Tram Killed UO is Tram back?

@Mordecai : <cite> "Now if a trammie could post their interests (not positions please), then I wouldn?t have to search through this thread again to find them, and we could start comparing and contrasting the groups? interest." </cite>

It's not the "trammies" (whoever those guys are), that have problems with those Ultima Online features. Don't forget, there were 9 Ultima Games, 2 Underworld games and several spin off games before UO, that had nearly nothing to do with Ultima Online. There was no multiplayer in those games =&gt; No PvP in those games and they were fun, too. Serpent Isle is still in my Top 5 computer games and I regularly come back playing it, because it is still tremendous fun (the storyline, sidequests, the amount of discovery, the dedication that was put into creating this huge and living world, the party system, etc.).

I'm one of those backers, that backed for SotA not because of Ultima Online, but because of the old games. That doesn't mean, that I won't go playing multiplayer. I'd love to play together with my brother and maybe some friends in a friendly guild (and maybe the FPO mode is enough for me). But PvP never played any role in my considerations for backing this game (unlike many old Ultima Online fans, off course)

So instead of just asking, what those fans of Trammel would like to see, also ask, what the fans of the old games would like to see in the new game.

This will be a new game:
SotA will be completely different than most MMORPGs (and the later Ultima titles) in two important game mechanic aspects: the dual scale map and the matchmaking system for the encounters/scenarios/instances/etc. Unlike Ultima Online (btw. I don't understood, why they didn't create a full open/full loot PvP server in that game after the changes) you won't be able to see =&gt; interact with all people on the map, but mostly with players, the system thinks they would match to your playstyle.

<cite>"My concern is that when a trammel-esque option is presented to players, its is highly likely that they will take it. This is not inherently bad, however, many felucians enjoy both being slain as a miner, and slaying miners"</cite>

It was stated in several hangouts, that players, that join a PvP guild will not be able to opt out PvP =&gt; those players wont be able to take such an option. And I heard of a lot of people, that don't want to become fighters but crafters, but want to feel the danger of a Full PvP world, too. And that people will be joining PvP guilds, too (or opt in despite the danger).

And since the matchmaking system will put you together with players of your playstyle most of the time, you won't see players of different playstyles most of the time. So why not let those others choose to opt out PvP, when they don't like it. It won't interfere with your playstyle.

And since everyone plays on one big shard, there can be no exodus to PvE or PvP-servers.

I really hope, the game system gets clearer, when we get more ingame videos and at least to the Alpha ;-)

 

@AndiZ275
By trammies, I mean players who are uninterested in open-pvp. I assume that that applies to players of the Ultima games, however I do acknowledge that these players are coming from a very different game (Originally, trammies were just people who played in the Trammel facet).

Can you explain to me (or link) what you know about the matchmaking system? I've never heard of it, and I'm intrigued by the idea of only certain players appearing to you in game. Also, when you note that players who join a PvP guild will not be able to opt out of PvP, does this apply globally to each account, or independently to each character on an account (or is there only 1 character per account)?

As a veteran of the original Ultima games, what are you interested in seeing in regards to pvp that may be different from felucians and trammies? (Felucians are players who played on Felucia facet, which allow open-pvp)

@Silent Strider
Perhaps 'threat' has too many negative connotations, however the statement, "I want this, or I'll leave" is at least an ultimatum.

You note the freedom to pve at the highest echelon without having to pvp as an interest of yours. What is it specifically about this freedom that you're interested in? Is it the security of avoiding raids, the efficiency of not competing for pve resources, or something else?

 

@Mordecai

You may call it an ultimatum, but in my case it's merely stating a fact. I backed this game for the story and the open ended gameplay after the story is done, which can be experienced both online and offline. I will already be satisfied in playing the game offline, and consider my digital explorer pledge money well spent even if I never play online.

In fact, what gave me confidence to bump my pledge from First Responder was the promise of offline gameplay. The offline mode means that, no matter how the online experience develops, I will still be able to enjoy the game offline.

I would actually like to play online, but for that the online experience needs to be pleasing for me, otherwise there is just no reason to even log for the online game. Thus, it's merely an statement: if the online game pleases me more than playing offline, I will play online, but otherwise I will stay offline.

As for the reasons, I basically dislike non-consensual PvP to a large degree. And, after my stint with EVE, If a game has both non-consensual PvP and meaningful death penalties I flat out refuse to play it, no matter how good the game otherwise is.

It's not a problem with the challenge; in fact, I would welcome it if choosing to completely avoid PvP made all PvE encounters harder for the same rewards. It's also not a problem with PvP per see; I enjoy fully consensual PvP and play that in multiple games, and also don't have a problem with losing (after all, in any well balanced PvP game, losing happens at least as much as winning).

It's just non-consensual PvP which I can't stand in any shape or way; fighting other players when I'm not in the mood for it completely sours my mood and ruins any fun I could have had with the game. In games where there is no or very little death penalty (such as WoW, where even durability loss is turned off for PvP defeats, so losing in PvP has just the corpse run as penalty) I merely suicide myself when attacked, rez, and continue as if nothing has happened. If allowing myself to be killed when attacked by another player would bring meaningful penalties to my character, I just refuse to play the game.

It cuts both ways, BTW. Apart from accidents (in which case I stop attacking and, if it comes to that, allow my "target" to kill me without defending myself), I never, ever, attack, or ever attacked, another player unprovoked. I spent over half a decade playing WoW in PvP servers without attacking the other faction first even once, and I would go as far as refusing to help friends or guildmates if they picked a fight with the other faction.

(Fully consensual PvP is an obvious exception. If it's fully consensual, it means everyone involved has consented with the other players attacking. It's like a friendly sparring match, so I have no problem participating or even attacking first.)

As for why I want the most challenging PvE content available without PvP: because that is the content I'm mostly interested in. I want a (PvE) challenge, so I want to be able to face the highest echelon of PvE content without being driven away by non-consensual PvP.

 

@Mordecai: <cite>"Can you explain to me (or link) what you know about the matchmaking system? I?ve never heard of it, and I?m intrigued by the idea of only certain players appearing to you in game."</cite>

There is nothing final yet and the details are scattered all over the forums and the video hangouts. They are still working on it. For some informations, you may look into: "https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=text-recap-dev-chat-41813-pve-focus". Especially:<cite>"Open world is PVP, but open world is not open PVP. You can engage in PVP but only with other PVP players. They will try to give PVPers a way to only see PVPers. Those who do not want to be killed, will not be killed. They will get their story telling experience without grief."</cite>

Or here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=dev-hangout-4112013-synopsis. Especially:
<cite>"Dungeon groups will be dynamic. Players will not need to form a party beforehand. The developers will design criteria controlling how crowded a single instance of a dungeon can get and whether friends and foes are more likely to spawn in the same instance as the player."</cite>

For those things, there need to be a matchmaking system and the developers stated, they want to put players together, that share the same playstyle most of the time (players on your friend list become priviliged, for example).

<cite>"Also, when you note that players who join a PvP guild will not be able to opt out of PvP, does this apply globally to each account, or independently to each character on an account (or is there only 1 character per account)?"</cite>

We don't have a final answer for the accounts and characters per account yet. Lord British wants everyone to play himself in the game =&gt; only one online character per Account (this would prevent players from creating opposite characters (angel + devil) at once. But he also knows, why many players would like to have multiple characters (to play the storyline differently, etc.)

About your second question:

All I want from PvP is, that it makes fun and doesn't become frustrating for players, that don't PvP much and are not in hardcore PvP/Pk guilds (since there are already subscriptions for those guilds in the forum, they will definitely exist). From my experience of other games, it's difficult for someone, that seldom plays PvP, to win against someone, who is specialized in PvP and does it most of the time. And if PvP becomes frustrating, I'm going to opt it out completely by going to the FPO mode. And when it's fun, I'll surely play some PvP from time to time. But it will surely never be my main concern about the game (unlike some old UO players)

 

I'm enjoying the maturity/thoroughness of everyone's replies. Here is what I'm understanding after reading the most recent stuff:

For players who want the risk of being killed or ganked while hunting, they'll have it.
For players who rather pvp either on fair terms or no terms, they'll have the freedom to choose not to pvp in nearly any situation.

As far as reaching both audiences fairly goes, this is a pretty solid decision. As far as concerns that seem incompatible with this setup, because trammies (people not in support of complete open pvp) have interests that are less intrusive on other players' interests, they shouldn't have any problem with enjoying the game. It seems to me like the risk of getting forced into ganks by the game is small at best. For felucians (people who want everyone to be in an open pvp world), their interests are significantly more intrusive on other players, and so I think that they will be a lot harder to secure in a mutually beneficial way.

@Felucians
If you have the option to face pvp challeneges as an augmentation to the difficulty of pve, will the fact that other players can face that same pve material with restricted pvp impede on any of your concerns? In other words, is there something that you value in everyone being forced into pvp (in pve zones) that will be lost if open pvp is an opt-in system?

The only thing I can think of (that isn't particularly parochial or selfish), is the concern that, in time, the balance between our trammel and felucia 'sliders' will be offset by non-pvp characters seeking to avoid confrontations with pks. One thing that would delay or mitigate this, which I'd like to know more about (if anyone can indulge me), is the degree at which we're bound to our initial 'pvp' or 'no-pvp' choice. Are we forever locked into tram/fel faceting, or can we freely (or with a degree of restrictions) go back and forth as we please?

 

@Mordecai

About changing from PvP to PvE and vice versa:

- RG doesn't want a PvP flag in the UI, so changing between PvP and PvE is supposed to be done in more immersive ways: accepting or completing (or abandoning) a PvP mission, joining or leaving a PvP guild, participating in a PvP event, etc.

- We will supposedly be able to change game mode (solo, friends, open) whenever in a "safe" place (the ones listed right now are cities and the overland map). It's not too much a stretch for the actual switch between PvP and PvE to happen in those same places. After all, solo mode is by definition a PvE mode, so it makes sense to allow us to change to PvE whenever we can change to solo play. At the same time, allowing the change from PvP to PvE in other places, specially in any place where players can be attacked, would open up the system to exploitation.

BTW:

<blockquote>If you have the option to face pvp challeneges as an augmentation to the difficulty of pve, will the fact that other players can face that same pve material with restricted pvp impede on any of your concerns?</blockquote>

This is, in part, why I actually want making oneself unavailable for PvP to also increase the difficulty of PvE without increasing it's rewards. It would:

- Help balance the difficulty between PvP and PvE. PvE would be a more consistent difficulty, PvP would vary between easier and harder depending on who you meet.

- Help even out the challenge / reward balance between PvP and PvE. Again, PvE would be more reliable, but PvP would have the potential for faster rewards.

- Help focus the gameplay for players that choose PvP into PvP. Those players would spend less time with PvE content to get the same rewards, allowing them to dedicate more time to PvP without falling behind the PvE players.

 

The advantage SotA has here is everything is being created from the ground up as a new method of delivering content both as PvP and PvE.

Tram vs Fel is clinging to old beliefs. These beliefs are not consistent among players, and it changes over the life span of UO.

What each person loves/hates about Tram or Fel varies. Remove one aspect and the dynamic changes and much of the time that change is perverse. For example, the addition of a 2nd facet forever changed the balance of everything in UO. This balance was not just PvE or PvP it also changes other elements like housing and economy.

SotA starts out with many changes that disrupt the Tram/Fel dynamic.

In short, PvP had a huge impact on the gear and items you kept on you when you were open to PvP. SotA does not have full loot, currently. So PvP will have "what" impact on other players.

"Shroud of the Avatar Story Hour with Richard and Tracy" dev chat Richard states that the penalty of death has yet to be finalized.

This meta shard system will allow players to come in, clinging to the Tram/Fel style, and expand to more if they wish. SotA will be able to open players to more play styles and not punish that player for giving it a shot. (such as a PvP server, the player must start over if they wish to leave the full PvP style)

 

I concur with this......

 

If there is no risk, it is not a Lord British game. Your casual suggestions about farming safely, getting involved in pvp as desire breaks the hardcore gameplay of Ultima. That's all i can say, no risk = no uo.

 

Lucky for me, SotA is not UO2, but rather a game also anchored on previous Ultima games with great single player features; a game that allows players to complete the game both offline and online, and when online allows players to choose between playing solo, just with friends, or in a MMO-like environment with random players; in short, a game that can achieve way more than UO, that can be meaningful for more types of players than UO could ever hope.

Which is why I backed the game, BTW; the fact I was more or less guaranteed to never have to worry about PKs. If I was convinced the game would become UO 2.0 I would never have backed it.

 

SotA isn't intended to be UO. That said, if there will be an open PvP mode, you will get the a very similar PvP environment, but it will be by consent, unlike early UO.

 

Oh my god, what a casual. Never play OPO if you don't want to worry about any other player.

 

Hey, I am a PK and I still backed SotA even though PvP is 100% voluntary! I too wish this to be much more than those "MMOs" out there these days like NWO, what a joke that crap is.

 

Actually, if what we already know about how PvP will work isn't changed, I should be able to play in OPO as much as I want without ever worrying about PKers, as long as I don't flag myself for PvP.

BTW, as long as PvP is consensual, I'm likely to engage in it regularly. I really dislike being subjected to non-consensual PvP, but I actually like consensual PvP.

And I want you to have all the targets you want, just with those targets being players that are willing to take part in PvP rather than unwilling players prone to ragequit when they can't play the game the way they expect

The cool thing about the instanced nature of the game is that, even if PvPers are grossly outnumbered by PvE players in the game as a whole, as long as there are enough PvPers to achieve the minimum critical mass to spark spontaneous PvP it will happen, thanks to the game bringing together everyone that wants a PvP fight. This is in contrast with other games that divide players with no regard for whether or not they currently want to engage in PvP, typically ending up with a lot of players that don't want to fight in the middle of the players that actually want some action, and thus dampening the whole thing.

 

Well, this game is a RPG. If i want to do role play, i want to do it in every means, including betrayal, robbing people, stabbing them. I don't want to play in a pseudo-trammel facet where 90% people flag themselves non-pvper when they feel they are in danger, until they are geared up to max. You should learn to take risks which make the game exciting to play. You need to learn to lose something. Just because a casual doesn't want to take risk, i shouldn't be taken from my rights to assassinate people. We are not talking about dueling here, It is not something like guild wars, we just want free PvP system where i can ANYTIME attack anyone, get busted by guards if i am caught, get killed by innocents if i am criminal. Because this is not WoW or any other PvE based boring RPGs. I am here and pledged because i completely trust LB because we saw his creation through Ultima series and UO until T2A, where playing was extremely fun, risky. And it felt us in real life, where friendships become real friendships, because you could see who your real friend is, in a risky world where treachery can happen. I just don't want non-risky, trammelish, PvE-allday MMO, i am completely tired of them. And if possible, casuals should stay away from this. Let us play a risky OPO while you are hanging out in single-ish safe zones.

 

Artariel, do you honestly think the devs are going to read you saying, "Yeah! People I don't like shouldn't be allowed to play this game! This game must be a limited niche release that will probably make no money, because that's better than being tainted by those filthy casuals," and think "Yeah, that sounds good. I didn't much like having a job anyway."? Do you think that flinging insults around will impress anyone? I can assure you that it doesn't.

 

I am talking about absolute freedom in game, be more creative producing arguments

 

Name one game which had 100% freedom in everything in that game.

 

@Artariel: there are a lot of "you need to...", "you should...", "you must ...", "cassuals should...", etc. in your posts; are you sure, to be forced to anything is going to be fun? doesn't sound like freedom to me

(and for me the fun thing is, you talk about "they should..." for other people, but when it's up to you, you talk about "I shouldn't be..." or "I could...")

 

Ever heard the quote "One person's freedom ends where another's begins" ? Also known as "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." For any activity as a group to be feasible every participating person needs to surrender part of his freedom, has to agree to respect the freedom of others. This is valid for everything, from participating in society to playing games, even the most chaotic seeing free for all ones.

A game with total freedom to attack, steal, or kill anything is either a single player game, or else a game that is doomed to quickly lose most players and close down. Even EVE, the most brutal among the actually successful MMOs, has a large part of the game universe "plagued" with unrealistic, psychic, overpowered police that will destroy anyone attacking unprovoked mere seconds after the attack begins. And, on top of that, whoever was attacked has the option of making the attacker, and everyone that helped him, a suspect (i.e., someone not protected by the police) for up to a month afterwards, not to mention the reputation loss (get low enough and the police will attack on sight). In short, even EVE heavily curbs down on player's freedom to attack each other in a large part of it's universe (and, from what I could find, between 70% and 80% of the player base never leaves that "safe" space).

In multiplayer games, including MMOs, better than actual total freedom is the illusion of freedom, which is what SotA is attempting to provide. For that, players are divided based on what actions they actually want the freedom to do to other players, and their freedom to do the actions they don't want anyway is removed in order to free them from unwanted interference, or harm, coming from other players; it's how PvE servers work, players in them give up the freedom to attack other players in order to be free from being attacked by those other players. SotA should provide a similar experience; you should be able to attack anyone that you see, which should preserve your immersion, while at the same time players that want to roleplay in a peaceful setting, or that want just the cooperative part of the multiplayer experience, get what they want by never seeing you. Seems like a win/win proposition all along, with each player feeling like he is free to behave as he has chosen.

BTW, I don't think you would enjoy the complete realism you seem to ask for. Perfect realism would include such things as permadeath, executions for crimes, losing control of your character for months or years if it was ever captured, etc. I don't think you would enjoy a few months without being able to use your character for merely failing in a pickpocket test, or having to wait away from cities for a few years after a crime in order to not be arrested on sight.