PVP is imperative

[Darkanan]

Look it is imperative in a game like this for PKing to exist. Otherwise what is there to do go around and level a lot, do some quests but even those will die out as time goes on and you get bored. PKing adds a strife and a new element to the game. It allows for wars by guild to exist it defines who people are and also it allows for fair gameplay. I don\'t know how many of you have ever played non PVP games but they suck. People just constantly take your kills from you or will steal your loot or start attacking monsters your might have been training on. PKing should be regulated though so a game does not become solely hack and slash. Heres how to regulate PKing.

1.) You can attack anyone whenever you want whereever.

2.) When you Kill someone they should be told. This can be done many ways. There can be a last killer option or something like that.

3.) When you kill someone you become an outlaw until you go to jail and serve your term. When an outlaw anyone can kill you and they will not become outlaw. Also prevent people from logging off immediately after a conflict too.

4.) Jail is in every town have NPC police that will arrest outlaws when they come within a certain range of them. You must remain in jail for 5minutes. While in jail you are vulnerable to attack from anyone. HOwever, your friends can also protect you in the jail which adds another cool level to the game the importance of forming a group of friends.

5.) Also make sure to make safe areas where no PVP is allowed like banks and town halls orsomething like that.

This is a combination of the methods I\'ve seen used in other games. it is highly effective and will minimize PKs to only those who really want someone dead. Beacuse you will most surely be killed for killing someone else, as is done in the real world.

[Darkanan]

Paxx look I understand that you want to save yourself Grief that makes perfect sense and yes allowing PK will cause people to grief to you sending you emails and such saying so and so killed me they should be banned and you don\'t want to deal with that. And while you can most rightly just say look if thats what you want there are other games out there that have that so go leave and join those hack and slash games. But one thing that can seperate this game from other games is by having a perfectly controlled PK system. PK makes these games Every single good MMORPG that exists out there has PVP and the ones that don\'t die off. Tibia tried about 2 years ago (the largest most popular free MMORPG out) to make seperate servers for Non-PVP and they learned that people just don\'t prefer a non-PVP world to a PVP world. EQ did the same thing. Rune Scape is an example of what your game will become if you don\'t allow PVP and Rune Scape sucks. The idea of having bakers and all random forms of classes is a good idea and will allow this game to rise up as the first ever MOW (multiuser World) however, you have to understand the importance of PVP.

PVP allows for people to govern the game without you having to. You are goign to get so much extra grief as a by product of not instill PVP not from the fact that people are pissed because they cannot PK but because people have no way of defending themselves when assholes like to screw with them. An example if someone is fighting a monster because they are trying to Level another person can just come along and join in and \"take\" experience for them. This will become an issue for you as it did in many other MUDs and MMORPGs when they were in beta. Look i have been Programming and playing these games my entire life. I understand how this works. Another grief you will get is when a monster dies the loot it drops will go to the person who kills it most likely, well if someone else joins in they will steal the loot in essance. Loot stealing has become a major issue in many non-PVP worlds, pretty much just a lot of childish acts arise in a world where people cannot take justice into their own hands. Bands of people can block people down in a dungeon or against a large monster.

PVP can be monitored and controlled I have seen it done in a lot of games Merentha (most likely the best ever text based MUD made) probably had the best system I have ever seen. They rarely ever had PKs even though PKing was open everywhere.

Arenas are a cool area to have where people can show off their strength and I recommend you have them.

One thing that I would like to caution you about is your attitude. I am reminded of the development team of Eternal Lands (these guys were total assholes. Their gamers just about all left and their game isn\'t even fully operational yet. They made all these ways for people to give them ideas and when people did just that they snapped quick \"No\'s\" at them. Listen to people remember you aren\'t making the game for yourself you are making it for the gamers. It seems that most people want PVP to exist in your world. Think of what a waste all this time that you and soon myself will be if you push all of your gamers away.  

You or one of the other admins made an arguement of how unfair it is to have a PVP world in which someone could just powerlevel and then go out and kill all the bakers and if you have a pvp world it forces people to also train melee and combat skills, but remember thats what guilds are for. Guilds exist so that people will have a backing and a group of freinds so that they don\'t have to just solely train their attack and melee skills. If you make it so that each class has a sort of special importance then every guild will need a baker as it is to function and thus while the bakers won\'t be able to defend themselves their guildmates will.

Last thing: As cool as it would be to allow people to have non Fighting Melee classes such as bakers or traders remember Most people will want to become fighters. Being a baker would become boring after a while you have the unique job of trying to find out ways of spicing those jobs up. However, no matter how great you make them people play for the excitment the leveling, the training, the killing, the magic, the MELEE. they don\'t play a game to make 400 loaves of bread and start a bread shop on mainstreet.

Be Open.. Don\'t be like Eternal lands.

Good job so far.

-Chris

[acraig]

While I agree that PvP is an important element of the game I think that it should be no more important then the other elements like questing, trading, taskskills, exploring, etc.  I agree that there are cases where PvP would be nice like where you describe but I don\'t think that a free PvP system is the answer.  The chances for greifers is just to great in this type of system.  

I think there are many players that would like a more \'friendly\' type system where they are not afraid of death all the time.  One sig on these boards was: \"But I want to make bread!\" The possibility of dieing at any time does not strike me as a fun environment.  No matter what the consequences are to my killer I would still be P.O.\'d.  If it happened a couple of times I would probably just leave.

With a free PvP system it is a self fulling prophecy.  In order to protect yourself you MUST train your fighting skills there for more people become fighters and eventually all other elements of the game are reduced to \"Somethiing I do while not training\".    

I play Rune-Scape every now and then and I don\'t think that it sucks.  I\'ve played for a long time now and have never PK\'s anybody and it did not bother me much. I have fun working on my other levels.  It fills a nice market and I commend them on what they do.  14k + people at a time is nothing to sneeze at.  

I don\'t think that we ever said zero PvP but it will not be a totally free system.

I think that we will find players no matter what we do so it\'s more of just a \'wait and see\'.  Even if we don\'t get a large number of people I am happy to work on this project and consider a success no matter what happens.

[bobmook]

If the game were going to HP based rather than skill tree based this entire discussion would be moot, simply set the level at which you can PK high enough it takes a really dedicated player to even get to that level. (I\'ve been a big fan of that sort of approach ever since m59)
It looks to me that with the skills based approach the devs are taking the most prudent path possible, and I suspect, if they are all as level headed as they sound, if a need for looser PK rules becames an obvious need they will reconsider.
Based on what I\'m seeing I\'d say go ahead as planned. I\'m really excited about the project and look forward to watching it\'s progress closely. I wish my skills ran more into the programming area (I\'m a Network/Database admin type) so I could help. I honestly believe projects like this along w/ some of the emulators that allow people to create their own worlds are the real future of the MMORPG.

[paxx]

My reasons for wanting PvP and for not wanting PvP has nothing to do with people e-mailing me or whining about anything. It has to do with game scope.

Would it be fair if I can have you killed 1000 times cause I have game cash, or that you can kill a crafter as often as you want cause he is a crafter and you are a warrior?

The scope of this game is very broad, so broad that allowing grief play is not in it.

Now, there can be games that limit their focus to environment and PvP and such?but should they focus as much time on crafting and gathering when in the end it is all about combat?

In a way I am saying you need to focus what the game is about. Or it is just unplayable in all it?s facets.

If it was one death and you are gone?then yes we could really have all the PvP and such cause if you are a Pker there will be people that hate you and kill every incarnation of you. but for that we have FPS?s

So you have to really wonder about goals and what effects something has on society. And then limit possibilities to suit the flavor of the game.

If we all had cars where if you hit another car, cyanide is released, I guaranty less accidents and less auto deaths as well. People would all drive slow and make sure that all the stuff on their car is working correctly.

But we have a world where death is temporary?and there are few things that will be worse then death?so it?s not really ?death? as we think of it. It is more like a penalty box.

In the real world, if we had no nations or laws?if you kill my wife, I will hunt you down and kill you.

Or I will hire a group to kill you. I would get trackers and the whole bit. But in the real world?killing someone is pretty easy, finding him is harder.

Online both are difficult. So it becomes imposable to expect any morality online cause life has no value.
Some games would be really cool that way, in PS there is a lot of effort going into society building, and morality will be enforced with code.

[Nadius]

pking is fun but.... some people are very opposed to pking

the way i see it there are several ways you can do this...

1.  you can do team pking... meaning that certan races team together against other ones (ie. good versus evil versus neutrul)
2. level based pking it may be 4 levels diffrence to be able to hit and so on
3. a dueling pking system people that dont wanna pk can stay out of it but you still need pk areas ie. arenas
4. area pking ive seen this on other posts like dangerous streets and what not
5. all on all i dont agree with this at all cause some high level will always have a bad day.

id personally vote for a combo of 1 and 2 ... it adds a new aspect to the game... i like the fact that it would make guilds closer to each other, but people would make enemes fast.

the thing about crafters versus fighters.. crafters will always have more money than fighters.  so they can pay for a certain degree of protection

you could make it no pk in town.  that would make it more diffucult to traverse the terrain and would make the weak need to pay for protection caravans and such would make fighters at any leveles be able to gain money

my last thought on this subject is pking should have great rewards and great risks to add a risk factor to killing cause without it i think it would get out of hand

and remember no matter how good you are there is always someone better

[Darkanan]

You keep coming back to the same thing Paxx. If you don\'t want people to kill bakers and such then heres the idea.

You make two different paths at character creation Peaceful and Warrior. The path determines which classes one can become. Under peacful have all of your role playing classes (baker, Crafter) under warrior have all of your fighting classes (Warrior, Sorcerer, Necromancer, ...) Only allow the warrior path to attack other people and they can only attack other warriors.

There now you don\'t have to worry about people PKing bakers and crafters.

THE WARRIORS WILL RISE UP!!!!

[Nadius]

But the crafters and bakers and all those peacefull people have all the money!!!!

[Darkanan]

And that is what social structure is for because in this world there are some vocations that have the money and some that don\'t. It will create a unique minisystem in which maybe bakers can hire fighters to get them unique drops from monsters and pay them off. Also anyone can train any field they want. There is no reason a fighter cannot train as a crafter or what not according to how this game is set up. HOwever, a strict crafter will have a slight advantage over the fighter in his crafting skill but the fighter will have an advantage in his fighting skill over the crafter. Also Guilds will create a social network for money as well as monsters will most likely be dropping items and such which can be sold as well as quests providing money.

[Jrout]

I do agree with Darkanans view, with the fighters maybe being able to go out for bakers/crafters/etc to be able to get the raw materials they need. Then the baker/whatever can pay them off in a trade. I just think maybe anything Outside of towns/villages/outposts/etc should be PK, kind of like what you are saying about having caravans protect the bakers/etc if they want to travel. The baker could also hire some kind of fighter to defend him also and escort him, or a group of fighters. Ah, you could have like Merchant guilds. Where a crafter/baker/etc can go to hire help in any pk means. Then you could have your evil* pkers that would try to kill bakers/etc repeatedly attempt to kill the caravan, which if the baker/etc hired a good one or alot would probably not be messed with.

(I was brainstorming, why its not in a paticular order).

[AendarCallenlasse]

And what about those bakers and such that just started?  The ones that don\'t have enough money to hire anyone, what do they do?  They will just constantly be killed.  That\'s how PKers work, preying on those who can\'t defend themselves.

[Jrout]

Ah, didn\'t think about that. Hrm, Bakers/etc could start with some stuff to keep them from having to leave town for a while. Also they can just make friends, and have people volunteer(yea right) to help them out, or pay them back later sort of thing.

[Samoth]

Newbie bakers just have to stay in town.

Until they have the need to move from town to town, and the cash to do so saftly- take a stage coach and you pay for the expectation of getting to your destination alive.

[AendarCallenlasse]

It would be hard to be a baker without money.  How would they get resources and other things they need without money and without being able to safely leave town?  As far as you have mentioned there is no way.  And what if that baker is antisocial and has trouble making friends.  Should they be punished for that?  Having free stuff will only last for so long.

[Fanomatic2000]

The truth is that PK does not work in this game, and the reason that it worked in Tibia is because there was no sub-ways. Tibia is focused on PK and battles. It was meant to be PK from the beginning, and it\'s not so hard to understand why the non-PvP server became unpopular.
 
I don\'t wanna live in constant fear because I choosed to become a baker, and should I not being able to leave town just because I didn\'t wanna become a warrior?
That\'s just stupid.

I agree with Paxx, PvP will only cause grief, both for the devs, and for the players.

BTW.  Runescape rocks compared to Tibia.