BurnHavoc's page

I should clarify, my script checks if the server responding to connection requests. If the server is locked up but still responding to requests, I can't detect that. I can only say for sure if it's communicating on the TCP port it uses for auth/data.

It's useful for purposeful up/down monitoring though (ie when the devs take the server offline or put it online).

I'm willing to work on a more comprehensive server status script later down the road, but I'm heading out of town shortly for vacation xD I'll see what I can do in 2 weeks time.

EDIT: I'll share what I'm using so far with everyone in the Alpha forums in case other web admins want to implement a server check and expand on it.

Freevale is totally down for the 6-tower agreement. It's enough to let all the players get to a reasonable level training-wise, but leaves lots of play for an actual War of Towers in which we can all participate and have fun. It's a PvP game and we've all been having fun with that aspect of it in one way or another over the course of the Alpha so far, let's take it to a legitimate battleground.

BurnHavoc wrote:

Freevale's Icon so far

E PLURUBUS ANUS!

We were so very close to using that...

Freevale's Icon so far

As this is a computer game, I believe we should only use variations on base 2, ie Oct or Hex. We don't even need descriptive unit names at that point.

For example "The settlement is 1FB distance units from town." Hell, as players we can create our own lecixon! DU = Distance Units, IW = Inventory Weight, CV = Currency Value, SS = System Steps (for time!)

Truth be told, I've never had a good grasp on anything imperial except inches, feet and lbs (though only for body weight). I know exactly how walking a KM feels like, a mile is such a foreign concept to me though. And I live 120km from the US border and have driven in the US several times. Still nothin'.

I support Metric for selfish reasons.

I should have our forums up and running tonight or tomorrow (I was at a bachelors party over the weekend so it delayed my coding efforts).

Anyone laying odds on how long it will take the Freevale Liberation Front to evict Blunt Logic?

Pfft, Freevale Liberation Front. SPLITTERS!

The Liberation Front of Freevale is already working to undermine Gpunk and take over in yet another coup. Gpunk'll never expect it from WITHIN Blunt Logic.

Muahaha

And since there was some Heinlein quoting I missed

Democracy can't work. Mathematicians, peasants, and animals, that's all there is — so democracy, a theory based on the assumption that mathematicians and peasants are equal, can never work. Wisdom is not additive; its maximum is that of the wisest man in a given group.

actually,

A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.

Bringslite of Fidelis wrote:

Chaos in action. ;)

Setting your own house on fire the day after you're handed the deed is nothing short of spectacular. That's pro-grade chaos right there.

See, we see it less as setting it on fire and more as fumigating.

"What the hell is there to discuss about? The game isn't playable yet."

That's the problem right there. That quote encapsulates every problem between BL and SBC right now.

There is SO MUCH metagame happening in here and over external forums and voice chat. There are regular livestreams and alpha keys being handed out. There's emails and PMs flying around. There is a COMMUNITY and a GAME growing out of this. But still, there's nothing to discuss.

You would refuse participate in the community and the affairs of your settlement, but hold that you deserve your say (behind closed doors) in the voice and actions of that same settlement?

That's the attitude that drove us to this. We had several people putting themselves out there, communicating with other groups, trying to forge relationships. Only to have others who couldn't be bothered to put in effort try their damndest to drag every single tiny decision and relationship through the mud with dissenting essays about what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

But to you, apparently that's all wasted effort anyway because there's no physical game there for YOU to play at this very moment.

The only thing I regret out of this is that Kobold Cleaver dropped tonight. He's the type of player we'd love to keep around. He put effort in, he gave a crap.

Companies, we want YOU! Each company gets equal representation in our council, we don't restrict say to just the three current chartered companies. We're still in the midst of forming our central council, so now is the best time to join to get maximum impact on what YOU want out of Freevale.

for reference.

Also, our defining moment

28

BurnHavoc wrote:

One of the ideas a few of us threw around is resource/location control for static game elements. Something like locking down a Skymetal node or entrance to a particular dungeon/area to prevent unauthorized players from using it. It'll mean players will have to come in force to break the blockade. So in this case, you have the reverse of "running around killing everything in sight", but rather "monopolizing something people want". I think this is a perfect play example of meaningful PvP that would otherwise be punished by reputation loss. The action of blockading something is decidedly evil AND...

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qxcy?Stand-your-Ground#1

What you are proposing is not going against the reputation system, it's adding a sanctioned PvP type. I don't see anything wrong, with this idea.

Thats what I'm looking to do with this thread :) Try to find the specifics of what people want to do wrt meaningful PvP so we can make sure it's not discouraged.

I'm still not sure Reputation is going to do the trick, though. It's hard to find a middle ground that allows the bandits to execute the occasional surprise attack without just nerfing the mechanic. But. Here's the fact that I think a lot of people are forgetting. If the mechanic doesn't work, Goblinworks will change it. There is no way this issue can lead to Goblinworks's downfall.

Hell, I volunteer to experiment with the reputation mechanic during EE. If it's too harsh, or too easy to overcome, I'll make a post about it. Regardless, if the mechanic is crap, GW will notice and GW will have it modified.

So enough melodrama. The worst-case scenario here is just, "Goblinworks has to make an alteration early on."

Ok, I admit to being melodramatic about that case in the last day or two. I got excited. I think there will be plenty of groups in EE pushing the boundaries of the rep mechanic and making GW rethink it. I'm of the opinion that we'll see it either become negligible or gone altogether by the time the game has wider release, but I think that's a wait and see situation at this point.

Yeah, the situation I was describing was about total resource control by one group, no specific inter-company or inter-settlement feuds but a non-discriminatory blockade of all players not part of that group. But a challenge mechanic might work well for a blockade like that.

BurnHavoc wrote:

One of the consequences I've seen GMs play into the kill em dead method of getting goods off of monsters or NPCs is that combat has the inherent risk of damaging the goods your looking to get. Not just sunder attempts, but raw damage output. So when the dust clears, you might have destroyed half or more of the items you were looking to get your paws on in the chaos of the fight.

Something like this is already in the game. Whenever a Character dies, 25% of their non-threaded Gear is immediately destroyed.

Awesome!

BurnHavoc wrote:

One of the ideas a few of us threw around is resource/location control for static game elements. Something like locking down a Skymetal node or entrance to a particular dungeon/area to prevent unauthorized players from using it. It'll mean players will have to come in force to break the blockade. So in this case, you have the reverse of "running around killing everything in sight", but rather "monopolizing something people want". I think this is a perfect play example of meaningful PvP that would otherwise be punished by reputation loss.

I completely agree :)

Ohhh, I like that one!

Let me throw into this one from my perspective:

One of the consequences I've seen GMs play into the kill em dead method of getting goods off of monsters or NPCs is that combat has the inherent risk of damaging the goods your looking to get. Not just sunder attempts, but raw damage output. So when the dust clears, you might have destroyed half or more of the items you were looking to get your paws on in the chaos of the fight. I mean, ideally when people fight to the death they're going to put everything on the line and use/exhaust all the items they have to... well, not die.

Here's another good one: Think you might overwhelmingly lose a fight while trying to run a trade caravan? Set fire to your caravans. It might persuade them to say "f%++ it, now we're getting nothing but pocket change" and to hedge their bets. Yeah, you lose your goods, but they don't gain anything and you don't die! It's actually an excellent definition of a "Good Chaotic" or "Neutral Chaotic" act.

I welcome that discussion, and always encourage folks to speak what's actually on their minds - civilly if they can, and with a bit of forgiveness if someone else can't.

I just despair when the discussion devolves to "you're not listening!" The best way to handle folks trying to shout you down is to ignore them - don't let them change the subject.

If you're interested in brainstorming ideas for PvP cases that don't involve Reputation loss, only respond to posts that present those kinds of ideas.

If you're interested in convincing folks that Reputation loss for PvP against unflagged targets is a bad idea, use History, Facts, and Evidence - don't rely on assertions. And again, don't respond to posts that change the subject.

It's easy to get frustrated when it feels like someone's ignoring what you're saying... almost as easy as it is to ignore what someone's saying when you're frustrated. I'm still learning to recognize that in myself.

You are quite right, I keep getting drawn in by the forum trolls like Audoucet, Jazzlvraz, and Malvius012. I apologize, because you and others have been extremely civil and getting entwined in shouting matches with the same few people out to derail every open PvP thread is disrespectful to those who WANT to foster a meaningful discussion.

I've had a night to sleep on it, and I might have a few more ideas bouncing around there.

One of the ideas a few of us threw around is resource/location control for static game elements. Something like locking down a Skymetal node or entrance to a particular dungeon/area to prevent unauthorized players from using it. It'll mean players will have to come in force to break the blockade. So in this case, you have the reverse of "running around killing everything in sight", but rather "monopolizing something people want". I think this is a perfect play example of meaningful PvP that would otherwise be punished by reputation loss. The action of blockading something is decidedly evil AND lawbreaking (Chaotic) in the Riverlands, so here is a valid and meaningful game action that would also bring together groups of Lawful Good players to break the blockade. I believe that NEITHER SIDE should lose reputation for engaging or attempting to break a blockade.

This also prevents certain tactics I've seen in other games that can be viewed as extremely annoying in this case. I've seen large groups monopolize resources from small groups/solo players, but scramble when a large group comes to break the blockade to prevent getting a mass equivalent of rep loss for engaging in that large-scale fight. Then they just reform when the larger blockade-breaking group gets bored of having no targets of fight and leaves. Rinse and repeat until players basically give up on that resource for the day.

NOW, I think in this case we want to encourage the blocking group to stand their ground so that eventually the blockade breaking group prevails with persistence (plus the upper hand of being able to reinforce and not basically being under siege). At the moment, you're basically going to see the scramble method become standard, and I think thats a frustrating situation where no actual PvP occurs except killing of the small groups/solo players.

The last part I have a problem with. I will almost NEVER fight a fair fight, it's not the assassin play style. if you chose to be out with one or two of your friends, and and Myself and band of assassins cross your path, with pick axes in your hand, and not swords, that's your fault. That was a MEANINGFUL decision you made. To travel without a permanently armed guard.

Edit : And that wouldn't be random PvP, You have pickaxes in hand, so i assume your a miner, and may have valuables. I make money by not only accepting assassination contracts, but killing silly gatherers who decided not to have...

+1

That's an excellent way of putting it, thank you :)

There are a lot of aspects that harm a game in its consumers eyes reputation systems have never been high up on my list for biggest issues. If you are basing this off of the fact that YOUR actions are constantly constrained in the MMO's you play I would suggest the problem might not have been with the MMO's.

Naw, I'm more basing it off of watching MMOs fail at implementing similar systems. I've been in this game a long time, I've seen some pretty terrible design decisions kill some really good games. Most of which I stuck with till near the end.

Here is where I think you fail to see the difference between a fair number of us and wow style battleground 'PvP'ers, for a fair number of us the ability to build a world is AWESOME and the politicking, city building, poi claiming/upgrading, caravan moving is the bread and butter of our interests. Now note bread and butter leaves plenty of room for other things but these are the shining baubles that we went out and supported PFO for. I don't mind PvP in a game but don't like looking over my shoulder every second I'm in the game. If we are feuding then I know my play style has to adapt to that circumstance, this is not consensual PvP but I'm not asking for that. What the builders, tinkerers and want to be statesmen are looking for is a game that let's them do their thing and gives them a clear signal when to scuttle aside or hang up their robes and strap on a breastplate. We want a chance to meet a foe with a sword in our hands and fight for all we are worth- which might not be much we are craftsmen darn it- but being surprised with a Pickaxe in our hands without warning is not fun it's downright traumatic. And to be honest complaining about needing to declare hostilities before slaughtering those of us of more constructive inclinations is really no betting than flat out saying your a bully who never looks for a fair fight but instead takes the fights they 'know' they can win.

I think you just accurately described an antagonist, which is precisely what I'm advocating for the ability to be. Have your politicking, city building, poi claiming/upgrading, caravan moving. Have your builders, tinkerers and statesmen. I'm here wanting to play the thing you're scared of, that your building your arms and armour to safeguard yourself from. The reason you post guards and hire caravan guards. I want my character to be the reason you've learned to keep one eye open when you sleep. Why certain parts of the map are just... well, just don't go there if you want to come out alive.

Without people like me, there is no risk, no tension, no flavour to your conflict. And the only way for that to exist is if that archetype can BE viable and BE strong.

2. Build mechanics to enforce the behavior you want.

My whole point is that #2 never works because people just find ways around it, and feel rewarded for doing so. On top of that, the devs and players all think the problem no longer exists because #2 was designed into the game. So when it does BECOME a problem, it's slow to be looked at, slow to be dealt with or is dealt with badly, and usually harms the game irreparably.

Uh, actually, you only need 11% to block a 90% majority from taking place. Technically. ;D

Sorry, let me clarify.

Say you have a population of 100

90% of your population is 90.

Therefore, a majority of 90% of your population is 46 (50% * 90% = 45%, or 0.5 * 0.9 = 0.45, so one above that to be the majority)

If you want to insure that you get a majority no matter WHAT 90% of the population is chosen, you require 56 (1.0-0.9=0.1, 0.9*0.5=0.45, so one above that to be the majority = 0.46, 0.46+0.1=0.56)

BurnHavoc wrote:

I don't have to convince 90% of anyone, I just need 51% on my side...

I think you may have the wrong impression.

Let me start by saying I'm not trying to shut you up, or make you quit advocating for what you want. I'm only trying to share with you the information Ryan has already given us.

Ryan Dancey (In-Game Supports for Role Playing) wrote:

Notmyrealname wrote:

Crowdforging is all about the votes in the end , isn't it?

No. It would very dangerous to assume Crowdforging will just be a series of votes. That won't work. We can't have a game designed by majority rule.

I totally agree with Ryan there. That's part of why I'm so strongly advocating my position on this. I'm trying to be the voice of reason.

I sincerely believe, in my experience, that trying to draw players into an "open PvP sandbox game" game and then heavily regulating how, where and when they can PvP is akin to the battlegrounds in a lot of themepark games and will drive your players right back to them, or to more openly implemented systems.

I also sincerely believe that any deterrent to open PvP will be seen as a challenge to abusers/griefers as well as turn into a metagame of avoidance and exploitation by the regular kos players. It'll also give players and CSRs/devs a false sense of "fixing the problem" of red=dead players when in fact they've only found a way to satisfy a vocal minority of people who are afraid that their play experience will be ruined by other players.

What I'm saying is by putting an obstacle in the path rather than actually DEALING with the problem, you're inviting challengers to best your obstacle, not deterring them from coming up against it.

NOW, I also do realize that we're ALL more or less talking out our asses until we actually get some screen-time playing the game. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good solid discussion to kill the time in-between ;)

BurnHavoc wrote:

I don't have to convince 90% of anyone...

I apologise, I'd forgotten this wasn't one of the threads where the following has become part of today's conversation:

Ryan Dancey wrote:

If they act badly as defined by the desires of 90% of the community their bad actions will hurt their in-game power level.

Emphasis in the original.

The whole post is very interesting as well, but I've already put the whole thing over in the Lack of Evil thread, so I won't waste duplicate-reading time.

Sorry, you're correct. My math is off. I'd just need 56% of the population to agree with me. That way even if you ignore 10%, 46% (a majority of the 90% remaining) agree that wanting to openly PvP in and open PvP game shouldn't be a punishable offense.

BurnHavoc wrote:

...with respect to what can be implemented.

You're not talking to a vacuum, you're beginning the discussion intended to bring 90% of the players of the game--not just the people on the boards--over to your way of thinking. You're starting behind the eight-ball, though, because a lot of folks currently hearing you--only on these boards, because you have no game in which to talk to anyone except us--are here *because* we don't like PVP as implemented elsewhere, and we like that PFO, as we understand it so far, will bear *little to no resemblance* to that.

I don't have to convince 90% of anyone, I just need 51% on my side, which judging by these forums I'm close to having anyway. Just because you're vocal does not make you the majority.

The alignment system may be something new, but reputation is an age old hacked-together excuse for a PvP disincentive system. Ideas like this stretch back into the age of MUDs, where they generally weren't popular in favour of alignment systems and *gasp* roleplaying incentives.

I don't know how many ways I can say that not only has this been done before, it's generally NOT a workable method of punishing the red=dead mentality.

YOu know what, I've explained this before. How about I just run a bunch of my quotes, and you can stop derailing this thread and get back to what it's supposed to be: finding ways to make PvP work for everyone in this game.

And I REALLY think you confuse reputation with risk. A punishment system isn't a RISK. It's an obstacle to get around. It won't prevent anyone from doing what they want. Hell, it'll just give people the feeling of reward and success for finding ways around it. And the reputation system won't PREVENT you from attacking someone tomorrow. It'll just *tisk*tisk* at you for being a naughty boy the next time you get your sabre stuck in someones ribcage.

No, I'm arguing that:

- punishment just hurts legitimate players looking for a meaningful play experience
- people whose intent is to be malicious will do it no matter what punishment system is put in place
- they will find a way of circumventing or exploiting it in such a way that it is worse for those involved than if the punishment system didn't exist
- IT NEVER WORKS. The history of PvP MMOs show you that it just creates a metagame around it and drives people off in droves anyway!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating REWARDING meaningless combat. I'm advocating NOT PUNISHING it because PUNISHMENT DOESN'T WORK. If you get NO MATERIAL REWARDS from meaningless killing, it's a boring thing eventually. If other players take it upon themselves to enact justice, then you're no longer indiscriminately killing but engaging in meaningful PvP. If you get punished, it's a CHALLENGE to beat the system. You'll literally have players seeing how negative they can go or how many kills they can get by finding ways to circumvent the system before it catches on.

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but a punishment based system is a net NEGATIVE for the actual gameplay.

ANYWAY,

Lets get back to good PvP-based discussions on how we can avoid mechanically crippling players for participating in meaningful PvP experiences.

One of the benefits of Crowdforging is that Goblinworks, essentially first among all game developers, both wants to, and will be able to, know what 90% of their community wants, within the scope of their master design. It'll be up to us, then, to watch what they're delivering in response, and give them feedback on that.

This is why I get frustrated when people (in the other thread) basically try to say "NOPE THIS IS THE GAME NOW, DECISION IS MADE AND FINAL, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT MAYBE THIS GAME ISN'T FOR YOU." There is a LOT of flexibility on what this game will be and where it's going.

I'm trying to add my voice in with over 15 years of MUD/MOO/MMO/TT/Videogame player experience. I have a background in software development (though I work as a Network Admin now because money), so I'm not talking out my ass with respect to what can be implemented.

I started posting on these forums less than a week ago and I've already been called a griefer and a wanna be mass-murderer, i've been talked over to and around, I've been called out as being a shill from unrelated groups/guilds I have nothing to do with, and generally been treated like crap simply because I have a differing opinion. I understand this is a heated topic, but ffs people I'm trying to work with you here not out of ignorance or because I want the right be an a&&+$@& in-game, but because I want the best for this game and I'm positive from experience that what is being put forth will kill it in it's infancy.

No, the thing that killed indiscriminate PvP MMORPGs typically had more to do with horribly implemented reputation systems than the PvP itself. Apparently that's exactly what Goblinworks is going for here. They haven't seemed to learn from history, and it looks like it might end up being a serious problem. My only wish is that they would have been a little more forthcoming with information about the game before I gave them all that money in the kickstarter. I'd have never given that much money to a game that claims to be a sandbox PvP game just to write all these mechanics to prove the opposite.

+1

Whelp, everyone missed the point once again. I've got a Star Citizen Arena Commander module to play around with so I'll be back to address this thread later, but for now:

What the devs keep telling you is that the random lulz play style is not the purpose of the game.

It's not random lulz. It's because I don't want to HAVE TO ASK permission to start a fight every time I want to engage in PvP. Everyone rails at the fact that there is no risk inherent in dying which motivates gankers (which I've suggested an alternative to in the previous thread), but at the same time keep promoting a system whose goal is to reduce or eliminate any idea of risk FOR THEMSELVES in any other action within the game (trading, settlements, POIs, unsafe territory). If there is little to no danger or risk if you don't consent to it, then what's the point?

Ok, maybe I'm approaching this wrong with everyone involved. Let's take this down a more constructive path.

Leave reputation as it is, my warning stands that it will be abused by malicious players and I see it being completely removed or reworked in it's entirety not long after open or release.

Anyone interested in forking this conversation, please see this thread:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r4rj?Crowdforging-The-problem-of-nonconsensual -but#1

Following from the Lack of Evil thread because I think between myself and others we've killed constructive conversation in favour of a yelling match.
-----

The question is: How CAN reputation account for instances legitimate non-consensual PvP, ie how can we allow for/track (mechanically) meaningful non-consensual PvP WITHOUT reputation loss.

We understand there has to be risk involved in this game, and with trade, settlements, PoIs/Outposts, and other resource control it's going to come down to PvP-based risk. Otherwise there is no danger and things become quite boring very quickly. This means there WILL be unprovoked attacks from running a caravan from A to B. There will be unprovoked raids on your POIs and Outposts, and you SHOULD have SOME danger of being attacked when exploring out in the wild. I don't think you should expect to be cut down for leaving a protected town, bit

So I propose we try to brainstorm to the best of our abilities all the non-consensual and meaningful PvP scenarios we can come up with and find solutions to make them mechanically trackable so we can find ways to except it from the reputation mechanic, as well as thresholds to prevent abuse. I'll try to update this top post with the scenarios and the best solutions for them.

-----

Initial brainstorming:

- banditry of Trade Caravans, especially well guarded ones, will probably pretty much require the element of surprise in order to make it a reasonable risk. Part of the inherent risk of doing a trade run is banditry, so SAD really doesn't factor in much here because of that, therefore I don't believe attacking someone who is within x distance of the caravan should count for rep loss as it can be assumed they are either running it, guarding it, or attacking it. Bystanders be ware.

- Assassination contracts shouldn't lose you reputation. It's a legitimate neutral evil contract to take well in character and in flavour of the game. It means that the person offering up the contract KNOWS the target, and has some reason to kill them. Even if that reason is "I don't like them", that's still a personal feud. The bonus, A GOOD assassin is never seen nor caught. Should GAIN rep for that, but that's hard to implement mechanically. Either way, easy to except from rep loss.

- Active combat in the wild. If you stumble upon an active fight, I see no reason why you can't get a bit blood thirsty and jump in. You should be able to take one side or the other... or neither and just kill em all! Active combat is always an invite to fight, besides issuing/responding to a SAD while someone is actively fighting is kinda silly. Easy to track and not cause rep loss.

- Attacking POIs, Outposts and Settlements. I think this one is self explanatory and easy to implement. If you don't guard yo s##+, someone gonna come along and sack it. Obvious in how meaningful it is, and it's pretty much dead on easy to implement for no rep loss. Hell, doing it to someone your not at war with could be a de facto act of declaring war if you want to program it that way. Either way, I don't believe rep loss should be anywhere near here.

Brainstorm away!

;) I'm still going to like it either way. In all the years I haven't played a MMO that I totally disliked. I've been frustrated at certain things, I've been pissed off at this update or that, but never totally disliked one. I was just hoping for something different for once, something closer to some of the MUDs I love and I'm kinda frustrated that instead of TRYING something new they're playing it safe by sticking to the mold and that's what has been killing MMOs before they even have a chance.

I've played free MUDs with thousands of players and open PvP with alignment-based systems function perfectly fine without penalizing anything and without needing the idea of "asking for consent to PvP". This is not impossible, it's just that no major development company is willing to TRUST their players.

BurnHavoc wrote:

Lhan wrote:

There will be plenty of things you can do. Random PvP against unsanctioned targets probably won't be one of them though.

As far as I can tell, it still WILL be one of them that is part of what contributed to being a CE character.

What I don't understand is why it's necessary to remove access to buildings/services in a CE town for people who act in a CE manner via the reputation system.

Because you become CE by engaging in a type of behavior that GW is trying to actively discourage in this game.

Not being able to make a very good character is one of the discouragements.

People keep getting hung up on not being able to arbitrarily kill EVERYONE they meet with no penalties.

If you want a murder simulator, this isn't your game.

If you want to be Bin Laden and NOT have to spend your life hiding in a stone hut while most of the free world hunts you down and mounts your head on a wall, this isn't your game.

If you want to go all Sandy Hook Elementary and not end up despised, reviled and unwelcome everywhere except in a body bag, this isn't your game.

If you want to be Bernie Madoff, see above.

You CAN be all of the above if that's how you want to play. Just don't expect it to be without real, hard consequences.

I'm not talking about a mass-murder simulator. I'm talking about legitimate avenues of non-consensual PvP. You seem to be confusing the two, or at least trying to build a very large and obvious strawman argument by referencing real world tragedies. It's an awesome appeal to emotion in other situations, but this is about the beta version of a video game based on a fantasy tabletop and that kinda pulls it into the territory of rather disrespectful. There's gotta be a version or corollary of Godwin's Law that applies here.

Access isn't being removed for acting in a CE manner. Access is removed for characters that don't meet the reputation threshold set by the town's citizens. If some group of CE wants to be high rep, they can keep that threshold high. If characters act in a CE manner *and* maintain a high enough rep, they can enter.

For the record, I think rep thresholds above +1000 (starting character rep) will be very, very rare. They might be pointless.

Access is removed for a settlement to even CONTAIN the buildings/services if the rep threshold is not high enough. This is essentially equivalent. What I'm saying is if we already have CE, and actions that are essentially CE are what cause you to lose rep, then why not drop rep and just use the CE alignment itself.

But since you are if I'm not mistaken from UNC

You are mistaken.

Because GW wants killing of unsanctioned target on a regular daily basis to be punished.

*sigh* Thats what I'm disagreeing with. If they want them to be punished, offer other players an incentive to punish them on their own. Put a mechanic in, you're essentially challenging people to find a way around the mechanic so that it happens anyway AND there's the reward of knowing you've beaten the system. It's perpetuate a cycle of increased killings rather than occasional killings.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating REWARDING meaningless combat. I'm advocating NOT PUNISHING it because PUNISHMENT DOESN'T WORK. If you get NO MATERIAL REWARDS from meaningless killing, it's a boring thing eventually. If other players take it upon themselves to enact justice, then you're no longer indiscriminately killing but engaging in meaningful PvP. If you get punished, it's a CHALLENGE to beat the system. You'll literally have players seeing how negative they can go or how many kills they can get by finding ways to circumvent the system before it catches on.

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but a punishment based system is a net NEGATIVE for the actual gameplay.

Another Alternative
If you absolutely want to prevent meaningless killings, here's a different way to approach it: Outright turn off non-consensual PvP but not the material consequences of declining.

- Guarding a caravan or traveling on a road and you decline to fight? then they may be robbed but not harmed.
- Guarding a Settlement, PoI or Outpost and refuse to consent to PvP combat? Your PoI/Outpost/Settlement may be destroyed, stolen from, and taken over but no harm may come to you.

It's the mechanical equivalent of "Your gold or your life" to banditry, but eliminates the problem of someone killing without consent.

There will be plenty of things you can do. Random PvP against unsanctioned targets probably won't be one of them though.

As far as I can tell, it still WILL be one of them that is part of what contributed to being a CE character.

What I don't understand is why it's necessary to remove access to buildings/services in a CE town for people who act in a CE manner via the reputation system.

BurnHavoc wrote:

Your attitude is poisonous to the entire concept of crowdforging. Try to help us find a middle ground.

What do you think is ALREADY the reputation system ? It is, a middleground.

Crowdforging isn't meant to find a middleground between HardCore PvP and middlegrounded PvP.

I said nothing about hardcore. I'm a casual player. I'm advocating for PvP that is meaningful to the role I want to play in this game. I don't want to log on regularly and find I can't do anything because I started too many brawls last time I was on. Gabriel Mobius above put it best:

Consensual PvP is not the same as meaningful PvP, it's just a subset of it.

Demoyn wrote:

You guys seem to be forgetting a major factor in the argument of good vs. evil. Historically speaking, evil has much better players per capita. Having 60 evil players against 515 good players is usually an easy fight for evil.

Personally, I think that's an aberration due to poor game design. If the surest route to success involves "killing early and often", the game has kind of stacked the deck to make Evil more successful.

That's actually a sentiment I can get behind. I don't believe indiscriminate killing should net you points or some arbitrary award, I think it should be an extension of adjusting your alignment to C and E and gaining infamy. The real reward is being VIEWED as a chaotic evil killer, earning respect/fear from those within your alignment, and earning enmity and possibly a price on your head from those opposed to you. If there is no mechanical reward, but there is a social consequence that generates meaningful conflict and play to the benefit of all parties experience, then the original actions were meaningful as a trigger.

Where it borders on griefing (and this is a significantly QUANTIFIABLE difference, using game logs and player testimony) is when you continually target the same person by hunting them down, and/or PMing them with hate speech, or any similarly abusive thing that can be viewed as harassment. That's banhammer worthy.

I don't think griefing and the like is something to be taken lightly. Harassment is a big problem online, especially in gaming communities. It's not something you can wipe away with a game mechanic, it's something you actively have to find an REMOVE from your game to make it a safe place for the players.

And what exactly did I put in Bludd's mouth ?

*AHEM* So. Either are you just train to have your way by manipulating the developers into making them believe that they don't need any control, so you can in the end grief all you want, OR, you are a very kind and trusting person who thinks that everybody is nice, trusting and fair-play, and that everything will be great.

That. Right there, that is putting words in his mouth. Building a straw man argument, Literately THE DEFINITION OF THE PHRASE "putting words in [someones] mouth".

This is a game with consequences for playing a psychopath, and you try to argue for having no consequences.

No, I'm arguing that:

You don't want to play an antagonist, this is just excuses, as always.

Yes. I'm a griefer in disguise looking to ruin the game for everyone. I'm willing to spend hundreds of dollars and hours of my time NOT to try to make Pathfinder Online the MMO I've always wanted to play, but rather to insure I can be a griefing a+~!#!* once it comes out and run everyone away so my money is wasted, GoblingWorks fails, and I can consider my life complete.

Was that tone dry enough? I though about not responding to this one like the other one above about derailing the subject (ironic statement, no?) but I think there was plenty of room for a good sarcastic take on this one.

And seriously, stop talking about compromise, that's laughable.

Your attitude is poisonous to the entire concept of crowdforging. Try to help us find a middle ground. I've offered several suggestions, adjustments, and ideas in this thread. You've offered... lets see... "my way or the highway" aaaand... vitriolic bile! Awesome.

We've got nothing but an agreement to sit down before or during EE and flesh out the details of a non-agg pact. Simply judging from our attitudes in comparison to those of the Accord members we'll see some significantly divergent details come out of both agreements. Not many decisions can be made until actual gameplay is experienced and lines can actually be drawn... or dotted... or dashed...

Burnhavoc, do you feel that Urman's suggestion that RA members not rob each other is more restrictive than your own statement about the NC?

That's not the argument I made, you appear to be mistaking me for The Goodfellow. I simply said that the original text of the charters do not fully reflect individual signatory settlement/company/member attitudes or interpretations. My personal interpretation of the NC charter included.

Bluddwolf wrote:

Perhaps your messaging is at fault. Yes, you often say that you support evil, banditry and PvP, but at the same time you support any suggested mechanic that limits them or punishes them through the reputation / alignment mechanics.

Mixed Messaging or Mischaracterization, which is truly to blame?

And you pretend that you want "positive gameplay" "meaningful interaction" and "no griefing", meanwhile, you fight tooth and nail for the right to do exactly all that, without any control at all.

So. Either are you just train to have your way by manipulating the developers into making them believe that they don't need any control, so you can in the end grief all you want, OR, you are a very kind and trusting person who thinks that everybody is nice, trusting and fair-play, and that everything will be great.

Since I don't want to be rude, I won't accuse you of being lying and manipulating, and so I would consider the second possibility.

Well, I think you're being naive. You know, people like you with good intentions and a true and sincere desire to play with people without bullying are not the majority. A lot of people on the Internet are very different, they are not at all like you. They will always abuse the system in any way they can, and they will take pleasure in ruining the game experience of other players.

You're presenting a false dilemma here, that Bluddwolf is either malicious or naive, when he is neither. Try less putting words into peoples mouths, it'll make you look less of an ass.

You're also once again mistaking "Griefing" for "roleplaying an antagonist". And rehashing that argument is not really conducive to this discussion as it seems you're just wielding them as a method of avoiding Bludd's arguments instead of actually being constructive.

Part of the crowdforging stage is trying to find ways to compromise play styles and make a more inclusive game. A more inclusive game means more subs, means a richer community. I've seen arguments above about 1000s or upwards of 10,000 players who will start off essentially "playing the game wrong" and attacking on sight because of the IDEA of open PvP. How about we find a way to include those 1000-10000 players rather than punish and run them off.

BurnHavoc wrote:

While the original text of both the RA and the NC are pretty vague, I think members of both have chipped in with their interpretations that are significantly more specific.

If you can find a quote from any member of a signatory to the Roseblood Accord that inteprets the RA as intended to "Restrict members' freedom to do their own things", in any way that makes it significantly different than the restrictions placed on NC signatories, then I will withdraw my objections to The Goodfellow's mischaracterizations.

I'm at work, but I was able to quickly find an example on the very first page of the Accord's original announcement thread.

I'm not sure that achieving mutual success can be possible when the goals of one party include robbery from the second party. That seems more of a win-lose condition than win-win. Perhaps UNC just isn't a great fit with the rest of the crew, despite their dedication to positive gameplay. There are undoubtedly others who won't fit in, for one reason or another.

Granted, this is more an example of rejection from the Accord, but that would imply that if other member settlements feel the same way, they are undersigned not to act or express those views or be removed from the Accord.

I could be mistaken, but that sounds like putting a restriction/limitation on the members of the Accord to not act in certain ways that could still subjectively be considered "positive gameplay".

While the original text of both the RA and the NC are pretty vague, I think members of both have chipped in with their interpretations that are significantly more specific. Quoting the original text is like quoting the US Constitution and pretending there are no amendments or judicial decisions on the text therein applied to specific situations.

Sounds as if you're describing the group Jake Spoon falls in with in Lonesome Dove. They attacked, shot, and set on fire farmers settling the territory for no other reason than the innocents were there.

Seems like precisely the group Goblinworks wants to control, but it's difficult for us players to take the role of retired Texas Rangers and hang them, as the hangings won't stick, and we can't talk to Pharasma about that. GW can, however, have quite the chat with her, and make sure those man-burners are never seen in the River Kingdoms again.

This is why I had put forward the suggestion on Page 3 about having a negative rep only means you have a chance at perma-character-death. It provides a REAL risk onto the character. It won't prevent them from being crazy evil, but at some point the good guys will get revenge.

I'm not opposed to things being lopsided in favour of good/lawful. It makes being evil a challenge. What I'm opposed to is using reputation as a method of punishment assuming it will deter griefers or sociopathic murder hobos. It gives both the players and the devs a false sense of security that REAL griefers will exploit to piss everyone off. The only real way I've ever seen an MMO handle people who fall under the category of malicious player, is to deal with them on an account level.

I've seen several companies think they can save money on customer support by implementing mechanics that deter players from doing things that would end up with customer support being called. It really, REALLY doesn't work.

I really like the idea of "poisoning the well" in terms of resources. Salting croplands hexes, unleashing aggressive termite colonies on woodland hexes, cracking open poisonous gas pockets in mines, causing landslides in quarries, unleashing parasites on fish colonies, dropping large gnat colonies on wetlands, introducing sicknesses on game populations.

Besides, if the system won't stop anything, then why care if it exists or not? The end result is the same with extra hoops to jump through for the dedicated abusers. That process would leave a very clear pattern that can be tracked and banned if desired, at the very least make those people waste a lot of money to play that way.

it'll just give people the feeling of reward and success for finding ways around it

and

In-game mechanics are a stopgap. If someone wants to be an a*#**!%, they're going to find a way to be an a!+!!!$. And a false sense of having "fixed the problem" with some s%&$ty game mechanic is the worst attitude because it makes you lax, unprepared and slow to response from a customer service perspective. Griefers will find every way to satisfy their playstyle, and they will find the exploits and abuses of your system and use them against your players in ways that your dev team can never think up. And the worst part, if you build your safeguards from day one it'll be HELL to fix them or take them out once the abuse starts.

There is another part I diverge from a bit:

Alignment decisions should dictate how a person does something, not what they can do.

I disagree a bit, Alignment should be a consequence of your actions. Play your character how you want to play them and in an ideal system the alignment will reflect the actions you choose. It drives me nuts in TT when people try to use their alignment as a justification for an action that goes against the way they've been otherwise playing their character because it nets them loot or avoid having to actually roleplay. It's the bad kinda metagaming right there.

I think your actions should define your alignment, and your alignment (with some well earned fame/infamy) should define how different people react to you.

With respect to the rest of your post, I'm down with those as evil actions, though "mechanically sanctioned" is kinda silly if you're trying for a sneak attack as a declaration of war, no? You kinda boxed a chaotic action as a negative reputation action. This is why I so often disagree. I think part of being evil and/or chaotic is as a method of playing dirty to get the upper hand. It makes more people hate you, gain you more enemies, and if the statis from elsewhere are correct evil-aligned population at current is outnumbered 7 to 1. I wouldn't worry about having a lack of people to self-police, especially open season on evil people and lawbreakers means more points into good and lawful.

The problem is that becomes the de-facto play style. You can RP all you want, but there's almost no way to tell the difference between you and the guy whose just kills anyone he runs across because that's the most efficient way to get what they want. That's what GW is trying to avoid, uninteresting game play.

Let's assume your example is true, what prevents everyone from just engaging in rampant conflict? Why shouldn't that be the default state? Or what even prevents a single entity from wandering the game destroying everything in their path? What are you going to do? Grief them til they stop? Yea it sounds cool that maybe the players will group together to stop them...but how long can that last? What if it's 1000 entities doing it all over the place? What if the players don't do anything and just hunker down instead? If the players don't deal with it, GW's grand vision falls apart, their game becomes a failure in their own eyes, and worse probably in a lot of ours, and it's all because they gambled on the players behaving a certain way.

I think your skirting around a general problem with MMOs, how do you put risk into a system that is inherently without risk? If you get killed, you just try again. You lose an item, just get another, it's just a bit of time to grind/buy/make a new one. The risk isn't in 'did I win the fight' the risk needs to be in longer terms, if I attack this person what will it prevent me from doing tomorrow? If the answer is 'probably nothing' or 'maybe someone will do something about it but I'm one face in 10,000 people doing the same thing' then I think your system has no risk and is ultimately uninteresting.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be without risk. I still think you should get C and/or E alignment for doing it, and THAT should limit what settlements you can enter and who you can interact with. Thats not a punishment, thats a consequence. Reputation is a punishment. It applies across the spectrum of alignment and has nothing but negative connotations for gameplay. THAT I disagree with.

In my mind, someone who has a ton of kills under their belt and is known for being generally a BAD guy should have HIGH reputation in a CE place. They're well known, feared, respected. That's what makes sense for CE. But if you do that, you're either working with my previously mentioned idea of a system for fame/infamy, or your getting rid of reputation in favour of making the alignments meaningful in another way.

And with my example above, what stops people from engaging in rampant conflict? Nothing. Though punishing players with reputation won't stop it anyway, so I don't see where the problem is. They'll just hop on their next character once the rep gets low enough and keep cycling through characters murdering as they go until they get bored. At least with an open system, they won't cycle through characters so people can make sport of hunting them down.

And I REALLY think you confuse reputation with risk. A punishment system isn't a RISK. It's an obstacle to get around. It won't prevent anyone from doing what they want. Hell, it'll just give people the feeling of reward and success for finding ways around it. And the reputation system won't PREVENT you from attacking someone tomorrow. It'll just *tisk*tisk* at you for being a naughty boy the next time you get your sabre stuck in someones ribcage.

You want real risk? How about another idea. Leave reputation in but remove all current planned punishments involved with it. Instead have a negative value give you a percent chance at permadeath for your character. At 0 there's no chance of permadeath. At -100, there's a 0.1% chance of permadeath. at -1000, a 1.0%, at the max of -7500, a 7.5% chance of permadeath.

I'd totally play that game of russian roulette. Come at me, bro.

to spice it up, your lowest rep living character defines the percent chance of permadeath for each of the characters on your account. (Not that dying on one would kill the others though, thats just cruel)

I'm down for open warfare systems and random attacks but I don't have faith in the community totally policing itself. While I have faith in people on these forums and in this very thread. I lack faith in the rest of the population who will be playing and never read forums and those people always outnumber the forum goers. I am all for evil game play with purpose and depth but you can't control everyone. I prefer no boundries in rl not in my games.

There are perfectly valid ways to address that. Harassment happens in games no matter what rules you add in. You can PM bomb people with multiple characters/accounts, you can get a group of griefers to target one person with multiple accounts and make their lives miserable, you can do it day in and day out. The only real way to deal with actual griefers is a good solid CSR team with the power to punish the PLAYER, not the CHARACTER.

In-game mechanics are a stopgap. If someone wants to be an a+##!@~, they're going to find a way to be an a&#!*$@. And a false sense of having "fixed the problem" with some s*%~ty game mechanic is the worst attitude because it makes you lax, unprepared and slow to response from a customer service perspective. Griefers will find every way to satisfy their playstyle, and they will find the exploits and abuses of your system and use them against your players in ways that your dev team can never think up. And the worst part, if you build your safeguards from day one it'll be HELL to fix them or take them out once the abuse starts.

You have to deal with griefers at the source: get rid of the toxic player.

As long as you're doing it that way bring your Chaotic and your Evil. I'll leave it lamenting the day it ever saw my stylish yet practical shoes heading right towards its face. :O)

I am perfectly cool with that attitude. Let me be evil and crazy, let me do evil nasty uncool things, and then once I've done enough bad things make me and mine your target. Don't make the GAME punish me for it. I want YOU to try to take me down for it. I want that tension and conflict. I want to be the antagonist that makes YOUR and MY play experience that much better.

If a few random people need to have their characters die without reason, or a few of folks lose a piece or two of expensive gear, or have a few important POIs burn down along the way... well that'll give you a REAL reason to want to take me down. It'll legitimize your need for vengeance and justice. And for my sake the stolen goods will be a quick way to make me a formidable opponent ;)