Mistakes You dont want to see Repeated

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by Gronomist
It proves you know absolutely nothing about how PS will work.

Indeed, you are certainly correct, I have no doubt you know much more about the specifics of PS than I do On the other hand, know a bit more about how MMORPGs are put together in general than you do (because I\'ve gone a fair way into building one).  There are a couple of flaws in your argument.

First of all, \"critters\" will not drop useless items. If they drop useless items, the dev team is in close contact with the players, and will be informed about these useless items. They will be removed from the game if the game has no need for this useless item.

The problem here is the definition of \"useless\".  Each player will have their own definition specific to them.  Suppose there is a \"chef\" class in the game (I have no idea if there is or not, but we\'ll use it as an example).  The chef will need raw materials, so by necessity certian critters must drop things useful to the chef (cheese, grapes, flour, whatever).  However, to a non-chef, these items would be useless and therefore left where they lie (I\'m presuming such items would not be worth much to sell, but I think that\'s a valid assumption for at least SOME items in the game, otherwise your economy is fubarred ).

[qoute]
Second of all, \"critters\" wont drop anything they do not have. Therefor \"items\" will not stay on the ground, they will disappear with the corpse. If you decide not to skin a corpse, you will not get it\'s skin, and it will disappear. [/quote]
That\'s just another form of item decay.  Same idea.  Some games use it (SWG come to mind).  I personally prefer the method where critters keep their items until they decay at which point the items drop to the ground, where they start their own decay timer (ala AC).  But that\'s just me  [I like this method because it gives the player with corpse looting rights exclusive access to the loot until the corpse decays, at which point the items drop to the ground and are free for anyone to pick up, which seems like a perfectly fair method to me].

Oh, and as far as what I know, there won\'t be any \"hunting areas\" such as in AC or RS or whatever games you\'ve played before. PlaneShift\'s world is -BIG- thus giving the developers LOTS of space to put monsters on. I\'m not talking about walking days and weeks to find anything at all, but it most likely wont be crowded unless you pay a visit to a monster nest. Which would be stupid, by the way.

You\'re kidding yourself.  The AC world is also *huge*.  There are vast areas where you never see other players.  And there are TONS of hunting grounds where players congregate.  Just because there is wide open space doesn\'t mean players will use it.  In fact, quite the opposite, players tend to congregate for any number of reasons.  It WILL happen in PS too, I can pretty much guarantee it, because it happens in ALL games of this type.

The kind of thing I was talking about is if you put some of your items somewhere, like in a cave you only know about, they wouldn\'t disappear at all.

You still have the same problem.  Items using this method can build up to problematic levels and cause excessive lag any time someone enters the landblock.  

Now, I admit that if critters don\'t drop thier items on the ground (ala AC) as you say, then this process will likely take longer, but the potential is still very much there. Consider that this issue is such a big deal that many games don\'t even allow ground items at all (SWG, LinII, et al).

One perfectly acceptable workaround to such a problem is to use a method where all that item data DONT get transmitted every time a player enters the block.  For this to work, the items need be blocked from view in some manner.  Such as inside a chest.  That way the data for the items need be transmitted only when someone actually looks inside the chest (and also you could limit the number of items inside the chest to further help reduce the data streaming).  This sort of method is commonly used in any number of current MMORPGs.  PS may provide such chests at the start of your dragon cave, for instance, for just that purpose.

There is simply no way a server can maintain responsiveness with your method.  Items lose on the ground *must* decay in a reasonable timeframe or your server will grind to a halt (presuming a decent level of player population, which I assume PS is going to have).

Ron

[Arberar]

Originally posted by Taldor
How can a weapon break if you try to sharp(i hope it\'s spelled this way, I mean \'make sharper\') you weapon? Ok it is possible you can\'t make it sharper but breaking?...

breaking sharpening not sharpend i mean whats the diffrence :p
i just meant you couldn\'t use it anymore

[DrunkenPimp]

I know were not supposed to mention runescape but one thing i hate that i wouldnt want to see repeated would be dominant races. In pvp there was no balance or power to any \"race\" besides warrior. This would ruin it for anyone who wanted to level any skill but strength.

[Seytra]

Well, I\'m _really_ glad that PS will not have monsters drop unrelated stuff. I absolutely _hate_ it that wolves drop gold or swords. I mean, free gold is nice, but OTOH it just ruins the immersion when you start thinking about the game. So the usual \"monster\" would not drop much.
When it comes to non-animal opponents, they\'ll of course drop their swords, armor and personal belongings. However, I still think they will (or better: should) not be useless or not worth to pick up.
This is because swords aren\'t for free. You need to buy them. A newbie will not even be able to afford a sword for some time so it\'s definitely not useless. Why should this apply only to players? The gnoll economy can\'t be so good that it can spill out a sword for every peasant gnoll, can it? So most low-level monsters would not have much, either, but they shouldn\'t be drawn as having a sword, either. Give them clubs, theye will be essentially sticks, so they\'ll not stick out when dropped, making them effectively vanish instantly.

What makes other items useless is the \"kill for XP\" approach to the game, which does have nothing to do with RPG. THAT is the _real_ problem. Of course, on a battlefield, there will be swords left when the dust settles. However, in medieval times, even the stones castles were made from were worth collecting to build your own house! A sword would earn a farmer\'s monthly income, if not the yearly income!
So we have a massive problem with item-overambundance due to excessive slaying.
Now what happens if a newbie goes to the killing fields to collect the debries? They\'ll not just have swords in zero time, but also armor and everything else. W00t for recycling (or second-hand)!
As for the \"exclusive access\": why should there be anything like this? OK, to avoid griefers. But I propose a maximum distance (like 10m). If you leave this radius, the loot will be accessible to everyone, reflecting that you\'d not be in reach to prevent someone else from looting. Once you left, your initial right is voided forever, so if you come back, the loot will still be open to all.
I dislike the chest idea (why should there be chests all over the place? Chests cost money, after all.), however, The corpse way would seem OK (i.e., you leave the stuff \"in\" the corpse until someone loots it, then everything \"in\" it will be shown to them (maybe depending on \"loot\" skill) so they can pick what they want). Once the corpse decays, the stuff would be on the ground.
The quick decaying could be justifed by NSCs running around collecting the stuff. Why not?
In areas where many people kill other people, ther will be more \"scavengers\", thus the stuff vanishes more quickly. In other areas, there would be nearly no scavengers so the stuff would stay there for much longer, but there will be less stuff anyway. So the problem is \"what should happen to stuff that is obscured (by bushes, for example)? Clearly, small items will simply vanish after a short time (like coins), while larger items (like swords) would stay visible for longer, depending on the ground.
What happens if the player deliberately drops something into a storage cave? It\'d not vanish since the ground would not allow that. Maybe we could even make something _like_ the crates, just not crates in caves. We could have places in the corners, like depressions into which stuff can be dumped, thereby taking deliberate action by the player to mark it as \"storage\". And it would not need to be transferred to each client as it\'s sort of \"hidden\". If someone else finds it, it\'s gone, however, this should, however, only happen if another _player_ finds it.

[SaintNuclear]

Originally posted by RonHiler
The problem here is the definition of \"useless\".  Each player will have their own definition specific to them.  Suppose there is a \"chef\" class in the game (I have no idea if there is or not, but we\'ll use it as an example).  The chef will need raw materials, so by necessity certian critters must drop things useful to the chef (cheese, grapes, flour, whatever).  However, to a non-chef, these items would be useless and therefore left where they lie.

You\'re missing something here.
If there\'s an item, it\'s useful. Maybe not to you, but to someone else. So if you find such an item, you can sell it to someone that can use it.
If the item doesn\'t cost much, it\'s probebly also light and small enough to be carried in large quantities.
That means you\'ll gain more if you collect many of the cheap items and sell them than collecting one extremely heavy and expensive one.

And, like Seytra said, in a place with monster-bashing, there will be scavangers. The scavangers will pick up everything (maybe one scavanger is picky, but the other one will be more than happy to take that item that was left there...).

You\'re kidding yourself. The AC world is also *huge*. There are vast areas where you never see other players. And there are TONS of hunting grounds where players congregate. Just because there is wide open space doesn\'t mean players will use it. In fact, quite the opposite, players tend to congregate for any number of reasons. It WILL happen in PS too, I can pretty much guarantee it, because it happens in ALL games of this type.

This doesn\'t mean that PS will have hunting areas. Why? Because PS isn\'t like that.
PS isn\'t about monster-bashing and powerleveling. And a game that don\'t want such things, won\'t make big open areas that got many monster spawnpoints, wich is the exact thing that causes hunting areas.

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by SaintNuclear
You\'re missing something here.
If there\'s an item, it\'s useful. Maybe not to you, but to someone else. So if you find such an item, you can sell it to someone that can use it.

Are you sure it\'s me that\'s missing something?  I don\'t ask to be argumentative, I concede the possiblity that you\'re right, because I don\'t know the specifics of PS that well.

However, consider that there\'s nothing in the last paragraph you wrote that is specific to PS, right?  In *every* game that I know of, every item is of some use to *somebody*in game.  And yet (for those games that allow ground items) there is always stuff lying on the ground (at least until it decays).  Why?  As you say, in theory people should be picking that stuff up and selling it to those who need it.  But (in a lot of cases) they don\'t, for whatever reason (probably for the same reason in single player RPGs, they don\'t pick up every single drop item and sell it to the local merchant, because it\'s inconvienent, and because after a while you don\'t need the 1 copper peice from grapes anymore when you can sell off the 30 extra vorpal blades you\'ve picked up for 30K apeice).

So I guess what I\'m asking is what makes PS so different from every other MMORPG out there such that every item will be picked up off the ground by somebody within a reasonable time frame so that you can have your non-decaying item abilty without excessive lag, when no other game of this type has ever accomplished this?

And, like Seytra said, in a place with monster-bashing, there will be scavangers. The scavangers will pick up everything (maybe one scavanger is picky, but the other one will be more than happy to take that item that was left there...).

And now your economy is completly screwed.  No one will ever buy anything. Why should they?  The newbies will simply trail behind the higher ups and scavenge what they leave behind.  And then who are you going to sell all that stuff to?

This is another very good reason for decay.  Scavaging will happen, sure, but if you limit corpse looting rights for a brief time, and then only keep items on the ground for a little while, you make toons more self reliant in terms of having to get their own stuff (in terms of buying it or killing the critters that own it).  If nothing decays, all I have to do as a newby is walk over to the local killing field, wait for the higher-ups to kill off the beasties, walk in and grab all the stuff I need to fully outfit myself before the critters respawn.  Why in the world would I ever BUY anything ever?

This doesn\'t mean that PS will have hunting areas. Why? Because PS isn\'t like that.
PS isn\'t about monster-bashing and powerleveling. And a game that don\'t want such things, won\'t make big open areas that got many monster spawnpoints, wich is the exact thing that causes hunting areas.

Hmmm, no, I have to disagree (are you surprised? ).  I think what causes hunting areas are good spawn points.  Where the creatures congregate that give good xp and/or loot, that\'s where you will find the congregating players hunting them.

I understand you want PS to be a roleplaying game, not a monster-bash.  And I applaud that, it\'s a good thought.

However, I don\'t see how you can avoid it to some extent.  There is some segment of the population who play these games that will do everything in their power to advance in them.  That\'s the nature of these kind of games.  You CANT enforce roleplaying.

And if killing critters is part of the game and if it gives some benefit to the player (in the form of loot or xp or whatever) then you ARE going to have players who are doing just that for hours on end.  And those are *exactly* the same players who will leave the items lying about that they don\'t find useful.  Which brings us right back around to the item decay issue.

You have a really good community here, and probably to a person everyone will post saying how they will not monster-bash and that they will RP, which is great.  But to a large extent the community you have is living in a bubble.  There is no combat or xp gain in PS, and therefore the powerlevers and monster-bashers aren\'t here (they\'re too busy powerleveling and monster-bashing in DoAC or LinII or SWG or AC to bother coming here).  But you can pretty much COUNT on the fact that as soon as these things exist in PS, that population WILL show up.

The point of the last paragraph was not to be insulting to the PS community (please don\'t take it that way), it was meant to say that you can\'t prevent the over-hunting from happening, and therefore the excessive item build up as well. Which is exaclty why you NEED item decay.

Anyway, I\'m going to shut up.  I\'m going to get myself into trouble (if I haven\'t already, hehe).

Ron

[SaintNuclear]

Your whole post is wrong because of this one mistake you keep repeating: You think that PS will be like it\'s \'type\' of games, but there isn\'t really a type of games that PS is like.
It seems to me, that when classify PS as a \'type\' of games, you classify it as a MMORPG. The problem is that MMORPGs aren\'t really MMORPGs. They\'re MMOGs that call themselves MMORPGs because it\'s a longer acronym with \'funny\' words in it and it just sounds so neat.
But there aren\'t really any other games that you can say that they\'re from the same type as PS.

after a while you don\'t need the 1 copper peice from grapes anymore when you can sell off the 30 extra vorpal blades you\'ve picked up for 30K apeice

A few posts ago you said (and I agree) that an economy without common stuff that don\'t worth much will be fubar\'ed. But now you say that you can get (it seems that very easily) thirty items that each of them worth 30k.
The latter seems alot more fubar\'ing to me.

Also, you probebly won\'t be able to carry more than two \'vorpal blades\'. Why? It sounds to me like a very heavy and rare item.
If it costs 30k, you won\'t just find it anywhere. You\'ll have to work hard to find it. And once you do, it\'ll be only one, not two, and certainly not thirty.
And if you did managed to get a hold of more than one, you just won\'t be able to carry more than one - too heavy. You will, if you\'ll have a Pterosaur, but since buying one will probebly cost (atleast) hundreds of thousands of trias, most chances are that you won\'t have one.

And now your economy is completly screwed. No one will ever buy anything. Why should they? The newbies will simply trail behind the higher ups and scavenge what they leave behind. And then who are you going to sell all that stuff to?

Monsters won\'t drop Uber Swords of the Ap0calypse. You\'ll be able to loot natural things from monsters, like raw meat, hide, teeth, and claws.
If newbies will think they can get rich by stalking higher-ups and scavanging the loot, let them.
This things will be sellable, true, but they won\'t make you rich so fast.
Anyone that kills a monster will probebly take most of the things he can from it. What a scavanger newbie will get in one hour will probebly be 10% than what he could get if he\'d fight the easy monsters close to the newb spawn point.

I think what causes hunting areas are good spawn points. Where the creatures congregate that give good xp and/or loot, that\'s where you will find the congregating players hunting them.

That\'s not enough to make an area a \'hunting zone\'. A hunting zone isn\'t just a place with high-level monsters that drop Super Chainmail of Gods. It\'s a place with many hunters, and many monsters.
There can\'t be many hunters in a place that spawns a monster every once in a while. Well, there can be, but they\'ll be utterly bored.
A hunting zone will spawn enough monsters so it\'ll be full with hunters that fight almost non-stop. One monster dies - there\'s already another one. Sometimes with more than one monster against each hunter.
A place like this is designed like this. The devs don\'t just happen to decide to make some huge valley with 10 monster spawn points for the heck of it. It\'s obvious that such a place will draw monster-bashers, and if the game don\'t like this kind of activity, places will be able to make it very hard to just monster-bash aimlessly.

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by SaintNuclear
The problem is that MMORPGs aren\'t really MMORPGs. They\'re MMOGs that call themselves MMORPGs because it\'s a longer acronym with \'funny\' words in it and it just sounds so neat.

That\'s not entirely fair.  Traditionally in computer games, an RPG is defined as a game where character advancement and development is the primary feature of the game (this is probably a holdover from single player RPGs, since you cant actually RP by yourself, computer games in the early days needed a genre definition for games that played like a pen-paper RPGs, and that\'s the one they came up with).  By that definition, games like EQ, AC, DoAC, and so on are perfectly correct when they call themselves MMORPGs.  It\'s a matter of semantics, I know, it all depends on your definition of RPG, but that\'s where they are getting that acronym from, not because it sounds cool.

Your whole post is wrong because of this one mistake you keep repeating: You think that PS will be like it\'s \'type\' of games, but there isn\'t really a type of games that PS is like. It seems to me, that when classify PS as a \'type\' of games, you classify it as a MMORPG. [...]But there aren\'t really any other games that you can say that they\'re from the same type as PS.

Okay, fair enough.  You\'re correct in that I classify PS as an MMORPG.  I\'ve played it (albiet briefly) just to have a look around, and what I saw was an MMORPG in development, no different from any other MMORPG I\'ve played in the past (and that\'s not a shot at the design or the designers, it just means that in its current unfinished state, there is nothing currently there that would make the game any different from any other game in the genre).

But you keep refering to this mystical difference that will make PS unlike any other MMORPG out there, which makes my arguments invalid.  So explain to me what this difference is.  I\'m not being facetious, I\'m actually asking, I\'d like to know.

One argument I\'m not going to accept is \"the community will enforce...\".  That\'s horse manure.  It NEVER works, it\'s been tried any number of times (reference early UO and PKing, for instance) and has failed every time.  It is currently failing in LinII, where harvest bots are pretty much destroying the game. What I\'m after is Server (or even Client, but Server would be better) enforced rules that define this game as different such that I\'m completely off base.

A few posts ago you said (and I agree) that an economy without common stuff that don\'t worth much will be fubar\'ed. But now you say that you can get (it seems that very easily) thirty items that each of them worth 30k.
The latter seems alot more fubar\'ing to me.

You\'re taking me too literally  My point was that a higher up character can take on higher up critters, and get higher up style rewards.  If I (as a higher up) take down a critter that drops 500 gold, a god-sword, and grapes, I\'ll take the first two and leave the latter.  It isn\'t worth taking and will take up space/weight in my pack that could better be used for stuff looted from the next critter I take out.  And now you have item build-up, or it get scavenged by a newby char.  Either way leads to problems that we already discussed. (I understand your argument about critters not dropping unnatural items, but the idea is the same, and I\'m not going to rack my brain trying to come up with natural items that are worth more or less, I trust you understand what I mean, hehe).

If it costs 30k, you won\'t just find it anywhere. You\'ll have to work hard to find it. And once you do, it\'ll be only one, not two, and certainly not thirty.

Have you ever PLAYED another MMORPG?  This argument is fallaceous in the extreme.  There will be quests in PS just like in other games (or that\'s my understanding anyway).  There will be some reward for these quests.  There WILL be players who do these quests over and over and over to get that reward.  And therefore, yes, there will be players with 30 \'vorpal blades\' (or whatever) running around in game.

And if you did managed to get a hold of more than one, you just won\'t be able to carry more than one - too heavy.

Then your game is unbalanced.  Granted, carrying 30 blades would be a lot.  But if I\'m carrying NOTHING else, and I can\'t carry 30 blades, then I could also not carry one blade and armor.  Or one blade, a shield, armor, health potions, and all the other equipment that a normal adventurer would lug around.  If the game is that stingy about weight restrictions, then it becomes unplayable.  Weight management will become your primary focus, and thats a bad idea now matter how you look at it.

Monsters won\'t drop Uber Swords of the Ap0calypse. You\'ll be able to loot natural things from monsters, like raw meat, hide, teeth, and claws.
If newbies will think they can get rich by stalking higher-ups and scavanging the loot, let them.
This things will be sellable, true, but they won\'t make you rich so fast.

That\'s just it, I think they can and will (presuming no item decay, which is where we started this discussion).  You just got finished saying weight restricitons will be harsh.  As a higher up, this will cause me to leave all the lesser stuff alone and only take the better stuff.  And the higher I get, the more I\'m going to consider lesser stuff worthless.  A newby, on the other hand, will pick up that stuff and use it (or go sell it if anyone in the game ever buys anything, which given the way your economy works (as you\'ve described it), I increasingly doubt).

That\'s not enough to make an area a \'hunting zone\'. A hunting zone isn\'t just a place with high-level monsters that drop Super Chainmail of Gods. It\'s a place with many hunters, and many monsters.

One leads to the other.

There can\'t be many hunters in a place that spawns a monster every once in a while. Well, there can be, but they\'ll be utterly bored.

Ever played EQ?  This is EXACTLY what happens.  Players line up waiting for the boss critter to spawn so they can take it out and collect the reward.  Boring?  Yes.  But profitable.  And this is the most populous MMORPG in the US (don\'t ask me why, there are more basic play problems in EQ than in any other game I\'ve ever seen in the genre, hehe).  I think you grossly underestimate the levels to which a certain segment of the population that plays this genre will go to advance in the game (either monitarily or by character buildup).

A hunting zone will spawn enough monsters so it\'ll be full with hunters that fight almost non-stop. One monster dies - there\'s already another one. Sometimes with more than one monster against each hunter.
A place like this is designed like this. The devs don\'t just happen to decide to make some huge valley with 10 monster spawn points for the heck of it. It\'s obvious that such a place will draw monster-bashers, and if the game don\'t like this kind of activity, places will be able to make it very hard to just monster-bash aimlessly.

Hmmm.  Not sure I agree with your logic.  PS will have quests.  I presume (and you can correct me if I\'m wrong), the quests reward is guarded by critters (or at least some of them will be).  You now have a hunting zone.  An area where higher up critters congregate in some numbers in order to protect the quest reward.

I don\'t think you can avoid hunting zones.  They will happen.  Or else you will have a very boring game

I\'m enjoying this debate.  I hope you don\'t think I\'m being overly argumentative.  That\'s not my intent

Ron

[zabeal]

Originally posted by Seytra
What makes other items useless is the \"kill for XP\" approach to the game, which does have nothing to do with RPG. THAT is the _real_ problem.

Indeed. In planeshift there will be no random exp for just killing things- it doesn\'t make any sense. You raise skills by doing them. An hour long duel where no one dies is going to teach you much more than slaughtering a village. Hopefully, it will be rare to kill monsters, making questions about drop loot moot.

[Seytra]

OK, here is a nice rule I just came up with:

Assuming there will be quests that involve monster bashing. Each player is _given_ the quest by someone (NPC) or something (items).
Usually, each quest is unique to the player (well, a princess could in theory be rescued several times if she gets herself caught again and again, but ... )Now we have the treasure and the monsters. They will only be there once for each player. Therefore, we must enforce the _one-time-property_ of both quests and monsters and loot. The monsters that are truly numerous will be low level, like wolves or at best goblins. These will, however, after a very short time stop giving any useful amount of XP (if you\'re level 10 and kill a wolf, well, you\'ll gain 1 XP). Also, the stuff they\'ll drop will be not worth the time to hunt for once you are higher level. Therefore, there will be no real hunting areas.

How can we enforce the rule of uniqueness?
We\'ll assign each quest an ID, and this ID is also coupled to the monsters and items involved. After you finished a quest, your account will be added it\'s ID (stored at server-side), so you will not be given it again. If you then go back to the place the king was, it\'ll simply not spawn. If it already _is_ there, because someone else takes this quest, you _could_ kill it, but it wouldn\'t give you any XP or loot, because you already have the ID. Also, it could simply be immune to your weapons and ignore you, so griefers wouldn\'t have fun as well. Maybe these monsters will not even be visible to you and you not for them, also no bumping into or otherwise affecting each other. As you\'ll not be inside a PVP area, you\'ll also not be able to hurt the other player. You also wouldn\'t see the loot.

True, seeing another player in the great sourcerer\'s throne-room that has already finished this quest while you\'re fighting the sourcerer, is somewhat unrealistic, but it is much more unrealistic to kill that same sourcerer over and over again. Furthermore, since nothing can be gained, these occasions will be very rare, even more rare if you generate a seperate quest area for each player. They can enter it anytime, but it\'ll be their own, nobody else would be able to enter it, _unless_ both players have explicitely teamed up for this quest (or permanently). This can be as easy as ticking a box at the other players name. Once all have ticked each other, they\'d all be in the same quest... let\'s call it \"quest space\".

I think this pretty much makes level-gringing impossible while placing no restrictions on RPG. Furthermore, as everybody would have their own \"quest space\", the issue of ground items will be much less severe as there will be only a fixed (and previously known) number of items in the quest spaces, and they\'ll only be visible to the players they belong to, so no lag.

The only thing that must be considered it the reduction of server space for the quest spaces, so we might need questspace-decay, but OTOH, maybe it can be compressed and it also needs to be stored only if there is anything left inside, since otherwise it can be generated if the player ever wishes to re-enter it. That must be tried, but quest-design can probably greatly reduce the chance of stuff being left in a questspace.

The general areas would probably not even need much attention because there will not be monsters worth hunting if you\'re above a certain level, so there will only be hunters who _are_ hunters, like ppl. who need leather for making clothes or somesuch.

Also, it would be cool if you could pick up every single carrot in a field, or stuff other things into the hole, like potatoes. Farmer-griefing?

[Seytra]

Clarification: the entrance to a questspace would not be in some vast area, because it would be unrealistic if somebody nearby just disappears.
Also, it\'d much cooler because you\'d have the feeling of lonelieness and helplessness in the \"great forest nobody ever enters\". Without questspaces, it would be a very crowded place and the feeling would be ruined.

Also, I totally agree to the statement that MMORPGs have their name from RPGs, which were much like MUDs. However, the PnP RPGs have already evolved beyond the point of hack\'n slay, so the MMORPGs could follow this trend, which I believe PS can do and the ideas I presented could help do that.
 
Also, PnP RPGs have stopped giving XP for kills that aren\'t extraordinary. Instead, you gain XP for completing a quest, and that is judged by the way you did it. This can easily be implemented in any MMORPG. Skills will advance by using them, but the advance would need to be dependant on the difference in difficulty and skill. I.e., if you want to advance your \"dodge\" skill, traditionally you go into the forest where low-level monsters are and just stand there for hours on end, letting them chew at you, as you\'ll regenerate faster than they can do damage, if any. Now, if your dodge skill simply doesn\'t advance by this, because it\'s so easy to dodge these monsters or you don\'t need it since they will not even get through your armor, then the whole idea becomes pointless and will not be pursued.
The same thing applies to the typical smith making daggers all the time because making daggers is easy and fast. But if they\'d not get a single XP from it, and also not advance their skill anymore (exactly _because_ it\'s so easy for them to make daggers after a while), they\'d not make daggers they don\'t need. Therefore, the market will not be flooded by daggers as a bonus.

[RonHiler]

Hey Seytra,

You\'re talking about three different ideas here, and in fact I think they\'re pretty good ones in some respects.  They may even solve the issues we\'ve been discussing about item decay

I like to put things in terms of other games which have already tried them (those who don\'t understand history are doomed to repeat it, and all that).  I know you guys keep telling me PS is fundamentally different from any other MMORPG out there, but that difference hasn\'t really been defined to my satisfaction, so I\'m going to keep doing the comparisons until somebody tells me why I can\'t

Your first idea that quests be unique to a given player needs some minor modification (or at least a slightly different definition).  I don\'t think the designers are going to design quests on a *per player* basis, heh.  I\'m sure that\'s not what you meant either.  But just so we\'re clear, what we are talking about (if I read you correctly) is a per-quest flag that prevents any given toon from doing any given quest more than once.  I think that\'s probably what you were getting at anyway.

That\'s been tried in a couple of games I can think of (Lineage II, for instance, has this sort of system on a good number of its quests, though not all of them.  AC does this too, for a few quests).  I think it does actually work.  The only problem I\'d point out is that you want to give your players things to do that will last *years*, and if every quest is \"one time only\", you\'d have to have a LOT of quests, heh.  Hard on the designers  I think that\'s why no game has ever done this exclusively with their quests.

Still, given a very dedicated design team (which PS has), you could pull this off I think.  Generally I approve of the concept myself.  I intend to put it into my game, in fact, though like LinII, I wasn\'t planning on doing it exclusively.

Your second idea of \"instancing\" dungeon areas for individuals has also been tried (AO comes to mind).  This is also a system that works, though it does have drawbacks (like you mention, it takes a bit of \"hoop jumping\" if you want to bring in a group).  But in general, I also like this idea.  And, as you mentioned, this gives an extra added bonus that if new instances of the area are created on a per-toon basis, it matters not at all how much stuff gets dropped on the ground (since only the one player will ever see it, and they are presumably the reason the stuff is there anyway).  So no need for item decay in such areas (presumably once the player leaves the instance, it is deleted, along with any stuff left inside, so it solves the database size issue as well).  It brings up other problems (like what to do if the player logs out while inside, or gets dropped), but they could be worked out.  I DON\'T think you should ever keep a dungeon instance around in *any* case, whether there is stuff inside or not, too much server space usage.  Can you imagine the space it would take up to keep an entire level around *per character*?  You could end up with a 1000 instances of 300 different levels.  300,000 level, yipes!  Of course, you\'d only have to keep 1 instance of the static information and only keep the dynamic information per toon per level, but even so, that\'s an awful lot of data space.  I think once you leave, that\'s it, the level is deleted.  If you go back in, a brand new instance is created for you.  That way, you only have to keep as many as are currently occupied.

The only other modification to your plan I would suggest (which you probably won\'t agree with, heh) is to make \"instanced\" areas no decay but non-instanced areas (the general world area) remain decay territory.  The reason I say that is because in those latter areas you still have all the same issues with item buildup and scavaging that we\'ve been arguing over.

Your third idea that kiling critters should result in less XP as you gain level over them is in my mind a great one, and I think this is the general direction MMORPGs are going in (LinII does this, as does DAoC (IIRC), for instance, and I think EQII will as well (I could swear I read that somewhere, but don\'t quote me on it)).  This is such a no-brainer I don\'t understand why all MMORPGs aren\'t doing it  I am not, however, sure I agree that no critter should give XP ever. That leaves you with only the quests to get XP by, and (unless PS is doing away with the XP system altogether) you won\'t have enough quests to handle the \"XP demand\", *especially* if you make them all one time only quests.

One last point, the concept that you ought to get XP only for the task you are performing has been tried (SWG). While it sounds great on paper, I don\'t think it works well in practice.  What you end up with is a \"game\" where you spend hours on end dancing in a canteena or sitting in the med lounge healing other players or digging at the ground looking for minerals to get enough XP to advance.  BORING!!!  I\'m pretty sure you *don\'t* want to do that to your game, heh.

Ron

[Watcher]

Um about the XP idea well I have had a brain wave what if instead of on all the other online games where you get a set XP in a set skill if you use X weapon, I will use a rat as a example if fighter B attacks rat A with his hammer and squashes him while ranger A takes his time lineing up the shot and firing fighter B will get no XP (I mean how hard is it to bring a mallet down) but Ranger A will get quite alot of XP in his range (its a dam fast moving rat :p)

[Seytra]

Originally posted by RonHiler
Hey Seytra,

You\'re talking about three different ideas here, and in fact I think they\'re pretty good ones in some respects.  They may even solve the issues we\'ve been discussing about item decay

That\'s (part of) the plan.

Originally posted by RonHiler
I think that\'s why no game has ever done this exclusively with their quests.

Still, given a very dedicated design team (which PS has), you could pull this off I think.  Generally I approve of the concept myself.  I intend to put it into my game, in fact, though like LinII, I wasn\'t planning on doing it exclusively.

AFAICS, this concept will need to be part of what the difference of PS will be. PS is intended to be hack\'n slay - free (AFAIK). To do this, this exclusiveness would be imperative, because it\'ll completely prevent level-grind, harvesting and hunting zones. Also, somewhere it is stated that there are intended to be so many quests, that it would take years to even do them once. This was in the forum, though.

Originally posted by RonHiler
Your second idea of \"instancing\" dungeon areas for individuals has also been tried (AO comes to mind).  This is also a system that works, though it does have drawbacks (like you mention, it takes a bit of \"hoop jumping\" if you want to bring in a group).  But in general, I also like this idea.


Can you imagine the space it would take up to keep an entire level around *per character*?  You could end up with a 1000 instances of 300 different levels.  300,000 level, yipes!  Of course, you\'d only have to keep 1 instance of the static information and only keep the dynamic information per toon per level, but even so, that\'s an awful lot of data space.  I think once you leave, that\'s it, the level is deleted.  If you go back in, a brand new instance is created for you.  That way, you only have to keep as many as are currently occupied.

I thought about keeping them around for at least a while, to give the player the chance to re-visit the scene or show someone else what they have done.

I agree that keeping all of them on the server would become quite tricky in terms of space usage, but what if it were kept on the client? Of course, it needs to be guarded heavily. I therefore propose a checksumming system. The checksum size can be dynamic depending on the checksummed data. One checksum per quest. There\'d be no need for encryption, though, because decryption would just be broken anyway, and the checksum is what keeps the integrity. Compression would be OK, however. The checksums would be generated by the server on exit of the instance, when the instance is stripped, compressed, checksummed and then sent to the client. The server appends the checksum it generated to the account of the player.
If the player re-enters the area, the client\'s data is sent to the server, where it will be checksummed again and compared to the stored sum If they match, everything is fine. If not, well, \"cheat alert\".
Also, items of great value, if left in such an area, can be stored separately to give additional security against replication attacks (because if such an item appears out of nowhere, it wouldn\'t be on the record, revealing the fraud). This can also be coupled to the number of the items, i.e. if there are 2 items of 100000 tria value they\'d be recorded, but also of there are 100 items of 100 tria value, but not 1 item of 100 tria value.

The area recently visited could remain in a cache for, say, 30 minutes, to speed up quick reentering.

Originally posted by RonHiler
The only other modification to your plan I would suggest (which you probably won\'t agree with, heh) is to make \"instanced\" areas no decay but non-instanced areas (the general world area) remain decay territory.  The reason I say that is because in those latter areas you still have all the same issues with item buildup and scavaging that we\'ve been arguing over.

As you expected, I disagree
Seriously, if there would be no quests in general areas, and therefore there were no hunting areas, but only naturally appearing creatures (like wolves) that would only be hunted for the resources they produce (which will also be the only ones they drop, if at all), there would be no item-buildup due to dropped loot or killing for XP, and therefore there\'d not need to be item decay as well. However, one can even for these things define a clear real-world limit of useful life, i.e. these things (like fur or meat) will simply rot after a short time. So these will definitely decay, maybe decrease in value for some time, but ultimately, they\'d vanish.

Originally posted by RonHiler
Your third idea that kiling critters should result in less XP as you gain level over them is in my mind a great one, and I think this is the general direction MMORPGs are going in (LinII does this, as does DAoC (IIRC), for instance, and I think EQII will as well (I could swear I read that somewhere, but don\'t quote me on it)).  This is such a no-brainer I don\'t understand why all MMORPGs aren\'t doing it  I am not, however, sure I agree that no critter should give XP ever. That leaves you with only the quests to get XP by, and (unless PS is doing away with the XP system altogether) you won\'t have enough quests to handle the \"XP demand\", *especially* if you make them all one time only quests.

Well, _some_ form of XP system will be necessary, even if it is disguised as skill system (in which you gain XP per skill, on a usage basis) (which I believe is what PS will do). Still, even in the skill system, as already suggested by me and instanciated by Watcher, the relation of the ease or difficulty to the current skill level needs to heavily influence the amount of \"skill XP\" gained.

Originally posted by RonHiler One last point, the concept that you ought to get XP only for the task you are performing has been tried (SWG). While it sounds great on paper, I don\'t think it works well in practice.  What you end up with is a \"game\" where you spend hours on end dancing in a canteena or sitting in the med lounge healing other players or digging at the ground looking for minerals to get enough XP to advance.  BORING!!!  I\'m pretty sure you *don\'t* want to do that to your game, heh.

Ron

Well, in PnP games, this of course is mitigated by the greater variation in time. Also, I was referring to the quest as a whole, or even sub-quests. These things would give XP, not the killing of a monster. You could even give fewer XP if the quest was solved in an nunnecessarily brutal way.

Still, PS will be going to facilitate areas such as farming and mining, smithing and cooking, so therefore if the conventional questing char would gain XP through killing, the relation would clearly be disturbed, since the skill advance would then be unbalanced in the adventurers favor, as the cook can\'t just kill for XP, as can\'t the spy. They all can, however, get extra XP for completing a quest successfully, like killing the evil (or good) wizard, preparing the feast for the king, or scouting the enemy city (reflecting general gain in knowledge and special opportunities to learn). In the course of their actions, they also would gain skill XP for doing their jobs (fighting, cooking, spying). Therefore, you\'d not gain general XP from dancing, therefore a dancer will not be able to improve their fighting skill unless they fight or complete a quest. However, they would be rewarded for engaging in their profession, whatever it is. Also, this system would integrate perfectly with non-lethal duelling and training fights and show fighting, while in the XP for kill system these things would need to be force-fed into the system by additional rules.

Also, nothing stops one from adventuring and gaining fighting skill even if they have a different profession.

[RonHiler]

Originally posted by Seytra
Also, somewhere it is stated that there are intended to be so many quests, that it would take years to even do them once. This was in the forum, though.

It\'s an admirable goal.  Easier said than done, though

I agree that keeping all of them on the server would become quite tricky in terms of space usage, but what if it were kept on the client? Of course, it needs to be guarded heavily. I therefore propose a checksumming system.

Interesting idea.

A straight checksum won\'t work.  Checksums are quite trivial to fool.  You could maybe use an MD5 fingerprint perhaps.  Even so, whats to prevent the client from intercepting the sent fingerprint, writing it down, changing the level to their liking, then modify the client to return the original fingerprint (independent of the level contents)?  This is an open source game, after all, and you just gave a huge amount of trust to the client.  From a security standpoint, I don\'t think your idea would work.

Second problem with it is that what if I play the same toon from two different computers (e.g. home and work)?  The levels would be stored on one and not the other.  Kind of a problem.

As you expected, I disagree

Hehe, yeah, okay.  I suspect we just have to agree to disagree here, we\'ve about hashed this one out, I think

Well, _some_ form of XP system will be necessary, even if it is disguised as skill system (in which you gain XP per skill, on a usage basis) (which I believe is what PS will do). Still, even in the skill system, as already suggested by me and instanciated by Watcher, the relation of the ease or difficulty to the current skill level needs to heavily influence the amount of \"skill XP\" gained.

Sure, I\'d agree with that.

Well, in PnP games, this of course is mitigated by the greater variation in time. Also, I was referring to the quest as a whole, or even sub-quests. These things would give XP, not the killing of a monster. You could even give fewer XP if the quest was solved in an nunnecessarily brutal way.

Still, PS will be going to facilitate areas such as farming and mining[...]

I dunno, Seytra.  You just described, almost perfectly, the EXACT system in use in SWG.  Right down to the \"greater variation in time\" idea.  If I sit in the med center healing toons, at first I have very little capability (I use MedPack A\'s).  After doing this for quite a while, I gain more ability, eventually being able to create better medpacks and heal all sorts of different afflictions (bleeding, battle fatigue, etc.).  But what it comes down to is spending hour upon hour sitting in the med center.  Yeah, I could go do other things (like work on my dancing or mininig or artisan or even combat skills), but if you want to be good at your chosen profession, you have to use it for many hours/days/weeks.

Now, whether that works or not is a bit of a personal judgement, I suppose (after all they DO use it to this day, and people ARE playing), but the general consensus with SWG in the press was that it was a boring game, for exactly that reason.

Don\'t get me wrong, the *idea* is okay, but the implementation (at least in SWG) is flawed.  And if PS is using the exact same system, it will have the exact same flaw.

Just out of curiosity, where will your equipment come from?  You say critters will only drop critter type items.  From where will come the swords and armor and wands and things usual to fantasy based MMORPGs?  Merchants?  Do the items just appear at the merchants (ala AC et al) or must they be made by players to be sold (ala SWG)?  If the latter, where do the raw materials for crafting come from?  Merchants again?  Do you have to go mine/farm/harvest them (you do mention the farming/mining areas, so am I to take it that the game\'s economy is entirely player determined?)

Ron