by Azaroth | February 15th, 2010
Simpsons references probably stopped being humourous and witty around the time UO was first released. What can I say. It’s either that or some kind of Star Trek reference. I don’t think you want that. Darmok and Jalad never went fishing for TMaps on the ocean, and this image is NOT funny.
Recently I described our mission statement here as “…moving backward in time, stepping forward with the core philosophies of what Ultima Online was originally at heart. Creating solutions to past and present problems in a holistic manner while staying respectful and mindful of what the game was meant to be. The addition of the current kind of trappings that keep non-UO-traditional players interested and involved, but doing so without disrupting the delicate balances that exist in oldschool Ultima Online. The destruction of barrier to entry to the world to enable a flow of new players to revitalize the world and the abandoned parts of it that, when alive and healthy, make UO a real virtual world in the truest sense of what we have today. Long term viability and sustainability where none exists. Breadth of player impact on the world.”
That last part, I think, needs to be bolded here. Each step in UO’s reputation system made players more accountable, and more accurately measured their effect on the world around them. Unfortunately, the general direction was scrapped before it could be taken to the point of truly quantifying the effect of a player on the world. The reputation system went from a simple ladder of titles and flags to a… slightly more complicated ladder of titles and flags. But improvements were slowly being made in measuring a player’s actions in the world. Once you introduce Trammel and take an entirely new direction to the development of the game, things like this fall by the wayside. They were, however, originally born out of necessity – because without a PK switch or Trammel, keeping track of player actions truly is necessary.
Later, Virtues became an addition to the game. Virtues generally measured one simple action and provided points toward a single superpower. Interesting stuff, really, and a neat little addition to the game. But it could have been so much more. It literally feels like someone said “Here, we need to do something with this” in a meeting. I’m not sure good game systems can take shape in quite that way.
The IPY Virtue system is, in the truest nature of IPY 2, taking a step backward in an effort to take a step forward… correctly. Or in my estimation of what “correctly” is, anyway. Your mileage may vary.
Step one in a system like this is the basic foundation. Assigning or negating points from eight virtue/anti-virtue pools:
Compassion (Despise)
Honesty (Deceit)
Honor (Shame)
Humility (Pride)
Justice (Wrong)
Sacrifice (Covetous)
Spirituality (Hylotheism)
Valor (Dastard)
Now, the reason I’d post this as a point of discussion is that, in my opinion, as many eyes as possible need to look over the problem, consider the world of UO, and provide a solution. The list of actions that interacts with the basic level of this system should be huge. I have my own – can you add to it?
Giving a coin to a wandering healer might silently reward a player with a small number of Compassion or Sacrifice points. Leading him further into the woods and slaying him for his kindling may tick off the Despise, Wrong, Dastard, and even Shame boxes to varying degrees.
So sit back, have a coffee, and give some thought to creating your own list of simple actions that may in some way interact with the virtues of Ultima. By the time you see the whole system in place, I hope to have a mystifyingly huge number of actions that it records and passes along to the rest of the system and to others that it’s intertwined with.
Let’s get started.
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Ressing someone you kill. Looting/Not looting someone you kill. Res killing. Healing another player in a dungeon or while in combat. Attacking another player in a dungeon or while they are in combat.
Interesting idea Az. What are some other ideas people?
I like it. Good stuff.
Helping a new player
(ie if skillpoints are under 500 then healing them/partying them and going dungeon hunting will help – giving gold – of course, with measures in place to avoid exploitation)
Killing tamed animals (negative)
Depending on the types of negative things that come with having too many points, but perhaps stealing/snooping.
Returning a head for bounty (positive)
Killing a murderer (positive)
Recalling in a battle (negative if you have 1+ longterm)
Killing players inside of their houses (afkers)
It would be interesting if this type of fame/karma system transfered across all characters.. so if you had one character that goes around griefing the living crap out of everyone, house killing, mount killing, murdering, you would get a title of “The Coward” (for example) and all of your blue characters would have the same title since they are “cowards by association”
Question: What happens when too many points in one class are accumulated? Does it just change your title in paperdoll or will there be a different impact? Will it impact how NPC’s treat you? will it impact ressurection?
So, I don’t want to seem like a jerk and ignore this question – because I’m sure people are wondering what the actual results end up being. For now I want to stick to creating this particular base list as far as public discussion, though.
hmm. I don’t want to argue the whole recalling in combat thing again, but it’s stupid to give anyone negative anything for escaping a gank.
Regarding killing tamed pets, you would probably have to limit that by pet type. Because getting negative for killing a tamer’s dragon that’s trying to kill you is dumb.
I agree with domnu about getting negative rep for res killing, and I’ve posted extensive proof that res killing deters people from wanting to play. Negative rep of some sort or another may combat this, but I do not understand why there was never simply a timer in place that says a player cannot be attacked by (or attack) another player within 10 seconds after accepting a res.
Enough time to go to a bank, get some recalls, and get out to go re-equip and keep playing, but not enough time to get equipped and start attacking right away. The only downside I see to it at all is less ass hattery.
ok, now the simple actions I can think of for gaining / ruining reputation.
Creating / crafting a gm weapon: + valor. – Since skill gain is going to be hard, the people who actually decide to be craters so us PvPers can have Gm vs GM as the standard pvp weapons should be rewarded.
provocation: if targetting on a blue, negative honor. If targetting on another monster, positive honor.
snooping: negative (believe it already is)
Selling a magic item (might or above) to an NPC without using it, + sacrifice. (appropriate scaling for armor as well, haven’t given it alot of thought).
calling guards on a criminal: + justice
Gating or ressing a fallen opponent: + honor
These are just some ideas, and I do realize that alot of them are exploitable. Like:
‘Cast FS on yaht as the finishing spell – over 9000 justice’
Oh yea, also along with that timer, you also shouldn’t be able to loot corpses of any player or monster within 10 seconds after res. Fixes being able to get ressed and go loot yourself without getting attacked.
Couple short ideas…
Selling/buying from an NPC shopkeep
+Honesty
Selling/buying from an NPC mage
+Spirituality
Visiting a shrine
+Spirituality
Dropping gold on it (money sink)
+Spirituality
+Sacrafice
+Humility
Killing a theif who stole from you
+Justice
+Honor
-Humility
..if the theif kills you
+Humility
-Justice
-Honor
Crafting a GM weapon
+Honesty
-Spirituality
Dying withing X amount of seconds after healing or buffing someone else.
+Sacrifice
+Honor
+Valor
Ressing someone you kill
+Compassion
+Honor
Ressed by a person who killed you
+Humility
-Honor
Killing a player with less then X amount of skill points (newbie)
-Honor
-Valor
-Compassion
Ressing a red
-Valor
+Compassion
Killed by a guard
-Honor
-Honesty
+Humility
Killing a high level monster
+Valor
-Humility
Use a trash bin (good for the server)
+Sacrifice
+Honor
+Honesty
Calling guards
+Justice
+Honesty
-Compassion
-Valor
Healing with bandages
-Spirituality
Killing the same person within
Every boost would be relitively minute and I’d imagine this system would have kind of an ebb and flow to keep your character evolving. I think it would be a little useless without appropriate bonuses to stats and skills though.
Stat bonuses would be a problem considering most of the suggested ideas (a lot of good ones btw, nj) can be abused. I think this system should be targeting the non power gamers. The people who will have fun raising their virtue “points” in a legitimate manner and are proud of doing it that way.. Even if all they get is some modified paperdoll title or less.
I’ll be doing what I can to prevent the system from being “gamed” in general.
Otherwise, it’s very good to see you guys getting involved on this one. Some good stuff floating around here already. Some of this is even spawning offshoot ideas.
Additionally, I can always count on this crowd to consider the Player versus Player aspect of something like this. Which is helpful.
Keep this stuff coming.
Wow, cool topic. I been out of town and as a result I see a lot of ideas already – BUT I haven’t read them yet besides Az’s original post. I don’t want to be ripping others ideas or have their ideas get me focused on tangents, so here goes -
1) Quests. Simply put, this is the most practical and efficient way of delivering a new level of a notoriety system without having to change anything about the old notoriety system. Quests are gay, yada yada yada yada fuckin YADA, we get it… but if you think about it, the reality kicks in where every single RPG—shit, make that pretty much all single player games—and it’s obvious. Bada boom, bada bing, turn in some dragon dicks, slayed the dragon, now consider all the different boons that are gained besides the target of virtue schwag – theres an eco-grind, a char-grind, a meta-game learning grind, a quest grind [with potential item/carrot stick grind involved as a reward], and the coveted “virtue” point grind/procurement. As for the intricacies? I dunno, I’m not a fucking paperback writer, go fuck yourself [-1 compassion].
2) Tithing. Now to be real, Az is causing my brain to hang fire on his little “Take 2 steps back, now 3 steps forward, do the cha cha cha and hokey pokey all around” schpiel, but I’m just running with it. So they put in tithing right for the paladin ability or whatever, but skip the different resource and just make it gold. Donate gold to _insert_NPC_name_here or even something like a recoded trash barrel in designated areas for points. Again this would involve the meta game of all the different grinds and their risks and rewards for doing so to get the gold to tithe in the first place.
3) This third entry is straight off the brain to the keyboard, but feel me – again on the quest thing or npc thing, it could really be made into something special. I mean for example, an NPC is instigated upon [possibly with use of a prereq item found on a certain enemy archtype] and they activate a quest where they go with you like the old school NPC escorts would for money, but THIS time they don’t give you money for just taking them to the entry or whatever, they actually are coded with AI to FIGHT WITH YOU in the dungeon until you get to a certain hardcoded area with them, or slay a certain kind of tiered enemy in the dungeon, or obtain a spawnable item in the dungeon and then travel back. Only at the end would you get the reward or the virtue points added, it would encourage dungeon crawling, it would be a legit eco-boost to someone going out to gain some cash, it would help them stay alive and therefore develop their char better, it would help against PKs, etc. Just tossing out a somewhat concrete idea in case I wasn’t explaining myself enough.
These next few bits are important but more of questions, ramblings, and random statements made out of confusion and lack of complete understanding -
4) I do not know about the fuel, the driving motivators that would be the main reason for a player wanting to be involved with a ‘virtue’ system. I feel more comfortable, personally, discussing the mechanics and workings of such a system if it was to be implemented into UO. Perhaps this is because we are talking about this in its infancy. Anyways, I feel like my ideas gravitate towards making it happen rather than why, and usually the why is more important – it has to serve a true purpose or it is hollow.
5) Are we talking about something like a true anti-notoriety system? Where in it would involve _decay over time_ and thus require constant or at least somewhat focused efforts to keep “high” or “virtuous” ??? If so any and all loopholes in abuse must be tied down. The system must be weighted correctly at all points to stay balanced and rigorous against the strain of exploitive powergaming in its various forms.
6) Most of my ideas involve little player-to-player interaction because I feel that would be dreadfully difficult to implement correctly without opening the door to potential exploits. When you look at how shallow the notoriety system has been in UO in all of its forms, it is easy to see how one [or many] can cheese the notoriety system. This is because it is directly dependant upon player-to-player interactions. My first thought was “help noobs” but then I immediately considered the ramifications of abusing a system where ambiguous interactions like “helping noobs” or “anti-pking” were blindly rewarded. A system that involves p-2-p interactions on a badly weighted “virtue” scale and hands or doles out reward/punishment is ripe for abuse by the first people to figure out how to create alt accounts and develop the correct, for lack of a better term, ‘build order’ to high virtue is then put into a position to abuse whatever rewards or opportunities are there. It just screams off-the-charts scary powergamer cheese if it involves only p-2-p interactions and hastily considered pros/cons.
7) Bounty system. This could take various forms but I find it difficult to see a vary advantageous route for unabated abuse. Again the reasons why or the pros/cons are not my forte.
8) Daily/weekly requirements. Sort of a quest / grind hybrid thingy. For example, sacrifice – you gain the benefit if you have less than 1000 gold on your char/bank/account, including capital – so don’t try and hide it in that expensive house! On the opposite end, you reap the cons if you have like, ten million in accumulated wealth. Do you sign up for this or does it just happen without your consent? Up to you, I dunno shit – I was just throwing this out there on a whim. Humility? Get to Dread Lord [without being red] and hold it for a week. Pride? Glorious Lord tag while being blue. I’m sellin this shit like hot cakes! Movin along…
9) Ranking/ladder system. I dunno how this would fit within an actual “virtue” system, but just thinking about the dungeons and the anti-virtues, lets say whoever gets the most dragon kills/dicks in Destard in a 7-day period gets the biggest boon of Valor [again whatever that boon is, not my area of concern]. This one involves no negative scaling in its weighted points as far as I can see [no reason to punish someone if they don't hunt at least 5 dragon dicks in a week]. This idea provides more incentive in just being the week’s best dragon dick hunter than you’d think. People want to be the hottest dragon dick hunter of the month, it’s not just opinion, it’s a fucking fact. YOU want to be the greatest dragon dick hunter of all time, it’s in you, it’s in your blood, it’s what drives you to get up every morn-
10) My tenth and final idea/quip/incoherent rambling, bringing a bittersweet end to my ferocious torment of prolixity ——— and your eyes are darting across the words in anticipation —— here it comes ——- get ready ——- ……. ——– !!!!!!!!!!! ——- If you’re putting in virtues then I can’t decide whether I want to roleplay as Noah, Moses, or the Pope in my newfound desire to achieve the ultimate end game superiority of an online game – WORSHIP ME!!!!! All shall seek the coming of the glory of the lord!!!! Lord British, that is!!!! DONATE YOUR GOLD TO ME AND I WILL BLESS THEEEEEE!!!!!!! No but really thank you for taking the time to read this entire post, or at least scrolling your mouse wheel at least five times to skip over it. Nice job either way and you sir deserve a cookie, and an invitation to continue this discussion if you so choose to accept this mission. This gigantic execrable verbose and morose bloated dead beached-whale of a posted reply will self destruct in five seconds. (Now I’m going to read the other peoples opinions and possibly, unlikely at this particular venture, reply once more in response to them)
Ok, so aside from the ideas. We’ve got two glaring issues on this topic. The first is the motivator for making people want to grind certain ‘reputations,’ and the 2nd is the possibility of exploits associated with the ideas.
In response to Yaht’s #4 (and 6), unfortunately the ‘fuel’ or ‘motivator’ is probably the most important piece to this. I agree 100% that implementation of such things regarding PvP scenarios are going to be much more easily exploitable than the proposed ‘escort type’ WoW questing that Yaht is suggesting. It’s obviously a bad idea to have certain reputations give boosted skills or stats, so what would be a reward worth grinding reputation for? What would make people who aren’t necessarily involved in PvP keep grinding up to the ‘exalted’ faction levels? (sorry for the WoW references, but that’s what it reminds me of). I believe the answer is pixel crack.
Just set the ‘exalted’ levels of reputation really high so that the pixel crack doesn’t get out of hand.
With that said, even the non-pvp interactions can be made less exploitable by adopting the tiered type of faction ranking that WoW has. If you want to make a blanket statement like “if you give X gold to an NPC then you get +(insert virtue here), you need to drill it down and say that from X number of reputation until Y number of reputation, you are considered friendly with said virtue type, and as soon as you reach the next tier, you can no longer obtain virtue of that type by committing the same action. This stops people from just standing at an NPC and tossing him 5 gold coins over and over and over until the virtue is maxed. For lack of better terminology, the tiers would be friendly, honored, revered, and exalted. Different and more difficult quests and actions would be made available for virtue gain depending on which tier you are in. (can you tell I’ve been playing WoW recently?) :D
One way to balance this system :
Make it so that randomly at different times of the day, only certain “virtue” points can be gained and cannot be predicted.
Is there anyway to make this so it is game shaping but not defining?
Like your primary virtue will decide if you are seen as a gray thief, or a red murderer, or a blue Lord or a purple trader or something along those lines. But not that you get some super fireball of death that one shots in PvP? We don’t want this system to unbalance PvP, but I think it would be a great way to set up a sort of “rule system” for the server in terms of play style and conduct.
Help keep the greifers in check sort of thing, maybe make people stride to be better or take on the role of the villain without being over the top or a straight up asshole.
I find it odd that the main reaction to the proposed virtue system is to act in ways a person otherwise wouldn’t in order to achieve a specific status.
It seems to me that, if implemented correctly, its just a better and more specific way to define a character through the actions they choose. Much more of a ‘this is the way I’ve been acting in game, so this is my virtue score,’ rather than a ‘this is the virtue score I want, what’s the best way of getting it?’
When viewed in this light, I don’t even see the question ‘What’s my motivation?’ as an issue. Giving a player items/stats/skills what have you for their virtue score (or lack thereof) wouldn’t really make sense. One of the simplest benefits from the system would be that other players could easily judge how to react to a given person by checking their paperdoll.
An example: “The Deceitful Dezolis (that has a nice ring to it) is offering to sell you a full spellbook for less than a thousand gold.” How much easier would it be to detect his scam?
Another: “The Valorous Dezolis wants to explore a dungeon with you.” Wouldn’t you be much more likely to accept his offer?
If you can work in NPC reaction to these titles, great, but I don’t even see that as necessary.
From a programming standpoint it’d be impossible to tie the virtue system into a transaction like that. You can’t really take away virtue points in anything for a scam or a bug because a scam is basically a clever mantipulation of the game mechanics for financial benefit and a bug is a error in intended programming.
If you could programmatically solve scamming, odds are it would have been done a long time ago. Unfortunately a lot of scamming is based on immeasurable aspects (trust).
Honestly, you don’t greet every stranger in UO ready for a fight you’re niave. Most people don’t care if your dressed like a tellitubby riding a unicorn. Unless you’re going OoOooOooOooo you’re a threat.
I don’t believe dezolis was suggesting tying the scam transaction to the virtue system; I believe he was referring to seeing the “deceitful” title of the player, and judging whether or not to trade with dezolis, based on his virtue title.
coreball is correct, I was thinking that if person A saw person B selling something for a fair amount under its regular value and person A saw that person B had the deceitful title, person A would be much less likely to buy from person B.
Also, let’s suppose that it is possible to define players based on their previous actions along the virtue guideline, something that has never been true of UO before (sure there’s blue/grey/red but blue definitely doesn’t indicate good, a person could be grey for who knows what, and red doesn’t explain the reason a person is a murderer, I’ve met some honorable murderers). If it were possible to define people based on their previous actions I think the likelihood of being able to trust strangers would skyrocket. Conversely, the title ‘Glorious Lord’ (a frivolous bit of nonsense) has less chance of swaying someone who’s new to UO into trust.
When it comes down to it, blue/grey/red defines how npcs (guards specifically) treat characters. A virtue system that defines a character would greatly impact how players treat each other.
Here’s a hypothetical that would expand I want I say with my ebb and flow concept of these virutes. Lets say we make ressing someone +Spirituality and -Humility (god complex!). Being ressed gives +Humility and -Honor. You power game or macro that, the other guy is going to gain humility and lose honor, you’re going to gain spirituality but lose humility. With this gain/loss concept you’re character will be in perpetual development and change. Take on the limitation that you can only gain from the same player once every 10 minutes.
You can steer players actions with the virtue system and reward for behavior you want to encourage. For example let say Spirituality boosts the meditation skill (which helps mages). Tank mage PK’s are standard in the IPY time frame. Give Spirituality bonus for healing people you just killed or blues only. Make it only possible to gain Spirituality from that action once a day (prevents res killing and macroing).
You should use virtues as a fulcrum to balance power between social behaviors, place players in a state of perpetual character development, and add another layer to PvP that’s paper thin enough to not upset people but enough to pique the interest of people who strive to tweak their character.
Personally with UO I’m a utilitarian player to the core. Titles and reputation in this game isn’t dictated by any game mechanic. I’ve brawled with yaht a dozen times, organized events with mazer, and bc is fucking crazy. You can’t capture that knowledge in a game mechanic or virtue system. The virtue system has to have some sort of intangible character impact for it to be worth paying attention to.
Hmm.. Dezolis raises a good point here, and I think he’s right. It’s just supposed to be an added feature and accurate representation of how you are playing, not an aim that you would hope to achieve by doing something other than your normal style of playing. for this reason there does not need to be implemented motivation or rewards.
And it’s also probably part of the reason Az only wanted a list of simple actions.
We don’t want this to become a focal point, and one of the only reasons people play. I think what we want, or at least what I want, is just a simple addition of accurate titles determined by my playstyle. Not the other way around.
Alright well I’ve slept on everybody else’s opinions and mulled over new ones today, and several key points are revealing themselves as critical elements if this type of dynamic was green-lighted for IPY 2.0. Unlike my last post which is grandiose and a general brainstorm, here are a couple of talking points I’d like to draw focus upon even more.
a) First and foremost, if the system involves any direct interaction with the PvP system itself, it has got to be weighted on a rock solid scale with multiple bulwarks in place to limit its potential for changing PvP. Whether we’re talking about the frequency of interaction in regards to PvP, or whether we’re talking about the potential for changing buffs, stats, skills, timers, dmg, dps, WHATEVER – if it’s anything in those two alleys then it needs to be a completely shackled system. Personally I think any virtue system that deals directly with PvP in any aspect is just begging for abuse — or, at the very least, asking to become a hugely important part of “throwback” game and that doesn’t do it justice on the meta-game level.
b) The meta-game is where the most glaring issues of any implemented system would first appear. If we were to sit down at have a beer and talk about UO [odds of this happening are a trillion to one, I don't drink beer and I don't talk about MMOs irl], the typical convo would discuss the overall arcing strats that most of us employ. The convo might drift into those “Oh, this one time, at PK band camp,…” but in reality you’d be discussing the most fundamental and ethereal aspects of the game. The parts of the game you don’t specifically play in or with, but are totally necessary to understand and master if one was to become proficient in the end game of UO. This is where the virtue system MUST be balanced and MUST have a working motivator [for the player] and a working mechanic [a rigorous and tested Virtue vending machine in an implemented form]. What it all boils down to, is if we’re sitting there talking about UO [specifically IPY 2.0] over a drink and the topic of a “virtue” system comes up, does the other person moan and roll their eyes or do their eyes light up and a grin come across their face. Countless games and countless superficial systems put into these games end up with a shallow and hollow relic that only serves as a monolithic reminder of how dumb the concept was at the time and constantly bades us to not patch anything mega-tarded like that in ever again. There are numerous dynamics within UO *ITSELF* that are ultra-fail, and it’s a good thing they’re still in the coding and weren’t ripped out during some expansion because they help ground us in the truth – the truth is people don’t want to play a stupid game with shallow quests and gay shit that has no purpose or legitimate affect on anything in the game on a personal player level or a server-wide level. The virtue system MUST SERVE A GREATER PURPOSE than just adding to the level of complexity simply because it’s not ’98 anymore. “Oh it’s 2010, we gotta add at least SOMETHING, spice it up” that may be a good observation by the average gamer, but it has to fit within the limitations of the game we’re fawning over, AND it has to provide a greater meta purpose as a whole over a sustainable period of time. Crucial.
c) Directed at Sultani but loud enough for all to hear – It’s really not about paying homage to WoW it’s about the reality that we’re working with limitations, greater limitations than WoW has, and while we may imagine greater things and different, new, exciting dynamics that could manifest in game. I’m not trying to give any particular respect or draw interest to WoW or “the WoW way of doing things” but the truth is, some stuff in WoW is the next level of development for these online games. The example of taking an NPC and having him pseudo-party with you for a dungeon crawl has so many ramifications in the meta aspect of ‘toon devving’ that it’s obvious to me that it is superior than the UO form of dungeon crawling. Read this part 3x —- ***The only thing about UO’s PvM/PvE/grinding systems that are superior to WoW is the non-linearity it provides.*** In all other areas, including the meta-game learning curve, the char grind/dev, the eco grind, etc – WoW is superior because of newly refined mechanics like questing. And this is not to say questing is new, it was in Atari games, all I’m saying is that WoW has clearly shown that it compensates for its predictable linearity in some areas by providing a balanced meta-game at the end of that linearity. There may be fewer paths for a normal person [aka a lifer, opposite of no-lifer] to take in WoW that are as efficient as straight retardo-quest grinding, but in the end all of the linearity falls off anyways because, after all, the end game of an MMO has no “end game” or “final quest” or “final boss” it’s all up to the player at that point, and at that point all doors are open, the sandbox is primed and ready to go. The sandbox doesn’t even fucking matter until the end, and if a portion of non-linear ‘magic dust’ is lost or consumed by implementing a linear “quest-like” system in one of its many forms, then so be it. I’d rather lose some of that pixie dust that makes UO special for a lil extra spice of variety at the end game [again, assuming the spice isn't something like '+40 dmg to all fireballs you cast! you're totally virtuous, d00d!!!'].
d) I’ve dropped another giant post on yall noobs when I wasn’t even trying, I can do this all day baby!!! If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, pop some Orville Reddenbacher and go read my first post.
e) With regards to other people’s ideas, some of them make me shudder at the thought – and not cuz they’re bad but cuz some of them would just cause massive imbalance alone. Others make me smile but I realize they’re complete folly and are not practical. This includes some of my own ideas. So lets keep discussing, lotta good ideas being brainstormed over this topic.
*Post deleted on request.. Topic was “Why Do The Olympics Suck?”, or thereabouts.
You really hit it in a way. This is a gaming blog. We’re making a game here. Opinions may differ and politics is something I should leave out of it.
However. As my last statement on the matter:
The Olympics never turns a profit. Never. That’s a fact. Anyone telling you that the Olympics pays dividends financially and isn’t just a huge black hole for tax dollars is lying through their teeth to you. Ask them to show you the numbers. They won’t be able to, because, again, they’re bullshitting you. The 1976 Montreal Olympics, for example, were paid off by the taxpayers finally in 2006. However, costs for maintaining the venues and stadiums still roll in. $20 million/year for an empty stadium here, x dollars for a broken down track of some kind there, etc.
It’s also a myth that the Olympics promote mass tourism increases. Most of the people there are local – or close to it. If my mom living in Vancouver pays $15 in taxes and then buys a $15 t-shirt – that doesn’t even anything up. Anyone telling you it does isn’t just bad at math. After the games, there’s a generally a pretty big decline in tourism for the area for several years as well.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0901/p07s01-woeu.html
Here’s a neat story illustrating the point.
“A post-Olympic hurdle for Greece: the whopping bill
Greeks hope increased tourism will help them pay the $9 to $12 billion pricetag for bringing the Olympics to Athens.”
Good luck with that.
“When Athens hosted in 2004, Greece didn’t see visitor numbers recover to their pre-Games level until two years later. “
“In an acknowledgment of Greece’s struggle to pay for the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee announced plans to cut the scale of the Olympics in the future.”
How’s that worked out?
Just curious, though. Even if the Olympics did show a certifiable profit and not massive losses – would the Olympics be cool?
Shooting up homeless with vaccines, kicking them out of their shelters and busing them out of town. Is that cool? Or bulldozing land for fucking luge tracks and shit? Is that cool?
I don’t know. What about police states – cool? Draconian laws prohibiting what you can do inside and outside of your own home? Cool? Free speech zones, are they cool? Is surveillance cool? Political propaganda?
Of course, I should stop complaining. It’s not like this is the first time the feeble minds of sports fans have been used for political purposes. Hell, our Prime Minister “wrote” a book about hockey and is regularly described as an avid fan who attends games constantly. All they do is talk about what a great hockey fan he is, as though that were somehow relevant. I mean, to anyone with an IQ over 12. It’s hilarious. It’d be like… if your president was black and talked about basketball all of the time. Or, wait. No. If he was a southern white guy who owned a baseball team and was always seen at… oh shit.
So no. Olympics… not that cool.
In my opinion.
And now back to OnLinE GameZz…. BeEP BoOp BeEp!!1
Christ on a bike yaht. I love your input man, but you have to sum things up in a few less pages. :P
FYI, I AM reading all of those. Even if Yaht is taking up an hour of my time every time he posts. It’s good stuff, really. Some of it I’d thought about, some I haven’t. Ultimately, it’s all been more useful than I’d expected to this point, I’d say.
Yaht: “I want a green robe.”
J/k. I’ll find time to respond later.
Well, to be clear I wasn’t speaking of paying hommage to WoW. I pointed out that the NPC partying / escort type quests are a good idea. Not because I think IPY 2.0 should be more like WoW, but because, as you said, this type of development is “the next level of development.” The truth is, I only compared it to WoW because I play it. I likely could have inserted any other newer / modernized MMO and the same thing would have been true. Because I believe that character development should be done through actually playing the game, I believe that this type of system would enrich and support that mentality, so I suggested it be adopted.
Regarding linearity: UO’s end game of character development isn’t really reached by non-linear means. That’s only true if macroing is banned, or it is more beneficial to development not to macro. Sure, there’s a wealth of opportunity and different paths one can take to develop their character **provided you have to actually play the game while you are doing it**.
WoW (or any other new MMO) is extremely more linear in terms of progressing to the end game for a few reasons. First because there’s a limited amount of viable quest lines for optimal exp gain, and because there’s only two factions. As soon as it is known which quest lines will get you to 80 the fastest, it doesn’t really make sense to follow any other line. That’s one of the biggest flaws, but it’s outweighed by the end game balance, as you said.
Similarly, in UO, as soon as it’s known how to macro up to 7x the fastest, it doesn’t make sense to actually play the game and develop your character in any other way.
What I would absolutely love to see is people playing the game BEFORE they achieve their leet end game 7x status. It doesn’t matter that UO is superior in terms of non-linear character development if everyone already knows they are going to just gather resources and run a macro in their houses until they’ve reached the end game.
What should happen then, is that it needs to be shown to be more beneficial to participate in this virtue system AND regular playing (during development) than it is to just macro in a house because when you reach the end game there will be something there for you depending on which virtue you’ve chosen to maximize.
Again, I don’t think that added benefit should be something like skill or stat boosts. It should be some sort of pixel crack (or just a title) related to the chosen virtue.
If it is successful in making people play, there is linearity imposed, sure, but there’s different paths (depending on virtue), which is quite a bit more options than “grab some regs and stand in my house until I’m at the end game. Having 7 different paths (or however many virtues there are), is better than having only one optimal choice.
I may have missed your point completely. but whatevs.
I AGREE
we need a better end game, something more than 7x gm, castle, rares, gold, regs, rinse repeat.
well, the difficulty is making the benefits of each faction enoguh to make people want to choose and follow them, while at the same time not effecting pvp to the point where certain virtues are dominant against others. That’s why I don’t think stat boosts or anything of the like should be considered for the motivation. Maybe whatever virtue is associated with crafters would give them the ability to craft colored weapons or armor or something.
just an idea.
Sult, you’re definitely in my theoretical neighborhood. Two slightly-directed-at-Sult retorts -
FIRST – all our talk and concern over sandbox vs quest, linearity over nonlinearity, it all boils down to one thing – opportunity. Char deving/grinding has to provide opportunities for the player to experience and grow upon without having it rammed down their throat. Upon reaching end game, the concept of opportunity must be held in tact but transferred from concerning itself with balancing the char dev / meta grind in general, and focus its efforts on providing a variety of end game sinks that are also balanced. Basically it’s about giving a new player different routes that are all viable and practical, and then avoiding the pratfalls of pidgeonholing those different types of viable playstyles into boring and predictable end game scenarios. The game should be building upon itself toward end game [just like the character is building upon itself] instead of slowly forcing the character to become more specialized and less unique. Divergent end game variety is needed rather than convergent game theory in regards to viable playstyles and alternative sinks.
This is one of the areas that I feel a rock-paper-scissors formulated game like WoW falls short. Because of its convergent game theory rather than true nonlinearity at end game, the game is able to provide a more intimate and predictable playfield. After time this is exposed for what it is, a simple grinded build order and a R-P-S triangle. And I’m not saying it’s bad or anything, I think I’m really good at R-P-S, it’s just not what I’m looking for in UO or in a sustainable and complex end game environment.
FINALLY – Time sinks already come in a variety of different forms. Time sinks should be liberating and opportunitistic, rather than a forced requirement due to unbalanced end game.
For example if GM weapons hit as hard as Vanqs, everybody would GM their own Blacksmith. This would basically just create a new flaming hoop that all end game players must jump thru [grinding a Smith]. However in reality, a GM Blacksmith makes GM weapons. These are slightly better than standard and not difficult to obtain. This is the correct balance because it takes very little Sink to obtain what is widely considered the standard requirement for viability. As small as the sink may be, it is still a necessary eco [and thus] time sink. And we’re only talking about what, 50-100g? Maybe 250 for a hally? That’s what, half a demon? So 20 seconds of EV farming? Even a tiny sum of gold, a tiny waste of time – this shows that the player is willing to participate in different parts of the game and exert labor at some point for the SOLE reason of not deviating too far from the standard combat tools [in this case, GM weapon]. This example alone shows how time sinks must be intimately intertwined within other parts of the game in order to provide a realistic and balanced end game landscape where the Sinks are not too difficult or risky, and the player develops a give-and-take relationship with the game itself in order to balance overall power. If a player were able to farm a mob that drops a million gold, they would bypass not only the sink but the power sink as well. Rather than raising the power bar blindly, it is wise to find a middle ground in a weighted scale. It’s all about balance, and finding the right center of gravity for any system that would be implemented is going to be a necessary step if any Virtue system was put in place.
The entire pool of players need to be able to experience the new shit, not just the annointed end gamers. Tainting the fate of players who decide to avoid new shit would be a terrible thing, ESPECIALLY if the new shit provides opportunity. It’d be like, a double swing on the spread. Not only would they get hit by those taking advantage of it, but they’d be punished for not taking advantage of it. It’d be like going down a goal in hockey, and as a result of going down a goal in hockey, the ref gives you a negative goal. Maybe this part is elementary but a lot [LOT] of designers forget about the double swing on little systems that are comparable to a “Virtue” system. They are SOOO excited and proud in their little geeky provincial way that their hubris clouds their judgment. They get that whole “oh d00d this is totally l33t theres no other way to play” type of mentality, where you’re almost overtly and outright punished for not paying an extra 20 bucks for the expansion kit which opens access to the HOTNEWSHIT 2.0 that totally blows OLDNEWSHIT 1.0 out of the water. I mean if there was some sort of DLC content that Az patched in where you could pay an extra $10 to access Trammel, that would singlehandedly wreck players who opt out of the RL cash sink. So I guess my long-winded second and final point is that regardless of how awesomely sexy a theoretically perfect Virtue system is, do not make the mistake of forcing it upon all players without their consent. There shouldn’t be penalties for not participating in a virtue system and it shouldn’t be a requirement to get over the glass ceiling “hump” at end game. The viable opportunity for banging around with the best players should not be influenced, downsized, or emphasized by a Virtue system. Thats where nonlinearity is most exposed, at end game and whether or not it is hijacked and assimilated into a huge sum of advantages that a powergamer is trying to pool together.
Again, all over the place, but I feel very strong about this topic and what it could mean for setting a tone going into this game for players and staff alike.
This would be so much easier with a forum… or at least a quote option.
First paragraph, agree with pretty much everything… which is why I said you shouldn’t provide boosts to certain stats depending on virtue because you’d end up with the “rock, paper” scissors” type of playing field.. Guess that’s kinda what I meant when I said “it would be bad if certain virtues were dominant over others.” I’m fine with it for a game like WoW, but that’s because I don’t play WoW for pvp. Any sort of system like that would be brutally horrible for UO PvP.
Only additional thing I will say about that particular topic is in regards to having the grinding rammed down our throats. Yes.. devving / grinding should have some opportunity and EXPERIENCE. I agree. But what is achieved as a result of taking advantage of said opportunity needs to be something, like you said, that will not give significant advantage over someone who (these two following things are similar in my opinion) either does not participate for maximizes a different virtue. This would satisfy the desire for not having the system rammed down your throat. But I guess where my opinion varies slightly here, is that even if it is so beneficial to developing that you almost need to choose a virtue in order to adequately develop yourself to this “sandbox,” that’s STILL alot more non-linear and less throat rammed than the current “one option fits all macro in your house – 7X is the standard for even being able to play from the onset” system.
My focus is more on the development. And I really like your ideas about providing liberating opportunity not only during development, but having it continued and balanced at end game. I guess I haven’t given that piece of it alot of thought.
With that said, time sinks (during development) – Not so sure I agree that spending time in the game shouldn’t be a requirement (I know you were speaking about this in terms of end game, but again, I’m more focused on the development side).
If macroing is still going to be a viable way to achieve 7x, then my time sink is only one that involves not playing the game while my computer runs for a few days / weeks. That kind of time sink is not preferable to being required to play. If macroing is still going to be a good way to raise skills / stats, just let me mail in a check for the amount of the difference associated with my energy bill for running my computer for that time, and just give me a 7x character.
I am having trouble determining what the rewards should be for participating, because it’s hard to do that with keeping in mind that there should be end game balance, while at the same time providing opportunities specific to each virtue that make them unique.
I didn’t read most of the last paragraph because I already had enoguh to say. I think we can stop posting agreements now.
since I focus on char development, I recognize this system as an opportunity to enforce the idea of playing to develop. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this discussion.
“Hey, you playing UO?”
“No, dude. My character isn’t ready yet.”
How many times have you guys seen this conversation? in my opinion, one time is too many. Creating mechanics that allow people to log in, and jump in and start playing without having to be in the ‘sandbox’ to be viable is a great thing. virtues coupled with the increase of skill gain / dungeon scrolls would be amazing for this. New p[layers aren’t going to like the idea that they create an account, macro for a couple weeks, then play. I think it would be more appealing for new players if they could log in and find a group to dungeon crawl with, or saw beneficial quests that were appropriate to their level right from the get go.
I’ll be thinking about proposed virtue rewards that would seem to satisfy all of these things… Again, the hard part is finding a balanced eng game that also provides uniqueness (yet not overpowering) of each virtue.
bring in the fucking forums!!!!! :D
Hey I’ve got an EXCELLENT IDEA.
Make a fucking forum so I don’t have to sift through this gayass layout, this is bullshit and I’m getting ancy. I’m to the point where I’m going to crass a truck full of fuel soaked kittens into an orphanage.
I’ll benicio del toro all of your asses
That’s okay, BK. I fully assumed you’d be the first to start crashing trucks and throwing kittens and so on.
crash*
Whilst brain storming the virtue rewards system, (provided there is going to be any reward for it, which I think may be critical), I found myself asking these basic questions to establish some criteria. If anyone else has any to add to these, it might be helpful for us.
Without too much detail, here’s what I came up with
*is the reward motivational enough to make people want to participate?
*are the rewards going to disrupt balance (both end game and development stages)?
*are the rewards unique enough to each virtue to provide individualized end game opportunities as well as alternate development opportunities?
*are said opportunitied going to yield benefits that are equally distributed amongst all virtues (again, balance)?
And, the one that is in my opinion more important than the rest,
*Is macroing still going to be just as viable a method to develop a character?
As they say in NBA Jam, “He’s heating up…”
You’re wandering into the Realm of Important Questions, Sult, have a cookie.
Is playuo going to be allowed on ipy 2.0?
Hard question to answer right now.
Wouldn’t allow it at all. Although I could see why this might not be a popular idea, I’d considering making Razor mandatory so you can have some control over what Razor features are usable (“negotiate features with server”).
resistance is futile.
Really, though? Still?
they wanted a forum!
I think spam blocker ate my post…
anyway, if you want irc, fattestduck (dot) com (port) 6669 (channel) #ipy
(Positive)
Heal Snaxx
Give Snaxx Gold
Co Own Snaxx to your house ( BIG POINTS )
…but no seriously I really like Domnu’s idea’s.
Boo this man! [Or ban]