Darkfall

I've seen a few people suggest that they'd rather have a PvP flag system in place for this game; one where the player can choose when and if he/she wishes to participate in PvP. Such a system simply won't work in Darkfall, and I'm not saying that as someone who wants to defend the right of the rampant PK crowd. In a more linear/quest based MMO, this system can work well, but adding players that are immune to PvP would put a serious flaw in the most innovative of Darkfall's gameplay features.

The "high end" content in Darkfall revolves around guilds claiming resource nodes and controlling the flow of resources, much like in a RTS game. The control of resources is designed to be the motivating feature in guild vs guild conflicts, which in turn drives all of the political and economic engines in the game. The introduction of a community of players that could freely enter any location and harvest resources without fear of reprisal from these guilds would undermine the economic and thus the political power of the great guilds and detract from the purpose of their conflicts.

If a non PvP character could harvest resources without fear of a controlling guild/nation, then he can offer prices on items made from said resources at a much lower rate. After all, he doesn't have to pay for the resources necessary to defend himself nor the resources necessary to defend the resource node he is using. Such players would flood the market with goods that could otherwise be controlled for military or political reasons. Guilds would cease to be powerful institutions that fight to control a portion of the game world, and would instead become shallow social organizations with no real influence or ability to change the game world.

As I said before, I don't defend the rights of PK players to slaughter anyone at a whim. Those who choose such a lifestyle should be at the mercy of their race and of the guilds that control the region they are in. I do fully support the rights of a guild to defend its resources and its land as it sees fit. Only with such an open system can this game hope to introduce the dynamic world that it has promised.

While your points are well taken, and there is no good reason to eliminate FFA PVP, there are ways of dealing with all the issues you raise, and still have optional PVP.

The simplest one that comes to mind is that you shouldn't be able to harvest or transport resources unless you are flagged.

FFA PVP will scare away alot of people. Reason why is cause of the pk'ing ganknuts. What is the point of playing when your little lowbie get ganked and then corpsecamped by some highbie loser? Besides, whats the problem with the resource gathering? Just disable it if not flagged. Making problems that aint there..pfftt.

Anyway, I hope DF deliver what they promise. Will make even WAR's pvp look like a joke, which I read gotten lots of praise from people. Can be that they are blinded by it cause its new, but we'll see after a while, when the first 'omg dis kewl' wears off.

PVP as flawed in WAR as its in almost every other mmo though. My idea of pvp aint autoattack and pianorolling 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0, rince and repeat untill one is dead. Require absolutely no skill to do that, just a bit of knowledge. What might rescue DF's pvp is that its twitch-based, and actually require some skill pulling off crap from the little I've seen from this game. I'm still a huge sceptic though.

Originally posted by slask777

FFA PVP will scare away alot of people. Reason why is cause of the pk'ing ganknuts. What is the point of playing when your little lowbie get ganked and then corpsecamped by some highbie loser? Besides, whats the problem with the resource gathering? Just disable it if not flagged. Making problems that aint there..pfftt.

Anyway, I hope DF deliver what they promise. Will make even WAR's pvp look like a joke, which I read gotten lots of praise from people. Can be that they are blinded by it cause its new, but we'll see after a while, when the first 'omg dis kewl' wears off.

PVP as flawed in WAR as its in almost every other mmo though. My idea of pvp aint autoattack and pianorolling 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0, rince and repeat untill one is dead. Require absolutely no skill to do that, just a bit of knowledge. What might rescue DF's pvp is that its twitch-based, and actually require some skill pulling off crap from the little I've seen from this game. I'm still a huge sceptic though.

It remains to be seen, but it looks like there's a good chance that the gap between the lowbie and the highbie will be slim enough that the highbie will have to consider his battles carefully...  especially since there's no way of knowing if the "lowbie" your stalking isn't really a "highbie" trying to bait you into taking the allignment hit for the battle by dressing in lowbie gear.

I'm going to do that myself...  max out my skills and then dress in newbie armor.  Wander around newbie PvE zones and wait for someone to try and gank me, then whip out my enchanted gear once they've taken the allignment hit.

FFA PvP is very important in this game..

Why? Retaliation.  Nothing is more rewarding than slaughtering the guy who ganked you two days ago with his buddies..

But FFa also gives you the ability to police the whole world.  I use Darktide as an example.  Back in the day, you could have a complete story lead by the people.  (look up history of darktide).  The first two years on that server of AC.. were amazing.    Sadly, now it's a gankfest, as it was in the begining, but the differenece is now you can avoid people all together (you start in a training area.... only other level 5's are there..  You start out with decent armor, that's no drop..)

its really about freedom.. this thread was on the advanced forums as well.. the point of darkfall is freedom.. sure we dont want griefers everywhere.. but guess what, just like in real life.. you dont have a magic barrier preventing assholes... we will be in the wild west in darkfall.. if there are to many pks in an area.. instead of complaining on the forum.. get off yer ass and make a PK-death squad to police the area..

players create the events in this game.. not some dev script.. thats the beauity of a game with freedom.. random shit can happen

i have explained this before.. but one time back in the day in UO.. i was in Deceit (a popular dungeon on the pacific shard).. i saw a cock made out of chicken feathers, gold and regs on the floor (im not kidding) and was like WTF.. as i stared at it 3 PK's came out and ganked me.. screaming COCK! COCK!... i laughed like crazy..

this type of thing could never happen in any game except UO.. because of the freedom..

I mean there are so many more examples.. random gates right outside town to the best IDOC's with mill's of loot and other stuff... random shit happened everyday a dev could never create.. it was beautiful..

in WoW or whatever game.. you know what will happen when you log in.. u might quest/raid/craft.. whatever.. but in a free game.. like oldschool UO and DF... shit that you never expect happens everyday.. this is what we want... freedom
 

like the poster above said its all about the freedom in game- so many UO players have the craziest stories that few MMO's (from what i hear eve is one of them) could ever hope to reproduce because of its insane amount of freedom. FFA PVP is so clutch because it gives the gamers the power to shape the world not some crazy ruleset of limitations.

I played one of the very few MMOs last year which was still FFA PvP. There is nothing like it, the experience, the fear, the adrenaline rush, the massive ffa battles, or 3 or even 4 way fights everyone just fighting eachother for different reasons. The politics, the everything!! It's one hell of an experience when a guild and an individual player is allowed to choose his enemy.

I have nothing against people who want a PvE system, but in my opinion Darkfall is NOT that game. The dev team themselves are hardcore pvp fans and some were against the idea of even putting in PvP, but thank god they did.

A game without a little PvE can become dull. Anyway, I have to be honest, this game is a long time comming and putting the option of flagged PvP would be a massive mistake. There just is no design for it and it would just ruin the whole scope of the game.

I ain't a griefer, I just love what comes with FFA PvP; Guild Politics, confusion, the fear and knowledge that you could always be attacked/ambushed. The fact that you can rob someone of his equipment. The fact that you can be the hero killing the griefers. So many different possibilities....thats what I love about FFA....so many possibilities so much freedom to do whatever you want to do.

it's not possible to be corpse-camped in Darkfall -- there are no levels for one, and upon death you rez at your bind-point. you could potentially be stopped from leaving a city because an enemy clan has a city surrounded, but then i would call that "gameplay".

Sadly i think a lot of WOW-bots are scared of FFA because they've never experienced it, all they're used to is NPC quests, levelling, and item and reputation grinds.