[MUD-Dev] PVP and perma-death

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

HRose <hrose at tiscali.it> writes:

> design. Just to go back a second to Ola's idea: it doesn't work
> because *that* form of grief has in its meaning the fact that the
> players behave *outside* the rules. Ola just suggested to apply a
> stat loss or perma-death to those players and it's obvious that
> this won't work because a griefer acts outside the gameplay, not
> inside it. So it doesn't matter if you create specific rules for
> them because they'll learn how to dodge them.

To be honest I have hardly ever seen a griefer, just what other
people label as "griefing". So I have to disagree with the
assumption that "griefers" per se act outside the game play, they
just act outside my preferred playing style or are a bit
single-minded about what is valid game play. And tend to be overly
OOC. Which is a different thing. Not offenses I would ban anyone
for.

> He tried to suggest a rule that makes pointless to grief (because
> the penalty is too high). And he still supposes that those players
> will follow strictly what he cooked for them. But, as I said,
> firstly you create the game, then the players and griefers choose
> their path. Their behaviour will change if you change the
> gameplay. They'll choose different paths.

So your suggestion is to keep doing what MMOs already do: wreck the
PvP potential because 3% of your players "don't get it". I don't
suppose that gankers will strictly follow anything. If they love
ganking they are very likely to PK if you let them do it and let
them believe that they can get away with it, yes. Remember, they
only die if they misjudge the opponents. They might play up several
chars to get their enjoyment, but at least that will delay them
somewhat and hopefully some of them will find that tedious and
rather go play Meridian59... That is the basic idea. It also makes
anti-PKing more meaningful. In general communities give up killing
gankers after a while because they lack the means to execute their
verdict. With perma-death they get the means to get justice, for a
few days at least.

> mechanic you use in the game. And at the end the players will
> choose if the game is fun or not and if to play it or not. I still
> need to see a single proof about how the perma-death can add to
> the fun.

As I've pointed out:

  1. The possibility of actions with consequences affects how you
  perceive the world. I don't know DAoC very well, but it doesn't
  sound all that different from arenas. Which tend to taste more
  like duelling/sports than drama... (You know what is coming.)

  2. You need to balance the gameplay, lots of success with little
  effort should lead to high risk. Especially if success has a
  negative impact on others, the game mechanics have to make sure
  there is a sense of justice and fairness.

Other reasons:

  3. Unexpected Drama is exciting. IF it doesn't happen so often
  that you always expect the possibility of it happening... Who says
  MUDs should be fun anyway? MMO game play is not really fun, is it?
  And not too exciting either. With the possibility of PvP you can
  at least make these systems more engaging...

  4. PvP has a place in hard core roleplaying. RvR completely misses
  that target.

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