The Glass is Half Empty - A look inside why people are opposed to Open PvP and Full Loot

Whats the problem of losing? (specialy when you would not if _you_ dont chose so) Is it beter that everyone keeps all the stuff and never lose enything? There wont be so much need crafters if there is no way of losing items on dieing for monster or other players. (in eve online and older uo it works like charm to support crafters/player run economy and let players roleplay/enjoy the game just being fully crafter for years as there was still lots of demand of armors/weapons from people who dont have time/want to spend character points for craftering and people did lose theyr items and not like nowdays most of the mmos that you once get best armors and then wait next expension to get something new since you cant lose enything. How will that support the economy or keep the cycle up to need crafters? I know they will most likely add some way to the items to break to have need more for the crafting even whitout losing them on dieing, is it for pve or pvp. (people wont use the rarest weapons/armors even then cos they dont want it break in normal pve. They will just wear them on special case or decorative)

In the end, its not your source of problem if someone dies and loses since he chose that option himself and takes the responsibility fully knowing/wanting it. Specialy since there would be option to avoid it whenever you dont want it.


In my opinion:

OPO PVE/PVP = haves option to do arena pvp/tournaments, duels if you accept them and most likely the guild vs guild think. (maybe have few those dangerous places where always open pvp whitout full loot, but people who fear losing items could enjoy that part as well on those dangerous places)

OPO FULL PVP = open pvp whit full loot risk + join to arenas whit pve/pvp as non loot.

This way we have two happy sides, both of them have all what they want whitout lessening other sides down. Fully enjoyable PvE whit option to enjoy joust/duels as roleplay or if you want to challenge your friend or fellow warriors to spar. Or just join arena instantly when you dont have intrest/time to find other players to fight and specialy whitout fearing losing your dear items.

And the more "hardcore" pvpers or people who enjoy that option have it as they want it whitout lessening it rules to please rare players who dont like pvp, but maybe would sometimes.

Everyone can change the slider as much they want, feel, have time/intrest. There wont be empty "servers" as we dont have diferent servers, so there is not even need to fear places would be totaly empty, neither eny of these sides have eny advantage to each other, well in PVE choise no need to fear other than monsters.

 

It's not the losing that's the issue, it's the economic impact of making players the most attractive source for resources.

 

Interesting thread.

Here's a thought. Let's have full open-world PvP, but let's have permanent-death. When your character dies, that's it. You roll a new character.

 

Lol. I don't think that is going to help this thread much.

 

Well, it does increase the risk.

It's riskier to engage in PvP because if you lose, you could possibly die and lose your character. If you attack someone in town - guards could kill you. If you're branded an outlaw or murder - guards in town might attack you on sight. Bounty hunters or angry kinsmen might hunt you down.

Now engaging in PvP has a real risk.

Obviously, it's also riskier for a person that is attacked.


I'm not taking sides at all here - I'm just curious what people think on the subject. Would it improve your experience?

 

I have diferent opinion and gaming experience of this than you then. I wont say your wrong neither, but there wont be victims since the people chose to play that slider so they are not victims, and the diferent hunters will have other hunters as "victims" or lets say more as fellow players who like it that way. This does not mean that everyone who chose that side as well would be people who would just run around like mad trying to kill enything what moves.. nope. There is a lot ways to enjoy to have open pvp sandbox feeling, i specialy enjoy killing people who atack others for no reason or wanting to try get my stuff, maybe even defend some random player who got atacked not fairly or is atacking around my small town to my fellow townies. So that sayd, i would not fear to not have enought "victims" around.. neither we have diferent servers here to split the community like in older mmos. We are all in the same world, we just dont see everyone as if you would just chose the pve slider, just people who wants the same and its nothing out of those who dont want it. We even have this great ability to chose how that moment we want to play. (you can even play whitout everyone solo when you want)

People who usualy play the full pvp as well, are not running the most expensive gear, so its not that profitable to kill each other, sometimes you can be lucky ofc.. but usualy you die as well time to time and lose much more than just doing the safer ways to get ritch if thats your goal in the game. I would still say personaly its more safer and profitable to get crafter/dungeon explorer and make/get something realy expensive loots than copper/iron sets (after a while you could not even care to loot them, as they would be just weight in your inventory slots and most likely not worth to try sell) when i have very high risk die myself as well, compared to do crafting/dungeon safely whit most of the time higher value gains. But its all about how you enjoy play the game, and whatever it is.. respect to it!

 

Gladly if you will have that option up as well! Some hack and slash rpgs do have that option like diablo + sometimes you have beter gains and stuff to have that option on.. so it can be worth the risk! Or in EvE online you can lose your long builded space ship when die. So its not bad idea ;p

 

Because they feel like others are trying to force that mode on them (and if you look at many of the threads and replies on this forum, you will see clear as day that they are doing exactly that). That is why people have gone to showing teeth. There are people here who simply won't accept anything but one way or another and it's caused mass amounts of pointless flame wars. People who want to kill everything that moves have been arguing non-stop for non-consensual PVP throughout the whole game and in turn, people who want nothing to do with PVP have been replying to take all PVP out of the game. The whole argument is beyond the point of ridiculousness now because it fires up threads like this where people are constantly bickering at each other.

Most players have no problem with different modes. If you see in my post, I have no problem with it either. In fact, I encourage more mode options than most people do so people can truly play the way they want to play. The problem lies in others who want to force people to play the game their way or in a way that it was not designed to be played in because it fits their own playstyle more.

As for this not being Ultima Online... as old as it's getting saying it, the reality is that this is not, in fact, Ultima Online. This is Shroud of the Avatar, a spiritual successor to the Ultima Series. This game is first and more importantly, a single player game with multiplayer capabilities. Ultima Online, while my favourite game and while I too long for a game with the open sandbox world that UO was, that would never sell these days in the volume it did because of the game style. It was a new concept so people bit into it and ran where as now, over a decade later, people have a multitude of online games to choose from and have become more picky about what they expect. Richard and Co. know this which is why they are giving people options for different play styles so that everyone can be happy and it can be as close to what they want in a game as possible. However, that isn't good enough for a lot of people, so it goes back to my original point of this post

 

In listening to Lord British's videos, such as the most recent one to MMORPG, for a game that isn't a successor to Ultima Online, Richard Garriott sure talks about Ultima Online a lot, and how UO relates to SotA.

Everyone has their preferred point of view, but ever since the Kickstarter, UO as well as the original Ultima single player games have ALWAYS been marketed as the basis for SotA. The Ultimas provide the story content that LB wants in his perfect RPG, UO provides the multiplayer interaction he also wants (while at the same time providing modes for those who prefer single player games, both online and offline), and heading in a new evolutionary direction with Selective Multiplayer.

I don't see what the provincial attitudes (UO vs Ultima) contribute to the development. It's a combination of both, with new development thrown in.

Given Richard Garriott's long history of game development, and his basic operating philosophy for 40 years of game development, why should anyone expect anything different from him?

 

(in re. permadeath)

On the contrary. If there was actual consequence to retribution for indiscriminate killing, then the system would be considerably less lopsided in favor of ganking. This is what UO tried to do for a while before they threw their hands up in the air and created Trammel. The problem is that those consequences need to be so extreme to suffice that game designers shy away from them; perma death would be one (die as "evil" = die for good) -- so long as a fresh character cannot reasonably be expected to murder left and right with success (so that there is a serious cost involved in bring a new murderer back to par).

What is wrong with open world PvP is that there are no consequences to antisocial behaviour, and thus no reason to not engage in it so long as there is even a minor gain (thus, full loot makes things worse). In other words, a system without harsh consequences encourages a playstyle destructive to the game as a whole.

 

You haven't reviewed the many other PvP threads, but one of the things I have frequently proposed to provide consequences for antisocial behavior is the removal of Recall or any similar mechanism if you are flagged for open PvP.

PKs were a problem in UO because it was trivially easy to escape unless someone was right on top of you. If murderers are subject to being killed on sight everywhere in the game with no easy means of evasion, that should provide the necessary consequences to deter their actions.

 

That's, IMO, necessary but not sufficient. In order for this to have any teeth, death would also need to have severe consequence to act as a deterrent.

 

I'm sure what I'm about to type has been covered before (but I thought I would give my opinion anyway). I'm all for open PvP, but there has to be safeguards in place to decrease the chances that some jerk camps your corpse (or the SoTA equivalent to camping) or lurks just outside the city boundry. How about certain areas where their is a stronger presence of town guards (i.e. between cities, guards patrol the roads at certain intervals. In city protection....). Of course the farther you stray from civilization the greater the chance that a PvP'r will kill you, steal your belongings and use your priceless jewel encrusted serving bowl as his commode. Certain "wild areas" may have a greater chance to spawn rare resources. But just like the enemy mobs, human players in the area will be just as difficult to kill.

Will there be people who play for the sole purpose of "ganking" new or vulnerable players. Of course. It doesn't matter how many safeguards you put into the game. Certain people have a knack for finding ways to mess with other people.

That being said, there should be an option (such as a bank) where you can store a limited amount of belongings (i.e. a safety deposit box) and in game currency. As previously mentioned, you could create a much more stringent deterrent for cold blooded murder and theft. If a player was killed by another player (outside of say a pvp event or "war") patrolling guards should react more agressively (tweek their AI so they deal more critical damage depending on the severity of your crime). You could also increase the penalty if you die with a bounty on your head. For example: items on your corpse are up for grabs. Fenced items that were stolen in the last few months (either by you or someone who gave you said item) would first of all have a little icon indicating that they were stolen (and from whom). Stolen items could be returned to the local bank (or judicial office) and the former owner would be notified, for their retrieval. If they were not claimed after a certain period of time they could be put up for sale by the state (all proceeds would go towards LB). Fenced items shouldn't be able to be stored in the bank. Only on ones person or hidden away out of plain sight in your home.

I think I'm getting a bit off topic so I'll stop here.

 

Did you read any steps and understand what was happening? Before you select PvP you take action to prevent maximum loss. Some loss is always there mate, like it or not, but it doesnt have to be that bad if you are a smart player. Do you understand?

 

Id like to see a poll on this particular speculation. I don't get that vibe at all from reading the forums. Personally I am looking for an Ultima game and not UO. I avoided UO on purpose.

 

I am confused about this "Corpse" camping thing....who cares about your corpse? In full loot PvP theres nothing left of value on the corpse and so no need for the PC to revist it. In Non-PvP environments you can have a whole different mechanic...you reserect in the nearest in, where some how you were taken and have your gear returned to you, or you can workout some other logistics.

 

This is something that can be tested during the Alpha/Beta tests. If simply removing Recall if flagged for open PvP permits an effective deterrent, then additional development effort need not be wasted on uneeded features.

Opinions are fine. Verification is better.

 

That presumes you were killed in PvP. You may be flagged for open PvP, but were killed by a mob. A passerby may find your body, loot it, and then wait for you to do a corpse run.

This is not to say this is an invalid tactic. I'm sure things like this will happen frequently in open PvP. That's why it's called open PvP. If you object to this kind of thing, perhaps open PvP is not for you.

 

I haven't heard a definitive answer on how death will work... corpses/timing/states you're in while dead... has there been an answer somewhere I missed?

 

No.
Information is still pending.