Random MMORPG thread...

Ultima Online was originally all PvP, Shadowbane was designed with the specific intention of being "PvP done right", the end game of Dark Age of Camalot is PvP, Star Wars Galaxies is PvP if you choose to take sides on the rebel/empire war, Lineage (the first one, I don't know about the second) is entirely PvP I believe.

Virtually every game that is primarily PvE oriented has special servers that are for PvP people.

Whether PvP is a good thing or not is a *huge* religious issue to MMORPG players that you can easily see pretty much anywhere. If you look at what people do given a choice of PvP or not the *vast* majority choose not to partake of non-consentual PvP (i.e. PvP without controls that require each side to accept). The PvP crowd however is very, very, very vocal so despite thier small size they manage to keep getting developers to at least try to cater to them. The non-PvP crowd point out that PvP tends to be dominated by gankers (those that jump you when you're already down and/or prey on lower level people) and cheaters.

IMHO PvP will never work in a traditional RPG model. Firstly an RPG is about developing your character, not yourself, PvP on the other hand is about the player skill. Secondly virtually every RPG has a power curve that makes PvP absurd (the level one newbie has *zero* chance against the level 100 uber even if he catches him flat footed in the most ideal circumstances). You can eliminate the power curve but now you're back to not being an RPG anymore or at the very least you've removed incentive for people to keep playing - with no power curve you can't improve your character.

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Original post by KevinG Also, in this entirely PvP world, how would you change the battle mechanics so that it takes more skill, instead of a game of "who has the highest stats?".

it's not an RPG anymore then, IMHO.

although i would love to have something more tactical than selecting an enemy and waiting for one of you to die, and maybe casting a spell every once in a while.

like mortal kombat online??

Ultima Online, in the very begining (before they took away notoriety and you lost stats if you were a "murderer"), was probably the most fun ive ever had in my life. seriously, that probably sounds pathetic, but i had more fun playing that game then any other game ive ever played in my whole life, by far...

the thing is, the average nerd who plays an MMORPG is one of those pansies who thinks "i dont want to get hurt! dont take my armor! i dont want to be attacked!".. basically, there all a bunch of wusses who would rather slay monsters then kill other people. IMO, theres nothing fun about killing monsters. if i wanted to kill NPC's, why the hell am i paying 15$ a month to play with thousands of other people? the whole point is human interaction, and KILLING those humans is the most fun of anything.. (i could kill NPC's without the internet..)

i played Ashersons Call on the darktide server when that game first came out.. a lot of fun, too, at least for awhile.. still not as great as UO PvP.. i also played Shadowbane, who's fun lasted even a smaller amount of time.. really disapointing, because that game was made for PvP, but it just sucked, the end game was extremely boring and slow...

IMO, PvP is the most fun aspect of an online game, weather it be an FPS or a MMORPG...

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Original post by Anon Mike IMHO PvP will never work in a traditional RPG model. Firstly an RPG is about developing your character, not yourself, PvP on the other hand is about the player skill. Secondly virtually every RPG has a power curve that makes PvP absurd (the level one newbie has *zero* chance against the level 100 uber even if he catches him flat footed in the most ideal circumstances). You can eliminate the power curve but now you're back to not being an RPG anymore or at the very least you've removed incentive for people to keep playing - with no power curve you can't improve your character.

But if you can eliminate the power curve you can replace it with something else--as long as the incentive is there. For example, at certain level intervals you get certain abilities and priveleges that lower level people dont get. For example, at level 20 you can build a house in town, at level 25 you can buy a horse and carraige to make transportation easier,at level 30 you can build a castle, at level 50 you can become a government official of the town area and make decisions that affect the town as a whole,etc. Then you'd have a server of people interacting with each other, building towns and buildings and racing to best each other's "empires", instead of impersonal fighting of monsters.

Also, most skills would only be accessible at certain levels...Of course, there would be a small HP/stat bonus for each level increase, but with a little know how and luck, a group of level 10 characters could kill a level 30 character.

Or would most MMORPGers not want to trade stats for priveleges? (I've only played/seen a few, and apparently those are the ones that suck).

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Original post by Anon Mike Ultima Online was originally all PvP

Not entirely true... just because you were technically able to kill anybody, doesn't mean it was 'all PvP'. There were always plenty of monsters, but they just didn't want to put in any arbitrary killing restrictions.

The problem is when you get a lot of people like graveyard filla (above), who want to enjoy all the fun of killing others. Nobody likes to be arbitrarily beaten, so when you get a lot of people with that mentality in such a game, and a large number of people are dying over and over again to entertain a minority, it ruins it for those who want to enjoy the other aspects of the game.

Well this is an issue I've often pondered upon myself. I wonder if it is possible to cater to both crowds of players at the same time?

Ok, so take the PvP people, they are willing to fight anyone, any time, so allow them freedom to fight any other PvP person whenever they desire.

The non PvP people, on the assumption they are the majority, want something else to keep them entertained, but with the option of PvP should they desire it. I suggest allowing them to set an option (made very prominant so it cant be forgotten) that allows them to participate in PvP when they feel like it (in a dual) but makes them immune to PvP people when set to off.

This is pretty much how it works in EQ and the like anyways. So lets take a look at what turns non PvP people away from PvP action. I believe it is due to the following reasons:

No reward for a kill other than personal satisfaction,
Griefers abusing the system,
Steep power curve makes it obvious who will be victorious,
Character skill vs Player skill issues

there may be others I have missed, but I'll break down the ones I have thus far.

Rewards

I believe that people would be interested in PvP if they were rewarded for their actions. I actually like the suggestion of being able to steal a losers items, but I think it would probably be abused by griefers. I think that the rewards need to be something that progress the character, but not at the expence of the loser, otherwise you are imposing penalties, which may push people away from the game. Perhaps PvP could keep a track of wins (though not losses) and unlock quests as your combat reputation increases, perhaps it would allow you to collect items for a certain number of wins. Perhaps you could allow looting of players, but consider it dishonourable, and have a penalty imposed if you loot too much, too often.

Griefers

I imagine that a system of allowing/disallowing PvP would help combat griefers, though perhaps special PvP only maps would be necessary to stop players going nonPvP and scouting territory for the PvP people. I'm not going to go too much further into this one as I think it is a whole topic in itself which has been covered many times.

Steep power curve

I like the suggestion of a shallower curve, along with alternative rewards, I think this could work, let players get a little bit better with each level, but give them really interesting non-combat rewards and perhaps more tactical options, not necessarily stronger combat skills, but more of them making them more flexible, but not unbeatable.

Player skill vs Character skill

Similar to the PvP on or off option, I think a player skill / character skill option could be implemented. Allow players the option of relying on stats or their own skill, but give them the option to only fight against others using the same option setting if they prefer that. Though this system is getting a little complex, as I imagine players will be wondering who exactly they can and can't fight at this point, it could be made simple by putting names of valid opponents in one colour, and names of invalid targets in another colour, or something to that effect.


So I think my answer in general to this thread is to allow the player the option to play the game in the way they desire, not choosing one method and sticking with that, as I'm sure someone will be unhappy if they aren't catered for.

[ edit: wow. flame on, squirm. must have been a bad day. ]

My biggest, by far and away, issue with MMORPGs is that the ability of a player is determined not by his or her individual skill, but by how long they've spent playing. I know that isn't 100% true, but it's close enough. A huge number of people like this. I think it's some sort of fear of loosing.

If you want to play a game where you build up a character by clicking on monsters a lot, play MMORPGs. If you want to play a game against other players, pick another genre. Seriously. What can you possibly do with an MMORPG that would make PvP a sensible way to play, which wouldn't mean it was yet another FPS with a ladder? Getting a house if you reach position 1000 on the ladder doesn't really answer the underlying issue.

There are online, web based, excessively simple mmorpgs, which are entirely PvP. They address the balance issue by not allowing you to attack lower level players. With the exception of immense groups of people getting together to bully everyone else, there is nothing a skilled player can do that couldn't be achieved by a few dozen lines of perl script.

[ One thing which did occur to me once was, instead of a character getting more powerful, they become less balanced. You start out as a generic bod with a sharp stick, and as you progress you can sacrifice, say, your ability to run quite so fast, for a much sharper stick. This means you get to customize a character to your own personal style, but are still in for a real fight against a complete beginner who knows what they are doing. ]

Mephs, everything you've suggested has been tried at least somewhat.

Option for allowing PvP - this is commonly called a "PvP switch". The problem is that virtually nobody turns it on. PvP people then complain that they can't attack anybody they want. If you do something that encourages people to have PvP on then the non-PvP people complain that they are forced into PvP to progress.

Virtually all PvP games have some sort of leaderboard system. Some even give perks to the people/teams at the top. This is nice for the PvP people I suppose but it's irrelevant to the PvP/non-PvP debate.

Griefers - you can't stop griefers. Thier whole reason for existing is to get around any controls you put in the system. Plus every control you put in gets in the way of open-ended PvP and the whining begins anew.

Power Curve - yeah you can flatten the power curve but that takes away from one of the rewards for progressing. If you flatten it completely you end with an overly-complicated FPS. Maybe there's a happy medium but I doubt it.

Skill bases - this is actually something I've never heard before but when you get down to it it's just another form of PvP switch with all the same inherent problems.


And non-PvP people don't dislike PvP because of the player interaction, they dislike it because it's *forced* on to them, as often as not at the worst possible time by some ganker looking for an easy kill. I played UO in it's original form and tried EQ on one of the PvP servers very briefly. Never, not once, did I ever have a PvP encounter with somebody that was not using grief tactics. Every single time it was somebody who was much, much stronger me than me, packs of PvP'ers attacking people 3 or 4 (or more) to 1, or somebody one-shotting me from hiding after a close encounter with something/someone else. That's not fun, it's just stupid.

the only real way to do it, is stick all the people who want to have fun (PvP) on their own server, and stick all the weenies who want to slay monsters on the other servers. it worked great in Ashersons Call.. if you dont completely seperate them, you will NEVER find a balance that is fun to both groups of people.

BTW, to that guy who said "if you want to kill other people pick another genre".. thats complete BS... why pick another genre? RPG's are an excellent source of PvP and IMO, if done properly, is the most fun a video game can get. if the combat system is well designed and balanced, its a lot of fun killing other people. and yes, as a newbie people will gank you, but too bad. suck it up and get stronger...

I'm pretty much a newcomer to these forums, but I'll go ahead and post anyways cause this is a rather interesting thread.

I agree to a certain extent that clicking on monsters and constantly fighting the weak AI can get repeatative.
I personally don't care for PvP due to the fact that many MMORPGs of this day impose a form of penalty and loss on the looser of PvP. This is often in the form of loosing items, but can even be as harsh as loosing stats/level/etc.

I think that this loss is the main reason why PvP seems to be a minority. If I knew up front that there would be no permanent loss to loosing a PvP fight, I would probably enjoy it almost as much as most who allready do.

So, with my opinion out of the way, I will present you with a 'MMORPG' which fits the bill of one *intended* for PvP:
Planetside!

Yes, it's not a 'traditional' RPG, but I feel there is enough element of character growth that it qualifies. Plus the fact that you are teaming up with dozens and dozens of human players, to defeat other teams of players, makes this a rather rich tactical game.

Course, this is all just my two credits.

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Original post by graveyard filla and yes, as a newbie people will gank you, but too bad. suck it up and get stronger...

This is what makes you a griefer. You want to play a game in one certain way and you don't care if it ruins the gaming experience for others.

No, a griefer is someone who plays _deliberately_ to cause grief to other players, regardless of actually playing the game well. Like a teamkiller or chatspammer in FPS games - they're losing the game, but they don't care 'cause they're pissing people off. Like Trolls on Slashdot.

If a game provides encouragement for killing newbies (you can loot their body and they're easy picking) - that's not griefing, that's just playing the game. If it pisses players off, its a badly designed game. Don't punish players for playing to win. Design the game to protect the newbs (or don't if that's what you want).

imho, I'll expect we see more "specialized" MMOs. Most MMOs up until now have tried to be the be-all and end-all of MMOs and end up pissing someone off. That's because MMOs are fundamentally the meeting of several different gametypes, and people play for different reasons. We see these specialized MMOs already in a few games - for crafters and socializers, there are games like Sims Online and A Story In The Desert. For Roquelike level-up treadmill enthusiasts, there's Evercrack and FFXI. For PvP players, there is PlanetSide and EVE. And then there are the omnipurpose games like UO. You can't please everyone all the time.

Why remove something people like? If you want to do something new add content, dont take it away.

I guess truthfully I can only partially agree with people complaints over PvP in rpgs. If it wasnt for the overly simplified AI and movement controls in most MMORPGs there would be absolutely no distiction between PvP and natural creature aggression. In every MMORPG I can recall playing if you mess up and step into an area with creatures that are aggressive, they WILL attack you, and if strong enough they WILL kill you, without any regard to your level or your reasoning for being in that area in the first place. But as I said they AI is so crude on average for NPC agents this in itself is the distinguishing and limiting/policing factor between PvP in most games.

If the designers of these games would take more care and place systems in place for policing areas, both by physical players, and their NPC counterparts, there would be little frustration with this by people that are actually trying to play correctly. Put a more robust punishment and reward system in place, and taking advantage of the system would be much harder, possibly less or more rewarding, and even more enjoyable in a lot of instances.

In most of these games, once you get to a certain level you pretty much stop having to worry about anything or anyone confronting you and posing any real problem. Up the anti for those that would take the darker path. Have guards, police, bounty hunters, assassins, etc. that are dynamic and feed off the events around them. Allow abuse and tyranny to be reported to these agents and appropriate reponse to be taken accordingly.

As it stands there are no "real" interactions between the players and these worlds, and often times (as we have seen) people will take advantage of that fact. Most of the times I have seen, all the things people moan about over PvP is present in some form by the local NPC AI Creatures, just in a sad and pathetic state that doesnt pose as much of a challenge, so is not as frustrating as an "intelligent" entity taking advantage of the same liberties. Allow players to be tracked down by player and npc bounty hunters alike, that are just as ruthless in pursuit as the person they are tracking.

Another interesting thing about the people I have known personally that have been so-called griefers, is that they are quite often some of the most powerful level characters in the world otherwise, who have just gotten bored with the high level state of their characters and decide to wreak some havok. In other words, to them, creating chaos in an otherwise uninteresting or unchallenging environment, creates new challenges and experiences...or...just passes the time more enjoyably than the boring nature of constantly building up another high level puppet for the umpteenth time in a row. In my opinion there should always be something for every character to do and achieve, with there never really being anything as stupid as the strongest level obtainable. At least overall anyway.

As hard as it is to admit, most MMORPGs don't offer as much unique or original content as they so proudly claim. The design of these games just need to step up and match their offline and, unfortunately, often single player counterparts. On another note, designers of MMORPGs havent seemd to realize that the MMO part of an rpg is not really all that necessary. As with most popular PnP RPGs, which can be played with a select group of like-minded individuals, building basig multiplayer support into most RPG game experience would truly broaden the experience. And thus shoud even more so in a massively multiplayer effort. Most of the time I actually DON'T WANT to play 5 different characters in a party at once. I usually have a select few character and/or personality types I would like to portray effectively. Open up the possible interactions for players, add some true player-environment interactions, and allow players to truly distinguish themselves in an immersive setting. Most of the best elements of the RPG portion of thise genres distinction have been left out of most of the associated gameplay mechanics present in all the variations presented.



[Edited by - Amadeus on June 25, 2004 11:27:12 PM]

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Original post by Pxtl No, a griefer is someone who plays _deliberately_ to cause grief to other players, regardless of actually playing the game well. ... If a game provides encouragement for killing newbies (you can loot their body and they're easy picking) - that's not griefing, that's just playing the game. If it pisses players off, its a badly designed game.

Exploiting an imperfect design is griefing. If I break an opponent's legs in a game of soccer while the referee isn't watching, then I may get away with it under the rules, but it wasn't fair, nor was it an intended part of the game. Similarly if I decide I'm going to spend all my online time killing weak people for a laugh, especially when those people believed they were entering a shared roleplaying environment and would have a chance at a reasonably fair game, then I'm a griefer. The game wasn't designed so you could do that. It just happened to not be designed so that you couldn't. In the case of Ultima Online this is because the original designers didn't believe that so many people would be morons. It's sad really, but at least we all learned something.

While I agree that the game should enforce the design as far as possible, anybody who deliberately exploits a weakness in it without caring about the negative effect on other players is essentially a griefer. Social rules should count just as much as technically-enforced rules.

Give someone a finger, and they'll take your hand.

The problem isn't necessarily the griefers. The problem lies with the game developer and the "whiners" specifically. The "whiners" will cry for changes anytime something happens that is relatively unfair to them individually. "Whiners" aren't roleplayers, they are people who want a graphical, immersive chat program under the pretense of role-play. If you have to call tech support because someone outwitted you in an online game, then you shouldn't be playing video games.

As Amadeus pointed out, there is pretty much 0 room for a real roleplaying environment in MMORPGs in the first place. In fact, the last time I really role played in an MMORPG was Sierra's 'The Realm' (that was pre-UO, pre-Meridian 59 I believe). In that time PK'ers were called 'jumpers', simply because they would attack anyone who came on the screen. But people actively waged war in enmity of these 'dark' forced. The Good side outnumbered the bad side. If you were a jumper then there were guilds of individuals who would be set out to humiliate and destroy you. No one cried! If I was jumped, killed, and looted, I informed my guild officers, who informed their allies, who informed their members. Being a 'jumper' meant that you had to be extremely powerful, and if not, extremely stupid. Isn't that how it is in real life? Unprepared criminals in MMORPGs should be the equivalent of those 'stupid criminals' stories where the guy robs a bank with no getaway car.

And yes, I had fun running around as a lvl 46 Cleric in DAoC and running lines of lvl 30 mobs into a camp of lvl 6s so that they could be aggroed.

ho ho ho.
Alex

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Original post by Alex Curtis The problem isn't necessarily the griefers. The problem lies with the game developer and the "whiners" specifically. The "whiners" will cry for changes anytime something happens that is relatively unfair to them individually. "Whiners" aren't roleplayers, they are people who want a graphical, immersive chat program under the pretense of role-play. If you have to call tech support because someone outwitted you in an online game, then you shouldn't be playing video games.

3 problems there:
1) Why should a game that you pay a subscription to be "unfair"?
2) Who says that your definition of roleplaying is right and theirs is not? If they just wanted to chat then most of them would be on MUDs.
3) Online games were intended to offer a largely cooperative gameplay experience. If you log onto a cooperative FPS server, and some guy of a higher skill level decides he's going to shoot you all the time, eventually you might ask the ops to kick him. And that would be reasonable in my view. It was also reasonable in the view of the people who made UO.

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As Amadeus pointed out, there is pretty much 0 room for a real roleplaying environment in MMORPGs in the first place.

That's not true. Some text-based games feature hundreds of people in shared spaces and they don't feel the need to hunt and kill newbies for a laugh. But the point isn't about acting out characters and doing heavy roleplaying, the point is that people expected to be able to play in a largely (not entirely) cooperative environment, but in fact found that far too many people worked selfishly to make this impossible.

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The Good side outnumbered the bad side. If you were a jumper then there were guilds of individuals who would be set out to humiliate and destroy you. No one cried!

I have italicised the 2 above points as they are important. The first point was not true in Ultima Online. This broke the gameplay. If the first point had been true, I expect the second point would have been true as well.

Ultima Online was billed as a friendly and social experience set in the Ultima world. The expectations were not that you would spend most of your time worrying about the equivalent of bandits. People did not get what was advertised and they had the right to complain. The developers realised that the game didn't offer what they'd intended for it to offer and they changed the game accordingly. Good on them.

I have no time for anybody who derives their entertainment from disrupting that of others.

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Original post by Kylotan 1) Why should a game that you pay a subscription to be "unfair"?

Unfair is relative. Most people believe that any injustice that is heaped against them in a game is unfair. (i.e., losing!)

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Original post by Kylotan 2) Who says that your definition of roleplaying is right and theirs is not? If they just wanted to chat then most of them would be on MUDs.

So you say if they wanted to just chat, they would derive more fun from a text-based platform instead of a graphical platform? Like WHO?

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Original post by Kylotan3) Online games were intended to offer a largely cooperative gameplay experience. If you log onto a cooperative FPS server, and some guy of a higher skill level decides he's going to shoot you all the time, eventually you might ask the ops to kick him. And that would be reasonable in my view. It was also reasonable in the view of the people who made UO.

I'm glad you pointed that out 'higher skill level'. Are you saying that because someone who is better than you at a game targets you, it is unfair? If you are then I see your problem. You don't want a game, you want a utopian fantasy.

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Original post by KylotanThat's not true. Some text-based games feature hundreds of people in shared spaces and they don't feel the need to hunt and kill newbies for a laugh. But the point isn't about acting out characters and doing heavy roleplaying, the point is that people expected to be able to play in a largely (not entirely) cooperative environment, but in fact found that far too many people worked selfishly to make this impossible.

If the game developers don't implement features to deter criminal actions (you know, like in real life) and allow realistic counter-actions by the victims, then 'griefers' will appear. In The Realm, we took it upon ourselves to destroy these sort of nuisances (as, the game provided), not tech support.

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Original post by KylotanI have italicised the 2 above points as they are important. The first point was not true in Ultima Online. This broke the gameplay. If the first point had been true, I expect the second point would have been true as well. Ultima Online was billed as a friendly and social experience set in the Ultima world. The expectations were not that you would spend most of your time worrying about the equivalent of bandits. People did not get what was advertised and they had the right to complain. The developers realised that the game didn't offer what they'd intended for it to offer and they changed the game accordingly. Good on them.

First, I would like to point out that I've never played UO. And also, you are right, if the game developer is marketting a pritsy cutsie graphical IRC client, they should implement things to deter these sorts of actions. But if they utter the words 'role-play', then they are foolish to do so. Who is to choose what role I play in a role-playing environment, much less force me into a role? Isn't that why games like GTA are so popular? Freedom?

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Original post by KylotanI have no time for anybody who derives their entertainment from disrupting that of others.

I have no time for anyone who describes a role-playing game as an experience where everything goes well for them. If you want that, there is a game called The Sims.

I have never in my time playing MMORPGs been killed or robbed without returning the favor to the enemy, or attempting to do so.