Funcom, the creators of Dune: Awakening, want to introduce you to PvP. But instead of simply smashing other players’ bases, you should fight for the rarest resource in the game: Spice. The idea is that PvP will be bundled in an arena, and your bases will be safe – more or less.
What is this feature?
- “Spice blows” are world events where a huge fountain of Spice explodes somewhere in the desert.
- All players on the map should see the event and gather there to collect their share of the Spice and bring it home.
- Since you are not playing Fremen, you need Spice to pay your
taxes
to the Emperor. After all, you are on Arrakis.
What is the purpose of this feature? At the Game Developer Conference 2024, Executive Producer Scott Junior explained that these PvP events are meant to protect your bases – as confusing as that may sound (via PCGamer).
By fighting against other players for a resource, what you build will be safe. At least to a large extent:
We believe PvP works best when players are fighting over a resource or trying to bring it back to their base – and not fighting over something as personal as their base. That’s what we are trying here.
Meanwhile, your base is supposed to be protected by a shield created over the heart of the structure, the console. However, if you can no longer afford the operation or deliberately let the shield drop, you can be attacked.
This means PvP is somewhat “opt-in” or voluntary. Junior says that especially on the starting map, there should be no base raids. Later, that’s more likely.
Last Oasis died for the same mistake
The survival game Last Oasis also tried to promote aggressive PvP. There, the rare resource was water, which players had to fight for to somehow survive. This brought a clear problem: large guilds dominate, new players suffer, and the game becomes more toxic.
After an initial hype, the game lost almost all players in a short time and soon reinvented itself completely. However, without success: Last Oasis has an average of just 70 players on Steam (via steamcharts).
The creators, Donkey Crew, have since dedicated themselves to another project. The boss stated that they have learned from their mistakes. Now they are planning a pure PvE single-player game with optional co-op with Bellwright.
Whether Dune: Awakening will flop solely because of the PvP is not certain. Funcom already has experience with PvP and knows how to do it right:
- Age of Conan was a brutal MMORPG, but it was popular because of its native PvP.
- Conan Exiles combines PvE and PvP, with PvP being the significantly smaller part. Here, too, there are large world events.
If the PvP part becomes as manageable as in Conan Exiles, then the “Spice blows” should not become too much of a problem. Since Spice is such an important resource, however, PvP is likely to play a larger role – even though the survival community has made it very clear that they prefer PvE. How Dune: Awakening will develop remains to be seen. Currently, there is only a rough release date known: Dune: Awakening Release – What do we know? MeinMMO asked the developers
