Anytime I am reading message boards for any of the current or upcoming mmorpgs and I see a thread dealing with PvP combat, (player versus player), I cannot resist reading it. I don’t think you will ever see more venomous and acerbic comments than you get in these threads.

PvP proponents consistently make contemptuous comments about the PvE, (player versus environment), players referring to them as “blubies” or “carebears” who are afraid to take on the mighty PvP players in the much more interesting and challenging worlds of the lawless.

PvE players who do not like to play on PvP servers almost universally attribute their dislike of PvP to the experiences they have had on PvP servers getting killed over and over again by high level players, corpse camped, ambushed and taunted by people who they have no chance of defending themselves against.

I have played on PvP servers in the past both on Rallos Zek, and Tallon Zek in Everquest 1, and in Dark Age of Camelot. Quite frankly, I never became a fan of PvP on the open PvP servers since all they really came down to was highly twinked characters ganking the lowbies. Rarely did you ever see players taking each other on ‘mano a mano’, rather you would see players ambushing other players who were typically at a serious disadvantage due to level difference, being out of power or low health, while engaging a monster encounter, or, gift of all gifts to PvP players, caught AFK, (away from keyboard).

On the other hand, I love playing games like Call of Duty 1 and 2 where you are playing versus other players and the primary component is skill. However, fantasy mmorpgs will not be taking on the qualities of those types of games for a long time, if ever, nor should they.

I have thought long and hard about whether or not it is possible to put PvP elements into a mmorpg and keep the original intent, which is for the game to be an immersive multi-player role playing game. Note the emphasis on role playing since that is really what the genre is about.

Below are a couple of rule set ideas to implement PvP that might satisfy everyone. Keep in mind that none of the rule sets allow for any class balancing for PvP, what so ever.