The Case For WURM-like PK Protection

[Blue Pig]

After being in the game for a few hours I see that this stage of testing resembles Alpha more than Beta, so if I'm going to test the game for "free" for the next 6 months to a year I'm going to want to play the "finished" product the way "I" want to play it. If I can't, I'd appreciate the developers telling me so I can spend my time differently.

And how do "I" like to play? I like to play a successful game that has staying power and long term appeal for the "majority" of players. No Unrestricted Open PvP game has yet been successful, and no Unrestricted Open PvP game will ever be successful.

What do I mean by success? A game can be a financial success and still suck. STO is a prime example of a game that is a huge financial success and is also one of the worst MMOs out there. Why? Cryptic is great at lying and Star Trek fans don't know when to cut their losses. It's not an Unrestriceted Open PvP game, btw.

EVE-Online (a Semi-Unrestricted Open PvP game) spends a lot on advertizing to make up for the players that leave (and I sold 3 five-year-old accounts so that helps the game have staying power as well). It's a niche game that will fizzle out in two more years. Tredo made a post about it here:

http://xsyon.com/forums/30-prelude-t...-learned#22947

and his reference is the following review of EVE by a player:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Mopar63/...hy-EVE-No-More

I agree with that review 100%.


Eve is a PvP game where there is Unrestricted Open PvP in most areas (generally speaking). There is safe space and usually people would be foolish to try to kill you there, but they can, so there really is no absolutely safe space (therefore it's an Unrestricted Open PVP game at its core). But EVE safe space was good enough for me. As it is, to get the better ores you have to leave safe space, and when you do, you'd better have an armada. Tredo's link to the review explains it.

Dark Age of Camelot is, of course (minus the mez spells and the hacks) the best type of PvP game--RvR in a Frontier Zone. That game is still around (since 2001), and for good reason.

Darkfall has a low population as far as I can see (under 10k players and probably much, much less). I can understand why. Unrestricted Open PvP. While being near your starting area grants you good protection, your newbie fighting areas, where you get your fighting skills up, are often camped by friends and foes alike, usually on the weekends (as I said, it's a low population game for good reason).

One day I decided to get some mediocre "but for me, expensive" gear and fight the goblins just outside the fort but beyond the range of the towers. Now I had been killed before, but it was by reds and they were enemies (of my race and allies). Meh, okay. No big loss. But this time I paid a pretty penny (for me) for gear. I went to the goblins and was killed by an ally helping his buddy level. I thought it was cheesy, but okay, it happens. I went back and behold, he had taken my crappy but "expensive to me" gear. I asked him why. He said it was for his newbie friend. Mind you, this was an ally (me elf--him dwarf). We bantered back and forth, I didn't whine and laughed about it, and he came into town and made me even better gear. Hey, nice. Great.

But you know what, apart from the awful grind that DF is, I realized that this would be a common occurrence (minus the nice guy giving me the gear back). This would happen over and over, just mindless griefing for no reason and with no great consequences, so I decided I'd let them grief someone else. It wasn't a rage quit. It was a logical decision not to continue playing a bad game.

How would you like to go out, get killed, go out, get killed, go out... and so forth? I don't like that. I came to play a reasonable game, not be a punching bag for someone 80 times my level who is too afraid to fight characters his own level. While there are no levels in DF, I'm sure you get my meaning.

And how do I define Unrestricted Open PvP? It's a game that griefers flock to. It's a game where any player, usually the type that likes to kill for mindless fun (his fun) does exactly that, and suffers no meaningful penalty, if any. In the process he ruins the other player's gaming experience and that player usually quits. That's just bad game design. That's a failure of a game before it even starts.

How does this relate to Xsyon? Xsyon is a "building" game. People will build structures, roads and so forth. But it will be a low population game for some time. I go to sleep. People in my tribe will go to sleep (irl). How do we defend in an online game when we're asleep? Let's take a look at WURM (I'm currently playing that as well). Crappy animations (if you can call them that) but a reasonable Semi-Open PvP system (as I call it). As you build your town, or whatever you want to call it, you can build towers that spawn powerful guards that defend the town. As you expand, you can build more towers. Now these guards aren't omnipotent. A large enough force can defeat them. But I'm happy that it deters aggression enough to have the enemy think and plan very hard if they want to attack. Notice the words think and plan as opposed to mindless and meaningless. Also, it simulates the innate advantage a defender would have in an area he knows better than the attacker.

And if you're a student of paleoarchaeology, you know that our ancestors of 170,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago depended on cooperation and shared information. They would have been stupid to kill one another or even attempt it. And for the most part, they didn't. Cooperation worked better, and killing someone else just wasn't worth the risk. It's only when population levels rose dramatically and large groups of people occupied relatively small areas did warfare come into fashion (about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago). This post-apocalyptic game simulates a small population and small bands of people, but I digress to a degree.

Of course, I don't know what plan the developers have. I know they've thought about the options they have. They can have a mediocre game that's a moderate finacncial success. That may be all they want out of this game. Or they could fail. Such is life. They might want to make the game as they see fit regardless of consequences (financial and gamewise). That's their option. It's all okay. Obviously, we all want them to make a good game and we all assume they want to make a good game.

A good game doesn't have Unrestricted Open PvP. The game would deteriorate into a gankfest. A good game doesn't allow an ally to kill you without a penalty (The Eternal City just threw you in jail for some hours if you attacked someone in a protected area--and if you killed them without a good reason in another area, your character was perma killed by the developer after you stood trial).

Why do good games have these protection features? Because there will always be some person with his finger up his nose that likes to cause other people misery. I don't know why they do it. Maybe they have a small member, surely they have a small brain with not much thought going on. They just can't help themselves. Oh look, I can kill someone... chaaarge! No mind, plain and simple.

And because good games protect against this type of nonsense (read "non-sense", "no point"), they are more likely to thrive. They may not thrive forever, but they last for years and they do so with relatively large populations. It makes good business sense.

Of course, perhaps some of the developers want to play the game themselves and they prefer Unrestricted Open PvP. Or they have their own vision. That's all okay too.

However, if that's the case, if the developers intend to make this Unrestricted Open PvP with no meaningful PvP and no meaningful consequences for "grief" attacks, then I'd like them to let me know now so I don't waste my time. I'd like to know the plan. That's not much to ask for.

[IakXastur]

Supposedly there is going to be a system implemented where pk'ing is detrimental to the pk'er. I can't remember the slightest details right now...but I'd suggest reading some of the PVP threads

[Blue Pig]

IakXastur wrote:

Supposedly there is going to be a system implemented where pk'ing is detrimental to the pk'er. I can't remember the slightest details right now...but I'd suggest reading some of the PVP threads

Yes, I've read those. There appears to be vauge information that suggests what you describe. I'll reread them. It's also possible that the developers consider the PvP options to be "flexible" at this stage of the game, with room to be modified as they see fit.

I think it's sadly reflective of our culture that we play games where seeking to kill another person (character) is considered "good form" and "part of the game". There are other ways games can simulate dominance and encourage long range thinking and planning as well. The threat of death has more influence many times (irl) than death itself.

Essentially, I'm hoping this will be more of a thinking game than a "charge!" game. That's not to say armed conflict shouldn't be included. By all means it should be included, as that mirrors the nastier part of human nature (sadly). It just shouldn't be an hourly occurrence. Hopefully the players will be able to police "antisocial" behavior, but there will have to be some game mechanic in place that will give that "meaning". Capturing the criminal and permanently executing the character would be realistic. So would some very lengthy jail time. Or something in between.

Looking at the "animal" world, no other species fights to the death over mating rights or territory (although chimps have been known to murder, and male lions have a nasty habit of eating their young). That's because fighting to the death is a waste of energy. The victor is known long before any death has to occur, and the vanquished retreats.

[Cunk]

That's alotta words but I generally agree with what you're saying (except the part about EVE fizzling out in 2 years).

But your subject says "wurm-like PK protection". Are you talking about Wurm's non-PVP server where players can't attack each other at all? I assume you must be because there is no PK protection on Wild. I have a feeling Xsyon will be more like Wild server on Wurm.

[pid73]

I don't remember the post but Virtus stated that Jordi definitely will not allow this game to be a gankfest. Many DF fanbois came over here when it was clear that MO was about to fail. They QQ long and hard but to no avail, there will be PvP but not meaningless (most probably it will be for resources) and not mindless (there will be consequences).

Now, the details are all undisclosed (we the players don't know, yet) and maybe even undefined (the devs themselves don't know either). I don't know which of the two, but I'm here giving my advice on what should be avoided and what could be attempted.

Stay with us and continue that way, your post was very constructive and well written, something always welcome on these forums.

[Dark515]

I came from DF, and I for one think it was too out of control. You could barely fight in any spawns near NPC cities for any medium length of time without danger of getting ganked.

It would be nice to see a lot less random/meaningless PvP in a game.

[jessebfox]

Keep in mind a "bad" game to you is a "good" game to others. If you subscribe to the line of thought that the more people that like it makes it "better", then Britney spears was a great great singer.

I think they are trying to make this a "great" game in Jordi's eyes. I know he is definitely open to suggestion as long as the game ends up in the vision he has.

[Relandi]

jessebfox wrote:

Keep in mind a "bad" game to you is a "good" game to others. If you subscribe to the line of thought that the more people that like it makes it "better" than Britney spears was a great great singer.

I think they are trying to make this a "great" game in Jordi's eyes. I know he is definitely open to suggestion as long as the game ends up in the vision he has.

This seems about right.

As for the comments on PvP, I'd think the PvP is far more likely to be over area control (in later days) and politics than resources - as there really doesn't seem to be "limited" resources. Junk Piles rarely run out, and when they do, they re-pop with-in minutes, this only thing I could see if trees run out because as far as I can tell, they don't grow back currently.

EDIT: Open PvP is here to stay, though, OP - we've been down this road, Jooky is set.

[Zarma]

tl;dr

But I did the read the start, and you have a warped perspective of a game that hasn't failed. Because you think it fails doesn't mean it does, and the fact that they're getting a lot of money supports the idea that a lot of people like it and that you're just one of the many that don't.

[icarus39]

I'd like to see the PK system set up like Meridian 59.

All players had a white name, meaning they were innocents. If an innocent attacked another innocent without killing them, their name turned to orange, and they were labelled an outlaw. The consequence was simple, one you died one time as an outlaw, you were returned to innocent status.

However, if you ever outright killed an innocent player, you were considered a murderer, and your name turned to red. A murder could be killed on site with no consequence to the attacker, and the murder would not return to innocent status, unless a Justicar pardonned him/her.

I left a lot up to the community, while being a PKer was still entertaining, it was dangerous and carried heavier consquences than just flat out griefing.