"Nothing galvanizes a community like an external threat," says Near Death Studio's Green. It's no surprise that combat forms the basis for a lot of the social structures in an MMO (one MMO, Sony's Planetside, is built around nothing but combat). Green recalls the balancing act required to work player vs. player combat (PvP) into the game. At first, there were only two factions, but as one faction started to attract more and more powerful characters, there was a snowballing effect. 3DO essentially bailed out the underdog by creating a third faction, which balanced things out.