GrumpyMel's page

With a long background in the MUD world, it probably comes as no surprise that a big part of what makes or breaks a game for me is the atmosphere of the player community in that game. I think that pretty much every game develops an atmosphere for it's community and a sense of what is/is not generaly considered acceptable play in the player community, even if it's anything goes. This is entirely aside from what is enforced by the Dev's through the TOS.

As players that form an early part of the community for the game, I think we'll have a pretty big role in establishing the tone of that community and I'm very encouraged by what I see so far. Despite many passionate disagreements on specific issues, people seem to have been remarkably civil to each other here on the forums, compared to many other game forums that I've seen.

I'd like to offer what my approach to MMO's and honestly games in general and see if others might share theres. This isn't an attempt to be preachy or try to establish any unwritten standards or anything like that. I'm just honestly curious to see where other folks heads are at and how to approach playing PFO. Here are the 3 basic things that I personaly strive for in playing.... mind you, I'm not trying to say these are right or wrong...it's just the way I roll.

1) Winning is secondary to EVERYONE having FUN. That may sound corny, but it's honestly how I approach things. It's a GAME for me, not a job or a political debate. Winning/loosing just isn't that important and if it becomes that important, I've probably become too involved. That's not to say I won't play competitively in competitive games and I don't get annoyed when I play poorly - which is different from loosing - but ultimately if everyone else around me is having fun, I'm having fun.

2) A strict seperation from what happens in game to my character and what happens out of game is important to me. Joe's character may be a knuckle-dragging scumbag who just stabbed mine in the back, but I want to like Joe, the player and I want to be pals with him. Though I can never seem to bring myself to play villians, at least convincingly....I tend to really like having them around in game...as well played villians can be very interesting characters and cool to have around...it's fun to have an interesting antagonist to play off. When things that are clearly out of game start to get brought in, is when I start to get bothered.

3) I respect everyone elses play style and in return I expect respect for my own. I'm primarly a RP-er which tends to be a pretty rare breed in MMO's these days. I never try to force RPing on anyone but I do get annoyed when people go purposefully out of thier way to disrupt mine. That doesn't mean I expect people to hold off on a PvP raid so I can RP.... but if I'm obviously RPing you really don't need to come up to me and start asking me about the Jets game.

YMMV.

So I was kicking around an idea, spurred from another thread discussion about Casus Belli's and the declaration of non-consentual wars.

Basicaly a large aspect of gameplay is about is about kingdom building and territorial control. In a thread or blog (I forgot where actualy) GW mentioned that War's could only be declared "consentualy" (meaning both parties agreed). That struck me as rather discongrous given the "territorial control" aspect of the game mentioned.

I think part of the 10,000ft concern of GW is that by not having some sort of mutual consent it would cause large guilds/kingdoms to go around forcing out all the small settlements, allowing no room for them.

I have a counter-proposal that I think would actualy work better. I think offensive wars should be allowed but the behavior disincentivized based upon how large a kingdom grows and how much territory it controls (by one means or another), how many offensive wars it has engaged in (or joined on the attackers side), who the targets of said war have been (and whether they were "consented to") and what circumstances might have given cause to it ("causus belli").

Essentialy a kingdom gets assigned an "aggression factor". The idea is that the River Kingdoms is a relatively disorganized and fragmented area and as long as it remains so, there is no reason for any outside power to neccesarly pay much attention to what goes on within it. However once a Realm within the River Kingdoms starts growing in size (accumulating territories) and especialy if it's perceived to be acting agressively in nature....there would be reason for other outside powers to start to take notice and perhaps feel threatened about a change in the status quo.

This could take the form of "messing" with that Player Kingdom in a number of ways....perhaps significantly increasing hostile npc activities in that Kingdoms territories.

Essentialy this allows for a certain amount of offensive activity (through war) but makes it increasingly harder to be large, accumulate territory and act agressively.... to the point where beyond a certain size a Kingdom might become completely unmanagable.

I'm an avid RP'er whether it's Pen and Paper, Virtual Table-Top, MUD or MMO. I've RP'd in pretty much every MMO that I've played, even though most haven't been designed to support it well. It's a trend I fervently intend to continue in PFO. So in order to get in the mood for that while we wait for GW to make our dream a reality and keep things light, I thought I'd start a thread where we could share some of our favorate IC quotes or moments. Here's one of mine..

This character of mine was admitedly "Lawfull Stupid" and insufferable.

"Face me FROST GIANT!

I care not that you wield a 14ft I-Beam, for I carry the might of righteous furor and the adoration of ALL! "

I believe that it was after that when the rest of the party started buffing the Frost Giant.

I have started this thread as the continuation of an interesting discussion that was taking place in the Kingdom of Aeternum thread between a few individuals about spies and infiltrators and thier likely impact upon organizations within PFO. Rather then coopt Aeternums real estate for an extended discussion on the topic, I thought it might be fruitfull to open a seperate thread where interested parties could share thier thoughts. I'll provide you with mine in a follow up post, shortly.