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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green |
Just to re-itterate for any readers out there:
Greifers are almost always PK's
But PK's are definately not always Greifers.
(The above post could be a little misleading in this regard.)
Also in reply to the last "Balancing/accountability" statement you made. PK's who attack non-PK's who are of equal skill level usualy win anyway, simply because of the fact that the PK player (Not his character) usualy has much more skill at playing the game, simply because it takes a lot more skill and strategy to fight against other players than it does against brainless mobs.
In my PK days at UO it would take a ratio of roughly 3 non-PK's to every PK to even out the odds when we were fighting, simply because they lacked the highly developed skills of strategy and teamwork which comes naturally from playing as a PK.
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IMHO my opinion is humble |
Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:42 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
Good discussion, even if i was being a dick beforehand (was that this thread or the other one? i dunno) ... anyway, im very aware of Trials of Ascension, thats one of the four mmorpgs im watching right now; that is:
-- Darkfall Online (PvP)
-- Dragon Empires (PvP)
-- Everquest2 (non-PvP)
-- Trials of Ascension (PvP)
I expect Everquest2 to be a temporary fling to fill up time until those others come out, because i refuse to pay for more than three subscriptions at a time.
So you see that most of the mmorpgs im interested in are pro-PvP. And previously i had NEVER actively played on the lawless PvP-centric servers that are found with games like Asherons Call and DAOC. I didnt enjoy the lawless chaos of those servers. But these three games might give it more meaning because of land ownership, and that increases a hundred-fold what i will enjoy out of them. I dont play Shadowbane because i tried it during beta and almost puked when i saw the hideous graphics. I mean, they were that BAD.
Although i wasnt playing these games when UO came out, i believe that Darkfall will satisfy the vast majority of ex-UO PvPers out there, and then some. Also, Dragon Empires is majorly into PvP and it has a decent system. I like the whole empire-building / defending / attacking thing (land ownership), where you have buddies to help and lands to defend. It increases the realism to me. And i also like the fact that, unlike non-PvPer games, if i do get griefed by someone, i can get revenge by killing their character.
I remember early in AC, i set some stuff (armor, weapons) on the ground behind a tree near the town Qalabar. I needed to transfer that stuff to another character. Unluckily a thief was watching, lurking, and stole the stuff when i was logged off. I came back and saw him running away with my stuff. So i ran after him, but he logged off during mid-run, so i couldnt do anything. My valuables were gone, and i couldnt do jack about it... Now if PvP was on, and i could kill the bastard to get my stuff back, that would have made ALL the difference. PvP, to me, enables me to create justice for myself and my friends. PvP might give griefers more power, but at the same time it gives me more power as well to combat them.
In Trials of Ascension, everyone will be cautious because we will have only about a hundred life counters. After those counters are gone, comes permadeath. Even though lots of people think badly about permadeath, its a whole new playstyle that hasnt really been given a chance. I know, there will be chaos at first. However, once people learn to stay alive, and stay away from high-level characters who can kill them easily, i think there will be player justice and whole new facet of realism within Trials of Ascension which hasnt ever had a chance to be tried out. Im looking forward to ToA just as much as DE and DF.  A lot of people wont understand it. Its for a niche audience. Most players wont give ToA a chance because they are too afraid of being griefed upon. Well, im not scared of being griefed when i know that i can hunt them down for it and get revenge. Trials of Ascension appeals to me because i enjoy more REALISM in my playing. I want to be scared for my life. I want to experience real danger. And i think the adhrenalin rush i will experience during playing ToA is going to be... Sweet.
This is all my opinion, and even if you disagree, you probably couldnt make me change my mind about it, so dont try to convince me that PvP or permadeath is a bad thing. Its just a way different playstyle.
Last edited by Ammon777 on Sun Sep 07, 2003 3:00 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sat Sep 06, 2003 10:28 pm |
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Kardosh
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 3
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Hey Chekote,
I am assuming that last post was directed to me. For the most part I agree with you. While most griefers are usually Pkers, all PKers are NOT griefers. Of course, part of the problem is defining just what a 'griefer' is, the unfortunate truth is alot of newer players do think that all PK's are griefers, and simply do not understand the whole balance involved.
I aslo agree that PKers will usually (not always) win against non-Pk opponents of equal rank, though I don't totally agree with your stated reasons. Certainly most PKers are skilled, particularly at PvP, and that is part of the reason. I do believe their are other reasons as well though. For one thing PKers, have a couple of advantages - they know their role very well and it is usually a fairly singular one. This allows them to always be in the appropriate gear (in those games wear gear effects stats), it allows them to concentarte on a few specialized templates (you rarely see PK support characters for example), and you can not underestimate the point that they are hunting, and as such more on guard to PvP combat (I.e. they aren't chatting and absent-mindedly farming mobs). I am not saying that the prey should be doing those things either, just that all of these things help contribute to the PKers advantage.
My point wasn't that they won't win, but that currently (in most games having PvP I have played), the odds are fairly stacked in favor of the Pker. I don't want to eliminate them (Though I haven't played a PK character yet, I have thought seriously about doing so), but I would like to see a few things change.
Mechanics - as I stated earlier, in games such as Shadowbane, where you can recall or be summoned either while in combat or immediately after, the odds are unfairly stacked. A solo or group of PKs enter prime farming country, attack farming groups and if they stumble upon a group who are actually prepared and ready to deal with them, they simply recall or have a friend summon them out of danger. This is not only grossly unfair, it (is IMHO) one of the things that has given rise to an almost rabid belief that all PKs are griefers and all griefers need to be eliminated from the games in general. Its one thing to be killed, and your corpse looted, by someone who risked it all and defeated you due to superior skills, and quite another to have a pimply-faced kid who risks nothing walk off with your best equipment.
BTW - while I do know some honorable and skilled PKers, the current crop does seem to run more to those who will do anything to stack the odds in their favor, cheat, exploit, attack only much lower mobs, etc. Like the few truely 'bad' bikers, these guys are giving PKing in general a bad reputation that is not wholly deserved. It has been my experience though, that the PKing community has also done a very poor job of policing their own ranks and tend to welcome these no talents morons far more often than not.
Which brings us to my second point, the need for better ethics among players and the Pk community specifically. I am not naive, and have no eal expectations that this will change, but the fact that almost all players banned for exploits and cheating tend to belong to the PK community does make it harder for the average newb to not look on all PKs as 'less than desireable'. As I mentioned earlier, this is aggravated by the PK communities apparent lack of willingness to police their own.
If you accept that this is not likely to change (self policing), then I think developers will have to step up and place certain controlling factors into the games. We will never see another UO. The community has changed far too much, the average gamer has changed far to much. Lets face it, time was when MMORPGs were populated by pretty die-hard and knowledgable folks. Now the gaming community is a much broader cross-section of people, and most are not die-hard gamers, but casual players. These casual players are the developers and publishers cashcows. If players, through their lack of self-control and unwillingness to police their own, run off those casual gamers, developers will have no choice but to respond, and I doubt any of us will like the results. |
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Sat Sep 06, 2003 10:31 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
Yeah, i agree, if the PKer community doesnt police themselves, then developers are going to be forced to do that in their place and design systems wherein PKing is exceptable to the majority. Darkfall Online is placing the tools and responsibilities into our hands, but if the community doesnt use those tools, then the developers must design around griefers and their kind (not all PvPers are PKers or griefers -- there is a difference). I think Dragon Empires has an excellent solution that will make PvP more fun for everyone and yet have the game remain safe to people who dont want to PvP at all or very rarely. The event wherein a person is killed unwillingly is the event that those developers are working away from. Some of you really need to study the upcoming games, like Darkfall and Dragon Empires, to gleen where PvP games are headed. Its exciting to me because things are looking good, and i am not a PKer, nor a griefer. Im a new kind of PvPer because i have a code of ethics. If there isnt honor in the battle, it isnt worth fighting... |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 3:09 am |
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Kiff
Protector of the Realm
Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 257
Location: Indiana |
We're disscussing the crap out of this, but do any of us know a solution? We speak of developers putting in controls. I'm sorry my brothers but I have a feeling the Devs are lost on what to do here, or it would have been done. Policing their own? Well we can wish but that won't happen. We play these games and we argue over this subject and we want to see it brought to its fullest potential, but how? I can't think of a fix, the Developers can't think of one, and by the looks of every post in here neither can any of us. Accountability is a good start, but an alignment system in ToA was mentioned. UO had an alignment system, and PKers strived to get as low as possible. I hope ToA isn't the same way. Do any of us know how to fix this rather than debating that PvP is a good thing? |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 1:42 pm |
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Lord_Brownie
High Emperor
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
Posts: 575
Location: Unfashionable arm of the spiral galaxy |
I dont recall the alignment system in UO meant nothing other than reputation to other PC, you could be a 'dread lord' and walk through a city, the title didnt amount to much because it wasnt tied to being KOS. What system is better is amatter of taste. Perma death would just mean the griefers would remake a character after they died, it wouldnt stop them. In UO, griefers dont have an atachment to thier characters anyway. By griefers I refer to those who break rules (game mechanics, not ethics of PC), or repeat harasment of other PCs. I have no problem with being PKed by an RPer and then taunted abit after words. But dieing over and over again to one person who is just doing it to ruin your gaming experence is where I draw the line. In UO what killed it was too ramped PKing, deing over and over again to different PKs, and to griefers so there was no other aspect of the game, yet when PKing was nerfed, there wasnt enough of a game left to play. Player controled cities and KOS systems is a step in the right direction, but it will have to solve alot of real world problems to work. If only one person controls the list, then there is no checks and balences for poor leadership. They only way I see this working is if there are different cities with different dynamics: a few cities where citizens can vote for leaders, a few cities with to fight over, and a few cities tied to religous virtues and have systems based on the religous idology. Sounds complecated, but how can we expect everyone to get along in a virtual world, when they cant get along in the real world? You cant make greifing apart of the system, because to me greifing is a violation of the system, greifers do this to hurt others, and no sytem is going to aplease them.
LB |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 2:12 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
I say we give the new games a chance! |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 4:38 pm |
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green |
Damn you guys have been busy. Some realy good points. Heres my two cents:
I agree that the PvP servers of current MMORPG's are chaotic, but that is because the developers seem to keep swinging the balance drastically in on direction or the other. No one seems to have gotten the balance that UO had.
I dont agree that PK'ing became rampant in UO. What I beleive happened was after UO was released for a few years, it started to attract a more mainstream gamer who had a lot more problem with dieing at the hands of other players. They just didnt understand what an "RPG" was, all they cared about was the advancement of their character and the killing of mobs. There is far more to an RPG than that.
You can see this in the success of EQ. As soon as EQ was released, everyone jumped ship because it was more of a "Kill Mob + Level + Kill Mob" type of game, rather than the true deep roleplaying afforded by the UO system.
Its very sad, but "dumbing down" of games doesnt seem like its gonna stop (or even decelerate at all).
_________________
IMHO my opinion is humble |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 5:20 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
I agree, they dumbed-down certain mainstream games. However, upcoming games like DE, DF, and ToA arent dumbed-down, quite the opposite! Thats why we should give them a chance before throwing away the entire genre. I think those three specifically have an excellent chance of being fun for PvPers. |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 5:37 pm |
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Kardosh
Village Dweller
Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Posts: 3
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Actually, there may be a solution, and a fairly simple one at that. DAOC has a pretty good idea with their seperation of PvP and leveling areas. You can play the game for years and never venter into the frontiers (and I know people who have done just that). There is a lot I don't like about the game (painful leveling, etc.) but I digress. The biggest problem with DAOC's system is they didn't give PvP any real meaning or purpose.
I know, many of you will say seperate zones are really lame, but it is what a lot of casual players want. They are scared of the idea of PvP and no amount of lecturing them on the depth and real meaning of RPGs is going to change that. Seperate zones, one were you can NOT be attacked, and another(s) where you can enter into PvP may be the solution. As I said, there is much room for improvement in DAOCs system, but it may be a starting point.
Shadowbane's 'newb island' concept has a lot of merit as well, but I wonder if it provides enough of a comfort zone for casual players. Let's face it guys, there simply aren't enough of 'us' to make a new modern MMORPG financially viable, so developers and publishers will find themselves catering to carebear attitudes more and more. Without a way to provide both hard core aspects and a 'safe, comforting' environment for the casual gamers we may find ourselves out in the cold.
I know many people personnally who left Shadowbane because they felt they were being harassed and couldn't play the game the way they wanted to. They were guild members and I was level characters at the same time, in the same place and did NOT feel that the PKing was out of hand. Certainly there were aspects that could have been handled better (most I jave addressed in other posts), but the point is, that type of player is becoming more and more prevelant. If someone can come up with a zone system that allows for real PvP, maybe even unrestricted PvP (so you can kill that really annoying jerk from your realm) maybe there is hope. A system similar to that could also offer enticements to lure some of our less adventuresome brethern out into the 'frontiers' were they might just surprise themselves and realize that PvP isn't something to be feared afterall.
In a perfect world, we could hope for PKers to police their own rankes, but in reality I don't think it will ever happen, and I am not sure if it is even feasible. One more thing that has been sorely lacking in my opinion, is prompty and sever action by developers when players violate the rules of conduct. There is a huge difference between PKing and griefing. Developers should make that difference very clear with concise and specific guidelines which are then strictly enforced.
Just my two cents.
Kardosh
One last idea, maybe the ideal situatio is a combination of DAOC and Shadowbane. Have players start off on a safe "newb isle', ala Shadowbane and progress to an more open world. Rather than have two zones have a variety of zones, some safe and some open. As an inticement, some of the better hunting, resources, etc. could be located in the open zones, while keeping enough available in safe areas to allow the most ardent carebear to level is precious toon up, just slower or with some limitations (class, etc.).
I still think some sort of hybrid may be our only long term hope. |
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Sun Sep 07, 2003 11:03 pm |
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Kiff
Protector of the Realm
Joined: 27 Oct 2002
Posts: 257
Location: Indiana |
quote:
Originally posted by Ammon777
I agree, they dumbed-down certain mainstream games. However, upcoming games like DE, DF, and ToA arent dumbed-down, quite the opposite! Thats why we should give them a chance before throwing away the entire genre. I think those three specifically have an excellent chance of being fun for PvPers.
It will be very important to the PvP aspect of the genre that these games are hits. They will have to launch bug free, and with deep interactive quests and a complete game. Everyone knows that in the MMO genre the money bags are beeing filled by the casual gamer, so developers are going to go that way. DE, DF, and ToA, are a risk and if not done almost perfect could ruin any chance of seeing a PvP mmo anytime soon. Don't get me wrong I really hope they do well, but even though I'm longing for the next MMORPG to come out, I hope they take their time with these and do launch them perfect. I've only been paying attention to DF, and DE, but they both as of now look pretty sweet. |
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Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:30 pm |
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MoonDragon
High Emperor
Joined: 25 May 2002
Posts: 1254
Location: Waterloo, Canada |
A good example of what is a griefer.
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Mon Sep 08, 2003 7:32 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
quote:
Originally posted by Kiff
It will be very important to the PvP aspect of the genre that these games are hits. They will have to launch bug free, and with deep interactive quests and a complete game. Everyone knows that in the MMO genre the money bags are beeing filled by the casual gamer, so developers are going to go that way. DE, DF, and ToA, are a risk and if not done almost perfect could ruin any chance of seeing a PvP mmo anytime soon. Don't get me wrong I really hope they do well, but even though I'm longing for the next MMORPG to come out, I hope they take their time with these and do launch them perfect. I've only been paying attention to DF, and DE, but they both as of now look pretty sweet.
Good point. I really am hoping they succeed too... |
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Tue Sep 09, 2003 4:08 am |
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