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Crowfall

Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,106
I think game developers would be well served by studying real life systems and applying the lessons there to game design. Real life empires don't last forever because after a while, no matter how strong the empire, things like corruption, in-fighting and decadence set in and make it weak and allow other "hungrier" people to defeat it. Modeling some of these in an MMO might be fairly complex, but it would also be a very interesting experiment both in terms of games and social studies. If done right, these "natural" mechanics would prevent sandbox MMO stagnation in a much better way than just wiping the world after a while, which I don't like at all. A big part of MMOs' appeal is the persistence aspect, and constantly resetting them really messes with that stuff.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
I think game developers would be well served by studying real life systems and applying the lessons there to game design. Real life empires don't last forever because after a while, no matter how strong the empire, things like corruption, in-fighting and decadence set in and make it weak and allow other "hungrier" people to defeat it. Modeling some of these in an MMO might be fairly complex, but it would also be a very interesting experiment both in terms of games and social studies. If done right, these "natural" mechanics would prevent sandbox MMO stagnation in a much better way than just wiping the world after a while, which I don't like at all. A big part of MMOs' appeal is the persistence aspect, and constantly resetting them really messes with that stuff.
This won't work. There is no way to do that in a multiplayer game because players organize outside the game and individual longstanding gaming communities can account for a significant portion of the playerbase. Consider the Goons in EVE Online. Or TEST, to a smaller degree, but they were curbstomped by Goons as the universe is so small that there is nowhere to run.

Real life empires fell because of the failings of short lived humans as well as ethnic and political drama. These don't exist among games mainly played by a homogenous group of western middle class white men whose lifespan vastly outranges the likely span of a commercial MMO.
 
Joined
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Messages
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I think game developers would be well served by studying real life systems and applying the lessons there to game design. Real life empires don't last forever because after a while, no matter how strong the empire, things like corruption, in-fighting and decadence set in and make it weak and allow other "hungrier" people to defeat it. Modeling some of these in an MMO might be fairly complex, but it would also be a very interesting experiment both in terms of games and social studies. If done right, these "natural" mechanics would prevent sandbox MMO stagnation in a much better way than just wiping the world after a while, which I don't like at all. A big part of MMOs' appeal is the persistence aspect, and constantly resetting them really messes with that stuff.
This won't work. There is no way to do that in a multiplayer game because players organize outside the game and individual longstanding gaming communities can account for a significant portion of the playerbase. Consider the Goons in EVE Online. Or TEST, to a smaller degree, but they were curbstomped by Goons as the universe is so small that there is nowhere to run.

Real life empires fell because of the failings of short lived humans as well as ethnic and political drama. These don't exist among games mainly played by a homogenous group of western middle class white men whose lifespan vastly outranges the likely span of a commercial MMO.

I am not so sure about that. What you are saying is that games are different from real life, which is certainly true, but no one is saying you have to copy real life mechanisms exactly as they are. The reason I said it was a complex task is because you have to adapt those mechanisms to games and take into account how video games are different from real life.

I believe conflicts and drama can arise anywhere as long as the game can provide some reasons for it to, which is really not that hard to think about in high level terms. For example, what if an MMO forced guilds to assign positions and ranks to every member which determined their status, power and economic position within the guild's region of control? Then you have your classes and reasons for conflict, scheming and power grabs. Obviously there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but I don't see any theoretical obstacles to this sort of thing.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
In all the games I've ever played I've never seen a working example of what you describe, and I have played literally dozens of text based MMOs. Most games may last a few years but eventually someone takes over and NEVER loses. Universes tend to die out really fast. The simple fact is that in real life you either live in the world or you die. In games you swap servers, change games, or quit when bad shit happens. If there was only one MMO and you couldn't quit once you started maybe real life would provide good examples. Honestly though, in modern times even real life has stagnated.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Maybe, but your PvP (breaking the rules, anything goes) is pathetic. You are essentially saying that anything is acceptable to win a game, even going outside the game to do so. Under your ideology, paying off the game GMs for favors or benefit is acceptable. Under your general ideology, finding out the location of a player in RL and showing up with a gang to beat them is acceptable. Anything is acceptable by your standards.
That's a strange conclusion to draw, considering that it explicitly contradicts tenets which I have stated multiple times, and certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I have never considered it acceptable to cross real-life with the Internet for any reason, whether or not it is a game. As I have stated multiple times, what happens on the Internet STAYS on the Internet. If we start taking our Internet disputes into real life, that way lies the extermination of entire families and people being skinned and turned into coats. I believe I've made my position QUITE clear on the entire skinning and coating thing.

Besides, what I consider "right" has never been the topic of discussion. I discuss what *IS*. Whether or not this is right or not is wholly irrelevant. We are discussing design. If the system can be undermined simply by someone doing the "wrong" thing, this is a flaw in the design. I remind you that the, as demonstrated in EVE, MMO players are raging psychopaths devoid of any sense of honor.

As for "I was talking to someone else", seriously? Of all the butting in to conversations to bitch and moan about a game not having PvP when it was specifically stated not to have PvP and you are upset I commented here?
I did not "moan" about it. I discussed the ramifications of design as it pertained to how the presence or lack of PvP influenced the topic.

You, on the other hand, apparently wrote a post that served no other purpose except to fling unprovoked insults. What was that even supposed to be about? You can't just fling insults out of the air, you have to indicate what exactly I said in the thread which you think is stupid and THEN insult me. Sheesh. You complain about my views on what is or isn't acceptable, yet you have no sense of propriety at all.

I think game developers would be well served by studying real life systems and applying the lessons there to game design. Real life empires don't last forever because after a while, no matter how strong the empire, things like corruption, in-fighting and decadence set in and make it weak and allow other "hungrier" people to defeat it.
I don't think you can FORCE players to engage in corruption, in-fighting, or decadence. Besides, my personal experience with running empires in MMOesques is that you don't need to. Being tiresome, whiny people, they manage this on their own just fine. Empires in MMOs *DO* break up from corruption, in-fighting, and decadance. Drama breaks out, popcorn is served, and sometimes people just become fat and lazy and stop trying, and sometimes this costs them the crown.

If done right, these "natural" mechanics would prevent sandbox MMO stagnation in a much better way than just wiping the world after a while, which I don't like at all.
Well, the truth of MMOs is not so much that "stagnation" sets in. Very few cases actually are truly stagnant. It's not so much stagnation that occurs so much as lockout that occurs. The Old Boys' Club tends to have a uniform interest in excluding the upstarts, even as they fight amongst themselves.

A big part of MMOs' appeal is the persistence aspect, and constantly resetting them really messes with that stuff.
Indeed, there are lots of episodic games of this nature, but I tend to be turned off from them because building the Eternal Empire is part of the appeal.

For example, what if an MMO forced guilds to assign positions and ranks to every member which determined their status, power and economic position within the guild's region of control? Then you have your classes and reasons for conflict, scheming and power grabs. Obviously there are a lot of details that have to be worked out, but I don't see any theoretical obstacles to this sort of thing.
Would never work. You can't *FORCE* a guild to treat members in any particular way, nor can you force-map some arbitrary in-game position to the actual internal political system. For instance, I've run guilds in games where I was not even an actual player. The actual game itself had little to no real appeal to me, I was purely a metagame player, didn't even have a character. I was without a doubt, the most powerful and influential member of the guild, the one who founded and operated the entire thing and without me, the entire effort would have basically come apart at the seams. I held it all together with my control network. But you wouldn't be able to assign me a "position" or a "rank" within the formal in-game guild, because at the level I was playing from, even the individual "guild" within the game was simply a tool, a means to an end. I controlled many "guilds". My rival "guildmaster" was a similar figure, he was an ex-player as well. Our struggles caused madness and consternation. And yet were outside the system. What did that make us? Gods? Devils? It certainly seemed that way. We wielded powers as destructive as the developers themselves, pitting them against each other in struggles that would destroy entire guilds.

Real life empires fell because of the failings of short lived humans as well as ethnic and political drama. These don't exist among games mainly played by a homogenous group of western middle class white men whose lifespan vastly outranges the likely span of a commercial MMO.
Wouldn't say that. While their physical lifespans might, their attention spans don't. Generation ADHD suffers from cripplingly short attention spans. I've known so many rivals whose empires ultimately fell not because I was able to destroy them in their prime, but simply because their leaders...lost interest, distracted by the constant barrage of shiny things presented to them outside the game. They were replaced by second-stringers who were simply not as capable, and thus ultimately fell, not because I was specifically able to overcome them, but simply because their leader had, effectively, died, and been replaced by his less than competent "son". If anything, these time-kills represent the bulk of my guild destructions. I'm pretty sure I've destroyed more guilds as a result of their own succession processes or lack thereof failing them after the "death" of their leader than through actual victory in conflicts, because I, unlike them, never quit while I'm winning. Winners never quit!

In all the games I've ever played I've never seen a working example of what you describe, and I have played literally dozens of text based MMOs. Most games may last a few years but eventually someone takes over and NEVER loses.
Truth. It's always someone outside of Generation ADHD, too. I've been that guy. Hell, some of those games still technically exist...where I rule alone, Emperor of the Bones. At least it makes maintaining my winning state easy when no one exists to oppose me anymore. There are a LOT of still-existing games out there where pretty much everyone has long since given up, where that one guy rules alone over the ashen landscape of his making. Often he doesn't even play anymore, but simply nobody exists to challenge his dominion and the developers for some reason can't be bothered to shut the game down, either, perhaps because they forgot it exists.

All such things snowball. Weren't you the one who made a thread about that? It's simply easier to perpetuate a situation where you keep winning than to change the situation from one where you're losing to one where you're winning. By the time you're winning, the hardest is over. To keep winning, all you have to do is not get bored and quit.
 

Xenich

Cipher
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
2,104
That's a strange conclusion to draw, considering that it explicitly contradicts tenets which I have stated multiple times, and certainly has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. I have never considered it acceptable to cross real-life with the Internet for any reason, whether or not it is a game. As I have stated multiple times, what happens on the Internet STAYS on the Internet. If we start taking our Internet disputes into real life, that way lies the extermination of entire families and people being skinned and turned into coats. I believe I've made my position QUITE clear on the entire skinning and coating thing.

Besides, what I consider "right" has never been the topic of discussion. I discuss what *IS*. Whether or not this is right or not is wholly irrelevant. We are discussing design. If the system can be undermined simply by someone doing the "wrong" thing, this is a flaw in the design. I remind you that the, as demonstrated in EVE, MMO players are raging psychopaths devoid of any sense of honor.

I may have been a bit overzealous in my mention of your acceptance of physical world actions, but I notice you did not object to anything I stated aside from such. You even affirmed it by implying that as long as it is on the internet, it is fair game. My point stands.

I did not "moan" about it. I discussed the ramifications of design as it pertained to how the presence or lack of PvP influenced the topic.

You, on the other hand, apparently wrote a post that served no other purpose except to fling unprovoked insults. What was that even supposed to be about? You can't just fling insults out of the air, you have to indicate what exactly I said in the thread which you think is stupid and THEN insult me. Sheesh. You complain about my views on what is or isn't acceptable, yet you have no sense of propriety at all.

You went into a game thread of a PvE game that has stated it is a PvE game with no interest in PvP and focused every single discussion point around why PvE sucks and PvP is better. Even when trying to get you to discuss outside of that, it was constantly about PvP.

I come here and comment about your bullshit unethical views on PvP, how you rationalize whatever you will based on such and you cry like a little baby. /facepalm

So don't give me shit with your pathetic whine because I caught you off guard with an offensive point of argument. I was honest with you multiple times in the other thread only for you to act like a fucking idiot (oh look everyone, I can justify my stupid comments with an "I'm insane" response).

You sound like the typical wannabe PvPer who whines like a little bitch when they get a taste of their own medicine. Seriously, you are pathetic.
 
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In all the games I've ever played I've never seen a working example of what you describe, and I have played literally dozens of text based MMOs. Most games may last a few years but eventually someone takes over and NEVER loses. Universes tend to die out really fast. The simple fact is that in real life you either live in the world or you die. In games you swap servers, change games, or quit when bad shit happens. If there was only one MMO and you couldn't quit once you started maybe real life would provide good examples. Honestly though, in modern times even real life has stagnated.

Well, just because it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean it can't be in the future. I personally feel like this social/political aspect of sandbox MMOs is very under-developed right now, with very few games with resources and player populations in the space and even those (like say UO, Eve, early SWG) having relatively simple systems in this regard. But ultimately, this is a space with huge potential, and I think eventually we will see companies investing serious money into developing much more sophisticated systems.

Would never work. You can't *FORCE* a guild to treat members in any particular way, nor can you force-map some arbitrary in-game position to the actual internal political system. For instance, I've run guilds in games where I was not even an actual player. The actual game itself had little to no real appeal to me, I was purely a metagame player, didn't even have a character. I was without a doubt, the most powerful and influential member of the guild, the one who founded and operated the entire thing and without me, the entire effort would have basically come apart at the seams. I held it all together with my control network. But you wouldn't be able to assign me a "position" or a "rank" within the formal in-game guild, because at the level I was playing from, even the individual "guild" within the game was simply a tool, a means to an end. I controlled many "guilds". My rival "guildmaster" was a similar figure, he was an ex-player as well. Our struggles caused madness and consternation. And yet were outside the system. What did that make us? Gods? Devils? It certainly seemed that way. We wielded powers as destructive as the developers themselves, pitting them against each other in struggles that would destroy entire guilds.

Haha, that's some seriously nerdy metagame stuff. Still, I think you might be underestimating how much impact the developers can have on the game by introducing various game mechanics and fiddling with them. By associating distinct and tangible in-game benefits with different guild positions, the game can encourage the "internal political structure" to mimic the actual guild structure. By introducing complex in-game guild mechanics as opposed to just a "you are in guild x", guild chat and empty officer titles, the game can encourage the deal-making to occur more within the game and less on outside forums and the like. By mapping guild members' portion of the guild's economic pie, their voting power and other boons to their guild rank, the game can give every guild member a stake in the political process within the guild, and thus lead to all sorts of intrigue necessary for an entertaining and dynamic (as opposed to stagnant) game world.
 
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Messages
795
(....)
I think game developers would be well served by studying real life systems and applying the lessons there to game design. Real life empires don't last forever because after a while, no matter how strong the empire, things like corruption, in-fighting and decadence set in and make it weak and allow other "hungrier" people to defeat it.
I don't think you can FORCE players to engage in corruption, in-fighting, or decadence. Besides, my personal experience with running empires in MMOesques is that you don't need to. Being tiresome, whiny people, they manage this on their own just fine. Empires in MMOs *DO* break up from corruption, in-fighting, and decadance. Drama breaks out, popcorn is served, and sometimes people just become fat and lazy and stop trying, and sometimes this costs them the crown.
(....)
It doesn't last. All the while players are rage quitting too. Power elite regenerates.

The weaker players who get destroyed or raped by the current power elite don't generally come back.

It's not that the big nations don't fall apart, it's that the power elite always remains. They feed on the weaker members continually, keeping the game's population low. Or at least that's the argument.

Cutting the head off the dragon doesn't work if it has multiple heads or regrows them almost immediately.
 
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It doesn't last. All the while players are rage quitting too. Power elite regenerates.

The weaker players who get destroyed or raped by the current power elite don't generally come back.

It's not that the big nations don't fall apart, it's that the power elite always remains. They feed on the weaker members continually, keeping the game's population low. Or at least that's the argument.

Cutting the head off the dragon doesn't work if it has multiple heads or regrows them almost immediately.

One thing I would add is that in my opinion, current sandbox MMOs (Eve, Darkfall, etc) and possibly some of these text based MUDs you guys play are very skewed toward a certain type of player and don't accurately reflect the general gaming population. Many of these games are extremely hardcore and/or inaccessible to the average player (in MUDs' case), but also even games like Eve and Darkfall typically feature next to no PvE and very little content of interest OTHER THAN constant PvP and/or grinding for PvP. This turns off most players (including myself) from such games and limits their populations to the kind of people that hang out on metagaming forums and belong to the Goons.

That in turn, at least in my opinion, really ruins the dynamics in such games. It's like an ecosystem which has 2,000 wolves and 5 sheep, it just can't work long term. By creating games with actual interesting gameplay and with some level of in-game protection from constant griefing and noob farming, a better MMO would accumulate a player base more representative of actual human societies, which would in turn, again in my opinion, make the politics in such a game more realistic as well.
 
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It doesn't last. All the while players are rage quitting too. Power elite regenerates.

The weaker players who get destroyed or raped by the current power elite don't generally come back.

It's not that the big nations don't fall apart, it's that the power elite always remains. They feed on the weaker members continually, keeping the game's population low. Or at least that's the argument.

Cutting the head off the dragon doesn't work if it has multiple heads or regrows them almost immediately.

One thing I would add is that in my opinion, current sandbox MMOs (Eve, Darkfall, etc) and possibly some of these text based MUDs you guys play are very skewed toward a certain type of player and don't accurately reflect the general gaming population. Many of these games are extremely hardcore and/or inaccessible to the average player (in MUDs' case), but also even games like Eve and Darkfall typically feature next to no PvE and very little content of interest OTHER THAN constant PvP and/or grinding for PvP. This turns off most players (including myself) from such games and limits their populations to the kind of people that hang out on metagaming forums and belong to the Goons.

That in turn, at least in my opinion, really ruins the dynamics in such games. It's like an ecosystem which has 2,000 wolves and 5 sheep, it just can't work long term. By creating games with actual interesting gameplay and with some level of in-game protection from constant griefing and noob farming, a better MMO would accumulate a player base more representative of actual human societies, which would in turn, again in my opinion, make the politics in such a game more realistic as well.
I'm all for better PvE or more sheep, less wolves. But I don't think that'll cure this problem.

It boils down to someone who's level 100 finding some satisfaction in killing someone who's level 20 to 70. If this weren't true, a lot of this problem being discussed wouldn't exist. Norfleet highlights the problem when he said he doesn't play PvP games to look for a fair fight. He plays to win. Play to crush! But I beleive there're far worse players out there than him.

They need anti-greifing measures. They need ways to diminish unfair fights, across the board.

I want to talk about my psychology.. I've never played PvP games to be unfair. I spend most of my time in them building. That's what I enjoy. I also enjoy PvE. I even enjoy farming every once in a while. I've had on occassion moents where unfair fights were presented to me and I left. I recall one experience in Everquest when I was in a group with 3 or 4 of my guildmates. They entered a noob zone and we were going to start slaughtering them. I just simply left the group and said "No thanks."

I am not saying I'm an angel. I'm a devil too(*). But.... there's something repulsive about being unfair to others repeatedly. It's one thing to take advantage of their mistakes, but it's another to repeatedly kill someoen who has no chance. Using the excuse "It's just a game! Have fun!" doesn't work. It's fun for you, but it ruins the game for others.

* - Yes I've come out of sneak and backstabbed players, particularly in Shadowbane. YES I've taken advantage of players at other times. And if there was a God I would be judged for them. But moments of helping others or just not trying to grief them seem to greatly outnumber moments where I was hostile and opportunistic.

That and PvP is very tiring. It's exhausting even. I much prefer more relaxed and "grindy" PvE.

And why do I continue to play PvP servers if I'm not a killer at heart? Because I like the danger. My accomplishemnts feel more worthwhile to me. Friends I make ARE friends because they could kill me if desired.

Maybe I'm just looking for a tougher game, not necessarily PvP.

Or maybe the reason I sek PvP MMORPGs is more sinister. Maybe I NEED killers. I know this is a weird idea. It's kind of like the idea Cops need Robbers. Maybe a part of me needs griefers for something to dislike or hate.
 
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(continued)

And the reason unfair fights exist is not just because of stat/gear/level progression systems. If that were true then pitting a new player in Quake 2 against a veteran player would be considered fair. Quake 2 had no gear/stat/level progression. It was pure FPS 3d shooter glory. However, the veteran would cut the new player to pieces. This isn't because of stats or level, it's because the veteran knows the maps and knows all the techniques and has a very tuned hand/eye coordination for that particular game. So to make a fair matchup, one has to account for how long a player has played or their "score".

Quake 2 handled that well enough with Clans. And from the get go you could see how many someone has killed in a session - from that you can guess how good they're. I don't remember a "score" which lasted outside of the session.

Of course progression PVP MMORPGs even with fair fights still must leverage the amount of progression with the losses suffered during a fight. Losing too much after a fight can cause some players to quit playing. Progression is one of the reasons we play an RPG. You can't just throw that out by taking it all away if a player suffers some losses.

Take Shadwobane for example. It requires a lot of time and muscle to build a city. Yet it can all be lost after a single siege. The house I made which I furnished diligently? It's gone! The city is in ruins. All the time we spent has to be spent again making a new city. Even if you lose fairly it's hard to lose because on top of the loss you have to rebuild everything.

And yet one of the reason I play PvP is because I want that added level of risk. I want to be able to lose stuff. In Wurm Online, for example, on the Chaos server, I can potentially lose everything which is important. I WANT that.

A lot of plaeyrs don't want that risk.

But I can probably be broken too. If I suffered repeated losses I'd probably rage quit. Thus far, I've lost homes (and bulk bins) both to decay and to raiding. I've taken enormous risks in the game. I know I have my limits, though.

Back in 1999 I rage quitted EQ after getting killed more than once in PvP. I mostly accepted it. But it was that combined with a exploit which caused me to finaly quit. See, I couldn't hit the person with my melee or with my bow. They rooted me and casted on me until I was dead. Later on the game patched it so bows can hit in that range. But that, along with my being burned out, caused me to leave. I played UO later in 1999. Quit after a month or two on OSI and played on player-run servers after that. I did later rejoin EQ because UO didn't give me all what I wanted. I went on the player it of/on for years.
 
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Found an awesome link dating back to Sept 13 2005, regarding Shadowbane (article name: Utopian Sedition):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_10/63-Utopian-Sedition

Quote:
(...)
And so began a long time of peace across a game world whose premise was built upon total destruction. A few upstarts sprouted up, and my group was sent in to harass and demoralize them until they succumbed to the larger guild's standard. It was peace, utopia ... boredom. Guilds began dropping like flies. Players quit the game in droves, because there was nothing to do other than make new cities rich and spread like wildfire across the globe in a wave of Pax Shadowbana.

On one hand, we were witnessing some sort of online gaming world peace, where no one was without hunting grounds and opportunity abounded. On the other, we realized that world peace is really boring.
(...)
Everybody here needs to read that. It highlights a lot of things to me. The most important is this article doesn't discredit the notion a power elite snuffs out weaker players. It apparently shows peace was just as lethal at killing the game.

Peace!!!! In a pvp game!!! And here I was focusing on the wrongness of the power elite killing all the weaklings. But ti's more than that. They made hte game boring! If you allied with them, you could get enormously rich.

But who wnats to just be rich? This isn't a peace simulator. PLAY TO CRUSH!
 
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Norfleet

Moderator
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12,250
That's the most hilarious ending for a PvP game I've seen in ages. It's like the MMO version of Hearts of Peace: Hitler's Nobel Peace Prize.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
PVP games never work, eventually someone has to win because the losers just quit. Anyone trying to game the players into following their will is dumb and wrong and should feel bad as a human being. People bend to the laws in real life because they don't have a fucking choice. Loading up an MMO with rules just means everyone says fuck you and quits. Even if you could create a set of rules that would work right it wouldn't matter. Competition works just like real life, whoever works hardest wins. Look at the legal professions and banking and shit. Tons of boring dull 16 hour grind because otherwise the other guy wins. Why do people do it? For real money to buy real shit that society grinds into them as important for being happy from day 1. What do you get for grinding 16 hours a day at tedious soul crushing thankless tasks in a video game? Nothing. And there are no distant father figures telling you you are never quite good enough or gorgeous women who love money to drive you onward.

Porky lives in some magical dreamworld, and one clearly superior to any game, where he thinks you can have all the drama of history in an opt in, zero importance video game that doesn't pay the bills.
 
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That's the most hilarious ending for a PvP game I've seen in ages. It's like the MMO version of Hearts of Peace: Hitler's Nobel Peace Prize.
Actually, I already knew, I had just forgotten. I played a lot on Shadowbane live servers when it was free. I was there in the last moments when the server was hutdown. Anyway, I recalled the exact same thing happening on our server. I can't remember which server it was, but in the forums they talked a lot about there being too mcuh peace.

(There was also a common dislike of builders... people like me... who farm/build/pve.)

I just forgot about that. I'm an old player. I don't always remember off the top of my head.

And yet that peace is not a perfect peace. As the linked article says, they had a hit squad to snuff out all the upstarts. So if anybody wanted to do it THEIR way? Well they'd get hit. They wouldn't stand a chance.

(As the article says, the only way the upstarts stand a chance is when the hit squad helps them. And that's what his squad did because they hated the peace. They hated the boredom. They let the upstart win so a bigger war could happen.)

So players are getting hit on twofronts:
1) If you ally with the power elite then the game is too peaceful; too boring (remember this is a PVP MMORPG!)
2) If you oppose the power elite they rape you; this is the main argument behind wiping

The news here is that the threat isn't just coming from a power elite killing the weak, it's coming from peace!!

In my opinion, the rare moments when the upstarts are given a chance doesn't make up for the great amount of losses due to the power elite raping upstarts and making everything else boring (boring = lots of money but too little conflict).

It's all about PVP MMORPGs being based on conflict (PvP). Players want conflict; it makes it fun. And not just any conflict, but fair-ish conflict! Being killed by the power elite isn't fair whatsoever; you can't win. Fair fights don't mean you win or even that your odds are 50/50. It just means you can win and your odds aren't nill like they're facing up to the power elite.

So we're back to: How do we make a PVP MMORPG with lots of conflict and fair(er) fights?

Crowfall says: Wipe the server and call them seasons.

That's the main thing I'm getting form Crowfall. But I'll try to learn more.
 
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MoLAoS

Guest
That's the most hilarious ending for a PvP game I've seen in ages. It's like the MMO version of Hearts of Peace: Hitler's Nobel Peace Prize.
Actually, I already knew, I had just forgotten. I played a lot on Shadowbane live servers when it was free. I was there in the last moments when the server was hutdown. Anyway, I recalled the exact same thing happening on our server. I can't remember which server it was, but in the forums they talked a lot about there being too mcuh peace.

(There was also a common dislike of builders... people like me... who farm/build/pve.)

I just forgot about that. I'm an old player. I don't always remember off the top of my head.

And yet that peace is not a perfect peace. As the linked article says, they had a hit squad to snuff out all the upstarts. So if anybody wanted to do it THEIR way? Well they'd get hit. They wouldn't stand a chance.

(As the article says, the only way the upstarts stand a chance is when the hit squad helps them. And that's what his squad did because they hated the peace. They hated the boredom. They let the upstart win so a bigger war could happen.)

So players are getting hit on twofronts:
1) If you ally with the power elite then the game is too peaceful; too boring (remember this is a PVP MMORPG!)
2) If you oppose the power elite they rape you; this is the main argument behind wiping

The news here is that the threat isn't just coming from a power elite killing the weak, it's coming from peace!!

In my opinion, the rare moments when the upstarts are given a chance doesn't make up for the great amount of losses due to the power elite raping upstarts and making everything else boring (boring = lots of money but too little conflict).

It's all about PVP MMORPGs being based on conflict (PvP). Players want conflict; it makes it fun. And not just any conflict, but fair-ish conflict! Being killed by the power elite isn't fair whatsoever; you can't win. Fair fights don't mean you win or even that your odds are 50/50. It just means you can win and your odds aren't nill like they're facing up to the power elite.

So we're back to: How do we make a PVP MMORPG with lots of conflict and fair(er) fights?

Crowfall says: Wipe the server and call them seasons.

That's the main thing I'm getting form Crowfall. But I'll try to learn more.

That is exactly what they are saying, the only difference is that compared to SpaceFed, where at some point the leading federation would try to launch the galactic super weapon and "win", and then get special bonuses for next round, or oGame where they are up to like 100 universes+ already, Crowfall will reset the PVP portion of the game consistently and leave the characters and player universes untouched. I'm not sure its going to work though. The way to throw down with the powers that be is to overwhelm them with organized weak player resistance, but the powers that be are invariably the people that were super organized in the first place, so you are fighting an army of people with longstanding out of game organization AS WELL AS superior firepower.

Multiplayer games have the same problem as singleplayer ones, and they both try to solve them the same way, the game resets and you start over. In singleplayer this is generally voluntary when you get bored, in multiplayer its usually on someone elses schedule.

When I spent some time coming up with the theoretical outline of an MMO instead of resetting things I attempted to simply balloon the scale. I am not sure it would work, but it was certainly a break from having the same boring arguments over and over that are had about current methods. Well I also made it all PVE, which I think works far better in allowing the developers control while still allowing for lots of player interaction.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
I may have been a bit overzealous in my mention of your acceptance of physical world actions, but I notice you did not object to anything I stated aside from such. You even affirmed it by implying that as long as it is on the internet, it is fair game. My point stands.
I said no such thing. That statement purely pertains to the taking of Internet grudges offline. I have not made any statement of any kind pertaining to the acceptability of Internet activities.

In any event, whether or not a behavior is "acceptable" is wholly irrelevant to the reality of the situation on the ground. You don't get anywhere by declaring certain things "unacceptable", then sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalala unacceptable!". Things happen, period. Their acceptability or lack thereof is wholly irrelevant. In war, there are rules. These rules are not maintained because of hand-wringing about "unacceptable". They are maintained by the threat of reprisal.

As such, you are right in that I do not concern myself with what is "right" or "wrong", because such terms mean nothing to me. There is only what is civilized and what is not, and these are essentially arbitrary community standards we agree to uphold the apperances of to maintain a civilized atmosphere for interaction. Just because I don't care for touchy-feely handwavings of "right" and "wrong" as attached to arbitrary community standards doesn't mean I won't play by the rules. It just means I see them as just that: arbitrary rules.

You went into a game thread of a PvE game that has stated it is a PvE game with no interest in PvP and focused every single discussion point around why PvE sucks and PvP is better. Even when trying to get you to discuss outside of that, it was constantly about PvP.
Not exactly. I view things in terms of the mechanics of PvP, I.E., a mostly-symmetrical contest between entities that obey a consistent ruleset, as opposed to the common conventions that have taken hold in PvE, which is "entities do not obey any consistent ruleset". There is nothing that has to be this way. The key is the interchangeability of PC and NPC entities. The game shouldn't change if a given actor is played by a person instead of the computer in a proper ruleset.

I come here and comment about your bullshit unethical views on PvP, how you rationalize whatever you will based on such and you cry like a little baby. /facepalm
I don't have views, ethical or or otherwise. I approach matters purely from a realpolitik standpoint. You, like many others, probably see moves like "hacking the opponent's accounts and emptying their stuff" as a foul. This is a community standard, one which I am perfectly willing to respect. I do not, however, care to view it as a matter of "right" or "wrong", and if the opposing side were to employ such tactics, I would simply respond by reprisal in kind. That's the realpolitik of it. These things exist. We agree by convention not to do these things because it makes for a civilized game, and I like being civilized. Simple as that.

You sound like the typical wannabe PvPer who whines like a little bitch when they get a taste of their own medicine. Seriously, you are pathetic.
Hardly whining. I am simply pointing out that your actions deviate from the rules of civilized debate. Now, if you don't WANT to have a civilized conversation, I'm okay with turning this into a contest of flinging personal insults, but usually forum rules frown on such things.

The way to throw down with the powers that be is to overwhelm them with organized weak player resistance, but the powers that be are invariably the people that were super organized in the first place, so you are fighting an army of people with longstanding out of game organization AS WELL AS superior firepower.
This is basically the truth of most such games. The early establishment will hoover up the people most inclined to form an establishment. What is left are the dregs of the playerbase. The emos, the whiners, and the casual filth. It is rare that these will form an effective opposition simply because they are worthless, otherwise they would have been included in a winning coalition already. My experience as a "new" player attempting to invade such an establishment is that you essentially need to be an outside-context problem. Using some kind of previously unknown, or at least not widely known, angle, you leverage yourself into the game with a force recruited from the outside. Recruiting from within the game is almost always futile. Take the typical Goonswarm attack. It's always an outside context problem: Most of these people didn't actually exist in the game until the Goonswarm suddenly materializes en-masse and turns the game upside down and shakes it using some angle discovered by advance scouts.

You'll never recruit an effective bloc from inside the game itself unless the game is very new and blocs haven't fully congealed.

When I spent some time coming up with the theoretical outline of an MMO instead of resetting things I attempted to simply balloon the scale. I am not sure it would work, but it was certainly a break from having the same boring arguments over and over that are had about current methods. Well I also made it all PVE, which I think works far better in allowing the developers control while still allowing for lots of player interaction.
Embiggenment of the Scale is a thing I've actually thought of as a concept in games, both MMO and otherwise. Take, for instance, the typical Galactic Conquest game. You conquer the map...and then the game ends? All your cool stuff is gone? Meh. What if we just...added more map? Pitted you in a bigger field against those who have also conquered their map? If the universe is infinite, there can always be new horizons, and new enemies to conquer.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
My method was basically, the monsters spawned based on player count, with a lore reason about rifts and magic and shit. Further, organized monster kingdoms would eventually over run the first world and probably many others. Players would retreat to new worlds, or simply go to new worlds on purpose for special bonuses, when they lost their old world. All these worlds would be pretty large and procedural and would not disappear. So then players would build up and up their world, as its a serious sandbox even more than eve and shit, think minecraft like building of giant sky citadels if you have the materials and mana to enchant the base of the structure with levitation, and eventually try to reclaim lost worlds, as well as conquer new ones. Technically you could eventually win by total pacifying the first world, but the timescale would be pretty intense, like 20 or 30 years. Meanwhile the game follows strict rules for the AI shit, so there is no cheating, clever players would win faster, but still decades assuming they ever won. Also each world would spawn monsters based on players who had utilized it, thus going to a new world means more monsters there while the worlds you come from do not get less, so there is a pressure to colonize new worlds for cross world bonuses you need to reclaim all the worlds including the first world but it makes the non lost worlds more dangerous as you have same number of players but more monsters. So you would have to balance how fast you gained the power to reclaim worlds vs the extra risk of opening new worlds to explore.

The other good part about this concept is a non static game world with nearly infinite potential to explore new stuff that no one else has seen. Which also ties into how you gain magic but thats a whole other topic.
 

set

Cipher
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
940
PVP games never work, eventually someone has to win because the losers just quit. Anyone trying to game the players into following their will is dumb and wrong and should feel bad as a human being. People bend to the laws in real life because they don't have a fucking choice. Loading up an MMO with rules just means everyone says fuck you and quits. Even if you could create a set of rules that would work right it wouldn't matter. Competition works just like real life, whoever works hardest wins. Look at the legal professions and banking and shit. Tons of boring dull 16 hour grind because otherwise the other guy wins. Why do people do it? For real money to buy real shit that society grinds into them as important for being happy from day 1. What do you get for grinding 16 hours a day at tedious soul crushing thankless tasks in a video game? Nothing. And there are no distant father figures telling you you are never quite good enough or gorgeous women who love money to drive you onward.

Porky lives in some magical dreamworld, and one clearly superior to any game, where he thinks you can have all the drama of history in an opt in, zero importance video game that doesn't pay the bills.

Nobody plays EVE just to farm rats or mine vritual space rocks.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
PVP games never work, eventually someone has to win because the losers just quit. Anyone trying to game the players into following their will is dumb and wrong and should feel bad as a human being. People bend to the laws in real life because they don't have a fucking choice. Loading up an MMO with rules just means everyone says fuck you and quits. Even if you could create a set of rules that would work right it wouldn't matter. Competition works just like real life, whoever works hardest wins. Look at the legal professions and banking and shit. Tons of boring dull 16 hour grind because otherwise the other guy wins. Why do people do it? For real money to buy real shit that society grinds into them as important for being happy from day 1. What do you get for grinding 16 hours a day at tedious soul crushing thankless tasks in a video game? Nothing. And there are no distant father figures telling you you are never quite good enough or gorgeous women who love money to drive you onward.

Porky lives in some magical dreamworld, and one clearly superior to any game, where he thinks you can have all the drama of history in an opt in, zero importance video game that doesn't pay the bills.

Nobody plays EVE just to farm rats or mine vritual space rocks.

They totally do. Like, the majority of the players in EVE do that.
 

MoLAoS

Guest
I would, if it made me lots of money.
I quit right before shit went down in Delve, well a month or so before, I was making fucktons of money doing PI and ice mining on 20 accounts. Sadly I had to do other things. At maximum 108 character production, 16 of my 36 accounts were just starting training, I would have been making AT LEAST 500bil a month. Granted I would be playing 8 hours a day on average but that's fine because I enjoy industry shit anyways. One major issue that I also had is my job is not a regular schedule making it harder to plan and what not.
 

Levenmouth

Cipher
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
605
Location
Port Customs
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Honestly, if this game even remotely manages to capture the intricacy of EVE's economy, I would be pleasantly surprised. Out of everything they have promised, I think living up to the "It's like EVE Online" one will be by far the hardest.
 

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