PVP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost

I'm most certainly not implying people cannot post here. I'm implying, rather non-subtly, that one cannot provide a valid argument to a thought process that one does not understand, does not wish to participate in, nor truly have a stake in. Perhaps those continued postings which rehash the same stance over and over would constitute trolling? Of course, using that same logic, many PvP forum posters would be guilty here as well.

 

The FEELING will still happen. I understand your trepidation (and, to an extent your dismay) but mechanics are nothing but numbers. They do not define a game experience, the players do.

In the case of Shroud, they are focusing on bringing as many players as possible into the "fun" arena that you obviously grew so attached to. Imagine a world where many times more people participate in the player-versus-player conflicts: many more opportunities for challenge, loot, and excitement.

That's the point of this hybrid system. We should be focusing on helping to give suggestions for how to make the compromise as best as it can be, instead of just pushing one side!

 

The deterrent is not odd in any way. Its what society has dictated for time immemorial and as you can see by looking around, there are not massive waves of roaming.murderers walking around. Do you see a connection there?

I'm still waiting to hear one good alternative detterent from the PvP crowd that will almost totally ensure I don't get ganked by a murderer while I wander around (like in real life!!!!!). I'm listening.

 

I do - but more from a neanderthal grunting point of view.

 

http://www.hulu.com/watch/19591

 

I hear this a lot, which is why i hope they implement a system where you can select to experience that style of game play. Just please recognize that this is not what made UO fun for everyone out there. Again, even though I'm almost positive I would never participate in open PvP with full loot, I hope there is a mechanic so you (and others) can.

 

OK - I'll bite on the troll bait:

" (like in real life!!!!!)" - Seriously?!?! You are assured you won't be murdered??? Who provided that guarantee? Excuse my extreme disbelief which contradicts your assessment of "real life".

 

BTW, one idea for full loot PvP that might pass Chris' restrictions: some kind of large scale PvP conflict where bringing gear that is better than the commonly crafted fare isn't allowed. Limiting what is brought to the conflict to common gear would prevent players from losing really important and hard to replace gear, removing from that gear all the downsides player looting can bring.

This could be added, for example, as an agreed upon restriction in guild wars, perhaps with neutral (NPC) observers making sure that the agreement is not broken (imagine UO's guards wading into the combat to kill anyone that broke the agreement by bringing enchanted gear).

Yes, it wouldn't be full loot in the most ample sense; hard to replace gear would be off the table from the start. It would have some restrictions about how the engagement goes and where it happens. But it might bring some of that feeling of risk some players crave, even if only in a somewhat controlled space. And perhaps other ideas could be added to expand the scope without going against the reasons Chris gave for player looting to be off the table.

 

The magic of UO was that anything could happen at any time. You were never in control.

I don't remember slaying a balron for the 46th time, but I sure remember running for my life and ore while mining!

Oh I know the PvE crowd will say that I can still feel that rush by flagging for PvP while mining but that's not the same since the typical player will always follow the easiest path.

SotA is catering to the lowest common denominator and then trying to satisfy the more competitive player with a piecemeal approach.

SotA is not sandbox - no full loot, consensual only pvp, consensual only thieving, pvp zones, ransom looting, graveyard resurrection, some instanced dungeons (only group members enter), resource nodes, no corpse runs, predefined housing lots, no friendly fire, no open corpses (ninja looting), etc.

SotA is telling you exactly what you can and cannot do. Slap on some cartoon graphics, add battlegrounds and a gear grind and you have a WoW clone with housing.

 

Indeed, I can definitely assure you from first-hand experience that there are excessive, tired re-postings of non-compromising views and demands by people with glass feelings on both sides of the divide.

 

As you can clearly read, I said almost guarantee, which in my 40 years of living appears to be correct. I do not expect to walk outside and get banked most days. There is from an odds perspective a minute chance I will be, but it's terribly small.

 

I'm more than a little tired of being referred to as "the lowest common denominator." Perhaps you could state your opinion without blatantly insulting those who do not share it?

 

Dude, she's from Canada not New Jersey. She's way more safe than you think... as long as she keeps away from that creepy mayor guy anyway!

If Murderers want to murder then they should accept capital punishment. Hanging, Quartering, Beheading, etc. Real live fantasy punishments for murderers who get caught.

 

Heck, back in those days you didn't even need to murder to get executed.

 

So, we just can’t seem to get over the us or them mentality. We will have a divide in player base as long as those people keep doing that. I love the ultimate sandbox definition brought up here. It’s a little off base. Unless you know you enjoy your sandbox allowing to do whatever you want with no consequences. Sure I get it, Ultima online pvp was successful……when it was the only game on the block. When wow and eq came in it basically started to die off.

 

Thanks for the reply. First, I didn't make any complaint about the consensuality of pvp. Now, can you step back, and try to see how extreme your requests there are? Taken together, your two requests mean that you're not happy with having 90%+ of the world set up exactly the way you want - you also want to terraform the few remaining bits which differentiate and are intended to encourage open pvp. Of course, you're absolutely within your rights to express those wishes. But again, similar to the case above I think this is a useful indication of how the proposed compromise has been introduced so far towards one end. I'd also add that your second request seems to be covered in the proposal - either through dueling, or through careful selection of guilds with whom to declare war.

 

@Dhailen posted an idea that would be interesting to vet as a system instead of permadeath, in a different thread. I have a tweak or two that I'd add.

When someone kills a players, in a murder fashion, the victim gets the option to report the crime on death. If the victim does report the death then a bounty is placed on the murderer. During this time, victim and murderer are filtered out from encountering each other. (the murderer did kill the victim after all)

Once the murderer is killed and the bounty is collected, the victim gets the option to once again see the murderer.

If a player runs around killing players, unprovoked and without purpose, for long enough, they end up pushing themselves into SPO, for all intents and purposes.

 

Why are there no space ships in SOTA? I came here expecting space ships and thus I demand space ships. They appeared a few times in small parts of Ultima games thus they must appear in SOTA immediately or it is not the ultimate sandbox experience I demand.

Think about it. How can you call it a sandbox if the developer is limiting my ability to fly in space!!!!

 

Man, we could start a drinking game based off this thread.

Just to clarify and to base terminology on acceptable and widely used definitions. Ultima Online was an Open World game and not a Sandbox game. A Sandbox game allows players access to tools to change the game, its environment and how it is played. For example, Minecraft is a Sandbox game where the game allowed you to change everything. However, even in the original UO you have technical and in-game limitations and could not alter the game directly.

I guess you could classify UO as a sandbox game, but only in relation to Free Shards where the player, with access to the tools, could modify the world. However, the "sandbox" portion of the game most people refer to was really related to its Open World mechanics which allowed the player to play how they wanted, but UO still had rules - as most games do - that had to be followed. SOTA will be the same way and would still classify as an Open World game, but is not a Sandbox game just like UO was not one either. Sandbox does not mean Full Loot, Full/Open PVP: its meaning is related to more freedom than even that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_world

 

Again, you're confusing life with game. Can you not see that the equivalence you attempt to draw between the way that real world society chooses to deal with criminals, and how systems are set up in a computer game to deal with a range of behaviours intended by the game developers, is a wholly spurious equivalence? And, there have been several suggestions at inching the opo risk a little higher. Look a little closer.