Dullahan, I definitely agree that auto-group mechanics are the bane of my existance. Along with the massively solo player experience. I wont deny that these kind of mechanics dont breed a sort of $%&# everybody else Im in this for me type of attitude. It most certainly does. I do think an open world environemnt, group dependent play and a more socially engauging experience, and player reputation will certainly help to curtail that kind of behavior, but I just dont think it will be as successful on its own as you do. Which is why I strive for certain limited mechanisms to be in place. Not all the time and not everywhere. But you dont plan for an earthquake in an earthquake zone by hoping it doesnt happen. You have a plan in place. Im sure you think this is an over reaction, but I just prefer to be prepared is all.
Roenick said:Recently, an online friend and I were discussing how much we miss the fact that we could be trained or griefed in game. We came to the conclusion that part of why MMO's now are so sterile is because they actually don't allow anyone to become a villain anymore.
IMO, what made the early games so great was the competion and the greifers. It formed alliances, and also rivalaries. All of which helped build the community. Most of today's MMOs want to treat players like suburban parents often treat their children —"everyones a winner."
I would venture to guess, that when you reflect on those old MMO experiences, the pain of getting loot stolen, or blocked on a mob, or constantly trained at the zone entrance has been replaced by not only nostalgia, but also a loss of part what made communities great back then–rallying against some Dbag.
So to all the Boofs, Reznors and TreyHarrys of the world, I salute you.
Training had it's uses. So did corpse camping. I'm sure more than one raider on this forum has been guilty of training a raid or two that was trying to form up while racing. Corpse camping, while infinitely less forgivable, was a great way to keep key players out of the game long enough to force others to divert to help. Sure, in a perfect world, there wouldn't need to be a villain, but the reality is when people want to win, they will go to great lengths to do so.
Bear in mind, there is nothing great about having to deal with it. Especially if you are on the side of those who tries to be above that. You get trained, you get camped, you tend to lose more... Period. P99 was a stark reminder of this. However, it was gratifying when there were those one or two moments when you could repay the debt with little attention being drawn to who it was...
I have a feeling, in Pantheon, there will be trains and griefers.
So from what I have read people keep calling PRotF a "game". Sure it is physically a game in our world, but inside of Pantheon it is it's own world. Sure Pantheon is a MMO which is drived by the community and we want the community on its "Best Behaviour" but to do that the Game Dev team would need to implement to many systems and rules that would end up making Pantheon something no one would want to play. Then on top of that no matter how many rules are in place there will always be someone greifing someone else as there is always loopholes.
I will be using different Classes from the game as an example. XD
We as the players need to think about Pantheon in its world, not ours. Think about it in the perspective of our "Characters" as a living breathing world. Everything that your "Character" does is to benefit him/her self and his/her party/guild/friends/family. If you grew up as a rogue and short on cash you would find any means to get currency I.E. Stealing, Training, PVP ETC. Sure these are acts of evil, and griefing the other people in Pantheon, but it is something they have to deal with. They make laws to justify hunting down these griefers and killing them (Paladins are a great examples). These different acts make up a story, a life; for our characters. Sure the "GUARDS" can limit the amount of griefing people can do to one another within city walls, but once they leave the walls the person is going on an adventure. WE as the players should keep it as such, an adventure. We should stop trying to limit what other players can do (not all of us are doing that).
Sure the game may not be FUN at that current time, but the person on the other side is having fun. When is your place to say to someone else, "Don't do that, that is not fun for me. I don't care if you are having fun. Especially since we all have done something to grief someone at some point in time intentional or not. LOL :P... These events create a history and lore in your adventure whether is was hard or not. I for one like a bit of a challenge and willing to go through "Being griefed and griefing others".
Now this rogue (Kilsin you sly one) may pickpocket you and and steal that hard earned valuable item you just earned from killing that group named and sell it, now he/she could keep the item for themselves or sell it. The people that are buying the item would never know what the item was stolen thus making a market. You may want to seek revenge against that sly little theiving rogue by killing him and taking your item back. You may just sit there with your party and try to obtain another one. This, This here makes a community. Not by adding un-needed regulations made by the dev team, but by the actions of the people in the community and the communities actions against these players. Now those in game characters have their own world, A world which has no laws unless created by those in charge (The king/queen/ministrate), No outside force (us).
Sure someone is going to say, "Well the dev's made the law's which the (King/Queen/Ministrate enacts) thus being outside force". Well obviously it is still a game and we cannot make it without outside force; When I say outside force is when we stop allowing trains accidental or not by making a mechanic that stops it. The king/Queen/Ministrate can say "training is illegal", but peolpe can still do it. Then just use the Guards which are already hopefully in place to stop unwanted "activity, or people" from happening/entering said city, I.E. Iskar entering Felwithe. Sure it could happen by going "Underground" or having the faction needed to enter said city. This however takes time to build that trust between the person and the people of that race "Faction Quests/Kills"
I think any rules/mechanics that limit players from interacting with environment or other players is bad for the game overall. Positive or negitive, the choice should be their for the player to make. Thats the whole point behind building a reputation and making the community and player interaction matter.
I am definitely fully on the side of leaving functionality in, not in removing it for everyone just because of a few bad apples. Yeah, I've had some bad experiences from training/griefing and the like, but overall they didn't really affect my experience that much. Besides, as others have stated, more often than not it acted as a rallying point for the community where friends where alliances were formed and friends were made. I don't know how many times in EQ I came across a train when I was travelling on my enc and did whatever I could to derail it or help out in some way. When I was travelling I always had Invis or ITU up as the zone/area demanded, mez, usually an ae mez, some sort of blur, etc. and could lock several mobs down while people came back from afk at zone lines. It was as natual as tossing buffs on random people as I ran past.
On to the slightly derailed conversation embedded in this thread, the 'but I have to work and can't put the time in to raid, or to camp a spawn for hours' arguement does not hold up, in my opinion. Yeah, back in EQ1 I was one of those people who were constanly raiding (once I had time to get there, which wasn't until Kunark had been out for a while) and doing endgame content, but I was also taking 18+ hours/semester and holding down a 35-40 hour/week job. That being said, things are different now. I am not in school, but have work, a family, and a home to maintain, as well as other interests/obligations. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised, if the leveling curve is anything like EQ1 in its early days, if I am still shy of max level by the time the first expansion for Pantheon comes out. I'm ok with that, and I accept it. But I don't want to play that game where I am able to do everything with the amount of time that I have to invest. If I wanted to play WoW, that's what I would be playing. I think it's great that there will always be something that I haven't done, something to be striving for.
And, it seems like a lot of people in this thread are forgetting, or haven't been informed, that Pantheon is not being designed as a rush-to-endgame type of game, just as vanilla EQ really wasn't. There will be interesting and challenging content throughout. Yeah, in vanilla EQ there were the Dragons and various other high end content, but there was plenty of lower end content that was just as compelling as you were going through it. EQ1 is the one MMO that I have played where I really felt no rush to level to endgame in order to enjoy myself. In fact, the only leveling pressure that I felt was to keep up with certain RL friends who had a lot more time to invest than I did. Now, a few expansions in this changed, but the journey to get to max level vs the last expansion was shorter also. In short, I am looking forward to the journey just as much as, and perhaps more than, the destination. And, if it takes me an expansion or two to acually get to max level and have my journey pause...so much the better. I'd rather be progressing and having new experiences slowly and consistantly, then be rushing through it and then have nothing new with months to go until the next expansion.
"Why training and other "bad things" are good for the g"
I remember in one game getting Griefed repeatedly, all at once, over and over to the point of nearly Rage Quitting, I instead just took a "drop" outside the sand trap and then chipped it onto the green.
And another time, throwing my ball down the isle right at the pins and getting Griefed by a gutter.... I KNOW that lane had a slope to it! THAT really messed up my "gaming experience" for the rest of that game.
I remember another time, in another game, hitting it straight and hard, it was sailing long and hard out to right field and I got Griefed by some dude they called "Right Fielder". THAT messed up my "gaming experience" for the rest of that inning.
Another time I'm sitting there peacefully minding my chips and the guy across the table Griefed me by double jumping my chips and taking two of them... my gaming experience for the rest of the game was a pathetic slaughter.
Without all these Trains and other "bad things" in our games like Sand Traps, Gutters, Right Fielders, double jumps, and other players, we have no "GAME" left, what we end up with is a rerun of a Boring Movie.
Zorkon said:"Why training and other "bad things" are good for the g"
I remember in one game getting Griefed repeatedly, all at once, over and over to the point of nearly Rage Quitting, I instead just took a "drop" outside the sand trap and then chipped it onto the green.
And another time, throwing my ball down the isle right at the pins and getting Griefed by a gutter.... I KNOW that lane had a slope to it! THAT really messed up my "gaming experience" for the rest of that game.
I remember another time, in another game, hitting it straight and hard, it was sailing long and hard out to right field and I got Griefed by some dude they called "Right Fielder". THAT messed up my "gaming experience" for the rest of that inning.
Another time I'm sitting there peacefully minding my chips and the guy across the table Griefed me by double jumping my chips and taking two of them... my gaming experience for the rest of the game was a pathetic slaughter.Without all these Trains and other "bad things" in our games like Sand Traps, Gutters, Right Fielders, double jumps, and other players, we have no "GAME" left, what we end up with is a rerun of a Boring Movie.
Exactly, Humans take enjoyment from winning over losing. No one "Likes" losing, but losing can be fun as it creates experience's that may make you "Faster/Smarter/Stronger", and those experiences may last you a lifetime. So Yes to being able to train, pickpocket etcetc.
@LeonSanborn
Of course. Just as long as at some point you are able to win, access content, etc. I love Dark Souls because it wrecks my face until I L2P. I enjoy finally persevering after a great struggle. Understand Im not talking about being "given" anything. I would never want that. And I think competition is a good thing, but there is a difference between competition and impossibility. This is an extreme example but let me ask you. If you logged into an MMO and everyday for 6 months you couldnt level because soloing was actually not possible at all and every camp was always 100% full so you were forced to log out or at the very least could never level would you actually want to play? Really?
Without some limited mechanics in some (not all) cases you invite anarchy and are basically asking the devs for sanctioned griefing and bad behavior. Some of the things you mention belong on and would be actually great on a PvP server. Because honestly thats the only place you can convince me that I could enforce anything (good, bad or no reputation) on anybody. I think we will find that most single cases of griefing and most types of griefing in most areas of a game dont need to be overly monitored or curtailed (Trains). GM calls and general community reputation should take care of that. But anything involving highly sought after content (low level or high) always always always invites the worst of the worst. And for such things as this GMs wont be able to counter it because it will be too rampant (especially if the game allows it, any bad behavior will be justified as the mechanics let me do it so it must be valid), and community reputation wont have any teeth there I assure you. Thats like telling the City Council that my vote matters. Of course my vote matters as long as its going their way. Really its like some people here are acknowledging the human component, but dont understand humans are selfish and greedy. Thats why we have laws in place in the real world, because most people would do wrong without fear of the law. They dont not do bad things because they are so good people lol.
Look guys immersion and social interaction arent everything. They are 2 of 3 equally important pillars. The third of course being sound game mechanics. There is a ballance to be reached. Its not all or nothing or black and white. And a handful of sound mechanics shouldnt ruin the game or make it WoW.
Amsai said:@LeonSanborn
Of course. Just as long as at some point you are able to win, access content, etc. I love Dark Souls because it wrecks my face until I L2P. I enjoy finally persevering after a great struggle. Understand Im not talking about being "given" anything. I would never want that. And I think competition is a good thing, but there is a difference between competition and impossibility. This is an extreme example but let me ask you. If you logged into an MMO and everyday for 6 months you couldnt level because soloing was actually not possible at all and every camp was always 100% full so you were forced to log out or at the very least could never level would you actually want to play? Really?
Without some limited mechanics in some (not all) cases you invite anarchy and are basically asking the devs for sanctioned griefing and bad behavior. Some of the things you mention belong on and would be actually great on a PvP server. Because honestly thats the only place you can convince me that I could enforce anything (good, bad or no reputation) on anybody. I think we will find that most single cases of griefing and most types of griefing in most areas of a game dont need to be overly monitored or curtailed (Trains). GM calls and general community reputation should take care of that. But anything involving highly sought after content (low level or high) always always always invites the worst of the worst. And for such things as this GMs wont be able to counter it because it will be too rampant (especially if the game allows it, any bad behavior will be justified as the mechanics let me do it so it must be valid), and community reputation wont have any teeth there I assure you. Thats like telling the City Council that my vote matters. Of course my vote matters as long as its going their way. Really its like some people here are acknowledging the human component, but dont understand humans are selfish and greedy. Thats why we have laws in place in the real world, because most people would do wrong without fear of the law. They dont not do bad things because they are so good people lol.
Look guys immersion and social interaction arent everything. They are 2 of 3 equally important pillars. The third of course being sound game mechanics. There is a ballance to be reached. Its not all or nothing or black and white. And a handful of sound mechanics shouldnt ruin the game or make it WoW.
Why so little faith in both GM and community solutions? sometimes you gotta be patient, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you gotta step in and make somthing happen, somtimes you gotta ask for some assistance with these kind of issues. What you do is precisely up to you and there are consequences for every action. Like someone said earlier this is the Pantheon world not our own personal world, you can only do what you can do and accept the repercussions from GMs or Community. Every action has a reaction... have faith and be part of the movement at the time, dont be silent.
Ayen said: When your dungeon crawling the way mobs agro players matters. If you take the ability for a mob trained away to just leash back to its spawn point with out agroing other players you have effectively made dungeon crawling significantly easier.
This is the point I tried to make also.
Unintentional training, however rare it was, just added to the danger of the zone, and it was another metric to gauge the quality of a player by. Karnors wouldnt be Karnors without it, etc.
Intentional training in EQ1 (Tallon Zek server) wasnt very common, and wasnt a big problem, as we could defend ourselves (PvP). With the added threat of being suspended, malicious training really didn't happen commonly. I imagine intentional training on a PvE server would have a more rigid set of consequences and therefore happen even less frequently.
PvP server should have a more liberal and forgiving stance on griefing, as we can defend and avenge ourselves. Griefing being defined as : training or corpse-camping, or kill stealing, or whatever else. If the player is in PvP range, "the gloves come off" and the players should be able to resolve issues on thier own.
Feyshtey said:
Let me preface my response with this: I have no intention of pursuing any raid content. It's just not my thing. I did raid back in the day when I could play for 12 hours straight because I was in guilds of real life friends that required attendance. I didnt particularly enjoy it, and I dont see myself ever pursuing it. I could see the occasional attendance happening in my future if all the stars align, but it would be a whim coupled with pure chance that someone needed one more to join, not a plan.
It is not limited to raid mobs. If some special mobs drop something that is interesting for ambitious guilds then the members of those guilds will farm it. If that drop has only a temporary effect like a buff and is needed to make progress then they will farm it very often and the spots will be completly overcrowded. Preventing such situations may be very challenging for the game developers especially without instancing. Yes, the game developers could limit the player population on the server. Or make the mob population really huge. But if you want competition then the non-24/7-player will have a disadvantage here.
Greetings
Larirawiel said:Feyshtey said:
Let me preface my response with this: I have no intention of pursuing any raid content. It's just not my thing. I did raid back in the day when I could play for 12 hours straight because I was in guilds of real life friends that required attendance. I didnt particularly enjoy it, and I dont see myself ever pursuing it. I could see the occasional attendance happening in my future if all the stars align, but it would be a whim coupled with pure chance that someone needed one more to join, not a plan.
It is not limited to raid mobs. If some special mobs drop something that is interesting for ambitious guilds then the members of those guilds will farm it. If that drop has only a temporary effect like a buff and is needed to make progress then they will farm it very often and the spots will be completly overcrowded. Preventing such situations may be very challenging for the game developers especially without instancing. Yes, the game developers could limit the player population on the server. Or make the mob population really huge. But if you want competition then the non-24/7-player will have a disadvantage here.
Greetings
If there are multiple mobs that drop comparable items (with equal difficulty of course) then much of that concern is gone. Instancing is not the only solution, and it introdcuses a host of other concerns. Limiting player population is not the only solution, and it also introdcuses a host of other concerns.
Even if you have a guild that monopolizes a series of spawns that drop a highly sought after item, a simple rule that monopolizing content is forbiden gives a GM the leeway to banish said guild from mob(s) to allow others access.
Another possibility is that while you might not be able to camp the item consistently, if (and this is yet to be quantified) there are limited no-drop items then you can most likely buy the item you really want. In doing so you reinforce the notion of community and cooperation, just in a differnt vein.
Killing all the good, healthy community aspects of contested content becuase it's convenient really defeats the purpose of a challenging and compelling community oriented MMO, doesnt it?
If GMs have to intervene with people locking down a particular item, they are doing it wrong.
If an item is that important that people are locking it down then you make it so they can't lock it down. Add some randomness. Put it on a mob that has multiple spawnpoints. Add a similar item to a loot table in another area.
Instancing is taking the easy way out.
In memory of the one man who fought evil with the only weapon he had, the train; I present for the sake of nostalgia...
Sicario said:In memory of the one man who fought evil with the only weapon he had, the train; I present for the sake of nostalgia...
Never seen that before, but wow that was some epic trolling.
Sicario said:In memory of the one man who fought evil with the only weapon he had, the train; I present for the sake of nostalgia...
OMG please put me out of my misery, I'm gonna wet myself if I don't stop laughing. +111111 for this link.
Feyshtey said:If there are multiple mobs that drop comparable items (with equal difficulty of course) then much of that concern is gone. Instancing is not the only solution, and it introdcuses a host of other concerns. Limiting player population is not the only solution, and it also introdcuses a host of other concerns.
When the server population is high and the server has many progression guilds then you will propably need hundreds of such mobs. :)
Feyshtey said:Even if you have a guild that monopolizes a series of spawns that drop a highly sought after item, a simple rule that monopolizing content is forbiden gives a GM the leeway to banish said guild from mob(s) to allow others access.
If the GM have to intervene in such cases then the game design is fundamentally broken.
Feyshtey said:Killing all the good, healthy community aspects of contested content becuase it's convenient really defeats the purpose of a challenging and compelling community oriented MMO, doesnt it?
Why not have both? When you do not like not contested content then don't play it. I personally do not like PvP content but i have never demanded that it should be removed from a game. It is still OK for me when it is in a game, i just ignore it.
Greetings
Larirawiel said:When the server population is high and the server has many progression guilds then you will propably need hundreds of such mobs. :)
If you begin with the position that every person should be able to get every item and that competition is a bad thing, then yes. If you instead begin with the position that contention for items can be a net benefit to feelings of accomplishment when you do succeed in getting an item, then no.
Larirawiel said:If the GM have to intervene in such cases then the game design is fundamentally broken.
By that reasoning if the GMs ever have to get involved at any point with any interaction then the game design is flawed. This would apply to the game engine allowing people to say inappropriate things in chat, training, ninja-looting, spamming, kill-stealing, etc. Is it possible for all these things to be wholly impossible? Yes. And the game would suck because you would constantly feel like you were bumping into stupid invisible walls meant to keep you from dynamic interactions.
Larirawiel said:Why not have both? When you do not like not contested content then don't play it. I personally do not like PvP content but i have never demanded that it should be removed from a game. It is still OK for me when it is in a game, i just ignore it.
How do you provide contested content to the people who like it specifically because of the sense of being a part of a breathing, dynamic, player-driven world, and because of the sense of accomplishment achieved by conquering it, and have instanced content that allows those that want to circumvent much of that dynamic human interaction in order to get a wholly uncontested shot at the same gear?
The two are mutually exclusive.
I would just say that not all content should be contested. However I do also like contested content. But there would be no need to have instancing. Ive mentioned it before but there could be quest, dropped item or crafted items that trigger spawns in the open world. This is one way in which they can be introduced without it being contested. Again though for clarity I wouldnt want all content to be this way. As always I encourage a mixed ad varied approach too high end content.
Still have not heard a positive or negative word from the devs on this concept. So no idea if its even being considred.
Amsai said:I would just say that not all content should be contested. However I do also like contested content. But there would be no need to have instancing. Ive mentioned it before but there could be quest, dropped item or crafted items that trigger spawns in the open world. This is one way in which they can be introduced without it being contested. Again though for clarity I wouldnt want all content to be this way. As always I encourage a mixed ad varied approach too high end content.
Still have not heard a positive or negative word from the devs on this concept. So no idea if its even being considred.
I agree that there are cases where triggered mobs can and probably should be used. I have to concede that point. But those should be specific quests that are class-defining, like epics. I dont think it should even be considered as a norm for obtaining gear.
The whole 'problem', if it exists, for 'contested content' really comes down to a few factors.
1. If, for a given class/level, there is an 'obvious' best item to have, or other bottleneck (eg zone-keys).
2. More people want it than can be accomodated by camping 24/7.
FIX:
A. Make sure that there is not 'one' best item for that class/type. This can be achieved by having more generic items as loot, perhaps modular items that can be fitted with different types of stat bonuses etc.
B. Make sure the 'best' items are crafted ones - but with component parts from mob drops - thus meaning there will be more than one mob that can drop that particular type of component. This increases the number of mobs being camped and this reduces camping ratio.
That covers all the issues surrounding loot as contrention issues and merely leaves 'access' contention to solve/ease.
Well for me (though cant speak for all). Its not abut not having contested content. I love it. But I think its boring to have only one type of content. So I want a mix not just for gear gathering and itemization but also for fun. Its just a different way to acess content. Like crafting, or Faction based, or keys, or triggered, or event systems.
