A plea to take a chance (discussing PvP, thieves, etc)

Sorry for leaving off the Tongue-In-Cheek tag. I was trying to make a point that it really is not possible to create real, lasting consequence in a game for evil behavior. It will always favor the ones who act in such a way.

 

I dont agree. Statloss PK:s that died in UO suffered alot more then their victims since many of them just deleted their characters, characters they put years of training into. That is a very lasting consequence and for some reason usually forgotten by the ones that never seem to understand that developers can create a game with hard enough consequences that only make a very few players walk that line. Only the most skilled PK:s stayed as PK:s in UO after statloss and they were alot fewer then what some claims. Other PK:s had to retrain their characters for many months.

And if you dont agree with this then explain to me how that PK:s victims suffered more? Loosing some easily replaced pixels is harder?

 

Ya know, I think it's important to remember what LB said about enticing players out into pvp. I think if you put this hypothetical road in one of his "enticements" then the scenario works perfectly. One day a player who called himself "Roflknife" may one day meet me in some other form or forum. There we will laugh, and joke, and "remember that time you had all your flunkies making noob rogues with joke versions of my name and had them all following me around?", and "Ya know, I really respect that you chose to /e: flopping helplessly at my feet, but I was kinda looking forward to a little dueling."

I LIVED the scenario Shinobi describes, pretty well. I organized my guild into branching into PvP specifically because I didn't like Rofl and his buddies sniping noobs in a forced pvp zone. We didn't even all know HOW to PvP when we started, but we came out of it with a team that shut down a 20 server group of all PvP because the enemy didn't want to get any more of our feet shoved up...well, you get the picture. It was an AWESOME RP experience.

 

Credit card banned? That is going a littttttle too far i think lol. I'm talking full-on consequences within the realm of the game. We're going for roleplay here. Sentencing characters to death seems legit but i highly doubt it's possible...but i'd love to see it.

 

Exactly...it's about the experience. There are so many things that players won't experience, good and bad, if they don't take the chance. All i can say is if you want to roleplay the medieval knight, then really roleplay the medieval knight. Murderers and thieves are bound to be part of that experience. HOWEVER...form legit consequences for them.

The more things implemented to prevent these actions, the more that is taken away from what could potentially be an amazing game. Why are all MMO's the same now? Because they're afraid to take risks and just put a world out there for the players to mold themselves. I don't know about everyone else, but i'm tired of Farm/Loot/Quest: The Game. Take a chance and it will pay off, as long as they don't cave under pressure of the imminent complaints. Don't hand-hold...give a real roleplay experience. Let the heroes risk being murdered by the villains...but let the villains potentially face serious, serious consequences that make them think twice about committing the crime in the first place.

It's about consequences for actions...not prevention of actions.

 

Just thought of a cool idea. As a Random encounter in the hex's why not NPC Caravans? Either protect them like a good knight or rob them like a thief. Give the thieves something else to do besides rob banks/dungeons and players.

 

As long as I can completely opt out of that without negative consequences I don't care. Non-consensual PvP lovers can kill each other all day, as long as that action never affects me.

Have me subject to non-consensual PvP, though, and I simply won't play the game. And I truly doubt I'm alone in this, specially in a game like SotA that has an offline mode.

Sincerely, if you wonder why most games don't go out and force players to be available for non-consensual PvP: because that turns the game into a niche one, and a niche that appears to be already crowded with just one large successful game. In every game that I know where being subject to non-consensual PvP is optional most players choose to completely avoid non-consensual PvP, or to minimize it as much as possible when total avoidance isn't possible. Also, about every game that forces non-consensual PvP on all players, except for EVE, is either a small niche game or is struggling to remain open.

 

If I was in stat loss, I just wouldnt rez my char, i left him logged off as a ghost while i went to work/school etc to burn the counts. Also getting statted up wasnt that hard in uo if u had some mild stat loss.

 

I really like this. It plays to all sides, and creates a potential PvP experience that people opt into. If I guard a caravan like a good little PvE quester then I get my quest. Maybe there will be a few spawned mob attacks. I get my quest reward. If PvP DOES happen, the caravan could have a vendor, maybe even something rez capable, and the ability to rest on a moving wagon, and the defenders would get a *slight* advantage.

 

I like the idea; special(quest?) items only available through, for example, protecting the NPC caravan that includes an exotic goods vendor, or conversely tearing apart the caravan transporting a powerful criminal whose happy to reward you for setting him free.

 

Regular runs could be a method of players moving about the world, giving us a combined RP/game mechanic/PvP/questing engine that gets players constantly interacting with people and places they otherwise wouldn't have. If it were common enough, people would be able to recognize a caravan battle in progress from a long way off, and come to help (but which side they came to help would vary)

 

I have to ask... Are you THE shinobi? King of thieves Shinobi?

 

This is literally THE worst idea I have ever heard. Ban my account for stealing/pk'ing? Aka PLAYING THE GAME?
If you're on the pvp side of the slider and you get murdered or stolen from, and think the answer is having the offenders account frozen... Man, you're on the wrong side.

You're like the ones that used to call GMs on me for killing them.

 

I believe your quote is way out of context. That tirade of "unreasonable", but similar to the real world, punishments, by various persons, was mostly a counter to the idea that everyone should be subject to PvP, thieving, etc, for the sake of realism. Or something along those lines. I doubt anyone here is proposing such hard punishments for crimes if the currently envisioned system, where PvP is fully consensual, is the one implemented in the end.

That being said, not everything that the game client allows should be done. Many games will ban, or otherwise punish, players that just use the allowed game mechanics - in other words, just "play the game" - with the intent to grief other players. After all, online games are business that can only survive by keeping their players happy, and ideally attracting new players; so whenever someone uses the in-game tools to actually attempt to drive other players away that behavior is directly harming the game, and the devs are justified in applying harsh punishments to curb that.

I'm not saying that you engage in this behavior, mind you; just pointing that "just playing the game" can sometimes be used as an excuse for behavior that harms the game and deserves to be punished, and thus can't be seen as an absolute defense.

 

And if you die in PvE 3 times then you're character is forever gone, just as realistic for playing the games features.

 

Nobody wants their account deleted for dying. Perhaps ever more so, nobody wants a world of pvp/thieving without consequences. If you plan on playing on the open world slider, you're agreeing to meeting all types. If you go play an mmo which houses such a world, but without consequences, you'll notice that most players are criminals, murderers, or thieves (this is the #1 problem with Felucia in UO). Figuring out where the fine line of player consequence is, is a task which will take some serious consideration. The one thing we can say for sure however, is that there needs to be punishment for activity which griefs other players. I want to be a thief/bard, but if anyone can be a thief with only a penalty of having to get ressed, then being a thief will lose its luster while also becoming over powered. Don't let me get away with it for free, and don't delete my account for it. Let's hear a suggestion for a punishment in the middle, something that allows the thief to continue playing (they have to have fun after all too), but also something that prevents them in some way, for a time, from committing the dangerous act which griefs other players (IE stealing and murdering).

Isn't it safe to say that if I'm caught stealing, I should, at least, not be able to steal for a duration of time (for one reason or another)? Likewise, isn't it reasonable to ask that thieves and murderers are allowed to exist? Ofc it is, which is why we need a balanced punishment system.

The key problem with a slider experience system, is that, for the most part, all the crafters, RPers, and bards (and the like) will be playing on non-pvp sliders. This separation leaves just me and maybe one other crafter or bard in a world of murderers in thieves, which ultimately, will force great penalties on us for our professions (so much that we may end up just retreating back to a safer slider). This happened at the introduction of Trammel, leaving significantly less non-pvpers in Felucia. I stayed in Felucia, sewing my wares, until I realized that all my fellow crafters played exclusively in Trammel. If I want to play in a dangerous world, but not as a criminal, why do I have to be a highly punished minority (or do I)?

 

Temporary Region Banishment.

The idea: If you're pvp flagged, in OPO, and you get caught stealing or murdering (by whatever means) you would be temporarily banished from the region where you were caught. There could also be fines imposed and other consequences.

How long the banishment is, and the consequences for repeat offenders (longer/larger banishment, higher fines) would be a matter of some debate, for certain. Personally, I think if the goal is to prevent immediate re-offense, preventing entry back into the region for between 1 and 24 RL hours seems a reasonable starting point for a first offense. Any fines imposed would have to be paid prior to re-entry, and only after the banishment timer had ended.

Also, the banishment could, if desired, only count down while the player was in-game in OPO mode. Optionally, the banishment could only count down while the player was in-game and in the wilderness in OPO mode. Optionally, the banishment could only count down while the player was in-game and in the wilderness and flagged for PvP in OPO mode.

An effective but more immersion breaking mechanic would be to prevent an offender from switching to PvP enabled mode for a duration of time. Obviously, if you were going to use such a feature with banishment, the last option enumerated above wouldn't be valid.

How large is a region? It could start out small, just being the hex the player offended in, but as repeat offenses are accrued, the region could increase in size to being all civilization (housing, village, town, city) hexes within a certain area. If the offender persisted, it could be expanded to include all civilization hexes and all wilderness hexes adjacent, and increase the adjacency "buffer" each time.

 

Well I have to +1 that. That's exactly what I'm talking about. To build on your ideas, if you get caught stealing, you shouldn't be instantly banned from the area. If you get stopped, by players or guards (maybe killed even), then you should be jailed for a time (I personally think that you shouldn't need to be logged in for your timer to go down). If you get away after being caught stealing (assuming insta-guard whacking isn't in SotA), you should be banished from the area for a time (which could be enforced through insta g-whack, physical limitation, or some sort of player related approach, which might alert all players in the city of a banished thief, while also limiting the thief's ability to hide, essentially dooming the thief), forcing you to steal elsewhere. This cycles thieves, giving them multiple shots at both stealing and escaping capture, while also punishing some of them, limiting their presence in a single area, and limiting (but not destroying) the potential of thieving. Great post vjek.

 

If a thief is caught stealing, kill the thief. I would suspect that thieves will be very poor fighters, since in order to become effective thieves, they must allocate many of their available skill points into thieving, and not into fighting.

 

That's a start for sure. But if I can just go get ressed, killing me as a thief wouldn't accomplish much except to prevent robberies on a short-term scale.