Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Quirhid

Has it occured to you that instanced PvP is vastly more popular across all video games? Even without rewards. Players love instanced PvP. PvP has never been as popular and frequent. E-sports is a big thing.

 Its true, if you include video games that are not in the same genre and have nothing to do with MMORPGs....you are correct. Too bad it doesnt apply.

Open world PvP games like the Lineage games for example are far more populated...and WoW got started with open world PvP before going instanced so, it becomes a null example.

So, take your MMOs like DaoC and add on 3-4 more instanced PvP MMOs and you may come close to the amount of just Lineage. Then come up with another 4-5 instanced PvP MMOs to match Lineage 2. When you have done that, come back and post another few instanced PvP MMOs and ill give you another 1 or 2 open world PvP MMOs that MILLIONS played/are playing.

Its well past time that western gamers realize that the amount of people playing games in Asia vastly outnumbers them and that popular games in America are not always more popular than some games in Europe.

Open world PvP is the single most popular game style in Asia, and its also more popular in Europe than in the Americas.

Non-MMO video games have nothing to do with MMORPGs? Have you been smoking bath salts again? How many times do you need to be told that these games do not exist in a vacuum?

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

 

 

i think that system did exactly what it was supposed to do - give players a choice, where who like open world pvp can pvp similary minded players while giving others choice not to participate.

what else could you want from pvp system?

 

No what it did was a half assed and ill thought through attempt at open world pvp. Which did nothing for open world pvp, nothing for open world players and was hardly ever used by players not interested in that aspect of gaming in the first place. It would have been far more effective to simply focus on purely consensual pvp or allow for PVP servers.

What else could you want from a pvp system? Well some focus would be nice and not trying to water down and totally fubar the mechanics in the hope of appealing to a crowd uninterested in the core concept from the start.

Wander around in a group of five and don't flag. See a group of seven SF flagged and don't flag. See one guy flagged "hurr flag guys let's gank his ass!!!". The people that used the mechanic used it to gank. Fantastic that.

An arena/lake pvp game? Fantastic.

An open world pvp game? Fantasitic.

A game which takes the open world pvp concept and forces in a shockingly suited flagging mechanic in order to try and grab consumers tradtionally uninterested in open world pvp in the first place? Not so fantastic.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Non-MMO video games have nothing to do with MMORPGs? Have you been smoking bath salts again? How many times do you need to be told that these games do not exist in a vacuum?

 Non-MMO video games have SOMETHING to do with MMORPGS? Have you been selling yourself on the streets for another hit of crack again? How many times do you need to be told that FEW UBER LEET HALF-LIFE TOURNAMENT PLAYERS GIVE A RATS BACKSIDE ABOUT MMORPGS that they dont play?

If you actually think that Blizzard, Turbine, Funcom, Nexon, NCSoft or any other MMORPG maker actually bases their MMORPG development by what is popular in...Mario Kart, then let me tell you about a 134 story skyscraper on a beach in the sahara desert that I have for sale.

The way I would do it...

You have civillians.

Civillians do not engage in PvP.

Civillians cannot attack other civillians.

Civillians cannot attack combatants.

You have combatants.

Combatants engage in PvP

Combatants cannot attach civillians.

Combatants can attack other combatants.

A civillian can choose to engage in certain activities which will eventually lead them to becoming a combatant. There is a grey area between civillian and combatant where you are open for pvp when you perform certain activities. If you do not perform the activity you are not flagged as a combatant, if you do then you remain flagged until certain crieteria are met.

Continue to perform certain activities can eventually turn you permanently into a combatant.

Changing from civillian to combatant is permanent. Choose wisely. You cannot go back.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

 

 

i think that system did exactly what it was supposed to do - give players a choice, where who like open world pvp can pvp similary minded players while giving others choice not to participate.

what else could you want from pvp system?

 

No what it did was a half assed and ill thought through attempt at open world pvp. Which did nothing for open world pvp, nothing for open world players and was hardly ever used by players not interested in that aspect of gaming in the first place. It would have been far more effective to simply focus on purely consensual pvp or allow for PVP servers.

What else could you want from a pvp system? Well some focus would be nice and not trying to water down and totally fubar the mechanics in the hope of appealing to a crowd uninterested in the core concept from the start.

i think you didnt quite got what i was saying - they made a system that was afaik fine for MOST of the players - it wasn't  core system of the game, swg wasn't afaik marketed as "epic pvp game where you can kill anyone you want"  therefore that system was RIGHT for that game.

 

Wander around in a group of five and don't flag. See a group of seven SF flagged and don't flag. See one guy flagged "hurr flag guys let's gank his ass!!!". The people that used the mechanic used it to gank. Fantastic that.

sorry - but exactly the same goes for more or less any open world pvp game i know, no matter if there is a flag system or not - most of the people who plays them attack only when they have significant advantage - thats why they like open world pvp more then instance one, where you usually have quite even odds.

 An arena/lake pvp game? Fantastic.

An open world pvp game? Fantasitic.

A game which takes the open world pvp concept and forces in a shockingly suited flagging mechanic in order to try and grab consumers tradtionally uninterested in open world pvp in the first place? Not so fantastic.

again - you are not talking about game BUILD around open world pvp. what you say would be true for PS2 or MO, but not for SWG.

I like the neutral mode concept. Just needs one tweak... if you attack a neutral player guards show up, heal the neutral and perma-kill you.

It would be so worth the laughs.

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

 

 

No what it did was a half assed and ill thought through attempt at open world pvp. Which did nothing for open world pvp, nothing for open world players and was hardly ever used by players not interested in that aspect of gaming in the first place. It would have been far more effective to simply focus on purely consensual pvp or allow for PVP servers.

What else could you want from a pvp system? Well some focus would be nice and not trying to water down and totally fubar the mechanics in the hope of appealing to a crowd uninterested in the core concept from the start.

i think you didnt quite got what i was saying - they made a system that was afaik fine for MOST of the players - it wasn't  core system of the game, swg wasn't afaik marketed as "epic pvp game where you can kill anyone you want"  therefore that system was RIGHT for that game.

 

Wander around in a group of five and don't flag. See a group of seven SF flagged and don't flag. See one guy flagged "hurr flag guys let's gank his ass!!!". The people that used the mechanic used it to gank. Fantastic that.

sorry - but exactly the same goes for more or less any open world pvp game i know, no matter if there is a flag system or not - most of the people who plays them attack only when they have significant advantage - thats why they like open world pvp more then instance one, where you usually have quite even odds.

 An arena/lake pvp game? Fantastic.

An open world pvp game? Fantasitic.

A game which takes the open world pvp concept and forces in a shockingly suited flagging mechanic in order to try and grab consumers tradtionally uninterested in open world pvp in the first place? Not so fantastic.

again - you are not talking about game BUILD around open world pvp. what you say would be true for PS2 or MO, but not for SWG.

 

1. I entered the thread because some people suggested that the flagging system as seen in SWG was the ideal/the best system for open world pvp, from an open world pvp perspective. That is clearly incorrect. "Flagging" is utterly insane from an open world perspective. Even in SWG it had a detrimental effect. Those not interested in open world simply didn't use it, whilst those interested in open world abused it. PVP servers would have been far more effective, that or not bothering with the open world concept outside of guild wars and duels in the first place.

2. It is not at all the same with full on open world games. Players clearly look for an advantage and clearly try and go in when they get the drop on the enemy. But the key factor is that they are at risk from the same thing whilst doing so. Wandering around in perfect safety just looking for ganks in an open world game is bloody ludicrous.

3. Again I am talking specficially from an open world pvp perspective. Those advocating the kind of flagging system seen in SWG as the best model for open world pvp are sniffing glue quite frankly. Again it didn't provide a boon for SWG either.

I am well aware SWG wasn't built around open world pvp, it was a good job really because it's open world pvp model was fundamentally flawed from an open world pvp perspective. So when people come forward and suggest it was the paragon of open world models, well sorry but that is just massively far from the truth. Me pointing that out though doesn't mean I'm calling out for all games to be EVE or Darkfall, or lambasting SWG because it wasn't "hardcore" enough which is what you seemed to be implying in your first post.

To suggest that flagging or SWG are brilliant ideas and examples for an open world pvp model, well the mind boggles.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

1. I entered the thread because some people suggested that the flagging system as seen in SWG was the ideal/the best system for open world pvp, from an open world pvp perspective. That is clearly incorrect. "Flagging" is utterly insane from an open world perspective. Even in SWG it had a detrimental effect. Those not interested in open world simply didn't use it, whilst those interested in open world abused it. PVP servers would have been far more effective, that or not bothering with the open world concept outside of guild wars and duels in the first place.

 

2. It is not at all the same with full on open world games. Players clearly look for an advantage and clearly try and go in when they get the drop on the enemy. But the key factor is that they are at risk from the same thing whilst doing so. Wandering around in perfect safety just looking for ganks in an open world game is bloody ludicrous.

 

3. Again I am talking specficially from an open world pvp perspective. Those advocating the kind of flagging system seen in SWG as the best model for open world pvp are sniffing glue quite frankly. Again it didn't provide a boon for SWG either.

 

I am well aware SWG wasn't built around open world pvp, it was a good job really because it's open world pvp model was fundamentally flawed from an open world pvp perspective. So when people come forward and suggest it was the paragon of open world models, well sorry but that is just massively far from the truth. Me pointing that out though doesn't mean I'm calling out for all games to be EVE or Darkfall, or lambasting SWG because it wasn't "hardcore" enough which is what you seemed to be implying in your first post.

 

To suggest that flagging or SWG are brilliant ideas and examples for an open world pvp model, well the mind boggles.

ad 1. well that depends from whose view - it is not for sure best system from your view as a hardcore open world pvp fan, but it probably is best from devs view (most potential customers) and quite possibly from view of the most of the mmorpg players, since most of them dont like open world pvp (usual poll counts are like 4:1 in favor of pve). problem with pvp/pve server is, that if you are more of a pve player, who does like from time to time to do some pvp (which is imo most of mmorpg players), you have to choose between always pvp on or never pvp, therefore the flag system is better for them.

ad 2. sorry but that simply isnt true (from the point of the one being attacked) - once you are attacked, you can defend yourself - so what is the difference if that first free attack is give to your oponent by him not being initially flagged for pvp or by you fighting some pve monster/harvesting mats, as is usual time you get attacked on ow pvp servers. sure, you are right that flag gives you protection from pvp before you attack, thats why i think BOTH turning pvp flag on and off needs pretty long period (1hr or 1day (and time while you are offline doesnt count)).

ad 3. see 1.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Quirhid

Non-MMO video games have nothing to do with MMORPGs? Have you been smoking bath salts again? How many times do you need to be told that these games do not exist in a vacuum?

 Non-MMO video games have SOMETHING to do with MMORPGS? Have you been selling yourself on the streets for another hit of crack again? How many times do you need to be told that FEW UBER LEET HALF-LIFE TOURNAMENT PLAYERS GIVE A RATS BACKSIDE ABOUT MMORPGS that they dont play?

If you actually think that Blizzard, Turbine, Funcom, Nexon, NCSoft or any other MMORPG maker actually bases their MMORPG development by what is popular in...Mario Kart, then let me tell you about a 134 story skyscraper on a beach in the sahara desert that I have for sale.

Oh, so you play strictly MMOs is that it? No cross-over whatsoever? As long as you insist holding on to these ridiculous statements you'll never make proper sense about anything.

MMOs are video games. They share the market with other video games. They are not on a plane or planet of their own. You can be damn sure smart developers observe other genres too other than what currently employs them.

Originally posted by Benedikt

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

 

ad 1. well that depends from whose view - it is not for sure best system from your view as a hardcore open world pvp fan, but it probably is best from devs view (most potential customers) and quite possibly from view of the most of the mmorpg players, since most of them dont like open world pvp (usual poll counts are like 4:1 in favor of pve). problem with pvp/pve server is, that if you are more of a pve player, who does like from time to time to do some pvp (which is imo most of mmorpg players), you have to choose between always pvp on or never pvp, therefore the flag system is better for them.

ad 2. sorry but that simply isnt true (from the point of the one being attacked) - once you are attacked, you can defend yourself - so what is the difference if that first free attack is give to your oponent by him not being initially flagged for pvp or by you fighting some pve monster/harvesting mats, as is usual time you get attacked on ow pvp servers. sure, you are right that flag gives you protection from pvp before you attack, thats why i think BOTH turning pvp flag on and off needs pretty long period (1hr or 1day (and time while you are offline doesnt count)).

ad 3. see 1.

Ad1. Except it didn't work to provide more potential customers now did it. Because those not interested in open world pvp ignored it and instead pvped from time to time in the set pvp lakes. Whilst those really interested in open world pvp merely avoided the game for the main part.

You could have only 2 people interested in open world pvp and 3 billion interested in arenas, that doesn't change the fact flagging is a crap mechanic for open world pvp.

There isn't a choice of always pvp or never pvp. People not interested in open world games have the option of taking part in arenas, instances, tournaments, guild wars, pvp lakes, duels et al. Whilst those interested in open world pvp can take part in open world pvp games. Whacking in a flagging system to bastardize open world pvp just serves to fk up the situation for one group and add next to nothing for the other group.

Most "casual" pvpers in SWG used Restuss and the stim base lakes. They didn't pop SF and go looking for random fights.

Ad2. What? I pointed out there is a fking huge difference between roaming an open world and having to take the rough with the smooth, and being able to roam about in total safety until you see the chance to gank someone. The difference should be patently clear to anyone with eyes as should the issue with the latter.

If a pve player wants to pve from time to time as and when they choose, then they take advantage of lakes, arenas, duels, guild wars and instanced pvp. PvP on demand as and when they want it, not randomly walking about hoping for the best which is what flagging offers them. A flagging system which does nothing for casual pvpers and at the same time totally balls up open world pvp for those with a real interest in it.

SWG didn't need the flagging system to provide pvp to those with no interest in open world pvp.

SWG's flagging system brought more detrimental effects to open world pvp than positive effects.

A flagging system as seen in SWG as part of an open world pvp system (outside of the context of safe zone flagging) is utterly defunct at best and utterly detrimental to the system at worst.

SWG is far, far away from a good example of how open world pvp should be handled.

Originally posted by Maelwydd

The way I would do it...

 

You have civillians.

Civillians do not engage in PvP.

Civillians cannot attack other civillians.

Civillians cannot attack combatants.

 

You have combatants.

Combatants engage in PvP

Combatants cannot attach civillians.

Combatants can attack other combatants.

 

A civillian can choose to engage in certain activities which will eventually lead them to becoming a combatant. There is a grey area between civillian and combatant where you are open for pvp when you perform certain activities. If you do not perform the activity you are not flagged as a combatant, if you do then you remain flagged until certain crieteria are met.

Continue to perform certain activities can eventually turn you permanently into a combatant.

Changing from civillian to combatant is permanent. Choose wisely. You cannot go back.

This wouldn't work well in a sandbox mmo, because the neutral players would have advantage in farming. The best (in trust, less bad) system is the PVP being allowed or not by zones. The zones with best resources woul have pvp (to aloow the players dispute them), the zones without pvp would have less valuable resources.

Originally posted by Volkon

I like the neutral mode concept. Just needs one tweak... if you attack a neutral player guards show up, heal the neutral and perma-kill you.

 

It would be so worth the laughs.

The penalty should be proportional to the damage. If the attacker can be perma-killed, so the target should have the risk of permadeath too.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Oh, so you play strictly MMOs is that it? No cross-over whatsoever? As long as you insist holding on to these ridiculous statements you'll never make proper sense about anything.

MMOs are video games. They share the market with other video games. They are not on a plane or planet of their own. You can be damn sure smart developers observe other genres too other than what currently employs them.

 Oh, so you play everything and so must everyone else is that it? Oh, so since you like fps'ers all games must have some of the things fps'ers has? As long as you insist on holding on to these MORONIC claims you'll never make proper sense about ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE OF FOREVER.

Are you capable of not appling one thing, to EVERYTHING? Seriously, you think I am not making a proper statement and so you think its not possible to make sense about anything?!?

And THAT is why you fail, black and white thinking.

One genre of video games is not tied to other genres of video games...that is why the ARE GENREs. Your train of thought is that a heavy metal band MUST include country into their music, because country music is music.

Sorry, I dont think so. Instanced PvP in a shooter has nothing to do with MMOs using instanced PvP. it came about with programmers not being able to figure out how to make their game in a way that it could handle massive amounts of people in a small area, Asherons Call which was OPEN WORLD had issues and so they added a feature that would port random people a short distance away to offset the server lag, DaoC came up with the idea to make zoned PvP so other zones wouldnt be affected, and they were slammed with server crashes, so the next idiotic thought was, small PvP zones with a population cap.

Lack of good programming created it, not the popularity of FPS instanced PvP which BTW goes all the way back to Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 in the LATE 1990s. So tell me, if instanced PvP was so damn popular in the late 90s, why did MMOs take 6 years to get there? BECAUSE THE GENRES ARE NOT TIED!

My opinion about open world PVP is very simple: in a typical sandbox mmo, where there is a huge amount of disputable resources in the open world (since territorys with taxes until mob spots), the pvp cant to depend on "licenses", because this would eliminate the political/diplomatical and the major part of the social aspects of the mmo.

PVP with license, structured, instanced or "minigame pvp" fits only mmos where the main focus are the AI content and lore provided by the developers, where all resources are available to everyone in instanced enviroments. In this case, pvp dont have any function or need, except the fight itself as a entertaiment or "attraction".

Why does everyone associate full loot pvp with sandboxes? In actuality sandbox werent the first to use full loot. And not all sandbox games use pvp. And there is no rule saying themeparks cant use open worlds in their games with or without pvp. And you do have sandboxes that have safeguards in pvp to protect its players.

Sandbox doesnt mean pvp, full loot, ganking, and all the other misconceptions that are a all over.

Its like the guy posting on the AOW boards saying he was killed 3 times in the first 5 minutes by another player. And another guy even said he was griefed by the same guy over and over. Which are all false. Its people like this that make up stuff and give games a bad name.

Originally posted by maccarthur2004

Originally posted by Volkon

I like the neutral mode concept. Just needs one tweak... if you attack a neutral player guards show up, heal the neutral and perma-kill you.

 

It would be so worth the laughs.

The penalty should be proportional to the damage. If the attacker can be perma-killed, so the target should have the risk of permadeath too.

 

 

That's... interesting, to say the least. You have a chance to perma-kill your target, but succeed or fail the character you're using will be perma-killed.  If you think about it, that would be the start of a really high priced assassins guild where people roll characters solely for that purpose and offer their services for a hefty fee (paid to the main, of course). The potential for some insane poltics here... 

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Quirhid

 Oh, so you play everything and so must everyone else is that it? Oh, so since you like fps'ers all games must have some of the things fps'ers has? As long as you insist on holding on to these MORONIC claims you'll never make proper sense about ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE OF FOREVER.

Are you capable of not appling one thing, to EVERYTHING? Seriously, you think I am not making a proper statement and so you think its not possible to make sense about anything?!?

And THAT is why you fail, black and white thinking.

One genre of video games is not tied to other genres of video games...that is why the ARE GENREs. Your train of thought is that a heavy metal band MUST include country into their music, because country music is music.

Sorry, I dont think so. Instanced PvP in a shooter has nothing to do with MMOs using instanced PvP. it came about with programmers not being able to figure out how to make their game in a way that it could handle massive amounts of people in a small area, Asherons Call which was OPEN WORLD had issues and so they added a feature that would port random people a short distance away to offset the server lag, DaoC came up with the idea to make zoned PvP so other zones wouldnt be affected, and they were slammed with server crashes, so the next idiotic thought was, small PvP zones with a population cap.

Lack of good programming created it, not the popularity of FPS instanced PvP which BTW goes all the way back to Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 in the LATE 1990s. So tell me, if instanced PvP was so damn popular in the late 90s, why did MMOs take 6 years to get there? BECAUSE THE GENRES ARE NOT TIED!

Yes, I play pretty much everything. No I don't everything to be the same. I'm quite far from black & white thinking, and I don't think it is a big deal if a genre adopts something from another genre that works. Many FPS and RTS games have successfully incorporated some form of persistent advancement in them. MMORPGs have adopted instanced PvP. They are very much tied together.

FPS games have much more time sensitive data to send from the client to the server and the server has to track every objects and players in the area aswell as their effect on each other. If that time sensitive data is lost, there's no point sending it again, hence they use UDP protocol instead of TCP. Furthermore, if those calculations take a long time on the server, it shows on all the clients as lag. You can't have lag in an FPS style combat. It is detrimental to the gameplay experience. Much more so than in many MMOs which are sometimes semi-turn based.

Games like Battlefield 3 have tried to reduce this load by doing the hit calculations on the client-side; however, this also has its drawback. Someone could cheat, or someone could exploit the system to his/her advantage. It has been done before.

Many MMOs only track players in one plane (XY). Vast majority of MMOs do not have time sensitive combat in the same sense FPS and action games do. Relatively few have collision detection and projectile tracking. Very few have any significant physics that a server should track. You see, they've cut corners. Thats why they can have hundreds of people in the same area.

Its very difficult to have action combat in large scale, even if your client computer could handle the graphics side of it.

Blizzard, Bioware, Funcom and many others are not "MMO studios" - they are game studios. Many MMOs run on Unreal engine and Cry engine. Same as other video games.

Please, tell me more about how MMORPGs are completely different from other video games.

E-sports is bigger than it ever was. There are monthly cash tournaments in many games and some games have had a tournament prize pool of 3 million dollars. Instanced PvP is hugely popular. People love it. To say its popular only because of the rewards and devs are lazy is only you trying to bury your head in the sand - you trying to wrestle with the fact that you belong in a minority.

There's nothing inferior about instanced PvP.

Originally posted by Maelwydd

The way I would do it...

 

You have civillians.

Civillians do not engage in PvP.

Civillians cannot attack other civillians.

Civillians cannot attack combatants.

 

You have combatants.

Combatants engage in PvP

Combatants cannot attach civillians.

Combatants can attack other combatants.

 

A civillian can choose to engage in certain activities which will eventually lead them to becoming a combatant. There is a grey area between civillian and combatant where you are open for pvp when you perform certain activities. If you do not perform the activity you are not flagged as a combatant, if you do then you remain flagged until certain crieteria are met.

Continue to perform certain activities can eventually turn you permanently into a combatant.

Changing from civillian to combatant is permanent. Choose wisely. You cannot go back.

That looks very good on paper. However, you really have to look at what the open PVPers are fighting for or fighting over to actually see how that *might* be doable, but only through an unwieldy set of rules to attempt to compensate for the invulnerability status.

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Perhaps because it doesn't make sense.  Two people standing next to each other, and you can't attack one of them because an hour earlier he aligned himself to some faction.

 

How about if you have PVP let the players choose how much to risk through the actual actions they take rather than set in stone game mechanics.  In other words, those rare resources you mention, would require adventuring a bit farther from the safety of guards watchful eyes, away from the nearest city.  Also realize that if someone is attacked in the town, they are unlikely to die, but it still could happen.  Just the attackers would be easily apprehended.

 

I think letting players choose their path using actions and thinking about what they are willing to risk for what they want to gain is far better a practice than just "you aligned to the third faction, safe from all pvp forever"

Asheron's Call does it on the White servers (PvE) I don't see what the harm would be.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

Originally posted by Benedikt

Ad1. Except it didn't work to provide more potential customers now did it. Because those not interested in open world pvp ignored it and instead pvped from time to time in the set pvp lakes. Whilst those really interested in open world pvp merely avoided the game for the main part.

 

You could have only 2 people interested in open world pvp and 3 billion interested in arenas, that doesn't change the fact flagging is a crap mechanic for open world pvp.

 

There isn't a choice of always pvp or never pvp. People not interested in open world games have the option of taking part in arenas, instances, tournaments, guild wars, pvp lakes, duels et al. Whilst those interested in open world pvp can take part in open world pvp games. Whacking in a flagging system to bastardize open world pvp just serves to fk up the situation for one group and add next to nothing for the other group.

 

Most "casual" pvpers in SWG used Restuss and the stim base lakes. They didn't pop SF and go looking for random fights.

 

Ad2. What? I pointed out there is a fking huge difference between roaming an open world and having to take the rough with the smooth, and being able to roam about in total safety until you see the chance to gank someone. The difference should be patently clear to anyone with eyes as should the issue with the latter.

 

If a pve player wants to pve from time to time as and when they choose, then they take advantage of lakes, arenas, duels, guild wars and instanced pvp. PvP on demand as and when they want it, not randomly walking about hoping for the best which is what flagging offers them. A flagging system which does nothing for casual pvpers and at the same time totally balls up open world pvp for those with a real interest in it.

 

SWG didn't need the flagging system to provide pvp to those with no interest in open world pvp.

SWG's flagging system brought more detrimental effects to open world pvp than positive effects.

A flagging system as seen in SWG as part of an open world pvp system (outside of the context of safe zone flagging) is utterly defunct at best and utterly detrimental to the system at worst.

SWG is far, far away from a good example of how open world pvp should be handled.

Seeing as how I am one of the glue-sniffing, mind-boggling, bastardized-PvP-loving SWG fans, I'm curious what your idea for a good, optional open world PvP system would be. Any thoughts or ideas?