Game Style Compromise!

I think it wasn't so much that he turned his back as much as it was that he recognized a mistake when he saw one

 

You have no more insight than anyone else on these forums about that decision. Garriott didn't turn his back on the open world, this game has been claimed as a sandbox style game on the Kickstarter page and a spiritual successor to the way Ultima Online was.

I don't think Trammel was the best option to the rampant PKing in Felucca, but it was a quick fix. The consequence of stat loss was not quite severe enough to deter the numerous PK's. It is my opinion that if Felucca was in fact a mistake the rule set on that facet would have been changed, not left in place. Generally, when a person realizes they made a "mistake" they fix it and remove the mistake. Felucca was left in place, while new players began on the Trammel facet and the appearance of Felucca was changed to a grim, bleak world.

 

The reason UO split was because UO PK s were stupid, greedy, self centered, short sighted, and immature. At the time,they were warned that their actions would eventually come back to bite them, but they just kept on, and eventually, Origin listened to their customers, and the split was enacted. And PK s everywhere cried and cried.​

Richard Garriott has said, there will be none of that in SotA, hence, PvP will by consent only.

 

I find it interesting that you generalize all PKs under one banner. The case is that not all PKs were "stupid, greedy, self centered, short sighted, and immature." The PKs only had the ability to play the game better than the PvE players who never learned how to defend themselves. This obviously was not the case with miners who had no defense against a PK. I remember quite often when a PK showed up in a dungeon that all I had to do was recall away. I think it was the PvE players who were stupid because they were unable to adapt to the situation, instead they cried to the developers to restrict the way players behaved.

PvP in SoTA will depend on your PvP status, this is all we know. The details as of yet probably haven't even been finalized by the development team.

 

Miners shouldn't be in mortal fear of their lives all of the time. I don't know why you considered that a feature and not a bug in the design.

 

There are single player games, including RPGs, that have a long shelf life, it doesn't all come down to PKing. I got bored of UO, btw.

 

As a whole, yes, most PK's were very much stupid, self centered, short sighted, and immature, otherwise the split wouldn't have been necessary.

 

I don't think you need a large number of PKs to act like that, just a large enough number that it impacts other people's gameplay. Which might end up being a small group, in a very crowded world.

 

If you listen to all the various UO horror stories, the problem was not that there were just too darned few PK's. The problem was widespread and rampant, hence the brute force solution.

 

The world was split because the loudest minority (PvE players) cried for the devs to change the game, additional housing, and a few other reasons. The world was not split because PK's were "...stupid, self centered, short sighted, and immature..." There were several mechanics a typical PvE player could take to avoid becoming a victim to a PK, instead when one was killed they went to the forums and cried about it. PK's had nothing to cry about because they had the knowledge to defend against attack and to manipulate the "sheep" to harvest resources from them because they did not adapt to the game.

The PvE players were self centered because they demanded the game to suit their play style, instead of learning how to play the game. This is like me crying to Nintendo that Super Mario Brothers is too hard because there are too many koopas in the game so they should reduce the amount of koopas so I die less.

The PvE players, presumably angry after getting killed, ran to the forums in throngs after they were killed. This was short sighted because they wanted an easy fix and did not recognize that they were restricting an entire group of players from playing the game they wanted to.

The split wasn't necessary, but it still happened. It was necessary that there be an appropriate consequence for PKs and to reduce the potential gains from the rampant act of gathering resources from other players. This could have been done a number of ways, instead they opted for the quick fix.

 

The UO historical retrospective is interesting, but irrelevant as far as SotA is concerned. Suffice it to say, Richard Garriott has decided not to repeat the mistakes of UO, whatever the cause, so PVP in SotA will be forever and always only by consent.

 

PvP in SoTA remains to be seen, we have no concrete details on the finalized plans. I honestly don't think it will be the same as UO around 1998, it will probably be consensual in a sense. However, I am interested in witnessing the "slider" mechanic first hand. Every other game has failed to provide an adequate PvP server that was truly a different game play experience than the PvE servers (WoW, Everquest, etc). I am optimistic SoTA will not repeat that same mistake.

 

Not necessary with a split but necessary for them to do something about the some of the PKs that where "ill behaved" . Those PKs where a minority of the PKs but where a loud problem.

Btw: PvE was not a minority on UO, witch become obvious when the servers split.

 

There are a number of reasons Trammel had a higher population, especially among crafters in the game.

 

Well if you have a mechanism like Selective Multiplayer, and you have a guy like Richard Garriott saying that there will BE NO ganking, and that PVP will be only by consent, I'm not sure why anyone would still cling to the idea of "consensual in a sense".

Seems like a done deal to me.

 

In the dev chats they mention explicitly that there will be enticements into PvP (ie. higher chance of magic items occurring, contested resource nodes, etc.). A player who wants those resources must enter PvP to do so. Thus, it will be consensual in a sense. It also appears that a lot is subject to change through the alpha and beta phases of the game.

 

They just need to tell us more:

In a karma system, the "can" is open but the "may" required consent. i.e. I can swing at anyone but I will go red and be flagged as a murderer without getting consent first.

In a faction / territory system, the opposite is true. The game tells be who I "can" attack where but the "may" part is always allowed. There's no karma.

It wouldn't surprise me to see elements from both of these plus what we know from selective multiplayer, plus your preferences / slider, plus zone based differences. Until they explain it, everything's on the table as far as I'm concerned.

 

By consent absolutely, since you are in no way obligated to accept that quest, and indeed, you must make an affirmative action to accept it. Nothing "in a sense" about it, to me.

 

I suppose it will be consensual, but there will be incentives for engaging in PvP.

 

Agreed

I will be very surprised if this is how it's done, as that removes the consent from one of the involved players.