You don't want PKing because you haven't REALLY experienced it.

@Placebo, I suspect that is the way it will work, although no official announcements have been made. If you accept a PvP quest, that probably will not be full loot. If you are in a PvP flagged guild, that may or may not be full loot. If you accept a guild war with a rival guild, that should be full loot.

We'll just have to wait to see what the dev's have in mind.

 

I am a Pk and im a good man. I wanna get some fun whit poeple. I help newbies and talk a lot whit poeple. Im allways rdy for a good fight. I ll be red and u can try to kill me at will. We ll get some fun


Call Anti-Pk Plz !

 

@Placebo and @Owain - actually they have announced specifically that they will not be having separate servers at all. They have also directly answered the question that would contradict the "once you pk you can't go back". I specifically asked RG in one of the livestreams whether if I am on the "full open" setting [the one that allows access to all users/pvp/etc] and had a bad day and didn't want to deal with others whether I can switch to single online or friends only online for a short while and then the next day switch back.

He enthusiastically answered that (if I remember correctly) something to the term of "You got it, that is exactly right." I will see if I can find the actual video and time.

So it seems that at least at the current time separating the world is not their goal at all.

Here is RG talking about his single world sharding solution/vision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNKo2ih3fyU#t=3h43m
Still looking for the answer to the specific question I asked.

 

@Elvish, I've never said there would be a separate server. But as far as a PK dropping out of PvP in OPO, I think it's entirely possible, and even desirable for them to be able to do so, and I don't have a problem with it. In effect, if someone plays a PK in OPO, when they go to FPO or SPO, to me that is no different than if they log out of the game. I don't get upset if someone logs off, so why would I care if they go to FPO? They've left my game, and I am left to deal with the people who are still IN my game.

 

Placebo and Elvish Dragon have provided excellent examples of PVP showcasing both sides of this coin.

Placebo provides an excellent example of RP based PVP. Two people walk up and provide conversation. You might say the other guy was wrong to attack, but he just watched his friend run down and killed with his back turned. In either case, this sounded fun and Placebo enjoyed himself. Yet Elvish's example is heart-breaking. No RP, no fun for the victim and nothing but insults and mugging.

Those of us who enjoy PVP can put up with the ass-hattery, but no one should be forced to go through Elvish's example if they don't want too. LB has this one pegged and allowing those to avoid PVP if they want, providing a carrot for those on the fence, yet still allowing for what sounds like a rich PVP atmosphere as well for those that opt in. In Monday's hangout I asked about the PVP features with the latest stretch goals, and the answer was that those that want full-time PVP with full-looting it is in the plan to look into it. However, this will be optional period. A timer for leaving PVP mode has been mentioned so I am sure people will not be able to gank and switch. Everyone seems to be getting what they want, but this issue continues to be forced.

Let me leave with a couple stories of my own from my PVP experiences in NWN:

RP PVP:
Myself (Warrior) and a Mage traveling invisible through enemy territory looking for the trouble only two chaotic evil fellows can find. We come upon 3 young fellow hunting deer and wolves in the forest. Slowing our pace we stand a little distance off and watch our prey. They are not aware of us and intent on their prey which they dispatch with some difficulty. Being cloaked in invisibility spells, we begin to whistle and make noises to unnerve them. They call out to us and group defensively waiting for the attack. The Mage quickly casts a confusion spell and refreshes his invisibility. Two of the group fall victim to the spell and chase after their friend in rage, but quickly lose sight of the escaping fellow. With no one left the two lay into one another: one so feeble he dropped his weapon. As we watch with amusement, the armed man cuts through the other who dies with a scream. We take off before re-enforcements arrive as the man comes to his senses and grapples the body of his dead comrade suffering for the grief of killing his own party member.

The Mage was contacted by a DM slightly after this event. The group had so much fun during the exchange they raved about us on the DM channel to compliment us.

GANK PVP:
I was with a group of 5. We were in a quiet area on our way back from a quest. It was late and we were all just trying to get back to the city to log out for the night in safety. We were taking turns resting as we prepared to go through the last area, we suddenly one of the member die while sleeping. A single rogue exploiting a bug with Hide in Plain Sight was attacking and hiding. This not only meant we could never target or attack him, it also ensured every hit was a maxed critical. I was the only that survived because I had blind fighting which allowed me to attack him for the split second he appeared. However, badly wounded with an interrupted sleep and no healing or buddies to help I had to simply log and wait several days until the server rebooted and reset my location.

Having the best of both worlds in this game is a miracle, and both sides are going to have a rich and rewarding experience. There is just no use arguing over whether people that don't want it should be forced into it, or that people that want it are some sort of evil griefers. If you don't like PVP stay away from it, and if you do I will come looking for you.

 

I have to absolutely agree with the OP. I dont PvP or PK Im more of a farmer/builder. But no one will be PvPing/theifing/bandit'ing if there is no one to do it with. Sure some people will do it, but they will probably turn it on when they are ready, then shut if off when they are carrying their goods.

Voluntary PvP online is NOT role playing. Dont kill Role Playing because of WoW players. Portalarium, dont try to win those players... many of them will NEVER enjoy a REAL role playing game.

 

@Sir Tim - I doubt you could be possibly be more wrong. There are plenty of people who role play both on PnP and online who do so without PvP. I agree doing so in a world with PvP is a lot more fun because you occasionally get to deal with foes that are not either GM controlled or computer controlled, but it is not a REQUIRED part of the genre.

The problem with full open PVP as it has been done to this point is population distribution. Figuring anywhere between a third and half of folks PvPing like to play "bad guys" by which I mean (even if they are "good") people who do things that a normal society would consider illegal (sneaking up to someone they never met and killing them for example). Not even the wild west had that level of "bad guy" to law abiding citizen. The only statistics I have are for the last hundred years but it looks like the "norm" for most of that time is about 0.1% of the population being incarcerated. Even if we posit that society sucks at catching criminals (it isn't but lets just say for the sake of argument it is) that means something like 1% bad guys.

That disparity is significantly immersion breaking. How? Were this a normal society and that many people were to "go bad" you would find the prevailing government sending out the armed forces. In the case of a pseudo-medieval setting, the local lords would conscript a large number of peasants and form an army led by knights at a probable force of arms comparison of 100 to 1 and clean the clocks of the local bandit population. Although that is a guess since _it has never happened in all of history_ that we have had a comparable level of "bad guys". EVEN in most revolutions the number of actual combatants on both sides is below the population distribution we are talking about.

So stop forcing your method of gaming on other people and realize there is more than one way to enjoy an online game and role-play.

 

Found it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULHt9rjEiMU#t=1h04m28s

RG: "I'll take this one from Elvish Dragon, 'Is it possible to switch from single or friends only mode for a day or two and then switch back to multiplayer'. Yes, exactly that's the whole point. You get it quite well there, who was that.. Elvish Dragon, that is exactly the way it works. As long as your playing online you can throttle down from solo and friends only to open at will all you want."

[[ The full question I asked as I recall was "If I am playing in multiplayer mode and have a bad day, is it possible to switch to single or friends only mode for a day or two and then switch back to multiplayer." But at the time chat was scrolling pretty fast ]]

He also goes on to describe it more at 1h08m50s:
RG "And yes we also want you to meet new people we think thats.... fear not that's the way the default level of play is. Again think of it as real-time sharding, its real time mini-shards we just ad-hoc build shards together and if you want you can throttle down how much a group of strangers you're willing to see. But fear not the nominal level of the game that I beleive everyone will play most of the time will still feel like a normal MMO."

 

More info on the PvP answered today: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=pvp-defaults-and-other-questions-answered/#post-13692

 

I played with members of JoV and have many fond PVP moments. I also was a duelist on test center for years prior to Age of Shadows. I usually dueled and participated in open world PVP. I enjoyed dueling the most because it was a 1v1 competition, where the more skilled player emerged victorious.

I had a neighbor who owned a large tower to the south of me on ice island. He was red and he was an avid PK. There were many times that when I left he attacked me on sight, however I was usually unsuccessful in defeating him because he was very skilled.

One day I was playing my thief and had a kryss that I just poisoned on my alchemist. I quickly equipped this and since I was a grandmaster fencer I managed to dispatch him quickly, the poison prevented him from curing and he went down. I was so glad that day because I knew that he knew he could no longer threaten me without consequence. Shortly after that we became friends and he showed me several pointers on how to PVP.

I remember countless days pitched in battle during server wars at Britain graveyard. I often sat on the roof hidden and summoned energy vortexes on unsuspecting victims. They attempted to dispel the vortex and then promptly come to the roof searching for me. I was able to stealth, so many times I escaped their wrath. There were also several times they found me, killed me, and took all of my loot. I was not disappointed, I simply went home and restocked then returned to the graveyard.

There were times where I was frustrated when I got killed, however now that I reflect upon it I realize every moment was worth it. I've never had so much fun in an MMORPG since. Every MMORPG has been a disappointment: World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Everquest 2, etc. After EA decided to ruin UO with Age of Shadows there has been no alternative to the unique experience Ultima Online provided.

 

These are some good stories.
=)

 

@Grim Reaper:

Yeah, there are many more tales and quite possibly there will never be an experience similar in any MMORPG that will be released. There are too many people who have been spoon-fed with games like WoW and Everquest. They aren't interested in a free, open environment where anything is really possible. Instead of learning how to PvP, they simply rely on the developers to prevent them from having to do so.

 

@Ultima Aficionado:

I'm not a killer or a looter in real life, the same way everyone here isn't (I hope). Anyone that would never do those things in real life needs to dissociate from certain aspects of their personality in order to do them in a game.

I can do that perfectly well in a PvE situation (up to a point; in order to actually play an evil character I have to intentionally break the suspension of disbelief, discard immersion, otherwise my real personality comes to the fore and prevents me from doing evil actions with my character, even though I'm just "harming" pixels).

I'm incapable of doing that when the targets are players, specially in non-consensual PvP situations, though; the same way I would never get to a random stranger in the street and punch him in the face, I'm unable to attack another player unprovoked, no matter how much he might deserve it; the same way I wouldn't steal, I'm unable to loot a player character. Thus, I'm psychologically incapable of engaging in non-consensual PvP, of looting a player.

It only affects non-consensual PvP, though. I see consensual PvP as a friendly sparring match, something I'm quite used to in real life from practicing martial arts, so I don't have any issues with it, and I actually like consensual PvP very much.

This, more or less, is where I stand. A game with non-consensual PvP is effectively unplayable for me, no matter how much I like the game otherwise. It's the case with EVE; I love almost everything about that game, but it's effectively impossible for me to play while it features non-consensual PvP. The same way I don't think you would play a game, no matter how good it was, if it's monthly "subscription" was to kill a puppy in cold blood (or at least I hope so).

(As I said in other posts before, there is one exception: if the penalty for just not defending oneself in a non-consensual PvP situation is mostly nonexistent, in which case I can just suicide myself when attacked and continue playing as if nothing had happened. Which is why I was able to play WoW in PvP servers for over half a decade.)

 

To all the proponents of PvP in this thread: You speak of the wonderful times you've had. What about the people you attacked? What sort of time did they have? Did they enjoy what you did to them? Or were they like the person that Elvish Dragon mentioned, and were just on there for the few minutes of time they had that day to try to relax in peace?

We have exactly one case, from the NWN story where the people obviously enjoyed it. That was fortunate, since it was clearly the last thing on the perpetrator's minds at the time they did it.

You people all seem to forget that in order for you to have the time of your life, it's damn likely it's the lowpoint of someone elses.

 

@Silent Strider:

Your point is really is irrelevant. You're using the same bullshit argument that people use when they say that video games caused them to act in a particular manner. It simply is not true at all. By your very own reasoning a person who plays Grand Theft Auto and drives down the sidewalk, driving over innocent people, has the tendencies of a homicidal maniac? No. Thus, your argument that just because you do something in a VIDEO game is some representation or has any connection with how you act/behave in real life is invalid.

ROLEPLAYING an evil character should be perfectly fine. There is no gap of immersion, hence the reason you are able to roleplay EVIL in games such as Dungeons and Dragons. It is a player's personal preference. A SANDBOX game, which this is, gives you those options. That said, I can accept that you do not want to PvP. This isn't following the footsteps of WoW and be nothing like it, of that I am certain.

@Sirinan:

First of all, you are clearly confusing PvP and getting PK'd. Many people enjoyed PvP because it is exciting and fun. I feel sorry for those of you who have never had the opportunity or skill to play a game on that level. The newbies and miners who got PK'd and spent hours mining usually did not enjoy it, but I'm certain there are measures and precautions being taken to avoid that in SoTA.

 

@UA - fair enough, I'm not exactly an expert.

But what then is the difference between PK'ing and non-consensual PvP?

 

@Sirinan:

PvP is simply player versus player, there were many people who enjoyed that aspect of the game. Although I am sure there are many people who did not enjoy getting PK'd, there probably are far less who did not enjoy PvP.

Just for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_versus_player

 

You are never going to get the feeling of true evil or good if you avoid aspects like open pvp and full loot.

What kept me going in UO was that I had this list in my head of people I hated with a passion and those that were my closest allies who I could count on. A constant goal for vengeance and to help my allies gave me reason to log on again.

MMOs today have watered down the experience to which the end result is lack of feeling. I do not feel the same way about my allies and enemies because their effects on me are less significant and I have no strong memories about them. If you notice people tend to retell events in UO as if they happened the other day. The reason for this is your brain remembers things more accurately during emotional lows and highs and commits those to your long term memory.

I think that the defining difference between those that liked how it was and those that did not is in how they responded to a bad experience. Did you give up and throw in the towel when you were PKed and looted or did you make allies to seek revenge and create an experience to remember. I admit if my experience of UO was of me dying to PKs and that's its, without any tale of revenge, whether it be through my own means or recruiting help, then I would not be so happy with it either.

So I challenge anyone who is against the original model of UO to present a story of their experiences in another game that could match the excitement that is retold in some UO stories.

 

@Antalicus:

Precisely, I never hear anyone retell an experience they had in WoW with the same vigor as people who played UO. Sure, I have experienced some moments of excitement when I played WoW but none of them come even near the moments of excitement I have had while playing UO.

WoW was a theme-park game and people basically paid to experience dungeons, which were the same every single time. It was a skinner box and people began to compete with their friends to see who could achieve the best gear. Dungeons were added and new items were added to keep people playing and increasing their level. The game is redundant and so repetitive that it becomes shallow.

UO, while not as colorful and "pretty" as WoW was a more vibrant experience. Every player of UO had a unique experience. This is because it revolved more around communities of players developing the game, rather than the content really. There were awesome dungeons, Deceit was a lot of fun but it wasn't what made UO great. I've had HORRIBLE experiences getting PK'd, but some of those experiences I wouldn't trade for anything. Every encounter with an enemy was packed with adrenaline, ensuring that I casted the right spells at the right time, closely monitoring my enemy's and my health. This is because I actually cared whether I died or not. People formed communities of ANTI-PK'S and the PK's formed their own communities.

 

@Silent Strider <blockquote>I?m incapable of doing that when the targets are players, specially in non-consensual PvP situations, though; the same way I would never get to a random stranger in the street and punch him in the face, I?m unable to attack another player unprovoked, no matter how much he might deserve it; the same way I wouldn't steal, I?m unable to loot a player character. Thus, I?m psychologically incapable of engaging in non-consensual PvP, of looting a player.</blockquote>

You cannot have evil without good. I'd imagine that you could justify punching someone in the face who was a thief or physically attacking someone who was a killer, no? I consider myself a good person and do not play the role of an evil person and like you cannot justify harming an innocent person, but if they are not innocent then I can justify it.

I cannot be the good player I want to be without the existence of my polar opposite. I guess the problem is that there is not just the evil person that preys on another and the good person that aids others but there are also those that want no part of either.