general game play // money

[Dregan Tepis]

Oh, no judging meant at all, Demarthl. Sorry if it came accross like that. I know people have there reasons for what they choose to do in life, and I will not be one to step on that! I\'m just trying a little sarcastic fun to see if I can\'t give people reason to come back. If it was taken as anything more severe or hurtful, then I\'m sorry.

And yes, I do want the comunity of old I hear so much about when people start longing for the glory days. But I also welcome the new. And I want to help find ways to make the game better for us now. So much scorn between RP and PL (roleplayers and Powerlevelers) that just seems senseless. We are all here, lets all have fun. So if I came across as whining, I\'m once again sorry. I\'m just trying to through out new ideas, and see if they have any merit/support in the grand scheme of things. But you sound like you still have some enthusiasm. So if you like anything I ever suggest, come see me in game. Names the same. I\'ll be more than willing to try to make this a better experience for us all.

[Madcrimson]

Originally posted by Lyrah
Same thought can be carried to snakes, mice, and owls. If you kill off MOST of one, the population of one of the others spikes. For instance, kill all of the snakes, the Mice population spikes, and then...due to more food, so does the Owl population.

Would you describe here is described by the Lotka-Volterra equasion which models predator-prey relations.
I tried to set up a predator-prey relation system containing three species where population A was a small herbivor, B a small predator and C a large predator.

A was hunted by B and C, B was hunting A and hunted by C and C hunted both A and B. So the populations\' development was depended on a lot of dynamic factors... and I didn\'t manage to find a setting which tended towards a stable state. Most of the times the populations got extinct.

My point in telling you this is: It is very hard to model such a thing by hand. And it\'s getting tougher with more species.
BUT you can simply try to model you mobs in dynamic populations with some safe spawn places.  That way the species can slowly return after a near extinction and reenter the eco system.
The good side for this approach is, that you can model a quite realistic eco system.
The down side is that you wont be able to fully control the system. You can twiddle with the rule sets for the populations until you get an eco system you like but you will probably never get the exact system you want.

I wrote some more detailed things down about creating an online world based on  populations but its all in german.
If some of you are interested and able to read german I\'ll make those texts available again. They a written in a private wiki on a friends home server that is not running at the moment.
Maybe the devs like to browse trough it for them inspiration...


MC.

[Lyrah]

MC the main reason that your calculations had troubles was chaos. Nature appears to have \"rules\" but when humans, with our mathematics tries to find a formula for these \"natural rules\" sometimes Nature throws a monkey wrench called Chaos into our system and *sound of machinery exploding and gears grinding and popping* things don\'t work mathematically like we see them working in reality.

For instance, with rabbits, owls, and eagle...to use your system rules (small herbie, small pred, large pred). The rabbits have a HUGE reproductive rate to support the other two species, plus the other two species DO eat other prey than just within the three species (owls eat rabbits, but are ten to 12: 1 better mouser/rat hunters than ferile cats, and eagles eat owls and fish and.... long list).

I understand the trouble with programming exinctions or near extinctions (thunder bird/pheonix for example), it is mathematical. The systems are TOO complex for even the STRONGEST Pay to Play games...not to mention PS. Some come reasonably close, but not quite (the one game I am thinking of the GM\'s program in the replacement of one mob type with its preditor type. it is hardly automatic).

And the error in your math is NOT in your logic, it was not in your intellegence level either...it is simply that trying to force nature into systems smaller than 100 species misses a few key elements. And I doubt that this game could handle the coding needed for such a complex preditor/prey system...heck I doubt EQ coding could take it!

[Aiselyn]

Originally posted by Kiva

Originally posted by Crunk

Originally posted by Moogie

Originally posted by Crunk

Originally posted by Demarthl
or.
quit whining and be grateful you get to be part of this pre beta :| your power levelling is undergoing for nothing as there is a wipe due, it also says that in the server MOTD

Dev\'s are working on balancing issues and things will change, your constant whining about it does NOT speed this process, NOR does making yet another useless thread. good day to you

Way to completely blow off a legitimate question. Is this the attitude of all the devs or do some people actually want people to play their game?

The first few responses addressed my question quite nicely. To hear from you in this way is a big turnoff for me personaly.

Demarthl isn\'t a dev, so don\'t take his harsh attitude as that of the development team.

Oh... i saw Game Master and assumed he had something to do with dev. My bad.

Anyone with the rank \"Game Master\" on these forums has no influence with the dev team whatsoever, so no need to start thinking such things.

I just thought I might quote this for the sake of continuing to quote this

Anyway...

I don\'t feel the \"older\" people are necessarily telling the \"younger\" people what to do. They\'re simply trying to keep the game running as it was meant to be played. This means role-playing being at the top of the list.

From what I understand, there have always been a problem with newbies who are used to games like Diablo and RS, with fighting and leveling up and gaining wealth being the main focus of the game. They don\'t understand that this game is not about that. This problem was happening even in MB, I remember during the 1 or 2 weeks I played (before the game crashed completely on me), many newbs would join the game expecting combat. They were the ones who left right away...sometimes in anger even (unneeded anger at that). Things are still the same except we now have combat to offer them so they stay.

And as far as I\'m concerned, the newbies can whine as much as they want. They\'ll be the ones making fools of themselves acting like 2-year olds. (Btw, I\'m a newb for the record...really )

[chriskl]

I should point out that the devs work hard all the time to fix critical stuff.  

The guy who does the quest engine is currently busy with a new job and has not had time to fix the quests.  

The lack of loot is mostly due to the lack of a tool for content people to create loot.  That should be addressed shortly.

As for the rest of us, we\'ve been closing many horrible bugs, just follow the tracker.  eg. stamina running exploits have been closed.

Unfortunately development has been slow the last week or two for some reason - not so many devs are active at the moment.

I\'m fully with you guys on the need for fixed spawns and loot as the first priority, and I personally will be working on making that happen.

As for quests - it\'s a big task, and only one person can really do it, so don\'t hold your breath at the moment.

Chris

[idorut]

I\'m tired of seeing these arguments about what RolePlaying is and how people should play a RolePlaying game.

When you assume the identity of a character in a game you are automatically Role Playing.  

It doesn\'t make any difference if you chose to stand around and emote and tell stories or if you explore dungeons and slay monsters, it\'s all RolePlaying.

I\'ve been popping in and out of PlaneShift for about a week.  It doesn\'t strike me as the type of game where hardcore Roleplaying is going to be mainstay.  First off, there is a complex system of skills and spells to be learned.  This requires experience and money.  Now, if you\'re somehow averted to killing monsters for experience and money (too hack \'n slash for you? I don\'t know) then you can quest for yours.  Just don\'t state falsehoods like \"This is a RolePlaying game!  Not a place to level up killing monsters\".  I\'m pretty sure what you\'re thinking of is a chat room, because RPG\'s rely heavily on combat and leveling to establish your character.   If it were a Social RPG as I\'ve heard suggested with no focus on combat then why implement a combat system or a training system?

 I think everyone is confusing an Alpha release game with only half a handful of features implemented with a Social RPG.

Just a thought from a long time RPG\'er who\'d rather kill and loot monsters than stand around and sing campfire songs.

[zabeal]

Originally posted by idorut
When you assume the identity of a character in a game you are automatically Role Playing.  
Just a thought from a long time RPG\'er who\'d rather kill and loot monsters than stand around and sing campfire songs.

Long time RPer? of what, diablo? A real roleplaying game is about adventure, not just the killing of things to magically get better in aspects. Further more this is a MMO-RPG, that first part means it has to be a social RPG. if you want to jsut kill things there are plenty of other games out there.
Planeshift is not about killing things. Yes, this is an alpha- combat was impliment too early and will loose much of it\'s focus. You will not be able to train cooking after killing, as that makes no sense.

[Androgos]

Originally posted by chriskl
The lack of loot is mostly due to the lack of a tool for content people to create loot.  That should be addressed shortly.

Actually, that tool is being activly developed (more than the client ) and should hopefully be online pretty soon.

For the RP thing.
My personal wish would be if this game turned out RP friendly AND powerleveling-\"unhostil\"

I mean, you could RP an teffu slaughter right?

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Nikech
I guess power-leveling is understandable as long as it fits your char\'s RP background, but if you\'re an extreme power-leveler that camps the same rat spawn for hours, you might ruin the RP athmosphere for the other players too.

I never understood why it is less possible to roleplay just because you find a guy who is determined to kill any rat he finds, or why it\'s so hard to roleplay because you\'ve seen someone kill monsters. You guys make it sound as if seeing some guy who is killing stuff is going to traumatise you for life and make you unable to roleplay ever again. Get over it guys.

Long time RPer? of what, diablo? A real roleplaying game is about adventure, not just the killing of things to magically get better in aspects. Further more this is a MMO-RPG, that first part means it has to be a social RPG. if you want to jsut kill things there are plenty of other games out there.
Planeshift is not about killing things. Yes, this is an alpha- combat was impliment too early and will loose much of it\'s focus. You will not be able to train cooking after killing, as that makes no sense.

If I\'m not mistaken, a roleplaying game where you seek adventure is also about killing the monster that guards the treasure, and finding the big score. Is it not? What you\'re making an RPG out to be is some kind of kumbaya hippie game, and I can assure you that is definitely not what roleplaying is all about. The problem with want-to-be hardcore roleplayers (those who think we all need to sit around and sing campfire songs to be good roleplayers) is that they\'re not capable of accepting anyone else but themselves. Seeing someone who wants some action and some thrill in their online life doesn\'t end the world. It doesn\'t ruin any atmosphere unless you bring it up and start bitching about it. There is nothing in this world that ruins atmosphere more, than seeing a bunch of sad roleplayers bitching about how unfair the world is and how stupid powergamers are. Well boohoo, you\'re powergamers too, you just powergame roleplaying, whereas the others powergame the thrilling aspect of the game. Suck it up, stop whining about it and try learning to live with it because no matter how long, how much or how hard you cry about this, you\'ll never get it your way.

[Aiselyn]

Well personally, I understand that there will always be roleplayers and powerlevelers, I\'m not necessarily complaining about that.

Here\'s what I truely think have been giving powerlevers a bad name:

1. The constant challenging to duel in the plaza etc. This is like saying \"Look what I\'ve developed from powerleveling. Look at how much better I am than you.\" It\'s simply rather annoying. I don\'t really like dueling myself. I\'ve dueled twice since mid-March.

2. When your average person is fighting say...teffys. Sometimes a hardcore powerleveler will come in and literally steal the teffy. I mean....that\'s rather disturbing. At least have some respect lol.

I\'m sure there\'s other reasons too.

To be honest, I consider myself really to be 50/50 with rp and pl, I need the variety. I think that once other concepts are implemented into the game, such as crafting, alchemy, etc, we\'ll see a few less powerlevers, since some of them will move into new professions. Just right now, fighting and mining are the only two ways you can make money (well, there are possibly one of two others through roleplaying you could do such as bartending but still), so if you want to make money it\'s really one or the other, roleplaying or not.

Edit: Just for the record, my first post in this thread is based more towards those who keep wanting to see more trias in the game through combat, which I am againt quite frankly. Realistically speaking, as if monsters are going to drop trias in the first place. What are they doing with the trias? Drinking at the Kada-El behind our backs?

[Phinehas]

One of the most frustrating things about powerlevellers is that they then like to pretend that they are RPing, but don\'t take into account that RP-wise they shouldn\'t be able to defeat the people they can skill-wise. Of course, I\'m not going to name names... *coughtasercough*

[buddha]

My experience has been that the players are moving more towards RP lately. I think this is because pl-ing is sort of a waste of time right now.  This could be a good chance for us to define the culture around here as a strong rp one.

After the wipe, it will likely only be rp-ers at first.  We could use this time to establish some basic context, like no dueling in the plaza. I find that incredibly annoying.

[Phinehas]

How do you enforce that, though?

[buddha]

Well, enforcement is the tough bit.  There are two options that I can think of.

1. Make the culture overwhelmingly against fighting in the plaza.  Those of us who care could stand around and talk cordially to them and ask them to stop doing it.  Using /tell you could GET RIGHT INSIDE THEIR HEADS.  Of course, this takes work and is not fun.

2. (My way) I like to ridicule people.  I set accept duel > never and simply berate the duelers with insults.  This just makes it un-fun for them.

Other than that, I don\'t know.

[Niavard]

The Powerlevelers aren\'t the real problems, it\'s the roleplayer idiots who are, I won\'t mention any names *coughsarrowcough*, but the following episode once took place in the tavern (it may not be exact, since this happened some time ago).

An enkidukai once \"woke up\" after saying he had slept on top of the barrels behind the bar, he talked about how he must\'ve killed a kran since his swords were all dented and bent, but couldn\'t remember anything. I soon said something about him having had too much to drink,  and he began speaking to me with my name.
when I asked him how he knew it he told me \"it was above my head\" so i kept telling him that he must be drunk, in the end he said that he would kill me for saying he was drunk (of course in a tavern full of witnessess and the hydlaa guard just outside), his description is something along the lines of \"a well known murderer\" if he was well known, wouldn\'t he get imprisoned then?

my point is, the powerlevelers only mind their own business, not disturbing rp, the rping idiots (a roleplaying idiot can always be recognized if he/she/it greets a person with his name, despite never having met him/her/it) and the weirdos (bouncers and people who run around with weapons in tavern despite being told not to as well as people walking around saying things like \"where can i get tria/xp/quests/equipment?\") are the real problem, it is them that are the real threat to rping while pl:ers only mind their own levels.

Edit: deactivated smilies