Changing the world, reputation, and NPC relations

[wertigon]

I\'m sorry if this has been suggested before, I tried the search function but it didn\'t yield anything useful.

Anyhow, one of the things that strikes me the most whenever I play MMORPGs is that the game never allows you to change anything. As an example, what\'s the fun in playing an evil warlock that slaughters everything in a town if the town then is resurrected an hour later? What\'s the fun in that? Something that evil should not be forgotten - Rather, the rumors should spread, and the town should be left abandoned until some people come there to ressurrect it.

So, what I\'m essentially saying is that it\'d be really cool if the actions you did, good as evil, have consequences. To demonstrate:

Say that you\'re playing the role of a thief. You\'ve recently been discovered by the authorities, and they\'ve put a bounty on your head. You come to a village and when a few people see you and start to chase after you, you decide that these pesky villagers have bothered you enough already and proceed to bury your daggers deep in their bodies.

The next thing you know, not only are you wanted for thieving, you\'re wanted for murder, too. If you come back to the village you\'ll find basicly the entire village cold and hostile towards you.

Another example: You come as a wandering healer to the village. There\'s a man sick in his bed, and his children walks up and pleads for you to help them. You agree, and manage to help him survive. The town lightens up a little, some people open up to you a bit more. You decide that it\'s a friendly bunch and decide to settle down in this town. Now, a massive epidemic breaks out, and most come to you, since you did save that old guy and rumors has spread.

For this to be possible, some way to get a reputation among the NPCs would be desired. Also, some sort of relational status between NPCs/NPCs and NPCs/Players would be desired, doesn\'t have to be something big, could just be a stat where highest == Spouse/Mate and lowest == Arch nemesis. Most players would end up on the middle at first sight and then depending on their way of looking at things and how you act towards them it\'ll decrease/increase.

I know it\'s easier said than done, but it\'d truly mark PlaneShift from everything else out there, and it\'d definitely increase realism and RP:ing.

Comments?

[Slagle]

But if nothing ever came back, and we could kill NPC...I know for sure some one is bound to start killing off the npcs for no reason...

I like the being a criminal idea though... if you do a crime, the npcs know... and either will send a gaurd or not provide you with there services (morrowind?)

I also like the reputation idea...you could have it so if you did a quest you got rep points or something, then the npcs lower prices or give you special info that you couldnt have been told by them when you not famous

[Foresteer]

Wish ;( ... you are talking about wish G**Dammit! i want wish back XD

oh well rep would be awsome.. like increase races reltations or make racial enemies or get special items from each race with enough rep

[Altharion]

ps should support evil, but not such extreme methods.

[wertigon]

Originally posted by Slagle
But if nothing ever came back, and we could kill NPC...I know for sure some one is bound to start killing off the npcs for no reason...

Yes, that\'s true, and then sooner or later we\'ll run out of NPCs... =/ So there has to be a damn good reason why there\'s an unlimited supply of NPCs. Still, I think it\'d kick ass if you could eradicate an entire village with enough force, and the village will *stay* dead. Of course, if there were any survivors you\'d get a huge bounty on your head for doing such an evil act.

It\'d also be cool if when you have a bounty on your head you can be killed by players, coz\' let\'s face it: If there\'s a reward on 5000 Tria for that guy, wouldn\'t *you* want to be able get it? Also, murdering innocent bystanders is just asking for trouble IMO...

Originally posted by Slagle
I like the being a criminal idea though... if you do a crime, the npcs know... and either will send a gaurd or not provide you with there services (morrowind?)

I also like the reputation idea...you could have it so if you did a quest you got rep points or something, then the npcs lower prices or give you special info that you couldnt have been told by them when you not famous

There\'s just one thing wrong the way Baldur\'s Gate et all does it: If I randomly encounter someone out in the woods and kill him, people know I did it. They just *KNOW*. Nevermind if I never met the guy before, as soon as I kill him people know I did it... It\'d be great if you could get away with stuff, too.

Then you\'ll be able to play a murdering hero or something, fool them villagers by tricking them into you being a good guy while you\'re actually evil, you just don\'t let anyone know that...

[Tharizdun]

If you kill a random person out in the woods, and take care to eliminate all witnesses and people who know that you were meeting each other, then such an action should have no affect on your players reputation.

There is a simple solution to the problem of players murdering all NPCs too. If you get in the habit of murdering city-dwelling NPCs then its only a matter of time before you are attacked on-sight by all guards that see you, for a long long time. That city will be effectively off-limits to you from that point onward, unless you can take on and defeat the entire city guard contingent. And they will be certain to draw in numerous and more powerful reinforcements from surrounding areas if attacked repeatedly. Allied cities would then be openly hostile to you as well, and formerly neutral cities would regard you with open suspicion, vendors and merchants will refuse to trade with you, and so on.

Of course, bandit camps and cliques of murderers and other criminals would probably welcome you with open arms and hail you as a hero!

[Genko]

This spawned an idea for me that we should (of sorts) replicate the \"Factions\" system from popular games such as EQ etc..

If you kill alot of rogues... rogues should start to hate you and attack you on sight.. etc etc..

[Samoth]

How about the changing world part of wertigon?s idea:

Maybe little changes ?
Being able to carve initials into trees.
A place to display trophies with a little name tag ?under glass? like mob parts or rare items.
Or how about a wooden sword practice stake that you can notch based on your strength.
Maybe a couple of very tough but one shot NPCs or leader NPCs.  So that if you kill them you would get the award ?Killed, Kilther Clearwater a great chief of the Rouges.?
I do not plan to be a farmer, but I would love to be able to plant something.  (Maybe a tree to replace the one that died when we all carved our initials into it.)

I?m sure there are more.

[Einhander]

uhhhhh..... problem here!

So wut if you are a thief and commit some crime, then you kill someone,

Gaurds will chase after you. And gaurds usually have the reputation to me tough to kill (Morrowind, yes)

Hopefully noobs won\'t get into trouble alot if there was a simple system that will make their reputation stable.

[Efflixi Aduro]

Yes, the system is called \"don\'t be a stupid n00b that goes around trying to pk people\"

People would be fine if they simply be nice.

Edit: Ohh this is post 750 yay
I think I reached 750 faster that anyone here... *looks out the window* Yah...
Well, only 250 more till a shiny blue star *starts posting random nonsense* ok not really

[Einhander]

But really,
if PS added a reputation system, its fun being roles and having reputation right?

But I mean, people shouldn\'t be like PERMANENTLY be chased around by gaurds. They should like be out of town for like a month then come back and most of the people should forgotten about you.

[Genko]

We\'re speaking a month in game time right?

Yes I definitely agree that the reputation system should be degenerative, but it shouldn\'t be over night.

[Kunisch]

Samoth ->

Yes small things like carving letters in to a tree, or a rock, would defently be good. Hmm... But mabye trees or rocks would get full of them, so either the \"writing places\" could be restricted to a few special places.... or you if you had to do a special quest to write xxx words in to the tree. ?

I dont know, but i seems like a good idea.

/Kunisch

PS. Sorry for my Crappy English

[Genko]

In that respect it should also be restricted to a certain amount of time aswell. If you want to write \"Samoth was here,\" or something like that (I know this is unreallistically complicated unless you used a decal system similar to that in Half-life) it should only be allowed to stay so many days and you shouldn\'t be allowed to put your mark down (no boys I\'m not talking about releaving yourself at every tree, that can be done hourly if rollplayed correctly) until the first has expired. Though thats alot of taxation on the servers and the coders so I wouldn\'t expect to see anything like this in the near future.

My two trias.

p.s. What would be quite humorous is that if you don\'t have any skill in Woodworking or Treefelling or something then you have a chance to cut yourself.

*Samoth has lost X fingers. That\'ll teach you to vandalize mother nature.*

Though that is one way of restricting people from abusing it. You can lose points / experience for doing it too much. Or perhaps have terrible luck with it comes to natural circumstances.. If the reputation system is implemented then you would simply lose reputation with \"Nature\" or the Druids in the area etc.. what have you.

[Asenar Lunin]

you can simply make rules like \"kill in town not allowed\" so if someone attack someone else (an other player, when the pvp will be turned on by default, maybe :p) so he will be considered as a criminal, and same if he attack a npc (which he can\'t kill, of course, but an attempt will be considered as a crime).