oneADseven said:There will absolutely be competition for resources. That's just how an open-world MMO works. Thankfully VR is being proactive and looking at ways to mitigate there being "too much competition" for resources. Just because you compete with another player doesen't make them an enemy. It's called sportsmanship. Yes, there are heated rivalries in sports and those are built up over time and they tend to get more "heated" when players do something shady. If someone beats you fair and square, take it like a champ and come back harder next time. In most competitive gaming, you shake the hand of your competitor regardless of whether you win or lose ... it's called having class.
Competing for resources isn't your standard type of competition, though. It's more like a free for all world where people can band together if they so choose. The world has a finite supply of resources and it behooves every player to try and maximize their intake of said resources. Like I said ... I look at it like prospecting. Everybody has their own set of tools to use to go out and find their share of gold. Sometimes you hit big, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the guy next to you will find a diamond and you'll be wishing it was you ... and that's how things should be! It doesen't make them your enemy ... it just makes them lucky. Now if you find a diamond and someone runs you over and bashes you on your head and proceeds to steal it, now you have griefing.
It does make them enemies, there is no sportsmanship in roaming into someones camp and taking their mobs. Group A takes a camp and spends 3 hours there clearing and leveling while waiting for the named to spawn, 5 minutes before the named spawns group B strolls up and ends up taking the spawn while group A is finishing a pull. There is no handshaking there, that's not the least bit fun or encouraging of a cooperative social environment at all. It's a sick joy to be had by those who end up stealing because they couldn't be bothered waiting to get into a camp (one of a few with similar item if they stick to that idea) or to camp something else in order to sell and purchase the drop they are after. "Me me me" mentality, screw others because I want mine and I won't be bothered waiting.
Very apt to put it like prospecting. Though you are arguing for the reality of how prospecting was in a gold rush, a lawless land of bitterness and misery. People had claims to land (camps) which they were to mine/do whatever which would be fine if people respected that, but what ended up happening very commonly was claim jumping and theft to the degree they had to institute the death penalty for those convicted of even petty theft or homocide. It was miserable for those people. But hey lets all just screw everyone else because it's fun to be lawless and not give a damn about other players when your needs can be met first. Just make it all a PvP experience on a PvE server where little to no recourse exists for those that get trampled, "git gud noob."
Tralyan said:My biggest worry is that everyone is putting A LOT of faith in the concept of players "blacklisting" other trouble players, and the effectiveness of this. While I do recall reading on Forums in ~1999 every once in a while about a particular player or group of players that constantly harrassed or trained indiscriminately, I can't honestly say I recall it happening often or effectively.
Hell, remember Fansy? There were stories, fun stories that people liked, that were written ABOUT the exact people we're talking about blacklisting here.
Not saying I don't want open world - I desperately do - but I worry that those of us here are maybe misremembering the effectiveness of self-policing in EQ servers. As if the jeers and shunning of a bunch of us nerds in an MMO was enough to shame and scare off any bad seeds. I just don't think that was the case.
Actually Fansy was a good guy, there is still a blog up detailing his adventures, always makes me laugh. As for blacklisting, back in the day it worked, word of mouth ended up sidelining these guys that couldn't be bothered to play well with others. I remember those days, and if someone is that bad, he or she gains that rep that is hard to get rid of. It does work, and if really a bad habit can be reported to the GMs in the end, if enough complaints come in. People having to change servers, recreate their character from scratch, to get rid of their self induced bad rep would still work in these days. Same for guilds. There are whole guilds of @sshats, I've witnessed them as have others. Content hoggers...content thieves, in the end they create their own fate in the community.
Cana
It is a two edged sword this discussion. What your policies are may not be the normal policies others have. You sit in a cave afk and people are standing behind you trying to gain your attention. You return back to your computer to only find someone stole your camping area for mobs. You plead, you beg for your spot and write back.. they discuss, you are not directly recieving a tell back with a reply. You try again and again and your upset now. They finally return a tell saying You where sitting afk at the cave entrance, you where not killing mobs.
So now you decide to petition the GM's for help, concerning these matters. Placing those people on ignore, yet you where upset so much so you ooc, and shout BS crap out there ruining someone elses fun.
Yet you where AFK.... you see it happens to many people in games, and those that think they are always right usually are not.
Unless those that deserve a complete ignore, or petition for really doing some shifty crap, you do not have a right to ruin anyones name. It is best to let a GM handle it.
We seen enough of the BS stuff in EQ, why play nice rules where introduced, and if your afk or killed by a train that is your own problem.
I agree some people can be real jerks, especially when greed takes them over. We had a top end guild tank rush into a mob we where engaging and buffing for.... he KSed it from us completely.
I was shocked, nothing was done either so nothing could be discussed other then ya that person is a kser greedy SOB. Little be known he was well liked by the community, but we know first hand what he did in front of us. We asked he stop, he did not and had so much damage we could not KS it back.
ive always been of the sense that if someone tries to KS or steal boss control, we let them attack and then PK them. i understand though that unlike almost all the other MMO's ive played, this is the only one seriously focused on pve, as in pve only servers. ive never played in a open world non pvp game (except kinda Aion, faction based) and in almost all games where you are limited from player vs player combat, trolls and griefers become the biggest problems. fortunately for me, ill be on pvp and ppl who act like jackasses will get dealt with and blacklisted. When full clans put people on KOS lists and xp loss matters, stuff gets real fast. i remember pk'ing some guys 10+ times in a day, thats 40% xp of a level (in lineage 2). when levels take a month, those jerks learn damn quick to act right or they just lose tons of xp lol.
Iksar said:oneADseven said:There will absolutely be competition for resources. That's just how an open-world MMO works. Thankfully VR is being proactive and looking at ways to mitigate there being "too much competition" for resources. Just because you compete with another player doesen't make them an enemy. It's called sportsmanship. Yes, there are heated rivalries in sports and those are built up over time and they tend to get more "heated" when players do something shady. If someone beats you fair and square, take it like a champ and come back harder next time. In most competitive gaming, you shake the hand of your competitor regardless of whether you win or lose ... it's called having class.
Competing for resources isn't your standard type of competition, though. It's more like a free for all world where people can band together if they so choose. The world has a finite supply of resources and it behooves every player to try and maximize their intake of said resources. Like I said ... I look at it like prospecting. Everybody has their own set of tools to use to go out and find their share of gold. Sometimes you hit big, sometimes you don't. Sometimes the guy next to you will find a diamond and you'll be wishing it was you ... and that's how things should be! It doesen't make them your enemy ... it just makes them lucky. Now if you find a diamond and someone runs you over and bashes you on your head and proceeds to steal it, now you have griefing.
It does make them enemies, there is no sportsmanship in roaming into someones camp and taking their mobs. Group A takes a camp and spends 3 hours there clearing and leveling while waiting for the named to spawn, 5 minutes before the named spawns group B strolls up and ends up taking the spawn while group A is finishing a pull. There is no handshaking there, that's not the least bit fun or encouraging of a cooperative social environment at all. It's a sick joy to be had by those who end up stealing because they couldn't be bothered waiting to get into a camp (one of a few with similar item if they stick to that idea) or to camp something else in order to sell and purchase the drop they are after. "Me me me" mentality, screw others because I want mine and I won't be bothered waiting.
Very apt to put it like prospecting. Though you are arguing for the reality of how prospecting was in a gold rush, a lawless land of bitterness and misery. People had claims to land (camps) which they were to mine/do whatever which would be fine if people respected that, but what ended up happening very commonly was claim jumping and theft to the degree they had to institute the death penalty for those convicted of even petty theft or homocide. It was miserable for those people. But hey lets all just screw everyone else because it's fun to be lawless and not give a damn about other players when your needs can be met first. Just make it all a PvP experience on a PvE server where little to no recourse exists for those that get trampled, "git gud noob."
I have years of experience playing with open world contested mobs and I don't recall a single instance where I made an "enemy" over a camp. The word enemy shouldn't be used so loosely ... the idea of having an "enemy" over pixels in a video game just sounds ridiculous to me. I recall times where I was playing poker ... doing everything right ... folding the garbage hands, waiting for the good one ... I get aces ... some guy goes all in with pocket 7's. He sucks out and catches a seven on the flop and I never improve. I did everything the right way but still lost ... whoopie freakin' dippy. He gets all my chips and I'm knocked out. It's one of the worst ways to go out in poker ... but would I call that guy an enemy? Knowing he played like garbage and got super lucky at my expense? Nah. If a guy bluffs me off of my good hand and wins with trash ... then proceeds to show it, is he now my enemy? Nope ... he outplayed me. Hats off to him.
To be honest I am just sticking with my original point. In order for a resource to be "valuable" there has to be a limited supply. In order for there to be a limited supply, there has to be a limited supplier. Those suppliers are generally rare NPC's. Unless someone is "force popping" something, they don't "own the camp rights" to jack. If something spawns once every 6 hours, it's absolutely insane to think that a person can "claim" it as their own by sitting idle nearby, or clearing trash in the area that has nothing to do with spawning the mob. No offense to you or anybody else who shares in your mentality but I prefer a "Wild Wild West" type of world. It has nothing to do with "me me me" ... it's "may the best man win" without sacrificing integrity or honor. If you get the pull, cool story, I hope you kill it. If you fail, I'll be waiting to kill it over your dead body.
I'm not going to train you. I'm not going to interfere with your attempt by trying to lag you out. Those are shady practices in my book and that's playing with dishonor which is completely different than competing for resources. But if there is any sort of tagging, or DPS racing ... yeah, it's "may the best man win" and anybody who doesen't adopt that mentality is going to be on the losing end in the majority of these scenarios. I just don't understand what alternative someone could possibly hope for? Do you want every mob in the game to respawn as ghosts? How is that any different than instances? Do you not think the "spawn rate" of mobs should be considered an actual resource itself? Brad shared an example of the storm giant event ... he specifically touched on how knowledgeable players would be able to utilize their world awareness to take advantage of the event. So when these rare events spawn, and you already see someone there, do you just not participate as a way to contribute to a "socially cooperative" experience?
I think people are reading way too far into the "socially cooperative" language. If I kill it, instead of you, I was socially cooperative with my group by helping them claim a mob that other players were also after. If I get an item that I can give to a friend instead of them having to buy it from another player, I am being both social and cooperative. Not everybody is going to get everything. As many times as I win these DPS or tagging races, I will likely lose just as many to someone who was equally prepared or skilled. People will operate off of the "official rules." If they aren't breaking an official rule, they are playing "fair." If you don't like it ... send in a petition to the rule makers and see if the rules can be revised. If someone is playing by the rules though ... I think it's a far stretch to cry foul because something didn't go your way. You just keep your head up and continue plugging away ... you win some, you lose some ... that's the nature of the beast. I'd rather take my chances and compete for opportunities for loot than see everybody share the exact same experience day in and day out. Nothing feels special that way. If a mob spawns once per day, of course a bunch of people are going to want to tag it. The more rare a mob is, the more sought after it will be.
Now to put things in another perspective, I will give you this much. There is a standard code of conduct while dungeon crawling that you don't want to leap frog a group. If your group enters a dungeon and you proceed a decent amount through and see NPC corpses all over the place because another group was clearing through, you give them the benefit of the doubt. If they are working toward a name that has a relatively short respawn timer, you let them have it. It's just not worth the hassle to try and snipe it away from them. But if a mob spawns randomly every 4-6 hours ... I don't care if you have been clearing trash all day ... the mob is an extremely valuable resource, and if me claiming it isn't breaking any rules, then I will do what needs to be done to try and claim it. I have the same rights to that mob as the group who zoned in 5 minutes before me. This doesen't make me a bad or malicious player. Maybe I am a product of my environment?
I don't understand how VR can even use the word "kill stealing" when the current plan is to award loot/experience to the group that does the most damage. If two groups engage, who is the evil perpetrator? Does the mob belong to the group who tagged it first, or to the group who was "camping" it? In my opinion, the best way to deal with this stuff is to utilize a tagging system similar to EQ2. If you tag the mob, it's yours. Nobody outside of your group or raid can interfere with you, or the mob, until the encounter is over. If you wipe, the next group gets a turn, assuming they are ready to pull it fast enough prior to your group getting rezzed up, buffed, and prepared for another attempt. I am also fine with DPS racing. What I am not a fan of is entering a zone and then someone promptly telling me "Yo we have Mobs X Y and Z on farm status until further notice, so go somewhere else." Pssht ... I know plenty of people who "enforce rotations" on TLP servers that never end. Prior to them leaving the camp, they have someone else from their guild come in and replace them and they ultimately end up permanently locking down that camp.
I guess what this all comes down to is how VR defines their "official rules." I am curious as to what their definition of "kill stealing" is, in particular, especially if mobs give loot/XP to the player/group who did the most damage. I try to imagine a game like that and it literally sounds like a world that is begging for drama. You incentivize DPS racing, but then have a grey area of what is or is not considered kill stealing. There will be so many damn reports filed that it will be impossible for VR to step in and intervene. The best approach is to create a system where the majority of these problems are handled on their own, without interference, and without judgment. Either lock encounters to the group that tags them, or let everything be settled with DPS racing. Punish people who intentionally train others to kill them and other than that ... may the best man win.
I know for a fact I will very easily adapt to whatever ruleset that is enforced by VR. But when it comes to player enforced camps ... I think those are way more ripe for abuse than letting people settle it the old fashioned way. Just my opinion. If the world is set up in a way where competition is encouraged, then people need to man up and be prepared to compete. I actually miss camping rare names and working with my group to try and tag mobs as soon as they spawned ... directly competing with others who were trying to do the same. Never made an enemy doing that ... but I guess it depends on the outlook of the community. People knew that rare names were a valuable resource and that everybody was going to try and tag them as soon as they spawned. No hurt feelings ... no enemies ... just playing by the rules and hoping for the best.
NateDogg said:on pve only servers they need to make mobs/bosses unbuffable. i remember when people would give bosses we were fighting full atk/def buffs. that kind of griefing is infuriating.
Or the griefer casts charm on the mob you are fighting making it untargetable...then leads it away to their group so that they can kill it..there are people on Agnarr that do that now.
Hmm you know thats a thought.
Just theory crafting, but what if the game could tag you PVP for bad behavior?
You engage a mob after somone else has and don't stop attacking, you flag PVP. However a player doing the same thing to somone already flaged PVP would not flag themselves.
Maybe it only lasts so long as the mob is alive, so if first group wipes you now have to kill that mob in PVP mode and deal with the wrath of the party that you just griefed.
Anyway, maybe bad idea but it came to mind.
-Az
I too was in EQ1 at the height of it's popularity where server splits were happening regularly to try and reduce the populations on servers. While that helped a little bit, it was only a bandaid, not a cure. EQ world design increasing funneled people into fewer and fewer zones. Everyone started really spread out, enjoying their own (nearly) starting areas and low level dungeons, but quickly the choices of dungeons narrowed to just a few. Before Kunark, the only places for lvl 40-50 people to get XP was LowerGuk, PermaFrost and SolB. A server population of 2000 players all ended up in the same 3 zones. Kunark spread out the low level content but high level areas did not increase proportionally. Kaesora, Charasis, Sebilis, The Hole, Cazic Thule (revamp), Karnor's Castle for the 50-60 crowd.
Velious started to widen the top of the pyramid because nearly all that expansion was for high level content.
The other problem with EQ was that travel was always quite trivial. Guilds could compete for content across all the expansions because fast travel was prevalent.
So if you want an open world with some competition but not so much that players grow spiteful of each other you need enough content that cannot be traveled between quickly. Players should need to make a decision about where to go, knowing full well that they can not just quickly or easily go clear across the world.
Vandraad said:I too was in EQ1 at the height of it's popularity where server splits were happening regularly to try and reduce the populations on servers. While that helped a little bit, it was only a bandaid, not a cure. EQ world design increasing funneled people into fewer and fewer zones. Everyone started really spread out, enjoying their own (nearly) starting areas and low level dungeons, but quickly the choices of dungeons narrowed to just a few. Before Kunark, the only places for lvl 40-50 people to get XP was LowerGuk, PermaFrost and SolB. A server population of 2000 players all ended up in the same 3 zones. Kunark spread out the low level content but high level areas did not increase proportionally. Kaesora, Charasis, Sebilis, The Hole, Cazic Thule (revamp), Karnor's Castle for the 50-60 crowd.
Velious started to widen the top of the pyramid because nearly all that expansion was for high level content.
The other problem with EQ was that travel was always quite trivial. Guilds could compete for content across all the expansions because fast travel was prevalent.
So if you want an open world with some competition but not so much that players grow spiteful of each other you need enough content that cannot be traveled between quickly. Players should need to make a decision about where to go, knowing full well that they can not just quickly or easily go clear across the world.
Yes, and maybe this is why I can't relate to there being tons of drama over KS'ing, training, or camp griefing that seems to have plagued other games. In FFXI, you wouldn't even see all of the major contested bosses camped 24/7. There was just so much going in in the world, in every leveling tier, with tons and tons and tons of valuable content ... the player congestion and fighting for resources just didn't really exist. Every now and then you might have to compete with people for something but again it was your choice to do so ... it was entirely possible there was something else you could go do with your time that was just as worthwhile, or damn near close to it. I hear how people hardcore camped like 3 items in EQ ... again, not a problem in FFXI because there were dozens and dozens of really valuable items, crafting components, or harvests to be had. Travel was super meaningful as well. If you wanted to go kill Fafnir, you had to crawl through some pretty heavy territory to get to him. Players weren't just running there solo. You had to set up gathering points where everybody would then move on together, and it could still take quite a bit to get to their destination.
If the world has a lot of content, especially with various acclimation requirements tied in, I really don't see competition for resources being so grievous. With a full year plus of testing to get through, I think VR will have a pretty solid idea of what they want each server to feel like population wise. They have mentioned they don't want "too much" competition but that doesen't mean it's going to go away entirely. Competition itself is a wonderful thing in MMO's ... it implies that there are items/events that are highly sought after and actually worth a damn to camp in the first place. If only a few of them exist then yeah I see that being a breeding pit for disaster ... but this isn't 1999! People can coexist on a server without trampling over each other and corpse humping every noob they come across. People can play nice if the environment is conducive to it. Having a large scale environment that takes time to traverse, with a bunch of meaningful content sprinkled throughout, is the best solution for creating an array of desirable areas (and their treasures) that don't require people to act like savages to experience them. If DPS racing or tagging are implemented, the players will learn to adjust to how it feels and do what they gotta do ... it's seriously not that bad when people have choices on what to do with their time.
SoWplz said:I am sure this topic has been brought up about 100 times.
But I was watching the twitch video and Brad mentioned once again the game will not have instance zones and will be completely open. The host started to get into other groups coming in and KSing boss mobs, and it seemed to just get kind of blown over. I know every person on this forum has had this done to them, or did to someone else. In EQ1 back in the day they had online support, or as we call them GMs that would deal with this a little, and as time went on they kinda of ignored it. To me any time you put too much of the game in players hands, a group of players will ruin it for the others. Has anything been said to this age old issue, or is it left up to the players as mentioned in the video?
I can only think this topic/question keeps coming up because people want to whitewash the answer. At the risk of being rude I'm going to call it as I see it without holding back... much! (Because as my wife tells me my filter is broken)
YES, kill stealing by some standard will happen, just like in the real world... (Black Friday is near BTW)
YES, Trains are going to happen, just like traffic jams happen in the real word.
YES, Peer pressure will control some of it, just like in the real world.
YES, GM intervention will happen in extreme cases and control some of it, (but just because player X thinks he's been cheated does not mean they will) just like police in the real world.
NO, Peer pressure will not solve all of it, just like in the real world.
NO, the police will not be able to be everyplace, solve every crime, or stop crimes before they happen, just like in the real world.
If you haven't read it already I would suggest you read
You must have the ying AND the yang, the up AND the down, the inside AND the outside, the left AND the right, the successfully evading the Train AND the getting trained, the kill steel AND the long awaited Uber Drop.
You can not have a WORLD if all you have is rainbows and butterflies! That's not a WORLD, that's a game... (pssst.. it's not real!)
And now the part I'm apparently not suppose to say.. if your not ready for that, or you not open to try that, then I believe your probably in the wrong place. And no, I'm not trying to run anybody off.. my intent is to present a challenge to the naysayers. Try it... and just see if ultimately it's not the most immersive game you ever played.
Vandraad said:...The other problem with EQ was that travel was always quite trivial. Guilds could compete for content across all the expansions because fast travel was prevalent.
So if you want an open world with some competition but not so much that players grow spiteful of each other you need enough content that cannot be traveled between quickly. Players should need to make a decision about where to go, knowing full well that they can not just quickly or easily go clear across the world.
Yes...."everyone" seems to think the only objective of an mmorpg is to kill mobs, but living in the world should be part of it and that includes travel.
OneForAll said: I've said it before and I'll say it again. If we want an old school open world MMO, we are going to have to deal with some of the negative aspects that come along with that. I absolutely do not want instancing in this game. I do not want to play a game where anyone can have any camp at any time with no competiton at all. Instancing creates a fragmented community that doesn't have to interact with itself save for the group or guild you are in. This type of MMO does not appeal to me at all. I read a lot of posts here where people seem to want EQ but without all the negative aspects of EQs open world. (Training, mob competition, guild lockdowns etc...)like... Some sort of MMO gaming Utopia and it's just unrealistic. Attempts to get away from an open world to solve these problems is exactly what resulted in carebear instanced MMOs where everything is perfect for everyone at all times. Those games are boring and challengeless. Everyone here talks about how EQ went downhill when they introduced all the quality of life stuff to make it easier, and how they want to go back to the old school gritty hard days of the past, but then they are constantly complaining about the very behaviours that arise from a world that is set up in that way. It confuses me. The real world contains plenty of competition for resources and having that in game makes it that much more believable and alive. Being able to instance a zone or encounter completely destroys the believability of the world I am in. "Oh so there are two copies of the same dragon...right..." A game with instancing is just a game, a playground with no borders, no struggle, no strife... I am hoping to play in a world that feels real. We need conflict and randomness to make the world feel real, I'm not logging in just to up my stats and get a few kills for my dopamine fix... there's 15 other games out there for that. I'm logging in to live in an alternate world that lives and breathes around me and you will never achieve that in an instanced game.
This +10000 so many times we go over it again and again and again.. VR have a vision, they have their things they are going to implement to assist with a range of griefing that will not water down the core concept of a living, breathing social game that has good and bad and you need to navigate that. Those features they will implement are not leashing, or tagging mobs or any of those crappy hand holding concepts.
Bad things happen in life and they WILL happen in game... Like in life they will not happen constantly or even regularly unless you set yourself up for misery and choosing not to adapt.. if you have had to endured this constantly in your MMO playing well thats a shame and highly unlikely! I just dont believe it is a constant struggle... VR please dont change your vision to cater for this.
If you want to deal with anything that you feel is "unfair" You have 3 choices if you want to keep playing the game... You either do nothing or you stand up for yourself on your own feet (or with friends) or go to an authority. VR is the authority, they will decide if it is worthy of their attention, if they dont feel it is worthy you just need to try harder, find more people to play with so you have a stronger bunch of mates, , if you dont play the game often enough well thats just how it is, dont expect to compete with the big fish if you are small fish, I will be a small fish in any MMO i play now cause thats where my life is... If you're like me in that respect you will need to find the right time and opportunity to get things done, dont bring down the core value of the game cause you want your loot when it suits you, thats not how this game will work.
If it all becomes a game breaking situation then maybe they will change somthing, but they have a vision and i hope to hell they stick to it and keep it open world and let the game live and breath.
Also... Nicely said Zork, 2 posts above
Zorkon said:YES, kill stealing by some standard will happen, just like in the real world... (Black Friday is near BTW)
YES, Trains are going to happen, just like traffic jams happen in the real word.
YES, Peer pressure will control some of it, just like in the real world.
YES, GM intervention will happen in extreme cases and control some of it, (but just because player X thinks he's been cheated does not mean they will) just like police in the real world.
NO, Peer pressure will not solve all of it, just like in the real world.
NO, the police will not be able to be everyplace, solve every crime, or stop crimes before they happen, just like in the real world.
If you haven't read it already I would suggest you read
Brad McQuaid: "I want to make worlds, not games"
This. THis! and did I mention THIS !!!!!
If you want to deal with anything that you feel is "unfair" You have 3 choices if you want to keep playing the game... You either do nothing or you stand up for yourself on your own feet (or with friends) or go to an authority. VR is the authority, they will decide if it is worthy of their attention, if they dont feel it is worthy you just need to try harder, find more people to play with so you have a stronger bunch of mates, , if you dont play the game often enough well thats just how it is, dont expect to compete with the big fish if you are small fish, I will be a small fish in any MMO i play now cause thats where my life is...
Great post, but I wanted to focus on the part I highlighted for a second. Standing up for yourself in EQ1 took many forms.
The first and most obvious was the /ignore list and the individal/server blacklists. Back when necros were the only way you were getting corpses fetched from the various Really_Bad_Death_Spots, being on one necromancer's blacklist put you on the blacklist of eery necromancer on the server. Same for good exp grind groups, same for clerics, same for enchanters, etc. People shared info. any time anyone made it to my /ignore and blacklists, they made it to the lists of everyone I knew on the server, and vice versa. Before the game was wrecked with every possible convenience for travel, corpse fetch, resurrection, etc...those lists mattered.
The next method was to fight right then and there. Take it from a former charm solo enchanter and solo-god necro. I broke so many camps over so many years, and some jacktard (almost always a druid, may Innoruuk feast on their souls) would come and jump my now calm and relaxed spawn rotation. The instant I did the "WTF??" I always got the "SOE doesn't recognize camps" reply. Okie doke, SOE does, indeed, not recognize camps. Off I go to next camp, and oh no, I overpulled...must run...panic...and....feign death. How unfortunate that it was right next to that camp stealing knucklehead. That's my bad, got lost in my panic, forgot where I was. So sorry. Grief? What is "grief" and what does it mean? Train? What do you mean? I was just going to another camp and messed up, my spell bounced, my keyboard broke, I am sooooooo sorry. Now the camp stealing idiot petitions me, guide/GM shows up, and I say that was my bad, check the chat log, I just goofed up, nothing inentional, no clue what you mean, etc. And the chat log will indeed exonerate me because I was a guide myself for about 2 years, and I knew every rule.
Nobody ever stole one of my camps and stayed there longer than 15 minutes. Ever. And I never once got a warning, ban, etc. Counter-griefing is your friend, because remember, you were skilled enough at the game to break the camp, set the easy rotation, and get the smooth exp. The person stealing that camp sucks at the game becase they have to wait for you to make the camp easy before they come near it, and they hide behind the "devs don't recognize camp" thing. Bottom line, if you fight back, you'll win.
The final thing was to put out a call to your pals and have them assist your efforts. I both called for and was a called up member of the "necro militia" plenty of times. Once someone got on the wrong side of the server's death casters, yeah, they became magnets for random feign death mishaps. Purely coincidental and all. ;) More than one person on the blacklist disappeared and was never seen again.
For every Fansy, there were 500 people willing to take part in paying Fansy back. Retribution was swift, painful and effective in EQ1, and the people who whined for guide/GM intervention most often were the bad actors who had dug their own reputation graves. Bullies hate when they get smacked in the mouth, and nobody cries louder when they get comeuppance.
Point being, in an open world, group centric game where you NEED other people's help, being a jerk has all kinds of downsides that the player population is in charge of and requires nothing from the devs. The thing to fear is not what other player's do or do not, but rather what the devs do as the game matures that reduces the power of the players to be self-policing. Best self-policed game in the MMO universe is EVE and it is specifically because the devs take such a hands off, handle it amongst yourselves stance wth their playerbase. You get a community wide bullseye painted on you in that game, either stick to gate camping lowsec with the other griefers (and you better have mad, crazy skills to play in tha sandbox), get used to looking at stuff in dock, or quit. You have no other options once that community declares you its enemy. Open world can work just fine, if the devs are committed to letting it work.
I for one like the instance raiding on EQ progression and EQ2. You could still compete with other guilds by dropping the mob first as the server sent out a world wide message about it. In EQ you could also race the contested mobs if they were up, I did that in SSRA after we cleared the Emperior in the instance we checked the main zone and saw that Emperior was up so we dropped him again.
Consider immersion in the end game raids as well without instances. For example say we are Frodo and we are climping up Mount Doom to toss the ring but when we get there 20 other peope are there also throwing in the ring, kinda anti-climatic as where if the end boss raid area was an instance at least you could role-play you were the only group to be doing this awesom adventure vs walking up to 30 players killing the boss and it ruins the lore/quest experiences.
The rest of the dungeon could be open world contested and I would not suggest anything other then raid areas be instanced. An example of this was Runneyeye in EQ2, the regular zone was contested but at the bottom the boss mob room was instanced and had lockouts.
Either way I'm looking forward to seeing how VR handles it.
Zorkon said:SoWplz said:I am sure this topic has been brought up about 100 times.
But I was watching the twitch video and Brad mentioned once again the game will not have instance zones and will be completely open. The host started to get into other groups coming in and KSing boss mobs, and it seemed to just get kind of blown over. I know every person on this forum has had this done to them, or did to someone else. In EQ1 back in the day they had online support, or as we call them GMs that would deal with this a little, and as time went on they kinda of ignored it. To me any time you put too much of the game in players hands, a group of players will ruin it for the others. Has anything been said to this age old issue, or is it left up to the players as mentioned in the video?
I can only think this topic/question keeps coming up because people want to whitewash the answer. At the risk of being rude I'm going to call it as I see it without holding back... much! (Because as my wife tells me my filter is broken)
YES, kill stealing by some standard will happen, just like in the real world... (Black Friday is near BTW)
YES, Trains are going to happen, just like traffic jams happen in the real word.
YES, Peer pressure will control some of it, just like in the real world.
YES, GM intervention will happen in extreme cases and control some of it, (but just because player X thinks he's been cheated does not mean they will) just like police in the real world.
NO, Peer pressure will not solve all of it, just like in the real world.
NO, the police will not be able to be everyplace, solve every crime, or stop crimes before they happen, just like in the real world.
If you haven't read it already I would suggest you read
Brad McQuaid: "I want to make worlds, not games"
You must have the ying AND the yang, the up AND the down, the inside AND the outside, the left AND the right, the successfully evading the Train AND the getting trained, the kill steel AND the long awaited Uber Drop.
You can not have a WORLD if all you have is rainbows and butterflies! That's not a WORLD, that's a game... (pssst.. it's not real!)
And now the part I'm apparently not suppose to say.. if your not ready for that, or you not open to try that, then I believe your probably in the wrong place. And no, I'm not trying to run anybody off.. my intent is to present a challenge to the naysayers. Try it... and just see if ultimately it's not the most immersive game you ever played.
I'm not sure what else to say, other than THANK YOU.
fazool said:Vandraad said:...The other problem with EQ was that travel was always quite trivial. Guilds could compete for content across all the expansions because fast travel was prevalent.
So if you want an open world with some competition but not so much that players grow spiteful of each other you need enough content that cannot be traveled between quickly. Players should need to make a decision about where to go, knowing full well that they can not just quickly or easily go clear across the world.
Yes...."everyone" seems to think the only objective of an mmorpg is to kill mobs, but living in the world should be part of it and that includes travel.
This sounds like your a RPer? different game if so.
Zeem said:...For example say we are Frodo and we are climping up Mount Doom to toss the ring but when we get there 20 other peope are there also throwing in the ring, kinda anti-climatic...
I'm fairly certain the devs have said there will be some infrequent use of instances for story type things like what you're saying. I do hope the Pantheon devs don't create stories where we are the hero that saves the world though. If some NPC tells me I saved the world after I put in a modest amount of work, then it just doesn't seem earned and therefore hollow. Working for 30 minutes and getting a "thanks for helping me get rid of those wolves" actually adds to my character's story.
As to the topic of open world concerns - I would like to see mechanics in place that facilitate what people will naturally try to do. I agree with many here that have argued for allowing the bad to come with the good. I do think that mechanics can be put in place that help us figure out if we're in the right or not. Many times two people/groups will fight over something, both thinking they are in the right and some help could be provided in some cases.
For instance, people will try to claim camps and that will cause competition. Some devs would look at this and say "instance the camps so everyone can win". I would rather them give the players tools to indicate to others that they are in a camp. Maybe placing campfires or placing torches on the walls of a dungeon that increase visibility. Upon inspection of the campfire/torch you could see how long it had been burning, which could roughly be used to determine disputes for an area. NPCs would seek to tamp out the fires, which would despawn after 5 minutes unless they were re-lit. This would roughly allow a group to stake out an area the size of which they could consistently protect. Nothing set in stone, no mechanic that restricts anything, but just a bit of help. I'm sure there are holes in this concept, but I had fun thinking of it as I wrote it :).
Crazzie said:fazool said:Vandraad said:...The other problem with EQ was that travel was always quite trivial. Guilds could compete for content across all the expansions because fast travel was prevalent.
So if you want an open world with some competition but not so much that players grow spiteful of each other you need enough content that cannot be traveled between quickly. Players should need to make a decision about where to go, knowing full well that they can not just quickly or easily go clear across the world.
Yes...."everyone" seems to think the only objective of an mmorpg is to kill mobs, but living in the world should be part of it and that includes travel.
This sounds like your a RPer? different game if so.
Feeling like you're part of a world rather than just whacking mobs is not synonomous with RP'ing.
Just to clarify I was not looking for instance zones. I like the open world so much more and it does make players work together. I get part of my question was will we see in game GMs. I understand people do not want to have their hands held, or told what they can and can not do. But I do feel the game creators and whatever company over sees the life of this game needs to play an ACTIVE role in the game. Not a webpage where you fill out a form and wait 4 weeks for someone to look into the matter. I'm not saying they can solve every little fight. But I did see a sense of a proper respect and economy when magical GMs were in game other then letting the " players " run the server. It only takes a few bad players to ruin the whole server.