Goblin Squad Member
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LOL!
And for those keeping track, this is why you can't create hard-and-fast guidelines for what constitutes "griefing". If you tried, you'd almost certainly want to prohibit the ability of one player to misquote another. But here, Andius and I are friends, and it is obvious to most people that we're just joking around. It's absolutely critical that reasonable human beings be allowed to use their best judgment to determine what's going on and whether or not it deserves to be punished.
[Edit] Oh, and lucky you, Andius, for managing to get the top spot on this page, while my obviously superior joke will now languish in eternal obscurity on the prior page.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No, of course not.
The definition of griefing is to intentionally cause distress to another person with the primary intent of making that person feel bad. platedewd didn't do that.
In fact, it's not clear from this example if b0n3d00d did either. Killing people in a sandbox is not griefing them. Even killing them just because you can is not griefing them.
This is why we don't have a "rule" for what constitutes grief. Because if we had a rule, people will just use that rule as a license to be "just slightly less than griefing" other people.
The question of the "grief" inflicted by bon3d00d is subjective. And we're the ones who get to decide if it is or isn't. So if bon3d00d wants to be a one-time a*!%@*&, get himself banned, after taking the time to skill train and then do a bunch of in-game activities to qualify for the character abilities to make the stuff he got from platedewd useful (which could be and likely will be months of time), he's a minor irritation to the community.
If people who want to be griefers find that its a huge hassle, they only get to do it once, the rest of the community tells them their a%&+*%$s instead of celebrating their cleverness/a@$#~@#ry, and there's not much in-game reward for doing it anyway, there will be a lot fewer griefers than there are in FFA open world PvP games that don't take a hard line against it.
I do hope first time offenders aren't banned for "griefing" unless it a very extreme example that may involve hacks. I'm no more of a fan of griefers than you are but I would rather see something like "Here's your one month ban, and if you ever do it again you are gone for good" for the most extreme examples not linked to hacking, and something like a 24 hour to one week kick for lesser offences. Maybe even just a warning for the more questionable cases.
I kind of figure you will use good judgement, but that quote comes off pretty zealous. It makes me happy that you will be dealing with the problem but any time I am one offence away from a permanent ban it makes me a bit uncomfortable. I really want to be sure that people receiving those are the ones who really should know they are stepping WAY out of line.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This sounds a lot like the discussion we had a few months ago with Balbamoth.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the end result was actions in violation of the user agreement would be handled with an iron fist due to the simple fact that Goblinworks would not initially have the resources to facilitate an investigation into every complaint.
Once a trend of "24 hour to one week for lesser offenses" is mapped, people push that envelope because they have a base line for exactly what a "minor" offense is. I can see a one time warning... but anything more than that is just asking for more trouble.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Once a trend of "24 hour to one week for lesser offenses" is mapped, people push that envelope because they have a base line for exactly what a "minor" offense is.
Very good point. Once it's determined that the player was intentionally being a jerk for the express purpose of ruining someone else's day, I don't see much point in leniency.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Onishi, you're drilling down and going into areas that, while are valid, are totally missing the premise of my point. My point being a high level, a macro level and you went micro.
Well I suppose I'm missing your higher level macro point then, on any level, things that are easy to do, can be done safer etc... suffer from high amounts of overubundane within the worlds. As a result profit per time spent, is drastically lower.
I am missing it, too, I think.
If something is easy to get, then more people will get it. This will impact the market.
If they vary the time that it takes to harvest different things they may be able to offset the commonality of some activities, but only to a degree.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If they vary the time that it takes to harvest different things they may be able to offset the commonality of some activities, but only to a degree.
They can easily make the resources available in "safe" areas scarce enough that they still have high value. This doesn't violate the economic principle you voiced, I'm just pointing out that if those resources are scarce, then they don't qualify as "easy to get".
Not that I think they're going to do that. I haven't found the quote yet, and there's a moderate chance that I was misreading what Ryan was saying about Eve and thinking he intended to apply it to PFO, but I believe they intend to make the resources available in "safe" areas fairly abundant and low-value.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see how a PC "mid level villian" is handled. I use the term level loosely. Once an evil character has amassed enough skill that they can trek to the good "upstart" area and kill just about anyone, and does this consistently, how will that be viewed?
Is Preying upon the weak to the point of exploitation not a hallmark of evil? Will that be viewed as griefing, if you kill the same newb 10 times in a row because he keeps heading in your direction? Or if you actively seek out a female elf because she reminds your character of an elven warrior who attacked your village, and kill her repeatedly, is that griefing?
How is "death" perceived from an "in-character" stand point? If you kill them and see them again in 10 mins?
And how will the pleas of those newbies be received by "good-aligned" players who can do something about it? If they don't, will that affect their alignment?
It's all up to interpretation from us. How will we perceive these acts?
I honestly think that will be one of the biggest friction points we face as a community.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Hi guys,
I haven't read the entirety of this thread as...well, that's a lot of reading, but I did want to pop in and make some points as to our current design goals. Now this is all still being worked out, but it gives you an idea of the directions we are heading:
1) Characters ramp up in power very quickly initially, and slow down over time. Also a starting character probably has 500-600 hit points, meaning while a max level Barbarian (the hit point leaders) will have around 1800 (a max level fighter 1600, rogue/cleric 1400, mage/sorcerer 1200 though this varies as it is an open system and people can buy more if they want) it's not a vast increase. So the level differential you see in many MMOs is not going to be such a thing; a team of starter characters can kill much more experienced characters. NOTE: These numbers are likely to change, but the proportions will remain roughly the same.
2) Our goal in our PvP systems design is to allow players to kill each other if they want, but put mechanical safeguards in that make the decision to do so one that needs some extra reason beyond simple greed or spite for it to make sense rationally. For example, if a player attacks an innocent, non-PvP focused crafter minding his own business the attacker will lose suffer the following:
a) The attacker gets a flag, labeling him a criminal. Anyone can kill him now without suffering Reputation or Alignment penalties, and killing him actually makes your Alignment more Lawful. Becoming Lawful is generally pretty hard to do, so people with the Criminal trait will be prized targets. Note that anyone who helps a person with the Criminal trait, such as healing them or buffing them, also gets the Criminal trait. It is infectious.
b) The attacker loses points on his Alignment, shifting him towards both Chaos and Evil. This means he drags down the Alignment of any settlement or venture company he is a member of, and Chaotic settlements are less efficient and effective than Lawful settlements. So his own settlement may get mad at him for being a ganker. Also note that alignment restrictions will apply; if you are a paladin or a lawful cleric who goes around ganking people, you will soon find many of your abilities no longer accessible.
c) The attacker loses points from his Reputation. Settlements require a certain minimum Reputation to enter safely, and more advanced structures in your settlement have a required minimum Reputation. You don't get to have cathedrals and keeps by letting the riff raff in. So by ganking this poor crafter the ganker may no longer be allowed in his own settlement, and instead have to go to the wretched hives of scum and villainy that allow anyone inside, but lack high level training facilities, crafting facilities, etc. Also characters who have a low Reputation will be marked so you know they are not to be trusted.
d) The victim can choose to level a death curse at the killer on resurrection by praying to the goddess of vengeance. Doing so reduces the killer's ability to keep his equipped gear from being lootable.
3) Players can choose to rebuke or reward other players in terms of Reputation and Alignment, either increasing or decreasing the attribute respectively. This costs the player giving the rebuke/reward Reputation or Alignment, and you must have a higher Reputation/Alignment than your target, but it lets you reward other players for good behavior or punish them for bad behavior. This costs Reputation/Alignment in order to stop people from just doing it willy nilly. If you choose to reward someone for good behavior, you get a minor buff as a reward for being a generous person.
So if you gank someone you get a big target on your head saying people should kill you because you are a Criminal and more of your stuff is lootable. Plus you have limited your own effectiveness by becoming more Chaotic and lowering your Reputation.
The victim will have lost some equipment and money most likely, but the killer may end up in worse shape if someone else finds him.
So our hope is that to a rational player, it will not be worth the pain to kill another player outside of recognized conflicts like wars between settlements (where these rules do not apply as forcefully). Now some players will not be rational, but our hope is between social pressure (since you don't want griefers in your settlement if you want an awesome settlement) and mechanics we can keep them to a minimum.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Taking for granted that the obvious Lawfullness grinding hole is fixed...
Is there any plan for supporting career criminal characters, such as professional commerce raiders? (Either freelance or with a sponsoring group)?
Are there areas out in the wilderness, or player-controlled areas, where the penalties will be relaxed even outside of declared war?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Onishi, you're drilling down and going into areas that, while are valid, are totally missing the premise of my point. My point being a high level, a macro level and you went micro.Well I suppose I'm missing your higher level macro point then, on any level, things that are easy to do, can be done safer etc... suffer from high amounts of overubundane within the worlds. As a result profit per time spent, is drastically lower.I am missing it, too, I think.
If something is easy to get, then more people will get it. This will impact the market.
If they vary the time that it takes to harvest different things they may be able to offset the commonality of some activities, but only to a degree.
Well, one notion I want to address is the assumption that just because a given action is performed in a PvP area it is somehow automatically harder to do than in an area where the police respond faster. This assumes that everytime that action is performed they are attacked which is not true. Thus the majority of the time, and even more so now after reading Lee Hammock's post, the action is of equal difficulty.
My point: If player A works long and consistently mining X in the "safer" area he should be able to make as much coin from his efforts over time as Player B mining Y in the "less safe" area.
They may not be harvesting or crafting the exact same thing, but all craftable items should have some measure of sustained demand. Additionally the items from resource Y should not always have more value than those from resource X. Ideally they should fluctuate so that during different periods or in different situations each has a chance to be preferable.
Loose example, but let's say iron is X and gold is Y. Gold typically is more sought after and assigned a higher monetary price. Yet if there is a war going on Iron may be more valuable at that time to make weapons and armor. Gold is terrible to make weapons and armor with. Sure, you may use gold to buy Iron weapons, but ultimately it is the iron at that time that is most valuable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Lee
Given the system you just described... it sounds like there are A LOT of downsides to going chaotic. The upside for chaotic-evil being you can kill, loot, and steal as you please.
What would be the BENEFITS you envision for being chaotic good or my own alignment of neutral good?
What implications does this have on our company's decision to run a neutral-good settlement that allows both lawful and chaotic players?
I'll admit that my example probably relied a bit on people having actually read the b0n3d00d and platedewd comics from UO back in the day, something that seemed to be of common discussion as more then just a theory. (Suffice to say, they're griefers)
But Ryan, I encourage you to reconsider my argument on this. Without the cloak of metaphor, What platedewd and b0n3d00d are doing is getting together to provide buffs that allows b0ned00d to kill players with relative ease, denying them the ability to survive or retaliate on their own, and meanwhile since he is not directly involved, shielding platedewd himself from any sort of reprisal for his actions. It is not the act of killing that is the problem, it is that this is at it's core a form of exploiting, unless the system has some method to prevent this.
The pen and paper equivalent to this would be to have a boss at the end of a 10th level mod have a 20th level cleric buff the living daylights out of the boss and then teleport away as the party approaches. I believe you would find that the majority of people who play through mods would frown apon this as encounter design, yet it is to be welcomed into the game?
If you don't understand why that is the case, you should spend some time thinking about the theory and practice of game design.
While I'm surprised that I apparently struck enough of a nerve to have a CEO of a game company directly insult me, I offer UO as my counter-argument to your statement. UO was designed around Open World PVP, and even limited space that you couldn't touch (housing plots), there was a resurgence in interest in the game when the non-PVP shards opened up. And they basically did exactly what I just said: They turned PVP Off.
People proved that they were more than capable of finding plenty of other activities and things to explore to preoccupy them. Actually, people finally got a chance to go and see things they have never had a chance to see before, because in the past they were too busy running away from lunatics screaming "CORP POR, CORP POR". People got that chance to roleplay being a tavern owner, or a blacksmith, etc.
As a second counter-argument, I offer EVE. As one poster pointed out, "there are players who almost never leave the station", and players who never leave high security areas. My point is that there is obviously a group of players that are willing to accept a somewhat-diminished play experience as a tradeoff for not having to deal with PVP.
There will always be people in MMOs who kill just for the sake of killing and to vent their sociopathic desires that they can't fulfill in the real world, and who's goal is to ruin other's play experiences. And I'll be completely honest, my tolerance for playing a game with or having to deal with people like this has drastically decreased at the same rate as my available hours to play these sorts of games.
And finally, to quote your statement:
Investing in features that let you do interesting things with each other is far better than investing in features that make the world look prettier, sound better, tell an NPC story, show off some new technological advance, etc. That focus will hopefully keep us from going down some of the detours that other sandbox MMOs have followed which took money and attention away from their core design at the expense of player satisfaction.
I'm going to agree with you completely, however I am going to also make the assertion that trying to "get PVP right" is exactly one of the detours that has consumed and been the downfall of many, many games before.
Overall, as I said - I'm willing to give you a chance and I believe in your team enough to give it a shot, but please understand my wariness. I do not enjoy having my limited playtime wasted running back to my corpse for the 6th time in a night because someone "really had a bad day at work" and decided they wanted to play Quake with swords instead of participating in a fantasy sandbox.
I'm not trying to change your core development philosophy. I'm not trying to get you to "change your mind", it's pretty obvious that it's already set. All I'm asking for is a way to play the game and "opt out" of dealing with d-bags.
Besides, if nothing else: People like me give you a great opportunity to prove me wrong, and I'd enjoy nothing better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lee: Thanks for posting this--very helpful, and a lot to chew on. I'm trying to think through what this means for conflict, as opposed to murder/greifing. You've walked us through the clear case (ganking some crafter). What about more balanced kinds of conflict?
Imagine two players, one from settlement A, and one from B, both happen upon a resource around the same time. Each gets their mates to come, and try and set up a mining camp, and there's legitimate disagreement over who gets the resource. Maybe both sides think they got there first, and this spills over into armed conflict.
How might that be handled?
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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@Lee
Given the system you just described... it sounds like there are A LOT of downsides to going chaotic. The upside for chaotic-evil being you can kill, loot, and steal as you please.
What would be the BENEFITS you envision for being chaotic good or my own alignment of neutral good?
The value of an alignment varies mainly on two axis: freedom and settlement options.
A chaotic character suffers no penalties if he goes into a settlements and breaks its laws, such as if a settlement outlawed members of a certain race. A chaotic character has less to lose in PvP, though can still suffer for bad target choices. If you want to play a trouble causing good guy who takes down evil regardless of where he finds it, chaotic good is for you.
Neutral good is about options. You can build any good-aligned structure in your settlement, from temples of Iomedae to temples of Caydean Cilaen. You're not the best organized and you can't do whatever you want, but you get parts of both worlds.
A good many of the benefits of alignment involve settlements, and Chaotic settlements are generally less efficient than lawful settlements (for example, their upkeep cost is higher, but if you make enough money through other means obviously this can be overcome). Chaotic towns are easy to manage; you don't have to worry about anyone coming and committing crime, which makes your town more chaotic, as it's already there.
Good vs. Evil is a matter of flavor for the most part; good aligned towns will have different alliance options than evil towns. So a Chaotic Good town may join a Neutral Good alliance and build an outpost for them in the settlement, unlocking Alliance gear, training, NPCs, etc. A Chaotic Evil settlement can't join that same alliance, but could join the Cult of Lamashtu. Each has different costs and benefits.
Basically law vs. chaos is a choice of playstyle; if you want to fight the man and cause trouble, Chaotic is for you. If you want your settlement to be a place you hang out but don't worry about developing while you run around and do whatever, go Chaotic. If you want your town to be the best town ever and run as efficiently as possible, go Lawful.
Most players will probably end up in varying shades of neutral.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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@Lee
#2 seems to go against what we have been told already.
Will people be getting flagged as criminals and suffering alignment shifts outside of the marshal zones?
Yes, outside of accepted conflicts like declared wars between settlements.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Lee: Thanks for posting this--very helpful, and a lot to chew on. I'm trying to think through what this means for conflict, as opposed to murder/greifing. You've walked us through the clear case (ganking some crafter). What about more balanced kinds of conflict?
Imagine two players, one from settlement A, and one from B, both happen upon a resource around the same time. Each gets their mates to come, and try and set up a mining camp, and there's legitimate disagreement over who gets the resource. Maybe both sides think they got there first, and this spills over into armed conflict.
How might that be handled?
There's three ways currently they could plan on handling this, assuming they were dead set on fighting:
1) Fight dirty and ambush the enemy, sucking up the alignment and reputation hits, etc, associated. If the resources are valuable enough or a straight fight too uncertain, this may be worth it. Sure if it's just some iron who cares? But something like finding an adamantine meteor, that would be worth stabbing some dudes over. If this is your choice, calling in a hit squad of less lawfully aligned friends or allies to do the dirty work for you may not be a bad call; enter the chaotic mercenary company!
2) Gang Fight: Need a better name, but effectively you as a group challenge them as a group to a fight without the various punishment mechanics kicking in. This is effectively a big duel that they have to accept for it to work, but if it's that or be murdered one by one by you in sneak attacks, they may go for it.
Note: we're also looking at a possible option where you can turn off some fashion of the punishment mechanics against those who kill you as sort of a "come get me and you won't get punished" way to signal you want to fight. Or maybe some manner of declaration of an area being contest territory, in which some aspects of the system are not applied. But that's all very up in the air.
3) Get your settlement to go about the process of declaring war on theirs, assuming they are a member of a settlement. This takes some time though, so probably not the best option as they may be done mining by then.
If the two groups were from rival or enemy settlements, my hope is that they would kill each other. If they are from neutral or friendly settlements, my hope is they would talk out some manner of deal between the two factions. If two paladins show up on opposite sides of this disagreement, they best talk it out or they take the first steps towards losing their role abilities.
In these systems we still need to figure out the scales of all the numbers; one ill chosen kill is not going to make your paladin lose his lawful alignment, or make your crafter's reputation terrible. People have to make repeated choices, and can always work to redeem themselves, at least in the eyes of the system.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Taking for granted that the obvious Lawfullness grinding hole is fixed...
Is there any plan for supporting career criminal characters, such as professional commerce raiders? (Either freelance or with a sponsoring group)?
Are there areas out in the wilderness, or player-controlled areas, where the penalties will be relaxed even outside of declared war?
I assume by professional commerce raiders you mean bandits?
Yes, but most bandits will probably be some combination of neutral or chaotic and evil. Killing random people to take their things is not a lawful or good act 99% of the time (people does not include undead, dragons, aberrations, etc. Killing those can totally be acceptable). But you can totally do it. You can build hideouts to hide in, you can run inns where you see where people are travelling and then tell your friends so they can ambush them, you can run settlements as bandit havens where is anyone is welcome (though the amount of money you lose to graft will be pretty high). But the various downsides of killing people still apply. You can totally be a chaotic evil low reputation brigand and murder to your heart's content, just don't expect to have settlements beating down your door to recruit you. And you'll have to rob a lot of people to keep your bandit town running due to all the upkeep money lost to graft.
If you were playing a more Robin Hood-esque bandit who only killed low reputation or evil characters, that could totally be worked too (though you would need someone to detect who was evil, you can't tell alignment by looking at someone).
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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"
a) The attacker gets a flag, labeling him a criminal. Anyone can kill him now without suffering Reputation or Alignment penalties, and killing him actually makes your Alignment more Lawful.
"That's a license to become fully lawful any time I wish, as long as I have more than one account at my disposal. Alignment shifts are now meaningless to me, because I can become anything I want by grinding alignment with multiple accounts.
Reputation? Not being able to enter settlements? Again, means nothing to someone with multiple accounts, unless you can't transfer items from one account/player to another, ever.
Rebuke/Reward? Instantly abuse-able with multiple accounts.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your boss has different ideas than this:
"
There will always be people in MMOs who kill just for the sake of killing and to vent their sociopathic desires that they can't fulfill in the real world, and who's goal is to ruin other's play experiences. And I'll be completely honest, my tolerance for...
I cut down your post to what I thought were the most relevant parts; if you feel I cut out a salient point I apologize as I do not wish to mischaracterize your post.
I didn't post all the numbers break down for how the systems work, as I said these were directions we were going in. So not every facet got explained, such as diminishing returns on all alignment and reputation based interactions. So yes, people could still theoreticaly use different accounts to boost their ratings, but with ever decreasing results to the point of having no effect if the same characters are involved in the same interactions. Nothing I've posted is finished, everything is going to be tweaked over time and refined.
Not being able to enter settlements is still a viable problem as training of advanced skills can only be done in settlements. If you are a low reputation character, or of an alignment that is not welcome in the towns that provide the training you need, you may not be able to advance to the higher tiers of your role. There may be bandit towns that can provide that training, but they will likely charge through the nose for it since they cost more for upkeep. So it's not a matter of going in with one character and handing off gear to another; settlements involve more than that.
You're right in that a player who does not care for the consequences will still kill people, but our goal is to make sure that players does not prosper long term so he falls behind the power curve. That won't stop him or her from killing people at all, but will hopefully help deal with the problem long term while keeping the freedom of player interaction that makes these sorts of games interesting. Do we design a lackluster game because a small percentage of players may be abusive, or do we try to make the most interesting game we can and curb those players as best we can? I'd rather shoot for the second option.
While I appreciate your obvious enthusiasm for the project, I apologize for the fact it's not going in the direction you'd like.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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But Ryan, I encourage you to reconsider my argument on this. Without the cloak of metaphor, What platedewd and b0n3d00d are doing is getting together to provide buffs that allows b0ned00d to kill players with relative ease, denying them the ability to survive or retaliate on their own, and meanwhile since he is not directly involved, shielding platedewd himself from any sort of reprisal for his actions. It is not the act of killing that is the problem, it is that this is at it's core a form of exploiting, unless the system has some method to prevent this.
You are simply incorrect in your base assumption.
Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
The problem with your example is that it's an example of thinking about charcter-killing as de facto bad, as opposed to thinking about it as a part of the content players make for each other.
While I'm surprised that I apparently struck enough of a nerve to have a CEO of a game company directly insult me, I offer UO as my counter-argument to your statement. UO was designed around Open World PVP, and even limited space that you couldn't touch (housing plots), there was a resurgence in interest in the game when the non-PVP shards opened up. And they basically did exactly what I just said: They turned PVP Off.
If you don't understand why that is the case, you should spend some time thinking about the theory and practice of game design.
My friend, that was not an insult. That was a suggestion that you reconsider a fatally flawed premise of your core argument. That a well-designed game which features PvP can be a well-designed game when you turn off PvP.
In fact, Ultima Online did not perform as you suggest. When the game was split into two sections, one with PvP and one without, the bulk of the population moved to the one without PvP. And subsequently, the game population collapsed.
These two factors are related.
Without the PvP element of its game design the rest of the game suffered and became far less interesting. People who thought what they wanted was UO without PvP discovered what they really wanted was UO without PvP for themselves only, because if everyone else in the game was still at risk, then the things they did had value and were meaningful. But when everyone got safe, nobody had anything worthwhile to contribute and the game stagnated.
The split took place when the 2nd UO expansion was released in May of 2000.
According to MMORPGCharts the game's growth trajectory flattened afterwards, and by mid-2001 it had ceased to grow. This flattening of growth was (I would argue) due to the fact that the game's design was gutted by the introduction of the non-PvP world.
UO sustained a stable player population for 2 years (although I'd argue that was due more to the old practice of never turning off a subscription until a player demanded the subscription be terminated than that the actual in-game player population remained stable).
Note that EverQuest, the best PvE game of its era, launched before UO hit its peak. People who wanted a PvE experience had one, if they wanted it, yet Ultima Online continued to grow. It's certainly true that EQ grew faster than UO grew - obviously more people wanted a PvE game than PvP game - a fact I think is manifestly still true today.
We may never know what would have happened if UO had decided to commit themselves to being the best PvP MMO, and let the larger slice of the market go to EQ. What we do know is that at the same time UO's player population collapsed, EVE Online launched, and it thereafter grew for seven years consecutively, becoming nearly twice the size of UO at its height, and still going strong today.
I would therefore argue that UO's failure was exactly what you advocate - they went with "option #2", and it killed that game.
RyanD
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CEO, Goblinworks
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Players that play more than 12 hours a day. Every Day. With 6-8 concurrent online characters at their disposal. That's the "monster" you're either not considering, or are ignoring.
We know all about them, and we're not ignoring them.
The solution to most of your objections can be summed up by "don't let people make easy recoveries from evil acts".
The most important thing is not that characters can kill other characters. The most important thing is that there are consequences for doing that. And it's a corollary of that statement that the more often a character kills other characters, or helps a character killer, the harder it must be for that character to recover from doing so.
There are all sorts of feedback mechanisms capable of taking a player's actions and amplifying them so that negative consequences are hard to fix, regardless of how many characters a given player is playing.
There are consequences that can never be fixed - or are not mechanically fixable - like the enmity of other players. In a theme park game that's almost meaningless. In a sandbox game where territorial control is paramount, it is exceptionally meaningful.
Interfering with people's attempt to grind reputation or to sidestep reputational challenges by staying within a tightly controlled peer group (whether you run all those peers yourself is meaningless) will be a fundamental part of the design of the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love the thought that has gone into these design ideas. I can see it having meaningful consequences to those with evil characters.
Sure we won't be griefer free, but the PFO community will like play a huge part in limiting their growth and effectiveness due to self-policing.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Taking for granted that the obvious Lawfullness grinding hole is fixed...
Is there any plan for supporting career criminal characters, such as professional commerce raiders? (Either freelance or with a sponsoring group)?
Are there areas out in the wilderness, or player-controlled areas, where the penalties will be relaxed even outside of declared war?
I assume by professional commerce raiders you mean bandits?
I meant people hired for the specific purpose of disrupting other people's transportation, part of [urll=http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2p7ci?Goblinworks-Blog-I-Can-See-for-Miles#48]this scenario[/url].
The RL equivalent would be privateers with a letter of Marque attacking merchant ships ca. 1700-1850. It might be hard to differentiate the behavior of privateers and pirates without some kind of official sanctioned feature.
If those commerce raiders aren't welcome in some segments of polite society, I'm fine with that. What I object to is making it essentially impossible for them to keep up with the power curve of polite society, because they fill a role that is important in the development of emergent behavior.
On another note, you mention that it will be nontrivial to determine the alignment of someone you meet, and also that characters will have an effect on the alignment of settlements that they are members of. Is it intended that the leaders of the settlement know the cause of their settlement's alignment shifts? Will expelling the unaligned members reverse the alignment change?
You are simply incorrect in your base assumption.
Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
Believe me, I've played plenty of MMOs and I've had plenty of characters bleed out by my hands. It is not the the act of killing other characters that is bad, but the types of behaviors that are enabled by the capability to do so.
The problem with your example is that it's an example of thinking about charcter-killing as de facto bad, as opposed to thinking about it as a part of the content players make for each other.
Well, consider the experiences I have had to guide me in this. Two years of barely being able to leave towns because of roving packs of murderers running around the wilds of UO (In 2 years of playing, I never even *SAW* a Dungeon, because you'd zone in to 3 Lightning Bolts to the face. Weekends spent pinned back at the entrance to the higher level areas of the PVP portions of the DAOC, which was necessary to enter just to level up, because your faction was outnumbered 2:1. Nights spent sitting in camps in Stranglethorn Vale hoping that max level character would get bored and move on, because either no one was interested or able to drive them away. Running around in Star Wars where imperials outnumbered republic 3 or 4 to 1, so even if you could get help, they could get more. Being pinned in the safe area of TERA because 5 steps away there was a person who could and would kill you in one swing.
So, yes. My experiences with PVP in MMOs have been pretty much wholly negative. I could just as easily argue with you that the stagnation of UO's playerbase was first the die-hard PK crowd ditching since they couldn't ruin people's nights anymore, and the resulting lack of growth being tied into the launch of DAOC (I myself maintained UO and EQ accounts until DAOC came out, after which I no longer saw any reason to maintain an account in a game that was so far behind graphically and mechanically) Or I could argue that the fact the expansion did not really add anything to the game (Necromancy is coming soon, we promise!), but I won't.
We'll just have to agree that we don't see eye to eye on this one, because you're not going to win me over, nor am I going to win you over. But, in closing, I just want to state one thing -
At no point have any of my complaints been "I might die." I don't care about dying here or there. I care about someone killing me 7 times in a row as I re-spawn and am just trying to get my stuff and just get away. And, despite the fact we fundamentally disagree, you can still have my 2 hundred bucks and I'll continue to trust you to make a good game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
Being killed by other players with some real (or perceived) unfair advantage can certainly feel a lot like being griefed.
It doesn't seem like anyone really is suggesting they don't approve of the idea of Player versus Player mechanics. PVP can be a lot of fun after all.
It's also important to remember however that PVP is rarely engaged upon in a level playing field by people looking to cause grief. No one ever attacks you when you're at full health and ready for it, they attack you from surprise when you're half dead fighting another monster or 3.
So it's something to keep into consideration while your designing an open world PVP always on game. Hopefully it won't turn into a game of Whack-(nerf?)-a-Mole like it did for things like World of Warcraft.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like to see player have to earn their alignment, you can't just create a character and say 'I'm lawful good', you have to perform actions to shift your alignment, and shifting to lawful or good should take significantly more work than shifting to chaotic or evil. The extreme alignment characters should be few and far between, and it should be a meaningful status symbol to be high in an alignment.
I would really like every person to go through an 2-4 hour tutorial where they are an adolescent and their actions determine their starting traits(nothing big, just stuff that compensates for having no skills when you create your character), I know people want to create these complex back stories, but I would like 100% of a players story to be in the span of the game, I don't want somebody to say "I killed a dragon before I came to the river kingdoms" and be total crap in combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valkenr
I've seen some MUDs do a 15 minute tutorial during character creation where you walk through a 'dream sequence' that is a choose you own adventure type of thing. At the conclusion of this, you are given a suggested alignment and several traits to use for your shiny new character. If people do this in an honest fashion, it really makes it easier for them to stay with their chosen alignment.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I would really like every person to go through an 2-4 hour tutorial
Unfortunately, that would give us a 90% attrition rate from people who laughed and deleted the game.
Nobody wants to do ANYTHING after they install but play. Tutorials have to integrate seamlessly with the game so that you're given instruction while you are doing your thing. Otherwise, people today quit and delete.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Becoming Lawful is generally pretty hard to do, so people with the Criminal trait will be prized targets.
That is beautiful in its simplicity. However, I share Decius's concerns that this might lead some players to gank lowbies for the express purpose of getting the Criminal flag so that their friends can kill them to gain Lawful alignment shifts.
The victim can choose to level a death curse at the killer on resurrection by praying to the goddess of vengeance. Doing so reduces the killer's ability to keep his equipped gear from being lootable...
Players can choose to rebuke or reward other players in terms of Reputation and Alignment...
Wow! Again, fantastic!
... with ever decreasing results to the point of having no effect if the same characters are involved...
I strongly encourage you to scale the Lawful alignment shifts of those who kill Criminals according to how well-developed the Criminal's character is. So a throwaway character simply doesn't grant much of a shift.
... you as a group challenge them as a group to a fight without the various punishment mechanics kicking in...
It is really gratifying to see some of the ideas that we've been discussing as a community show up in your design. I think that will definitely create a positive feedback loop where we are even more motivated to continue innovating and refining. Somebody ought to come up with a cool term to describe this process... :P
... barrel full of awesome...
Indeed!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am so glad that Ryan and Lee are sticking to their guns on this one. I know their ideas behind PvP will lead to a really great sandbox game with very interesting social interactions. Those of you that hate the idea so badly, please choose one of the following 2 options:
1) Wait and see.
2) Move on to another game that suits you better.
They have given you way more information than they need to. PvP is not being removed from the game, thankfully. I'm sure there are other developers out there right now working on a new sandbox PvE game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm still reading through all the blogs and these forums trying to make sure I understand everything. So far I am really liking what I see. I've stayed away from or left other games in the past due to very bad griefing. For a long time I swore off all games that allowed PvP because of the experiences I had. I've since learned that PvP does not always equal griefing and I've learned to love it when done right.
One thing that I'm not seeing is anything that would expressly exclude the possibility of a lawful/neutral evil assassins guild.
Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
One of my favorite PnP characters is an assassin and I've wanted to roleplay her as part of a guild in an MMO for sometime. How I picture an assassins guild is similar to what I have read here about bounty hunters, except they wouldn't limit themselves to contracts based on the official in game bounty system as described so far. An assassin would take care of that rude guy from the next guild over, teach a lesson to the leader of your rival guild or infiltrate that rival guild with spies. It would be a risky proposition for the client, but say someone had a rare item they wanted stolen, an assassin could trick a mark into carrying that item into a medium security zone and then kill them. This would be risky for the client, because it would be possible for that item to be destroyed instead of looted if I understand correctly.
The assassin would have to be very mindful of the wrath of the marshals. Since there are penalties for this type of behavior the assassins would have to select what contracts they accepted carefully. If I was running the guild I would have strict policies on the number of contracts per day and no repeating a hit on the same character within some set number of days or weeks. The point of this would be to fulfill a role that exists in almost every real society, not to harass any single player. The guild would of course have to police its characters closely to make sure griefers weren't just using it to justify their activities.
I just hope that the system will allow this to be done as a lawful evil or neutral evil act and not punish the guild as being chaotic.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am so glad that Ryan and Lee are sticking to their guns on this one. I know their ideas behind PvP will lead to a really great sandbox game with very interesting social interactions.
Absolutely agree. As soon as the creative vision begins to be watered down that's when you have trouble, which is precisely the story Ryan was relating about the history of UO.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Robb
I appreciate your concerns, especially as I've never been involved in PVP outside of a persistent world on NWN. However, much of your concern has been addressed in the design of the game.
For instance you'll be able to initially start in one of the player towns, which are protected by NPC Marshals. If someone killed you as you spawned, then they would be set as a criminal and an NPC Marshal would appear and kill them. Since they are now labelled as a criminal they be automatically attacked by the Marshals (for a limited time).
When you respawn you'll have the option of placing a bounty on your attackers head. People (especially The Great Legionnaires) will attack and kill these brutes on sight. Since players are allowedd to kill criminals on sight, then they will be at risk from bounty hunters, NPC Marshals, and players who want a strong lawful alignment. So at most you'll die once then be safe in the NPC starter town.
The NPC starter towns are there to offer you a safe zone until you're ready to leave. However, I wouldn't advise leaving the safe zone unaccompanied. So make friends, join a chartered company, and you'll soon have enough warm bodies around you to offer you some safety.
Another design feature that will make it easier for you character to survive is the power-curve of the game. We've been told that there will be an intial rapid growth in power in early levels (thus making you competitive), and slowing down at later levels. So it short order you should be able to stand up for yourself.
Personally I'm not a huge fan of PVP. However, I'm cautiously optimistic with what I've read so far, and I'm willing to give PFO the benefit of the doubt and try it to see what really happens.
If I've misunderstood anything, I'm sure the kind posters in this forum will set matter straight shortly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Note: we're also looking at a possible option where you can turn off some fashion of the punishment mechanics against those who kill you as sort of a "come get me and you won't get punished" way to signal you want to fight. Or maybe some manner of declaration of an area being contest territory, in which some aspects of the system are not applied. But that's all very up in the air.
I think Tera Online had something like this.
at a certain level you got a quest to talk to an npc who taught you a skill that allowed you to flag yourself for open combat without reprecusions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
incorrect, what you should have said was "Killing other players is NOT ILLEGAL, it is in fact a large and accepted part of the game design."
If the other player is a non-consenual party to said killing it is in fact griefing, i.e. the act of causing grief to another player.
Understand that this doesn't make it wrong or unnaceptable.
Its a concious decision made by the design team to build a certain type of game for a certain type of people.
As someone who has played eve online off and on since release with three accounts I understand this. I despise the fact that the dev's there and here aparently want to try and pretty this up and claim theres no such thing as greifing when in fact its a core concept of the game, thats what makes it stand out from all the other mmo's on the market!!
You can legally, within the rules cause as much grief and agony among other players as you wan't if you are willing to accept the consequences for your actions, with the consequences sounding more like bonus's to me rather then penalties :-p
I personally don't think thats what pathfinder is about and worry that the MMO could affect the marketability of the TT game what with the newest version of D&D coming out, suposedly with everything that made pre-4.0 good back and what little good there was in 4.0 staying when people walk in expecting PATHFINDER and getting eve-online instead.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Summersnow: Can you describe the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be 'griefing', by your definition? That would be the smallest set of characteristics that EVERY act which is griefing has, and which NO act which is not griefing satisfies.
Please be specific, since this is the only way I have to know what you are referring to when you say 'griefing'. I already believe I understand what Ryan means, because he has taken time to specifically explain what he is calling griefing, and what he believes should be done about it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Summersnow: Griefing in MMOs and the dictionary meaning of the word grief have two slightly different meanings.
In a game that has consequences to PKing and where PK is legal, killing another PC is generally not seen as griefing - with some caveats such as using exploits or repeated PKing.
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@ Summersnow
The very act of playing a game where you know someone will try to kill you makes it not greifing.
Greifing is when players do everything they can to prevent other players from enjoying the game. In a game about PvP however, combat is a part of the game, if you don't enjoy that aspect, then it's not greifing because it's your choice to play a game that is about PvP.
Halo for example is all about the PvP, having a wonderfull story mode doesn't change that. If you don't want to die then don't play a game centered on death.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Killing other characters is not griefing. It will be a commonplace, accepted part of the game. Enabling someone else to kill other characters is not griefing and will also be a commonplace, accepted part of the game.
incorrect, what you should have said was "Killing other players is NOT ILLEGAL, it is in fact a large and accepted part of the game design."
If the other player is a non-consenual party to said killing it is in fact griefing, i.e. the act of causing grief to another player.
By that logic killing a player in a PVP battlegrounds where you both consented to go there is griefing if they are a sore loser and it upsets them. Being a more highly skilled player than someone else while you are working together in a dungeon is griefing if they get jealous and upset about it.
That quite simply is NOT the definition of griefing.
Griefing is when YOUR INTENTION is to cause another player grief. Not when something causes them grief. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to kill someone where causing grief is not your intention.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...Weekends spent pinned back at the entrance to the higher level areas of the PVP portions of the DAOC, which was necessary to enter just to level up, because your faction was outnumbered 2:1...
As a DAoC veteran I can only say LOL. You could reach max level and best gear without engaging in PvP at all.
Get yourself a guild man and you will be fine, run around solo and you will die. No risk no fun!
The saddening inability of the vast majority of people to grasp this concept led to the decline of innovation we saw in the past few years and has finally caused most games to be a mind numbing affair of logging in, queing up, running an instance with 4 complete strangers and log off in order to get 5% of the points needed to buy medium gear that will be wholly worthless in 6 months.
Why can't these people simply realize that they do not want an MMO but rather a single player/small group game with an animated lobby.