Originally posted by Amaranthar Yes, I'd love to get away from the level progression grind. I'd much rather have a world to play in, where exploration can be rewarded with discovery, and the world changes due to what player communities do, what NPCs do, and even natural changes like disasters. I'd like a world where everyone isn't winning big things all the time, where the little victories mean something, where things are challenging every day, and success isn't guaranteed.
Exactly, in such a agme however, competition would be a must. Without loss there is no gain.
And pvp comabt is just one form of competition. A game that turns this and other competitive plays into tools that allow the reaching of goals other then pure character advancement would be what I'd want.
And I think I've largely found that in Eve Online. The pvp system is essentially nearly open there, but with the checks and balances that give the right comfort level needed to still cater to mroe then the hardocre-only pvp combat player.
What's more is that in that game pvp combat is indeed as much of a tool as it is a goal. And other then an earlier poster said about it's role in Eve-Online, territorial conquest does play a role beyond placing your flag on some land noone cares for anyway there. It's about competition for resources, for opportunity. And it works rather well imo.
There is no 100% secure zone in Eve-Online. There is no place where you are not affected by the pruely player-driven market. And there is hardly a zone left where even the most basic resources don't get competed for anymore. Thus, this competition that uses combat, industry/crafting and politics (a.o.) as tools becomes a goal in itself. Et Voila, we have a game that drives itself, delivers large amounts of content of itself, and no longer has character developmetn as the main goal for most players.
And pvp comabt is just one form of competition. A game that turns this and other competitive plays into tools that allow the reaching of goals other then pure character advancement would be what I'd want. And I think I've largely found that in Eve Online. The pvp system is essentially nearly open there, but with the checks and balances that give the right comfort level needed to still cater to mroe then the hardocre-only pvp combat player.
What's more is that in that game pvp combat is indeed as much of a tool as it is a goal. And other then an earlier poster said about it's role in Eve-Online, territorial conquest does play a role beyond placing your flag on some land noone cares for anyway there. It's about competition for resources, for opportunity. And it works rather well imo. There is no 100% secure zone in Eve-Online. There is no place where you are not affected by the pruely player-driven market. And there is hardly a zone left where even the most basic resources don't get competed for anymore. Thus, this competition that uses combat, industry/crafting and politics (a.o.) as tools becomes a goal in itself. Et Voila, we have a game that drives itself, delivers large amounts of content of itself, and no longer has character developmetn as the main goal for most players.
Alright fan boi .. I'll heartily disagree with this one. Lemmie get this straight; Eve-online reminds me of another long forgotten mmo called Shadowbane.
A -ton- of ground breaking; awesome ideas.
Implimented abhorridly.
Eve online has a free pvp system; where as in 'safe' spots in the game people 'cannot' attack without consiquence. (Read up on Zombie and the Yulai Incident) There's a video of them taking out Concord (the cop/guards in the game) .. they all were promptly banned.
Next..
This pvp system simply rejects new players unlike the original article claimed.
#1 A large corp would -not- accept a 'noob' character. Not because they don't need the new players; they don't need the spies. CCP/Eve-Online fails to distinguish the line between game and reality. I had an on going incident where another person actually broke into a private teamspeak server of mine from eve, the gm's considered this 'fair play'. Us government considers this illegal.
#2. Eve is boring and tedious; Gate camping/Ganking is very much alive and well; The standing/faction losses you take for killing someone (in eve called sec status) are completely pointless. I can kill 5+ people.. and their pods. Hit 0.0 in an interceptor solo for 1 hour and be up to 'Honored' or around 5.0+ 'sec standing' again.
#3 Eve encourages ganking (I repeat); Good system aside from the above mentioned problems (that and there is either combat or watching an asteroid spin around aka. mining) It allll goes out the window when you can war declare.
War declarations in eve: Pay a couple million isk (Equivilant to about 2 gold in WoW for example) to have 1 week of unrestricted ganking and griefing on anyone in the given guild/corporation.
The only viable/suggested solution is to not join a corp; thus defeating the purpose of the game in it's whole.
Yes eve-online has a couple good ideas.. done horribly. The single shard thing is a buncha hot air, all that warping between zones is missing is ... Loading ... ;
Only reason they hold to the single shard idea is its their only 'claim' for the mmo community. 200k total subscriber base is -very- low for a current day mmo.
Only thing I can give the game credit for is it's Dev's which are seemily friendly open and as honest as possible. The GM's are just the regular run of the mill asshats.
Some interesting ideas; hopefully some will be incorporated/learned from aside from the copy cat thing going on with cut/paste mmorpgs latley.
In short eve is a step done wrong; but a step none the less.
I have already made multiple post about this so I'm not going to repeat myself over and over. I am hear to show support of a game that allows for the different freedoms that come with open pvp. It isn't even a mystery to me how you would create this game but I have already said it to many times.
Alright fan boi .. I'll heartily disagree with this one. Lemmie get this straight; Eve-online reminds me of another long forgotten mmo called Shadowbane. A -ton- of ground breaking; awesome ideas. Implimented abhorridly. Eve online has a free pvp system; where as in 'safe' spots in the game people 'cannot' attack without consiquence. (Read up on Zombie and the Yulai Incident) There's a video of them taking out Concord (the cop/guards in the game) .. they all were promptly banned. Next.. This pvp system simply rejects new players unlike the original article claimed. #1 A large corp would -not- accept a 'noob' character. Not because they don't need the new players; they don't need the spies. CCP/Eve-Online fails to distinguish the line between game and reality. I had an on going incident where another person actually broke into a private teamspeak server of mine from eve, the gm's considered this 'fair play'. Us government considers this illegal. #2. Eve is boring and tedious; Gate camping/Ganking is very much alive and well; The standing/faction losses you take for killing someone (in eve called sec status) are completely pointless. I can kill 5+ people.. and their pods. Hit 0.0 in an interceptor solo for 1 hour and be up to 'Honored' or around 5.0+ 'sec standing' again. #3 Eve encourages ganking (I repeat); Good system aside from the above mentioned problems (that and there is either combat or watching an asteroid spin around aka. mining) It allll goes out the window when you can war declare. War declarations in eve: Pay a couple million isk (Equivilant to about 2 gold in WoW for example) to have 1 week of unrestricted ganking and griefing on anyone in the given guild/corporation. The only viable/suggested solution is to not join a corp; thus defeating the purpose of the game in it's whole. Yes eve-online has a couple good ideas.. done horribly. The single shard thing is a buncha hot air, all that warping between zones is missing is ... Loading ... ; Only reason they hold to the single shard idea is its their only 'claim' for the mmo community. 200k total subscriber base is -very- low for a current day mmo. Only thing I can give the game credit for is it's Dev's which are seemily friendly open and as honest as possible. The GM's are just the regular run of the mill asshats. Some interesting ideas; hopefully some will be incorporated/learned from aside from the copy cat thing going on with cut/paste mmorpgs latley. In short eve is a step done wrong; but a step none the less. Not the answer. -BliTZ HaCKER-
Ok, first of all. I've been in Eve since just about the release date.
I know about the 'yulai incident', since I was atually there at the time. The whole thin is now actually returning as a hot topic in the community because of a new player influx and their anti-open pvp standpoints.
PvP in the high security areas is NOT prohibited by any means. Yes. it is immediately and undeniably followed by the loss of your ship. But losing your ship does not equal losing the engagement in Eve. You can still inflict more damage then you suffer. And CCP have recently actually affirmed that this is what they intend to happen. Evading the consequences is not allowed, but creating a situation in which the benefits outweigh them is,
The zombie inc players got banned because of disobeying direct GM orders.
Now, to the rest of your points.
1. breaking into TS servers is lame, but not something CCP can play a riole in in terms of punishment. If your own laws allow you to prosecute for it, by all means do because you should. However, breaking in is something else then getting the password from someone you trusted with it.
Also, new players are widely welcomed by established corporations. I;m part of one of the most powerfull corporations in the game and we do accept new players under certain circumstances. Security being a key element in the recruitment yes.
2. Utter rubbish. It takes a minimum of one month of horrendously boring grindage to get your sec status back to positive from a -10. I'd agree that that is broken tho, those consequences should be player determined, not simply a matter of rule enforcement by AI or game mechanics.
3. Eve encourages ganking yes. It's not a 'fair' game by any means. It's all about power, accumulation and use of it. That means differences in power, adn thus people getting the short end of the stick.
Darwinism is a key element of Eve gameplay. But imo, open pvp is exactly that: player versus player competition across all fronts: from industry to politics to combat to resources. Evertyhing a tool in teh quest for power in your virtual-world competition.
And wether you like it or not, completely balanced and finetuned or not, it's basically what Eve Online is. Open, player-empowered, nearly unrestricted pvp.
Ok, I can't give a proper reply, since I'd have to read all 3 pages of suggestions so far, but this exact topic is what I've devoted almost all of my mental energy when it comes to MMOs to ever since their invention. It's a common topic at www.pker.org, where I am a regular.
In summary, social advancement, and giving players the tools to police themselves, and indirect influence on the flow of the game from the creators all create an environment where open PvP actually enhances roleplaying and discourages being a senseless griefer. Things like tracking, control of NPC guard behavior, player run government, guilds that actually have meaning all increase players investment in the world, cause your reputation to mean more than your stats, and therefore greatly dicourage mindless killing .
As a side note, I am a firm believer that Permadeath is not a solution for an open PvP system. It punishes people for being ganked, and actually discourages all PvP, more for people who care about their characters (the real players) than players who are just playing to gank and don't care if they get permadeath.
If you'd like examples of how these sorts of systems have been implemented and created living breathing worlds full of roleplaying and entirely open PvP look at muds like Avalon and Achaea. Note that Achaea is now one of the most popular MUDs on the net, spawning 3 or 4 sub games based on this sort of open PvP system.
I feel that Politics and also Player policied society would work even with pkers who try to use mule accounts and so forth.
Where Players can create game rules that will govern player actions.
Players will be able to setup various degree of consiquences based on your reputation.
from not being able to enter towns and trade for some time. To the point of your account being disabled complete.
Games need to associate your character with your account. so that if your actions are so that the account is disabled. You will not be able to use other characters you have created. In essence you would have to close this account complete and sign up for subscription again. This will give heads up of potential troublemakers to the game.
Now this will not stop you from play evil characters. But there is a difference between playing an evil character who goes around murdering other characters and those who are evil for selfish reasons. If you want to play a murderous villain just know that you will pay the consiquences of those actions in the end. As to why you would want to play such a character is a totally different question that i will not ask.
Another subset to this rule would be things like anyone caught try to trade with such players or communicate with them will subject to penalties themselves.
And finally their should be a curve setup between new players and veterans. New players should be able to advance in stats fast in the beginning while veterans should be given the option to able to give up some high stats for more experience. This would balance the game out well. Brawns vs skills i have always said that this is not the best solution but a darn good one in the search to balance the newbie vs vets pvp in-balance problem.
And wether you like it or not, completely balanced and finetuned or not, it's basically what Eve Online is. Open, player-empowered, nearly unrestricted pvp.
I agree that EVE is full of different styles of competitive activity that can be broadly defined as PvP and that it excels at many of them. However most of these activities are industrial, social and political and involve little to no combat. This is not a negative remark, it's just the way EVE mechanics work. At a certain level EVE is predominantly run by the players...even though at the end of the day CCP has the ultimate control.
Personally when I think of the acronym PvP and especially in terms of OPEN PvP, I am thinking of largely unrestricted COMBAT. Many facets of EVE are very unrestricted, but to be frank the combat in EVE is loaded with restrictions to the point where it can only be called OPEN by the vaguest of definitions.
Moving on from EVE, and looking at combat PVP as a whole, personally I would like to see more emphasis on individual player skill and rewarding the small group or solo PvP'er playstyle. Large group PvP can be fun, but 99% of the time large guilds dominate PvP games due to zerg mentality regardless of player skill. A system that allows smaller groups to compete fairly against even vastly superior numbers would be very appealing to me. A large group can receive the bonus of safety in numbers but in return they become a bigger overall target and more susceptible to disorganisation, whereas a smaller group may be more vulnerable, yet much tighter and stealthy. Maybe some sort of bonus system could be employed with this risk vs. reward idea in mind.
Darkfall and a few other MMORPG's in the works seem to have cottoned on to this idea of player skill being more important than numbers or uber gear and their combat system looks pretty interesting. If anyone is interested in seeing roughly what this style of combat will be like, the Darkfall devs have stated that it's style will be largely similar to the Mount and Blade system. Mount and Blade is still in development, but can be found here http://www.taleworlds.com/index.html, and is free to trial. Try out the arena it is addictive!
I used to play Asheron's Call where there was one Open PvP sever called Darktide that was complete anarchy. Oneone could kill anyone else and loot their corpse, there was no safe area for low levels and no built in penalty for killing. As a result, starting players lived in constant fear and if you weren't part of a strong group, just entering town to buy and sell was a big risk. I played a little on that server to see what it was like and didn't enjoy it. I think maybe 10% of the players liked it.
I'd only like an Open PvP game where there were major consequenses for killing in civilized areas. One thing i liked about SWG was that a fight could end with just knocking out the opponent and it took a deliberate killing blow to actally kill them.
I think the best way to handle killing is with a reputation system. If you kill in a town, you loose major reputation there and about 1/2 as much with all towns of the same faction. If your reputation is good, you get a discount on all buying and selling. If it is poor, you pay a surcharge. If it is bad, the guards attack you on sight and merchants won't trade with you.
Major roads between towns would be patrolled and killing there would result in the 1/2 loss. If guards/patrols knocked out a person with a bad reputation, they would be put in jail for a day of elapsed in-game time. This would really make life hard for those that chose to be outlaws.
I'd also add a Karma system for killing lower level players. If you attacked and killed a lower level player, you'd loose karma to the degree that the player was weaker than you. Lower kerma would give you bad luck in all random events like chance to hit and chance to avoid hits. Thus really bad karma would ruin your fighting ability.
A game system like this would allow killing anywhere but without imposing artificial restrictions would also make players really think twice about random killing.
One idea I remeber reading about in a game under development was that if a caracter was attacked by a higher level caracter he could call in a sort of divine intervention and defeat the higher level player. Conditions would apply as being in good standing with your deity, etc and of course only if you're being attacked.
I support Belgiums efforts to get noticed ... at all.
Originally posted by dadown I think the best way to handle killing is with a reputation system. If you kill in a town, you loose major reputation there and about 1/2 as much with all towns of the same faction. If your reputation is good, you get a discount on all buying and selling. If it is poor, you pay a surcharge. If it is bad, the guards attack you on sight and merchants won't trade with you.
Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.
The only system that will work is one where a "criminal" status brings a direct and severe penalty instantly upon defeat or capture to that character. By either drastically reducing ability, or by perma-death, it takes that character out of the grief activity and makes the player week again. Week characters aren't very often successful. Starting over every time is a huge deterant, one that reduces such activity drastically, which is the desired effect.
Originally posted by dadown I think the best way to handle killing is with a reputation system. If you kill in a town, you loose major reputation there and about 1/2 as much with all towns of the same faction. If your reputation is good, you get a discount on all buying and selling. If it is poor, you pay a surcharge. If it is bad, the guards attack you on sight and merchants won't trade with you.
Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.
The only system that will work is one where a "criminal" status brings a direct and severe penalty instantly upon defeat or capture to that character. By either drastically reducing ability, or by perma-death, it takes that character out of the grief activity and makes the player week again. Week characters aren't very often successful. Starting over every time is a huge deterant, one that reduces such activity drastically, which is the desired effect.
Your criticism fails to address the rest of what I proposed; did you stop reading after you got to the part you quoted? Putting them in jail for a day would provide the immediate big penalty and the karma loss would weaken repeat offenders so that the character would eventually become unplayable.
Originally posted by Amaranthar Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.
What if, just line in real-life (at least in America), crime spread like a virus? In other words, if you steal a car radio, you're a criminal. If you sell that radio to someone who knows they're buying stolen goods, they're a criminal. If someone hides you in their closet from the authorities, they're a criminal too. This would help with the good player/bad player routine where your ganker is a criminal and your mule goes to all the places he can't go to buy or sell things for him, because the second your characters traded stolen goods, or as soon as one character bartered with a known criminal, at least some of that negative renown would spread like a virus to him or her. To keep the virus from being knowingly spread to innocent people, the renown system would have to be such that all players inherently know who is a wanted criminal and who isn't.
There might be kinks to work out, but I think this sort of system would really help enforce a legal system, while still rewarding players for being "good guys" and putting some stress on people who only want to gank, cheat, steal, and otherwise intentionally try to ruin the game for other players (not just characters).
Originally posted by dadown Your criticism fails to address the rest of what I proposed; did you stop reading after you got to the part you quoted? Putting them in jail for a day would provide the immediate big penalty and the karma loss would weaken repeat offenders so that the character would eventually become unplayable.
No, I didn't stop reading. I wasn't criticizing you personally, by the way. If it appeared that way, then I apologize. I should have made a point to come off less critical.
I knew I'd have to answer to you on this one.
Yes, you're idea would work great, except for the lack of justice outside of cities and along the roads. However, I have a problem with a hidden issue with karma. It may not be something you intended, but karma is usually taken as a sliding scale. Do something bad, you lose karma, do something good, you gain it back. This, in effect, wipes out past bad deeds.
Many developers will look at this as a fair thing. And it is fair. But it doesn't work in MMORPGs for anything more than a slight slow down of ganking. Not nearly enough.
What happens is that players use the tactics at hand, they "spy" with higher karma characters, and then gank when they have the advantage and know they are most likely to not have to suffer the effects of having low karma. Then they go out and earn good karma back. This doesn't mean they are bad people, they are just using game mechanics to their advantage. So I hesitate to call it griefing except that the term works for this purpose.
If the developers aren't going to allow characters to regain karma like this, they usually call it "faction loss". So that's why, when I see the word karma, I worry about how the developers are using it. Sometimes, a sliding karma can even come as a surprise to a gamer when a game goes live, if he didn't realise that it was actually this sliding scale during all the pre-release talk.
Again, I know you didn't intend this in your system. But I worry about developers trying to be "fair", and end up with the same old problem anyways.
Your system would be great for a game that wanted to allow for wide open PvP outside of zones of protection. But it's the lack of protection in wilder areas that still leaves players with the gank problem. Miners, hunter/gatherers, etc., would all have to face ganks without restriction.
What if, just line in real-life (at least in America), crime spread like a virus? In other words, if you steal a car radio, you're a criminal. If you sell that radio to someone who knows they're buying stolen goods, they're a criminal. If someone hides you in their closet from the authorities, they're a criminal too. This would help with the good player/bad player routine where your ganker is a criminal and your mule goes to all the places he can't go to buy or sell things for him, because the second your characters traded stolen goods, or as soon as one character bartered with a known criminal, at least some of that negative renown would spread like a virus to him or her. To keep the virus from being knowingly spread to innocent people, the renown system would have to be such that all players inherently know who is a wanted criminal and who isn't. There might be kinks to work out, but I think this sort of system would really help enforce a legal system, while still rewarding players for being "good guys" and putting some stress on people who only want to gank, cheat, steal, and otherwise intentionally try to ruin the game for other players (not just characters).
Exactly. Place ownership tags on items. If someone steals an artifact from your house, loots from your body, steals loot off your kill, then they are handling stolen merchandise.
This comes under thieving justice, rather than the PvP justice. So the penalties should be far less severe. Also, if the character is simply acting as a fence, then maybe they shouldn't get flagged at all, unless they are discovered. Some form of a recognition of stolen property would need to be implemented, like a perception skill if the item is seen by either players or NPCs.
This does several things. It creates protection that's needed against theft, but it also creates a bunch of game play in the black market area.
For the record, for thieving, I'm in favor of a jail penalty. Get caught the first time, it's so much jail time. For each successive time, add to the jail time up to a limit. But the penalties do have to be worth something to give it enough risk. I think that a thief should get more of a penalty than a fence, or other handler. The harsh justice against "murder" will keep everything in a good balance. Immagine you are a thief, and get cornered. You can kill and get a way, or allow capture. Tough choice, eh?
i didn't read all these posts, but i think that MMOs, just like any other artform, evolve. I have a few ideas for PvP that, i think, would discourage "grief" player killing. Lots of these ideas are inspired by Mr. Knaacks articles.
1) level the playing field. If a game is created where a veteran player only has a slight mathematic advantage over a newb then griefers wouldn't be able to run around ganking newbs with no fear. In other words, a veteran player who is a ganker would be able to easily kill a new player because he has better gear (found, crafted, or bought). However, a single player may not be able to kill a group of newbies because they would chip away at him like a school of pirahnas. One or two may die, but the griefer would go down. Also there has to be a consequence of dieing. I've always liked to idea of losing some loot on a corpse who can be taken by your killer. The ganker could lose some phat loot, but the newbs could only lose lowbie gear. If that were the situation, i would actually hope a ganker tried to jump me and my friends. I really have nothing to lose, but could actually get a nice item out of the deal. This could actually cause a new problem. Bands of naked newbies could start ganking veteran players in hopes of taking his loot. That would be a fun problem to worry about IMO
2) in a game with perma-death, that allowed only one character per server, you could have a "humanity" system. Everything a player does gives him a positive or negative Humanity rating. A player could fight another player and disable him, but not kill him. If both players consented to the fight (there could be duels to disable and duels to the death), then there would be a positive Humanity rating for the winner. It would be like an honorable challenge between warriors. If a player attacks another player without consent and disables him then there is a negative Humanity rating charged against him. If a players Humanity drops far enough; NPCs will stop doing business with him; civilized towns may have guards that KOS him; players not in his group or guild may have trouble understanding what he says. If a player decides to gank a player with a positive or neutral Humanity and opts to perform a killing blow then the attacker becomes a "monster." He can no longer communicate or trade with anyone, not even PMs. This would make life impossible for the murderer. He would have to work very hard to regain his Humanity (and his ability to interact with players and NPCs), or he would have to delete this character and start another one. The new character should start with a slight negative humanity just as a final F*** You! to the ganker. A player could perform a killing blow against a character with negative Humanity with little or no ill effects. Players would want to keep their Humanity neutral or good because they would have the same protection that law abiding citizens IRL have. Saftey is not certain, but justice would be served against your attacker.
Random Comments. First, me spouting off against ideas I think are... misguided, to be charitable.
pvp is, by definition, nonconsensual combat by one party
Feh. PvP is any competitive interaction between players, whether consensual or not. Chess is inherently PvP, yet it is always consensual.
why people SHOULD enjoy PvP
Might as well try to explain why people SHOULD enjoy raspberry ice cream, or romance novels, or BDSM play (if you don't know the acronym, you're too young for that analogy anyway.) You'll sound like a pompous ass to half your audience, a genius to one third, an idiot to one quarter, and just another voice to the rest. (Yes, that adds up to more than 100% of the audience; there's overlap between some of the categories.)
That's why people who don't like pvp don't like it
Bah. The people who don't like pvp are not some unified hive-mind; there is no single reason why anyone who dislikes PvP feels that way about it. Some dislike having their progress interfered with. Some dislike being put through no-chance-in-hell confrontations (ie getting ganked) just on general principles. Some feel it flies in the face of the classic RPG model (cooperative PvModule play,) some feel the need to be PvP competitive gets in the way of getting into the role, others still feel it just draws in an Unfavorable Element (l33t-talking chuck-norris wannabes) who ruin the atmosphere. And there are even some who would like it if it had 'better' implementation (ie appropriate consequences to discourage ganking/avoid punishing the gankee, varying arguments about how much of a role twitch vs character development vs player-level strategy should play etc.) And I'm sure I've missed many other reasons there; not being one of them, I can only quote the protests I've heard in other discussions about open-PvP.
Now some thoughts on game conventions/memes/whatever you call em.
They do not want to have weeks of work be blown in 2mins because of some griefer coming along and splattering them all over the virutal landscape. These "pvp lite" crowd are the majority so that is what companies should worry about keeping happy.
Maybe it's just me, but in my opinion there's something inherently wrong with either the game or the gamer if those two weeks of time were "work" that gets wiped out by a loss.
Roleplaying is about becomeing a person you are not, a personality, and playing the roll of someone you are not in reality. In another MMORPG.com article, a really recent featured article about Twitch based play. They were complaining that twitch based play was taking the RPG out of MMORPG's and that they'd like to see more lvling and attribute building added in. Is that what most players think RPG's are all about? Building attributes, numbers and lvling? Is that really what you want to do?
While I dislike the near-dominating focus many of the games have developed towards the building-attributes/levelling/ubergear roles, I'm very still very leery of adding twitch; how can I 'become a person I'm not,' if her ability to operate in the game world is so directly limited by my own ability?
I'd like to see a balance in the system. The numbers - my *character's* abilities - need to have some impact on the game so my avatar is not just a virtual copy of me in a new world. But not so much that it's all about who's got more time to build bigger numbers (and that applies to PvP and PvC* equally.)
* I'm trying to replace PvE, because IMO other players are part of the environment - and therefore PvP is PvE (tho PvE is not necessarily PvP.) PvC = players vs content.
And now, here's hoping my quotes were formatted correctly and this is readable...
Nice post, Kaos&Light. I agree. But one little thing, you said * I'm trying to replace PvE, because IMO other players are part of the environment - and therefore PvP is PvE (tho PvE is not necessarily PvP.) PvC = players vs content. But I think the term "content" falls short of what we want, lets see if you agree. "Content" is being used already in refering to things that mean the same as "environment". Yet, how can we get the point accross? I think saying "the world" works better. PvW = Player vs the World. That seems to say it better, don't you think?
Comments
Exactly, in such a agme however, competition would be a must. Without loss there is no gain.
And pvp comabt is just one form of competition. A game that turns this and other competitive plays into tools that allow the reaching of goals other then pure character advancement would be what I'd want.
And I think I've largely found that in Eve Online. The pvp system is essentially nearly open there, but with the checks and balances that give the right comfort level needed to still cater to mroe then the hardocre-only pvp combat player.
What's more is that in that game pvp combat is indeed as much of a tool as it is a goal. And other then an earlier poster said about it's role in Eve-Online, territorial conquest does play a role beyond placing your flag on some land noone cares for anyway there. It's about competition for resources, for opportunity. And it works rather well imo.
There is no 100% secure zone in Eve-Online. There is no place where you are not affected by the pruely player-driven market. And there is hardly a zone left where even the most basic resources don't get competed for anymore. Thus, this competition that uses combat, industry/crafting and politics (a.o.) as tools becomes a goal in itself. Et Voila, we have a game that drives itself, delivers large amounts of content of itself, and no longer has character developmetn as the main goal for most players.
I have already made multiple post about this so I'm not going to repeat myself over and over. I am hear to show support of a game that allows for the different freedoms that come with open pvp. It isn't even a mystery to me how you would create this game but I have already said it to many times.
Ok, first of all. I've been in Eve since just about the release date.
I know about the 'yulai incident', since I was atually there at the time. The whole thin is now actually returning as a hot topic in the community because of a new player influx and their anti-open pvp standpoints.
PvP in the high security areas is NOT prohibited by any means. Yes. it is immediately and undeniably followed by the loss of your ship. But losing your ship does not equal losing the engagement in Eve. You can still inflict more damage then you suffer. And CCP have recently actually affirmed that this is what they intend to happen. Evading the consequences is not allowed, but creating a situation in which the benefits outweigh them is,
The zombie inc players got banned because of disobeying direct GM orders.
Now, to the rest of your points.
1. breaking into TS servers is lame, but not something CCP can play a riole in in terms of punishment. If your own laws allow you to prosecute for it, by all means do because you should. However, breaking in is something else then getting the password from someone you trusted with it.
Also, new players are widely welcomed by established corporations. I;m part of one of the most powerfull corporations in the game and we do accept new players under certain circumstances. Security being a key element in the recruitment yes.
2. Utter rubbish. It takes a minimum of one month of horrendously boring grindage to get your sec status back to positive from a -10. I'd agree that that is broken tho, those consequences should be player determined, not simply a matter of rule enforcement by AI or game mechanics.
3. Eve encourages ganking yes. It's not a 'fair' game by any means. It's all about power, accumulation and use of it. That means differences in power, adn thus people getting the short end of the stick.
Darwinism is a key element of Eve gameplay. But imo, open pvp is exactly that: player versus player competition across all fronts: from industry to politics to combat to resources. Evertyhing a tool in teh quest for power in your virtual-world competition.
And wether you like it or not, completely balanced and finetuned or not, it's basically what Eve Online is. Open, player-empowered, nearly unrestricted pvp.
Ok, I can't give a proper reply, since I'd have to read all 3 pages of suggestions so far, but this exact topic is what I've devoted almost all of my mental energy when it comes to MMOs to ever since their invention. It's a common topic at www.pker.org, where I am a regular.
In summary, social advancement, and giving players the tools to police themselves, and indirect influence on the flow of the game from the creators all create an environment where open PvP actually enhances roleplaying and discourages being a senseless griefer. Things like tracking, control of NPC guard behavior, player run government, guilds that actually have meaning all increase players investment in the world, cause your reputation to mean more than your stats, and therefore greatly dicourage mindless killing .
As a side note, I am a firm believer that Permadeath is not a solution for an open PvP system. It punishes people for being ganked, and actually discourages all PvP, more for people who care about their characters (the real players) than players who are just playing to gank and don't care if they get permadeath.
If you'd like examples of how these sorts of systems have been implemented and created living breathing worlds full of roleplaying and entirely open PvP look at muds like Avalon and Achaea. Note that Achaea is now one of the most popular MUDs on the net, spawning 3 or 4 sub games based on this sort of open PvP system.
http://www.achaea.com/main.html
http://www.avalon-rpg.com/
If you'd like further explanation, let me know.
I feel that Politics and also Player policied society would work even with pkers who try to use mule accounts and so forth.
Where Players can create game rules that will govern player actions.
Players will be able to setup various degree of consiquences based on your reputation.
from not being able to enter towns and trade for some time. To the point of your account being disabled complete.
Games need to associate your character with your account. so that if your actions are so that the account is disabled. You will not be able to use other characters you have created. In essence you would have to close this account complete and sign up for subscription again. This will give heads up of potential troublemakers to the game.
Now this will not stop you from play evil characters. But there is a difference between playing an evil character who goes around murdering other characters and those who are evil for selfish reasons. If you want to play a murderous villain just know that you will pay the consiquences of those actions in the end. As to why you would want to play such a character is a totally different question that i will not ask.
Another subset to this rule would be things like anyone caught try to trade with such players or communicate with them will subject to penalties themselves.
And finally their should be a curve setup between new players and veterans. New players should be able to advance in stats fast in the beginning while veterans should be given the option to able to give up some high stats for more experience. This would balance the game out well. Brawns vs skills i have always said that this is not the best solution but a darn good one in the search to balance the newbie vs vets pvp in-balance problem.
Faranthil Tanathalos
EverQuest 1 - Ranger
Star Wars Galaxies - Master Ranger
Everquest2 - Ranger WarhammerOnline - Shadow Warrior
WOW - Hunter
That's right I like bows and arrows.
I used to play Asheron's Call where there was one Open PvP sever called Darktide that was complete anarchy. Oneone could kill anyone else and loot their corpse, there was no safe area for low levels and no built in penalty for killing. As a result, starting players lived in constant fear and if you weren't part of a strong group, just entering town to buy and sell was a big risk. I played a little on that server to see what it was like and didn't enjoy it. I think maybe 10% of the players liked it.
I'd only like an Open PvP game where there were major consequenses for killing in civilized areas. One thing i liked about SWG was that a fight could end with just knocking out the opponent and it took a deliberate killing blow to actally kill them.
I think the best way to handle killing is with a reputation system. If you kill in a town, you loose major reputation there and about 1/2 as much with all towns of the same faction. If your reputation is good, you get a discount on all buying and selling. If it is poor, you pay a surcharge. If it is bad, the guards attack you on sight and merchants won't trade with you.
Major roads between towns would be patrolled and killing there would result in the 1/2 loss. If guards/patrols knocked out a person with a bad reputation, they would be put in jail for a day of elapsed in-game time. This would really make life hard for those that chose to be outlaws.
I'd also add a Karma system for killing lower level players. If you attacked and killed a lower level player, you'd loose karma to the degree that the player was weaker than you. Lower kerma would give you bad luck in all random events like chance to hit and chance to avoid hits. Thus really bad karma would ruin your fighting ability.
A game system like this would allow killing anywhere but without imposing artificial restrictions would also make players really think twice about random killing.
One idea I remeber reading about in a game under development was that if a caracter was attacked by a higher level caracter he could call in a sort of divine intervention and defeat the higher level player. Conditions would apply as being in good standing with your deity, etc and of course only if you're being attacked.
I support Belgiums efforts to get noticed ... at all.
Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.
The only system that will work is one where a "criminal" status brings a direct and severe penalty instantly upon defeat or capture to that character. By either drastically reducing ability, or by perma-death, it takes that character out of the grief activity and makes the player week again. Week characters aren't very often successful. Starting over every time is a huge deterant, one that reduces such activity drastically, which is the desired effect.
Once upon a time....
Dadown, this kind of system doesn't work because grief minded players would abuse it. They will only use their ganking characters to hunt players and kill them. They would use their good characters like mules, and do all transactions with them. It doesn't matter if they have to buy another account to do this, many players buy extra accounts anyways.
The only system that will work is one where a "criminal" status brings a direct and severe penalty instantly upon defeat or capture to that character. By either drastically reducing ability, or by perma-death, it takes that character out of the grief activity and makes the player week again. Week characters aren't very often successful. Starting over every time is a huge deterant, one that reduces such activity drastically, which is the desired effect.
Your criticism fails to address the rest of what I proposed; did you stop reading after you got to the part you quoted? Putting them in jail for a day would provide the immediate big penalty and the karma loss would weaken repeat offenders so that the character would eventually become unplayable.
What if, just line in real-life (at least in America), crime spread like a virus? In other words, if you steal a car radio, you're a criminal. If you sell that radio to someone who knows they're buying stolen goods, they're a criminal. If someone hides you in their closet from the authorities, they're a criminal too. This would help with the good player/bad player routine where your ganker is a criminal and your mule goes to all the places he can't go to buy or sell things for him, because the second your characters traded stolen goods, or as soon as one character bartered with a known criminal, at least some of that negative renown would spread like a virus to him or her. To keep the virus from being knowingly spread to innocent people, the renown system would have to be such that all players inherently know who is a wanted criminal and who isn't.
There might be kinks to work out, but I think this sort of system would really help enforce a legal system, while still rewarding players for being "good guys" and putting some stress on people who only want to gank, cheat, steal, and otherwise intentionally try to ruin the game for other players (not just characters).
No, I didn't stop reading. I wasn't criticizing you personally, by the way. If it appeared that way, then I apologize. I should have made a point to come off less critical.
I knew I'd have to answer to you on this one.
Yes, you're idea would work great, except for the lack of justice outside of cities and along the roads. However, I have a problem with a hidden issue with karma. It may not be something you intended, but karma is usually taken as a sliding scale. Do something bad, you lose karma, do something good, you gain it back. This, in effect, wipes out past bad deeds.
Many developers will look at this as a fair thing. And it is fair. But it doesn't work in MMORPGs for anything more than a slight slow down of ganking. Not nearly enough.
What happens is that players use the tactics at hand, they "spy" with higher karma characters, and then gank when they have the advantage and know they are most likely to not have to suffer the effects of having low karma. Then they go out and earn good karma back. This doesn't mean they are bad people, they are just using game mechanics to their advantage. So I hesitate to call it griefing except that the term works for this purpose.
If the developers aren't going to allow characters to regain karma like this, they usually call it "faction loss". So that's why, when I see the word karma, I worry about how the developers are using it. Sometimes, a sliding karma can even come as a surprise to a gamer when a game goes live, if he didn't realise that it was actually this sliding scale during all the pre-release talk.
Again, I know you didn't intend this in your system. But I worry about developers trying to be "fair", and end up with the same old problem anyways.
Your system would be great for a game that wanted to allow for wide open PvP outside of zones of protection. But it's the lack of protection in wilder areas that still leaves players with the gank problem. Miners, hunter/gatherers, etc., would all have to face ganks without restriction.
Once upon a time....
Exactly. Place ownership tags on items. If someone steals an artifact from your house, loots from your body, steals loot off your kill, then they are handling stolen merchandise.
This comes under thieving justice, rather than the PvP justice. So the penalties should be far less severe. Also, if the character is simply acting as a fence, then maybe they shouldn't get flagged at all, unless they are discovered. Some form of a recognition of stolen property would need to be implemented, like a perception skill if the item is seen by either players or NPCs.
This does several things. It creates protection that's needed against theft, but it also creates a bunch of game play in the black market area.
For the record, for thieving, I'm in favor of a jail penalty. Get caught the first time, it's so much jail time. For each successive time, add to the jail time up to a limit. But the penalties do have to be worth something to give it enough risk. I think that a thief should get more of a penalty than a fence, or other handler. The harsh justice against "murder" will keep everything in a good balance.
Immagine you are a thief, and get cornered. You can kill and get a way, or allow capture. Tough choice, eh?
Once upon a time....
i didn't read all these posts, but i think that MMOs, just like any other artform, evolve. I have a few ideas for PvP that, i think, would discourage "grief" player killing. Lots of these ideas are inspired by Mr. Knaacks articles.
1) level the playing field. If a game is created where a veteran player only has a slight mathematic advantage over a newb then griefers wouldn't be able to run around ganking newbs with no fear. In other words, a veteran player who is a ganker would be able to easily kill a new player because he has better gear (found, crafted, or bought). However, a single player may not be able to kill a group of newbies because they would chip away at him like a school of pirahnas. One or two may die, but the griefer would go down. Also there has to be a consequence of dieing. I've always liked to idea of losing some loot on a corpse who can be taken by your killer. The ganker could lose some phat loot, but the newbs could only lose lowbie gear. If that were the situation, i would actually hope a ganker tried to jump me and my friends. I really have nothing to lose, but could actually get a nice item out of the deal. This could actually cause a new problem. Bands of naked newbies could start ganking veteran players in hopes of taking his loot. That would be a fun problem to worry about IMO
2) in a game with perma-death, that allowed only one character per server, you could have a "humanity" system. Everything a player does gives him a positive or negative Humanity rating. A player could fight another player and disable him, but not kill him. If both players consented to the fight (there could be duels to disable and duels to the death), then there would be a positive Humanity rating for the winner. It would be like an honorable challenge between warriors. If a player attacks another player without consent and disables him then there is a negative Humanity rating charged against him. If a players Humanity drops far enough; NPCs will stop doing business with him; civilized towns may have guards that KOS him; players not in his group or guild may have trouble understanding what he says. If a player decides to gank a player with a positive or neutral Humanity and opts to perform a killing blow then the attacker becomes a "monster." He can no longer communicate or trade with anyone, not even PMs. This would make life impossible for the murderer. He would have to work very hard to regain his Humanity (and his ability to interact with players and NPCs), or he would have to delete this character and start another one. The new character should start with a slight negative humanity just as a final F*** You! to the ganker. A player could perform a killing blow against a character with negative Humanity with little or no ill effects. Players would want to keep their Humanity neutral or good because they would have the same protection that law abiding citizens IRL have. Saftey is not certain, but justice would be served against your attacker.
Which FF Character Are You?
Random Comments. First, me spouting off against ideas I think are... misguided, to be charitable.
Feh. PvP is any competitive interaction between players, whether consensual or not. Chess is inherently PvP, yet it is always consensual.
Might as well try to explain why people SHOULD enjoy raspberry ice cream, or romance novels, or BDSM play (if you don't know the acronym, you're too young for that analogy anyway.) You'll sound like a pompous ass to half your audience, a genius to one third, an idiot to one quarter, and just another voice to the rest. (Yes, that adds up to more than 100% of the audience; there's overlap between some of the categories.)Bah. The people who don't like pvp are not some unified hive-mind; there is no single reason why anyone who dislikes PvP feels that way about it. Some dislike having their progress interfered with. Some dislike being put through no-chance-in-hell confrontations (ie getting ganked) just on general principles. Some feel it flies in the face of the classic RPG model (cooperative PvModule play,) some feel the need to be PvP competitive gets in the way of getting into the role, others still feel it just draws in an Unfavorable Element (l33t-talking chuck-norris wannabes) who ruin the atmosphere. And there are even some who would like it if it had 'better' implementation (ie appropriate consequences to discourage ganking/avoid punishing the gankee, varying arguments about how much of a role twitch vs character development vs player-level strategy should play etc.) And I'm sure I've missed many other reasons there; not being one of them, I can only quote the protests I've heard in other discussions about open-PvP.
Now some thoughts on game conventions/memes/whatever you call em.
Maybe it's just me, but in my opinion there's something inherently wrong with either the game or the gamer if those two weeks of time were "work" that gets wiped out by a loss.
While I dislike the near-dominating focus many of the games have developed towards the building-attributes/levelling/ubergear roles, I'm very still very leery of adding twitch; how can I 'become a person I'm not,' if her ability to operate in the game world is so directly limited by my own ability?
I'd like to see a balance in the system. The numbers - my *character's* abilities - need to have some impact on the game so my avatar is not just a virtual copy of me in a new world. But not so much that it's all about who's got more time to build bigger numbers (and that applies to PvP and PvC* equally.)
* I'm trying to replace PvE, because IMO other players are part of the environment - and therefore PvP is PvE (tho PvE is not necessarily PvP.) PvC = players vs content.
And now, here's hoping my quotes were formatted correctly and this is readable...
I think saying "the world" works better. PvW = Player vs the World. That seems to say it better, don't you think?
Once upon a time....