PvE… It ain’t all bad.
April 8, 2008 – 5:42 pm
Utter three simple letters to any WAR fan and you’ll usually be met with a stern glare, pinch of the nose, and rude, “Pbbt!” (propelled by flying spittle).
P-v-E
Player versus Environment is seen as the antithesis of Player versus Player, or, in the trademark case of EA Mythic’s Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Realm versus Realm. PvE is a bane to many gamers; seen as an endless treadmill of questing, raiding, and NPC- (non-player character) grinding. WAR developers have said on many occasions that their game is more about vanquishing other players and less about playing whack-a-mole with flopsy bunnies and cutesy bears. Non-sentient raid bosses located deep within instanced caves will likely be replaced by sieging an enemy’s player-defended city and shaming his king in public displays of rotten fruit target practice. The developers have even stated that they’re allowing players to raise from tiers 1 through 4 solely through RvR, never having to complete an NPC quest or harm an animal (PETA-approved).
All that sounds great, but I still think PvE has a place in WAR, if only to bring a little variety to the gaming experience.
RvR can easily become as boring and repetitious as PvE if it’s your sole means of progression. Killing 1000 bears becomes comparable to killing 1000 high elves, even if those high elves are slightly less predictable. A game comprised of killing the same 12 classes over and over again doesn’t offer much variety of experience after a time because you’ll eventually learn all their capabilities and patterns.
PvE can offer a bit more variety—another avenue of progression and additional end-game content. Locking your enemy’s king in the gallows may be fun, but there’s still something magical about participating in a large cooperative effort to take down a mighty dragon or twisted demon of chaos. You’ve heard the expression, “too much of a good thing..?” It’s when too much of something becomes unpleasant after you’ve had too much. Too much PvE is not something that interests me, but if I can balance it with RvR, then it becomes bearable. And vice versa.
The most important thing EA Mythic needs to keep in mind when implementing a “balance” of PvE and RvR experiences is to also balance the rewards from each. The good news is that they’ve apparently learned their lessons from DAOC. In the expansions for Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic began forcing players to participate in high-level PvE encounters in order to upgrade their gear enough to compete in end-game RvR. Players freaked out, the game experienced subscription loss, and as a result, it appears that the best gear in WAR will now come from city sieges. I want to caution EA Mythic not to go too far off the deep end with this concept. If they introduce too great a disparity between city loot and slightly more attainable PvE/RvR loot, they’ll have another wail of complaints to deal with.
Maintaining a good balance of PvE and RvR experiences and rewards will allow for many future expansions, which is a key component to MMORPG sustainability. If done well, WAR will appeal to the widest possible audience and give players an endless number of challenges, allowing them to pick and choose which suits their mood of the day.
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