MB vs. CB

[Cha0s]

Seytra: I think removal of the fighting system would be a bad idea. It wouldn\'t really solve the problem, just address a side-effect of it. There will be combat. What we need is role-play.

Therefore, as I suggested in more detail in my wish-list thread (GM vs. DM), we need to make role-playing a better method of progressing than combat. This means that combat needs to be less rewarding in both trias and progression points. The main source of these trias and progression points needs to be role-play. There are several ways to do this, one of which I\'ve suggested in the above-mentioned thread. While combat does need to be made less-worthwhile, I do not think it should be removed. Role-play should simply become more valuable to players.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Cha0s
Seytra: I think removal of the fighting system would be a bad idea. It wouldn\'t really solve the problem, just address a side-effect of it. There will be combat. What we need is role-play.

Therefore, as I suggested in more detail in my wish-list thread (GM vs. DM), we need to make role-playing a better method of progressing than combat. This means that combat needs to be less rewarding in both trias and progression points. The main source of these trias and progression points needs to be role-play. There are several ways to do this, one of which I\'ve suggested in the above-mentioned thread. While combat does need to be made less-worthwhile, I do not think it should be removed. Role-play should simply become more valuable to players.

The problem is that combat currently is the feature in CB. It is what works, what is most well-developed and what is most rewarding. It also is the most abused and most OOC thing there is. Even roof-hopping is more IC than 99% of the fighting going on. Also, roof-hopping is by far less sensitive to OOC differences like online time and grinding.

I still think that treating the symptom by disabling combat would be way better than not doing anything at all. And let\'s face it: there are few quests, and even fewer work. Adding new ones in the quantity required to actually mke it feasible to earn a living by quests alone is impossible, especially with the limited resources PS has. Even if it was, there would be just a quest grind replacing the slaying grind. It happens with repeatable quests in all MMORPGs.

Rating player\'s RP is another, very very touchy subject. You cannot guarantee that the rating is fair. It will be full of favourism, prone to misunderstandings, differences in taste and lack of knowledge. Once you start handing out anything on this basis, you\'ll get a mountain of hostility that makes the \"GMs are evil\" problems seem like paradise. Also, having GMs hand out quests to aid RP doesn\'t look good to me as well. For that to work, we would require a lot of better qualified GMs who understand more of the concepts of RP than we have now. Just look at the naming issue I have commented on. It is just sad.

It all boils down to combat being the ultimate goal for PLs. Combat and \"fame\", i.e., being listed somewhere or comparing numbers and bragging bout them. That was the reason why the crystal hunt was so \"popular\": people would brag about how many crytals they had collected. Be listed on the wall of shame. Most definitely not because it was so appealing or fun. This sort of thing. And this brings me to this point:
The Duelling Points. They are not just a slap in the face of every RPer, but a headshot. They have absolutely no justification to exist at all, are not IC and can\'t be made to be pseudo-IC, are there only to satisfy the PL\'s need for something to brag about. And while it has been suggested to have less numbers in PS, they have even been brought into the game! Not only that, but they have all but replaced the char editation, which was one of the very very few RP-aiding features CB actually has! Yes, I have made a fix for the editation, but it should never have been obscured in the first place, and the time it has gone unfixed is incredibly disappointing, considering how easy a temporary fix is.
On the other hand,  the DP display misfeature obviously was tested throughly and it was made sure that it works. This is a very bad sign of the way development seems to be heading.

It really boils down to what I said already: CB revolves around fighting, nothing else. Players fight each other, or they fight MOBs. And this is 100% wrong.

We would have had to have everything but fighting. Mining should be a hell of a lot more attractive than fighting. Crafting should have been there instead of fighting.
But instead of getting to make semi-special weapons, we get a pile of extremely overpowered weapons through a loot system that caters to the PLs. Make MOBs drop zilt, and fighting will be less attractive for sure. Make it so that you can kill a MOB only once per RL hour, and OOC fighting will dwindle. Bring items ingame that are not weapons or armor! More variety of food! Make spells work that aren\'t combat spells! Increase interaction with the environment in other ways than killing or talking to NPCs, like having a real, IC mail and publishing system complete with parchment, quill, ink, newspapers, books ad a copying system (maybe even player-usable printing presses or imilar), focus on fixing the movement system, implement climbing, swimming / diving.

@ Nikodemus:
That\'s why I said:

Originally posted by Seytra
The houses would differ to accommodate the needs of the inhabitant, which obviously are race-specific in some cases (like added, specialised rooms or exits, tents for nomads)

Kran are a special case, they will likely have a different subarchitecture, if only to support their weight which I think will be higher than of others.
Underwater buildings, swimming or shorebound farms, nomad tents, tree-houses even. Dwarven chiseled-out rooms. But these will still all follow a general fashion trend, so the differences will be way smaller and more subtle than they\'re in the added images. Even the difference between Ylian and Xacha housing is something that is more part of a fashion trend than a racial difference. Differ by environmental needs, or the material provided by the region, not by race per say. Mix styles. Even in the extremely unlikely and setting-defying case of a completely separate city populated only by a single race exclusively, there will within the long duration of existance have been several fashion trends that have come and gone, then reappeared with some alterations. Transitional buildings that mix elements of two or more such trends due to them having been built in a time of trend change. Buildings that have had extenseions in a different trend or that were altered to incorporate elements of a new trend. A city will only be uniform for a few tens of years after it\'s initial construction, and even during that time primitive buildings will have started to be replaced or enhanced as wealth increased.

[Cha0s]

Originally posted by Seytra
I still think that treating the symptom by disabling combat would be way better than not doing anything at all. And let\'s face it: there are few quests, and even fewer work. Adding new ones in the quantity required to actually mke it feasible to earn a living by quests alone is impossible, especially with the limited resources PS has. Even if it was, there would be just a quest grind replacing the slaying grind. It happens with repeatable quests in all MMORPGs.

First, quests should not be repeatable. Second, they should be spaced based on ability of the character. For instance, a character without a certain strength can not complete certain a certain quest that requires him/her to push a push a boulder out of some path.

This means that characters will work towards certain goals to do quests. It also means that groups will have to work together and play to each other\'s strength\'s to complete quests. Quests really are meant to be group-experiences and therefore encourage role-play. Making them more ability-dependent is important.

It is true that this will encourage power-leveling. This brings me back to my first point: combat needs to be devalued, not removed. Less experience and less loot need to be rewarded for killing mobs, but mobs still need to be there to be killed, as it can be in-character sometimes (going out to hunt for food, gathering ingredients for a potion, etc). Eventually, I hope mob-killing in general will become an annoyance, not a goal. What I mean is that eventually, having to kill mobs will simply be an annoying side-effect of traveling through certain areas that are \"off the beaten path\" so to speak. Camping a mob will hopefully become against the rules and undesirable anyway (low experience/loot reward). Increasing respawn times (as you mentioned) would also be helpful in devaluing combat.

Originally posted by Seytra
Rating player\'s RP is another, very very touchy subject. You cannot guarantee that the rating is fair. It will be full of favourism, prone to misunderstandings, differences in taste and lack of knowledge. Once you start handing out anything on this basis, you\'ll get a mountain of hostility that makes the \"GMs are evil\" problems seem like paradise. Also, having GMs hand out quests to aid RP doesn\'t look good to me as well. For that to work, we would require a lot of better qualified GMs who understand more of the concepts of RP than we have now. Just look at the naming issue I have commented on. It is just sad.

Oh, I agree. It won\'t be fair. There will be favoritism, but it won\'t be so bad as you think. If you\'d read the thread fully, you\'d see that we also discussed (generally) the method for recruiting \"RMs\" and that the point was made that they would not be recruited in the same way as the GMs and that role-play would have to be a huge factor in the decision. And as for that \"mountain of hostility,\" it might happen, and it might not, but I can guarantee that role-playing would be vastly improved and role-players would have a lot more fun.

As for your comments on dueling points and statistics, I agree. They are pointless and OOC. They need to go.

You\'re also right that we need crafting, non-combat spells, and non-combat items. However, while all of these things make it easier for players to role-play, they don\'t directly facilitate role-play, and in addition, they are hard to implement.

A team of role-players, trained to coordinate stories, lead adventures, and make it all fun, on the other hand, would directly facilitate and encourage role-play and possibly even turn a few power-levelers into role-players, in addition to being easy to implement. Having people facilitate role-play (possess NPCs, lead PCs on adventures, help PCs actually change the world) makes the world infinitely more interactive and more realistic than a simple feature like crafting could. And, the upside is that a world of RMs would require very little coding to accomplish. The real work would be in the recruiting, and, since this is a community of role-players, I doubt it would be hard to find enough responsible role-players to put together a team (though recruiting would need to be done carefully).

In summary, players are not going to be able to turn Planeshift into a real role-playing game (as opposed to your \"MULARP\" description of it) on their own. They need help, and a team of role-players given the powers to control the rest of the world that the players interact with would go a long way towards making Planeshift truly immersive and truly focused on role-play.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Cha0s
Oh, I agree. It won\'t be fair. There will be favoritism, but it won\'t be so bad as you think.

In an ideal world... and in an ideal community.... with ideal people at the controls.....

But I think we know what can happen around here.  Rating others based on their role-playing is a horrible idea..... in the thread where it was proposed, the idea and concept were brutally ripped apart and destroyed by critics.

[Cha0s]

I don\'t propose rating people by their role-playing. I simply propose giving people rewards for good role-playing. Participating in quests, just being involved in active role-play whenever you\'re playing would net you a PP or two. And maybe you\'d happen to spot a few trias on the ground or perhaps the barman would be in a good mood and give you a free drink (assuming that\'s in character for the barman, of course). These rewards not be recorded and put up on a score board or anything. They would simply provide a different (and faster) method for advancing in power/wealth. Therefore, the only way to power-level is to role-play.

[zanzibar]

Originally posted by Cha0s
I don\'t propose rating people by their role-playing. I simply propose giving people rewards for good role-playing. Participating in quests, just being involved in active role-play whenever you\'re playing would net you a PP or two. And maybe you\'d happen to spot a few trias on the ground or perhaps the barman would be in a good mood and give you a free drink (assuming that\'s in character for the barman, of course). These rewards not be recorded and put up on a score board or anything. They would simply provide a different (and faster) method for advancing in power/wealth. Therefore, the only way to power-level is to role-play.

So you\'re saying to have people act as an official part of the planeshift team to take the place of certain NPCs?

[Cha0s]

No. These people would roam Hydlaa invisible... ah, nevermind, I\'m not saying this again and I\'m not copy/pasting either, so go read the thread.

[Gentar]

I just cant possibly imagine whay ANYBODY would like mb better. The first major reason is: CB already has everything mb had plus a LOT more except for the crystal hunt, but seriously what kind of RPG revolves completely around crystal hunting. Id love to see the history section of that RPG.
      Once upon a time a bunch of creatures randomly landed in a city where there was nothing to do but pick up crystals, so they wasted their lives away picking up glassy objects to try and numb their minds from the fact that there was NOTHING TO DO.
      Before PS was basically a chat room with graphics.

CB is definitely better

[HighFish.DE]

Originally posted by hitancrias
In my oppinion, the only thing that was significantly better in MB then it is now, is the movement system. I really loved to run and jump around.

Thats the first thing I noticed after installing CB, the quality of the movement system has made a major step back.

[Xordan]

Originally posted by HighFish.DE
Thats the first thing I noticed after installing CB, the quality of the movement system has made a major step back.

Actually, the movement system has greatly improved. It just needs a lot of tweaking and some fixes, which needs blueCommand to do. So everyone spam blueCommand to do it.

[Kinoss]

I liked atomic blue the best  

[sesmi]

I have come up with a good explanation of crystals appearing out of nowhere. The azure sun\'s radiation would mutate the rock. How about it? (If this is added i want credit).

[Induane]

I miss the movement of MB as well.  It wasn\'t just the leaping ability/ability to scale nearly vertical walls, it was the way you moved and animations and all - I realize cal3d and stuff is changed and animations all had to be redone, but were they done in a hurry?  The newer dwarf model looks great - its the textures I think so I like that about CB, and I like combat and the like.  I really really really miss the crystal hunt and I liked Lordbugs take on it.  

I also miss the closer community but this is a natural progression so I expected it and was not disappointed.

Really, the draw of the crystal hunt - treasure seaking - was great fun.  I think that is the single thing people miss most.  

I\'m not sure how the sun could mutate a rock, but heat pushing them up from the depths below is how it happens in real life and I would assume the geology of PS is at least similar in a way to the world we know irl.  

[Nikodemus]

Originally posted by sesmi
I have come up with a good explanation of crystals appearing out of nowhere. The azure sun\'s radiation would mutate the rock. How about it? (If this is added i want credit).

You are not first, sorry ;P

Originally posted by Induane
I\'m not sure how the sun could mutate a rock, but heat pushing them up from the depths below is how it happens in real life and I would assume the geology of PS is at least similar in a way to the world we know irl.  

PS geology maybe is, but Yliakum is not what you think about.  Just think about it. It is stalactite!! If the ground would move there would be volcanos, earthquakes and so on. What would most likely happen? And no, you don\'t want this. ;P

[Kixie]

*Ignores a previously established pact with Moogie*

I\'ll keep it short for personal reasons....

Everything content wise is much better in CB. Better Code for this content as well. Less bugs, less messed up collision detection, less crashes, and deeper gameplay. On a small level there is even better roleplaying to be had, based on the fact that more back ground has been set as far as character development, racial information and area expansion.

Everything in CB in theory is much better. The only complain I have is the microscopic change in character movement. This is a bad thing and a good thing. It was slightly good for the fact that it felt responsive, the whole world just went faster. You could move quicker, but unfortuanately this gave a slightly unrealistic sense of speed. But it did make planeshift feel more like a virtual playground, which for me is what Molecular blue ultimately became for me.

It was a small playground for me to explore, talk to friends, and basically hang out in for spare time. If I felt like it, I could move up the ranks in small guilds or crystal standings. Everything was simple, almost to the extent of being elegantly simple.

But that\'s the only difference. Movement. It just seems different somehow. It\'s good and bad how unrealistic the movement was, but I\'m not asking for it to be changed. Obviously CB and future releases of Planeshift are moving away from the unrealistic standpoint. Things are getting more advanced, and while small things like movement changed, it changed for the ultimate good in the long run.

We can\'t go back, but we can reminice of the old times, and laugh about how easy it was to glitch through walls, and basically B.S about who had the most influence and crystals. We can talk about how fun it was to go in our own little personal world for hours at a time and escape hectic life.

But P.S is moving on, it isn\'t so small anymore. It\'s moving for the better, however. So to make it short since I seem to have gotten carried away, nothing in M.B was better; it was something that can never be captured again.