Goblin Squad Member
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I am fairly new to Pathfinder Online and I did contribute to the Kickstarter without knowing much about the game. I liked the idea of the sandbox MMO which sounded like it would be fun. I just finished with all the dev blogs and have been looking over the forums and I must say that I do not see this project doing well without some further thought given to human nature and how the game mechanics can be abused by those who like to bully and grief other players, even within the rules of the game. First let me list some assumptions about the game that may or may not be true as I have not seen many of them listed, but are necessary for my discussion.
1. PvP is major part of game (80%+ focus) with plays always flagged as PvP
2. Players will regenerate hit points while not in combat
3. Players can have more than one account
4. Players account will have multiple characters (let's say 8)
5. There will be a free to play option
6. Building can be destroyed faster than they can be built
7. It takes longer to setup and gather resources than to steal them after they have been gathered.
8. Characters cannot be killed permanently
9. When a character is logged off they are out of the game world
10. In game reputation is by character and not by account (player)
You can always count of people to take the least path of resistance to get something they want, it is human nature. It is normally faster to destroy than build and easier to steal than to gather and unless there are some mechanics for "good citizens" to punish wanton destruction and theft of their stuff the "evil doers" will dominate the game and destroy the enjoyment for the majority of plays. If this is the case then this will cascade into driving all the players who want to build and develop the environment to leave the game thus leaving only the ones who want to bully and grief others left and then they will leave since there is no one left to bully and grief resulting in a dead game.
The only thing that can curb this are if the consequences for wanton destruction and theft are harsh and controlled to a large extent by the players. So far I have read about a bounty system and a reputation system that are supposed to prevent players from abusing one and other, but I do see either working. There is a great divide between the real world and an MMO so that the way society handles criminals in the real world is ineffective in an MMO.
1) In the real world a person cannot disappear into thin air, but in an MMO if a player logs out then the character is gone and cannot be interacted with. This simple fact kills the Bounty Hunter aspect since all I as a play have to do is have multiple bandits that I rotate through, let's say bandit1 though bandit7, that I attack with on a rotating basis, let's say one day each a week. The Bounty Hunter cannot touch them as they are not in the game and will not be until the bounty has expired. As far as the loot goes, I setup a front man in the city that I send it to that reaps the rewards of my ill gotten gain. As for reputation, the player would not care, as the only character that ever interacts with the city has a good reputation and if the bandits need anything from town then the front man simply takes it to them or they can use what they steal off the other players. In addition, since damage regenerates over time, I can attack multiple people each day, maybe stealing 1 to 2 weeks of in game gathering of resources.
2) People can die (and stay dead) in the real world, but in an MMO that is just a minor setback. Given this fact then a wizard can, by himself, destroy a town with a little perseverance. Since it is easier to destroy the build all the wizard has to do is sneak into town and blast a building with a AOE spell (assuming that they will damage building), get killed and come back and do it again and again until each building is destroyed. Why not, they cannot be permanently killed. The same goes with armies or any other player attack on a fixed target. So if I have 10 players attack a town, after the attack, win or lose, I still have 10 players to attack the town again. Assuming I can do a little damage to the town then eventually I will destroy it.
Possible Solutions:
1) Hit points do not regenerate in the wilderness. Hit points only regenerate in a town or while logged out of the game (i.e. resting) or with magic. This is consistent with the PnP game and will prevent bandits from attaching multiple caravans a day as they are more likely to get kill on successive attempts. It also makes being able to go to a town more desirable and emphasizes the reputation system.
2) There needs to be a way for gross offenders to be removed from the game by other players. let's say that a town is given the ability to arrest and incarcerate a player character who's reputation with that town is below a given "very low" level. The effect would be to either not allow the character to log in or if the character logs in it is in a jail cell within the city. The duration could be anywhere from a day to a week and could only be done in case of low reputation with that particular town. There need not be an exclusion for a declared war because would not a town want to remove as many of the attackers as possible from attacking the town.
The whole idea is to make the consequences of breaking the social laws severe and allow the players more control over how they can deal with bullies and griefers. Also there needs to be some way to avert the "Undead" factor where the same character keeps respawning and coming back to attack. If you are worried about preventing a player from playing the game, remember that each player can have multiple characters and so can play another character while the other one is unavailable. Besides this gives the opportunity for a jailbreak scenario if someone want to break them out.