Question regarding online multiplayer

You have one experience, but many other players have another experience of being victimized by more experienced players. That victimization could take the form of being ganked in PvP, but even in Trammel following the split, new players were frequently the victims of scams, being sold fake house deeds, or treasure maps that had already been completed, and the new player didn't know enough about the game to know they had been scammed.

If you already have a friend, or if you can screen prospective 'friends' on the forums before granting friend status, that would go a long way from preventing new players from being victimized like this. Known scammers develop a reputation, and if a known scammer is trolling on the forums, hopefully they will be spotted, and the mark can be warned off.

I'm sure you never did anything like this, but you are not all players, and Richard Garriott has expressly stated his intent to protect 'newbies'. From my experience, they need that protection.

 

It's been said that level might possibly be the last thing they use when ranking / sorting players into your game. But there are good points on all sides. PvP and Adventurers might not want too low level people in their game since they don't want or can't fight such lower level players or can't take them on harder dungeons for example. But crafters would certainly love lower level folks. Perhaps they'll tune even that piece of logic based on your skill or something. It's all speculation and we'll just have to continue pressing them for answers or wait until R3/R4 to see how fully developed the selective multiplayer logic is at that point.

 

If that is the only thing you can come up with, you are throwing out the kid with the bathwater.
Notice that non-consensual PvP is no concern of mine as I would argue it should not exist in this game.

I would also argue that situations in which players get scammed rarely involve experienced bystanders, as those quite often manage to prevent it.
Contacting the inexperienced directly is in many situations the more successful route for scammers.

I am a strong proponent of protecting newbies, but I feel taking away interaction with experienced players will be of more disadvantage to newbies than it would be to their advantage.

 

As I mentioned, you are not prohibited from associating with new players if there is a good reason for you to associate with them, such as they already know you, either in real life, or through a relationship developed on the forums.

But no, you won't just bump into them as a random encounter in game, or at least I think that should be a good idea. Based on my experience in UO and other online games, for every altruistic player, there are a couple of dozen villains.

 

Well as you seem to know a lot more: My original question was if someone can point me to that information, as all I have seen so far is that the concept is to match people of similar playstyle .
I quite frankly see no evidence for any of what you say, although I can understand the concern =)

 

If you check out the Portalarium Facebook page, there are a number of videos posted there by the devs. Knock yourself out. Suffice it to say that Richard Garriott is on record saying that there will be 'no newbie griefing', but he hasn't been specific how that will be accomplished.

I think the easiest way to ensure that is if new players never see experienced players unless there is a pre-existing relationship, and they are already friends, but then I'm a suspicious, untrusting person. Your milage may vary.

 

My guess is more similar to Neverwinter except being able to explore the small scale map.

It will auto-build instances or something like that so you won't have to see more players than the game will handle...

I think it's a pretty serious topic, and pretty serious discussion because kind of post-MMO game is getting a lot of variation these days.. On one side the world needs tension from random players and the other hand you need a discreteness...

I really love the open-world setting, I sort of want to see that vibe from UO preserved though but somehow the technical genius will have to figure that one out.

 

As to your example. Thats why I have a vendor on my property and there are other vendors to use. If you go to my vendor and see I make swords but there's nothing your level you will probably be able to drop me an email. Thats much easier then trying to catch me online sometime.