In response to this thread This is the story so far. Starting with my turn based combat ideas regarding PvP.

quote: Andrew Russell [ways of entering turn based combat...] - Be in Player vs Player (PvP) mode and the second and third rules apply for anyone also in PvP mode. Anyone not in PvP mode can not be pulled into a PvP combat and no PvP damage will affect them. (PvP players can not turn off PvP in battle but can run as per the exiting turn based rules below. PvP can be turned off as soon as you are out of range so there will be no catching up to players once they exit turn based mode)

quote: Ryan "Run_The_Shadows" Personally, the only major thing I see wrong with that is a design quirk that irks me at the core. Pansies shouldn''t be allowed to play PvP. It''s just wrong. Either balls to the wall PvP it without going back, or don''t. I can''t say I agree with any design that allows a player to hack on another player, realize his lvl 12 mage just stabbed a lvl 50 knight, and run himself far enough away to go non-PvP and then taunt the knight invincibly. Should I ever make a game, if you click that "PvP" checkbox when you''re making your character, you had better damn well watch your back and not piss of the wrong people.

quote: Andrew Russell Okie dokie then, peraps the PvP thing needs some more thought. I had just added that in to clarify the PvPers going turn based. Perhaps some sort of item or enchantment gives you "Protection from Players" and you can get rid of it eaisly if you want, but it takes quite alot to get it back? I am not sure. Are you sure it is a good idea to make PvP permanent? Perhaps another thread?

So, does anyone have any ideas about weather or not PvP should be a perminent thing, or if not how permanent should it be (eg: permanent while in combat or semi-permanent/hard to loose)

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Personally, I see it being more an interactive choice like hardcore Diablo2 characters. You either are or you aren''t.
As far as being PvP:
Pro:
-More chances at experience and swag from killing players as well as monsters.
-By needing more protection and grouping, you''ll get a more user-interactive and party-friendly game
Con:
-You might get beat on by a bigger player.

-Ryan "Run_The_Shadows"
-Run_The_Shadows@excite.com
-The Navidson Record! The best film you''ll never see!

My opinion: everybody PvP always. It''s the most "real" solution for me, and it''s much simpler to work with. If you want to reduce player-on-player violence, you can do it with any one of a number of deterrents besides the Hand of GOD protecting the lion from the lamb.

But that''s just me.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

I don''t believe a ''good'' solid MMORPG does allow a player the choice to PvP or not, I just believe that choice is not reversable. Making the world a PvP bloodbath would do nothing but scare away new players.

-Ryan "Run_The_Shadows"
-Run_The_Shadows@excite.com
-The Navidson Record! The best film you''ll never see!

An idea I had was like danger level zones.

Basically its PVP all the time, but depending on where you are depends on the strength or weakness of people that can attack you... Say you were out prancing in newbie land... The danger level would be 1, were only people 1 level higher or 1 level lower could attack... But off in the distant lands, there would be a much higher danger level (lets say 20) where people 20 levels higher or 20 levels lower could attack you...

And to solve the problem of new players being scared, pking could be disabled till you reach XX level...

And lets say someone attacked you, no matter where they ran off to, they wouldnt be safe from you for a timelimit, a good timelimit I think would be 30 minutes of play time. This way they cant attack, log off, and get back on and be 100% safe.

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-Iron Eye
Cyrus Eye design _//_ My personal site _//_ Google

"Games usually keep me from making my own..."

It''s possible to "allow" PvP in the sense that any one character can attack any other character in the same way that he could attack any other entity, but still discourage PvP combat to a degree that it doesn''t happen often. As I said before, there are any number of creative ways to reduce PvP combat short of hard-coding anti-PvP rules into the system. Look around: the rules of reality don''t prevent the people around you from killing each other, but mysteriously the real world is not a "PvP bloodbath". Think about why, and you''ll be a step closer to more realistic PvP behavior.

I''ve addressed the subject of reducing PvP violence and grief play without denying PvP as a possibility before. It''s too bad the search is down or I''d pull up a couple of threads which might be illustrative in this regard. Unfortunately the collective memory of this forum is brief at best, and this is no place to go about developing a coherent new game paradigm, although it''s excellent for discussing incremental changes in current designs. One of these days I''ll just have to make a damn game, or at least a full design doc to discuss. Ah well.

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-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

The trouble with PvP is that it not only uses swords, but also words...

quote: Original post by Belni
The trouble with PvP is that it not only uses swords, but also words...

no it´s not...

other than that, good points here. for an interesting variation on PvP see eve-online, that sort of system has great appeal, because it lets the player do what he wants... even encourage PvP.

I favor the permadeath, always-PvP-enabled format. If I''m playing a game, I don''t want some lowbie mouthing off at me because they''re not PK. And I''d watch my mouth too so I wouldn''t be in the hole myself. But this is really only usable for RP-enforced games like some MUDs and there''s still the issue of high-level characters beating on lowbies for fun. I''d recommend forcing a PK note to be written for every PvP kill with their reasoning and the game should probably log the last twenty lines of chat or something to prove that it isn''t pointless. And if it is, the PKer is killed and the victim is restored.

(So I''m a RP-loving PK-loving Nazi. Fear.)

Spitting - I fear that the real world does not provide us with good pointers to a solution for at least two reasons :

- The difference between the effective combat strength of real-world humans is rarely great. Effectively the equivalent of a small number of new characters being able to take down a much more experienced character. Compounding this is the fact that guns are easy to use and universally deadly, a combination that is I suspect rarely found in MMORPGs.

- Humans are more inclined to gamble when the risks are lower, even when the rewards are proportionally lower. Even if some new character protection community existed in MMORPGs, the threat of imprisonment and/or death does not carry the same relative weight that it does in RL.

So I think MMORPGs do require some alternative solution, although I am against hard-coded protection.