Quote:
Originally Posted by Visage
If we are going to apply real world rulesets to a virtual game, we need to look at how a society functions. Your sword and armor have to be made by someone, food, horses blah blah blah were all provided by people who did not engage in "pvp" . Because you only had one death, people were much less likely to attack someone else unless there was a payoff. People didn't ride around killing randomly, and if you killed someone in a town, the town would police itself and you might end up hanging from a tree branch.
You cannot have a world that functions if it is just a bunch of assholes running around killing each other over and over again, but we all play for the thrill of killing the other guy, so how do you make pvp happen?
1 It is ridiculous for one player to have 100 times the health and damage of another. While leveling is the yardstick by how you measure your charactors development, it is stupid to make a level 50 person invulnerable from the level 10 person. It didn't happen in real life and it shouldn't happen in a game. Somehow there needs to be a mechanic for equalizing higher and lower level players, forcing the choice of "should I gank this guy or not"?
2 Like I said before, random serial killing did not happen. There was a purpose to killing someone, say in the process of stealing. Therefore make it worthwhile to attack someone by being able to gain something from them. I think MMOs actually have it backwards, the higher level toons should be more worried than the lower ones, since the higher levels have better armor and weapons and gold that the lowbies want.
Killing should have a purpose, the purpose might be as simple as wanting the area to hunt in, but there should be a risk to every encounter regardless of the difference in charactor levels.
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There is so much to say about your post. I find it distracting how you speak of realism as such a complex abstraction. Should the game mirror real life or not? You make statements that are seemingly paradoxical reflecting a general confusion. No, people do not run around randomly killing each other. There exist a complex system of social constructs bearing consequences both physical and psychological. Yet all this is removed when communication is proxied (perhaps you should read the Milgram study) through the internet. When the authoritarian influence is removed we fall back to more primal reactions to those around us, I'm sure you have read Lord of the Flies. So are humans naturally "evil" or is the idea simply a social construct? Do MMOs prove the Ring of Gyges? Now feel free to explorate these ideas at your leisure and let's get back to the topic of PVP.
Open PVP, is a free-for-all system of combat where I can attack anybody, anywhere, for any reason. There may or may not be consequences for doing so. If you are out farming materials, it would be wise to be weary of strangers and keep your form of escape at the ready. If you are low level I offer the same advice. The world of an "open" MMO is a hard place to live. You will be ganked and looted many times, you will lose precious items and valuable resources. When I played UO you have no idea how many times I've Alt-F4'd in anger. Yet there are certain rewards that can be gained. The enviroment promotes strong bond to your fellow players. If you truely detest those player killers, get a guild together to vanquish them. Step up as the player, descide how your world is formed and enforced. Stop relying on the game to provide the story.
My gribe, legos started coming with the story built into the box and children no longer needed an imagination. The same happened to MMOs.