Conflict?

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Please make suggestions below.

[Earl_Listbard]

I'll open by saying yes it lacks ic conflict, theres no real struggle for the people of yliakum its mostly a peaceful fairy tale. Sure theres a few guild wars and they are shot down quickly for being against settings.

Rebels vs Empire

Horde vs Alliance

Ignis vs Syrtis vs Alsius

Zerg vs Terran vs Protoss

Greens vs Tans

Nazi's vs Allies

Ahem... There are no waring factions in planeshift, the biggest conflict that occurs is a bar brawl in the tavern.


There is no racism in ps, keep this in mind, because according to settings every race is tolerant and very culturally blended with another.

Talad and Laanx followers haven't shown hostility towards each other, at least not beyond a simple pissing contest over 'who can build the better temple' still no sign of disdain between either religion when it comes to settings.

Politics? There is only one political government in all of yliakum, there is no political struggle.

[Nikodemus]

There is no fight because there is nothing to fight for.
Fighting for the sake of fighting is stupid. It is almost the same as playing all the time for reaching the ultimate goal - pvp.

[Earl_Listbard]

There is no fight because there is nothing to fight for.
Fighting for the sake of fighting is stupid. It is almost the same as playing all the time for reaching the ultimate goal - pvp.

True, which is why there needs to be a reason to fight.

[SovHed]

Yes, it was actually ME! who mentioned this on TS the other day lol anyway...

I think it does lack internal strife. So much so that its an ideal world. There is NO conflict at all, any conflict is instantly crushed by "the guards" and any large attempt at RP'd unrest is instantly crushed by an angry mob of forum people. So... Yes PS does lack struggle... having some races disliking/hating/at war with others is necessary to have a developing challenged world. At the moment we all exist in a fantasy fairy tale where every race co-exists peacefully with no war with anyone else.. The most major battle I have come across is the battle between lorytia and her ex-husband trasok... invloving a badly crafted metal face.

Not very much conflict I must say

Anyway yes please add some conflict! It may then appeal more than my current gaming addiction (possibly)

Niko: Yes theres nothing to fight about, thats the problem we are talking about. No conflict in game, so no need to fight.

[eldoth_terevan]

Very little IC conflict, as we all know. Better mechanisms to support and resolve guild to guild conflict could make it a lot more interesting for many.

[Zan]

In my opinion .. and my opinion alone apparently  .. No.

There is plenty of conflict between players. Religious disagreements, power struggles among guilds, domination plots, 'bad' guys with black cloaks and flashy daggers who live to break laws, 'good' guys who think everything even remotely dark is evil and needs to die, ... that and plenty more in between.

Even the Settings creates conflict:

- Creatures from the Stone Labyrinths vs the Intelligent Races of Yliakum.
- Laanx vs Talad.
- Black Flame vs Dakkru.
- Black Flame vs Everyone.
- Octarchy vs Onyx Dagger (= Law vs Crime)
- ...

However what I do agree with is Nikodemus' statement. There is no reason to fight. The game's mechanics aren't developed enough yet to make the world dynamic enough. If you fight NPCs, they just respawn. If you fight players, they just run through the Death Realm. The conflicting factions that the Settings describes need to be supported by game mechanics. Players should be able to participate in those conflicts and gain or lose something out of it.

[Donari Tyndale]

PlaneShift definitly lacks IC conflict, since game mechanics wise everyone is equal. Only little conflict is there, mostly through player initiatives. This is something I regret, since conflict is a great source of roleplay, as well as motivation to do the latter.  However, there can't be much conflict, since if someone tries and claims a position from where he could do things IC wise it likely causes whining (aka OOC conflict), and only this difference in status could cause IC conflict and roleplay. In my eyes, these differences are needed to have a working roleplay system in game, and the game should support differences in character status. I see that this might be considered unfair by some, however, it is not. Everyone needs to have the same chances, not the same status.

[Xordan]

PS is supposed to be dark fantasy. Atm it feels comparable to Hello Kitty Online from the 'dark' side of things, if you're a random Joe player who hasn't read any of the settings. Players shouldn't need to read a website and books to get that idea though, so yeah we're lacking.

[Draklar]

I think the real conflict starts when guilds find a real need to compete.

For example:
Set a fixed number of "background population" for each city.
Set areas of interest for population of each city - what the people value: nature, law, Laanx, freedom, death o_O
Allow in-depth guild customization (to be chosen from drop-down boxes - several, to allow more combinations - and make these rather general), which will allow guild leader to fully characterize their guild (based on what the guild actually represents) - this should also help in creation of new original guilds (that actually have some real aims).

And now.

Set influence for each guild (% of background population that supports it) based on:
- Association between population's areas of interest and decisions made in guild customization.
- Amount of members (big influence boost with first additional members, but smaller as guild grows - if done right this will limit zerg guilds and give a growing chance for the still petit guilds)
- Guild reputation (the easiest way is to modify this one through winning/losing guild wars, but there could be additional factors like average number of finished quests per member - this would additionally limit zerg guilds - and quest solved total to set the initial reputation).
Edit: Come to think of it, faction points associated with guild characteristics would probably make more sense than quests in general.

And in the end make the guild receive money based on its influence, and further divided between ranks according to the settings done by the leader.

And if a guild can choose only one city to compete in, then smaller guilds will probably start in villages, before moving to large cities once they feel confident enough.
"Yo, some nature hippies showed up in our 'hood!"

Adding possibility of coup d’etat within guilds is another way of inducing conflict.

[SovHed]

Ok... for creating conflict my suggestions would be: 2 factions emerge from the races of Yliakum and This should be done by race of character and then people are given the option to change faction by quests/ repuation etc... but that has to be quite hard.

Anyway people complain about PVP, not wanting to take part in it, winge about getting ganked/killed. Ok, thats going to happen, its a game, its not the end of your life particularly. Anyway the point is I think Open PVP is a little too much.

You will likely flame here but Its very good actually and i'm sure many will agree with me. World of warcraft (waits for flames) has a good war system. There are friendly areas, conflicted areas and hostile areas. This could be implemented on PS without too much trouble.

The one faction has a few starting areas, and a few low level areas that are totally PVP-free. Decent monsters, decent quests, you can train reasonably there. For the higher level of gaming, you have to go into a contested areas, which has higher monsters, monsters that give more PP.. Trepors, ulbers, tefus, etc... They all are in contested areas that have inter-faction PVP.

I think this would work because the majority of PS is a sensible community, ganking, ok it will happen, but in anywhere where pvp or conflict exists there is killing.... Sorry to burst the hello kitty bubble..

I'm not exactly sure how the factions should be split up that should be looked at in detail.. But I really think the game needs more conflict, and some areas with PVP is a good place to start.. At the moment everyone can just run to ojaroad2, kill the 40pp ulbers in a few hits, get uberxp, level to the max and just sit about doing nothing more. With PVP even if you are levelled to the max there is still incentive to carry on.

Focus on RP will not be lost through this, only enhanced as people are given the ability to RP better with the possibility of actually striking someone down... rather than having to sit through 500 declines of a duel. Or put up with a ridiculously god-mode RP fight that invariably results in both sides saying "jolly good show ol' chap, now lets go have a spot of ale in the tavern and resolve our differences like the outstanding individuals we are".

Thanks for listening and I really hope something similar to this is considered/implemented. If not, fine.

Note: I saw another poll about lack of players in PS.. I believe the lack of conflict is a good reason for people getting bored.

PS: I'd like to point out that though there is conflict between people that is not major and doesnt affect anyone but themselves, thus is not constructive to the whole game. The same for guild wars, unless on a LARGE scale.

[StitchedChin]

Yes there is no meaningful conflict so far, but there could be.  But like everyone has said, there has to be something worth fighting for, and it does not even have to be violent, it could be wealth, land, a symbol, power, etc.  It can be won by strategy, good old fashion hard work or diplomocy, and yes, just shear brute force.  I always come back to ripping off of other ideas, like a point system similar to HP where guilds achieve points for accomplishments and top guild receives a prize after a certain time frame, a year or each month.  Or it could be like all the online RTS type of games, a capture the flag type where there is a sweet spot/territory that gives you some sort of advantage, a weekly income of trias, a platinum or some unique metal spot and you either defend it or just govern it, allowing the owner to use it for their pruposes so they could turn it into a market place, training center, brothel (just kidding), and either let outsiders in or keep them out.  Or there is some high level government official that you strive to have in your pocket.  Ah if only I was a programming genius, I'd build a test environment out right now...

[Nikodemus]

oh, suggestions. Wishlist is full of them. I would post few links, but it is such complete chaos, which i don't know how to search, that no wonder wishlist questions are asked on the fly... that one a side note.

I'm all against statistics, points, bars or whatelse. Even though these sounds good ideas, and they are successfull in games... these games are RPG parody, unlike PS. They will cause people to require and describe others by their eg completed quests, etc. Something you can't explain ICly and so it will be caled unencouraging RP.

Few things i remember from wishlist, probably those i proposed myself before:
- ambushes on ore caravans from the mines to cities
- struggle for a land, a mine, for economic gains

And i was wrong, fighting for the sake of fighting can be present with all the examples Zan provided, all player initiatives without gains. It doesn't have to be fighting for the sake of pvping.

[Draklar]

They will cause people to require and describe others by their eg completed quests, etc. Something you can't explain ICly and so it will be caled unencouraging RP.

Hold on. You can't explain people sucking up to the quest solvers ICly? What about a hero? A renown adventurer? That dude over there, who talked with an Octarch?
Surely such people would be of great value to any rationally thinking guild leader.

[Orgonwukh]

I think in general many conflicts are created by the attempt to get more power. The outlaws are trying to get more powerful while violating laws. Since it is difficult to roleplay with the executive and judicicary, I am struggling with this kind of roleplay. I'd love to have more good guys as opponents, but it is unclear how the good guys can fight the bad ones without violating laws themselves.
I think a good way of doing it is described in the SROR: http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=28009.0
It is difficult to find a common way of dealing with IC conflicts.