One of my gripes about the Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen Kickstarter campaign was about PvP.
PvP was a stretch goal, but I was annoyed that it was on the list in any form at all. The promise of Pantheon seemed, to me at least, to be getting back to a difficult and dangerous PvE world that required grouping to take on. The early days of EverQuest were invoked in this regard. For a game being made by a small team that declared it was not trying to be “all things to all people,” the mention of PvP seemed like a step in that very direction.
And you should not get me wrong on this. I am not saying there shouldn’t be PvP. I play EVE Online, right? But does every PvE focused game need to spend time developing a PvP mechanism as well?
Going back to the dawn of the first massive successes on the MMO front, Ultima Online was PvP from day one. But EverQuest was derived from TorilMUD which had no PvP at all. In fact, the dev staff at TorilMUD split over the idea of PvP, which the PvP faction moving off to follow their dreams with Duris MUD. But SOE eventually felt that EverQuest needed PvP and so the Rallos Zek server was born.
This moved was widely viewed as a way to concentrate all the griefers into a single thunderdome where they would leave the rest of the player base alone. It was successful, in that the investment was low (as far as I can tell SOE did very little explicitly for PvP and was pretty hands off when it came to running the server) and it scratch that PvP itch for those who had to have it in a Norrathian context. (Roll stock footage of Fansy the Famous Bard.) And this lives on today as the Zek server with its own PvP rule set.
Asheron’s Call also had a PvP flagging system and a PvP dedicated server as part of its mix. So the big generation clearly bought into PvP, as did the next round of games. Dark Age of Camelot was explicitly PvP and Star Wars Galaxies had a sandbox PvP aspect to it.
Then came World of Warcraft, which had PvP and PvP servers from day one. Granted, day one was pretty ad hoc when it came to PvP, but Blizzard has a long history with RTS games, so players fighting other players must have seemed a natural to them. And whether or not you like the various stages WoW PvP has progressed through, it has been pretty successful. It would be hard to imagine WoW without it.
I played a lot of Wintergrasp when it was popular
Of course, WoW also ran into one of the problems with PvP in a heavily PvE game, that of gear and ability balance between the two. It is really cool that the rogue in your dungeon group or raid can crowd control an off-mob with a stun lock, but I don’t know anybody who likes having that done to them by a rogue in a battleground. And Dark Age of Camelot ran into similar issued from the other direction, by introducing powerful PvE acquired gear into a primarily PvP game.
So mixing PvE and PvP is rarely a matter of a flagging system or a separate server. The eternal balance of equipment and abilities… which is already nettlesome in just the PvE environment… takes on an even bigger role when PvP is part of the mix. It doesn’t come for free, it requires design and development time… unless you take the approach SOE did with EverQuest and just try to ignore the whole PvP aspect of the balance thing, or you take the Guild Wars approach and just keep the two as separate as possible.
And after WoW, things just got went down hill. The success of the game meant other companies trying to copy WoW features in order to capture WoW numbers. EverQuest II is probably the most tragi-comic example of this. So much development and design time has been spent on PvP ideas in that game that it just about breaks your heart. They have had PvP servers, PvP arenas where you fight with a special sub-avatar of your character, arenas where you fight with your actual character, and, more recently, WoW-like battlegrounds. And the trend has always been that either the PvP is so bad that nobody uses it or that it is so affected by PvE stats and abilities that a whole array of special rules and exceptions have to be put in place to try to maintain at least some illusion of balance. The last time I checked in, SOE had gotten to the point where every piece of equipment and every ability essentially had two sets of stats, one for PvE and one for PvP, leading to some of the largest tool tip windows known to man.
Then there was Lord of the Rings Online, which couldn’t bring itself to allow the elf-on-elf combat we all secretly desire (we need more kinslayings) but which felt it had to have PvP, so they gave us Monster Play, a feature convoluted enough that I couldn’t even tell you how it works because I have never once used it. And I have tried the various PvP options on every MMO I have played. I know somebody loves Monster Play out there… you can find somebody who loves and will defend any MMO feature ever… but was LOTRO as a whole made better by it? Could the time spent on that have been better invested?
Warhammer Online at least never had the PvE vs. PvP balancing problem, because I don’t think most of us stuck around long enough for it to be a problem. Instead, it was bit by the WoW battleground bug, which became the most efficient way to level up, so everybody did those while the open world content languished for want of the numbers needed to make it viable.
And so it goes. Even today we are looking at The Elder Scrolls Online coming out in a little over a month. This is an MMO based on an exclusively single player RPG franchise… PvE to its deepest roots… and they are busying pushing the Alliance War, the PvP aspect of the game. Meanwhile, Star Wars: The Old Republic, an MMO made in the BioWare mold… fourth pillar and all that… has its Galactic Starfighter battleground out and available to everybody now.
Which brings me around to the title of this post. Is PvP a requirement for all MMOs? Can you even launch a PvE MMORPG without an announced PvP plan?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Just a comment about monster play in LOTRO. While I can’t really defend it very well — I don’t engage in it either, except a bit of dabbling — the idea of asymmetric factions with one side being purely for PVP seems like it ought to be a really good way to reduce the balancing problems that plague other games that mix PVE and PVP. But Turbine hasn’t done much with it (six years and still only one map? Feh.) so it is largely ignored except by the people who play it.
Still, I think that if a PVE game is going to have PVP as a secondary activity, it could be done a lot worse than monster play and I don’t think it’s been a waste of Turbine’s time. I’d like to see other games consider a similar setup if for no other reason than that I’ve never once felt screwed over by PVP balancing leaking into PVE the way I have outside of LOTRO in games with symmetric factions.
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IMO, PvP is a detriment to most games. I’ve dabbled in it from time to time and I’ve never felt like it was any different that PvE, except that there was a lot of trash talk. PvP people like to claim that playing a thinking opponent makes it more challenging, but since they all use “The One Pptimum PVP Build ™” and always react in the same ways every time and have the same pvp gear…. no different than PvE there either. Once you learn the “script” that the players themselves use, they’re no different form any AI.
Other than in EVE and my dabbling in Darkfall, there’s no penalty for losing in PvP, so there’s not any more “challenge” to it than PvE. Heck, the 1st time I dabbled in pvp with some friends in Rift I completely dominated it, since I’d read about it on the forums enough that I “knew what to do.” One of the friends I was playing with that night asked me flat out how much pvp I’d been doing behind her back since I was “so good at it” and she was shocked when I told her that that night was my 1st time ever doing it in that game.
The rewards were little to non-existent, the few times our side did lose, there wasn’t any penalty at all. Even in PvE you at least take item-wear damage. So…. in my experience, PvP is actually easier than PvE and there’s no penalty for it. The exact opposite of what the trash-talking ‘leet pwner PvP-players would have you think is the case. I just don’t see the appeal. To me, PvP is annoying at best. So long as the game is structured that I can safely ignore PvP, then I don’t care if it’s in since ti then doesn’t affect me, but I won’t participate in it either.
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Done right, PvP can extend the life of an MMO by providing emergent endgame content that can be sampled by a broad spectrum of the player base; done wrong, it drags the PvE side of the game into an endless spiral of ill-considered nerfs in a misguided attempt to satisfy the wants and needs of a tiny, but vocal, segment of the player base.
@Rob Tillotson – Star Trek Online tried asymmetric factions (originally you had to reach level 25 on a Federation character to unlock the Klingon faction, which was effectively PvP-only). They have abandoned that strategy and turned the Klingons into a “real” faction complete with PvE content. So Cryptic, at least, obviously considered the experiment a failure. From what I’ve seen, it did nothing to reduce PvP-related whining or PvP-related nerfs to PvE, so I would consider it a failure as well.
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I think it depends on the ability of the team making the game. If you can make good, engaging, repeatable PVE content, then PVP isn’t necessary, or can just remain a sideshow. If you can’t, then you need PVP needs to be your focus, and you need players to make your content for you.
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@pkudue99 – I agree about 95%. The PvP community always talks about wanting a “challenge” and how boring PvE is, but then how do you explain the two most prevalent forms of PvP, ganking and zerging? Both are strategies designed to overwhelm an enemy and reduce the challenge to zero. Defeats the stated purpose, doesn’t it?
The problem with having PvP in a primarily PvE game is that inevitably the developers are going to be convinced that some ability is overpowered in PvP (which it usually is; a Bard in Dark Age of Camp-a-lot could effectively stunlock an entire enemy party, for example) and then change it in such a way as to render it useless for PvE. Sure, you can implement a system where every ability has different effects in PvE and PvP, but then you’ve significantly increased the workload required to bring new abilities into the game.
In the few games where PvP is not a detriment, it’s usually because the PvE content is so flat and lifeless that even PvP is an entertaining alternative, i.e. DAoC and EVE ;^)
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@Kobeathris – “If you can make good, engaging, repeatable PVE content”
Has anybody managed that? You could argue that perhaps WoW has, leveling up alts was ever the thing as the classes were distinctive enough to make that fun, but Blizz also has invested a lot in PvP over the years as well.
@Pkudude99 – I was going to mention Rift as a WoW battleground derivative, but then decided to let it go. But I think for a PvE game to make PvP battlegrounds and the like work, there is a sense that it has to be low commitment and no losses… the everybody wins, some just win more than others aspect. I got the top score my first time out in Rift battlegrounds because I did that “carry the thing that kills you” version with a healer and just ran away from everybody while healing myself. Figuring out what to do helps, but if the other side knows what to do as well, the gear tends to decide the outcome.
I once got dropped on in Wintergrasp while doing the fishing daily that sends you there by a blood elf pally in top raid gear purples. His stats were miles better than mine… and he knew how to play a pally better than I did… but I was wearing the PvP purples which, while not close to his overall, had the PvP mitigation stat, so I ate him right up… which I think surprised us both.
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“But SOE eventually felt that EverQuest needed PvP and so the Rallos Zek server was born.”
FYI the Rallos Zek server was available at EQ’s launch. I know you don’t outright say it wasn’t but that’s how it reads.
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@Jenks – The way I have seen Rallos Zek referred to, it always sounds like it launched post- launch. Do you know of any references that indicates one way or another? I cannot even find a list of servers available at launch. (Mine, E’ci, has long since been merged into various other servers.)
The fact that SOE decided in beta to make it versus post-GA doesn’t change the narrative all that much, but it would be nice to know.
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The thing about PvP is that there’s a small minority of players who want nothing but PvP in every game – and not just PvP, but they won’t be satisfied unless the game lets them rape you, kill you, eat your flesh and sew your skin into their clothing (and if you’re lucky they’ll do it in that order). This small minority tends to be extremely vocal, however – vocal enough that a producer may well feel that they’re a significant market segment and the game won’t be financially viable if they aren’t courted, and vocal enough that developers may well be tempted to throw some sort of PvP in the mix just to shut them up.
There’s a larger segment of players who don’t exclusively do PvP but do enjoy it as part of a varied and balanced gaming diet. It’s one more thing to do, so adding it for them increases retention as long as it doesn’t come with too much opportunity cost on the PvE side.
There certainly is a segment of pure PvE players out there, and probably enough to support a niche MMO at the very least. Until now, however, all major western MMOs have tried to be generalist propositions with something for everyone. Now that we’re seeing more niche MMOs coming through Kickstarter and other routes, I think we’re ready for a game that’s unabashedly pure PvE… just not one from Brad McQuaid it would seem.
As an aside – wasn’t City of Heroes pure PvE for a goodly while, and isn’t A Tale In The Desert pure PvE (and co-operative PvE to boot)?
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Well I played at launch on Veeshan but I had a friend who wanted me to play with him on Rallos. I played briefly with him later but didn’t last long, but then had a good 6 month run with him on Sullon much later. So my memory is my #1 reference.
Obviously my memory doesn’t mean squat to anyone else, so some google-fu reveals the truth via IGN’s review dated just 10 days after launch:
“We’ve also been hearing some people complaining that there is a lack of true role-playing in EverQuest and that it just seems like a huge graphical chat room. Well, this really isn’t something you can fault Verant for. The game engine is set-up for it, but players have to utilize it. I have seen a lot more people acting out their roles on the PvP server so, if this is something that interests you, then maybe you should look into playing there.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/03/27/everquest-3
What does GA stand for? I played in EQ’s beta 3 (on Fenin) and 4 (on Veeshan).
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@Wilhelm – I don’t know that anyone HAS, but I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to think about how they COULD go about doing it. Heck, Syncaine has a novella written about it. I think the biggest problem with it actually happening is that when a game has item destruction, it is typically in a PVP context, but in order to keep gameplay meaningful, you either need to have a system where stuff wears out and needs to be replaced, or you need to go the WoW route and reset everything once in a while.
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Perhaps a requirement for subscription based MMOs. What’s your stance on duels?
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@blb – “What’s your stance on duels?”
As long as there is an “auto decline” option, I am fine with them!
But I don’t think duels really count as PvP for most people. That is my gut feeling. Duels lack chaos, any element of surprise, and require consent. It may sound glib, but you can’t gank anybody in a duel. Even in a battleground people in motion can end up outnumbered or alone against a group of foes.
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I think Kiantremayne is pretty close to why and how we get so much PvP in our PvE games. The problem seems to be twofold: devs overestimate the level of interest in PvP while underestimating the amount of work needed to make it work.
Take EQ as an example. Between 1999 and 2004, when Everquest was, literally, the biggest game in town, they frequently needed to add extra servers to meet the demand. As far as I recall at most there were four PvP servers – Rallos Zek, Tallon Zek, Vallon Zek and Sullon Zek, plus the very short-lived permadeath PvP server, Discord. I briefly played on Rallos and Sullon though my actual PvP was mostly limited to being bind-camped and ganked.
Discounting Discord, that makes four PvP servers out of a total at the time of almost 50. By 2005 that was down to a single server, the four Zeks having been merged into one called, naturally enough, Zek. As far as I recall, EQ2 only ever had a single PvP server.
When you consider the enormous amount of time and effort that had to go into “balancing” that handful of servers and the massive disruption PvP issues frequently either really did cause or were believed by PvE players to have caused on the non-PvP servers I find it very hard to see how it could have been economically worthwhile for either version of Everquest to have PvP servers at all.
Brad did put PvP quite a long way out in those stretch goals. As far as I recall, Vanguard had no form of PvP whatsoever. I’d have to go check that it even has duels – I certainly never got challenged to one. I wonder if EQ having such an insistence on PvP despite the very obvious lack of demand is down to Smed, well-known to be a keen PvPer? If so, I bet he had a ton of support in-house. I often get the impression that MMO devs as a whole are far more interested in PvP than the people who play their games. In the end, that’s as likely a reason as any that we get so much of it when so few of us seem interested.
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@Bhagpuss – I forget a lot of things, but I do remember that Vanguard had at least one PvP server, a Free For All rules server, where you could kill at will. I was reminded of this during my brief foray into the Pantheon related forums when, just after loud shouts for a Zek-like server in Pantheon were some fond words for the departed Vaguard PvP server. Somebody quite fond of Vanguard PvP wrote the Wikipedia entry on that part of the game.
And that PvP stretch goal started a bit closer in on Pantheon, if I recall right, before the stretch goals got a big rework. So he clearly has a bit of PvP on the brain. Heh.
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I remember the Vanguard FFA server. There were dudes ganking everyone at the vendors in one of the early vendor hubs, PK guilds, and Anti-PK guilds.
But I did not remember that until Wilhelm’s comment.
I don’t think PVP is required, plenty of people are playing various MMOs and never pvp. Personally, I like the variety it adds to the experience, regardless of the game.
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I knew I should have researched that before commenting! I played VG from beta3 through til 3 years after launch (with breaks) and have absolutely no memory at all of the PvP server. Chalk Brad up as another of the PvP-obsessed devs then.
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I’d say “yes”. Mostly because if you don’t, there’s going to be people yelling for it. Create another server with a few rules, and let people go play on it. Do a bit of design to make the server self-sustaining, but let it mostly run on its own. Otherwise those PvP fans are going to try to get their fix by griefing.
But, perhaps having a specifically PvP-focused game like Camelot Unchained will help other games.
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Regardless of my own feelings it certainly seems to be considered as mandatory. Look at the upcoming sandbox titles and they either are built around PVP or feature it heavily. As you mention Elder Scrolls is placing a surprisingly prominent focus on it too. After my recent forced experiences in WoW battlegrounds due to the legendary cloak quest chain I’m happy to pass on PVP and any game that emphasizes it! (each to his own of course).
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Personally I started out playing on the PVE servers since I am very bad at the twitch type play PVP requires. Over time I have come to like the added sense of danger that questing on a PVP realm can offer though and I have had great moments of meeting new players and bonding with the community by people taking care of gankers together.
On the Emerald Dream server for instance I got repeatedly hunted down by a Horde twink that announced in the Alliance general chat how bad I was and how many times he had won over me. Sure enough I quickly got people whispering me if I wanted them to help me. So I think PVP has due to its “bad” side also “good” effects.
That being said if the PVE content in the overworld was harder I might want to stay on a PVE realm untill I felt secure enough to try out the PVP ones.
It’s hard to say if it should be required, easy answer is there should be something for everyone gameswise, games that have it, that don’t have and that only have it etc. To me it is something I really enjoy knowing is there when I need it.
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@Psychochild – can I take your response as a confirmation of my “devs add PvP so that guy on the forums will STFU” theory? :)
Also, we can hope that Camelot a unchained will give PvPers somewhere to hang out without bothering anyone else, but the same was said of Shadowbane and Darkfall…
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MMORPG’s have to either be PVP or not . The mixing just causes problems LOTRO is a very good example . Monster play has impact on the actual game and causes problems ( skills being taken from gamers due to imbalance in pvp which 90% of people don’t ever go to) . Also there is a need to have developers for the game and pvp and naturally they don’t necessarily talk and try to do the best for their bit which naturally tends to screw over either the gamers or the pvpers. In a game like DAOC on the other hand pvp is integral to the game and in fact the most important part of it so there is little conflict between pve and pvp causing problems for each other , TESO is the modern equivalent of DAOC really in that it is a pvp system with a pve part to get you to learn to play so that you can play in the pvp (weird though that a pve franchise decides to go pvp for its MMO) . If people know from outset what a game is about then they can make a decent choice if its bits of both then one just ends up with confusion and conflict between gamers and pvpers. To answer the OP – no pvp isn’t necessary for an MMORPG . The answer is as always whatever you are making game wise do it well – if its PVE then make it pve if its pvp make it pvp don’t try and do both or it fails.
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The following is in defense of PvP, and thus it might seem confrontational, but I am just really passionate about this topic. I mean you no harm :)
@pkudude99:
“IMO, PvP is a detriment to most games. I’ve dabbled in it from time to time and I’ve never felt like it was any different that PvE, except that there was a lot of trash talk. PvP people like to claim that playing a thinking opponent makes it more challenging, but since they all use “The One Pptimum PVP Build ™” and always react in the same ways every time and have the same pvp gear…. no different than PvE there either. Once you learn the “script” that the players themselves use, they’re no different form any AI.”
When I read this, I was thinking, “He must be talking about Rift” and sure enough…
“Heck, the 1st time I dabbled in pvp with some friends in Rift I completely dominated it, since I’d read about it on the forums enough that I “knew what to do.” One of the friends I was playing with that night asked me flat out how much pvp I’d been doing behind her back since I was “so good at it” and she was shocked when I told her that that night was my 1st time ever doing it in that game. ”
That game is notoriously easy to win among my PvP friends if you are paying attention and doing what you are supposed to do. So good for you, playing the objectives and focusing on the game, because many people don’t do that.
Here is the deal: PvP is easy against bad players. This is the general type of riffraff you get in the battlegrounds of most MMOs. Rated queues and duels in PvP areas are more challenging, because you have to out-think your opponent. They are more unpredictable.
I PvP in every single MMO I play, because it never gets old. The good players are unpredictable, and they are a much bigger challenge than a boss you’ve seen dozens of times. Saying that people are equal to AI is insulting to your fellow humans haha. Even in Rift, whose PvP is a joke among me and my friends, a PvEer will generally not have the movement skills and situational awareness skills that PvP requires, while a PvPer will move out of the fire, dodge boss attacks, and keep track of adds, and do other such PvE things with ease.
At the top level, there are no rotations, no “best build” (if it is a well-designed game). You have to figure out what the situation needs and provide it. This thrill is what I live for. Out-thinking my opponent is extremely satisfying, which is why I love Open World PvP too. Stumbling upon someone and killing them in a 1v1 duel that was unexpected to both of us is the ultimate adrenaline rush.
To sum up, PvP IS required for me to play an MMO, and it will be what keeps me in the MMO. I might do dungeons or raids once, but once you learn the dance, the challenge is gone. Only in PvP do you face actual thinking minds, and that is where the challenge is.
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“Is PvP a requirement in MMO?” It’s just a question about technical.
If Pvp seems to be necessary, it’s just because the PvE (as implemented by all the actual games) is not enough. PvE is just about replacing the opponent by a bot (or PvP replaces the opponent by a player, it’s the same)
Implementing a good AI is difficult and you need many more resources. It’s why developers reduce the number of bots.
The PvP brings the dynamic part that their PvE cannot have (because of their scipt/quests/linear thinking .. in fact because of their methods to not work on AI).
When developers will change their way of thinking and when we have better hardware, then the question about being PvE/PvP/Both will be useless.
How? As I said, take a PvP world and transform an entire faction by NPC. You’ll get a full PvE world and having PvP will just be useless.
For now, it’s just about selling games in no time.
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@Deadlonexus – Your argument, if I am reading it correctly, is that the concept of PvP or PvE will go away as technology advances.
Which is an interesting point and certainly something worth discussing.
Unfortunately, as part of a discussion prompted by the state of the MMORPG market today… and specifically by Brad McQuaid bringing up PvP for his very much PvE focused game… it strikes me as something akin to joining a discussion about traffic jams on the way to work and saying that in the future we will all have flying cars so there will be no traffic jams. Cool and interesting, but not really the topic at hand.
And, as has been discussed elsewhere, devs could make better AIs for NPCs today. Onyxia, as an example, could easily be made to avoid the tanks and go for the healers. That would be much smarter for her. But would it make for a better game?
Now, there is the whole Storybricks model, which is a much more meta AI thing, which hits on the behavior of NOC groups and the motivations of individual NPCs, which we might get a glimpse of in EverQuest Next, should SOE actually be working on such a thing. So, potentially possible today.
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My problem with having a PVP mechanic is that it attracts people with the PVP mindset. Malicious, hyper-competitive, exploit-seeking drones who gleefully conform to whatever standard they see as a winning strategy, whether or not they’ve actually thought about it. The majority just do it without question, and those who actually think and pioneer the craft are such underhanded scum that it’s painful to hold a conversation with them.
In real life, these people are jocks from the high school who get off on winning at any expense, emos who can’t hurt anybody any other way, the marketing team whose internal culture treats their clients like victims, lawyers and other pushy, competitive types. Their real-life friends, if they have any, think they’re creeps and wouldn’t find it suprising at all if they were brought up on rape charges.
These are not the kind of people I want to hang out with. Why the HELL does anybody think I want to play a game with them?
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@Ruzho – Stereotype much?
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@Geldarion
“Out-thinking my opponent is extremely satisfying, which is why I love Open World PvP too. Stumbling upon someone and killing them in a 1v1 duel that was unexpected to both of us is the ultimate adrenaline rush.”
You mean to say, coming on somebody who is harvesting, or in the middle of questing, lurking about until they’re idle in their inventory or half-dead from a monster, then swooping in to get an easy kill. That’s not out-thinking, that’s just malicious.
Even if you are one of the 5% or so of PVPers who are actually honorable enough to NOT hit somebody while they’re down, the other 95% will do it without hesitation.
To you, it might be “the ultimate thrill” but to your victim, that’s one of the ultimate examples of why you need to either join up with a zerg-happy ganker outfit or get the hell out.
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@Arcturus
Why shouldn’t I? The griefer/gankers do it all the time, loosely throwing around “carebear” on anybody who is adult enough to not put up with their crap.
I’m willing to admit that there are a FEW PVPers out there who behave like adults and can handle PVP responsibly, but the majority just get off on hurting people. Not the kind I want to hang out with or play a game with.
I myself would enjoy PVP if it weren’t for the players I have to deal with. Typing like texting teens, laughing at potty humor, spending two hours bitching about a ten-second fight, and so on. Every game I get into, I explore the PVP content, run into these people, and I am immediately turned away.
I want a game that doesn’t appeal to those people.
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@Ruzho – Why shouldn’t you?
Because, in my experience, calling people names, grouping them into unflattering stereotypes, telling them they are bad people and their views do not matter, and generally taking a confrontational attitude never solves anything.
I present as evidence, this whole #gamergate thing, in which both sides have been guilty of all of the above, repeatedly and gratuitously.
And it isn’t that I am not sympathetic to your general message. After all, this whole post was written as a somewhat polite “WTF?” response to Brad McQuaid wanting to throw PvP in his rework of the EverQuest ideal.
But the last two weeks of nastiness in the games arena, with its “you’re either for us or you’re against us” clash of small groups trying to control a narrative has left me with a sour view of anybody showing up in my comments with that sort of message.
Call it bad timing for that sort of thing.
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