It is possible. Read my blog from 2 years ago. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll to the PvP section:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/joeballs/052010/6185_The-mosscovered-genre

---

Originally posted by Lucioon Again I wanted to Emphasis on the DEATH PENALTY FOR ALL PKers PVP is Dueling, you can do it anywhere, you can even have events in arenas where DEATH is allowed if you decided to turn it on for extra carnage, but its an agreeable duel. Ganking is attacking another player without their prior consent, therefore its called PKing, and that should give you the Ultimate punishment, Perma Death aka Hardcore Mode. Guild vs Guild, you can turn on Hardcore mode or not, for that something extra. But when against PK guilds, its Perma death for one ( evil villans) , and respawning gods for the Heroes. I believe all PKer, Gankers, Corpse Campers, and PVPers will agree that this is acceptable, because thats the thrill that PKers live for, thrill of Perma Death of their characters if you are good enough to take me on. And all that much sweeter when they escape.  

---

Do you understand how easy it would be to perma kill an innocent player with your idea. I would just have to piss you like no other to the point you loose your temper and attack me, then i would proceed to perma kill you and laugh at your carebearness. This is exactly how tagging work in all open world pvp game, and why this system lead to trash talking, exploiting mechanism and poor pvp experience overall.

Why make a pvp game if you want to forbid people to pvp, this make just no sense at all to begin with. If you want to let people pvp, just let them do so (why i like GW2 pvp format better actually).

@Sovrath: I'm not a dev, but some system went off like allowing to kill a few time but not a ton of time (murder count), but the efficiency of this system was really bad. But i personally prefer putting pvp into the faction format, there is no tagging in faction system since they are enemy by default, and it's your choice to be part of a faction or not. GW2 also work on a similar concept of "not tagging player" and faction, pvp is just pvp, if you don't want it don't play it, but then GW2 is not a real open world pvp system, they also dealt with killing low level since they are all max level in pvp. I'm pretty sure a dev could find a way through that and keep an open world pvp setting, you would just need a good brainstorming that's all. Honestly ganking is a very psychological aspect, you can deal with it and still allow people to kill each other, imo it all depend how you present the game.

And Sovrath about your vengeance case, in Uo you had a memory system for theif, if someone stole you something and you caught him doing so, he would be tagged as enemy to you (perma grey back then) and be a free kill each time you saw him, was quiet fun honestly. Really they are plenty of system, i don't think they miss honestly, they just need to be done in a game that want to achieve that. Most open world pvp game want to attract the mmo ffa crew, that's all it is about really and sadly (my opinion naturally).

@Axehilt L2 had no pking going around (you could go red and pk, but nobody did it), L2 was all about guild vs guilds. Everyone can kill a red, that system was always the case even in UO (l2 took the system from Uo), just like Darkfall and most OWpvp mmo around, red are free kill since ever. But in L2 red would drop their gear that cost every peny they made in game, so nobody pked or was doing it naked (only red would drop their gear in pvp).

I personally think Eve already accomplished this.  There will always be those gankers who will do whatever they can to greif players but that is just that, they are the pirates, and the game is harsh for them vs the carebear who likes to trott along singing 'row row row your boat'.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking?  And if so, how could it be accomplished?

Not quite the right question Cres. 

Warhammer had the "Chicken" mechanic (for instance) the enforced level-appropriate use of zones fairly well.  Of course it's possible to have a gank-free system.

The question, always, is "Is the Cure worse than the Disease?"

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Creslin321

Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking?  And if so, how could it be accomplished?

Not quite the right question Cres. 

Warhammer had the "Chicken" mechanic (for instance) the enforced level-appropriate use of zones fairly well.  Of course it's possible to have a gank-free system.

The question, always, is "Is the Cure worse than the Disease?"

IceWhite hit the nail on the head there.

One thing that almost every solution offered in this thread overlooks is that open world PVP almost always exists so that the players can achieve specific goals in and through conflict in the environment. The player conditions that allow for invulnerability, protection or advantage will be the ones that the PVPers use as they are the most logical to use.

Honestly, if a particular condition gave you a legitimate advantage in the global PVP gameplay  - newbie status, gear type, special flag, harsher penalty for opponent - wouldn't you use it?

And the more depth the PVP gameplay has, the more these contrived barriers create loopholes and exploitable situations, partially because, as Disdena pointed out, computers (and other players for that matter) cannot reliably discern intent.

This was a huge debate a few years ago in PotBS, where some players wanted immunity for new characters or low level ships that sail through PVP zones safely to do their quests. On paper, that seems like a great idea, however all it really does it bypass a good portion of the conquest and control mechanics by allowing invulnerable spying and completely safe transportation of supplies through enemy lines.

In EVE Online, the economy is a massive part of the PVP game, so any remotely intelligent player would just use a character that meets the conditions for safety in order to gather intel, move goods around, manipulate the market, bypass blockades or infiltrate enemy territory.

I think Sov said it best that it's probably more sensible for people who don't like world PVP to just play a game that doesn't have it rather than look for ways to break the core gameplay to cater to their personal dislike for it.

Originally posted by Creslin321

When MMORPGs first became popular with the release of UO...I think that many of us had a dream of how the PvP in the game would work.  We thought that PvP would help support the whole ideal of a virtual world.  Feuds would be born, mighty heroes would rise to defeat villians, wicked people would methodically plot robberies or murders, while peacekeepers tried to stop them.  And every aspect of these scenarios would have created by players...it would have been marvelous.

But this isn't really what happened.  What happened, was ganking.  Many players quickly learned that the benefits of rampant player killing far outweighed the penalties, and since UO was basically just a game, many people had no moral qualms with mass murder.  So the strong preyed upon the weak, and I think the dream was killed.  Instead of really interesting scenarios playing out, players were just constantly in fear of a "PK" killing them and then mocking them in l33t sp34k while they were essentially minding their own business.

And that brings me to the question I would like to pose for discussion. 

Is it possible to have a true open-world PvP system without ganking?  And if so, how could it be accomplished?

I don't think we have ever seen an open-world PvP system that really "works" in that it makes the original dream of open-world PvP supporting the virtual world come true.  Every open-world PvP system I have seen either devolves into ganking, or is so limited that the open-world PvP system basically boils down to specific areas where people go to kill each other.

PvP "zones" are a popular "solution" to the ganking problem, and while they can be fun, they don't really accomplish the goal that I think open-world PvP was originally intended for.  So I would like to stay away from people saying that they are the solution.

 

First of all, UO was not what I would call popular.  It never went much above 100k subs, untill Tramel opened up.  Alot of fans say Ttamel ruined UO bit in all fairness it actually grew in popularity...hence the next few years saw PvE MMO's come out.

To answer your question though; Emphatically NO.  Open World PvP is never and has never been condusive to gank free zones.

For any PVP to work in mmorpgs in their current form everyone MUST play by the same rules.

But game after game no matter the pvp type, a certain group gets to exploit or cheat or play in a manner not intended and then keep their artificial strength, while the "fix" equals 5 times more grinding for everyone else. Or a purchase in the item shop to speed the progress. Either way it equals more money (time).

Same rules for everyone, in any pvp. You will see something amazing happen then, people just accept it and play the damn game. If the rules are broken you make it right. Common sense?

CCP does a decent job with appearing to be fair, and their players handle the people that cry themselves. Aventurine did it bad and everyone bailed. I wont even mention the themepark pvp that supposed to be better and what the masses want. (lol bribes)

I would start there, no point spending resources "fixing' the wrong problem, and blaming the wrong people.

There is no ganker problem, the problem is it's not a game.

Funny thing is there are people who would disagree.

Originally posted by Sovrath

That's true. My question is more about pk'ing someone who is a notorious pk'er. So, let's say I am pk'ed. No big deal but I want to exact vengeance. Now let's say I don't see my attacker until a week passes and he is white. I either pk him and become red or wait until he is red again.

Maybe that's the only solution, i have to wait until he is an outlaw and incurs the penalties of being an outlaw.

Yeah, and certainly a game could get more indepth regarding how long being an outlaw sticks with you.  (And potentially provide lengthy "penance" activities to work off your outlaw status.)

I mean I find that type of PVP terrible, so I'm not advocating it, but I do see solutions (for those actually interested in that type of PVP.)

Originally posted by Creslin321

I was never saying that I didn't want to allow one player to gank another, ever...I'm just saying that it needs to be controlled, WAY more than it is now if the original "dream" is to ever be achieved.  Yes, we need villians, but we can't have the world be 60% villianous mass murderers.

Villiany needs to have a much higher price, and be much more difficult than it is now.  As it stands now, in almost every FFA PvP game, it is much more profitable to be a ganker than anything else.  So it's no surprise that they devolve into gankfests.

I dunno, to me this still sounds like having your cake and eating it. The allure of an open PvP world is that it's dangerous and you can't let your guard down. Let's say someone's been killed a few times and they're at the point where they feel getting jumped by the same guy would be "excessive". Do they deserve to be free from that danger?

Actually, let me go all out with a (horrible) hypothetical solution. I think that might demonstrate the point I'm trying to make a little more clearly. Give everyone the ability to toggle PvP off on a person by person basis. If you feel that it's inappropriate for someone to attack you, you type /unpvp Disdena or whatever, and they can't interact with you anymore. This is immediately recognizable as a bad solution because people would be able to bow out of every fight, even the appropriate ones. Wait, what's "appropriate"? If the attacked player thinks the attack is inappropriate, isn't that enough? Isn't that what we're talking about solving: stopping people from inappropriately attacking?

The root of the problem is that Player A  thinks he should be able to attack Player B, and Player B doesn't think he should be able to be attacked by Player A (at least not without severe consequence). As long as this gap remains, there is no possible system that will work. You need the entire playerbase to be in agreement on what's okay in PvP and what's not, and that is next to impossible.

Originally posted by Disdena

Originally posted by Creslin321

I was never saying that I didn't want to allow one player to gank another, ever...I'm just saying that it needs to be controlled, WAY more than it is now if the original "dream" is to ever be achieved.  Yes, we need villians, but we can't have the world be 60% villianous mass murderers.

Villiany needs to have a much higher price, and be much more difficult than it is now.  As it stands now, in almost every FFA PvP game, it is much more profitable to be a ganker than anything else.  So it's no surprise that they devolve into gankfests.

I dunno, to me this still sounds like having your cake and eating it. The allure of an open PvP world is that it's dangerous and you can't let your guard down. Let's say someone's been killed a few times and they're at the point where they feel getting jumped by the same guy would be "excessive". Do they deserve to be free from that danger?

Actually, let me go all out with a (horrible) hypothetical solution. I think that might demonstrate the point I'm trying to make a little more clearly. Give everyone the ability to toggle PvP off on a person by person basis. If you feel that it's inappropriate for someone to attack you, you type /unpvp Disdena or whatever, and they can't interact with you anymore. This is immediately recognizable as a bad solution because people would be able to bow out of every fight, even the appropriate ones. Wait, what's "appropriate"? If the attacked player thinks the attack is inappropriate, isn't that enough? Isn't that what we're talking about solving: stopping people from inappropriately attacking?

The root of the problem is that Player A  thinks he should be able to attack Player B, and Player B doesn't think he should be able to be attacked by Player A (at least not without severe consequence). As long as this gap remains, there is no possible system that will work. You need the entire playerbase to be in agreement on what's okay in PvP and what's not, and that is next to impossible.

The root of the problem is people know pvp is fought on the forums. You cant win in the game by defeating the other side, the devs wont let you, or the TOP RATED are the biggest cheaters. Or people who seem to play games for a living.(QA KIDS?)  To win you go to the forums and screw the other side by changing the game via tears.

 DUH.

It's not a game is the problem. If it was a game, people would just play it.

Stop calling it pvp maybe and call it a fixed e-sport. Thats what everyone wants right? An open world e-sport that the devs determine who wins? Thats what you're trying to sell is it not?

No, "ganking" cannot ever be gotten rid of. Regardless of what system you set up there will alway be 12 year old boys (mentally) who think it's hilarious to kill someone much lower than themselves. I've played many open pvp games that have had systems similar to many of those brought up.

I've played a game that had a "muderer's row" list with bounties and a top bounty hunter list. This did nothing to deter ganking.

I've played a game where you could optionally turn off pvp. But it was server wide and had a 24 hour cool down. Gankers just exploited it.

For those that say it's part of game play and it's about area control and such. Yes that is true in games where the defeated might drop items or gold or both. There is a potential reward for pk'ing. But what kind of reward could a high level player possibly get from a low level in that situation? What about games that don't have that mechanic? And what about repeatedly killing the same player?

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by evilastro

It is possible. But there has to be real consequences for player killing. Most games that have open world PvP either have heavy handed restrictions or end up as gank fests.

Something like an outlaw system, where if you kill too many players you become exiled from the main cities and hostile to any city guards, forced to live with no amenities. Able to be killed by other players with no penalty to them (and full loot rights). Also if they make it so the only way to return to a law abiding citizen is to hunt down other exiles and collect bounties.

Killing someone for no reason shouldnt be encouraged in games, there is a penalty in real life, and games should imitate that, otherwise people will act like dicks, simply because they can. I mean yeah, killing someone you meet is always an option, but there should be serious consequences to such actions.

 

Some would argue that the penatly is incurring the wrath of an opposing alliance. I mean "World War I" right?

I still maintain that ffa pvp is absolutely never an issue if the people who understand and want ffa pvp in its current incarnation are playing.

It's very difficult to lend credence to people who have no business playing an ffa pvp game and yet they play it and complain.

I don't mean to sound harsh nor do I mean to sound rude but why are people playing games that have rulesets that they don't like?

if i don't like tackle football I don't play tackle football.

I don't go around joining a game and then start complaining that i'm being tackled.

That is very presumptuous of you. I have played FFA in quite a few MMOs and enjoyed it. But people saying that guilds / players should police others is just silly. It never happens because there are no real consequences to death in these games. There is also no consequence to killing other players repeatedly.

You don't look at someones guild tag and go 'Oh I had better not attack them'. You just attack every single person you see that isnt in your group or a friend. It isnt realistic at all, its like everyone is hell bent on the genocide of other heroes so that they can be the only one. Like Highlander or something.

Is ganking even much of a problem? That was the good and bad part about Shadowbane. Consequences was the good thing. If you annoy me how about I bring about fifty of my best friends to your (ingame) house and burn it down. Most people will probably just quit the game instead of fighting back. That's the bad thing. 

Of course it's possible, they're even examples of games that made it work.

There's however one big problem, and it's one of perception and marketing. When you have an open world PvP game where "ganking" is rather limited you easily lose a lot of potential customers. You lose the people that don't like PvP because there's still open world PvP in the game and you lose the people that like PvP because there's not enough of it.

No, Open world PVP is in its nature a gank fest.

Human nature.

Originally posted by Quirhid

Ooh, a new idea! How 'bout a radar? Just see where enemies are. It would kill stalking, decrease fog of war etc. but wouldn't it also prevent ganking?

I like that idea. Also if your in PVE combat it locks you from entering PVP until 30 seconds after the fight. That way you don't get the idiots you wait until a mob gets your life down to 50% before they jump in and finish you off. 30 seconds gives you options either run or QT or heal and fight.

Originally posted by Requiamer

 

---

Originally posted by Lucioon Again I wanted to Emphasis on the DEATH PENALTY FOR ALL PKers PVP is Dueling, you can do it anywhere, you can even have events in arenas where DEATH is allowed if you decided to turn it on for extra carnage, but its an agreeable duel. Ganking is attacking another player without their prior consent, therefore its called PKing, and that should give you the Ultimate punishment, Perma Death aka Hardcore Mode. Guild vs Guild, you can turn on Hardcore mode or not, for that something extra. But when against PK guilds, its Perma death for one ( evil villans) , and respawning gods for the Heroes. I believe all PKer, Gankers, Corpse Campers, and PVPers will agree that this is acceptable, because thats the thrill that PKers live for, thrill of Perma Death of their characters if you are good enough to take me on. And all that much sweeter when they escape.  

---

 

Do you understand how easy it would be to perma kill an innocent player with your idea. I would just have to piss you like no other to the point you loose your temper and attack me, then i would proceed to perma kill you and laugh at your carebearness. This is exactly how tagging work in all open world pvp game, and why this system lead to trash talking, exploiting mechanism and poor pvp experience overall.

Why make a pvp game if you want to forbid people to pvp, this make just no sense at all to begin with. If you want to let people pvp, just let them do so (why i like GW2 pvp format better actually).

 

@Sovrath: I'm not a dev, but some system went off like allowing to kill a few time but not a ton of time (murder count), but the efficiency of this system was really bad. But i personally prefer putting pvp into the faction format, there is no tagging in faction system since they are enemy by default, and it's your choice to be part of a faction or not. GW2 also work on a similar concept of "not tagging player" and faction, pvp is just pvp, if you don't want it don't play it, but then GW2 is not a real open world pvp system, they also dealt with killing low level since they are all max level in pvp. I'm pretty sure a dev could find a way through that and keep an open world pvp setting, you would just need a good brainstorming that's all. Honestly ganking is a very psychological aspect, you can deal with it and still allow people to kill each other, imo it all depend how you present the game.

And Sovrath about your vengeance case, in Uo you had a memory system for theif, if someone stole you something and you caught him doing so, he would be tagged as enemy to you (perma grey back then) and be a free kill each time you saw him, was quiet fun honestly. Really they are plenty of system, i don't think they miss honestly, they just need to be done in a game that want to achieve that. Most open world pvp game want to attract the mmo ffa crew, that's all it is about really and sadly (my opinion naturally).

 

@Axehilt L2 had no pking going around (you could go red and pk, but nobody did it), L2 was all about guild vs guilds. Everyone can kill a red, that system was always the case even in UO (l2 took the system from Uo), just like Darkfall and most OWpvp mmo around, red are free kill since ever. But in L2 red would drop their gear that cost every peny they made in game, so nobody pked or was doing it naked (only red would drop their gear in pvp).

I think you are misunderstanding my idea,

When you decided to kill a player, there is no innocence in it at all, you are trying to kill a player whom is pissing you off, that itself is a act of murder.

There are tools in every MMO to ignore a player because they piss you off, or you can put them on an HIT list for other PKer to take them out. But the PKing itself is an risk.

IF the rules were already set that if you PK an player without consent, you turn on your hardcore mode, why the hell would you attack an player when they are ready to face you head on and you get killed.

Thats what hunters are for in my previous post, Provoking a player to attack you is a skill that should be praised, tagging is an tactic in killing players without making yourself an PKer.

And with an Bounty system, any one timer PK can still get rid of their Hardcore status so whats so innocent in deciding in killing a player.

Having Perma death for Pkers, you are promoting Pking, you are actually telling players that if you want to show your uberness, do it, if you can't do it solo, do it as an Pk guild, bring friends to watch your back, but watch yourself, they might just turn around and kill you too because they want your bounty.

And it also promotes Anti-Pk Guilds to form so that they can hunt the PKers

What this system does is make all the people whom are not ready to become Pkers to think twice before they do.

Like I also explained, PVP still exists as Friendly Duels if you want, or Guild vs Guild duels where there is no perma death or bad blood, its more of an organized war.

The points you brought out is the exact reason why FFA PVP never gets fixed, because there are many that is not ready for the True PKing experience and the thrill of death at their footsteps and the thrill of not knowing who you can trust and who you cant.

BTW with my system of Perma-death, you can even set up mechanics where people can put hit lists out, for those willing to take the risk and for the rewards listed, or use an System where if my target is level 20 and the price is only 10000, if i succeed, the target loses 1 level when succeeded, but if you do 100000 gold as reward, and you succeeded, the target loses 10 level of life, but lets put an time limit on it where the target must log in 48 hours of game time or something like that, and if that time limit passes, the Target gets 20% of the gold that was put up for his demise.

Its all about promoting PK to PK, promoting Hunters to hunt the PK, promoting world wide PKing. Because Perma Death is not preventing PKing, its actually helping control the quality of the PK experience.

---

Originally posted by zymurgeist
Is ganking even much of a problem? That was the good and bad part about Shadowbane. Consequences was the good thing. If you annoy me how about I bring about fifty of my best friends to your (ingame) house and burn it down. Most people will probably just quit the game instead of fighting back. That's the bad thing. 

---

Originally posted by ArChWind

TL:DR – Pvp sucks unless it is done right but no system to date works. Maybe not even the system I am implementing. It has been discussed and refined considerably.

So you're saying world PVP sucks unless it's done right and no system to date has done it right?

...well I suppose I'd agree with that.  Don't really see your system changing it though.  The fundamental criticisms of world PVP are probably only going to be solved by having it not be world PVP.