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Goblin Squad Member

Being wrote:
Drake Brimstone wrote:
That system makes no logical sense and would piss a lot of people off who paid serious XP for the skills.
What would make logical sense is for those people to consider what will be available to them and train accordingly. They aren't victims of the design, they are victims of their own inattentive lack of foresight.

....... or simply not play the game because it doesn't provide choices or support play styles that those people enjoy.

There is nothing wrong or illogical with a person expressing frustration or disatisfaction with a lack of support for certain options within a game. If it's frustrating or disatisfying enough to really foil thier enjoyment then the most logical option is to decide not to play it.

I suspect most players will go into PFO without knowing many things about it ahead of time, as with most other games. I also suspect that many will find certain elements that they don't like or agree with or that frustrate or dissapoint them and that some of those will be significant enough for people to decide they don't want to play anymore.... as with most other games. Just the way it works.

Goblin Squad Member

There are pretty simple answers to the "I want to build this bit of technology because I know how it's done in the real world"

A) This place doesn't work on the same physical and meta-physical laws that our Universe does.

B) You may know how to build a PC from scratch but your character is a guy with a big sword who walks around thinking that maggots spring into being from rotting grain and thunder happens because the gods are angry... and half the time he's right!

.......

I've always found fire-arms or any sort of semi-modern technology kind of genre bending and incongrous for a Fantasy based RPG... however it is true Golarion has them.

One thing that could be done to help balance them would be to have higher damage but impliment a misfire chance...with either the powder not igniting or detonating too strongly and damaging the weapon and the user. This was actualy quite common in early fire-arms as manufacture of the powder was far from a uniform process and you'd get alot of varience in potentcy from one batch to the next.

Goblin Squad Member

@Drake,

While I don't like the system myself and think there are other ways it could have been addressed, that is the way it was designed. It does make internal sense, even while it does come with it's own downsides and is certain to alienate some people while it attracts others.

I wish GW had taken a different approach myself... but it is part of thier core design and not likely to change in significant ways. Just how successfull it ends up being is TBD.

Goblin Squad Member

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Some points...

- When I was recruited to TEO (then the Great Legionaires) I was under the impression that our mission was primarly to defend players, particularly new players from RANDOM PLAYER KILLERS and GRIEFERS.... I was not under the impression that our mission was to defend every settlement in the game from settlement vs settlement PvP (i.e. what the Dev's designed as a core function of the game). Had I been informed of this, I likely would not have joined....because I would have no interest in trying to nullify a core design principle of PFO... I simply would be playing another game... not that I mind entirely PVE games, but this wasn't advertised as one.

- It would be presumptious of TEO or any organization to negotiate on behalf of OTHER organizations who have not granted TEO thier consent to act as proxy for them. I would be rather upset if my leadership did this. The fact that not every organization will be included in a diplomatic agreement should not preculde TEO or any organization from negotiating diplomatic treaties with other entities, even ones to (gasp) our advantage.

- I was unaware of our leadership, or anyone elses of pointing a target at anyone else.... a NAP is simply that, a mutual agreement NOT to engage in agression against certain specific targets... it is NOT an Offensive Alliance. That is an entirely different animal.

- I am unaware that our leadership has sought to preclude ANY group or organization from participating in this or any other negotation. If they fail to do so...that's simply thier own choice.

- Advantageous diplomatic agreements are part of the way PFO was intended to be played, as is settlement warfare, as indeed is banditry. I have never had a problem with how UNC or GOL have intended to play the game (though I may have expressed some disagreement over specific design mechanics with some of thier membership)..... as nothing in the past or present has indicated that they intend to engage in RPKing or GRIEFing of players or any purposefull attempt to wreck thier play experience. My impression of TEO's current goal is to generaly provide a relatively safe haven for those players who don't want to be exposed to constant PvP... I see nothing in the proposed agreement that would weaken that goal. Speaking only as a member, not an officer.... we aren't out to play as some server or world wide "police force" and prevent ANY act of agression or conflict from happening... indeed that would be preventing other parties from enjoying thier play time, as well as be entirely unachievable..... we are simply trying to provide a place where people can pursue the play style then enjoy most with less risk of that style being disrupted then in some other settlements that aren't focused on that goal.

Goblin Squad Member

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My thoughts...

- Political agreements and diplomacy are part of "meaningfull human interaction" not a block to it.

- It is natural that many political entities would seek meaningfull agreements that they see as advantangeous to them. Neglecting to do so would basicaly be hamstringing your own settlement and setting it up for failure.

- The situation so far is setup not that there will be no wars but that the wars which will be fought will be limited in nature so that the major power blocks don't destroy themselves in a futile effort to expand beyond their capacity support. In no way does this mean that such conflicts will be less meaningfull or provide less opportunity for PvP. Most of European history (which could be pretty bloody) actualy followed this model of conflict. If there wasn't an explicit agreement to do so, most settlements would likely follow this as a matter of internal strategy anyway...no major power really wants to overextend itself and leave itself vulnerable to getting torn apart. That would be bad strategy.

- The WoT is for a limited period of time anyway, a place holder for the more robust conflict systems to be initiated later.

- We have no idea what later entities to enter the game or non-aligned individuals will do anyway. I predict that we'll have no shortage of groups and individuals who have no interest in building settlements and preserving themselves as political entities and simply want to fight just to "see the world burn". They may do so despite the very severe penalties that the reputation system places upon them. Very few of those individuals would be participating on these boards now or would have backed the game in advance of it's opening... so we don't really know how many there will be. However, it may be that there will be so many that the existing political entities will have thier hands so full fending off the "savages" that they really have no time nor resources to expend on full scale wars against each other. We just don't know this, and the level of uncertainty about it is naturaly going to cause the initial power groups to be cautious in thier approach until they really know what the landscape looks like.


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Asbestos suit material I'm sure....but I've always disliked the D&D ruleset (any version) and I guess by extension Pathfinder ruleset too.

The advantage they have, AFAIC, is not being good rulesets but being so commonly known that everybody and thier brother knows how to play them.

Whenever playing with a regular group of freinds we'd almost always do some other (lessor known) game system or something homebrew. But if you want to go play a game with strangers...there is nothing like saying...ok, who knows how to play D&D/Pathfinder ?

Goblin Squad Member

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Well, I know I'm definately not going to be talking about movies or telling Chuck Norris jokes in regular chat. I may be willing to do that in a whisper/tell or if the game has an OOC designated channel as some do... but in regular chat it's strictly IC. If someone wants to do that... that's fine, I'm not going to tell them they are playing "wrong" or are bad for the game or anything like that..... but they shouldn't expect me to engage in that activity in return. I'll use OOC channels to respond (if available) and just pretend my character didn't hear them or that they are talking gibberish.

That's where, I think, some non-roleplayers come up with a "false positive" definition of role-play snobbery. It's one thing to expect RP-ers not to tell other people how to play the game. It's another thing entirely to expect that they participate in an activity that actively detracts from thier enjoyment of the game.

To that end... I really hope that PFO comes up with either a designated OOC channel or the player community comes up with a clearly understood community standard for indicating what speech is to be taken as OOC in other chat.

Goblin Squad Member

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I've always found that D&D (and by extension Pathfinder) rulesets were pretty sub-standard from a mechanical standpoint ("fighting words" I'm sure on this forum). Their real advantage is that they are so common that everyone and thier brother is familiar with them (kinda like McDonalds) so it's really easy to put together a game/campaign for people without needing to get everyone to invest in in learning an entirely different ruleset.

When playing with my regular group of friends/gaming group, when I used to do that on a regular basis, we almost never used D&D rulesets. It's easy enough mechanicaly to have a player in a TableTop game designate thier facing...even with longer rounds where they could turn around there would still be a "I'm trying to concentrate the majority of my attention here"....if they are concentrating the majority of thier attention against the opponent that could do them the most damage if they don't, that's called "good tactics" not an exploit... it does leave them open for the other opponent to exploit if positioned properly... ymmv.

Goblin Squad Member

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You could really do alot with making PvE more dynamic. Keying off player behavior can really help....

Have an area that is getting developed and has alot of economic activity. You start drawing in intelligent monsters interested in wealth and looting.

Have a spot where a major battle took place and there were lots of deaths... carrion eaters get attracted to the area.

Have a settlement where people are practicing lots of dark arts and forbidden magic... supernatural creatures become attracted to the area.

A settlement that was once thriving and now it's economic rating have really plumeted.... scavangers and creatures that enjoy refuse start showing up (goblins, carrion crawlers, etc)

You can even do non-combat PvE stuff that would keep people interested in doing things. Blizzards and Storms that hinder travel in hex's... plagues that threaten the population (prime for clerics and healers) and commoners that need healing.... ..over-production of a hex that throws the local ecology out of whack leading to insect plagues and vermin infestations that lead to crop failures and famine if not dealt with.

There are so many creative PvE things that could be done if one really wanted to invest the resources in doing it. PvE can be very dynamic with the right systems in place. The reason Themepark games don't do it is not because they can't...but because they don't won't dynamic at all, not PvP and not PvE, they want to give players a tightly controled, canned experience... that is a concious choice on thier part.

Goblin Squad Member

Leithlen wrote:
Being wrote:
There is MUCH to be admired in the MUD Dragonrealms (which is still running, btw). The death, crafting system, and skill gain mechanisms were superb.
DragonRealms was (and is) a great game. I played it on and off between 2001 and 2011. I still visit the site occasionally just to show others the greatness of their systems. I just stopped playing because text-based gameplay isn't really feasible with a group of friends. At 2 people it starts to become busy, at 3 it becomes hectic, and more than 3 is a scrolling disaster. Group-play just wasn't very feasible.

Group play in invasions in Gemstone was even more fun... hitting the attack macro for 2 minutes before you realize that either you or all the monsters were dead... got alot better after they developed a custom client which showed your health/injuries but still could be pretty insane... as Being said...really helped improve reading & keyboard speed.

Goblin Squad Member

Proxima Sin of Brighthaven wrote:

I'm in favor of logging back into the same spot that you left (with some logical exceptions)

The reason is travel can be a meaningful investment of time and we are actually people who often have to do things other than play games on the computer. Very often someone will be at a spot not for exploitative reasons when they find a sudden need to log out.

There can be tweaks and timers or whatever to sort out things that seem unfair (not logging into territory of a group you're at war/feud/factional conflict? with but getting bounced to the closest spot outside their area makes a strong case, etc.).

But to charge players (who don't play 6 hours straight) their free time to do much of anything more than a few hexes from some central nodes puts us in a much smaller universe than what the developers created and doesn't seem like fun to play.

I seductively approve of this message!

(Will Ferrell movie reference for those who didn't get it)

Goblin Squad Member

Some Points....

- The idea that bandits are always low skilled thugs doesn't jive with actual history. There were Knights that acted as bandits... "Raubritter" is a word for a reason, there were Samurai who turned bandits. Not infrequently, unemployed mercenaries (sometimes of high skill) turned to banditry when there wasn't mercenary work to be found.

- The game can impose any mechanic it thinks makes for good play but the idea that skill with a weapon is somehow tied to being an upstanding citizen has no basis as an arguement for realism... because that wasn't at all true. I'm not saying realism should matter in this arguement at all...but if you are trying to use that as a rationale to explain the mechanic... you are on really shakey footing.

- Reputation is supposed to be a mechanic used to control player behavior that is unwanted in the game... but selective banditry is actualy a behavior that is not only wanted but actualy NECCESARY for PFO to work well.

- Players should have some AGENCY ( I love that word, BTW...thanks Ryan) in thier exposure to PvP, clearly the way to do that is by choosing to engage in low risk/reward rather then high risk/reward behavior. You generaly want to discourage PvP against targets that are engaged in low risk/reward behavior and encourage it against targets engaged in high risk/reward behavior. Absent some other controls, I don't see how the current reputation does that... it really doesn't seem to discriminate between high risk and low risk on an individual basis at all.

- Personaly, I'm more interested in PvE then PvP... so the last thing I want to see is PFO become some sort of "murder simulator" but I do see the very valid point that Bluddwolf, Xeen and others have been raising.
Without something like SAD or similar mechanisms...PFO has a pretty serious flaw in it's reputation system. Sorry to be blunt...but it is what it is.

Goblin Squad Member

Tyveil wrote:
Leithlen wrote:
Tyveil wrote:
Andius the Afflicted wrote:

I'd like to see death penalties beyond just gear loss. I remember in LotRO dying added "dread" to your character which I know lowered your maximum health and I believe also lowered damage and healing output.

Death is LOTRO was a joke like it is in most other MMORPG's out there. I'd like to see death be a real event. You die, you don't immediately leave your body. If you leave your body (depart) without any clerical intervention whatsoever, you permanently lose XP. With clerical intervention you could be raised (should take a lot of skill) or players can use other skills to reduce or remove your XP loss upon departing. Both of these options should take a significant amount of time, based on the skill of the player performing the clerical acts. This type of system would make dying a serious ordeal but not one you can't recover from, and it would pretty much remove the usage of "travel by suicide".

I'm also in favor of removing "bind points" unless it's accompanied by a skill that takes a significant amount of time to train.

This is pretty much EXACTLY how death was handled in an old text-based MUD called Dragon Realms in which I first started online RPGs. With the 25% item destruction in PFO, this may be a bit extreme, but I could see doing a temporary XP loss, although I think a 2 minute temporary stat reduction would be better. I do like the idea that any of this could be mitigated by a cleric, although I wouldn't make the item destruction cleric mitigate-able, as that would change the economy and the items are not your soul. ;-)
You caught me. Dragon realms is the game that I still go back to as having some of the best MMORPG systems to date. I love the way death was handled there, and they also had open PvP, yet it rarely happened unprovoked. Clerics and paladins had real purpose and could spend a lot of time just raising/rejuving people and building up those skills. The reason I am...

Good to see some SIMU players around. I'm an old Gemstone 3/4 player myself...started back when the game was still on the Genie dial-up service, not the internet.... and I agree those games definately had some of the best RP based mechanics around... although Gemstone was really handcuffed for combat mechanics intialy by having to use the Rolemaster ruleset... it didn't translate very well to a computer game.

Goblin Squad Member

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Staying in your corpse and getting rezzed/revived on the spot, death should have minimal/no penalties...

Departing your corpse and reviving at a bind/spawn point....death should have pretty serious penalties.

I would go so far as to say that you MUST wait a minimum timer before the player is even allowed to release from thier corpse.... and that once released, there should be some sort of debuff as Andius suggests.

The game should REALLY, REALLY discourage people from using suicide as a measure of convenience.

The kinda zerg tactic where someone gets killed and 30 seconds later with no outside intervention they are back in the fight at full fighting trim is not the sort of PvP (or PvE for that matter) that I'd really like to see.

Goblin Squad Member

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The conversation 6 months ago quoted by Andius was in the context of settlements being able to practicaly enforce NRDS or NBSI policies. The remainder of what Ryan said in that post was this....

-----------

".....I don't know yet if we'll have some kind of granular territorial security policies so that Settlements can effectuate a NBSI or NRDS regime outside the Rep system and even if we do they probably won't be something that is implemented for quite some time even after PC Settlements are introduced. It's impossible to say for certain - such things will be subjected to intense Crowdforging.

This is clearly an area where the simple mechanic of the Reputation system is misaligned with meaningful player interaction. It's pretty damn meaningful to a Settlement to ensure it's security, but it's very hard mechanically to discriminate between someone who gets whacked for trespassing and someone who gets whacked for the lulz."

---------------

Essentialy this comes down to the granularity possible for setting permissions to access territory. The reputation system alone is way too blunt an object in order to meaningfully deal with settlement security... I think Ryan recognized that. If it's possible to have a more granular system, even down to the individual... that problem, at least in terms of being able to enforce a reasonable security policy in ones territory pretty much goes away.

That doesn't, however, address the point Bluddwolf brought up... which is not really about settlement security but of bandits essentialy being able to perform thier role. Traditionaly bandits don't engage thier targets on the basis of what faction or organization those targets belong to, they engage them on the simple basis of the target having something of value the bandit wants. Generaly the bandit wouldn't care who or what faction/organization the target belonged to, just what wealth they had. They are motivated not by politics, but by simple greed.

PFO's PvP controls don't really align very well with that. As Bludd pointed out, an unaffiliated target pretty much circumvents the war/feud mechanics in place for reputation neutral PvP... and even with an affiliated target, I suspect the cost for War/Feud will be sufficiently high as to severely limit the scope of the bandits availble targets.... such that the bandit isn't really operating as much a "bandit" as he/she is a "guerilla soldier" fighting for his faction/organization.

I'm not sure what the real solution is to address given PFO's current mechanics. Either a bandit has to have some mechanism to engage in reputation neutral PvP or that reputation loss needs to not be sufficiently punitive so as to make it not worth engaging targets for economic gain... or the bandit has to have some means to regain reputation lost.

From my standpoint, I think this last is probably the simplest and most straightforward solution to impliment. Let characters pay some sort of monetary penalty in order to recover lost reputation.... a little like the Papal Indulgences of old.

I think this would allow for meaningfull PvP whil discouraging meaningless PvP. A player who kills other players for the "lulz" isn't likely to gain very much material wealth from those players, especialy if they tended to be lower level. They might be able to do it once or twice but they certainly couldn't sustain it on a regular basis. Doing so, they would be engaged in a sort of "deficit spending" that would quickly bankrupt them and force them into all the negatives that having a bottom reputation should have associated with it.

However, a character that kills another character because that character has significant wealth on them and takes that wealth ISN'T engaged in meaningless PvP, he or she is doing so for a good reason... and in fact is following pretty much following the traditional role of banditry. A character doing that should be able to maintain net reputation neutral and net income positive....as long as they are being judicious about picking thier targets.

This also follows along the principle of players being able to avoid frequent PvP by eskewing high risk activities in favor of low risk ones.
Walking around with alot of wealth on your person outside a "safe" area is pretty much the definition of "high risk" in most peoples books.

The advantage this has is that it should be relatively simple to lay on top of PFO's existing systems without requiring any changes to those systems. You simply need to design a place (perhaps a type of shrine?) where a player can exchange X amount of coin for X amount of reputation.

If one wanted to be more sophisticated...one could scale it based on the characters level... with higher level characters needing to exchange more wealth for the reputation returned and/or... place upper and lower limits upon it... so that a player could never be truely HIGH reputation, just AVERAGE reputation... or so that a player who sunk below a certain very low reputation threshold couldn't use coin to buy thier way out of it.

Thoughts?

Goblin Squad Member

Audoucet wrote:
Andius the Afflicted wrote:
We aren't talking rep neutral here. Pino is inferring that those who use take rep hits to get economic kills will be banned. I think that's a pretty ridiculous and baseless assertion.

I imagine he's talking about people exaggerating.

Whatever you say, GW repeatedly said that they will not trap themselves with rules, but that they will act, against people acting as griefers.

Maybe Pino is wrong about what he assumes being considered griefing. What do you, consider griefing ?

(I will not argue with your definition, but if you tell me "nothing that is not forbidden by the rules", I will say that you are clearly wrong, since GW and only GW can decide, and they already decided that something not forbidden can be punished anyway.)

I'm not sure who the other "TEO/TSV people" Andius is talking about here and I really don't want to drag this thread in this direct. However this is directly what I expressed on the issue....

Seeking to weaken an organization by attempting to purposefully driving thier players from the game because you are purposefully trying to make thier play time miserable is greifing. Period, full stop.

Sekking to weaken an organization by attempting to disrupt thier economic or security operations in order to reduce thier material resources using the allowed rules of the game, is not. Even if the players on the loosing side take things too seriously and happen to get upset about losing.

It's the difference in football between putting a hard hit on somebody because they are catching a pass in the end zone and you want to prevent them from scoring and putting a hard hit on somebody because you want to injure them and take them out of the game, and maybe the season. Even if the 2 look the same from the outside, they aren't.... and inevitabley, no matter how carefull you think you are...if you set out with that sort of intent you WILL end up breaking the allowed rules of play because there will be just too much temptation to do so.

Goblin Squad Member

@Andius,

I mostly didn't see the utility for negating PFO's mechanics just for 1 specific hex. Those hex's contain the most valuable resources, therefore they should naturaly draw the greatest attention for bandits or others interested in conflict.

I think there is a more general issue that PFO is struggling with in terms of banditry and related PvP. They are having trouble differentiating between...

1) Player A purposefully chooses to engage in high risk activity and as a result is targeted by another player...

and

2) Player B is purposefully avoiding high risk activites because they don't want to be targeted but is getting targeted anyway....

In case 1, the player targeting Player A is actualy playing the game the way the Dev's intend it to be played and should be encouraged in thier activity. In case 2, the person targeting Player B is engaged in the sort of RPK that the Dev's generaly want to discourage.

GW needs a good solution to differentiate between the 2. I think that's what the goal behind the reputation system and the feud/war systems generaly are. However, it sounds like they are not quite doing what they are intended to do at this point.

For Feud/War there is an influence (or DI) cost and influence is a limited resource so it's actualy counter-productive to waste it on targets that don't (potentialy) gain the agressor something significant.

The same theory applied to reputation (from what I understand)..... however from what I'm hearing from you guys in Alpha that the system scales such that there is no point at which it's worthwhile for a bandit to take a reputation hit in order to gain an economic reward. That needs to be addressed on a more general level, IMO, rather then simply make an exception for 1 terrain type.

There should be some point at which it's worth it for a bandit to say "It's worth it to take a rep hit to obtain the goods that player has, even if I'm not specificaly hostile to thier organization".

Goblin Squad Member

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Audoucet wrote:
Vrelx wrote:
But to this, I hope this is not true. Solo gathering should be one of the most dangerous things... Your a GATHERER (not trained for combat), and an open world where their ARE people who are trained for combat, and may want your things.

I don't think that taking the most boring thing, and making it the most dangerous thing, is a good idea.

It should depend in great part of the quality and rarity of the gathered resources. A player who doesn't want PvP, should be able to choose a low-risk low-reward path.

I think this post nails it. If you want to collect dirt just outside the gates of an NPC starter town you should be able to do so with pretty much no fear (PvP or PvE).... If you are collecting black diamonds on Mount Doom..... then it should be relatively impossible to do without a well organized expedition.... even absent PvP.... and with PvP, you should have a big fat target on your back. Risk vs Reward.

One of the major functions of PC settlements should be to create a RELATIVELY safe zone for resource gathering activities (absent a major settlement vs settlement conflict).... the further away you get from these, the sketchier it should get for both PvE and PvP.... and the more organized effort it requires to do succesfully.

I think this is kinda, the general direction that PFO wants to take.

Goblin Squad Member

Xeen wrote:

Monsters in the wild will never be much more then an annoyance. They are bots, which will always be overcome by some simple tactic. Yes, I do know that in the beginning there will be NPC's that can kill you... but is that really a problem that cannot be over come easily.

Players are the only real risk.

That's only if the designers choose to make it so, Xeen. Mobs can never be as smart as humans but they don't have to be.... tactics aren't the only thing that matters in a combat situation... raw power is a factor too. Put a human armed with a dagger into a pit with a tiger... 99 times out of 100, it's the tiger who gets to enjoy dinner that night.

Most MMO's have PvE that is not particularly difficult not becausde they are incapable of making it difficult...but because the Developers have made purposefull decisions to scale down and "dumb" down the mobs in PvE in order to make it easy for players. Trust me, they could make mobs with much more challenging and sophisticated combat behavior if they wanted to do so.... they don't out of a conscious choice to make the material easy for players.... because that's the sort of game they have set out to make.

Goblin Squad Member

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@Guurzak

You don't really need to play funky games with training to do that. It's simple enough to make bad reputation be a direct combat (and even non-combat) skill debuff. You don't need to worry about what the characters settlement associations are or how long they've not been a member of someplace. Have cellar dweller reputation....mutiply the total of every skill roll by .1 It's simple, and even less abusable then the support system because you don't get a months worth of "get out of jail free time" before your combat abilities go into the tank.

Goblin Squad Member

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A bit of a tangent, I know, but if PvE in the wilds represents zero risk to a solo (or even group) of gatherers then PFO has a HUGE problem outside of the current discussion about bandits and reputation.

Don't get me wrong, I think PvP bandits should be a real risk out in the wilds too... but if PFO is a game where monsters encountered in the wild are nothing more then a minor annoyance to a player.... then it got something very, very wrong.

Goblin Squad Member

I'm not a big fan of the support mechanic either. The game doesn't really need them as an incentive to join settlements. Joining a settlement would be pretty popular, IMO, even if it offered zero mechanical benefits.

As it is, there are plenty of economic and security benefits to settlement membership. Most people will want access to those regardless of whether they needed training support from a settlement. For those who wouldn't engage in the settlement portion of the game without it, I don't really see the harm in some folks being nomads/transient. They will give up some economic and security benefits for doing so.

Goblin Squad Member

The easiest way to deal with the "Trojan Horse" stuff is to allow settlements to set permissions on who can login/bind within territory that they control and to have a block on attacking other characters for say 5 minutes when logging into territory where you are flagged.

The reality is, you shouldn't make a practice of logging out in dangerous/hostile places...and if you do, you should be willing to accept the risk of what happens by doing so.

Goblin Squad Member

Being wrote:

Those settlements who chose to situate themselves near starting settlements will predictably prefer no portals, no fast travel. Those who located farther away will surely prefer equal accessibility. This trend in preferences won't be universal, but it seems probable.

So, if we admit that we will all have practical reasons to prefer one or the other, owning honest preference for an advantage, then lets try and move beyond that and consider the question for the good of the game.

Should game mechanics encourage settlement choice by immediate convenience or by merit as evaluated by each player?

If it will be better for the game that new characters must choose to seek shelter with the nearest, regardless of its characteristics, alignment, and the quality of its members then we should argue against portals and settlement embassies in starter towns.

But if we think it will be better for the game if players can choose their settlement based on their values, the social fit, the alignment and faction and other qualities of the respective communities then these one-way instant portals should be found desirable.

Being, I don't think you are considering the only issues here. I'm in a settlement that is most likely to benefit from the instant travel but I'm against it, precisely for the good of the game.

- How can it be abused and used in ways not intended by the designers? I can easly, especialy under OE, see it misused by an endless string of newbie alts to get around some of the transport issues that settlements would normaly have to deal with.

- What sort of expectations is it setting up among new players about how PFO actualy plays and what sort of game it is. Are we teaching them to expect instant travel in the game? Are we teaching them that they easly can achieve thier desired goals simply by clicking a button? Are we teaching them that there is no danger or risk involved in the greater world beyond the NPC starter towns? Are we teaching them that settlements can simply expect Developer created mechanisms to negate the meaningfull choices that they made?

The new player experience is supposed to be a gradual introduction to the rest of the game, to get the player used to how the game plays. Instant teleportation is (I hope) a radical departure from the rest of the game. Rather then having to work somewhat and risk somewhat and rely on cooperation somewhat to get to the settlement they most desire.... they just click a button and it all falls into thier lap with no effort, regardless of where they are or where the settlement is on the map. That's very much the opposite of everything else about PFO plays. That's not meaningfull interaction, meaningfull play or meaningfull choice and it is NOT good for the game or the new player.

Goblin Squad Member

Guurzak wrote:

> I could maybe see instant travel for NEW players between NPC starter towns... although even there you have the possability of newbie alts being used as pack mules to circumvent travel mechanics.

I think if newbies are allowed to choose their starting location, with an alignment match being suggested but not forced, you no longer need even that much instant travel.

Probably the case, especialy if there are NPC patroled roads connecting all the starter settlements. I just know that some players aren't really sure what direction they want to go with a character until after they start playing them.... but the road option should be RELATIVELY safe for such characters. Even if they lose everything non-threaded they should be able to recover from it without too much hassle. I think that is a much more important part of the new character experience... make sure that even if they get looted down to thier skivies, they can always recover to a point in the NPC starter towns where they can persue thier careers and start earning wealth again... the perverbial "rusty shortsword" that you can get from the village blacksmith for running an errand in town, etc.

Goblin Squad Member

I think Guurzak has it right, with the caveat that they expand frontier NPC starter locations as the map expands. In general, I really dislike instant travel mechanics. It takes alot away from the game.... I could maybe see instant travel for NEW players between NPC starter towns... although even there you have the possability of newbie alts being used as pack mules to circumvent travel mechanics. I think that this is an area GW has to be really carefull with about unintended consequences.

Goblin Squad Member

A long logout timer outside of a building specificaly designed for such use would mitigate the issue pretty well. So 15 minutes if you are tagged as hostile in enemy territory works. I'd assume that something like an INN in an NPC starter town or your home settlement would have near instantaneous logout (30 seconds?).

Goblin Squad Member

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I'm fine with whatever they want to use. I'd view it as pretty much OOC information anyway. I doub't my character would ever say something like, "it's 4 km to the south"....it'd be more like "it's a fair distance, go past the bridge until you see the rotting stump and then you'll know you are close".

It would be cool, if we figured out a themeaticaly appropriate substitute to use IC, if we did have to talk about such stuff... just convert on a 1:1 basis and call it something else.."pace, stone, league"... using the antiquated idioms shouldn't be too confusing for people.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:
Lord Regent: Deacon Wulf wrote:
Diplomacy, Trade, Resource Management, Morale, all these are real factors that will be in the hands of players, not the developers.

Trying to tread lightly, because I'm acutely aware of the likelihood of easy misunderstanding.

First, I agree with you. The only reason I'm replying is because I think that issue of "Morale" is a very interesting topic that is worth pursuing.

I worry that attacking your enemy's morale (not the Morale Development Index, but the actual morale of the players) is too close to griefing because it has the potential to drive people away from the game. I also worry that, if this view is reasonable, it will inevitably lead to anything that reduces some players' morale being inappropriately tarred as "griefing". It's a very challenging line to walk, and I wonder what other folks think.

I hope that most players maintain high enough spirits that they enjoy the game and continue to log in even when they're Settlement is being burned to the ground. I especially hope that is true of anyone that I personally take a stand against.

I think this is a very fine line and an area of concern for me as well. For me....

Acceptable = Attack your enemies physical assets such as; Settlement, POI's, Trade Caravans, Resource Gathering Operations, Patrols, Active and Passive Defences, Etc..

Unacceptable = Purposefully doing whatever you think will most annoy, irritate and disrupt thier play time in order to destroy thier game experience. Example: Using a ALTs to suicide gank them while they are quietly sitting at a table chatting/rping with a freind in some INN in an NPC starter town, creating a string of throwaway ALTS to screen/message SPAM them such that they are driven off in game chat channels because they constantly have to keep adding your new characters to thier ignore list.

The former is acceptable. You are breaking the enemies faith in the strength and capabilities of thier organization to be successfull. If they take the game too seriously, they MAY get upset as a result...but that's completely on them.... they could also be having a ball playing in a desperate and doomed effort for a lost cause. You are harming the organization and it's assets, how that effects the individuals enjoyment of the game is upto them.

The latter is, IMO, out and out griefing. You are trying to harm the organization by making it's individual players play time miserable...such that they don't want to play the game at all.

In some instances it may end up being a very fine line...but I think the old cliche of the golden rule is likely a good guide here... how would you feel about someone doing this to you. If you are not ok with that happening...don't do it.

Goblin Squad Member

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I think there are 2 seperate and legitimate concerns here that could cause PFO will stumble...

1) Will PvP become some dominant in terms of play that EFFECTIVELY it prevents non-PvP characters from pursuing thier interests. For a non-PvP character, PvP is a hazard. It's a hazard that can be mitigated by various methods but not negated entirely. That's cool, it's part of the interesting gameplay choices and interactions that a player is supposed to be faced with in PFO. Even with all precautions taken there is a risk the character will lose resources due to PvP. Again, this is cool, it's part of what will make for interesting gameplay. The risk is there for PvP'ers as well....every time they engage in PvP against another PvP'er someone will lose and suffer the loss of resources. The difference is the PvP'er enjoys the time spent in interaction even if they lost, the non-PvPer doesn't even if they won.

Again this is all good as long as PvP remains a risk that be mitigated to an acceptable level. However, if PvP becomes a certainty that even good mitigations proove ineffective against or are overly burdensome, If they get jumped every time they step foot out the perverbial gate (to use a cliche) then they aren't going to enjoy playing PFO...even if they win in those PvP encounters and don't lose resources...because they will be continualy forced to engage in an aspect of the game they don't enjoy and prevented from engaging in ones they do.

It's actually irelevant whether they can have an effective PvP build along with an effective PvE (or crafting, etc) build because winning or losing is not what matters, it's how thier playtime is spent. I could sink every shot in basketball....it's not going to get me to join a basketball league if I don't enjoy the sport in the first place.

2) Will focus on PvP cause non-PvP aspects to get short shrift in terms of limited development resources? For those that enjoy non-PvP gameplay... that gameplay doesn't have to be bland, boring or stale if done well and given sufficient resources and attention. However, like any gameplay aspect...if relatively ignored in terms of focus and attention...it will be bland and boring even for those who prefer those aspects of gameplay and no one will want to do it.

I'm convinced it's POSSIBLE for GW to execute well on both those aspects, else I wouldn't be here. I also think they intend to execute well on both those aspects because they understand what it means to thier potential success. However it is a very delicate and difficult balance to strike. It's going to be a constant challenge for them.

Note... I'm not disappointed at all. So far, they are doing exactly what they advertised they would do in the Kickstarter.... and are trying to design a game that I am definately interested in seeing. I am however, cautious... it's a very difficult thing they are attempting and really hasn't been done well by anyone in the past...but I knew that risk going in.

Goblin Squad Member

Xeen wrote:
Valkenr wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:

From my perspective PFO is going to have to strike a good balance between alot of different activities if it wants to be truely successfull. PvP is going to be a major aspect of the game. However, it is important that it does not become such a dominant aspect of gameplay that it crowds out the other aspects of gameply. If it does, IMO, then what you are going to see happen is a positive feedback loop where eventualy the only players logging in to play will be the ones doing so to PvP. If that is the case, then it better hope that the PvP it offers is qualitatevly better then the hordes of other PvP focused online games out there, or it will be drowned out in a sea of competition.

If PvP dominates the game will fluctuate.

while (online == true)
{
PvP dominates, PvE gets frustrating, PvE leaves
PvP bored, no PvE to target, PvP leaves
PvE prospers and grows, PvP starts to grow
}

I suspect the game will be in a constant flux like this, and the magnitude is based on how GW balances PvP in the system.

Maybe PVE'ers need to learn to PVP, Since PVP'ers do PVE.

Simple fact in a game like this, you cannot have one without the other.

PVP'ers must PVE to be able to PVP. PVE'ers must PVP in order to PVE.

Xeen, I don't think most people here (alright there are some) expect that they'll be able to go through PFO without encountering PvP.

Though I have more interest in PvE and RP in PFO.... I certainly expect to participate in PvP... both when I'm planning and want to do so... and when I'm not planning and don't want to do so.

That wasn't the point of my post. The point of my post was that different people enjoy doing different things... and PFO is going to need people who have alot of different interests to be successfull.
If PvP ends up the only interesting gameplay aspect because GW have focused so much attention on it and everything else feels dull and tacked on...or if PvP becomes so all pervasive that it prevents people from experiencing the other aspects they enjoy....then the only people logging are people who's only interest is to PvP...and only when they want to PvP....in which case PFO had better hope it's PvP blows every other PvP focused game out of the water... and that's a tall order.

You aren't going to get people to spend thier time and money on an entertainment product that doesn't allow them to do the things that are entertaining for them.

Goblin Squad Member

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Bluddwolf wrote:
Settlement vs Settlement and Formation combat are what will differentiate PFO from the other MMOs.
This much is assuredly true.

While this is true, I'm not sure it will be a distinction with much meaingfull difference for most of the player base.

Settlement vs Settlement combat is clearly a very interesting and cool gameplay element..... for those making the decisions about which settlement to attack and when and how to attack them. However, that what?.... maybe 1 percent of the player base?

For the other 99 percent of those PvP-ing who are told when to salute and how high to jump.... functionaly it doesn't make much interesting difference to thier gameplay.

As far as formation combat.... we know so little about how it's really going to work that I think it's difficult to draw much of any conclusion there (even whether GW will really end up getting it to work)... it could end up being a very cool differentiator or it could end up being something that is fun and interesting to the formation leader and makes combat even more boring to the other guys in the formation.

For the game to do well, it's going to have to offer fun and interesting gameplay for the folks willing to play the privates...not just the folks who get to play captain. Otherwise you'll end up only with folks who want to play captain and nobody willing to play private... it's not hard to guess how that would work out.

Goblin Squad Member

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From my perspective PFO is going to have to strike a good balance between alot of different activities if it wants to be truely successfull. PvP is going to be a major aspect of the game. However, it is important that it does not become such a dominant aspect of gameplay that it crowds out the other aspects of gameply. If it does, IMO, then what you are going to see happen is a positive feedback loop where eventualy the only players logging in to play will be the ones doing so to PvP. If that is the case, then it better hope that the PvP it offers is qualitatevly better then the hordes of other PvP focused online games out there, or it will be drowned out in a sea of competition.

For fantasy based MMO's, it's not all that hard for PFO to come up with PvP that is competitive.... because most of them frankly do very poor quality PvP... at least the ones so far available. However, it won't just be competing against fantasy MMO's in that instance... it'll be competeing against all online games...from MMO-Like games like PS2 to pure match based games like the WoT or FPS like the Battlefield series....and even those in the fantasy-medeival arenas like Mount and Blade or Chivalry, etc.

It's also important to note that PFO's biggest selling points, persistance and sandbox, won't be particulary important selling points to the majority of players who will be PvP Focused. The reason why is that those gameplay elements only have an interesting effect on the strategic aspects of gameplay. However, the only people who really get to interact with the strategic aspects of gameplay in interesting ways will be the decision makers...the Guild Leaders and Millitary Strategists.... and those likely will encompass less then 1 percent of the player base. The rest of the player base, the 99 percent of rank and file grunts won't get to interact in an interesting and meaningfull manner with those strategic gameplay elements. For them it's going to be functionaly identical in terms of thier gameplay whether a guild leader tells them to fight Y opponent on X piece of dirt or whether a FPS scenario/map designer tells them to fight Y opponent on X piece of dirt. In fact, the non-persistant game probably has advantages in that arena since if you are getting clobbered there it lasts 30-60 minutes and then you get a fresh start not weeks, months or maybe never to recover from a drubbing.

This is not to downplay the importance of PvP... it's a critical aspect of gameplay for PFO. One I expect to participate in both voluntarly and involuntarly during part of my playtime in PFO.

However, if PFO really wants to do well...it's going to have to hit on all cylinders in the non-PvP aspects of gameplay as well. If it ends up just focusing on PvP and then calling it a day...it won't bode well for PFO's future. The thing that has me cautiously optomistic there is I'm fairly certain Ryan and company are well aware of that.

Goblin Squad Member

I plan on trying to RP during the game, as RP is my main enjoyment in MMO's. I'm not sure as to how practical that will end up being...but I'll do my best as the situation allows for it.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
Being wrote:

That certainly explains why the Western Hemisphere was settled so rapidly: The people were clearly content to be serfs.

I think that three of the larger immigration populations into the U.S. (Ireland, Italy, Germany) might correspond to the end of serf/small holders in those lands.

My father's family history goes something like this: serfdom was abolished in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (northern Germany, on the Baltic coast) in 1820. This meant that the former serfs were free to move. It also meant that the nobles no longer had to provide land to their former serfs. Many serfs became day-laborers, dependent on the nobles employing them. Others immigrated. My great-great(?)-grandfather came over as a child with his mother, after his father died. Without a husband/father who could work as a laborer, they probably faced the choice of starving in the winter or immigrating.

Well it's interesting to note some of the timing involved. The initial settlement spree of the New World happaned during a period of vast religious unrest in Western Europe. The Wars of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had, along with new fighting technologies had a very significant effect on the stability of Europe. This created groups of religious minorties who were disaffected, disfranchised and even exiled from thier home countries (i.e. the Pilgrims) who were actively seeking isolation... as well as a desperate need for new sources of revenue among many of the national governments in Europe (i.e. Spain, France and England) because of the expenses occured in such sweeping conflicts.

The 2nd wave and more major influx of immigration to the New World happaned to coincide with the beggining of the industrial revolution and the modernization of agriculture. This really was the death knell for the old order in Europe. Fewer strong backs were neccesary to make the land productive so having all those serfs that needed feeding and care and protection by the landholder started to become more a liability then an asset. Large portions of the population became displaced from the rural estates to the towns and the cities and with new technologies there was opportunity for them there.

The other thing was that population numbers had fully recovered from the Black Death and population pressures were increasing in Europe dramaticaly. It's no coincidence that the French Revolution started with food riots. Altogether, alot of factors came into play to put pressure on the old social order to break down.

The interesting thing would be to compare this to, say Japan, and see how slow and resistant the old social order was to change when those sort of pressures weren't a factor.

Goblin Squad Member

Being wrote:

Democracy, like politeness, occurs where everyone is deadly, where each must be considered by every neighbor.

To organize that democracy its members invest personal power and freedoms into the community, be it large or small, in what has been called the 'social contract'.

The portion of personal power invested in the community is the portion of freedom lost to that democracy. In an ideal democratic state, the portion of personal freedom surrendered will be equal to the significance of the democratic vote. If personal power, or freedom is transactional, and a person lives in a democracy, then any voluntary failure to vote in a democracy surrenders personal freedom... in exchange for nothing.

To scorn a democracy to which one is a member equates to scorn for that member's self, commensurate with whatever measure of personal freedom was surrendered for that vote.

<lengthy structured reasoning elided>

Long story short: an oligarchy should not expect long life because people worth having will require a say.

Not to be overly cynical but I would say that history has empiricaly disproven the notion that oligarchies or other non-democratic forms of government are short-lived.... unless you count centuries as short-lived. The feudal systems in Europe, the Empire's in China, Rome, Japan, the Pharoh's of Egypt, etc , all had pretty long lifespans... even many individual regiemes and dynasties have done fairly well in terms of longevity.

Not that I would advocate or want to live in one, such forms of government empiricaly stack up pretty well against democracies purely in terms of stability and longevity. Most democracies, with a few notable exceptions, have proven pretty fragile by comparison.

Humans naturaly tend to sort themselves into a social heiarchy, it's part of out evolution and as long as an individuals expectations for thier place in that heiarchy are met, they tend to be satisfied. TL;DR A person born a serf tends to be happy to remain a serf as long as they have a full belly and don't have to worry about running away from people with swords and axes on a regular basis.

Goblin Squad Member

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Audoucet wrote:
I guess some people here would be happier in North Korea.

No but this is a video game, a fantasy. It has room to play out all sorts of negative emotions and organizational structures....

I'm fairly certain Bluddwolf doesn't run around mugging people with a sword in real life, at least I hope he doesn't... but I fully expect to see it here. It can be fun, as long as everyone remembers it's just a game. It's when people forget that where we get into trouble....and honestly 95 percent of the guild drama we see stems from people, no matter how many hours they might put into it, forgetting that it's still just a fantasy.

Goblin Squad Member

In another life time and another game, I had pretty significant experience with this. We were Knightly Order. Functionaly we were more representative republic then democracy, but still achieved pretty good representation of membership. We pretty much followed the outlines I set above.

We had weekly meetings on a regular night and time. The agenda for each meeting would be set by the Grand Marshall for the Order who was elected by majority vote of full members. The Grand Marshall esentialy acted as moderator for the meetings. Agenda items were decided by a majority vote of those present, no sour grapes if you weren't there to vote. The one agenda item that the Grand Marshall of the Order had no control over was a vote of no confidence in the Marshall. This could be raised by any full member in any meeting and must be voted on in the following weeks meeting. That meeting would be conducted by the Herald (another officer), if I remember right, and the mandatory first order of business would be a yea/nay vote of confidence in the current Marshall followed by an immediate election of a new Marshall if there was a result of no confidence.

We had officership positions with individual areas of responsability to handle day to day stuff, and they set thier own chain of commands/responsability. Each was elected, again by a majority vote of the full membership. Though they had autonomy to act on thier own initiative on matters as they came up, they were answerable to the membership for thier decisions and could be replaced by a majority vote of those present.

We had multiple levels of membership...

Recruit - This was someone who had an expressed an interest in the Order and were invited by one or more members. They could observe meetings but not speak or otherwise participate in them. They could participate in other events, if invited to do so by a member but had no official capacity as part of the Order.

Squire - If a recruit showed both promise, they might be accepted as a Squire by a member. The member was responsable for the conduct of thier Squire and also for thier training both proffesionaly and in the ways of the Order. No member could have more then one Squire at a time and thier training period typicaly lasted 3-6 months, although some took well over a year. Squire's could be present at meetings and could speak with permission of thier sponsor. They could participate in other events and were officialy considered part of the Order.

Member - When and if a Squire demonstrated a sufficient mastery of thier training and qualities that befitted membership in the order, they could be put forward for full membership. Approval for Membership was conducted as part of the regular weekly meetings. It consisted of 2 parts, first there would be an oral questioning of the candidate by the full members present, followed by a yea or nay vote to proceed. The 2nd part would be at the conclusion of the meeting and would consist of a Trial by Combat to determine the candidates worthiness. A champion would be selected to represent the Order by the Marshal, usualy a volunteer but never the candidates sponsor and the candidate would have to face them in a 1 on 1 combat, either to the death or until 1 party yielded or was declared unable to continue. The champion would then declare whether the candidate fought well and with honor and was worthy of membership. This served as a veto against the candidates membership. The candidate would not neccesarly have to win the combat, usualy they didn't, just demonstrate sufficiently thier abilities. Members had full voting rights, participation in meetings and events and could hold any office.

Knights - These were individuals who were actualy knighted by GM's in live role-play events (it was a commercial MUD, such things happaned). It was a completely honorific title. Other then formalities, thier privileges within the Order were identical to full members. However, they were usualy given significant deference by members in meetings and events and very often were the ones to hold an office of some type.

It was a remarkably stable and effective structure. However, a key part of that was that it was also relatively small. I don't think we got above 50-75 active full members, at least not in the time I was there... but we did have alot of people who wanted to be members. We realized that growing too large would quickly make such a structure unmanigable....which is why we purposefully tried to limit it's growth.

Goblin Squad Member

Note that in an MMO almost all player run organizations are representative in a sense. The player joins them because he wants to be a part of them (for whatever reason). He or she can walk away at any time... even if it means just not playing the game. It's the ultimate expression of government by consent of the goverened. An ideal that the Founding Fathers very much strove for in thier efforts to shape the government of the U.S..... even though, in practice, we fall a good bit short of that ideal.

For MMO's, that means the leadership of the organization really has to demonstrate consistantly it's commitment and respect to the membership, it's values and concerns and to demonstrate thier capacity to lead well. In practice this becomes alot harder to achieve then it sounds in theory, especialy if the size of the membership grows beyond a small select group. I've often equated running player organizations in MMO's to trying to herd cats.

The most stable and effective organizations I've seen have had....

1) A founding mission statement - So everyone new why they were joining and what the organization was about.

2) Multiple levels of membership with a written and well established set of rights, privilages and responsabilities for each level and an established procedure for earning each level. Usualy the level where you actualy get to vote on things requires approval from those already holding that level.

3) A set of established offices or leadership positions with well defined areas of authority and responsability. Including someone to act as overall leader to, at minimum, arbitrate between the different offices.

4) A method for people who have earned the privilage of input to vote on important planning decisions, if time allows for it, and to elect officers and leadership positions.

5) A well defined method for replacing officers or leadership positions.

The strength of something like this over a strict oligarchy or benevolent dictatorship is that players feel more invested in the organization if they have some ownership of the decisions and choices made. The organization also has a chance to survive if it's membership loses confidence or becomes disillusioned with the current leadership.

Having leadership and officers is critical because you need people who can take immediate and decisive decisions when there isn't time for debate or simply to provide expert advice when there is but they are always answerable to the membership as a whole for those actions. It's also critical that full membership with full voting rights not be something quick or easy to achieve. The quicker and easier it is achieved, the more chaotic (in terms of stability, not alignment), fickle and ineffictive the organization becomes. However, once it is achieved/earned.... you really have to allow those members to be fully empowered. YMMV.

Goblin Squad Member

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"I think that there is a misconception, about democracy. It doesn't mean that the majority always rule about everything."

Technicaly that is what it means, in the strictest sense of the word. It's just that what most people call democracies, aren't.

For instance, most people mistakenly believe that the United States is a democracy. We aren't, we are a Constitutional Republic.

I'm not sure if there are any nations that are really democracies in the technical sense.

Goblin Squad Member

"UnSeen Aragonian Shadow Slayers"

So does this mean that you are..

A) unseen Argonian shadows who are slayers

B) Players who slay unseen Argonian shadows (neat trick there if you are slaying unseen shadows, those have gotta be tough to spot)

C) Players who are unseen and slay Argonian shadows

D) Argonians who are unseen and slay shadows

E) About to slay me for this comment

F) All of the above.

Goblin Squad Member

A digression into history again. The biggest drawback of armour, particularly of the type worn in the Middle Ages, wasn't about mobility or weight but rather HEAT. Anyone that's involved with strenuos actvity outdoors, particularly in warm weather, is acutely aware of the effects heat can have on a person. Being encased in heavy materials that don't breathe well seriously amplifies that effect. Not just practical experience today but a number of historical accounts bear that out pretty well... especialy those dealing with soldiers used to European climates starting to operate in warmer climates such as the Holy Lands.

Even up into modern times, without the heavy leather and plate, fatigue from heat and heat stroke is still an important concern for soldiers fighting in long battles or engaged in other strenuous activities during hot weather. It's why so much stress is put on keeping hydrated.

Goblin Squad Member

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FMS Quietus wrote:

It's not an exploit. At least not the definition I think we're talking here. It's a suggestion to use an intended game mechanic that results in a consequence. Now the fact that the person that used the intended game mechanic 'likes' the consequence has no bearing on whether it's actually an exploit.

This is no different than someone wanting to play an insane lunatic that has to stay away from all the settlements or be attacked. He can do that and the game will respond and give him that. The fact that he wants that to happen does not make it an exploit in my opinion.

I doubt the Dev's intended the MURDERER flag to be applied to killing oneself. They may not have even intended that a player be ABLE to kill oneself. The MURDERER flag (as I understand it) was intended for someone that had acted as the agressor in multiple PvP incidents so that other players had some measure of protection and warning against such players rather then being pure gank bait.

That being said, there is nothing unethical about what Nihimon is doing here. He's completely open about what he is doing and how it works. Moreover, it's ALPHA, this is the time and place to mess around with the mechanics and see how you can stretch, bend and break them. Ultimately the Dev's will determine whether it's an exploit or a "feature". My money is on the former. If they wanted players to be able to simply self-flag for PvP, it would have been pretty simply to build a function to do that. More importantly, it kinda muddies the MURDERER flag for players as no longer a usefull warning for players who are likely to initiate unprovoked PvP against you.

Goblin Squad Member

Basicaly GW has to plan for EE to be as successfull in terms of players as they want it to be. There is really no point in doing otherwise. It's probably likely that in the early part of EE Towers won't be a scarce enough resource that there is a real neccesity to fight for them. That's ok, as already mentioned people are likely to fight anyway... and the Towers gives some direction and structure as to where and how that is happening. As EE moves along, I'm sure GW hopes that there will be enough players coming into the game to make the Towers a resource actualy worth fighting over... If not then GW can make adjustments and frankly probably has more fundemental things to worry about then too many Towers... such as why are not enough people attracted to playing the game. YMMV.

Goblin Squad Member

I find this a very odd turn of the thread, indeed.

Bludd, I respect you, but I think you've backed yourself into an unsupportable arguement by most sane peoples standards....

"nothing of any substance" = ALL computer games including PFO, pretty much all hobbies or anything else in which ones own entertainment is the primary purpose.

You seem to be implying that someone who quits a computer game (or any other hobby) because they aren't enjoying it is somehow deficient in character. To put it bluntly, that's just plain NUTS. It's a computer game in a fantasy world, it's not defending the Fulda Gap against the 8th Guards Army.

Goblin Squad Member

Bluddwolf wrote:
Caldeathe Baequiannia wrote:
Bluddwolf wrote:
most people who express an aversion to trying a PvP focused game have usually never played one. They get a majority of their negative impressions from players who have pvp'd but sucked at it
Do you have a reference on that one, or is it an internet statistic?
Find me one person who was good at PvP and didn't like it. I've not been able to find one, in over a decade of playing MMOs, or PC games in general.

I'm actualy pretty decent at PvP (depending upon the game)...

- There are plenty of times I don't feel in the mood to play it. I prefer to play PvE games during those times.

- There are many games (MOST MMO's qualify here, so far in my experience) or game types where the quality of the PvP game play is VASTLY inferior to the quality of the PvE game play. When that's the case, I prefer PvE game play.

- I'm usualy more of a cooperative then a competitive person. That doesn't mean I can't be very good at something when I choose to compete at it. Example, when I was teenager I did some ski racing competitively. My NASTAR handicap was around a 15, that's without any practicing, preperation, training or buying equipment geared toward racing. While I did have fun doing it, I got alot more enjoyment from teaching friends how to ski then I ever did from racing.

Personaly, I think you are taking your own individual preferences and those of your circle of friends and projecting them onto the gaming populace as a whole.

Note, this is NOT to make a point about PvP focus in PFO... obviously it's going to have a heavy PvP focus, the designers have stated as much... also obviously those of us intending to play it understand that. It's responding to your general proposition.

I am certainly expecting to PvP SOME portion of the time in PFO. If PvP becomes an overly dominant play activity in PFO AND that PvP is of high quality game play (unlike most existing MMO's) I will most likely play it only when I am only in a mood to PvP. IF that is the case, I will most certainly seek out a 2nd MMO to play....and I will almost certainly have an aversion to trying a PvP focused game as that MMO... unless I am looking for it to replace PFO.

Goblin Squad Member

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One of the issues why speed/manuver/range is such an overpowering advantage is that holding a position doesn't count for squat.

If I were designing PFO....

- Heavy Armor + Shield in a defensive stance, in cover, in a perpaired position should be pretty impervious to ranged attacks of either the mundane (e.g. bows) or magical variety. You could fire at them all day and pretty much not ever do enough damage to bring them down.

- Holding certain strategic positions should really, really matter. It should matter ALOT more then getting some random kill out in the middle of nowhere.

- The job ranged should play is to lock down the manuverability and the ability to defend against MELEE attack of heavy infantry. Heavy infantry's job is to hold and defend a position. They work together to provide combined arms. You use Ranged to supress fire from you opponents ranged and allow your melee infantry to act offensively. You use Ranged to fix your enemies heavy infantry in position and hamper thier ability to defend against your melee. You use your heavy melee to hold a fixed position or to drive the enemies heavy melee from thiers.
Light fast ranged can't take or hold territory by itself (unless facing similar light fast ranged) but it can keep itself from being engaged by slower, heavier melee... unless it encounters them at close range and is not perpaired for it.

YMMV.

Goblin Squad Member

I tried to build nothing once but found I had nothing to work with. Since I already had nothing, I decided to abandon the effort. I'm not quite sure whether that means I succeded or failed.

Goblin Squad Member

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So here is the thing...

You can have a Pledge or Statement of Principles and these can be as specific or non-specific as the author of the statement writes. With no mechanism of authority and no mechanism for enforcing specific obligations or requirements on members and including/excluding signatories based upon thier actions, then that's all it is. Now individuals can look at the actions of a specific signatory and say "I really don't feel X is living upto what they pledged" and there may be social/reputational consequences to that, especialy if that's a widely held view among the members, but that's as far as it goes.

You can also have Alliances or Treaty Organizations (e.g. NATO). Those Alliances or Treaty Organizations. Those Organizations can also include a Statement of Principles for why they exist or how they intend to act. However, these must have some mechanism of authority...it doesn't have to be central, it can just be some sort of group voting mechanism among members. As well as specific (the more detailed the better) obligations that are expected of thier signatories and a mechanism for failing to live upto those organizations. As well as a method for including/excluding who the membership is.

Initialy RA seemed to be shooting for the latter (from what I read of the "mutual support" portion of the statement) now it seems to be functioning more as the former. The reason the latter couldn't work in the form put forward is that there MUST be some mechanism of authority and means of including/excluding membership in order for a Treaty Organization to be practical.

Otherwise (if you'll forgive an 80's analogy) the Soviet Union simply joins NATO by simply declaring it's intent to do so....and defeats (or at least undermines) the political rationale for NATO's existance (in the 80's) without ever firing a shot.

Not saying that anyones acting as the "Soviet Union" here... and while I'm pretty sure all the signatories of the RA are likely to support each others OOC goals of making PFO a fun and welcoming gaming community. I'm also fairly confident that with such a broad and inclusive membership some signatories are likely to try to wipe the floor with others in the game at some point.

Goblin Squad Member

Notmyrealname wrote:
GrumpyMel wrote:
Notmyrealname wrote:
So you die ,your gear is destroyed , your team wins the fight though and you lost it all for nothing. Or do the traps know that your team is losing as well as knowing that you died, how do items know you died anyway?
The traps are applied to items you carried. So when gear gets looted from your corpse, it doesn't matter by who, freind or foe, they have to be disarmed. I would assume that the player owning the trapped gear can remove the traps from the gear without a skill roll... but anyone else should need to make a roll. That's the way I would work it anyway.
I can see it if you are able to cast a magical trap on your items ,however that would be to injure looters. The OP seems to be about not wanting anyone to get any of your loot and trying to invent a game mechanic to do that, it's a bad way to build a game world in my opinion. The whole idea seems to be divorced from lore and about how people feel about being looted and trying to feel better about your characters death, it's supposed to be painful to die and benefit the one who wins.

My idea was not to make it an auto-destroy thing but to introduce the concept of traps (magical or mundane) which would be entirely inline with TableTop play and the lore. In fact, most of the time that you find a teasure chest or something very valuable in TT, there is a very good chance that you are going to have to go through a trap to get it.

Just because someone defeated another character in combat doesn't neccesarly mean that they would get the maximum amount of loot and do so without any risk to themselves. It's an extension of the contest between the 2 characters. You've directly defeated your opponents combat abilities...but can you defeat the security measures they've put on thier valuables? Some stuff it wouldn't make sense to have trapped, like the weapon they were using...but that mostly isn't going to be the stuff likely to get looted...more commonly it will be resources that the character was carrying like a bag of herbs or potions or a coffer full of valuable cloth, etc. One can very easly see things such as trade goods transported in chests or coffers or even pouches being protected with acid vial or black powder traps, let alone things like magic, etc.

You are simply adding another dimension of gameplay/conflict... that the contest hasn't entirely ended with the last sword stroke. Again, it should never be an auto destroy or anything like that, but a contest of skills between the trap maker and the disarmer.

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