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On Building And Policing MMO Societies
Thanks to GameSpy for their feature on the history and continued shaping of MMO communities. The article discusses lessons learned from Ultima Online's "growing pains" over conflict resolution ("There was a group known as the Dread Lords who went around attacking other players, decimating the population of entire towns and forcing the developers to change the rules for PvP, which ultimately minimized its role in the game"), and points out that "...subverting developer intentions is a significant part of an MMO, whether for good or ill", referencing The Sims Online Mafia as an example. When should 'authorities' step in, if ever, in massively multiplayer games?
Simple: whenever not doing so prevents the game from being played as intended
Yeah, that's about as fun as "In Soviet Russia, the game plays you!" is funny.
I would be interested in a method that either did away with or greatly reduced the role of experience points. Make the characters more mortal, and if the other players feel the need to handle the situation, they can. No single player could become omnipotent and little to no intervention from an outside party (game admin, etc) would be necessary.
With this solution, players would feel more in control of their destiny. They wouldn't have to cry to an admin to settle problems for them, as they would be able to handle things themselves. The focus of the game would then be the use of ingenuity and problem solving skills, rather than the usual contest to see who can play the longest and level up the most. Focus on the players and the adventures that they have created themselves, not their stats and predetermined storylines.
A player shouldn't be limited to what a game developer intended. I've played many games where I've had more fun inventing my own sub-game or objective than the one that a developer made for me.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
This was mentioned in one of the linked to articles, but I think it's a very valid example of how to deal with misdemeanor in a virtual world.
.hack that is a story about characters playing in a virtual world called... "The World". In this world, there are player killers, which really are able to do whatever they want- but there are also fellow game players which take on the role of the "authority" (Crimson Knights), so it becomes a self-balancing fight between good and evil.
There is an anime called
Obviously this is just a show (about a game), but the concept is still a good one.
You're just mad because the voices in your head talk to me.
I think that the way they were going to make dawn (yes i know it's fake) would work pretty good. Perma death no level/skill restrictions and no GM's to go complaining to. Sure at first everyone would be dieing, but eventualy some guild or mabe just a group would start acting like the police and BOOM everything is fine.
..in the real world who wants to pay to pretend to be a cop all day?
One of the problems with trying to develop a good society in a game is that any good society depends a large amount on a lot of people doing work. Except people generally don't pay money to do work, people pay money for entertainment.
Aside from this, there's also the issues that being a griefer (as opposed to a simple player-killer) often has a much lower penalty in the virtual world than it does in the real world.
Say you've killed the griefer in the virtual world. What does he care? His only purpose was to get on there and get attention and piss people off. By having a force dedicated specifcally to getting him, his existance has been validated, and he'll likely just come back and do it again. After all, in the virtual world, if the cops hunt you down, you have an exciting battle, and if you lose, you lose a few stats or something, oh well.
In the real world, if the cops hunt you down, the battle probably isn't very exciting as cops generally come in with a superior force of numbers and weaponry, so that you submit rather than permanently die, and then the consequences likely involve you being placed in uncomfortable positions by large men who'll happily cause you severe injury. Not fun.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Elaborating on what I said elsewhere.
What do you do in real life when the average person is unable to legally stop criminals from performing crimes? Elevate some people to above-average status, with legal enforcement powers granted, and let them deal with the problem.
The ability to throw an avatar into a featureless 'jail' room for an amount of login time (not a week of real time; the avatar must be logged in and active for the amount of time of the sentance; 24 hours means being logged in sitting in 10x10 grey room for 24 hours, not logging in a day later) would certainly stop the 'joyriders' or casual greifers.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I was and continue to enjoy PvP in MMORPG's however after UO made changes to make it almost impossible to PVP I droped the game.
Why? Well for me when I pvped it wasnt ooo I have the most spells. Or wow I can hit harder then you. Nope for me it was all tactics. I trained an anusual skill set and had some intresting ways to fight people. I was a Grand master hider/magician which allowed me to do some very intresting things.
One way I would pvp people is throw a bomb into a group of 5-6 people and open up a portal to my favrote dungen with a wyrm and 2 dragons by the gate. Walk through it the other people will follow, I hit hide and let the dragons do the work for me.
Also I was known for my unique use of spells. casting paralize and invisable on beasts and monsters. Nothing is worse then walking into a dungen and finding a demon just appear out of no where right next to you. Also I enjoyed doing a monty python motif by polymorphing myself into a creature and walking around aimlessly untill someone attacked me. Kinda scary when a bunny cast summon deamon and attacks you.
However for me I never pvped usually unless the odds were greater then 3 vs 1 against me, since I knew I could not beat them with brute strenght alone.
Never could figure out why my girl liked my bitch tits, then I found out she was a lesbian.
They're too much like High School.
Why play a game where gangs of bullies roam around looking for weaker people to prey on? Why play a game where another group of people pick on you just to annoy you and ruin the game? Why deliberately subject yourself to hassles and aggravation and abuse, cliques and popularity contests and all that rot? More to the point, why PAY to re-experience high school?
Multiplayer sounds great in principle, but until the game companies change the setup so that griefing and PK-ing are no longer an issue, they're not going to get any of MY money. And, don't give me any bullshit about "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen" because I'll just say, "fine, we'll all stay out of the kitchen then". Let's see if the game companies can survive with only PK-ers and griefers logging in. I suspect that isn't NEARLY enough of a target audience to keep the game companies afloat.
Bottom line: MMORPGs can only survive if some kind of protection for players is instituted, with rigid enforcement of anti-harassment and anti-PK rules. Further, you should be able to "ignore" another player at will, so that he simply disappears from your world for good (he can't see you, you can't see him). Barring this, I really don't think the genre is going to go anywhere.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!