[MUD-Dev] PvP Systems

[John Buehler]

Federico Di Gregorio writes:

> but i personally like better a game were, if you die, you have to
> create another character. were people *think* of the consecuences
> before acting.  in that kind of game you should have very good
> motivations to kill another player. in this kind of game your rules
> aren't very important.

Death is certainly a touchy topic.  My opinion on it is predicated on
the desire that players should be able to engage in mortally dangerous
actions on a daily basis, but not be killed off.  That is, they should
be able to go off to the front lines and engage in battle day in and
day out without being killed - if they use their head.  Without going
into that farther, when death does take place, I want it to produce a
game ejection for the player.  The player cannot play their character
for some number of days.

Although this sounds brutal (and a bit odd from the business side of
things), it is the only mechanism that I can think of that causes a
uniform consequence for all players, regardless of how they approach
the game.  The purpose of consequences is to ensure that the player
cares about the event.  In this case, death.  The only element common
to all players is the desire to play the game.

The player is able to play other characters, but they were playing
that one character for a reason, and they were pushing the limits for
a reason as well.  That's what got it killed.

This approach is a form of limited permadeath.  Remember that I'm not
talking a couple minutes of being dead.  The time increment for death
is a day.  If your character is truly roleplaying an assassin,
execution may have a death time penalty of weeks.  Being killed by the
cudgel blow of a giant might put you down for several days.  Slowly
bleeding to death would be a single day death.  Resurrections would be
so inordinately rare in my world as to be a non-issue.  Perhaps one or
two resurrections a year.

As a result, all players who engage in dangerous activities would play
multiple characters.  This will limit the impact of this death
mechanism to a degree, but the impact will still be there.  The player
won't be playing a character that they wanted to play.

> i am not saying that one kind of game is inherently better than the
> other. i play a lot of different stuff. i am just saying that not
> every MUD has to gain from what you propose.

I suspect that because of the delicacy of the fabric from which
virtual worlds are woven, that my approach will only work in a fairly
specific world - the one that I have floating around in my head with
all of its various checks and balances to make it work.  I'm working
on 3D terrain problems, artificial intelligence, physical simulation,
server topologies, etc.  These are the technology building blocks for
the world that I would like players to be able to enjoy.  It is my
hope that biometrics or other anonymity-killing technologies will be
available by the time the game is built.  I want to be able to reach
out and touch spoiler players.

>> For what it's worth, roleplaying will be far more common when the
>> NPCs outnumber players 10 to 1 and are far more intelligent and
>> interactive than they are today.  That will establish a framework
>> in which players will be encouraged to act 'in genre'.

> i don't think so. if my sister stefania likes going around and
> player killing, the addition of NPC won't chane anything. she will
> see them just as other targets.

Rampant killing isn't roleplaying in just about any fictional world I
can think of.  It's spoiler play and will result in permanent game
ejection and/or fines.  Roleplaying is performing actions consistent
with the activities of the world.  When your character visits the
docks and there are people handling ships' lines, moving cargo and
conducting business, your character doesn't go down there and start
weaving.  The activity sets an atmosphere to encourage players to act
in certain ways.  The NPCs themselves will insist on certain limits to
behavior.  For example, trying to waltz onto a ship at random will get
you ejected by a crewman or two (or ten).  Such an ejection will not
warm you to the crew and they may very well remember you.  Intelligent
NPCs are essential for the maintenance of a social structure, and
that's why I say that roleplaying will improve as the NPCs improve.
Not so much that players will roleplay to the point of contributing to
the social structure, but to the point where they won't detract from
it.

>> i am not sure i like this one too. if a player is interested in,
>> say > bar fights, it would be very strange for him to be able to
>> kick only > some of the guys involved in the fight.  But if it's a
>> private fight, then you aren't invited and you don't get to kick
>> anybody.  Remember that the whole switches approach is geared

> ok. me and stefania are sitting in a bar. stefania has PvP all yes.
> I have all PvP set to off. then a guy enters, and makes some harsh
> comments to her. she punches him. a friend of the guy start kicking
> her. i want to help in this fight, even if i don't usually like to
> get into PvP fights. but I can't. i need to:

The 'assist' issue is certainly a challenging one, and I constantly
run into it.  I haven't come up with a solution for the scenario yet,
so it's good to be reminded.

The point of the system is to keep PvP actions controlled to what a
given player is interested in.  In truth, your telling the game that
you want PvP off is false.  You want to engage in PvP, but the way I'm
presenting the setting right now, you cannot engage in a certain PvP
encounter.  You want an 'assist' mechanism, and I'm not sure if that's
viable, for fear of constant escalation and undesireable open-ended
PvP activities.

Jon Lambert also made comments about the 'insult' scenario, which Matt
Mihaly agreed with.  Unfortunately, I didn't get Jon's posting, so
I'll just address the topic here.

I completely disregard the 'insult' scenario.  If someone fires a
verbal volley at you, you get to fire a verbal volley back at them.
This is entirely consistent with the PvP approach that I'm after.  If
you want to pound on them and they have their PvP settings set to
'no', then you get to additionally ridicule them for being a gutless
coward.  And you can still invite them to meet you later after they
change their PvP setting to a level that the two of you can agree on.
If they refuse, then you can really laugh at them.

This may not be perfectly satisfying to you, but it keeps PvP
scenarios under control.  EverQuest and Asheron's Call have this
situation on the vast majority of their servers and even with the
limited game entertainment available, player endure whatever insulting
is done.  At least I'm giving you the ability to invite the taunter to
put their money where their mouth is by meeting you later for a
one-on-one PvP encounter - all carefully controlled by the game.

>> I can imagine doing a wipe select over a bunch of characters in a
>> bar fight and asking for permission to join in.  Those with maybe
>> settings will get a little window pop up asking if you can join in
>> at a certain PvP level.  On your end, you'll see some of the people
>> who indicate 'maybe' switch over to 'yes', while some will just
>> ignore your request or say no.  When enough people are set to
>> 'yes', you can dive in.

> that's terrible. i don't join a bar fight because i want some
> movement.  i join because i have a *motivation*. what if some guys
> allow me in and others no? i would be silly to be allowed to kick
> only some people and not their allies only because they didn't give
> me permission to do so.

This is again the assist problem.  If you want to hop into a bar fight
at random, then it should be up to the participants.  Remember, these
games are for everyone's entertainment.  When it comes to other
players, you are subject to what they want as well.  Thus the
settings.

>> Which player decides that it's necessary?  Who is known to be
>> responsible enough to carry the authority?  The only authority
>> figures in the game that are at all really trusted are the
>> gamemasters.  One of the goals of this system is to reduce the load
>> on gamemasters having to make judgement calls and monitor players
>> who are running around killing people.  Antagonistic actions are a
>> popular outlet among players, especially the young ones, and
>> neither gamemasters nor vigilantes provide a good solution to the
>> problem.  Gamemasters should be spending their time designing and
>> providing the game publisher's entertainment content, and no
>> in-game justice system will stop a disgruntled or malicious player.

> yes but.. after having his character justiced or jailed and having
> the player re-create it once or twice the malicious guy will
> leave...  guaranteed. and we're not looking for thousands of
> players, right?  (unless we are a company making money out of a
> mud...)

I'm considering a game with tens of thousands of players in the same
virtual environment.  Thus the reference to hundreds of thousands of
NPCs.  If I only have 100 players and hundreds of thousands of NPCs,
it becomes a single player game.  I'd never encounter any other
players.

JB

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