Stealing/Theft/Hiding/Stealth

Such a special appeal won't work to entice people who do not want to be victims, so it just turns out to be a reward to those who want to thief but does not get them more opportunities to do so than they would have with thieving as a part of consensual pvp. Beyond that, logically it makes no sense as landlords would always use their power to secure high reward areas as much as they can.

 

I would allow stealing everywhere from everyone, but I would quite drastically reduce what can be stolen and I would flag stolen items in addition to just the thief alone.

* I would not allow things you hold in hand to be stolen (no disarm + steal either but disarm in pvp is OK)
AND I would allow players to hold items other than weapons /shield
If a player wants to be sure a particular item is not stolen, they could therefore hold it in hand, just like someone grabs their purse or wallet tightly.
* I would not allow large items to be stolen.
* I would not allow stealing something like UO house deeds. (The guards would have found out where a stolen house was set up )
* I would not allow thieves to harass the same person again if they have previously been a victim. The more often the thief fails the longer the victim should recognize it and stealing should be impossible for that duration.
* I would require that thieves can be called out by witnesses that discern their identity, for example by seeing them with an item they witnessed them steal.
* I would flag stolen items as being recognized by those they were stolen from or by those who witnessed the theft.
This would only apply to items that are not bulk items (gold, reagents, gems etc would be exempt, meaning they would carry no memory of having been stolen).

In addition to stealing or burglary from NPC's that would still leave thieves viable, they even would have a chance of stealing big-ticket items if the victim was careless enough.
I want to also stress that harassment needs to be made non-profitable for thieves.

 

Can't attack 'em if you can't see 'em, and they'd frequently have a partner they'd stand on to help conceal them if revealed, so calling the guards was the easiest way to eliminate them without getting flagged yourself.

 

I like to remain focused on what I want to focus on, not what some thief determines is important (i.e. - Themselves). No one should be directing my gameplay but me. If this is the case, then the players control the game and the game goes to pot.

 

Eve has a respectable player base. UO which SotA is a spiritual successor to has stealing, even though it's severely gimped due to trammel being add years after the original launch. I never played a thief, but welcomed the system, and I had a house deed stolen from me, but that didn't force me to quit. What you are missing is the fact that when UO originally launched, the game was never about epic gear and loot, so having thieves wasn't a problem, as where it would be in today's MMOs that focus on grinding out rares and epics. If you have the skills and resources to get right back to where you were with minimal lost time then it's not a big deal to have thieves running around.

Demon Souls and Dark Souls has a very respectable fan base for a game that is ALL about risk. To many care bear/hand holding games/MMOs along with this current generational sense of "entitlement" has bread to many cry babies. No offense.

 

Sounds exactly like what we do to NPC bad guys, villains, and monsters, but we keep playing because it's fun to punish them. So, I don't see why because it's a player character we turn on the fear/hatred gene, but the fun/enjoyment gene for NPCs. Both do the same level of griefing, but a player can log out from time to time, as where NPCs generally respawn forever.

 

+1

 

But, mind you, that SotA isn't focused on levels and gear. It's skill based with a focus on a level playing field for all regardless of how long you've been playing compared to another. There isn't supposed to be an overwhelming sense of this item or that item is the end all be all, and thus you shouldn't have a massive attachment to a particular item. This is why UO did so well, and has stealing in it, before EA ruined it years later by adding in epic items/gear.

 

This is why non magical thieves need to be able to climb trees, and blend into their surroundings to hide vs. mages who can magically hide in plain sight. A resist spell skill would help find hiding mages, where an intelligence, tracking, or observation skill would find a skill based hider.

 

Except that that isn't realism, it's gameism. I log into a video game because I want to digitally smash critters, and I log out when I'm done. I don't for a second react like I would if *I* was really there, there is no immersiveness to that gameplay. When I see another player in such a game, I opt not to interact with them, or acknowledge their existence, I even click available buttons to make them "go away", all because it's a video game.

IF we want this approached as a ROLE PLAYING video game, then we have to consider the impact of more realistic responses. Many players have suggested that we should have interactions with thieves and bandits be more involuntary (because that would be more realistic), and I offered my response (concerning the realism OF it). Though RG and Portalarium have said very clearly that all PvP will be by consent, what exactly that means has not yet been decided, so we could still have some surprises here.

As to the fear/hatred vs fun/enjoyment, my genetic code has little to do with this, and I will thank you not to assume that you have the slightest idea what I am thinking or feeling, or what motivates me. If it were possible to kill, imprison, exterminate, and displace the NPC enemies and thieves, I would. I would wage a war of conquest from one coast to the other, leaving a system of governance and law behind me that I found meet. I would completely fail to ask anyone else what they thought about it, and I would turn my war machine and attendant army right around and come back if anybody was screwing with what I'd built. I would call such a thing a fun game, and look forward to playing it. That's just me though.

As to your other thoughts:

Does EVE have STEALING? I don't remember any. I know you can get blown up and salvaged, but I wouldn't list that as the space ship version of theft, more the spaceship version of full loot PvP. And even that has been severely curtailed through the sec level system.
Yes, UO launched with theft in place, and then, because of massive loss of subs and a dissatisfied player base, a change was instituted, and UO no longer has stealing as a real issue.
You mention Demon Souls and Dark Souls, do those have STEALING? I don't see any, but I could be wrong. If any of these games TODAY has actual theft without the need to meet the target out in the middle of nowhere and kill them PRIOR to taking so much as a coin from their person, that's not THEFT, it's full loot or partial loot PvP.

I'd actually be impressed if you found a game that had true player on player pocket picking, house raiding, and theft. It's not a popular concept.

While I agree that epic item grinding has been done to death, and I'd much rather see a system based on crafting and skill combinations, so that what makes my character special is how I built him or her and not what random items I found, I don't see how that really supports your point. Just because my stuff is easy to get and easy to replace does NOT justify you stealing it, nor does it in any way motivate me to tolerate theft. If I found someone stealing POCKET LINT from me, I'd break their arm in as many places as I could before it went all rubbery and bloody and I couldn't get any part of it to break. On the spot, without hesitation. It's not an attachment to the item, it's a revulsion for the act of stealing.

 

I'm thinking the consent portion of it will be when we opt into how much of the online world we wish to interact with. I recall RG making references to this multiple times when he explained how varying degrees of full single player to fully multiplayer will be implemented. But I think your right, it's not actually stated from the staff yet.

Calm down, I used the general statement of "we" so myself was included in that as well. It wasn't directed specifically at you.

 

The game this game is based off of is a poor example?

 

To be honest I am not so sure this will be true. I do not think we know enough.

 

Yes. You can't have stealing the way UO did it originally because that ultimately drove casual gamers off to worse games like EQ, WOW, etc...

If UO was such a success, then we'd have more games like UO and not like what we have.

 

Well it is both an example for thieving done right and for it being done wrong.
In particular a pickpockets last goal should be to be out in the open and harass. Such behavior would be detrimental to success in the profession and it should be penalized heavily.
As far as loosing things, thieving in UO was a minor nuisance, but it had a serious potential for harassment. That needs to be avoided.

With other words: One can point out things that were great in UO and things that were terrible =)

In general I see thieves as somewhat more of the sneaky type, and success should be based on remaining unnoticed.

 

If you're worried that griefers are going to be running around wild ruining casual gamers experiences, then I would reference you to this quote I just made.

"I'm thinking the consent portion of it (PVP) will be when we opt into how much of the online world we wish to interact with. I recall RG making references to this multiple times when he explained how varying degrees of fully single player to fully multiplayer will be implemented. But I think your right, it's not actually stated from the staff yet."

Nothing to worry about. If you are worried that people are just going to be stealing and PKing all over the place, then you simply throttle back the amount of multiplayer interaction you have to deal with. If you want to play with high risk/reward you simply increase it. All takes place in the same world so there is no feeling of trammel/felucia with separate economy's to cripple the community of multiple play styles.

 

I want stealing and full pvp in the game more than anyone. I'm not worried about anything. But I want good mechanics that are far better than anything UO ever had. Mechanics that provide a competitive playing field for anyone that wants to engage in pvp. Mechanics that balance risk versus reward for all players.

 

I wrote these pre kick starter, so take it with a grain of salt compared to where things currently are developed, but read points 2 and 3, and I think you might find a decent way of handling griefers.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...lls-and-various-other-ideas-i-thought-of.550/

"2. PVP

*PVP encompasses a wide variety of encounters. Whether we are talking about murderers, thieves, traders, opportunist, or whatever else you can come up with. These people are players just as you and I are, and deserve to have a fair and enjoyable experience in their practices as well. They paid their money to play as well, and there are ways to curb griefing/exploiting, but if they want to spend the money to have 2 or more accounts to play at once, then I say they deserve it, they paid for it. (Bad Karma said it best when he talked about PVP needing to have the feel of an art in game, and not just about button mashing skill. I remember spending weeks working on a sneaky rogue shortly after my first ever house deed got stolen from me at the bank. I was so pissed at the time, but I was also very excited too because that crafty bastard worked his butt off getting his skills high enough for me to never even notice he went into my bag and through my goods for his prized reward. I knew at that moment that I also could try and be just as successful as that guy was too, and all it required were some skills that if played correctly with each other would turn out to be successful for me as well.)

*Risk. Just as there is open world risk for all the good guys, there needs to be a more fair risk for PVPers as well. Not over bearing, just fair. I think one of the main problems people had with PKers in the early days of UO is that you could be a full blown fighter just out enjoying the fresh air far from town and a high level mage with nothing more then a hat, robe, and a few regs could destroy you and take all your gear. On the other hand if you managed to kill your combatant, the reward was fairly lack luster. A simple way to fix this is to make the act of performing evil deeds cost something in return, such as casting a spell in an evil way requires certain reagents that are fairly hard to come by or cost a fair amount resources. These items when looted would be fairly valuable in comparison to what a decked out warrior would normally carry with a medium sized loot load. Same thing would apply to tamers. Certain items should be required to maintain control of certain creatures. A special dragon taming orb that when lost would be very valuable to a crafter for being able to hone their craft. Thus evil people can still be evil and not feel greatly penalized any more then a good person would be for suffering the consequences of death, but both parties are happy no matter what side they are on, for the rewards are always just as great.

*Full loot. UO originally made it fairly easy to obtain items, and because of this even if you lost everything upon death, it really wasn't horribly difficult to get right back to where you were. This also provided the perfect opportunity to work on alternate career paths to obtain money to repurchase lost items, or craft them yourself. It also gave you time to go back to the drawing board for making your character more powerful skill wise so this would not happen again. Death in UO was just part of the learning curve, and learn we did. (Today's games seem to be all about the gear and loot, UO never was about that. It was about being creative, and having something appealing.)

*RPing PKing. (4th3ist said it best on this one) The problem with most PKers is that they want to blitz attack without giving the victim any sort of mediocre warning of whats about to happen for reasons of... This doesn't need to be a drawn out/no chance of PVP surprize either. A 10 second option table of mild RPing options would do wonders here. It would give the PVPer the options of robbing them, killing them, or deciding maybe they really don't want to mess with this target, and the victim has the options of complying, fighting regardless of provokers action, or running away. (The further out into unsecured land you go the fewer options you have, less time to react, or no options at all, just full on FFA PVP.)


3. Bounties and Jail system

*Bounties can be done without having them being exploited, and with the use of a jail system it's even better. There are two ways of doing this. One being a non transferable town reward/credit(money) system that would give the hero access to certain none monetary goods/properties. Two being that evil guys cant receive any money or items from good guys. There can be a simple script that embeds itself on any item that when transferred or dropped it labels it as an item that was derived from a good source, and thus an evil guy could never pick it up in a reasonable amount of time to make it worth their time to try and have a friend get the reward. (This also leads into the need for a one character per server system, which isn't that bad when I get into skills later. Also this doesn't mean that the bounty system can't be exploited, but what it does is make it next to impossible to reap the benefits of having his buddy kill him. His buddy would still get the reward which would still only benefit the forces of good, which is better explained in housing of good vs. evil players, and if the evil guy really wanted to spend all the time and resources going from evil to good, just to be able to get his hands on the prize, then by that time he would have exhausted more resources then what was gained by the bounty reward.)

*Jailing. Upon end of combat with a murder there should be an option to either land a killing blow, or to deliver the criminal to jail. This would also work against thieves as well. Crimes should add to an overall time in jail algorithm with 1 full real world day being the minimum jail sentence up to 2 full weeks being the max.(not in game time) Now I'm sure PVPers are like "No way would a ever play a game like that. That takes all the fun out of PVPing." But here is where you are wrong. In jail is where the PVPers get to have their fun by partaking in virtue activities to either raise or lower their virtues, skill training opportunities, and depending what jail system in the world they are housed in there can be different cell types between isolation and group settings, and even labyrinths to train skills/get out of jail early. Even in different jail settings there could be a try to escape if you dare, where being jailed for 2 weeks might be shortened to a few days or a week if you are creative/crafty enough to figure out how to escape.(I think this jail system gives thieves/murderers a real sense of risk beyond "oh, I died, that's ok, I didn't have anything on me anyways." to "This is going to be just as challenging as some goodie goodie stepping foot onto my turf.") (XDarkxMageX and Shakkarastarted to steal my thunder on a jail idea, but good work.)"

 

If by that you mean, by opting to play in the general online population, seeing whoever comes by and being able to meet and interact with them counts as opting into PvP, THAT particular outcome would lead immediately to me opting to uninstall the game and write this entire endeavor off as a waste of my time.

The last *I* heard, it will be possible to opt out of PvP WHILE ALSO playing Open Play Online, and possible to opt INTO PvP with as little as one other player in your game experience via Friends Play Online. I think that option would create both a more palatable, a more broadly appreciable, and a more entertaining set of options. In fact the more I think about it, the more I want a chance to bring only myself and one friend into a private copy of the online game and hunt one another ruthlessly through the world, and then change settings and play in a non PvP environment with a few thousand strangers. Not to mention wanting to play just about everything in between at some point.