Dannic, The Prince of Cats

Posted by Dannic on February 26th, 2006 in Legend of the Green Dragon, Muds, Online Role Playing Games(ORPGS.com), Role Playing

Player vs. Player(PVP) has always been a bone of contention between players of the various online games. Some people really enjoy the challenge that PVP offers where others abhor the entire idea of PVP.

Most Multiplayer games allow Player vs Player contests. They are generally lopsided with the more powerful players not minding PvP and the least powerful players detesting it.

The contests themselves are usually lopsided with one player attacking another player when they know that they stand an extremely good chance to win due to better stats. It is easier to take things from less endowed players than it is to fight someone who may be their equal.

PVP can also be rather dramatic since there is less of an inhibition on killing other players within a game. Usually because it is relatively easy for your character to be restored to life and you can generally regain anything you lost in the contest.

But it can be even more frustrating for those who do not do much on the game except interact with other players. For these people, the act of regaining lost experience, levels or equipment is quite frustrating. They generally take long periods of time to level. These are also the same people who complain the most when someone starts killing them quite frequently.

I knew one player who took nearly 3 years to advance to 36/20. Where more active players took less than 5 months. When that player lost 3 or 4 of those levels, they ended up leaving the game. That player was a lost player due to someone taking advantage of them.

There are several options on fixing this. None of them work effectively.

One is to remove PVP from the game entirely.

I have found that this really isn’t a good idea. While it sounds good, it just doesn’t help the Role Playing any and people end up harrassing other players in different ways. It also takes out some of the realism that the game may have.

Another is to limit the PVP within a band of stats.

This is probably the best idea for games to have. Though it doesn’t always work either. Especially when you may have some players who have much higher stats than others and the people they have an opprotunity to kill are never around or there may be no opprotunity for them at all.

Again, this causes complaints. Though mostly from your more experienced players. The ones you count on being there all the time.

Another is to let people choose for themselves if they want to be in pvp or not.

My games are usually set at a default of pvp allowed. If a player truely wants to be immune from pvp then they can find the flag to set it or they can ask about it. I don’t make it easy for them.

This also draws complaints but the number of complaints are far fewer.

One game even uses Role Playing in determining Pvp. Here, pvp is allowed but it must be followed with strict role playing. You may not just go around killing someone for some imagined insult. There must be a legitimate reason. If not and it is abused the player who is doing the pvp will be removed.

Personally, I like this one. However it is difficult to do in a game such as Legend of the Green Dragon. It is more suited for MUD’s and MMORPG’s.

Or you could just leave pvp alone and let people sort it out themselves. Don’t fool yourself into believing that you won’t have complaints though.