The Digital Continuum: WAR's secret PvP sauce

Before the game's launch day came, a lot of people found themselves thinking there was a stigma that came with Warhammer Online. There was a concern that you couldn't play the game without having to participate in PvP or that the PvE content assumed a much smaller role within the game. People were just plain scared/worried/concerned about PvP in general. Today when I log in I'll find countless strangers and friends all participating in some form of PvP content during their play session. So just what is Mythic's apparently potent secret sauce?

Warhammer Online starts out just as player friendly and non-PvP focused as World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online. Everyone begins with their "go kill a few of these guys" quest which then quickly spins into a string of other various quest types: throw some mud on this Dwarf statue, open up a wobbling barrel and kill the naked Dwarf inside or shove an unconscious Dwarf inside a barrel and shove him off a ledge. Before you know it you've leveled up a couple of times and run into your first Public Quest.

The Public Quests serve as a sort of primer for getting players to understand the open grouping system and overall nature of how their class meshes with its counterparts. Healers get the chance to do a lot of group healing, tanks get to learn the ins and outs of their defensive capability, melee DPS receive plenty of practice with positional combat and ranged DPS learn how far reaching and how long casting their spells are in relation to each other.

It isn't until players come across an NPC offering a quest for merely completing a Scenario that players even see a mention of the fact that WAR actually has PvP combat. Of course, this quest is readily available early on in the starting zone so nobody typically goes too long without seeing the NPC offering it or at least finding the Scenario button on their user interface by happenstance.

The button is a key part of this secret sauce. Where it's placed, how it functions and what it looks like; all of this is very important. It's also a big factor for why a bunch of people have been and continue to be checking out Scenarios. The button takes a mere two clicks -- one click on the button to open the Scenario window and a second two queue up -- for anyone to access a Scenario and because the button is next to the mini-map, which is ubiquitously useful, it's never overlooked. Plus, the unique and familiar "WAR" symbol on the button makes everyone curious sooner or later.

If by some chance players don't come into contact with PvP via Scenarios and simply continue to run through quests and Public Quests alike they'll eventually hit up a Warcamp anyhow. The fact that the Warcamps are placed towards the end of all tier one zones is a very clever choice on Mythic's part. By this time players have gained a few abilities, better equipment and most importantly learned all about the open group system. Even if a player can't find a group to travel into the open PvP areas of the map and capture strategic points with, there are still scouting quests for several areas around the map. At the very least a player can be rewarded for simply traveling through the dangerous area and learning the lay of the land, which will be very useful for when they can actually find a group. Although from what I've seen and heard from other players, it appears that most everybody is getting their first PvP experience in WAR through the Scenarios and then later on venturing into the open PvP areas.

There's more to the recipe, though. It wouldn't matter if these things were easy to find and join if they weren't also fun to play. I've been increasingly impressed with the fact that I haven't seen anyone able to easily grief other players just yet, although I'm sure some group will figure out a way sooner or later. For now, though, everything is running nice and smoothly. All of the classes have clearly defined roles, objectives aren't too complicated but each Scenario manages to feel different enough to stand out and most importantly, the game offers relatively smaller and shorter PvP matches first before giving players anything too time consuming. Finally, players will quickly discover that there are tangible and desirable rewards (equipment, titles, PvE levels and renown levels) and thus several ways to progress their character by playing the PvP content. Plus, they'll get even more "acheivements" or Tome Unlocks to boot! In this way Mythic has hooked people who wouldn't have wanted to participate before.

All right, so let's boil all this down into a basic formula:

Incredibly accessible PvP + easily understood roles and goals + tangible, desirable rewards - griefing opportunities = Addictive, long-term PvP gameplay

That's essentially the secret sauce to WAR's PvP design. The whole thing requires a lot of nuance and balancing on Mythic's part, although I will add one caveat to this formula: It's very essential that the PvE content is a strong as it is in WAR because if it weren't, a lot of players wouldn't even bother with the PvP side of the game. You can't get people to try playing competitively if they don't even have the chance to play cooperatively.

There's still a lot more to learn as I've only played through the first 12 ranks of the live game. Expect more discussion of the higher-level content as everyone approaches it and distills the gameplay experience in their minds. What's going to be especially interesting to me is how the non-PvP players start to feel and react once the open world PvP sections begin to consume more of the game world. Assuming they've been merrily hopping along in PvE and never gave PvP a chance, they could be put off by the stinging realization that a shift is occurring throughout the game. However, since a very large majority of players seem to be queuing up for Scenarios and cautiously venturing out into open world PvP, I don't sense an imminent failure of fun any time soon.