AOC is NOT a PVP game.

Fiddlez

AoC is a PVX game and that means something.

This started as a reply during another Forum post but It became long winded so I just made a post. As always any thoughts of your own are appreciated.

I think there is a general confusion on what AoC is trying to be and why some people incorrectly think that this game is being designed around Nostalgia or PVP. Its not.

I look at this game as closer to a Story to be read, or something you could write about and even if you didn't play there would be stories you would want to hear. You can have a version of meaningful conflict with out PVP for sure but the more you risk the bigger the conflict and the more interesting the story. Just look at Eve Online, I've barely touched that game but I've heard the stories and there's a chance you have to.

The idea isn't that you need to focus on your inventory when out collecting but that its a dangerous world full of conflict(terror). You need to address that, no one will likely disturb you but there is a chance and that chance pushes players in to Social content essentially. Players may provide protection services or people will group to collect to ensure safety or be aware of the other players and maybe be a little more friendly etc. Its simply not as simple as "other players want to kill me while I collect flowers and that's silly". Its that with out that you are sacrificing the core of the game and reducing the need for players to rely on each other.

Even the Nodes are designed to create conflict. So the goal is to create a world that feels in conflict. (Ideally they do add corruption effects to your character when you increase in corruption.) Where you are going out in to the world and your safety isn't guaranteed. When you see a player you ask yourself, who is that? what are they doing? what do they want? If they are corrupted, what do I do ? Did they kill someone that pissed them off or are they just out to cause trouble? You have just entered into conflict simply by being there.

People should be very clear that this is NOT a progression train that you hop on and off with no need to interact with other players and even when you do they might as well be AI for the value that it brings to the experience. I think In-fact you are most likely to prefer bots because the players tend to gravitate towards toxic behavior with a " if you slow me down you are hurting me and now I am pissed off" style of development. When i say Modern MMO's/RPGs feel empty it barely seems to even scratch the surface.

I played Wayfinder and that games feels so dam empty just like so many before it, for what it is its probably decent but I am not interested. There are a lot people that are upset that T&L has auto-play but because there is such a focus on just instant gratification that players and companies seem to just assume that anything outside that wont work, they design games that are one breath away from being AutoPlay. So clearly Autoplay was the next logical step.

Which is probably why it takes someone like Steven Shariff to change things. Remember WoW had 0 experience going in to making their MMO with only a vision and not enough money, before WoW they made RTS's and Action RPGs in a world where gaming itself was certainly not mainstream. If anyone remembers how silly their launch was and how little content the game had it would probably blow them away. It took them a full year or more to even get their servers in line. Either way they developed a game that everyone wanted to play for that time. Everyone projected a massive failure. They came out on top because their vision of WOW at that time hit the right chord.

Despite being the most popular MMORPG to date Blizzard are also oddly enough the last developer anyone should talk to before making their own MMORPG. They made what they made and that worked for them and that's it, even recently though it seems they don't understand why anyone keeps playing their own game.

Main Point is this, stop focusing on if this game is PVP or PVE, they operate together to achieve a larger goal from a Man who made a world as a Dungeon Master and wants to see that world live. Telling him to reduce the conflict points would be like telling GRR Martin to stop killing characters.

Ludullu

Noaani wrote: »

Once you understand these two points, there are then many things you can do to hamper your rivals - both in game and out of game. I have (more than a dozen times) seen guilds crash the server to prevent kills, yet crashing the game server isn't even the most extreme thing I have seen PvE based conflit result in - not by a fairly long shot (I am not going to talk about anything past that, as I do not condone it and expect at least some of these actions to be possible in Ashes).

I mean, L2 also had "meta-conflict" (the ones outside of the game for in-game reasons) where people paid server admins to ban GLs before a siege, or literally called the internet provider of a GL or a strong player and asked to reset the internet at a crucial moment (and they could do it cause they dug up that kind of info because of "conflict").

And literally the biggest "drama" related to L2 is that one of the players from one guild killed (though by acciden) a player from another guild, who was also a HUGE troll on the forums (yet another representation of meta-conflict).

And I've personally seen fights over in-game conflict on the local servers.

But to me meta-conflict is not meaningful, because it's just dumb stuff people do because they can't win in the game. To me that stuff just means that they are weak and had to resort to the shittiest form of "conflict resolution".

And ultimately the same applies to PKing as a resolution as well, because to me that's the last possible solution that you'd only resort to if you were desperate.

So I'd be curious about other in-game examples, rather than meta-ones. Gathering at a boss faster and farming the boss better applies to L2 as well. Obviously the pve itself isn't at the same lvl, but the action itself is the same. If anything, quite often you need to not only gather your own guild, but navigate your social circles and spies as well, because you might need support against the guild that's competing with you (though I'd assume EQ2 had smth similar too).

Obviously open world bosses would be similar between the two games as well, because you'd just need to come to the boss and do the skill/mechanic/action that disrupts the farm in the most effective way.

Are there any examples for impactful conflict during instanced farming (not meta-stuff obivously)?

Noaani wrote: »

If you walk up to me in game, attack me and kill me, how is that a resolution to that conflict?

The answer, dear reader, is that it is not, in fact, a resolution to that conflict. I just respawn and carry on with my day. The only conflict a PvP system in a game can resolve is conflict in relation to the in game systems that PvP is designed to resolve (ie, we both want to harvest that rock).

But unless you get the other player permanently banned on the server, nothing else would be a proper resolution to the conflict either, right? Or am I missing something?