It seems that I'm beginning to come across MMORPGs that are trying to hearken back to the founding days of the genre. Concepts of "perma-death" and "full-loot" are being thrown around like candy as a feature that is supposed to answer the call for everyone's blood lust to take effect.
Let's get something clear here, for all of you developers who think that this is the way to go for your game...
It's not the right direction.
This was something that was acceptable back in the day. This is something I would've been interested in 10 years ago, but games have evolved since then. I've evolved since then. When I was a preteen and games are what my life revolved around, particularly games about getting in people's faces and putting them down, then a title like this would be much more accepting from me. Given the audience of today and the fact that someone like me isn't just a 10 year old anymore, I don't see how the hardcore formulas used in games a generation ago will be a success in this day and age.
The guys who makes these games always advertise the good old days, right? I'm 22 now, have a career, have a family, and am continuing my education. I'm that generation that remembers what Ultima Online was like. I'm that generation that remembers when games like Runescape allowed you to kill anyone, anywhere. The formula today is different, or rather it needs to be looked at differently. The PvE market got huge from Everquest and then from the titan of online gaming World of Warcraft. Hardcore PvP mechanics and perma-death ideals were reserved for people who would joke and say "haha, let's go play Diablo 2 perma-death for shits and giggles."
That's the market you are trying to gain? A market who thinks that perma-death games are basically a joke and nothing more? Do you even care about the substance your game offers? Look, you're competing with socialized Facebook games right now and games that offer the joy of progression without the threat of losing EVERYTHING just because you had to.
Now, what I will do pick out two key things that would give you a formula for success. First being that choice in gameplay is something that has to be done. I already went pretty deep into this when I made my post about being skeptical of the Elder Scrolls Online game coming out this year. By choice in this instance, though, I point in the direction of what Runescape was a little more than 5 years ago. Yes, the wilderness in that game has since returned to what it was, but the point is is that the game has similar concepts to the hardcore titles that are trying to be successful. You die and lose your stuff. You kill someone and can loot their stuff. There is a penalty for attacking someone who did not instigate a fight with you, ensuring your loss of all items instead of keeping your top 3 "best" items in terms of value. The game built lore into the game to differentiate the casual aspect and the hardcore PKing aspect. Both types of players existed in the game for years. It wasn't until the wilderness fell victim to Jagex's anti-real world trading schemes that the fun ceased to exist.
That's how you create the foundations for a community to exist outside of the game. If anyone was involved in the clan world, through Tip.It or Runescape Community or any of the other major fan sites, they will tell you that there was something to be said about was brought to the table when you felt invested in being apart of a group who was "war" essentially with other imaginary groups that didn't officially exist within the game. This, too, harps on my argument that if you provide the tools, the players will create the community. You don't need to force-feed features onto a player to make things work in your game. Grouping is something a player should choose to do, not be forced to do.
My second point is to at least provide some means to separate Realm vs Realm from PKing. I don't give a shit who you are, the second you add in "siege" warfare, you eliminate the entire reason to solo PK. Yes, you get more renown points like in Warhammer or Lord of the Rings Online if you were solo, for instance. But if you can't make huge monetary gains at the chance of risking your own value, then going on your own really isn't the smartest decision. This is something that full-loot games have right, but so so wrong as well. If there is not food chain, then there's no reason to eat.
You probably just went "Huh?" Let me drop some knowledge.
The olden days of PKing were based around the food chain of combat. High end crafting items were needed to make the best stuff. People would try to gather these items. Other people would try to gank the gatherers and PK them. These solo PKers were hunted by teams, usually what you would consider a "group" in today's standards. The teams were hunted by small clans of players and the small clans were hunted by large clans, which were hunted by rival large clans. There was a chain that gave a reason to kill other players and risk being killed by other players: money. Risk vs reward was never so brutally evident than in these cases.
But you can't just have this happen anymore, at least not like the old school ways. There needs to be a separation. Adding in realm warfare automatically implies no full loot. There may be some stupid gimmick drop like random gear that you would get off an NPC, basically, or some stupid token crap to try and get the "PvP" gear set. Even the recent releases like Guild Wars 2 follow this boring and mundane addition into the world. There needs to be more than just RvR and instanced battlegrounds for your game to have meaningful PvP.
Keep the siege warfare, by all means. It has its place in the game world a lot of people enjoy it when it has a real purpose in the game (sorry Guild Wars, but WvW showed how flawed the concept was when it expanded to 1 week. If we wouldn't a game of time zones, I could have stuck with Warhammer).
Keep battlegrounds and match-making. It provides even level competition that can be coupled with real world prizes and can really bring in the MLG crowd to compete on bigger stages. This is really a concept that no one has tapped into effectively and could become a cash cow with the right gameplay features.
All I'm saying is give me something else. Give me a zone with full loot. Give me a game where crafting matters because of supply vs demand of item drops on death. Give me a reason to hunt players. Give me a reason to risk my gear that a new player would oogle over to try and gain more pixels. Give me the tools to stroke my E-peen.
But for the love of God, do not make the game revolved around just one of those, especially just the last one. The game will suck, if it even gets the backing to be released. You have to compromise with the fact that while I still want to play like I'm 12 years old and compete on a consistent nightly basis, I can't. Some days I have to work 12 hours straight. I have fit sleep in there somehow, as well as exercising, taking care of my home, spending time with my family, and trying to further my career. You could argue that I'm just one less customer out of millions. True, and if that's how developers really feel, then I'll stick to writing to blogs about baseball card collecting and the right and wrong moves the Yankees make.
But if not for me, do it for yourself. If you want to succeed in this gaming market, you will heed my advice.
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