for those who prefer open-world conflict. "It's great to finish a great story and storm the castle and beat the bad guy. It is something else altogether to get to keep his castle, and for you to become the bad guy for the next would-be hero to try and conquer," he says.
SWTOR goes bug hunting with 1.0.2 and prognosticates PvP improvements
With the abundance of bugs and glitches in Star Wars: The Old Republic, fans are looking to James Ohlen's promise of weekly patches to shore up the faults. Yesterday we saw patch 1.0.2 go live with some -- but certainly not all -- of these fixes, as well as an increase in the PvP lockbox rewards and allowing players to emote while mounted. In addition to yesterday's patch, today BioWare plans to roll out an emergency fix to address a few important issues: players crashing to desktop at character select, a problem with the chat channels in which they would stop functioning for some people, and the now-infamous /getdown bug. PvP Lead Gabe Amatangelo also emerged from the BioWare fortress to chat about plans for the future of the game's PvP combat. According to Amatangelo, the team is working on level 50 brackets for warzones, vastly improving open world PvP on Ilum, a new same-faction vs. same-faction warzone, team vs. team queuing, ranked warzone matches, and more. He says that to date, over a million warzone matches have been played, with 39% of those matches played being Huttball and the Empire winning 53% of every match fought.
Age of Conan dev update talks open-world PvP, House of Crom
Funcom game director Craig Morrison has released his monthly Age of Conan development update a couple of weeks early. Morrison usually closes each month with a summary of where the game has been and where it's going, and the December version is no different save for the mid-month release date. While there's a lot of info, the most interesting bits concern the projected live date of the long-awaited House of Crom dungeon. Morrison says that the new content will most likely debut on January 11th or 12th, and that the dungeon will be playable on AoC's test shard over the Christmas holidays. Also new this month is a detailed explanation of the game's upcoming open-world PvP content. When the new feature was first announced, the game's hardcore PvP community unleashed an epic tidal wave of tears due to suppositions about "PVE sheep trying to pass in PVP wolf's clothing," not to mention concerns about a possible rehash of the game's disastrous Shrines of Bori mechanic. Morrison spends several paragraphs of this month's update explaining what Funcom has learned since Bori, and how that knowledge is going to translate into a fun system that isn't exploitable via PvE mechanics. You can read the full update at the official AoC website.
