Tram Killed UO is Tram back?

@Sericx_ Depending how the OPO filtering system works, I hope they have one filtered for close to what you want, with other like minded players.

 

RG has made the choice to return to his roots and make story driven games. He is adding in the multiplayer elements and as much MMO elements as they can.

I wish I could tell you there was a way for RG to make a game that supports the all in PvP style and the nothing to do with PvP style.

Complete polar opposites. Those 2 style can not exist together to some people. I say they can but both sides must give up on the idea that the other side must forced into one style or the other.

The real question you are asking is why can't an all in PvP game be made. The important part of that question is that RG made the best example to date of an all in PvP. He also made the best RPG games to date. So I get it when you say you want RG to remake the UO glory days.

1.) All we can do is either ask RG himself what he plans to do
-- He seems to be avoiding being specific about PvP, it's a touchy topic
2.) Pick apart his interviews to figure it out.
-- From what I have read full PvP is not desired, instead incentive to partake
3.) Suggest what we desire and rally support.
-- You will not hear me bash anyone for asking for full PvP. I will however discuss how it's going to cut out the majority of the player base.

Best of luck to you on your crusade for full PvP but the odds are not on your side. Maybe they will pop up a 2nd server/shard as @Owain has suggested. Or my suggestion on using the filter to, effectively, hide full PvP players from 100% non PvP players

 

I mentioned the Bartle test before. For anyone who wants to read the original essay: http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm

Even 15 years ago, you can't have a game of all killers. It didn't work then. It will never work now. Someone needs to be the sheep. And no one likes being sheep. The risk vs. reward argument only hold true if you win a good amount of the time. But what if you lose? What if you're the guy who always seems to get ganked at the wrong time and lose most of the time. Eventually that guy quits and the lowest guy on the chain keeps getting eliminated. Of course, you can't really count on a flood of new players...because newbies really stand no chance in this environment.

I do what them to have a high pop and growing, make lots of money, and for the game to last more than a few months.

I would love a game where someone who plays 100 hours a week becomes a much better player. But I don't what them to have any better a character. They will have more trophies but will have to win every fight on player skill alone, not due to an in game advantage. The lack of in game advantage is why LoL is an e-sport and WoW PvP is a disaster.

We all love the thrill of playing some overpowered twink. Maybe it's gear or level. Maybe we know where to snipe / ambush. Maybe we just push buttons that much harder than everyone else. But it's basically PvE at that point. If you really wanted to fight against people with the capacity to outplay you, you'd go into some kind of arena where the best play the best...no just pick on those that really have no chance to fight back.

 

I have found that pure PvP servers can succeed with less population. I played on a free shard that I had some of my best PvP experiences with and they never topped more than a few hundred people. When you think about it pvp players are more likely to be out in the environment than be in the city, their home or SPO or FPO.

 

This idea in SotA that they have reminds me now of Darkness Falls which was a lot of fun. You have incentives to go into a PvP area but by no means required. However, there are a lot of really good items there, ways to make money, and the whole risk/reward factor. I think this is a good model... or maybe even have those particular area and "corpse loot" zones. I'm fine with that area because it still allows risk/reward, reduces 'needless' griefing.

I think people wanting UO look back on the game through rose colored glasses and remember several moments of suspense and may forget all of the aggravation. Playing 30 minutes and getting killed 6 times then rage quitting, having all of their rare items they spent months finding stolen, etc. This is the same reason why people get back together with ex-girlfriends/boyfriends or end up dating someone similar to someone that they broke up with... Enough time passes and things that really bothered you to know end you forget about and you just remember all of the pleasant moments. I think some people are just looking to relive the nostalgia because enough time has passed that they don't remember how the game really was at the time.

The whole idea of risk/reward boils down to everyone having risks and rewards. Unless you balance low skill levels (sheep as someone pointed out) with high skills levels (wolves) so that they can combat each other and it isn't totally one sided, then there isn't a reward on the lower levels/skills. You're reward is that you may be able do a simple task without losing a whole lot of progress. The risk for the higher skill levels is severely lessened in most cases and the reward is you can get a bunch of items with little difficulty and can defend yourself if attacked. This basically is a crappy risk/reward scenario because the challenge is for the most part on the lower levels. You just have to keep death grinding your way to the top and then turn the tables around or even it out, you're extremely lucky and never encounter another hostile, or you get tired of it and rage quit.

On top of that, you're probably going to be having more pressure than what people who enjoy the kind of above system to change it because that's the game that they want to play. If they try to make everyone happy, they will have multiple shards which fractures the community and puts extra burden on the devs to try and balance all of the shards. This adds increased costs and slower development cycles because for everything new that they add, they will need to make sure it doesn't impact PvP while still being viable for PvE. If they leave it unbalanced, then even the people that play on the open PvP will ***** and moan, even most of the people here that want it.

Also, changing to open PvP amounts to sacrificing the storyline in a lot of cases. IE You're the protagonist of the story and then someone comes along and kills you and takes all of your loot...like someone chopping off Bilbo's head and stealing the One Ring and pawning it for magic beans. It doesn't add to the story elements but is subtractive. For a story based game, I can't imagine how that would work out.

 

Players that wish to be a Blacksmith or Tailor, for example, do not have the skills (both in real life and in-game), gear, or interest in fighting other players. Which means that those that focus on PVP have a distinct advantage over them.

An opt-in system allows players that want to fight, the ability to fight each other. Since the game is way more in-depth than just fighting other people (PVP). An opt-in system gives you the best of both worlds. You will have players that will always keep their PVP flag on, and those that will never have it on.

If a non-flagged person healed or assisted a flagged player, they in turn should get flagged for PVP.

Even if most of the people posting on this forum don't PK for s' and g's. Unfortunately there are way too many people that do, if given the chance.

I don't think there is a way to make everybody happy. Just keep in mind that no matter where you stand, there are always others that feel the opposite from what you do. And they have every right to play the game alongside you and with everybody else. This is not a PVP-based game, its a game that has PVP.

 

Those of you who are so adamantly against PvP do realize I hope, that RG thinks he is going to pull in the Facebook gaming crowd. Not only that, he is a also quite confident that you are all going to volunteer to participate in PvP events.

Personally, after watching several hours of him on video. I think he may be the gaming worlds equivalent of a sort of Pied Piper-Antichrist. Not only will you crave to hack some newbs but can't; so will your Grandma!

 

I am not against PvP. I am against making this a place where you can not choose to stay out of PvP. Yet still enjoy the game to the fullest.

 

I am not against PvP either, I think good PvP systems are healthy for any RPG game with depth.

I just do not believe non-consensual PvP is good game design or is it healthy for a game that isn't 100% PvP focused. This isn't a PvP game, it's an RPG.

I wonder if some kind of OPO-PvP mode could be made available (they have already said we are only getting a single persistent world). Switching to this mode would basically put you in Open PvP mode but you would only see other people who had selected the same mode.

Would that be an OK compromise? It being in addition to the previously mentioned PvP quests that can be undertaken by people and those few PvP zones?

 

I always find it interesting when PKs talk about risk vs reward. There seems to be no risk for the PK vs all risk for the non PK.

I was lucky enough to be in a guild of PvPers. we were red but not PKs. On the server we were thought of as a good clan, helpful to those who needed it, took part in play initiatives and helped against PKs. Surprisingly the PKs tended to be part of bigger blue guilds, who wanted to take over anyone trying to do the alters (sorry ive forgotten what they are called!!).

That to me, is what being a red was all about. Not the rampant kill a solitary blue person mining, or some newbie trying to tame a rat.

So as far as I'm concerned, reds should be feared but they need risk for that status. I would go as far as being killed by a bounty hunter stops you playing on that character for an hour.

 

I had a red PK char on Drachenfels called "Arielle", I never killed newbies intentionally and/or targeted, because it was no challenge.

If you were a newbie badmouthing me, I might have killed you. But that was like 1/10,000...

I mostly went in dungeons like Destard and fought bigger groups of 4-5, hide, strike, hide, kill and so on It was fun, I died plenty of times, but also killed whole groups plenty of times.

I see nothing wrong with that, the thing is that the "pk's" killing everything and everyone were a minority, always have been, even in UO. But they drove players away, ok... Now we all know that, so please give us a clear system in game that every player can decide in what kind of world he wants to play.

 

The risk in UO was certainly more governed by the players than by the game mechanics. If you had a rampant world of PKers and incompetent world of Anti-Pkers then yes it will see that there is no risk to be a PK.

I played on a free shard that lasted pretty long from probably 99 all the way to 2004 or so. The shift of balance was constant but there were definitely times where my group (the Anti-PKers) over ran the PKers.

The issue with UO was that developers went for an easy fix for the PvErs by making Trammel rather than something that would increase the risk when one side out numbering the other. Could implement a murderer radar after murders start becoming too frequent. When a kill is made it notifies people in the area. Would make it easier to avoid as well as find and kill PKers. Or maybe this would apply to only weak kills that don't fight back. There could be a number of ways to increase the risk of becoming a PK.

 

@ChaosPhoenix... your comment doesn t make sense at all?
if someone wants to be a tailer/smith/alchemist what stops him from doing that in an open world? you don t need to head down deep into the hardest dungeons in order to tailor a robe... now do you?
you can sit in town peacefully and craft all day... noone will ever PK you in town?
so what are you talking about please?

what i would like to see:

that people start playing together again! nowadays the MMOs are so fast living that people simply don t have the time to talk to each other anymore... and they don t need to since everything is achieveable alone...

using your example with the poor "unskilled" "ungeared" crafter (eventhou thats bullox because from what i experienced in thbe last 15 years crafters were pretty much the richest people in the early stages of a game) can simply ask some of those "brave" "skilled" "well geared" adventureses to escort him to a mine or nearby resource location. then adventureres can protect crafters, crafters can provide waepons and armor again for those people...
like that people would really depend on each other again as i experienced it in other games a long time ago.. people would actually come closer together and form a real community
instead of having everyone just running arround alone because everything is so piss easy that you don t even need help

for me MMOs should be games where people HAVE TO/MUST play together... why would i play a MMO if i want to solo play? there are 100000000 offline computer games.

someone people just think PvP means killing new players all the time... bullox...

i just want to be in a dungeon with other people... and if someone for example steals my mob or something like that i want to have the opportunity to show that player that he made a mistake... that i m more skilled/better geared/more dedicated than he is... i would like to kill him and by that teach him a lesson how to behave...

i had so many discussions in MMOs where people would insult me for no reason (you might know those flamer kids) and for them ONLY THEM i want to be able to kill players... just to show those unskilled/egoistic players that they were wrong... that sharing and helping each other is the biggest goal in a humans life

but whatever you say ... you will always have someone being against it... just because he feals like opposing at the moment... because his own ego tells him to

 

and regarding that comment that PKs have less risks than non-Pks?
where from do you pull comments like that? have you ever played a PK? have you ever played a PK who was on top of the bounty list in UO? do you know how it feels like to be hunted 24/7? to have people tracking you all day? and now tell me PKs have no risks?

IMO... all players have the same risk at all times... you simply can t know when you will run into a person who is more skilled than you are.

and regarding the comment that only skill should matter..

yea it should... but it will never be like this because we are not playing action strategie games... but RPGs. like the name says ROLE PLAYING GAME... why can t people accept the fact that some people play another role than they are? do we all have to play the same role? isn t that boring? and UO had it pretty good there... you didn t need HIGH END items to be successful.. you could simply use a GM made armor set + waepon + some posion on it and BOOM... you are rdy to rock n roll... no grinding for items for months... it takes 30 mins to get that gear together... and no tell me please that it is a big loss to lose such a set.

i don t want to see another game where people farm farm farm farm just to have good gear and after playing the game for 2 years they still don t have the faintest clue what they are doing... they juset pressed buttons all the way and were successful... thats not that i see in a successful RPG.

a rusty old sword still kills you if i drive it through your heart? don t you think?
but sure.. its a game and rusty weapons shouldn t be deadly... or at least i don t see that coming any time soon in a MMORPG.


maybe in the future we will have balanced out games... where your REAL LIFE STATS become imported into the game... when your real life fitness/strength/look etc becomes imported into the game... Matrix like... then we will have a balanced game... because then NOONE CAN WHINE because you all have the chance to work out/train /work hard in order to imporve (yourself) your char. that would be awesome... when i could really see my STR improving after being at the gym for 3 hours.

 

it is so easy to restrict high level/maxed out players from killing low level "new" players. if the game is going for a skill based system (Like UO had it) you can apply the same thing... if a GM swordsman etc attacks someone who doesn t have any skill above 50 or 60 he gets the penalty.

if for example a high level player kills a low level player he should recieve a system warning... saying: you just killed someone who doesn t even have a chance to defend himself... SHAME ON YOU!

if you do it again...
you should receive either a penalty... or a permanent titel: "NEWBIE HUNTER" or "PATHETIC LOW ESTEEM PERSON" or something like that...

by this all players would see that this person is a cheap bastard... "he should also be killed by guards and npc whereever he shows up" because people like that are not welcome anywhere.. not even in the rough Player Killer cities (yes pk cities would be nice) .

 

@Sericx_Minusx: Hah, you're assertion of a Matrix like gaming being the ultimate balance is so ironic considering your first comment about PKs and non-PKs sharing similar levels of risk in UO.

In UO it was easy and understandably common for people to have one or two PK characters and three or four non-PK characters supporting them. That's not risk. That's the comfort of being able to hop onto your non-PK characters and do the things that your PK character would never survive doing.

I'm sure it's a bit of a shock to some people that they would only be able to act as one avatar instead of five. For all of the great things about UO the option to be five different avatars bred a lot of complacence with regard to acting deliberately.

I welcome SotA's one (maybe two) character slots.

 

so i didn t get your point? what were you trying to say?

 

one thing i can get from your post is:

i really like the idea of only playing ONE AVATAR! so your actions have consequences

i don t like the idea of multiple avatars like you described it... its just boring to switch from your PK to your HOLY LORD char. thats just nuts... people should decide if they want to be good or evil... and then lets see how many people really are true PKs and how many really are TRUE PROTECTORS...

if i had to choose my role i would never be the PKer... more the person hunting those pks...

but a good point... i hope they only allow 1 char ... and if you want to change your char.. you have to delete your old and and start over new

 

ANOTHER big upside for the one avatar thing is:

PEOPLE would have a harder time botting in this game...

same goes for OPEN PVP... in the last couple of years a very grave and sad development emerged in the MMO market... BOTS!

people developing bot programs in order to farm in game gold which they then sell on the internet to other players... there is nothing more idiotic than that! this has to be stopped at all costs!

man i wish i had open PvP in games like AION. at some point after release 50% of the chars were bots farming money and items to ruin the whole games economy.

imo there is nothing worse for a game than botters, hackers, cheaters! this should be the first priority to never let this happen to this game

macroing also destroyed UO in a very serious way...
people macroing up chars withint 5 days so they had the perfect char... i mean wtf is that?

 

back then when i played UO my internet was VERY EXPENSIVE...

every hour costed $ 3. so at the end of the month i had bills like 500 to 1000 dollars... so i never even thought about botting or macroing because time was TOO PRECIOUS! maybe because of that i became a very efficient and dedicated player because my time was so expensive... i had to plan out my playtime in advance so i could get as much stuff done as possible.
maybe another reason why UO is such a precious memory to me