Goblin Squad Member
|
A blog post or clarification about how two important elements will influence PFO would serve to convince many possible supporters who sit on the fence. They would be how much will PFO be an EVE clone; and how closely will game mechanics mirror the tabletop version of Pathfinder.1: I would like to see Pathfinder Online evolve the sandbox MMO concepts the way that World of Warcraft evolved the theme park MMO. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from previous sandbox games not just EVE. EVE got a lot of things right and anyone who has played EVE will likely find a lot of similarities with Pathfinder Online, but the two games will be very different as well.
2: Not much at all. Rather than mirroring the mechanics, we're going to mirror the style of the game. The Pathfinder tabletop game is built around small parties of specialized adventurers and extremely detailed tactical combat that is broken into 6 second intervals, but allows an infinite amount of real-time to determine each action. The Pathfinder online game is built around huge communities of players with a wide variety of careers and a combat system that will run in real-time.
BTW: We've said both of these things many times, in many places. None of this should be a surprise to anyone.
RyanD
Noted. Having it at the top of the messageboards for a while is useful, tho- many newcomers aren't going to read hundreds of postings or even read the blogs, apparently. @ Hobbun: 'Griefing' as defined by Ryan ('To Live and Die in the River Kingdoms') will not be tolerated. 'Ganking' will be allowed, subject to game mechanics.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ok, thanks Sepherum.
I went over the blog before, but it’s been awhile and probably didn’t read it as detailed as I should have.
I had thought griefing was something that should not be allowed, but from reading over Ryan’s post on EVE, there was actually acceptable griefing. I was just trying to confirm that “won’t” be the case in PFO. But I’ll read over that blog again.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ok, thanks Sepherum.
I went over the blog before, but it’s been awhile and probably didn’t read it as detailed as I should have.
I had thought griefing was something that should not be allowed, but from reading over Ryan’s post on EVE, there was actually acceptable griefing. I was just trying to confirm that “won’t” be the case in PFO. But I’ll read over that blog again.
Griefing is going to be hard to define and moderate. A moderator dealing with griefing has to deal with it from the perspective that they are dealing with players who paid for the game using legitimate game mechanics. So they are probably going to need hard definable outlines that need as little discretion as possible.
Where are they going to draw the line? What behavior is worthy of moderator intervention and what is not? If one player gets banned for one behavior and another gets off free and clear there will be screaming of admin corruption all over the forums. Hysteric forum users generally don't care about the reasoning for players taking part in certain action, just that one got banned and one didn't. Regardless of their ignorance they will scare incoming players to the community with their warnings of Goblinwork's terrible corruption.
It will be able to screen out some of the most blatant offenses but I doubt it will be able to do much else without interfering in the game in an overbearing and immersion breaking way that will require far too much resources.
To this end players like us need to exist. People who use legitimate game mechanics in a positive way to combat those who use legitimate game mechanics in a negative way. We need no more reasoning than "We don't like you." which gives us unlimited discretion in how to dispense justice. Of course unlike a moderator, we can be defeated.
I think the key to stopping griefers is:
1. Moderators to stop the most blatant abuses.
2. In-game systems to encourage good behavior and discourage bad.
3. Players who hold other players accountable for the actions which the moderators can't.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ok, thanks Sepherum.
I went over the blog before, but it’s been awhile and probably didn’t read it as detailed as I should have.
I had thought griefing was something that should not be allowed, but from reading over Ryan’s post on EVE, there was actually acceptable griefing. I was just trying to confirm that “won’t” be the case in PFO. But I’ll read over that blog again.
At least from the sounds of it, what is considered griefing, will be disallowed. The mystery is what will be considered griefing.
We know banditry won't be griefing.
We do know that they intend to work very hard on ensuring that people cannot be criminal flagged by accident, that eliminates some of the common pitfalls that games have such as people intentionally running into AoEs etc... (though it does add more suspicion to the possibilities of stealth, unless they just outlaw AoEs in lawful zones).
It does sound like they intend to not have an intentionally confusing currency. (IE commas vs decimal points etc...), something that eve was known for.
What I am curious of, is things like the Burn Jita event that occoured in eve. That was one that in many ways could be viewed as pure griefing to some, and as just making a very loud statement to others. Any chance you can give a view on whether an event like that would occour on your watch Ryan, or would you have laid warnings as soon as something along those lines were to be announced.
Now me personally I failed to really see much merit in that particular event. Doubly so considering it was in response to something I would call an extremely lenient punishment. (for those unfamilliar, basically a major guild leader got drunk at a CCP event, and encoraged thousands to harass one guy who supposedly had depression issues, CCP gave the leader a 1 month ban). Of course it is just my opinion that
1. That ban was lenient
2. The burn jita event was more or less a huge organized griefing (Jita was the main high security trading hub if I understand correctly).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
there was a specific reason i asked about the 200vs 2000 kingdoms.
a new/pve/solo/casual (any of those types of ) player is usually impossible to win against a veteran , well equipped ,specifically trained to gank him .
at the same time the 200 people kingdom has pretty much similar chances against the 2000.
in both cases the answer to their problems is "get more friends".And of course my concern is where will gw draw their protective line , both for the single player pvp and the kingdom pvp. I can understand protecting the individual can be a strong focus for the company since this makes people quit .I also hope there is some place (similar to empire) where a wounded kingdom can retreat to and "heal" if they get crushed .
I also hope for a feature like the board you mentioned
I don't think even 10:1 odds exactly and always equals a loss by the lesser kingdom. For starters, on that scale, a larger kingdom may have greater concerns than the smaller, and maybe more extended and vulnerable. Also, in the on the field gameplay maybe the smaller kingdom actually has better fighters (t'would be a strange effort, to carve a spot next to a larger established nation with lesser fighters). The key is really there is no theoretical certitude that can be made. Too many details are missing to say one way or the other, and even that assessment is without the hyper specifics of how a combat system even works.
I don't think the only answer to a 10:1 war is get more friends, but its a sage and safe bet that you're not really looking at a lot of winning unless you're really really really well prepared. Really a scale of this size follows a different ruleset than the squad sized or 1 on 1 scale battle, and each really requires its own layer of discussion to address concerns properly.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Griefing is going to be hard to define and moderate. A moderator dealing with griefing has to deal with it from the perspective that they are dealing with players who paid for the game using legitimate game mechanics. So they are probably going to need hard definable outlines that need as little discretion as possible.
Where are they going to draw the line? What behavior is worthy of moderator intervention and what is not? If one player gets banned for one behavior and another gets off free and clear there will be screaming of admin corruption all over the forums. Hysteric forum users generally don't care about the reasoning for players taking part in certain action, just that one got banned and one didn't. Regardless of their ignorance they will scare incoming players to the community with their warnings of Goblinwork's terrible corruption.
It will be able to screen out some of the most blatant offenses but I doubt it will be able to do much else without interfering in the game in an overbearing and immersion breaking way that will require far too much resources.
To this end players like us need to exist. People who use legitimate game mechanics in a positive way to combat those who use legitimate game mechanics in a negative way. We need no more reasoning than "We don't like you." which gives us unlimited discretion in how to dispense justice. Of course unlike a moderator, we can be defeated.
.
Yes, good point.
I did read over the blog and this was the portion I was looking for:
Goblinworks will be creating an organic, evolving policy on griefing to identify practices that we consider abusive. We will take severe action out-of-game against regularly abusive players, while less flagrant issues will be dealt with in-game by way of an innovative bounty system designed to deter unwanted aggression.
So I am glad to see GW will take a hard stance on griefing, but it will be interesting to see what that their ‘policy’ will involve, and how they will determine what is griefing and what isn’t.
But I do agree with you, it will probably be the most blatant abusers.
As for one of the purposes of our guild, I would like to say I think it would be better we indicated “We don’t like what you are doing, we suggest you stop now.”
Otherwise if it’s because “We don’t like you”, to me at least, it sounds as bad as someone who kills on prejudice. Although we can talk more on this later on, Anduis. :)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the key thing to understand about GW's "griefing policy" is that it won't be laid out in excruciating detail, inviting griefers to find loopholes in it. It will of necessity be somewhat vague, and subject to their own judgment.
They may well decide that a weekly assassination of one character is not griefing, but 3 assassinations of another character in as many months is.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the key thing to understand about GW's "griefing policy" is that it won't be laid out in excruciating detail, inviting griefers to find loopholes in it. It will of necessity be somewhat vague, and subject to their own judgment.
They may well decide that a weekly assassination of one character is not griefing, but 3 assassinations of another character in as many months is.
Stole the thought right out of my brain.
Hey! Thought stealing is griefing.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
there was a specific reason i asked about the 200vs 2000 kingdoms.
a new/pve/solo/casual (any of those types of ) player is usually impossible to win against a veteran , well equipped ,specifically trained to gank him .
at the same time the 200 people kingdom has pretty much similar chances against the 2000.
I personally hope that a new/pve/solo/casual will have a fair chance to win against a ganker. In EVE I would often fly against people 5 and 6 times my character age, and win in 1v1 and even 1v2. Now, you get 10 archers with a single focus of ganking a solo character... Dunno that there's much you can do about that alone.
When you have a n:1 combat one of the limiting factors of success (on each side) is the ability to project and focus your strength. In the case of a siege, one limiting factor I could see is the number of siege engines you could deploy on the battlefield to knock down the target. If the defender, by virtue of choice of location and terrain, can limit the ability of an aggressor to deploy many machines, it doesn't really matter that the aggressor has 10x the membership. Granted, they could potentially deploy teams to harass soft targets, but it wouldn't exactly speed up the attack itself.
Dividing PVP into Hard targets like structures and Soft targets like characters and encampments would go a long way in limiting force projection and focus. A hard target would need specialized equipment to remove, a soft target is something a player can remove themselves without specialized equipment.
I also hope there is some place (similar to empire) where a wounded kingdom can retreat to and "heal" if they get crushed .
There needs to be a place (or two, or three) to start, and that same place should be one to which a beaten kingdom can limp and recover.
There's some awesome potential in this kind of warfare as well. team 200 sets up a little 'bandit' outpost to ambush team 2000's caravans, forcing them to protect their goods, taking time and resources away from the siege. Team 200 could execute guerrilla tactics, harassing team 2000's resource gathering and pve runners, limiting the funds available for their war machine. Team 200 plants a spy in team 2000, finding out what goods they need to purchase from market. Team 200 buys up all the goods and relists them at 10x the price. Economic warfare has some huge potential here. Team 2000 sets up a siege camp and begins constructing the engines. Team 200, by virtue of their nearby 'respawn' could send strike teams to hamper the construction or destroy the siege engine. Because of the lower travel time after dying their force is multiplied.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If there is a 200 character army against a 2000 character army, I think one factor for some may be lag. Anyway, I really like those kind of events. Its the "you stepped on my road so I am going to jump out and kill you in 2 hits" thing that really steals the fun for me, personally.
I am, however, willing to live with it. I have a feeling I won't be traveling alone much anyway.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Kingdoms/Settlements are not people, they can't "retreat" and they can't "heal". If a chartered company or a player "nation" risks all of their hard earned settlements on encroaching into another's proposed realm, and they encounter defeat, then defeat they shall reap. Structures should be destroyed utterly if they're unable to be defended. The characters and members of that nation most assuredly will have some place to go... anywhere but here, so to speak. Expanding into a new area should be a logistical undertaking, not an arbitrary decision. At the very least, I should expect an encroaching mini-nation's infrastructure should/could be absorbed by Nation 2000.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
If there is a 200 character army against a 2000 character army, I think one factor for some may be lag. Anyway, I really like those kind of events. Its the "you stepped on my road so I am going to jump out and kill you in 2 hits" thing that really steals the fun for me, personally.
I am, however, willing to live with it. I have a feeling I won't be traveling alone much anyway.
Consider "Team 2000" isn't an army of 2000 PvPers, but some mix of lowbies, resource gatherers, crafters, and explorers, and PvP fighters. It might be that the army fielded by Team 200 is actually bigger or more capable soldier for soldier, if they are protecting a smaller area, and they can thusly dedicate more resources to a War.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I have a feeling I won't be traveling alone much anyway.
My sentiments exactly!
@Gruffling, I think it will be relatively common for defeated Kingdoms to reestablish themselves in territory controlled by allies while they prepare for a push to retake their former territory. After all, a Company is going to need access to Processing/Crafting Stations as well as Harvesting Sites in order to rebuild their lost assets.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I have a feeling I won't be traveling alone much anyway.My sentiments exactly!
@Gruffling, I think it will be relatively common for defeated Kingdoms to reestablish themselves in territory controlled by allies while they prepare for a push to retake their former territory. After all, a Company is going to need access to Processing/Crafting Stations as well as Harvesting Sites in order to rebuild their lost assets.
I might be arguing semantics; A kingdom is a geographical region, defined usually by infrastructure. Sure the players/characters will regroup, and either move on to the next area or rely on alliances to do so. I was trying to point out that the location and manner with which a group decides to form a sovereign area comes with considerable risk, and choosing the proper neighborhood is not the least of which.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I have a feeling I won't be traveling alone much anyway.My sentiments exactly!
@Gruffling, I think it will be relatively common for defeated Kingdoms to reestablish themselves in territory controlled by allies while they prepare for a push to retake their former territory. After all, a Company is going to need access to Processing/Crafting Stations as well as Harvesting Sites in order to rebuild their lost assets.
Also, I'd assume kingdoms won't be in splendid isolation, but in the process of setting up a kingdom, major part of this will be forming webs of alliances with the other similar settlements and kingdoms, even if they are several hexes away, eg necessity of trade, establishing what's in dispute or what's frontier; maybe sharing the same political systems etc?
So the 200 vs 2000 kingdom contest probably would have more context to it than purely numerical advantage.
On a tangeant to the OP, and rather than complain that so many people push this thread to the top of the forum, I'm curious as to how a solo, casual gamer fits into the world being developed. I think that's at the core of PvP for me.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
On a tangeant to the OP, and rather than complain that so many people push this thread to the top of the forum, I'm curious as to how a solo, casual gamer fits into the world being developed. I think that's at the core of PvP for me.
A pure solo gamer, probably not much this game can accompany to. There will be some content that can be done solo, you can probably do a bit of harvesting sneaking around quietly etc... if you are prepared to run at signs of danger. As described so far, for the most part solo will generally offer the least rewards for the time, the majority of the content sounds like it will likely be far better with a group. IE dungeons, even harvesting will tend to gain more rewards to be done with larger groups in getting more yield for the time spent. Dungeons as well sound to be more of group activities.
Now causal, that the game may very well cater to, considering the skill training is done offline, you may very well be able to sign on every couple of days, and if you are in a good company, sign on ask the guild if it is up to anything join in for a an hour or 2, and not need to come on more then once every few days. The biggest variable for that is going to be how many members chartered companies are limited to. If companies have lots of space to fill, then they will easily be able to put in members who are only on a few times a week, while if the spaces are scarce, then they may be more stingy and require more active players.
Considering GW described one of the perks of the skill system as it permitting people to play this as a second game. I have a feeling they are going to make it fairly easy for companies to have space for casual players.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I even expect casual players to be grouping in the areas around the NPC town to harvest resources/attract PvE there. Yes, it will be less valuable resources, but some settlements might prefer to import the cheap stuff in order to focus their efforts on more valuable stuff found in the hinterlands.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
As for one of the purposes of our guild, I would like to say I think it would be better we indicated “We don’t like what you are doing, we suggest you stop now.”
Otherwise if it’s because “We don’t like you”, to me at least, it sounds as bad as someone who kills on prejudice. Although we can talk more on this later on, Anduis. :)
As far as anyone outside GL is concerned the only reason we need give is "We don't like you." Internally you need to have a lot more justification to kill someone that run along the guidelines of they have to directly provoke you or be someone/part of an organization that is known to take part in immoral actions we consider bad enough to fight them over.
The point is we hold ourselves accountable but I'm not going to sit there and debate it out with someone whether belonging to the "Homes for Horses Company" stealing horses from every unwary noob who dismounts and looks the other way for half a second is griefing or a legitimate business. I'll dispense justice as I see fit whether they like it or not.
I will take the time to explain our stances to the community and discuss them with our members and allies but arguing with griefers about whether they are griefers or not is most often a waste of time. They spend the long cold lonely nights coming up with stories of how they are actually doing the community a service.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...200vs 2000 kingdoms...
Several things that factor into that have not yet been noted:
- Time is a big factor as distance matters and logistics are important, especially for the attacker!
- Motivation of your own troops is difficult at these numbers, especially for the attacker!
- War is always costly, will you gain more than you have to invest?
- War with one opponent always leaves you open on other fronts.
You better make sure you have all your bases covered of else you could very well fail and take a huge hit to your renown/notoriety.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
On a tangeant to the OP, and rather than complain that so many people push this thread to the top of the forum, I'm curious as to how a solo, casual gamer fits into the world being developed. I think that's at the core of PvP for me.A pure solo gamer, probably not much this game can accompany to. There will be some content that can be done solo, you can probably do a bit of harvesting sneaking around quietly etc... if you are prepared to run at signs of danger. As described so far, for the most part solo will generally offer the least rewards for the time, the majority of the content sounds like it will likely be far better with a group. IE dungeons, even harvesting will tend to gain more rewards to be done with larger groups in getting more yield for the time spent. Dungeons as well sound to be more of group activities.
Now causal, that the game may very well cater to, considering the skill training is done offline, you may very well be able to sign on every couple of days, and if you are in a good company, sign on ask the guild if it is up to anything join in for a an hour or 2, and not need to come on more then once every few days. The biggest variable for that is going to be how many members chartered companies are limited to. If companies have lots of space to fill, then they will easily be able to put in members who are only on a few times a week, while if the spaces are scarce, then they may be more stingy and require more active players.
Considering GW described one of the perks of the skill system as it permitting people to play this as a second game. I have a feeling they are going to make it fairly easy for companies to have space for casual players.
To add, the skill-training (continious real-time progression) and the intention of combat to be a play of xp, gear, player skill and one or 2 other things, bodes well, in theory.
Also the contract system: There's bound to be work for casuals and pvp work at that. Although reputation and "repeat-business" are going to be enhancers for casual solo-players finding opportunities on the fly: It's worth investing in building up a contact list for these things as well as randomly responding to a new contract offer. I presume.
So organisations should create space for this player but joining affiliations is likely going to increase the efficiency of what a player enjoys doing, and being involved in that more regularly: I'm guessing that's how it's mostly intended to work. That's my hunch anyway.
I've played in a few really sandboxy/players-as-content games (mostly PBBG rather than subscription MMOs) and all of them have some level of PvP, although in the ones I've seen most people are focused on building things up rather than tearing people and creatures down. Actually being attacked doesn't happen all that often, and only a few let you opt out completely. More often you can avoid the worst/physical effects, but are still subject to things like economic and social attacks.
The one that PFO reminds me most of at the moment is The West (Build/quest/fight as you choose in a wild west setting, team up in a town or alliance or to defend/take forts. Avoiding PvP is possible, but comes with such major disadvantages that it's rare to see someone playing that way past the first few levels. You do start opted out though, so when/whether to opt in is your choice.)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
There's nothing wrong with retreating after combat has already started. In fact, you'll find historically that most retreats happened after combat started.
One thing to keep in mind is that many of the battles in PFO will revolve around controlling territory, not killing characters. If you don't want that bandit horde to burn down your Inn, you're going to need to stand and fight. If you don't want that bandit group to steal your caravan goods, you're going to need to stand and fight. Retreating in these situations will be almost as bad as dying.
In situations where someone's true goal is your death, there's still a long and colorful history of people who ran away from a fight after it started. It doesn't always work, and it shouldn't always work in PFO, but if I can run faster than you I should probably be able to get away from you.
Which reminds me, can we please have Skill-based movement speed, rather than making everyone always run the exact same speed (unless they have special gear)?
Historicaly, most casualties were inflicted during the ROUT phase of combat. Turning your back and running from an opponent that is actively engaging you and capable of following up is an incredibly dangerous and difficult thing to do.
Usualy it was only successfull when there was something/someone availble to "cover" your retreat. You, individualy, can survive IF you run-away while your companions are still fighting and threatening your opponents. Once a unit as a whole breaks morale and crumbles, they tend to get slaughtered.... and that can lead into a cascade effect where an entire army gets destroyed. Note, this applies MOSTLY to pre-modern combat where maintaining formation/unit cohesion was a central key to survivability in battle....although even in modern combat, it's a tricky thing.
Avoiding the above is one of the reasons the Romans developed decimation as a standard punishment for units/soldiers that routed. They learned the hard way, just how devastating retreat was.
In general, I like the idea of the player having some opportunity to avoid combat before engaged....and I like the idea of the player being able to take advanatage of specific moments in a combat where they are not currently engaged or thier opponent is temporarly distracted in order to retreat.....but retreating once engaged to an active and alert opponent who has engaged you in melee should be a very risky/problematic thing, to say the least. YMMV.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Granted, strategic retreat is risky, but there are plenty of examples of it succeeding at the macro level (such as Houston's retreat from Santa Anna). The key factor seems to me to be to ensure a safe avenue of retreat, and to maintain discipline.
At the micro level, Aikido is largely devoted to the principle of maintaining a safe distance from your attacker, and joining the energy they put into their attacks to force them to immediately disengage. It's a relatively simple thing to back away from an attacker who's struggling to get back up off the ground. Again, the key factor seems to me to be to ensure a safe avenue of retreat.
There are other situations where ensuring no possibility of retreat may be a better choice. If even the undisciplined soldiers in your ranks clearly understand that there is nowhere to run, they they will fight as if their lives depended on it...
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
PFO is not going to be that. Some people are very unhappy with that. Many, many more have embraced it, and understand that it is integral to the rest of the system.We're aware. We're just disappointed. And in the case of people like Patrick who put in a lot of money for a product they will now never use, angry.
Goblinworks should have included this tidbit of information up front when the Kickstarter was announced, IMO, unless it wasn't decided on at that time.
There are more Theme Park MMOs on the market right now than you can shake a stick at, and virtually all of them allow you to play in a way where you never have to engage in non-consensual PvP.And let's be honest here. If we were interested in any of those, would we be wasting our time posting here?
They were pretty open about the type of game PFO was intended to be and specificaly the nature of PvP presented in it if you read the BLOG posts. A Kickstarter page is neccesarly only going to be able to present a limited amount of information about a given project due to space constraints, but all the information has been availble here since well before the Kickstarter was created. So, all the information was availble if anyone wished to research it before making a commitment.
I don't think Goblinworks can realisticaly be blamed if people didn't conduct enough due dillegence on the project before commiting to support it and ended up with faulty assumptions as a result. They linked directly to this site in the first paragraph of the Kickstarter page as a place to get more information on the project, and in multiple other places on the project home page, they invited people to read/participate on these boards and check out the blog entries.
Honestly they've been far more forthcoming about thier design intent then pretty much any other MMO I've seen in Development.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
...200vs 2000 kingdoms...Several things that factor into that have not yet been noted:
- Time is a big factor as distance matters and logistics are important, especially for the attacker!
- Motivation of your own troops is difficult at these numbers, especially for the attacker!
- War is always costly, will you gain more than you have to invest?
- War with one opponent always leaves you open on other fronts.
You better make sure you have all your bases covered of else you could very well fail and take a huge hit to your renown/notoriety.
Not to mention the OPPORTUNITY COSTS involved. Even if you are able to gain more resources then it costs you to conquer the smaller kingdom.... could those resources have been invested in something that provided even greater return...like developing the territory you already control, or trying to carve out new territory from the wilderness rather then taking it from another player Kingdom.
Wise Kingdoms are always going to want to consider both the direct costs of a major action but also the indirect ones, including what other actions they might have been able to devote thier efforts toward had they taken a different course.
Even aggressive Kingdoms may find it the wiser course of action to demand some sort of tithe or tribute from vulnerable neighbors rather then invest the resources in a full scale conflict.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Even aggressive Kingdoms may find it the wiser course of action to demand some sort of tithe or tribute from vulnerable neighbors rather then invest the resources in a full scale conflict.
The contract system that GW has outlined might be able to expand to cover such tribute arrangements.
Goblinworks Founder
|
Content deleted, because it was long.
RyanD
*giddy a major player touched my post*
Anyways, I never been one that was actively looking for PvP action. The only time was during WoW but that was forced in setup areas designated to do it, which really wasn't thrilling PvP action.
Meridian 59 was my very first MMO that I experienced the PvP action. You were watching dots that appeared on the mini-map and watching them even more when that dot was getting closer to you. They dealt with murder by the person turning red, allowing them to be attacked without consequence. The other thing was the victim had his own revenge with a revenant going after the killer, who wouldn't go away by hiding in a building and logging, it waited outside for that person.
What I learned now was always have a backup, some way to escape if need be. Whether it was a spell, a place you can head to or an item that helps speed your escape.
I just don't want to fight people unless I have to save someone... I want to make friends not enemies.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I've started a thread specifically for discussion of kingdom v kingdom scale PvP, if anyone would like to contribute that would be super.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
@Hobbun - yes.
It also allows a practice called "ninja looting". In EVE, no ownership rights attach to a wreck. So if you go into a PvE area and kill the NPCs, someone else can come along behind you and steal the valuable items in the wreckage. If you shoot at that person, YOU are flagged as a criminal, and that person (and his friends) can blow you out of the sky with impunity.
Hobbun, since I got you in EvE I wanted to correct this. Wrecks ARE player owned just like the cargo cans dropped in space for you. You can SALVAGE a wreck for parts but the "loot" in the cargo will remain in space. Salvage will not flag. Cargo theft will.
The rest was right on the money sadly. I have always hated that CCP allowed scams and I deeply hope PFO will not allow such griefing in game. If for any other reason to cut down on scammer spam in chat. EVERY visit to Jita (main trade hub in EvE) comes with nothing but spam in Local. Spam sucks. Period.
Ah but CCP permit certain scams as you can deal with them in-game, and even more so in PFO with the bounty system.
It should teach a valuable lesson; don't take someone at their word until you can measure what the worth of that word is.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ah but CCP permit certain scams as you can deal with them in-game, and even more so in PFO with the bounty system.
It should teach a valuable lesson; don't take someone at their word until you can measure what the worth of that word is.
Really? What can you do to deal with them in EvE aside from adding 10 new people to your ignore list every time you fly into Jita? Attack someone that hides IN station ON their scamming alt? Not likely. War Dec them? Alt. Report them to their Alliance/Guild? Alt (as if they would care in EvE).
Now take the big scams like the Phaser Inc. Investment scheme. What suffering has been dealt to Eddie Lampert and Mordor Exuel for their 1.800+ trillion ISK Ponzi scheme? Zip, Nada, Zero. Nothing could be done. With that much money they could flip bounties, replace anything destroyed in PvP, AND buy tons of PLEX for free account time for the next 166 years! More than enough to supply a entire corporation of alts all fully decked out. Oh and the funny part was they got more "congratulations" than hate mail.
If such a thing happened in PFO and was allowed the bounty system would do jack all. In either case as long as you scam on a alt a standard bounty system would do nothing to you. Don't leave town, scam from safety, transfer ill gotten gains to main. Easy as pie. The reason scams are common in EvE is the simple fact that there is zero consequences of any severity to deter people from "criminal" behavior.
Now if Ryan wants to allow players to scam, OK fine not that big a deal. Truly. A fool and his money are easily parted so let people learn the lesson the hard way. BUT I don't want scam spammers flooding my chat everytime I ride into Thornkeep.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Ryan has repeatedly stated outright that he wants to avoid the anti-social behavior that was rampant in Eve.
And does this include spammers? Possibly. The big thing though is he "wants to". He may deliver (my hope) and he may not and if he doesn't it will most likely be no fault of his own. Players EXCEL on finding ways to out think the intended design. Especially, when it comes to being douchebags.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think the key to avoiding spam is to make it difficult/costly for new characters on throwaway accounts to reach the public.
1. Define New Accounts as accounts where no Skill Training has been bought yet, and New Characters as any Character on a New Account.
2. Create a New Player Advice channel, which is the only channel that New Characters can type in.
3. Start New Characters in areas where they are not likely to be in local proximity to experienced players unless the experienced players choose to be there. Require the New Characters to work to get out of those areas.
This should allow experienced players who are interested to assist new players while also limiting the reach of the new players to spam or harass other players.
I don't think that Goblinworks should expend too much resources on scams like that. If someone is willing to put their currency into something they don't have a good understanding of, then tough. Caveat emptor.
Ironically, the alignment system might become a greater tool for scammers than anything else. Any scammer worth his salt will create an alt and attain Lawful Good alignment. That might lull idiots into a false sense of security and there isn't a great deal Goblinworks can do without gimping legitimate players.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I think other players will be far more persuaded to trust characters on accounts that have obviously had a lot of time invested in them, rather than basing their decisions on alignment.
Hopefully, PFO will allow players to prove how much time and skill training they have on their account. Or at least, of proving they have at least X amount.
Yeah, but regardless you must have your wits about you. There are scammers out there who have the discipline to commit to the long haul and totally infiltrate an organisation purely to rip them off.
Nothing you can do about that though.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Nothing you can do about that though.there are games out there (darkfall) that deal with this issue by allowing only one character slot. I am a huge fan of this solution
you roleplay an alignment/behavior without avoiding the consequences .you cannot be a bandit/thug/cutthroat and then jump to your alt who is a trustworthy merchant (also your fence )
some people enjoy alts .well , buy another account and buy training time for the alt etc .plenty of people will do it , but at the same time it will deter a few as well
Well PFO definently is doing this more or less, you can have multiple characters on an account, but you have to pay for the training time for the additional characters.
I believe eve on line more or less does the same thing as well. However it does not come close to detering the amount of alts people tend to make however. Least it didn't in eve, I can't speak for darkfall as I never played it.
Ah but you will get people who will buy an additional account just to mess with people. Seen it happen before, and like I said there is nothing you can do to safeguard against that which won't impact legitimate players.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
@insorrow, if it's easy for people who enjoy alts to buy another account to get around this restriction, don't you think it will be easy for the others too?
To me, it's far more effective to provide very strong incentives for players to put all their characters on a single account, so that all of those characters can be banned en masse when the player gets out of line. If you combine that with a way for a player to demonstrate how much time he has invested in his account then that becomes a very reliable proxy for other players to judge how likely he is to be a griefer.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Interesting thread. I'm picking up one thing here, which is most people don't really actually understand what a Sandbox MMO is.
Asking "is PVP the focus of this MMO" is not something the game answers, it is something YOU answer.
Not a fan of PVP? Then don't. Stay in safe areas. Take up architecture or farming or somesuch. Travel in large well guarded convoys and stay in cities.
Love PVP to death? Then head out, join a gang roaming the northern wastes and get ready to smash heads against like-minded gangs all over the north marches!
I don't think anyone can help the one guy who stresses out over "the idea of someone ganking you" because well, as much as you'd like to remove yourself from people, there will still be actual people playing, so who knows if someone might try and kill you somewhere crazy.
What this discussion actually highlights is the gulf between the MMO communities and the Tabletop RPG community. It's not insurmountable, though some people will not like the game regardless of how much they gave to the Kickstarter.