[quote name='glhf' timestamp='1353680100' post='5003502']I think in summary so far we can say that it's not possible to have popular game if it's full loot and open open pvp.

At the time it was mentioned on the first page, DayZ (full loot, PvE, completely unrestricted PvP, permadeath) had 800K players in alpha. Now it's up to 1.3M players in alpha. At $30 to play, that's about $40M worth of popularity
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I think the distinction people are missing is comparing other kinds of MMOs to MMORPGs. DayZ is actually more of an MMO than most post WoW "MMORPG" games, but its far LESS of an RPG. In fact its not really at all.

No one in DayZ EXPECTS to live for ever, IE make it to level 80 in an MMORPG. And from my understanding there really isn't a leveling experience. I didn't really look into it too deeply.

There is really nothing a week or month old player in DayZ can't do that a 5 year player can do.

Losing everything is much more significant in an RPG game, even if its only gear and not 10% experience drops and what not.

I think the distinction people are missing is comparing other kinds of MMOs to MMORPGs. DayZ is actually more of an MMO than most post WoW "MMORPG" games, but its far LESS of an RPG. In fact its not really at all.

RPGs are games where you act out the role of a fictional character. Character based naratives often involve "character progression", where the character changes throughout the story. In many RPGs, this is implemented by an XP or "levelling" system. So, XP is a common trope in the RPG genre, but it in no way defines it. What defines it is role play.

For example, Realm of the Mad God is a perma-death MMO with experience/levelling/inventories, but there's no real role playing. Your character makes progress, yes, but the core mechanic is a "bullet hell" game. At no point do you have to act our the role of a character.
DayZ's core mechanic is a survival horror FPS, with character progression via an inventory. However, whenever you encounter another survivor, the game is all about role play. Unlike most FPS games that just let your control your body/arms, it also lets you independently turn your head from your arms, and talk from your character's mouth, which allows for a great deal of acting. Some people choose to role-play as bandits who rob others for essentials before letting them go with their basic gear, others role-play crazed axe murderers, others role-play heroic medics responding to calls for help, others role-play the selfish loner who shoots his new friend in the back for a can of beans, others role-play kidnappers...
Searching for DayZ stories threads brings up so many interesting characters, plots and quests, for a game that's supposedly not about role playing ;)

There is really nothing a week or month old player in DayZ can't do that a 5 year player can do.[/quote]Yes, so basically you can hit the "level cap" in about 12 hours instead of 12 months. That's a somewhat sensible design choice when you're making a perma-death game where the average life expectancy is 1 hour. If it took 12 months to reach the 'level cap' it probably wouldn't be very popular.

DayZ still provides an example of how it's done right. Just make a level system where you get xp for scavenging instead of normal means, and make it so that leveling has as much as an effect as getting better equipment currently does, and several more tweaks, and it'll satisfy the requirement.

However, that doesn't change the fact that an rpg is not defined by its roleplay.

How brilliant of you. You noticed that the acronym was originally for role-playing game, and then you took role-playing for its literal meaning, and thought that despite the fact that everyone else meant something else when they used the term rpg, that an rpg was all about a mechanic vague enough to define pretty much every game out there.

We all know that when the poster referred to an mmorpg, he wasn't talking about the roleplay. You're just trying to "correct" him. Please, lurk moar. We've already been over this.

Sinze we have come to conclusion of that it's not possible.

We could venture further into the subject of what kind of pvp system or how to design it so it's "the second best" of open pvp with player looting.
that you could predict to become a popuplar AA mmorpg with sheep and wolf

It is very possible, you just can't design your game for the predators and scavengers.

You need to design it for the "prey", they need to see open PvPer and loot loss as a benefit to themselves. Truly controlling territory, increasing the importance of crafting, changing how politics work, and similar. Funnily enough your "prey" gladly ends up more hardcore than predators and scavengers since they're perfectly happy removing banking and safe storage mechanics, living in MMO worlds where they can be attacked while offline, and losing a pretty high level of investment in facilities/equipment rather than just gear.

It might work in a Mad Maxx style world, or zombie scenario because everything is in ruin, and it's all finders keepers.

But the concept is flawed for several reasons.

First off---

The so called victims are supposed to be scavenging stuff. Well, that's an investment. People in general make low risk investments that are likely to pay off in the future. Saving up and buying a house is a safe investment because even though anyone can kick down your door and burn it to the ground, we have checks and balances to stop that from happening. The odds of losing your investment here are low, and even then, you have insurance. Any investment that has a high risk of not paying off down the road, or is likely to just disappear, is a bad investment, and a waste of time, energy, and resources.

Second---

There is no reason for the behavior of the PVP player, online or off. It's behavior that is incompatible with the concept of of any life form. The goal of any life form is to survive, adapt, and reproduce. Any time something stands in the way of that goal, the life form will band together and eliminate it. Doesn't matter if you are a person,an ant, a polar bear, or a virus. The second a member of any community goes into business for itself and takes any action that is contrary to it's survival or reproductive abilities, it's over for them. The only exception is when there is some kind of artificial barrier that stops nature from taking it's course.

This is anti-social, defective behavior, and the consequences are permanent.

So you'd have a situation trying to simulate people taking on high risk, no payoff investments for the amusement of people who enjoy consequence free incorrect behavior. It doesn't add up, so it doesn't catch on.

If you've played any online empire building game you'll see that generally it doesn't turn into a mad max world. You'll see pacts and factions form, sometimes chivalry, and all sorts of social goodies. Mostly from just two reasons a high level of investment AND players are always online even when not logged in. If you can get these two reasons in something a bit closer to a traditional MMO it opens up a lot of lee way in the PvP environment.

Permadeath is interesting. [...] another character that is lawful, can just play his other character

That, and more seriously, griefers will attempt to trick people into being flagged as aggressors so they lose their character, permanently.

Also, imagine someone having access to someone else's character. This might happen when people share accounts, which is against the ToS in almost every game but still happens more or less regularly. If your character is muted or banned from gameplay for a day ban because your roommate called someone names or kept spawn-killing newbies, that's one thing. If he loses your best armour, that's another. If your character is permanently dead because your friend tried to gank a digger and was unlucky enough to have a bypasser defend the other person, it's yet another story. That's the fabric drama is made of, both on the forum and in real life.

Also, what happens in the light of character hijacking due to guessable passwords, social engineering, or just normal human stupidity? This, too, happens more often than one would believe. Now, if someone steals all your gold and your Sword of flea killing +8 on your level 150 character and customer support tells you "sorry, we cannot replace lost items", then that's a high price to learn choosing a better password next time. If you get a temporary ban because your character was used in another scam, that's also something you'll probably learn from.
However, if your characer is gone forever because your guy was killed in a PvP fight when you didn't control him, and it's just the way the game mechanics work, then it will be a real challenge encouraging you to pay you money for that game again, ever.

I can appreciate a high-risk game environment, that's what most FPS multiplayer is based on anyways. I think Hodgman put it best when analyzing DayZ: the level cap doesn't represent a huge investment by the player, so having accomplished something in gameplay only to lose the avatar of that accomplishment doesn't come with quite the sting of losing the embodiment of 6 months of your life.

The takeaway from this whole discussion should include: permadeath/open pvp/free looting CAN work, but it needs specific environmental and gameplay factors to foster a continuous playerbase.

Your standard MMORPG fare (at least, before the F2P boom) rewarded people for longevity of playtime, because the developers made more money the longer you paid for your account. That meant a lot of the trophies and sought-after "wins" were cleverly disguised time sinks. Ridiculously low drop-rate items, 250-step recipes and raid ladders, etc. No one (without the guarantee of victory) would take that much of an investment into a battle with the potential of losing it, or wear it around if a poorly timed connection lag coincided with a bandit raid on their house. So for most MMORPGs, full-on pvp just doesn't fit.

Designing specifically for the potential of unrestricted hostility means lowering or recalibrating the investment level. In DayZ you can revel in a long-lived character that's been around for *gasp* an entire day! Another thought is to have short-lived persistence: the game world resets every month, bringing everyone back to 0, and perhaps your accomplishments in the last life net you some manner of (non compounding) bonuses but nothing overpowering.

I think the resistance by most "carebear" players (a group I'd easily fall in 9 games out of 10) stems from the thought of unchecked infliction of loss on their achievements. People do primarily play games for the escapist element: challenges and heroics in a system you can learn and eventually master without losing anything but time, with no repercussions in reality. Getting mopped up in an FPS deathmatch is a loss of up to an hour or so. Getting your 3-year strong-bond MMO hero wiped out because someone found you while you were mining or up getting a sandwich: that potential just adds stress to a recreational activity.

Those are some loosely connected thoughts, I'll just stop here.

This, so much this.

It is very possible, you just can't design your game for the predators and scavengers.

You need to design it for the "prey"

Another thing that I find missing is that it should be much easier to run away from an encounter than it is to kill someone. If you are out in the world, you should have a reasonable expectation of making it back. This means that even if you are only moderately skilled and are jumped by PvPGodIncarnate, that you have a good chance to get away intact with nothing but a bruised ego.

The "sheep" must feel like they have tools to deal with and escape non-consensual PvP situations reliably. The Wolves should be the ones working their ass off for the kill.