PvPer Should Be Able to Opt Out of PvE

Wait a minute. You're from.. *pauses*

 

First off... that is not what I said. Maybe your blind rage at the idea of PvP'ers having their own open mode caused you to make this mistake.

I never said "as a result of those videos". I’m saying those videos were available when the Kickstarter was running. And to pretend the resources for KNOWING how RG was describing the ability to PvP were not there when people were pledging is a kin to saying "wait, cars need gas!? The dealer never told me that."

So I’m sorry if you didn’t bother looking into it, but you said you didn’t pledge on that basis either... so you shouldn’t worry that PvP will be available as described by RG.

I never saw your post or paid attention to it. I believe the world revolves around the sun... sorry.

Yes.. there is a game mode... and stay in it... I'll stay in multiplayer cause unlike you I actually WANT to RP with others unrestricted. I really don’t know why you are telling me this cause it is what I have been suggesting. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/levels-of-pvp-level-of-involvement.3187/

I haven’t hated at all... it’s the "care baers" that are hating. Everything I have read, they don’t want to compromise... they want to be able to completely turn off PvP for themselves. This is a multiplayer game... again... there are at least(from the dev teams comments) 3 modes... Single Player, Friend Play, and Fully Online Play. They are arguing that all 3 of those mode need to bend to their will. They already have two modes that are going to be exactly what they are looking for.

Now then; you can stop being a jerk and numbering all your little thoughts like each one is such a stoke of genius that its worthy of a numeric reference and reply like an adult; or you can turn off the computer. Thanks.

 

*Brackets added
Certainly you can see how this would be seen as "Don't want to be open to NCPvP? Then this game is not for you."

If you're going to ignore people who ask you to back up your claims, especially on such illogical grounds (asking for justification is not to imply that the world revolves around an individual), then there is little point in making such claims to begin with.

Markee Dragon made it very clear (in the link you posted) that the slider has crippling limitations that demand to be addressed. Having a PvP slider and a non-PvP slider will cause economic dysfunction (besides, InsaneMembrane beat Portalarium to the TM), so this is no longer an issue of who wants what in which slider. Now we have to find ways to minimize the importance of the slider to avoid new issues.

One option would be slider separation, but if you do that, you may as well make different shards, so it looks like we're limited to a single (perhaps slightly divided) world. The question is, how can a single world exist that prevents griefing, maintains a diverse playerbase, and doesn't cripple or needlessly restrict PvP? This is the question we should be trying to answer, rather than waging the ongoing trammy/fellucian war. This polarity between PvPers and PvEers doesn't contribute to the issues at hand.

Lastly, if you want to argue that you aren't hating on PvEers, avoid loaded terms like Deeply Respected Fellow Player. I enjoy the humor in the term, but personally switched to more benign terms like 'PvEer' and 'PvPer' because other terms obscure your argument and can put people on the defense.

 

Hold on... I never said that you can slide between the modes. I agree with Markee, it shouldnt be allowed in that manner... however I have no opposition to being able to take youer characters "essence" between worlds leaving behind the spoils of each world.

Its extremely easy to prevent griefing. Griefers exist cause there is no penalty for killing. They aren't Role Playing... in fact Im convinced NONE of them know what Role Playing REALLY is(I think most anti-PvPers dont know it either becasue of the horrible way its been handled by other games).

Game mechanics that Role Play back to someone that is basically being a Murderer, work. Problem I have is Anti-PvP's are completely close-minded to it. They need to put some trust in RG.

 

That's fair, I think RG has earned that much from us "loyalists." Fact is there's so much that hasn't been finalized about those mechanics it's easy for everyone to get carried away at this stage.

 

Given that I consider the original UO to be completely useless as a leisure activity, the only way I can trust RG is - as has been promised multiple times and in multiple ways - if players can simply opt out of all PvP. Which is why I'm utterly against anything that would force unwilling players into PvP.

 

I don't agree. I have yet to experience or hear of any in-game consequence that is great enough to offset the pleasure a true griefer gets from ruining another player's fun. Best you can do is slow them down, but it will not stop the behavior. Because of that, I think some people are unwilling to trust that a game mechanic within open-PVP will work, period.

 

Legitimate question:

Why would I, even as an avid pvp'er, want to exclude myself from the other 95 percent of the game?

Sorry dude, but this is taking it a tiiiiny bit too far. It just seems like this thread was created to stir stuff up.

 

You say this as if you believe that PK's and griefers are the same thing. They are not..

PK's had penalties in UO.. Stat loss, etc. but that's as far as "penalties" for RP'ing a murderer should go.
Griefing, on the other hand, wasn't handled well at all.. Depending on your personal definition of a "griefer."

 

I thought the same thing when I read the title.

 

It really started with Warhammer AFAIK. You could level from 1 to 40 (max) doing only PvP. XP, gear, whatever you needed in the game could come only killing other players and capturing PvP objectives. WoW then moved to giving xp in battlegrounds, and games created since (RIFT, GW2, etc.) more or less followed this model.

I've said this before, but if I were designing the game, there would be 3 paths which you could freely mix and match from:
1) Conqueror – PvP focused.
2) Adventurer – PvE / standard RPG.
3) Builder – Crafting and RP focused.

 

I would be curious to see how enjoyable this game would be if the storyline is not played at all (since a storyline is what most Ultimas are built on). The storyline afterall, is PvE.

 

I disagree that this is a direction they should go... I think anti-pvpers need to give it a chance. But being that PvP requires PLAYERs it makes sense for single play and friends only modes be "opt-out PvP" and fully online be PvP with al lthe safe guards we have discussed earlier.

I'm sorry... Im if you mis-understood me.. .but I am saying a PK'er and a GRiefer, are not the same. PKer=role playing a murderer, griefer=jerks that just want to ruin the game for others.

I do agree with you in everything you said... I have no problem with PKing so long as the game "Role Plays Back" as we discussed(Stat loss, NPC Guards/Rangers hunt you, etc.). But when those mechanics are not in place you get griefers case there is no penatly for doing these things.

Well, again, they need to put faith in the team. Greifers(which is what everyone is concerned with in PvP) do not want to RP... they just want to... well... Grief. So putting faith in RG and his team and giving it a chance is a must.

Ugh... I hate those "you are the chosen one" quests. Im just like "Yeah.. .me and about 100,000 others?

I have never seen that in UO, so I dont think it is a RG strategy.

 

In Ultima Online felucca we mainly created our own story and it was a more enjoyable game then any other Ultima game.

And yes, i played all other Ultima games and enjoyed them all. But none of them were even close to Ultima Online.

 

Yes there is something to be said about the "sandbox" element of the game. It allows you to go anywhere you want and do whatever you like story or not. Then adding other real people to the game to play with you was awesome.

I think SotA will do this and bring in a great story line even if you don't play the story line there is a plot and theme going on all around you in the world everybody shares.

 

I agree completely. I just think it is funny when people ask to have PvE excluded from their experience.

 

yeah that doesn't really work. Flagging for PvP shouldn't make the whole world turn into a battle ground with nothing else in it. It should just make the world as it actually is. You get to experience the world as it should be. Complete with the risk of being attacked by other players. I can see why newbies, and certain role players might want to opt out of that, but I think the majority of players ought to have this experience.

On the flipside, I hate to say this because there are a lot of role players that just want nothing to do with PvP, but are they really role players then? Perhapse the role player guys who want no PvP should have to expect some PvP especially if they venture into "dangerous areas". If you want to be a role player you have to accept the fact that there will be a few dangerous areas where PvP will always exist for you no matter if you are not perminatnly flagged for PvP. For the true adventurer that wants to experience the real world at all times they should be allowed to have PvP anywhere so they must always be on guard.

Even the Frends&Single player online guys should be notified upon entering any of these few dangerous areas that they will immediately be flagged for OPO PvP upon entering that danger zone, and only while they are in that area. PERIOD. It's like going to the ghetto in the middle of the night. Expect danger. I believe that SotA is going to have to make a tough decision regarding PvP and I truly believe it should err on the side of Open PvP regardless of the cries, at least for certain areas. For newbies there should be a detailed description of the type of danger if they attempt to enter one of these areas. Nobody should feel entitled to be safe all the time. That's not role playing it's trying to play your own game. There is an offline mode for that. I hope that makes sense.

 

Playing through the storyline and "opting out of pve" are two different things completely.
If someone were to start pvp'ing immediately out of the gate and never engage the environment, they would fail miserably 1000 times before anything positive began to happen to their character.

 

It does hit a snag in that Portalarium wants strict PvE players to be able to meet with other players from outside their friends list. And it doesn't seem to be just in a "you meet in the safety of the city" way, but also in a "you meet each other as you are fighting bandits" way.

Another snag: true griefers often aren't really playing the same game. Many of them don't care about the penalties, as long as they can cause grief, so the penalties do more to restrict PKers than griefers. You might want to read a bit about Goon Squad and other similar groups.

Case in point, EVE. Killings in high sec are for the most part outright griefing, where the player doing it knows he will take a penalty and that whatever he wins won't offset it, but doesn't care at all as long as he can cause grief to other players. Actual profitable PK in high sec is really hard to pull off in EVE, requiring juicy targets, large groups, almost perfect coordination, and even then it has a chance of backfiring if the target can tank damage a bit better than the attackers thought or if not enough of the ship's cargo survives the explosion to make the attempt profitable, not to mention that the crime and bounty hunting system allows the victim to mark all attackers as suspects for a whole month if he so wishes, which is roughly equivalent to making the player gray in UO, and hands out as bounty payouts just 20% of the hunted player's losses, making exploiting the bounty system impossible and getting even a small bounty on the player's head often painful.

Heck, CCP had to make any kind of attack on other players in the actual starter systems grounds for immediately banning the attacker in order to stop griefers hunting newbies for sport. This in a game where attacking such a player in high sec always results in losing the ship used, with all it's cargo, and quite a bit of a reputation hit with the faction that controls that space to boot, not to mention attacking newbiew means little to no gain (and where, incidentally, finding a way to attack others in high sec without losing the ship will result in a ban).

Speak for yourself. My issue was never with the griefing per see, but rather with the non-consensual player conflict.

Which also means that, for me at least, giving a chance to any system where non-consensual PvP can be forced unto a player is pointless, because no matter how uncommon the actual combat or how justified the other player is in attacking me, it would still ruin my play session even if I wiped the floor with my attacker. The only exception I make is for games where PvP defeat has no consequences worthy noticing, which allows me to just suicide myself when attacked, resurrect, and keep playing as if nothing happened; as long as attacks aren't common enough to become more than just a nuisance I can live with that.

Hard to say. That might not have been used in UO, but it was a staple of every other Ultima game, of which SotA is also a spiritual successor. Not to mention that parts of the "main quest" (for lack of a better term) will forcibly put the player in single player mode for a while to better tell the story, which does seem to point to everyone seeing the same (or similar) "cutscene" unfold.

Of course, you don't have to play out the main story if you don't want to.

 

Sincerely, in the pen and paper RPG sense, those are likely more role players than the PvP ones. RPG games have close to it's roots cooperative gameplay, every player together to make a great and fun story; intentionally doing things that you know will remove the fun from another player is as distant from what I see as the true essence of a RPG game as it can get.

This does not mean that there isn't conflict between characters; such conflict can exist, but whereas the characters are in conflict, the players are actually consenting with the situation, and ideally having fun with it. All the players, BTW, not just whoever happens to win the conflict.

Do this and, besides whichever negative consequences Portalarium would suffer from ditching PvE players, it would also be breaking KS era promises. In which case I will sincerely ask for a refund for one of my pledges, going through Kickstarter if needed be. An online game that forces me into unwanted PvP is not what was promised, and is utterly useless for me anyway; I would never be able to have fun with it, so no point in playing (or paying for) it.

You sincerely seems to fall in the old trap of thinking everyone must like the same things as you. To put it bluntly, for a meaningful part of the RPG and MMO player bases, including many SotA backers, this kind of open PvP is JUST. NOT. FUN. No, there is no way to sugarcoat it or to otherwise convince those players that it's fun, and getting those players to just experience it will not magically make them like it.

It's also hard to say how many of the SotA backers fall into each camp. If I remember correctly, Chris once posted that Portalarium expects players to be split roughly evenly between PvPers and non-PvPers, which would already be ample justification to not push the PvE half of the player base out of the online game. Portalarium wants to convince the PvE players to give PvP a try, not to permanently prevent them from doing so by making the online game only fit for PvP enthusiasts.