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MMORPG: Player Vs Player (Not the MAD Magazine Kind), Or, A Lame Strategy Guide
Fri, 10 Mar 2006

(Or, in an alternate gotee-wearing universe: "Nerdiest Post Ever" for I mention roleplaying, online gaming, MUDs, Quake, and strategies for these. I hope you respect me in the morning. Apologies in advance for the awkwardness of the writing.. not a lot of proof-reading going on here.)

Wired.

Busy times -- been sick for days, caught the Lord of the Rings musical (to be reviewed separately in a less-nerdy moment), visited yet-another funeral, readied up for some house hunting, and just watched the muffler blow off my car... but tonight I will finally get to sit down. Well, sit down to catch up on the support inbox.. <cry> Anyway, as an old pencil and paper 'roleplaying and wargamer' from waaaay back in the 80s (Dungeons and Dragons ('D&D'), Battletech, Starfleet Battles, etc.) and later a bit of a computer gamer, I've always kept an eye out for good design and to watch the game industry; I've rarely had a lot of time to keep in games myself, but I do like to read a few magazines here or there and fiddle as best I can arrange. Like an armchair sports watcher, but without the beer can. As a developer I like to see whats going on and how things are done, and as an wannabee gamer I like to just see how things evolve. As an arcade collector, I like things to be fast and vicious since 15 minutes is about all one can squeeze out of a day, right? (And for the curious, I take my poison as Scotch, not beer ;)

Prelude: Lets get this out of the way once and for all

MMORPG's are computer 'role playing' games (where you take on a character and manage its growth over time) you play online with a few thousand other people - so the enemies are both computer AIs (scripted) and real people (unpredictable) - potentially much more interesting than traditional games where things can get rote very quickly. (MMORPGs take longer to get rote ;) You've likely even heard of one of these games, from EVE Online and their virtual stock scams and Everquest online where real people have had their lives destroyed because of being too addicted. Anyway, the virtual cities are abuzz with folks running every which way on all sorts of quests and tasks, buying goods or hunting monsters, constructing new gadgets or fishing in a online pond. They're not so much like action games - Quake for example - a frantic 3D shooter akin to running amok in a warzone, but where players invest months of time to slowly grow their character up into more and more strength in various ways: the better warrior, sneak, wizard or what-have-you. I ignored the MMORPG genre more or less as I've not the time, but I did spend a lot of time during college with their predecessor - the MUD or text-only Multi-User Dungeons. Those were the same as today's MMORPG, but without fancy graphics. Really, pretty much the same pound for pound, though today's games learned heavily from the MUDs, tabletop RPG and wargaming to produce nicely pollished online experiences. Big bucks for the company that can harness the millions of potential players willing to spend per-month to play in the online world.

I should point out, for clarity -- MMORPG stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. There are also MMOFPS for First Person Shooter. Someday we'll have the true life-destroying game MMOCiv -- give me a massive persistent world with Civilization style exploration and we'll have something.

World of Warcraft (or WoW in short)

'Warcraft' is a series of games from 'Blizzard' - real time so-called strategy games where you grow and throw military units at another player (be it computer or human) until one is champion. Great fun in their day, but perhaps a bit tired of a genre by now; their universe - a variation of the 'high fantasy' elves-and-dwarves realm - is pretty attractive however, with striking artwork and an entertaining backstory so they have naturally built upon their enormous fanbase to create a MMORPG -- pretty much the king of the genre at this time with some reported eight or nine million players. At $15USD per month (after only some 18 months or so?) - thats not too shabby and likely rivals the income of many small countries.. Anyway, after being egged on by a few workmates and friends, I fired it up a month back to see what the hubbub was about. It is fun stuff, bringing back the old MUD and wargaming days for me (stats and +5's all over the place!), but its a serious time-sink so hard for me to keep up with the folks I know. Fortunately I do have one friend whose also busy (read: also has a girl ;) so can't power his way to the higher levels of potency either. Fun times to hang out and crush some dragons.

Something to watch is the very new Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO), modelled after the very daddy of all role-playing games, D&D itself. That could be something.. just as WoW consumed the corpse of Everquest, some suggest DDO could put WoW to sleep. We shall see.

Player Versus Player

This is why I write this entire post, to provide some insight on PVP. MMORPGs come in a few flavours - RolePlaying themed ones with Thou's and Thus'es and people faking Olde Speake; Monster-killing or Player Versus Enemy (PVE) where everyone regardless of faction is more or less safe from other playersw, but all hunt computer scripted monsters; and Player Versus Player (PVP) where everyone hunts monsters to get experience for their levelling up, but can also hunt other real players. This is where the meat is, I say.

Things to remember about PVP, from my very limited free time perspective:

PVP is always unfair; no one attacks another player who is tougher than they are -- they'll attack when you're down after fighting some big monster, or perhaps if you're much wimpier than they are (you've not played as long as they have, pretty much.) So the trick is to know that theres always someone tougher out there in the enormous virtual world, looking to kick your rear. Or more to point, you're looking to head into enemy territory and find some newbie to crush. Accept it -- you won't likely get too many fair battles with long back and forth almost dance-like combat -- no no -- you'll get fast and furious, a surprise attack from one side where the defender immediately flee's (on fire most likely!) into the jungle hoping to get a breather to heal himself and run more, or turn the attack to his favour.

Given that truism, the next is -- it is better to be the hunter than the hunted. You can stay in your home areas where you can be safe, and are certainly covered by the city watch and guards roaming the countryside, but the real fun is when you start exploring the world at large, or slip into enemy territory to find out whats what.. and maybe trim a few enemy combatants. If you're playing on a PVP server or game, you'd best look for some combat or it'll find you.. when you're at your worst. Or play on a PVE game :)

MMORPG's are really about capturing lots of money for the hosting company, and to do so they need to be fun for everyone; they won't make them too hard or too annoying, and will aim for as much crack-like addictive fun as they can, to maximize profits; so when you're attacked and killed off by something (monster or player or disease etc) its just a matter of a couple of minutes and you're back in action once again. No real cost to it, since that'd annoy people (who've paid for some experience, not to be annoyed.) So no worries.

Want a picture? Hit this one up

You can see my character (who can shape-shift into such things as a plains cat) running the heck away from 5 or more enemies (the guys with red names over their heads). I got away this time, too, as my 'cat form' is very fast and stealthy, and I even took a couple pursuers down before I had to head off to dish cleaning duty and teleported back to safe area. Good times.

Survival Rules

OKay, some ideas; I'm no expert at survival -- I can nab a few people of my level or slightly more, but then the reinforcements arrive and its time to head for the hills.. or a large pile of friendlies. Still, I've got a few ideas: Keep moving -- a stationairy target is one inviting an attack, and an attack on the dime of the attacker. Keep moving -- but don't let them lead you into a trap, such as a city with roving sets of guards or a big party of enemy combatants. Scout ahead -- if you're going to invade, then try and get some stealth recon in, so you know where you'll be in the heat of it. My shape-shifter can sneak around (invisible to wimpier enemies) so I can often pick my target and location, and have a good chance to escape. Like James Bond. Usually you want an area with a lot of smaller characters in it, so you've got choices, and an area far away from where more powerful characters hang out -- reinforcements mean you're done for. When you do get killed - often when you're invading the enemy areas -- do you resurrect near your body, behind a tree so you can hide, or back in the graveyard where you lose some valuable experience but have a shot to teleport home easier? Tough call.

I do have one sneaky idea though; in your own home areas, you're safe -- you can never be forced into a fight, unless you turn on the 'I'm open to attack' option or actually attack an enemy (he has to be allowed to fight back of course, so it automatically enables the flag.) Most folks will never turn it on when they're outmatched so heres my thought -- perhaps have someone standing around taunting and otherwise provoking the enemy -- usually a big swarm of smaller guys -- while his friends hide out of site. Once enough enemies are ready to attack him on their turf at their best time, they turn on their attackable flag and attack him.. poor lad. So they think they've got the advantage, but then the invading allies appear and charge in to find a field full of surprised and attackable folks... should be fun.

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