Hi guys

I was playing a lot of Castle-Crashers Co-op lately and I thought about why I like it. They didn't put in many teamwork moments like Gears of War has, the ones where you have to both abuse your A button. There was actually, very little in terms of Co-Op mechanics.

But it does promote asocial behaviour to some extend, it is encouraged to steal coins or the PVP "fight for the princess' kiss" after each time you rescued a princess.

Comparing it to Gears of War or Left 4 Dead, you can also screw somebody over, but not without getting the feeling that you are playing against the rules of the game.

By introducing a bit of Anarchy, making "bad" behaviour acceptable to some extent may be more fun than not, you really have to trust your fellow gamers, there is no invisible game master holding them back, or magic bullets that do not hurt you. Maybe it ultimately serves to make Co-Op more interesting, more diverse.

This works very well in the cartoonish sarcastic world Castle Crashers is set in, maybe it also works in more serious settings, what do you think about it? Do you have ideas how to encourage some bad choices?

i think a player realy feels cheated if he/she gets backstabbed without expecting it, aka in a normal PvP-game most players will take their defeat with grace, knowing it is a PvP-game(or zone) they're in.
thinking you're playing farmville and finding out it actually is not is what ticks players off most.

while creating such a game you describe you should ask yourself these questions (among others):

do the honest/fair player and the backstabber/bandit both have the same chance on success ?
if someone gets screwed over somehow, did he see it coming, had he/she ways to counter it.
If the other questions are answered with some kind of revenge/bounty-system, will it not screw over the lawless players too much?
and, always, no matter what kind of game you're creating: can it be abused?