The recent buzz over Everquest II has been quite impressive. Having never played Everquest I was not really in on all the excitement, but I am a fan of MMORPG's. However, today on slashdot.org I read a story about Everquest II and the fact that the game will not include Player vs. Player (PvP) game play. Now my first true online gaming experience was with Diablo and later on Diablo II. PvP in those Blizzard classics are a very big part of the game play. I started to wonder if online games could really survive without the PvP option. I came to the conclusion that PvP is essential for any online game. My reasons for this are many. First of all PvP is an outlet for players when they get bored of normal game play (Killing diseased rats gets old fast). I remember that when I would get bored of leveling up in Diablo I would go duel for a while and have some fun. I also looked to Halo for an example of why you need PvP. Halo has both co-op and counter-op multiplayer. This means that you can play with someone else against the AI or you can play against actual humans. Now for me I beat the game with MasTequila in Co-op mode and it was fun. However, both of us have never looked back and now only play counter-op multiplayer (Essentially PvP). So now I bet you are wondering how this works for MMORPG's. Well when I remembered the MMORPG's I have played I thought of what I did once I maxed out my character. I did PvP, exclusively. The idea behind MMORPG's is for them to be never-ending and open-ended. Without the PvP option I question what is there for players once they max out their characters. I am very interested to see some more information on the Everquest II development. I am also interested in seeing what they are going to do to make the game open-ended and fun for everyone.

-Seth (15-Jun-2004)

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