Incorrect you are not forced to PvP you can spend 100% of your time in PvE
Player cities will be subject to PvP sieges that is correct.
SWG had a auction house
You can have a house in the PvE zones with a vendor
Player cities in The Repopulation are based around an attack/defense game, sure it is different to SWG but the game does not claim to copy SWG completley - as a PvE player you can still do many things that you could in SWG but if you want to be able to do everything SWG ever had exactly the same then I do not think you will ever find that game
How can you say your not forced? If I'm in a player city and it gets attacked how am I not forced to pvp? As I said above the auction house in SWG had a cap of 3k which you only put newb items for sale.
You're not forced to go or partake in the player city feature of this game, and that's the only aspect of things which you will miss as a non-PVPer. And yes, AH is not the same, and so are other feathres. So yeah, its not a SWG clone, it is inspired by it and the closest thing you can find in today's MMO landscape.
I also wish they would change their mind about having a global AH, but on the flip side, to travel for so many minutes only to find a vendor in a completely empty town... That sucked and didn't help community in the slightest; only the odd/exceptional vendor run would actually put you in relation with other players. I wish there would be middle-ground they could find.
Incorrect you are not forced to PvP you can spend 100% of your time in PvE
Player cities will be subject to PvP sieges that is correct.
SWG had a auction house
You can have a house in the PvE zones with a vendor
Player cities in The Repopulation are based around an attack/defense game, sure it is different to SWG but the game does not claim to copy SWG completley - as a PvE player you can still do many things that you could in SWG but if you want to be able to do everything SWG ever had exactly the same then I do not think you will ever find that game
How can you say your not forced? If I'm in a player city and it gets attacked how am I not forced to pvp? As I said above the auction house in SWG had a cap of 3k which you only put newb items for sale.
You're not forced to go or partake in the player city feature of this game, and that's the only aspect of things which you will miss as a non-PVPer. And yes, AH is not the same, and so are other feathres. So yeah, its not a SWG clone, it is inspired by it and the closest thing you can find in today's MMO landscape.
I also wish they would change their mind about having a global AH, but on the flip side, to travel for so many minutes only to find a vendor in a completely empty town... That sucked and didn't help community in the slightest; only the odd/exceptional vendor run would actually put you in relation with other players. I wish there would be middle-ground they could find.
They should do it like SWG did after a certain patch. You could use the AH to browse all the player shops to buy your product, but you have to travel to the player shop to pick it up. This would be a great middle ground that would create a social environment close to what SWG had.
The reason I want to be in a player city is because I want a player shop in my house to sell my wares. I guess I'm just wasting my time for their not going to make any changes at this time of development.
Incorrect you are not forced to PvP you can spend 100% of your time in PvE
Player cities will be subject to PvP sieges that is correct.
SWG had a auction house
You can have a house in the PvE zones with a vendor
Player cities in The Repopulation are based around an attack/defense game, sure it is different to SWG but the game does not claim to copy SWG completley - as a PvE player you can still do many things that you could in SWG but if you want to be able to do everything SWG ever had exactly the same then I do not think you will ever find that game
How can you say your not forced? If I'm in a player city and it gets attacked how am I not forced to pvp? As I said above the auction house in SWG had a cap of 3k which you only put newb items for sale.
You're not forced to go or partake in the player city feature of this game, and that's the only aspect of things which you will miss as a non-PVPer. And yes, AH is not the same, and so are other feathres. So yeah, its not a SWG clone, it is inspired by it and the closest thing you can find in today's MMO landscape.
I also wish they would change their mind about having a global AH, but on the flip side, to travel for so many minutes only to find a vendor in a completely empty town... That sucked and didn't help community in the slightest; only the odd/exceptional vendor run would actually put you in relation with other players. I wish there would be middle-ground they could find.
They should do it like SWG did after a certain patch. You could use the AH to browse all the player shops to buy your product, but you have to travel to the player shop to pick it up. This would be a great middle ground that would create a social environment close to what SWG had.
The reason I want to be in a player city is because I want a player shop in my house to sell my wares. I guess I'm just wasting my time for their not going to make any changes at this time of development.
If they did this, then all the casuals would complain due to 'being forced!' to travel to other cities, which would likely get them killed being out in the open and traveling to possible enemy territory just to get their shiny. Isn't it neat to see more and more how this game wasn't made for a certain type of people?
This sums it up well. I got a email from someone that works on The Repop and they said that they don't want to add player cities to the PVE side of the game in fear of nobody would pvp. You could use the same answer for a pve server.
I sent a reply of why force players to do something they don't want, to enjoy something they do. I got no response from my reply.
It's really sad too because I REALLY looked forward to this game...now it will be just another desolate wasteland of griefers....don't companies want to make money???
It's perplexing. There is a survey they have though and I would tell all the PVE lovers to fill it out and say NO to open PVP.
The reason there is no PvE server planned (though we are leaving the door open for one if there is enough demand) actually has nothing to do with that. I'm not sure who sent you a PM or when it was, or what exactly it said, but I will address the PvE server concerns once again here.
The reality is that a PvE server sounds a lot more attractive to players than it should. The standard ruleset in Repop is a game that the vast majority of players can enjoy, even pure PvE types. The people who are freaking out on these forums about the PvP are all people who have not tested the game. The people who have tested the game understand that the PvE land mass is very large, and has everything that you need. And that this aspect of the game has gotten friendlier and friendlier towards PvE players throughout alpha. There is land set aside for housing and forming what we wouldn't consdier a player created city (because those are nation tied in our terminology and subject to siege) but which is basically a protected city where you can have vendors and npcs. Those areas have the full compliment of resources and boss tiers. You do not have to leave that area ever. And of course with expansion there will be additional planets, which can each have their own sets of rules based on what the players demand. We feel that a PvE server is not necessary, because the standard rule set is already optional PvE.
So why not just make that the whole world? Well because the vast majority of MMO players also feel that PvP is important. But how many games out there have sieges? How many of them have open world PvP with alliances and meaning? Not many. And of those that do exist, the majority (if not all) of them feature looting, FFA, etc. Those are features supported on the hardcore rule set, but the standard rule set views PvP as an optional and fun activity that we want to encourage players to participate in because we feel that a lot of them will enjoy it if they just step out there and give it a chance. But for that to work you have to sieges. You need to have some meaningful opportunities for politics, for alliances, and things of that nature that you just won't see in a pure PvE game. So we set that to happen in the center of the map where players can avoid it, or if they wish to participate they can cross into the contested areas and play. But there is a higher risk here, so there has to be some extra reward. In our case this is player created cities. While they don't have much over the PvE Housing areas, there is more of a coolness factor when those areas officially belong to a certain nation, when security forces can be built, arenas, and things of that nature to attract other players. And since there will be some players who simply won't venture there, it should be easier to locate resources or boss opportunities with less competition over them.
This is a game that plans to expand post-launch though. With each planet that is added the number of players that we can support per server will rise. It's a lot easier to distribute player populations across space or planets than it is to do it in a fully seamlessly connected world. Our number one priority is to make sure that we have healthy servers and that we don't launch too many servers so that we thin out our population. We feel like most MMO players can enjoy the standard rules, that the hardcore PvP crowd will be able to enjoy that server. But to us a PvE server is a watered down version of the game. You take that last paragraph and just erase it from the game. The (PvE) tag though will likely attract some of those fringe players, the ones who like some PvP but don't want to do it all the time and who generally see a (PvP) tag as meaning that there is forced PvP. Those players would enjoy the normal rule set in our opinion, but their habit is to play on PvE servers where they can participate in things like battlegrounds, because MMO players are generally creatures of habit. So now you lose a percentage of players from the regular server, who are experiencing a watered down version of the game, and they never get a chance to experience the nation and siege related features of the game as a result of it. The end result is that the standard server (where we expect the majority of people to play) is now split in half, with half of them missing on some of the key features of the game. It not only creates a watered down experience on one server, but it damages the population of another. If there is the player population to support it then it may be a worthwhile risk, but it's certainly not a trivial thing to jump into.
Our goal is to launch with as few servers as possible because we have an expansion plan post launch as mentioned earlier. That having been said, if there is a high enough population that we need to add additional servers we will examine other rule set types when we do. But whatever decisions we make, we always think them through. It's not as simple as just tagging a PvE title on something. What do you do with the content in those areas? How do you put nations in competition? What's the role of instanced or PvE Housing now? The truth is that in order to do a PvE server properly requires some major adjustments to those systems. Will supporting that rule set attract the other 12-30% percentage of players who feel that PvP is less important? Yeah maybe. But it will also likely suck a percentage of players who would enjoy the normal rule set away from the normal server, and would prevent those players from experiencing what we feel is one of the most fun aspects of the game and thin out server populations. From our own metrics on this 12% of players felt PvP was unimportant, another 13% felt it was only marginally important. But 75% felt it was moderately to extremely important, and those numbers fit into other marketing data that has been published or shared with us. So from our standpoint we may lose 12% of our audience not having a PvE server, but if we add one we can probably guess about 25% of the population from the standard rule set will move to the PvE server. The pure PvE audience is generally a theme park oriented audience (there haven't been many pure PvE sandboxes) who may not enjoy the game to begin with. So there are some dangers that we need to be conscious of in supporting a PvE server.
That isn't to say there may not be a PvE server at some point, but it's a much more complex decision process to support a new server set than most players realize. We've spent a lot of time analyzing market data, our own metric data, and current trends, and as a result of that we feel that the route we are taking is in the best interest of the game. My last suggestion to PvE only players would be to wait until the game launches and try it. You may be surprised.
This sums it up well. I got a email from someone that works on The Repop and they said that they don't want to add player cities to the PVE side of the game in fear of nobody would pvp. You could use the same answer for a pve server.
I sent a reply of why force players to do something they don't want, to enjoy something they do. I got no response from my reply.
It's really sad too because I REALLY looked forward to this game...now it will be just another desolate wasteland of griefers....don't companies want to make money???
It's perplexing. There is a survey they have though and I would tell all the PVE lovers to fill it out and say NO to open PVP.
The reason there is no PvE server planned (though we are leaving the door open for one if there is enough demand) actually has nothing to do with that. I'm not sure who sent you a PM or when it was, or what exactly it said, but I will address the PvE server concerns once again here.
The reality is that a PvE server sounds a lot more attractive to players than it should. The standard ruleset in Repop is a game that the vast majority of players can enjoy, even pure PvE types. The people who are freaking out on these forums about the PvP are all people who have not tested the game. The people who have tested the game understand that the PvE land mass is very large, and has everything that you need. And that this aspect of the game has gotten friendlier and friendlier towards PvE players throughout alpha. There is land set aside for housing and forming what we wouldn't consdier a player created city (because those are nation tied in our terminology and subject to siege) but which is basically a protected city where you can have vendors and npcs. Those areas have the full compliment of resources and boss tiers. You do not have to leave that area ever. And of course with expansion there will be additional planets, which can each have their own sets of rules based on what the players demand. We feel that a PvE server is not necessary, because the standard rule set is already optional PvE.
So why not just make that the whole world? Well because the vast majority of MMO players also feel that PvP is important. But how many games out there have sieges? How many of them have open world PvP with alliances and meaning? Not many. And of those that do exist, the majority (if not all) of them feature looting, FFA, etc. Those are features supported on the hardcore rule set, but the standard rule set views PvP as an optional and fun activity that we want to encourage players to participate in because we feel that a lot of them will enjoy it if they just step out there and give it a chance. But for that to work you have to sieges. You need to have some meaningful opportunities for politics, for alliances, and things of that nature that you just won't see in a pure PvE game. So we set that to happen in the center of the map where players can avoid it, or if they wish to participate they can cross into the contested areas and play. But there is a higher risk here, so there has to be some extra reward. In our case this is player created cities. While they don't have much over the PvE Housing areas, there is more of a coolness factor when those areas officially belong to a certain nation, when security forces can be built, arenas, and things of that nature to attract other players. And since there will be some players who simply won't venture there, it should be easier to locate resources or boss opportunities with less competition over them.
This is a game that plans to expand post-launch though. With each planet that is added the number of players that we can support per server will rise. It's a lot easier to distribute player populations across space or planets than it is to do it in a fully seamlessly connected world. Our number one priority is to make sure that we have healthy servers and that we don't launch too many servers so that we thin out our population. We feel like most MMO players can enjoy the standard rules, that the hardcore PvP crowd will be able to enjoy that server. But to us a PvE server is a watered down version of the game. You take that last paragraph and just erase it from the game. The (PvE) tag though will likely attract some of those fringe players, the ones who like some PvP but don't want to do it all the time and who generally see a (PvP) tag as meaning that there is forced PvP. Those players would enjoy the normal rule set in our opinion, but their habit is to play on PvE servers where they can participate in things like battlegrounds, because MMO players are generally creatures of habit. So now you lose a percentage of players from the regular server, who are experiencing a watered down version of the game, and they never get a chance to experience the nation and siege related features of the game as a result of it. The end result is that the standard server (where we expect the majority of people to play) is now split in half, with half of them missing on some of the key features of the game. It not only creates a watered down experience on one server, but it damages the population of another. If there is the player population to support it then it may be a worthwhile risk, but it's certainly not a trivial thing to jump into.
Our goal is to launch with as few servers as possible because we have an expansion plan post launch as mentioned earlier. That having been said, if there is a high enough population that we need to add additional servers we will examine other rule set types when we do. But whatever decisions we make, we always think them through. It's not as simple as just tagging a PvE title on something. What do you do with the content in those areas? How do you put nations in competition? What's the role of instanced or PvE Housing now? The truth is that in order to do a PvE server properly requires some major adjustments to those systems. Will supporting that rule set attract the other 30% of players who will not play a PvP game? Yeah maybe. But it will also likely suck a percentage of players who would enjoy the normal rule set away from the normal server, and would prevent those players from experiencing what we feel is one of the most fun aspects of the game and thin out server populations. And the pure PvE audience is generally a theme park oriented audience (how many pure PvE sandboxes have there been?) who may not enjoy the game to begin with. That isn't to say there may not be a PvE server at some point, but it's a much more complex decision process to support a new server set than most players realize. If you don't think we've spent a ton of time analyzing what we feel is best for this game then you are kidding yourselves.
Thanks for your post but I'm still confused about a few things. Here is what I want from a MMO and you tell me if i can have it in yours. I want a house in the world, non-instanced, that lets me run my business out of it. (no pvp) The most important thing to me is that I want to feel like I have a place in the world to run my shop, and meet people who visit it, to expand my business and or friendships in game. This is where SWG got it right with all the inter connection of game mechanics.
If I can have this my biggest concern is the auction house. If everyone can just one stop shop I don't see the player shops having much traffic which would kill the most important part I'm looking for in a MMO. Maybe I'm missing something here could you please explain more about how your auction house will work? Above you mention that SWG had a auction house which was correct. The difference is that it had a 3k cap so for the most part only newbie stuff was on the auction house with the rest on player shops. Why not have the auction house connect all player shops for browsing and purchase but you have to pick up the item from the player shop?
Thanks for your post but I'm still confused about a few things. Here is what I want from a MMO and you tell me if i can have it in yours. I want a house in the world non-instanced that lets me run my business out of it. (no pvp) The most important thing to me is i want to feel like I have a place in the world to run my shop and meet people that visit it to expand my business and or friendships in game. This is where SWG got it right with all the inter connection of game mechanics.
If I can have this my biggest concern is the auction house. If everyone can just one stop shop I don't see the player shops having much traffic which would kill the most important part I'm looking for in a MMO. Maybe I'm missing something here could you please explain more about how your auction house will work?
You can have a house like that with an NPC vendor in Repop. It was a stretch goal on the Kickstarter campaign that was reached. The new open world housing system ties into that. The original design of the game was in fact to have cities in the contested areas only with instanced housing in other places. Many players requsted open world PvE housing though. That was introduced into the alpha a few patches ago (though the vendors haven't been yet). Here's how it works.
A certain portion of areas is set aside and marked as Housing capable. When you enter into those areas you will be able to claim any unclaimed bits of land by using a crafted item which creates a square region that your character now owns. You can place houses, crafting machines, banks, plants, and soon vendors onto your plots. These plots of land are grouped together in most cases (though there are some smaller more isolated spaces) so players can form PvE towns which can not be sieged.
The auction and work order systems allow you to easily post and browse goods and avoid traveling to locations. There is a fee for purchasing with them, however. You can bypass that fee by walking to the vendor and purchasing it instead. You can use the auction system to find things, and then visit the shops to get a discount. That may not matter for some items, but for others it could be a large chunk of change.
Thanks for your post but I'm still confused about a few things. Here is what I want from a MMO and you tell me if i can have it in yours. I want a house in the world non-instanced that lets me run my business out of it. (no pvp) The most important thing to me is i want to feel like I have a place in the world to run my shop and meet people that visit it to expand my business and or friendships in game. This is where SWG got it right with all the inter connection of game mechanics.
If I can have this my biggest concern is the auction house. If everyone can just one stop shop I don't see the player shops having much traffic which would kill the most important part I'm looking for in a MMO. Maybe I'm missing something here could you please explain more about how your auction house will work?
You can have a house like that with an NPC vendor in Repop. It was a stretch goal on the Kickstarter campaign that was reached. The new open world housing system ties into that. The original design of the game was in fact to have cities in the contested areas only with instanced housing in other places. Many players requsted open world PvE housing though. That was introduced into the alpha a few patches ago (though the vendors haven't been yet). Here's how it works.
A certain portion of areas is set aside and marked as Housing capable. When you enter into those areas you will be able to claim any unclaimed bits of land by using a crafted item which creates a square region that your character now owns. You can place houses, crafting machines, banks, plants, and soon vendors onto your plots. These plots of land are grouped together in most cases (though there are some smaller more isolated spaces) so players can form PvE towns which can not be sieged.
The auction and work order systems allow you to easily post and browse goods and avoid traveling to locations. There is a fee for purchasing with them, however. You can bypass that fee by walking to the vendor and purchasing it instead. You can use the auction system to find things, and then visit the shops to get a discount. That may not matter for some items, but for others it could be a large chunk of change.
I see you have made a lot of changes over the last year that I like. One thing still worries me is the auction house. How much of a fee will there be to bypass the travel? I like what you said about lower end stuff the cost will be low but higher end stuff will have enough bite to make people travel. Another thing is how much money is going to be in the game. If it's easy to come by people will not care about the fee and just bypass the travel. Another thought is how about an option to flag your items travel only? Anyway thanks for your time you have given me hope again.
I'm soothed by this as well. I am someone who likes PvP but I understand the concerns of PvE only players who nonetheless want to be customers of The Repopulation. It seems that Repop has a PvP system that is there for those who want it but is not a necessary part of the game. If there are crafting rewards in the PvP zones then that is an incentive for crafters to buy those mats from adventurous types, so don't make them BoE or anything stupid like that please.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Also does anyone understand the access system for Repopulation right now? I have a friend who was considering dropping 100 bucks on it but felt like the access he would have was maybe some weekend in the future, but some of the text reads like servers are up 24/7
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Originally posted by Archlyte Also does anyone understand the access system for Repopulation right now? I have a friend who was considering dropping 100 bucks on it but felt like the access he would have was maybe some weekend in the future, but some of the text reads like servers are up 24/7
At this point, server is mostly up, but they don't guarantee they won't take it down anytime for patching in changes, etc.
I'm soothed by this as well. I am someone who likes PvP but I understand the concerns of PvE only players who nonetheless want to be customers of The Repopulation. It seems that Repop has a PvP system that is there for those who want it but is not a necessary part of the game. If there are crafting rewards in the PvP zones then that is an incentive for crafters to buy those mats from adventurous types, so don't make them BoE or anything stupid like that please.
BoE as in "Bind on Equip"? As far as I know, that term hasn't evoked as part of this game, and is extremely un-sandboxy to me. I doubt they will have such a mechanism.
I'm soothed by this as well. I am someone who likes PvP but I understand the concerns of PvE only players who nonetheless want to be customers of The Repopulation. It seems that Repop has a PvP system that is there for those who want it but is not a necessary part of the game. If there are crafting rewards in the PvP zones then that is an incentive for crafters to buy those mats from adventurous types, so don't make them BoE or anything stupid like that please.
BoE as in "Bind on Equip"? As far as I know, that term hasn't evoked as part of this game, and is extremely un-sandboxy to me. I doubt they will have such a mechanism.
Thank goodness. So you mean that if 100 bucks goes downrange you can get on and play during the week in alpha 3 not just weekends?
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Yes, alpha is now 24/7. We moved to weekend schedules for new testers when Alpha 3 began, but we then moved back to 24/7 around June unofficially, and officially in August.
Originally posted by Phry Originally posted by sludgebeard Originally posted by Retired This is the one. Checkout this informational video if you haven't already, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOvmzd6bGHU
How the hell did you just convince me in one video?
Bravo Sir.
Love to know that too, as its a private video that you can't watch without permission..
Hahaha..busted.
That's exactly what I was thinking, obvious alt account promotion detected.
To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
I believe the video linked there is the original Greenlight video. There was an issue with the original and it needed to be replaced. When that happened the old link was removed. The current video link for that video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8rtrr0YF8
So why not just make that the whole world? Well because the vast majority of MMO players also feel that PvP is important.
as a supporter of your game and the really good concept behind it i don't see a problem with the seperation of pvp and pve on the planned standard ruleset servers, so please keep up the good work. but i have to disagree on your remark (quoted above).
i don't know on which sources you base this thesis, but every recent data i got from surveys tells me the opposite. f.e. i have a group of students who are doing polls for their research about improving mmorpgs. so far they did around 850 interviews ( target is 1500) with players and only 7% are into pvp only, 42% want both (from these 42%. 1/3 like the system eve online is offering, 2/3 want pvp to be optional) and 51% want pve only mmorpgs. the interviews are done on the street, with the 'regular' people, because online polls don't cover the casual customers. in the last 2 years i saw similar data from other universities what leads me to my own thesis: the pve only players are the silent majority of mmorpg players. to clear things and thats important - we are talking about client based mmorpgs not mmos in general, which includes mobas or browser games and would deliver a complete other outcome. also these data are not international, they are taken in germany. while in asia and the united states you would get total different numbers, throughout the eu, canada and australia there should be only slight differences.
@Lanfea: I can't speak on the data your referring to, but that is very much in conflict with what we've seen. Publishers generally have data from their own supporters, there are third party resources, then things as simple as public or private polls.
Very few people prefer PvP only. PvE is always the most important aspect of gameplay no matter who your metrics are. Even most hardcore PvP types view PvE as very important. But over the years the average player has gone from disinterest in PvP to enjoying it.
I can't discuss any private external metrics, but I can share with you our own metrics and refer you to some publicly available poll data.
First we can start with a poll here at MMORPG.com which had 16k voters. This was simply asking what is the most important aspect of the gameplay PvP or PvE, but it gave a wide range of response options. The results:
PvP: 5.6%
PvP Focus With Some PvE: 10.3%
PvE: 14.7%
PvE Focus with Some PvP: 35.6%
Equal Parts PvP/PvE: 33.8%
Only 14.7% of those players did not feel that PvP had at least some importance, and that was 5 years ago, with the trend of more players enjoying PvP.
From our own internal metrics with several thousand players we asked players to rate the importance of PvP to them on a scale of 1 to 5. Only 12% of players rated PvP as a 1, and another 13% at 2. That leaves 75% of voters at 3 or higher with 3 and 5 having nearly identical votes, and 19% of votes being placed as 4.
Some other interesting data bits from our internal metrics showed that far more players (don't have those numbers in fromt of me but I believe it was 16% to 2% of those polled) selected that they felt that open world PvP was important vs. instanced PvP, and similar but slightly closer numbers indicated that players wanted some type of a consequence (land control, etc) in PvP as compared to those who said that no consequences being more desirable.
PvP isn't for everyone. Some players don't enjoy it, and we don't want to force them into it, so we set up a system of rules that allows them to completely avoid it and still have plenty of do in the game. But the vast majority of players do have at least some interest in PvP.
It actually wouldn't be so bad if those like you who seem to want to be a crafter also learned the other half of your 'profession'.... TRADE.
We had trade in SWG for players had to travel to player shops which created social contact and future trade. I did some of my best trade after I made contact with players at my shop. In Repop most will just buy from the auction house and not bother with travel to player vendors.
I'm hoping that someday games get smart and put some of the most badass mobs all over the place where the best harvesting mats are just so that crafters have to pay for bodyguards or learn what trade is. It's not the PvP you hate, it's doing any real work.
You think the mobs in SWG were easy? I had to get my wife many times to help me with placing my harvesters because of nests in the area.
EDIT:
Adding to that thought of the mobs trampling all over the top mat nodes, I say make them hard as hell to kill, and worthless for grinding and loot so that they're not being farmed thus giving these poor crafters an easy way out.
Also, for those that so loved the way SWG did PvP: It sucked. Especially if there were any 'crafters' on the field. They'd just run and hide in their house and logout. =P
What is wrong if players don't want to pvp? Why should you be allowed to force me to play the way you want to?
Grey...you and I are on the exact same page. And, I LOLed at the comment about badass mobs. Apparently that guy never had to kill a Kimogila for its scales, a peko peko albatross for its feather, a gurk king for his hide or a Krayt dragon for its tissue.
PvP isn't for everyone. Some players don't enjoy it, and we don't want to force them into it, so we set up a system of rules that allows them to completely avoid it and still have plenty of do in the game. But the vast majority of players do have at least some interest in PvP.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
You already can flag yourself. But you can't unflag yourself in a contested area. You can't have meaningful land control or open world PvP if players can unflag themselves in contested areas. Because players would simply turn the flag off, move to where they want to go and then turn it back on when they get to where they want to go.
To give an example of what I'm talking about here. In the contested areas there are control points and player cities who can be owned by different nations. There are security forces to protect their cities, and the control points automatically spawn for the least populated faction to provide some guard and NPC assistance in random locations throughout the wilderness (these are also conquerable by other factions). There is a war going on between the two factions and building cities or controlling control points in strategic locations not only provides nations with protection but also provides players with supply or adventuring points that they can compete over.
So in that system (our system) you can use those locations as launching points to control resources. You can form alliances and hostilities towards other nations. Any player from your faction or a nation that is friendly with your nation can not attack you, even in contested territory. However, rival nations can. They can cut you off from important resources or desirable hunting locations by controlling those points and having a presence of players. They can offer allied players safe passage inside of their cities, etc. They can create blockades or choke points to cut off friendly areas from hostiles. There are many extra elements of gameplay that just automatically happen because of auto-flagging in the contested areas.
For those who just don't want to ever participate in that, they can just stay in the protected areas (which I'll say again are very large). I'd guess the majority of players will split time between the two regions. venture into contested areas when they have the urge for PvP or have a group and want access to resources or bosses with less competition. But if they don't want to deal with it they'll stay in the protected areas. That's how we envision Repop at launch. Meaningful PvP that isn't forced or necessary.
Now let's say that PvP became optional even in those areas. If you disabled sieges like you would on a PvE server then the control points become the only thing to compete over as part of the ongoing war, but with rewards existing for those control points, your likely looking at a situation similar to Ilum at TOR's launch. Sides just taking turns conquering the control points for rewards.
But let's say you instead go with a hybrid approach. You do allow for some sieges which would auto-flag players only when they are in the siege area. Well now, because players can turn off the flag until that point all of the element of battling for resource control or land control is pretty much thrown out of the window. Players will turn their flag off, walk to where they want to go and then let it auto flag them when they are ready, or find some other player who was dumb enough to leave their flag on, and now they can wait until they are ready to pounce and then turn theirs on when they have the initiative which always puts the other player(s) at a disadvantage in PvP.
So while that solution does allow the players who would never venture out of their faction's territory a chance to safely explore the areas that they wouldn't have otherwise, in order for them to be able to accomplish it, it also removes any chance of having any meaningful PvP.
That having been said, there really isn't much reason to fear the contested areas. Yeah, occasionally your going to get ganked. It may not be a fair fight, gank squads typically hunt in groups and often have the initiative. It happens. You aren't getting looted, the only damage is to your ego. Just write it off as, "oh well" and continue about your business or if you get frustrated retreat to the protected regions or teleport home. That's a pretty simple solution compared to what your asking PvP types to sacrifice so that you can avoid it.
PvP isn't for everyone. Some players don't enjoy it, and we don't want to force them into it, so we set up a system of rules that allows them to completely avoid it and still have plenty of do in the game. But the vast majority of players do have at least some interest in PvP.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
You already can flag yourself. But you can't unflag yourself in a contested area. You can't have meaningful land control or open world PvP if players can unflag themselves in contested areas. Because players would simply turn the flag off, move to where they want to go and then turn it back on when they get to where they want to go.
To give an example of what I'm talking about here. In the contested areas there are control points and player cities who can be owned by different nations. There are security forces to protect their cities, and the control points automatically spawn for the least populated faction to provide some guard and NPC assistance in random locations throughout the wilderness (these are also conquerable by other factions). There is a war going on between the two factions and building cities or controlling control points in strategic locations not only provides nations with protection but also provides players with supply or adventuring points that they can compete over.
So in that system (our system) you can use those locations as launching points to control resources. You can form alliances and hostilities towards other nations. Any player from your faction or a nation that is friendly with your nation can not attack you, even in contested territory. However, rival nations can. They can cut you off from important resources or desirable hunting locations by controlling those points and having a presence of players. They can offer allied players safe passage inside of their cities, etc. They can create blockades or choke points to cut off friendly areas from hostiles. There are many extra elements of gameplay that just automatically happen because of auto-flagging in the contested areas.
For those who just don't want to ever participate in that, they can just stay in the protected areas (which I'll say again are very large). I'd guess the majority of players will split time between the two regions. venture into contested areas when they have the urge for PvP or have a group and want access to resources or bosses with less competition. But if they don't want to deal with it they'll stay in the protected areas. That's how we envision Repop at launch. Meaningful PvP that isn't forced or necessary.
Now let's say that PvP became optional even in those areas. If you disabled sieges like you would on a PvE server then the control points become the only thing to compete over as part of the ongoing war, but with rewards existing for those control points, your likely looking at a situation similar to Ilum at TOR's launch. Sides just taking turns conquering the control points for rewards.
But let's say you instead go with a hybrid approach. You do allow for some sieges which would auto-flag players only when they are in the siege area. Well now, because players can turn off the flag until that point all of the element of battling for resource control or land control is pretty much thrown out of the window. Players will turn their flag off, walk to where they want to go and then let it auto flag them when they are ready, or find some other player who was dumb enough to leave their flag on, and now they can wait until they are ready to pounce and then turn theirs on when they have the initiative which always puts the other player(s) at a disadvantage in PvP.
So while that solution does allow the players who would never venture out of their faction's territory a chance to safely explore the areas that they wouldn't have otherwise, in order for them to be able to accomplish it, it also removes any chance of having any meaningful PvP.
That having been said, there really isn't much reason to fear the contested areas. Yeah, occasionally your going to get ganked. It may not be a fair fight, gank squads typically hunt in groups and often have the initiative. It happens. You aren't getting looted, the only damage is to your ego. Just write it off as, "oh well" and continue about your business or if you get frustrated retreat to the protected regions or teleport home. That's a pretty simple solution compared to what your asking PvP types to sacrifice so that you can avoid it.
Your rundown definitely made my mind up to not play The Repopulation. I leveled my first max level WoW character on a PVP server due to friends playing on one. It's more than ego damage to be corpse camped and ganked endlessly when you are trying to quest or harvest resources. The prospect of a potential SWG type game had me excited, but it's looking to be a misleading description. You could have massive scale PVP in SWG and still enjoy the entire map without the PVP element. I'll remain hopeful that you implement a PVE friendly system at some point.
PvP isn't for everyone. Some players don't enjoy it, and we don't want to force them into it, so we set up a system of rules that allows them to completely avoid it and still have plenty of do in the game. But the vast majority of players do have at least some interest in PvP.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
God no. PVP flagging is such a terrible concept.
Are you talking from experience or just thought process. I have played with a flagging system and it worked very well.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
You already can flag yourself. But you can't unflag yourself in a contested area. You can't have meaningful land control or open world PvP if players can unflag themselves in contested areas. Because players would simply turn the flag off, move to where they want to go and then turn it back on when they get to where they want to go.
To give an example of what I'm talking about here. In the contested areas there are control points and player cities who can be owned by different nations. There are security forces to protect their cities, and the control points automatically spawn for the least populated faction to provide some guard and NPC assistance in random locations throughout the wilderness (these are also conquerable by other factions). There is a war going on between the two factions and building cities or controlling control points in strategic locations not only provides nations with protection but also provides players with supply or adventuring points that they can compete over.
So in that system (our system) you can use those locations as launching points to control resources. You can form alliances and hostilities towards other nations. Any player from your faction or a nation that is friendly with your nation can not attack you, even in contested territory. However, rival nations can. They can cut you off from important resources or desirable hunting locations by controlling those points and having a presence of players. They can offer allied players safe passage inside of their cities, etc. They can create blockades or choke points to cut off friendly areas from hostiles. There are many extra elements of gameplay that just automatically happen because of auto-flagging in the contested areas.
For those who just don't want to ever participate in that, they can just stay in the protected areas (which I'll say again are very large). I'd guess the majority of players will split time between the two regions. venture into contested areas when they have the urge for PvP or have a group and want access to resources or bosses with less competition. But if they don't want to deal with it they'll stay in the protected areas. That's how we envision Repop at launch. Meaningful PvP that isn't forced or necessary.
Now let's say that PvP became optional even in those areas. If you disabled sieges like you would on a PvE server then the control points become the only thing to compete over as part of the ongoing war, but with rewards existing for those control points, your likely looking at a situation similar to Ilum at TOR's launch. Sides just taking turns conquering the control points for rewards.
But let's say you instead go with a hybrid approach. You do allow for some sieges which would auto-flag players only when they are in the siege area. Well now, because players can turn off the flag until that point all of the element of battling for resource control or land control is pretty much thrown out of the window. Players will turn their flag off, walk to where they want to go and then let it auto flag them when they are ready, or find some other player who was dumb enough to leave their flag on, and now they can wait until they are ready to pounce and then turn theirs on when they have the initiative which always puts the other player(s) at a disadvantage in PvP.
So while that solution does allow the players who would never venture out of their faction's territory a chance to safely explore the areas that they wouldn't have otherwise, in order for them to be able to accomplish it, it also removes any chance of having any meaningful PvP.
That having been said, there really isn't much reason to fear the contested areas. Yeah, occasionally your going to get ganked. It may not be a fair fight, gank squads typically hunt in groups and often have the initiative. It happens. You aren't getting looted, the only damage is to your ego. Just write it off as, "oh well" and continue about your business or if you get frustrated retreat to the protected regions or teleport home. That's a pretty simple solution compared to what your asking PvP types to sacrifice so that you can avoid it.
Does a contract system allow for players to get other players to expose themselves (to danger) in order to get an order of goods from the dangerous area? Can the PvE guy essentially create a task for 10 PvP area Widget mats?
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
The answer to your question is yes, Archlyte, but the mats are not specific to the pvp areas. None of them are. But through the buy order system you can specify X number of Y quality material.
Comments
Not true, I'm still playing SWG =P
They should do it like SWG did after a certain patch. You could use the AH to browse all the player shops to buy your product, but you have to travel to the player shop to pick it up. This would be a great middle ground that would create a social environment close to what SWG had.
The reason I want to be in a player city is because I want a player shop in my house to sell my wares. I guess I'm just wasting my time for their not going to make any changes at this time of development.
If they did this, then all the casuals would complain due to 'being forced!' to travel to other cities, which would likely get them killed being out in the open and traveling to possible enemy territory just to get their shiny. Isn't it neat to see more and more how this game wasn't made for a certain type of people?
The reason there is no PvE server planned (though we are leaving the door open for one if there is enough demand) actually has nothing to do with that. I'm not sure who sent you a PM or when it was, or what exactly it said, but I will address the PvE server concerns once again here.
The reality is that a PvE server sounds a lot more attractive to players than it should. The standard ruleset in Repop is a game that the vast majority of players can enjoy, even pure PvE types. The people who are freaking out on these forums about the PvP are all people who have not tested the game. The people who have tested the game understand that the PvE land mass is very large, and has everything that you need. And that this aspect of the game has gotten friendlier and friendlier towards PvE players throughout alpha. There is land set aside for housing and forming what we wouldn't consdier a player created city (because those are nation tied in our terminology and subject to siege) but which is basically a protected city where you can have vendors and npcs. Those areas have the full compliment of resources and boss tiers. You do not have to leave that area ever. And of course with expansion there will be additional planets, which can each have their own sets of rules based on what the players demand. We feel that a PvE server is not necessary, because the standard rule set is already optional PvE.
So why not just make that the whole world? Well because the vast majority of MMO players also feel that PvP is important. But how many games out there have sieges? How many of them have open world PvP with alliances and meaning? Not many. And of those that do exist, the majority (if not all) of them feature looting, FFA, etc. Those are features supported on the hardcore rule set, but the standard rule set views PvP as an optional and fun activity that we want to encourage players to participate in because we feel that a lot of them will enjoy it if they just step out there and give it a chance. But for that to work you have to sieges. You need to have some meaningful opportunities for politics, for alliances, and things of that nature that you just won't see in a pure PvE game. So we set that to happen in the center of the map where players can avoid it, or if they wish to participate they can cross into the contested areas and play. But there is a higher risk here, so there has to be some extra reward. In our case this is player created cities. While they don't have much over the PvE Housing areas, there is more of a coolness factor when those areas officially belong to a certain nation, when security forces can be built, arenas, and things of that nature to attract other players. And since there will be some players who simply won't venture there, it should be easier to locate resources or boss opportunities with less competition over them.
This is a game that plans to expand post-launch though. With each planet that is added the number of players that we can support per server will rise. It's a lot easier to distribute player populations across space or planets than it is to do it in a fully seamlessly connected world. Our number one priority is to make sure that we have healthy servers and that we don't launch too many servers so that we thin out our population. We feel like most MMO players can enjoy the standard rules, that the hardcore PvP crowd will be able to enjoy that server. But to us a PvE server is a watered down version of the game. You take that last paragraph and just erase it from the game. The (PvE) tag though will likely attract some of those fringe players, the ones who like some PvP but don't want to do it all the time and who generally see a (PvP) tag as meaning that there is forced PvP. Those players would enjoy the normal rule set in our opinion, but their habit is to play on PvE servers where they can participate in things like battlegrounds, because MMO players are generally creatures of habit. So now you lose a percentage of players from the regular server, who are experiencing a watered down version of the game, and they never get a chance to experience the nation and siege related features of the game as a result of it. The end result is that the standard server (where we expect the majority of people to play) is now split in half, with half of them missing on some of the key features of the game. It not only creates a watered down experience on one server, but it damages the population of another. If there is the player population to support it then it may be a worthwhile risk, but it's certainly not a trivial thing to jump into.
Our goal is to launch with as few servers as possible because we have an expansion plan post launch as mentioned earlier. That having been said, if there is a high enough population that we need to add additional servers we will examine other rule set types when we do. But whatever decisions we make, we always think them through. It's not as simple as just tagging a PvE title on something. What do you do with the content in those areas? How do you put nations in competition? What's the role of instanced or PvE Housing now? The truth is that in order to do a PvE server properly requires some major adjustments to those systems. Will supporting that rule set attract the other 12-30% percentage of players who feel that PvP is less important? Yeah maybe. But it will also likely suck a percentage of players who would enjoy the normal rule set away from the normal server, and would prevent those players from experiencing what we feel is one of the most fun aspects of the game and thin out server populations. From our own metrics on this 12% of players felt PvP was unimportant, another 13% felt it was only marginally important. But 75% felt it was moderately to extremely important, and those numbers fit into other marketing data that has been published or shared with us. So from our standpoint we may lose 12% of our audience not having a PvE server, but if we add one we can probably guess about 25% of the population from the standard rule set will move to the PvE server. The pure PvE audience is generally a theme park oriented audience (there haven't been many pure PvE sandboxes) who may not enjoy the game to begin with. So there are some dangers that we need to be conscious of in supporting a PvE server.
That isn't to say there may not be a PvE server at some point, but it's a much more complex decision process to support a new server set than most players realize. We've spent a lot of time analyzing market data, our own metric data, and current trends, and as a result of that we feel that the route we are taking is in the best interest of the game. My last suggestion to PvE only players would be to wait until the game launches and try it. You may be surprised.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Thanks for your post but I'm still confused about a few things. Here is what I want from a MMO and you tell me if i can have it in yours. I want a house in the world, non-instanced, that lets me run my business out of it. (no pvp) The most important thing to me is that I want to feel like I have a place in the world to run my shop, and meet people who visit it, to expand my business and or friendships in game. This is where SWG got it right with all the inter connection of game mechanics.
If I can have this my biggest concern is the auction house. If everyone can just one stop shop I don't see the player shops having much traffic which would kill the most important part I'm looking for in a MMO. Maybe I'm missing something here could you please explain more about how your auction house will work? Above you mention that SWG had a auction house which was correct. The difference is that it had a 3k cap so for the most part only newbie stuff was on the auction house with the rest on player shops. Why not have the auction house connect all player shops for browsing and purchase but you have to pick up the item from the player shop?
You can have a house like that with an NPC vendor in Repop. It was a stretch goal on the Kickstarter campaign that was reached. The new open world housing system ties into that. The original design of the game was in fact to have cities in the contested areas only with instanced housing in other places. Many players requsted open world PvE housing though. That was introduced into the alpha a few patches ago (though the vendors haven't been yet). Here's how it works.
A certain portion of areas is set aside and marked as Housing capable. When you enter into those areas you will be able to claim any unclaimed bits of land by using a crafted item which creates a square region that your character now owns. You can place houses, crafting machines, banks, plants, and soon vendors onto your plots. These plots of land are grouped together in most cases (though there are some smaller more isolated spaces) so players can form PvE towns which can not be sieged.
The auction and work order systems allow you to easily post and browse goods and avoid traveling to locations. There is a fee for purchasing with them, however. You can bypass that fee by walking to the vendor and purchasing it instead. You can use the auction system to find things, and then visit the shops to get a discount. That may not matter for some items, but for others it could be a large chunk of change.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
I see you have made a lot of changes over the last year that I like. One thing still worries me is the auction house. How much of a fee will there be to bypass the travel? I like what you said about lower end stuff the cost will be low but higher end stuff will have enough bite to make people travel. Another thing is how much money is going to be in the game. If it's easy to come by people will not care about the fee and just bypass the travel. Another thought is how about an option to flag your items travel only?
Anyway thanks for your time you have given me hope again.
I'm soothed by this as well. I am someone who likes PvP but I understand the concerns of PvE only players who nonetheless want to be customers of The Repopulation. It seems that Repop has a PvP system that is there for those who want it but is not a necessary part of the game. If there are crafting rewards in the PvP zones then that is an incentive for crafters to buy those mats from adventurous types, so don't make them BoE or anything stupid like that please.
At this point, server is mostly up, but they don't guarantee they won't take it down anytime for patching in changes, etc.
BoE as in "Bind on Equip"? As far as I know, that term hasn't evoked as part of this game, and is extremely un-sandboxy to me. I doubt they will have such a mechanism.
Thank goodness. So you mean that if 100 bucks goes downrange you can get on and play during the week in alpha 3 not just weekends?
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
How the hell did you just convince me in one video?
Bravo Sir.
Love to know that too, as its a private video that you can't watch without permission..
Hahaha..busted.
That's exactly what I was thinking, obvious alt account promotion detected.To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
as a supporter of your game and the really good concept behind it i don't see a problem with the seperation of pvp and pve on the planned standard ruleset servers, so please keep up the good work. but i have to disagree on your remark (quoted above).
i don't know on which sources you base this thesis, but every recent data i got from surveys tells me the opposite. f.e. i have a group of students who are doing polls for their research about improving mmorpgs. so far they did around 850 interviews ( target is 1500) with players and only 7% are into pvp only, 42% want both (from these 42%. 1/3 like the system eve online is offering, 2/3 want pvp to be optional) and 51% want pve only mmorpgs. the interviews are done on the street, with the 'regular' people, because online polls don't cover the casual customers. in the last 2 years i saw similar data from other universities what leads me to my own thesis: the pve only players are the silent majority of mmorpg players. to clear things and thats important - we are talking about client based mmorpgs not mmos in general, which includes mobas or browser games and would deliver a complete other outcome. also these data are not international, they are taken in germany. while in asia and the united states you would get total different numbers, throughout the eu, canada and australia there should be only slight differences.
@Lanfea: I can't speak on the data your referring to, but that is very much in conflict with what we've seen. Publishers generally have data from their own supporters, there are third party resources, then things as simple as public or private polls.
Very few people prefer PvP only. PvE is always the most important aspect of gameplay no matter who your metrics are. Even most hardcore PvP types view PvE as very important. But over the years the average player has gone from disinterest in PvP to enjoying it.
I can't discuss any private external metrics, but I can share with you our own metrics and refer you to some publicly available poll data.
First we can start with a poll here at MMORPG.com which had 16k voters. This was simply asking what is the most important aspect of the gameplay PvP or PvE, but it gave a wide range of response options. The results:
PvP: 5.6%
PvP Focus With Some PvE: 10.3%PvE: 14.7%
PvE Focus with Some PvP: 35.6%
Equal Parts PvP/PvE: 33.8%
Only 14.7% of those players did not feel that PvP had at least some importance, and that was 5 years ago, with the trend of more players enjoying PvP.
From our own internal metrics with several thousand players we asked players to rate the importance of PvP to them on a scale of 1 to 5. Only 12% of players rated PvP as a 1, and another 13% at 2. That leaves 75% of voters at 3 or higher with 3 and 5 having nearly identical votes, and 19% of votes being placed as 4.
Some other interesting data bits from our internal metrics showed that far more players (don't have those numbers in fromt of me but I believe it was 16% to 2% of those polled) selected that they felt that open world PvP was important vs. instanced PvP, and similar but slightly closer numbers indicated that players wanted some type of a consequence (land control, etc) in PvP as compared to those who said that no consequences being more desirable.
PvP isn't for everyone. Some players don't enjoy it, and we don't want to force them into it, so we set up a system of rules that allows them to completely avoid it and still have plenty of do in the game. But the vast majority of players do have at least some interest in PvP.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
Grey...you and I are on the exact same page. And, I LOLed at the comment about badass mobs. Apparently that guy never had to kill a Kimogila for its scales, a peko peko albatross for its feather, a gurk king for his hide or a Krayt dragon for its tissue.
Then give us the ability to flag ourselves for PVP if we choose to do it. That way it opens the map up for everyone to enjoy. PVPers can enjoy 100% of the game while PVEers are restricted to portions of the map.
You already can flag yourself. But you can't unflag yourself in a contested area. You can't have meaningful land control or open world PvP if players can unflag themselves in contested areas. Because players would simply turn the flag off, move to where they want to go and then turn it back on when they get to where they want to go.
To give an example of what I'm talking about here. In the contested areas there are control points and player cities who can be owned by different nations. There are security forces to protect their cities, and the control points automatically spawn for the least populated faction to provide some guard and NPC assistance in random locations throughout the wilderness (these are also conquerable by other factions). There is a war going on between the two factions and building cities or controlling control points in strategic locations not only provides nations with protection but also provides players with supply or adventuring points that they can compete over.
So in that system (our system) you can use those locations as launching points to control resources. You can form alliances and hostilities towards other nations. Any player from your faction or a nation that is friendly with your nation can not attack you, even in contested territory. However, rival nations can. They can cut you off from important resources or desirable hunting locations by controlling those points and having a presence of players. They can offer allied players safe passage inside of their cities, etc. They can create blockades or choke points to cut off friendly areas from hostiles. There are many extra elements of gameplay that just automatically happen because of auto-flagging in the contested areas.
For those who just don't want to ever participate in that, they can just stay in the protected areas (which I'll say again are very large). I'd guess the majority of players will split time between the two regions. venture into contested areas when they have the urge for PvP or have a group and want access to resources or bosses with less competition. But if they don't want to deal with it they'll stay in the protected areas. That's how we envision Repop at launch. Meaningful PvP that isn't forced or necessary.
Now let's say that PvP became optional even in those areas. If you disabled sieges like you would on a PvE server then the control points become the only thing to compete over as part of the ongoing war, but with rewards existing for those control points, your likely looking at a situation similar to Ilum at TOR's launch. Sides just taking turns conquering the control points for rewards.
But let's say you instead go with a hybrid approach. You do allow for some sieges which would auto-flag players only when they are in the siege area. Well now, because players can turn off the flag until that point all of the element of battling for resource control or land control is pretty much thrown out of the window. Players will turn their flag off, walk to where they want to go and then let it auto flag them when they are ready, or find some other player who was dumb enough to leave their flag on, and now they can wait until they are ready to pounce and then turn theirs on when they have the initiative which always puts the other player(s) at a disadvantage in PvP.
So while that solution does allow the players who would never venture out of their faction's territory a chance to safely explore the areas that they wouldn't have otherwise, in order for them to be able to accomplish it, it also removes any chance of having any meaningful PvP.
That having been said, there really isn't much reason to fear the contested areas. Yeah, occasionally your going to get ganked. It may not be a fair fight, gank squads typically hunt in groups and often have the initiative. It happens. You aren't getting looted, the only damage is to your ego. Just write it off as, "oh well" and continue about your business or if you get frustrated retreat to the protected regions or teleport home. That's a pretty simple solution compared to what your asking PvP types to sacrifice so that you can avoid it.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
God no. PVP flagging is such a terrible concept.
Your rundown definitely made my mind up to not play The Repopulation. I leveled my first max level WoW character on a PVP server due to friends playing on one. It's more than ego damage to be corpse camped and ganked endlessly when you are trying to quest or harvest resources. The prospect of a potential SWG type game had me excited, but it's looking to be a misleading description. You could have massive scale PVP in SWG and still enjoy the entire map without the PVP element. I'll remain hopeful that you implement a PVE friendly system at some point.
Are you talking from experience or just thought process. I have played with a flagging system and it worked very well.
Does a contract system allow for players to get other players to expose themselves (to danger) in order to get an order of goods from the dangerous area? Can the PvE guy essentially create a task for 10 PvP area Widget mats?