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Realm vs Realm (VS.) FFA Factions, Reputation, and Guild Wars
AccountDeleted12341
Member Posts: 351
When it comes to MMORPG's, there are quite a few ways to handle the choices of races, PvP, and groups of PC's (and NPC's).
I will be using two popular examples, Everquest 1 + Shadowbane, and Dark Age of Camelot.
Let's pretend for a moment that RvR Keep Sieges are a major part of the gameplay. For RvR, think DAoC. For FFAF, think Shadowbane. There is no FFA PvP. The only PvP involved is zone control (all zones, towns, resources, or whatever can be taken over and claimed). Similar to Darkfall, a guild must declare war over another to RvR with them. No FFA PvP means diplomacy and resource gathering is allowed, and the world is less chaotic.
Let's pretend there are a plethora of races (EQ or DAoC) and that upon creation, characters have reputation (Everquest) and are KoS at some faction or race cities, and Friendly with others (Everquest) OR are placed inside multiple realms (DAoC) ranging from 3, 4, or 5 realms all at war with each other, but within your own everyone is friendly (DAoC).
In Everquest, we had the wonderful ability to become friendly or KoS with ANY faction! What a sandbox PvE game!
In Shadowbane, we had the ability to make our Guilds any mix of races, declare our own faction, and PvP our heart outs! Same with Darkfall. "We don't allow Dwarves in our Guild!" or "We are a Minotaur-only guild!"
In Dark Age of Camelot, we were all united under one banner, each having a plethora of races and classes, an entire friendly land to PvE in, and the ability to PvP against the enemy factions-- each with their own theme and lore.
Which would you prefer? A Free For All Faction Reputation system, where players define their own Guilds, combining them into Alliances (Shadowbane, Darkfall)? A stricter Realm vs Realm theme-based system where a much larger playerbase is united?
Comments
Personally, I am entirely on the fence. I find both ideas to be simply FASCINATING!
Realm vs Realm-- There are only 3, 4, or 5 realms, but this means the playerbase is united under a single banner. Factions are HUGE, featuring hundreds or even thousands of players per faction. You don't just have one enemy, but you have 2, 3, or even 4 other large factions of enemies to contend with. Guilds are formed, Alliances are made, but the fact remains-- Guild or not, Alliance or not, we are all on the same side. FOR THE REALM!
Player Freedom-- This is a phenominal choice. Allow players to do whatever they want. Want your high elf cleric to befriend a dark elf shadowknight? Legolas and Gimli relationships? Anything you want! Want to be a Minotaur-only guild? Go ahead, and perhaps you can get enough Minotaur to make it rare for any other guild to have any! Want to be a greenskin-only guild? Sure thing boss!
The player with this is that with player freedom, comes player division. Players are NOT united under one faction. Those without a guild or alliance are left under a curse. How can you compete with an entire guild? Yet, the enemies are not large with thousands of members. Instead, even the largest only have hundreds, and most have less than 30. What is to stop one guild from dominating the rest? One faction from zerging the others? Even without FFA PvP, what is to stop one realm from taking over most zones? Yet then again... isn't it a great and fun thing to be the underdog, challenging the bigger guy, vying for control-- and actually taking it from them?
I'm a fan of the politics and shifts in control that guild vs guild combat brings, so I prefer that over an NPC faction system. It allows the guilds themselves to develop richer histories as they are writing the next chapter of a unique story with each battle, trade and diplomatic action.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What if a game allowed BOTH NPC Factions AND PC Factions? With NPC AI smart enough to actually pose a threat to the PC's-- and for the NPC's to either be led by employed game masters, or intelligent AI with diplomacy skills?
That battles are declared similar to Ultima Online, without the FFA PvP. Where guilds can declare war on each other, try to lay claim to each other's land, town, and zones (Darkfall), but must play the game of diplomacy with NPC's (which they can have in their guild).
Both a NPC Faction system, where players accrue Reputation, AND a PC faction system, where reputation is formed not through computer calculations, but through real life socializing?
"I am the Player Faction "Knights of Arthur" and we are allied with the NPC Faction "King Arthur" one of the largest. Two player factions (Knights of Athur, and Knights of Merlin) could be rival waring PC factions, both with allegiance and positive faction to "King Arthur" NPC faction. This is a combination of BOTH Realms (kindof) and PC factions. However, anyone can declare war on anyone. NPC Factions wouldnt declare war on either KoA or KoM because they are friendly to both. However, I find it fascinating that perhaps the NPC Faction might call upon KoA AND KoM to join together against "The Orcs of Northguard" NPC or PlayerFaction.
Diplomatic requests to fight different factions, or perhaps a temporary truce between KoA and KoM factions until the Orcs have been dealt with. Potentially uniting two divided factions because of a common enemy.
Interesting, but it could still allow groups which share NPC allegiance to fight one another. Potentially, instead of employed Game Masters, Players could rise to power within NPC factions, or even compete in a diplomacy game with NPC's.
Going off of that idea-- there could be Guilds and MetaGuilds, which are a merger of guilds (deeper merging than alliance).
Perhaps after the Orcs have been defeated, the Knights of Merlin and Knights of Arthur both appreciate one another, and both player leaders decide to merge together to form King Arthur's Orc Slayers.
A smooth and detailed Guild User Interface could assist in the logistics. "Who gets Guildmaster position? Well, lets share it. Okay, but we can't have everyone in the guild equal in rank. Who should be 2nd in command, 3rd, and 4th?"
Perhaps the KoM guild leader is quitting the game, and their guild dying, so they want a merger into KoA to retain the higher ranking of the players left behind. "They're good leaders, and deserve high ranks if they join KoA."
A ranking system could be put in place that actually matters. Instead of pointless ranks, there could be a deep amount of features tied in with various ranks, in addition to requirements to even have certain positions. "Can't be a Warlord without 1000 PvP victories! And Warlords are required to get that Guild Buff during Keep Sieges!"
Could be a very interesting PC faction game if there were NPC factions in addition to a robust guild system, which directly influences the player's fame and status within the entire game world. "NPC's bow before a Guild Leader, and PC's respect them because it takes 100,000,000 gold and 1000 hours playtime to achieve this status!"
Not that a Private can't lead a guild (they can) but there are certain titles which actually attribute to what a guild member can or can't do. So a Captain can have any lower ranking guild member in his "Band of Pirates" but if a Major joins, the Major would have more power in the guild. So the Captain refuses to let anyone above his rank in the guild, keeping it smaller, keeping it more newbie-friendly, making for possible mergers, and allowing that Captain to rise in the rank alongside his guild, without the help of more powerful guild members.
However, a guild CAN join a metaguild. So a "Band of Pirates' led by a Captain, can retain their guild AND join a bigger guild (alliance) based on their rank. This could all be tied together in much larger NPC factions (or player factions). Expansions could include a massive NPC invasion, with the choice to ally yourself with the new invaders.
Take for instance a "Wrath of the Lich King" faction suddenly appearing. It takes control over an NPC zone, with a lot of power. It then begins to battle and spread its legions forth. Players determine if it's stopped, or not. Big battles can happen, and players can lose cities and change alliances.
"We were once called the Pirates of the Carribean...before the Lich King took over our home. Now we fight to get it back, by joining the Justice League Alliance!"
Game Masters could adjust storylines to the game by introducing new races, abilities, or simple factions. Imagine a game developer saying "We tried to make the Lich King and his undead armies invade the world, but players destroyed him really quickly, despite how much power we gave him! So instead, we posted in the storyline he was defeated, and in a few months if things dont work out with our other factions, we're going to contact one of the largest guilds and ask if they're willing to side with the Lich King, making their guild leader a possessed boss, the Lich King himself!
I think RvR is better for the non-niche group as it has better protection against zerg guilds and what not. There isn't the problem of join a decent sized guild or stay away from any meaningful PvP. Though I think also that RvR needs to have Guild related features and political features that a GvG or player created faction game would have. For example, there is nothing stopping a guild or a specific person from taking control of the faction. There is nothing stopping guilds from taking control of territories.
I'm not saying I wouldn't play a game with player created faction, actually I'm currently looking for any game with meaningful territory control, whether it's RvR or GvG. though I do have some preferences on what I prefer(see my post in general gaming, near the end of the first page of the " I want a game that.....be creative now" thread).
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Very interesting, and I had not thought of this before. In addition to your post, the one right before it is excellent as well!
Perhaps the answer is in a Realm vs Realm faction system, where all of one realm is friendly with each other, but can still have faction within that realm (or even guild wars) but is primarily united against the enemy realms.
This solves a lot of the problem. The NPC Faction (Realm) is entirely a non-existent entity with only one mindset-- Destroy the 2, 3, or 4 enemy Realms. The PC Factions within each Realm can fight for control over their own land, wage guild wars for control, but are in the end still under the Realm banner. PC's can still be KoS within factions of their own realm (unless in a RvR battle) and various factions can fight over zone control, after Realm control.
This solves the problem of guilds ganging up to zerg each other, as a friendly zerg will only control better territory, while the losing same-realm-guild would still own land (swap, if a guild can only control a single zone). In the end, I think players would be more focused on Realm Control than Guild Control, and guild control and guild wars would be a smaller game within the larger RvR realm wars.
Any player not part of a guild, or any guild not part of Guild vs Guild conflict, will all be aligned together as a Realm, alongside the GvG players. Most guild conflicts will probably be small-time or personal conflicts among guilds. And yet if during a RvR conflict they can't attack their own team, enemy guilds within the same realm can still form temporary alliances like I discussed.
I am beginning to favor, as I had already decided, Realms and RvR instead of GvG. I still think there MIGHT be some wiggle room to allow for GvG within RvR, although it might just be pointless or a waste of resources and time.
Great posts guys!
This allows player freedom, player control, player factions, NPC factions
To add to it... this is almost entirely a DAoC game I'm now discussing, with a mix in of Ultima Online Guild Wars, and Darkfall town/zone ownership.
It would be like DAoC, but where you could betray and become KoS with same-realm Races or same-realm factions (Defenders of Albion, Academy, Church, Half Ogres, Saracen, Highlanders, Britons, Inconnu, etc. all in Albion Realm)
If each race had its own city, items, zones, or even crafting-- I can see there being even more to the game than PvE or RvR, but also reputation grinding on top of RvR and PvE.
The only problem I can see right now is a Realm destroying itself via conflict within itself. If a realm is divided, it will be weaker in RvR conflict. However, without realm division, who will be the enemies in PvE? The other Realms? Well, isn't that RvE?