The end of PvP?

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been out in Austin, TX for the last few couple of days for SXSW Interactive ‘09. I’m still here, just getting caught up on the goings on of the MMO world while I’ve been away.

Apparently I’ve been seriously out of the loop since I got here, as I completely missed mention that WAR is closing 63 existing “source” servers across North America/Oceania (43 servers) and Europe (20 servers via GOA) and merging existing characters onto more densely populated servers. If you happen to already have characters on the opposing realm of a target server,

To be honest, this isn’t much of a surprise, although Mark Jacobs and Mythic have been quite vocal (arguably too much so) in the past about how server closures are a sign of weakness and were a path that they’d never take with WAR. Obviously, the tables have turned and Mythic is now backing up and making changes that they’ve previously denied having any intention of doing, including server merges and the addition of official forums.

Mythic’s mistake was obviously in loading up with too much hardware off the bat and providing people with too many options on launch day — maybe their expectations for WAR’s launch were overly optimistic, but I don’t think they could have really thought they’d need to support ~2 million subscribers right out of the gates. Clearly, scaling back 60% of their servers six months after launch falls right into line with the initial 750,000 subscriber count being revised to 300,000 subscribers. The ratios match up nicely, although some are suggesting that this could all be a pre-emptive strike to help support a future Asian launch. I’m skeptical.

On the other hand, Tobold has a post up about the closures suggesting that this is a sign of the apocalypse for PvP, and that PvE games will vastly outnumber PvP-based games in the future. While I disagree with his naysaying, everyone’s allowed to their opinions… and I think most of his regular readers are aware of his predilection towards the PvE genre. So the negative attitude towards anything with a PvP-oriented end-game is understandable, even if you disagree.

Tobold’s suggestion that WAR’s PvE is zero-sum is pretty definitively not the case, though. Even the losing side in WAR is still rewarded with influence, renown, and is still able to progress towards reward goals, if a little slower than if they had won. The mistake in the assumption here is that wins and losses are clear-cut in black and white. There’s often just as much fun to be had in a losing cause as in a winning one. Is losing a scenario 500-496 be all that terrible? Is defending a keep successfully for an hour before losing it, raking in a ton of renown and enjoying a good battle — even in an eventual losing cause — be all that bad? It’s not as simple as a “no one gains, no one loses” situation.

Interestingly, while the original post was a good initiator of conversation, I found more insight in some of the comments. A couple struck a chord with how I feel about WAR — although I haven’t been playing as much lately, I could never see myself going back to WoW’s end-game raiding structure, while WAR is a much more casual-friendly game. This one pretty much sums up my feelings:

The WAR will kill WoW meme is conclusively dead and buried, but WAR is a game that is very very fun to level in and the endgame is fun as well (if you’re in to that sort of thing).

What its not is a game that lends itself to being an alternate lifestyle. But if you play it in moderation, its the only MMO I’ve found that is genuinely fun (by my “would you do it for free” definition of fun).

Mythic has my money for now. It’s the only MMO I could picture myself playing anymore.

posted by Toxic @ 12/3/09 15:55