Warlords of Draenor: WoW General Discussion thread 10/13/2014

[Lochdale]

@gnoitall

My limited experience was that Warhammer Online did a lot of technical aspects of PvP right. They had open-world events that resembled battlegrounds, except that they weren’t fenced off or instanced, and they could pop up around you if you weren’t careful (or you could wander into them). I don’t recall the “loot the corpses” being a thing there, though, but it did engender some hard fighting nonetheless. And if I recall, success or failure at these objectives could affect PvE in the entire region, kind of like Wintergrasp but on a larger scale.

Even just the trivial thing that characters had collision detection, so you really could blockade a choke point by physically holding it. No one could just phase through you. They had to step over your corpse. You could never do Thermopylae in WoW; the Persians would just walk through the Spartan phalanx, taking casualties in passing but still getting by.

Uh. The “loot your opponent” thing I remember seeing in old-school Diablo II ganking, to a limited extent.

Thanks. Wish I had checked it out!

[Mister_Rik]

@Lochdale

Any examples from other MMO’s?

I was going to mention the PvP system in City of Heroes, but then I remembered that nobody there cared about PvP. Seriously, you could wander into a clearly marked PvP zone, and never see an enemy.

That game had a remarkably different kind of community.

[jayjay]

Ugh. PvP. Especially INVOLUNTARY PvP inconvenience. I have better things to do than stand around the Saldean farm for three hours waiting for some PvP trolling asshole to get bored killing the questgivers. Worst aspect of WoW, IMO. They should have made questgivers unattackable by any one.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@gnoitall

My limited experience was that Warhammer Online did a lot of technical aspects of PvP right. They had open-world events that resembled battlegrounds, except that they weren’t fenced off or instanced, and they could pop up around you if you weren’t careful (or you could wander into them). I don’t recall the “loot the corpses” being a thing there, though, but it did engender some hard fighting nonetheless. And if I recall, success or failure at these objectives could affect PvE in the entire region, kind of like Wintergrasp but on a larger scale.

My memory was that PvP was by zone and affected “real world” buffs in that zone. But the game was terrible overall with no open world to explore, a terribly dark overall look and feel and the impossible task of being as good as WoW without being WoW since WoW was already just Warhammer for computers.

Oh, and they blew it with the name Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. No one wants to talk about WOAOR or WHOAOR (or “Bob”-forbid WHOAR) but Warhammer Oniine could have been WHO or Warhammer: Age of Reckoning could have been WAR and people would want to talk about WHO or WAR.

@gnoitall

Even just the trivial thing that characters had collision detection, so you really could blockade a choke point by physically holding it. No one could just phase through you. They had to step over your corpse. You could never do Thermopylae in WoW; the Persians would just walk through the Spartan phalanx, taking casualties in passing but still getting by.

This proved more annoying than anything else, IMO. I’m glad other games don’t have it. I think the concept is good but the execution was poor.

@gnoitall

Uh. The “loot your opponent” thing I remember seeing in old-school Diablo II ganking, to a limited extent.

Rallos Zek, baby! COME GET SOME!
^(That right there’s an EverQuest reference.)

[Jragon]

I never liked PvP in WoW, the only thing I liked in theory was the original teasers for Alterac Valley made it sound a hell of a lot like Warcraft 3 except you were playing a unit. It ended up quite a bit not like that.

It also makes progressively less sense the longer the game is out and the more dire the threats get. I think the only time it made a lick of sense was for the first few patches in MOP. You could maybe make an argument for the very first patch of Cata too with Warmonger Garrosh taking over. Other than that it was this absurd thing where world PvP was basically “off the books” lorewise, because the factions were ostensibly working together anyway. Even back in BC the Draenei and the Blood Elves helped each other out quite a bit (I’m not referring to the Broken being allies with Kael in WC3, I mean in the expansion itself).

It’s to the point where you have to wonder if the factions just know their heroes can’t really die so they just funnel their champions into increasingly elaborate, manufactured conflicts like Wintergrasp and Tol Barad to keep their skills sharp.