First Off: My Skills I've been programming games for around the neighborhood of one to two years, I'm usually more interested in OpenGL than anything else. As far as game design goes, I've been looking into that for around two to three years, I always had ideas and never could put them into motion, so I learned programming. My Overall Goal Currently I've been experimenting with several ideas, I don't have a game yet, nor do I know if I will have a sound idea. But playing games and programming other games I try to get the "big picture", what a player wants, what he desires, what really makes _fun_. Throughout my soul searching I've come across the idea of PVP. General PVP, there might be negative experience for either the dead or the player, there might be an inventory loss, thievery, anything along those lines. The Bottom Line Now what I've come to terms with recently, is that no player will ever live up to your optimal statistics, you can only tell them a certain method of building your stats, a certain method of using those stats, but that doesn't mean whatsoever that they will follow them. Realizing this fact I've come to the idea that PVP has one downfall, and that's this realization: Every player sucks at playing games. Currently I don't care if it's my fault as a game designer, or their fault, but it doesn't matter in terms of my question. I might be able to build an extremely good experience, stat, and equipment base, but there will always be errors in my judgement and their judgement. Sacrifices For The Better I've also realized that there is a sacrifice between many things in games. If a player isn't building his stats right, it's good to allow a certain threshold for that error because every player makes mistakes. If a player uses a wrong skill, you shouldn't just have the enemy kill him on sight, allow room for error. Putting It All Together I've recently been trying to link these two concepts outside of the normal means (negative experience, inventory loss, thievery, etc). I've been thinking of a world where PvP is allowed everywhere, on the streets, on the grass, in buildings, whatever it might be. Now, in order to "counter" the options the player has with this that he can exploit (i.e a level 75 player killing a level one, now that just isn't right) I've been thinking of incorporating a sort of...wanted system. There will be guards of a certain level (or non-existant level if I want to make them appear to be god-like as to make new players realize that if they do PvP they might not get killed / fined). These guards will automatically injure / kill / fine a player if he does injure / kill someone. There will also be wanted bullitens in game so that other players can know _who_ exactly is killing everyone in the game, there will be a dot on a map for every wanted person around the world on this board as well). This map may or may not fit into my final design, I'm not sure how much I want the player to know just yet, I might just put a "Town recently seen in: Name of Town" on the wanted list to make the player feel a bit more fear / excitement / intrigue. A Bit of Anger for Pleasure Now with this PvP system, since I'm practically encouraging PvP as a fun thing to do if you don't mind a death / fines, I won't have players gain negative experience or inventory loss if they die as the result of a players attack. There will be aggrevation on the part of the dead because they are automatically teleported to their last home-point, very annoying for them but it's a sacrifice to be made. This sacrifice is balanced out by the PvP player having the satisfaction of sending someone back to their home-point / getting rid of someone in their way, or just plain killing someone. Final Note What are your ideas? Thoughts? Intrigue? I would very much appreciate your feedback, it seems I have a long way to go in this concept and I would like to get any and all of your input that I can. [Edited by - Mezmirous on April 21, 2005 11:50:37 PM]

It sounds like you've reduced a game feature to straight-up bullying. If all you gain is the satisfaction of beating another player, and what you risk is inconvenience if you lose or game-imposed penalties if you win, then it isn't a feature. It's a pain in the butt. If you want to encourage players to do PvP, then it should either offer some real benefits or should not be a problem.

You could implement a "glove slap" feature, where two players can agree to "take it outside" and have a PvP match. You could have prize fights, where the winner stands to gain cash/items and other players can wager on the outcome. You could offer a prize/penalty system based on relative levels: If you're more than ten levels stronger than the other guy, you have to beat him without getting hit. If he touches you, you "lose" whatever fame/money was at stake.

Just letting players feel good about making other people suffer is a little bit sociopathic. Attach some content to the PvP, and it'll be a welcome addition.

My real idea with this is that if a player does want to PvP, he'll be chased by guards and really be made a "rebel" of sorts. It's not that they'll get satisfaction if they send a user back to his home point, but it might be an added thing, either for defensive purposes or not.

Say you're in a world with a group of lawful bounty hunters, and they all fail in comparison to one unlawful bounty hunter. Alot of people would want to be this bounty hunter, he's a rebel, he's cool, he's dangerous. That sort of thing.

I like the idea of prize fights though. I suppose I could support 1x1 or multiple opponent prize fights too for gold or items. Maybe I'll also have someone be able to put a price on someone's head, lawful or not. If it's unlawful then maybe I can put some other twist into it.

Quote:

Original post by Iron Chef Carnage Just letting players feel good about making other people suffer is a little bit sociopathic.

And is, though many seem not to want to admit it, a huge draw for many players. Just like the violence and the sex aspects draw people, so does the opportunity to partake in normally socially unaceptable behavior. Look at the PvP in Diablo 2. It was downright Darwinian. Look at the hardcore PK in Diablo 2, that was even more over the top than the softcore. Hardcore PK in Diablo 2 was designed around allowing people to kill you, permanently, along with possibly months of work, blood, sweat and tears. In D2 softcore, people would torment you, in hardcore PK they would crush you. And it was actually very popular among a sub-set of the community. Further, among those who didn't PK, there was a wide-spread, if not universally shared opinion, that the constant threat from other players added to the suspense. The only issue became when certain hacks made it too dangerous.

Now, that is not to say that being mean and nasty was the point of everyone playing PvP, not at all. Rather, it was always there in the public games (if not the private), waiting to erupt. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't. But in either event, it added to the game in its own unique way.

In a certain MUD, PvP is set up so that there were two sides to the war: the good races (the typical elves, men, dwarves) and the dark races (orcs, trolls). Player killing on the same side is strongly discouraged, and roleplay consequences support this; If a player of the good race decides to kill an ally, his alignment will drop (evil alignment restricts many things), and if he did so in or near a town (with witnesses, of course) he will lose his citizenship and possibly be caught dead or alive.

This leads to a team dynamic much larger than that of a single session- dark race players help each other out even if they are strangers because they are fighting for the same cause.

This is a very interesting method that seems to work for that MUD.

Sorry, I only had time to skim the above posts.