In the last days I spent way too much time trying to track back things I remember to have read but forgot where. For example I hunted down something from Lum but after half an hour searching on the forums I gave up (it was a post where he wrote about the cannibalization of subscribers).

Anyway, here I save some comments about PvP models. I wrote extensively about this already and I still believe that the successful model is to offer a constructive experience instead of a destructive one. These comments go right to the core, without being too wordy.

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Mediocre:
(about full loot PvP models)
The gameplay is founded on vengeance. Getting hurt and then being able, over time, to hurt the other guy even harder is far more fun than not being hurt at all.

A gameplay founded on vengeance sounds to me unattractive and unfun. And a good way to promote every form of griefing, in particular when a good 90% of the playerbase is built by kids that cannot put a line between RL and the game.

The fun is in making the other guy lose his, and then dropping it in the lifestone so he has to stand there and try fruitlessly to grab it for ten minutes as the inevitability sinks in that the uber sword that was his pride and joy is going to rot.

A game that to be fun for one player needs to be unfun for another is a game badly designed. In the best case possible half the subscribers will cancel. When half of those will go the other half will have to cannibalize itself. This till there will be just one player left.

Zane0:
Now, a more realistic and dangerous world isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and should be explored.

There’s a definite difference between a dangerous world and a world that must be unfun for half the playerbase.

The broken part is to found the fun of a player on the unfun of another.