UO, Siege Perilous and Roleplayed PvP

Discussion in 'PvP Gameplay' started by TEK, Sep 8, 2013.

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  1. TEK

    TEK Legend of the Hearth

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    This post is a bit of a background on myself and my motivation to advocate for PvP territories in SotA.

    I started playing UO the day it was released on the Sonoma server and saw the best and worst of PvP early on in those days. The Sonoma server was important for this thread as on that server was a player town called Oasis. I would go there an participate in Fight Nights, and the different activites they put on, which was entirely player driven. During these events, they had players who served as "Town Guards" and would work their best to thwart any PK attacks..which would happen often. Despite the constant threat, the events were always popular as you never know what would happen. I was even on the losing end of the Fight Night "Terror Bombing" which prompted a game change:
    • Explosion potions no longer set off other explosion potions. We regret that our earlier post seemed to indicate that the explosion potion was changed only at the request of the City of Oasis, without input from other player sources. Reports from the City of Oasis on Sonoma, which was suffering from terrorist bombs during their periodic Fight Nights, and subsequent support from other player commentary brought this issue to our attention. Please note that the explosion potions were never intended to be instant-kill tools. From now on, explosion potions will only detonate themselves.
    http://wiki.uosecondage.com/Ultima_Online:_The_Second_Age_Patch_Notes_for_10/01/1998

    Despite the bombing, I was inspired by the player driven good and evil, friend and foe, and political intrique in all of this. The players took an area out of the world, gave it a name and defended it as such.

    Fast forward to the opening of the Siege Perilous shard. I was excited that it would be a return to the "classic" UO...the one which Oasis had inspired me. I decided I wanted to really be on the forefront of a new player town on Siege. So I convinced a friend of mine to join me decided that we would claim the npc building (not that you could actually "claim" anything) at the crossroads out of town as our own and defend it as such and eventually build our homes. My character was Shaar Barista and the name I gave the town was: Safe Haven

    When creating Safe Haven, I and we gave it a few Roleplay rules to make it interesting for us all. Sorta like a gritty Wild West bar, Safe Haven would be friendly to all players regardless of the flagging as a good guy or bad guy. A "red" character who was clearly a murderer was welcome just as much as a "blue" character who was "good". In Safe Haven, only your actions within town mattered to us. No fighting as allowed. If you started a fight and killed someone then you would be on the "Kill on Sight" list no matter who you were.

    With those roleplay rules in place, we took up shop at the crossroads and began telling all players who came by that this was Safe Haven and doing all we can to make them feel welcome. I posted on all the the UO forums at the time and began doing any kind of events we could dream up. For Siege Perilous, being that many players were banned from NPC towns, and could never participate in any events in those NPC towns...Safe Haven represented a place that they could.

    In a short time, we had several houses placed around "town" and got some notoriety. Some players came out and joined us as citizens and others as "town guards". We formed a town government with a Mayor and Sherriff. We recruited players interested in trade to place vendors in Safe Haven tower for free while we made sure they knew it was risk vs reward. There were plenty of enemies of Safe Haven who would attack us and of course we would defend ourselves the best we could.

    The defense we made for the town began to take notice from other players and guilds of the server. We engaged all that entered the town into these politics of defending the idea of SH. Eventually most major guilds on SP had pledge its support of Safe Haven. This didnt mean though that all was fine and peaceful. At one point, a major guild who you might of heard of...the Knights of Glory and Beer got themselves on the KOS list of Safe Haven for killing a "red" player in our town borders. Sure they made had killed a bad "PK", however they had broke the town laws. As so, whenever the KGB would enter town, we would either killl them or drive them off. We also engaged into the politics of that matter with KGB and its leaders. Eventually a cease-fire was declared and they were allowed into town again. This happened with all guilds of SP at one point or another.

    As time went on, we held town elections that involved the entire shard/server, held major events and gave out countless prizes. Got the attention of the Seers who provided storylines for the town against evil Lizards nearby. Safe Haven also started a guild called NEW which was a recuitment tool for Siege Perilous, so that new players who wanted to try the server could get off the ground by providing gear and safe passage. We got most all the major guilds of Siege to not attack members of NEW as long as they didnt "farm" certain locations or engage in pvp while in the guild. Imagine that, a PvP enable area that was more eventful than anywhere else in game and was managed by player justice.

    Why does all this matter though? This matters because it showed that you can Roleplay and give reason to PvP without out it being all negative. The excitement of living and playing in Safe Haven would not be possiblile without it being a "PvP enabled" area. At a glance, I was simply a bad "red" PK when I was really a color blind guardian who judged players on their actions in my town. I hope in some way that SotA can provide the ability to create such a thing again. I hope there is "Wild Lands" where a Safe Haven type town could exist again.

    What is great about this story about Safe Haven, is that despite it being created in 1999, and years since i've even played UO....the area that I personally named Safe Haven is still regarded as so and even the NEW guild is still around. The ability to lay a mark in a MMO like that is truly awesome and sorta gives you immortality. Will SotA allow us to be immortalized as well?
     
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  2. Vyrin

    Vyrin Avatar

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    It's a very interesting story, yes. I do like what you're trying to encourage, which is people who are afraid of PvP but I fall back on a few suggestions.... humbly submitted.

    a) this is not the first time someone has tried to get people comfortable with open PvP based on their experiences in UO. You're in good company.

    b) the story works a little bit against you in that you seemed to succeed only by creating a "neutral" town, with all that entails. Are there a variety of RP options or just this? In other words, even your RP had at it's core the PvP situation.

    c) a lot of people don't want to go through the hassle of watching their backs, creating guards everywhere, having lists, etc. The PvP style of play isn't just about the actual combat it's about all the other things it brings into play that have to absorb people's gaming time. And some people just don't want to spend time on that. Immortalized in the words of Sweet Brown... if by some chance you've never seen this hold on til the music starts.



    Yours is a great experience. It's an awesome story about things that can happen in an MMO and I hope SoTA has many such things. We've gotten to the point though where we realize that people in MMO's have different styles of play, and that thes are not easily changed. My hope is that this is NOT UO in that it accomodates more styles of play than just open-PvP. A broader community, and more options for all sorts of stories that aren't centered around PvP. The devs are trying to advance what an MMO can be. We shall see.
     
  3. MalakBrightpalm

    MalakBrightpalm Avatar

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    I would LOVE to visit a town like Safe Haven in SotA. I would welcome the chance to role play, to know that I was responsible for my actions and would be held accountable, and that I was partially responsible for my own safety, as some antisocial freak could at any moment jump out at me with a random assassination attempt. But I wouldn't want to live there. I wouldn't even want to spend huge ammounts of time there. So while I totally support the idea of having wild lands, and hope there is a place for OPO players who like living that experience every time they log in, I really really really want there to ALSO be an entire game world where I don't have to constantly watch my back. It's not that I'm afraid of it. It's that it irritates me, and I'm playing a video game to relax and unwind, not to get fed up with player such and such and the way he keeps attacking me. I have enough stress in my real life, I don't need simulated stress. I want to be able to afk because my food is ready, or my girlfriend just showed up unnanounced, and NOT be ABLE to come back and find that I've been murdered, robbed, and my corpse defiled.

    IF I choose to enter PvP play mode, or a PvP area, or pick up the PvP queerball, then that's my choice and I'll be totally fine with whatever comes. You will never find me whining to a GM or posting on the forums about how something that happened to me in PvP shouldn't be allowed. Being on these forums at all is a major deviation for me, this is the ONLY forum I have ever posted on, and I don't see any others on the future horizon either. I just don't think the game should require PvP, ever. I don't think the economy will be ruined simply by people switching modes, I don't think that people will somehow have a sacred aspect of their game denied them if not everyone PvPs, I think that 100 MILLION players could stream through the game world, each only trying PvP two or three times, then quitting it forever, and that this would be GOOD for the game, not bad.
     
  4. Sir Tim

    Sir Tim Avatar

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    You will be happy to know there will be open PvP. But "noobies" will be safe.

    Durring the Kickstarter campaign RG said there would be PvP, and that got him a successful campaign on KS and got him continued pledges on the site here. You can view a video of him talking about how he wants players to bring their personality into the game and PvP: Richard Garriot Discussing PvP

    The PvP discussion lasts about 30 minutes if you want all the details. So I would assume he plans on keeping his word to everyone that donated based on that premise.
     
  5. TEK

    TEK Legend of the Hearth

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    Thank you for the feedback. There has been several Dev comments on PvP, however, what they have not commented on is PvP enabled territory which incudes villages, towns and cities or even "Wild Lands" for players to build their own villages similar to Safe Haven. Story based PvP is not it, nor Arenas or small Risk Vs Reward areas. I am talking about a significant territory for players build houses and live in. Chris has already commented about certain areas of the world which require "X Level" or an invite to be able to enter. If that is truly the case, then an area of New Britannia that PvP enabled players only can live is just as reasonable and players who are simply not interested could avoid the area.

    "b) the story works a little bit against you in that you seemed to succeed only by creating a "neutral" town, with all that entails. Are there a variety of RP options or just this? In other words, even your RP had at it's core the PvP situation."

    There were many citizens who never fought at all and never even held a weapon, including crafters, bakers and even a team of ladies who were interior designers. All of them knew the risks of the world and were careful in how they moved around and did their work. To the south of Safe Haven near Cove lived the House Lynn'Dannae, a group of pirates who were always in character and had their own laws that made someone friend or foe. South of Yew was the Shadowclan Orcs who took over the nearby Orc spawn and defended the territory from all non-orcs. They spoke only Orcish and were quite the fighters with their Orcish tactics. Beyond that, there as still plenty of Safe RP inside the NPC towns which were still protected by NPC guards. In general, I would say that Siege Perilous might have had the most quality RP of any shard of UO...and may still have it.
     
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  6. Silent Strider

    Silent Strider Avatar

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    Up to now villages, towns, and cities have been described as safe from PvP, and player housing can only be added to those already existing settlements, and even then only on specified plots of land. So, to the extent we currently know, something similar can't be added by the players.

    Not to mention that, with selective multi player, there's a good chance players can just ignore everyone else on the map and go wherever they want without engaging in PvP (though avoiding or defeating the NPCs is another matter entirely).

    BTW, while I'm not against your experience or efforts, they are not for everyone. Like others already said, for many players - myself included - it's not just the combat, but all the other things that open PvP brings to the table. The fact players had to organize in order to have a safe haven is, for me, more a reason to avoid the game altogether than an incentive to take part in the community, specially with SotA and it's solo and offline modes where I can avoid all player conflict without giving up on the game proper.
     
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