All Posts by Amaranthar

Zangfei, there are boatloads of us that don't want what you are talking about. Yet, we would like to have reasonable PvP in a more realistic fashion. Wars, once in a while an attack that makes sense, like in a caravan waylay, or catching thieves trying to steal a valuable artifact from a temple of ours, things like that.

Would you still be against PvP if a strong justice system prevented the kind of grief play you're talking about? Believe me, the vast majority of us don't want that at all. We're as sick of it as you are.

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Originally posted by dadown

I think the best way to handle killing is with a reputation system.  If you kill in a town, you loose major reputation there and about 1/2 as much with all towns of the same faction.  If your reputation is good, you get a discount on all buying and selling.  If it is poor, you pay a surcharge.  If it is bad, the guards attack you on sight and merchants won't trade with you.

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Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.

The only system that will work is one where a "criminal" status brings a direct and severe penalty instantly upon defeat or capture to that character. By either drastically reducing ability, or by perma-death, it takes that character out of the grief activity and makes the player week again. Week characters aren't very often successful. Starting over every time is a huge deterant, one that reduces such activity drastically, which is the desired effect.

Rod_B, that's fine. Players like you deserve a game like you want just like anyone else. And it can work, for that play style, better than what's been put out so far.

But those of us who want open PvP, restricted by justice, generally want a more realistic game world. Here's some things that your game wouldn't have that we feel would make our game more realistic and more entertaining:
-The threat of crime, anywhere and any time. It would be reduced to a very acceptable level by the justice system's punishment, yet also give us the excitement of hunting down the criminal(s).
-Wars that mean even more, the same results as your game in resources control and the like, but we'd have our own cities to protect, not just some outpost.
-The politics involved would be enhanced to a much higher level due to the implications of war, creating a whole new play style that lacks meaning in other game types.
-Player bandits, just like ganking, would always be a risk even if a semi-rare occurance. Immagine this with caravans in a more realistic game world.
-Bounty hunting, not for profit (which can be abused), but for protection and fame in one's city.
-"Badlands" areas, due to the lack of social protections through justice and distance from cities, yet parties could still seek out justice with punative expeditions.
-Thieves, held in check by the justice system, yet always a threat. This creates game play with guards, but also with investigations.
-Evil player characters allying with evil NPCs. They'd pay a price in the end through the justice system, but what fun it would be to be challenged by real intelligence once in a while.
-Add in here, evil masterminds, Prof. Moriarty types, if they can live long enough to attain this status.
-And Sherlock Holmes types, to seek out and defeat the above, more than just a bounty hunter.
-"Helen of Troy" style game play

Kronchev, if you want to see a game design that works like what I'm talking about, just follow the link in my signature. They don't have funding yet, but they have the only workable solution to making a world more exciting, more realistic (for a fantasy MMO, anyways), and much more well rounded.

If you have any questions, just post them on their boards. (You need to sign up for their news letter first to be able to post). Also, they have a nifty search funtion on the message boards.

Yes, I'd love to get away from the level progression grind. I'd much rather have a world to play in, where exploration can be rewarded with discovery, and the world changes due to what player communities do, what NPCs do, and even natural changes like disasters.

I'd like a world where everyone isn't winning big things all the time, where the little victories mean something, where things are challenging every day, and success isn't guaranteed.

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Originally posted by FeedbackEcho
My suggestion would be to have bounties placed on the head of gankers by the faction that the gankee was part of. These bounties would increase with the level difference between the ganker and the gankee and could be picked up from a local officer in major cities by other player characters of the same faction as the gankee. The more someone ganks people, and the larger the level difference, the more money the bounty is worth to the person or team that takes them out. Pretty soon, the ganker gets constantly ganked because he is worth so much money. This wouldn't control the occasional ganker, but it might put a stop to the rampant repeat ganker that really is the problem in my opinion, and the bounty hunter guilds that might form could be cool for the game too. I would also NOT have the bounty penalty apply to those that ganked someone in order to collect the bounty on them. Just my thought.

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You're on to the right idsea, but bounties that pay like that are always abused by players. Who's to stop a friend of this ganker from joining the faction that he ganked, and then collect the money?

No, there has to be a direct penalty to the ganker, something that's severe enough to cause players to not want to do it in the first place, except for the few who want the challenge of trying to avoid the penalties. There's only 2 other alternatives. Either not allowing ganking at all, or watching players find loopholes and abuse them.

My stance is that I want some extra thrill to the game I play, but I don't want to have to experiance ganking all the time. I want it to be there as a threat, but not usually practiced. That adds a touch of excitement, and feels more realistic to me.

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Originally posted by DrowNoble

 

Nathan needs to realize making some idealistic Perfect PvP System will not make people suddenly enjoy pvping, they either do or they don't.

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Would you agree that there's a whole spectrum here, ranging between all out open PvP to absolutely none, and all shades of variations in between?

I think it's true that no game will be for everyone, but surely there's a middle ground that most players would accept, one that would allow other apsects in the game so that people aren't so bored?

Kronchev, you'll have all out war in WoW when they say you will. In other words, the players will have nothing to do with it. There will be no meaning to it except to claim the hill top. And that claim will shift regularly, determined by who's on at the time. It's all so artificial, and totally lacks any cohesiveness to the rest of the game, or any meaning at all.

"To say that this doesn't make sense is to say that you should be able to attack
your own faction members, steal from vendors, loot bodies (oh no UO)."

That's precisely the reason for a justice system that works. If there's a justice system that has a harsh enough penalty that most players don't want to risk it, then it mimics reality. It also mimics the books and movies of the genre, the worlds they reveal. Under these circumstances, you can allow looting, because it's not going to happen much. This also mimics these worlds that the games are supposed to be fashioned after. And under this system, you can have battles and wars that mean something.

"The Thrill of Victory
The Agony of Defeat"

Where is it in these games now? They aren't even games. They're hand outs. You are guaranteed success. It's tasteless, colorless, and odorless. They never stink, nor do they ever have that sweet smell of victory. Bland and stagnant.

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Originally posted by alienpriest

 

This is why you have the variation between Ultima attitudes and Eve attitudes mentioned in the article: One of these games has removed the concept of level grinding, and has as a result, leveled the playing field a little better.

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Very true. But players still want to have advancement, generally speaking. But you can have advancement without making gods out of characters like most of the MMOs do.

Tie a more level playing field in with a punishment for murder (as opposed to wars, etc.) along with a punishment system that actually hurts the murderer character, something like heavy skill loss (or even perma-death) or long jail times, and a system can work to do several things.

1) Makes the game feel more realistic
2) Allows PvP to be conducted realistically, in places you'd expect it, not just in predetermined zones.
3) Allows for territorial games, between guilds and player built cities, etc.
4) Allows for the rare criminal activity, ultimately at a cost to the player doing so. Usually a roleplayer here?

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Originally posted by PlanetNiles

Thus I feel that PKing (which to be frank is the usual outcome of PvP) should have serious concequences to the killers. As I tried to reply above before the great ghost of MMORP.com ate my post; I don't like playing murder. I stopped playing the great GTA titles because I felt sickened by the constant blood spatter. I feel that if people want to play murderers and serial killers they should suffer the concequences o f their actions even if it means making their character's unplayable.

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I completely agree. It's a much more realistic approach.

I don't like all these PvP zones. I don't like that game model because it makes the game feel artificial instead of immersive. It makes PvP feel like a separate feature, a separate game within the game. The game world doesn't feel complete, and all aspects of war, crime, and justice are taken out of the basic game and placed in their own little arena. You didn't see Alexander the Great looking for zones to do battle in. You never read about Conan the Barbarian asking for a duel. And the Hobbits feared for the safety of the Shire.

Yet, it's just as unrealistic to have players come back time and again to PvP, with no end in sight.

I like realism in my games. I don't like artificial seeming restrictions. But I also have seen how players will abuse systems if they can. 

For PvP, I'm in favor of a more realistic approach. Allow anything, but also include justice that works. Not only in a realistic feeling way for game play, but also in a game system way to vastly reduce the likelyhood of players from thinking "crime pays".

Rampant PKing will occure unless there's some way to restrict it. That's bad for a game. It can be restricted by unrealistic, artificial "switches" or zones. Or it can be restricted by a justice system that mimics RL, which, of course, feels more realistic and cohesive in a game world like an MMORPG.

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Originally posted by Nerf09

You cant polish a turd.

 

MMO-RTS is the only way to go.

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Surely you know by now.....
one mans turd is another mans treasure.

And yes, you can polish a turd. Did you ever see those shiney jewel like rock things for sale in malls?
Anything is possible!

Flatfingers, are suggesting that instead of characters levelling up and gaining added to hit bonuses and greater damage, that they learn how to attack and where?

Like in, through my own experiance I learn that if I use an upper cut with my dagger against a large lizard creature, I have a better chance to hit through it's scaley hide (in this case the soft underbelly) and might even kill it with one hit?

And that since I know that, then in fighting a dragon I might try this technique? And I might even figure out that using a longer sword against the dragon is even more effective, since it's a bigger creature?

Things like that? Where the actual player experiance is where it's at, instead of some number system?

I don't care for the "end game" idea either. I like the middle game and would be just as happy if there wasn't any end game play. Sure, a character will reach something that appears to be, for all practical purposes, and end game status. But that doesn't mean the game play has to change to something different.

Defining the middle game is important here. Just levelling isn't what I want for this play arena. I would want something more exciting, full of adventure and surprises. To "live" in the game world, but to live with discovery and intrigue.

Speaking of Underlight, which I never even heard of , I wouldn't care for that kind of advancement system. Not as a rule of thumb. However, it could be very interesting if used in specific cases, such as a "class" like druids, where in the old D+D games there was a limited hierarchy at the top. Making special "guilds" in game, where special and secret knowledges are withheld from all but those who pass the "tests". Ninja's are a classic example.