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Lord British needs your opinion on PvP!

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Sagitariuz

Guest
PvM - should be fun but at the same time risky to a certain extent there should be dungeons that are non-pvp but they can only be entered up till a certain skill/level therefore the griefing isn't being done to noobs but toons that can somewhat protect themselves..

Granted I'm sure the smarter posters will find loopholes and what not but the system could work if tweaked the right way..thank you for reading my book :)
Totally agree. You can change game mechanics in PvP/PvM without balance problems. Like I mentioned in a post before.
 

Vanpry

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
So how do you keep the world as open as possible without making it a gankers paradise. The pessimist in me says it isn't possible. Any system you can create there will be 50 different ways to exploit it within an hour of its release. But I'll toss out some thoughts.

First step is to seperate pvp from pking. I think they are very different, the pvper is looking for the fight where the pker is looking for the kill.

You can handle pvping with warring guilds. You can kill a enemy guild memeber on sight almost anywhere with no penaltity. These people would need additional rewards from pve and crafting for the added risk, like guild coins for special mounts, cosmetic stuff, housing stuff, ect.

Step two is to create a punishment system that makes the life of an murder, outlaw, and those that associate with them difficult. Plus you need to close the millions of loop holes. Below are a couple ideas to pick and choose from.

Becoming a criminal shouldn't be something that comes and goes every couple minutes like UO grey system.

Player houses associated with murders and criminal should not be secure.

Penalize a guild if members become criminal or murders.

I always hated that a red could log in, pick their target, kill, log off, and then log onto their blue character. So make it that a red character never really logs off. If the player logs off the red character would then stay in the world controlled by AI.

Stolen Good System: As soon as an item is taken from a person that items is flagged as stolen goods. Recieving and storing stolen goods in a players house would flag that person and persons associated with that house as a criminal.

When a innocent person is attack there is a chance that person will get a large boost to life, stats, skills, etc

Mercanary System: a crafter could have a merc deed which if they were attacked by a murder/criminal the mercs would spawn to defend him.


PK ticket: If you are killed by a player you recieve pk ticket. This ticket helps you track the person who murdered you. Could be sold to bounty hunters.
Just a couple thoughts.
 
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Bad Karma

Guest
I always hated that a red could log in, pick their target, kill, log off, and then log onto their blue character. So make it that a red character never really logs off. If the player logs off the red character would then stay in the world controlled by AI.
I actually like this idea. However, I would go a lil bit different way. Every time a person commits a criminal act (attacking an innocent player, murder, stealing, whatever) he leaves scents (which cool down with time - the more serious crime is, the longer is the cool time, may take up to weeks depending on a crime and/or its ammout/reputation of a criminal) andthus can be tracked down by player with Detective/tracking skills. If a person who is being tracked is offline then a person finds the place where he previously logged off andis being able to "summon" him in an Ai form and kill. And if you kill a criminal his character is wiped i.e. permadeath. That would definately make everybody think thousand of times before they r sure they can do it.

P.S. This system is succesfully practiced in another f2p open world PvP game.
 
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Neves

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
(Good stuff...then): P.S. This system is succesfully practiced in another f2p open world PvP game.
I think this would be a good mechanic, and I think I have heard of it before. May I ask what is the name of the title?
 
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Bad Karma

Guest
haven and hearth
Gosh I was about to say that I dont want to go offtopic and advertise plus I want everybody focused on URPG cuz it will either turn out failor the best game after UO..but now I will just say...

 

Vanpry

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I actually like this idea. However, I would go a lil bit different way. Every time a person commits a criminal act (attacking an innocent player, murder, stealing, whatever) he leaves scents (which cool down with time - the more serious crime is, the longer is the cool time, may take up to weeks depending on a crime and/or its ammout/reputation of a criminal) andthus can be tracked down by player with Detective/tracking skills. If a person who is being tracked is offline then a person finds the place where he previously logged off andis being able to "summon" him in an Ai form and kill. And if you kill a criminal his character is wiped i.e. permadeath. That would definately make everybody think thousand of times before they r sure they can do it.

P.S. This system is succesfully practiced in another f2p open world PvP game.
Wow that sounds really hardcore but I completely agree, that would be a great criminal deterrent.
 
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Bad Karma

Guest
Wow that sounds really hardcore but I completely agree, that would be a great criminal deterrent.
Naw its not really hardcore..at least for. In fact, I find it pretty casual..even the must to have in Ultimate RPG. If you read my previous long post, my point is that the game should be hardcore but at the same time the gameplay should not be based essentially on PK'ing. And PKing is not really combat. What Im saying is that this (tracking, permadeath system) or any other anti-PK idea would be worthless if the gameplay will be just like in UO i.e. An mani/insta hit/an mani/us jux/heal/ebolt ebol ebolt etc. The gameplay should be based on interaction rather than killing each other for fun.

For fun? yea cuz I dont really mind 487894 mindless griefers running around Britannia and killing everybody on sight. In fact, I have NEVER crafter in UO. I NEVER had a tamer in my entire UO career (and I played since late beta back in 97). I used to roleplay but only as an orc or the undead cuz these RP guilds were mainly focused on killing other players. PvP wa basically the only thing to do in UO. No matter how he gameplay was based around 50+ skills..PvP was essential. And it should not be in URPG BUT it shoul stay hardcore. In other words it should not be primary to run around all wild killing everything that moves in order to have fun. There should be way more ways to busy urself, but you should be aware of dangerous that might occur too.

But after reading all the posts here I realize mot players just want the same gameplay as in early UO (chug chug heal insta hit blah blah "You are dead")...well..why dont yall go play some oldschool-lik freeshard then? There are plenty of those to satisfy ur omg1337ftwpwn needs.

What Im saying is that these punks want the same gameplay..then whats the point in the new game? Just recreate the OSI 97/98 shard lol. Why invest money into a complete new project.

But I must warn you. If PvP gameplay will be the same.yall will get the biggest griefe u have ever seen. Just saying. I will loot everything, even empty bottles and will psot screenies of yall lying on ground on forums and will call it "famous maker"with tons of annoying smilies, sarcasm jokes and memes. Whats worse it will all be legal and with no penalty so u will never get rid of me.

PS.. ok jager's speaking here..
 
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Bad Karma

Guest
PSSS... about orcs. I do not suggest having an entire race to choose in UO, but in UO you can well customizeur character to look as an orc thus there were many famous (some still ballin) orcish RP guilds running.. I wish there will be thuse opportunities in URPG.




British!! What ya say??
 

Coldren

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Obviously, free-for-all PvP in today's market probably wouldn't do well... But that doesn't mean we can't have some fun with it!

My wish would be for PvP to have some semblance to Dark Age of Camelot, in the following fashion:

  • You have factions for each major city.
  • You can volunteer to join that city-state's militia, completely voluntarily.
  • No character made by you can join another militia, but doesn't have to join the one you are restricted to.
  • Those not in a militia can freely roam, from city to city, without fear of reprisal by waring cities.
  • So long as those in a militia stay within their defined city-state's area, they can not be attacked by anyone.
  • However, if you go to another city-state's region, you are freely attackable by apposing militia members, but you are completely free to travel. Just be on your guard!
  • Non-militia members can not heal or attack any militia character when they are flagged as being in PvP combat.
  • Militia members can not attack non-militia characters... Ever.
  • There is once central region (like Frontiers) where all factions are attackable by every other faction in the zone. This zone can have rare resource spawns, or objectives to take and control.
  • Like realm points, you gain militia points or silver for PvP objectives, such as killing a player, healing a player, or taking a PvP contested objective.
  • These points or silver can be used to purchase items that are exclusively available through PvP.. Whether it is just cosmetic, decorations, or some items with PvP applications (but NOT PvE applications). Some of which may even be sold to non-militia members.
  • A dungeon, like Darkness Falls, with rare spawns and resources that is accessible only by the faction controlling the contested zone.
  • Guilds and alliances are able to optionally chose who they war with, creating a similar system as describe above.
Why do it this way?

This makes PvP entirely optional, allows those who don't want to partake to travel the world unhindered, but there are tangible benefits to be found on the other side of war. It gives PvPers multiple adversaries, none of which will be those who don't want to take part in the system. There is incentive for supporting those who DO PvP, even if you don't, becoming a desirable objective to be victorious, and a point of realm pride, which will further bind the community. Those who do PvP can bring back something to sell to those who don't PvP, and don't want to risk being in the frontiers, strengthening the economy.

I just really like the idea of the above system. I hope you have something interesting up your sleeve!
 
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Mack M.

Guest
As an old fan since UO launch I'm counting on that you don't steer away from the skill system which has been unrivaled in ANY other MMO for the past 15 years..

Let's face it: looting each others gear isn't going to cut it anymore... It was a thrilling and realistic concept in the beginning of UO.. where we were all, more or less, equipped with crappy drops/crafts. Today such a mechanic would simply scare away the vast majority of players. The 'good old times' where MMOs were played by university students and nerds are sadly over and we have to realize that on many levels. Ultimate RPG MUST appeal to the masses or it will be dead before launch.

That said..
How about an elaborate Bounty Hunter/PK system?

For example, each character could have a calculated threat rating based on skills/DPS/PvP history etc.
PKing would yield randomly generated drops based on the threat rating of your victim and vice versa, hunting down a PK posted on the local town's Wanted List would also yield drops based on the PKs threat rating.
There could be a specific Bounty Hunter skill multiplying the drop amount/quality from killing PKs, making it a calculated choice to decidedly play a 'bounty hunter' rather than just having any good character and kill PKs.

Such a system should, naturally, be accompagnied by the necessary means to prevent unintended farming.


Imo these things need to be realised, to make a successful game:

1. Must appeal to both hardcore and casual gamers - it must be fun to play both 1 hour and 12 hours a day.

2. Must have the feeling of exploration, creativity and uniqueness - playing something where you feel you are constantly walking along an intended path, quickly becomes boring and frustrating.

3. Must have fun and rewarding: PvE, PvP and crafting.

4. Role playing is never going to happen to the extent it was in UO beginning - Role playing in the future will be 'role-filling', tactical/social roles.. not trying to type in Elizabethan english all while the opponent who doesn't give a **** about RP guns you down.

5. Itemization - 'phat loot' is the MAJOR driving force for most players.. Can't escape it, embrace it.

6. Find the correct balance between PC and tablets/smartphones - Let's take UO as an example.. The possibility of collecting BODs, crafting, 'banksitting', shopping or decorating your house from your phone would be awesome!! ..Ending up with a dumbed down, 4 button point and click version of what could have been a great game, just because it has to be fully playable on portable devices would NOT be awesome..

7. Graphics - personally I'd prefer to see Ultimate RPG in a similar engine and topview as Diablo 3.


I'm excited about your new project!.. 15 years and no other MMO has come even close to UO on SO many areas.. There were always something to do, something to achieve, something new to try. I can't count how many times I have shook my head at a new MMO and thought 'if they only took that and that idea from UO!...'
Keep it up Lord British!
 
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R

Red

Guest
Where to begin..

What if, upon character creation, there were some options.. One could choose 1. PvE, 2. PvP, or 3. Hardcore, in that order. After character creation one could always bump to the next tier(goldsink, quest?), but never backwards.

1. PvE characters can't be PKed but Robbed via game mechanic, incorporating either the stealing skill or being a Murderer, for 10% gold with a cooldown timer. Their gold and loot drops would be 75% "Normal".

2. PvP characters would be your typical character without the ability to murder innocents. Their gold drops would be "Normal" and their loot drops would be 125% "Normal".

3. Hardcore characters can murder but when they die by a players hands, if they have the equivalent of a "Murder count" they permanently die. Their gold drops would be 125% "Normal" and their item drops would be 75% "Normal".

I think this system would be ideal for incorporating all playstyles together in the same world. I disagree with separate servers for separate playstyles.
"It takes all kinds."

The sense of a threat is a very powerful immersion tool that connects a players physical body straight to the game. I believe that this concept evolves in a person over time, something that one has to be desensitized to(thanks UO). Everyone has a different level they can deal with. This is at the root of the split between extremist PvP and PvE arguments. There is no cure-all, every level has to be catered to from the beginning of gameplay out in a manner that seems fair and easy to understand for everyone.

--

There were many intricate interactions that made UO and UO PvP great.

I really enjoyed The Second Age era, with the ideas emerging about the different armor types protecting better or worse against different damage types. Blunt weapons should break armor and dent plate armor, causing a bleed DoT until it gets repaired/removed. Piercing weapons should be weak against plate and strong against chain, and be able to deliver poison more efficiently. Slashing weapons should have a critical hit ability. Fire spells should do more damage against leather/cloth, and electric spells should do more damage against metal. Magical clothing, the very rare variable. Rock Paper Scissors. I think it was taken way too far with the later expansion involving the elemental resistances. I think this idea ties into an idea stated earlier about the character level differences causing imbalanced PvP.

The skill point system with the skill cap is an amazing system to facilitate this idea, and more. IMO Its the only viable alternative to the very unbalanced Level System. The idea of different skill combinations(or templates) being more or less effective was simple yet captivating. The problem though was that this evolved into a "plateau" of the best templates, and nearly every other build was deemed subpar. Somewhere along the way, the magic of roleplaying the characters skill advancements and expertise died for me. Anatomy, Evaluating Intelligence, Lumberjacking, Poisoning, Inscription, all skills used to try and break the template plateau, which was minorly effective.

I find it interesting to look back on how gameplay and PvP evolved as the players learned the massive new game. The learning curve was definite, hard, and unforviging. As someone stated before, it had a wide "arc" that captured a vast array of different peoples' interests, and held each fascination until the next. UO pioneered a deeper sense of desire and accomplishment that grew with your character.

--

I posted my idea expanding Guilds in the housing thread, but I want to talk about the Factions more here.

Clans, Guilds, and Factions

A Clan would be your typical guild but without the need for a house. If the leader doesn't log on in a month the Clan dissolves.

A Guild would be more of a player run town, a community. I go more in depth in the housing thread.

Factions were the next step in competitive PvP, and they were great. I believe that this is where the ideas about damaging/destorying houses and terrain modifications belong. It would enclose the chaotic aspects into a sealed environment. This seems like the next step from faction strongholds, traps, vendors, etc. There was an attempt at involving crafters into the Faction scene, but with little success IMO.

Instead of being handed a static stronghold and given the ability to capture NPC towns, Factions should be build from scratch, involving the whole factions cooperation together. Cooperation should be able to fend off the Elite. The sense of community should hold things together. Ol' Chesapeake Orc Clan is a great example.
 
H

H3atmiser

Guest
I feel that the "savage, cruel world" that Ultima Online supported is vastly misunderstood. Back in the early days, PKs killed innocent players in droves, without much of a penalty might I add. With it, came full loot rights of a corpse, a concept now which makes a lot of newer generation players cringe in utter disbelief, talking quietly amongst themselves remarking "Those were such savage times -- thankfully, the worlds we live in now are much more sophisticated." The concept of dying and having your entire loot at the mercy of your killer would not just work with any game -- say, for example, World of Warcraft. In WoW, you spend countless hours obtaining powerful equipment in which passively boosts the damage/survivability of your character when wearing it. In Ultima Online, however, equipment was designed to be minimalistic and expendable; the only "boosts" you would be getting from that platemail breastplate is raw defense value. Dying is part of the game in any MMO, and in Ultima Online, you just so happened to lose everything on your corpse fairly often when you did die. So after vehemently cursing your killer, you resurrect, run yourself to the nearest town and have a local blacksmith forge you a new set of armor. This, in turn, gives that blacksmith more work. This "formula" is just one of the reasons why the economy was so successful in Ultima Online.

I am also against the segregation of server types. Having PvE and PvP server types would polarize the experience all too much; the PvE servers economy would rapidly inflate due to the lack of a "risk vs reward" system, and the PvP servers would plateau and stay about the same. Not to mention PvE servers can house bots safely, resulting in even more inflation.

Meh, just my input.
 
B

Bombadil

Guest
With PVP go pre-trammel. You can add guards to towns, HOWEVER, do not make them insta-kill. Instead make it interesting and realistic. Players with enough man power should be able to fight off the guards unlike in UO where guards=gods. Make everything possible by enough dedication from the player. If PVP gangs want to run over a town, they can do it, but they will need a whole lot of force.
 
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Lord_Toast

Guest
A lot of posters want realism in the Ultimate RPG. How is this idea for realism:
Have the characters age. And suffer the consequences from it.
The minute a player character enters the world that day becomes their ‘birthdate’ The starting age is 15 years old and every year in the Real World equals three in UltimateRPG. Eventually, the character grows older until they die from natural causes.
Think of the roleplaying possibilities which could come from this idea. What type of legacy would you want the character to leave in the URPG setting? Or would you try to have the character cheat death by longevity potions or undeath?
In most MMO games a character dies then comes back, dies then comes back, repeat & rinse. This bit of realism is something a player will have to deal with in the game. Because, for me, Death from Old Age should be the Ultimate equalizer.
 
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Bombadil

Guest
Aging as realism wouldn't be fun. Just like necessity to eat and drink would not be fun. These things would just take off time from the fun things in game. The key to effective realism is making the game realistic in areas which are FUN like killing anyone. Not making it realistic in boring areas.
 

senescal

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
A lot of posters want realism in the Ultimate RPG. How is this idea for realism:
Have the characters age. And suffer the consequences from it.
The minute a player character enters the world that day becomes their ‘birthdate’ The starting age is 15 years old and every year in the Real World equals three in UltimateRPG. Eventually, the character grows older until they die from natural causes.
Think of the roleplaying possibilities which could come from this idea. What type of legacy would you want the character to leave in the URPG setting? Or would you try to have the character cheat death by longevity potions or undeath?
In most MMO games a character dies then comes back, dies then comes back, repeat & rinse. This bit of realism is something a player will have to deal with in the game. Because, for me, Death from Old Age should be the Ultimate equalizer.
Hopefully it would make players a bit less attached to their characters and more attached to the gaming experience itself.
 
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H3atmiser

Guest
Hopefully it would make players a bit less attached to their characters and more attached to the gaming experience itself.
Has anybody told you that you're the man? Seriously, your word is infallible with me -- I agree with everything you've said in this discussion thus far one hundred percent.

People need to understand the meta of that is an MMORPG: you're a character interacting with thousands of other characters in a huge, sophisticated world. It's not that your character's existence isn't important by any stretch -- it's just that the social experiences harbored from such interaction tend to harmonize, and manifest themselves into other forms that are, in many ways, not related at all to your personal character. It's the gaming equivalent to the "butterfly effect"; even your very existence shapes the experience of how other players perceive and enjoy the game.

People are just simply way too focused on their individual character, and who can blame them? Single player games, and even many modern MMOs force you into this mindset; they make you believe that YOU are the SOLE HERO that can save the entire world, and yet in scale to the other players, this simply isn't true. I just want an MMO that doesn't force you to be "that hero" -- I may just decide to be a simple fisherman or a blacksmith.
 

senescal

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Has anybody told you that you're the man? Seriously, your word is infallible with me -- I agree with everything you've said in this discussion thus far one hundred percent.

People need to understand the meta of that is an MMORPG: you're a character interacting with thousands of other characters in a huge, sophisticated world. It's not that your character's existence isn't important by any stretch -- it's just that the social experiences harbored from such interaction tend to harmonize, and manifest themselves into other forms that are, in many ways, not related at all to your personal character. It's the gaming equivalent to the "butterfly effect"; even your very existence shapes the experience of how other players perceive and enjoy the game.

People are just simply way too focused on their individual character, and who can blame them? Single player games, and even many modern MMOs force you into this mindset; they make you believe that YOU are the SOLE HERO that can save the entire world, and yet in scale to the other players, this simply isn't true. I just want an MMO that doesn't force you to be "that hero" -- I may just decide to be a simple fisherman or a blacksmith.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Lotta good suggestions here... and a few bad (only imo)..
I'm so psyched to see what they do with all this input and what comes out of it all...
Been a fan since Ultima 1.. so I'm pretty sure I'll like it..
Somehow the old Origin games just seemed to "get me" ya know?

P.S. Yes I even still play Wing Commander sometimes...

P.P.S Saw what Garriott said in an interview about how the gaming developers have left the "sandbox" alone for the most part leaving him open to develop that genre.. What a stroke of luck. Exploit the heck outta that guys!
 
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Kael

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I love a lot of these idea's. One thing I would like to see is a way to help encourage rp pvpers to play and stay. Some of the best times had clans of orcs , savages or undead that helped bring in another element to pvp. Perhap's orc forts or crypts that had a bank that anyone could access and with a ruleset similar to Buc's Den.
 
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Lord_Toast

Guest
H3atmiser and Senescal, you are both awesome.

Couldn't say it better myself.

People like them are one of the reason I like coming to this thread.


postscript: Where is the 'fist bump' or 'high-five' button?
 

XDarkxMageX

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
PvP? There is only one way to do PvP: Old School UO Style. Anywhere outside of town should be total open FFA PvP. The wilderness and dungeons should be areas where anyone has the potential to attack you or for you to attack them. PvP is needed in online games today, especially if you want to emulate UO. Without it, all you'll have is another generic WoW clone and no one wants that. In town, the guards will look after you and attack anyone who attacks you. But once your outside down, its anyone's game. Remember, you can't spell wilderness without "wild", and thats what it should be. The instincts of survival, exploration, risk and reward, all of these things are what make an online game enthralling. Without them, things get boring fast.

Worried about the PvP getting out of hand? Back it up with a solid alignment system. The more innocent players you kill, the lower your alignment goes. Eventually, ones alignment should bottom out at say, I dont know, Dread Lord. Once youre dread, youre dread for good. No amount of time or slain monsters or other "Evil" aligned players will help you. However, trapping people at Dread might get annoying. Give them the chance to redeem themselves with a quest of epic difficulty. For example make them have to turn in the heads of over 100 various evil aligned player characters. Upon completion of the quest, their alignment would be restored to 0 (Neutral) and they would be once again innocent (blue).

Want to make being dread a risk? Simple: Impliment a player enforced justice system. Instead of having to turn in a head to collect a bounty on a Dread (Red), make players have to capture them and bring them in to be imprisoned. Once imprisoned, the player character cannot escape and is confined to a small cell in a dungeon for a period of time dependent on the severity and number of their crimes. For ever murder that could be punished by 24 hours of imprisonment. 2 murders= 48 hours and so on and so forth.

PvP is necessary, whether people want to believe it or not. Without threat, there is no unifying force. Look at history. People are at their best when things are at their worst. There has to be something pushing people to band together, work harder and give it their all. Without it, people get lazy and bored and that makes for a poor game.
 
K

Krythorian

Guest
For me PvP is a must and something I love in games is to actually feel affraid of losing a battle, therefore I think it would be good if you lose skillpoints or something of worth if you get killed in PvP, because if you fear to lose something then you might want to pick your fights right and you don't want to stand around AFK.

Just face it world pvp in WoW isn't very exciting just because when you die you get to run back as a ghost and that isn't very hard is it? BUT in EVE I always hesitated before I went into battle, even in some of the PvE missions just because I knew that if they blew my ship it would be destroyed, sure some items could be saved from salvaging but the ship itself will be destroyed and it maybe was an expensive ship.

When you die in PvP you should lose something of worth to show that you shouldn't do that again, I don't say you should loose your armor but maybe you lose some items you got in your bag? Maybe that dragon scale that you farmed for so long but now he killed you and he got it instead.


This is just my opinion but I'm sure people think it should be rewarding to kill someone but also you should be punished by getting slayed and maybe if the person that killed you don't want what you lost you can go back and reclaim it to yourself.
 

Shakkara

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think the success of a PVP system depends on the means by which we can reward 'good' behavior and punish 'bad' behavior.

Bounties are nice, but we all know how bounties work in EVE - PKers amass a huge bounty on their heads and then have a friend or second account kill them (while they're not carrying valuable implants/ships) and claim the free money.

There are three things that always irk me most about PVP systems (Both PKing and things like stealing):
1) The criminals can launder the loot to another character, which isn't branded as a PK/thief and doesn't suffer any of the restrictions the criminal character has.
2) The criminals hardly get any meaningful punishment and can just keep on doing it even if they get caught/killed/etc.
3) There is no meaningful incentive to 'be the hero' and go after PKs/thieves as a profession.

For 1, loot should be labeled as 'contraband' (with negative consequences if it shows up, cannot be put in bank or locked down, which makes for an interesting 'black market' community of grey characters that ARE willing to deal in and use contraband goods) and criminal characters should not be able to easily log off after committing a crime (stay in world for at least 1 hour after a crime), and decent options to track criminals should be available to the victim / law enforcement.

For 2,severe consequences. Being tossed into jail for X real time days, severe stat/skill loss, permadeath for repeated offenders (Coupled with Hall of Fame type of system though), anything that prevents them from doing it again right away.

For 3, Bounties and other law enforcement rewards should be in place, but backed throughly by point 2, so that the 'inconvenience' inflicted on the criminal is always greater than the profit gained by the enforcer (to prevent EVE situations). Rewarding good behavior should extend a bit further, for example, players should be able to inscribe their names on valuable items to prove they are owner, incentives should be there to return contraband goods to owner.
 
H

H3atmiser

Guest
I think the success of a PVP system depends on the means by which we can reward 'good' behavior and punish 'bad' behavior.

Bounties are nice, but we all know how bounties work in EVE - PKers amass a huge bounty on their heads and then have a friend or second account kill them (while they're not carrying valuable implants/ships) and claim the free money.

There are three things that always irk me most about PVP systems (Both PKing and things like stealing):
1) The criminals can launder the loot to another character, which isn't branded as a PK/thief and doesn't suffer any of the restrictions the criminal character has.
2) The criminals hardly get any meaningful punishment and can just keep on doing it even if they get caught/killed/etc.
3) There is no meaningful incentive to 'be the hero' and go after PKs/thieves as a profession.

For 1, loot should be labeled as 'contraband' (with negative consequences if it shows up, cannot be put in bank or locked down, which makes for an interesting 'black market' community of grey characters that ARE willing to deal in and use contraband goods) and criminal characters should not be able to easily log off after committing a crime (stay in world for at least 1 hour after a crime), and decent options to track criminals should be available to the victim / law enforcement.

For 2,severe consequences. Being tossed into jail for X real time days, severe stat/skill loss, permadeath for repeated offenders (Coupled with Hall of Fame type of system though), anything that prevents them from doing it again right away.

For 3, Bounties and other law enforcement rewards should be in place, but backed throughly by point 2, so that the 'inconvenience' inflicted on the criminal is always greater than the profit gained by the enforcer (to prevent EVE situations). Rewarding good behavior should extend a bit further, for example, players should be able to inscribe their names on valuable items to prove they are owner, incentives should be there to return contraband goods to owner.
Good suggestions, Shakkara.

We all knew the bounty hunting system in UO was exploited in the exact same way -- perhaps this could be greatly mitigated by only having a sort of "licensed bounty hunter" system? It would function very similar to a guild, but they, and only they, would have the right to obtain rewards for a nefarious murderer's head. This means that bounty hunter would have to hunt and kill the murderer himself; a normal player could not do this. There would be a figure-head in all of this, such as a sheriff of some sorts, which polices the bounty hunter's actions and make sure that the actions they do take are kosher. Regardless if this works flawlessly or not, I think it'd be a very interesting sight should some scandals emerge from this system. Perhaps we could have a checks and balances system in place where the public itself elects a sheriff, and in the case that scandals do emerge, the public could just as easily impeach him.
 

ArturoGurrola

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
I think the success of a PVP system depends on the means by which we can reward 'good' behavior and punish 'bad' behavior.

Bounties are nice, but we all know how bounties work in EVE - PKers amass a huge bounty on their heads and then have a friend or second account kill them (while they're not carrying valuable implants/ships) and claim the free money.

There are three things that always irk me most about PVP systems (Both PKing and things like stealing):
1) The criminals can launder the loot to another character, which isn't branded as a PK/thief and doesn't suffer any of the restrictions the criminal character has.
2) The criminals hardly get any meaningful punishment and can just keep on doing it even if they get caught/killed/etc.
3) There is no meaningful incentive to 'be the hero' and go after PKs/thieves as a profession.

For 1, loot should be labeled as 'contraband' (with negative consequences if it shows up, cannot be put in bank or locked down, which makes for an interesting 'black market' community of grey characters that ARE willing to deal in and use contraband goods) and criminal characters should not be able to easily log off after committing a crime (stay in world for at least 1 hour after a crime), and decent options to track criminals should be available to the victim / law enforcement.

For 2,severe consequences. Being tossed into jail for X real time days, severe stat/skill loss, permadeath for repeated offenders (Coupled with Hall of Fame type of system though), anything that prevents them from doing it again right away.

For 3, Bounties and other law enforcement rewards should be in place, but backed throughly by point 2, so that the 'inconvenience' inflicted on the criminal is always greater than the profit gained by the enforcer (to prevent EVE situations). Rewarding good behavior should extend a bit further, for example, players should be able to inscribe their names on valuable items to prove they are owner, incentives should be there to return contraband goods to owner.
&

We all knew the bounty hunting system in UO was exploited in the exact same way -- perhaps this could be greatly mitigated by only having a sort of "licensed bounty hunter" system? It would function very similar to a guild, but they, and only they, would have the right to obtain rewards for a nefarious murderer's head. This means that bounty hunter would have to hunt and kill the murderer himself; a normal player could not do this. There would be a figure-head in all of this, such as a sheriff of some sorts, which polices the bounty hunter's actions and make sure that the actions they do take are kosher. Regardless if this works flawlessly or not, I think it'd be a very interesting sight should some scandals emerge from this system. Perhaps we could have a checks and balances system in place where the public itself elects a sheriff, and in the case that scandals do emerge, the public could just as easily impeach him.
That is kinda what I was thinking (this system is actually from an UO PRS):

The victim of murder may wager bouties on their killer's heads. With more gold, more penalties the murder will face when their severed head is captured and given to the bounty hunters NPCs.
Players are able to join the bounty hunters guild with its guildmaster by paying some fee. And only bounty hunter players are able to enforce temporary penalties upon murderers and garner rewards for chashing in their heads (incentive for being good!). By becoming a bounty hunter they will flag as enemies to all murderers (can't give counts to murderers).
When a Bounty Hunter (BH for short) slays a murderer, a "severed head" will appear in their bag. The item can be traded, stolen and looted. Turning in this head will enforce the statloss penalty on the murderer; if it's a BH that turns the head in, they receive a portion of the killer's bounty.
Murderers may strive for notoriety and rank upon the bounty board with increasing consequences. The larger the sum garnered upon their heads will yield longer periods of statloss, increased cost of bribery to guards (more on this below) or a combination of the two.
Murderer's heads would be unable to be collected in some areas (on safe heavens for murderers, like lawless cities).
  • For every X gold pieces a murderer has upon his head he will face 1 hour of temporary statloss penalty. This penalty will only go away with time spent in game or by bribing BHs.
  • A player, when killed, automatically adds 2X gold to the bounty of each player he reports as a murderer. This equates to a minimum penalty of 2 hours per innocent kill.
  • The victim is also able to place an additional bounty on his killer(s). A player may not place more than 8X gold on his killer(s) bounty at a given time. This equates to a maximum penalty of 9 hours per innocent kill, when combined with the automatic bounty.
  • Statloss penalty occurs the moment the murderer's severed head is turned in by any player. This is a temporary statloss penalty - skills can not be regained during this time. The player must wait out the delay or bribe away the bounty:
  • A murderer, aside from waiting out the temporary statloss, may bribe a NPC BH at rate of 4X gold per 1 hour of statloss.
  • Only BHs receive a portion of the bounty reward. BHs receive 50% of the bounty places by the victims and 0% of the automatically generated bounty.
  • Turning in a severed head renders all other severed heads that exist in the world at the time for that murderer into an useless item (just a rotting head), which will no longer reward any bounty or apply statloss penalties.
  • A killer turning in his own head (via utilizing an alternate-character BH) does not receive significant reward (and, if no bounties were actively applied to the murderer by players, there is no reward); the reward is far less than the cost to remove the statloss. The rate of gaining gold in all methods should be significantly superior to that of turning in your own head.
  • ONE loop-hole: some players will create PKs, kill themselves for counts and artificially put gold on their own heads for nothing other than the notoriety on the board without activaly playing these characters. This serves no purpose other than having that spot and siphons gold from the world. Mitigation for this loop-hole: If no additional bounty is accrued by a murderer in the span of two weeks (as an example) his name will fall off the bounty board until he gains additional bounty upon his head (the murderer would have to be killing himself periodically to stay on the bounty boards).

PS. I did not come up with this system, if somebody wants to know where I got it from, PM me.
 
Z

Zyon Rockler

Guest
I would create a Justice System that would automatically penalize the player if caught by the guards or a player. I would use gold and if there was no gold in the player's account, I would use jail time or perhaps they would have to work in fields or something. The character could not be deleted during this time and after so much time the crime would come off of the character if they were not caught.

Then I would just basically set up 2 Empires, Evil Virtue and Good Virtue. You could figure out how to do a mid range but everything would be based off of this beginning point. I would keep the main systems the same for all other systems, so everything would work off of the main principles.

So, basically you would place 2 cities and then set a radius around them. The first circle would have a high protection of guards, the next radius would hold patrols as well as guards but you would be able to do things out of sight from NPCs and other towns people. Then I would set more radius' until the circle is connected and overlapped creating an equal or neutral area. The placement of other cities could corespond with each radius set so that you could place cities and automatically have the radius move with it. Then you could adjust the radius of each one and then of course, you would stretch the map and place within it areas of Doom, depending on which side you come from the dangers could be greater.

For example: In some areas you would have NPCs of good karma and in others NPCs of bad karma. This would also work in protecting those of the chosen path. Then you create spawns that also work in this way. So, if a good character is out hunting and gaining an evil character would find the spawn more of a challenge, not to say the spawn is virtuous but that some how negative karma is weaker.

Then you build up your zones to allow for more rewards and more difficulty so that the worst of the places would include both good and evil. This way the forces of the world can be created to actually control where a person may go or may not. For example: Food and water could be good or bad. So, if eating was part of what you did, an evil person would have to eat from something evil, even the air in and around places that are holy could damage evil. All of this would be important to help protect those in there paths and each device could be placed strategically to allow for growth and power.

The newer players would be protected within cities and the further that they wonder into the wildnerness, the more danger they would face but they would find refuge near places of power that admit good forces or evil forces.

Whole cities could admit these forces that would be directly damaging and even deadly in the core, while other cities could be of a neutral type. The creation of overlapping systems would insure the ability to grow. Some of the areas would have to be created to be quite large but could have choke points such as mountains and cliffs or bridges that would force interaction as well as the gathering of resources, such as food and water or iron and wood.

The freedoms would be given most in the open plains, such as on the sea, in deserts or massive woodland areas as well as dungeons and perhaps other magical places.
 
Z

Zyon Rockler

Guest
Any justice system I think that can hold or stop a char in some way for some time would be best I would even like to see real courts set up, wounder if this could be done by a few npcs.. That would be more for events tho I would even use some other types like I could see things like the rack or guillotine anything that would place a char in the view of other players for a short time.

The more they have done the more could happen. They could lose fame in there lands as well or gain by not getting Jailed. Even better have a way for a chance to get away from inside the jail if you have the right skills. Under city net works like tunnels. Justice system should also help in finding ppl not being able to log off your char for a time after you do something like killing a player. I would say something like an hour and taking something from a player would be a half hour. Attacking would be like 20 min unless the other chars log off that you have done this to. Systems for crimes like npc's and their shops could differ for training.

I think you would need A skill set added that would track and award chars as well as haveing systems that would make evil chars go after high karma chars. Something that would reward them in the main city. A type of rank that could carry over into other things.
I would use A system like I talked about in the thief thread there was no thief. It causes you to rank up so you can not just have others work for you to take the reward or play off each other. It makes it so you have to work up and not die for a long time to get to the better rewards. This insures alot of game play in the mean time and removes the need for a friend to to help you once you have made it to the top of the ranks. So you move up as A killer you would kill one then move up to killing ten and you would be rank one. Then if you die you lose rank. So you move to next when you have 20 kills untill you reach 100 kills.
So you can use that in any system and you should beable to get ppl to work up to mid and high range befor cashing in.

Just wanted to add that cause I think you would need players to be the main justice as seekers and redeemers.
 
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W

Woodsman

Guest
Hopefully it would make players a bit less attached to their characters and more attached to the gaming experience itself.
One of the hardest things new players have to deal with when starting EVE Online is losing their first ship or two and understanding that it's not a big deal. You would be amazed at how hard it can be to acclimate people to the idea that it's okay to lose in PvP. Which is ironic, because in PvP where you have item insurance and you get your stuff back, you lose nothing other than time, some gold, and some consumables. But the idea of losing a ship was one that a lot of people have a hard time with.
 

Valice Belgraham

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
*Note* - This will be a list of aspects and ideas that made UO great and why they worked/could work with URPG. Please keep in mind that Richard Garriott(RG) has expressed his concerns with setting the standard twice in his life, and this could be a very real third standard with URPG. Bearing that in mind I will be discussing UO aspects(because this is a UO spiritual successor) in the most part with ideas from various other post on here, that I will do my best to give credit to, in which I believe give a good basis of where RG is trying to go.

It took a while to read all the post, but I finally did, and I must say there are some really great ideas out there, as well as some that I believe unknowingly really take away from the overall game aspect/idea I believe RG is going for.


1. Risk/sandbox/simple/skill based world - no radicly different servers (Raptor85 - #4)

*It's pretty safe to say most people crave the risk based world of UO. Everyone talks about it on here, but they are concerned about griefers/exploiters.(I will explain ways to curb that later/throughout.)

*Ultimate sandbox world. People want to be able to be/do whatever they want in game.(I see a few comments about how people ultimately always played the game for combat, and I have to say I agree to a point. It's hard to fault a player base for having grown up playing games that always revolved around combat from feeling the need to step outside of their comfort zone and into the realm of everything else UO truly had to offer. I always wanted to have the option of doing other things besides for just combat in a game, and UO offered that, so I took full advantage of that. RG has also pointed to games like Farm ville being a perfect example of how the player base is there for wanting to do other things besides just combat in a game.)

*Simple rule sets. This would add to the ultimate creativity of individual players, and is one of the reasons everything worked so well in UO from housing, decorating, combat, sense of achievement(something as simple as a pure black bye bucket, or when ranger armor first came out. These were very simple aspects that gave a great sense of achievement for acquiring. Dark green armor that no one could make, great stuff.). Less is more, and more rules force your hand at what you truly want to do.

*Skill based world. Allows a sense of accomplishment that keeps newbs to veterans on a fairly level playing field for being able to adventure and enjoy a broad variety of social activities.(No need to worry about all of your epic players sticking to one side of the world, and newbs only ever being in another part that grows stagnant as soon as they outgrow themselves.)

*RG has pointed toward not wanting different ruleset servers, and here is why. If you have all your PVE who bring certain commerce in on one world, and PVP who bring in substantially less, but add unique and creative environments on another world, then you get two broken worlds in the end. PVE needs the creativity of the PVP community so there isn't the feeling of the no risk grind that always sets in sooner or later, and PVP needs the people of the PVE community to bring those commodities to continually bring an ever changing creative social realm that benefits all. (There are ways to make both play styles enjoyable in a combined world which I will explain in detail later.)

Notes - There is a general lack of true PVPer discussion on the boards, and a general consensus that everyone is concerned of griefers/exploiters, which points to the underlining assumption that everyone truly wants a RG world of full risk, but not something that is going to make you want to rip your hair out while playing.
Simple world design enables a bigger sandbox effect, and talk of a bounty hunter guild system leads to more forced rules that ultimately do very little to curb the abuse of a bounty reward type system from exploiters, and more hoops to jump through for you being the victim of a crime from being able to exact justice upon the criminal by whatever means you see fit.


2. PVP

*PVP encompasses a wide variety of encounters. Whether we are talking about murderers, thieves, traders, opportunist, or whatever else you can come up with. These people are players just as you and I are, and deserve to have a fair and enjoyable experience in their practices as well. They paid their money to play as well, and there are ways to curb griefing/exploiting, but if they want to spend the money to have 2 or more accounts to play at once, then I say they deserve it, they paid for it. (Bad Karma said it best when he talked about PVP needing to have the feel of an art in game, and not just about button mashing skill. I remember spending weeks working on a sneaky rogue shortly after my first ever house deed got stolen from me at the bank. I was so pissed at the time, but I was also very excited too because that crafty ******* worked his butt off getting his skills high enough for me to never even notice he went into my bag and through my goods for his prized reward. I knew at that moment that I also could try and be just as successful as that guy was too, and all it required were some skills that if played correctly with each other would turn out to be successful for me as well.)

*Risk. Just as there is open world risk for all the good guys, there needs to be a more fair risk for PVPers as well. Not over bearing, just fair. I think one of the main problems people had with PKers in the early days of UO is that you could be a full blown fighter just out enjoying the fresh air far from town and a high level mage with nothing more then a hat, robe, and a few regs could destroy you and take all your gear. On the other hand if you managed to kill your combatant, the reward was fairly lack luster. A simple way to fix this is to make the act of performing evil deeds cost something in return, such as casting a spell in an evil way requires certain reagents that are fairly hard to come by or cost a fair amount resources. These items when looted would be fairly valuable in comparison to what a decked out warrior would normally carry with a medium sized loot load. Same thing would apply to tamers. Certain items should be required to maintain control of certain creatures. A special dragon taming orb that when lost would be very valuable to a crafter for being able to hone their craft. Thus evil people can still be evil and not feel greatly penalized any more then a good person would be for suffering the consequences of death, but both parties are happy no matter what side they are on, for the rewards are always just as great.

*Full loot. UO originally made it fairly easy to obtain items, and because of this even if you lost everything upon death, it really wasn't horribly difficult to get right back to where you were. This also provided the perfect opportunity to work on alternate career paths to obtain money to repurchase lost items, or craft them yourself. It also gave you time to go back to the drawing board for making your character more powerful skill wise so this would not happen again. Death in UO was just part of the learning curve, and learn we did. (Today's games seem to be all about the gear and loot, UO never was about that. It was about being creative, and having something appealing.)

*RPing PKing. (4th3ist said it best on this one) The problem with most PKers is that they want to blitz attack without giving the victim any sort of mediocre warning of whats about to happen for reasons of... This doesn't need to be a drawn out/no chance of PVP surprize either. A 10 second option table of mild RPing options would do wonders here. It would give the PVPer the options of robbing them, killing them, or deciding maybe they really don't want to mess with this target, and the victim has the options of complying, fighting regardless of provokers action, or running away. (The further out into unsecured land you go the fewer options you have, less time to react, or no options at all, just full on FFA PVP.)


3. Bounties and Jail system

*Bounties can be done without having them being exploited, and with the use of a jail system it's even better. There are two ways of doing this. One being a non transferable town reward/credit(money) system that would give the hero access to certain none monetary goods/properties. Two being that evil guys cant receive any money or items from good guys. There can be a simple script that embeds itself on any item that when transferred or dropped it labels it as an item that was derived from a good source, and thus an evil guy could never pick it up in a reasonable amount of time to make it worth their time to try and have a friend get the reward. (This also leads into the need for a one character per server system, which isn't that bad when I get into skills later. Also this doesn't mean that the bounty system can't be exploited, but what it does is make it next to impossible to reap the benefits of having his buddy kill him. His buddy would still get the reward which would still only benefit the forces of good, which is better explained in housing of good vs. evil players, and if the evil guy really wanted to spend all the time and resources going from evil to good, just to be able to get his hands on the prize, then by that time he would have exhausted more resources then what was gained by the bounty reward.)

*Jailing. Upon end of combat with a murder there should be an option to either land a killing blow, or to deliver the criminal to jail. This would also work against thieves as well. Crimes should add to an overall time in jail algorithm with 1 full real world day being the minimum jail sentence up to 2 full weeks being the max.(not in game time) Now I'm sure PVPers are like "No way would a ever play a game like that. That takes all the fun out of PVPing." But here is where you are wrong. In jail is where the PVPers get to have their fun by partaking in virtue activities to either raise or lower their virtues, skill training opportunities, and depending what jail system in the world they are housed in there can be different cell types between isolation and group settings, and even labyrinths to train skills/get out of jail early. Even in different jail settings there could be a try to escape if you dare, where being jailed for 2 weeks might be shortened to a few days or a week if you are creative/crafty enough to figure out how to escape.(I think this jail system gives thieves/murderers a real sense of risk beyond "oh, I died, that's ok, I didn't have anything on me anyways." to "This is going to be just as challenging as some goodie goodie stepping foot onto my turf.") (XDarkxMageX and Shakkarastarted to steal my thunder on a jail idea, but good work.)


4. Zoning, housing, and combat systems

*Eve does a great job with it's security zone rating system, and I think a similar type of system could add some unique dynamics to a UO styled game. Some of these things I talked about earlier. Zoning could make guards and healers fewer and further in between in lower security zones. It can give PVP surprise elements a more rewarding feel in lower security zones by taking away certain options, shortening the decision time, or getting rid of all options for full on FFA PVP. Housing communities can receive better bonuses for being closer to cities in high security zones. Higher quantity and better quality resources might be found in lower security zones, as where rare resources can still be found in high security zones, but just not as high quantities, or great qualities for refining. (Cirno)

*Housing of good players in higher security zones is always safe, but as you start to do evil things your properties risk being repossessed by the community if the community has certain bonuses, or nearest city if they aren't part of a bonus community. The further out into low security zones you go the more safe your housing becomes from being repossessed based on your actions and deeds. Thus if people were trying to exploit the bounty system and just collecting wares and items for an ultimate property they would be forced to build out in low security zones so that if they ever wanted to go evil they wouldn't lose all their stuff, and their evil buddy would have access to all this great gear their good guy got. But being that they live so far out in nowhere they can't build communities, and thus don't ever get any community bonuses, and since they are evil, they can't participate in bounty hunts. The only way to do bounty hunts again from evil would be to go totally good, and perform a special virtue quest which makes trying to go back and forth to collect good loot from the bounty system a real chore. Which if they do, then they earned it.

*I'm only going to touch on it lightly, but there was a comment made in here somewhere about Dark Souls having a great combat system, and I have to agree with that, but it would also be important to mix a style of skill based combat from UO with player personal skill level. Not everyone out there is a quick moving button masher, and some think and move steps in advance instead, and they shouldn't be penalized for that. DS also did stamina well. One of the great things about UO was that there was always a need to do small simple things that you would need to do in real life as well, such as eat food/drink. It would be nice to see stamina used in game similar to how it was used in DS whether fighting, running, or crafting. Being properly fed should give bonuses to overall stamina and stamina recovery rate.(No game will ever be all things to everyone, but there is definitely great middle ground we can generally agree upon.)


5. Guards

*Just as tamers could tame creatures to protect them, I remember people being able to higher guards to protect them as well. Hiring a guard is a simple and rewarding way to combat against potential PVP risk. Guards should be of different skill level and type, and you should not have access to exactly what you need all the time. It should be like, I'm hiring a guard, there's only one around, I can't really assess whether hes good or not, 500gp, yeah, I guess that sounds fair?


6. Skills

*No skill cap to a point. One of the great things about UO was that it forced you to think about what you wanted to be, even though you could always change that simply by locking certain skills while raising and lowering others. One of the unfortunate things about UO was that you could really only go one path with a character at a time. You really couldn't be a treasure hunting warrior, a tailor/leather working/alchemist mage, or a dungoneering/thief rogue. In reality all of these things are possible when you sit down and simply think of all the things you personally know. (Personally I'm a full blown automotive technician who can fix anything front to back, computer hardware specialist, jewelry maker, political analyst, organic/raw health enthusiast, christian, future father of 4, and so on.) So why can't I play a character who knows more then only 7 things really well? If there was a skill setup to where I could Master(100) 5-8 things, be very competent(80-90) in 6 more things, and be knowledgeable(50-70) in most everything else I take the time to study and learn, then I think we would be golden. Skills such as begging, tracking, and spirit speak were very useful skills to have that unfortunately took away from character builds, and is another reason to have a semi capless skill system. This also would fit perfectly with only having a single character per server, not needing to worry about never getting a chance to take up that one profession you've always wanted to play, and nips exploiting/griefing right in the butt, which is what everyone complains about when they talk about PVP. Not that they are against PVP, but that they can't stand griefers abusing the system and ruining the overall experience for them.

*Certain skills should allow you to only raise other skills so high because of how much knowledge it takes to master those skills, such as being a melee combatant should only let you raise certain magic skills to a range of 60, and range fighting to 70, and visa verse. As where being a Ranged fighter would let you raise both melee and magery skills to a range of 70 because of the common understanding between those skills.

*Skills for gathering information better. A skill that would allow a PVPer to properly assess it's target for robbery or murder. A skill to allow a victim to bluff or intimidate an aggressor to a certain degree. A skill to know if an NPC is giving you a fair price for the goods you would like to acquire, or if that guard you are about to hire is as capable of defending you as he claims he can for the price he wants. A skill that lets you gather local and regional information on marks, targets, or bounties for information such as PCs track record, virtues, fame.


7. Simple design

*An unpolished fantasy world. Another thing that made UO great was that because everything had such a simple and practical use/look to it, people could be as creative as they wanted with stacking order/overlay and make things such as a fish tank. I worry about a system such as Ultimate Collector where because so many things look so colorful and polished the world as a whole suffers from mass uniqueness and items that look great, but are worthless bringing the price and overall appreciation of a more unique and rare item down in the end. This also goes for the possible player editing function of URPG, where the player has potential control of editing an items texture and making something look much more special/polished then what it truly is.


8. Swim, jump, climb

*It would be very nice to at the very least have a swimming skill that would let you transverse water more easily based on what kind of gear you are wearing. Full chain and almost any piece of plate armor would send you sinking immediately, but you could transverse a shallow stream at a reduced speed based on your skill level.

*Jumping would be interesting, and I think the Elder Scroll games did a pretty good job with this system.

*Climbing would be interesting as well, and I was originally thinking of it being more for the crafter classes for finding ore, or getting to certain cave systems. Rogues would have a blast with this kind of system.
(Most of those would obviously involve some pretty advance game mechanics that could prove to be to challenging, but possibly very rewarding?)


9. Weather

*Seasons and weather that would change creature/monster zones/paths, and also certain resources/goods(farming)


10.Pay to play vs. micro transaction

*Pay to play sure does help keep everyone on a more even playing field then paying real money for in game items. I like to think of the difference between they guy who spend 4 full weeks of playing to save up enough for his awesome stone keep. if you factor in what he would have made in the real world working a job then lets say he spent $2000-$4000 to play this game. Then some guy drops $50 to buy a stone castle that puts your keep to shame and only plays an hour or 2 here or there. The company is happy because they made their money, the player on the other hand is pretty upset that he spent all that time that he could have been making real world money to only have something half as nice as the guy who dropped real world money on the game for a quick fix.


In closing I will say this. It's hard to tell what direction this game will go. It seems a lot of people are against the mobile capability because of it bringing down the overall awesomeness this game has the potential of being. On the other hand if you read RG's company profile you will notice that a lot of the money is tied into mobile gaming and F2P companies that very well could try and hold RG's feet to the fire and tell him he has to do something that might not be the best way to go about this thing. Can anybody say EA? I think Richard Garriott is a great man, a visionary, and a legend, and I have faith in the man being able to pull off "The Third Standard."
 
H

H3atmiser

Guest
One of the unfortunate things about UO was that you could really only go one path with a character at a time. You really couldn't be a treasure hunting warrior, a tailor/leather working/alchemist mage, or a dungoneering/thief rogue. In reality all of these things are possible when you sit down and simply think of all the things you personally know. (Personally I'm a full blown automotive technician who can fix anything front to back, computer hardware specialist, jewelry maker, political analyst, organic/raw health enthusiast, christian, future father of 4, and so on.) So why can't I play a character who knows more then only 7 things really well? If there was a skill setup to where I could Master(100) 5-8 things, be very competent(80-90) in 6 more things, and be knowledgeable(50-70) in most everything else I take the time to study and learn, then I think we would be golden. Skills such as begging, tracking, and spirit speak were very useful skills to have that unfortunately took away from character builds, and is another reason to have a semi capless skill system. This also would fit perfectly with only having a single character per server, not needing to worry about never getting a chance to take up that one profession you've always wanted to play, and nips exploiting/griefing right in the butt, which is what everyone complains about when they talk about PVP. Not that they are against PVP, but that they can't stand griefers abusing the system and ruining the overall experience for them.

*Certain skills should allow you to only raise other skills so high because of how much knowledge it takes to master those skills, such as being a melee combatant should only let you raise certain magic skills to a range of 60, and range fighting to 70, and visa verse. As where being a Ranged fighter would let you raise both melee and magery skills to a range of 70 because of the common understanding between those skills.
Not a bad read, but I am completely at ends with this system here. Having no skill cap, even with a one character per server rule-set, creates a very bland end game. An example of this would be WoW; look at the percentage of max level characters to non-maxed ones -- it's over 50% of the population. Players are consistently leveling their character on a day by day basis, and eventually, they will plateau. Albeit it will be much longer with no skill cap in place, it ultimately will create a homogenized world where a decent portion knows everything from magery to arms combat to cooking -- this was one of the bigger downfalls of Darkfall. I am of the opinion that we need a skill cap system in place to govern players and maintain diversity, and not have everyone be the same super-human being at the end game.

That being said, however, I am in favor of a "secondary skill" system, which would accommodate "less important" skills such as begging, and spirit speak as you mentioned in your post. This sector of skills wouldn't obey the skill-cap at all, and any player may raise it up to the max level without any repercussions should they choose to do so. Although I believe the tracking skill was an utter travesty in Ultima Online -- we really should make it a more interesting, vital concept to URPG.
 

Valice Belgraham

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Not a bad read, but I am completely at ends with this system here. Having no skill cap, even with a one character per server rule-set, creates a very bland end game. An example of this would be WoW; look at the percentage of max level characters to non-maxed ones -- it's over 50% of the population. Players are consistently leveling their character on a day by day basis, and eventually, they will plateau. Albeit it will be much longer with no skill cap in place, it ultimately will create a homogenized world where a decent portion knows everything from magery to arms combat to cooking -- this was one of the bigger downfalls of Darkfall. I am of the opinion that we need a skill cap system in place to govern players and maintain diversity, and not have everyone be the same super-human being at the end game.

That being said, however, I am in favor of a "secondary skill" system, which would accommodate "less important" skills such as begging, and spirit speak as you mentioned in your post. This sector of skills wouldn't obey the skill-cap at all, and any player may raise it up to the max level without any repercussions should they choose to do so. Although I believe the tracking skill was an utter travesty in Ultima Online -- we really should make it a more interesting, vital concept to URPG.
Nice comment, and I do agree with what you are saying about maintaining diversity and not having everyone be a super human soloist. What I'm trying to get at with this kind of system however is that RG has expressed his interest in the "sandbox" feeling of a game where everyone plays together without having the feeling of, "I'm new and can't do anything close to what someone who has been playing for 10+ years can do." and when we start talking in terms of "end game" mechanics we are are typically talking about someone who has obtained gear and skill sets that are so drastically powerful to what we had access to when we first started playing in the world. UO did a great job of not giving the "end game" feeling back in the day because even though items gave benefits for using/equipping them, they were mild bonuses, and using an item worked with a corresponding skill. As well as skills on their own could do very little without the use of items and gear no matter what skill level you had. Items were simple, and for the most part, easy to come by, and skills were, for the most part, only useful with items. This is why I also stress the simplicity aspect of the game, and staying away from over polished/powerful items that plague modern day MMOs.

I think a skill system can be created to allow a focused character path that doesn't give them access to being a "Jack of all" while at the same time lets the character grow in multiple paths to accommodate the capability of taking a break from a set path, and enjoying other aspects of the game such as treasure hunting, farming, crafting, animal handling, thieving, and so on. I made a comment about it earlier, where a lot of people talk of playing a game from the perspective of the game ultimately being about combat in adventuring, and that's just not the aspect behind the sandbox effect. In a sandbox you are allowed to do anything you want. There is an aspect of freedom in choice with very limited restraints. You could almost compare RG's directions with that of the founding fathers of our nation. Freedom and liberty for all, compared to where we are today with the modern day MMO. Everyone craves the aspect of the original because they knew how much freedom it gave them before EA stepped in and became the modern day Department of Homeland Security, with FEMA camps popping up all around us, and big sister watching everything you're doing.

My last comment about a semi capless skill system is this. It makes very little sense to be a gunsmith in modern society today and not have any level of understanding as to how to land a bullet on target in a wide variety of situations. Just as a blacksmith should not be making competent arms and armor without having used those gears as well to know how they are properly made/function.
 
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Pforsthoff

Guest
First my opinion on what has ruined every MMO after UO...
  1. The auction house - this is the single most important thing that ruined MMOs, in UO you were forced to travel all over the lands to search for things, reagents, rares, etc.
  2. Instances - completely ruined MMOs, they actually defeat the purpose of MMOs
  3. 3D first person - Hated it, if UO looked like Diablo 3 it would be amazing.
  4. Risk - losing nothing when you die, nothing was more intense then wandering around, mining or exploring and a Red appear and chase you for miles, made you get your running and hiding or fighting skills up.
  5. If no balanced compromise can be reached, please make some servers have full risk like the original UO, if people are that opposed to losing things and being pk'd they can play on the other servers.
I truly think the best pvp solution is not to split people on servers but to come up with methods to curb the amount of pking that goes on, great ideas like more penalties, bounty hunter type professions, etc. The one thing that made UO better than any other MMO was risk, it is a necessary evil, it was a love-hate relationship and nothing has even come close to the intensity of UO.
Thanks for soliciting our feedback to help make Ultimate RPG the best MMO ever!
 
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Jess999s

Guest
Really need to put RISK back into the game. The beautiful thing about UO was you have no idea what level they were or what they were skilled in and they had the same health level. You had to use your own judgment and hope you could defend yourself or PK someone. Currently defending in PVP is non-existent in my opinion. What fun is it if you keep smashing the same button over and over again until someone dies? Need counter attacks and each side can’t determine what skill or level each other are. If you do win in battle should be some reward and should be able to loot them. Traveling was great bumping into each other looking for vendors for good player made items. Only thing you need an NPC vendor for was buying regents (bring them back) or selling junk items (No auction house please!). Runes were the best way for traveling and I don’t think any game currently out there has come close to doing it better. UO was a player made world only because UO allowed it at first and gave the players so much content that you would not get bored even mining you had to stay on your toes and the RISK is what made the game. Make more content between the players in good and bad ways and that game will be a hit. I think the Barney land fad is over with and with all the MMO I have played nothing has every come close to UO in its 1st few years.
 
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Bombadil

Guest
I'd truly enjoy the absence of forced restrictions when it comes to PVP.

No 1-hit kill guards, no safe zones.

If you want to be safe in your house - lock the door.

If you want to be safe at bank - look around and make sure there is a guard nearby.

The danger peaking out from every corner.

That would be the true spirit of pre-trammel UO!
 
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Runald Humphrey

Guest
Here's the thing though, the widest audience consist of those who enjoy PvP and those who doesn't enjoy PvP. The only way to get enough people interested would be to cater for both types of game-play. I'm not saying the system should be protective in any ways. There's those who doesn't mind being killed each time they've gathered a good amount of resources. But there's definitely those that do mind. The optimal is to find a solution that could keep the game interesting for all. But that's not my job ;)
 
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What

Guest
We would like to provide an open UO style world, but we do not want to run off newbies. Please give me your ideas for and opinions about PvP in what you see as the Ultimate RPG.

Thanks,
Lord British
Wasn't gonna post, but some posts seem to encourage it. I am not your target audience. I have no interest in playing open world PvP since my first days in UO. After getting ganked over and over, I just cancelled my account.

I do think PvP adds fun. But as in life, I enjoy the competition to be somehow even. When I played laser tag, then paint ball, I enjoyed it. But it was always structured to try to make it sorta even from the beginning. I enjoyed battlegrounds in WoW.

Don't think anything you can do can make the game appealing to people who don't enjoy open world PvP.

I do wish you luck in your endeavours. There need to be games for everyone to enjoy, and the more different sets of rules, the better, in my opinion. Copying WoW is cute, but heck, there's already a WoW. I think differentiation would be better, rather than mimickry.
 

cazador

Grand Inquisitor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
.best PVP force join an allegiance lets use UO as an example
-chaos
-order
After initial login you're given a choice A or B..whichever you chose is where you're allegiance lies...you are protected in your ally's areas and not in others and make them big lands not just a tiny guard zone..make it if say my allegiance is Chaos and my allied lands are bucs den for instance I have dungeons, seas to explore, housing and all of the above, but my resources I collect are at 30%!! And my Loot RNG isn't as good but in a order allied land all my numbers are boosted..it's just I'm not protected

You can lose allegiance by commuting opposite acts..positive karma for helping order is chaos..you're fealty has changed..and enough of that makes you a "outlaw from your allegiance" and you become unsafe everywhere...until you "redeem" yourself via micro transactions or a specific grind..

Full loot...make it worth some bodies time to kill someone..you are given the ability to bless 2 items in your inventory or on your character sheet(ie: clothes,armor,weapons) the rest is fair game so chose wisely...bless deeds maybe be bought for..micro transactions...max 5 blessed items per character..or maybe enough for a full armor suit...

..could think of a ton more but I doubt people will read my already short story length post..

Ps...Extremely excited for U:RPG no matter how it turns out RG is due for an epic game!! The mans a genius
 
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lil_eddie

Guest
Hi Everyone.

What worries me most of all, is that you are all making PvP too complex with all these features. Ultima Online is such an amazing PvP experience compared to any other MMO because of one key thing. It is Simple. Much in the way Counterstrike is more fun that most modern FPS games because it's simple.

I am not saying 'easy', by far don't make the life of a PK easy. I more recently played on a private server (frowned upon I know) and the PvP there is the best I have ever experienced.

We had none of this 'stand still to cast' or 'pre-casting'. It was fast paced move while casting (not archery though). This meant a 1v1 duel outside Britain could be quick, or last for ages and end up in Yew.

There was a 50/50 balance of PK's and non-PK's. Almost everyone on the server had one of each characters, there was a reasonable amount of pvp going on, and a lot of adrenaline and excitement with the 'blue' players fighting the 'red' players outside of towns.

When killing a blue karma player, you gained +1 kill, which took 8 hours of ingame time to clear off your name. So it was a slow process to lose kills.

Beside that, our guards were just 'strong' but not 1 hit kill - maybe 3 hits on the average PK if they ran in to town. This means some of the veteren players could run a fair distance in to a town (about 30 tiles) and back out without dying. This was good as it stopped players hanging about on the edge of towns and running back in to them for safety when they are about to die, as the PK could chase them a little and get that last hit in, rather than stepping foot in and being killed in one hit - which makes PvPing unbalanced.

That was it. None of these fancy inventions that people mentioned. It sounds to me like everyone here is a 'Good' karma player and not a Murderer, trying to make our lives over complicated. It is a game, of course make the choice of being a Murderer hard - but surely having no safe areas does that job alone?
We still like some freedom to PvM without constantly being tracked.
 
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lil_eddie

Guest
Would also like to add. NO INSURANCE (or whatever people call it where you pay for an item to become non-lootable).

Insuring items may 'cost' but money is barely a boundary, it can be easily got. There is no risk or adrenaline rush if you have all your best kit un-lootable and a PK comes in to the dungeon you are in.

Just don't make it a complete failure and I am sure we will all love you RG.
 
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Joeyjoejoeshabidoo

Guest
Design it so resources are limited and the players will naturally commit pvp over them. As a hypothetical situation there is an npc run sawmill with high level guards, everyone in the local area uses this sawmill to cut the logs into lumbar to craft arrows. One player alone won't be able to take out the guards but if several band together they can kill the guards and break the macguffin allowing guards to respawn there. From that point on anyone wanting to cut up their wood will have to pay the players guarding the mill whatever they choose or move on. After the players have had enough of being pushed around they gather and attack the players controlling the mill and drive them out, from here it can be made free for all again and the macguffin rebuilt for npc guards or the liberators can get greedy and the cycle repeats.

This cycle of wealth and control would allow more fluid pvp dynamics than any battlegrounds or arena and provide players constant new content in the form of their own power struggles within the game; eliminating the dreaded lack of end game content so many mmo's die to.

If controlling an entire area seems too much as it may hinder the game for others you could just make a few super powerup macguffins around the land. In the bottom of high level dungeons after a player has found one they become much stronger but become the target of anyone else who wanted that macguffin boost. If the boost happens to be a bonus to anyone else wearing your clan colours it would further encourage clan wars over limited macguffins without impacting the rest of the game.
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
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*blinks* Do I know ye?
 
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Joeyjoejoeshabidoo

Guest
It stops being a sandbox if people are forced into PvP over resources. Part of the appeal of UO and sandbox games is that you don't have to do that.
Than make the macguffins respawn slowly or everyone gets a piece of macguffin but two pieces make the whole. Nothing has to be acquired through pvp but if pvp is an efficient way to acquire macguffins than pvp will naturally occur allowing devs more time to focus on non-pvp ways to acquire macguffins of equivalent value. Oh and its still a sandbox if one kid has most of the sand it only stops being a sandbox when the kids refuse to take a share for themselves.
 
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McBeth ATL4LIFE

Guest
The best system to protect the noobs I have ever seen/ been apart of was on SP server of UO, when it first came out. A guild for noobs. Once they hit 70 in skills they got kicked out of the guild because they were no longer noobs. Maybe you could give new players the option to join the noob guild or not and if they do then they will get a small reprieve from getting murdered and exploited until they have a grasp on the game mechanics. Having a GM as the Leader of the guild to ensure their safety/ help answer questions that fellow noob guildies can not??
But ideally you have monsters that drop decent gear, no restrictions on pvp besides a few towns with guards, full loot on corpses. I think the bounty hunter ideals ppl have been talkin about sounds great, if you can have bounties on anyone for any reason. Good luck I hope you can pull this off Lord Brit. I also think that the mass of the gaming community is ready for a "harder" game like UO was.
 
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Link

Guest
Great thread. I have really enjoyed reading everyone's comments here and while I don't agree 100% with everybody I think that there are some good ideas amongst these posts.

To me the best idea I have seen on here is the idea of zoning areas with different levels of danger. Here is what I'd like to see:

Towns : No PvP except consensual i.e warring guilds/factions. In town you should have 100% protection from agressive acts. Thieving should be allowed but should be extremely difficult, having GM stealing (or max level) should still give the theif a chance to commit a crime unnoticed but this chance should be low.

Main Roads / Edge of town : PvP possible but with strong guard protection. These areas should have low level spawn and simple resources in abundance. Enough for new players to play the game, meet people and collect resources to improve their character's skills. The resources collected here should be base level i.e no special properties can be granted to items that are created with these resources.

Wilderness : PvP FFA minimal guard patrols. These areas are the wilderness. Danger is everywhere! Whether it be from the monsters that roam unchecked or the evil players who are hunting for kills. Guard out posts exist but they are reluctant to step out of their walls unless the severity of the crimes in the area warrants it. Gold can be spent by players to increase patrols in an area and make it more secure.

Dungeons : PvP FFA. As above. Here the best items/resources spawn. Here the city officials refuse to send their guards. Players could hire npc guards or player guards (more on the player hiring system to come). Npc guards could come in a variety price ranges and abilities. Also players can upgrade their equipment to make them a little beefier.


I also think there should be a mentor system in the game. When I first played UO I met some more experienced players that helped me when I got PK'd by being my body guard while I trained and helped me collect resources with their protection. These players exist/existed in UO and I think we should be able to reward them. By mentoring 'young' player you can gain points that can be used to collect special items or if you mentor a trainee miner you get a percentage of the resources that he mines/gold he collects. Also the pupil can leave feedback on a mentor. This could prevent some of the more dastardly players from abusing the system and having their mates lurking to pick off the unsuspecting newb. If a player has negative reports to his name from other trainees then players can refuse his services.

For the higher level players who need protection from the evil members of the community there will be willing 'guns' for hire. Go to the mercenary guild in any town and review the notice board. Here you could view a short profile including k/d rates, rate of pay/cut of the resources gathered. Also players could leave feedback on the mercenary/group. Were they true to their word? Was their skill level competent enough? While playing UO I had an agreement with a player who just wanted to gather gold + resources but wasn't equipped to take on the PK's and griefers. So she hired me to take them out (I played a red). I got a cut of whatever she made and I had a lot of fun being her guardian.

I think this system provides what a lot of people are talking about. Which is a way that we can all play together. PvPrs aren't just trashtalking l33t dewds. Some PvPrs really enjoy a point to the violence (atleast I do). I wouldn't just go around whacking newbs. We need a system that provides PvPrs and PvMrs /Crafters a reason to work together. FFA full loot PvP gives everyone a reason to interact. PvPrs could be the muscle that the bards are lacking.

Also parallel to this could be a system that tracks the actions of those who associate with PKs/undesirable types. If you party/trade/heal or are in a guild with many red players this would also affect the way the game world behaves towards you. Higher prices at shops and less assistance from guards in the less protected areas could be just a few of the negatives.

Also there could be a system where you want someone dead and you could similiary hire a pk to do your dirty work. Doing this many times would also start to breed suspicion around your character. I think that these systems would be fun while keeping the open world sandbox type game that we would all love to see.
 
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eltoddo2

Guest
Player of UO off and on since 1997 when I was 13... looking forward to Ultimate RPG.

I think the trick to PVP is to balance it better with a risk/reward system. The world should be divided into many different areas with varying levels of penalties for engaging in PVP, but also varying levels of rewards. The most lawless areas should have the greatest rewards for those willing to risk venturing out and getting PK'ed (and also less penalty for attackers). Meanwhile new players or people who like to play in safer areas should be able to do so but they should not expect as great of rewards. There should be many varying degrees of penalty, so that as a player gains experienced and gets accustomed to gain, they can venture further and further out into more dangerous areas.

I think UO contained alot of good ideas related to this but the problem is it was too black and white. Either you were protected by guards or if you stepped 2 feet out you were mincemeat. And for PVP'ers you either had to engage only in guild wars or become a murderer and risk statloss. Not alot of options.

How do you implement this? Alot of ways using methods already implemented in UO:

(*) Varying levels of NPC protection depending on area. (like guards, but also other type of NPC's might help to protect in areas out of town)

(*) Varying levels of "murderer counts" depending on area. (which could lead to statloss and other such penalty faster)

(*) Varying reputations will allow players to only enter certain areas. For instance, murderers may be stuck in the most vicious areas until reputation improves. And only people with best reputation might get into other areas like Lord British's castle.

Also:

(*) Allow murderers ability to "get away" with a crime if it is not witnessed by another player. This would force interactions between players to adventure in groups.

Some people in previous posts have alluded to ideas similar to these.

I would like to point out this is much different than something like "trammel" or splitting into PVP/PVE shards. The problem with trammel is it offered the SAME reward with LESS risk. You could get the same treasure and gold dropped from monsters without risking getting killed from PK. So why would you deal with killing monsters in PVP area then? The reward must be greater for adventuring out into lawless areas!

(*) Varying levels of treasures drop in different areas. The areas with least penalties/protection mentioned above should have the highest reward. Most gold, treasure spawns, rare items, tougher monsters.

(*) Varying levels of XP gain in different areas. Same thing as with treasure... the more dangerous the area the higher XP it should grant you.

I think once you integrate PVP with risk/reward system like this, it is simply a matter of tuning before finding the right balance which works for most people.

The trick is to have many varying degrees of penalties, protection, and rewards depending on area. The cemetery outside of Britain should riskier for murderers than Level 4 deceit. You could make NPC's in cemetary like a groundskeeper that is not as powerful as guard that will help out new player. And if a murderer still kills this person then the penalty should be much larger when it is done right outside of Britain versus deep in a dungeon.

Make Ultimate RPG more "grey" in regards to these rules (murder penalties, npc protection, rewards) rather than "black and white" like UO was... and all players will find place in game that they enjoy.
 
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