imagine a game where all players can have an influence on the world,
where players(as politicians) rule their nation and decide to enforce their defence or get an awesome army to attack their enemy's. they can decide to increase prices in shops or decrease them so they get more money for defence/offence, or keep the civilians happy. They can decide to expand and improve the city's, and so on.
do you think that the players' influence would ruin the world, improve the world, or will they just not look after it and continue questing, lvling etc...
That is excactly what is happening in Eve-online actually.
imagine a game where all players can have an influence on the world,
where players(as politicians) rule their nation and decide to enforce their defence or get an awesome army to attack their enemy's. they can decide to increase prices in shops or decrease them so they get more money for defence/offence, or keep the civilians happy. They can decide to expand and improve the city's, and so on.
do you think that the players' influence would ruin the world, improve the world, or will they just not look after it and continue questing, lvling etc...
Its not an either/or situation. There are plenty of game dynamics and situtions that could be ruined or improved by player impact. The question is do you want to play in a game where your fellow players could potentially improve or ruin your game expeience or do you want to play in a game where your fellow player cannot improve or ruin your game experience?
Players shaping the world works fine for several games. Never expect the game to be accepted by the general gamer the way that WoW has but it works just fine for the gamers that like that sort of thing.
Second life anyone? The players ARE the world. There is NOTHING unless they create it. Eve? UO? Darkfall? Shadowbane? DAoC? Never expect the game to have 10 million subscribers but it does work. It works well enough that even the almighty WoW has some very minor player world influence mechanics.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
yes, but if you knew that if you wouldn't do anything the other faction(=enemy) will beat the crap out of you, i think i'll start thinking of improving my faction...
Nope.
A lot of gamers are lazy and like the path of least resistance. If they are playing a faction that is getting the shit beat out of them every hour or so most will just jump ship and reroll on the winning faction. People don't want to work to make something good, they just want the benefits/rewards with the least amount of effort.
It's not a question of "lazy". It's a question of desire and goals.
A game can be built on layers of socialization, and they shouldn't have to join a faction that's involved in getting the shit beat out of them.
Agreed. Occupation, territorial control, taxation and city-building are done extremely well in Puzzle Pirates, and it would be interesting to see that design repeated in other MMOs,
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I suppose if some players are into that sort of thing then fine, but for me, I'd rather be running through a dungeon battling a horde of enemies then defeating a huge dragon, than worry about taxes, whether I have the right shops in my city or if the citizens are happy. That's too much micro-management to be fun, for me at least. I'm sure other people would enjoy it, people enjoy games like Total War and Civilization, but they're not really fun to me either.
That's where classes or job division comes into play: while someone plays King/Duke/Baron or whatever, you can play as one of his/her knights, or as one of his/her peasants or craftsmen doing other, non-combat work.
I suppose if some players are into that sort of thing then fine, but for me, I'd rather be running through a dungeon battling a horde of enemies then defeating a huge dragon, than worry about taxes, whether I have the right shops in my city or if the citizens are happy. That's too much micro-management to be fun, for me at least. I'm sure other people would enjoy it, people enjoy games like Total War and Civilization, but they're not really fun to me either.
That's where classes or job division comes into play: while someone plays King/Duke/Baron or whatever, you can play as one of his/her knights, or as one of his/her peasants or craftsmen doing other, non-combat work.
Or just on your own, or with friends. There should be no hard rerquirement to be a part of any social structure. That should be for players who want that.
Should social aspects of games affect the world? Yes. But it shouldn't affect the individual player's own little world outside of the world around him/her.
I believe TERA will have something like this. Some political system they were talking about in a video demo. Like you can apply to become a Lord/Baron og a certain town, which then will be chosen with pvp or voting. Then once you are baron you can apply to become a King of a city, that goes on voting as well i think among the barons. Barons and Kings have control over mob spawn, prices etc.
It would ruin the game if it's only run by a-holes, as players would simply quit.
If left to dedicated, caring players, it could improve the game.
Allow players the freedom to come and go from controlled regions as they please and it would be self regulating...a-holes get to play by themselves, the people who take it more seriously would likely see increased player activity in their region of control.
I'm all for our actions impacting the world we play in, as long as we have freedom to leave bad situations.
There is too much stupidity within the gaming community for any good to ever come from it.
Darkfall, Eve, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online disagree
indeed
I can imagine however if one has only experienced WoW or the demographic that plays WoW and like minded games someone would think like that. :P
I would not really classify SWG or UO as having mechanics where a player or groups of players can really 'influence the world'.
In EVE and Darkfall the effect is very localized and one bored, mean spirited or stupid person can ruin it for the entire group.
Well, in SWG you had the open housing and some open world PvP you could influence the world in that sense.
In Ultima Online you could build anywhere as well, and impose your laws on everyone because it was FFA PVP. Can't change the world much more than that in any game. There were borders and kingdoms entirely player created in UO.
EVE has the sandbox model down pat but regretfully some of us could care less for the backdrop of space. Eve is really and old game and its not easy to get in wth the game for new players. Shadowbane though horribly executed and funded was probably in concept the greatest PVP MMO ever created.. I don't think its possible to recapture the old school exciting cause and effect feel of MMO's. People want it all right now and are unwilling to do what it takes to have all.
Ruin. Oddly enough it's the ones with the predilection to wrecking everything who would most likely get in power as well.
It's safer just to let player dominance work as standard in community terms, where people can and do rise to prominence without having direct (and potentially game breaking) power over actual game systems.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
a game called knight online kinda did this.. there was an election, and the server would chose a king/queen. that person could raise/lower taxes on goods sold by merchants. the funds were stored in a chest and the king/queen could hold such things as exp events, and un-official events such as 'first person to pm xxxx gets 5mill'. It was kinda cool actually. and if you chose a corrupt king, you may have found that most, if not all, of that cash would go to his/her guild. (2 faction game with 1 king on each faction)
You know, you go a pirating, fly into some distant territory and start harrasing the crap out of miners... and blow up a shipment of moon ores and stuff..
Suddenly the price of those things go up due to lack of supply in the local market, causing a cascade of economic changes for everything depending on those base goods, causing some players to need to go buy elsewhere, causing a different local market to run out of supply, causing prices to go up, causing that region's people to get annoyed and throw the buyers out, causing the alliance to break apart, causing ultimately a war involving thousands and thousands of people across hundreds of star systems..
Well, it might be a bit much to think a single person might have that effect, but it's theoretically possible eh
EvE's got an awesome socio-political dynamic, and a massive intricate economy and industrial complex.
that actually works at a small skale mining corp hires mercenary corp to declare war on all other mining corporations around the local area, which chaces the miner away so the employer now has monopoly of the market, but now they have to be carefull not to over price to much for crafters to find it better to go buy them elsewhere. Or you then have another mining corp who hires another mercenary corporation and now you have 2 mercenary corps fighting eachother and miners and the market drops for both parties... well thats just small scale
in the bigger skale you got coalitions, now these coalitions of alliances want territory and expand. so now it becomes more complex, the tactics is not just to kill the other side but to set up blocades in their trade routes, so alliance A will never get to jita ( its like the main market hub of eve) and sell their stuff or buy supplies for their pilots. so alliance A will have to be self sufficient. Alliance B now makes covert hot drops and burns down all their manufactoring arrays, then they shoot the hell out of them...
everything the OP said is working in EVE... social, market, cities, territories, alliances, coalitions, spying, cheating, lying, thriving, trusting, you have hierarchies, leaders, polititians, soldiers, generals, captains, meat shields, miners, industrials, mercenaries, pirates.
oh i love pirates, even though i am more of an alliance soldier, pirates know their boundaries and usually will stay out of the way of massive alliances.
i just love it because it feels like in the old times, but in space
you live in a castle city and you have other castles and cities around. but to travel you have to be carefull, there are outlaws that want to steal all your stuff. so from city A to city B you can make it, just make sur eyou have an escort of soldiers with you. hell there are even war fronts where people are stationed there constantly fighting and alternating timezones (yes the system sovreignties go left and right, and the deeper into your own territory you go the safer you are. ok well its almost 5AM here and this post probably does not make much sence as i have not gone to bed yet
@mayebussa I'm not sure if you've played wow or not, but I'm assuming you have. There have been many players that have influenced the game in dramatic ways. In almost all online games, players are what drive the game to evolve and change. Often times players are responsible for nerfs more than they are for the buffs of any aspect of the game. Which is unfortunate, but it would be dellusional to think that developers would listen to their playerbase/community. If I had to guess it's probably control issues. But there are those rare occasions where your class may be buffed upon firey protests, and lengthy petitions. It happens, though clearly compareable to a double rainbow.
Though a direct influence into the game, probably wont happen to any mainstream mmo, mainly because people a !@#$ing stupid, greedy, selfish, lazy, etc...
Originally posted by mayebussa imagine a game where all players can have an influence on the world, where players(as politicians) rule their nation and decide to enforce their defence or get an awesome army to attack their enemy's. they can decide to increase prices in shops or decrease them so they get more money for defence/offence, or keep the civilians happy. They can decide to expand and improve the city's, and so on.
do you think that the players' influence would ruin the world, improve the world, or will they just not look after it and continue questing, lvling etc...
I don't have to speculate; it's an historical fact. When UO first came out, it was much more possible for characters to influence the game world--most notably, you could deplete resources. People promptly used that ability to grief the world, locking up resources even when they didn't get anything out of it. That's why those abilities were taken out.
In many ways Darkfall has that (sorry but DF is my only point of reference in this regard).
DF has dynamic lore, execpt that DF players really dont care about lore so its a great clever feature that the community asked for but do not exactly explore.
What happens in the world in DF is often dictated by clan interactions. Now grated that is not 'in game' but if your city is next door to a clan that is having an alliance fight with your alliance then it very much affects your in game experience.
that said, I could see games taking it to a further level tha DF has clearly.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Comments
That is excactly what is happening in Eve-online actually.
Its not an either/or situation. There are plenty of game dynamics and situtions that could be ruined or improved by player impact. The question is do you want to play in a game where your fellow players could potentially improve or ruin your game expeience or do you want to play in a game where your fellow player cannot improve or ruin your game experience?
Darkfall, Eve, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online disagree
Players shaping the world works fine for several games. Never expect the game to be accepted by the general gamer the way that WoW has but it works just fine for the gamers that like that sort of thing.
Second life anyone? The players ARE the world. There is NOTHING unless they create it. Eve? UO? Darkfall? Shadowbane? DAoC? Never expect the game to have 10 million subscribers but it does work. It works well enough that even the almighty WoW has some very minor player world influence mechanics.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
Agreed. Occupation, territorial control, taxation and city-building are done extremely well in Puzzle Pirates, and it would be interesting to see that design repeated in other MMOs,
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
That's where classes or job division comes into play: while someone plays King/Duke/Baron or whatever, you can play as one of his/her knights, or as one of his/her peasants or craftsmen doing other, non-combat work.
Or just on your own, or with friends. There should be no hard rerquirement to be a part of any social structure. That should be for players who want that.
Should social aspects of games affect the world? Yes. But it shouldn't affect the individual player's own little world outside of the world around him/her.
Once upon a time....
I believe TERA will have something like this. Some political system they were talking about in a video demo. Like you can apply to become a Lord/Baron og a certain town, which then will be chosen with pvp or voting. Then once you are baron you can apply to become a King of a city, that goes on voting as well i think among the barons. Barons and Kings have control over mob spawn, prices etc.
EDIT
i found the post if you wanna check it out
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/477/view/forums/thread/288402/Political-system-revealed.html
Depends highly on the target audience of the game.
If you market for griefers, then you'll get them, and they'll work to destroy the game world, ala shadowbane and darkfall.
If you market to people wanting to create and push the focusing on growing communities, like eve, then there will be more good than bad.
Kinda depends...
It would ruin the game if it's only run by a-holes, as players would simply quit.
If left to dedicated, caring players, it could improve the game.
Allow players the freedom to come and go from controlled regions as they please and it would be self regulating...a-holes get to play by themselves, the people who take it more seriously would likely see increased player activity in their region of control.
I'm all for our actions impacting the world we play in, as long as we have freedom to leave bad situations.
indeed
I can imagine however if one has only experienced WoW or the demographic that plays WoW and like minded games someone would think like that. :P
I would not really classify SWG or UO as having mechanics where a player or groups of players can really 'influence the world'.
In EVE and Darkfall the effect is very localized and one bored, mean spirited or stupid person can ruin it for the entire group.
You can have anything as long as you have a developer with some balls and a publisher that doesn't chop them off.
Well, in SWG you had the open housing and some open world PvP you could influence the world in that sense.
In Ultima Online you could build anywhere as well, and impose your laws on everyone because it was FFA PVP. Can't change the world much more than that in any game. There were borders and kingdoms entirely player created in UO.
It's notoriously easier to ruin something than to improve it. And someone's improvement ruins it for the others.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Anything that tries to simulate politics, or economy, or military, anything, can be interesting and exciting.
But many declare they don't want that, they don't want to do engaging things in MMO's, they only want to relax 30 minutes doing solo quest grind.
Because according to them, MMO's aren't important enuff to meddle in such serious things.
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EVE has the sandbox model down pat but regretfully some of us could care less for the backdrop of space. Eve is really and old game and its not easy to get in wth the game for new players. Shadowbane though horribly executed and funded was probably in concept the greatest PVP MMO ever created.. I don't think its possible to recapture the old school exciting cause and effect feel of MMO's. People want it all right now and are unwilling to do what it takes to have all.
Send those new players to me and I'll ease the transition from solo rookie pilot to Elite Stealth Bomber Minion. >:D
Nyes. /me pets fluffy
Ghost
Ruin. Oddly enough it's the ones with the predilection to wrecking everything who would most likely get in power as well.
It's safer just to let player dominance work as standard in community terms, where people can and do rise to prominence without having direct (and potentially game breaking) power over actual game systems.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
a game called knight online kinda did this.. there was an election, and the server would chose a king/queen. that person could raise/lower taxes on goods sold by merchants. the funds were stored in a chest and the king/queen could hold such things as exp events, and un-official events such as 'first person to pm xxxx gets 5mill'. It was kinda cool actually. and if you chose a corrupt king, you may have found that most, if not all, of that cash would go to his/her guild. (2 faction game with 1 king on each faction)
that actually works at a small skale
mining corp hires mercenary corp to declare war on all other mining corporations around the local area, which chaces the miner away so the employer now has monopoly of the market, but now they have to be carefull not to over price to much for crafters to find it better to go buy them elsewhere. Or you then have another mining corp who hires another mercenary corporation and now you have 2 mercenary corps fighting eachother and miners and the market drops for both parties... well thats just small scale
in the bigger skale you got coalitions, now these coalitions of alliances want territory and expand. so now it becomes more complex, the tactics is not just to kill the other side but to set up blocades in their trade routes, so alliance A will never get to jita ( its like the main market hub of eve) and sell their stuff or buy supplies for their pilots. so alliance A will have to be self sufficient. Alliance B now makes covert hot drops and burns down all their manufactoring arrays, then they shoot the hell out of them...
everything the OP said is working in EVE... social, market, cities, territories, alliances, coalitions, spying, cheating, lying, thriving, trusting, you have hierarchies, leaders, polititians, soldiers, generals, captains, meat shields, miners, industrials, mercenaries, pirates.
oh i love pirates, even though i am more of an alliance soldier, pirates know their boundaries and usually will stay out of the way of massive alliances.
i just love it because it feels like in the old times, but in space
you live in a castle city and you have other castles and cities around. but to travel you have to be carefull, there are outlaws that want to steal all your stuff. so from city A to city B you can make it, just make sur eyou have an escort of soldiers with you. hell there are even war fronts where people are stationed there constantly fighting and alternating timezones (yes the system sovreignties go left and right, and the deeper into your own territory you go the safer you are. ok well its almost 5AM here and this post probably does not make much sence as i have not gone to bed yet
yay! coffee time!
ruin the game world. Player like destorying the world.
@mayebussa I'm not sure if you've played wow or not, but I'm assuming you have. There have been many players that have influenced the game in dramatic ways. In almost all online games, players are what drive the game to evolve and change. Often times players are responsible for nerfs more than they are for the buffs of any aspect of the game. Which is unfortunate, but it would be dellusional to think that developers would listen to their playerbase/community. If I had to guess it's probably control issues. But there are those rare occasions where your class may be buffed upon firey protests, and lengthy petitions. It happens, though clearly compareable to a double rainbow.
Though a direct influence into the game, probably wont happen to any mainstream mmo, mainly because people a !@#$ing stupid, greedy, selfish, lazy, etc...
I don't have to speculate; it's an historical fact. When UO first came out, it was much more possible for characters to influence the game world--most notably, you could deplete resources. People promptly used that ability to grief the world, locking up resources even when they didn't get anything out of it. That's why those abilities were taken out.
TO OP:
In many ways Darkfall has that (sorry but DF is my only point of reference in this regard).
DF has dynamic lore, execpt that DF players really dont care about lore so its a great clever feature that the community asked for but do not exactly explore.
What happens in the world in DF is often dictated by clan interactions. Now grated that is not 'in game' but if your city is next door to a clan that is having an alliance fight with your alliance then it very much affects your in game experience.
that said, I could see games taking it to a further level tha DF has clearly.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me