There are many reasons that I prefer non-MM in my ORPGs. I think the NWN "multiple player-owned persistent worlds" model is perfect for me. Griefing is one thing that is helped immensely by having smaller, player-owned, free servers. There is a much better moderator to player ratio, and with a smaller community, you actually get to know the other players and feel responsible for your actions. Perhaps most importantly, since you're not paying the moderator, he doesn't have any compelling reason to not ban you immediately when you start acting like a tool.

I think the current MMORPG model is doomed to attract the lowest life forms on the internet, as long as they have access to $15 a month of their parents' money. There is almost no supervision, almost no punishment for getting caught by "authority", easy anonimity, and enough people that it's easy to get lost in the crowd. This is, unfortunately, ever mean-spirited preteen's wet dream; finally he can do all those mean things that the jocks did to him to a bunch of total strangers who will never catch him, and his parents and principal will probably never find out about it either.

It would be nice to say somehow this behavior could be fixed by instilling some common decency into people out in the real world, but that doesn't seem to work well. Instead, I think the only way to curb griefing is to decrease anonimity and increase supervision in the game. That doesn't sit well with many people's desires for online privacy though.

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Original post by makeshiftwings Perhaps most importantly, since you're not paying the moderator, he doesn't have any compelling reason to not ban you immediately when you start acting like a tool.

As the mods aren't paid a percentage of the game profits this isn't actually true. (In the more popular MMORPGs at least.)

I like non-company owned servers though, they have slightly higher standards most of the time.

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It would be nice to say somehow this behavior could be fixed by instilling some common decency into people out in the real world,...

if(morons == TRUE)
{
install_DONTBESTUPID(MORON)
}
[smile]

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Original post by Peter Conn I agree, there is too much griefing in MMORPGs. Also, is griefing the same as scamming, for example would this be griefing: In a game I played on "Runescape" there is an old trick, you could withdraw items from the bank as notes instead of the item, so you can carry more and not as much weight. But these items obviously looked different, and a certain two items looked almost the same, a iron/steel (can't remember) longsword worth roughly 100gd, and a rune longsword worth somewhere between 10,000 - 40,000gd. So you would get many people (generally very low levels) selling iron longswords for 10,000gd. Also Hawkins8 what is your game, and do you have a link, it sounds interesting.

It's a Japanese game, with strong Japanese history background.

I think what the immature players have is the energy and time to build their toons to a powerful char and get recognised by the game mechanics. I mean they feel that they are in a more *superior* status, which the more mature players can do nothing about. Their fun comes from putting others to an inferior status, mostly through irratation.

I start to appreciate a turn-based combat system where reflex is much less important than human tactics and co-ops. In this game, you may solo up your toon but your level almost means nothing regarding to in game achievement.

There are 13-year-olds solo up their toons real quick yet they later on may notice that it's totally not their game at all. So left for WoW instead. lol.

First, in order to solo up, you must be either an assasin or a dual-wielder, both are DDs. Yet if you solo too much, you never know how to fight in a team. Say, boss killing can only be achieved by 1 team of 7 highly co-operative and tactical members, instead of a group of 30 jackasses. More is that, you need to try out your set of skill (game skill not human skill here) combination to be equipped in handling the various situations, while soloing skillset is only one of the many combinations. So dont expect the 13-year-old powergamers can figure out how to swap skills, especially when they never played a tank, and are seldom in a co-op team.

The second factor is, soloers usually remain poor, unless you spend mass of time in resources gathering instead of pure grinding, as weapons/armours are all breakable. The highter your toon level, the less durable will your gear be. Even when you bot to get rich, it doesn't mean that you know how to spend your money. If you always buy the finished goods in the market, you'll surely be bankrupted. You need a plan on how to spend your money carefully. It's rather complicated to explain. Nobrainers will remain poor anyway.

High level toons without boss-killing experience is quite a point to be laughed at. When entering the realm of Kingdom politics and siege, nobrainers or immature players have no place to exist, as Kingdom politics is about diplomacy while siege is a mixture of boss-killing and group pvp. Soloers are welcome, they can play another role, to launch tactical attacks to cover the main team to achieve its goal.

It doesn't mean that this is a forced grouping game. Actually, soloer type players are very welcome, as long as you are mature enough.

As a result, i guess all the 13-year-olds can do is to solo their toon up to 60 and leave for WoW before they are laughed at.



Official site


Fansite

[Edited by - Hawkins8 on February 28, 2006 10:26:35 PM]

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Original post by Servant of the Lord Quote: Original post by makeshiftwings Perhaps most importantly, since you're not paying the moderator, he doesn't have any compelling reason to not ban you immediately when you start acting like a tool. As the mods aren't paid a percentage of the game profits this isn't actually true. (In the more popular MMORPGs at least.)

That's true, but the company generally has rules in place to make sure that the moderators don't get ban-crazy. Usually moderators are told that banning is a last resort for extreme cases.