I agree with your idea. We’re not talking about different things, I think. In your game, the griefer has motivation for griefing, and it’s integral to the design. You’re endorsing the action through design, even if unintentionally. The griefer will look at your system and say, “A challenge!” Evading the law becomes the murderer’s primary purpose. And besides, what hardcore gamer wouldn’t just love the ability to go on the forums and say, “Yeah, I’m a badass! Four guys tracked me to my hideout and I thugged them all!” At the same time, your design allows for “good guy” griefing, too.

Paul, yes, but the main thing is to add a realism and a constant risk, but one that’s on the rare side. There’s a game with this in mind (although lacking the massive funding that I really wish they had) called Ages of Athiria, where Kressilac calls it UO3DMNG (UO in 3D, minus the gank). That “minus the gank” part is critical. If the game as it plays out doesn’t satisfy the regular player, the semi-carebear if you will, then it doesn’t work.

The point is, in any fantasy novel/story you have the crime, but you also have the means to end the criminals behind it. This does that. It allows for heroic actions as well as devilish evil. But it keeps it to a minimum, because most players by far are not going to risk their character for a brief fling with evil deeds.
But yeah, youd have the few who want to see how far they can get, and then youd have the bounty hunters. But mostly, you’d have a whole bunch of players playing in a game world that’s much more realistic and has the freedom of choice that’s so lacking in todays games, and just makes sense.

There are even more aspects to consider. Things such as allowing every character to be able to fight better than a less than developed PKer character, and a closer set of skills from newb to max, however it’s done, so that the entire social unit can be on a close enough footing that they can actually play together and intermingle. This means taking out level zones, which means other things come into play such as lag for large groups, etc. There’s a lot to consider, no feature of any game should be designed without also considering what effect it has on all other features. But there are answers.

MMOs have been a great learning tool that shows exactly how thin the veneer of civilization is without the disadvantages of having to live in a hellhole like Zimbabwe.

(Sidebar: DDO isn’t really about PvP ‘skill’ combat. It has some but just as a fun diversion added post-release to amuse players. I’m not sure it’s correct to ping Turbine on this)

This list is what all these kinds of lists are — and they’re all, ultimately, the same list: people who don’t know the first damn thing about design, trying to design.

Last night on my way home, I was idly drafting a proposal out loud to my housemate for a SERIOUS HARDCORE GAME in which the tutorial takes place on a battlefield in the middle of a war. Of course, it has permadeath, offering an option not seen since Traveller: the ability to die during character creation.

And I realized something, or re-realized it: ‘fun to design’ != ‘fun to play’. I’d have a blast designing a game that abusive. It would be like Gibson’s description in Neuromancer of Night City: ‘Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb permanently on the fast-forward button.’ I’d get to watch players scurry like rats in a maze, discovering that every piece of cheese is protected by lethal traps, and the cheese is poisoned. Constructing those systems would be awesome.

But it wouldn’t be fun to play. Neither would the game implied by this list, or any of the other lists I’ve seen, including lists handed to me by would-be designers re: my game. The game implied by this list would be nothing more than a chance for otherwise empty people to fill themselves with a kind of Lord-of-the-Flies importance, engaging in behaviors that are otherwise totally unacceptable.

To the author of this, and all other, OMG HARDCORE lists: Please keep in mind that one, you will not be the assraper, you will be the assrapee; two, you will never be the guy at the top of any heap in this or any other game; three, you cannot simultaneously propose a game that requires a next-next-next-gen game engine AND propose a game that includes permadeath and open PvP looting. To the third point, I’d like to add: you might be able to find someone insane enough to invest in your little power-trip masturbation fantasy, but it won’t be enough to pay for the feature set you want. Wishing don’t make it so; you can’t wish hard enough to crap thousand dollar bills, which is what you’ll need to be able to do to ever, ever make that game.

Because its audience is about a thousand people, and its development costs would be astronomical.

In conclusion, the only thing more irritating than a player who thinks he’s a designer is a player who thinks he’s an artiste.

There are some other things needed, such as a means to track the PKers, even when offline. Here’s where the game becomes more balanced. You’ve already stuck it to the griefers with penalties to reduce the activities, now you make it more of an even game. There’s lots of ways to go here, but the main thing is you need to allow the justice seekers to home in on the “murderer”, and eventually catch up to him. He can stay offline with the character, and avoid justice that way, but eventually he’ll come back. That’s where the justice seekers need to be able to know, and to pick up the trail. The PKer player needs to know only that he has to look over his shoulder all the time, because he won’t know when someone else is hot on his trail.

I agree with your idea. We’re not talking about different things, I think. In your game, the griefer has motivation for griefing, and it’s integral to the design. You’re endorsing the action through design, even if unintentionally. The griefer will look at your system and say, “A challenge!” Evading the law becomes the murderer’s primary purpose. And besides, what hardcore gamer wouldn’t just love the ability to go on the forums and say, “Yeah, I’m a badass! Four guys tracked me to my hideout and I thugged them all!” At the same time, your design allows for “good guy” griefing, too.

Sounds like WoW meets Eve-O.

With the rep system, the criminal flag was added. As a criminal you became attackable by anyone without any reprecussion. You didn’t get a murder count so you couldn’t go red from attacking a grey, nor did you flag criminal, meaning that no one could attack you besides the criminal flagged player without also becoming criminal flagged. Also, there were several ways of becoming marked a criminal, including stealing and looting. Because of the way the system worked, someone who attacked you for those actions would be flagged as an aggressor, which means if you killed them after they attacked you they would be unable to give you a murder count. That’s really where the system had it’s biggest exploit potential. Because attacking a criminal would allow the criminal to kill you without gaining a murder count, it was possible for people to steal from you and then kill you when you fought back. It also allowed a pk to have helpers like you’re describing, who would stay blue (but only in the long run, they’d turn grey till the criminal flag wore off). Healing a red WOULD flag you as a criminal, and you could be freely killed, but you also would not gain any murder counts if someone attacked you and you retaliated, which effectively let you get into combat through the back door. It’s not that you couldn’t fight back against the players who were doing the healing… you definitely could. It’s just that in the end, they didn’t suffer the reprecussions of the system the way the main attackers would.

Since being healed causes a situation in which you pretty much need to attack the greys that are aiding the red, you’re stuck in a situation which basically forces you to add more combatants into the fight. Of course, this wasn’t as serious a problem as you’re making out… since the greys would not be able to attack someone who DIDN’T attack them first, effectively allowing you to gank them much more effectively than they could gank you. They couldn’t aid each other outside of healing, which meant that in group situations it should be much easier to take them down than it would be for them to put up a strong resistance, you simply had to make sure that no one attacked more than one of the healers so that they couldn’t gang up on you. Of course, usually, such groups would go after solo players, and yeah it definitely did suck in those situations, but not significantly moreso than being attacked by a group of reds. The only real difference was that in those situations, less murder counts were handed out, which allowed reds to have a slightly high rate of kills due to them being able to break up into smaller groups without losing too much effectiveness.

Paul…
“Starting from the ground up? The system has to be in place as a feature for the griefer. This is the only way (for this system) to reconcile the clash between player types. You cannot protect the PvE players from PvP if the mechanics allow for killers to inhabit the world. The best goal (in my opinion) is to minimize the disruption for the PvE player by making a justice system that requires a great deal of energy to evade, without being terribly punitive.”

I see it just the opposite. I think you allow the PvP to make for a better game for the regular player, and you limit it by making the PK character pay the price. Heavily, the burden must be on the griefer. In this way, you take out almost all those PKings that are based solely on selfish reasons of loot and infamy. What you have left are a few diehards, and roleplayers doing it for the RP. You also have the “justice” to soothe the regular players, as well as the lower rate of occurance.
What you add to the game comes in many ways. But mainly:
-you add a social need that gives a glue to social units
-you add a risk that makes everything else more meaningful
-you add gameplay in the form of justice seekers, defenders, etc.
-you add realism. Want to build a home all alone in the country? You need to be powerful, cities are safer. Want to send a caravan of guild product to the city? Defend it. It adds game play as well as a layer of tactics.

The overall effect is to reduce grief to a minimum and then pile on the “justice”, so it becomes part of the regular players game instead of the griefers game.

There are some other things needed, such as a means to track the PKers, even when offline. Here’s where the game becomes more balanced. You’ve already stuck it to the griefers with penalties to reduce the activities, now you make it more of an even game. There’s lots of ways to go here, but the main thing is you need to allow the justice seekers to home in on the “murderer”, and eventually catch up to him. He can stay offline with the character, and avoid justice that way, but eventually he’ll come back. That’s where the justice seekers need to be able to know, and to pick up the trail. The PKer player needs to know only that he has to look over his shoulder all the time, because he won’t know when someone else is hot on his trail.

The other issue is that every designer, sooner or later, will underestimate the intelligence and determination of their players. Systems designed to provide justice are usually exploitable in practice. I tend to think of player behavior following game design (either intentionally or unintentionally). For instance, by including a red/blue system in their sandbox, UO was unintentionally endorsing a level of griefing. The creation of a justice system in this environment is a deal breaker for those players who specifically chose to play UO for the ability to grief. Those players will then look for ways to either abuse the new mechanic, or will quit entirely.

Starting from the ground up? The system has to be in place as a feature for the griefer. This is the only way (for this system) to reconcile the clash between player types. You cannot protect the PvE players from PvP if the mechanics allow for killers to inhabit the world. The best goal (in my opinion) is to minimize the disruption for the PvE player by making a justice system that requires a great deal of energy to evade, without being terribly punitive.

Just my .02.

There is a valid game there, but it’s a game that only a certain type of player really enjoys.
I think that sums up the whole thread. That and we need more ponies.