OK...I lied..I will elaborate more!
How would this approach to \"unlimited\" PvP privileges work in game? Just to go to the extreme example of freedom let me postulate it as follows:
It\'s against the law to kill another player. The penalty for doing so is death (not perma) and the confiscation of all your goods and tria to be paid to the victim as compensation. Anyone can kill anyone else anytime they want! Of course the civil authorities employ mages of the highest level to instantly transport anyone who has killed to the execution stand in town where they are indeed executed and their goods confiscated.
(This only works if a WoW-style \"Soulbound\" feature is added to items such that a player can\'t park his valuables on another player while he goes on a killing spree. In fact, this extension of PvP isn\'t actually neccessary for what I\'m proposing but it does create a consistent logic for the sort of PvP privelege I would allow...more on that later)
In order to earn a PvP privilege, a player would at some point have to travel to the \"Font of Debasement\" where he would speak to an NPC who would either accept him, if he had attained adequate level in enough skills to be of use to the forces of evil or reject him. The player would now be on the path of evil but still very far from having earned a PvP privilege.
What would be changed for that player is that most every quest NPC, not the giver but ones \"inside\" the quest, would now be a potential ally and means to advance his standing amongst the evil. Where a \"good\" team might wish to kill the boss NPC at the end of a quest, the evil player would switch sides at the very end and fight with the NPC. By saying \"I serve evil\" or some such, the evil player would instantly be dropped from his group and \"teamed\" with whatever evil was being faced.
This is real treachery, not some wanker who just wants to gank noobs. It adds to the danger of the game and broadens the possibilities while preserving RP. What are the possible outcomes for our party who has just been confronted by a traitor in their midst?
They fight the evil npc and defeat him AND, while in this quest or until the npc is dead, they fight the evil player as well. If good wins, they complete their quest as per normal. If evil looks too strong with the player now on it\'s side, they run away or they fight and evil wins, the evil player has earned \'points\". All of this is much more practical if all quests or at least ones that allow an evil or good outcome are instanced. I haven\'t found any threads about instancing in PS but I certainly hope it\'s planned for as it\'s the single most effective way to cut out grief.
And speaking of grief, how do I propose to keep the scenario I just described from being a \"grief farm\" for evil players who unwittingly lure weak good players into dungeons and then turn on them? Will the evil player get the opportunity to reenact his treachery with other, unsuspecting groups? And quite the bright chap you are for asking too!
Just as there is a \"Font of Debasement\" where evil players go to affirm their evilness, there will also be a \"Font of Purification\". Knowledgeable \"good\" players will usually gather around the font when forming pick-up groups for quests. To assure no treachery, they will insist that all unknown team members use the font to wash away any evil that may have crept into their souls. In game terms, using the font removes a players \"evil\" and resets him to \"normal\" at the cost of all evil points earned so far.
That only leaves lying and deception as an evil players tools...or the stupidity of good players who don\'t insist on the use of the font. Therefore, the treacherous scenario I cited above will most likely be acted out at the point some known player has finally recieved acceptance by evil and the treachery will be his \"coming out\".
Ok, that\'s a description of the \"start game\" and anti-grief features. The middle game for an evil player is pretty much about doing quests \"the evil way\" by himself or with other would-be evil players. These could be quests specifically designed for the path of evil or be the same ones good players do but with a different set of \"options\" within them. Keep in mind that the PvP privilege has not been earned yet. Only on the rare occasion that an evil player might lie and decieve his way into a good team would there be a brief possibility for some limited PvP.
As the evil player advances, vendors and trainers would express a deepening concern about dealing with that player. This concern could only be overcome by paying higher prices that normal for their services. Other players would, over time, see visible signs of the players growing evilness. This could be something as mundane as his name changing color to actual physical disfigurement or marking such as a hunched posture or some mark on their skin which was clearly visible.
Finally, when the evil player had earned the equivelant of 20%-25% above the cost of his highest skills and spent it on specifically designated \"evil\" training, he will be given an amulet by a high (the highest) evil NPC. This amulet is a \"shield\" against the transportation powers of the mages who enforce the death penalty (bet you wondered when I\'d get back to that!). It also has other effects:
1) The player can no longer trade goods or tria with ANYONE!
2) Any alt characters the player has are \"greyed out\" and unplayable until or unless the evil character turns good again (at the loss of all \"evil\" points) or is deleted. . Why? To keep him from acting as a decoy with an alt for another evil character who, in turn, will do the same for him.
3) The amulet MUST be \"washed\" in blood (you HAVE to PvP someone) every 8 or so hours of game play otherwise the player must sacrifice himself to the amulet to retain it\'s power. This is a normal death, not perma death but adds the element of \"subservience to evil\" that all evil expects from it\'s followers.
4) While you are free to roam the world at your own peril where guards will kill you on sight, you do have one sanctuary. The very highest evil place in PS would be an uninstanced castle/keep/dungeon where evil players were the monsters....or some of the monsters. Evil players would not be attacked by the NPC\'s in this place and could choose to postion themselves amongst them where ever they wanted to attack any good players who ventured there.
I know this isn\'t the PvP any greifer would want. I planned it that way. Too much commitment and too much like doing that gay-ass RP shit!
But it is consistent with an RP-centric game and allows players to earn the right to PvP while limiting it to those serious enough to do it only as part of their \"end-game\" strategy and not from the first day they log on.
I\'m still not neccesarily in favor of this approach but it will add content as players essentially become part of the story. \"Don\'t go over in them woods-that\'s where So-and -so hangs out!\" For me, the real key to whether any sort of PvP is \"necessary\" in a game is whether the content and storyline of the game are adequate without it. I\'ve played no MMOPRG so far that actually told an interesting enough story and supported it with enough high quality quests that, ultimatly, it didn\'t have to fall back on PvP or some other lame vehicle to add some excitment.
