Ryzom

I want to question the role players have and can have in Ryzom and in any mmorpg. How much of an impact should a player realistically be able to have in the virtual world that he/she plays in?

Is it a question of allowing players more actual control over what happens in game or is it just the perception of that control and a sense that what they are doing is really effecting things that is important?

I don't think that players should have too much actual control or impact in game. You can draw a lot of comparisons to the way humans govern themselves and how they effect the world and how they treat each other in real life.

I'd suggest it's human nature for imbalance and instability to occur. We are far too diverse and have such wildly different views on life and what is important in our lives for us to ever be all equal, for absolutely everyone to have a fair go at a decent standard of life. Which in terms of a game and what developers need to keep their subscription base, they need everyone to feel like they are succeeding. If one faction was succeeding to the point that the opposing faction is left with less than 20% of the outposts for example, is that too much control in the hands of the players. Or should developers make it seem like the players are more evenly matched and force the Outpost possession to between 45-65%, so both factions experience winning on a regular basis.

In terms of the progression of the storyline. When we had to protect the King in the Matis Arena and kill the rogue in black Aen armour. We were lead to believe we had the choice to kill either the king or the rogue. But in fact the dev's weren't only making sure it was impossible to kill the king, but were controlling the HP of the rogue, regenerating her HP at will, making it take considerably longer to kill her.

At the time we didn't know this of course and we didn't need to, everyone enjoyed the event and everyone believed that they played their role in it.

So do you think an entirely player driven and interactive virtual world is possible and sustainable?

I think there are two parts to this.

The first regards storyline. It wasn't long ago, after all, that Ryzom was officially a Saga. In terms of this, I think the devs need to have the most control - because it is essentially prewritten, and if us players manage to royally bugger it up, it creates a lot more work for the devs and (hopefully...) may put paid to future plans which would have been a hell of a lot of fun. Ideally of course the devs would hae equally awesome plans for every eventuality, but they don't, and I can understand why. *cringes at the thought of writing all that*

As regards politics, though, I disagree with that. As a newbie I originally felt strongly that I was about useless at OPs. After a while, though, I realised that as a healer I was occasionally rezzing the one person who could rez everyone else and so save us from being splatted against the drill - a few homins can turn the tide, and to control that would be to make faction/guild PvP utterly pointless; which would be a great loss, as Ryzom is the only PvP system I've ever actually liked, and I know a fair few people stick around because of the PvP.
And beyond outposts, the devs can't have much control over politics - OK, they can tell two warring guilds to knock it off, and as far as I know that has happened once in however many years; but you can bet that didn't change the way those guilds regarded each other! Politics is by definition of the populace, and I think Atys politics is a fantastic thing; in no small part because it's controlled by players, who aren't always (often?) quite as diplomatic as devs are supposed to be. You can't make politics less volatile, that destroys it, and that's what OP or any other kind of control would do.

If, however, one faction held almost all the OPs and the devs saw fit to launch kitin invasions on that faction's homeland...

In short, no, Final.

For example, Aen could only be killed once ...

Thats why instances are so prevalent in the likes of WoW and Guildwars, you can exert your influence in that little bubble ..... but then it resets.

With regard to the Outposts, I dont think they should ever have been factioned (which IMO was caused by players exerting control), I think an OP should only be owned/attacked by one guild. In other words, only a guild capable of taking/holding an OP on their own deserve to have one, regardless of faction and a guild should only have one OP.

fiach wrote:With regard to the Outposts, I dont think they should ever have been factioned

Thing is, that eventually there's in an outpost fight always 2 teams fighting each other. It makes sense at both sides to get as much support for their side as possible, and it just so happened that the '2' largest possible teams fighting each other are obviously the factions.

final60 wrote:But in fact the dev's weren't only making sure it was impossible to kill the king, but were controlling the HP of the rogue, regenerating her HP at will, making it take considerably longer to kill her.

Actually the CSR were *removing* HP from the marauder girl, and iirc they made the King simply invulnerable at one point. Also, because some people thought they could get the black marauder armor for killing the girl, the majority of the people who wanted to actually kill the king suddenly moved over to killing the girl in the black armor...

final60 wrote:So do you think an entirely player driven and interactive virtual world is possible and sustainable?

Not in this game.

I want to control the weather. I want a spell , no an aura, where sup nodes pop as soon as I come within 50 yards of them.

jared96 wrote:I want to control the weather. I want a spell , no an aura, where sup nodes pop as soon as I come within 50 yards of them. :) :) :)

Send in a suggestion ticket :o

fiach wrote:With regard to the Outposts, I dont think they should ever have been factioned (which IMO was caused by players exerting control), I think an OP should only be owned/attacked by one guild. In other words, only a guild capable of taking/holding an OP on their own deserve to have one, regardless of faction and a guild should only have one OP.

Logical but problematic. Two guilds vie for an OP and one wins by a hair. Two weeks later, two months, two whatever what's the likelihood that repeat will be close. Advantage always goes to those in first. Guild with OP:

1. Levels twice as fast
2. Has huge advanatge in recruiting
3. Has huge advantage in trading

Yes, the argument can be made that if they worked hard enough (read 5 - 10 times as hard as the one with OP) but how often does the team with the 30 million dollar payroll beat the team with the 270 million dollar payroll in the world series ?

Luckily, player base has for a large extent ignored game mechanics and played more in "cooperative mode" than would otherwise be expected given game mechanics.

About OP war only between 2 guilds, consider that this would be easy exploitable because people could merge for the time of battle and rejoin the original guilds after the battle. And don't think this would not be realized... people do whatever possible to win.
So, it's impossible, in my opinion, to change how OP works now, regarding the factions, because it is decided by the players and there are no game mechanics to prevent this.
Of course you could use a timer or lock the join/leave of a guild for some time but this would have a bad impact on the players playing PvE and don't caring much of the PvP.

jared96 wrote:

fiach wrote:With regard to the Outposts, I dont think they should ever have been factioned (which IMO was caused by players exerting control), I think an OP should only be owned/attacked by one guild. In other words, only a guild capable of taking/holding an OP on their own deserve to have one, regardless of faction and a guild should only have one OP.

Logical but problematic. Two guilds vie for an OP and one wins by a hair. Two weeks later, two months, two whatever what's the likelihood that repeat will be close. Advantage always goes to those in first. Guild with OP:

1. Levels twice as fast
2. Has huge advanatge in recruiting
3. Has huge advantage in trading

Yes, the argument can be made that if they worked hard enough (read 5 - 10 times as hard as the one with OP) but how often does the team with the 30 million dollar payroll beat the team with the 270 million dollar payroll in the world series ?

Luckily, player base has for a large extent ignored game mechanics and played more in "cooperative mode" than would otherwise be expected given game mechanics.

with outpost it´s a peculiar problem, my opinion is, they shouldn´t have gone PvP till spires have gone up, does anyone remember the concept of the spires?

if i remember right they where ment to be build by players, give the builders advantage/bonusses in the region and be destroyable... with HP determined by the overall number a faction has=the more spires 1 faction has the easier it is to destroy one.

that would have a been selfregulatory system for OP´s and spires, factionwise at least, as you would face an enemy stronger than you if you would attack an OP in a region with a spire of the other faction, a spire that is harder to take down the "bigger" your faction is. Vice versa, the smaller one would have it a bit easier to regain land, as they only face a weaker spire to take down.

but back to topic, yes and no, as it´s not allways the control players actualy have but how, as a GM in a p&p or as a dev in an MMO, you can make them think they have.
the more players think they have control the more fun they´ll have.
the less they really have, the easier it is for a GM to guide them to the points in the story where they needed.
Like the examples allready given, the king and the assassin or the spires, the choices that can be made, should ether be rigged to end in the way wanted or are selfregulatory in a way that its getting harder and harder for a player to gain more control then allowed/over a certain point.

a simple example out of p&p gaming: your players try to escpe from THE ARCHENEMIES castle, they´re in a hallwaycrossing, they can go left, straight, right or back. if they make the wrong choise, they WILL face THE ARCHENEMIE and HIS GOONS... but what they don´t know is... they WILL face him anyway, no matter what way they go, the GM only has to make sure they feel like they had the choice, had the control and only bad luck/fate would have them meet the THE ARCHENEMIE.

this is, i admit, easier in a p&p game then in an online MMO, but it can be done, even to an extend that players think they ARE in control, not knowing that all control they have is over which way to go to the point you want to have them.

so total control for the players would kill the story, no control would kill the fun, but some control can save the game for everyone.