Consensual pvp???? Stay a While and Listen Why this is no fun.....

Silent Strider i know we both are from opposite sides of the track, but my opinion, as being PVP and free to loot would, rather have it happen unexpectedly, and counter, then may the best man win, to me and most of the PVP i know (personally) this is the way we like PVP, the suprise of it and the rush "oh crap im being attacked!, I cant die right now i need to get to so and so! call for back up? or take this guy down!" thats what we like! when it comes to PVP. I understand that others dont like this and that is fine, thats why we have the option to PVP or not. To each their own!

 

I tried PvP with full loot in the early days of UO. Of course I lost nearly every struggle first, but as time went by my character became stronger and I did win combat many a time.
But the whole game couldn't catch me. On the one hand because the lack of a story, on the other hand because of the Mad Max behaviour of many people in a disorderly world. I never attacked another player without reason and just for fun - I just defended my Avatar when he was attacked. You see, for me this is not a matter of risk vs. reward - it is just a matter of different tastes

And this is, what I would like to express: some people like PvP and avoid PvE, but this doesn't mean they are stupid and brainless fighters. And other people like PvE and adventuring and avoid PvP, but this doesn't mean they are shy or fearsome. Having different preferences shouldn't split the community. We all share the love and devotion for the same game. Independent of some (hopefully) constructive criticism of course

 

Like many posts by PvPers about why PvE players avoid PvP, you confluxed two of the reasons PvE players might avoid PvP:

- The desire to win: many players play video games so they can be assured of a win. They dislike losing, even when there are no negative consequences, and will often get frustrated if they can't guarantee that they will win. Unless, or until, they get over this issue, they will have a truly hard time enjoying any game, or game mode, where they lose even a noticeable minority of the matches — and in well balanced PvP, not only the win-loss ratio approaches 50%-50%, for a player just starting the number of loses is even higher.

- Loss avoidance (with loss here being setbacks or the loss of items or resources, real or virtual; this has nothing to do with actually winning over other people): this is a basic human trait. In fact, it's the reason why most people do badly in games of chance or the stock exchange; the desire to not suffer a loss means people will often throw good money after bad instead of cutting their loses and bailing. A player that wants to avoid such loses might avoid any situation where he might end worse than he started, even if on average he might progress or the chance of a loss is small.

Those are not the only reasons for players to avoid PvP, specially non-consensual PvP, BTW. Some players simply dislike conflict; some just aren't competitive; some dislike the feeling when they know their actions caused a setback to their opponent; some want control over when they engage in PvP or PvE; and so on. Ask 10 PvE players why they avoid PvP and, if they are being sincere, chances are good you will get 11 different reasons.

For my part it's a mix. I don't care about losing, or material loses when what I lose is easily replaced, and destroyed rather than looted (within reason, if loses are large enough to turn the game into a grind to maintain combat readiness I'm not playing it), but I will never, ever, risk anything whose supply is limited or that is hard to replace (or engage in any kind of PvP with player looting). I want — no, demand — complete control over when I'm engaged in PvP and when I'm engaged in PvE, and being forced into PvP when I would rather be playing PvE might be enough reason for me to permanently leave the game. I'm not competitive at all, which means victories for me don't mean anything, which when coupled with the fact I dislike causing setbacks to other players means I tend to avoid playing if there are penalties to the loser, as then thinking about the penalties makes me feel bad even when I win. Plus, I can only truly enjoy a game if there's close to an even chance of winning and losing, which means I can never enjoy any PvP that is not well balanced; I would rather leave the group I'm playing with than take part in an ambush that would guarantee my victory, for example, because guaranteed victory is about as boring as watching paint dry (and guaranteed loss is just as boring with an added side-dish of frustration).

 

To me what that sounds like is bad gameplay....it took you seconds to ruin 2 hours of another players game and you took glee in it. It's only meaningful if you have an easy way to get a lot of things in game?

 

Wait are you calling me a PVER? or a pvper.. i am officially confused

 

Fun fun fun should be the goal of fighting AI monsters as well. How to do this is complicated.... If its too hard and theres too much risk involved a lot of people just arent going to have fun. So what do we do? We create little dummies that walk at you taking one step, pausing 1-3 seconds then taking their next. We make their AI and programming so simple that they always have a predictable pattern. Thus you can easily get rich by defeating the same dragons, titans, or daemons over and over again with the same strategy even though the creatures you are fighting are 25x more powerful than you are. Just make good use of paralyze spells, drink lots of potions at the right times. Duck and use bandages at the right times. And you got to have a quick hand to do it all, so I hope you don't get carpal tunnel(however thats spelled).
So if your looking for a challenge perhaps you could take away the huge amounts of power the spawn has and beef up the AI instead. You can't go too far with this, because in many games of skill were you got to be quick on the trigger, or process things in ways that are inhuman(such as being able to beat a calculator at crunching numbers, or being able to beat a supercomputer at chess) then it's no longer a challenge, its simply impossible. I guess you could compare this to it being impossible to take on the average PK gank squad. It's not real fun if theres no chance. The next best thing is being able to escape the gank squad, which from my experience is generally possible.
So... many people on the full loot PvP side argue that our world is too challenging for PvE players. Theoritically, AI creatures could bring on much much more challenge than players, but in a much different way. I think that we ought to bring some extremely challenging PvE quests to the world of SotA, with a heavy focus on AI being as strong is it can be rather than just beefing up the raw brute strength that the AI's have such as gobs of HP, unlimited MP, spells that do damage equal to 3/4 of your max health, and etc. It could potentially be a very competitive environment, with those who are able to defeat the powerful AI's reaping the most benefits. Im certain most PvE players would agree that this is a good idea. Im sure we are all sick of the same boring old automaton critters in every boiler plate MMO that comes out.
Now here is a more controversial proposal: Should these advanced AI's be able to attack without consent and loot all your items? They aren't players, so you dont have to worry about your lost items going to a player. I remember in UO if you walk into deceit dragons will attack you on site. And if there were 3 or 4 of them they could potentially paralyze you, and surround you. After a few fireballs your stamina might drop to nothing and you would be stuck even without being under the paralyze spell. They would then surround you and rip you to shreds, and I think that there was a time when they would even loot you, even if it was trammel! I do in fact remember NPC brigands looting me in trammel along with any other intellegent creature in the world.
I think one important question should be.... Are players willing to accept risk? If not from players, why not from AI creatures? It could be controlled in a way so that it wouldn't go so far as to destroy immersion. It could be "just the right amount" thus allowing for maximum immersion. Don't you want to be actually afraid when going into the lich lord's dangerous lair? Or do you want to travel in there, yet just chuckle and restart in the nearest village with ALL your goodies still on you, meaning you never really had anything to fear when entering the dungeon.

 

Neither, actually, as I never said which I think you are . But mixing up the desire to always win with the aversion of losing anything of importance seems to be common with those that propose either full loot or non-consensual PvP (or both), which is what I alluded to.

Being fair, for those that have neither of those issues, they do look an awful lot similar; in the context of PvP with looting, both relate with not being willing to accept defeats, tough for quite different reasons. But the difference between those two negative motivations is important; there is nothing the devs can do to bring those that want to always win into the PvP, but for many of those that don't want to suffer setbacks it might be possible to get them to try, and stick with, PvP by tweaking rewards and defeat penalties.

 

http://sjennings.wordpress.com/2004/12/18/the-unbearable-darkness-of-ultima-online/

 

Sir Asguard, what a great article.

 

thank Lum, he wrote it

 

Should include a link

 

Stranmge I could have sworn he is one of the devs for the game?

 

fixed (though for some reason all the associated links are disappearing, was very hard to find that anywhere)

 

Thank you, Sir Asguard. I've never read that article, but it clearly reinforces what I've said all along that those who pine for the return of Pre-Trammel UO refuse to believe.
While UO was unique and broke new ground, those who developed it recognize much of what they did breaking that new ground as mistakes that they will not repeat again. The largest, being an under-appreciation of how horrid people unfettered by accountability or consequence might be to each other.
I will now add this article to the tale of Lord British and the Griefer Thief as evidence of how those that developed Ultima Online recognize the failures of the original design.

Not that it will do any good... One cannot argue religious conviction with reason, fact, and logic, and to those who would see the return of the early days of UO, it surely is a religious conviction.

He is... Scott Jennings

 

He was being sarcastic

 

I realize this, thank you. I purposely chose to ignore it to make a point.

 

Did so many people really quit Ultima Online because they got pked unexpectadly on the way from Vesper to Covetous or whatever other destination outside of town? Really they ended up putting enough penalties on that type of pvp that even though still allowed it was more and more uncommon and not a problem on the scale it was in the first few months back in 97.

But really did so many people quit with that reason that no other company since then will dare to have a similar ruleset? I don't understand when I read that such and such got pk'd while farming in a dungeon and quit the game...on his exit he didn't want the risk of losing all his work because someone came and spit on his hamburger and he doesn't think he should have to interact with other people to fend off the pk just to farm his lichs. Then why did this guy buy a Massively Multiplayer game in the first place? Then why are the ones who do understand that the world is harsh and this is as stated a Massively Multiplayer....I'm sorry I don't want to continue this rant. Just know that no pvp arena or oracle quest is going to generate the same adrenalin, panic, and excitement or devastation depending on if you still have color in your screen. Even in UO you ended up putting a big enough penalty on pks that it was no longer as rampant and widely spread and abused as it was in the first few months, but by not removing it you still kept that chance for the day of killing lichs to all the sudden come to a situation that made peoples heart race and bodies sweat in front of their computers. Look I'm still ranting...bye

The only safe zones are the cities, if you come outside get ready to play the game because you might run into some strange people out there and that goes for the game too. Vote no to pvp consensual zones!

 

I did.

The developers went to great lengths to change their design to thwart the unintended consequences.
Both Lord British, and Lum the Mad recognize the errors that were made in the design of UO and have vowed never to repeat them.
I'm sure there are others, but I don't have documentation of their thoughts on the matter.

 

There are other up-and-coming games that may tickle your fancy :

"Life Is Feudal"
"Albion Online"
"Shards Online"

However, you are correct: This particular game though has chosen a different ruleset than old-school UO.

 

No one can please everyone 100% of the time. No matter where you go or what game it is on their has always been the fight between PVP and non PVPers their has to be a compromise somewhere. Am i a PVPer? nope im not, at least not that i would call myself. Are their times i enjoy PVP? sure is. not that i am any good at it, im sure i will be the most killed player out their but I hope to learn something and get better. whats that old saying... cant win unless you play the game. I personally enjoy all aspects and hate to limit my self to just one style. Their will be times i accept PVP just as their will be times i feel im on a mission and im not up to it. and That should be fine because their will be 100 other folks you can PVP probably even at that time.