New Creative Director's Letter, July 21

[pr0ger]

My, most of you are trying to make comparison between PvP "PK pwnage" and roleplay war mass PvP.

your guild will never want to have an outpost.

Remember those statement :
- one guild can't rules all the outpost.
- guildies can't be everywhere and at same time
- like the marketplace, the bigger you are, the bigger you have opponent

I'd love a decent answer as to why so much effort is being 'wasted' on these PvP aspects

PvP by himself is meaningless. I'll try to draw you the whole scheme :

This is the wide political issues DCC explained, where guilds will sink in.
Outposts will drive Atys into war economy : Harvester/crafter supplying the guards/defenders/attackers. The current grind treadmill will be mutated into a task around outpost : warrior to be stronger, crafter to be efficient...

Now a sample :
You and your guild don't want to be involved in that and continue foraging in peace ? yikes a warlord guild overrules the good place with their outpost. Let's get info : can we be allied ? (diplomacy) no ? is there any other warlord guilds who can get ride of them (intelligence) ? can we drive a war between each others (politics/manipulation) ? and then, w/o doing nothing less than giving lump sum or goodies we can forage safely here

Gross new "skill" : political leader (in some special meeting),tactician, diplomat / emissary, battlefield trainer/commander, guild overseer (asking 1 mate to work on armor craft, other on weapon craft...), spy/intelligence scout, informer, skirmish squad... all "non XP-reward" skills but really useful, as the old scout/pathfinder during trip was.

Atys will be driven by that. That is the idea of DCC. Outpost wars will keep busy the warrior wannabes, but also there is many, many things to do around.

I'm also skeptical about his assumption that the PvP players will follow leads from roleplayers, taking their initiatives for action based on roleplay reasons. I don't see a lot of interest (of players by rp)[...]

Beware, this is not an RP like you'll be used to... the RP like weird history, storytelling and so on... no!
Complete dynamic world, land, territory control. Tomorrow, Zorais may be at Yrkanis' doors, the day after, Matisian rules the world... up to you, how will you get involved. Not "abstraction" : you'll really live it !

[varelse]

My, most of you are trying to make comparison between PvP "PK pwnage" and roleplay war mass PvP.


Remember those statement :
- one guild can't rules all the outpost.
- guildies can't be everywhere and at same time
- like the marketplace, the bigger you are, the bigger you have opponent


PvP by himself is meaningless. I'll try to draw you the whole scheme :

This is the wide political issues DCC explained, where guilds will sink in.
Outposts will drive Atys into war economy : Harvester/crafter supplying the guards/defenders/attackers. The current grind treadmill will be mutated into a task around outpost : warrior to be stronger, crafter to be efficient...

Now a sample :
You and your guild don't want to be involved in that and continue foraging in peace ? yikes a warlord guild overrules the good place with their outpost. Let's get info : can we be allied ? (diplomacy) no ? is there any other warlord guilds who can get ride of them (intelligence) ? can we drive a war between each others (politics/manipulation) ? and then, w/o doing nothing less than giving lump sum or goodies we can forage safely here

Gross new "skill" : political leader (in some special meeting),tactician, diplomat / emissary, battlefield trainer/commander, guild overseer (asking 1 mate to work on armor craft, other on weapon craft...), spy/intelligence scout, informer, skirmish squad... all "non XP-reward" skills but really useful, as the old scout/pathfinder during trip was.

Atys will be driven by that. That is the idea of DCC. Outpost wars will keep busy the warrior wannabes, but also there is many, many things to do around.


Beware, this is not an RP like you'll be used to... the RP like weird history, storytelling and so on... no!
Complete dynamic world, land, territory control. Tomorrow, Zorais may be at Yrkanis' doors, the day after, Matisian rules the world... up to you, how will you get involved. Not "abstraction" : you'll really live it !

I played on the Siege Perilous shard in UO, which had open PvP in all areas of the game, with full looting of player corpses, and the ability to steal items from players packs, houses, and even take their equipped weapons. Please do not presume that I've never experienced territorial control, factions, control of resources or in fact that I am all that into what you are calling 'abstract' roleplaying. I speak from experience... and for the record, much of that experience was fun. It's just that very very few people were into it, to the point that our community was actually told at one point "your shard's population doesn't pay for the cost of running it".

To make THIS game successful, people who don't fight other players at all and want nothing to do with player vs player combat, must also have access to content and have influence on the world. It's just not going to work at all if the game content is only available through the most powerful pvp groups, because they're not likely to share it with everyone outside that circle. And as more people become aware of that reality, more of them will leave without saying a word about it.

[mrshad]

My, most of you are trying to make comparison between PvP "PK pwnage" and roleplay war mass PvP.

((Then a bunch of stuff about how PvP can be fun and dynamic, because this time, it will be done right))

You are not the only one to think along those lines.

In fact, I am willing to bet that most of us have.

We all *want* PvP to mean something in the storyline, we all *want* it to provide an edifying experience to the players.

But, that has never happened...ever..in any MMO that has ever implemented it...ever. Every post here that is in favor of PvP has had some variation of "This time it will be done right".

But it will not. It will, inevitably, fall into the same group of problem players that simply have not out grown the "even negative attention is better than no attention" phase.

I played Shadowbane for a long time. The game was open PvP, the thought was to build cities, alliances, guilds and defend what you had built against potential enemies. The lore was rich and the game popular for a while. Then it devolved into roving gank-squads that had no city to protect, so no risk of reprisal, wondering the server, slaughtering who ever they found. There was of course, the other extreme; huge uber-guilds that could control an entire server would end up strangling any fledgling competition.

I find it interesting to note that while Shadowbane was in production; Ms. Mulligan seemed to be, in her writings and interviews, almost openly contemptuous of the game, its open PvP structure, and in some cases, the developers. It turned out that she was correct in her doubts, so I am surprised that SoR is following such a path here.

These are not hypothetical cases, they happen all the time in PvP MMOGs. The only hypothetical when discussing MMO PvP is that maybe, one day "it will be done right", because that has never happened. It will never happen. In fact it can never “be done right” because of the very nature of people that enjoy “PWNING n00bz”, and those that might actually enjoy a bit of structured PvP “if it were done right”. The former finds validation in the momentary noticed gained by inconveniencing others. The later seeks a rewarding experience in a community of like-minded gamers.

[mmatto]

People say that pvp cannot be implemented right and have not ever been done so in mmorpg before, examples given are usually UO (at some point), ShadowBane, most Asian games or WoW. However, some other people say that pvp has been implemented right in SWG, DAOC or EVE.

So, has PvP already been implemented right in mmorpg?

[pr0ger]

In fact, I am willing to bet that most of us have (dreamed of perfect mass pvp)
[...]
We all *want* PvP to mean something in the storyline, [...]
But, that has never happened...ever..in any MMO that has ever implemented it...ever. Every post here that is in favor of PvP has had some variation of "This time it will be done right".[...]
[...]
I played Shadowbane for a long time. The game was open PvP, the thought was to build cities, alliances, guilds and defend what you had built against potential enemies. The lore was rich and the game popular for a while. Then it devolved into roving gank-squads that had no city to protect, so no risk of reprisal, wondering the server, slaughtering who ever they found.

My previous mmo (the 4th coming) was completely free pvp/stealing ... a world w/o that seems to me really peaceful. Erm okay, useless message

Well, if any of you lists all the wrong aspect of mass pvp, you'll give feedback to devs to make "this time it will be done ... a bit better" ?
And if outposts are going "wrong" like an uber guild having fun declaring war w/o reasons, we got a CSR support that can block them... hopefully ?

wrongness :
- gank-squad
- uber player content only
... ...

[micrix]

worst case: Open PvP with the possibility to loot players. In my case Psylo would end up walking around in his refugee undies . They would kill me, steal my equipment, my dappers. Since they kill me as soon as i take my pick to dig some percious mats on their teritory i can not earn some dappers to buy or craft me some LA and a pair of simple healer amps. Game over !

Best case: The community is as mature as David beliefs. Then Psylo would make it somehow. Most of us would make it somehow.

Yes, it could happen that one or more bigger PvP oriented guilds start to control Atys, that other people get supressed. Maybe this is exactly what a guerilla Tryker needs Could really be fun, sneaking at night in small groups and dig their linnen

[grimjim]

If there was some effective way the community or system could punish PKers, negative fame, bounties that meant something, hostility from town guards, something.

There needs to be some sort of 'payback' here.

[micrix]

If there was some effective way the community or system could punish PKers, negative fame, bounties that meant something, hostility from town guards, something.

There needs to be some sort of 'payback' here.

You can offer a bounty here on forum. Good bussines for your guild

But serious, i fear a kill is nothing to such a player. There should be sort of fame within the race he kills. If the pk-fame is to low he spawns in jail after someone hunted him down. 6-24 RL hours would be ok. Also his Name (above head) should turn into a spezial color, so he is marked for that race as outlaw

Dont laugh at me, at least i can dream of such

[grimjim]

You can offer a bounty here on forum. Good bussines for your guild

But serious, i fear a kill is nothing to such a player. There should be sort of fame within the race he kills. If the pk-fame is to low he spawns in jail after someone hunted him down. 6-24 RL hours would be ok. Also his Name (above head) should turn into a spezial color, so he is marked for that race as outlaw

Dont laugh at me, at least i can dream of such

I don't think bounties work because PvP death is meaningless (for the person who doesn't have to run back through the PR and try and find spots and dig again anyway). Also people can exploit them pretty easily to get cash from the people that offer them.

[toneh]

Imagine if they created a 'sheriff of pyr' title - there would be loads of applications.

Round up a posey and go hunt down those god-damn no-good Pkers down in Canyon pass.

Prehaps loose fame so if you PK (without invite to dual) the guards wont let you anywhere near cities, although you could probably sneak into some towns.

I think the community is mature enough, but for how long?