Originally posted by GungaDin You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted. You just had to re-equip and it didnt cost you an arm and a leg to do so. Just needed to find a Blacksmith or vendor to help you out. The economy was very friendly to new players and you didnt have to spend hours on end to get UBER loot which unbalances everything. Sure they had some power swords or vanq axes, but the edge they gave in PVP was not that much, plus they were easy to obtain from player run shops/vendors. Again, they didnt cost a fortune. This type of economy and PVP style was much more balanced. You lost time when you had to re-equip but compared with the wasted hours you spend in WOW and EQ trying to get Uber loot, its nothing !! Plus the PVP was based more on your skill and numbers than on what gear you possessed. I much prefer that. I'm totally turned off now when the main way to compete is your gear. SWG wasnt too bad either, there werent any UBER items. More powerful weapons were pretty obtainable. The consequences from dying is what made the game fun and challenging. No game I have played since has been able to replicate the PVP encounters in UO. Looks like I may never play another MMORPG again.
Right on. Another cool addition was the balanced gear system. Armor had its downfalls in addition to its bonuses, so you didn't want to just go equip plate without thinking about it. Heavier armor lowered your dexterity, which led to lower dodge rates and slower attack speeds with melee weapons. My character was a warrior on the Atlantic server who I originally threw plate on and gave a halberd, but i didnt like waiting 4 seconds in between weapon swings, so I respecced fencing, equipped a war fork, and switched to mail. Everything had both its good points and bad points. Everything was balanced. Except of course tamers walking around with 2 tamed dragons attacking everything . Nothing was instanced, and regardless of where you were in the world, whether in a dungeon or a town or the world map, you were guaranteed player interaction. What kind? That often was a surprise, and the possibility of losing your gear when you died to a player in PvP combat added to the excitement. But it was cool when I lost because most everyone in the game had GM-level blacksmith friends who hooked them up for free And even if you didn't, prices weren't insanely high for replacement gear, and if you didn't want to fork over the cash you could always hit the graveyard and grab sets of bone armor, which was actually decent armor and you got pieces of it free by grinding off of EXTREMELY low level skeletons in the Britain GY. Fun times. I hope to see something like it again.
Originally posted by GungaDin You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted.
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
Originally posted by GungaDin You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted.
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
While I still think this is a stupid thread with no end, I believe I can answer this.
Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment. Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
The flaw with most games is they make items and gear very important to character development. You simply can't make an item based game and allow open looting, or the formula will not work.
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
Originally posted by GungaDin You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted.
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
While I still think this is a stupid thread with no end, I believe I can answer this.
Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment. Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
The flaw with most games is they make items and gear very important to character development. You simply can't make an item based game and allow open looting, or the formula will not work.
Games like EQ and WoW simply can't have looting and be successful. As someone already pointed out above this is because of their UBER loot treadmills. But at the same time there is a large contingent of people who simply won't play games that aren't this kind of treadmill. No matter how much they complain about grinds and treadmills this is actually waht they want. Frankly their is a lot of neurosis in the MMO customer base.
Games liike old UO and especially Eve did/do have item and loot models that make pvp looting and otehr losses to be acceptable. Losing a ship in Eve is fine as almost nothign is truly UBER and usually you have a multiple ships of various kinds.
But many MMORPGs gameplay hooks are fundamentally against PvP looting. Some games try to serve two masters or have a set of fans that demand they serve two masters.
UBER treadmills and PvP looting cannot co-exist. However UBER treadmills are often too enticing to game devs due to the neurotic and addictive, but profitable mechanics.
Look how much flak Guild Wars gets for keeping limits on things. If you don't Mudflate your game is just no fun apparently, because afterall if you aren't running in place on a treadmill you really aren't progressing.
Only Eve and GW have stuck to their guns and consistently kept things sane. And what do they get? An army of neurotic former EQers and present day WoWers demanding mudflation. Turn that treadmill up to 11, Nigel!
So good luck with the "hardcore" (hah that term is so cute) PvP becasue the pressure is towards a willful dependance on empty addictive mechanics in which "Hardcore" PvP is doomed to failure since they simply cannot live together.
Originally posted by GungaDin You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted.
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
Like a previous poster stated, its about consequences. You would lose your armor, maybe a good magic weapon or reagents but it wouldnt make you suicidal. Just a little ticked off but it was easy to overcome. There was some fear in losing your gear but not enough to make you want to quit the game. That what made it so much fun, if you ran into someone, first thing you thought was ... friend or foe? It was exciting. I posted some of my stories in the Ultima Online Fourms i'll try to track down the post to give you some insight. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/60209
If its all Uber loot based then the game can get quite annoying. Its a pain in the ass to track down uber loot just to compete.
Plus, Crafters actually had a place in the ingame Economy. You would actually love finding a Bowyer who made GM Bows. They were very good even compared to a Bow of Power or Vanquishing. The magic weapons gave you about a +10 damage bonus at best. I can't remember the exact bonus, but it wasnt vital to run around with them. Cool thing was even if you lost say your Broadsword of Vanquishing, you could most likely find one for sale on a vendor for about 4000 to 5000 gps. Might take you an hour or 2 to get the gold but it was very attainable.
Why have to hunt down and NPC or PVM just to get gear. Your basically just interacting with the games AI and not other real players. The main thing about MMORPGS is player interaction. Having to hunt down crafters, talking to them, making deals, or asking them to craft you a set of armor at the Britain Forge was part of the fun. You made friends, met alot of people and this made for a great community. I dont' want to kill NPC's or AI for all my gear, I want to interact with real people to help me. Sure you might make friends hunting in groups to get uber loot, but Ultima had that and the Player Crafted Items interaction.
Originally posted by Awakened Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
Originally posted by GungaDin There was some fear in losing your gear but not enough to make you want to quit the game.
Did it take longer than a typical PVP fight to grind out money/minerals/whatever to replace your gear? If so, then it's plenty for me to quit the game (or, moe likely, not play in the first place). When I PVP, I'm interested in PVP, not grinding out gear.
Might take you an hour or 2 to get the gold but it was very attainable.
Except that the original comment was "You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted." Losing hours of time does matter to me, so if this is the case then you're directly contradicting the orignal claim.
Why have to hunt down and NPC or PVM just to get gear?
Good question for an allegedly PVP game, but I'd ask the same about UO since according to you it would take hours of grinding gold to cover just one PVP fight.
Originally posted by Awakened Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
So...it has nothing to do with players wanting a challenging, competitive experience with other players, and have it mean something? Many people don't want to waste time doing PvP if it's all for nothing and there's zilch to it. Looting and player-controlled towns give it purpose and keep them coming back for more.
There's no stark difference between losing 10 ships that took 40 hours of mining in EVE and losing a character that took 400 hours to get where he is. If you don't agree, rather than act like an idiot and shout 'you're an idiot', perhaps you should explain what this "stark difference" is.
I'm not gonna argue with a person who can say with a straight face that there's no stark difference between losing xx hours worth of time invested in a game or losing ALL of the time you have invested in a game. Be it 40 vs. 400 or whatever.
I'm just gonna call you an idiot; let you win- and move on.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.
Originally posted by Pantastic Originally posted by Awakened Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
You are equating it all to "ganking" and I think therefore griefing. But if you examine the Eve pirate subculture there is more to it than that. Sure griefing is part of it, but pirates also do it for profit and also for the risk taking adrenaline rush. In certain areas of Eve the pirates are so ghetto they pirate other pirates.
Also keep in mind that most pirates who are going for profit prefer to ransom.
I don't think old UO can really be said to be analogous to Eve in this way, but the point is that there is more to it than just pure griefing. Even if there is always a strong thread of that. People can be cruel and enjoy being cruel. Anyone who denies that is either lying or a fool.
The PK of Eve fits into the economy, politcs and power structure of Eve. And a large portion of the reason it does actually mean something is because of the looting and ship destruction.
In fact I would go so far as to say that true sandbox games that have limited resources, must have PvP with systems akin to Eve. I say that because players need a way to enforce their will or else its not a sandbox. Even if their will is to be a vindictive brat. Eve even has econimic greifing too. Corporations have been swindled out of tons of money via subterfuge by other corps and its all perfectly within the EULA. Without something on the order of what Eve has then your PK really doesn't shape the world in a substantial way.
The Eve developers understand this and that is why they try to have something that is more like an economy and with the idea that there is a always a certain amount of consumption going on. Whereas many other MMOs are based on an idea of hording and collecting items.
That isn't to say DAOC style RvR sucks or can't motivate people, but DAOC style RVR is not really all that sandboxy either.
It is important to realize that a pirate who camps some system can be driven of that system because of these same looting mechanics. Pirate X attacks and tell me to ransom. I tell him he better think twice because my corp controls this system. He shoots me. Corp squad shows up with five guys and pod him. Now he has lost money and a clone. He does that too much and he will be broke. Being broke makes griefing hard.
The looting and attrition style gameplay of eve is a double edged sword.
Originally posted by Gameloading I really don't understand how those so called "hardcore" pvpers first need all kinds of consequences and item loss before they even consider to start pvp. I completely fail to understand what is so fun about losing your items to a person much higher level/must stronger then myself, because fair fights are rare. very rare. don't get me wrong, I love pvp. and if a game doesn't have pvp, then chances are I won't stick around for long. but for me, its the pvp itself that I enjoy, not the consequences, item loss or even reward.
Originally posted by IdesofMarch So...it has nothing to do with players wanting a challenging, competitive experience with other players,
Yes, exactly. Looting encourages people to seek non-challenging fights and to avoid real competition, it just encourages ganking. Go play EVE (as an example) and see for yourself; people seeking competitive fights are very rare, but gate camps, suicide attacks on friegters in Empire, people in ships kitted for PVP seeking victims in ships kitted for PVE, big groups attacking little groups, and similar things are extremely common.
If you don't agree, explain how on earth looting is supposed to encourage a challenging, competitive experience and why it seems to fail to do this in virtually every game. And scroll back through this thread and look at the comments from the hardcore before you do it, you'll want to take them into accound.
and have it mean something? Many people don't want to waste time doing PvP if it's all for nothing and there's zilch to it. Looting and player-controlled towns give it purpose and keep them coming back for more.
It's a video game, most people play video games for entertainment, so if the PVP is fun then it's 'for something' for most people. How does beating up video game characters and taking their virtual lunch money make the game 'mean something' and 'give it purpose', exactly, aside from 'it feels good to gank people and take their stuff'?
You guys like to say 'consequences' since it sounds better than 'gank people and take their stuff', and 'purpose' since it sounds better than 'I enjoy taking people's video game stuff', but you neglect to actually explain what it is beyond that that you want, so it's clear what you really mean.
Originally posted by lI0fty Originally posted by Gameloading I really don't understand how those so called "hardcore" pvpers first need all kinds of consequences and item loss before they even consider to start pvp. I completely fail to understand what is so fun about losing your items to a person much higher level/must stronger then myself, because fair fights are rare. very rare. don't get me wrong, I love pvp. and if a game doesn't have pvp, then chances are I won't stick around for long. but for me, its the pvp itself that I enjoy, not the consequences, item loss or even reward.
it's called challenge you newbie.. Wow, what challenge! You might lose that sword of total awesomeness in pvp, so you have to pick up a diffrent weapon, the sword of lesser total awesomness, so now you have to play with 1,2dps less!
so this is the challenge? what a joke.
also, as the post above me mentioned, PVP looting REMOVES the challenge as people will look for fights with little to no risk,
Originally posted by goneglockin I'm not gonna argue with a person who can say with a straight face that there's no stark difference between losing xx hours worth of time invested in a game or losing ALL of the time you have invested in a game. Be it 40 vs. 400 or whatever.
ALL the time you have invested in a given game is xx hours invested in the game, it's the same thing be it 40 or 400 or whatever. There's no stark difference between losing 40 or 400 hours, it's all just part of a scale. This is even sillier when you remember that we weren't talking about account deletion but permadeath - permadeath doesn't require that you lose ALL of the time you have invested in a game. You could easily have a permadeath game where you can create a 'son' of the dead character, who inherits some of the dead character's wealth or reputation.
I'm just gonna call you an idiot; let you win- and move on.
That's fine, I don't mind being called an idiot by someone who doesn't understand basic math, it really lacks any sting.
Originally posted by gestalt11 You are equating it all to "ganking" and I think therefore griefing.
The reason people want to loot is to be able to cause other people grief, yes. No one has yet to say anything contrary, they just try to make it sound better by going on about 'consequences' and 'meaning'.
Sure griefing is part of it, but pirates also do it for profit and also for the risk taking adrenaline rush.
So square this back with the original comment that prompted this sub-discussion, where the person claimed that in a looting PVP game equipement would be trivially replaceable. If the gear pirates are looting is trivial to get, how are they making significant profit on it? It appears to me that you're agreeing that the 'gear can be easily replaced' bit is pure nonsense.
And the adrenaline rush bit is just silly; you don't need to be able to take stuff from other people to get that rush, and most people get it just from playing the game. If pirates were really enjoying risk taking, they'd load their ship up with valuables instead of using cheap-but-effective ships that they don't really mind losing.
I don't think old UO can really be said to be analogous to Eve in this way, but the point is that there is more to it than just pure griefing.
OK, then what is the 'more to it'? You've neglected to explain that. Yeah, yeah, we all know there's something about 'power structure sandbox consequences meaning purpose', try to avoid using those words and say what's really meant. Bear in mind that I don't consider 'won a video game fight in which I took the guys stuff' to be any more meaningfull that 'won a video game fight' when you do this.
You are 100% right, I am currently playing UO on a free server, (UO gamers). When mmorgs first came out meridian, UO, EQ I believe were the first three they all had looting. They were fun and exciting.
The next generation of games were made for post babyboomers. The babyboomer generation got out of school got a job went to night school and advanced thru life struggling, raising kids. Hard work and risk were a way of life and you did'nt delude yourself into thinking otherwise.
The next generation grew up thinking the world owed them a living, find me a 21 year old who doesnt still live at home, or pays rent, their own insurance, buys food, works around the house. They grew up being catered to, every tv show, magazine or web site tells them this is how it should be. The price of an xbox that they get for christmas adds up to every gift in adjusted dollars that a babyboomer got their entire childhood.
Since they never had to work for or risk anything in real life, how can they be expected to work for or risk anything in a game?
Originally posted by havocthefirs The next generation of games were made for post babyboomers. The babyboomer generation got out of school got a job went to night school and advanced thru life struggling, raising kids. Hard work and risk were a way of life and you did'nt delude yourself into thinking otherwise.
You're realize you're talking about the generation that includes hippies, right? Either that or you've come from some alternate history and the stuff you're saying here is irrelevant since we're all from actual earth. Also, do you have anything backing your claim that UO was designed primarily to appeal to people in their 40s and 50s? Because the baby boomers were the people born in the 'baby boom' after WW2 and a few years after that, up to maybe 1960.
Actually his post says the generations following the baby boomers. So yeah 20 years after the war gave us the baby boomer generation then the 20 after that their children and then we carry on from there.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Might take you an hour or 2 to get the gold but it was very attainable.
Except that the original comment was "You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted." Losing hours of time does matter to me, so if this is the case then you're directly contradicting the orignal claim.
Why have to hunt down and NPC or PVM just to get gear?
Good question for an allegedly PVP game, but I'd ask the same about UO since according to you it would take hours of grinding gold to cover just one PVP fight.
Yeah bascially 15 mins to get enough gold to outfit yourself easily, but if you hunted an 1-2 hours, that gold might supply you for a week. Thats what I meant. You wouldnt just hunt till you had enough gold for 1 suit of armor, within an hour you could have enough for alot of items. It was pretty easy.
Plus if you won a pvp fight you could gain some supplies and store them for when you needed them. The way I handled it: Hunt one day, get enough gold and buy supplies to last a week or 2. It wasnt like you died and then had to hunt for 2 hrs. Sorry for misleading.
Originally posted by Awakened Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
Perhaps you can't read well. People are keen on looting because it gives them a reason to do something. It's no different than leveling. Killing monsters is dull, boring, and pointless, but people do it for that "ding". Looting itself isn't really an awe-inspiring event, but it gives a reward for killing people. I explained this in my previous post when I was talking about "risk versus reward"...
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
Yeah bascially 15 mins to get enough gold to outfit yourself easily, but if you hunted an 1-2 hours, that gold might supply you for a week. Thats what I meant. You wouldnt just hunt till you had enough gold for 1 suit of armor, within an hour you could have enough for alot of items. It was pretty easy.
Plus if you won a pvp fight you could gain some supplies and store them for when you needed them. The way I handled it: Hunt one day, get enough gold and buy supplies to last a week or 2. It wasnt like you died and then had to hunt for 2 hrs. Sorry for misleading.
It took me about 3 hours to supply myself for a month, but of course I had my own vendors making money for me. Ahhh, I miss UO.
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
Originally posted by Awakened Perhaps you can't read well.
I can read just fine, I just don't buy the complete BS the 'hardcore' PVP crowd repeats.
People are keen on looting because it gives them a reason to do something.
That something is 'gank people and take their stuff', and it doesn't provide a 'reason', just the ability to do so. They're keen on looting because it lets them play the bully role and take a shot at messing up someone else's day, if that wasn't their motive they wouldn't focus on looting but would instead talk about PVP rewards.
It's no different than leveling. Killing monsters is dull, boring, and pointless, but people do it for that "ding".
It's very different than leveling, because leveling doesn't require taking anything from other players. It's also interesting that you say that killing monsters is 'pointless', even though you get loot from them which is allegedly what makes PVP 'pointful'. Can you explain the difference, or is it just that killing mosnters is pointless because they're not bothering a person when they do it?
Looting itself isn't really an awe-inspiring event, but it gives a reward for killing people.
No, it gives a penalty for dying in PVP. You can have PVP rewards without the 'gank people and take their stuff' mechanic; for example, DAOC has a lot of PVP rewards but no looting of players, and WAR is slated to have drops in PVP but no loss for the defeated player. If people want a reward for killing people, they would ask to get a reward and not to give out a punishment.
I explained this in my previous post when I was talking about "risk versus reward"...
I didn't really want to get into "risk versus reward" silliness, since in general full-loot PVP is about minimizing risk not taking higher risks for higher rewards.
Originally posted by GungaDin Yeah bascially 15 mins to get enough gold to outfit yourself easily, but if you hunted an 1-2 hours, that gold might supply you for a week. Thats what I meant. You wouldnt just hunt till you had enough gold for 1 suit of armor, within an hour you could have enough for alot of items. It was pretty easy.
So if the gear is so trivial that you can PVP for a week on an hour of farming, how does it being lootable make the fights more enjoyable for you? People talk about PVP looting like it's the Holy Grail, because it Gives Meaning, Provides Consequences, and Risk Versus Reward, but how much meaning does looting completely trivial gear add to a fight?
Simple. Hunting for gold/items is boring as hell for some players. If they can PvP (which is what they really want to do) and get the same kinds of rewards as hunting mobs, then that's what they'll do.
The AC PvP loot system was awesome. Only the most expensive things on a char were dropped (there were some criteria) so players in PvP would simply carry a number of high value junk items (death items) that could be bought from vendors or found on mobs. The more of these items that a player amassed, the more he was able to sustain himself for more deaths. This was highly imporatant when guilds were taking towns etc, the more DI's a player had = the longer he could stay in the fight without wasting time having to gather more.
Because Fighting people is more fun than the AI of mobs... And because they can get the same items as if fighting mobs... Okayyy, then why not just have the system Pantastic described, where the the player that loses doesn't lose any items, but the winner gets a reward like in WAR? Or do you guys agree with that system?
Personally, I don't think you do. Even though, I'm against looting. I find myself alittle bit sadistic to an extent myself. I find myself as the best source, and like to believe that I'm about the avg. gamer or am I just weird?
Comments
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
While I still think this is a stupid thread with no end, I believe I can answer this.
Looting equates to consequence. Consequence equates to purpose. It gives an objective and creates a meaning for playstyle in a risk versus reward environment. Having said that, if looting was to harsh it would undoubtingly turn players away, including many hardcore PvPers. So the solution is allow looting, as to assure the risk and reward system still stands, while at the same time reducing the penatlies for being looted in order to keep the game's playstyle more appealing to everyone.
The flaw with most games is they make items and gear very important to character development. You simply can't make an item based game and allow open looting, or the formula will not work.
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
Games liike old UO and especially Eve did/do have item and loot models that make pvp looting and otehr losses to be acceptable. Losing a ship in Eve is fine as almost nothign is truly UBER and usually you have a multiple ships of various kinds.
But many MMORPGs gameplay hooks are fundamentally against PvP looting. Some games try to serve two masters or have a set of fans that demand they serve two masters.
UBER treadmills and PvP looting cannot co-exist. However UBER treadmills are often too enticing to game devs due to the neurotic and addictive, but profitable mechanics.
Look how much flak Guild Wars gets for keeping limits on things. If you don't Mudflate your game is just no fun apparently, because afterall if you aren't running in place on a treadmill you really aren't progressing.
Only Eve and GW have stuck to their guns and consistently kept things sane. And what do they get? An army of neurotic former EQers and present day WoWers demanding mudflation. Turn that treadmill up to 11, Nigel!
So good luck with the "hardcore" (hah that term is so cute) PvP becasue the pressure is towards a willful dependance on empty addictive mechanics in which "Hardcore" PvP is doomed to failure since they simply cannot live together.
So for you guys PVP is completely worthless if you can't loot victims, but you also want games in which that looting doesn't matter much? If looting doesn't matter much, then why do you (and other 'hardcore' PVPers) care so much about it?
Like a previous poster stated, its about consequences. You would lose your armor, maybe a good magic weapon or reagents but it wouldnt make you suicidal. Just a little ticked off but it was easy to overcome. There was some fear in losing your gear but not enough to make you want to quit the game. That what made it so much fun, if you ran into someone, first thing you thought was ... friend or foe? It was exciting. I posted some of my stories in the Ultima Online Fourms i'll try to track down the post to give you some insight. http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/60209
If its all Uber loot based then the game can get quite annoying. Its a pain in the ass to track down uber loot just to compete.
Plus, Crafters actually had a place in the ingame Economy. You would actually love finding a Bowyer who made GM Bows. They were very good even compared to a Bow of Power or Vanquishing. The magic weapons gave you about a +10 damage bonus at best. I can't remember the exact bonus, but it wasnt vital to run around with them. Cool thing was even if you lost say your Broadsword of Vanquishing, you could most likely find one for sale on a vendor for about 4000 to 5000 gps. Might take you an hour or 2 to get the gold but it was very attainable.
Why have to hunt down and NPC or PVM just to get gear. Your basically just interacting with the games AI and not other real players. The main thing about MMORPGS is player interaction. Having to hunt down crafters, talking to them, making deals, or asking them to craft you a set of armor at the Britain Forge was part of the fun. You made friends, met alot of people and this made for a great community. I dont' want to kill NPC's or AI for all my gear, I want to interact with real people to help me. Sure you might make friends hunting in groups to get uber loot, but Ultima had that and the Player Crafted Items interaction.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
Did it take longer than a typical PVP fight to grind out money/minerals/whatever to replace your gear? If so, then it's plenty for me to quit the game (or, moe likely, not play in the first place). When I PVP, I'm interested in PVP, not grinding out gear.
Except that the original comment was "You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted." Losing hours of time does matter to me, so if this is the case then you're directly contradicting the orignal claim.
Good question for an allegedly PVP game, but I'd ask the same about UO since according to you it would take hours of grinding gold to cover just one PVP fight.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
So...it has nothing to do with players wanting a challenging, competitive experience with other players, and have it mean something? Many people don't want to waste time doing PvP if it's all for nothing and there's zilch to it. Looting and player-controlled towns give it purpose and keep them coming back for more.
I'm not gonna argue with a person who can say with a straight face that there's no stark difference between losing xx hours worth of time invested in a game or losing ALL of the time you have invested in a game. Be it 40 vs. 400 or whatever.
I'm just gonna call you an idiot; let you win- and move on.
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. ... There's a bad moon on the rise.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
You are equating it all to "ganking" and I think therefore griefing. But if you examine the Eve pirate subculture there is more to it than that. Sure griefing is part of it, but pirates also do it for profit and also for the risk taking adrenaline rush. In certain areas of Eve the pirates are so ghetto they pirate other pirates.
Also keep in mind that most pirates who are going for profit prefer to ransom.
I don't think old UO can really be said to be analogous to Eve in this way, but the point is that there is more to it than just pure griefing. Even if there is always a strong thread of that. People can be cruel and enjoy being cruel. Anyone who denies that is either lying or a fool.
The PK of Eve fits into the economy, politcs and power structure of Eve. And a large portion of the reason it does actually mean something is because of the looting and ship destruction.
In fact I would go so far as to say that true sandbox games that have limited resources, must have PvP with systems akin to Eve. I say that because players need a way to enforce their will or else its not a sandbox. Even if their will is to be a vindictive brat. Eve even has econimic greifing too. Corporations have been swindled out of tons of money via subterfuge by other corps and its all perfectly within the EULA. Without something on the order of what Eve has then your PK really doesn't shape the world in a substantial way.
The Eve developers understand this and that is why they try to have something that is more like an economy and with the idea that there is a always a certain amount of consumption going on. Whereas many other MMOs are based on an idea of hording and collecting items.
That isn't to say DAOC style RvR sucks or can't motivate people, but DAOC style RVR is not really all that sandboxy either.
It is important to realize that a pirate who camps some system can be driven of that system because of these same looting mechanics. Pirate X attacks and tell me to ransom. I tell him he better think twice because my corp controls this system. He shoots me. Corp squad shows up with five guys and pod him. Now he has lost money and a clone. He does that too much and he will be broke. Being broke makes griefing hard.
The looting and attrition style gameplay of eve is a double edged sword.
Yes, exactly. Looting encourages people to seek non-challenging fights and to avoid real competition, it just encourages ganking. Go play EVE (as an example) and see for yourself; people seeking competitive fights are very rare, but gate camps, suicide attacks on friegters in Empire, people in ships kitted for PVP seeking victims in ships kitted for PVE, big groups attacking little groups, and similar things are extremely common.
If you don't agree, explain how on earth looting is supposed to encourage a challenging, competitive experience and why it seems to fail to do this in virtually every game. And scroll back through this thread and look at the comments from the hardcore before you do it, you'll want to take them into accound.
It's a video game, most people play video games for entertainment, so if the PVP is fun then it's 'for something' for most people. How does beating up video game characters and taking their virtual lunch money make the game 'mean something' and 'give it purpose', exactly, aside from 'it feels good to gank people and take their stuff'?
You guys like to say 'consequences' since it sounds better than 'gank people and take their stuff', and 'purpose' since it sounds better than 'I enjoy taking people's video game stuff', but you neglect to actually explain what it is beyond that that you want, so it's clear what you really mean.
Wow, what challenge! You might lose that sword of total awesomeness in pvp, so you have to pick up a diffrent weapon, the sword of lesser total awesomness, so now you have to play with 1,2dps less!
so this is the challenge? what a joke.
also, as the post above me mentioned, PVP looting REMOVES the challenge as people will look for fights with little to no risk,
ALL the time you have invested in a given game is xx hours invested in the game, it's the same thing be it 40 or 400 or whatever. There's no stark difference between losing 40 or 400 hours, it's all just part of a scale. This is even sillier when you remember that we weren't talking about account deletion but permadeath - permadeath doesn't require that you lose ALL of the time you have invested in a game. You could easily have a permadeath game where you can create a 'son' of the dead character, who inherits some of the dead character's wealth or reputation.
That's fine, I don't mind being called an idiot by someone who doesn't understand basic math, it really lacks any sting.
The reason people want to loot is to be able to cause other people grief, yes. No one has yet to say anything contrary, they just try to make it sound better by going on about 'consequences' and 'meaning'.
So square this back with the original comment that prompted this sub-discussion, where the person claimed that in a looting PVP game equipement would be trivially replaceable. If the gear pirates are looting is trivial to get, how are they making significant profit on it? It appears to me that you're agreeing that the 'gear can be easily replaced' bit is pure nonsense.
And the adrenaline rush bit is just silly; you don't need to be able to take stuff from other people to get that rush, and most people get it just from playing the game. If pirates were really enjoying risk taking, they'd load their ship up with valuables instead of using cheap-but-effective ships that they don't really mind losing.
OK, then what is the 'more to it'? You've neglected to explain that. Yeah, yeah, we all know there's something about 'power structure sandbox consequences meaning purpose', try to avoid using those words and say what's really meant. Bear in mind that I don't consider 'won a video game fight in which I took the guys stuff' to be any more meaningfull that 'won a video game fight' when you do this.
You are 100% right, I am currently playing UO on a free server, (UO gamers). When mmorgs first came out meridian, UO, EQ I believe were the first three they all had looting. They were fun and exciting.
The next generation of games were made for post babyboomers. The babyboomer generation got out of school got a job went to night school and advanced thru life struggling, raising kids. Hard work and risk were a way of life and you did'nt delude yourself into thinking otherwise.
The next generation grew up thinking the world owed them a living, find me a 21 year old who doesnt still live at home, or pays rent, their own insurance, buys food, works around the house. They grew up being catered to, every tv show, magazine or web site tells them this is how it should be. The price of an xbox that they get for christmas adds up to every gift in adjusted dollars that a babyboomer got their entire childhood.
Since they never had to work for or risk anything in real life, how can they be expected to work for or risk anything in a game?
You're realize you're talking about the generation that includes hippies, right? Either that or you've come from some alternate history and the stuff you're saying here is irrelevant since we're all from actual earth. Also, do you have anything backing your claim that UO was designed primarily to appeal to people in their 40s and 50s? Because the baby boomers were the people born in the 'baby boom' after WW2 and a few years after that, up to maybe 1960.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Except that the original comment was "You just don't get it. In Ultima Online it didnt really matter that much if you were looted." Losing hours of time does matter to me, so if this is the case then you're directly contradicting the orignal claim.
Good question for an allegedly PVP game, but I'd ask the same about UO since according to you it would take hours of grinding gold to cover just one PVP fight.
Yeah bascially 15 mins to get enough gold to outfit yourself easily, but if you hunted an 1-2 hours, that gold might supply you for a week. Thats what I meant. You wouldnt just hunt till you had enough gold for 1 suit of armor, within an hour you could have enough for alot of items. It was pretty easy.
Plus if you won a pvp fight you could gain some supplies and store them for when you needed them. The way I handled it: Hunt one day, get enough gold and buy supplies to last a week or 2. It wasnt like you died and then had to hunt for 2 hrs. Sorry for misleading.
That's a rather long way of saying 'you can gank people and take their stuff!', which is exactly what all of these 'hardcore' PVPers end up talking about doing when they're not careful to hide it. I know you guys like to dress it up by using multisyballic words, but for all the talk of objective and meaning 'gank people and take their stuff' is really all it boils down to.
With all of that, you've neglected to explain why they're so keen on looting worthless stuff. Why not just ditch the looting instead of making gear completely trivial to replace? And why go on for multiple multi-page threads and pop into forums for various games that don't have trivial gear preaching about how the game needs to be full-loot? Why hold a game like WOW in contempt when it has a trival death penalty too?
The whole bit about easily replaced gear is just bunk, and it's trivial to see that.
Perhaps you can't read well. People are keen on looting because it gives them a reason to do something. It's no different than leveling. Killing monsters is dull, boring, and pointless, but people do it for that "ding". Looting itself isn't really an awe-inspiring event, but it gives a reward for killing people. I explained this in my previous post when I was talking about "risk versus reward"...
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
Yeah bascially 15 mins to get enough gold to outfit yourself easily, but if you hunted an 1-2 hours, that gold might supply you for a week. Thats what I meant. You wouldnt just hunt till you had enough gold for 1 suit of armor, within an hour you could have enough for alot of items. It was pretty easy.
Plus if you won a pvp fight you could gain some supplies and store them for when you needed them. The way I handled it: Hunt one day, get enough gold and buy supplies to last a week or 2. It wasnt like you died and then had to hunt for 2 hrs. Sorry for misleading.
It took me about 3 hours to supply myself for a month, but of course I had my own vendors making money for me. Ahhh, I miss UO.
What greater tribute to free will than the power to question the highest of authority? What greater display of loyalty than blind faith? What greater gift than free will? What greater love than loyalty?
I can read just fine, I just don't buy the complete BS the 'hardcore' PVP crowd repeats.
That something is 'gank people and take their stuff', and it doesn't provide a 'reason', just the ability to do so. They're keen on looting because it lets them play the bully role and take a shot at messing up someone else's day, if that wasn't their motive they wouldn't focus on looting but would instead talk about PVP rewards.
It's very different than leveling, because leveling doesn't require taking anything from other players. It's also interesting that you say that killing monsters is 'pointless', even though you get loot from them which is allegedly what makes PVP 'pointful'. Can you explain the difference, or is it just that killing mosnters is pointless because they're not bothering a person when they do it?
No, it gives a penalty for dying in PVP. You can have PVP rewards without the 'gank people and take their stuff' mechanic; for example, DAOC has a lot of PVP rewards but no looting of players, and WAR is slated to have drops in PVP but no loss for the defeated player. If people want a reward for killing people, they would ask to get a reward and not to give out a punishment.
I didn't really want to get into "risk versus reward" silliness, since in general full-loot PVP is about minimizing risk not taking higher risks for higher rewards.
So if the gear is so trivial that you can PVP for a week on an hour of farming, how does it being lootable make the fights more enjoyable for you? People talk about PVP looting like it's the Holy Grail, because it Gives Meaning, Provides Consequences, and Risk Versus Reward, but how much meaning does looting completely trivial gear add to a fight?
Simple. Hunting for gold/items is boring as hell for some players. If they can PvP (which is what they really want to do) and get the same kinds of rewards as hunting mobs, then that's what they'll do.
The AC PvP loot system was awesome. Only the most expensive things on a char were dropped (there were some criteria) so players in PvP would simply carry a number of high value junk items (death items) that could be bought from vendors or found on mobs. The more of these items that a player amassed, the more he was able to sustain himself for more deaths. This was highly imporatant when guilds were taking towns etc, the more DI's a player had = the longer he could stay in the fight without wasting time having to gather more.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
I have to agree with Pantastic here...
Because Fighting people is more fun than the AI of mobs... And because they can get the same items as if fighting mobs... Okayyy, then why not just have the system Pantastic described, where the the player that loses doesn't lose any items, but the winner gets a reward like in WAR? Or do you guys agree with that system?
Personally, I don't think you do. Even though, I'm against looting. I find myself alittle bit sadistic to an extent myself. I find myself as the best source, and like to believe that I'm about the avg. gamer or am I just weird?