Virtuous PvP

If you need a reward, are you really being virtuous, or are you just grubbing for a reward? The concept applies, even in a game. We'll see what the dev's come up with.

 

As I mentioned before, UO's virtues had rewards and this game being the "spiritual successor" of UO -with virtues being a strong part of it- might as well walk the same path. Lets not delve too much into semantics and terminologies. Its a game mechanic. Unless its forced on everyone and influencing the players' skills, I see no reason not to have rewards.

 

No problem. We gave competing designs. I think virtue should be exemplified by your behavior in game, and the game reacts accordingly. If you do bad things (steal, murder) you get flagged as a criminal for your lack of virtue, and are punished for whatever consequences come with being a criminal, which I hope allows me to attack and kill you for your crimes. By the same token, for upholding the King's law, I don't expect a reward beyond perhaps the bounty that is offered for the criminal. If the game gives me a cosmetic title, I could live with that, but I wouldn't expect gear, or special abilities, or anything like that. "Just doing my job, ma'am", as they used to say.

You have a different vision, which I have critiqued. Between our two designs, the devs can pick one, the other, or neither, but we have both provided our inputs, as requested.

 

You dont expect a reward, but what if your King bestows the reward upon you? Would you insult him by saying no?
And God forbid, Im not talking about gear, although certain not table-turning abilities -either for cosmetic or convenience- might be applicable in this case, fluff and stuff.

 

I have my preferred design, of course, but I will accept whatever Portalarium implements, because as I've told others, Richard Garriott knows more about successful role playing game design than most anyone else in the business; I will be immensely gratified if he implements any of my suggestions at all, but in the end, he has forgotten more than I know. Once I start playing, my reaction will probably be, "Yep, he nailed it..."

 

Personally I wouldn't want to complicate the game by adding too much virtue into PvP. For instance if I run from 20 warriors because I'm outnumbered so I lose valor... that's silly.

The non-virtuous person has an advantage because they don't care about valor they just don't want the group of thugs to loot his items so he runs. Any way you look at it the unvirtuous person has an advantage in combat because they have no morality rules.

I would rather the game track my actions against the NPCs during the storyline components only. One exception is that PKs should be counted as murderers. Anybody who steals, and kills should be counted unvirtuous by the game server. However to penalize a virtuous player for running from a completely unfair fight that will result in you losing your gear doesn't seem fair to me since it punishes the virtuous person not the criminal.

 

I believe that you must have the virtues as the foundation to the game Its a R.G.trade mark.. Roddenberry had humanoids for aliens RG has Virtues but it can be a good thing to have twisted compression on the virtues... Imho

 

His retreat might make him lose valor but will gain in something else, say Humility. Besides losing, like gaining, virtue could be on the same pace. So if he retreats infront of 20 people just once or twice, he might not lose that much virtue (or any). But if he uses it frequently as a tactic he does.

 

How about not counting PvP at all.

I have more than just the valor reason. It's also because it could be used as a cheat. You could puff up your valor by fighting to the death against your second account or against your friends, and you lose nothing. There are plenty of ways of possibly cheating the virtue system by allowing it to spill into PvP.

The one area it is least likely to be cheated is keeping track of murders, and actual thefts. The virtue system should be more of a storyline element. If you want to pretend it spills over into PvP fine. OR if they make us feel like it spills over into PvP, but actually it isn't counting it, that's fine too. NPCs cannot be controlled by a player, but another account can so it's more exploitable.

 

Yeah, I gotta agree. Like the Ghostbusters say, "Don't cross the streams. That would be bad."

 

Ok, so this is pure speculation reading between the lines, but I'll just leave this here.

Snippet from this post.
GD: We actually have two players with the same question. Wyse in chat and vjek on our website wants to know can a player complete the main story or quest line if they ignored virtues and likewise how will the virtues affect the main story line if the player decides not to follow them.

RG: So this is an area that I apologize deeply for being a little bit cagey on it because I think this going to be one of the more fun aspects of the game for people to explore. But suffice to say, that yes, you will be able to complete the story, shall we say, or get to a successful conclusion of Episode 1 without regard to how you choose to align with or not yourself in the area of virtues. And that's one of the areas I thunk we're really trying to make that to be a particularly exciting aspect of the game.
This particular story thread I think will really help us solve a lot of our other complex questions about interpersonal relations amongst player to player activities will weave into this very tightly. I know I did a bunch of double talk in there but you may be able to read between some of those lines but I won't confirm or deny anything you read in between those lines. But yes, suffice to say, you do not have to adhere to the virtues to reach a successful conclusion of Episode 1.

The question was about ignoring the virtues for the main storyline quest, yet he also answered about "interpersonal relations amongst player to player activities" in regards to virtues. Dare I say it? Yes, I will. "Player to player activities" = PvP.

 

Could mean anything, but it is interesting to consider the possibilities.

 

Everything is exploitable. Sooner or later, some webmonkey will figure out a way to get X out of Y when he was supposed to get Z. The measure of it's importance is, 'why do we care?'. When the Diablo item duplication cheat was found, it let you pull money and elite items out of thin air. Everyone cared. When I discovered that a certain mob in TSW would not cross a certain boundary once it crossed it, not even I cared (don't stress, it's been patched). The real question will be 'how do the devs respond to the exploits?'

 

Cheating the way you describe will be possible only if the devs allow. I doubt they will allow you to run multiple clients.
The whole point of the pvp virtue system is to add more depth and meaning to the players' interactions.

Very interesting. Thank you for posting it. As Owain said it might mean anything, but its quite interesting the way RG put it.

 

who's to stop me from running a client on two different systems? Who's going to stop my best friend or my brother from cheating together?

You can create a dummy account that always loses to you in combat so you look like some big tough hero with 10,000 straight PvP wins with no losses. That can't be stopped, but what can be stopped is allowing virtue to be modified in any way by PvP combat.

 

The code could prevent you from launching multiple clients. as for cheating with a friend, I will agree with MalakBrightpalm. If there is an exploit, its how will the devs respond that matters.

 

Ya, everyone can get 2 or more computers. I'm a virtuous guy but my "wife" happens to be an evil PK. We just like running around together. Kill trading is always possible in positive sum systems...you just have to minimize the impact. Any kind of karma system or points for killing system has to expect this and handle it in a reasonable manner.

 

exactly. I don't expect them to make everything perfect, but handle it in a reasonable manner is a good expectation.

That's why I say why make it more difficult for a person flagged for PvP than it is for a person who is not flagged for PvP?

There are possibly some ways that virtue can be tracked in PvP that are reasonable. However I hope they don't track how our conversations go with people either. If I'm talking with a few of my friends in a pub (PvP not required) should it track if I say holy s*** or something like that? Some people are not full time role players they just like the game world but they don't require a complete role play to feel immersed in a game.

That's why I think the storyline elements, interactions, and quests should be the focus for virtue. The way the later years (after I quit playing) of UO handled virtue was really unappealing to me. It reminded me of world of warcraft enough said. Just let the true criminals like PKs have a negative modifier to virtues, they are the ones who are choosing to play the unvirtuous story lines anyway.

 

Nah, the tech and code to implement such a detail to the system where whatever you say is analyzed through an algorithm and verdicted is quite costly both in time and money (which Portalarium cannot afford at this very moment), so have no fear . But if you give money to some poor fellow (a player with a total of low amount of money), it could possibly track that and apply a mechanism to increase your compassion status.

I know the thread talks about Virtues in PvP, but the role of PKs in a virtue system could be only a part of it, not the whole of it (as I mentioned in the above example)

 

What a painful thread to read I was going to go in depth and quote a bunch but I will try to keep it short and to the point.

Can't have the ying without the yang. If people want to be heroes, they need anti-heroes. Regardless of the Anti-heroe's motivations.
Sometimes Evil is Evil just for evil's sake.

@Ara nails it in this post.

I feel like some people want to add incentives and virtues to PvP, but are against any kind of PKing or unjustified Killing.
If you want this kind of thing, then you need to accept and almost embrace the "evil" player. the @Envy types out there.
The virtue of - Justice: A Set of Scales (Killing reds / increased power scrolls amounts).. Wouldn't exist without Reds in the first place.
Why would those who are opposed to PKing feel better about being killed because there is virtue attached to the kill?

@Envy may be misunderstood for wanting to kill someone just for thrill and loot and other reasons he has stated, but I do. (I never played a Red btw)
Tho I thoroughly enjoyed Guild and Chaos/Order PvP and the loot that came with it, as well as the loss of the loot.

Well Said!

I disagree only because most games that come out are only interested in MONEY. Not making a good game. Simply a treadmill to keep people pacified, happy, and paying their monthly fee.
I trust that Portalarium wants to make a GOOD game first, and money while doing that. Part of the reason RG left EA I believe.
Noone has dared to make a balanced system yet. (pleasing the two camps)
Until that has been done, the Trammel Crowd can forever rest on the "look at past games" argument.


After reading the whole thread, I would love to see virtue attached to PvP. But I am starting to agree with the Keep virtues out of PvP camp.
Reason being, the open PvP camp will never be understood. People are scared of what they don't understand and prefer live safe in Trammel.