PvP isn't my thing. I don't play Halo, I haven't tried Call of Duty. The idea of getting on a game and fighting with my friends or strangers online just doesn't appeal to me.

PvP, at the end of the day, just isn't nice enough for me - I'm not cutthroat enough with other people. I'm the sort of player who doesn't want to attack anyone too below me, who is still learning, who is having lag issues, so on and so forth. I'm incredibly blood-thirsty when it comes to the NPC hordes but when it comes to other players.... Not really. I tend to take the golden rule to a gaming extreme. I don't want to be afk snipsnipe when I'm having equipment issues or still trying to figure out how things work so I'm too sweet and end up just creating chances for people to kill me. Good times...

I think a lot of the sour taste in my mouth, and my 'head shot as you would wish to be head shotted', in regards to PvP came from Galaxies and their PvP zones and guild wars. Oh those annoyed me to no end. When Galaxies introduced war torn PvP zones, I missed the memo regarding their location and bounderies. My little tailor (a non-combat class so level one with no fighting abilities) was out checking her harvesters. I hit auto zone, put her on the right path and move away to grab something.

When I came back, she was about to enter a PvP zone. The warning text popped up on the screen as I crossed in -  not before or at a particular distance away, as I entered - so I turned myself around. Sadly, speeders do not stop or turn on a dime and before I could make it out I was dead and my speeder was destroyed. I liked that speeder.

I'm the little guy...

While replacing the speeder wasn't a big deal in the end, it was incredibly frustrating to me that the fighting in those sectors was so blood-thirsty that people rejoiced at taking down a level one tailor. Yes... Congrats. You took out a player with no ability to fight back. Truly your ability causes men and women alike to swoon. To be fair, in SWG, it didn't matter if you took down a level 90 or a level 1. You got the same number of points. Maybe that is what really annoyed me about it - that a game that won't give me a tutorial because they want us to talk to each other to encourage community had 90s mowing down 1s because it is just so much easier than taking on a fair fight.

It didn't help that SWG had this thing where guilds could decide that they were feuding. And when that happened, any member of said guilds could pick each other off without the ability to refuse the duel. That, again, annoyed the hell out of me. I loved playing my non-com but this meant that I really couldn't unless I could muster up a group of folks to travel with her at all times. Not exactly the most fun thing in the world, sitting around a cantina while an entertainer provides new cosmetics and buffs.

I much preferred the way PvP worked in Lord of the Rings Online. Which was a really fun game before it went free to play. Not to insult them for doing it but by the time LoTRO went free to pay it was so radically different from the game I bought that I just lost interest. That said, I do have a lifetime membership so I may go back at some point.

Anyway, not to go off on a tangent, PvP in LoTRO was simply not something that you could stumble into. At least not when I left and I highly doubt they have changed it. You very deliberately selected a fast travel to a specific map that you could only get to from this travel point.

Once out there, there were more quests and reward tokens and special horses that you could only get from successful PvP combat. These items could be used anywhere in game, with a few possible exceptions, but they all had to be earned in this zone. Of course it also got into my good graces because it functioned well within the concept of the story - you didn't have elves fighting against elves. Free people characters (elves, humans, hobbits, dwarves) played fought against player controlled monsters (orcs, spiders, and all fun nasties).

And it does have to be said... A part of me avoids PvP because I admit that I am not the most gracious loser in the world when it comes to player v. player combat - I want to win but I'm just not interested enough to build up the required skill set. Not the best combination in the world!



My husband isn't a PvPer either although he is a very gracious loser. He is the kinda guy who will get completely destroyed, laugh and offer genuine congratulations. Me, if it is a console game, I'm fuming. Ah, the joys of an Irish temper. He just doesn't like dealing with it. Me, I get annoyed and go off to slaughter some trolls.

Not me. But I kinda want this outfit even though I don't play WoW.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that PvP is bad by any means. I still engage in it from time to time. I had a number of friendly duels in LoTRO and SWG and I don't see any reason why that won't continue in SW:TOR. I never got far enough in DCU to get to any PvP honestly. I remember with particular fondness the PvP servers for Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time game. By the way, if anyone knows of an emulator for that game, let me know. I miss it so much but I can't get it to run on my newer computers without screwing up the cutscenes.

PvP is just not something you are going to see me running off to do. Unless, of course, someone has figured out how to make it appeal to me. In which case you might want to follow along and see what even has me in the fighting! :-)