CarnalAltar

Much as people on this site hate WAR, I must say that I have a fun pvp jaunt every time I log in to WAR, without any grinding of resources or mobs. Of course the drama isn't really as intense since I'm not protecting the fruits of dozens of hours of resource collecting, so there's a trade-off there, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little drama to get pvp fun all the time.

Far as I'm concerned WoW is the worst of both worlds, with all of the grind and none of the drama or pvp fun.

Venekor, your best general point is how much instancing kills the online world. I remember the pre- to post- battlegrounds switch in feel on a WoW PvP server and it was amazingly drastic. Somehow PvE instancing doesn't seem to kill the open world community as easily, I don't know why.

Cheers to people running around killing each other in WoW back in the day. Cheers to the tarren mill zerg and those mother ****ing night elf rogues ganking my shammy at sun rock. No sarcasm here, it was actually fun and felt so cohesive and immersive relative to the instancing.

Granted, Battlegrounds etc do make for more fun and more balanced PvP, it just feels less like an MMO and as Ven said ruins the immersion.

I agree, Beau was a great and very articulate guest. Great podcast!

I must say though, I have a hugely different view of PVP in MMOs than Beau. Personally I'm one of the members of the sausage-fest zerg that loves online team-based shooters. The aspect of MMOs that intrigues me the most is that PvP provides massively multiplayer opportunities to work together as a team and kill other players, and MMOs have a lot of "role-playing" character customization and development that allows you to personalize your playstyle and get attached to a favorite character, unlike pure online shooters.

My comparison of PvP with PvE is that PvE is a formulaic grind which bores the snot out of me. I've never played an MMO with any mob AI to speak of, which means that with every PvE battle you know exactly what you're getting into, and you just hit the kill, heal and buff buttons until the mindless opponent is dead. I admit that some boss battles require some tactics, but really after your raid group knows how to beat a boss it's still the same every time. In contrast, when you fight a team of other players, the situation is always unique and it feels great to beat an equally matched team through skill and teamwork.

On the subject of "burning through content" I would argue that effectively designed PvP combat gives a huge number of hours worth of ever-changing content to people who enjoy it.

I think Beau made a comment to the effect that PvP is only meaningful if death results in actual death of your character or in losing levels or stats (sorry if I misunderstood). In my opinion, this is silly. Why make this argument for PvP and not for PvE? Obviously most players find plenty of enjoyable combat of both types without permanent loss or degradation of their characters. PvP is "meaningful" when it's fun, and when it gives players some rewards that allow them to develop their characters and progress in the game.

Cheers on the great podcast! Shawn you are a great host.

Maple Story. FTW. Now. All must submit.

I just finished playing the preview weekend, my first time in the beta. To give people more of an idea about what is different compared to WoW...

It may seem obvious but this game is really great because of RvR. From about level 2 or 3 I started going into the instanced RvR and I had a blast. Your character is semi-buffed on entering the instance to not just be fodder for lvl 10 players. The map design that I played (Gates of Ekrund) was very fun and fast. The map design also helped to give ranged characters some refuge from melee, but in a very balanced way IMO. XP gain during RvR is such a welcome change, that means no PvE grind at all unless you want to. Plus RvR loot and character advancement through the renown system. RvR combat did not seem slow at all, maybe a bit "stiff" or something, but that didn't detract from the fun.

I've just used PvE quests as a way to burn a few minutes between RvR bouts, but the quests and PQs have been fun. Yes, there are "rat killing" quests, but from what I've seen so far you can go the whole game without doing a single one if that's what you want. I hope that the entire game can avoid the "PvE Rep Grind" type of thing, that would be awesome. This weekend was the most MMO fun I've had ever, and I've played WoW since 2004. I've been waiting for a game based around fun PvP, and it looks like WAR is that game.