The last game I played that had meaningful PvP was Lineage II. In that game about 90% of the PvP is all about clan and alliance honor and not for points or meaningless drivel. You fought to protect your own... You fought to protect what you owned... You fought to protect your clan's honor. I don't even PvP in most PvE games because it's totally pointless.

Bren

EVE probably has the most meaningful PvP. The entire game is shaped around it from space ownership to the entire economy in the game

Darkfall pwns this thread.

In fact, even mentioning the game in this thread, is pwnage.

And instead of bitching about PKs, as I'm sure someone will....why not form a clan dedicated to fighting them, and protecting others??

Here's why no one does it: it's easier to whine about them, and expect an artificial system to be put into place to do the job the players should be doing.

There ya go.....meaningful PVP. As if defending your hamlet / city / alliance's holdings, eliminating bands of raiders, and advancing your territory weren't enough.

nope, dont miss it at all. thereagain i play eve, so i get it constantly.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

I loved DAOC, but it didnt have meaningful pvp. One courld argue that relic wars and 8v8 might... but most of the time it was fight, kill, die, respawn, rince and repeat.

If you read the article you would know what I mean about real fights over meaningful stuff and I assume thats what kirk meant..

As for EvE... I agree, not all the fights are meaningful, but defending your space, or taking someone elses, fighting and dying for it is a hell of a lot more meaningful than a keep flip in DAOC. Blood, sweat, tears, and hundreds of gaming hours invested in a piece of cyber real estate that you feel an attachment to is much more meaningfull than the keep that changes hands 4 or 5 times a day.

DAOC has a cause and effect PVP system ie meaning ful system.  What your realm controls has an impact on the entire realm from coin to xp to access to what used to be awsome dungeon.  I don't know of any game released other then DAOC where your team impacted everybody  on all sides.

Originally posted by vistakah

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

I loved DAOC, but it didnt have meaningful pvp. One courld argue that relic wars and 8v8 might... but most of the time it was fight, kill, die, respawn, rince and repeat.

If you read the article you would know what I mean about real fights over meaningful stuff and I assume thats what kirk meant..

As for EvE... I agree, not all the fights are meaningful, but defending your space, or taking someone elses, fighting and dying for it is a hell of a lot more meaningful than a keep flip in DAOC. Blood, sweat, tears, and hundreds of gaming hours invested in a piece of cyber real estate that you feel an attachment to is much more meaningfull than the keep that changes hands 4 or 5 times a day.

 

DAOC has a cause and effect PVP system ie meaning ful system.  What your realm controls has an impact on the entire realm from coin to xp to access to what used to be awsome dungeon.  I don't know of any game released other then DAOC where your team impacted everybody  on all sides.

Yes but none of those bonuses really matter endgame.

Darkness falls hasnt been a meaningful place in a long time, Lab over took it a while back. Coin and XP are meaningless for the most part to max leveled players.

These are minor bonuses, and simply cant compare to content denial. Guild A owning System or Spot A that gives access to critical assets that you desire. Guild B moves in and A and B spend three months fighting for the spot. This is meaningful pvp to me.

A 5% coin bonus, and access to a dungeon I havent been in for years doesnt mean the same...at least not to me.

Originally posted by RavenKirk

Other than EvE and Darkfall, are there any games out there that still offer the type of fights discussed in the article?

I can't think of any, but I hope there are.  So much PvP in MMOs is nothing more than riskless, rewardless, carebear crap - WoW is the perfect example.  PvP in that game is a joke!  It's worthless, yet people delude themselves they can handle PvP.  If Blizzard put in actual character death in duels, damage to gear, and even a partial looting of the vanquished, the munchkin PvP'ers would abandon their candyfloss PvP en masse.  

I played DAOC 5+ years.For me...with out a doubt the most captivating game I have ever played.Keep your eyes on Fallen Earth.The game is a way off from launch but for those that like RVR...GVG...PVP  you may find something of interest when it's launched.

Originally posted by Dibdabs

Originally posted by RavenKirk

Other than EvE and Darkfall, are there any games out there that still offer the type of fights discussed in the article?

I can't think of any, but I hope there are.  So much PvP in MMOs is nothing more than riskless, rewardless, carebear crap - WoW is the perfect example.  PvP in that game is a joke!  It's worthless, yet people delude themselves they can handle PvP.  If Blizzard put in actual character death in duels, damage to gear, and even a partial looting of the vanquished, the munchkin PvP'ers would abandon their candyfloss PvP en masse.  

But that is comparing apples to oranges.

I agree that pvp in wow isnt my cup of tea, but wow wouldnt support this style of pvp, neither would EQ2, EQ1, LOTRO, or any other loot based raiding game.

Any time you have to get gear upgrades from a monster on a rare drop system as opposed to a player created and run economy you will not be able to support this type of gaming.

Working 40 hours to get the fabled weapon of ownage only to lose it to some ahole thats zerging you down doesnt work for most gamers. However, buying a full suit of gear from a crafter, then losing it is much more acceptable, because the loss, while painful, wasnt 40 hours of work.

Risk vs Reward needs to be there, but comparing Darkfall, EvE, AC, and UO to WoW, EQ1, EQ2, and Lotro isnt a fair comparison.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by RavenKirk

 

Where pvp wasnt about points, it wasnt about capture the flag, it wasnt some namesless 12 year old moron that was talking trash from his moms house... it was folks you knew, and hated, and more importantly had a reason to hate.

 

meh, this to me is all the more reason not to go back to that type of game.

I can't see myself playing a game and developing hate toward people. There are enough people in real life that give reason to be disliked. And now to foster it in a game?

 

No thanks.

perhaps hate was a strong word. How about nemesis? A bad guy for you to focus your in game time to counter and remove? Something other than killing because the NPC king in town says you are the enemy.

PvP games live on conflict, Im just asking for meaningful conflict as opposed to meaningless conflict.

well, that I can get behind. Provided of course that people keep it in game and don't take it personally.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

Which is why PVP in games like UO, SB, DF, Puzzle Piratesand EVE are far more meaningful than anything most RvR MMOs can offer you. In the MMOs listed, you are fighting for and because of issues that are real to you, the player. In DAoC and other faction games you are fighting the other guys solely because they are a means to an end.   

War yes, DaoC wrong!

In daoc you fought for your realm and its was the purpose of the game. If your side won battles everyone in your realm gained from it and became stronger, if you lost, EVERYONE lost and their characters became permanently weaker until you began to win battles again. You were in the fight together as a community and you fought  for your realm because it affected EVERYONE how the war went. It build the strongest MMO community you have ever seen.'

See if you side lost YOU lost power permanently in your character. And the enemy players were the ones that hurt you and your realm and the more they kept beating the more you "hated" them for it. And the masterstroke of DaoC was the 3 way war so in the end you could never have one side forever beating the other, it would always change over time so the game would not end.

in WaR mythic forgot everything that made a RvR game worth playing. The pvp were just an excuse to gain personal gear and it was more important that you won a random roll over your realm mates after doing another boring PvE disguised as RvR rather than winning over the enemy players. They forgot that a RvR game is about everyone being in the same boat and having to work as a side in a war and everyone shared equally in victory or loss before you could get the sense of warfare into the game.

DaoC had purpose and the endgame was THE game, something no other MMO has managed to equal since then. It is also old and have too many of the bad old things from mmos in it that prevent new players from really enjoy it. So if some MMO company one day understood the idea of realm warfare instead of personal e-pen pvp and combined it with what makes newer mmos more fun for the majority of gamers then you would have an amazing game.

DAoC was the first and last game were I felt like PvP had meaning. I, and many others on the Guinevere RP server during the earlier months of the game, felt like we were fighting for Albion. 

What do we fight for today? Points, gear and e-peen polish. And that's exactly what the developers want. It keeps people playing.

Originally posted by ionlyneedit

What do we fight for today? Points, gear and e-peen polish. And that's exactly what the developers want. It keeps people playing.

I think for a while it kept folks playing, however I think we are coming to a point now where folks are getting tired of the same old same old, and mmo's are starting to lose their distinction from other models such as FPS games.

If all Im doing is killing for a score, that isnt much of a differentiation from counterstrike.

 Skilless combat, which is very FPS-like with minor modifications, is in my opinion the most meaningful PvP combat

Of course, a good turn based combat with a lot of twists and unique abilities twist it up

It's a battle that will never be won by game developers or by players arguing on forums.

Some say player looting system good; gives you a reason to fight to stay alive, gives you a reason to kill the other people more than just a reward that someone else already has. However, others will cry and bitch if they lose their endgame item that they were stupid enough to bring into the battle.

Some say losing xp or going into stat loss is good. Again it gives you a reason to stay alive and fight harder, and if your trying to take down the opposing factions of course you want their players in stat loss or without xp. However, other people will cry and bitch again that they lose their xp when they die that they worked hard to build.

Instanced PVP seems to take away from the personal fights or fights with real accomplishments. You win the specific round, big deal. You have no idea who your fighting and if you die you just respawn, big deal. However, the majority will once again cry about world pvp. They don't want to die while they are training and farming, and so on.

Personally, I miss personal meaningful PVP. Without all the pvp rewards and true reasons to be fighting. In Ultima Online my guild "The Party Boyz" was in a huge war with "The Vampires of Fellucia" for years. We had all our houses in the trinsic swamps and they began to move in on us. Constantly we would be fighting, and we would pick them out while they were bank sitting. We would kill their crafters and camp at their houses, it seemed like real war. There was a cause to drive them from our turf, there was a downside for them when you killed them. If you got their gear then it made them worse. I miss true PVP. However like everything else, the gaming culture seems to have grown into a bunch of safe loving players who are against pvp. So i don't see any new games coming out except for entirely PVP based games that defeat the point of any cause once again. But i won't get into those.