the level of PtP for mortal

[Traceur]

note: each level in the poll agrees with the one before it (from the bottom and up), but it doesn't go the other way around.

I've noticed that there are different levels of sandbox-ness that different people are asking for, which in it's foundation asking for a different level of Player-to-Player interaction.
which one do you want for Mortal Online? what kind of game do you want it to be?

[vintril]

why limit the game - it should be about survival: by exploiting civilization and the weak or through the support of powerful allies and guilds. the path should be an individuals choice.

[OMGPIE]

I think all of the features should be in MO.

[Nolvadex]

I think most of the features must be in.
I personally dislike food addicted and full loot.

[Mirth]

vintril, it's only cool if you are one using the weak, and ont one being used. Unlike reality, here you can't pressure and break someone - they'll just quit the game, 'cause in this case there's no fun for them. So MO must not be of survival, because to use someone you need someone willing to be used. And this person must have no other choice, but, as i said, this is not reality, and everyone regardless of strength do have a choice.

[Xzi]

The more you can get the better obviously. It's all a matter of how much the devs are willing to put in.

[Arxon Havenloft]

There should not be any real limitations in the game. I mean I know that I advocate against destructible single player housing and there may be another thing or two that I could argue against, but as far as full loot and open pvp are concerned I don't see how any MMO can really be the one we've been waiting for without such mechanics.

[OMGPIE]

Originally Posted by Arxon Havenloft

There should not be any real limitations in the game. I mean I know that I advocate against destructible single player housing and there may be another thing or two that I could argue against, but as far as full loot and open pvp are concerned I don't see how any MMO can really be the one we've been waiting for without such mechanics.

The only restrictions that I see fit are restrictions that involve physics like....a random guy shouldn't be able to walk up a wall unless there is something with his boots or a spell he is using.

[Aryev]

Not too much pressure please... we want this game to come out you know

[Arxon Havenloft]

Originally Posted by OMGPIE

The only restrictions that I see fit are restrictions that involve physics like....a random guy shouldn't be able to walk up a wall unless there is something with his boots or a spell he is using.

Agreed. However, I'd love to see physics so advanced that we could climb that wall

[Traceur]

Originally Posted by Arxon Havenloft

There should not be any real limitations in the game. I mean I know that I advocate against destructible single player housing and there may be another thing or two that I could argue against, but as far as full loot and open pvp are concerned I don't see how any MMO can really be the one we've been waiting for without such mechanics.

that's what option 5 is for

[admiralnlson]

Quality poll

Good stuff Traceur

[SkirmCard]

Love everything but the food dependence

[Siphlex]

The only restriction i'm against personally, is the food one :P because i would probably be too lazy or busy to have to hunt for food all the time. Unless you were somewhat of major guild leader and had like, servants...that would be nice xD

[Traceur]

... or just being in a guild with farmers & livestock..

that's why i called it being dependent upon civilization

[Siphlex]

that would be nice too :P I would prefer the servants though xP

[F0rd]

WARNING: I use the word level a lot. By the word "level," I am not implying that I believe Mortal Online SHOULD or DOES possess a leveling system, but am instead referring to a measure of strength or capacity.

I have a problem with the concepts of being dependent on food, destructible player housing, and perma-death in a game.

<EDIT> This turned into a much longer rant than I intended... the short version is that required eating is bad because people will starve you to death through manipulation of game mechanics, perma-death is bad because it just is ( I have more reasoning, I swear), and destructible player housing is a ludicrous idea.
</EDIT>

No matter how renewable your food sources are, people will find ways of raiding your village and taking it away from you or just destroying it. Enemies will send masses of alternate characters without skills or any time invested in them while your guild is logged off, and destroy everything you worked for. Because of the fickle nature of gamers, the first few skill "levels" (still not certain if the developers are using levels within the skill system or not, though I assume that they are) shouldn't take too long to grind out, or the developers risk losing players. Coupled with the "mandatory" quickened pace of the early levels, the game's supposed incorporation of player skill means that, even with low character skills, masses of low level characters could easily kill a few higher level guards, if the players were skilled. Yet the low investment would mean that the character mobbing a town, farm, granary, or other key player owned structure isn't going to be valued, and even with perma-death could very well be an acceptable price for toppling their enemies.

Perma-death is one of the most ludicrous ideas I've ever come across, and I don't see how it could EVER be implemented well in a game with character progression. Please read again, so that the majority of you reading this hopefully actually pay attention instead of giving me that load of "L2P NUB! U R NOT 1337 HAX ENUFF 2 NO" bullshit: while plausible in First Person Shooters or games without any real character progression, perma-death is not plausible in role-playing games with character progression. The very act of investing time into a character means that players become attached to their characters, and the ability of players to make more new characters after their "permanent" deaths means that ganking higher level characters -- characters that people have put their blood, sweat, and tears into the creation of -- will never go out of style in the social circles of anus-faces that exist on the internet.

If, however, someone were to combat this perma-death character development "problem" with a system of (for the record, many other people have put this forward as a solution to the "problem") having skills carry over to different characters over an account, then how would this new "revolutionary" system be anything other than having some heavy duty plastic surgery every time you die, then re-spawning at the starting zone, with all of your gear stolen? Sounds reminiscent of another game-mechanic I endorse whole-heartedly... maybe full loot?

As a side note (I figured this would scare Traceur, proponent of RPing and "realism" that he is): what if I were to die under a perma-death system, and the people ganking me were standing by with the screen set to the character creation, and named their character with MY name the second I died? While it COULD be worked around, there are too many checks and balances required to force perma-death to work in a multiplayer game where the character you play matters so much.

Destructible Player Housing: Who thought of this? Who brought this up to begin with? Why would I build a house if somebody that doesn't even KNOW ME, having no reason whatsoever to do so, but no reason NOT to do so, topples my house over? MY house, that I built in the location of MY choosing by right of being there first, is MINE unless I can't maintain it. Yet with the concept of destructible player housing, it seems to me that people are wholly endorsing the destruction of a player's personal space, just because they think it would be funny or "cool" or "realistic." If a player spends time setting up a house in the game, it is fundamentally WRONG to destroy it on a whim, and while not "realistic," is one of those things that ends up making a game more enjoyable for everyone that isn't trying to be as big an arse as humanly possible.

[Arxon Havenloft]

Originally Posted by F0rd

WARNING: I use the word level a lot. By the word "level," I am not implying that I believe Mortal Online SHOULD or DOES possess a leveling system, but am instead referring to a measure of strength or capacity.

I have a problem with the concepts of being dependent on food, destructible player housing, and perma-death in a game.

<EDIT> This turned into a much longer rant than I intended... the short version is that required eating is bad because people will starve you to death through manipulation of game mechanics, perma-death is bad because it just is ( I have more reasoning, I swear), and destructible player housing is a ludicrous idea.
</EDIT>

No matter how renewable your food sources are, people will find ways of raiding your village and taking it away from you or just destroying it. Enemies will send masses of alternate characters without skills or any time invested in them while your guild is logged off, and destroy everything you worked for. Because of the fickle nature of gamers, the first few skill "levels" (still not certain if the developers are using levels within the skill system or not, though I assume that they are) shouldn't take too long to grind out, or the developers risk losing players. Coupled with the "mandatory" quickened pace of the early levels, the game's supposed incorporation of player skill means that, even with low character skills, masses of low level characters could easily kill a few higher level guards, if the players were skilled. Yet the low investment would mean that the character mobbing a town, farm, granary, or other key player owned structure isn't going to be valued, and even with perma-death could very well be an acceptable price for toppling their enemies.

Perma-death is one of the most ludicrous ideas I've ever come across, and I don't see how it could EVER be implemented well in a game with character progression. Please read again, so that the majority of you reading this hopefully actually pay attention instead of giving me that load of "L2P NUB! U R NOT 1337 HAX ENUFF 2 NO" bullshit: while plausible in First Person Shooters or games without any real character progression, perma-death is not plausible in role-playing games with character progression. The very act of investing time into a character means that players become attached to their characters, and the ability of players to make more new characters after their "permanent" deaths means that ganking higher level characters -- characters that people have put their blood, sweat, and tears into the creation of -- will never go out of style in the social circles of anus-faces that exist on the internet.

If, however, someone were to combat this perma-death character development "problem" with a system of (for the record, many other people have put this forward as a solution to the "problem") having skills carry over to different characters over an account, then how would this new "revolutionary" system be anything other than having some heavy duty plastic surgery every time you die, then re-spawning at the starting zone, with all of your gear stolen? Sounds reminiscent of another game-mechanic I endorse whole-heartedly... maybe full loot?

As a side note (I figured this would scare Traceur, proponent of RPing and "realism" that he is): what if I were to die under a perma-death system, and the people ganking me were standing by with the screen set to the character creation, and named their character with MY name the second I died? While it COULD be worked around, there are too many checks and balances required to force perma-death to work in a multiplayer game where the character you play matters so much.

Destructible Player Housing: Who thought of this? Who brought this up to begin with? Why would I build a house if somebody that doesn't even KNOW ME, having no reason whatsoever to do so, but no reason NOT to do so, topples my house over? MY house, that I built in the location of MY choosing by right of being there first, is MINE unless I can't maintain it. Yet with the concept of destructible player housing, it seems to me that people are wholly endorsing the destruction of a player's personal space, just because they think it would be funny or "cool" or "realistic." If a player spends time setting up a house in the game, it is fundamentally WRONG to destroy it on a whim, and while not "realistic," is one of those things that ends up making a game more enjoyable for everyone that isn't trying to be as big an arse as humanly possible.

Good post. I agree with, well, pretty much everything there. Though I would be all for a permadeath dueling system. For those of you that like perma death and weren't planning on just ganking endlessly you may like it.

You propose a "duel to the (perma)death" to another player. If he/she is pissed off at you enough the person just might accept it. If such acceptance occurs, then you can no longer be afflicted with dmg by anything other than the initiating player. Of course there would be a range in place to duel in and you wouldn't be able to deal damage to anything other than your opponent either. (Such safeguards would have to be in place to stop two friends from permadeath dueling just to go around and kill shit invincibly or run through a dangerous area without getting attacked.) Of course, once the fight is over, the dead player's character is deleted and another character is automatically created for that person with the same character appearance and name available for you to log-in to. Just without any of the skills that came with it.

Of course in a game such as MO where your Deva has skills on hold for you to pick up on any of your new characters, perma death isn't so hardcore, but that's the idea of mine anyways.

As for destructible housing, I could argue both sides. Though I lean more torward the UO approach.

[Traceur]

Originally Posted by F0rd

No matter how renewable your food sources are, people will find ways of raiding your village and taking it away from you or just destroying it. Enemies will send masses of alternate characters without skills or any time invested in them while your guild is logged off, and destroy everything you worked for.

raiding food sources & shutting off character's food supplies would require? sounds like good strategic thinking to me. in fact as much as people talk about sieges in MMOs, it's inherently lacking the most basic strategies used in historical sieges precisely because food supplies cant be blocked out.

within the middle east for example where many cities where "pure trading cities" which didn't grow their own food, sometimes a siege consisted of no siege machine, just well placed groups of bandits blocking out the main trade routes to the city, with patrols between them.

Originally Posted by F0rd

The very act of investing time into a character means that players become attached to their characters, and the ability of players to make more new characters after their "permanent" deaths means
[..]
As a side note (I figured this would scare Traceur, proponent of RPing and "realism" that he is): what if I were to die under a perma-death system, and the people ganking me were standing by with the screen set to the character creation, and named their character with MY name the second I died? While it COULD be worked around, there are too many checks and balances required to force perma-death to work in a multiplayer game where the character you play matters so much.

it means that you as well as every other player will have a good reason not to die.

like i said many times, a PD game needs to carefully balance the importance of character progression with player skill, just like a full loot game needs to carefully balance gear. it's a risk based gameplay, and the question is how you balance the risk vs. reward.

the rest of the paragraph (in the 3 dots ) seems to assume player levels & a con system, which i don't believe anyone in their right mind would be advocating in any FFA PvP environment, with or without PD.

Arxon, i actually don't know what a PD duel system would add to the game, though I'm not against it in a non-PD game like mortal...

Originally Posted by F0rd

Yet with the concept of destructible player housing, it seems to me that people are wholly endorsing the destruction of a player's personal space, just because they think it would be funny or "cool" or "realistic."

no, people are endorsing it because they want a politically dynamic world of large scale warfare, city building and city destroying. it is a different kind of game play, where you take part of civilization.

it seems you want the "crime" level of PtP, and it's just as legitimate as any of the others. but there's no reason to bash people who want a level or 2 above it:

i want to play a game of the last level - survival - dependence on civilization, but this isn't that game. other people might want to play a game on the level before yours, which discludes FFA PvP, but this game isn't that sort of game either.

Mortal is either "Crime" or "politics", depending on the yet unanswered question of house destruction & sieges.

[Warpath]

Well, we all want this game to be exactly what we want in a game, and as Traceur said, it just isn't going to fit everyone's desires.

I am with Traceur on a lot of these things. Fear keeps us from a really exciting game though. Destructable housing is a fantastic idea but is almost as fragile as Perma-death is.

It is why I think that there needs to be separate servers, Carebare, very easy, easy, normal, hard, hardcore. Not that many... Just joking is all.

Normal and Hard would be enough, probably. But, I think people are missing out because of their fears. Trying to convince someone, who has only ever played WoW, that a full loot system is a good idea is very very difficult.

If you would Throw away the idea of a standard MMORPG and accept the possibility of a MMO-RP-RTS-FPV-F.L.-Game.

Destructable housing is good because it will make banding together much more necessary/fruitful. This isn't a Massive Single Player Role-Playing Game with 3d chat functions. In a sand box another kid can wreck your sand castle if he can overpower you. Make a friend, so, when that jerk comes back you can wreck his sand castle or simply protect your own.

This idea will push people to build housing near a Guild/Clan/Group/City that will give them protection. It will feed the economy, a group can reserve areas around their keep/fortress for groupmembers and allies only. It will allow these groups to ask players for taxes.

Property can be a Poor Man's Perma-death. Houses can be really expencive people won't want to lose them, obviously. It could take 3 months to be able to afford one. So you treat your house as if it were your life. You don't build it in some unprotectable place unless you plan on being in that area everyday like a pioneer.

It is a GOOD thing for houses to be able to be destroyed. But Only if people can do other realistic things. The fact is, in an online game your property is vulnerable 24/7 so there needs to be a way to protect it when you are logged off. Because in reality you'd probably be sleeping inside and if someone decided to attack you'd be right there to defend it.

This is why I thought logging off yould create an NPC of you wherever you logged off. You might have some settings to tell the NPC of you what to do. Run away if the enemy is too strong or attack anything that moves, etc.

Another thing is building property area and NPC guards. If a group owns a keep/fortress there should be a padded area of land around said building that belongs to the building's owners. If those owners higher guards they can tell the guards what areas around their building to protect.

All this being said if you build with-in a keep/fortress or in its outer edges hired NPC guards would protect your property.

[admiralnlson]

Originally Posted by Warpath

Trying to convince someone, who has only ever played WoW, that a full loot system is a good idea is very very difficult.

No it's not.

For a 100%-WoW player / 0%-MMOforumer, you just need to start by saying you're talking about a totally different game genre, and you won't even have to convince him for him to love the idea of (pure) sandbox MMOs.

Those hard to convince are the ones who have had their minds shaped by their in-game and in-forum experience due to the abundance of theme park MMOs out there (and because they are close-minded ^^).

The majority of the WoW players aren't that biased because they don't go on forums and/or have tried other MMOs.

---
I agree with the rest of your post and Traceur's one.

[Warpath]

Originally Posted by Warpath

Trying to convince someone, who has only ever played WoW, that a full loot system is a good idea is very very difficult.

Originally Posted by admiralnlson

No it's not.

I admit, I added too many verys. And I have only ever tried convincing one 100% WoW player.

Their argument:
If I wanted to play a First Person PvP I'd play a FPS, I wouldn't pay to play it.

What it came down to is, they didn't want to play this genre.