MMOries of a Gamer: PvP

Hello everyone and welcome, once more, to another chapter of MMOries of a Gamer. This week, I’ll talk about one of the most thrilling features you can enjoy (or suffer) in almost every MMO available in the market: PvP (player vs. player combat.) This is a very popular feature with millions of fans; in fact there are a lot of players that simply ignore the PvE content to focus on PvP action fully.

Come along with me, after the jump, and let’s give the topic some thoughts on MMOries of a Gamer: PvP.

I assume everyone knows what PvP is, but in case some newcomers to the fantastic “virtual worlds life” don’t know, here’s a brief description:

PvP means “player versus player” and it refers to the action of gamers confronting other gamers, instead of  NPCs (Non Player Characters) or monsters, controlled by the AI (Artificial Intelligence) of the game. Basically, PvP is an endless battle, full of players of opposing factions, fighting for PvP rewards. Those rewards consist in pieces of gear for the player’s character, faction points, fame, etc.

Fighting other players is awesome or a pain, depending on you and what you like. Why can it be a pain? Because (for different reasons) many players don’t like to fight others, and some games force gamers to enter into PvP if they want to get very important items, or other rewards of relevant into the game. Other players though, love PvP so much; dedicating themselves to endlessly fighting other players and seeking glory.

Lets see some of the types of PvP action you can find:

• Open PvP. Some games offer open PvP worlds, where everyone can fight each other with no restrictions. In these games there are usually “rules” of PvP behavior to avoid the chaos of everyone killing each other meaninglessly, but there are the famous PKs (Player Killers) who like to stay in newbie areas, killing low level players. This type of PvP is “realistic”, but makes PvE activity more difficult. Anyway, if you like action, this will be fun.

• RvR. This means “Realm vs. Realm” and offers a more faction oriented PvP action, where two or more different realms fight each other, in specific areas, to gain control over different territories. Away from these areas, you can access to normal PvE. Some games offer this and the chance of attacking other players, but only if they are from the opposite faction.

• Selective PvP. There are games that offer the possibility of becoming a PvP player when you want, letting you fight other players from an enemy faction (if he wants to enter PvP as well.) Usually, these games feature zones where you automatically become attackable and offer, as well, areas devoted to PvP (Battlegrounds.)

• Localized PvP. There are games where PvP is unavailable except in an area dedicated to it. You can’t fight other players except in that special zone, usually a huge battleground. Here you can access to the average PvP experience, but out of it, no PvP is available at all but duels.

• Dueling. This is the most common PvP you can find in almost every MMO. You challenge a player to a duel and if he accepts, you both enter a PvP fight to see who wins the fight. There are tons of players dueling in all MMOs, it’s fun and sometimes serves to resolve differences between players.

Some games offer a mix of the types mentioned above, or make different servers devoted to different types of PvP.

PvP offers thrilling action and can be very challenging. As a PvPer, you’re not facing an AI, (artificial intelligence) you confront other players; they think, react and adapt their tactics, depending on what you do. That is fun. In addition, PvP can be very immersive through RvR, let me explain:

As a PvPer, you’ll be fighting for a realm and its interests. Defeating another realm and its PvP players can be so inspiring, a sense of strong community appears and you could find yourself shouting and cheering after a long and hard fight.

My first PvP experience was in World of Warcraft, defending a small village. I was a Forsaken Warrior, only level 26, trying to defeat someone. I remember we were around 30 Horde players, fighting around 70-80 Allies, and the battle lasted for several hours. It was great.

The best battle I’ve seen though was in WoW as well, but in the middle of The Barrens, at Crossroads. By then, I was already level 60 and I was just passing through, when  I saw the typical attack warning on the chat. The Allies had prepared a huge attack, coming from a nearby port from the west and, when we went to see them come, we saw around 150 players, all mounted on their steeds, marching slowly to Crossroads. Some of us asked for help in World Defense Chat, but so few responded and we ended up with 15 warriors and around 30 spellcasters and only 2 clerics. It was epic.

The Alliance army aligned in front of the Crossroads west road and stood there for some moments. We, the horde fighters, were scattered, shouting and doing some “/rude ” to the first line of the Allies. I knew the battle was lost before beginning, but I was sure it would be fun to make things difficult to the allies coming to a low level village, (I didn’t know by then that the attack was aiming for Orgrimmar.) The situation started to become tense, some of us were shouting to stand back close to Crossroads, looking for some kind of shelter, when all of a sudden an orc warrior charged yelling like a mad bull. That was unexpected, to both sides, but I couldn’t help it and charged too. I told you we were 15 warriors, right? well, all of us charged against the first line of the Alliance army but, incredibly, the charge was made like a perfect line with one warrior with a distance of 10 meters each. The first warrior charging only 2 secs before, hit someone and right after that he shouted the terrible war cry that makes everyone around flee in panic if they fail a check. He died immediately under the attack of the allies but 5-6 players begun to flee due to the war cry effect. Two seconds after that, another 14 warriors used the war cry as well, making another 40-50 players flee at the same time, while the rest of the Horde army, full of spellcasters, started to cast all kind of AoE (area of effect) spells… it was pure luck and coincidence, but panic invaded the Alliance army and they started to retreat, fleeing quickly.

It was crazy to chase an army of 150 players, defeating everyone. As I told you last week, the human factor makes things different in-game. People didn’t want to die. Instead of acting like a group, they acted like single players. If they stood and faced the attack a lot of them would die, but they would defeat us. The individual interests made the Horde win that fight, a glorious one, for we ended up defeating an army 3 times bigger than ours.

Ah, the thrill of battle. It truly is on PvP.

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