PvP centric resources

I don't think your second point is gonna play out that way, @Silent Strider. What Kraa suggested seems to ME to mean that playing PvE will, regardless of online status, give access in the more difficult areas to a PvE resource. The greatest value of that resource won't be playing offline. There it's just one more pile of pretty loot. The greatest value it has is online, where it can be traded and sold. At which point, I don't really care where they got it, it's being introduced into the economy, playtime for playtime, effort for effort, coin for coin. And the income it generates will let those players buy other goods, such as the hard won treasures of PvP (the ones that are sellable and being sold). Thus, economy. I don't think just letting offline players get fat lootz will drive people away from online play.

 

Given that, in any game with both online and offline options where I've seen somewhat reliable info about that, most players seem to stick to offline (and, when online has both solo and multiplayer options, most players stick to solo), it's not just a matter of driving players away, but of failing to attract players that usually stay offline. Having a reasonable part of the potential rewards out of reach of PvE / solo players if they play online, but available for them if they play offline, mostly nullifies any incentive those players might have to give online play a try. When attracting offline players to the online game is an explicitly stated objective of the dev team, this becomes an important issue.

 

The only PvP centric resource should be the blood of the innocent!
And their tears!

 

@Silent Strider But Kraa's idea specifically functions as a DRAW to online play. You cannot stop those players who prefer offline from taking advantage of it, but providing them a resource that is valuable primarily in trade to others prompts them to log on. Maybe at first they will just use it for their own crafting, but eventually they will want something they don't have\cannot get via offline, and then they will want to use the AH, as well as grouping or even PvPing. And right there, the only thing that Kraa's idea actually affects, is that they will have this convenient thing to trade. All it's doing is tieing them into the economy.

 

If it's an actually important resource, it needs to be available offline, since offline players are completely prevented from interacting with other players. And, if that is the case, this will be seen by many players as the online game removing from them the ability to obtain the resource, which will be seen by them as a clear disadvantage for going online.

If it's completely optional to the point removing it from the offline game isn't an issue, why would it help attract offline players anyway? Not to mention that the game will support modding in offline mode, so adding back anything that is only available online should be possible. Heck, if the game attempts to hold back features from the offline version, I myself am likely to release a mod to add them back if no one releases one within the first couple months.

 

@Silent Strider. Ok, you seem to be missing my point here. So let's look at it this way.

You play offline. (This means you are alone, btw) Though alone, you are a skilled and well equipped player, and can handle quite difficult PvE areas. You play in those areas offline. There, every so often, you are able to find small deposits of Rareobtanium.

You gather the Rareobtanium.

You craft Rareobtanium alchemy tools and Rareobtanium shoes. Now, for your purposes, there are no recepies using rareobtanium.

Now you have SPARE Rareobtanium. All from offline play.

The remaining value of your Rareobtanium is in trade. Trade is an online activity.

You log on. You go to the AH, and post your Rareobtanium. You log off.

The Rareobtanium sells. This gets Rareobtanium into the hands of PvP players, who needed it for their mace recepies, and for shoes, alchemy tools, home decor, belly button studs, etc. Now they are connected to you via the AH.

You log on to get your money, and think, "Wow, that's a lot of money, I should gather more Rareobtanium!"

This leads you to discover that the largest deposits are in group play PvE areas. You cannot solo these areas, thus they are closed to you in offline play.

You start to play online to get PvE groups, and gather Rareobtanium. You post and sell your Rareobtanium, more PvP (and come to think of it, PvE) players benefit, you make more money. You start to expand your purchasing horizons to include the AH.

You discover Bloodandgutswood. Bloodandgutswood is only available in PvP areas, and frequently only in areas with the highest PvP deathtolls, as it only sprouts in piles of dead players.

You don't want to PvP, but Bloodandgutswood is the missing reagent in many of your better recepies. You buy Bloodandgutswood. The players who farmed it get the money. They are happy. The economic circle is now complete.

Rareobtanium and Bloodandgutswood stimulate the economy, give players from opposed camps a reason to communicate, trade, and maybe even appreciate each other, and cause players to play online.

Further progress along this timeline may even lead to you trying out PvP to farm your own Bloodandgutswood so you won't have to spend so much cash on it.

Since it's all just reward for desired behavior, and calculated for balance from the start, this system can be left up and running 24 7 365. Personally, I imagine the market value of Bloodandgutswood will be higher than Rareobtanium, due to the PvP risk. PvP players don't have an aversion to playing PvE, and they can play offline. It will be a sacrifice of fun time for them. Easier to farm Bloodandgutswood and turn it into money, then just BUY the Rareobtanium. This will in turn lead PvE players in the exchange to choose, long slow farming to get money to buy Bloodandgutswood on the AH, or risk PvP and maybe get more without the huge pricetag...

 

or as a pvper, I farm the rareobtanium alone offline and get a crap load of it. Then when I need the bloodngutswood I go online in the world I'm comfortable in and grab it. Why do I trade with you if its less valued item I can just do it myself the way you do it with no risk. I wouldn't even trade my high risked bloodandgutswood.

 

@Hillel Slovak Read the post, dude. You quoted it, and then raised a question that was both a red herring AND was answered in the post.

 

No, I just think you don't like what I am saying. I have played a game where it was similar to what you proposed. It did not stimulate trade. The discrepancy between the value of the two was so large that it would not make sense to trade the higher end resource for multiple units of the lower end. You seem to think the PVE resource will hold its value bc it is in some hard to reach pve area, I am saying that doesn't usually happen. You are making up your own scenarion, I am telling you what I would do in that scenario.

 

Little snag: in order to prevent exploits, and to allow for offline game modifications, an offline character can't log on. Never, ever. An offline character is forever barred from playing co-op PvE or from playing PvP.

You are likely mixing up offline with solo online.

For an offline player to go online he has to create a new character from scratch. What he has done or obtained offline doesn't transfer.

Which goes back to what I was pointing: given that an offline character is permanently blocked from doing group PvE content or PvP content, offline mode needs to make available to those characters, in a different way, anything that is actually important and that would require either group PvE or PvP to obtain. Which means that someone going from offline to single player online would experience that as additional restrictions added to game mode. Not the best way to attract players.

And this doesn't even touch on the possibility of mods making available, for solo offline players, things that were supposed to be exclusive to group PvE or to PvP. You can bet those will be made; I myself am likely to make such a mod if no one creates it in the first few months after launch.

 

@ Silent Strider Ah, I see, yes, valid point. Then again, if the player makes a purely offline character then there is no hope of ever getting that character into the game anyway. The only hope will be that people will opt for online content, and I think that disagreeing with one thing you said is the best way to do that. The game devs do NOT owe it to the offline solo players to give them ALL content. If some monster was going to need multiple heros to kill it, then it doesn't have to be toned down for offline. If a location was designed to work with PvP then the devs don't owe the offline players an army of NPCs to fight to make it happen. I personally would say that all strictly group and PvP areas (the entire area and all of it's code) should be excluded from solo offline play. Yes, people will mod. Who cares? If someone invests the energy, they could write themselves an entirely new version of the game with insane stats and epic gear, OP spells etc. etc. They will be trapped in their own little world, and not affect the rest of us. MOST players will not have the time or skill for such a thing, and a hacked game has less staying power, since once you are God, the game becomes less fun over time. I say make the online game have more content, specifically the optional group and PvP content, and let the players work it out. I'll be online from day one.

@Hillel Slovak Fine. You think I didn't consider your "point". So here's what I'm saying, stretched out needlessly. Most people who play this game will have a life. School, work, girlfriend, wife, kids, whatever. I figure the average "hardcore" player will be able to spend 4 hours a day, and if they devote their entire weekend to the game (a sad thing) then they can get 8 hours a day before they start developing physical pains from excessive sitting and typing. That gives 32 hours a week (again, AVERAGE, I'm sure someone will play nonstop for days, then again that can KILL YOU, so I don't think everyone will).

What if in that 32 hours of solo play, a player averaged 5 units of Rareobtanium ore? What if, if they went into group play, and completed all the high level group content available each week, they averaged 10 more units total? What if raiding, and completing all raid content available in that 32 hours of play, got them only 20 more units, total? Now consider what those units are worth. How about 5 units become one ingot, and recepies call for 20 + ingots?

I'm betting if you are a PvP player, the idea of selling some of your Bloodandgutswood to just BUY the Rareobtanium will be much more satisfying. It leaves you with time in your busy week to actually play PvP. Or, if you really really don't want to cooperate, then go join the PvE group content. I'll be there to tank your raid, and your warm body will help me achieve my goals. OR, if you are a real curmudgeon, you can just go solo online and mine all evening for a few months to get each piece of gear, your choice. Of course, that's MONTHS of your life away from the PvP you enjoy, I don't know why you'd do that. The AH will always be there, and it CAN AND WILL make sense to use it if the devs want it to. After all, if the devs actively adjust the available supplies with maintaining this cycle in mind, and make sure that there is enough ore and wood to stimulate trade, but acquiring it is enough of a challenge to make buying an option, then that's what most players will do.

IF players choose not to trade, but instead to gather their own, what's wrong with that? How do we suffer, where's the price? Since this will mean more players entering high level group environments, and more players in PvP, I don't see a problem. If the process leads to a half and half, then you get a small increase in players crossing over the divide, AND a small boost to the economy. There's no downside. If you WANT the items crafted from it, then you go GET the items. I really don't care how, as long as it's legal.

 

Single player online characters can still switch to one of the multiplayer modes, and a vendor placed by a single player online player can be accessed by those in multiplayer modes, so perhaps unobtaneum, or whatever you want to call it, should be restricted to multiplayer modes, and perhaps even open PvP modes.

Personally, I don't care for that, and would prefer that there be no unobtaneum so as not to introduce unbalancing bits of gear into the game. If you think the trade in unobtanium between single player modes and multiplayer modes can be abused or misused, that is a sign that unobtaneum is bad game design.

 

Actually, for the whole story content, plus a few extra bits of content, the devs promised to make them available offline during the KS drive, so they actually owe that to offline players. Two of the things specifically promised for offline play are "Castle defense scenarios for most castles which can be played offline as well as online" (part of the 2M stretch goal) and "Meteorites, volcanic eruptions, outbreaks of rare plants and animals can appear and vanish suddenly (online and offline) for those who are paying attention. Some PvP focused resources appear in tile" (part of the 1.7M stretch goal). You can see those for yourself at the KS page ( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0 ).

Also, hirelings for allowing solo players to tackle most, if not all, group content seem to be already in the plans. Given the game's position as a spiritual successor to U4 and U7 (besides being a spiritual successor to UO), many players are actually trying to convince RG to promote those to full companions.

As for mods, they are why Half Life was a bestseller for the most part of a decade while other similar games are usually forgotten in a few months. Similar with Neverwinter Nights 1 and, to a lesser extent, Neverwinter Nights 2, as well as the Elder Scrolls series. Well done mods, mods that increase what the players have to do in the game - as would be the case with mods that add back to the offline game anything that the devs wanted to restrict to online, at least as offline players would regard them - can drastically increase the staying power of a game. There are games, some of them older than a decade, that are still alive today because of mods that add or change content, providing novel experiences to the players.

Regarding why offline players matter: because they are, in most games with that distinction, far more numerous than online players. Attracting them might be the difference between an empty online game and a thriving one a few months after launch.

 

Well, if the decisions are already made, promised, and owed, then all that is left is to deliver, regret, and move on. Because if they are mistakes, they are made, if not, then who cares.

This being a thread about PvP centric resources, I continue to support Kraa's idea of having specific resources that are only available via PvP, and ones only available though group play. What the modding, hacking, cheating, offline crowd gets does not really concern me, as I am not in competition with them. What the law abiding, "playing the game as it was written" crowd gets ALSO does not conern me, because again, I am not in competition with them. My gains and losses will be measurable against the other ONLINE players, and that's where I am concerned with game balance.

 

We have been told repeatedly that everything is subject to change, and nothing is written in stone. If something that was promised turns out to be something that will result in a bad game design, the devs should explain the situation in detail, and I would hope that the community would recognize that we don't want to build a flawed game in order to fulfil a promise that was made before the game could be properly designed or tested.

 

Auction houses and raiding, will these be in game? I started to think of WoW and I threw up a little

 

Auction houses are mostly confirmed to NOT exist. Instead, players with houses can hire a vendor to stay on their houses and sell items, and cities (and towns, and villages) will have bazaars where sales can also take place.

(Edit: Auction houses in the WoW model, I mean. I believe the devs don't have anything against an in-game auction house that is actually closer to a real life auction house than to the simplified model WoW made popular.)

For me this likely means that I won't bother taking part in the game economy; I don't actually find the economy part fun, and if I will have to waste time hunting for the item I would like to purchase, I won't even bother. I already have two pledges anyway and the game doesn't have a subscription, so I will simply go for self-sufficiency.

As for raids, no word about it yet. Hirelings were mentioned as a way for solo players to do group content, but the extent of the group content, and whether or not hirelings would suffice for all of it, hasn't been specified.

 

Gotcha. I like being self sufficient as well but I have no problem in gathering resources for my guild or a friend etc. Probably won't spend a lot of time farming items to sell to others, that is not my thing either.

 

What I don't like about this video is:
1. It would be hard to mine in full armor - if its hot out then wow would that suck
2. With that armor that leaves little weight left to carry
3. Not sure I like someone out running someone that is riding a animal. And I wonder how much weight he is carrying when he does that.

 

yea thats silly outrunning a mount lol