If the game had death of consequence, then griefing would not be prevalent, because most griefers are, like a lot of real life criminals, abject cowards who would freak and run at the first sign of resistance, or pull out their boom stick, because it's that that gives them courage, not any character of their own. Griefing only occurs from a position of power: remove it, and it stops cold.
Goblin Squad Member
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If the game had death of consequence, then griefing would not be prevalent.
I'll believe that when I see it, and maybe not even then.
If permanent character death is a feature of the game, then the griefers will learn how to get a new character from the character creation screen to the point where they can effectively go out and mess with people in the minimum amount of time.
They'll take the path of least resistance, but they will inexorably pursue their desires. You will not change their desires by making them more difficult to achieve.
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Then the question becomes less off how to get them to stop and more of how to get them to go elsewhere. (mentally imagines realm where greifers greif greifers because no one else is left.)
So far I like the idea of being able to put a bounty on the head of your killer, and if that included making able to see a list of bounties and able to track them then I (and maybe some greifing inclined people) could hunt them down.
It is a good idea especially if you can convince the greifers to be the bounty hunters of other griefers (so they leave everyone else alone, though Im probably dreaming on this part)
I've played through a great number of PvP systems & rules in various MMOs and online rpgs. Some systems that work well in one game have simply failed to work out the same in others despite strong similarities.
I don't like the idea of arbitrarily reducing and restricting negative actions as a blanket fix for everything because I do like the idea of a few villains (what's a fantasy world without enemies and villains?), provided the players have an adequate and powerful means of reacting to it.
However, I'm thinking I would almost prefer triggers for PvP rather than triggers that prevent it. That is, have a system that describes when PvP becomes possible rather than searching for suitable consequences for the people that use the system as a means of griefing.
A few examples:
1.) If someone pick-pockets a character, he would be flagged as attackable with no repercussions to any attackers for a period of time and would be KoS to guards if it happens within town. Ideally, if he/she is defeated I would like any items or cash pickpocketed to be returned to any/all victims.
2.) If a player is trespassing in lands that belong to an enemy faction, they would be flagged as attackable to members of that faction or owners of that land for as long as they remain in the area, assuming the owners flagged it as private land.
3.) If a character jumps my claim, or begins harvesting a node/area that I or someone else was clearly interacting with first, he would be flagged as attackable for the claim jumping offense (no one would set up mining another persons claimed vein without expecting to be shot or shovelled to death in the old west, for example. I'm assuming they shovelled people to death anyway, I wasn't there). Perhaps a toggle in my settings that notes whether or not I want to make resources I initiate interaction with 'open to any' so that friends could harvest with me if I'm so inclined.
4.) Guilds that mutually recognize each other as enemies would flag all members as attackable to eachother.
5.) Entering specific unclaimed and dangerous wilderness areas could flag all that enter to retain some sense of open world/unplanned pvp conflict. With things like this in place you could drive players interested in griefing toward areas where they'll likely encounter people of similar level and willingly taking the risk by being there, away from towns where fresh players may just be starting out.
These are just rough ideas of course, but I think it gets the point across. I think I'd rather see the system approached this way as opposed to 'everyone can attack everyone all the time, BUT...' and then flounder around on limitations and penalties that may or may not discourage antisocial behavior (like killing level one players over and over for no gain aside from satisfying some perverse itch).
Identify realistic offensive interactions & actions that would enable PvP. This would allow someone to play the role of a thief/pickpocket if they were prepared to accept the consequences.
I think a well thought out system like this would work very well and serve the purpose of every day PvP, rather than having a chaotic system that see's unrealistic situations unfold regularly (like killing level one players over and over for no gain aside from satisfying some perverse itch).
Keep in mind, I'm not strongly championing this idea as the right way, it's just a thought that's probably riddled with some glaring flaws in logic that I've missed, but at first glance anyway I could see it being successful in a setting like this with some work and serious thought.
I've seen the other approach taken so many times over the years with success and failure rates all over the chart - like in games with nearly identical systems in place that play out very differently in their respective games despite looking identical on paper.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Interesting- Note that your point 2 also requires that a faction which tags their land as 'private' would have to be subject to attack by any trespassers, just to keep things fair. I was under the unfounded impression that most areas would be claimed, and that 'no trespassing' would be the default.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's my theory on how to discourage griefing in open world PvP sanbox mmo's.
First of all let me start out by saying that griefing will exist to some degree, you can't stop it you can only wish to contain it.
With that being said I think the best design for open world PvP mmo's is to create a robust PvE and non combat sanbox feature rich game first. If you can design a game that gives players something enjoyable to do other then griefing players you will see a more balanced gameplay.
One of the reasons why you see so much wide spread griefing in games like Darkfall and Mortal is because there's very little else to do that's fun. Both of thoughs games where design with heavy PvP features first with a very little PvE and non combat features sprinkled ontop as an after thought.
Give players robust non combat features like fishing, taming, crafting, gathering, cartography, construction, player run npc merchants, treasure hunting, exploration, community events, gambling, naval exploration, marking runes, build player made taverns, libraries, housing, political systems, guilds etc etc.
Add to this rich PvE content like dungeon crawls, Lairs, caves, world bosses, unique npc mobs, open world PvE events like champion spawns, and npc footholds in UO.
Add feature rich non PvP content and people will have other things to do then just grief players out of boredom.
As long as you don't take players out of the world and give them a reason to venture out of safe spots PvP will happen on it's own, you don't need to create Themepark style PvP objectives to get people to PvP in sandbox games, just give players a reason to venture out and PvP will happen and often.
So long story short create a non combat rich PvE sandbox game first and let PvP happen on it's own by never taking players out of the open world and giving them a reason to venture out and explore the world.
Posting on my iPhone sorry for spelling errors.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If the game had death of consequence, then griefing would not be prevalent.I'll believe that when I see it, and maybe not even then.
If permanent character death is a feature of the game, then the griefers will learn how to get a new character from the character creation screen to the point where they can effectively go out and mess with people in the minimum amount of time.
They'll take the path of least resistance, but they will inexorably pursue their desires. You will not change their desires by making them more difficult to achieve.
+1
Especially as permanent death will make their goal more pleasurable for them.
"I will have to sacrifice 100 noob character to permanently kill 1 character an experience character? Where I can sign up?"
That is how they think.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps a PvP Solution is required? The more you kill other players, your bounty rises by a %, with a far greater % for lower-level players than Higher-level ones, to provide extremely diminishing returns for Noob-Killers.
Alternatively, we know we have NPC Guards with insane abilities, such as the ability to arrive on the scene within a very quick time-frame and they apparently can prevent escape mechanics such as mounts or 'hearthing' if they get close enough/can use their special abilities. And they keep coming in greater and greater numbers.
So what about 'serial' killer accounts having the prospect of occasionally spawning very powerful bounty hunter NPCs who target their griefing character(s) religiously. To quite literally lock down their griefing characters, and possibly some other effects applied to their other characters that might be something as simple as a Bad Karma status effect that provides diminishing Reputation returns and lowers their chances of having 'rare' drops appear.
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Goblin Squad Member
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... 'serial' killer accounts...
If they used the same account, there's a host of other solutions that would work. But they don't. They use multiple accounts, and you never know who's behind an account.
Personally, I think they'll be able to differentiate characters that are optimized for griefing from characters that are obviously heavily invested in many game aspects, so that they'll be able to apply harsher penalties to the griefers who have just come back with a different account name and a new character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@BlackUhuru - I agree with you 100%. The problem in most Sandbox games is that they think combat is the content. Then they get nothing but combat and it sucks.
The content is players interacting with each other. Combat should be a part, but not the majority part, of that interaction.
If you spend all your time in design on PvP, don't be surprised if that's what most of the people in your game do. If you spend it on "sandbox activities" that sometimes involve conflict, and sometimes that conflict is combat, you'll get a healthier game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps a PvP Solution is required? The more you kill other players, your bounty rises by a %, with a far greater % for lower-level players than Higher-level ones, to provide extremely diminishing returns for Noob-Killers.
Alternatively, we know we have NPC Guards with insane abilities, such as the ability to arrive on the scene within a very quick time-frame and they apparently can prevent escape mechanics such as mounts or 'hearthing' if they get close enough/can use their special abilities. And they keep coming in greater and greater numbers.
So what about 'serial' killer accounts having the prospect of occasionally spawning very powerful bounty hunter NPCs who target their griefing character(s) religiously. To quite literally lock down their griefing characters, and possibly some other effects applied to their other characters that might be something as simple as a Bad Karma status effect that provides diminishing Reputation returns and lowers their chances of having 'rare' drops appear.
My concern with PvP solutions...what about the person who is not a ganker, but is very good at PvP and spends most of their time participating in legitimate PvP territorial conflicts? They would get flagged and their bounty raised to the n%..simply because the game can't tell the difference between good and bad PvP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Let the players settle griefing/PK's. Why do we need so many systems in place to handle player killers if you can control them yourself?
Sandbox games are design for the players to create the content! Not some npc that runs around chasing after people, let the players chase after each other.
For instance-
In UO if you kill players you get bad karma/Fame, the more players you kill your reputation changes from Outcast title to Dreaded Lord title. Your title turns red and everyone knows your a PK and if a player kills you there is no penalty.
If your are not a PK and you mostly kill PvE mobs you gain Fame/Karma reputation titles from Trustworthy to Glorious Lord, your title will be blue and people will know your not a PK or griefer.
In UO I was a Glorious Lord same with my guild mates and we would patrol areas and kill all reds on site, if anyone typed in world chat for help with griefer/PK we would go out and dispatch that player.
The players handled the griefing not some system made by devs, the devs just gave us the tools.
If you go out as a blue Glorious player and sack a city you will most likely turn red (if you kill blue players) and rightfully so your killing people lol. But after the battle you go back out and kill PvE content to get your good reputation back.
I think something like this would work well in PO and adds tons of roll play possibilities.
Long story short-
Let the devs create the tools and let the players handle the PK's/Reds !!
Let the players settle griefing/PK's. Why do we need so many systems in place to handle player killers if you can control them yourself?
Sandbox games are design for the players to create the content! Not some npc that runs around chasing after people, let the players chase after each other.
Long story short-
Let the devs create the tools and let the players handle the PK's/Reds !!
Haha the good old times. Yes, UO did an excellent job with their system, it had some faults but for the most part it did the job. Still I think it can be improved, through bounty hunting mechanics and other features. I always got a little annoyed because as a blue character, I felt it was way to easy to lose your status then to gain it. But that was just my opinion.
@Solemor
Absolutely UO was not perfect but the idea of players controlling there own destiny was spot on, we just need the tools to play with.
Exactly! With the proper tools and other activites to entertain people with you get far less griefing. I loved being part of a "watchmen" like guild and hunting for reds. It was a fun experience.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actualy my impression of UO was very much the opposite....
I bought UO shortly after it came out, I believe....at the very least within a few months.
After installing the game and creating my character and logging in for the first time... I was killed something like 15 times in the first 20 minutes of trying to play. This was before I really got to learn the interface, most of the commands or the basic game-play mechanics.
I waited about 3 hours before logging on again....was killed several times within the first few minutes of logging on.
I got frustrated ...and decided to shelve it for a few days. When I tried playing a few days later...I was once again killed repeatedly within a few minutes of logging in.
At that point...I uninstalled the game and threw it in the trash-bin and never looked back....just wasn't worth the frustration.
Note: I really don't mind PvP (actualy like it FPS/RTS games...not so much in most MMO's)....and I don't mind being killed occasionaly WHILE playing a game. I do mind when rampant killing KEEPS me from playing or even LEARNING the game. That's not PvP....that's just Player vs Victem....and if a game allows it people WILL do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ GrumpyMel
I have played UO on and off with the same account for 14 years. The first 6 months I spent running for my life and getting ganked by reds. After leveling up my char I spent a good amount of time killing reds.
Two years later T2A was released and I have played UO for 12 years with little to no PvP and enjoyed it just as much.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think open PVP would provide an immense level of depth to PFO. The majority of the people who enjoy PVP, even from the side of an aggressor are not out to ruin your game experience. As long as the non-combat characters have an ability to escape an encounter (if they are careful enough), I think the threat of being attacked would add excitement and realism. Instanced or flagged PVP is a horrible compromise that detracts from immersion. Don't go middle of the road. I would rather have no PVP than mini-games or other theme park solutions.
The problem is not PVPers. The problem are the griefers. They aren't playing the game for any other reason, but to make their mark and destroy the experience for everyone else. Solutions that penalize their characters don't work. As soon as they become aware of a new PVP sandbox MMO, they are going to swarm. "Player policing" is the best policy vs. small groups, but these large organized guilds are a different matter. First of all, it would require a counter force as well organized and determined at stopping griefing as these people are at inflicting it. I don't see that happening.
The best thing I can think of is to remove bottlenecks so that the griefers can't trap in their prey. As long as you can avoid them and move somewhere else, it's not such a big deal if they take over an area for awhile. Dying a couple of times is nothing, but being killed over and over will ruin the game. I've tried to think up real solutions, but everything that comes to mind I quickly find holes in it. I think it will be impossible to eliminate, but hopefully the devs can come up with solutions to contain it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I doubt they will 'switch' to a new account, due to the fact that the game will be releasing limited slots at first, giving Goblinworks a chance to ensure Griefing, rather than PVPing, will have some potent negatives to it to make it unfun to all but the most depraved gamers out there.
For the Multiple Accounts, all they need to do is check the IP address of the accounts. If there are three accounts all with the same IP address and one has been flagged as a griefer, all Goblinworks needs to do is personally flag those accounts as a problem group, and when they lock down the first account due to complaints, if the other two accounts start to rack up griefing reports, ban the lot.
Also, Goblinworks has stated that there will be hexes where the Town Guards will mobilize against Player Killers within that Hex, within a time constraint due to the distance between the PvP and the Town itself, and the 'Wild' and 'Hostile' Hexes, with the Wild being a free-for-all no safety-net style, while the Hostile Hexes belong to a rival faction, and could result in you facing guards at worst or just being denied anything but basic courtesies (food, bed etc) from the NPCs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@HalfOrcHeavyMetal, I don't know if you were trying to, but you totally made me see something I hadn't seen before. One of the most important things, IMO, necessary to nurture a respectful, civilized player base, usually in Forums, but really anywhere, is early and frequent moderation that weeds out the undesirable behavior. GW's decision to limit the growth of PFO will give them this opportunity, and will very likely give real teeth to any account bans that occur in the first 6 months or so.
I'm still holding out hope that someday there will be a way to require players to voluntarily relinquish their anonymity in a verifiable way. Alas, not yet.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm still holding out hope that someday there will be a way to require players to voluntarily relinquish their anonymity in a verifiable way. Alas, not yet.
You mean to other players, or to the server? Should players that play from the same computer in an Internet cafè be treated as the same person? I don't advocate requiring a unique credit card from every player (for several reasons), but if griefing players requires some investment in skills, every griefing character costs the griefer cash.
The observation that legitimate play will be misconstrued as griefing is a different problem; griefing might very well be possible with a brand-new character, but it won't be anything like legitimate play.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm still holding out hope that someday there will be a way to require players to voluntarily relinquish their anonymity in a verifiable way. Alas, not yet.You mean to other players, or to the server? Should players that play from the same computer in an Internet cafè be treated as the same person? I don't advocate requiring a unique credit card from every player (for several reasons), but if griefing players requires some investment in skills, every griefing character costs the griefer cash.
The observation that legitimate play will be misconstrued as griefing is a different problem; griefing might very well be possible with a brand-new character, but it won't be anything like legitimate play.
No, I think Nihimon was referring to an idea he previously exemplified with a kiosk at malls you could use to sign up for games and it linked your account to you IRL. I think he was just brainstorming ideas...trying to think of a way to make people not be such jackholes in MMOs due to anonymity. Your character having a name does not really remove that anonymity, so he was just throwing out the idea of linking it to some real world ID so we would actually be embarrassed by our poor behavior. I do not think he was truly advocating the loss of privacy or anything that this would entail.
At least that is how I interpreted it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Daniel, what KitNyx said, for the most part.
The kiosk idea was basically a simple way to create a username with a service, while ensuring that the same individual never created a second username with that same service. There would still be an opportunity for people to share their credentials, but my hope is that there would eventually be enough of a critical mass of other services using this service that people would guard their credentials appropriately. If the only thing this identification service was used for to start off with was a game, then I think it would be really common for griefers to drag in a bunch of real life friends who don't play the game to make new usernames and then let the griefers use their credentials, so it's most definitely not a silver bullet.
And the idea was never intended to remove anonymity among the players, only between the player and the service provider (in this case, the game company). I actually think general anonymity between players is a very, very good thing, with the caveat that there should be certain functions you can perform on another player without knowing their identity, such as reporting harassment, etc. A lot of games nowadays give you a menu of choices when you right-click another player's name. I don't see any reason in the world you shouldn't be able to do the same thing in logs by clicking on the word "someone" in the log entry "someone stabs you in the back". Whatever actual ID the game uses to identify the "someone" at that moment doesn't have to be a static ID, so having the ID available in the log doesn't necessarily give people a way to bypass the player's anonymity.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There's a difference between being anonymous and pseudonymous. It's important that every ally of mine know which enemy is meant when I use the name easily available to me. It's also important that that name can't be changed during the fight, and it needs to be human-readable. I don't understand why "character name" can't fill all of those roles, with an added constraint of "must be unique in the world". Would it help if there was an ability which allowed a character to have a different name, some variation in appearance, and a different factional standing, but changing characters could only be done under limited conditions? There would have to be some arbitrary limit to the number if unique names used, but if it is skill-limited that arbitrary limit could be quite high.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Daniel, I see what you're getting at, and I wouldn't be surprised if GW decides to go ahead and require unique character names that are readily apparent to everyone, with some kind of color coding to indicate whether they're a PC or an NPC, and also whether they're potentially hostile, a friend, a guild member, or any number of other things.
The main reason I'm asking GW to avoid using this mechanic is because the lack of it is significantly better for RP purposes. Having been very active on the PFO forums here for a little over a month now, it is obvious to me that there are a lot of RPers who really want to make PFO their home, and I hope that GW recognizes this and innovates some creative new ways to support them.
The anonymity I'm asking for has nothing to do with the player behind the character being anonymous, I'm actually really asking for it to be possible for the character to be anonymous. Ultimately, I would like it to be possible for a player character to effectively pose as an NPC, and I don't want a big blue name to make that impossible.
I also personally think games look much better with names turned off, and I don't want to be at a disadvantage for playing that way.
I also think it's important that players be able to hide in bushes, etc. without having their glowing names give away their position.
You're absolutely right that every ally needs to know who you're talking about. But I think that Raid Target Marks can be very effective for that, as long as they don't make it impossible for the targeted individual to hide. Marks can be changed during the fight, but not by the target, so that's not a problem.
Ultimately, though, it all boils down to RP for me. There's going to be a lot of opportunity for bravery and selflessness in PFO, and it's just going to be a much cooler experience if there's the possibility of asking "Who was that masked stranger?"
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Should hiding in bushes be a UI/rendering thing, or should it be a skill/ability thing? If it's a gameplay mechanic, it would also apply to all of the UI elements; if it's simply a matter of escaping notice, is that an exploit or working as intended?
Ignoring for the moment the question of cheaters/hackers, a good compromise might be to limit the display of the UI elements to characters within perception range. Hiding would then have the expected effect of not being visible to the players of characters who did not have the perception to notice you; no amount of being in a bush should hide you from the player of a character who does have the perception to notice you despite you being in the bush.
The same should apply for the display of the indicators of what your character perceives (which I think should be done in the form of a diagram indicating the relative location of perceived hostile entities displayed as a UI element; said display might only indicate a radial for sounds which aren't adequately localized based on your character's listen score, or it might indicate areas, or even points where something hidden from your sight (either by invisibility, hide skill, or by being behind you) is making enough noise for your character to identify by position. I can understand your feeling that the 'minimap' or 'radar' is immersion-breaking, but I feel that not having that information clearly visible provides an advantage to -players- who have good hearing and properly calibrated stereo speakers.
I don't need any UI element to tell me a character is a PC, and I like the concept of a player pretending to be an NPC even though I can't imagine choosing to do so myself.
I will grant that the ability for me to identify someone by a number or color that I or an ally assign to that person fills the communication need, even better than a glowing name over their head would.
If we let characters become pseudonymous, perhaps by permitting an item or items which changes the 'visible name' element to "Masked half-elf bandit" or "Masked human vigilante" or "Crimson roughrider corporal", and supported a useful stealth system, would your concerns still exist? I do expect that once one person sees you and points you out to the others, there will be a significant, but not mathematically insurmountable, bonus for the others to also see you, or at least know what general area they are pointing at.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Daniel, after finally understanding your point in the other thread on disguises, I totally see where you're coming from here about displayed names and them not being able to change during combat, etc. And I'm totally fine with that. In fact, I wish I'd been clever enough to think of it myself :)
I think there will be a lot of pressure on GW to have floaty names, since it will be really jarring for a lot of players if they can't see the names the way they're used to. And all of the reasons I had for wanting no floaty names can be dealt with other ways.
RPers can easily turn off floaty names and wait to be introduced.
I can pose as an NPC, I just need a little bit of disguise skill to do it and I need to pick a name that other players might believe is an NPC. For this to work, though, it will have to be difficult if not impossible to memorize the names of all the NPCs in an area.
I can hide in a bush, and if I successfully hide, then the other player can't see my floaty name anyway.
Yeah, I'm on board with this.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think open PVP would provide an immense level of depth to PFO. The majority of the people who enjoy PVP, even from the side of an aggressor are not out to ruin your game experience. As long as the non-combat characters have an ability to escape an encounter (if they are careful enough), I think the threat of being attacked would add excitement and realism. Instanced or flagged PVP is a horrible compromise that detracts from immersion. Don't go middle of the road. I would rather have no PVP than mini-games or other theme park solutions.
The problem is not PVPers. The problem are the griefers. They aren't playing the game for any other reason, but to make their mark and destroy the experience for everyone else. Solutions that penalize their characters don't work. As soon as they become aware of a new PVP sandbox MMO, they are going to swarm. "Player policing" is the best policy vs. small groups, but these large organized guilds are a different matter. First of all, it would require a counter force as well organized and determined at stopping griefing as these people are at inflicting it. I don't see that happening.
The best thing I can think of is to remove bottlenecks so that the griefers can't trap in their prey. As long as you can avoid them and move somewhere else, it's not such a big deal if they take over an area for awhile. Dying a couple of times is nothing, but being killed over and over will ruin the game. I've tried to think up real solutions, but everything that comes to mind I quickly find holes in it. I think it will be impossible to eliminate, but hopefully the devs can come up with solutions to contain it.
Well, one advantage that PFO will enjoy in this regards that many other games haven't is the fact that it is going to start out "invite only" and scale it's population gradualy. So the greifers can't swarm the game at start because they litteraly won't be able to get in. Chances are if someone is kicked out or banned for griefing during that ramp up period...they are going to have a pretty long wait to get access with a new account.
This allows PFO the ability to establish a community that doesn't have much tolerance for greifers or greifing at the start and will, to some extent be able to put down such characters hard as they come in.
It will be criticaly though for the initial player base to set the tone correctly....which isn't neccesarly a given with any game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My take on open PvP mechanics that discourage griefing:
GW can identify some actions that can be treated as illegal/evil, which can shift alignment. The most obvious is illegal killing = murder, but there are undoubtedly others.
I'd think an open world game will want some trouble makers to serve as smart AIs, so some amount of antisocial play is ok. But the question is how to to limit it.
What if evil groups (parties, companies, and settlements) had their organizations limited by "Might Makes Right" philosophies? That is, characters cannot join or stay in a group where the leader is an inferior. It might vary by character alignment: a LE might tolerate orders from someone two levels below them (however levels are measured), but a CE character would not accept a leader who is not equal or stronger. Might that limit the number and size of evil groups?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Understand that there is a huge difference between playing an Evil character/group and "griefing".
A guy may be playing the most vile character in the Universe, that doesn't mean that the player behind that character is a nasty person, nor does it mean that player is going to go around wrecking anyones day. The player behind the "evil" character essentialy needs to know the difference between his CHARACTERS attitude toward other CHARACTERS in the game world and HIS attitude toward other PLAYERS that are sharing the game with him. That PLAYER has a responsibility to know when he's pushing things a little too far and actualy impacting other PLAYERS enjoyment of the game .... at that point he will invent a rationalization for his character to lay-off a bit or switch targets... or potentialy just send am OOC whisper to the other player to let them know it's nothing personal and make sure everything is cool going forward.
Playing an "Evil" character takes alot of maturity and good judgement from a player....and quite frankly most of the people who go in for "Evil" characters these days just don't have those qualities. However those that do, make for a great game experience. I remember quite a few "Evil" characters from my MUD days...and no matter how sinister the Characters might have been...most of the PLAYERS behind them were among the nicest, most helpfull and funnest PLAYERS to game with. That was because they well understood the difference between playing a character who is a jerk...and being a player who is a jerk.
Griefers, on the other hand, are a completely different animal. They are NOT (no matter what they might try to claim) trying to role-play "Evil" characters....they are not trying to or interested in role-playing at all..."good", "evil" or "indifferent".... they are actualy out to ruin the other PLAYERS enjoyment of the game... that's thier prime motivation....and frankly there should be zero tolerance for that in any game or among any gamers.
If we can keep the difference between those 2 groups of players clear in our minds...and make sure everyone understands the difference... then having "Evil" characters/groups will enhance the gaming experience for everyone. If people start forgeting the difference between PLAYING an "Evil" character...and being a jerk to other Players in the game... that's where the problems start to crop up.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@GrumpyMel
Where do you draw the line of impacting other players enjoyment? before you kill them unprovoked, or after you destroy their inventory? I think you will find few players in an MMO environment that will enjoy evil player doing evil things to them in any capacity.
In MMO's the RP group is the smallest group of players(aside from RP-PVP). Currently out of the 50 or so of people activly discussing the game in the forum, most are RP players with a background in pathfinder, When the game actually has some code behind it, and people testing it, there will be a large influx of non-RP players. The un-speaking majority in MMO's is made up of non-RP players.
The 'Evil' players in an MMO are vastly made up of people who don't care if they are negatively affecting the other players in the game. There will be some 'nice' people that play 'evil' characters, but they will be few and far between when the game reaches maturity.
A nice person using the mask of 'my character is evil' to do evil things to other players is just as bad as a mean person using the mask of 'my character is evil'. they are both doing the same thing, one doesn't care about the other players, and the other has put up a mental shield to protect themselves from guilt.
When you're playing with a small subset of people, you can have a person playing an evil character and it will enhance the gameplay for others. But as you get into larger groups that are more emotionally disconnected, the lines are smeared beyond recognition.
Grifers provide content for the truly 'good' players who will hunt them down and shut them out.
I don't see truly evil characters popping up often, with such a long term character development players won't be doing much 'just for the hell of it'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a total aside to the thread, but still on the griefing topic...
when I read this:
When your character dies, your corpse will turn into a soulless husk on the spot. At the moment of death, a timer will begin to count down giving you a minute or two before anything else happens. If a nearby friend has the necessary magic, you may be restored to life right on the spot without any further drawbacks. If you are alone, or have no companions capable of resurrecting you, you'll have to deal with the fallout.
and this:
Your character will re-enter play at the soulbinding point holding and wearing whatever gear they had equipped when they died, so you won't have to start without your armor, or the weapons, wands, or staves you were using. However, until you return to your husk, you are in danger of losing the rest of your inventory...
I took it to mean that your avatar would literally re-enter play, fully formed and not in some nebulous soulspace filled with benevolent spirits. To my thinking this essentially eliminates the potential for a gank-fest or repeated grief-killings out in the wild as the loser of the encounter can always choose to accept the lose of goods and move on to other activities. Hopefully any "soulbinding" spot will be well protected from griefing by Uber-NPC Marshals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valkenr,
I'm not sure exactly where you are going with this but...
- I wouldn't neccesarly make too many assumptions about the type of audience PFO will draw. It's looking to be a very different sort of MMORPG then the typical offering out today (sand-box, PvP focused, built on the Pathfinder IP, invite only at the start, gradualy increasing player base).... so I wouldn't neccesarly assume that it will draw the same audience that the typical MMO does today.
- The difference is in the motivation of the Player. The greifer WANTS to have interactions that disrupt the other players enjoyment of the game.... those interactions can take many different forms...not just killing them...but following them around spamming thier screen with text, etc. The non-griefing "Evil" character wants the opposite....they want the other player to enjoy thier interaction with the game. So they are not going to engage in activities unless they know the other player is interested in said activity.
With people that actualy do such things well...that almost NEVER involves killing the character of an unkown player without some interaction first. Usualy that involves putting some sort of hook out there (much like a GM would do)....such as "Hey, no one crosses my bridge without paying the toll" and see how the other player interacts to judge if they are interested or not. Worse comes to worse...an OOC whisper is an effective tool to judge another players interest. Now in a PvP focused game.....certain things may be assumed given the situations under which other players are encountered (such as entering a War Zone when you are of a known hostile faction.)..... a certain amount of common sense goes along way here.
- Worse comes to worse, a non-griefing "Evil" character who see's that another PLAYER is clearly getting upset with the interaction will find a way to end the interaction and withdraw themselves from the situation .... typicaly with a whispered apology to the other player. With the death penalties as light as they are as has been described in PFO, any player that can't handle a single hostile encounter with a PC antagonist that has some possibility of not going thier way, has probably chosen the wrong game to play. I don't mind getting "killed" or "robbed" by "Evil" characters occasionaly...as long as the interactions are interesting...and the mechanics aren't so stacked against me that I don't have any possibility of emerging on top from any such encounters. These are just virtual pixels in a virtual world after-all.
- Generaly speaking is pretty much futile for players to hunt down/shut out true griefers. "Griefers" don't care about thier characters or even thier accounts and they don't play by the rules, they aren't even really interested in "playing the game".... they are playing thier own game. They find ways to exploit the mechanics of the game to ruin other players experiences that can't effectively be retaliated against....and even if you kill thier characters and destroy thier inventory, it doesn't act as an effective deterrent... because they don't care about any of that....they'll probably just laugh at your efforts and the rise they've gotten from you.....and just go on to find some way to continue to annoy other players. Really the only ones that can truely control real griefers are the Developers... as they can design the mechanics that make it difficult to grief in the first place.... and police player behavior after the fact when those aren't effective by doing things like shutting down access to accounts. About all players can do is "set the tone" for what the game is supposed to be about and what is socialy acceptable behavior in the player community. That's quite important in it's own right... as it lets people who are interested in being part of the community what is expected of them.... however it doesn't do anything about people who are purposefully griefing for the sake of griefing.
P.S. I almost never personaly play an "Evil" character when I RP...it doesn't really suit my personalty type...maybe for a 1 off, but not on a consitant basis.... but I've played with some excellent gamers who do.