Then I'd say you should try out EVE online.
It's the only MMO that I know of that comes close to what you describe; it's like ultima by the sound of it.
It does'nt have no-pvp zones, but zones guarded by NPCs that discourages players from pvp, but if you're far enough away from the guards you can do hit-n-runs and be gone before the guards have time to respond.
But it's a sandbox game alright, and there are no servers with pve only since there is only one single but huge server where every player plays; sheeps and wolfs alike.
You can chose to play as the pirate, hunting for targets and ambushing lone miners or cargo transports and destroying player ships drops some of the equipment mounted on them, not all, so there's no full loot.

guarded zones have to be very limited imo.. theres too many in eve.. ive played it... lowsec is ok but too much highsec.
Also the game is just incredibly boring it feels like a papersheet game with graphics.. flying around 100 hours to get to destinatoin...
clicking attack and yawn while fighting... u know what i mean. just staring at ur pixel sized ship surrounded by endless space flying in direction determined by "compass"... yawn. maybe if eve online was more like strartrek online but with eves pvp system and startreks combat system... then it might be fun.

There's 1 AAA mmorpg that might become good.. world of darkness.. made by same company behind eve online.. but its gonna be a more normal mmorpg.. not space.
But i cant bother waiting excitedly like a kid waiting for santa anymore.. too many mmorpg's have tried like dfo, mo to name the big ones.. then hundreds of other small ones.
its like waiting for santa and finding socks in the present... i just dont believe in santa anymore but if it turns out theres no socks in the present this time ill be really happy but its nothing im expecting from past experience.

I just dont see how they can succeed with WoD.. because of the reasons towards the beginning in the thread.

So what concessions are you willing to make on your "ideal" game to create an MMORPG(fantasy) that can be successful and enjoyed by many?

An open world for PvPers and PvEers to both enjoy. How can you do it? There are no limitations other than what you desire to put in place for the sake of a successful, enjoyable game experience for the majority of potential players.

It seems most of what is discussed here is the same old discussion on the topic. We know what the issues are, so how do you remedy them?

Aye, don't get your hopes up. You seem to have high standards regarding open world pvp and given the general market and the casual gamer era I doubt well see anything like what you want.
Much like in real life no one wants to live in constant fear of being preyed upon in an MMORPG either, especially if they could lose their stuff.

I could see it open world pvp work if the gear was second in importance and easy to come by and people were given unique enough rewards for playing the role of the sheep, something that the wolfs can't get, not even steal or loot from them.
The wolfs can't have the sheep and eat them too so to speak; they need to make a choise about their playstyle; they need to pay a price.
Just playing a merchant character and being able to make money that then can be stolen isn't a good enough carrot for players to play sheep. It needs to be something more awesome, maybe to be able to influence NPC factions or something, as long the wolfs can't get it. Period. They'd have to reroll sheep if they want it.
I think that could motivate the players playing sheep and thus in turn giving the wolfs something to do.

Well, there have to be a price for their actions when they kill players too.
WoW again is a poor example of world pvp since there's nothing to stop higher level players to prey on lower level players in starting areas.
Also their actions as you say has little consecquences in the world. But they don't get any loot either, their just being bastards, griefing players out of spite. That's the tricky part to get rid of.

EVE does this better, but not perfect. There every character have a security rating of sorts, visible to everyone. If it goes into the negative (for destroying ships and killing players) they get a red-flag and a flashing nametag warning players around them.
Players can also equip their vessels with gear specfically designed to escape these attacks.
Also players can put bounties out on them to attract bounty hunters to them to make their pirate lifes less enjoyable.

Just slap some kind of reputation system on the game or even justice and law system and make sure there are a price in one form or another to pay for the wolfs.
Make mercenaries readily available to defend players during journeys to further discourage attacks.
And so on.

Thing is that this in my head comes rather close to real life, where thiefs are less common than normal folk, because basically everyone that can avoid stealing don't simply because it's not worth consequences in most cases. It's much more comfortable to be able to make money from a job and buy stuff you need, rather than stealing everything.
But maybe that would work. Given harch enough consequenses for stealing/looting and killing players only the most motivated players would want to engage in that kind of behaviour voluntary. Maybe they don't respawn instantly if they have bad karma/reputation or something. They'd then be a minority in the game.
Sounds more plausible?

I think the biggest problem with these games is that players are sitting anonomously behind a pc screen. They're not held accountable for their actions in the same way as in real-life. Coincidentally, that's also why I tend to frown at any analyses concerning how real-life behavior and game behavior are linked, how they "can model eachother".

Anyways, as long as there's no real punishment for being a complete jerk to other people, this isn't going away any time soon.

I dont either think irl behaviour and ingame behavior have any similitaries.
But not for the reasons you mentioned.

Most mmorpg's would be best matched to the irl era hundreds of years back when there wasn't much firearms.
Back then, "police" were the "military" who defends the towns and empire. It's also a lot more ugly than movies and stories make it seem.

Armies would cut off womens breasts just for the fun of it while sieging other towns.

It was very darwinistic life then.. You really think that if a defenseless lonesome girl back then walks away from the town is safe?
If she walks into some guys are that out hunting its a good chance they might rape and kill her.. with very little consequence.

I'm not as knowledgeable about americas cowboy life but in the movies at least its usually just the sheriff and a couple of deputies who are defending and upholding justice in each small town. Because they are fearless and experienced with the way of the gun.. and they are good people.. so they want to take care of others.
It wasn't easy for them though to stop bandits raiding caravans outside the town and stuff like that.

imagine the people living outside towns in hermitages... ouch..

so I think consequences are about the same.

But reason I think its different is that its not as ugly killing someone in a game.. its not real... its a game

but ya.. consequences are good in games too.. anti-pks will protect the sheep.. just like sheriffs do in cowboy movies.

Just slap some kind of reputation system on the game or even justice and law system and make sure there are a price in one form or another to pay for the wolfs.
Make mercenaries readily available to defend players during journeys to further discourage attacks.
And so on.

You dont need a reputation system when you have real human players.
I can imagine bots would need a reputation system.. but not humans.
If someone steals from you ingame.. he loses reputation with you.. because you dislike him now and know hes a thief.
You tell your friends or maybe everyone in the town and now he lost reputation with all these players.

Mercs are available in all games.. just that most games have made it so its either not worth paying someone to guard/fight for u or that you cant get paid enough to make it worth fighting/guarding someone else. But theres always anti-pks that will do it for free.

justice and law system also not needed.. players make their own "laws" and powerful clans uphold them.. usually its a strong anti-pk alliance that rules the game because they are so much more in numbers than the PKs.

PKs should not be auto punished thru some killing penalty system for killing someone.. or else whats the point? just to grief? I thought you didnt want griefing.

If a pk succesfully kills someone he should be rewarded with the loot and whatever else personal reasons he had.
The victim should be punished... and which is death... because your not supposed to die in games.. its something you should try to avoid.. duh.
PKs take plenty risk and lose a lot of things when they become a PK... depends on game design too ofc.. but for example in UO you coudlnt go inside town anymore. If you dont create a npc auction house and make it more sandbox so that players can chose to run their own auctions.. PKs can get blacklisted form them. Theres lots of stuff really.. and PKs are at constant risk when they cant enter guarded areas.. running into other pks or anti-pks.. or sheep that can defend themselves.. its not always they find a defenseless sheep.. and the defenseless sheep played very bad to put themselves into that situation at first place.. so they are punished with death then.

But pks can just create an alt char to get access to all those blacklisted stuff and town.. so you would need 1 char per account and make new account cost decent amount of money.
But Im not really trying to tell you details and what kind of systems and mechanics you need to make a game like this work.
Im really just mentioning the very basics.

I can imagine bots would need a reputation system.. but not humans.
If someone steals from you ingame.. he loses reputation with you.. because you dislike him now and know hes a thief.

True. This works if the game world is small enough, or takes effort to travel in. Keeping track of people in-game and their reputation on a piece of paper quickly gets tiring once you've bumped into over 100 PKs, and spreading word of them is an effort as well.
Now if characters have a territory of sorts, home ground where they hang out and rarely travel beyond you can familiarise yourself with the somewhat established players in that area and keep track of them. Same goes if the game server only hosts a few number of players, but that's not really an MMO then.
But if all the tens of thousand of players they all can teleport, gate, fly or somehow very easily navigate the game world you probably want an easy way to keep track of players.

Mercs are available in all games.. just that most games have made it so its either not worth paying someone to guard/fight for u or that you cant get paid enough to make it worth fighting/guarding someone else. But theres always anti-pks that will do it for free.

I was primarily thinking of player-run merc-corps, and some kind of advertisement or contract system or channel where you can easily get protection.

PKs should not be auto punished thru some killing penalty system for killing someone.. or else whats the point? just to grief? I thought you didnt want griefing.

This is true as well. Ideally no artificial punishment system would be needed. If it's done in spirit of your wild west it could work, just give players the tools they need, and they'll make their own laws, and band together.


I reckon games like this in itself would work, provided they make it easy for new players that don't know the laws or faction, to get into the these factions and become part of them.

I think the real problem is to attract players in the first place like you said.
Sheep friendly mmos like WoW will get the people that just want to have fun with friends in dungeons, while pvp-people will search out pvp-dedicated games.
It takes a certain personality and attitude to want to expose yourself to danger in a non-pvp focused game; I imagine it's the same people that would roll hard-core characters in diablo
And as you said it's rather niche.

So, closing though. While doable, it wouldn't be as profitable as an MMO could be. Or so I believe.

Tibia handles this sort of good. They use a skull system, where a kill gives a white skull and 15 minutes locked out of protection zones. If you kill 3 people in a day you get a red skull for a month. Anyone with a skull are free to kill for anyone (the attackers get a yellow skull allowing the skulled to protect himself without consequence).

If you die with a redskull you drop all your items when killed, so you don't want that.

I like that system, but it could be improved.