my thoughts on the aftermath of a pk kill.

My thoughts on Richard's motivations:

Through and through he is a story weaver. Each iteration of his game creations he developed a game built on the concepts introduced in the games before. By the time UO was produced there was a world that was very wide open to player choices and creativity.

UO lacked the story element. It was a framework for delivering a story but it never made it that far. (lore is not to be confused with the story, that is only a portion)

SotA is a culmination of everything Richard has learn in game making, even outside of the Ultima universe. Here is will be building the toolset to make as robust of a sandbox game while preserving the story he wishes to provide.

 

Let Richard develop a game that people want to play. Why develop PvP that PvPers don't want to play?

To create a PvP that is PvE friendly isn't a good idea. Quite frankly it sounds like it sucks completely. Perhaps they will develop the game so that people would enjoy playing it.

Some people will be virtuous some people will not... some poeple will live entire lives as crafters. The crafter might never play the storyline. Should we bother putting crafting in the game since it doesn't line up with the virtues?

If the crafting system sucks you lose the crafters. If the PvP system sucks you lose the PvP people. PvP people also want to play the storyline, but they want PvP too. The thought of having a crappy PvP system is the same as having a crappy crafting system. Make the crafting system crappy the crafters will be upset. To have PvP without some kind of loot makes the PvPers who hoped for some real PvP very disappointed. In fact it started quite a fuss a few months back.

Portalarium appears to be making an effort to go forward with a progressive PvP system. It cannot be faked. They gotta follow through on making a good PvP system otherwise this is all a waste of time bothing with PvP at all.

 

Theres got to be some looting. The ransom isn't enough in my opinion. I'm willing to compromise on full loot, but there's got to be some loot.

Why develop PvP for PvE people anyway?

 

It is really nice in theory. The thing about full loot is no one will carry much of value. Especially the resource gatherer. He knows he is going to be ganked, and prob will be naked except for his harvesting tool. There will be a lot of stealth builds just like when I was on siege perilous. Most every class had hide or in vise. Ganking will be key. Most of the pvp'r will get tired of re-equipping and pretty soon everyone will run around naked with a sword or reagents or both. That is what full loot, or any loot I should say. Ok so we will use Ristas system. Ok, player one kills player 2. player one loots player 2's sword. player 2 resurrects. player one kills player 2 with his own sword. loots player 2's armor. player 2 reserects. player one kills player 2 with his own sword and wearing his own armor.....rinse repeat.

 

I believe anything that is gained from the hex should be lootable, is that good? I would settle with that.

 

No reward for risk doesn't make sense to me either. But is the issue reward, or risk? Plenty of games these days have a lot of PVP with risk of being player killed. But what is the risk? You die, respawn, and quickly get back in the PVP fight again. Little risk except respawn downtime. That is great if your gaming objective is to maximize your time in player combat. But is that enough risk? The full loot interests here suggest that player combat is not enough, that more loot than other games provide is needed too. That is fine. But what is the tradeoff? What other risk are PVPers willing to sign up for in return for the extra reward of looting players? If we find the right answer to this, then perhaps that is a key to balancing the system.

 

The loot systems I've shared are just ideas. To build upon it I would say something like, if looting takes time then let it take longer to loot higher quality gear, then people might rather wear better stuff so they get looted less. If top quality gear has chains and fits better, then it should be harder to loot. So if you wear lower quality stuff, you will lose more items. So it would even out.

Also looting should probably have a looting state where you can be interrupted while looting.

 

Like I said before, you will have all the pvp you can handle, and I think its a good system. Its the loot that throws it askew.
I believe that it was stated by richard that It is first and foremost a story that the avatar needs to go through, even before all the land is unlocked. The oracle is to record all your deeds and know how you are with the virtues. This is the premise of the game. PvP is important yes, but it is not the whole game, it is a part of the game. I think that the pvp crowd expects that pvp is the whole game and that everything should be built around it. I do not think, or did not think this was the case when I payed for my founder lord marshal. I am easy to please and I guess I can get over what ever happens, but in all reality, not many people are as patient as I am, and people that buy one episode at a time, might not buy the next.

 

Time lord came up with a pickpocket skill. You would have to learn the pickpocket to loot corpses hehe.. Maybe he can elaborate!

 

Largely because PvP so dominated everything.

 

By the way Ristra, You are very logical, and I appreciate much of what you say, I just want you to know that.

 

I'm uncertain how there could be any complaints from anyone about XP. 1 kill = XP; doesn't matter what gets killed. The XP is there for anyone who wants to go get it, right? People can opt out or decline to do content (in this case PVP) but it's there if they want it. Nothing to complain about and nothing is forced, just offered as an opportunity.


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Is that how experience is generated? Or is it from using the abilities?

 

Well, it's a level based game with skills, so I am assuming that there is some mechanism to generate advancement. I'm calling 'experience points' but it could just be as simple as an increased volume of repeated actions (more sword swings or casts or whatever).

Either way adding PVP to a characters repertoire could potentially offer an increase in this advancement mechanism. It's not forced, just an opportunity.


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Level could be there as a representation of how much overall experience has been gained. The wait it is gained could still be ability based.

 

Ristra has a fine point. I've seen no documentation on any proposed advancement system.

 

If there is no advancement system then how do your skills and level increase? Thats the very definition of advancing your character.


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I did not say there is or will be no advancement system. I said I had not seen any documentation on how the advancement system is to work.

 

Well there has to be one and there is a possibility that more 'advancement' could happen for a person who participates in PVP since they are potentially using their skills against more opponents.

That is a pretty good incentive to enter PVP IMO. It's a good reward that doesn't victimize players, it rewards them.


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It leaves room for the buddy system exploit.