Another MMO dev blog
(Visited 6509 times) Game talk
Aug 232006
JZigishness is from Ben Zeigler, a dev at Cryptic, and it’s been added to the sidebar.
…there are two basic rules. First, if you screw up something, always give players back more than what they lost. Second, if you get this urge to teleport a player into the sun, don’t do it. Even if they’re being an asshole. Seriously, not worth it.
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Second, if you get this urge to teleport a player into the sun, don’t do it.
Unless the Sun is a special area in your world where good things happen. But don’t teleport the assholes there.
On the mud I started my gaming “career” at there was literally a “jail cell” – a room with no exits. Occasionally the higher-level imms would teleport a problem player’s character there and leave them there for like a week. It was basically their way of telling a player to go away without explicitly nuking the character.
I was only ever a low level imm (zone builder rather than administrator), so I wasn’t allowed to put people in jail or nuke anyone, although I could disconnect people or cut off their public chat channel access if needed.
I thought this was an interesting passage from his latest.
I tend to agree… Unfortunately, very little developement goes on to prevent the gank fest that is pvp in mmo’s. Swg’s battlefields had the promise of a somewhat level playing field… but sadly never got implemented, or were removed shortly after implementation due to ‘issues’. I can’t quite remember what the specifics were, tho.
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won’t giving back more than what is taken eventually lead to players playing in godmode? i.e. doing away with the nerfbat.
a thought on the “pvp->ganking to be “better”” concept – if mmo’s that had more of a sandbox model (i.e. pre-nge swg) and also had some valid (enjoyable and rewarding) difficult pve content, players would measure their own “greatness” in different ways, and be recognized in their communities for it as well. being able to solo difficult content, or able to lead groups of folks through difficult instances , or craft exceptional or rare items, is just as valid as just pvp fighting, and generally more useful to the whole community, leading to more valid game-fame.
I think the way to have PvP in a game and insure that it doesn’t turn into ganking is to give people something important and meaningful to fight over. In most games this means some kind of territorial control mechanism, with clear and evident benefits for taking and holding territory.
On the mud I started my gaming “career” at there was literally a “jail cell” – a room with no exits.
On “Dark & Shattered Lands”, they had three “reasons” for such rooms. One was an IC justification… apparently I committed a crime in New Thalos and the guards snagged me. The second was OOC, where I ran an alt when I wasn’t supposed to. The third was… interesting, what is called a “black hole” room. You’re walking along, enter this room and….. no exits. IIRC, it was off a cliff.
the abstract reward of being better than someone else is perceived to be greater than the fun of a close and fair fight
An interesting point. But the words “abstract”, “perceived”, and “fun” are a little too… stand-offish. People like winning. It’s more rewarding if it’s a win in a “fair” fight, but the goal for most of these people is to win, not to struggle. This typically includes the losers, who only want a fair fight because they wouldn’t get ganked that way. If you went through the game and flipped their level and appropriate stats so that those who are weak became strong, people who say they want fairness would start ganking.
I guess I ought to post that in HIS blog…
Players don’t wait failure; they want the perceived chance-of-failure followed by victory.