PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: madrebel on February 18, 2003, 08:41:22 pm
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hi im new, stumbled upon this from a crystal space article in the recent linux magazine. im an avid gamer for some time well, since atari. im also an avid linux and general open source fan. software should be free (as in open not necisarilly free of charge) and not suck. as a RPG gamer im very pro Baldurs gate style, not so much DnD (although their rules set is great) but more the quality story lines etc.
So when i read about this game last night i of course got excited. Forgive my lack of grasp for the overall scope of this project as the main site itself leaves much to be desired in terms of information. but from what little ive read on the forums so far it seems this game aims to be somewhat put the MMO into the morrowind concept, am i somewhat accurate here?
My MMORPG ecperience consosts soely of DAoC. I have also played WW2online quite a bit. What a great idea that was, to bad the execution was so horrid.
Anyways i just thought i would post my thoughts.
Level tread mills suck. wtf do i need to power level for 20 levels before the games gets interesting? Just start me out at level 20 for christ\'s sake :(.
Some stats and skills just arent useful. I love theif type characters. Ive yet to see a MMORPG institute this class correctly IMO. Why cant i pick pocket EVERYONE in the game? Why cant i rob merchants? As for skills, low charisma really has little to no effect on your interaction with others ive found. To me, if you have a charisma of 1, im not going to deal with you at all. To me, a charisma of 1 means i\'d rather be forced to sign a contract with don king than deal with you.
I like star war\'s galaxies idea of gaining experience without having to fight. thats pretty cool.
I love hack n slash. But let me do it while on a cool quest. I can only kill rats for so long, even when its ROUS they are still just rats.
I like what someone mentioned about developer created guilds. i think thats pretty cool. guilds in general are pretty whack IMO. They range from the monty python quote guilds to the stfu im hard core get out of my way n00b guilds. All are pretty pointless.
You shouldnt be forced to party up. Soloing should be an option, albeit a very difficult one.
If PvP becomes a major focus IMO it should require a 2 tiered aproach. There should be jedi knight 2 style sword combat system with the standard roll to hit system underneath to determine a hit and damage. currently all you do is hit a key to \'attack\' and then just sit back and watch your characters \"roll\" more or less. Add some skill into the mix? Allow players to \'master\' the sword play? I dont know exactly how you would implement this its mainly a just a vision of mine for great PvP gameplay. I just despise the click the button for attack and watch the same 4 animations loop throughout the fight.
Also, a pocketPC/palm5 interface would be cool. obviously you couldnt have the 3d world on your ppc/palm but you could have a politic interface, or an interface to run your store or something. maybe an interface to create quests (hey that a-hole madrebel stole from me. go kill him for X amount of gold). just an idea, some of us wouldnt mind \'being connected\' while in meetings at work ;).
so....anyways. this project really excites me. how can i sign on to help out? i\'d be happy to be a lowly squire for the developers ;)
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I don\'t agree with a lot of what you say, as you seem to be more into the mechanics of gaming and not the spirit. But I will say one thing. There is a troll in here named Link, and he will tear your heart out and eat it if you type like this.
Originally posted by madrebel
My MMORPG ecperience consosts soely of DAoC.
Just a warning...
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yes well, i should proof read before i hit submit.....but oh well. Thanks for the troll warning but im a member at some of the more ruthless gaming forums on the web. nothing he could do or say would be new ;). Put it this way, i no longer receive experience points from killing trolls :D.
Im very much about the spirit of role playing. But if the mechanics arent there then the world isnt as immersive as it could be.
Every stat needs a boon and a bane.
For instance in the case of my charisma example, it would force you to team up with someone you trust to do your buying etc.. from npc merchants. If your charisma is 1 noone would willingly do business with you. Thus you would need a trustworthy friend to be your broker of sorts. Hell that would open up a whole new profession. You too could be the \"shady middle man\" for all the ogres and trolls of planeshift. Your high charisma would allow you to get better prices which you could in turn resell to the ogres for a profit.
Every class needs the ability to leverage all their skills. thieves steal, from anything and everything.
above all the game should be fun, but IMO you really need to flesh out the mechanics before any kind of beta release.
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Yes, Baldurs gate is really a game above the rest ;) (exept for the Final Fantasy series with its incredible stories of course).
Originally posted by madrebel
I like star war\'s galaxies idea of gaining experience without having to fight. thats pretty cool.
Gaining experience without having to fight? What do you mean? ?( Please explain.
I agree with you about the solo-thing, it should be an option (however I don\'t see the point in playing MMORPG if you don\'t wanna play with other players ;) )
Hmmm, I think I mentioned the Jedi knight battle-system in a thread somewhere...
anyway It\'s a good idea. I hate the old \"click on an enemy and your char starts to hit the air until the foe is slain\" system. It\'s really boring X(
I would suggest a bill-board for PC created quests (however I don\'t see the point since open PvP is forbidden :] )
I\'m not sure about the thief-system...We\'ll just have to let the DEVs decide.
Oh yeah, and welcome to the forums BTW. ;)
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thanks for the welcome.
I just read through the official FAQ. Im somewhat disappointed that there is little PvP. I like what neocron did with PvP. Basically you can PK anyone but your \'light force\' would dim and go black the more people you PKd for no reason. The only way to redeem yourself would be to commit good acts or die.
The world would feel more real and more dangerous if you could openly PK people. in cities NPC gaurds should be able to rush you and \'disable\' you. maybe arrest/fine/imprison you. thieves should be able to be caught/fined/imprisoned. Maybe have an option to opt out of the whole PK thing. Some kind of parameter that wouldnt allow PCs to target and attack you. i dont like the not being able to PK thing. It makes the game less \'wild\'. Thats another reason to be in a guild btw, protection from PKers.
As for the star wars galaxies thing. from what i understand you can gain experience in many ways. for instance. lets say im a weapons maker in galaxies. i create 20 super duper X-10 blaster rifles. I sell all 20 and log off. I come back 2 weeks later, log in, and receive a certain amount of experience for how well my rifles performed in combat. To put that in the plane shift setting. a bow smith makes a new rare increased chance of critical hit bow. he would receive experience for how well that bow performs in the field.
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I\'m sure PKing would be fun and good if everyone was like most of our forum group and have a reason for what they do. The problem is that 90% of people when relieved of the rigors of reality become insane and just kill because they can, and still get pissed off when someone kills them. It\'s a matter of trust, especially for a game that is going to be free.
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yeah there is that whole \'internet badass\' factor to worry about. but good moderators, a strong in game penalty system, and \"safer zones\" could make the PK experience very rich IMO.
how can you truely have a thief class without PKing? What about friendly damage? Can you just send in the tanks and throw fireballs at them willy nilly and not worry about damaging them? Where is the strategy in that?
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uh...there are no classes so that really is not much of a problem
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right.....but there are still skills correct (still learning about this game)? all those skills need to be useful.
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i kinda like the idea about \"all out pk\", and the thieves part. although, in my oppinion, a newbie thief shouldnt be able to just pop into the game, and start stealing. the stealing skills come slowly as you take small things like a few coins or something. Or, to make it quick, noone becomes a master thief in one day. that kinda explains everything.
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Originally posted by Gronomist
i kinda like the idea about \"all out pk\", and the thieves part. although, in my oppinion, a newbie thief shouldnt be able to just pop into the game, and start stealing. the stealing skills come slowly as you take small things like a few coins or something. Or, to make it quick, noone becomes a master thief in one day. that kinda explains everything.
absolutely. as a \"level one thief\" (someone with low thief skill etc.) you shouldnt expect to be able to jack someone more experienced than you. stealing from another \"thief\" with equal or greater skill should be impossible.
so there should be 2 \"checks\" to determine difficulty. one for player \"level\" relative to your level and one for player \"thief skill\" relative to your level.
That way, if you make your character \"a noble paladin\" with no theiving abilities, in the end you\'ll be easier to steal from than someone of equivelent level with good thief skills.
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There should be a way, if this kind of thieving activities is put into the game, to have some sort of defensive skill. Maybe one that reflects the level of awareness the victim has, which if is high it would allow the character to prevent the thief from stealing his objects. This way, the victims of robbery would not always be the same. Heck, with this system, a thief could even rob from another rogue. Of course, eveyrbody would start with a certain degree of experience in this skill, or maybe your pickpocket skills need to be much higher than the defensive skill in question. With a good formula, I think this could be easily programmed. The way to train this skill and how easily you progress can be discussed.
Also, the thief\'s chances of success would be reduced by elements such as good illumination, number of people that may or may not witness the robbery (ie: in busy areas, it is more likely to be seen robbing an item), the size of the object, what kind of pouch/bag/backpack/box it is in, etc.
The question, though, remains the same. With no open PvP, what do you do with thieves? If the character does happen to realise he/she has been robbed, would he be able to openly attack the thief?
Firstly, the combat system must be thoroughly designed, THEN the possibility of introducing pickpocketing skills should be considered.
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see golbez is like reading my mind n some junk. thats more or less exactly how i envision it.
but again, without the ability to PvP its basically impossible to have true thieving and we are basically back to thieves being \"lock bitches\". \"Hey ive found this box, but its locked, hey you there thief bitch, come open this box so that i may plunder the riches inside\".
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I have a few things to say about the things in this board (forgive me if i sound dumb or i\'m totally off the mark). From my point of view this is what the Dev team is having concerning stealing and PvP.
Well for PvP there is going to be a dueling \'anywhere\' system which of course both players have to agree to which is of course no good to deal with thieves cause they just wont agree.
There will also be guild wars which im guessing means if you belong to a guild and ur at agreeded war with another guild you can openly attack them. There is also going to be an arena (or more then one im not to sure how many) where people can go into and fight. Many people think that this arena will not compare to PvP anywhere, I disagree. Being an arena doesnt just mean a circlur object which players can fight in, it may be a large walled off forest or a huge mountain trail. People could not just stumble into the arena and get pked they would have to make a councious decision to go in through the arena \'gates\' to fight. This system would mean that the people who want to Pk can do so with each other where as the people who dont want to dont have to.
I personally like the way RS has dealt with Pking, they have made the \'wilderness\' which is where you can Pk but all other areas are non pking zones. I\'m not a huge fan of open pking because this game has so many more skills from what i\'ve heard. For instance if im a miner/smither and ive just taken an hour to get myself a whole pack of steel bars and some noobie dude whos played for a day comes over and Pks me and loots me im gonna be a bit ****** off. I\'m sure many people agree with this because not everyone takes fighting as their main skill.
This brings us onto the skill of Thievery. I do not think that open player thievery will be in operation because of a number of reasons:
1. Once someone has stolen from you there is absoloutley nothing you can do about it, no way you can get ur item back. Even if the \'gods\' decide to give you money to cover the cost of the item (which i doubt would happen) I\'d still want my armour or wep that he stole off me rather then some cash.
2. Unlike PvP which some people can contain themselves with because they can fight monsters instead of people, stealing is one of those things thieves will want to do on actual people all the time. With the amount of people playing this game (there will be alot) thieves would have an easier time stealing from people then finding an npc and stealing off it. Another thing that would inspire this would be that thieves could get better items off people then off npcs.
So there you go my long and very drawn out opinion...(waits for flame):D:D:D
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This summary is basically correct.
However, by having arenas we are building in the ability to define *any* area on a map to be a PvP area. Personally, I would really like to see this ability used in other ways such as having opposite quests assigned to two players. For example Player 1 would get the quest like \"The princess has been kidnapped and is trapped in the North Tower of Castle Greyskull! You must rescue her!\" Then Player 2 would get the quest as \"We think kidnappers are coming to take the King\'s maiden bride from his castle tonight! Your job is to guard the castle and make sure the Princess is kept safe!\"
Much drama ensues.
I don\'t know if this will be in the game or not, but I hope something like it will. To me, this is a form of PvP that adds real value to the plot and to the intrigue of the quests, rather than just being a contest of who is the 1337est.
- Venge
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that sounds really cool veng.
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hrm. There is a way to make stealing a bit risky... let anyone in the area of the robbery be able to beat this piss out of the thief. He automatically becomes a hunted man. Perhaps this could be implemented with a command you can only use after you have been stolen from that makes the whole populace of zone PCs have open pvp where the thief could still fight back, and also have NPCs that aren\'t on the thief\'s side attack on sight as well. Even if the thief escapes to another zone, the person stolen from would still have him on his pvp list, and likewise with the thief. If the thief is killed, the person that was stolen from can retrieve the item, and the person that killed/imprisoned etc. the thief has his choice of one other item in the thief\'s possession. This could be used in a guild sense as a band of robbers steal from someone, and then threaten him that if he hits the panic alarm that they will kill him. The biggest problem with this is that if the robbed man\'s computer crashes, he will lose the item and not be able to pursue the thief. If a \'low level\' character is stolen from and can\'t fight back, too bad. If your really low level, you shouldn\'t have anything that the thief would risk his life to steal anyway. And of course, if the thief is caught trying to steal, the same thing could happen and the thief could still lose an item. The great thing about this game is that a thief can\'t immediately tell how powerful a character will be, and he won\'t know if he has thief skills or not. I can see in my head a band of pretty \'low level\' thieves trying to mug a master sorceror or swordsman and all of them getting blasted to ashes or chopped to bits.
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I think Greys idea of having ne thiefs who have stolen recently pkable is a good idea and even better is the pvp list so that the one who has been stolen from can get the thief even if they get away the first time. But like most suggestions it has a few problems:
1. If the thief got away from the onslaught of players at first he could go and just sell the item he has stolen off to a store for money, this means that if the person who has been stolen from does find him and kill him after they wont get their item back.
2. If someone developed into a super thief/fighter they could steal without any trouble because nobody could match them. Strong fighters could also just get their thivery skill to say lvl 2 and steal off neone they wanted a fight from. They could use the pk stealing system to their pking needs.
Crimson
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... A real life action is a way to solve the first problem. Fencing goods. No respectable merchant is going to buy hot goods, and in areas with merchants there are often guards who would be activated by the system. The thief would have to take a while to sell it even to a PC. He could also go to a thieves guild (still after a little time) and fence it to the master thief.
Another addition to the rule. If the thief \'zones\' and is taken off the list of the NPCs and the other PCs in the zone. The PC who was stolen from can give permission to \'assassinate\' the thief to retrieve his item. Oh and as a general rule that makes sense, You cannot steal something that someone is wearing. It must be in a pouch. And I\'ve never heard of someone stealing something as large as a sword or a piece of armor from someone, its just too big.
As to the second problem. You don\'t need to fight the person. If some brutish guy accosted me and I didn\'t know how strong and skilled he was, and attempted to steal but couldn\'t, I would run. not take my chances to a brawl.
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Originally posted by Grey
You cannot steal something that someone is wearing. It must be in a pouch. And I\'ve never heard of someone stealing something as large as a sword or a piece of armor from someone, its just too big.
What do you think that the thieves are gonna steal then? Food Maybe a magic potion or 2? Do you really think those items are worth getting your stealing levels to a ridiculously high lvl? Most of what a person carries is what he is wearing or even if he is not wearing it is still armour. Say a really high lvl black smith just finished making some amazing armour, hows a thief going to feel when they steal from them and all they get is a cheap hammer to bash the metal with?
The best thing a thief could get would be a sum of cash but most people keep their money in the bank for safekeeping against such things happening, I don\'t know about you but I wouldn\'t want to risk my chars life on the slim chance of getting some money or at the best a magic potion.
I know this game is meant to be realistic but if they did include player stealing you would have to be aloud to steal some larger items or thieves just wouldnt be able to make a living.
Crimson
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I agree with grey that you cant steal big things from another player as it would be easy to notice when someone runs off with a sword that weights 40-50 pounds - not to say that you can catch him quite easily.
But how about thieves could break into places (like houses, castles, shop) where no people are present - or are guarded by some guards standing outside of it. You could use your climbing skill to get onto the roof, then maybe get in through a window - finally use your lock picking skill on a door or a safe to get the items stored in there.
Ow and madrebel: the neocron pk system isnt that good - either you take your LE chip out and take the risk of being killed when you try to level your character or you keep it in your head and suffer the 1/3 penalty on experience and money. And the soullight thing isnt a big issue either as only the Copbots and Stormbots in the inner city will kill you when they see you (still there is enough place in the wastelands to live and have fun ;))
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Um... most items can be stolen. And by pouch I don\'t mean a Crown Royal pouch. I mean it cannot be directly on your person. It could be in a backpack or a sash, or in a mule pouch on the animal that you are riding. And I stand by the principal that you cannot take large items like swords and breastplates. The thief would be taking jewelry, daggers, whatever. Maybe with a higher level, you can take larger and larger items, but I cannot see anyone but a master thief take a 7 pound longsword from someone\'s backpack, or worse, from its scabbard, without instantly being given the smackdown.
Ow. and madrebel... I\'d love to see someone carry a sword that weighs 50 pounds.
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Man, ASCII is tough to do on this forum.
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Originally posted by madrebel
Thanks for the troll warning but im a member at some of the more ruthless gaming forums on the web. nothing he could do or say would be new ;).
HAHA I told all you crazy baboons that on real forums they don\'t go lightly on people who type like crap. Typing like crap = makes you look like an idiot. So be sure and proof read you apes!
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Originally posted by Link
Originally posted by madrebel
Thanks for the troll warning but im a member at some of the more ruthless gaming forums on the web. nothing he could do or say would be new ;).
HAHA I told all you crazy baboons that on real forums they don\'t go lightly on people who type like crap. Typing like crap = makes you look like an idiot. So be sure and proof read you apes!
hola troll. you are correct to a point. this isnt friggin english class. i can tolerate some mispellings somewhat bad grammar etc.. the only time i really gramar whore is in the following exaplmes
if someone were to say something like
\"omg dude your so stupid\".
clearly he should have said you\'re not your. if you\'re going to attack someone\'s intelligence, you better spell everything correctly. otherwise who\'s the idjit?
also....i didnt say anything about 40 pound swords :(. i do agree though, you just cant jack a suit of armor that is being worn. thieves should only be able to jack small items out of inventory (backpacks etc..). The only time a thief should be allowed to steal the larger items is out of a guild\'s \'lock box\' or a castle treasury etc... They should also be able to steal from both NPC merchants and PC merchants.
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With that 7 pound long sword you are refering to those swords you can buy now that have \'medival\' written on the blade - the actual swords were much heavier as they needed to penetrate heavy armor - beside that swords werent only there to cut people into pieces but also to throw them to the ground (with a medival armor of a knight you wouldnt be able to stand up without any help - which means the battle is over for you). I know that 50 pounds is the extreme amoung swords as only few could carry those and actually use them ;)
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Sorry madrebel, I thought of the wrong person and didn\'t check it. As for you Pegasus... NO! No one alive or dead could ever carry a 50 pound sword. Have you ever fenced with a 7 pound sword? The sword I am holding in my hand now is 5 pounds, and it is a full sized and weighted long sword. Of course, if you hold it out, the gravitational weight (or whatever force) feels like it is 20 pounds, but what you feel can be misleading.
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well, im not very versed in medival swords (mostly asian types). Its my understanding though that a long sword really wasnt that heavy. It wasnt until you got into the massive 2 handed claymores that the swords really started to get heavy.
Also, armor got progressively heavier over time. When suits of armor first arrived on the battle scene they werent that heavy in comparision to the last suits of armor which were designed to stop early round rifle shot.
Weaponry also evolved. Arrows got piercing tips. Swords changed from being long thick blades where the deadly part of the sword was the blade itself. To the long thing rapier style swords where the tip was the killer as it would more easily penetrate armor. Overtime swords stopped being massive in favor of light \"deadly fast\" blades.
http://www.castles.org/armor_and_weapons/history.htm <---most excellent info ;)
http://www.swordhistory.com/home.html
http://www.aiusa.com/medsword/
http://www.thehaca.com/default.htm
http://www.shadowofleaves.com/sword_history.htm <--japanese sword history
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There\'s an equation for the weight of a sword on your wrist. I can\'t quite remember it, but I\'d guess that picking up a sword that was 7 feet long and weighed 50 pounds would require you to be able to lift over 400 pounds with your wrists and Lats. That\'s my low end estimate. And seeing as you already have steel or (gasp!) iron armour on, it would be a bit heavy. I think the scottish flamberge (a set weapon, to impale charging infantry), one of the largest swords of all time (and it wasn\'t even swung) had a blade that weighed less than 20 pounds. I know that I have little proof for these estimates, but I put them definitely on the low and high sides, respectably. I\'ve carried a pretty light bastard sword (maybe 8 pounds) and felt the weight of that, and I am by no means a weak man. I have also seen advertisements for an exact replica flamberge on the order of 8 kilos.
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This is kind of interesting - the only sword I\'ve used for martial arts weighs about three pounds and even granting that I\'m not really strong in the arms, practicing forms with it is really tiring after a while. I can\'t imagine anything over seven pounds being used by characters who aren\'t massively muscled. And yes, how do you miss someone stealing this from you? Just my two cents on that one...
About being a thief, there are a couple points that we aren\'t looking at. There is a difference between being able to pickpocket small things on the street and being able to break into places and take bigger stuff. I mean if I saw someone stealing from someone else on the street and it was really obvious, (being a do-gooder) I\'d be likely to find out who the thief was and publicize it at least. Perhaps these would work best as different thief skills, one for sleight of hand type pickpocketing and another for the lock picking and not being discovered type of theft. I really like the idea of not being able to sell hot merchandise to just any merchant because it provides characters some time to track down their stuff and get it back from whoever stole it, and considering the number of thieves out there it could make anyone who is a fence really rich.
This raises another question - in the towns will there be some form of police to keep order and catch/punish criminals? If so, are these npc or are they open to any of us? Hmmm... this could get way too complex....
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Originally posted by LirainIzar
This raises another question - in the towns will there be some form of police to keep order and catch/punish criminals? If so, are these npc or are they open to any of us? Hmmm... this could get way too complex....
I think it should change depending on the city you are in...for example, huge cities where there is a lot of people it can be a mix of both NPC and human guards (npc\'s doing the more mundane tasks) and smaller cities that there are a lot of people in it could be all human, and last small towns with few people should be all NPC
And police should be voted in, be given to by mods, or some other higher-up person
Thats my view anyways
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I\'ve worked in a smithy as an apprentice for a couple of years (just for fun) and I\'d have to agree that a 50 lb sword is a little on the heavy side. I don\'t think we\'ve made any \"swords\" (including large fantasy/sci-fi...think klingon) that weigh over 15-20. Most are much lighter.
It is resonable to see \"barbarian\" style axes and maces that weigh 40-50 lbs. They are a b1tch to carry and will hurt yours arms after a while. One of the other apperentices takes his to the \"Texas Renaissance Festival (http://texrenfest.com/) \", but he benches around 400+. Armor can also be very heavy. A good chainmail shirt is around 50 lbs and it might be kind of hard for a thief to take your spare off your horse and run with it (depending on the thief that is).
EDIT: Quick addon: Claymores can weigh quite a good deal and although it looks like a sword, you really use it more like an axe. Longswords, broadswords, etc. are more half-assed fencing/hacking and need more control. Foils/rapiers need the most control and weigh the least. Asian swords (katanas, some chinese swords, etc.) fall somewhere between the \"swords\" and the fencing weapons in control and weight.
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umm im am not sure if anyone mentioned this yet but how about a thief being able to shoplift. for example you could just enter a store, look at some item on the shelves and slip one of the items off the shelves into your pocket without anyone noticing. But of course it wouldn\'t be easy you would have to be stealthy at it. Like maybe cause a distraction or when the store clerk is busy you can steal something. Basically make it so that the player has to be skillful at it. Also the item you steal couldnt be to big, it would only be something small enough to fit into a pocket. (some fruit, a potion, or a ring) As for the being caught side to this you would either get your butt wooped, get thrown in jail (or something like it) or you would pay some other price for getting caught.