Does anyone get it???

[paxx]

I am not sure how to go forward without insulting many people here, but I fear that most of you simply don?t get what is at issue, then again you may simply want this as a forum to say, ?this is what I want in the game?.

In truth, I had hoped that better heads would prevail, but they appear to have run for the hills.

In this game there will be no ?PKing? Vs. unwilling unacknowledged opponents, when I say unacknowledged, I mean that they know they are under possible danger of attack and have options to avoid it and still play the game normally.

What is much more at stake is the level of  PvP. To truly understand the stance of most of the powers that be (devs) is to view a game where if I don?t want to fight you and we are at war?I really don?t have to. I will not even begin to explain the lack of options for thieving from PCs other then to say?there won?t be any unless things change.

The current goal of this game is to provide a world to explore and adventure in, where the good guys, (the players) have a clear understanding of the bad guys (the MOBs wanting to kill you) as far as plot complexity?there will be those few NPCs that change sides.

I am oversimplifying greatly and to quote me on this would be folly, as I am simply venting a level of frustration at the disconnect that this portion (and many others) of the forum seems to have.

I am vehemently the strongest supporter of thieving content in this game, and I mean much more then simply picking pockets or muggings, of the devs. And yet what you all seem to want is not really a role playing game, but a game of one-upmanship, conquest at no risk, lowbrow jollies on someone?s misery. Simply said this game will not have that, nore will it have open field PKing with people playing cops and robbers (or some variation of that). Quite simply, think of all of your character as being heroic and united in a plight against external forces. Where differences are contested in a formal (sometimes bloody, but always formal) confrontation.

That being said, do ?I? want this?not really. But that is the current focus. Those of you who want PK/full looting/thiving/? will never get your wish from this game. This sub forum was made for you to vent a bit, as well as hopefully add some good ideas on how to make a fair and nice PvP/thief friendly environment, and with some very slight exceptions I have not gotten any of that in the last 4 months or more from this thread.

Will I do anything about it, not really. But I will say that those of you who think the will of this subforum will make the game have more PKing, NO!!! your time and effort is completely wasted, and better spent else where. I would suggest another game, or outside enjoying the coming spring. In fact I fear that many of  the posts here only invite more inflexible  regulation on any PvP in the game at all, at least at this stage. And thus making it worse for all who want more PvP content.

Anyway those are my current musings, do with them as you wish, I only suggest you start coming up with something better then bounty hunters, while I see merit in the idea, it does not even begin to cut it.

We are talking about something where eather everyone can enjoy, that is especially true for non-PKers, or it will not be in the game.

The focus of this game currently is ?Core-Role Players? for those who don?t know what that is, it is the people who will be interested in the latest fashions of PS, who is who, what the news of the day is in the world as much as killing the next mob and gaining EXP.  

While one can argue?I am role-playing and sadistic thug?the only sadistic thugs in the game will be NPCs if things go as they are currently planed.

Again not my idea of ?fun? but much more acceptable then open range PK, And all in all you have shadowbane.

For those of you who want a free alternative?not a great game to focus on, our focus currently is based on making the game that is as close to on-par with a purchased game as possible and your Pentium 3 and 3 year old video card will not cut it, even after we optimize things.

Anyways have a good time. And again, none of this is written in stone and all may change, but it will not be on the argument of ?beause Pking/thieving is better and more real? or the 1000 slight variations of that. You are not our current target audience and probably never will be.  

[Empanado]

Ok then...In that case, are there ANY plans of implementing battles between players and/or guilds? given the chance that there are such plans, in what kind of way would it work? (as you know so far)

[paxx]

Yes, in the next release you will be able to accept or decline challenges.

And an extension of that are guild challenges.

As to how it is done, is the issue, and really the devil is in the details, and I am not giving details because those are not agreed on or sanctioned in any way.

[Kuiper7986]

Paxx what you said is like, music to my ears. Ahh I can hear the words in my head like beautiful music,

\"But I will say that those of you who think the will of this subforum will make the game have more PKing, NO!!! your time and effort is completely wasted, and better spent else where. I would suggest another game, or outside enjoying the coming spring.\"

I shall shed the tears of joy from my eyes.

[tallimar]

first words of meaning in such a long time for this part of the forums.  perhaps it is like you said.... nah, i wont quote it.  either way, it seems that this subforum seems to have attracted primarily people that enjoy preying on the weaker players, even if some of them actually are genuine about equal opportunity pvp-ing.

[Armenelos]

Hey you know I resent that, I come to this forum to look at stuff for thieving and possibly a little PvP. Just cause you don\'t like to kill other people and I do, doesn\'t mean I\'m suddenly preying on the weak. I actually prefer trying to take on someone higher, nothing\'s funner then beating someone who is supposed to be the best or at least superior to you.

You see it as trying to kill someone, I see it as a new challenge. What\'s more of a challenge then something with its own mind to do different strategies... A monster can only do so much and then when you\'ve found the perfect way to beat it, it offers nothing but another monster bashing, but if you fight people or steal from people then you have the extra spice of something new. Which is a human mind. Who nows how they\'ll react, what they\'ll do next. It\'s never planned, so it adds a little flavour to some boring games.

Whether were here because we all are preying on the weak or whatever other reason, we all recognize that extra zing this gives us. Maybe you need to realize it\'s not a game and have fun with fighting someone else.  I seriously believe everyone should make a character and go PvPing or thieving once in a while. There is a thrill in chasing down the \"prey\" or seeing if you can pull this or that off.

And Paxx, not all of us want this world were everything goes, I\'m not for a PvP all the time world, even though it may sound like it, I like the ideas of duels, but a wilderness in the middle of never never land would be kind of nice too for those of us who get bored of the same monster all the time.  The devs want us to interact and make friends well as much fun as rping and exploring and meeting friends is, fighting new people helps out this cause a lot. Even if it does end in a fued, it\'s still part of rping. Not everyone is gonna hug and kiss and dance around and love each other in any world.
You all claim to want to appeal to the masses, well hey aren\'t we a mass? But what does it matter, I can plead for better thieving (which I really want) but that depends on the PvP system, and if we\'re going to be screwed in that then we\'re going to be screwed for thieves. So whatever, I\'m still going to stay for your game, maybe I\'ll like it, maybe I won\'t, I\'ll have to wait and see.

All those people who are against PvP and Thieving need to lighten up and remember its a game not your life. Whatever you did, you can more then likely get it back, so quit complaining and maybe try to PvP or go be a thief sometime.  It\'s a lot harder then fighting the amazingly good ultra boss that you\'ve taken on countless times and you know that if you go use this spell to shoot him and then attack him with your staff that he falls down in a few whacks and then you start your cycle all over again.

Well that\'s my 2 cents. Probably not worth anything but to bad.

[paxx]

Armenelos; to a large degree I agree with your wants, hell I want them too in many ways. But it is not my call per say.

I would have liked many things to be different, however the core of this game is Role Playing, and the mode to enforce that seems to be, allowing the player to choose their danger level.

If truth be told, and I had my way. About 99% of the content would be PvP to some degree with only certain sites being totally safe, but I am not a fan of open ended PKing, though I would like it if you joined a Thug or assassin faction?well their you go, but only if there is accountability, and letts face it accountability is not fun, and so it is more in line with happy happy, free, free land.

One of my biggest issues with EQ early on was?a Paladin and a Necromancer could join up, someone could have killed thousands of Halflings and the Halfling thief would join up with them. Though my favorite time on the game was the Race War Server, but even then it was not fair in any way, it lacked something and they made it worse as they made it a friendlier place to be instead of adding content in some way so it worked better.


But that was many moons ago and much has changed, there are PvP and PK games out there, there are many different takes on very similar things.

And the main people here want to make an environment that leads to Role-playing.

I do not think and personally would never say that we are making a game for the masses, we are making a game that to date has not proven profitable but we feel has some importance to many people. In fact I would say that we are targeting maybe 2% of the ?RPG? players out there.  

On the flip side I would love to make things differently, where death means something, and capture often worse, at the same time they are not deal breakers and you can have fun, not loose a ton of exp or the normal stuff that RPGs have had. In essence I want to push the limits and concepts of what a fun RPG can be, and at the same time recognize our limitations in developing that.

But it is not for me to say, and most (perhaps all who care about these aspects) of the other devs disagree with most of my wants.  

Not saying that they are not feasible, just they would not want to do it that way.  Thus is the way with these projects.

But we are not creating a Free MMORPG for the masses, we want our game to be an alternative on its merits, not because of price.

[Armenelos]

Ok well if you all feel your dealing with a small percentage of RPers then why not put SOME of the ideas into the next pre release version, (the one after this upcoming one) to see if it could work out.  Aren\'t all these pre alphas here to try and see what works, what doesn\'t, whats bugged, so on?  Then you can eventually sculpt what worked, what you all liked, what you didn\'t like, into what you want. Hell if it doesnt work then you can scrap it completely, I\'d even go for that. If we were the ones to go over board and @#$% it up then we obviously don\'t deserve to have it.

I mean since we are so small then we might handle it a little better then the huge percentage of other RPers. I know I\'m just dragging this on, but I just want thieves soo bad lol.  

Thanks paxx for answering these things to, I know it must get really annoying to say the same thing over again, and I know your saying some things over again to me. So I much appreciate you actually sticking to this forum, even though we never give much reason on why we should have what we want.  *sigh* It\'s so hard to change someone\'s mind once they believe there way would be better.

[paxx]

I think you mistook my meaning of 2% of the RPG players out there, that number is still huge.

Broken down, you have all RPGers, about 10% don?t play on a computer.
About 50% of the computer players do not play MORPGs.
About 10% don?t like fantasy
So all in all that leaves us with 30% of all RPGers as a start.

Then we have the classic Role player, power gamer and PKers, we are focused on the Role players and to a small degree the Powergamers, most games out there are the opposite where most is on Powergaming, this includes D&D and most paper and pencil games.

Also many games have a kill all the monsters around view, I don?t think we will and that lowers the % even more, cause many will need to know who to kill when and how.

So what is Role-Playing in the sense given, cause we all have different opinions. Well, my definition is not the one I will use, cause it is not what is being used. My understanding of Role-playing in the (Planeshift) way of thinking is, that you are more focused on your character from a personal standpoint then a stats stand point, that if I have armor that that is 10% better at defending , or looks 10% better, the RPer will take that one that looks better.

Also the RPer will accept a role and not say I want to be X, and they will enjoy taking that role.

This may seem odd, but if you play paper and pencil RPGs, you know that 90% of the time you play the good guys. And in this game it won?t be very different. In reality the hope of the game ATM is to provide the closest resemblance to paper and pencil gaming (or live RPGs) possible with out all the drawbacks.

My opinion on this is mixed, but that is not the current issue. The issue here is focus, or lack there of.

If you have a eat or be eaten environment, it becomes powergamer centric, better armor better weapons, better spells, kills you and I get your stuff. This we will not have at all.

In a setting where everything is cooperative ?us against the world? you once again become powergamer centric so I can take on more then you can.

The balance for role-playing and fun is centered on total lack of grief, and where quests and game issues (politics and puzzles and such )  are at the center of gaining experience And thus more effective.  

Now, I am not particularly of this view, nor is anyone of the devs, but it is a combination of visions.
There is talk that when we are in ?alpha? we will have many rule sets and such and as we near ?beta? we will consolidate and make it what is deemed most desirable to our hopes. But from a political standpoint, wanting Grief  play and no real effect on the character (NPC?s not selling to you is not enough, and not being able to go into cities is not enough, and getting killed a couple of times is not enough, because you choose that path, the one you killed did not, unless he/she lost after starting a fight) is has to give hardship in some way.

Again for those of you wanting to PvP there are games out there that provide it, Shadowbane and DOAC to name two, and I am pretty sure there are 2 or 3 more with a good number of players. Games with great thief content?very few, thief 2 was probably the best but still only single player.

The trick is goal and focus of the game, what does one game give that others do not?and price is not a reason, go get a job.

This game will not be all things for all people (no game can be). But this game will touch on one or two ignored areas of gaming.

As for the point of this thread?if you really want good PvP content, or even PK content, figure something out where it does not include grief.

Actually what is needed is something different, but it is up to you all to find it really.
Anyone who is opposed to PKing or PvP or Player thieving, will not be persuaded by what is on this sub-forum, it is hopeful that it is not the opposite.  

So, figure out a system that is so enticing that it will convert a non-PKer to want to have this game be PK.

As for making 5 or 6 different types of game play for the game, again, only at one or two realeases will that be plausible, it is not simply a matter of turning this on and that off, a lot of balancing and adding code to make it all happen will be necessary and then to support that many versions is a pain. Or literally all games would have it. But they do not because of the amount of work involved in maintaining it is not cost effective, and this entire project is not cost effective, so that would be worse.

[Armenelos]

So in other words, we have to make something  so amazingly sweet that people will want to play it and their can\'t be any grief or players complaining. It has to be balanced and all that other jazz.

Well.... I\'m going to give up then, cause there is probably no way to make that, and even if I did find the perfect thing to me, there is bound to be someone out there that would disagree, which then makes me scrape the whole thing...

It would be cool if we could get some big non pkers like Kuiper and get some people that are all for pking in the same place, just throwing out ideas and then slowly make it something we\'d all want. But that would probably not happen. Oh well, I\'ll just have to live with what you guys have planned.

And yah, I was definatly ignorant on the amount of players who play these things and all the work that goes into these things too, I just never thought about it before I typed it, not the smartest of things to do....

Could you ban the accounts of griefers? Or anything like that? Or is there another way around that too? I know banning ips wouldn\'t work cause people can change those, well I think they can anyways.

[derwoodly]

I know that PS is not going to be PvP.  I post just for the debate, and I post at night so I am not missing any sunshine.

I personally don\'t think much of the bounty hunter NPC, PK tags, or reward systems.  I think they will be exploited.  However there has been some interesting ideas.

Knock out instead of death. Allow players to attack each other but the death blow would not be allowed.

Safe merchant/newbie zones.

Jail, pkers would be put in jail where they could be attacked by all (like a stockade).

I also think a playable bad guy race would be fun.  I am thinking of the \"GM\" pen and paper role.  You could select an enemy race that could not be leveled, or bank.  You could attack only players, and loot there corpses of \"shinny things\".

Well just more ideas, I don\'t really care if there are in the game or not.

[WSIMike]

Disclaimer: everything stated in this message is intended as nothing more than a general template/concept to be considered or dismissed. Not an absolute or inflexible suggestion (not that I\'d be arrogant enough to assume it so.  heheh).

First, I\'m perfectly happy in a setting where the gameplay is primarily PvE with a consensual PvP aspect (arena, duals, etc.). However, I also understand that as happy as I am without pure PvP.. others are equally happy with it. I think it\'s fair to provide something of both PvE and PvP, if possible, to keep everyone happy.. you know.. that whole Compromise thing.

Of course, how do you do it?

Well, here are some thoughts based on other games I\'ve played that I think had it right - or at least reasonably implemented.

First, have areas that are designated strictly as PvP or non-PvP. Cities, towns, villages, temples or other such areas of sanctuary could be non-PvP - anywhere the \"law extends to\". The only exception being an arena, etc. As a general rule if you are, for the most part, safe from any PvE encounters, so too should you be safe from PvP encounters. If you try to attack someone, a guard or other designated \"protector\" for that area will swiftly come after you.

Wilderness areas or areas otherwise outside the immediate reach of any one city/town/village/sanctuary (ie. outside its walls, or outside a certain distance) would be open to PvP - with some caveats.

This is where I think a \'Challenge Rating\' system might be useful. They have this implemented in different games in some good ways. In Neverwinter Nights, you can examine someone and see their challenge rating relative to you. In games like Dungeon Siege and others, what color a person\'s name is displayed (when you click on them or mouse-over them, etc.) is an indication of how challenging they appear to you... This seems to be the most common of the two.

Mind you, it\'s all relative - especially when you\'re not discussing absolute character levels, but skill levels... someone might be way more effective as a mage than someone else is as a fighter, even though they\'re 2 levels lower than the fighter.

Now, the use of the challenge rating would be to allow implementation of a setup where, in a PvP-allowed area, you can only challenge someone within, for example, two challenge levels above or below you, allowing for a total of 5 possible challenge levels to work within (2 levels above or below, or evenly matched).

If you come up to someone who is outside that range, you simply cannot challenge them at all. It could be hard-coded that you cannot physically attack them. The option doesn\'t exist. This would ensure fair matches and that high levels with a penchant for killing low-level/new characters won\'t have that option - unless they want to never level up beyond that point... which,
I\'d think, would defeat the overall purpose of playing to begin with. They\'d get bored and leave, or saddle up and play the game the way it\'s intended :-).

To further put a caveat on that.. say there\'s someone you\'re attacking who is within the level range to fight, but just isn\'t interested - there could be a timer of sorts that starts counting down from the time of your first attack - if the person you\'re attacking has not begun fighting back before that timer runs out, you have to stop attacking  them or some penalty will come into play
for each additional strike... If you kill them, well, then some harsh penalties will come into play.

Now.. in a dual or Arena setting, you can challenge anyone you want, no matter what their level. If someone feels they want to challenge you, they\'re doing so full-knowing you\'re higher than them and they have the choice to accept or decline - thus no one can claim \"foul play\" should they beaten really badly. The reward for winning or penalties for losing (if any) are decided by the devs, etc...

Anyway.. just some thoughts based on general themes I\'ve seen implemented effectively in other games.

Thanks!
Mike

[dbeat]

From a roleplaying point of view, I\'m all for playerkilling.
Murderers and thieves are a part of every society, and a few of them lurking in the shadows would in my opinon add to the realism, and create an even better environment for roleplayers. But there is a huge difference between allowing players to kill other players, and to encourage that sort of behaviour.
The problem seems to be how to create balance in an artificial world, where there is no real consequenses to your actions. I\'m currently playing Dark Age of Camelot, and where playerkilling is \"allowed\" everyone roleplays a lunatic murderer. ;)
 I think everyone should have the OPTION to play an \"evil\" character, BUT they better be prepared to take the consequenses of, say, stabbing an innocent man in the back, on the town square in the bright of day.

I can\'t say I know a perfect sollution to this, but one thing that comes to mind is permanent death. For an example having the person dealing the first blow be blessed with a temporary perma-death-flag for a set ammount of time. Or even make the \"perma-death-flag\" faction based, with playerkilling (outside arenas or other PvP areas) setting the variable. Something to make a character think twice.

Just my 2 cents on playerkilling. PvP or no PvP - either way I\'m really looking forward to playing a mmorpg with focus on the roleplayers.

[AendarCallenlasse]

Yes it\'s been a while since I posted in the PVP forum.  

There is nothing wrong with PvP and I think every person will agree with that.  I am a strict rper.  PvP would add realism to the rp.  But that is the problem, not everyone is an rper.  No matter what limits or boundaries you set there will always be those people who abuse the PvP and become griefers.  When you have griefers they ruin and upset rp.  Therefore if you want strict rp you can\'t have PvP.  So you have a choice.  You can have either an RP game or you can have an open PvP game.  Very rarely can you have both.

So if I had to choose between the two I would pick the RP game.

[derwoodly]

What do you think about having an option to play the NPC bad guys?

I mentioned this in my previous post, but I want to clarify the idea.  First of all the game could be designed as a PvE game.  Players can not attack other players and the city is 100% safe.  However when you log online you would be given an option to play your main character, the one with all the cool stuff, or log in as a random Mob.  As a mob you would have a special chat channel that would only let you chat with \"canned\" phrases.  Your movement would be limited as well.  You would have to stick arround the spawn point.

More than likely you would just be a sitting duck for the PC characters to pick off.  However if you were lucky enough to be able to coordinate using only the normal game rules your force would scare the heck out of the regular player characters.

For example, you log on with the Mob option and find your a troll in a camp with a 5 other trolls.  You can see a group of players preparing to take on the camp.  They are casting spells and healing up.  You think you can catch them off guard, so you select the canned phrase \"Attack the smelly beasties!\" then rush the party.   Once they attack you, you run back to the camp.  The server would use the same rule set for you as it would anyother Mob.  Your \"agro\" list would then be transfered to the 5 other Trolls, and the six of you could attack in force.  Once you were killed you would spawn in a completly different location/mob.

People might want to exploit this too grief players, but it would be impossible to truly suprize players since they will be geared up for taking a camp anyways.  Players would catch on very quickly and learn that a camp of Mobs might be more than just a bunch of targets.  Players could be protected somewhat by changing your vision when you play as a Mob.  Instead of seeing the players races as what they are, they would see just generic pale, small, ugly things, and  names of players would definately not show up if your a Mob. For instance Trolls might see anything that moves as some sort of giant chesse puff.

Just think, if you get lucky you might log on as a bandit, and get to rob caravans as they pass through.