By Winfield, PaxLair – Saturday, August 22, 2021
(The SotA Express) — PVP can generate hard feelings and drama, especially with those who enter PVP scenes to adventure and get killed (sometimes arbitrarily) by others in the scene. Bee Striker started a SotA Forums topic to discuss how to make PVP participation clearer to players and how to avoid stressful situations. Winfield offered a comparative story from old Ultima Online where he “sold fish” at a PVP encounter.
Player-versus-player (PVP) game-play in Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) is consensual. Each player may opt-in or opt-out of fighting against another player. One way to opt-in to PVP is to enter a clearly identified PVP scene. Any and all players entering that scene are automatically in a PVP mode and can attack and be attacked by others.
Bee Striker started a spirited topic on the SotA Forums. She wrote:
SOTA FORUMS — July 14, 2021 — by queenbee [link]
Topic: Changing attitude towards PVP…
Please, it’s time to change our attitude towards PVP. The end goal of PVP is for the opposing side to die and your side be alive. That is the purpose of PVP. Flagging, whether you flag yourself or enter a flagged zone [PVP scene], is the indication that you are WILLING to participate in PVP. In this game, flagging is VOLUNTARY. Nobody is forcing you to flag or enter the zone.
…
If you’re going to get upset or mad that you got killed, then you’re not ready to PVP. Therefore, just don’t flag or enter a PVP zone.
Many people replied to her topic and the discussion continues as of today. [link]
In comparison, Ultima Online (UO) launched in 1997 with the majority of the world enabled for PVP — players could not opt-out of PVP. Only a few areas were “guard-protected” from PVP such as most NPC towns and shrines for resurrection.
Later, UO added “facets” as non-PVP world replicas and additional areas due to strong customer demand for more peaceful adventuring opportunities. So in essence, you chose to be PVP-enabled simply based on where you went in the world.
Winfield of PaxLair, a long-time UO player, replied to Bee Striker’s forum topic with a real story about a PVP spontaneous event that happened on July 18, 2005, UO on the Felucca (PVP) facet.
A Quest! Time to Sell Some Fish!
SOTA FORUMS — July 29, 2021 — by Winfield [link]
Greetings Avatars!
I’m Winfield, an old man who played UO in Felucca long ago. I don’t play PVP in SotA (yet!) and I am very much enjoying this topic conversation!
Somewhat aside, I want to share a short REAL story about my PVP experience, even though it was in UO. I hope to have or see similar PVP Quests in SotA too! Do ya think we can?
SCENE: UO Chesapeake – Felucca – Yew Moongate – Open PVP area.
Date: July 18, 2005 – this really happened!
ACT 1: Hiding at the Yew Moongate (open PVP area on Felucca) – Watching!
I appeared at the Yew Moongate (hidden) in “newbie clothes”, the kind that when you die you don’t lose. Why? I was not there to fight. I was there to watch some PVP fights because I never really saw it “in the wild” outside of PVP tournaments.
Two guilds/groups battled each other around the Yew Moongate; one red and one blue. It looked like fun, but was just random hack and slash, not a force-on-force scenario. They were having fun I guess.
I stayed at the Moongate (still hidden) and did not move; I just watched.
I got bored after about 20 minutes of this random killing between their groups. (Yawn!) I thought, “Is that it? Just random killing?”
So I decided to step out of hiding to see what would happen. Oh my!
ACT 2: Un-hiding at the Yew Moongate – Instantly killed, then not so much.
I stepped out of hiding into the unprotected area of the Moongate still in newbie clothes while only carrying un-lootable/blessed items.
I was immediately killed by any red nearby (I was blue) and the blue guild did not care! The reds went to loot me — there was nothing to loot.
I rezzed and got killed a few times until this seemed to bore them. They stopped killing me instantly and I could walk around a little before taking the random shot.
ACT 3: A Quest! Time to Sell Some Fish!
Since I liked creating random player-quests back in those days, I thought about this for a few moments.
“Fish!” I said to myself. “There must be a fish quest somewhere to be had! Indeed!” I went and got some fish and tables out of the bank.
I stepped out of the moongate again and they did not kill me — they were already bored with me.
I set up a table in the open area and put down a candelabra and some fish. Still they ignored me, and some stood a moment looking at me with some comments like “wtf”.
Then the red’s surrounded me, did not kill me, and kept all blues away from me like Capture the Flag!
The blues attacked the reds to get near me. The reds attacked back. No one attacked me.
The tables turned, and the blues took over and defended me. The reds attacked the blues to surround me again.
This went on for about 30 minutes back and forth. Reds attacked, blues attacked, blues chased, reds chased, control changed hands! Rinse-repeat.
Reds beat off the blues and “captured me”. Like capture the flag.
Blues beat back the reds and “protected me”.
Mayhem! Lots of fun!
EPILOGUE: The Noble Exit.
After a while I had to go. It was great fun!
I said goodbye to the blue team that was currently “in control”. I recall some reds came up too for a moment, almost like they had a “ceasefire” and I said goodbye to them too.
Then they all started randomly killing each other again while I packed up my table, candelabra and fish and stepped back into the Moongate.
Huzzah!
References:
Changing attitude towards PVP… (queenbee, SotA Forum, July 24, 2021) https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/changing-attitude-towards-pvp.169222
Reply to: Changing attitude towards PVP… (Winfield, SotA Forum, July 29, 2021) https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?posts/1325688
