Death oOooOOoOo!!

Don't underestimate how rewarding it can be to ruin somebody's day.

If you make being evil the most rewarding, than you're going to have a lot more evil people. This is fine if your game and lore revolves around amoral murderers roaming the land, as in Darkfall. If you want a game that's about striving to be virtuous, then you have to reward virtue more highly.

A good example of this comes from GTA III. It's not just that murdering random people for their money was allowed; it was the optimal strategy for building quick cash without doing missions. And even if you wanted to play as a deranged psycho, you might not think it's cool to murder the hooker whose services you just procured. You might not even think of hiring a hooker. However, since it was the only way to get maximum health, and killing her right after you were done got your money back, doing all that was encouraged by the game. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's just something to keep in mind while designing games. The most rewarding path is the optimal path, no matter what that entails. That was the whole point behind Ultima IV: to make being virtuous required to win the game, and thus more rewarding in the end than stealing all the treasure in town and farming the citizens for experience, which was the most rewarding activity in Ultima III.

I know that in the Ultima VII games, the fact that stealing was basically without consequences meant that I stole everything I could. It certainly didn't help matters that your companions would get angry when you would take things out of dungeons. Of course, you'd just drop things into their bags, so apparently stealing was ok for them, but not the noble Avatar. I started off trying to be virtuous, but by the time I got to Serpent Isle I just took anything I wanted that wasn't nailed down. If Shamino didn't care, then neither did I.

A game like SOTA is a bit different since there will hopefully be more role-playing, but you can still expect most players to do whatever is most rewarding.

 

Yeah, I was speaking of "reward" in terms of a component of Expected Value, not as the Expected Value itself.

 

I love perma death for a ton of reasons. I wanted to bring up an idea though.
I used to ponder the idea of a place you go when you die. That is a pain in the butt
to get out of. Your living friends could open a portal to that place if they have the proper
talent. But only the brave would go because they are likely to get stuck there with you.
You could start a new character and one day go there with your new character.
This way you would have perma death but there would always be that possibility of
comming back to life.

Not sure its a great idea just always thought it sound neat.

 

I like what you said here...

My thoughts:
There should be a reward for being virtuous, but we ought to be careful not to discourage those who want to be evil. Don't hinder one more than another! However Good should be the tougher path, but the reward should be more satisfying to the heart of the player.

I have no statistics to back up my opinion, but I believe that the game would be more fun if there is an equal number of Good and Evil players. If everybody were "living on earth as it is in heaven", then there would be no more conflict. I personally would like that in real life, but in a game like SotA I think it makes it more interesting to have struggle and conflict. Otherwise there would be no heroes.

Actually I believe the evil path ought to be the easier path since there will be consequences for lawbreakers. That's realistic. On the other hand to become "infamous" is what ought to be hard. There's lots of bad people but very few can become well known for it.

Being good ought to be harder, and to become the picture of Virtue ought to be harder than even becoming infamous, but the reward will be worth it.

 

I would find it horrifying if the game encouraged evil. The virtues of Ultima IV were created because earlier games were somewhat indifferent to the idea of someone being a psychopath. Technically, a psychopath is neutral as they simply do what's in their own best interest. An evil person would have to be sadistic as well.

Faction games with a "dark" side (WoW, warhammer, Aion, etc.) certainly do not have one side be evil. The lore for these games clearly lets you empathize with either side.

There can be plenty of PvP situations where people can fight with both sides believing their right (see any real world conflict). There can be plenty of situations where someone makes a difficulty choice and feel the need for anointment later. But you should never, ever have human players being evil.

 

What is horrifying about evil being the easier path? Do you think Yoda was promoting evil in Star Wars when he says the path to the darkside was easier? Then why do you suppose I think SotA would promote evil just because being evil is the easier path?

Luke: Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.


Isn't that the truth?

 

@Isaiah: It's definitely a tricky balancing act to have a good ratio of killers and thieves to virtuous players. If there aren't enough bad guys, things can be boring, but if there are too many you get the early UO situation of people never leaving town.

I think it's easier to start off more restrictive to evil play and release some slack if it's judged that there are too few of them. Once the number of bad guys gets too high, it's more difficult to stuff the genii back into the bottle.

Good point about evil being more seductive than good as well. Ideally, I think the evil path should be more instantly gratifying, but in the long run less rewarding. The good path would have fewer rewards up front, but more in the end. Like playing the PK would be more profitable hour for hour, but attaining a high level of virtue would earn you advantages like exclusive spells or access to more lucrative quests. It's a lot like Ultima IV, in that you could easily rip off the blind reagent sellers, but paying what you owed was the only way to advance in honesty.

 

is evil really gratifying? I don't think so. I it is seductive, but it leads to misery. The rewards of evil are empty hollow and distorted. They never bring any contentment.

 

Faction games with a "dark" side also tend to have a very curious imbalance.

In those games the "light" side usually has quite a bit more players overall, but the "dark" side tends to have more PvPers, sometimes to the point of making PvP itself broken.

This does have some exceptions, though, such as DCUO, where the Hero side is far more popular both among PvP and PvE players, though the Villain side is still more popular with PvPers than with PvE players.

Keep in mind that, should the "evil" side become too numerous, players on the "good" side might be prone to just abandon the conflict altogether and take refuge in PvE, or even to leave the Open Play mode altogether. If that happens and PvP becomes dominated by the "evil" side, attracting enough "good" players to restore balance would be a losing proposition.

In other words, if being "evil" ever becomes too enticing, either through choice or unwittingly, the PvP aspect of SotA might devolve into something similar to post-Trammel Felucca, which I don't think is something most people here want.

 

WoW completely ruined this for everyone because of 1) the Paly/Shaman thing was a huge PvE vs PvP imbalance and 2) the demographics were very skewed because women hated the horde character models. This really doesn't have to be true.


I'm OK with "dark". I'm OK with "seductive." But quite honestly, I'd much rather 1) have more that two sides and 2) have every group have it's strengths and weakness around the virtues. If I were using Ultima lore, I would have designed it with the 8 virtues as factions.

Human weaknesses like pride, greed and envy can be spread around to everyone without having one group which indiscriminately murders and one who doesn't. Different groups can have aggressive PvPers and protective PvPers allowing all sides to get a taste of different roles.

 

Option 1 is a no go for me, option 2 has the problem, that you can loose objects you really like, option 3 is with to less consequences.

An idea would be, that you can bind objects magically on your character. It will cost gold to bind them, but after you did, they can't be looted. If you want to sell them again, you have to pay an additional sum to unbind them again. The sum should be only ingame and should depending on the value of the object. So you can still have looting, but you can protect certain objects to not be stolen. Pledge objects should be bound from start.

For the peoples who want hardcore mode, there could be an option to enable it. But the default should be no hardcore mode.

 

i like pvp but I hate multiple warring factions. Order/Chaos was fun in UO but not the factions system when that came out.

 

So some crazy idea i had. In many games, we have the ghosts who actually can fight or something else. Why not extend the ghost experience. If you die, you will become a ghost. A ghost can't be hurted, an you have always a connection to your body, so you know where it is.
Then there could be shrines you could use to increase your power. If you are at full power, you could return to your body and resurrect yourself.
But you can use the power for something else. Hunt around (will drain your power again), manifest yourself as some ghost warrior, but you would stay only for some time and you can be killed like another common ghost warriors. And you will lose all power after the manifestion time, or when you are "killed"/banned.
You could enter areas to spy around, but there would be possible some traps (symbols), who can drain out your power and block your path, that you can't enter areas who are protected by them. Possible would be aswell, that sorcerer can create the traps, who last some time. But then your body should create some protection area around it, that the wizards can't block your body.

Would make a nice ghost game. But if somebody makes a resurrection spells on your body, you will be drawn back into it again, independent from your power level to be resurrected.

 

I think all should be implemented in one way or another, for instance:

Perma Death should be an option for single player games to give the sense of realism to those who want it. I dont see it being very popular but hell, why not?

I think new players should have a certain amount of time before they are able to be killed and lose items, something like what UO had with the [young] system. Maybe 12 hours of in-game time? 24? Level-based?

As for the rest of us during regular play, i will echo what i said in another thread:

Full loot is as awesome as it is annoying. To appease everyone I think this game should have something in between.

I like the idea of consumables being lootable, such as gold, bandages, reagents, potions etc. However weapons, armor, clothing, quest items and any other special stuff like deeds should come with you into the afterlife and back with you as you resurrect.

I would love to see damage to your weapons and armor that requires repairs. maybe something like dying several times without visiting the blacksmith will result in a ruined piece of armor or weapon.

This all would create a downtime for players after death so they can resupply and repair as well as keep the local player run economy supported (you need to seek out an alchemist or blacksmith etc).

I love this idea.

 

I think too many people are slaves to the idea that the legendary piece of gear they grinded for (3) months in a raid will be lost at the hands of a villainous PVPer. The game should be about us the players and our abilities, not the gear. Nice items are fun and enjoyable, but they should be easy come easy go in a sense. In real life I don't walk around with the Hope Diamond strapped across my neck....no I leave it in the museum for people to stare at. You don't drive to the coal mine in your newly purchased Bugatti Veyron...no you leave it parked at home for crap like that. It also shouldn't mean these items are only safe in the sanctuary of the town bank and hoarded away for no real enjoyment.

A balance between the two is necessary. I can tell you as an avid PVPer fan I don't want your super rare painting or whatever random crap to take up more room in my house. I want the rush, the consumables, maybe some decent armor, but I enjoy that reputation most of all. The notoriety and prowess that comes from being a skilled player in PVP and sharing that hobby with other PVPers in a guild is fun. Often these skills are harnessed for good in raiding parties to put a stop to PKs.

I have stated it before, but I had a PK, and it was fun. I spent 99% of my time on my other characters warring other guilds, chaos/order, hunting PKs, PVE, or putting my size 13 halberd in someones rear for stealing my loot. My proposition to ease the worries of PVE/RPG people is to simply let Portalarium infuse a ratio or allow a better bounty/tax system to create a paid force that actively pursues and polices the community for PKs.

 

I would say: let the person choose when creating the character. In Terarria for example you have that kind of selection. Its pretty easily to implement such a feature. If people want to permanently be removed on death: let them. If people always want to keep their items: let them. And somewhere in between you have option 2.

 

Death: This is a 'simulation', 'role playing' game. That said, it needs to be enticing and entertaining to the casual gamer.

I would expect that the initial conversations and story elements of gameplay would also take a player through a typical day's routine in an adventurer's life. As the player listens to the story through these conversations they gain an understanding of the reason behind the typical actions and routines required to properly prepare themselves for challenging quests in whatever field of study or work they select. Ideally, these actions and routines will be fun and varied with myriad choices of how to go about getting them done.

Playing recklessly should get you killed in this game. Running around looking for fights without proper preparation, though 'fun' in a sacrificial martyr kind of way, is definitely not a strategy that should yield any sort of success.

The penalties to death should be severe. New players should find themselves in a position of the story where they are witnessing death, killing, and other crimes, along with the severe penalties brought on by these foul actions. These story elements will be intriguing and different for players who are accustomed to playing games where death wasn't really a big deal because they just respawned missing a little money and exp. and kept going like nothing happened.

When provided the proper 'introduction' to the story and gameplay, I believe players will react to the world more realistically, as long as there are constant reminders of consequence for actions woven throughout the fabric of the story. The gameplay needs to be built around a premise that encourages the actions of preparation and success, emphasizing the importance of life, and clearly warning would-be adventurers of the perils that lie before them in death.

I believe a player should be free to try any action or path they choose, and in doing so, should find that the world and everything living within it reacts dramatically and accordingly to those actions. The very fact that every action a player makes spurs dynamic reactions by the game will keep it entertaining, no matter the play style of choice.

 

I'm not in disagreement with you. However from what I have heard I picture this game having an immersive quality relative to how deep you go with the story. So a non-gamer person who wants to play a glamorized farmville can still enjoy that type of social gaming. Also a person who wants to be a power gamer and look at the game as a form of objectives to attain a goal of power in PvP then they will have another level of depth. Then there's the people who want to play the story line, and even they will have different experiences due to actions being evaluated by the system.

This is radically different than games like WoW that everybody's experience is basically the same depending upon the class and race you choose. Those types of games follow specific quest lines with the possibility to take on optional quests. There isn't much difference in play style. Not so in SotA.

 

Actually a very nice idea here. This would make pvp battleground camping much much harder, since the ghost can attack you again and again and build up power quickly there, and it gives a clear mechanism to explain our resurrection, which has been a subject of some debate.

 

Yeah actually that is a good idea. I think you should have a choice to be resurrected though.