Anarchy Online (old days) Tower Wars,PvP where I was able to destroy other players characters by destroying their towers and so much much more,kill their characters in the process while they were defending their precious towers ,planning those attacks,doing my role to make our mission a success.building my twinks to be able to do such things,what happened ,i cant never forget this from wow " Lets lose faster ,we get more honor that way"

Well Adam, I guess you know at this point your two problems with pvp. You definately overstated one of those problems. The fact that you are an immersion player. You wan't total immersion and to be honest most, if not all, modern pvp is in some way an immersion breaking experience for those hardcore immersion players.

The other problem? that one you just hinted, but I could debate its probably your biggest problem: ".. plus the fact I'm absolutely awful at it..".

Ya, I hate golf and I could write a huge article about why and how its not a sport and spout negative nonsense at it. The fact is, I suck at it.....

PvP has changed a lot over the years, mostly for the worse sadly, so you're correct in that it does suck, but there are still a few gems holding out against the tide of mass appeal.

But for me if a game has tab targetting and the need to que for PvP i avoid like the plague. Its old technology and is really, really poor of developers to use a system that's over a decade old.

great post.

personally i love and hate pvp. there simply isn't anything more challenging then fighting other humans, but at the same time there is nothing more frustrating.

i cannot play a purely pve game, it just gets boring. NPC simply dont addapt and once you find the "key" to taking them donw you have to move onto something otherwise stuf gets boring fast.  

pvp is the only aspect of mmos that is permanently unpredictable, everchanging, and therfore fresh, while at the same time not being impossible (Master level chess npc anyone?). There simply isn't anything quite as exciting and thrilling as other humans...... 

Modern PvP sucks because it's virtual socialism.

Battlegrounds? There is no element of surprise. The obvious strats are learned by all within a month. Everything becomes a redundant rinse and repeat borefest. It doesn't feel "massively multiplayer" or "heroic". Battlegrounds, Arenas, and Warzones all feel like an extremely sloppy Counter-Strike - small Online games that mean nothing.

I can understand the need for Battlegrounds on PvE Servers, as PvE players should have a choice. The problem comes when they stick that stuff on PvP Servers. Most would not play them if it wasn't for their gear-driven incentive. If the didn't offer rewards for playing Warsong Gulch 10,000 times, people would stop playing them after day 2.

World PvP is the future. However, World PvP has never been done correctly. It has never had proper sanctions to protect lowbies from high-levelers. There has never really been an ultimate goal. All we've been given is the option to attack the opposing faction. It has always been extremely half-assed.

A great deal of "modern" pvp sucks due to two key reasons:

1. It tries to replicate the kind of pvp found in other genres of games, when said pvp is unsuited to the kind of mechanics you typically see in modern mmorpgs. Having highly competitive, e-sport arenas is great, if the game is not built around character progression, if the game has little to no itemization, if the characters are built only on pvp balance within specfic team sizes and if matches are ranked via ladders.

2. It often totally removes/bipasses the game world. Given the game world and the whole "massive" part of mmorpgs is what makes the genre unique, having systems which completely side step that and/or make it redundant is something of a fundamental design flaw.

yes it sucks. just look at the so called free4all pvp crowd :) jumping from game to game moaning and complaing about everything. The silly devs listens to that vocal and poor crowd and ruins the game for everyone else. 

Go to eve online if you want some freaking awsome pvp mmo. Othervise go and play bf3 32vs32 and get pwned.

It sucks because it isn't fun. When it devolves to "Who has more people and/or higher levels and/or better gear." it ceases to be about the skill of the player, and more about the "zerg".

People who claim it's all about the tactics are just deluding themselves. Sure, it's a great tactic to outnumber your foe 3:1 and have better equipment in a real war. But in a game you pay to play to have fun in, not so much. But some people are all about the "Win" and fun can go to hell.  I pity those who are that shallow.

I agree on the meaningless aspects of separation from the rest of the game.

However, that brings up the problem of "wide open" PvP vs. players who don't want to be ganked all day long. They can't play what they want to play without always playing PvP.

That's why I've been promoting the idea of factions. Lot's of factions. That's basically Guild Warfare, but what it does is add worldly meaning via the factions. I'm a proponent of a deep faction system where players can create their own, based on game world base factions and enmities. Mix and match them to put your guild in the light that you want them to be, against others who choose the opposites. And no requirements for players to join any of them. That pits players against players according to their own made up faction. Deity cults against deity cults, thief cults against collective monetary based guilds, Orcs against Elves, etc.

This opens the game world up to PvP, gives it meaning (especially when you add ownership of related relics, constructions, and territory), yet keeps PvP separate while at the same time mixed within the rest of the game community.

I like pvp (as in playing against a player, not the AI), but 'pvp' in mmo's are something else... Pvp for me is board games, strategy games (not the rts crap, real strategy :) ), fps games (I was deep into CS back in the days, before 1.6), card games, etc.

The mmo version should be called class vs class, or gear vs gear, or something similar. The player factor (your knowledge, skills, wits...) has only smaller effect to the outcome. It's there, no question about that, but not enough to call that 'vs player' (for me at least. Nice illustration pics btw).

As an experiment we did once a spar in LotRO, 2 minis, same level, same gear, same traits, that was fun :) but I guess that's the maximum you can get as pvp in mmo games. That's why I don't play pvp, and avoid it even in pvp-focused mmo's... but I wouldn't say pvp sucks.  If it's not mandatory, or has no effect on pve gameplay (khm, like class/skill changes because of the constant whining of pvp'ers about balance...) I'm fine with it.

PvP sucks in most MMOs because it's a totally disconnected and meaningless sidegame.

If you want to do PvP right, then look at EvE Online. The whole game is built around PvP basically and keeps true to the formula of "risk vs. rewards".

Arenas, battlegrounds or warzones are a waste of time and efforts. You have no risks involved there in most MMOs. No repair-costs, no looting of corpses, no nothing. Just a meaningless gankfest.

Originally posted by Yalexy

PvP sucks in most MMOs because it's a totally disconnected and meaningless sidegame.

If you want to do PvP right, then look at EvE Online. The whole game is built around PvP basically and keeps true to the formula of "risk vs. rewards".

Arenas, battlegrounds or warzones are a waste of time and efforts. You have no risks involved there in most MMOs. No repair-costs, no looting of corpses, no nothing. Just a meaningless gankfest.

This pretty much says what I wanted to say. The Article was well reasoned and much of it is true.

About the only thing I require from PvP is some ability to choose when it happens. Whether that choice is provided by a pvp flag, a separate pvp zone, or just the ability to run away to a safe area, so long as there is a choice, the rest of it doesn't matter too much to me.

I would like to say a few words in praise of World PvP.  I know the very idea makes many of you cringe, but for me, the threat of being killed (or ganked), and the thrill of having to be aware of my surroundings at all times makes these rather boring Themeparks much more fun.  I find that questing just to do quests and level up is about as uninspiring as anything can be.  Care-free PvE is really just a notch or two above Farmville on the brain activity chart, and it gives no sense of survival or anything else in my opinion.  Especially with modern MMOs where the mobs themselves don't offer even the slightest challenge.

I'm not even a hardcore PvP player, really.  I find arena battle to be very stale after the first few runs, in the same way dungeons are. Treadmills in general don't appeal to me which is why I like sandbox design. I always join PvP (world) servers though.

It's actually been pretty funny watching *lazy" gamers quest in The Secret World.  They expect to kit up, and go out into the world where they will always be handed the next uber-gear they need to survive the area with little thought about respawns.  These lazy gamers run into a surprise when they are told they are going to have to fix, or adjust the build they didn't pay attention to that is now getting them regular dirt naps.  In fact, many people have come to the boards to post that they quit the game because it is "too hard", which makes me laugh uncontrollably.  

Welcome to the brain-dead mouth-breather world, everyone.  

Originally posted by Yalexy

PvP sucks in most MMOs because it's a totally disconnected and meaningless sidegame.

If you want to do PvP right, then look at EvE Online. The whole game is built around PvP basically and keeps true to the formula of "risk vs. rewards".

Arenas, battlegrounds or warzones are a waste of time and efforts. You have no risks involved there in most MMOs. No repair-costs, no looting of corpses, no nothing. Just a meaningless gankfest.

I agree with this 100%. The reason you end up with an immersion-breaking mess in most MMOs is because it isn't designed with PvP in mind from day 1. It's a tacked on feature at best.

Originally posted by Yalexy

PvP sucks in most MMOs because it's a totally disconnected and meaningless sidegame.

If you want to do PvP right, then look at EvE Online. The whole game is built around PvP basically and keeps true to the formula of "risk vs. rewards".

Arenas, battlegrounds or warzones are a waste of time and efforts. You have no risks involved there in most MMOs. No repair-costs, no looting of corpses, no nothing. Just a meaningless gankfest.

Fighting with ill intentions to kill and pillage vs. Fighting for sport and shaking hands with your opponent after the competition

Loss of life involved with the ancient Colisseum make the battles more meaningful than today's bouts in the octagon?  I'd say yes, but in which arena would you rather compete?  The majority of the market seems to prefer sport > potential grief.