I'm sorry I just find the whole idea of "punish a player for doing something he/she finds fun" retarded. If you don't want players doing something, simply don't allow it.
You should never, ever waste the players' time or have the need to punish them for playing your game. What is the point? What is the point in punishing a player and then making the punishment "fun"? Please explain to me how that makes sense.
The concept is a nest of trouble. What could possibly be the up-side, and how is it worth it?
Is it ok for Players to waste other player's time? is it ok for some players to make the game not fun to some other players?
It is not about preventing players to have fun, it is about mitigating abusing behaviors which result in some players not having fun, there is an acceptable limit.
If you want to play "evil" (psycho whatever)...you have the right to do so. But not at the expense of the greater good.
In real Life, we have places we keep dangerous Psychopaths. In real life we have Prisons for Evil people comitting Evil deeds to others, to innocents, to weaker people.
Stop there. You're not reading what Quirhid is saying. If you don't want that behavior in your game, don't allow it. Trying to create gameplay punishments is a complete waste of everyone's time, both players and devs. It is as simple as that.
That's your opinion. If you are trying to let players self police then game play barriers are not the option.
The scenario that most players go through is that you have killers. Those who can defend themselves may kill the killer(s) after he or they killed multiple people. The killers are back in 5 minutes killing again and eventually people stop caring about mounting an effort to defeat the killers because there is nothing that punishes or deters the killers who often have crap on even if you could loot them. They lose time due to death and time to trying to mount an effort to stop players that are back in minutes.
With the option to imprison them. If you defeat them you get them off the street essentially for while and they're not right back in 5 minutes. They could kill people and leave never being captured. But that's the point it gives players the choice of being a killer and gives a solution to the problem that works.
Find me a single dev that will agree with you on that and I'll concede it's possible. Until then, if you don't want the players to do something, don't let them do it in the first place, especially if it's something they find fun. Creating an in-game punishment for playing the game as intended is absurd. If jail is intended as part of the PK gameplay (ex: Dransik, Wizardry Online) that's a completely different scenario than trying to use jail to punish players for doing what you let them do.
This applies to any aspect of gameplay. If your players are perching and you don't want them to, remove the perches(AC - Othoi Nest). If they're hiding under the bridge so the dragon can't reach them and you don't want them to do that, seal that area off (EQ - Vox/Warder). If your players are breeding massive self-multiplying slime armies and holding your cities ransom, fix the slimes (UO - Chrae of Atlantic).
What you don't do is create something that is really fun to do and then punish players for doing it too much.
Prison would be part of gameplay. Honestly until developers show more I could care less what they agree with. Without extreme spenders we wouldn't even have many mmorpgs due to design decisions.
That is a complete 180 from:
Narius: "That does not sound fun."
VR: "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."
Anyway, that last comment of yours was rather telling, so I won't bother you any further.
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've played two MMO's that had player imprisonment. Conquer Online and Endless Online both had prisons.
Conquer had you put in prison if you were a PKer and had enough infamy, and you then got killed by a player with good karma.
Endless Online had you put in prison by the GM's if you sassed them too much. I was in there about four months for making comments about the GM's mother. Good times.
Find me a single dev that will agree with you on that and I'll concede it's possible. Until then, if you don't want the players to do something, don't let them do it in the first place, especially if it's something they find fun. Creating an in-game punishment for playing the game as intended is absurd. If jail is intended as part of the PK gameplay (ex: Dransik, Wizardry Online) that's a completely different scenario than trying to use jail to punish players for doing what you let them do.
This applies to any aspect of gameplay. If your players are perching and you don't want them to, remove the perches(AC - Othoi Nest). If they're hiding under the bridge so the dragon can't reach them and you don't want them to do that, seal that area off (EQ - Vox/Warder). If your players are breeding massive self-multiplying slime armies and holding your cities ransom, fix the slimes (UO - Chrae of Atlantic).
What you don't do is create something that is really fun to do and then punish players for doing it too much.
Here, I find you the Devs of ArchAge...the system has been running since Launch in Korea and it works very well.
And what Vermillon is saying is actually the core concept of it. While you are in Court/Jail etc, you are not out there randomly killing people, but you are playing and having some adventure nevertheless.
If you are a repeated offender, you become Pirate (Red), and lose access to major Cities, and are of course recognizable by other players, and hunted whenever possible, or feared...just like UO Dread Lord Days.
there is responsibility and accountability, and there is choice. If you become Pirate it is because you really chose to be one, and you accept to live with the consequences that this choice intails.
To me it sounds very well thought out, more importantly it works, even more importantly it has been received as Fun.
Do you not understand the conversation, or did you not read the articles you linked?
Jail in ArcheAge is part of gameplay. Like Dransik, it's challenging gameplay created for the killers. This is very different from, as Verm wants - an anti-grief tool - which is created to work against the killers.
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'm sorry I just find the whole idea of "punish a player for doing something he/she finds fun" retarded. If you don't want players doing something, simply don't allow it.
You should never, ever waste the players' time or have the need to punish them for playing your game. What is the point? What is the point in punishing a player and then making the punishment "fun"? Please explain to me how that makes sense.
The concept is a nest of trouble. What could possibly be the up-side, and how is it worth it?
Is it ok for Players to waste other player's time? is it ok for some players to make the game not fun to some other players?
It is not about preventing players to have fun, it is about mitigating abusing behaviors which result in some players not having fun, there is an acceptable limit.
If you want to play "evil" (psycho whatever)...you have the right to do so. But not at the expense of the greater good.
In real Life, we have places we keep dangerous Psychopaths. In real life we have Prisons for Evil people comitting Evil deeds to others, to innocents, to weaker people.
Stop there. You're not reading what Quirhid is saying. If you don't want that behavior in your game, don't allow it. Trying to create gameplay punishments is a complete waste of everyone's time, both players and devs. It is as simple as that.
That's your opinion. If you are trying to let players self police then game play barriers are not the option.
The scenario that most players go through is that you have killers. Those who can defend themselves may kill the killer(s) after he or they killed multiple people. The killers are back in 5 minutes killing again and eventually people stop caring about mounting an effort to defeat the killers because there is nothing that punishes or deters the killers who often have crap on even if you could loot them. They lose time due to death and time to trying to mount an effort to stop players that are back in minutes.
With the option to imprison them. If you defeat them you get them off the street essentially for while and they're not right back in 5 minutes. They could kill people and leave never being captured. But that's the point it gives players the choice of being a killer and gives a solution to the problem that works.
Find me a single dev that will agree with you on that and I'll concede it's possible. Until then, if you don't want the players to do something, don't let them do it in the first place, especially if it's something they find fun. Creating an in-game punishment for playing the game as intended is absurd. If jail is intended as part of the PK gameplay (ex: Dransik, Wizardry Online) that's a completely different scenario than trying to use jail to punish players for doing what you let them do.
This applies to any aspect of gameplay. If your players are perching and you don't want them to, remove the perches(AC - Othoi Nest). If they're hiding under the bridge so the dragon can't reach them and you don't want them to do that, seal that area off (EQ - Vox/Warder). If your players are breeding massive self-multiplying slime armies and holding your cities ransom, fix the slimes (UO - Chrae of Atlantic).
What you don't do is create something that is really fun to do and then punish players for doing it too much.
Prison would be part of gameplay. Honestly until developers show more I could care less what they agree with. Without extreme spenders we wouldn't even have many mmorpgs due to design decisions.
That is a complete 180 from:
Narius: "That does not sound fun."
VR: "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."
Anyway, that last comment of yours was rather telling, so I won't bother you any further.
Its behavior control. A mechanism of gameplay used as grief reduction or anti-grief tool. Its there to make random killing less desirable.
As far as developers go... I disagree with a lot of them. The push for more ease and accessibility among other things has failed. Wholesale collapse would have occurred of many mmorpgs without cash shops to bailout bad design.
Do you not understand the conversation, or did you not read the articles you linked?
Jail in ArcheAge is part of gameplay. Like Dransik, it's challenging gameplay created for the killers. This is very different from, as Verm wants - an anti-grief tool - which is created to work against the killers.
It's still an anti griefing tool. While they are in jail / prison / island / whatever, they aren't in the main world griefing innocents.
If some noob ganker who just killed 10 innocent low levels in their starter area gets finally caught and gets 10 hours of jail / prison / island / whatever, during those 10 hours he won't be able to grief anyone but fellow inmates/murderers.
This discussion between the two of you has been very entertaining, thoughtful, and well presented.
Imprisonment has two main problems.
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
The imprisonment system becomes a mini-game in itself. If it turns out to be fun, people will want to kill in order to be imprisoned and enjoy that portion of the game. And that means another series of unwanted PvP, murder and disrupting other people's fun. And that's almost an invitation rather than a deterrent.
People playing games behind an anonymous user name show far worse behavior than they would in real-life. The lack of meaningful consequences empowers them. Look at the responses of various proponents of open world, non-consensual PvP in this and most any of the other PvP threads; people want the ability to disrupt other people's 'fun', but don't want their own 'fun' to be disrupted with any system of consequences. Its pure selfishness.
At some point, someone with entirely too much money and too little to do is going to press a real-world lawsuit against one of the many people who want to use a game to express their unsocial behavior. Little Johnny will be killed a dozen crimes while mom and dad happen to be watching. They'll probably call it e-bullying or something and sue someone in the real world.
Eventually, in-game actions could have real-world repercussions that a player will not be able to ignore. I had a couple of specific ideas along those lines when I tried my hand at making an MMORPG. I gave up due to financial issues. I was torn over this in-game to real-world issue, and hoped I would have the sense to not be the game that introduced that concept. Talk about your bad Karma.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Originally posted by FinalFikus Let the crafters have them. Instead of killing people, they would be bred and fattened on a farm.
Mmmm PK Flank Steak.
Tastes like Pork.
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.
I'm sorry I just find the whole idea of "punish a player for doing something he/she finds fun" retarded. If you don't want players doing something, simply don't allow it.
You should never, ever waste the players' time or have the need to punish them for playing your game. What is the point? What is the point in punishing a player and then making the punishment "fun"? Please explain to me how that makes sense.
The concept is a nest of trouble. What could possibly be the up-side, and how is it worth it?
Is it ok for Players to waste other player's time? is it ok for some players to make the game not fun to some other players?
It is not about preventing players to have fun, it is about mitigating abusing behaviors which result in some players not having fun, there is an acceptable limit.
If you want to play "evil" (psycho whatever)...you have the right to do so. But not at the expense of the greater good.
In real Life, we have places we keep dangerous Psychopaths. In real life we have Prisons for Evil people comitting Evil deeds to others, to innocents, to weaker people.
Stop there. You're not reading what Quirhid is saying. If you don't want that behavior in your game, don't allow it. Trying to create gameplay punishments is a complete waste of everyone's time, both players and devs. It is as simple as that.
That's your opinion. If you are trying to let players self police then game play barriers are not the option.
The scenario that most players go through is that you have killers. Those who can defend themselves may kill the killer(s) after he or they killed multiple people. The killers are back in 5 minutes killing again and eventually people stop caring about mounting an effort to defeat the killers because there is nothing that punishes or deters the killers who often have crap on even if you could loot them. They lose time due to death and time to trying to mount an effort to stop players that are back in minutes.
With the option to imprison them. If you defeat them you get them off the street essentially for while and they're not right back in 5 minutes. They could kill people and leave never being captured. But that's the point it gives players the choice of being a killer and gives a solution to the problem that works.
Find me a single dev that will agree with you on that and I'll concede it's possible. Until then, if you don't want the players to do something, don't let them do it in the first place, especially if it's something they find fun. Creating an in-game punishment for playing the game as intended is absurd. If jail is intended as part of the PK gameplay (ex: Dransik, Wizardry Online) that's a completely different scenario than trying to use jail to punish players for doing what you let them do.
This applies to any aspect of gameplay. If your players are perching and you don't want them to, remove the perches(AC - Othoi Nest). If they're hiding under the bridge so the dragon can't reach them and you don't want them to do that, seal that area off (EQ - Vox/Warder). If your players are breeding massive self-multiplying slime armies and holding your cities ransom, fix the slimes (UO - Chrae of Atlantic).
What you don't do is create something that is really fun to do and then punish players for doing it too much.
Perhaps that the problem, trying to develop a system that allows players to self-police, maybe that's not possible unless you give them the power to punish others for behavior that the community at large finds aberrant.
Question is, would those players let you punish them? Probably not, they'll just go play another game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
If the person doesn't play the character while in jail / on the island / whatever, his jail timer simply doesn't count down. He can for sure resume griefing on an alt, but what when all his alts are jailed?
<snip>.
If the player has 8 characters on a single account, they could run amok and inflict unwanted death on 40-120 characters (with maybe that many players) before each alt is captured. That's a pretty good evening for the criminal -- maybe 5 or 6 hours of play time. And they could have a 'normal account' where they play nice, while sitting out their punishment on each of the captured alts on another machine. And that player maybe have all 8 criminal characters clear and ready to go on another rampage next Friday night.
At best, we've limited the disruptive potential to impacting 40-120 people a week. That's not much of a deterrent, in my opinion. Potentially, that's 120 customers that this one anti-social player could drive off each week.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
The imprisonment system becomes a mini-game in itself. If it turns out to be fun, people will want to kill in order to be imprisoned and enjoy that portion of the game. And that means another series of unwanted PvP, murder and disrupting other people's fun. And that's almost an invitation rather than a deterrent.
Exactly. Excellent reasons why it is ineffective as a deterrent and why, if such content is created, it should be designed as engaging, meaningful gameplay.
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
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal Its behavior control. A mechanism of gameplay used as grief reduction or anti-grief tool. Its there to make random killing less desirable.
As far as developers go... I disagree with a lot of them. The push for more ease and accessibility among other things has failed. Wholesale collapse would have occurred of many mmorpgs without cash shops to bailout bad design.
Who is the target audience for this particular mechanic? Are you trying to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in OW/FFA PvP, or are you trying to see what kinds of mechanics people who are interested in OW/FFA PvP are interested in?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
The imprisonment system becomes a mini-game in itself. If it turns out to be fun, people will want to kill in order to be imprisoned and enjoy that portion of the game. And that means another series of unwanted PvP, murder and disrupting other people's fun. And that's almost an invitation rather than a deterrent.
Exactly. Excellent reasons why it is ineffective as a deterrent and why, if such content is created, it should be designed as engaging, meaningful gameplay.
Have them do quests. That way it can't be waited out, eventually they have to do it. Quests are fun meaningful content amirite? So there's no punishment at all.
The number of people that would or wouldn't is too small to matter. There are plenty of people who already do. There will always be more than enough.
It only matters if it works well enough to preserve the flow.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
If the person doesn't play the character while in jail / on the island / whatever, his jail timer simply doesn't count down. He can for sure resume griefing on an alt, but what when all his alts are jailed?
.
If the player has 8 characters on a single account, they could run amok and inflict unwanted death on 40-120 characters (with maybe that many players) before each alt is captured. That's a pretty good evening for the criminal -- maybe 5 or 6 hours of play time. And they could have a 'normal account' where they play nice, while sitting out their punishment on each of the captured alts on another machine. And that player maybe have all 8 criminal characters clear and ready to go on another rampage next Friday night.
At best, we've limited the disruptive potential to impacting 40-120 people a week. That's not much of a deterrent, in my opinion. Potentially, that's 120 customers that this one anti-social player could drive off each week.
The only recourse is to up the prison penalties until the level of PK activity reaches the desired level. Of course some PvPers might find those penalties to be too draconian while non-PvPers think the PK level is still too high.
If you want to eliminate PKing then the solution is really simple: consensual-only PvP. If the goal is instead to keep the PK activity at a certain level then you need to tweak the penalties till you get the desired level.
Personally, the PK activity levels I would find acceptable would probably require prison sentences of at least a week of online time or at least a month of offline time. That would probably drive most of the PKers out of the game though.
If you took a big budget game that all kinds of players wanted to play and added FFA PvP...
Then you had a system (imprisonment or other) that inflicted a punishement as negative to the PK as their forced pvp (on the pve player) was to the victim... You would simply hear cries that make what Obi Wan heard when the Death Star let loose the first time.. seem like a very minor noise.
Simply because you would then have the same action (something forced upon you) taking place on both players (PK and their victim).
I describe it that way because when two PvP players meet and fight .. no such system should exist. Since they were both looking for the same thing and found it.
Its the same backlash people give about having non pvp areas or servers... The logical player would already know actual PvP players are going to be where PvP can happen. So people "hiding out" (in non pvp areas/servers) are simply the victims the "PK" is actually looking for and the separation is already an imprisonment of sorts.... altho its working by denying their ability to force a play style on someone else.. instead of forcing a game mechanic the PK doesn't want.. after they already created a victim.
Pro-Active .. versus Re-Active...
More or less its like all the different phases of death penalty that UO went through. Which destroyed the game for people who really did want to PvP because of all the subscribers that fled due to the small number of .. "PK's". Which eventually lead to Trammel aka the separation of PvP and PvE (EQ didn't launch with PvP servers but had I believe it was the priest of discord you could talk to and be flagged).
I use the term PK here simply because its a nicer term than I would normally use and imho those people are not interested in actual PvP... where someone with "skill" fights back as opposed to chasing the miner with no combat skills around.
1) The guy needs to level and gear up 8 different characters first.
2) Make gameplay in the "prison" place intense (and fun) enough that you can't simple afk it (this has already been discussed). If you have something to gain from being at the keyboard, and something to lose for not being at it, people won't afk it. For instance, as long as you're dead in the prison, your timer doesn't count down, and what kill you in "prison" would both be other inmates and roaming NPCs, making sure nowhere is safe. That would require the guy to stay a long time at the keyboard and play for his characters to all be free again.
3) your kill count estimation doesn't take the player intervention into account. If some psychopath starts to kill players in a populated area, more powerful characters will come, and the "griefed" players will log more powerful alts, to take the griefer out. And they will do it because unlike in other FFA PvP games, here it will be worth it, since the guy won't be back 5 minutes later griefing again, he'll be in "prison" doing his time.
There are always ways to exploit, and that's when the devs add mechanics to counter the exploits, or ban people for using those exploits too.
Unless we're going back to the early days of MMOs, leveling up and gearing up 8 characters is not a daunting task. Even easier with multiple accounts as you can simply macro the other accounts to the main one and be leveling up multiple characters at once.
2) You highly underestimate the power of solid macros. Good macros are strong enough to get through just about anything while not being at the keys. If it was truly fun enough it wouldn't be a deterrent, in fact it would encourage people to kill others to go to the super fun prison. So since the goal of this was to lessen the killing of other players, the area would likely be boring and everyone in it would be macroing until they got out. During that time they'd play a different account that would be griefing and they'd simply swap back and forth on accounts.
3) It won't be worth it because those who like to grief will have follow up accounts ready to go. Also like other games people simply wouldn't care to be bothered to bring out their alts/clan mates to waste game time chasing some guy around who will just pop back up on another account and keep going.
As I said earlier there is only 2 real approaches to this. First is such a long penalty to truly be painful, however that is something no developer would do as it would simply chase off potential customers who don't want to be punished so harshly for PvPing in a PvP game. Second is the timer is short to not chase of customers making it a pointless punishment as people wouldn't care about it happening.
A prison system, when looked into even the slightest bit, is an absolutely terrible game mechanic that no sane developer would push upon their gamers. It is really as simple as that. They wouldn't get the normal players who hate open world PvP to begin with and won't join a game just because the griefers get punished AFTER having already griefed them. And they wouldn't get the PvP crowd who wants to... you know... PVP not get in trouble every time they do.
Jail time is an interesting concept but I've never heard of a way to do it well. It's just gonna result in people logging off. Some have said online jail time. Well why can't they just go afk? Some boring task to make sure they're at their computer? Bad for a number of reasons, chief among them: macros.
I think a better idea would be to have a game where alignment matters. Could be racial alignment, moral alignment, faction alignment, whatever.
For instance, if you're a criminal you're not allowed in town. Also player shops charge criminals more for goods. Your criminal status would deteriorate naturally over time, but you could also speed it up through pve. Kind of depends on how the rest of the game is played
1) The guy needs to level and gear up 8 different characters first.
This is merely a function of time. And there will be those with more than enough time to level / gear up a full personal Gank Squad.
2) Make gameplay in the "prison" place intense (and fun) enough that you can't simple afk it (this has already been discussed). If you have something to gain from being at the keyboard, and something to lose for not being at it, people won't afk it. For instance, as long as you're dead in the prison, your timer doesn't count down, and what kill you in "prison" would both be other inmates and roaming NPCs, making sure nowhere is safe. That would require the guy to stay a long time at the keyboard and play for his characters to all be free again.
This 'works', but runs the risk of encouraging the anti-social behavior in the first place. If the prison mini-game is even remotely fun, some will want to spend a good bit of their time in this prison mini-game. And that encourages the behavior that this mechanism is trying to deter. The lure of an exciting prison game might even prompt other players to give it a shot to see what they're missing. Ultimately, as a consequence, this is counterproductive.
3) your kill count estimation doesn't take the player intervention into account. If some psychopath starts to kill players in a populated area, more powerful characters will come, and the "griefed" players will log more powerful alts, to take the griefer out. And they will do it because unlike in other FFA PvP games, here it will be worth it, since the guy won't be back 5 minutes later griefing again, he'll be in "prison" doing his time.
There's also a response time to alert any anti-PK players, travel to the last reported location, get organized, locate the miscreant and defeat them. I saw it many times in DAoC; one player (or a group of players) running amok in one zone with no opposition. The players who reveled in hunting killers weren't online, or were too far away or were simply too busy doing something else to bother with helping a lone player. The culprit most likely won't be standing there waiting to be caught, and most likely won't be alone. The response time alone gives them 15 to 20 minutes to perpetrate other acts
I was using a 5-15 person count of people impacted. This could be people who not only were the direct victims, but also those players who had to change what they were doing to engage in the PvP activity. More than a few people got put on /ignore lists in DAoC for raising the 'Hue and Cry' too frequently. The boy who cried wolf syndrome is alive and well in MMORPGs.
Granted, DAoC featured implied consent for PvP. But the same resonse behavior applies to the any form of PvP, consensual or not.
There are always ways to exploit, and that's when the devs add mechanics to counter the exploits, or ban people for using those exploits too.
Sadly, true. Companies have typically handed out severe penalties for game exploits, You'll note that almost every 'effective' deterrent occurs in the real world, not in-game. Bans, IP blocks, account deletion, All real world consenquences for in-game actions..
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Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
It is defeated with the swap character / swap account tactic. That player who commits 10 murders has 6-7 alts ready to carry on the mayhem on the same account alone. And they might have additional accounts with another handful of characters ready to continue. The real-world player isn't deterred from the in-game bad behavior. And that real-world player is out in the game world continuing his unsocial behavior.
The imprisonment system becomes a mini-game in itself. If it turns out to be fun, people will want to kill in order to be imprisoned and enjoy that portion of the game. And that means another series of unwanted PvP, murder and disrupting other people's fun. And that's almost an invitation rather than a deterrent.
Exactly. Excellent reasons why it is ineffective as a deterrent and why, if such content is created, it should be designed as engaging, meaningful gameplay.
Have them do quests. That way it can't be waited out, eventually they have to do it. Quests are fun meaningful content amirite? So there's no punishment at all.
The number of people that would or wouldn't is too small to matter. There are plenty of people who already do. There will always be more than enough.
It only matters if it works well enough to preserve the flow.
Aye. The purpose is not to bore the gankers/griefers/murderers/psychopaths to death (pun intended). It's to keep them out of the main world for a while to mitigate the griefing and to give consequences to mindless murdering, the consequence being that they find themself in a place where they compete against their own kind.
As long as there must be task completed first. So they can't cycle alts. They eventually have to play the fun and engaging content they freely chose to partake in.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
In ArchAge, the Criminal System, with its Court/Prison mechanics works its intended purpose because it is part of Gameplay.
Lets not split hairs here. I think the Topic implies an element of the game. We are not talking about "punishment" here.
It would make no sense to make a FFA PvP game and hen punish people for Fighting within it with it.
We are talking about a mechanism to mitigate abuse, to add some meaning to some actions. It is Risk vs Reward for all. It is Consequences for all.
Having it part of the gameplay is the only way to have it, and I think ArchAge has done it. It is even a way of playing the game, as when you become Pirate you are basically a Faction of your own, with its own purpose and function in the world.
That, in combination to the Player Policing seems to work well. Speaking of which, yes Players policing themselves is not Perfect, actually nothing ever is, but it does happen to a certain degree.
In the end, the final Tone of the game is the result of the combination of several mechanics working together each in its imperfect contribution but each contributing a bit, and all the bits combined together meet the intended goal, and make a game stable and fun for the long run, which will not be destroyed in a few months as everyone quits due to inability to play and prosper in it.
UO worked well even if it did not have a Prison system, but instead it had a more "Sane" Playerbase ... People were more interested in meeting and having fun with other people rather than logging on to "Kill newbies" ... In combination to the many Anti-PK guilds that existed and a few systems in place By Design.
Guarded Towns : permitting new players to get a peaceful start in the game and be able to learn it.
Skill system: Where the difference between start point and max point was not over kill (compared to a lvl 10 and a lvl 60 in any other level based game). A newbie character could fight/survive even defeat a much more skilled up character.
Economics : Gathering resources, Crafting equipment was relatively easy did not require hours of play, one could re-equip in a matter of minutes. No grind to keep the players playing. It was FFA it was easy to lose your stuff but it was also easy to get stuff.
On the other hand, I found Darkfall when it released quite unbalanced in that regard. It was a true Slaughter. It lacked all of the above. And it had a much different player base. One that made it a daily activity to roam the field in search of players to kill, many of whom even had to exploit even so much poised they were to kill other people.
The Housing system with pre-set locations to build towns did not help. The bigger Guilds went after the spots, and were only concerned of defending their spot, and many times it was groups from those guild that would even go on player killing sprees. Everyone was hostile to everyone. Grief under that context becomes a norm. And game goes down the niche path. No Anti-PK incentive.
Its economics were ill conceived for the reality of FFA PvP. Crafting cost money on top of resources. A player risked to Mine for 2 hours to be able to build a single weapon and being killed and looted repeatedly in the process. Then this player still had to risk even more loss because they also needed gold to be able to craft that armor. Well if the game's progression is based on gear but then it is almost impossible for a player to progress and have access to it...tell me again how and why that game is fun? And why should players stick around under that reality?
Skill system worked like a level based game, some skilled up characters would do as much damage and would take a dent of damage to and from less skilled character, it was skills only in name, it worked like a level based game. And the way to raise the skills was to be out there using them, while being hunted...very badly conceived if you ask me. Or if you prefer, a game conceived for Griefing...but such a game will only appeal to 5-10% of the people, and that is what it got.
It appears Arch Age has it right for a FFA PvP game, and it Imprisonment mechanics are well implemented and are part of the gameplay in such a way as to be a positive contribution towards maintaining a Fun balance, for All.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Who is the target audience for this particular mechanic? Are you trying to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in OW/FFA PvP, or are you trying to see what kinds of mechanics people who are interested in OW/FFA PvP are interested in?
This .. i think is the key question.
I doubt very much that those who would avoid ow ffa pvp in the first place would change their minds just because of a prison system.
Who is the target audience for this particular mechanic? Are you trying to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in OW/FFA PvP, or are you trying to see what kinds of mechanics people who are interested in OW/FFA PvP are interested in?
This .. i think is the key question.
I doubt very much that those who would avoid ow ffa pvp in the first place would change their minds just because of a prison system.
There are degrees here. Personally, I avoid OW FFA PvP because I find it repetetive and largely meaningless. A player policing system that actually worked could attract me to such a game. however, such a system would have to be draconian in punishment to actually act as a real deterrant. Getting ganked is not a big deal for me if it is a rare occurance and I know that I have the power to punish such behaviour accordingly.
I would be quite willing to join a player anti-PK posse if I knew that it made a real difference in preventing griefing and the PKer would think long and hard before he tried it again. As such prison times would have to in weeks or even months and increase for repeat offenders.
Who is the target audience for this particular mechanic? Are you trying to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in OW/FFA PvP, or are you trying to see what kinds of mechanics people who are interested in OW/FFA PvP are interested in?
This .. i think is the key question.
I doubt very much that those who would avoid ow ffa pvp in the first place would change their minds just because of a prison system.
There are degrees here. Personally, I avoid OW FFA PvP because I find it repetetive and largely meaningless. A player policing system that actually worked could attract me to such a game. however, such a system would have to be draconian in punishment to actually act as a real deterrant. Getting ganked is not a big deal for me if it is a rare occurance and I know that I have the power to punish such behaviour accordingly.
I would be quite willing to join a player anti-PK posse if I knew that it made a real difference in preventing griefing and the PKer would think long and hard before he tried it again. As such prison times would have to in weeks or even months and increase for repeat offenders.
I doubt the PKers would play such a game. And if you eliminate all of it, you may has a cheaper, easier system in the first place ... with only consensual pvp.
"In the end, the final Tone of the game is the result of the combination of several mechanics working together each in its imperfect contribution but each contributing a bit, and all the bits combined together meet the intended goal, and make a game stable and fun for the long run, which will not be destroyed in a few months as everyone quits due to inability to play and prosper in it."
This.
the prison system in the long run would be just 1 mechanic in the game that makes it fun, almost like a sub-system of the pvp system.
It is interesting in ArcheAge that you can become a pirate if you kill players too much...I like that, it suits my playstyle. I find it even more interesting that pirates are like their own faction.
As a player that likes to pvp a lot, I would be in favor for some type of imprisonment system because for me it adds to the excitement, I remember as a kid when I did something bad, my heart would start racing because I knew If I got caught, I would be in trouble. It's been awhile since an MMO has gotten my heart racing, and I think it's because games have made the game world safer and easier to play for people.
Comments
That is a complete 180 from:
Narius: "That does not sound fun."
VR: "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."
Anyway, that last comment of yours was rather telling, so I won't bother you any further.
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've played two MMO's that had player imprisonment. Conquer Online and Endless Online both had prisons.
Conquer had you put in prison if you were a PKer and had enough infamy, and you then got killed by a player with good karma.
Endless Online had you put in prison by the GM's if you sassed them too much. I was in there about four months for making comments about the GM's mother. Good times.
Do you not understand the conversation, or did you not read the articles you linked?
Jail in ArcheAge is part of gameplay. Like Dransik, it's challenging gameplay created for the killers. This is very different from, as Verm wants - an anti-grief tool - which is created to work against the killers.
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
Its behavior control. A mechanism of gameplay used as grief reduction or anti-grief tool. Its there to make random killing less desirable.
As far as developers go... I disagree with a lot of them. The push for more ease and accessibility among other things has failed. Wholesale collapse would have occurred of many mmorpgs without cash shops to bailout bad design.
This discussion between the two of you has been very entertaining, thoughtful, and well presented.
Imprisonment has two main problems.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
Mmmm PK Flank Steak.
Tastes like Pork.
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.
Perhaps that the problem, trying to develop a system that allows players to self-police, maybe that's not possible unless you give them the power to punish others for behavior that the community at large finds aberrant.
Question is, would those players let you punish them? Probably not, they'll just go play another game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If the player has 8 characters on a single account, they could run amok and inflict unwanted death on 40-120 characters (with maybe that many players) before each alt is captured. That's a pretty good evening for the criminal -- maybe 5 or 6 hours of play time. And they could have a 'normal account' where they play nice, while sitting out their punishment on each of the captured alts on another machine. And that player maybe have all 8 criminal characters clear and ready to go on another rampage next Friday night.
At best, we've limited the disruptive potential to impacting 40-120 people a week. That's not much of a deterrent, in my opinion. Potentially, that's 120 customers that this one anti-social player could drive off each week.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Exactly. Excellent reasons why it is ineffective as a deterrent and why, if such content is created, it should be designed as engaging, meaningful gameplay.
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
Who is the target audience for this particular mechanic? Are you trying to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in OW/FFA PvP, or are you trying to see what kinds of mechanics people who are interested in OW/FFA PvP are interested in?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Have them do quests. That way it can't be waited out, eventually they have to do it. Quests are fun meaningful content amirite? So there's no punishment at all.
The number of people that would or wouldn't is too small to matter. There are plenty of people who already do. There will always be more than enough.
It only matters if it works well enough to preserve the flow.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
The only recourse is to up the prison penalties until the level of PK activity reaches the desired level. Of course some PvPers might find those penalties to be too draconian while non-PvPers think the PK level is still too high.
If you want to eliminate PKing then the solution is really simple: consensual-only PvP. If the goal is instead to keep the PK activity at a certain level then you need to tweak the penalties till you get the desired level.
Personally, the PK activity levels I would find acceptable would probably require prison sentences of at least a week of online time or at least a month of offline time. That would probably drive most of the PKers out of the game though.
If you took a big budget game that all kinds of players wanted to play and added FFA PvP...
Then you had a system (imprisonment or other) that inflicted a punishement as negative to the PK as their forced pvp (on the pve player) was to the victim... You would simply hear cries that make what Obi Wan heard when the Death Star let loose the first time.. seem like a very minor noise.
Simply because you would then have the same action (something forced upon you) taking place on both players (PK and their victim).
I describe it that way because when two PvP players meet and fight .. no such system should exist. Since they were both looking for the same thing and found it.
Its the same backlash people give about having non pvp areas or servers... The logical player would already know actual PvP players are going to be where PvP can happen. So people "hiding out" (in non pvp areas/servers) are simply the victims the "PK" is actually looking for and the separation is already an imprisonment of sorts.... altho its working by denying their ability to force a play style on someone else.. instead of forcing a game mechanic the PK doesn't want.. after they already created a victim.
Pro-Active .. versus Re-Active...
More or less its like all the different phases of death penalty that UO went through. Which destroyed the game for people who really did want to PvP because of all the subscribers that fled due to the small number of .. "PK's". Which eventually lead to Trammel aka the separation of PvP and PvE (EQ didn't launch with PvP servers but had I believe it was the priest of discord you could talk to and be flagged).
I use the term PK here simply because its a nicer term than I would normally use and imho those people are not interested in actual PvP... where someone with "skill" fights back as opposed to chasing the miner with no combat skills around.
Unless we're going back to the early days of MMOs, leveling up and gearing up 8 characters is not a daunting task. Even easier with multiple accounts as you can simply macro the other accounts to the main one and be leveling up multiple characters at once.
2) You highly underestimate the power of solid macros. Good macros are strong enough to get through just about anything while not being at the keys. If it was truly fun enough it wouldn't be a deterrent, in fact it would encourage people to kill others to go to the super fun prison. So since the goal of this was to lessen the killing of other players, the area would likely be boring and everyone in it would be macroing until they got out. During that time they'd play a different account that would be griefing and they'd simply swap back and forth on accounts.
3) It won't be worth it because those who like to grief will have follow up accounts ready to go. Also like other games people simply wouldn't care to be bothered to bring out their alts/clan mates to waste game time chasing some guy around who will just pop back up on another account and keep going.
As I said earlier there is only 2 real approaches to this. First is such a long penalty to truly be painful, however that is something no developer would do as it would simply chase off potential customers who don't want to be punished so harshly for PvPing in a PvP game. Second is the timer is short to not chase of customers making it a pointless punishment as people wouldn't care about it happening.
A prison system, when looked into even the slightest bit, is an absolutely terrible game mechanic that no sane developer would push upon their gamers. It is really as simple as that. They wouldn't get the normal players who hate open world PvP to begin with and won't join a game just because the griefers get punished AFTER having already griefed them. And they wouldn't get the PvP crowd who wants to... you know... PVP not get in trouble every time they do.
I think a better idea would be to have a game where alignment matters. Could be racial alignment, moral alignment, faction alignment, whatever.
For instance, if you're a criminal you're not allowed in town. Also player shops charge criminals more for goods. Your criminal status would deteriorate naturally over time, but you could also speed it up through pve. Kind of depends on how the rest of the game is played
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Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
The problem is anything can work, but it's cheaper to sell poop and pay marketing teams.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
As long as there must be task completed first. So they can't cycle alts. They eventually have to play the fun and engaging content they freely chose to partake in.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
In ArchAge, the Criminal System, with its Court/Prison mechanics works its intended purpose because it is part of Gameplay.
Lets not split hairs here. I think the Topic implies an element of the game. We are not talking about "punishment" here.
It would make no sense to make a FFA PvP game and hen punish people for Fighting within it with it.
We are talking about a mechanism to mitigate abuse, to add some meaning to some actions. It is Risk vs Reward for all. It is Consequences for all.
Having it part of the gameplay is the only way to have it, and I think ArchAge has done it. It is even a way of playing the game, as when you become Pirate you are basically a Faction of your own, with its own purpose and function in the world.
That, in combination to the Player Policing seems to work well. Speaking of which, yes Players policing themselves is not Perfect, actually nothing ever is, but it does happen to a certain degree.
In the end, the final Tone of the game is the result of the combination of several mechanics working together each in its imperfect contribution but each contributing a bit, and all the bits combined together meet the intended goal, and make a game stable and fun for the long run, which will not be destroyed in a few months as everyone quits due to inability to play and prosper in it.
UO worked well even if it did not have a Prison system, but instead it had a more "Sane" Playerbase ... People were more interested in meeting and having fun with other people rather than logging on to "Kill newbies" ... In combination to the many Anti-PK guilds that existed and a few systems in place By Design.
Guarded Towns : permitting new players to get a peaceful start in the game and be able to learn it.
Skill system: Where the difference between start point and max point was not over kill (compared to a lvl 10 and a lvl 60 in any other level based game). A newbie character could fight/survive even defeat a much more skilled up character.
Economics : Gathering resources, Crafting equipment was relatively easy did not require hours of play, one could re-equip in a matter of minutes. No grind to keep the players playing. It was FFA it was easy to lose your stuff but it was also easy to get stuff.
On the other hand, I found Darkfall when it released quite unbalanced in that regard. It was a true Slaughter. It lacked all of the above. And it had a much different player base. One that made it a daily activity to roam the field in search of players to kill, many of whom even had to exploit even so much poised they were to kill other people.
The Housing system with pre-set locations to build towns did not help. The bigger Guilds went after the spots, and were only concerned of defending their spot, and many times it was groups from those guild that would even go on player killing sprees. Everyone was hostile to everyone. Grief under that context becomes a norm. And game goes down the niche path. No Anti-PK incentive.
Its economics were ill conceived for the reality of FFA PvP. Crafting cost money on top of resources. A player risked to Mine for 2 hours to be able to build a single weapon and being killed and looted repeatedly in the process. Then this player still had to risk even more loss because they also needed gold to be able to craft that armor. Well if the game's progression is based on gear but then it is almost impossible for a player to progress and have access to it...tell me again how and why that game is fun? And why should players stick around under that reality?
Skill system worked like a level based game, some skilled up characters would do as much damage and would take a dent of damage to and from less skilled character, it was skills only in name, it worked like a level based game. And the way to raise the skills was to be out there using them, while being hunted...very badly conceived if you ask me. Or if you prefer, a game conceived for Griefing...but such a game will only appeal to 5-10% of the people, and that is what it got.
It appears Arch Age has it right for a FFA PvP game, and it Imprisonment mechanics are well implemented and are part of the gameplay in such a way as to be a positive contribution towards maintaining a Fun balance, for All.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
This .. i think is the key question.
I doubt very much that those who would avoid ow ffa pvp in the first place would change their minds just because of a prison system.
There are degrees here. Personally, I avoid OW FFA PvP because I find it repetetive and largely meaningless. A player policing system that actually worked could attract me to such a game. however, such a system would have to be draconian in punishment to actually act as a real deterrant. Getting ganked is not a big deal for me if it is a rare occurance and I know that I have the power to punish such behaviour accordingly.
I would be quite willing to join a player anti-PK posse if I knew that it made a real difference in preventing griefing and the PKer would think long and hard before he tried it again. As such prison times would have to in weeks or even months and increase for repeat offenders.
I doubt the PKers would play such a game. And if you eliminate all of it, you may has a cheaper, easier system in the first place ... with only consensual pvp.
This.
the prison system in the long run would be just 1 mechanic in the game that makes it fun, almost like a sub-system of the pvp system.
It is interesting in ArcheAge that you can become a pirate if you kill players too much...I like that, it suits my playstyle. I find it even more interesting that pirates are like their own faction.
As a player that likes to pvp a lot, I would be in favor for some type of imprisonment system because for me it adds to the excitement, I remember as a kid when I did something bad, my heart would start racing because I knew If I got caught, I would be in trouble. It's been awhile since an MMO has gotten my heart racing, and I think it's because games have made the game world safer and easier to play for people.