Community Hangout - Towns/Housing

I think this would require some additional security measures. I already find it worrisome the amount things that can be accomplished through email. It would really be nice to see Portalarium offer a two factor authentication system before launch.

 

Given the amount of money that some people of pledged, I would like to see an option where an account could only be traded if Portalarium is involved and locking of accounts if players log in from different IP addresses.

 

Being able to ban players from a POT is a very dangerous precedent to set. If we accept that POTs are part of the persistent world, then only the devs can make this ultimate determination that prevents players from entering a portion of the world. If someone is griefing the POT, the GMs can handle that and ban the griefer either from the POT or from the game completely. Putting this power into the hands of POT owners without due process from the GMs is going to be problematic. If you truly want ultimate control, then you need to segregate your POT from the persistent world so it only shows up in FPO (or SPO). Nobody in OPO will see the POT.

As far as how POT instancing works, it should obey the same selective multiplayer logic as any other hex. Let's deal with /ignored or /blocked before we deal with /banned.

If there is only one instance of the POT and it has not yet reached the player cap, you and the /ignored or /blocked player will enter that one instance. If the ignored player is already in the one instance and it's not at the player cap, you will enter that same instance. If you are already in the one instance and the player cap is not met, that ignored player will enter your instance. The selective multiplayer logic only kicks in when there are multiple instances. The logic generally does not spin up new instances if player caps have not been met. If you're in a party of 8 and the player cap is at max-1, you and your party may get a new instance created. But the devs have stated the caps are soft and not hard maximums.

It can get complicated if you're in a party with the banned player. The answer depends on how the logic prioritizes keeping the party together vs. preventing the banned player from entering. What would you expect if you're in a party with the banned player and trying to enter any hex, POT or not? Would only the banned player be prevented, or the entire party? Spinning up a new instance defeats banning since the POT owner explicitly banned the player from entering the town, regardless of instance.

We really need to test selective multiplayer logic in FPO and OPO.

 

I think you should be able to sell entire towns to anyone you want. It would have to be brokered by Port and a fee attached. What if I find out that dungeon crawling is more fun for me instead of running a city. What would be wrong with Sir Frank buying it for political gain in the realm?

I hope to keep a historical ledger of all property transfers in my town. Chain of title of sorts.

 

Yes, security is always a concern but I'm assuming that is taken care of. My point is about level of service, not security. I'm not saying security isn't important. I've been asking for 2FA since kickstarter.

 

In my suggestion any player could enter unless they are banned. A party does not need to be in the same hex or the same instance. So only the banned player is prevented (from entering the main instance) -- the party could be given a choice of instances.

Not really. The point is not to ban the player from the town but rather to prevent them from griefing in a particular instance. The aim of this suggestion was to balance the complaint of no one should be able to ban another player from a hex against town owners wanting to kick griefers. Town owner invest heavily so it seems like a fair compromise. I suggest using 'ban' only in a light sense.

I don't see there being a huge overhead here. The banned player could be sent to SPO, but that is actually harsher than what I'm suggesting. Putting them into another instance allows them to have FPO benefits but it doesn't detract from other players enjoying the game.

 

@smack, well said.

While I can understand the need (not just the want, but the NEED) to be able to ban players from a hex, it's very disruptive to the game overall, and can be exploitable. That said, expecting NPC guards to "keep the peace" is naive, so there must be some level of "ban" functionality, imo.

During the community hangout I felt the panel brought up some interesting points. I agree with the logic that since town owners have the ability to set their flag to open PVP, which forces anyone that enters the town to participate in open pvp..the same functionality should be available for town owners that wish to force NO-pvp.

Perhaps the simple solution is that if you enter a PVP area you CAN NOT BE BANNED and if you enter a non-pvp area you can be banned. I think this would probably satisfy all reasonable town owner needs.

Again, during the community hangout there was a scenario where a pvp flagged player was attending a wedding in a town where PVP was not enabled. The question was asked, why can't I kill this player during the wedding? It was a great question, but I think there's a better question to ask here. Why should anyone be able to attend the wedding with a PVP flag on? My solution to this problem would be to say that "as a guest of the wedding" each player would need to re-flag themselves to non-pvp or they would be shut out of the town.

If there were a player that normally loves pvp and is a part of the guild and friends with everyone in the wedding, they would need to reflag themselves early enough in the week so that they could attend the wedding without a problem. This would help stop exploitation and maintain a sense of accountability. Added together with the rule I proposed above, regarding banning, I believe that all of the typical social problems that are associated with large events could be managed by town owners.

 

This was mentioned during the hangout. I'm not fully convinced by it, but appreciate the direction of thinking.

Could with current tools? Or should, with additional powers? I'm not convinced about the former.

 

If you're asking should there be additional functionality added by the developers...yes. There's nothing I've heard of or seen in current builds to suggest that players will have the ability to manage unwanted guests (beyond the ill defined ignore button).

 

Great Hangout!!!

I am sad I had to miss it as PoTs is near and dear to my heart.

My favorite quote from the hangout is "Miles and miles of sheep in PaxLair"!

 

Actually, there is. We saw this with the Spectator area in the PvP arena. Combine that with the $1.9M stretch goal ("The World is a Stage") and you will see that they are slowly adding in this functionality. You will own a building that can control who can enter, and it's possible they can designate certain areas to be spectator only -- irregardless of the town's PvP setting.

 

I disagree with this. As a person who will be directly responsible for the shared-public perception of three towns... two of them being flagged as pvp... I think this is just the wrong way of looking at things. There are WAY too many potential exploitation situations that can be brought up that you, as a town owner, must accept that going into a PVP environment you accept the weight of that choice... nothing at that point is grief. A person cussing you out is not griefing you they're trying to aggravate you and pick a fight. A person stealing your stuff isn't griefing you they're role playing a thief... there is no valid reason that a player owned town would have a bot because there are no resources or animal/monster spawns there... so if there isn't a bot issue and there is the ability to kill the people that irritate you and you've said you want to FORCE EVERYONE TO PVP then I think you SHOULD NOT have the option to ban them. The "found guilty and put on KOS" should be something done by the guards of that town (the player guards, not NPC guards). I think the PvP towns NEED to be handled differently or they will become a SERIOUS pay to win situation... I can buy a pvp spot and pick who I pvp with? issue. I can start to lose in a fight and ban the specific people that will help me win? issue. I can lure in a victim and kill them for their stuff then ban them so they can't get it back? issue.

I still advocate:
No bans for open pvp towns.
Forced NO PVP option for POT flag
Option to ban players from non "open pvp" POTs (anything below the "you are forced into pvp even if you're not flagged for pvp" option can have bans... that should not).

PLEASE KEEP IT UP! I like having everyone give their feedback so their is a wide array of opinions that the devs can read and get the different community insight options Please be sure to keep it nice as we can easily be stepping into a sensitive topic here.

 

That sounds great! But I think it's a terrible idea! No really, if you were playing a text MUD this would work... but we're playing an immersive SMORPG (selective mutli player role-playing game) and that level of fine tweaking is just more than I would like in my world. I think that the houses in the towns should be required to have the combat flags that the town has. Pick your town carefully! I think if you're under siege on the north end of your town but the south end is not there is no reason you should have access to your house... go help the north save their butts! we're all in it together as citizens of the same town!

I'd like to see the level of control be realistic to the END USER (not house owner) as well. There is a good chance we'll see all the housing gone in the first three months of this game (possibly the first few days) and EVERYONE who enters the game after that will suffer if they don't get some of the "perks" of home ownership... if those perks are too great. Currently houses are an option. They're something that give you a place to decorate and chill but they're not required and SHOULD NOT be required. This game can be GREAT without housing in it and that perspective should be kept because the majority of players will be renters or homeless. And if those players aren't here the entire game will be a ghost town. Hope that helps why I think the idea is great but not great.

 

This is true, and I agree that there should be no banning capability in a PVP town.

However it's also true that the thought of someone's town being taken over by a large guild is probably NOT what people will consider "fun" when it happens to them. For example, what would your reaction be if Order of Vengeance had their two PVP towns spawn camped by a much larger guild? I'm not asking if you'd understand it, I'm asking if you think it would be fun or a good use of your real life money?

I think you have a good sense of what it means to be competitive, Duke Violation. But I wonder if there's anything else we could do systemically to ensure that a player town owner doesn't effectively buy a town for someone else's guild.

 

I'm still debating the issue of the Open PvP flag and POTs. Note, this is the global Open PvP flag where you get to fight anywhere in the world but face the consequences (e.g. town guards). Why are POTs being allowed to exclude this?

I understand that POT owners want to control behavior but this is a pretty big thing in terms of global flags. If NPC towns aren't exempt, why are POTs exempt? POTs are already given some level of protection for its citizens who do not engage in PvP merely by not flagging the town as a forced PvP-zone. But why does it magically get to protect its citizens who have intentionally flagged themselves as Open PvP? I'm leaning towards not offering that magical protection. If you are flagged for Open PvP, you have no automatic protection, anywhere. But by allowing the POT owner to effectively turn off PvP completely and ignore the Open PvP flag, they are inadvertently offering this magical protection.

If the POT owner and its community at large absolutely hate any form of PvP in their town, require their citizens to unflag themselves as Open PvP to be able to reside in the town.

Alternately, a more extreme option would be to disallow entry into the town if you have been flagged for PvP in any way, be it permanent or temporary. It should not allow entry and "turn off" your PvP flag.

 

If the guild stopped having fun (which I doubt one of the two towns would as they live for that situation) we'd have the option to change the flag to not be forced pvp. That's easy. Buying a town doesn't give you an advantage and shouldn't.

As to the forced no pvp I'll get into that when I'm on my pc and not my phone.

 

I totally agree with this. I think individual players need to make choices about how they're flagged. To avoid exploits, players should have to wait a significant amount of time without engaging in PVP before they can unflag themselves. If that means they can't enter Player Owned Towns that have been flagged to disallow PVP, that sounds like the right solution to me.

What I don't want to see is people hiding out in these no-pvp towns so they can't be held accountable for their actions. I'm thinking that a person that wants to change from PVP to non-pvp should have to wait at least an hour (of in-game time) after the last time they fought someone. If they fight someone at minute 59, the clock is reset to zero. If they log off, the clock resets to zero.

 

It's 3:20am, can't sleep so here are my thoughts.

Player - Flags themselves as PvP or Non PvP
Hex - Flagged as PvP , Concentual PvP or Non PvP

In terms of a Hex:
PvP - All players are attackable regardless of how they have flagged themselves as a player

Concentual PvP - This is what NPC towns are set at (unless PvP), this is where two players who flag themselves as PvP can freely attack eachother. They cannot attack a player flagged as non-PvP unless it is an agreed duel.

Non PvP - No PvP whatsoever including duels (unless in an arena) regardless of what your player flag is.


I'm not quite sure what the talk of cool down timers between a player PvPing and then entering a non-PvP area, other than say a 2-5 min cooldowns from the last attack to prevent someone logging out or running out of a scene during combat. A cooldown greater than this would be absolutely nonsense.

In terms of switching personal and town flags, it should be between a 2 and 5 day cooldown..... I say that as it shouldn't be an exact time that a player can set their watch by.

 

It depends on what we're talking about exactly. If you get ganked at a control point by someone that uses some kind of clever trick (that's borderline an exploit if you don't see it coming), do you want them hiding out in a non-pvp zone for the rest of the day? I don't, I want to go hunt them down, and I can't do that if they have a 2-5 minute cool down.

That's nonsense. If you want to PVP then it should be a decision that you have to at least know that for a reasonable amount of time you're going to be held accountable for whatever you may do.

 

I can see you point.....however, firstly within PvP there is nothing wrong in 'ganking' it is part of what it is all about. Secondly the idea that someone 'might use cleaver tricks', well actually yes any PvPer will use whatever tricks or tactics they have up their sleeve providing it is effective. If you saw every gank coming....my guess is that you would never get ganked or die in PvP for that matter.

Believe me, if you just wandered into my scene, I use a cleaver trick and kill you.......the last thing I am going to do is run and hide.....I will be waiting for you to come back, il do the same and wait again.....you will go full tilt and come back for more, at which point you die again and rage log.

I won't be hiding, il be doing the screenshots whilst pmsl.

The scenario of what you put forward reminds me of trammies in UO, if they run off back to tram thinking they got away with something.......we just hit them another day.