[MUD-Dev] PVP and perma-death

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

HRose <hrose at tiscali.it> writes:
> Ola wrote:

>> Have PvP, but make the game perma-death only for the top 25% of
>> aggressors. Or if all else fails, for all aggressors. Or make
>> stat loss follow your "aggression-level".

> Perma-death to deal with griefers? Not a good idea.

Why not? What problems does it cause?

> You seem to design something tailored for a specific behaviour you
> observe in a game. Like players griefing in PvP. As if observing
> "boxed" players. But the truth is that the box didn't exist before
> the game itself. Their attidude is simply their reaction to the
> design itself.

Really? There is nothing "simple" about it, because if it was then
all players would exhibit the same behaviour...

If you allow PvP then it is enevitable that a small, but somewhat
annoying, subset of the population will treat it like another Quake:
the so-called random-player-killers (RPKs). The key measurable
characteristic of a RPK is that he kills lots of player-characters,
and certainly, he is seldom killed himself. So the proposal is just
another way to get better balance. When the RPK is defeated, why
should he be allowed to continue?

> What I mean is that the design defines the behaviour and it's
> silly to design after a behaviour. The behaviour is consequent to
> the design, not causing the design. My rule is that if griefing
> happens in a game it means that the design of that game is bad. As
> simple as that. This is why a well designed game simply doesn't
> have to deal with griefers and doesn't need to create specific
> rules for them.

Really? I'd rather have systems which allow a variety of play styles
and let the player tailor the in game situation to his preferred
playstyle. And if it doesn't then I think the designers better find
out what playstyles they don't accomodate and change their
design. Unforunately, it is all too common to force Roleplayers into
treadmills... Yes, some reduce their RP effort, and others leave. To
me... that suggests that the designers have fucked up, not only for
the RPers, but for everybody as RPers provide new content.

> In particular about the PvP I think the aim is to design it to be
> fun. Pushing actively the players toward it and not away from it.

Getting your face rubbed into the sand by your enemy is seldom, if
ever, fun. PvP is engaging, but the fun sits with the winner. If
your game is a world... I am in favour of PvP with fatal outcomes,
but not because it is fun. I want it to exist, but seldom used. Its
existance affects how you perceive the world. Not the game, but the
world.

If you want a world with some experiential depth to it, then you
really need to limit massive player killing... If you don't then you
either have no players or you don't have a world, just a game.

> About the perma-death I simply think that is possible only if the
> entire game is designed after it. No way to apply it on top of
> another game/structure.

I think it is somewhat limiting to assume that perma-death cannot be
integrated in a complex world, because that would, I think, be the
net result of your assumption here. From a game mechanics
perspective perma-death is just level loss, a severe case of level
loss... ;)

--
Ola - http://folk.uio.no/olag/
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