Some people, well one person, I agree with when it comes to MMOs

and from which I am drawing some degree (although in many cases minor tweaks on my existing thoughts) of inspiration from when designing certain features….such as PvP and the its consequences. While Erth Online will never be a true MMO; eh, I’ll be happy if I ever get the total number of active users (e.g. actually playing every few days) a single MMO server has ONLINE at one time. But I think many of the lessons are valid for any type of RPG PBBG.

I probably should toss in as a disclaimer that everything in this blog is what I’d like to have in Erth. However, that does not mean it will actually be implemented. This blog is a combination of public brain storming and simply saying ‘this exists’ more than anything else.

 http://www.nerfbat.com/2007/07/16/mmo-rant-8-omg-this-rat-is-so-much-teh-uber/

Little animals killing people is just wrong. Combat-related encounters in Erth WILL NOT involve little animals trying to kill you. There may be a giant vampire bunny with eye-beams of doom. But there will NEVER be a sheep or an ant or anything that does not amuse me.

http://www.nerfbat.com/2007/04/16/mmo-development-lesson-12/

Another thing that I agree with. Heck, I’m planning to go so far as to allow a player to be grouped with just his own characters so he can have a healer, tank, caster, etc. without having to find someone else to play with. Nothing is more annoying than having to group with some random idiot who cannot play his role well enough for you to have fun.

 http://www.nerfbat.com/2006/10/20/mmo-rant-2-wysiwygnt-loot/

Erth isn’t really going to have anything to really to ’see’ in terms of different equipment, etc. Every orc will probably look the same. Ya I know it sucks, but I’ll be glad if I get all the minimal art assets in the design. However, the point about having equipment drop that make sense is something that probably will go into Erth’s loot drops. (e.g. if your fighting a warrior orc he is going to be dropping weapon/shield/food/wallet and not spell scrolls/magic wands/etc).

http://www.nerfbat.com/2007/08/09/consequence-free-pvp-sucks/

I agree completely that consequence free PvP rapidly gets pointless and that UO’s original ’safeguard’ (stat loss) just encouraged people to Noto-PK people (e.g. going ‘grey/criminal flagged’ then getting attacked allowing them to kill their attacker, usually a newb, with impunity). I remember going to the Bone Knight Wall in Deceit on my first horse, dismounting, and having a Noto-PK kill it. I try to ’stop’ him and end up losing the first magic weapon I ever got. Boo.

Erth’s Anti-PK mechanisms are both more and less annoying than what UO had:
1) Orb of Guardianship, The – Insta-kills any criminal (or a relative, in other words a character on the same account) within a nation’s territory. PKs/Thieves/etc. get no warning whatsoever and it will block off an entire kingdom (and usually a pretty powerful one since any ‘evil’ nation would want to eliminate said nation and take the Orb out of play until they in turn are beaten). So….no using alts to circumvent the Orb. This will give newbies a realm safe from non-consensual PvP of ANY kind.

2) City Guards – Depending on the nation these NPCs will act as an Orb of Guardianship in an urban area (although unlike the Orb these guys can be killed if the City isn’t employing full strength guards.).

3) The National Military – What does an army do when there is no one to fight? Sit around and train? Well ya….but they also can be used to patrol for brigands, murderers, etc. Unlike City Guards a small group of brigands cannot fight a few hundred soldiers and win. Not 100% successful but odds are it will not be profitable to PK people in a ‘good’ nation with their military patrolling the realm. However, large raiding parties (dozen or so players) can dilute the strength of the military patrols to the point where you could beat one. Of course, this exception is intended to allow players to raid inter-city/nation caravans and not rampant PKing. Especially since ‘personal equipment’ (I’m thinking that a persons personal equipment can be replaced within half a dozen monster encounters) will be relatively cheap and not worth the effort to steal more.

4) No Newbie Characters (unless you want to be one). Every player will have the option of using fully trained characters (I’m implementing an AFK training system so people can ‘max out’ their characters individual skills in about 24 hours of AFK time.). This will keep the casual players from having to fight an unstoppable opponent.

5) Perma-Death. Unlike non-criminals, which have a virtual certainty to be left alone by NPCs (except being robbed), criminals will die EVERY TIME they hit 0 (insert HP equivalent here). So even if the PKers ‘win’ a fight they may lose 1 or more of their characters. With the 24hr ‘down time’ if you run of out characters to fight with combined with the large numbers of ways a PKer can die that a normal person can’t…attrition will make non-consensual PvP impractical in terms of a risk/reward scenario.

6) The fact that a leader of a nation can say ‘This person is evil, anyone who kills them  (or their alts) gets more gold than you could earn in a week of farming gold’. In other words, as long as some ‘good’ nations exist with decent populations, any leader can make it more cost effective to PK your fellow PKs than to go PK some poor guy in the Erth equivalent of the Minoc Mines.

7) The fact that those who really want to engage in non-consensual PvP can participate in the nation-level conflicts. No one can say ‘Well I don’t really want to have a war with you’ when your playing the leader of a nation. And there will be ways for PCs to participate (even if I’m leaning towards a mainly NPC-centric combat for major battles).

~ by kennethgodwin on 9 August 2007.