Scribblings - Player vs Player Combat (and the lack of it in Terris) Well its not a simple answer, but it can be broken down into several sections. Firstly Doug's original engine couldn't do it. Secondly I had just escaped from a MUD where player vs player combat had got to a very silly position and lastly I really didnt want to invent a player vs player game mechanic.

PvP has a odd history, it is my belief that it was only added to the original games because the game worlds were under developed and there was not really much ease to do. Like most things, once the original is in place then everyone just copies the basic formula, why else do we have so many MUDs that insist on resetting items? Why else do we have MUDs that think taking items to a swamp, king, portal, hole, pit and dropping them in over and over again is fun? Why else do we have games with tea rooms, the same emotes, the same locations !

I decided that PvP should only be in if there was a point to it (other than the infantile point of beating the hell out of someone who cant type as fast as you). I watched the MUD games and saw what was to come, auto combat macro's, faster connections beating slow connections, lag, people with typing skills beating the one finger typists and so on.

Was I the only one who liked MUD's but who also hated having a 6 year old lord it over me because he had a better macro program than me? Was I doomed to be the only player who wanted a real game world with things to do other than selling a necklace for 15 gold and waiting for it to reset?

So I decided to work on the game world, write  a decent setting, give it a background and most of all make it involved, something that could impress or even create wonder. I gambled (and it was a gamble I can assure you) that we could find like minded people out there, people who wanted roleplay, people who wanted to band together (in all my MUD years I never really found a place that encouraged you to band together).

I wanted quests (I HATED seeing Muds that said over 10 quests!) I wanted hundreds ! I hated monsters being crap, I wanted LOADS of different monsters. I hated having a MUD that reset on the hour, I wanted a history, birthdays, guilds in fact I wanted it all.

When we started out we got a lot of 'hard core' mudders arriving, these people appear to just know about new engines, they arrived, looked around.. they liked bits didn't like others and all of them asked the same thing.. When will there be PvP....

I got a little disappointed, I spoke to Doug about it, he said we should hang in their, that the basic concept was a good one.

Then a fully thing happened...Alvogly and Vagma (playing as mortals way back then) went on an adventure together. They liked it.

A little later on another great veteran mud player rang me up to say he was enjoying himself more than he had for the last 4 years. Then came another and another. I felt like Kevin Costner in the field of dreams, I had built it.. and they kept on arriving.

Before you know it we had lots of players and for the first time I saw a land which didn't have the major ego problems of PvP games, a land where people worked together, a land with secrets (Ever cracked my alter?) a land fit for heroes.

We are about the only game out there that encourages co operation, we are about the only commercial MUD that has no PvP, I like it that way.

Its my home and I don't intend to change a thing :)

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