kaisergeddon
Liturgist
Well, it wasn't an MMO, but I've had a similar pvp experience recently. I tried to help a friend getting into Dark Souls for the first time last month with the "remastered" edition. I made a new character and we tried to summon one another for the belltower gargoyle fight, but we immediately got invaded by a guy in full dragon convenant gear with the head and torso and wrath of the gods miracle, endgame stuff you have absolutely no access to at that player level. He obliterated my friend and I couldn't damage him whatsoever, my hits were taking like 3% of his health. We had to devise plans to summon each other next to the boss entrance because these invasions went on all night, for hours at least.
Eventually, I checked the invaders steam profile and he had multiple comments calling him out and warning others that he's a belltower pvp twink. These comments went all the way back to 2014, when the original was a thing, and continued with the remastered edition today. The guy had about a thousand hours in the remaster too. All of that playtime, purposely running a low level character to the endgame, getting geared up, and just so he could grief one specific boss fight in a beginner area as his gaming purpose in life.
I'm not complaining, in fact I appreciate the possibility in Dark Souls, but the lesson is there is a lot of weaponized autism out there, especially in this era. Can you reasonably expect developers to accomodate that sort of behavior and make an enjoyable game for everyone in an MMO? Dark Souls is a concentrated experience, MMOs are meant to be simulated worlds, and I think it's nostaglia for that early MMO experience that drives the arguments for open world pvp, where everything was new and every encounter an unknown in a vast frontier, where MMOs were social experiments designed by wisemen with tabletop gaming experience.
Unfortunately, while smart people argue for pvp, only the autists and sociopaths show up for it in meaningful amounts from my experience these days, and the games that make it available are completely degenerate, filled with cash shops and P2W mechanics and waifu pandering. Back in the golden era you had to pay the full price for a title, afford an internet connection, and know how to set up and play computer games on an expensive desktop. Today? You got endless third worlders flooding f2p korean games on used toasters. There's a lot to consider that makes the social dynamics impossible for cultured interactions between people in a modern MMO environment.
TL;DR: open world pvp is never going to be something that works again like how advocates argue for it, at least not in a popular MMO. This ain't the era of Stranglethorn Vale anymore. Remember Wildstar? You're better off on a UO free shard or something.
Eventually, I checked the invaders steam profile and he had multiple comments calling him out and warning others that he's a belltower pvp twink. These comments went all the way back to 2014, when the original was a thing, and continued with the remastered edition today. The guy had about a thousand hours in the remaster too. All of that playtime, purposely running a low level character to the endgame, getting geared up, and just so he could grief one specific boss fight in a beginner area as his gaming purpose in life.
I'm not complaining, in fact I appreciate the possibility in Dark Souls, but the lesson is there is a lot of weaponized autism out there, especially in this era. Can you reasonably expect developers to accomodate that sort of behavior and make an enjoyable game for everyone in an MMO? Dark Souls is a concentrated experience, MMOs are meant to be simulated worlds, and I think it's nostaglia for that early MMO experience that drives the arguments for open world pvp, where everything was new and every encounter an unknown in a vast frontier, where MMOs were social experiments designed by wisemen with tabletop gaming experience.
Unfortunately, while smart people argue for pvp, only the autists and sociopaths show up for it in meaningful amounts from my experience these days, and the games that make it available are completely degenerate, filled with cash shops and P2W mechanics and waifu pandering. Back in the golden era you had to pay the full price for a title, afford an internet connection, and know how to set up and play computer games on an expensive desktop. Today? You got endless third worlders flooding f2p korean games on used toasters. There's a lot to consider that makes the social dynamics impossible for cultured interactions between people in a modern MMO environment.
TL;DR: open world pvp is never going to be something that works again like how advocates argue for it, at least not in a popular MMO. This ain't the era of Stranglethorn Vale anymore. Remember Wildstar? You're better off on a UO free shard or something.