Roy Haggerty
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Posted - 2003.10.08 13:58:00 -
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The research that does exist into multiplayer games does show that only a small minority of players are player-killers (I forget the name of the chap, but he's the one who invented that spurious scale of killer, socializer, explorer, achiever, which little kids use to put "Killer 100%" in their sigs on forums!  ). The majority aren't PKers, even if they like the occasional PvP experience. The same study also found that, while balance is important, a game can survive with only non-killers, whereas any game which has an excess of killers will ultimately die because their victims will move away, and the killers will follow them in search of new victims.
The movement in MMORPGs across the board is to recognise this problem through the creation of a distinction between "willing" and "unwilling" PvP. "Willing PvP" means both participants are willing to fight. "Unwilling PvP" means at least one is unhappy at being engaged in combat. DAoC is a classic example, where each player can choose whether to expose themselves to "willing PvP" in the frontier, or stay safe in the homelands. The hardcore PKers have an area to hang around in, and those who just like a bit of PvP can go there to get ganked when they feel like it. The "unwilling PvP" servers died on their arses by comparison to the normal ones because, put bluntly, not many people like being ganked repeatedly by people who have more time than them, and therefore will always be more powerful than them.
Despite protestations otherwise, Eve is not an entirely PvP game. The high sec systems are safe zones. The 0.4 and less systems are risky, and in 0.0 anything goes. If you go to a low-sec or zero-sec system, you're effectively playing "willing PvP" and have no cause to complain. Similarly, PKers can't complain when they go to 0.5 systems and above and get killed by Concord for piracy.
Seems to me the main difficulty is that most players develop rational justifications for their actions in-game : they're making Isk or upgrading ships, or manufacturing or exploring. They do things for reasons which make sense in a game context. Some pirates do this too, and destroy ships or extort fees to make Isk or to defend their mining interests. Not many people have a problem with that. Nor does anyone have problems with corp wars and the fights that ensue from those. In fact, they make the game much more interesting. But all these instances of PvP have in-game reasons. Where there's a gulf in understanding between most of the players and the true PKers is when the majority come across those players who will podkill you for no reason other than they can. Whereas FPS games exist just so that people can shoot each other, online games are expected, by the majority, to have their own systems of cause and effect. Pure PKers don't need reasons : they're the online equivalent of the washington sniper. However bizarre it might seem to most, they obtain their pleasure (and justification) from causing distress in others.
But they do exist. They've existed in every online game I've ever played. In fact, the players who play gankers in one game will almost inevitably play gankers in another game. It's their real-life character, (and no, I wouldn't want to find myself alongside these people in a country with no law !).
Nearly every pirate/carebear whine on these boards is effectively the PKers demanding a greater "unwilling" PvP area, while non-PvPers demand greater "willing" PvP areas. Personally, I think Eve has struck a reasonable balance (I liked the idea though of buffer zones between empires with super-profitable, but super-risky, trade routes). One thing that is fairly safe to say, however, is that any moves which increase the likelihood of "unwilling" PvP is likely to cause significantly greater player loss than any move to provide greater protection.
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