Make them famous.

About going around a "no-PK limit" system with the use of pure game mechanics:

My two younger brothers were playing an Online RPG recently called Tibia I think. I haven''t tried it myself although I''ve seen when my brothers played it and I''ve heard their comments.

When players first start a new character in that game they apparently get started in some kind of "N00B World" where PKing is disallowed. There they must stay to advance a few levels and such before they can advance further to another world (mostly take several hours of real-life gameplay). Of course the PK limit could be broken in any case against the N00Bs when more experienced players fooled them (like my brothers)...

In the N00B-world there was an option to buy poison of different strengths. It was expensive and hard to get, and it wasn''t possible to force anybody to drink it. However, my brothers used the following strategy to kill N00Bs and to steal their inventory while they were dead before they respawned:

When a newbie came up and my brothers had a bottle of poison (isn''t it practical to have many computers at home to team up?), my brothers said: "Hey, you want a levelling-up potion?" Some N00Bs were suspicious but not everybody, quite a few of them happily accepted the green "levelling-up potion". Furthermore my brothers said: "Drink it and you''ll instantly get 1 more level." (In that game you eat and drink things quite often.)

Of course the unsuspecting newbie drank it and immediatly began to lose health. In most cases they died before the effects of the poison began to wear out, and my brothers stole their items against their strong protests. Economically my brothers made a profit from it too, the value of the all sold N00B-inventory surpassed the cost of the poison.

My brothers did it quite a few times, they also learned to block N00Bs into corners and force them to drink it to get away from them. However, the real interesting thing is they couldn''t do it more than maybe 20 times or something, because the word had got around the town that killers were poison-murdering newbies, thereby removing the surprise effect.

Quite funny, don''t you think?

But then the griefers can hop servers and do it to more unsuspecting newbies. Most newbies don''t read forums, IMX. Or if they do, not carefully.

quote:

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Original post by MSW

If this "buffer" is client side generated...then what is to stop some creative individual from generateing some sort of "buffer" forgeing software?

It then becomes something along the lines of "player A''s word against Player Bs"...and even the two seperate "buffer" log files support each of the seperate sides stories...How much time could the "judge" then spend with the case? In order to alievate the possable case work loads on the "judges" would such a situation (buffers don''t agree that the same things were said) would the game system simply attribute the punishment to the player with the lower karma...sort of "guilty" by association?

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Well for starters, assuming the buffers are client-side, they would have to be extremely difficult to forge. Text would not cut it, period. They should be encoded in some way, and stamped with some kind of invisible server stamp that is corrupted if the data is tampered with. The reason I said that they should be sent from the users computer was to speed up the game -- if a 3-minute server-side buffer was always in effect for every single user online, that could really slow down the game I think. Of course there may be technical ways of getting around this.

Secondly, ANY time the buffers do not provide sufficient information, i.e. they do not match, the case is immediately assigned Pending Investigation status -- in other words, it goes into a queue to be handled by the next available judge.

Third, judges would be advised not to merely base their verdicts off of reputations. Witnesses should be queried (buffers could include information about other people in the immediate vicinity, which would probably be present anyway if other people were talking or doing anything at all). If credible witnesses are unavailable, then the accusor and accused should be questioned further, and the judge would make an educated guess about what really happened, as they do in real life. It isn''t perfect, but no justice system is.

Regarding the server-side buffer -- it just occurred to me that a buffer is completely unnecessary for every user! Each server should keep an ongoing log of all actions and dialogue occurring on the server at any given time. Then the judge could easily enter the specific times in question and review the logs directly. Problem solved.

quote:

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Then all you would end up with is grief players who drag innocents (with lower karma) to court...forge thier buffers for review...then get away scott free (getting a karma boost as reward).

What of grief players who now are trying to go the "strait and narrow path"? They run across some newbie (or one of those self appointed "watchdogs") who sees that the previous grief player has a slightly lower karma score and set in motion a plot to "punish" the reformed convict even further...this "watchdog" player may even falsely accuse the former grief player of some horrible act....who is the real grief player in this situation then?

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Most of this is irrelevant if the log can''t be forged. Assuming it could be though, there''s still the point that judges should be reviewing the case realistically, not just making a quick judgement based on reputation. Grief players will have poor reputations, newbies will have no reputations -- newbies could be great players, but they could also be grief-players-in-training. Reputation info should perhaps not even be immediately available to the judge; judges should take objective stances or they are not qualified to be judges.

quote:

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Try "putting yourself in the grief players shoes"...view such a game from thier eyes...Try to figure out ways to break the game...for example anything client side could be messed with, twisted, or forged...so any system that will reley on client side data for a meens to ensure justice is going to easily be broken...

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I''ve been doing that. In this system, grief players would get picked on pretty bad until they mended their ways, I think. They might enjoy minor victories, but in the end they''re likely to get their cummupins.

Last comment about the judge system -- judges would be volunteers (with nice in-game salaries and other benefits), so they won''t be perfect. Thats why the GMs/Admins or other paid individuals would be available to advocate cases wherein a judge is believed to be corrupt or ignorant.

The feudal system a previous member mentioned would work fine too, but it should follow the same basic principles.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

I''m posting the following by way of clarification and to summarize my views for general comments.

The standing principles for in-game prosecution of abusive players:

1) Humans (most likely players) must judge other players.
2) The game must provide (a) means, (b) evidence, (c) internal consequences, and (d) measures preventing abuse of the very method used to stop abuse.
3) The administration must (a) provide lasting external consequences for repeat offenders and (b) provide a reformation process that requires sincerity on the part of the guilty party.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

I don't understand why a system (or rather, a "non-system") such as Silvermyst suggests is not the ideal path in this situation.

If there is an exploit, it's not a player's fault who uses it but the programmer's fault who allowed it. Pure and simple. You're going to ban somebody for doing something you programmed into the game? And after they're paying monthly for this same bugged game? Call 'em grief programmers! Heh.

This non-system should be 100% PvP, with permanent death. You die, and nobody resurrects you (by dragging your corpse back to town, or bringing a healer, etc., etc.) then your character is wiped. You only get one character at a time. If you are "dead" and don't feel like waiting to see if your buddy whom you just ICQ'd can get a healer to your body, then just press Delete and create a new one. At best you may be able to get to the spot you died and recover some old items. Interesting possibilities could be introduced on death, such as the chance to respawn as an animal, with your notoriety/reputation at death determining your choices (e.g., unicorn, horse, rabbit, mouse, rat, bat, scorpion, snake, etc.). Heh. Remember the Great Rodent & Pest Invasion of '02? Heh heh.

Now towns would be a relatively safe haven in such a non-system. Guards would be uber, and would deploy quickly to prevent grief invasions. Griefers who got away with a crime would become more and more notorius, and subject to attack on sight in lawful communities. "Omygawd it's l33tHaXxOr the Ultimate Dread Overlord! GUARDS!"

Yes, you're going to have times when 100+ griefers gang together and invade a town. Innocent newbies will surely perish, being forced to create another newbie character. But there should be plenty of positives to offset these negatives. I just don't think it would be as great a problem as some seem to think.

Besides, the chance of these types of things occurring in an online world would clearly be relayed to the new player. They could be made aware that, Town A is raided on average every 5 real world days by on average 15 bandit players per raid, Town B is raided every 10 days by 5 players, and Town C is raided every day by 25 players, etc., and could make an informed choice where they wanted to begin their career. Of course Town C may have a ton of interesting things to do, while Town B could be a backwater bump in the road. Anyway, my point here was that they would be aware of the possibility of a raid and could be given advice on what to do in the event thereof (i.e., type, "Guards!", run for any building marked, "Guard Post", etc.)

Like Silvermyst was intimating, this kind of activity would be incorporated into the non-system, a bona fide "encouraged" part of the game. A fact of life, just like drug pirates in the Carribbean, or bandits in Somalia/Ruwanda/etc., or gangs of punks in the big city. We don't create a police state, encroaching on the freedoms of all players, but we arm the populace with options (and weapons! heh) so that they can take care of themselves.

With greater risk comes the chance for greater rewards!

My thoughts.

Take care.



Florida, USA
RTS Engine in Development
http://www.knology.net/~heaven
Jesus is LORD!

[edited by - Heaven on November 29, 2002 6:25:19 AM]

[edited by - Heaven on November 29, 2002 6:26:24 AM]

I''ve been away from the thread for like... uhm... 1 day? And already there is too much for me to read through

Anyway: My game (Akarra) hasn''t got many players yet, but I''ve got one grief player. The problem I have here is that he doesn''t enjoy the game (because there is no PvP), so his whole goal of playing it is to get banned. That means vulturing and insulting etc... As I stated in an earlier post I will add a global mute command, which will make it harder for him, but he will still invent new ways of cause ruckus. The second option, to ban him, is both against my ideology AND "letting him win"...

Tricky situation!



My Stuff : [ Whispers in Akarra (online rpg) || L33T WAR (multiplayer game) || The Asteroid Menace (another game) ]

I actually agree with many of the points in the whole "non-system" concept. Ideally, in such a system the community really would police itself. Unfortunately it may not always work that way. If you give everyone free reign to do as they please, I''m concerned that the experience would be spoiled for the fair players long before anything could happen to the gamebanes.

Ideally in such a game some kind of system of law and enforcement would be arranged by the players. But if you advertise a "free reign" type game, griefers are going to be drawn to it like rain to a freshly washed car. It could end up being overrun by griefers long before legit players could group together enough to do anything about it.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

Comments? Questions? Curious?
brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."

quote:

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I actually agree with many of the points in the whole "non-system" concept. Ideally, in such a system the community really would police itself. Unfortunately it may not always work that way. If you give everyone free reign to do as they please, I''m concerned that the experience would be spoiled for the fair players long before anything could happen to the gamebanes.

Ideally in such a game some kind of system of law and enforcement would be arranged by the players. But if you advertise a "free reign" type game, griefers are going to be drawn to it like rain to a freshly washed car. It could end up being overrun by griefers long before legit players could group together enough to do anything about it.

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Actually in a "free reign" game...what would constitute a "fair player"? Or a "grief player" for that matter? And once you start applying such labels to players, how could the game be considered "free reign"?

I have been battleing with these questions in a concept for a sci-fi MMORPG I am kicking around. This is how I dealt with it:

First, PK''ing is allowed from the start. When a player is killed, other players may loot his cargo hold but not any of the equipment or items he is currently using.

In established star systems if a PC PKs a player who is liked in that system (or neutral) they will take a major faction hit in that system (similar to the hit you would take if you killed someone in the mall). This only applies to the person who fires first. Pker''s will eventually find the "civilized" areas of the game so hostile that they will be forced to the periphery and become another hazard for more experianced players to deal with, a sort of PC pirate. They can even form predatory guilds. The trick is in haveing a realistic and intimidating counter balance to them in the systems (and allied systems)in which they have commited crimes.

As for the spamming issue, just add an ignore feature. If you wanted to be savvy about it, have the server take note of players who are added to many ignore lists (say more than 20). Then have your admins keep an eye on that person to see if they are violating any of the policies you set.