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 Post subject: MMOG: The player police.
PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:41 am 
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(04:55:11) Vaergoth: Ever wonder if there's more to PKing in MMO games? Now you know.
(05:00:01) Sako: Nice post.
(05:00:24) Sako: "Waahh, the GMs are being mean :("
(05:00:39) Vaergoth: It's a good idea. Use Player Killers to FORCE players to unite and protect themselves.
(05:01:02) Sako: Rampant Player-Killing = Anarchy, yes?
(05:01:13) Vaergoth: In the first stages, yes.
(05:01:22) Sako: Anarchy = Chaos, yes?
(05:01:26) Vaergoth: But it's based on a simple principle.
(05:01:30) Sako: Hey hey.
(05:01:32) Sako: Follow me on this.
(05:01:33) Vaergoth: Yes.
(05:01:51) Sako: According to Chaos theory, the order only exists when it springs up at random out of chaos.
(05:02:01) Vaergoth: Yes...
(05:02:10) Sako: So therefore it won't work.
(05:02:27) Sako: They'll have to cheat against the PKers somehow to allow players to unite and protect themselves.
(05:02:39) Vaergoth: I don't follow.
(05:02:55) Sako: Where did I lose you?
(05:03:30) Sako: The last step?
(05:03:41) Vaergoth: Yeah.
(05:03:54) Sako: Rampant PKing is chaos.
(05:04:06) Sako: Order doesn't do a very good job of rising out of chaos on it's own.
(05:04:14) Sako: It DOES happen, but it's not at all likely.
(05:04:47) Vaergoth: You're removing conscious decision making from the equasion.
(05:04:49) Sako: Anyone who doesn't thrive on the chaos won't want to play, because they'll be unable to accomplish anything of worth in the game.
(05:05:28) Sako: I suppose, if order DOES arise out of this chaos, it'll be alot like the rise of medievalism in ancient europe.
(05:05:46) Vaergoth: They will either A) do what you said, or B)make a conscious decision to do something about it.
(05:05:47) Sako: PK's will start to band together and carve out their own little territories in the game-world.
(05:05:57) Sako: Who's going to "do something about" chaos?
(05:06:27) Vaergoth: It's not some intangible entity. Player Killers are tangible. They can be killed.
(05:06:38) Sako: There are always going to be more of them
(05:06:47) Sako: And the dead ones will always respawn.
(05:07:04) Vaergoth: There will always be war, but we try our hardest to stop it.
(05:07:30) Sako: The Non-PKs would have to start out with some kind of advantage.
(05:07:46) Sako: Or the world will be exactly like whatshisface describes the early days of UO.
(05:08:27) Vaergoth: You'd merely have to make it so that being PKed does not interfere with progress toward building a character that is capable of hunting player killers. But still hurts. A lot.
(05:08:41) Vaergoth: And you're forgetting.
(05:08:50) Sako: No non-PKer would want to play that game.
(05:08:56) Vaergoth: The ultimate motivation is greed. Bounty hunting?
(05:08:57) Sako: Hooray, I killed got some exp.
(05:08:58) Sako: Ouch. That dick.
(05:09:15) Sako: Why not just kill the guy offering the bounty?
(05:09:26) Vaergoth: It would be a mechanical system.
(05:09:37) Vaergoth: Not person to person.
(05:09:39) Sako: Then that would be an unfair advantage against PKers.
(05:09:45) Sako: Part of what I said.
(05:10:01) Vaergoth: It would merely force them to evolve.
(05:10:14) Vaergoth: Become better at hiding and striking quickly.
(05:10:15) Sako: I honestly doubt that.
(05:10:28) Sako: If some guy kills enough to become the top of the bounty list, chances are he'll be damn powerful.
(05:11:22) Vaergoth: On his own. But do what wish plans to do, then. Scale the level system by multiplier, not exponent like most games do.
(05:11:52) Sako: So that 1 L100 character can be taken down by 100 L1 characters?
(05:11:53) Vaergoth: In wish, a level ten player is exactly ten times more powerful than a level one player.
(05:12:30) Vaergoth: But that's the beauty.
(05:12:40) Sako: Doesn't matter.
(05:12:47) Sako: Either way, your bounty system is designed to curb PKing.
(05:13:02) Sako: Making the game itself a flawed model of order rising out of chaos.
(05:13:03) Vaergoth: PKs don't attack. They raid and strike the weak and defenseless, but in a fair fight, they CAN be taken down.
(05:13:17) Vaergoth: Acutally, that's not the intent.
(05:13:25) Sako: Then what is?
(05:13:47) Vaergoth: To create a perpetual and never ending war between player killers and "crusaders" who kill them.
(05:14:03) Sako: In order to curb PKing.
(05:14:09) Vaergoth: No.
(05:14:13) Sako: Then why?
(05:14:20) Vaergoth: For enjoyment.
(05:14:22) Sako: Both sides kill each other.
(05:14:25) Vaergoth: As a game mechanic.
(05:14:35) Sako: Why should the 'good' side get the advantage?
(05:15:01) Vaergoth: In theory it shouldn't.
(05:15:03) Sako: Maybe if there were two sides.
(05:15:08) Sako: Like, two nations.
(05:15:10) Sako: At war.
(05:15:20) Vaergoth: Then you have planet side.
(05:15:25) Sako: And the "royalty" of either side offered bounties on the other side's most powerful characters.
(05:15:35) Sako: Nah, there can be neutral kingdoms and factions.
(05:15:56) Sako: A merchan'ts guild, a Pirate nation, bandits in the mountains, etc.
(05:16:12) Vaergoth: The point is to take the standard PvP system in most games, and set it against a backdrop of "Those who prey on the weak VS Those who defend the weak".
(05:16:54) Sako: As in, Good PKs vs. Bad PKs becomes the story?
(05:17:27) Vaergoth: "PK" is understood to mean only those who attack players that have no chance of fighting back.
(05:17:38) Vaergoth: griefers.
(05:17:42) Sako: Whatever.
(05:18:16) Sako: Makes for a pretty boring story.
(05:18:32) Sako: Especially since the good side, being unfairly advantaged, will eventually win.
(05:18:36) Vaergoth: It wouldn't be the only story, obviously.
(05:18:44) Sako: Oh.
(05:18:55) Sako: That's not what you made it sound like when you said "set it against the backdrop"
(05:18:57) Vaergoth: It would be the backdrop and drive for the PvP system.
(05:19:21) Vaergoth: It couldnt work as taking center stage.
(05:19:26) Sako: Nope.
(05:19:29) Sako: I see.
(05:19:45) Sako: That's basically what I've been saying.
(05:19:52) Vaergoth: Eventually, this system would replace town guards.
(05:20:11) Vaergoth: But that'd be well after the system is established.
(05:20:16) Sako: They'd probably just disallow PVP inside towns.
(05:20:32) Vaergoth: That breaks the system.
(05:20:37) Sako: Noobies need safe havens.
(05:20:45) Sako: Or they'll get discouraged and stop playing.
(05:20:52) Vaergoth: Yeah, I suppose.
(05:20:54) Sako: And the game designers don't want that.
(05:22:38) Vaergoth: But the point is that one group of players is encouraged to prey on the defensless (that being the group that would do that in the first place anyways), and the other group encouraged to hunt them down and punish them for it. Basically, offer in game rewards for what's being done anyways, to foster equilibrium between the two sides.

This is based on an article from "False Prophecies" written by Hedron. You can read it here, but the gist of it is basically this: The designers of UO made the PK system so slanted toward the killers because they hoped it would make players fed up enough to band together and eradicate them, creating a killerless society and policing themselves.

Obviously, this failed, but it brings up an interesting concept: Player Killers VS. Killer Hunters.

What I'm saying here is, create a PvP system that fosters both Player Killers to kill more, and people who are fed up with it to go after them. At the very least, it would be an interesting backdrop for PvP.

Or am I stupid? Would it work?

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:12 am 
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Uh... it didn't seem like people killed each other so much in .HACK? But then, the crimson knights didn't go out too well... I'm missing something, I can tell... I wish I'd seen more than just SIGN... hmm...

Actually, I've thought that a PvP system of open hunting would be cool, except that there are always gonna be those losers who get to level 86 and then wanna kick every little level 10 character around. Even if there is a bounty system, that would have to be flat out prohibited, in my opinion. Perhaps with a mechanic which doesn't let you fight someone more than X levels lower than you?

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 12:52 pm 
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Hamans, as general, would pray on the weak with morbid thrill. it's in our genes. The antagonists would be stronger in any fair system, the same as in reality.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 9:55 pm 
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The only real way that a pk system would work is if the players had some kind of honour system going.

like... I'm level 18 and I'm not going to attack a level 2 player because it would be WAY to easy... thus equal no honour. But the level 2 player COULD initiate attack against the level 18 player... and if by pure luck acctually survives... would get huge points for the challenge of it.

Aka only attack people who are HIGHER or EQUAL in level than you. Thus you could have great stories about that newb who acctually managed to defeat the grand champion. In any case, attacking lower level people should be reserved only to those who deserve it or ask for it. Like the way that we initiate people here.

But of cource we know that all it takes is one troll who has no honour to derail the whole system... so of cource this plan would probably fail in the end as well.

It would all depend on the attitude and quality of the players to make it function.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 11:43 pm 
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Here's how you keep griefers from killing lvl 2 newbs when they are lvl 82 -- add a reputation system that actually matters (unlike UO).

Your reputation would actually go down for griefing someone, unlike UO where simply killing someone added to your reputation (though your negative reputation would probably go up if you griefed someone in UO, but reputation is still reputation).

So you have the cool title "Grand Master Slayer," then you grief someone. Your title is then changed to "Chump Change Chiller," which sounds retarded. So to keep your title cool, you have to kill people higher than you, not lower.

The key trick for that system, though, is to find a long string of relativly universally cooler titles to progress through, and a long string of relativly universally more retarded sounding titles to regress through.

So when your title is going up, it goes like "1st LT Banger" "2nd LT Banger" "Captain Killer," but if mr. Captain goes down a rank (due to griefing), he doesn't go down to "2nd LT Banger," but "Bunnyfucker" (or something to that effect).

-------------

That, or just make griefing make NPCs hate you and sell you stuff for way more than it's worth.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:34 am 
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That's not the point, though.

Read it again carefully. The point is not to prevent PKers, but rather, to create (though game mechanics) a group that will oppose but never be able to truly defeat them. IE: Murderers VS Bounty Hunters, or something to that effect.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:16 am 
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To whom are you referring? If it's to me, I never said anything about that system stopping PKers, just altering the system to that the image-concious wouldn't just slaughter n00bs wholesale (so as to allow the n00bs time to grow and be able to fight back in the bounty-hunting capacity).

And now that I think about it, in a MUD I played (Discworld), there was an assassins guild, and you could put a contract out on someone.

Also, if you were in the thieves guild, whenever you stole something from someone, you left a reciept. The player you stole from wouldn't know who stole it until he turned in the reciept. However, the rules of the game were that you could only kill the thief if you found out who it was before turning in the reciept, after you turned in the receipt, it's too late. (And this was rather well enforced because the theives guild members tended to have more spare cash for putting contracts down than any other guild).

Of course, you had a quota on how much you could steal per (week? day?), and the thieves guild tracked this by the receipts that are turned in, so if you steal from the right person, it doesn't count against your quota because they'll never turn in the receipt because they want to find who stole their stuff!

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 12:40 pm 
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A simple guild or two can fix things. An assassins guild will work sort of like mafia for hire. They'll rough up, rob, kill, pillage, and burn anyone for the right price. And because they're criminals who do it for a living, they get a different reputation/title when they do such things. A bounty hunters guild works in a similar manner, but captures or kills players for breaking the law, such as killing lower level newbies, stealing, etc. Just let the players enforce the rules as they want.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 1:00 pm 
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Insane_Megalamaniac wrote:
Just let the players enforce the rules as they want.

There's a fundamental flaw there...

My 2 cents: Games should be built with the option to turn pking on and off. If it's off, you can't hurt them, they can't hurt you. If it's on, then the whole hostile system comes into play.

Simple eh?

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:48 pm 
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FFX is like that -- you have to be rank 3 (which means you're pretty much level 20-30, or have powered through the rank missions with high level friends), and basically have to buy the rights to participate in PvP (which, essentially, only happens in special zones). If you havn't activated PvP, you can't be hurt by other players.

I've played a bunch of games where you have to activate PvP (and, generally, can't turn it off). Diablo II is kinda cool in that someone has to declare hostile intent to you in town, it warns you, and kills their town portal. So you either hoof it to the next zone (if they know where you are), or just be wary of hanging out near waypoints.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:02 pm 
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Herbal Enema wrote:
I've played a bunch of games where you have to activate PvP (and, generally, can't turn it off). Diablo II is kinda cool in that someone has to declare hostile intent to you in town, it warns you, and kills their town portal. So you either hoof it to the next zone (if they know where you are), or just be wary of hanging out near waypoints.


....or camp the waypoint and kill them as they come down.

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 10, 2004 3:02 pm 
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P51mus wrote:
Herbal Enema wrote:
I've played a bunch of games where you have to activate PvP (and, generally, can't turn it off). Diablo II is kinda cool in that someone has to declare hostile intent to you in town, it warns you, and kills their town portal. So you either hoof it to the next zone (if they know where you are), or just be wary of hanging out near waypoints.


....or camp the waypoint and kill them as they come down.


Or leave the game if you're still alive within 5 seconds.


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 10, 2004 6:31 pm 
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BDM05 wrote:
Insane_Megalamaniac wrote:
Just let the players enforce the rules as they want.

There's a fundamental flaw there...

My 2 cents: Games should be built with the option to turn pking on and off. If it's off, you can't hurt them, they can't hurt you. If it's on, then the whole hostile system comes into play.

Simple eh?
That's kind of a lame way of doing it though since it has no 'in-game' basis. Same thing with PK zones - it's totally artifical. Which is fine for a MUD that doesn't have immersing its players in a fantasy as a goal I suppose.

In Gemstone 4 PKing is infrequent. If you kill someone in a town, an NPC guard takes you and puts you in the rack where folks can throw fruit at you. The guard asks you questions to make sure you're not AFK during the duration of the sentence (usually like an hour). If you kill again you can be exiled from town, and if you come to town anyways you get hung. You can kill people out of town without problems from NPCs. However, there really isn't any incentive to PK. Pretty much people only kill because its the in-character thing to do (character being annoying, disputes over stealing etc.) In GS4 your so dependent on other players, for healing, for raising, for picking locks that it discourages most folks from even thinking of PKing. It used to be possible to loot bodies in GS3, but even then PKing wasn't frequent. GS4 gets around the John Gabriel Greater Fuckwad Theory by exchanging your anonymity for pseudonymity. Gemstone has been going on since 1989 and there are folks active who have played it for a good portion of that - reputation isn't represented by a number.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 2:48 pm 
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eean wrote:
BDM05 wrote:
Insane_Megalamaniac wrote:
Just let the players enforce the rules as they want.

There's a fundamental flaw there...

My 2 cents: Games should be built with the option to turn pking on and off. If it's off, you can't hurt them, they can't hurt you. If it's on, then the whole hostile system comes into play.

Simple eh?
That's kind of a lame way of doing it though since it has no 'in-game' basis. Same thing with PK zones - it's totally artifical. Which is fine for a MUD that doesn't have immersing its players in a fantasy as a goal I suppose.

In Gemstone 4 PKing is infrequent. If you kill someone in a town, an NPC guard takes you and puts you in the rack where folks can throw fruit at you. The guard asks you questions to make sure you're not AFK during the duration of the sentence (usually like an hour). If you kill again you can be exiled from town, and if you come to town anyways you get hung. You can kill people out of town without problems from NPCs. However, there really isn't any incentive to PK. Pretty much people only kill because its the in-character thing to do (character being annoying, disputes over stealing etc.) In GS4 your so dependent on other players, for healing, for raising, for picking locks that it discourages most folks from even thinking of PKing. It used to be possible to loot bodies in GS3, but even then PKing wasn't frequent. GS4 gets around the John Gabriel Greater Fuckwad Theory by exchanging your anonymity for pseudonymity. Gemstone has been going on since 1989 and there are folks active who have played it for a good portion of that - reputation isn't represented by a number.

I wanna know more about this Gemstone you speak of.

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:42 pm 
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um, whadaya mean. google for 'gemstone iv' if you just want to know about it more in general, it'll bring up the official site and what not.


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