The only good model for PvP is one where everyone is effectively equal. Most First Person Shooters are the standard here. The only way an MMO can have gank- and grief-free PvP is to limit everyone’s abilities to the same basic level.

Player self-regulated PvP only works in MMOs where the contests are instanced. The Arenas in City of Heroes are a good example. By recognizing the rock-paper-scissors approach is inherently unbalanced, many groups in CoH have instituted their own rules. Participants obey or are kicked, period. A couple years ago there was an excellent Arena competition in CoH known as the “Arena Foot Brawl League.” Teams were organized and matches determined, following a pro sports model. Only certain powers were allowed, levelling the playing field for all contestants.

That levelling of the playing field is what has to be done in order to eliminate the immature. If developers won’t do it, then they need to give the players the tools to do so.

Force can mean more than simply beating on somone. For example, it can mean intentional embarrassment, which is also an aggressive act. Avoiding embarrassment is a strong motivation, but you have to know someone personally to know whether or not it would be an effective sanction.

And that’s what I mean about informal sanctions tending to be the more effective. In real life, when the local community, rather than a distant government or static code, handles problems of justice, they’re usually able to do so with fuller knowledge of the miscreant’s personality, the conditions of his or her life, and the conditions surrounding the incident. Sanctioning is most effective when one understands that different sanctions work on different individuals in different situations.

Hence, in a virtual world, the answer isn’t to create a new set of necessary sanctions or refine the old code. Instead, developers should try to empower virtual communities through tools and moderator support to be able to respond creatively to different individual gankers.

By exclusion here I mean that PvP is inherenet with the player factions. If you aren’t part of the warring faction, you’re excluded from their PvP. You can’t gank. Your only choice is to find a faction that accepts your mindset and play against factions that also accept your mindset.

For people who are just more “hardcore” or more aggressive players, they’d enjoy the game more playing with and against people that share those philosophies. If gankers are in the minority as much as I think- and if they really only get their rocks off attacking others that are weaker, that won’t be a pleasant option.

In reality, malicious behavior like that is usually sanctioned by informal, and often creative, intervention. Virtual worlds don’t allow the same range and forcefulness of sanctions. Even in real life, one may have noticed an increased frequency of malicious behavior as our culture has become less accepting of forceful informal sanctions (like physically throwing a kid out of a theater if he’s talking during the movie).

Virtual worlds are also commonly free of non-legal, non-social, non-willful restraints (I’m sure there’s a better way of saying that, but I couldn’t find one). For example, in reality, a person might have the personality of a bully but lack the semblance of power necessary to effectively bully someone. In a virtual world, power, and thereby the capacity to threaten or bully, is more easily attainable.

Ideally, we should all do what’s right because it’s right, but the reality is that human beings often reject evils only for fear of punishment. Legal sanctions (which, in this case, would refer to game mechanics and moderators) are never as effective as non-legal sanctions (community-initiated sanctions). Unfortunately, I don’t think methods of verbal or passive exclusion (”you can’t join our group/guild”) are enough. Sometimes, force is the best diplomacy.