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Just about every MMO out there today needs some form of PVP gameplay. Just how it's done -- whether it's only in certain, cordoned-off areas of the game or if anyone can attack anyone anytime -- is the key differentiator, and can determine how quickly someone loses interest in your game. For example, while I enjoyed playing on a PVE-only server in World of Warcraft, my brother James walked away from the game partially because he wanted PVP gameplay and couldn't get it (in the days before server transfers were around). Other players may take one look at the PVP reputation of your game and opt never to try it just based on that alone.

Dividing servers up into PVP and non-PVP areas is just the starting point when it comes to PVP, too. There are also questions of death penalties or, more specifically just what you have to lose, other than your head, anyway.

A new article up on Massively by Brendan Drain compares PVP in one of the industry's newest darlings -- Age of Conan -- with one of the genre's veteran games that is very heavily PVP centric -- EVE Online. It might not seem like a key factor, but EVE Online's single game universe compared to multiple servers with different PVP rules also comes into play. The article doesn't go too in-depth, but just a quick overview of the differences was enough to show me that it definitely seems hard to design compelling PVP.

Via Massively, linked to by Slashdot.

From Aeropause.