why I am impatient to see the real guard System.

[Tunkasina]

(cri de coeur)
As blue, I'm looking forward to the arrival of the new guard system, with real NPC.

When I am hunted by a red, I got, as option, to fight or take refuge in the city. You know the rest ...
Indeed, cities are deadly dull.

I look forward to a cavalry charge of red in the streets of Meduli, killing the sellers, and the players. I want to see running in all directions noobs in rags, as small children face the barbarian hordes.
I look forward to hear the sardonic laught of a "Kio" or a "Russian", while the torchlight reflected on his sword covered in blood.
And I can imagine myself very well on a roof, trying to aim the head of one of these jumper with my deadly arrow ...

Can you imagine these lightning attacks, see the guards overwhelmed and then, look leave the group to a secret place hidden in the mountains? The excitement of those unexpected moments, spontaneous?

I also feel sad, as I see less and less red players, and only when I go in lost places... The world of Nave seems too quiet lately.

Therefore, as blue, I hope to see happen Quickly the true system of guards.

[markus2004]

be a little patient. First they gonna fix bugs and lagg then they make all the cool things like thatD;

[kinghyrule3]

All in good time ..

[Metsuro]

Originally Posted by kinghyrule3

All in good time ..

The game is made to hamper pvp/reds they dont want you to kill people it seems.

[Tunkasina]

Originally Posted by Metsuro

The game is made to hamper pvp/reds they dont want you to kill people it seems.

Why ? Because of statloss? I don't know, I don't play a red character (that doesn't mean I'm not able to fight).
As I see it, true PK will be red. And true PK shouldn't die too often, due to their training...

No, the "real" problem is this placeholder guard system.

[Metsuro]

Stat loss + guards + anti-pk + blue armies of griefers.

[Tunkasina]

Originally Posted by Metsuro

Stat loss + guards + anti-pk + blue armies of griefers.

Pointless argument, if you can't develop.

[kio1992]

Originally Posted by Tunkasina

(cri de coeur)

I look forward to heragin the sardonic laught of a "Kio" or a "Russian", while

im more of an ambush type person myself. I'll leave the mindless charges for the pawns.

but, nevertheless i am also looking forward to npcs guards. Not only will they add realism, activity and danger into the towns. If they are done right, they will represent a 'challenge' to pkers. What pker doesnt want to attack a city, fighting npcs and blues alike.

[Metsuro]

Originally Posted by Tunkasina

Pointless argument, if you can't develop.

I think you meant to say if your not a developer of MO, how do you know I cant develop. That I dont have any skills with C, C++, Or C#. That I couldn't possibly know anything about lua, Ruby or any other scripting language. But I guess this isn't the time or place.

[Shinimas]

I look forward to hear the sardonic laught of a "Kio" or a "Russian", while the torchlight reflected on his sword covered in blood.

You do realize that if that's allowed, cities will be camped 24\7 by reds?

[Tunkasina]

Originally Posted by Metsuro

I think [...]

At least more than one or two words in your post here.

As I'm not good in english, I wouldn't try to tell what I think about "thinking", and I will explain my inapropriate words:
I wasn't talking about your coding skills, but about your explanation skills.

This:

Originally Posted by Metsuro

Stat loss + guards + anti-pk + blue armies of griefers.

Isn't a valuable argument, in itself. Pointless argument, if you can't tell more about what you're trying to tell us...

[mathcore]

Tunkasina, he's had this discussion before in a roundabout way without really explaining anything outside of "if reds get stat loss so should blues".

As for your anticipation, I can't wait too! The biggest thing will be for thieves. They can actually get away. It'll scale though, so bigger cities will be harder to raid.

[Mats Persson]

Originally Posted by Tunkasina

Therefore, as blue, I hope to see happen Quickly the true system of guards.

Me too, but that will unfortunately take a while longer. The "non-instant" guards will use the regular AI base, and that needs to function very well before we let it loose with guard privileges

The full guard system will feature high-security places guarded just like now (insta-guards), medium-security places (unlimited non-instant NPC guards with a spawn timer) and low-security places (limited non-instant NPC guards, very long respawn if any).

[Tunkasina]

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

Me too, but that will unfortunately take a while longer. The "non-instant" guards will use the regular AI base, and that needs to function very well before we let it loose with guard privileges

Hmm... Related at least to flags and path finding, I assume

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

The full guard system will feature high-security places guarded just like now (insta-guards), medium-security places (unlimited non-instant NPC guards with a spawn timer) and low-security places (limited non-instant NPC guards, very long respawn if any).

So, 3 scales of guards? That's confusing! Does it means that the High-secured guards aren't humans?

And a second question, unlimited guards means they come again and again, like in Fable?

[Mats Persson]

Originally Posted by Tunkasina

So, 3 scales of guards? That's confusing! Does it means that the High-secured guards aren't humans?

They are teleporting guards, just like the Lictors are now. They will be used in areas where we have no other options. Right now we use them everywhere, even in Khurite villages

And a second question, unlimited guards means they come again and again, like in Fable?

You can avoid them or kill them, as they are regular NPC's, but the area will have an unlimited supply of them, meaning when you kill one, after awhile another will spawn (from a guard barrack or similar) and take its place. This in turn means it will be possible to raid such a village, but very very difficult to occupy it for longer amounts of time as you will have to continuously fight the guards.

[Tunkasina]

Can I abuse? I'm not sure if someone asked it before but, I promise it's my last question (in this topic of course)

Will guards be lootable? Or will they be like actuals NPCs?

[Morgenes]

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

You can avoid them or kill them, as they are regular NPC's, but the area will have an unlimited supply of them, meaning when you kill one, after awhile another will spawn (from a guard barrack or similar) and take its place. This in turn means it will be possible to raid such a village, but very very difficult to occupy it for longer amounts of time as you will have to continuously fight the guards.

There needs to be a way to claim a city.
Maybe some sort of very though governor with some eliteguards (Let him guard the highsecurityarea instead of instawhack.) If you kill him, you will be the owner of the town/city and can demand taxes from the crafters/refiners.

No guards (except of the governor) will spawn then and you have to hire them then.

[danknerd]

I like the 3 tier system of guards; and why does it matter if newb friendly cities have instaguards? Why would a vet need to attack or kill a newb, they have nothing of value to begin with. I guess it appeals to those who like to bully people weaker them in either physical or mentality or both [PKing newbs all day], not me though I like a challenge.

[TomBor]

I am disappointed from Mat's post.

I was really looking forward to having guards walk around the cities, running up to reds and giving them a fair fight just like any other mobs.

I hate the thought of ANY teleporting guards. They completely ruin the immersion. I wouldn't mind if they insta-kill you with 1 hit, but I hate the thought that they will teleport to your location and kill you instantly just like the lictors now.

=(
I want real guards

[Nidhogg]

Originally Posted by TomBor

I am disappointed from Mat's post.

I was really looking forward to having guards walk around the cities, running up to reds and giving them a fair fight just like any other mobs.

I hate the thought of ANY teleporting guards. They completely ruin the immersion. I wouldn't mind if they insta-kill you with 1 hit, but I hate the thought that they will teleport to your location and kill you instantly just like the lictors now.

=(
I want real guards

If there are no instant guards anywhere there will be griefers just camping the areas where new players enter the world. Used to be people who hid on the roofs of Meduli to insta shot any newly created character with a bow.

Very annoying, respawn and dead again with nothing you could do.

well, expect for wait till the griefer made his way to Kranesh where my fighting character was that is

[madsholme]

Originally Posted by Metsuro

The game is made to hamper pvp/reds they dont want you to kill people it seems.

Naa stat loss isent a isue for real PKérs.. LIke it wasent a isue in UO!

Its only a isue for those WOW kids, that´s gonna kill everyone, and end up being killed and killed and killed, because they cant do shit in the end.

[Mats Persson]

Originally Posted by TomBor

I am disappointed from Mat's post.

I was really looking forward to having guards walk around the cities, running up to reds and giving them a fair fight just like any other mobs.

I thought that was exactly what I just described. Guards will use the mob-system (with a "guard add-on" of course) and fight reds to their best extent.

I hate the thought of ANY teleporting guards. They completely ruin the immersion. I wouldn't mind if they insta-kill you with 1 hit, but I hate the thought that they will teleport to your location and kill you instantly just like the lictors now.

An AI able to follow players everywhere (and do so in a somewhat intelligent behavior as to not break the immersion) would cost immense server-resources, and take a very very long time to develop. MO is a free environment where you can climb roofs, eventually also ladders, take cover behind things etc. As for instance Assassins Creed couldn't even make it work in a triple-A next-gen single-player game, do you sincerely believe we could make one in an MMO? Having guards running against walls or getting stuck at ladders while griefers are partying in the village is kinda immersion breaking too, don't you think?

I am just being realistic. We will develop the mob-Guards to our best extent - while at all times compare the cost of their AI behaviour against the possible number of players in the world, because they will be expensive - but I am sure there will be several ways to abuse them or "exploit" them if they are not allowed to use tricks. That in turn means we unfortunately cannot count on them guarding very important areas that need to be guarded as to not break the game. Therefore we will use teleporting guards or similar for those areas.

=(
I want real guards

Me too. You are most welcome to give us suggestions on how to implement those immersion-and-fail-safe guards

[Lagoon]

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

Me too. You are most welcome to give us suggestions on how to implement those immersion-and-fail-safe guards

May I try?
It would be nice if players were allowed to play the role of town guards.
This way you'll have immersion-and-fail-safe guard,with a true human mind.

They need of course some incentive to do their job. The more criminals they kill, the more money they earn. At the same time, they have to avoid becoming criminals.

There should also be some system to track their behaviour: if they commit too many crimes inside the town, they're fired from the town guards and cannot be rehired for weeks of even months.

[Akai]

Originally Posted by Lagoon

May I try?
It would be nice if players were allowed to play the role of town guards.
This way you'll have immersion-and-fail-safe guard,with a true human mind.

They need of course some incentive to do their job. The more criminals they kill, the more money they earn. At the same time, they have to avoid becoming criminals.

There should also be some system to track their behaviour: if they commit too many crimes inside the town, they're fired from the town guards and cannot be rehired for weeks of even months.

Thats an interesting concept, you could tie it in to a " NPC (aka non player controlled) guards guild" (like the npc theives guild or merchants)

[Kaasflipje]

Originally Posted by Akai

Thats an interesting concept, you could tie it in to a " NPC (aka non player controlled) guards guild" (like the npc theives guild or merchants)

I agree.

[Trixxer]

I think Mats means this ...

The guards will patrol around.

If someone shout for a guard and a guard is within shout distance, that guard will run using a predefined pathes for the city. The last distance the guard run he will take a shortcut. If the ranged assassin is on a roof (hight above ground level) then the guard will run to the wall of the building and then TP up on the roof and attack him.

If a guard is close and the guard "see"/detect a thief/murderer in action, the guard will automatically attack the thief. If the thief is on the roof or flee up on a roof, the guard follow and run to the building and then TP up on the roof.

If I understood that right ... it sounds good.

[Valkyre]

Originally Posted by Akai

Thats an interesting concept, you could tie it in to a " NPC (aka non player controlled) guards guild" (like the npc theives guild or merchants)

/signed Mats listen to us

[SerenityMO]

Bounty systems are great but it’s very difficult to make them non exploitable.
Let’s look at paying guards to stop reds in town.

• I get a friend to make a new character.
• I let him kill me 5 times to go red.
• We move to a town with a nearby priest and he lets me kill him over and over for the bounty.

Bounties only work when players are funding them, preferably the player that dies when the bounty is awarded.

Any bounty system has to make the death at least as painful as the bounty is rewarding.

[Jade]

It is the victims who pay for the bountys, like in UO people who got murdered while carrying expensive shit often raged and put bountys on the heads of those who murdered them.

The only way its exploitable is if a red had say 5000gold on his head due to all the killings he did the last month, and his mate killed him and claimed the reward.
If you could see a method on how to counter that then the bounty system would work very well.

[Jade]

Or you could have it that the blue player who killed the murderer would have to visit the local town to speak with the guard captain, and then a reward was given if

1: You and the dead murderer were not on each others friends list
2: Are not in the same guild, and havn't been in the same guild for a minimum of 30 days
3: Complete any trade actions in the last 30 days

Just a few examples, I am not sure on how you would code this, but I am sure the budding programmers on these forums could enlighting us

[devencreek]

Originally Posted by Akai

Thats an interesting concept, you could tie it in to a " NPC (aka non player controlled) guards guild" (like the npc theives guild or merchants)

agree, that sounds interesting.

[SerenityMO]

Originally Posted by Jade

Or you could have it that the blue player who killed the murderer would have to visit the local town to speak with the guard captain, and then a reward was given if

1: You and the dead murderer were not on each others friends list
2: Are not in the same guild, and havn't been in the same guild for a minimum of 30 days
3: Complete any trade actions in the last 30 days

Just a few examples, I am not sure on how you would code this, but I am sure the budding programmers on these forums could enlighting us

Unfortunately it's still trivial to exploit. How will this work if a red has an alt trader in the town he’s raiding. Chances are he has traded with most of the guards in the last month. Follow the money safe guards are good but keep in mind you can always loot bag trade with a friendly. Also trading through a third party works equally well.

The obvious method is to make the pain of death equal to the bounty, I think there are threads for this, /forums/30444-personalized-pvp-bounty-hunter.html ,but it’s not really an appropriate way to fund a city guard and it has huge greifing potential in its own right.

[Tunkasina]

Originally Posted by Jade

1: You and the dead murderer were not on each others friends list
2: Are not in the same guild, and havn't been in the same guild for a minimum of 30 days
3: Complete any trade actions in the last 30 days

With an Alt character, all this solution are unavailable.

So, if I understand, the idea to avoid server resources destruction is a player-made guard.

Good Idea. this is how I see it:

1-Being a guard:
Obivously, you can't be a guard, as soon as you want it.
NPC should ask you:
-A minimum level of skill in Combat.
-A minimum Str, Cons, and Dex
-Some hours to be watching.

Moreover, the Guards Barracks cant' pay for an infinite numbers of players.
So, there should be a maximum amount of "guards player".

If we do it that way, not everyone could be a guard, and so, it can avoid "exploits", But, not too much, because IRL, there can be some "bad" guards

2-Living as a guard:
So, you become a guard. As it, you should earn a payement. Like in the roman empire, yuo should buy a weapon and some stuff by yourself.

Obligation:
-Watch the city from a certain hour to a certain hour. Accordly to a predefinite schedule, (perhaps a schedule you pre definite when you try to join guards) you have to stay in the zone of the city, and react when a player call GUARDS!
Help to play guard:
-When a player call the guards, it may show you on your UI that someone as called you... And that's all. Noting more, nothing less. Up to you to kill the correct guy.
-If you make a mistakes, you get grey, and are fired from guards. You get a timer that forbidden for you to be guards again, before Xhours.

NO BOUNTY.

additional Idea :
-If you get a grey guy, making a possiblity for the guard to remove the flag. (corruption, or good justice )

[slasher]

Me too. You are most welcome to give us suggestions on how to implement those immersion-and-fail-safe guards

I think the easiest solutions is to make insta-kill bowmen on the roofs of houses

[devencreek]

Originally Posted by slasher

I think the easiest solutions is to make insta-kill bowmen on the roofs of houses

hmm... I think it could also be a solution to position several guards with bows on strategic points, so that at each point where the patrolling guards can´t reach you there are at least three to four bowmen that would!
They could also build some guard towers from where these bowmen may protect high security areas.

[SerenityMO]

Originally Posted by Tunkasina

With an Alt character, all this solution are unavailable.

So, if I understand, the idea to avoid server resources destruction is a player-made guard.

Good Idea. this is how I see it:

1-Being a guard:
Obivously, you can't be a guard, as soon as you want it.
NPC should ask you:
-A minimum level of skill in Combat.
-A minimum Str, Cons, and Dex
-Some hours to be watching.

Moreover, the Guards Barracks cant' pay for an infinite numbers of players.
So, there should be a maximum amount of "guards player".

If we do it that way, not everyone could be a guard, and so, it can avoid "exploits", But, not too much, because IRL, there can be some "bad" guards

2-Living as a guard:
So, you become a guard. As it, you should earn a payement. Like in the roman empire, yuo should buy a weapon and some stuff by yourself.

Obligation:
-Watch the city from a certain hour to a certain hour. Accordly to a predefinite schedule, (perhaps a schedule you pre definite when you try to join guards) you have to stay in the zone of the city, and react when a player call GUARDS!
Help to play guard:
-When a player call the guards, it may show you on your UI that someone as called you... And that's all. Noting more, nothing less. Up to you to kill the correct guy.
-If you make a mistakes, you get grey, and are fired from guards. You get a timer that forbidden for you to be guards again, before Xhours.

NO BOUNTY.

additional Idea :
-If you get a grey guy, making a possiblity for the guard to remove the flag. (corruption, or good justice )

Good luck finding enough players to guard all of the towns 7/24 especially considering they will have nothing to do for most of the time, except perhaps chasing thieves, which is a different but perhaps related subject.


As far as stopping reds, the guards have no more incentive than any other blue in town. And all this before you even think about the exploiting potential of guards working with reds.

It’s not that I don’t think player guards would be good but you need to keep them occupied and pay them for actually doing the job. Unless the system is fully self regulating you also need to provide oversight as well. My suggestion for funding law enforcement is in the beta forum, /forums/30838-thief-takers.html, but I could never figure out how to make killing reds pay. Hopefully the loot will be enough if you can keep skilled blue PvP players occupied in town. Keep in mind it was the corruption and abuses of RL thief-takers that cause the creation of the first police force. Not sure if thats good or bad.

[Awsten]

IMO Just place guard towers that cover all aspects of the city and ensure there are no blind spots that are unreachable by pathed guard patrolmen on the ground. You could even put in "undercover" guards that pose as normal NPC citizens or merchants that sell very basic goods but will break cover when no patrolman are in area and a criminal is present...

Problem is solved, no griefers on roofs, no guards running into walls, PKers get their "fair" guard fight and the newbies stay protected...

To maintain the tier of guards simply make tier 1 (Highly secured areas) have powerful, 1 or 2 hit guards that are highly accurate. Make tier 2 slightly less and tier 3 even lesser... You can adjust the respawn rates as well. Make high security insta respawn, medium 15 minute respawn and low 30 minute respawn.

Hell you can even accent this by making a player guard system similar to what has been mentioned above. To make the player guard system work you should just make it so players are only payed for killing the same grey or red once every hour or so... That way you mitigate the "farming" but they still get rewarded. Noone will want to be farmed if the benefactor is only recieve bounty every hour. In the meantime the guards will be whiping the floor with the crop...

All this shouldn't delay gold but work on it and in the meantime leave in the teleporting BOOM ONE SHOT guards until it is working...

[TheMap]

Originally Posted by Awsten

IMO Just place guard towers that cover all aspects of the city and ensure there are no blind spots that are unreachable by pathed guard patrolmen on the ground. You could even put in "undercover" guards that pose as normal NPC citizens or merchants that sell very basic goods but will break cover when no patrolman are in area and a criminal is present...

Problem is solved, no griefers on roofs, no guards running into walls, PKers get their "fair" guard fight and the newbies stay protected...

To maintain the tier of guards simply make tier 1 (Highly secured areas) have powerful, 1 or 2 hit guards that are highly accurate. Make tier 2 slightly less and tier 3 even lesser... You can adjust the respawn rates as well. Make high security insta respawn, medium 15 minute respawn and low 30 minute respawn.

Hell you can even accent this by making a player guard system similar to what has been mentioned above. To make the player guard system work you should just make it so players are only payed for killing the same grey or red once every hour or so... That way you mitigate the "farming" but they still get rewarded. Noone will want to be farmed if the benefactor is only recieve bounty every hour. In the meantime the guards will be whiping the floor with the crop...

All this shouldn't delay gold but work on it and in the meantime leave in the teleporting BOOM ONE SHOT guards until it is working...

This, guard towers with archers in them. Insta spawn lictors are just a tad bit out of immersion.

[truss]

Originally Posted by Lagoon

May I try?
It would be nice if players were allowed to play the role of town guards.
This way you'll have immersion-and-fail-safe guard,with a true human mind.

Personally I don't like guards at all. They make it difficult to deal with annoying people in the way I prefer to deal with them (*gleam* in my eye)

But if there is some game-design reason why they should exist, at least in some places, then
they probably need to be working 24x7. Player guards can't be expected to do that; NPCs can.

[Frog]

Well I prefer PVP to take place where it belongs: in the woods, in the jungle, in the mountains, in a field, in a valley, etc.

Seeing the weaker NPC cities get zerged and taken over would bring a tear to my eye. I don't want to be hanging out in the wild all alone.