Having only one other person to talk to is not what a forum is about. Does anyone have some opinions?
Sure.... I care but the question is do i care enough? Sadly the answer is probably NO. The reason for that is that I simply believe that "fixing" PvP will be a TON of work to do it correctly and will take lots of good ideas ( hopefully from PvPers...focus group ha..) and also time spent working out a system that will actually interest people for the long term. I'll try to actually post some maybe... useful thoughts on all this.
1) Any PvP system ultimately has to have some other draw to participate in it in this day and age simply because of the lower populations. Ultimately on pretty much any shard but ATL you can only expect PvP in very limited durations. Mostly the reason for this is that people do 2 things when they log in to play UO. They do what they find FUN or they do the stuff they feel they NEED to do before they can have FUN. What this means for us PVPers is that the VvV system needs to be able to draw people in and HOLD them (in a PvP setting...aka somewhere there is a decent chance someone looking for a fight can find them) for any consistent long term PvP system to work. Deco items don't really count and the VvV artifacts take a very limited effort to attain. Beyond those 2 reasons hardly anyone is willing to come to a VvV fight. This is usually just a timing issue in that 1 side is ready to fight and the other side is doing PvM etc... if both sides are ready then any large difference in numbers on 1 side or another can end a fight before it starts..
2) Short version is PvP system needs a cookie just like power scrolls were. It's just a matter of balance at that point.
3) Cookie ideas... I would love it if there were items / cookies that we could get which had the purpose of being desirable and helped promote PvP.. I wish I could skin a fallen foe maybe take his head and ultimatEly after a difficult crafting process create a soul gem or something similar that's linked the person I killed. I can think of lots of things such an item might be able to do. Track the person in question...perhaps simply twinkle with light if they are online.... allow you to challenge the person to a duel? Maybe giving them 2 hours of time online with that character and if they don't accept the other person wins? I don't know...just thinking of things that would INCREASE PvP.. I'd also include a way to destroy any such items that have been created. Perhaps they are character bound? And thus if you killed the person who created a soul gem of you ..you know destroy it?... Anyway...you get the drift...
4) Cookie... I know it's overly simple....but perhaps a PvP reward that's greater than powder of fort?.. say it adds 10 max durability to items that cannot be powered? I find myself using legendary Antique jewelry and it's definitely dieing quickly and I would totally do whatever it took to change that if I could....
5) I like leader boards as long as the points are more closely associated with PvP than they are now in VvV. I know on Sonoma the higher ranked VvV points belong to those who grind out VvV town battles when no one is online etc... if there was a PvP scoreboard with actual in game perks it would make it that much more desirable and thus promote PvP. I go with something as simple as #1 PvPer gets a percentage of insurance for maybe all the enemies his guild kills? That could be decent cash I think and motivation to not ZERG if your zerglings are literally linin the opposing guilds ACES... pocketc etc.
Also link...I'm PEON on Sonoma. Xsharders.... good if your 1 of them but otherwise always bouncing from shards and never staying long enough for a fight to happen etc...It's slow here.. let's check somewhere else etc.... ah well enough for now.