"Jerks" post on another (EQ) forum

[Thirty]

Interesting post, possibly usefull here, mainly to see what you want to avoid here. Basically, try and design the game to not force people to be jerks. One way is sheer size, another way is spread the loot out. And don't forget that players will always "level" faster than you expected, especially in retail. Also, provide things to do besides loot and levels, such as town building perhaps.
Other games have gone some other route, such as Shadowbane, have em keep the population down by killing each other (also assures there are the right level monsters to fight, since the monsters are other people), another games has at least half the people playing some sort of monster (that game may be vaporware though).



the problems you mention though, eventually boil down to the fact that alot of people who play EQ are inconsiderate jerks.

Verant is actually partially to blame for this. I believe the high level game in EQ actually stands a good chance of turning any given person into an inconsiderate jerk.

Why? Skyrain hit it dead on: there is nothing in EQ but loot and levels, and both require such immense patience and time to actually achieve that a gamer actually LOSES consideration for other gamers out of frustration.

"It's bad enough that i have to sit at this spawn for 15 hours to have a chance at x item. I'm sure as hell not gonna wait for him to do it first or i'll be an old man before i get it done."

get the idea? Then the game makes it even worse by essentially rewarding this type of mentality: the above player will actually benefit in EQ for shafting other people.

Verant insists that these players will get a bad rep and be punished by their peers by being excluded on high-lvl raids. ideally, yeah they will. in reality, however, they don't. this is because, like a said, the high level game actually TURNS people into jerks, and these newly created EQ jerks then band together and there you have it, the origin of many of the so called "uber-guilds." DISCLAIMER: i realize that the preceding is not true of all uberguilds

awhile back someone posted a link to the afterlife admission requirements/process webpage under the auspices that it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. i didn't know what afterlife even was at the time, so i went and looked expecting to see a comic or goofy EQ art. i'll be honest; when i first read the page i thought it was a big sarcastic joke to make fun of uberguilds. The page was so stereotypical of the uberguild "we're VIP because we're good at this dumb game" attitude that i figured it HAD to be a joke. lvl requirement for a paladin to be considered is 61, lol, good one. Then i read more and surfed the rest of the page and discovered that these guys were really a guild and deadly serious.

the point of that little tirade? simple. at the very least, the people who run that guild have to be jerks. how could you exclude an entire class from membership if you weren't? i understand the need for lvl requirements in guilds to ensure that the members of the guild can actually play with each other, but the equip and varying entrance lvls for each class and the complicated and tedious procedure for getting an invite even if you meet the requirements are obscene. even I, who play this game WAAAAYYYYYY too much found myself contemplating what losers these people must be in RL (and was suitably ashamed of myself for doing it...i really do try to avoid stereotyping like that, especially in cases where i probably fit the stereotype ).

And EQ rewards them HEAVILY for being jerks... just check out the things they've been able to do. at the time i think they had just dropped gorenaire for the first time ever, had at least 2 or 3 members as winners of the BoTB on that server and at least one as the winner of the entire competition, had just done VP again, had just done a 7th island PoS raid, yada yada, yada...hey, i have a photographic memory, leave me alone

the point is, as long as you can "get ahead/feel powerful" in a game or anything else by being a jerk, tons of people will do it, which is essentially why most people hate pvp so much.

and it's gonna take some REALLY heavy-handed game design decisions to make it so that being a jerk has no benifits...heck, verant's decision to allow players to choose whether to be pk or not was avant-garde when EQ came out, and that's just scratching the surface of potential anti-jerk measures

[Thirty]

Oh, the start of the thread is here
http://boards.station.sony.com/everquest/Forum2/HTML/030179.html
The first post is also somewhat interesting, but is rather EQ related and thus of less general importance.

[Thirty]

Oh yeah, and in beta, we will want to keep our eyes out for first, ways to be jerks, and second, reasons to then be jerks. Then iliminate both as much as possible, mainly the reasons, as you may not be able to do much about the ways and means.

Not having those static spawns helps.

It should be noted that, if more people show in retail than expected, and level faster than expected, you need to know what you plan to do about that. Also, its not a bad idea to know what to do a year or more down the road when they are really numerous and very high level. You dont want to put all this work into something that will die after one year.

Its definatly a good idea to be able to add content, or perhaps better change content, fast, down the road. Mass modifying of areas monster populations and loot for instance, which will be somewhat easier since you dont use static spawns.

Idea... what if monsters winning the fight means they get experience just like we do? They may have temporary death just like we do (at least some may) and thus may gain experience just like we do. Some might even level when not fighting a player, such as training, fighting each other, etc. Monster level will then naturally rise, using the same methods we use. That way, it stayes about even with ours.

I mean, who says a monster has to have the same level/skill level all the time, like other games? That ordinary looking goblin might be a master swordsman goblin who matches your sword skill stroke for stroke. Of course, dumber critters (such as most goblins probably) may have a hard time mastering anything, but some monsters will get better, grow bigger, etc, over time. If they wont have static spawns, why not also eliminate static levels/skill levels as well.

And then theres numbers, distant areas the players dont get to for some time will mean the monsters have time to multiply, train, grow bigger, build mighty fortresses, get a bigger loot horde, get better weapons and armor and magic items, learn new skills such as magic, etc. If this was automatic, built into the game, you wouldnt have to spend lots of time building content, the content would sorta build itself.

Note that after a while, they may get overcrowded wherever this is, and the stronger will push the weaker out, who will then bump into even weaker ones, on down the line till they bump into players.

For that last idea, the bigger the world is, the better it works. And if you want a really huge world, there is either some automated way to generate terrain, a program that makes it easier at least (semi automated), or letting the players do some terrain generation.

[Edited by Thirty on 11-20-2000 at 09:07 PM]

[Slitherrr]

Those sound like some wonderful ideas, Thirty. I especially like the non-static monster skill idea, it seems to be something obvious for more fun and realism. Probably the only problem with it is that if the critters had temp death and gained exp the same way players do, there'd have to be some way to cater to new and/or casual players that won't be gaining levels as fast as the monsters. A good solution might be not to make the critters temp death, but to make their initial level based on what they come from (e. g. Lower levels from roving bands, higher levels from trained fortress-dwelling mofos), then have them gain experience and levels based on how long they stay alive, or how many PC's (or other critters) they kill, or a combination. The world will also have to be huge, to keep away overcrowding. With any luck, most of the people will stick with EQ and other games, and Arcanity will get a good medium-sized core of wonderful people, but plans must be made for the alternative.

[BelDragos]

I mentioned in another thread as an alternative to being killed a monster should capture characters and ransom them by learning skills from their captives. That way the monsters can gain suprising skills like a fireball throwing goblin or the Grandmaster Orc-Cheiftain Swordsman.

That would be an optional way to deal with death or to train a monster army.

[Thirty]

Well, many of those monster races hate each other almost as much as they hate us (and for that matter, people are often a bit rough on each other to). Weaker groups will get pushed out by stronger groups, the weak group then takes over the territory of an even weaker group, who then have to migrate away.

Basically, there would be the human and ack and possibly other allied races home areas, and verious monster home areas. As you head for a monster home area, you first run into the weak mobs who were pushed out by the strong ones. As you get closer, they get stronger and more numerous, as you enter the main homeworld better have an army at your back. This way you have graduated danger, low close to human area, more as you get close to evil area.

Also, if sudden bunches of monsters approach the human area (mostly weak ones) it probably means a new evil has appeared way back in evilville, and started another wave of immigrations. In really bad cases, whole tribes may show up and want your castle. This has happened in human history to, whole tribes (millions in some cases) pushed out by other tribes and ending up invading someone elses area.

Come to think of it, the reason we hero types may have temp death may be because the gods see that some heroes are needed to stop the constant influx of immagrating mobs. Maybe they dont want us to become extinct. Of course, there might be some equelly deathless antiheroes on the other side, intent on seeing evil triumph, which could make for epic strugles not just with random monsters but with powerfull named antiheroes ("ah, Thirty, we meet again" <evil grin> ).

This could be the difference between NPCs and PCs, the PCs are these heroes with special god protection, charged with protectin the race. This could be a continuing storyline, sorta Tolkien like what with evil always trying to take over from over there in the dread lands and us pushing it back. Who knows, the NPCs could have even prayed for the gods to send a hero, and poof, we are sent over from another world (sometimes called RL), this could explain how we uh, log on and off.

That idea would give the heroes some special status, assuming we are successfull, unseccussfull heroes wouldnt get much status, and average heroes who dont protect the race much little at all (with so many wannabe heroes sent in, they could start to accept us and get blase about the whole thing, unless your REALLY good). Heroes who PK might even lose some god protection and be lumped by both gods and people as monsters to be hunted. This could be bad if, as is likely, the monsters also see you as an enemy, leaving the PKer with no freinds, no home base (unless they build one) etc. The gods could mark the PKers who are killing rather than protecting the good guys so NPCs and probably PCs could spot them.

Basically, have the evil area, over there, and the good area, over here, and lots of space in between, much of it half and half, or disputed. Sorta like the whole Mordor thing, you know, the presence of the Main Source of Evil in the evil area (probably a god) twists the plants and terrain into evil shapes, and twists the monsters to, sometimes causing new more powerfull types to emerge from the power of hate. As you got closer to the evil, at first smaller evil manifests, freindly tree critters turn to hostile ones, etc. Closer, instead of dwarves/humans etc you get twisted varients like goblins and orcs and such. Finally, as you get close to the source of the evil (and can probably see the evil manifested in things all around you, and feel it pressing on your soul) you see new monsters, ones brought into this world from beyond, just like heros were.

One can even eventally have epic strigles, you know, while the other heroes battle to get the full attention of the great Dread Evil, our hero sneaks in the back way, approaches the great roaring fire, and throws the dread Book of Evil into the great cook fire so that THE WRENTIA will no longer have any recipes with which to cook us :)

:DNow is that epic or what?

[BelDragos]

I'm all for that. :D

You can also have the spill area be the unknown continents of the rest of the world in addition to the "special" areas in which dimentions and planes of existances are lumped together.

[triangle]

if the monsters were controled by another computer and connected to the server like the players then a more robust AI might be possible. you could have certain monsters like the goblin king have no-perm death like players and have him with a hate list... (player x killed me 2 weeks ago.. my assassians should now be trained and ready to go kill him...)

this could be for the major monsters who are the leaders..

maybe also for quest NPCs as well....

this would allow them to learn from their mistakes and gain levels as well....

they could then be kills of reknown such that the players who manage to kill them would have their names on a plaque in the game somewhere.

i also believe that these NPCs would not fight a losing battle but would teleport and get reinforcements. who would be willing to flee and lose an area knowing they can get it back.

can have it to where a city that a monster is in would produce faster.. so that if the goblin king is in city x it would produce goblin guards and goblin mauragers at twice the normal rate...

my two cents

[Thirty]

My idea here does one thing, it turns this from a standard MMORPG, where levels and loot are king, to an epic, where there is actually a reason for your being here. It might take more work though, what with needing evil artwork for the evil area, possibly needing a bigger map. Might hafta have Arcanity I, and later the larger Arcanity II, possibly by starting us on an island for now and later giving us access to the mainland.

I dunno if they want to make something this epic, but it would certainly be a break from the traditional MMORPG, as far as I know, no other MMORPG does this or plans to.

One way to help mapmaking for all this is, sice this is supposed to take place on a now altered earth, after you get off the island the basic terain may be earth, so you can make much of it from your atlas. That would solve much of deciding where mountains are, rivers, weather, etc. There would be a lot of changes to plants and animals of course, some rivers and terrain may be altered, but the basic underlying terrain could be earth. If the first exposion that brought in magic happened in New York (if I remember right) that might be the current site of the evil area. Players could be say, in Main after it got seperated from the mainland, if you want it close, or California which slide out to sea, with things getting evil as you head east, if you want it large.

One could use other areas also, the island could be England, the evil on the mainland somewhere, other places also are good, such as island Ceylon mainland India, island Tiawan mainland China, etc.

Theres also the option of making a large isolated valley for all this, surrounded by mountains, possibly the site of the crater from the explosion. We cant get out yet, but will be able to later (when the rest is finished) through a pass that opens, or more likely through a tunnel with a locked door.

Also, the evil artwork idea is simple. The evil god isnt into creation, just destruction. So as you get closer, the bushes, and even grass, get thorns, animals get nasty and well armed, etc. This is because, since the god doesnt create, you dont get nothin from the god, you have to fight others for it.

Oh, and about named critters, the antiheroes that ressurect just like we do (or some may take longer to come back). They are sorta powered, and motivated, by the evil gods power. They pass this power, to some extent, to the lesser monsters around them. If you kill them, the lesser monsters lose heart and some power, although the named monsters may eventually make it back, especially if you dont take advantage of this and wipe out the lesser monsters while you can.

As you get closer to evilville (probably a huge black castle), the evil power can come directly from the evil god, its just at longer ranges, in the good zone, that it has to come second hand from the named antiheroes, and through them to the lesser monsters. If a named monster moves into your neihberhood, the evil monsters will get bolder, stronger, smarter, more powerfull, etc, and evil critters will be attracted to hang out more in an area with a named monster. Of course, named monsters also tend to be better leaders than unnamed ones, without them monsters may fight each other as often as they fight us, thus a named monster will tend to result in larger, organized groups of monsters, without one they are rather scattered.

Named monsters can come in various grades, low power ones can only empower say one small monster community, possibly one small burrow or such. More powerfull ones larger groups of more powerfull monsters or much larger groups of lesser monsters. More powerfull ones are also more likely to make larger castles, lesser ones may have a hard time with a few huts.

Also, the really powerfull antiheroes tend to bring enough evil with them it will spill over into plants, animals, terrain, weather, etc, so a whole area could look evil.

Examples, a small orc burrow, lead by a named orc, maybe 1-2 dozen orcs, do a little rading and looting is all. Another, a more powerfull named orc, who is able to inspire enough to build a small fort (the inspiration helping the orcs cooperate with each other rather than fight each other). Another, quite powerfull antihero like like Count Dracula, with a large castle, weird local weather and plants and animlas sarting to look evil, etc.

If the map is big enough, the gradual evilness could assure that the players will never be able to conquer all evil because the Great Evil is just too strong, so as you get closer it gets meaner ubtill it is as tough as you are. If maps big enough, you could push the fronteers of evil back some by kill named critters and make a castle and do patrolling to eliminate local unnamed monsters till the area is pacified, or mostly so. Of course, if you arent dillegent, some new monster(s) could move back in, but you could slowly expand the frontiers of goodville.

The players could come into a world were the goodville area is now quite small, most of the rest of the world is overrun by evil, (there may be hidden kingdoms that survive though). We can then make it our mission to expand the good area, by killing the monsters (especially named ones), building forts and towns, etc. We could have been summoned here as heros (or wannabe heroes) because the NPCs saw that otherwise they would eventually be all killed or enslaved, so they prayed to thier god and poof, here we are.

This could make this game a Holy Quest, rather then just another EQ with loot and levels. That would make it something people would want to play for years. This is especially if the map is huge and it takes a loooong time to even get near the main evilville, instead taking on all the lesser evillvilles between here and there (you want lesser semi major evillvills so you can can whole areas that LOOK evil).

BTW, if you conquer an area for good, it can slowly have its evil looking plants, animals, and weather be replaced by good ones, grass can grow on the barren rocks, etc. This could be automatic, better than having to redo the artwork.

Oh, and that Book of Evil, the one Our Hero threw into the fire? It was, of course, titled "To Serve Man".

[BelDragos]

Of course!! I should've known.

One question though. What happens to the other players in the game when the Evil is vanquished?

[Thirty]

With a big enough map and a far off enough and strong enough main evil, it will never be vanquished. It might have its local manifested body killed, but would be back somewhere else to try again later (probably in a different form with diferent monsters to try something else).

There should be enough major leuitenents though to keep everyone busy for a loooong time. Like the count Dracula idea, strong enough, and with enough monsters serving under him, that it would take a major force, or more likely a major hero backed by other heroes, to take him down, and even then hes hard to keep down if you dont do it just right and may come back later.

You could even kill what you think is the great main evil in its evil castle, only to discover that the real main evil is on another continent. Since the top dog evil sends evil vibes to the leutenants, who send it on to lesser leutenants, on down the line to the unnamed monster troops, you could kill a great named monster only to discover its just another leutenant.

Alternatly, the evil is offplanet (or off universe), but inhabits the body of one main leutenant or monster at a time on earth, kill that body and the local power is broken, but another body will be inhabited somewhere else and the evil will build up another power base to try again.

Think about it, if Frodo hadnt done the ring in volcano thing, could the heroes have taken out all of Mordor? And under my sceme, the guy in Mordor would be either a very major leutenant, farthur away to begin with (with lots of leutenants between you and it), or will pop back up somewhere as something else farthur back, to gain time to build up and try again.

When they pop back up, they may try a comepletely different sceme. Say, you take out their volcano, so they come back up north, cover the world in snow, try to do the ice thing, or a major undead invasion thing, Lizardman invasion thing, orc hords, ghosts, whatever. Generally, it will be tougher to take em out next time, and depends largely on what the Brick team feels would be cool next.

The good news is, with a big enough map, if you take out the local evil anyway, and then clear out the local monsters, you can set up your own kingdom and expand gooddom. Of course, killing a major baddy makes you a lasting enemy who wont forget, as they tend to come back, often after a while since they must get a new body or remanifest, and often from somewhere else, but you may meet them again. They may even want their old territory back and try to retake it once they think they are strong enough again.

Meanwhile there will also be neutral stuff in some places as well, tree and earth spirits, minor river gods (usual very local only), elves or dwarves who just want you to stay out of their territory and stop eying thier treasure, Dragons who usually serve no master, etc. Some major monsters brought in by the main evil may be either too stupid, or too independant, to follow orders, and may split off on their own. And then theirs the major badies who try and be the big cheese themselvs and split off from the main evil master to try and become the main evil master and be their own boss.

This is all the sort of thing you see in any of the Tolkien books, or the Narnia series, or some such. A basic struggle between good an evil, usually with the evil comeing out from one location (which in the Narnia books changed as it was defeated and remanifested later), plus lots of odd neutral stuff mixed in as well.

The only real problem I see is figgering out a way to keep people out of areas the developer hasnt finished yet, since otherwise you kinda need epic size, which takes epic work over epic time. Otherwise you would hafta use the kill the local main evil and it comes back as something else. Say it starts as a Balrog running a large orc hord, comes back after killed as a vampire to try that angle, later as an evil wizard or witch, etc. Otherwise you could make a big map, much of it with no people at all, just some local natural animals, in your area theres people and nearby baddies, kill those and the evil starts somewhere further off in all that empty area. If we do it on a map of earth, the monsters could even be the traditional monsters of that country, after the main evil moves to that area to try again.

Note also the intelligent mosnters of Arcanity means they wont act like the static spawns of other games. The main evil will have its minions and guards, who will protect the evil leader and also support each other, unlike other games were they dont cooperate. Even a great hero doesnt want to tackle 100 large well trained orcs inspired by the eminations of evil that are feeding them.

And dont forget, the main evil, and many of the named minions, will ressurect like we do (although often it takes longer, and they come back as something else), and so, as they kill PCs and NPCs, they get more skilled and stronger. So, even if you win temporarily or locally, they may be back later and be even stronger by the time you see them again.

I figger its possible in Arcanity, non staic spawns, might was well have non static monster skills and powers to.