Goblin Squad Member
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Also, from a prospective bandit's point of view...having a place we can call home with big frickin walls as opposed to a cave seems more inviting once our enemies come a'knockin. But hey, I go with the flow.
Just like everyone else, we will Have What We Hold. Besides, we will also only maintain the MVP needed to suit our benefit.
Also important to consider is that the PvP system directed at player structures won't be in EE, very early on, so we may have weeks or perhaps months of time to reap the benefits without risks.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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When each of your settlements' leaders gets a nicely phrased message saying "Your citizen NotBluddwolf was out murdering yesterday. Do you allow your citizens to do that kind of thing?" and they must provide some answer (Failing to respond or take any action IS an answer), what do you think they will say?You can't be serious. By what tracking system is every character's actions going to be recorded and then reported to settlement leaders?
What makes you think settlements won't be sending out raiding parties to do just that?
This game us about settlement conflict and dominance. We don't have 7000 star systems to spread out into. Settlements are comparatively on top of each other and they are competing for resources. There will be a near continuous state of feud and warfare at many locations simultaneously.
Ryan has said on numerous occasions, we are going to die often in PFO. You can spend all the time you like writing PMs, I'd rather get back to the action.
Hey, try sending that letter to a group like Goonswarm. You think they'll turn to their member and reprimand him/her for killing someone? Forget about the Goons, ask Steelwing if his group will care? Golgotha? I hope someone sends me a pm like that, I'll turn that over to the Goodfellow to handle. Add a whole new meaning of "Return to Sender" will be realized.
Great, playing the settlement game and having your characters affiliated with your settlement is the intended behavior. I thought that your description of "unaffiliated" raiders was intended to illustrate how you could make settlement membership irrelevant.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Sorry this is now an assumption? It seemed fairly clear from the blog that is must be possibleAssumptions:
Members of NPC Settlements can be members of CompaniesThe original PC Settlements will be seeded via the Guild Land Rush promotion. So it is possible that we will not allow NPC Settlement members to form Companies; but as I said, that's an assumption, not a fact.
It's clear that we need to carefully craft the rights & responsibilities of NPC Settlements to reflect their nature - as temporary refuges for new characters or displaced characters before or between periods of affiliation with a PC Settlement.
So if we are going with the assumption that Companies cannot be part of NPC settlements...
What happens to a company that leaves a PC settlement? Will it just auto disband?
I have to go with... If a company cannot be part of an NPC settlement, then that is not a completely thought out idea.
A company that loses settlement sponsorship becomes an unsponsored company.
A member of a sponsored company that leaves the sponsoring settlement leaves the company, just as a character that joins a sponsored company joins the settlement. There might even be exactly one sponsored company per settlement, with identical membership.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Great, playing the settlement game and having your characters affiliated with your settlement is the intended behavior. I thought that your description of "unaffiliated" raiders was intended to illustrate how you could make settlement membership irrelevant.
PC settlement is not required for all characters, or even any character. You can try to PM the leadership of an NPC if you like, not sure how long it will take for them to back back to you?? ;-)
What I find amusing about you belief is that settlements for the most part are going to be upset if their citizens are out killing other players in an Open World PvP MMO. It will be expected behavior and depending on how much loot is brought back, probably encouraged.
Settlements sponsoring aggressive companies, are sponsoring them for the sole purpose of being aggressive. Mercenary groups, including our own, will be in high demand.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There might even be exactly one sponsored company per settlement, with identical membership.
If each POI controls a wilderness hex, then each wilderness hex controlled/owned by a settlement must have a sponsored company that owns that POI.
Now, perhaps one company could control all POIs, but I'd expect that instead there would likely be multiple sponsored companies per settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There might even be exactly one sponsored company per settlement, with identical membership.If each POI controls a wilderness hex, then each wilderness hex controlled/owned by a settlement must have a sponsored company that owns that POI.
Now, perhaps one company could control all POIs, but I'd expect that instead there would likely be multiple sponsored companies per settlement.
It may start off this way, but I would expect to see one company controlling all the settlements POI's in the end. Players from different companies will have alts in the controlling company to take care of things. This will be done to control the flow of resources.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The stated intention of the design is to allow characters to form Companies which are not affiliated with a Settlement.
The assumption is that characters who are not PC Settlement members could join (or form) Companies.
In other words, eligibility to join (or form) a Company is not necessarily universal - that's an assumption.
What would happen to a Company member who lost PC Settlement affiliation if the design disallows that status would be tbd but would likely have to be exile from the Company.
I'm not hinting that there is some grand plan that is yet to be revealed. I'm just saying that the design contains lots of elements that are TBD - that's the purpose of Crowdforging. But basing a lot of theory on assumptions is dangerous.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I also think the idea that ad hoc'ing a social graph external to the game design and managing to remain effective is also a pretty big assumption.
For short-term limited-area operations it would work ok, I guess (depends on how cohesive those people are at coordination out of game) but I don't think it would work well to achieve longer-term objectives or campaigns over a wide area.
There's a virtual internal lines of communication problem that the ad hoc'ers will confront that degrades their effectiveness over time & distance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I understand it, the system is being designed to make one company per POI the most efficient method. The more POIs controlled by a single in-game entity, the less efficient.
Yup. If the POI company can respond in defense of the outpost companies, there might be some merit in having one large militant company serve this role for the outposts in 2 or 3 hexes.
I'd think that having one large company controlling 6-10 POIs would ensure that the POIs were stunted (since Influence would be spread over all POIs rather than upgrading just one or maybe two). It would also mean that there was only a single company serving as the second line of defense for the outposts in those 6-10 hexes.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also think the idea that ad hoc'ing a social graph external to the game design and managing to remain effective is also a pretty big assumption.
For short-term limited-area operations it would work ok, I guess (depends on how cohesive those people are at coordination out of game) but I don't think it would work well to achieve longer-term objectives or campaigns over a wide area.
There's a virtual internal lines of communication problem that the ad hoc'ers will confront that degrades their effectiveness over time & distance.
Yeah, that could be. The power blocs in Eve have done it quite well for years... but thats another game with another set of travel rules and etc. Keeping coordinated out of game should be no problem if determined.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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To the best of my knowledge there is no major force in EVE which is not a Corporation. There are some groups like the Guiding Hand Social Club which are not corporations per se but their actions are all individual, not groups.
Even the Goons found they needed to work within the mechanical systems to do what they wanted to do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was talking about the Coalitions of Alliances. You are correct, the control of the assets usually falls to one corporation.
The Goons control the CFC, I couldnt tell you how many Alliances are in that Coalition... but Id bet there is over 10 large Alliacnes.
They all communicate with Jabber, TS, and forums.
Hell, that massive fight that took place just recently with what 60 Titans killed... Was all coordinated on both sides out of game.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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EVE has reached the point where it would benefit from a mechanical system of Alliances of Alliances because that's what is de facto already occurring. However, the graph of those Alliances of Alliances is still likely within a span of control of 10 or less people so they don't suffer from the kinds of problems that come with scale. But they will as EVE keeps growing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That would be at the kingdom level in PFO. Then we have alliances above that. So PFO will already have 2 tiers above Eve planned.
Yeah, that is already what is occurring in Eve. Im not sure those 10 guys will have much of a problem as they grow... unless they are not delegating responsibilities. I mean, groups like the CFC are controlling what 10k people? Granted its hard to guess, but I would say the members list is something like 20k - 30k between the entire coalition. Figure and alt or two average.
Eh, we have time to worry about that stuff lol.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To the people concerned over Ryan's statement that it's an assumption that companies can be formed outside player settlements, maybe he was just referring you back to the de-facto Rule 0 of everything we know about PFO, which is: "This is all still up in the air." All we have at the moment are design intents, not mechanics.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That would be at the kingdom level in PFO. Then we have alliances above that. So PFO will already have 2 tiers above Eve planned.
Yeah, that is already what is occurring in Eve. Im not sure those 10 guys will have much of a problem as they grow... unless they are not delegating responsibilities. I mean, groups like the CFC are controlling what 10k people? Granted its hard to guess, but I would say the members list is something like 20k - 30k between the entire coalition. Figure and alt or two average.
Eh, we have time to worry about that stuff lol.
I actually see Settlements at the Corp level of EVE, Kingdoms being Alliances. Companies being a subset of Corporations. Or in other terms, the EVE Corp is being split into small Corps (Companies) and larger POS focused Corps (Settlements). PFO and EVE social structures don't really match 1:1.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Great, playing the settlement game and having your characters affiliated with your settlement is the intended behavior. I thought that your description of "unaffiliated" raiders was intended to illustrate how you could make settlement membership irrelevant.PC settlement is not required for all characters, or even any character. You can try to PM the leadership of an NPC if you like, not sure how long it will take for them to back back to you?? ;-)
What I find amusing about you belief is that settlements for the most part are going to be upset if their citizens are out killing other players in an Open World PvP MMO. It will be expected behavior and depending on how much loot is brought back, probably encouraged.
Settlements sponsoring aggressive companies, are sponsoring them for the sole purpose of being aggressive. Mercenary groups, including our own, will be in high demand.
You don't think that settlements' polices about harming others will inform settlement politics and wars on a meaningful scale?
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Goblin Squad Member
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You don't think that settlements' polices about harming others will inform settlement politics and wars on a meaningful scale?Great, playing the settlement game and having your characters affiliated with your settlement is the intended behavior. I thought that your description of "unaffiliated" raiders was intended to illustrate how you could make settlement membership irrelevant.PC settlement is not required for all characters, or even any character. You can try to PM the leadership of an NPC if you like, not sure how long it will take for them to back back to you?? ;-)
What I find amusing about you belief is that settlements for the most part are going to be upset if their citizens are out killing other players in an Open World PvP MMO. It will be expected behavior and depending on how much loot is brought back, probably encouraged.
Settlements sponsoring aggressive companies, are sponsoring them for the sole purpose of being aggressive. Mercenary groups, including our own, will be in high demand.
No I don't.
A settlement who does not want its members to be aggressive will know whether they have been aggressive or not by their reputation score.
Since we are so strongly discouraged from traveling alone, it is likely others of their own settlement will be aware of the activities.
Settlements who don't want aggressive players, won't sign them up to begin with or should have vetted their citizenry better.
Wars will be caused more so from the harvesting of raw materials, than most amounts of killing. (I have seen this time and time again in EvE).
But, hey by all means, send out those PMs. I just don't expect them to be any kind if a revelation for the settlement.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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You don't think that settlements' polices about harming others will inform settlement politics and wars on a meaningful scale?Great, playing the settlement game and having your characters affiliated with your settlement is the intended behavior. I thought that your description of "unaffiliated" raiders was intended to illustrate how you could make settlement membership irrelevant.PC settlement is not required for all characters, or even any character. You can try to PM the leadership of an NPC if you like, not sure how long it will take for them to back back to you?? ;-)
What I find amusing about you belief is that settlements for the most part are going to be upset if their citizens are out killing other players in an Open World PvP MMO. It will be expected behavior and depending on how much loot is brought back, probably encouraged.
Settlements sponsoring aggressive companies, are sponsoring them for the sole purpose of being aggressive. Mercenary groups, including our own, will be in high demand.
No I don't.
A settlement who does not want its members to be aggressive will know whether they have been aggressive or not by their reputation score.
Since we are so strongly discouraged from traveling alone, it is likely others of their own settlement will be aware of the activities.
Settlements who don't want aggressive players, won't sign them up to begin with or should have vetted their citizenry better.
Wars will be caused more so from the harvesting of raw materials, than most amounts of killing. (I have seen this time and time again in EvE).
But, hey by all means, send out those PMs. I just don't expect them to be any kind if a revelation for the settlement.
Do you expect that sending warnings about poachers will happen prior to declarations of war?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do you expect that sending warnings about poachers will happen prior to declarations of war?No, man. Wars are just things that randomly happen completely divorced from human interaction.
As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.
It's as if we don't just take the things you say blindly as gospel. I wonder why.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.It's as if we don't just take the things you say blindly as gospel. I wonder why.
Why?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why?As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.It's as if we don't just take the things you say blindly as gospel. I wonder why.
Because he has a strong pattern of misrepresenting the way things work.
For example:
... SADs at 100% to guarantee their rejection, giving you a free kill...
He consistently pretends that SADs are primarily in the game to give him a way to kill anyone he wants without consequence.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why?As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.It's as if we don't just take the things you say blindly as gospel. I wonder why.Because he has a strong pattern of misrepresenting the way things work.
For example:
... SADs at 100% to guarantee their rejection, giving you a free kill...He consistently pretends that SADs are primarily in the game to give him a way to kill anyone he wants without consequence.
I don't remember Bluddwolf ever saying that there wouldn't be any consequences to a SAD. Consequences would be angering people, people fighting back, feuds, wars. You two just seem to have a disagreement on what mechanical consequences the game should place on SADS.
Saying someone has a "Strong pattern of misrepresenting the way things work" is the equivalent of calling some one a liar...foolish since no one knows exactly how things work since the game hasn't been finished yet.
Bluddwolf and I would like to see a light touch as far as the developers inhibiting different play styles. You and your guys seem intent on putting restrictions on, well, just about everyone who doesn't agree with you.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Why?As Xeen had recommend to me, it is useless to try to explain these things to you guys. I'll take his advise, and leave you all in the dark. You seem happy to be oblivious to the realities of open world PvP MMOs.It's as if we don't just take the things you say blindly as gospel. I wonder why.Because he has a strong pattern of misrepresenting the way things work.
For example:
... SADs at 100% to guarantee their rejection, giving you a free kill...He consistently pretends that SADs are primarily in the game to give him a way to kill anyone he wants without consequence.
If the reader continues to read my post, I speak of the consequences and costs of a SAD. I also explain under what circumstance the SAD would be good to use, the part you conveniently snipped out.
When I put out an idea that is proven to be wrong it is the result of misinterpretation or lack of information. When you put out wrong information it is usually by design, and usually through omission and the suspicion that the reader will not follow the link to see your bias.
You are not a trustworthy source of information. You only provide snippets of information that support your views. Worse, when they don't, you trim them down so that they appear to do so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can we not start this again?
Certainly, you are a neutral party so I will explain it to you.
When you have a settlement declare war on you, the following MAY have been the causes, or may be true in general:
1. You may never know the reason why you have a war declared against you
2. Wars are declared when you have done an action that is in no way aggressive, in your mind.
3. It is usually not a good idea to begin a dialogue with a group that has declared war on you at the onset of the war. It is even worse during the timer before the war actually starts.
4. Telling a settlement that their members have been killing yours, especially in your own lands, is an invitation for that settlement to declare war on you. You are not just projecting weakness, you're admitting it.
5. Wars are only started against an opponent that projects weakness and the aggressor believes they can defeat the defender. No one starts wars they might lose unless they are idiots, or just out for the lolz.
I see no indication about the settlement vs. settlement domination game in PFO to make any of these five points inaccurate and not sound advice.
@ Cirolle
You should use an avatar, when you make a short post, it almost gets lost on the page.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Furthermore, this is the 5h blog entry for pathfinder online.
I know it is long, but I think since all of these little discussions on the forums continue, this needs to be addressed. The game is advertised as a sandbox theme park hybrid and explained in detail that it will be mostly sandbox with SOME theme park elements.
sanddbox vs. Theme Park
We've already told you that we're making a sandbox MMO with theme park elements. That's another key to our strategy. One of the challenges standard theme park MMOs face is that they have to do two things before they can be released: They have to build a complete multiplayer virtual world, and then they have to populate it with a massive amount of playable content—the theme park.
In most MMO development plans, that theme park content is where the budget is spent. Creating the assets for the graphics and sounds—and whatever custom programming is needed to make those assets do what the designers want—and then designing the levels to present the challenges that the designers have imagined soaks up lots of time. And that theme park content has to be extensively tested to ensure that it works as designed, adding further development time. And time, in the MMO business, is money, in the form of salaries and overhead. (The ultimate expression of the theme park process is coming very soon in the form of Star Wars: The Old Republic, from EA/Bioware. I have been told by people I trust within the industry that this project's budget has exceeded $300 million. It is the Avatar of this generation of MMOs.)
The result of this time/cost function is that theme park MMOs must attract a huge number of players on release so that they can recoup those huge overhead costs as fast as possible. This creates a feedback loop that dooms many MMO developers: they need a big launch so that they can start covering their costs, so they have to create enough content to satisfy a huge initial spike of players, but making that content costs even more money. It's very easy to get into a trap where the cost to make the content you need to pay for your design is more than you can generate in revenue from that design. This is why many MMOs never see the light of day.
This was the first critical point where our plan diverged from the norm. Sandbox MMOs have a different time/cost function. Their primary need is a robust virtual world that can challenge and engage the audience. Making a sandbox game means focusing on the creation of the multiplayer virtual world. By positioning Pathfinder Online as a sandbox with theme park elements, we can focus primarily on the content needed for players to interact with each other and avoid having to develop a huge amount of theme park content prior to launch.
Focusing on the sandbox doesn't just save time and money, though—we think it's an ideal way to explore the Pathfinder world. In a sense, Paizo's own Pathfinder lines actually combine sandbox elements (by way of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting line) with theme park elements (via the Pathfinder Adventure Path and Pathfinder Module lines). Though the sandbox will be our initial focus, the Pathfinder brand is known for great stories and adventures, and over time, we'll add lots of opportunities for theme-park style adventure into the fabric of the world to give depth and richness to the Pathfinder Online experience.
Also, here is A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.
^That is the standard and with out a doubt most widely accepted definition of what a sandbox game is. So if one were to read these forums and have this knowledge, you can come to only a few conclusions.
That
A: Paizo and PFO have misrepresented the product they are selling (not likely)
B: People have heard about a cool D&D game and bought into it not ever reading the blog of it's content and mechanics.
C: People have come here not caring or understanding the fundamentals of a sandbox and are trying to change this game into something it didn't say it would be to suit their own particular play style.
In essence, these last few days of me posting again has made me realize why I stopped in the first place and why most people who lurk on the forums never post. People here at every turn trying to set forth game mechanics to restrict other players. I have had enough of it and there are times I actually think people are a step away from asking for a "save" game button.
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Goblin Squad Member
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D: people sharing opinions and crowdforging. :)
B and C are a challenge for any game in early development, I certainly agree with that.
How toxic this all gets on the forums imo depends on the community and how open GW is. I think GW are being very transparent about what they are doing, what they want and where they currently are. That will cause some unhappy folks here and there but hopefully will prevent any huge landslides in opinion about PFO later on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Certainly, you are a neutral party so I will explain it to you.
Bluddwolf you have an incredibly twisted view of things at times.
When you have a settlement declare war on you, the following MAY have been the causes, or may be true in general:
1. You may never know the reason why you have a war declared against you
Untrue. You will always know that the declarer of war somehow considered it to be to their advantage, in their evaluation of conditions and their values.
2. Wars are declared when you have done an action that is in no way aggressive, in your mind.
War is even more likely to be declared when you have engaged in aggression.
3. It is usually not a good idea to begin a dialogue with a group that has declared war on you at the onset of the war. It is even worse during the timer before the war actually starts.
Not true, unless the entity that declared war is only doing so because PvP is the limit to what they imagine would be fun, i.e. total losers.
No, it is called diplomacy, something you are exceedingly short on.
4. Telling a settlement that their members have been killing yours, especially in your own lands, is an invitation for that settlement to declare war on you.
You are not just projecting weakness, you're admitting it.
Untrue: it is giving the malefactor's settlement a chance to dissociate themselves from the irresponsible player causing the crippling of its economic base.
5. Wars are only started against an opponent that projects weakness and the aggressor believes they can defeat the defender. No one starts wars they might lose unless they are idiots, or just out for the lolz.
Just like Alexander of Macedon was an idiot to confront Persia.
I see no indication about the settlement vs. settlement domination game in PFO to make any of these five points inaccurate and not sound advice.
What you think you see see, or don't see, may not be terribly significant to anyone wishing to apprehend the truth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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C: People have come here not caring or understanding the fundamentals of a sandbox and are trying to change this game into something it didn't say it would be to suit their own particular play style.
I think this is accurate and quite spot on. However, I believe the guilty parties are the ones arguing for 'Relying mostly on player enforcement' are the ones misunderstanding the concept of a sandbox and the design intentions for the game.
Nowhere is anyone advocating for limitations on your actions. The sandbox core principle of being able to act is set in place. Adding mechanical consequences to certain actions does not impede that sandbox principle. You are still free to act, but you must accept the consequences. This is no different from saying that as a player, you are more than free to jump into a lake of lava if you happen to find one in the world. But you need to accept that you are going to be taking large amounts of fire damage and will die very quickly as a result. I do not see anyone advocating that we should not see a falling damage mechanic and that other players should hit anyone who falls off a cliff to enforce taking falling damage.
The game will allow you to take these actions you desire. But it is allowed to give you reasons to think about why that may be a bad idea. It does not violate the sandbox ideology, but rather embraces it more fully than many of you wish to admit.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What you think you see see, or don't see, may not be terribly significant to anyone wishing to apprehend the truth.
As someone once said, When I put out an idea that is proven to be wrong it is the result of misinterpretation or lack of information. The obvious subtext is: when I state something as truth, and it turns out to not be the truth, it's not my fault.
I think this is accurate and quite spot on. However, I believe the guilty parties are the ones arguing for 'Relying mostly on player enforcement' are the ones misunderstanding the concept of a sandbox and the design intentions for the game.
I think you misunderstand that side of the argument lifedragn. It is certainly a view I argue and I will continue to do so for one very simple reason. Mechanics do not in any way impede the people you are trying to stop. This is why the toxic area in Eve is high sec.
Player enforcement does a lot more to control these players which is why null sec empires are some of the safest areas in game to pursue your ratting or mining (short of there being a war on naturally).
Griefers and RPK'ers will abound in this game and they will not be low rep. They have plenty of mechanics they will be able to use to pursue their fun. The only people who will be limited are those trying to curtail their behavior. Griefers and rpk'ers are used to working around the rules of games. The good guys (as you think of them) usually have the response of "oh the mechanics need to be tougher".
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Goblin Squad Member
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D: people sharing opinions and crowdforging. :)
B and C are a challenge for any game in early development, I certainly agree with that.
How toxic this all gets on the forums imo depends on the community and how open GW is. I think GW are being very transparent about what they are doing, what they want and where they currently are. That will cause some unhappy folks here and there but hopefully will prevent any huge landslides in opinion about PFO later on.
Sure, sharing opinions. That is what crowd forging is. But imagine a game developer began a kick starter for a theme park game with a few sand box elements....and then me and Bluddwolf show up with our ideas. Would the theme park community be happy with a constant barrage of sandbox ideas?
In the end, I agree, this is getting toxic. But I'm afraid to take another hiatus from the forums and let the people who came expecting a sandbox came be drown out by the constant bickering about new mechanics/restrictions some people want to place.
And the fact that the people who are claiming my guild leader is dishonest or untruthful and trying to prove that point by purposely taking part of a sentence out of an entire series of discussions is hypocritical to say the least.
But hey, I am fighting with people who are obviously better members of the community than I am. Just ask them. I mean, dude, they took an online psychology test and passed with flying colors!
Griefers and RPK'ers will abound in this game and they will not be low rep.Despair! Surrender now! It's hopeless!
Pshaw
Continue with your optimism. You have given no reason yet why people will not just use the feud mechanism just as they use the war dec mechanism in Eve for griefing purposes.
The two are equivalent in functionality.
Instead of just blindly taking Dancey's word for it which is all you seem to have going for your view take a rational look at whats going to happen and explain why you think griefers and rpkers will not just use the systems put in place to get their fun.
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Goblin Squad Member
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C: People have come here not caring or understanding the fundamentals of a sandbox and are trying to change this game into something it didn't say it would be to suit their own particular play style.I think this is accurate and quite spot on. However, I believe the guilty parties are the ones arguing for 'Relying mostly on player enforcement' are the ones misunderstanding the concept of a sandbox and the design intentions for the game.
Nowhere is anyone advocating for limitations on your actions. The sandbox core principle of being able to act is set in place. Adding mechanical consequences to certain actions does not impede that sandbox principle. You are still free to act, but you must accept the consequences. This is no different from saying that as a player, you are more than free to jump into a lake of lava if you happen to find one in the world. But you need to accept that you are going to be taking large amounts of fire damage and will die very quickly as a result. I do not see anyone advocating that we should not see a falling damage mechanic and that other players should hit anyone who falls off a cliff to enforce taking falling damage.
The game will allow you to take these actions you desire. But it is allowed to give you reasons to think about why that may be a bad idea. It does not violate the sandbox ideology, but rather embraces it more fully than many of you wish to admit.
So sandbox to you is the freedom to walk of the path into a lava hazard? I jest. But in all seriousness, what consequences are we talking about? I have put forth plenty of ideas, all of which took restrictions and consequences other people wanted to see and attempted to balance them. I put forth an idea to protect noobs at lower levels from ganking with level dependent rep hits. I put forth ideas about alignments and what options and restrictions those could have. In almost all of my ideas...I balanced it to where it would make sense no one could say that I was just trying to make it easy for me and my guys.
On the other hand...we have another group who wants none of the restrictions that would hinder their play style, but would shackle everyone else who didn't want to play the way they do by adding mechanics where they aren't needed.
Listen, I understand the concerns, but as I have stated before, I think there is a way in which the devs can use a light mechanic touch to ensure that all play styles are relevant and balanced, whether it be a monk, cleric, paladin, outlaw or burglar. But what we can't have is a game that has the devs enforce property rights for the player.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@ Being,
the following MAY have been the causes
You are attaching absolutes to my comments that I clearly took steps to make not absolute.
#1. You may have a suspicion, but you are making an assumption.
#2. Not always. I've seen more wars started over mining "rights", then PVP ganking, especially in High Sec Industrial Corp based wars.
#3. When you begin chatting with the enemy, 24 hours before the onset of a war, you are revealing information to them. This is especially true if you don't have full control over your membership. You don't want every "swinging d*ck" having a chat with the enemy.
#4. In most cases, and in MMOs, (two Disclaimers for you), Diplomacy is for ending conflicts, not preventing them. If you open a dialogue with an Aggressor and you are looking to give them, what you already have, you have sown the seeds of your settlement's own doom. They will either take you out in one fell swoop or slowly bleed you dry. You'd be better off giving them the finger and getting wiped out. That gets you to the business of rebuilding faster.
#5. When the real world has respawns (immortality) we can make accurate comparisons. Until then let us keep it to the common occurrences seen in other Open World PVP MMO Sanboxes.
Disclaimer: All of my opinions expressed are based on my experiences in EVE, over the course of 9 years and through the experiences of five characters ( Mission Runner; Miner; Pirate; Main (A bit of everything);and a High Sec Criminal (newest). Only two of which I still have, the rest deleted, in case anyone wants to try to trace them down.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Instead of just blindly taking Dancey's word for it which is all you seem to have going for your view...
Right, I shouldn't pay any attention to the guy who's actually making the game. I should pay attention to some random guy on the forums.
Logical.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think this is accurate and quite spot on. However, I believe the guilty parties are the ones arguing for 'Relying mostly on player enforcement' are the ones misunderstanding the concept of a sandbox and the design intentions for the game.
I think you misunderstand that side of the argument lifedragn. It is certainly a view I argue and I will continue to do so for one very simple reason. Mechanics do not in any way impede the people you are trying to stop. This is why the toxic area in Eve is high sec.
Player enforcement does a lot more to control these players which is why null sec empires are some of the safest areas in game to pursue your ratting or mining (short of there being a war on naturally).
Griefers and RPK'ers will abound in this game and they will not be low rep. They have plenty of mechanics they will be able to use to pursue their fun. The only people who will be limited are those trying to curtail their behavior. Griefers and rpk'ers are used to working around the rules of games. The good guys (as you think of them) usually have the response of "oh the mechanics need to be tougher".
Thanks Steelwing.
And let's be honest about EVE....has Eve ever stated in any forum, advertisement or post that High Sec means you are 100% safe from player on player violence? Nope. High Sec just promised a very quick response time to the offenders. If you attack someone near a gate or station...they batteries open up and fire on you. Concord shows up in a matter of seconds and will annihilate anything you might have. So how does the griefing happen? Because naïve or lazy industrial players took their security for granted and decided that 5 cargo expanders, no shields, no weapons, and no warp core stabs were necessary.
I had my industrial ship blown up once by guys who did it to me. They bought T1 destroyers, outfitted it with cheap gear, and blew me up. Concord came in, killed them, and they had another one of their guys scoop my loot. And it was my fault. Totally. The next time the same group tried it, I had multiple shield buffs, shield extenders, nano's for a quicker turn rate and more. I also used a frigate to make me an instant warp spot 150 away from the station.
So when they attacked me.... guess what....that first deadly barrage of t1 crap ammo from their t1 crap artillery...didn't do crap. Instead I got to sit their and watch as 8-10 destroyers were torn apart by NPC battleships. I had my revenge. I also made a lot of money back when I scooped their gear because one of the guys got cocky and had some named items on his destroyer.
That is a fond memory for me from Eve. As was the first time me and Xeen's new fairly new characters got revenge by killing a pirate in a battleship who had ganked me before.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But what we can't have is a game that has the devs enforce property rights for the player.
I think we may agree here more than not. I think the big area of disagreement is what constitutes a light touch. And honestly, I think the mechanics are going to see a LOT of adjustment over the first couple of years as they try to hone in on the right amount of touching. We need to keep in mind that all we are talking about is 'early implementations' because regardless of what we come up with, it will be a very rare occurrence that any of it survives contact with the real world.
Additionally, it has been pretty clear from the beginning that not all play-styles are meant to be equal. Frankly, they cannot be if you wish to have a game that appeals to many play-styles. The reason is that some play-styles impede other play-styles. Let us take the bandit as an example...
For a healthy game conflict, a small number of bandits is positive addition. It adds an element of risk for merchants and travelers. A lot of bandits is a game killer, though. It will drive away your casual audience, which is often the largest potential revenue source. In order to get the right balance of bandit population in your game you need two measures... the effectiveness of player enforcement and the effectiveness of mechanical enforcement. I do not think we disagree on this aspect either. We are just approaching from the different ideas of how effective player enforcement will be. I would rather approach with the idea that player enforcement may be weaker than anticipated and start with higher mechanical enforcement that can be adjusted down if I am incorrect. You seem to believe that player enforcement may be stronger than anticipated and would rather see mechanical enforcement be lower and adjusted up as needed. Please correct me if I am wrong on this reading.
Instead of just blindly taking Dancey's word for it which is all you seem to have going for your view...Right, I shouldn't pay any attention to the guy who's actually making the game. I should pay attention to some random guy on the forums.
Logical.
The difference is I haven't made a blind assertion I have stated the mechanic they will use. Instead of trying to show that I am mistaken and why it won't be possible you have responded with "because Dancey says so".
By all means cling to blind optimism I frankly don't care. I am neither one of these players you worry about nor will these sort of players bother me and mine because we are prepared to use player driven enforcement and they prefer easy targets.