Back in July, Pearl Abyss raised eyebrows by announcing plans to curb Black Desert guilds abusing wardecs to murder rival players with impunity. “It seems that one-sided suffering to others just for the sake of someone’s fun can be said to be ‘harassing,'” the game’s producer said, apologizing for coming to the decision to nerf unilateral wardecs late in the game.
Now don’t get too excited because PA isn’t bringing to an end open-world PvP, but we have seen similar choices in other open-PvP games, perhaps most notably in Ultima Online’s implementation of Trammel. As in BDO, the prevelance of a specific type of ganking with insufficient consequence was literally driving players away from the game, and so the developers moved to gut it. It certainly saved UO for the studio, if not for the gankers who left it. But there’s certainly reason to think that there might have been a tipping point after which so many people had left that the game’s reputation would never recover even if the systems were repaired.
Is it ever too late to save a gankbox MMO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
