Lord British needs your opinion on PvP!

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

I believe for a world to feel real there needs to be a PvP element. There needs to be a real sense of danger, and like in the real world there are bad or evil people.

UO got it right in the first few years.
Limit PvP to outside city limits and penalize player killers by stat loss or another measure if they end up getting killed by a good guy.

No 1 hit kills from guards. Guards should travel in packs and be as strong as an advanced player but not a 1 hit killer. If its item based items shouldnt make or break pvp. The high level PvM should all happen in pvp zones. This will prevent powergamers from making templates that mow through bosses because they will require some survivability in pvp situations.

PVP should be allowed everywhere.

Well defined areas (outside of "towns") that PVP can occur without fear of structurally enforced retribution.
Well defined areas (such as in "towns") that if PVP did occur - SERIOUS consequences could result from initiating that action (Permanent Death, Prison).

The ability (in UO) to "burn off" murder counts has little true penalty (other than time spent in game).

One of the first things that comes to my mind is cheat prevention.
Speed Hacks totally killed my interest in PvP in UO.

Agreed, the penalty and gains need to be as much like the real world as possible.

Before trammel it was a days work to farm monsters for gold, dodging pvpers, hopeing not to get looted, get your goods back to the bank/house. Hell, when I even had a good item it was hell trying to sell it because of thiefs!! This sounds bad but you know it was the best UO experience ever as a new player. Now everything is to easy, lets go fight this AI monster and loot/repeat/repeat ect. I can only pvp in certain areas/servers bc the population has dwindled so much. Bring back a world were anything can happen like the real world. (Some argue play siege if you want this style of play- the reason i never will play siege is bc trying to 5 other players on the shard is impossible/no shard xfers/one char only)

1. Some type of shard merger would bring a lot of excitement back to the game (my home shard of origin is a ghost town maybe 15 active players play, a whole server for 15 players?)

2. Felluca rule set except for towns

I enjoyed the earlier times in Uo, when you could hunt down pk's using your guild of bounty hunters. The bounty being a large source of pride ammongst murderers. Remove his/her head and collect the bounty. I do agree with Nexus about PVP/PVE being together is highly incompatible. Some people need that security blanket knowing all the world is a fluffy paradise. Others crave that adrenaline rush and paranoia that the other person that just walked onto their screen may or may not be a kind person. I would seperate the servers from PVP/PVE. The PVE servers would have the difficulty cranked up on the mobs though. If they want the safe route then its gonna take a small guild/Army to take down Dragons/Ancient Wyrms. I would buff the loot from mobs on the PvP server just to make the paranoia just a little higher. I would also make NPC guilds for Assassins that Players could join. In a bounty reversal/revenge system, (Insert player name here) killed my Murderous PK and thus collected the bounty on my head. I now wish to spend 50,000 gold peices for his head in return! Then the assassin guild takes up the contract and sub-contract it out to the player base. I think it would also be nice to have a running counter for each player about the number of times they killed someone / died. Accessable throgh the paperdoll in the journal area. Same with the PVE area Monsters killed/Deaths. Also, bring back useful PVP thievery! All I see in backpacks these days are "Insured this, Blessed that" makes my thief a very poor man.

I favor a tiered system of pvp, with scaled reward/ penalties. Towns and overland areas should have guards and protections based on the contributions of players to that city/assigned territory armory. If players want a town to be lawful and have the protections of the guards they should support that community. There could even be award titles similar to the current Ultima arc. With a fully funded armory, guards would respond just as they do now in UO. As the funding drops, so does the strength of the guards and the the likelyhood that they will respond at all.

Dungeons and certain overland areas designated as outlands should have PvP, with tiered penalties for cumulative crimes. However I would also like to see certain areas for criminals with similar zone benefits to those of towns. I think of them like a faction base without the designation, so whichever guild controls the area (based on some determined achievement) would receive reduced penalties for pvp against intruders... and possibly even some combat enhancements.

As with any system, the PvP system needs to have a few well-understood controls, and leave the rest to the dynamic player environment. Commercial viability aside, UO was the most fun I have ever had in PvP. There is a lot of pressure to create entire worlds of safety. I'm on board with most towns having guards (and please require players to invoke guards, don't just make it insta-death), but open world PvP should be open and just about everywhere. Loot is a must.

I wrote up a few ideas about about mmo combat a long time ago and then forgot about it til I saw this thread and, in fact, registered just to post this.

It's just a slightly organized brain dump based on a lengthy discussion with a friend, it was mostly in regards to one-on-one encounters, and I never finished it, but maybe there's something useful in there somewhere. I could probably blather on about it for a long time, but I'll just stick to what I previously wrote up...

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Towns allow virtually no PvP
o There are guards in town, they just don’t allow it.
o There could be dark alleys, back rooms, basements, sewers, etc. that are unsafe

"Patrolled areas" allow limited PvP.
o These would generally be outside the boundaries of towns, along well-traveled roads, etc. Any place the general population expects some limited protection to allow for travel, trade, farming, etc. Guards are occasionally present in patrols, guard houses or towers, and so on.
o In a patrolled area PvP is limited by level. You can only attack someone within a couple of levels of your level. Likewise, you know you’ll only be attacked by someone within a couple levels of your level.
o Guards in the area will always fight against the aggressor. Whoever "fires the first shot." They may not show up right away though.
o There’s a reasonable chance of survival even if attacked, but there’s still an element of danger.
o In-game events could affect the safety of these areas.

Wilderness areas allow full PvP.
o This is outside of patrolled areas. There are no guards. It’s a free-for-all.
o If a level 5 player wanders into the wilderness and isn’t safe from a level 40 manticore, there should be no reasonable expectation of safety from a level 40 player either.

Reward System - Players should have a reason to be interested in PvP banditry, but with limits to avoid abuse.
o XP earned should be scaled similarly to fighting NPCs.
If you attack and kill someone at your level you get some standard XP. A level above you and you get 105% of the experience. A level below and you get 95%. Two levels above/below, 110%/90% respectively.
There would be a reasonable cap on the high end to prevent PvP exploit leveling (I can’t keep coming back to let my friend kill me over and over just so he gets lots of XP).
Likewise, if you attack and kill the same person multiple times in 30 minutes, you get 50% of the experience for the second kill, 25% for the third, 10% (or maybe 0% to prevent abuse) for all additional kills. The 30 minute timer resets with each additional kill.
The victim gets more base experience if s/he wins, even if the guards help with the kill.
o Looting
A PvP death results in the loss of (10%? 20%? 40%? More?) of the players money on hand (banked money is safe).
No equipped gear is lost, but the player will lose 1 or 2 or 3(?) pieces of gear from inventory at random. (Leave your valuables in the bank.)
Lost cash/items are available for looting off the corpse. If the player who made the kill doesn’t take it within 30 seconds it’s available for anyone. The corpse and contents will vanish after 5 minutes if not looted. (That also gives the player a small chance to run back to their corpse and get their stuff back.)

War
o Who doesn't love a good war? Might need different rules than the above...?

Arenas
o PvP is sanctioned and encouraged for entertainment, gambling, crude judgment, etc.
o Various rules can be enforced based on the venue, event, particular match, etc. These would include what levels are allowed, team fighting, XP/money/gear awards, etc.

PvP switch?
o I’m firmly against a switch that turns off PvP against a player. Everyone should be concerned when they leave the confines of town.
o Maybe a switch the player can set that would allow/deny attacks against others, with status visible to others?
It would allow strangers in the wild to know if they were a threat to one-another.
Turning it on and off could only be done inside town. No fair switching to PvP mode after you’ve convinced someone out in the forest that you’ll show them where a treasure chest is.
But...nothing is stopping the guy with PvP turned off from leading an unsuspecting adventurer into an ambush by his buddies.

I know I certainly must be in the minority, but I was so incredibly disappointed when I loaded up UO and was killed non-stop for months (years?). I wanted to be able to do what I had been able to do in all the previous Ultima titles: be the heroine, saving the world from evil creatures and bad guys. But instead, me and my group of friends had keys stolen (multiple times) to our guild house that we had spent literally months saving for, we died just running from town to town, we had stuff stolen out of our bank box (isn't that supposed to be a secure place to keep things?), we couldn't kill monsters because we were constantly being PKed. It was absolutely no fun and nothing like what the Ultima franchise had been like.

Now, over the years, the UO developers did fix those things and did make it more fun for the non-Pvper. The reason I bring it up in regards to this question is that I think there needs to somehow be a division between the diehard PvPer and the person who wants what the single player Ultimas offered. It might not be a popular stance but it's certainly one from a lover of the Ultimas.

personally i loved looting a body after killing someone, and think the pvp system should also be rewarding to provide more incentive for people to pvp like factions and getting silver to buy faction only things and other things

I think PvP needs to be split into different options, as PvP appeals to different people on different levels, and no system is going to make anyone happy.
Again I agree with previous posters that it is hard to give finite answers without full disclosure on how the game will operate and what levels will be like.
I am going to break it down into 3 categories....

Complete Newbie:
First off, It should be impossible for a player to kill another player until a certain level is reached. Lets say level 10. Therefore someone new to the game, who doesn't yet have a grasp of where there are or what they are doing can get a feel of the game without worrying about wandering outside town limits to do some sort of newbie quest or whatever and getting killed but someone just for kicks. Obviously this level should be in tune with the games leveling system, and can be as low as 5 or high as 20, based on game mechanics.

Semi-Experienced Player:
Once you pass by that level, be it 5 or 10 or 20, there should be a warning. ie.. "From this moment on, you can be killed by other players if you leave the safety of a town." That again is based on where PvP will be allowed... but players should be warned visibly that they are now able to be killed. This would also be the correct time to institute a PvP flag... If the game mechanics will allow for those players who wish to not be involved in PvP they can opt at this point not to be eligible for PvP. If that is the case, they are safe to a certain level (Let's say 30 for arguements sake.. at which point after level 30 you are PvP wether you want to be or not) Once you accept a PvP flag you cannot remove it, however if you elected to be non PvP, you can switch it on whenever you want, but again once on, it stays on)

Experieced players:
Once you are set to PvP mode, there must be guidelines. Other then city restrictions. For example a level 90 player cannot attack a level 21 character, unless they are in an arena or a 'chaos' area. In general, a player should not be able to initiate an attack on a player 15 levels below them, however if a level 21 character decides to attack a level 90, it's his/her funeral.

PvP can be fun, but it's not for everyone. Part of the whole PvP issue becomes what happens to the players corpse when they die.
Does the winner get to loot the corpse and the player loses everything, having to start over from scratch? Does the body end up in a temple somewhere?
Do you respawn when you die with your body and gear intact? All of this plays into factors that need to be considered when setting up a PvP system.

I have more thoughts.. but I think this is a good starting point.....

PsiHawk

I was one of those who jumped for joy the day Trammel was opened. I hated PvP, still dislike it extremely, and will do whatever it takes to avoid it.
I still get nervous when I am in game in UO and see a name in red appear, even when I am in fluffy paradise Trammel.

I find the PvE encounters in any game more than challenging enough; no need for me to prove myself against other players, or to be taken advantage of by others so they can prove themselves. No thanks!
Some people will claim that PvP is part of roleplaying. However nearly all PvP "conversations" I had in my early UO days started with "corp por corp por" and ended with one or insults in various degrees.
The people who REALLY played their role of brigand at least gave a roleplayer a chance to talk themselves out of being robbed or killed in some way or other.

I very much prefer the games that are developed nowadays where people can choose between PvP servers, PvP RP, PvE and PvE RP.
Sadly enough, even in these games, if you choose a PvE RP server, you are still "offered" the possibility to PvP. I really really can do without PvP.
Also sadly enough, many people who have no interest whatsoever in RP, choose to create their characters on an RP server claiming the population there to be "more mature".

The suggestion to have safe towns and everything outside towns not so safe won't do for me. I want to explore the entire world. I have as much right to that as anyone else.
I can accept being attacked by NPC's or PvE mobs. However I wouldn't mind a solid system that prevents any other RL Player of attacking me, stealing from me or killing me.

As I said elsewhere PKers (flagged as murders and they know it) need to pay the ultimate price if they are killed.
Full character wipe, they chose to be 'evil', they chose not to redeem themselves before dying. This would prevent griefers from plaguing the game and prevent certain people from picking on the newbies, camping dungeon hot spots or shrines.
Consensual PvP is another matter.

This! I loved the bounty boards in early UO. I love the idea of a bounty system in a game where non-consensual PvP can take place.

I believe in the "free market" approach to games, and the original UO is what cultivated this philosophy. As opposed to "socialist" games like WoW that try to take care of everything for you, and guide you along each step of the way, taking away quite a lot of life from it. I know its lame to refer to it in a political way, but it is really the truth..


The first time I played UO, someone noticed I was new and really helped me out in exchange for "holding" some items for him so he could log into his other character and transfer his ingots. He showed me the ropes and gave me a bunch of stuff to start mining and smithy. It was the best 'new player' experience I ever had. It was not the game helping me, it was someone else, a live human being, doing it, because he had incentive.


Applied to PVP, I think player should be incentivized to "protect" the new players. Of course wanted lists, bounty hunters, stat loss etc incentivize hunting down murderers, but it doesnt really protect the new players right off the bat. How bout providing a huge bonus to karma/fame for "escorting" new players outside of the city, or becoming their "mentor".

What about the reverse? How to incentivize murderers not to kill new players. How bout 'kidnapping' them? Giving them both a bunch of fame, and "posting" on the city boards that a new player is kidnapped : pay the ransom and get a ton of karma/fame, or go out and hunt the murderer and try your best shot.

Try to think of new players in terms of a resource, and that will protect them.

I don't agree with Murderers getting a Full character deletion on death. Thats incredibly harsh, I would settle for a 5-10 point skill loss in all skills maximum of once per day. So they can't be res killed and griefed by others. Murderers are people too, just not nice people.

Just make it like it was in the old days! But perhaps add areas where newbies can train in a safe environment.

Here's what I envision for PvP in Ultimate RPG.
First off let me say, UO was by far the best PvP RPG even to this date. Not because of the actual skills, but because of the amount of freedom the players had to make choices and the consequences that went with them.
I believe in a real world dynamic that stays fun and fair to both newbies and hard core players.

*Guards should not be 1 hit kill like in UO. They should be medium to high level and be able to call reinforcements. They might have certain tactics or spells / abilities to capture players or kill them if committing a crime in range, but give the PK or thief some kind of chance to escape.
*Towns have guards, these are essentially safe areas. Some areas of towns can have less guarded areas where thievery or possible murder can occur.
*Guards patrol areas just outside of towns, making newbie areas mostly safe. Towards the outskirts of these areas guard patrol may be less scarce. Perhaps PK's can gain entry very close to town without being spotted. Make it a high risk area for PKs to enter, but still possible.
*Guards patrol certain key territories or bridges. That being said, a choke point bridge to cross may require a criminal to completely cirumvent and perhaps use other means of transportation (swimming or boat).
*Make there be penalties for being caught by guards for crime, depending on crime you would be thrown in jail for a length of time or have to pay a fine. If you cant pay it you have to wait the allotted time in prison, with possible skill loss for being caught.
*Im also in favor of a bounty system but only against criminals and not just random players who are good.
*As you get further out in the lands, some towns will be player run and no guards will exist, making it a potential hide out or take over for murderers and other criminals. Very dangerous towns / areas.

Here's the thing. If the penalties are too high for PK's and other criminals, noone will want to take this route. Make the risk / reward system for someone who wants to be a criminal fun yet daring. One thing I absolutely loved about UO was that there were dread lords, and there were players who were notorious for hunting certain areas. There absolutely has to be a good guy / bad guy system. I was always a PK hunter, and in this game I may choose to want to play evil and live off the outlands. I would love to see a PK enter a newbie zone and try to snipe a few newbies before being chased down by guards and caught / killed or seeing him escape. If he does escape from guards, they will be able to post his name world wide where other guards exist, and players will know this and be able to go out searching for him. Devise a system that allows criminals to get more famous and be posted in areas such a newsletter, or a town crier in every town (Last seen at this location). It adds a fun and challenging dynamic to the game, and lets players know that this is truly a world where even if you feel safe, you have to watch your back. Thats what made UO so great.

And off topic of PvP, please bring back GM's who can contribute to the game world and make it fun and dynamic, GM's who will pose as big bad guys with lots of minions or help create events in the world that keep it dynamic. UO had some of this at times and I loved it.

I love this post. It's exactly what I'd like to see.

PvP should be rewarding. If you're randomly attacked and managed to kill the aggressor, you should be rewarded. The criminal scum that commits crimes like that should also be rewarded when succesful. It's a completely valid way to play the game. Maybe his fame should increase, maybe a bounty should be put on his head just so he could fake his own death and collect it...I don't know.

I do understand the concerns of those who want to be able to roam around completely safe, but the right to do so is not removed from the game by allowing and somehow rewarding PvP. You can still do your thing, but you just might have to travel in a group for a change or pay for protection. Follow the river instead of the road. Hide in the woods.

I also hope you can engage in PvP from the get go. Tapping the head of AI controlled creatures until you reach a certain level of skill is just boring.

Make it like the old-school Pre-Ren (UO/T2A) UO system: PvP anywhere. If I remember correctly (I played from 97-00 - when it was goooood ), the server populations were very vibrant, and yes there was rampant murdering and roaming droves of reds and gank squads, but that's what made it FUN! No safe areas anywhere - except towns! I remember getting killed relentlessly in UO, but it made me a better player. I made friends, we defended ourselves, took revenge on reds and grays, ahh the endless possibilities!

Games these days are soooo watered down with their PvP. No one has true open world PvP in fantasy MMOs anymore. The closest thing to awesome PvP in gaming today is the FPS DayZ, a zombie apocalypse mod of Arma 2. It's in alpha right now and has more than 900,000 unique users, and it has everything to do with its open-world PvP setup. You start with a flashlight and a bandage and have to make your way from there; find a gun, ammo, food, medicine, and avoid all the zombies and other survivors. Fantastic game! People love this kind of stuff, so I don't think UltimateRPG will lose players by having a "hardcore" setup like old UO.

TL;DR Enough nostalgia. If I HAD to make a tweak, give blues the option of leveling up virtues (by killing reds???), giving them a big buff against reds. And don't give reds the benefit of bad guy buffs - ever, no matter how much people complain. This way there are fewer reds (but they're still out there...the brigands) Then, perhaps, PvP players may gravitate more to a guild warring, order/chaos PvP scheme.

Just to put in my .02c.

The PVP system will revolve a lot around other major game systems. PVP in the original UO was in my opinion on of the best and I loved the risk of PKing and loosing my items if i made the wrong call. Now-days i must say tho people have become accustom to being safe and want the option to be able to run around with no risk of getting killed by PK (Younger Children/ Crafters). Guild PVP and Faction PVP are completely different to PKing tho.

(PKing/Murderers) Based on server. Obviously there would be the same safe town systems and other systems that could be developed but to have the risk of running into a murderer while chopping down trees or mining should be chosen at the beginning. In the eyes of a murderer there would obviously have to be some sort of reward. Blessed items took alot of the fun out of being a PK, in the beginning you were able to kill someone and equip their and take their gold and run away but there was always the risk of running into a group of people and it backfiring on you. The introduction of blessed gear meant there was no risk to your gear and made it less proffitable for PKs.

- Murderers will always have the disadvantage of not being able to join society and just run into town unless of course cites could be captured by groups of murderers/monsters giving them the possibility of Banking ect.
- 1h of game-play stat reduction/increase after being killed/killing a PK.
- Bounty system was always fun to see that your were the most wanted criminal in the server. I feel it gives murderers something fun to try rack up.
- Servers with murderers should also be blessed item free. Unless of-course the items are purchased with real money (Which hopefully would never be stat increasing gear). This would give people the risk and reward factor for PKing.
- Guard systems should be based on if guards are around and should be based into different zones. (Green, Amber, Red) These should be told to the players if they are leaving the green zone etc.
Green Zone: Well guarded, well patrolled and guards everywhere. People can call for guards assistance and they will be there quickly. This would still give thieves a chance to get away while in the city.
Amber Zone: Guards posted at points of interest and guard patrols in the area. People that call for assistance will get the attention of guards but it wont be as quickly as inside the bank ect.
Red Zone: If you call for help.... not much will happen other then your death.

(Guild PVP) Most guild PVP revolved around Order/Chaos and later on based on factions. Guild PVP should be about getting honor for your guild and building its score to either increase its land size or vendors the guild can purchase. Guild PVP should still obviously be allowed on safe servers due to people being given the choice before running the chance of being killed by another player.

- Guild PVP on unsafe servers should be similar to murdering and gear should be dropped when killed. Safe servers obviously wouldn't run this risk and would be more based on score.
- Guild Alliances with other neighboring guilds or sister guilds should be given a Total guild score that fall under 1 banner. Eg. The more alliance you have the stronger your banner is (similar to Game of Thrones).
- Guild Vendors based on guilds score. Guilds can build their score doing different things eg. Handing in crafting commodity, Killing opposing guilds or killing monsters
- Guilds can declare war on individual factions. (this basically means every guild made is just a small faction) and give each guild the chance to capture major cities like in UO.
- Guilds can buy guards to protect their land and guild hall.
- Guilds should be able to have common land they can use for farming and can be protected by guild guards ect.

(City Factions) NPC based factions in each city. This would be more like a city guard and not a faction. You would declare to protect the city and join its army of guards which can obviously choose to attack other cities and join in with the guild that currently controls the city. City protection ended up falling into the hands of only players and if there is no one on to protect it it would be taken uncontested. NPC guard watch should be able to protect its city. Once again this would be the same as Guild PVP and murderers where on non safe servers you run the chance to loose all your items

- Players to are part of the citys guard watch receive a discount to everything in town.
- Players in a guild cannot take the guards oath.
- Players in the town guard could still gain ranks within the town.
- Higher ranked players of the town guard could possibly purchase houses/vendor stores within the city walls? (gives a benefit to those who actually take the oath)
- City armor can be purchased with city honor that cannot be lost until you leave the guards?

Like i said alot of it depends on other game systems and without more details like how the skills will be developed eg skill based or level based. But i look forward to seeing how Portalarium build this game.

Perhaps rather than directly punishing the PKs for attacking newbies, you can give young players more means to escape. As a player becomes more mature by whatever metric, their escape mechanism becomes less reliable. A griefer will roll with it since they were just trying to ruin a newbies day anyhow, and someone out for legit PVP will realize that their mark wasn't particularly worth attacking when they see the trademark escape puff of newer players.

Something like:
Absolute beginner: Forced recall +explanation, upon being attacked.
Relative beginner: Given an item to recall instantly upon being used.
intermediate: Recall item which can only be used x times per day / only takes affect after a few second

Alternately, you could punish PKs more intensely for attacking newbies specifically, with increased intensity on how new the player is. Something unreasonably harsh would be fine here, since scaring off newbies is quite poisonous to the game anyhow. It'd perhaps be good to warn players / explain why they were punished so harshly if they go through with it / explain why that kind of thing needs to be punished to begin with. You wouldn't want to embitter experienced players over what could seem to be an arbitrary decision.

The goal of this kind of thing would be that, while newbies have their hands held, they are progressively put into more and more danger.

Thanks!

Lots of other good ideas here as well, particularly in terms of appropriate in-game punishment for excessive banditry. Seems like a good implementation creates an "outlaw system", or maybe just incorporates an outlaw career path that gives players who want to be "bad" an option that's more structured than running around the forest killing newbs for no reason. High rewards for playing "lawful evil" but with a combination of high risks and limitations to prevent going too far over into "chaotic evil."

I've been thinking about this in terms of a single kingdom like UO (like it was originally, anyway, I haven't played it in over 10 years). If you consider a world with 2+ kingdoms in conflict, you might be able to offer an olive branch to those who are adamantly against general PvP. Maybe you have Kingdoms X and Y. X doesn't allow X-on-X aggression, but it does allow X/Y aggression. Y allows everyone to beat up on everyone (within the confines of some of the rules mentioned above). There's a (shifting?) front between the lands of X and Y where everyone can go to to beat up on each other, so everyone in X can get some PvP if they want it, but Y is simply a more dangerous place to be even away from the front. It could play into the story. X is an upstanding law-abiding society, Y is more of of a wild and free place. Maybe X is run by an iron-fisted despot who treats criminals harshly while Y is a loose affiliation of city states with no centralized justice system. Maybe X is a race of people who, for spiritual or mystical reasons, can't take the lives of one another while Y is full of typical humans who have a tendency to kill each other for a variety of reason.

I'm getting off on a tangent - the point is, you could have multiple systems in the same game on the same server in such a way that it fits into the story rather than simply being PK abuse control policies. It doesn't necessarily address the "I should be able to explore every inch of the game world without worrying about player killers" argument, but assuming there are areas you can't get to without a very high level character and/or a group due to dangerous NPCs, there's no reason to expect you'd be able to go to (at least some) lands with dangerous PCs without the same preparation.

On a side note, in the X and Y example above, there could be areas that would require Xs and Ys to cooperate to accomplish a goal which could then play into a system where folks from X gain favor from folks from Y (or vice versa) to allow safer travel through each others' kingdoms.... Okay, I should really be working at work, enough of this for now.

Let newbies have a safe time period of 30 days. This is actual gameplay time not real time. Once they accumulate the 30 days of real game time then they would not be classified asa newbie and should know the game better.


There should be PvP zones and safe zones to be fair to both types of players. One thing to have a pixel charcter killed in a game. To be harrassed by a pixel charcter over and over without safe zones for the victim wont have that player playing very long.


Reasons to PvP.

Order and chaos in old UO roxxored! It served a purpose.

Bounty System should be put in place for non law breakers to retaliate against the pk's. Now if the bounty hunter capture the pk, the pk still has to spend an x amount of time in the jail because he was captured by the bounty hunter.

Too harsh, let me muse over the ideas suggested so far for the potential Pkers.
--Reduced abilities by x amount of points.
The PKer sees this and logs out for a certain amount of time. Or the PKer stays in their 'indestructible' house until the appropriate amount of time occurs.
--Hamper the Pkers capability to purchase items in town or restrict their travel in a town.
The PKer logs out then back in with an alternate character. They proceed to go shopping. Afterwards thanks to friends, cache points, or something else they manage to resupply their main character. In addition, their stats manage to go back to normal too.
---Place a bounty on their heads.
The Pker has a buddy that collects on the bounty. They split the reward, high-five each other, and the nasty old murder tag gets cleared.
---The murder can repent by going on quests.
The Pker goes on virtue quest... with five other guild mates. The Pker is never in danger.
Look at all the time and effort the Programmers go into in order to make the above occur. Only to have the system get routinely defeated.
Flagged murder (PKer) dies = deleted character appears to me to be simpler to program.

Also, their idea of 'fun' is being 'evil' which is immediately not fun to the other casual players (main target audience). The new players could be joining the Ultimate RPG for many reasons. They go to school all day or maybe they put in a 40 hour work week. They are playing to escape reality and perhaps the occasional daily chore. They do not log in to slain by an 'evil' player. They log in to explore, go adventuring, and share some excitement with like-minded people. They will go defeat evil NPCs, evil monsters, solve puzzles or just flat out make items. I'm sure I am going to end up saying this a few times: PvE exists for a reason. UO did the 'carebear land'** or 'fluffy could'** thing for a reason. In order, for this game to work They will either need harsh restrictions, limit the number of alternatives you can have on a single server, or restrict PvP. I want Ultimate RPG to thrive, we all do, and this is why we are all here.

**When a poster refers to PvE as 'carebear' or "fluffy cloud' I tune you out. I'm not a big fan of elitism. Please respect your fellow players preferred style even the ones who do not log into the forums.

I'm sorry, but you don't speak for this casual player. Long gone are the days I could play anything for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. But still, if I'm playing a multiplayer game, sharing that fantasy world with hundreds of other players, I want to live all the possibilities of interaction with those other players without ticking boxes or joining queues. If a player decides to kill my character while I'm doing my thing, all I want is to be able to fight him back, escape or try a diplomatic solution. All I need is a combat system and a chat system. If he does kill me, well, I better be more careful next time, improve my character or abuse the fact that there are other players sharing that world and find some friends to help keep me safe.

That is all part of the fun of sharing the experience with other people, both friends and strangers. There's no advantage to a MMO if the experience is as predictable as the experience of playing a singleplayer game.

The PK is playing the game just as I am, he invested time on his character just as I did, he is exploring and adventuring just as I am but probably pointing more knifes to throats than pickaxes to rocks as I usually do. I don't see any good reason to throw any harsh punishment at them for playing the game the way they enjoy it.

Early days of UO, in regards to PVP and also in regards to housing in the other thread.

I don't know if there will be a level-based system or a skill-based system like in UO. But if there's going to be a level-based kinda game, levels should only affect stats and not give player's abilities at certain levels. Think of the spellbook, even if you had 90 magery and someone had GM, it could actually turn out to be a fair fight depending on who would use what and when. That's player skill combined with the skillsystem. Level games make stuff imbalanced.

The sense of risk should always be involved when we are talking about PK's. Not many games know of the murderers we all fear in Felucca, trammel was the downfall of UO. The chaos and mayhem was the heart of UO, what's the point of crafting armor and fancy clothes if noone's going to wear them or use the armor.
Cirno said it - The system they have in Eve with losec and hisec is great. Something like that combined with what others have discussed regarding guards.

I have high expectations for Garriot's new game. Glad to see he wants to hear from us fans. (UOSA, UOSA, UOSA!)

Thank you, LB!

I wanted to plumb these same concepts for planning of a game I'm working on.

Here's a doc I made, feel free to borrow concepts!

If we had to install a harsh penalty for murderers such as character deletion, why shouldn't PvE players have that same penalty? You Die, Your deleted. Hours upon hours of skill building and gathering a suit only to have it all winked away because a Paragon Ancient Wyrm farted in your direction. Sounds like a terrible idea, but entirely fair. PK'ers add that excitement to Fel; I suggested they had a permanent skill loss on death. Once per day maximum. Now even I think thats unfair. Yes, the Bounty system allowed murderers to collect their own bounty by having friends kill them. It didn't give them an automatic clean slate. They still had the murder counts to work off. They murder and therefore are outcast from society. I think another ingame punishment would be appropriate, but something actually suitable for an avatar at that time. Why not an NPC bounty hunting team, like a mobile patrolling guard unit? I think life should be somewhat more difficult for Murderers or people who assist in helping murderers (hey just like real life), but not something so drastic it unbalances the game.(or makes it so rediculously unpleasant to be a murderer that no one dares take up the profession) I do agree with what Sensecal pointed out
"The PK is playing the game just as I am, he invested time on his character just as I did, he is exploring and adventuring just as I am but probably pointing more knifes to throats than pickaxes to rocks as I usually do. I don't see any good reason to throw any harsh punishment at them for playing the game the way they enjoy it." They paid their monthly susbscription just as I did. What they choose to do with their time is entirely up to them.

Trammel was not the downfall of Uo. Just because a safer place to hunt was created where the threat of being murdered was eliminated didn't suddenly kill Uo. Uo has been slowly choked to death by Self reliance on Items instead of skill. Once the Uber Multi Million peices of "Insured" armor could dramatically shift the favor of a battle. The game began its fall.

I think solving the problem of to many red is simple just make it like SWG and only allow players to have 1 character per server

Consentual pvp is a must. Where pvp is it must be more then just esports or random killing to shake your epeen. I'd like to see a system that makes people want to pvp. The entire zone should revolve around you fighting for your faction or guild, every kill and death effect your faction or guild.

It used to be in UO there was a penalty for PKing.

Also, the flag system in the game is easily manipulated. There should be an ongoing record against your character for their actions. Gray is only temporary. It can be exploited. Remaining blue for an entire char's life cycle and never wandering into the PVP area just because only kiddies who over-exaggerate their leetness while only dipping their pinky toes into the world of possibilities of PVP realm (mainly just loitering in Fel Yew Gate and not venturing into dungeons...) it gets frustrating.

Oh yay: read my lips: NO ITEM INSURANCE and don't make having the BEST of the LEETEST armor or weapons makes the game worth playing. It's like you have to spend fifty mil atleast to get a decent imbued suit with max stats in UO in order to do anything in the game. It stinks when you make that investment and decide not to pvp because you can't afford insurance money to keep your treasured suit or leety leet leet weapon.

King_Fisher - Trammel was the beginning of the downfall, EA sped that process up.

NoobSaiBot - There were so many millions of possibilites for those who used to stand near the moongate not daring to step out but they were too dumb to realize. Instead they stood there wasting time and then blamed how poorly the game was developed.
I agree that there should be no item insurance or " the BEST of the LEETEST armor or weapons ". In my opinion nothing from after UO:R should be a good idea to put in a game. AoS ruined Ultima Online, it made it a new game for carebears and people who like habbohotel. Unfortunately that's what a lot of people like, no risk and fancy pixels.

Really must we always act like net thugs? How about we all grow up and try to speak to each other like adults.

UO did not change as a game until they went down the gear/artifact route, after that it became about gear grinding not character growth. Trammel only gave people the option to pvp or not to pvp.

Good point. It would be nice to get a few more opinions from people that perhaps never even played UO. Guild Wars players love their PvP, long time Diablo players too. I'm sure they have some insights that go beyond the ethics of killing another player's character for profit or fun.

UO is naturally going to come up in this conversation. OP said:

I have to agree with felixr- (big up UOSA) that Trammelizing UO was its downfall. The consensual/non-consensual PvP component is what made the game good and realistic, and dangerous. Wild, baby, wild.

How not to run off the newbies? Force them to adapt, and if they leave, then the game wasn't for them. Whatever happened to the dictum that you can't please everyone? Old-school (UO/T2A) PvP forced newbies to plan ahead, prepare, and react in surprise situations. The element of risk forces players to think in order to survive, and to seek strength in self and in numbers, to rise above obstacles and claim an existence for themselves...

...which - if you think about it - is what happens in every good fairy tale story in literature, so why not apply it to games BASED on those fairy tales. (I am reading for a Fantasy Lit. class, so...the end.)

I have to add here that in my first 6 months of playing UO, I was running to Skara Brae through that little pass through mountains when I came upon a band of PC thieves. They told me to stop and give them all my gold or I would be killed. Well that was a no brainer. I had like 50 gold on me and handed it over. And they let me go. Now THAT is how you role play brigands. It was by far one of the most interesting experiences I have had in nearly 15 years playing UO.

And that's why I mention it here (Petra ). I don't see any way really to program that into the game. But RG is looking for input on PVP, what we like, what we don't like and to do that, we need to take learnings from what WAS to be used to create what WILL BE. At least that's how I look at it.

This is an excellent example of the experiential opportunities produced by open PvP. It facilitates role-playing, and we are talking about a Role-Playing Game - the Ultimate one, which would likely include dastardly mountain brigands.