Well, I've been trying to think of ways to discourage antisocial behaviour in online rpgs. (I do not buy the argument that pkers are 'necessary' or 'add realism' to a game to the degree that they should represent more than a fraction of the population. Plus the huge number of pk minded DBZers that might log in worries me.) I was also thinking about resource control. Permanent death seems like a viable option. Combined with an ingame justice system and options for revival for those who are located by a healer in time (or those with powerful magical abilities) at great cost to the recipient. I think this might go a long way to more prudent playing. Of course there is the oft repeated argument that this is a bad solution because of connection issues, to which I say fiddlesticks. Just have the player select a disconnect activity(IE fight, run, fight till almost dead, etc.), If there is a disconnect during combat, the computer adopts the appropriate behaviour. Besides, players engaging in dangerous activities would know they could die and most players know if they have a stable connection or not....
Thoughts?
-James
ID:154289
 Feb 4 2002, 6:35 am
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This has been a hot topic in my mind because I've planning on having permadeath in FoomerMUD. I think if players are forced to put effort into their characters before they're really allowed to play, they'll be more careful with their characters as they don't want to write a nice description, setup their character, learn all about how their supposed to act, and spent all day getting their character approved only to get them killed twenty minutes later.
The only problem I'm suck with is that in my game, characters never actually leave the map... If you log off out in the jungle somewhere and stay off for two days, your character will be sitting out in the jungle somewhere for two days. During that time other players could kill you and get away with it, you could be robbed, you could be killed by wild animals or you could starve to death! The best solutions to this are to HIDE before you decide to log out, that way your character will be hidden away for those two days instead of out in the open where they might be taken advantage of by anyone or anything. And always make sure you have stock of food to keep your character filled up before you leave. Although, I'll probably make things such as regeneration loops and hunger loops pause while there is no client connected to the character, so that it doesn't lag down the rest of the game. So you wouldn't have to worry about food. A character that is hidden away in a secluded spot in the jungle is very unlikely to have any trouble, assuming they did a decent job of hiding. The other good idea is just to not log out for two days while your character is out in the jungle, period :oP You're much better off in some small village where hunter/guards could watch over you, and people-eaters rerely end up touring huts... But that's just me... The approving part of the game is to make sure that DBZer's stay out, since it's a roleplay game and we don't want them their. I think permadeath IS a great way to make sure one player doesn't end up controlling everything. If they do, a quick assassination party could be the end of them... I think options for revival would depend on the game. It might take away the thrill knowing that the 50,000 lb dragon might claw you to pieces, but if you're near a healer or you're "magic" is strong enough, you'll be fine. If people think, "Lets see, go risk my life attacking a stupid dragon with good chance of losing everything this character has worked for, or Not?" which do you think they'd choose? Just a thought, you could always have an immortal-run system where players must be "granted permission" for roleplay reasons why they want to kill someone else. If someone is granted a reason, they may target that person and only that person. Once someone attacks someone else, anyone may target them, or somesuch nonsense like that. I think this is more like a rant than a comment... | |
Of course, theories are still theories.
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One way to keep players from killing each other is by giving them other ways to lawfully beat on each other. In real life there is American "Football", Rugby, Hockey, Boxing, Wresteling, and many other oppertunities for rough physical contact rarely involving death. Include these activities as part of your game, and the would-be PKers flock to them and participate, adding to the realism and sociality of the world. Boxing could be as simple in the game as pbag hitting is... you hit the macro butten and mash P for punch and B for block, and there you go. You can even take control of the players and move them around the ring automatically. I have a very cool though uncomplete boxing system in one of my many test projects, which includes 4 punch techniques, 3 block techniques, 7 special techniques, and 15 flaunt techniques. If I get it in a presentable state, I may seperate it from the rest of the game and create a downloadable mini-game from it.
-Lord of Water | |
Actually I'd burn up in the atmosphere. If I were by chance coated in tungsten or something, I'd fall back to earth because of gravity. But we don't need to shoot me into space to do that; just use the simply method, throw an apple strait up and see if it comes back to hit you.
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Jmurph wrote:
Permanent death seems like a viable option. Remember this for any feature you add: Players can use it against each other. Permadeath means no end of player grief killing and playing, and no end of people screaming at the game creator because lag killed them, or whatever. | |
All in all, I agree with you. What's more, in a game with detailed characters, permanent death encourages roleplaying... it forces players to behave realistically, to live (and fight) within their means, to feel emotionally invested in their character.
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I think that permadeath is a very useful thing to have in some games. For example, in a game I'm making players can become govenors/kings/rebels/etc. If everytime the rebels manage to break into the palace and kill the king he simply comes back to life then then their becomes no way for the rebels to win. You are left with an unending stalemate. Therefore, in some cases permadeath can greatly improve a game (in my opinion, at least). However, there is also great potential for abuse. Here are some suggestions to help alleviate the problem:
1)delay killing for many levels- If a player must spend a week or so getting to a high enough level that the game allows them to pk, then they probably will be more reluctant to do so, because if they lose the battle they have to start over and work another week to pk again. Of course, there will still be players who try to permakill everyone, but they'll probably be killed a lot and thus you'll have a week or so between each series of killings by them. 2)have the gods make "judgements" on the recently deceased- This method requires you to have active imms. Basically, everytime someone permakills someone else the battle is recorded and the victim can claim that the kill wasn't for some decent roleplaying reason. If the victim claims this, the imms or an imm will review a log of the battles and each sides case. If it turns out that the kill was some powertripping DBZ'er or something, then the dead guy will be ressurected. If the killer did have a valid reason then the corpse will remain dead. 3)an heir system- I'm currently making a game that uses this system. Basically players can have children and upon the players death they continue playing as their child. Although they lose their old stats, they retain the wealth/items/land/reputation they had collected. This way permadeath isn't quite so upsetting and probably less likely to turn players away after they died. They must be careful, but a single stupid mistake or crazy player won't completely wipe out all they worked for. 4)non-deadly combat- Another good way to limit permakilling if you allow it is to make knocking someone out much more practical. Make most monsters leave their victims unconcious. Give players the option to kill those they've defeated or simply leave them unconcious. This way the players can still prove how awesome their characters are and the victims can still remain alive. I'd advise combining this with some sort of in game legal system to further encourage not killing. Or perhaps you could make one part of the game permadeath and the other part non-permadeath-like different dimensions or something. The chaoticly minded could journey into the more dangerous area, but which has less consequences for dying Well, that's my 1/5th of a BYONDdime (aka 2 cents) | |
it forces players to behave realistically, to live (and fight) within their means, to feel emotionally invested in their character. ...And to beat the living !&$% out of a character that runs off to save his own hide at the expense of his allies. =) | |
1)delay killing for many levels- I have considered this but decided that if new characters start in a well policed area, it shouldn't be a problem. If they decide to be antisocial or get attacked, plenty of skilled guards will interfere and arrest or slay the perpetrator. Likewise, if they decide to venture into more dangerous areas, they are assuming the risk. Additionally, since I use a skill model, levels don't really come into play and skill totals can be misleading (IE a bake might have more skill points than a swordsman). 2)have the gods make "judgements" on the recently deceased- Another good thought. I considered having the gods of Order reward those who have been particularly helpful by occassionally reviving them (auto resurrect). 3)an heir system- .... Very good idea, but may encourage abuse by pkers who pass along ill-begotten goods. 4)non-deadly combat- Something I forgot to mention is that generally in a fight you only incapacitate another PC (NPCs are slain) and must then willfully murder them to finish the deed. Thus fights need not be fatal. -James | |
Permadeath means no end of player grief killing and playing, and no end of people screaming at the game creator because lag killed them, or whatever. Well, players will always complain about something:-) But do you really think players will try to "grief kill" once they realize that in addition to being hazardous to their health, in all likelihood they will probably fail? (Doing it in a civilized area is sure to lead to instant arrest/execution and they have to travel a ways to get to wilder locales- where more powerful players might be on the look out.) -James | |
Another idea of a way to discourage it would be to have it only apply to certain areas.
Have 3 classes of areas; No PK, Auto-Rez PK, Auto-Rez PK, No Auto-Rez. The first would be your basic, run of the mill, city. The guards would of course discourage you to kill anyone else, and chances are there's a medical facitity close by so you wont die die. The second 2 would be variations of being able to PK, but not have perma-death associsiated. You could probably include a varying level of setbacks to anyone who died in that area to make it more realisitic. IE In the rebels example, set the office of the King so that he can be PKed, and so if he -does- die, he gets removed from office. Applying PKing perma-death to any area is just bound to get you flames from your player base. If you make it so they have to knowledgably know that thier walking into a PK area, as well as know beforehand what level of setback thier bound to get, you achieve the first law of public appearence, CYA. (Cover Your Ass). ^_~ Elorien | |
Jmurph wrote:
But do you really think players will try to "grief kill" once they realize that in addition to being hazardous to their health, in all likelihood they will probably fail? They will find non-hazardous ways to do it that you didn't think of. And if they can't, then yes, they'll take the risk. | |
Deadron wrote:
Jmurph wrote: Yep... pardon the use of a very delicious pun, but Murphy's Law is at play here. =) | |
However, a slight problem pops in here: In a game, a PKer can develop any number of characters and identities, and there's absolutely no way to control that. (If you try to limit by key, they'll simply make a new key.) To this end, you'd have to make some items "tainted" in that if a player tried to retrieve their belongings in order to perpetuate an abandoned criminal character, they'd be targeted by inspectors too. (But, this is different from items simply being found somewhere, or bought. You'd need to have some way to tell the difference, or at least warn innocents that X belonged to Y, who was a killer, and it will bring them trouble if they take it.) Likewise you'd have to taint associates, so that those punishing PKing would have a very close eye on people who go on quests with killers.
If you didn't have this but just had a justice system, PKers could acquire great items though have trouble leveling up; yet once enough good items were obtained, that could be enough to overcome the handicaps of low stats. At least, that's how it would go in a traditional battle system. A more creative RPG could probably prevent this somewhat.
Lummox JR