Profile: grimfall
Send PM  Forum Posts  Forum Topics 

Typically a table-top RPG is a cooperative player versus environment experience. Many of the first MUD's embraced this, but also many introduced the concept of player-killing. Ultima Online encouraged player killing, and almost every game since has included some element of it. I often wonder why.

Is player killing inherent in RPG's? A lot of people who come to this site won't play a game unless it has player killing. Very rarely when I played Dungeons and Dragon or Gamma World with my friends would we get so mad at each other that we had our characters fight it out, and it never seemed to be a very satisfying experience, so how did it get into MMORPG's? And perhaps more importantly, why is it so important to many players? Is it the satisfaction of defeating a 'real' opponent? Is it the need for a greater challenge when it comes to opponent's AI?

What about griefing? It's really amazing that in every game where griefing is enabled, and even some where it's not (how many times have you had some level 70 PVP flagged genius jumping up and down on your 20 hunter trying to get you to accidentally attack him?) there are plenty of griefers trying to ruin the game play experience of some other human being. Yet, of the 200K people who frequent MMORPG none of them ever were griefers and they say they don't like them...

Now I like head-to-head contests just as much as the next person. I've played my fair share of Tribes, Half-Life (no good at those) and hundreds of hours playing Myth and it's sequel... but I don't really want to fight other people in a RPG. I want to cooperate. Being ganked and griefed while trying to chop down a tree to make a humble bow for my friend, well, it's just not fun.

Are there really non-griefing PVP players? If so, why don't the police the griefers themselves? It seems almost contradictory to me. If the game enables griefing, and there are all these great responsible non-griefing PVP players, where are you when the noobs need you? It comes down to you being part of the problem, if you're not part of the solution. The real world has 'Open World PVP' but society, for the most part, has a control over wanton murderers and people who do whatever they want. Why isn't this carried forward to MMORPGs? Who's responsible for it? It seems to me like it's the community at large's responsibility and PVP enthusiasts, this means you.