The biggest problem I have with no-restriction PvP is that, no matter how immersive or fun you make gameplay, people reach points where they just don't care anymore. There was an MMO, Earth and Beyond, in which you could enter an "instance" to kill a bunch of big baddies for very good loot. I knew a guy in game who after a while got bored with it, and so one day just took all the items from one of the bosses.
Yep, he ninja'd, and people wouldn't let him do it again. But that didn't matter to him at all, because he just didn't care anymore. For those people, there is no consequence you can use to deter them - the only prevention is to just stop the ability to do so in the first place.
PKing in MMORPGs - Non-linear
I don't really know how what you said immediately relates to player killing parahelios, but people being d**ks is one more reason to allow pk'ing :)
Restricting players is generally not the way to go in my opinion.
I'll elaborate more on what I said in my previous post because I find it interesting.
There is a correlation between punishment of killing, punishment of dying, reward for killing; and rate of killing.
Examples:
In WOW there is no punishment for killing and a very small punishment for dying so there is a high rate of pvp between horde and alliance.
In Lineage II there is high punishment for killing and high punishment for dying so there is a relativly low kill rate/pvp rate between players. The main reason for killing someone is the clan they are in and is usually a kill-or-be-killed response BECAUSE the punishment of DYING is high.
In EVE Online there is a high punishment for killing and a high punishment for dying (higher than L2 even perhaps) however due to the high reward for killing there is a fair number of players who do it :)
I know these three* criteria that effect the rate of pk'ing is fairly subjective, but there is a definite correlation that you should think about when designing the relevant aspects of your game.
Edit: I think games where there is a high reward for killing and high punishment for dying are the ones considered 'hardcore' and favored by a smaller amount of more dedicated players. Note that the punishments and rewards I'm talking about may not be actual mechanics in the game, for example there is a small advantage for killing someone in Lineage II if they are hunting in the best spot and refuse to move. Adding pvp to a game creates a lot of synergy.
* = I realise these are actually only two criteria.
Restricting players is generally not the way to go in my opinion.
I'll elaborate more on what I said in my previous post because I find it interesting.
There is a correlation between punishment of killing, punishment of dying, reward for killing; and rate of killing.
Examples:
In WOW there is no punishment for killing and a very small punishment for dying so there is a high rate of pvp between horde and alliance.
In Lineage II there is high punishment for killing and high punishment for dying so there is a relativly low kill rate/pvp rate between players. The main reason for killing someone is the clan they are in and is usually a kill-or-be-killed response BECAUSE the punishment of DYING is high.
In EVE Online there is a high punishment for killing and a high punishment for dying (higher than L2 even perhaps) however due to the high reward for killing there is a fair number of players who do it :)
I know these three* criteria that effect the rate of pk'ing is fairly subjective, but there is a definite correlation that you should think about when designing the relevant aspects of your game.
Edit: I think games where there is a high reward for killing and high punishment for dying are the ones considered 'hardcore' and favored by a smaller amount of more dedicated players. Note that the punishments and rewards I'm talking about may not be actual mechanics in the game, for example there is a small advantage for killing someone in Lineage II if they are hunting in the best spot and refuse to move. Adding pvp to a game creates a lot of synergy.
* = I realise these are actually only two criteria.
I played Ultima Online and I even worked on a free server.
In Ultima Online, before the last updates that made the game suck, you were allowed to kill anyone anywhere...
But if you attack a inocent inside a city, you will get flagged "criminal" for some time, and any witnesses (player or not) could call the guards on you (that after getting beaten by players using the game unbalancing weapons that was introduced to make par to the standard hack'n'slash games, got the ability to kill instantly any player).
If you kill someone, this killed person can report you as PK, after some reports, you are flagged as PK, and for each report got after getting flagged, your countdown to lose the flag increased in 40 hours.
The result at this time was that road bandits apeared, people that really wanted to be flagged as PK, that wanted to gather goods from player traveling, and that wanted to be banned on all cities but on a single city where there are no guards.
So, innocent players that wanted to travel between cities without magic (at this time in the game, quite rare), needed to hire mercenaries to protect them, making the game fun and intersting.
Then the expansions came, with some non-pvp maps, that became crowded, while the original map became empty, with more unbalancing itens, that you can only get in the non-pvp maps (you can transport them later to the pvp map) and the result was that the game became pure hack'n'slash, players stopped creating other types of character than the ones that can fight (you altought now useless, can create blacksmiths, cooks, bards, miners, lumberjacks, farmers, carpenters... until this time the game remembered a "medieval Second Life") to create mages (to travel without using roads and to kill bosses), create tankmages PK chars, that are used only for PvP using the itens gathered by the other chars of the same player, and the other common type of classes (warriors, paladins, necros)
As you see, restricting the pvp, turned the game in something plainly stupid, maybe this is the motive that just after getting the AoS expansion launched, 100.000 players quit.
In Ultima Online, before the last updates that made the game suck, you were allowed to kill anyone anywhere...
But if you attack a inocent inside a city, you will get flagged "criminal" for some time, and any witnesses (player or not) could call the guards on you (that after getting beaten by players using the game unbalancing weapons that was introduced to make par to the standard hack'n'slash games, got the ability to kill instantly any player).
If you kill someone, this killed person can report you as PK, after some reports, you are flagged as PK, and for each report got after getting flagged, your countdown to lose the flag increased in 40 hours.
The result at this time was that road bandits apeared, people that really wanted to be flagged as PK, that wanted to gather goods from player traveling, and that wanted to be banned on all cities but on a single city where there are no guards.
So, innocent players that wanted to travel between cities without magic (at this time in the game, quite rare), needed to hire mercenaries to protect them, making the game fun and intersting.
Then the expansions came, with some non-pvp maps, that became crowded, while the original map became empty, with more unbalancing itens, that you can only get in the non-pvp maps (you can transport them later to the pvp map) and the result was that the game became pure hack'n'slash, players stopped creating other types of character than the ones that can fight (you altought now useless, can create blacksmiths, cooks, bards, miners, lumberjacks, farmers, carpenters... until this time the game remembered a "medieval Second Life") to create mages (to travel without using roads and to kill bosses), create tankmages PK chars, that are used only for PvP using the itens gathered by the other chars of the same player, and the other common type of classes (warriors, paladins, necros)
As you see, restricting the pvp, turned the game in something plainly stupid, maybe this is the motive that just after getting the AoS expansion launched, 100.000 players quit.
Quote:Original post by stevenmarky
I don't really know how what you said immediately relates to player killing parahelios, but people being d**ks is one more reason to allow pk'ing :)
Restricting players is generally not the way to go in my opinion.
<snip>
Sorry, the point I was getting at was that the goal in designing a good PvP / PK system is that you want to encourage fair/fun/interesting fighting and giving depth to gameplay, while limiting PK'ng just to, as you said, be a d**k :)
And as I said, the problem is that for certain people, and after a certain time, there is no penalty you can have that will stop the latter. Granted, this is the edge you are going for with such a combat system, but its just hard to weigh that against people who are new, aren't interested in being open to combat -all- the time (after all, while I could get mugged or killed walking to my house from Subway, the chances are incredibly slim), and the people who just like to grief using any mechanic available to them.
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