It is fairly pointless to try to implement "regulatory mechanisms" that can be used to effectively discourage PK'ing.
If the punishment is strong enough to act as an actual deterrent, it will most likely mean there will be almost no PK'ing. That would only work in a game where all players accept that PK'ing is not a "viable playstyle" and will only happen rarely if ever. In that case why have the possibility of PK'ing in the first place ?
The real challenge would be to implement such a system in a game where "lawful" killing is still allowed. All the attempts at such rule systems that I have ever seen had a multitude of loopholes. Most of the rules devised to control PK'ing end up in players "gaming the system".
Players have the means to know that there is a hostile player in the area and a way to know if he gets targetted?
red plip on the minimap or a screen blur when the killer locks on to you?
this would bring something like a "cat and mouse" game into the game
when the cats are home the mice are in their holes or in the neighbors home and when the cats are at the neighbors the mice are free to dance as they pleace
and it would be the stupidity of the mice if they get killed
No. I won't play a game that don't allow me to play. What is the point?
But i won't play a FFA pvp game in the first place, so i suppose my opinion is moot.
No surprise that you wouldn't.
You could still play but you would in in prison. Not just a cell but a larger area to wander. I should have gone in further in stating there would be a time limit to how long you could be imprisoned and you have to be defeated. Its more of a if you come into a town and start killing people there could be consequences.
That does not sound fun.
It does not matter about the time limit. Even if it is 5 min, i can always find another game that won't give me 5 min of non-fun time.
Kind of the point of it though. Its an anti grief tool in a game where you could be killed. You would only be subject if you were killing someone for no reason in their area.
Isn't free for all pvp free for all pvp? Why do I need a reason to kill? Isn't that why I log into a FFA pvp game? Pvp should be disabled in their area rather than punish you for something they enable in game. Isn't part of the fun sneaking into enemy territory, causing havoc, and surviving to tell the tale?
I would just ALT+TAB or log off for the duration of the imprisonment and I would expect most other players would do the same. I don't think any developer would want that.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
What is with the fascination for "punish us, please devs" code this week?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Prisoning players in-game, esentially preventing them to play and encouraging AFK'ing or simply logging off, is from business point of view like shooting yourself in the foot. I'm sure some carebears cheer at the thought of some pk getting a temporary ban, and some developers think how smart they are forcing players to get more than one account when trying to bypass such rules, but I personaly think, it's simply a stupid idea.
What the OP describes requires a sense of community and commitment that is all but gone from MMOs. I would add that policing in long term open world PvP always had problems even when we had good communities, these days it does not stand a chance.
When the Sheriff's deputies game hop after one or two months to their next MMO how does such a remain viable?
Originally posted by StarI Prisoning players in-game, esentially preventing them to play and encouraging AFK'ing or simply logging off, is from business point of view like shooting yourself in the foot. I'm sure some carebears cheer at the thought of some pk getting a temporary ban, and some developers think how smart they are forcing players to get more than one account when trying to bypass such rules, but I personaly think, it's simply a stupid idea.
Propositions have been made which don't prevent them to play at all.
If you want to make prison a fun place full of stuff to do instead of logging off, than at some point you can't really say it's a prison anymore.
So as long as we're talking about prison, a temporary ban in an ingame form of a small place with 0 things to do, I can't find it anything but short sighted. There are better ways to discourage pvp while having it enabled. But it requires at least a deep criminal flag system and full loot.
Originally posted by StarI Prisoning players in-game, esentially preventing them to play and encouraging AFK'ing or simply logging off, is from business point of view like shooting yourself in the foot. I'm sure some carebears cheer at the thought of some pk getting a temporary ban, and some developers think how smart they are forcing players to get more than one account when trying to bypass such rules, but I personaly think, it's simply a stupid idea.
Propositions have been made which don't prevent them to play at all.
If you want to make prison a fun place full of stuff to do instead of logging off, than at some point you can't really say it's a prison anymore.
So as long as we're talking about prison, a temporary ban in an ingame form of a small place with 0 things to do, I can't find it anything but short sighted. There are better ways to discourage pvp while having it enabled. But it requires at least a deep criminal flag system and full loot.
Read my text about the "prison island" in a previous post.
The idea is basically to keep the mindless killers and other griefers away from the main landmass for a while, to disrupt mindless griefing. And the punishment for being caught is included in my island system... the killer finds himself no longer able to gank innocent crafters without risk, but has to fight his own peers for a while, tasting some of his own medicine.
The "real" PvPers will not mind that - some may even intentionally get caught from time to time to go get have some fun on that island - but the lame coward noob gankers who usually flee as soon as serious opposition appears will cry like little babies when on the island and chased by those "real" PvPers.
I like the idea of a prison island. I think it would be great if it was either full loot on the island as well or have everyone in there have their gear stripped (to be returned when they leave the island) so they would be fighting each other a little more on equal footing.
In a sandbox game where players police themselves could you accept the risk of imprisonment for breaking laws by stealing, killing or harming another player inside their territory if defeated?
An MMO I played a while back called Dransik had that. IIRC, I had to smash boulders and hand in the stones to try to shorten my sentence. Part of the time was also spent avoiding other criminals that wanted to kill me for my stones.
That sounds like a good system if properly done. It stops the repeated ganking, if you're caught once you're out of the main world for a while and can't grief anymore, but doesn't stop people from logging in and playing their character.
It sound fun and right for PK player , send to jail and have to kill other PK players to get out of it.
If someone like PK and PVP , isn't it a heaven for them.
The problem with these systems is they are only effective against people who care about playing the game more than just griefing other players. If you don't care about playing the game at all than all this is doing is reducing the number of times a day your can grief someone before you are forced into a timeout.
Maybe if you had to play the game to get out of jail otherwise you just rotted in their that might work but it would need to be something that couldn't be done on autopilot.
If the punishment is strong enough to act as an actual deterrent, it will most likely mean there will be almost no PK'ing. That would only work in a game where all players accept that PK'ing is not a "viable playstyle" and will only happen rarely if ever. In that case why have the possibility of PK'ing in the first place ?
Which is the base idea. PK'ing, aka "mindless murdering", should be rare, a murderer should have a very harsh life and do his best not to be caught. That doesn't mean the play style wouldn't be viable, it only means that the consequences for being caught would be on par with the damage they can do to others.
When a PK kills a miner just coming back from the mine with a full load of ore which took him several hours to gather, don't you think the PK should risk an equivalent amount of time "off" if he is caught? Note that I used the word "caught" several times, a smart PK would avoid being caught.
That would not only almost completely stop the lone psychopathic newbie killer and similar game breaking behaviors, but it would create a REAL play style for the bandits. They would have to build their own communities in the wilds.
The game should of course encourage "meaningful" PvPing beside that, like guild vs guild wars over resources and similar things.
What is this 'on par' nonsense? If the PKer is caught I want him to experience a punishment at least 2-3 magnitudes greater than the damage he caused. If he cost me an hour of gameplay than I would want him to spend at least a day or two in the prison doing 'hard grind'. If he destroyed a structure that I spent a week building then I want him in prison for a month or two.
If you want a real deterrant built into the game then the punishments have to be severe enough to make the game less fun for the prisoner. Otherwise it is just another mini-game and the player dynamic will not change.
Originally posted by Dexter2010 Log in to get grounded? No.
Then don't kill random people, or don't get caught.
Again, it's FFA type pvp.
But the game being described isn't "FPS in an MMORPG", PvP doesn't have to mean that
Gemstone IV has no restriction on killing people in the game, even between vast vast level differences, but almost no one does it, one reason is its small population everyone knows everyone and it can take days to go from one level to another, longer at the higher levels. But the main reason I think is that the GM's are actively involved in watching the world and will pull you out for jus trandomly killing people without RP reasons.
I guess a better term would be "Not restricted by mechanics but by laws PvP"
Age of Wushu has its jail system, which really keeps the PvP in that game focused on sanctioned PvP events, sure occasionally someone goes on a killing spree but without full loot the PK'r who does so is always the looser as they get put in jail eventually while the actual non asshats are the one who get to go about their business, a nice flip from the old ways were the troll pk gets to go about his business because the mechanics tilt to far the other way.
In a game where you can constantly respawn and come back and kill more level 3 wood cutters, PK's are given too much power by the system itself, that isn't realistic...Imagine a medieval country where someone goes on a Rampage through a village with a sword, he doesn't get to "die" and then come back and keep doing it there would be , and should be, consequences for such stupidity...it isn't even MMO "realistic".
And I like open world PvP, I think it enhances a Role Playing game, I played the old UO as a PK in a RP PK guild and we were often used in other peoples role play as the bad guys (we played as orcs), they would come attack us or sometimes leave hints about where we should go attack.
but you FFA PvP doesn't have to mean FPS go kill everything that moves, and surely a system can be implemented, a criminal system a bounty system...something..that creates a happy middle so that if someone murders you for no reason out of the blue at least you know it will not go unpunished and won't happen again and again and again, but also so that trolls don't hide behind the PvE mechanics that make them invulnerable in that kind of game.
If you want to simulate a game with freedoms there needs to be risk of consequences or punishments for behavior.
Perhaps the problem you are running into is that freedom, crime and punishment in the real world don't actually work the way you imagine it?
( but setting that aside, what you are essentially simulating is an attempt to control an untouchable mob boss by punishing his goons ... no matter what you do to a character, the character is not the player and it's the player you are trying to influence )
The only way I'd ever consider a FFA PVP game is if I didnt drop teh items I was wearing, kinda like having bind on equip stuff or something like that......As long as we drop everything, then FFA PVP has no solutions.
Originally posted by Dexter2010 Log in to get grounded? No.
Then don't kill random people, or don't get caught.
Again, it's FFA type pvp.
But the game being described isn't "FPS in an MMORPG", PvP doesn't have to mean that [...]
The OP specifically asked "Could you accept player imprisonment in a FFA PvP game?" Not, FFA except when.... Devs can disallow/disable pvp under any circumstance (eg. in cities), but it is unconscionable to punish you if they decide not to. That would be poor design.
Originally posted by maplestone Originally posted by Vermillion_RaventhalIf you want to simulate a game with freedoms there needs to be risk of consequences or punishments for behavior.
Perhaps the problem you are running into is that freedom, crime and punishment in the real world don't actually work the way you imagine it?
In the real world, people show a lot more restraint than they are given credit for on these forums. The Wild West didn't have that many murders, not compared to the number of people who carried guns. Everyone carried guns, but they needed them for things like snakes or coyotes. Some towns in the U.S. have removed their stop lights to save money, and found that people are much more careful when there are no signs or lights telling them what to do.
Player behavior inside games is pretty much the exact opposite of human behavior outside of video games in most societies. Give everyone a gun in a video game and most everyone will get dead, quickly. Remove signs from a video game and people will see how much stuff they can break as quickly as possible. Video games have no sense of realism because the players do not behave like they would in the real world, no matter how many discouragements you put in place to keep them from running around like murderous clowns.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
In a sandbox game where players police themselves could you accept the risk of imprisonment for breaking laws by stealing, killing or harming another player inside their territory if defeated?
I ask this because I know one of the biggest things about FFA PvP is that even when players band together to stop gankers they just return. Eventually this leads to apathy of stopping the random killer.
With rule of law given to the community the ability to lock up player killers up I think you might have a lot less random killings. This of course does not stop wars and the like but focus on the random killers.
Back in the early days of The Realm (before UO ever existed) I got thrown in jail by an admin for doing something which I don't remember anymore. I think they left me in there for like 30+ minutes, so all I did was just go do other things while leaving the computer on and occasionally check back until I was back at my house.
I don't think a game could get away with it in this day and age, especially for something that is within the rules (PvP). People don't play games to have downtime, they play to have fun.
Open world FFA PvP is never, ever, going to be a major thing so in the end none of it matters anyway.
Originally posted by NagelRitter I always felt imprisonment was a great idea. It's basically an immersive way to ban a player. You could add prison break mechanics to it, too. :P
Macros exist and are quite good at what they do. It wouldn't really serve as an effective tool as a player would turn on their prison macro while they went out to the movies or did anything else. That macro would wait until they were released from prison and either just log out, or go to a predefined place and then log out. So it isn't as if a player sits through their sentence and feels something from it. Even short full out bans tend to do nothing to stop or curb bad behavior.
Macros exist and are quite good at what they do. It wouldn't really serve as an effective tool as a player would turn on their prison macro while they went out to the movies or did anything else. That macro would wait until they were released from prison and either just log out, or go to a predefined place and then log out. So it isn't as if a player sits through their sentence and feels something from it. Even short full out bans tend to do nothing to stop or curb bad behavior.
I don't see the relevance of macros to any of this? o.O Generally, bans would be for real world time, not in-game time, lol. The world is persistent, after all.
I think not being able to advance your character for days/weeks/months will have an effect on someone... it'll obviously be adjusted enough to discourage mindless murder, which is the whole point.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW Currently playing: GW2, EVE Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
Yes, this is how they should always do it if your talking FFA PVP. If players want to gank or steal let them but have major consequences if they get caught. Players should not have the right to decide judgement only help catch the criminals. When the gankers get banned from every city and town, can't sell or buy supplies, and are hunted at every turn by players and NPCs they might have a change of heart in their playstyle...or not.
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Comments
It is fairly pointless to try to implement "regulatory mechanisms" that can be used to effectively discourage PK'ing.
If the punishment is strong enough to act as an actual deterrent, it will most likely mean there will be almost no PK'ing. That would only work in a game where all players accept that PK'ing is not a "viable playstyle" and will only happen rarely if ever. In that case why have the possibility of PK'ing in the first place ?
The real challenge would be to implement such a system in a game where "lawful" killing is still allowed. All the attempts at such rule systems that I have ever seen had a multitude of loopholes. Most of the rules devised to control PK'ing end up in players "gaming the system".
Still using "sandbox" as a term for FFA PVP huh?
Not surprised the first answer was "no" for imprisonment. Cowardice follows full PvP
You'll keep digging. Til you find something.
Sure i can accpet it
then how about we add this
Players have the means to know that there is a hostile player in the area and a way to know if he gets targetted?
red plip on the minimap or a screen blur when the killer locks on to you?
this would bring something like a "cat and mouse" game into the game
when the cats are home the mice are in their holes or in the neighbors home and when the cats are at the neighbors the mice are free to dance as they pleace
and it would be the stupidity of the mice if they get killed
Isn't free for all pvp free for all pvp? Why do I need a reason to kill? Isn't that why I log into a FFA pvp game? Pvp should be disabled in their area rather than punish you for something they enable in game. Isn't part of the fun sneaking into enemy territory, causing havoc, and surviving to tell the tale?
I would just ALT+TAB or log off for the duration of the imprisonment and I would expect most other players would do the same. I don't think any developer would want that.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Again, it's FFA type pvp.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
What the OP describes requires a sense of community and commitment that is all but gone from MMOs. I would add that policing in long term open world PvP always had problems even when we had good communities, these days it does not stand a chance.
When the Sheriff's deputies game hop after one or two months to their next MMO how does such a remain viable?
If you want to make prison a fun place full of stuff to do instead of logging off, than at some point you can't really say it's a prison anymore.
So as long as we're talking about prison, a temporary ban in an ingame form of a small place with 0 things to do, I can't find it anything but short sighted. There are better ways to discourage pvp while having it enabled. But it requires at least a deep criminal flag system and full loot.I like the idea of a prison island. I think it would be great if it was either full loot on the island as well or have everyone in there have their gear stripped (to be returned when they leave the island) so they would be fighting each other a little more on equal footing.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
It sound fun and right for PK player , send to jail and have to kill other PK players to get out of it.
If someone like PK and PVP , isn't it a heaven for them.
The problem with these systems is they are only effective against people who care about playing the game more than just griefing other players. If you don't care about playing the game at all than all this is doing is reducing the number of times a day your can grief someone before you are forced into a timeout.
Maybe if you had to play the game to get out of jail otherwise you just rotted in their that might work but it would need to be something that couldn't be done on autopilot.
What is this 'on par' nonsense? If the PKer is caught I want him to experience a punishment at least 2-3 magnitudes greater than the damage he caused. If he cost me an hour of gameplay than I would want him to spend at least a day or two in the prison doing 'hard grind'. If he destroyed a structure that I spent a week building then I want him in prison for a month or two.
If you want a real deterrant built into the game then the punishments have to be severe enough to make the game less fun for the prisoner. Otherwise it is just another mini-game and the player dynamic will not change.
But the game being described isn't "FPS in an MMORPG", PvP doesn't have to mean that
Gemstone IV has no restriction on killing people in the game, even between vast vast level differences, but almost no one does it, one reason is its small population everyone knows everyone and it can take days to go from one level to another, longer at the higher levels. But the main reason I think is that the GM's are actively involved in watching the world and will pull you out for jus trandomly killing people without RP reasons.
I guess a better term would be "Not restricted by mechanics but by laws PvP"
Age of Wushu has its jail system, which really keeps the PvP in that game focused on sanctioned PvP events, sure occasionally someone goes on a killing spree but without full loot the PK'r who does so is always the looser as they get put in jail eventually while the actual non asshats are the one who get to go about their business, a nice flip from the old ways were the troll pk gets to go about his business because the mechanics tilt to far the other way.
In a game where you can constantly respawn and come back and kill more level 3 wood cutters, PK's are given too much power by the system itself, that isn't realistic...Imagine a medieval country where someone goes on a Rampage through a village with a sword, he doesn't get to "die" and then come back and keep doing it there would be , and should be, consequences for such stupidity...it isn't even MMO "realistic".
And I like open world PvP, I think it enhances a Role Playing game, I played the old UO as a PK in a RP PK guild and we were often used in other peoples role play as the bad guys (we played as orcs), they would come attack us or sometimes leave hints about where we should go attack.
but you FFA PvP doesn't have to mean FPS go kill everything that moves, and surely a system can be implemented, a criminal system a bounty system...something..that creates a happy middle so that if someone murders you for no reason out of the blue at least you know it will not go unpunished and won't happen again and again and again, but also so that trolls don't hide behind the PvE mechanics that make them invulnerable in that kind of game.
Perhaps the problem you are running into is that freedom, crime and punishment in the real world don't actually work the way you imagine it?
( but setting that aside, what you are essentially simulating is an attempt to control an untouchable mob boss by punishing his goons ... no matter what you do to a character, the character is not the player and it's the player you are trying to influence )
The OP specifically asked "Could you accept player imprisonment in a FFA PvP game?" Not, FFA except when.... Devs can disallow/disable pvp under any circumstance (eg. in cities), but it is unconscionable to punish you if they decide not to. That would be poor design.
In the real world, people show a lot more restraint than they are given credit for on these forums. The Wild West didn't have that many murders, not compared to the number of people who carried guns. Everyone carried guns, but they needed them for things like snakes or coyotes. Some towns in the U.S. have removed their stop lights to save money, and found that people are much more careful when there are no signs or lights telling them what to do.
Player behavior inside games is pretty much the exact opposite of human behavior outside of video games in most societies. Give everyone a gun in a video game and most everyone will get dead, quickly. Remove signs from a video game and people will see how much stuff they can break as quickly as possible. Video games have no sense of realism because the players do not behave like they would in the real world, no matter how many discouragements you put in place to keep them from running around like murderous clowns.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
Back in the early days of The Realm (before UO ever existed) I got thrown in jail by an admin for doing something which I don't remember anymore. I think they left me in there for like 30+ minutes, so all I did was just go do other things while leaving the computer on and occasionally check back until I was back at my house.
I don't think a game could get away with it in this day and age, especially for something that is within the rules (PvP). People don't play games to have downtime, they play to have fun.
Open world FFA PvP is never, ever, going to be a major thing so in the end none of it matters anyway.
Macros exist and are quite good at what they do. It wouldn't really serve as an effective tool as a player would turn on their prison macro while they went out to the movies or did anything else. That macro would wait until they were released from prison and either just log out, or go to a predefined place and then log out. So it isn't as if a player sits through their sentence and feels something from it. Even short full out bans tend to do nothing to stop or curb bad behavior.
I don't see the relevance of macros to any of this? o.O Generally, bans would be for real world time, not in-game time, lol. The world is persistent, after all.
I think not being able to advance your character for days/weeks/months will have an effect on someone... it'll obviously be adjusted enough to discourage mindless murder, which is the whole point.
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson