Hello, Recently, ever since I joined this forum the urge to design, think up a game myself has taken hold of me. Now I'm slowly but surely writing my very first Game Design Document, amateurishly mind you. Now the game design I'm writing is for an MMORPG with of course the distinct threat to have it tagged an WoW clone. (Ever since WoW came to be popular everything is a WoW clone as if Blizzard invented the whole genre!) Now one of my features to not have it tagged a WoW clone is to make a distinct difference between PvP servers and PvE servers. However, something in the process of writing it down, made me wonder: Is this feasible? The idea is create the end-goal completely different for the PvP server, which will ultimately also effect some of its looks. As it stands in the PvE server there are your classic two factions (four races) and PvP is a choice, you don't have to PvP, endgame content is of course raiding in progressively larger numbers, from starting from 3 to 40 man. The PvP server offers 3 factions (six races, 2 races make up the third faction). The third faction is the NPC faction on which the endgame content of the PvE part is based. The endgame content for PvP'ers is, however lore-wise the same, but the execution is different. The conquest of the entire world by eliminating all racial leaders of your enemies. So for Faction 1: Leaders of Faction 2 and 3. Now there is also the unique fact that in the regions held by Faction 3, factions 1 and 2 loose the ability to attack each other, but in fact become temporarily allies in their joint war effort against faction 3. (Faction 3 will therefore be numerically larger and have a larger, stronger NPC defence system and its racial leader is a lot tougher). All this is implemented to advocated a very tough and intense world-PvP. To bolster and repair defences (NPC defenders don't re-spawn just over time) players have to perform quests, which encourages professions. It speaks for itself that completing the engame goal will require an awesome joint effort of the entire faction/server. A near to impossible feat. I have yet to come up with a reward system, beside the enormous reward that will be given after completing the task for a first time.

Hey WriterNick!

Just some food for thought, I really don't think a "WOW clone" is as worrisome you might think. Take Guild Wars. It plays a LOT like it and I know somebody somewhere accuses it of being a WOW clone. Sure, it has notable differences such as one time payment for a huge chunk of gameplay in the form of "campaigns", but it seems that it's going to be kind of difficult to avoid the standard features an MMORPG posesses.

- Races and/or Factions

- An option for players to "gather" under one name. (Guild, etc.)

- A large, complex UI to accommodate all of the possible interactions with the constantly updating and maybe changing game world.

- Combat that is real time, but flows in a psudeo turned based fashion where you queue your own abilities one or two at a time as opposed to button mashing.

- PvP/PvE. Not only is this standard; It's pretty much expected.

I think Blizzard made WOW different since their graphics were fun to look at, had a little more unique methods for social interaction (like the Auction House and the easy gathering for "instances" or "raids"). Other than that, it's been pretty standardized. Take a look at another of their releases Hellgate London. It looks like WOW cut and paste into the future in the game's setting with a hint of Diablo.

There honestly is not much room for originality here since interaction with a game world goes so far, and MMORPGs shake all that they possibly could out of a UI, IMAO. For this reason, you have just as much reason to worry about a WOW clone as you do a Guild Wars clone or even a Runescape clone! The main difference seems to be the "feel" of the game. That doesn't mean originality doesn't exist, but you'd have to take quite a different route from the other guys to find it.

Don't be afraid to toss some standard features in there. They are used commonly because so many professional developers found them useful. I would only start worrying if someone tosses in some plagiarized models or quest plots! ;)

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It speaks for itself that completing the engame goal will require an awesome joint effort of the entire faction/server. A near to impossible feat.

I'd tread carefully here. Don't forget that the player's need to try and make accommodations for themselves to get to this goal. If you make it too large, it can alienate users. ESPECIALLY if they end up failing. There were stories in the news of MMORPG addicts who would actually take their own lives in the event of their player suffering a major blow of some kind. The drama there is irrelevant, although it does serve as an example to my point. My point being that player's don't want to spend so much time striving for something and end up realizing their effort (Or even the collective effort!) was in vain. It's one major reason why I quit the genre. There's a line to cross between a challenge and a disappointment that makes the user want to do something else with their time.

I hope this helps!

Cheers!
-Zyro

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Original post by zyrolasting I'd tread carefully here. Don't forget that the player's need to try and make accommodations for themselves to get to this goal. If you make it too large, it can alienate users. ESPECIALLY if they end up failing. There were stories in the news of MMORPG addicts who would actually take their own lives in the event of their player suffering a major blow of some kind. The drama there is irrelevant, although it does serve as an example to my point. My point being that player's don't want to spend so much time striving for something and end up realizing their effort (Or even the collective effort!) was in vain. It's one major reason why I quit the genre. There's a line to cross between a challenge and a disappointment that makes the user want to do something else with their time. I hope this helps! Cheers! -Zyro

Thank you for your input on this matter and I understand what you are saying. However, because World of Warcraft is such big learning school (We must admit we all dream of attaining that level!) we can see what is done there in a great way and what is done in a bad way.

Now I am not a PvP expert, I loathe that part of MMORPG games, thus I didn't do it often (and if I did, I sucked at it). For me, PvE was the way to go and well Blizzard did a great job, now its doing a good/mediocre job. (ageing of the game, more concepts are being used thus being original becomes harder. Not really Blizzard's fault.)

However, in PvP people are complaining the lack of world PvP and they are right, but that has one simple reason: Blizzard doesn't support world PvP! The PvP in that game was centred around battlegrounds, which are basically mini-games and nowadays Arena which made battlegrounds more or less obsolete.

Now my concept of course encourages world PvP to the maximum, it is actually all about world PvP. However, I think that while I said it is the 'end goal', it should be said: it wouldn't have the emphasis of the whole PvP game experience on it, because like I said: It requires a lot. (if not too much.) And as you said: It would lead to dramas and disgruntled people, because they seemingly can't achieve it!

To give some sense of achievement, accomplishment and have rewarding experience smaller tasks (PvP quests) are to be designed, which pick on the main objective like: conquer point A in Region Z, crush defenses of town B of race Q, eliminate X enemy players of race D...

These are to make it fun and give it more direction, the main end goal is to give a directive for massive battles, not aimed at getting the job done, but more aimed towards participating in a glorious battled of which the community will sing songs for ages to come.

Plus, saying it is impossible isn't really true, but it is hard because the task is large. However, perhaps I need to think about it a bit more.

Alright. I admire your effort to think this through, but you still may want to look at your ideas as a player and developer. I just want to inform you on the issues with too heavy of a focus on PvP.

Let's start with a smaller, but still influential issue. There are those who will not care about any greater goal. To give you a similar analogy, when the average gamer plays Grand Theft Auto, it's more entertaining to wreak havoc on the public than follow the story.

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However, in PvP people are complaining the lack of world PvP and they are right, but that has one simple reason: Blizzard doesn't support world PvP! The PvP in that game was centred around battlegrounds, which are basically mini-games and nowadays Arena which made battlegrounds more or less obsolete

It would not be a problem if you did offer patches of PvE, in fact, it's often necessary. One reason PvP is isolated in select areas is because that PvE players would rather have fun with the game world and it's content than other people, or don't want to be actively targeted when they are busy with something else. Also, the reason only some of these areas exist is because the world is meant for PvE! It just a little portal to the other world. I don't think you've noticed this, but in WoW you can challenge a total stranger to a duel even in a public area! On the pro-PvE side, the player needs it to get better at their own pace.

We know that for every PvP environment, there are some who probably dedicate their souls to their character. Having these folks in a world where PvP dominates might not be too bad at first glance if you prevent fights in certain level spreads, etc. but what about new users who join a world filled with strong folk? How would they gain experience, by requesting strong people run them through missions? What's the fun in that? It happened to me on some occasions and all I did was stand around in-game while the party leader cast "Super Death Ka-Pow" on the boss character. All I got was a light show; I was left out.

What I'm trying to say here is the game experience is so totally different between PvE and PvP that the character even develops differently! In PvP, the character development would be much slower since belongings would be lost on death, resurrection penalties come into play and they constantly need assistance to prevent the ugly beating they may suffer!

As you have said...

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Now I am not a PvP expert, I loathe that part of MMORPG games, thus I didn't do it often (and if I did, I sucked at it).

You are not alone. At all. I certainly relate. But if you don't have confidence in PvP as it is, how would you function in a WORLD like that?

PvE offers you the "normal game", meaning like any other game on the shelves, it's easier to get back up and try again with only the challenges the game engine spits out to worry about. These are guaranteed to only be progressively harder unless they player does something stupid. If you want to make PvP worlds, make sure the user can switch to a PvE world. Sure, WoW has that feature... But they pretty much had to or else things would
get complicated. There are some games that give you a max level character for PvP use. It still does not mean you are ready for PvP.

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To give some sense of achievement, accomplishment and have rewarding experience smaller tasks (PvP quests) are to be designed, which pick on the main objective like: conquer point A in Region Z, crush defenses of town B of race Q, eliminate X enemy players of race D...

Ok, are you saying players will fight each other over the completion of a quest? It's not a bad concept, but remember that human players are unpredictable and some people may [let's face it] spend months trying to complete one of these quests since A, they aren't too good and B, because the other guys they fight are pre-tty clever with their builds. Remember that if you set players loose on each other, a lot of them are going to lose. If they were doing a massive quest and an hour went by before their defeat... Ehh... They are not going to like it.

Back to Guild Wars for a second. They did have missions like this, but they are not imposed on the player by making them the standard kind of quest for the world as it sounds like yours would. My argument here is the same as before: Remember that you are making a game, and games are fun. Challenge is good for the user, but not if frustration is a given that makes the user wish he was doing something else.

PvP is tough, and NOT user friendly. (Ever listened to a Halo 3 mic chat? It's enough to make the baby Jesus cry.) It's put in small pockets here and there as an option to those who think they can handle it and nothing more.

I hope this helps. You're doing well on thinking this up, but try to look at this from several perspectives and problems they can introduce. Like I said, originality in this topic is going to be kind of tough to come up with and in PvP, you are pretty much putting bugs in a jar. The weaker ones die out, and then it's just a biased environment where little more progress can be made.

Overall, just take what I said as a suggestion. You ultimately have the say in this anyway. [smile]

Good luck, and Cheers!
-Zy

[Edited by - zyrolasting on August 30, 2009 1:54:22 PM]

I'm sorry, perhaps my presentation is misleading your. The game I'm designing is at all note purely PvP! There will be a distinct difference between PvP world and PvE world, both 'game worlds' are separate (other server).

One of your concerns was levelling up on PvP server (this because it is tedious and hard): Simple; you don't level on the PvP servers! You level on the PvE server for two reasons: levelling up is easier here and you get to know the story running up to the point where the giant story starts: End game content.

The PvP servers are distinct because they are designed exclusively to host a PvP environment. You don't have any questlines there like on PvE servers, PvE instances are not present. (This aspect is done on PvE servers)

To participate on PvP servers players have to copy their character to the PvP server (characters level should be minimum 15, level 30 being the level cap.
From that point the player can play two versions of that character a PvP version and a PvE version.

On the PvP server they will find more freedom in their actions: attack everyone who they want that is their enemy. There will be smaller quests which are aimed at the solitary player. These are: the NPC repair quests and some 'tactical mission quests. Then there will be group quests for a small group of players to undertake together and larger groups of players. I'm still trying to balance that so I can meet the demands of various types of players, but it is my believe that it is inherently harder to fulfil the requirements of the solitary player in PvP matters as I believe PvP is most often a group endeavour.

PvE will be present and be a big chunck of the game play. Here we'll do a similar design of WoW, which combines lessons from the game and takes back concepts WoW gave up:

-You will have 3-man instances: These are designed purely for casual fun! No need for the classic Tank-Healer-DPS set up. These aren't hard. Best to be described as fun, quick mini-games.

-Then you will have 5-man versions of these instances, these are blurry and foggy. (You are performing these in the Mists of Time; Yes, I'm trying to justify everything lore-wise!) The order in which you do both versions are up to the player and are not obligated at all.

After the purely fun, casual instances you'll enter the end-game content which is divided into 4 tiers.

Tier one: is made up by 2 harder 5-man instances (though still easy compared to higher tiers) designed to give a real challenge for casuals) and one small 10-man instance, designed to be challenging, but not too demanding. (Reset of 3 days.)

Tier two and three: each are made up by one 10-man instance and one 20-man isntance. They are at the same difficulty range, the only difference is their theme. Now these 10-man raids will be a real challenge for casuals and a entry level for hardcore players. The 20-man is a challange for hardcore players and the casual player will have to put their focus on this one. (Reset of 3 days for ten man and 1 week for twenty man instances)

Tier four: Is just one instance a 40 man instance and this instance is huge and pure designed to meet the eccentric demands of hardcore players and keeping them nice and sweet until an expansion is coming up. The size will require 2-3 weeks reset timer.



On your point on players fighting each other over a quest: This might happen, but in the PvP aspect of the game it would be an aim to design, solitary quest which can be done by a massive group at the same time (here we want the promote the use of professions, especially gathering professions, people still thus have to fight over a resource source, but, hey, it is still a PvP quest!) However, a player should be able to complete even those quests at a reasonable time.

Perhaps I'll make a more...structured post with the entire concept once it is finished as I'm now just at the phase where I'm describing the Feature Set the game will have. So it's all still very crude and a lot will change still.

However, thanks for your input!

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Original post by WriterNick Is this feasible?

This is just my opinion, but I think that good PvP in most MMORPGs is not feasable. It is not bad design, I think that PvP and MMORPG just do not fit together.

In most, if not all, MMORPGs the most movitvation to continue playing is to improve. So, to give a player the feeling that he has improved it is absolutly necessary to rule other players which are of lower level or got poorer equipment, else the player would stop playing.

So, PvP will always lead to two groups, the ruler and the ruled. The ruler will find PvP very funny, whereas the ruled will just try to test it and stop playing after some tries.

It works, but this is not really a satisfing game experience. Take a shooter on the other hand. There're indeed some RPG elements like states and equipment choices, but in the end the game depedents more on player skill and player experiences.

The second point is, that balancing of PvP in almost all MMORPG is just plane impossible. Again, take a look at shooters, the balancing of shooters with lets say 5 classes and 10 weapons takes already some efforts. But balancing the PvP of a MMORPG with 5 races,10 classes, 1000 skills, 10k items is just not possible.

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To bolster and repair defences (NPC defenders don't re-spawn just over time) players have to perform quests, which encourages professions.

The major problem with world pvp is, that you can't let the defences of whole towns down. This is not funny at all. Did you never encounter this boring afternoons, where you have to level your character and 3 uber-enemy players hold a necessary outpost. Once you got in sign: *zap* *dead*
*clap* *clap* *clap* wow, nice experience.
What can you do ? Get some help: no, nobody has any interest to help (Other player: "Oh, there's a level 70 X skilled priest, sorry can't help you there ..."). Eventually you have to logout.. really funny.

It is important to see, that if you want that players have to choose between PvE and PvP server, all players want to have fun, even if they choose to play on a PvP server. But on a PvP server you will only have fun if you are one of the rulers, which most likely depends on level and equipment and not player skills and player experiences.


Conclusion:
In most MMORPGs (like WoW) PvP is just a additional features to satisfy a certain group of players, but it is not good game design or whatever. If you want to have PvP in your game, try to do PvP or PvE, but not both. There are certain game design decisions which will give you better options in favour of PvP gameplay like limited levels, limited skill access, limited equipment etc. (=> take a look at GW which has a much stronger focus on PvP than i.e. WoW).


Eventually just be aware, that game features which favour PvP are most likely not be compatible with game features which favour PvE game play.


--
Ashaman

I think TS is aiming for a PvP or PvE setting and the ideas he was mentioning are mostly related to a PvP settings.

Just a few questions.

1. So what will happen when the players finish killing the faction's leader? The server restarts itself? Wouldn't that make it an incentive for players NOT to kill the faction leader, since this will reduce their advantage back to on par?

2. How will you handle a situation where a bunch of people from the same faction logs in together (pre-planned) in the late hours of the game (assuming localised servers) when all other players are asleep and overwhelm another faction with numbers?

Answering Si Hao (I'll come back to Ashaman73 later, when I have more time; want to go real deep into that as I don't agree with him):

1. In the event that one faction actually succeeds in performing the main tasks. I was first thinking of a server-wide victory in-game movie. Showing a glorious parade of the victor side and the result it has on the world: Faction one: A mixture of civilized life and dark, coldness. Vast cities and citadels. Faction 2: A delicate balance between nature and civilized life. Beautiful scenery. Faction 3: A wasteland, filled with destruction and torment.

Now for game-play purposes, like for PvE aspect, the PvP will have a reset, but then server-reset. Every month the game automatically resets, undoing all progress. You are fighting within a tight schedule. Now in the event of a Global Victory of any faction. (This is still a concept since I'm reading everything up still, plus know that the world isn't as large as the large MMORPG's, the players end up in a representation of that world, with the loosing factions ending up in secret hiding places where they fight a guerilla war against the victor, until the reset comes.

2. Now this is something that I've been worrying about as well. However, when I say NPC defenders, don't think these NPC defenders to be weak. They are designed to outlast one several players. So basically, as it stands, NPC defenders are going to be designed to withstand such fight. Anyway, the Racial Leaders will have a fight mechanic requiring more than just 40 people or even 80 people to beat. Since they are part of a concept that requires a good portion of the server to cooperate in. You'll need a fairly large group to dent them. They are the pinnacle, so it is not a walk in the park.

Racial Leaders are defended by the elite of each race, so you'll have to have a darn good team and enough members as it is to even breach the NPC defences, but if they manage that, then well they deserve it.

Anyway all designs have their holes. You can't design a watertight design.

[Edited by - WriterNick on August 31, 2009 3:39:34 PM]

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Original post by Ashaman73 This is just my opinion, but I think that good PvP in most MMORPGs is not feasable. It is not bad design, I think that PvP and MMORPG just do not fit together.

Here I disagree with you. I believe that PvP in MMORPG's is possible if they scrap some concepts that are maintained in the genre and the greatest scrap in PvP should be: ITEM FEVER

The greatest thing that makes a player poorer than supreme players (at that moment in that game) is most often not skill, it is their gear and most often solely their gear.

How to resolve that: Minimal statistical difference between all variants of gear. Gear looks will only be an aesthetic way to show your accomplishments, while not elevating the owner to near godlike status, who is untouchable by newcomers!

Item Fever in PvE isn't that bad since it doesn't affect your gameplay too hard, it only will stall you on your way to get to the real end game, but with dedication you'll get there. (Bit of grinding, doing the right quests and instances). However, in PvP it can break your fun. So remove the Item Fever there!

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So, to give a player the feeling that he has improved it is absolutly necessary to rule other players which are of lower level or got poorer equipment, else the player would stop playing.

I believe that PvP people would rather have a challenge, than an easy killing spree and gankfest. Unless you have the personality of a brainless monkey. Most gamers find a game alluring if it is challenging. Most players (like myself) started to leave World of Warcraft (for me PvE wise) since it was loosing its difficulty. (Naxx, OS and Malygos were a joke) So if there isn't a challenge; people will really loose interest and they'll feel rewarded when they beat something that was a challange, not just ganked someone for the umpteenth time.

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It works, but this is not really a satisfing game experience. Take a shooter on the other hand. There're indeed some RPG elements like states and equipment choices, but in the end the game depedents more on player skill and player experiences.

And here you see my point of ITEM FEVER in MMORPG's in the PvP variant, Items shouldn't decide who'll win, but skill should. Make all items of all looks similar in statistics more or less and you'll have a far more interesting, challenging and satisfying gameplay for all.

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The second point is, that balancing of PvP in almost all MMORPG is just plane impossible. Again, take a look at shooters, the balancing of shooters with lets say 5 classes and 10 weapons takes already some efforts. But balancing the PvP of a MMORPG with 5 races,10 classes, 1000 skills, 10k items is just not possible.

Well that's a point of size. WoW, it will be a near to impossible feat and really, you can learn a thing of that game too, again. (Hey, learn from its successes, but also its flaws) Here you have perhaps up to 30 different skills per class, but most often...You bash 2 skills or have a rotation of 5 max. (Unless you went for the harder speccs)

However, tune down all the different skills. If players don't use one skill: Delete it! Probably not interesting its effects. Give a player not so many skills, which most he won't use.Now Races often have not too much of an impact on PvP, minor advantages. Classes well you should run them through a computer program to mathematically calculate the chances of victory when they are set against each other one on one. (Mathematically they should have a 50% chance both to beat the other.

This is a work of years of course, designed and programmed by many people!

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The major problem with world pvp is, that you can't let the defences of whole towns down. This is not funny at all. Did you never encounter this boring afternoons, where you have to level your character and 3 uber-enemy players hold a necessary outpost. Once you got in sign: *zap* *dead* *clap* *clap* *clap* wow, nice experience. What can you do ? Get some help: no, nobody has any interest to help (Other player: "Oh, there's a level 70 X skilled priest, sorry can't help you there ..."). Eventually you have to logout.. really funny.

World of Warcraft was terrible in matters of PvP. It wasn't really designed for it even.

Those town defenders should be on par in strength with the though mobs you come across in instances where you need a team to beat even just plain thrash. They shouldn't be able to kill guards on their own. That's the reasoning I have. WoW went wrong here in their vanilla design.

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Conclusion: In most MMORPGs (like WoW) PvP is just a additional features to satisfy a certain group of players, but it is not good game design or whatever. If you want to have PvP in your game, try to do PvP or PvE, but not both. There are certain game design decisions which will give you better options in favour of PvP gameplay like limited levels, limited skill access, limited equipment etc. (=> take a look at GW which has a much stronger focus on PvP than i.e. WoW). Eventually just be aware, that game features which favour PvP are most likely not be compatible with game features which favour PvE game play.

PvP servers should be designed completely different in game experience in comparison with their PvE counterpart. There shouldn't be such huge item fever on PvP servers, Items are only a blessing for the eye and a statement of accomplishment and should have little to no influence on the game play. The world should also be designed to meet the requirements of a PvP server: Guards should be though enough to bring down one or even two players on their own in cases (location where he is), statistically everyone has equal chances and so on.

This is hard work and perhaps impossible, but we can only strive to attain it.

Nick

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Original post by WriterNick Here I disagree with you. I believe that PvP in MMORPG's is possible if they scrap some concepts that are maintained in the genre and the greatest scrap in PvP should be: ITEM FEVER ...

Well, item fever is just one implementation of a more common concept in CRPGs. The concept of improvement. In classic CRPGs like bards tale, D&D, dungeon master it was often additional attributes per level-up which increases secondary attributes like health, endurance, mana, armor, defence etc. And at last you will always get better abilities(spells) over time. This is the core concept of CRPGs: get better over time (time=experience) and this will not work in a PvP environment.

Think about a quite experienced character with mighty spells and a noob with some sword skills. If the noob rules the experienced character or even the combat is balanced the experienced character will most likely stop playing. Why should he continue ? He thought that he improved so much and eventually a noob killed him easily.

Take a look at Guild Wars. There they introduce limits to enable a better PvP experience (stop at level 20 which will be reached really fast, you can only wield 8 abilities, attributes can be redistributed etc.). But this doesn't work for PvE, because there is (almost) nothing left you can improve on.

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And here you see my point of ITEM FEVER in MMORPG's in the PvP variant, Items shouldn't decide who'll win, but skill should. Make all items of all looks similar in statistics more or less and you'll have a far more interesting, challenging and satisfying gameplay for all.

What do you mean with skill ? Character skills or player skill ? If you target player skill you will enter the realm of first person shooters (including melee combat). This has two major drawbacks.

First, the target audience is quite different. Many gamers who play CRPGs want a passive combat system. They want to "command" a character with special abilities and don't like to fight bunny hopping magic caster directly :)

Second, there're technical reasons MMORPGs are not really made for high pace. If you take a look at FPS you will see, that they need really high bandwidth per player, a very high update rate and low lag. MMORPGs are still playable at a latency of >200 which is unthinkable in a FPS nowadays.

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However, tune down all the different skills. If players don't use one skill: Delete it! Probably not interesting its effects. Give a player not so many skills, which most he won't use.

Well, first you take aways items and then skills and combine it with a focus on player skill. Hmm.. this sounds like a FPS in a fantasy setting :P Just kidding, but you see, you have to move away from a traditional CRPG setting and will eventually have a game which has not much in common with a MMORPG. That is what I say, MMORPG and PvP is not feasable :P

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Now Races often have not too much of an impact on PvP, minor advantages. Classes well you should run them through a computer program to mathematically calculate the chances of victory when they are set against each other one on one. (Mathematically they should have a 50% chance both to beat the other.

This has been done already, but you got a major problem. The problem to calculate a balancing is most likely NP complete, which will lead to only spot testing your class balancing. This sounds easy but I think that this one is not feasable and atlast the players, who are incredible imaginative, will rip any balancing in just 2 days :)

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World of Warcraft was terrible in matters of PvP. It wasn't really designed for it even. Those town defenders should be on par in strength with the though mobs you come across in instances where you need a team to beat even just plain thrash. They shouldn't be able to kill guards on their own. That's the reasoning I have. WoW went wrong here in their vanilla design.

Yes, PvP in WoW is more like an addon. But is it because of blizzard don't have enough cash or only dumb designers ? Or could there be the chance that PvP just doesn't fit in their PvE world ?

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The world should also be designed to meet the requirements of a PvP server: Guards should be though enough to bring down one or even two players on their own in cases (location where he is), statistically everyone has equal chances and so on.

The trouble comes with the details. It sounds easy to make guards strong enough, but how strong ? In a noob area should low level players be able to kill guards ? What about high level players, will they be able to rule these guards ? Will players be frustrated of too tough guards and world pvp will eventually die ?

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This is hard work and perhaps impossible, but we can only strive to attain it.

Yes, you should try to reach goal :)

But as you already said, try to learn from other games. WoW is a good example, not because they failed to implement good PvP, but because of them showing that PvP married with PvE is almost impossible. Remember, item fever is just one implementation of THE core concept of CRPGs. Over the years they tried to implement different PvP experiences and got some nice successes. But eventually the concept of improvement always destroyed it. They tried to reduce it with battleground by introducing a level range. But even a 5 level difference is deadly. I never got really good gear, but my abilities gained in 2 or 4 levels where most often enough to rule low level players, sometimes even power twinks.
World PvP was most of the time just boring. Either you killed an other players 5 levels below your level and you have been affronted as ganger or you encounter an other player 5 level above yours just to kick the bucket.

You are talking about different servers for PvP and PvE, but if your are really want to establish good PvE and good PvP you are talking about two diffent games ! It will not work to cut some items you need to change and drop abilities, to introduce level limits, even have to drop classes (if you target a class based game), pets, spells etc.

My sugguesting: choose only one core setting, PvE or PvP, and do it right ;-)

Just my two cents.

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Ashaman