PvP vs. PvE – and Me
stargrace (( Hmpfs, seems like I’m not the only one with PvP and PvE on their minds, hehe. Made my post before I’d wandered over to Gestalt Mind.. great write up!)
I’m glad these days that there’s such a selection of games out there. It means I have lots to read. I like the idea of sticking with what I’m playing (which currently is EQ2 and VG) and living vicariously through whoever I happen to be reading about and their adventures. I don’t care too much about the technical bits, nor the drama associated with any of the games but I do care about what people are thinking, how they’re exploring, their thoughts and ideas, opinions. I suppose it all goes hand in hand in one neat little package.
I am obviously not a big personal fan of PvP – and not because I suck at it. I’ve played PvP in WoW before, as well as EQ2. I got the mad ‘zomg die die n00bsauce!’ rush and it was a lot of fun. At the end of that initial rush though I started feeling sort of bad. Lets say I was out questing, and I really wanted to finish the quest. It frustrated me that some random_person_101 would come along and squash me while I was trying to finish the quest. Then you have the campers, griefers, and all that sort of ‘fun’. Then there’s the ‘you have to travel in numbers or you’re going to die instantly’ factor that I experienced. I do play solo a lot of the time. Some times I just want to wander around and do nothing (or diplomacy, or craft) and not have any combat at all.
I also started thinking about the fact that the people I was ‘killing’ (even in a video game) are just that, people. Maybe they had a bad day at work. Maybe they’re escaping their real lives in order to block out some abusive real life issue, maybe they’re jerks because of random_reason_101.
It made me want to PvP even less, because I’d lose that ‘bloodthirst’ that I needed in order to accomplish it to begin with. Now, grouping together to take on an encounter of badies (who are computer generated and there for not ‘real’) I have no issue with. Raiding, I love. I love coming together for a common goal. I love winning (who doesn’t) or even losing with the right people, but when it comes to PvP it’s all about ‘us’ versus ‘them’ where the us and the them are all real people behind the computers and for some reason it just doesn’t sit very well with me. I can’t really explain it any better then that.
When I played WoW I only played on PvP servers – because lets face it as much as people may say it caters to both sides, WoW is a PvP oriented game. I did my fair share there, too. Carebear player? Maybe I am, but to each their own honestly. I enjoy the housing, the quests, crafting, and in Vanguard the diplomacy and affecting the world in little ways. I don’t enjoy knowing that maybe by me smushing some other player in a game, they’re going to be upset (and it happens, I know it’s overreacting, but it happens) and take out their bad mood on some other player and thus the chain goes. Of course the typical remarks follow like they need to take a break and they need to get a life, etc etc. But lets face it, there are some pretty poor losers out there.
I know I know, it’s just a game. Those are just some of the things that run through my mind though, and an explanation on why I personally don’t enjoy PvP. Does it come as any surprise that I don’t enjoy FPS either? Probably not (not that anyone aside from myself even cares why I do or don’t play PvP).
Just some mindless ramblings on a Friday afternoon.. (oh yeah, I don’t like afternoons either. I’m an early morning / late night type of gal).
