PvP

(Continuing my treatment on Facebook games)

I've mentioned PvP a couple times now, and for those who don't know (and haven't googled it yet), it is "Player vs. Player".

Now, some might think the purpose of a game (especially a game on a social network) would be for players to compete. The alternative is PvE (environment), sometimes called AI (which is too generous), or simply computer players. This is how Civilization and a lot of other games work, and work well.

All Facebook games are competitive, in that you can see what your friends and other players have accomplished, and use that to drive you to do more.

In the * Wars games, the PvP aspect is an in-game effect where you improve and the other player is set back (some games lack this PvP aspect, while being similar in most other ways. e.g. Metropolis)

This might seem to be the main focus of the game (it is for some), but in most cases, it is a simply a small annoyance.

In most games, your PvP power is proportional to the number of people in your network (which is usually capped at 500).

Now, no one has 500 friends, much less 500 friends all interested in playing the same game.

This leads to huge "Add Me" threads on the forums, and giant email chains.

If you're not interested in that (and I'm not), there is a simple precaution to avoid serious setback - bank (or spend) your money at the end of a session (and ignore the "defeated" statistic in your profile).