Without having read the numerous replies to the OP's post, what would it be like if you could only loot say 2 items or say 20% of the items?
It all depends on the reason for the combat and the reason for the loot. I think you're missing that part. Contrary to what detractors say, loot drop isn't about ganking newbs and taking their clock parts, although some do enjoy that.
Some of the reasons for loot drops is
- the loot is used to maintain or finance city or war effort
- the loot can take an unprepared enemy out of the battle
- the loot can affect the ability for a side to hold or sieze territory
In AC, the loot drop was originally one item every 10 levels or something like that. It picked the most expensive items from various categories so players would carry items that would drop instead of their regular gear.
Loot dropping for no apparent reason or, worse, an arbitrary reason, doesn't really make for fun for anyone. In games with loot drop, the loot is partof a much bigger picture.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed. So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed. So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
I agree with this statement 100%.
I was flaming the flamers and got a little out of hand=) Sorry about that. I love strategy games too, but single player games really don't have unneeded preparation. All your planning is just part of the game and its all about you. Farming for gold or ISK just never seemed like quality content to me. Its a crutch. Adequate gold should come as you play. You shouldn't play TO make gold. I've done it. But now I'm over it. Of course people can farm if they choose to, but replacing gear you lose isn't a choice. Its a necessity. Just seems like a waste of time. If people don't find it a waste or just see it as a necessary set-back, so be it. They can choose to use their time in any way they want. But I don't. If I'm playing for 2 hrs, I should be having fun and progressing the whole time. Farming for an hour, traveling for another 15 minutes, standing around wiating for another 15 mins...its just not for me anymore. I'm glad some developers see this.
Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
Well the trick is ensuring the buildup phase is enjoyable. Age of Empires in particular is guilty of a buildup phase which is largely identical each game, and therefore turns into more of a tedious chore than a fun activity. It's less painful in AOE3 than AOE2, but it's still pretty bad. (Most accounts I hear of AOE1 is that your starting situation was varied enough that it wasn't as repetitive...but it also wasn't balanced and you could just outright be map-screwed, which is even less enjoyable than the tedium of the following games :P )
PVP is interesting because your opponent is part of the combat equation and you must react or die. So my assertion is that the buildup phase of MMORPGs should strive to be at least this interesting and varied.
Nobody would complain about Full Loot if it regaining it was as fun as the battle that lost it. Currently that's not the case in retardedly tedious gathering/crafting systems like those found in Darkfall and EVE (although EVE's crafting system is fine, since it's more of a "fire and forget" thing which lets you move on to do other things.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
i don't mind full loot, but teh only way it could ever have a good following is if there was a limit. the biggest complant people have about even a regular pvp game is the HIGH levels ganking people 20-40 levels below them.put a level cap on how low of a person they can kill and more people would play it. i don't mind losing in pvp if i atleast stood a chance. you beat me hey you was better at it than me was all,you run up and one shot me because you're 40 levels higher, then you must suck at pvp and knew it was the only chance you had to beat anyone.
thats teh biggest problem games like DF have is the high levels are killing off the new blood coming into the game and the game will never grow.new people will not stay if they get killed and looted over and over by people with HIGH levels wich they stand no chance at all against. high levels will say QQ more and good ridance but how much fun could a game be if people aren't allowed to play it by the high levels? the game WILL die if new people can't come in and have fun,if they're having fun they'll stay and the community will grow. the more people in the game the more money the devs will have for patches and updates wich means more content for the higher players.
i don't mind full loot, but teh only way it could ever have a good following is if there was a limit. the biggest complant people have about even a regular pvp game is the HIGH levels ganking people 20-40 levels below them.put a level cap on how low of a person they can kill and more people would play it. i don't mind losing in pvp if i atleast stood a chance. you beat me hey you was better at it than me was all,you run up and one shot me because you're 40 levels higher, then you must suck at pvp and knew it was the only chance you had to beat anyone. thats teh biggest problem games like DF have is the high levels are killing off the new blood coming into the game and the game will never grow.new people will not stay if they get killed and looted over and over by people with HIGH levels wich they stand no chance at all against. high levels will say QQ more and good ridance but how much fun could a game be if people aren't allowed to play it by the high levels? the game WILL die if new people can't come in and have fun,if they're having fun they'll stay and the community will grow. the more people in the game the more money the devs will have for patches and updates wich means more content for the higher players.
I agree with that or at the very least if they kill someone that much lower than them then they can not loot them. Something to keep the griefers from killing the game.
I agree with that or at the very least if they kill someone that much lower than them then they can not loot them. Something to keep the griefers from killing the game.
The way I like to see games solve this is with lateral progression systems. If PVP is a big part of the game, then lateral progression mostly balances things for the newbies. They'll only have to worry about becoming skilled at the game, instead of also needing to invest enough time into the game to be competitive.
You can never eliminate griefing 100% (after all, even in a FPS it's vaguely "griefing" when a skilled veteran totally dominates a round against some noobs.) But you can eliminate a lot of the major factors that cause MMORPG griefing to be over the top ridiculous.
Eliminating them is easy. The question becomes whether we want to eliminate them, as a nontrivial amount of players play RPGs specifically because they can get all these non-skill advantages over their opponent (because many of these same players would lose, if combat were purely about skill.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
in daoc you lost a good amount of exp when dieing. in neocron you lost your whole quickbelt (at beta) and it was nerfed in release to one or two items
i say when death has no penalties, people don't worry bot dieing. you lose a small amount of honor (or similiar) here and there nowadays, tho that's it.
ik kinda liked the idea of dropping the weapon u actually used while deeing or even lose exp or honor (in an equal amount to the exp or honor the killer gained). but most people run 24/7 to instances, farm their precious loot, and if they would be at risk of losing it in pvp, i doubt more than 2% would actually go for pvp.
we need a new mmo, an mmo with balls! for people with the hairiest, grossest balls of steel!
and if you don't like losing your precioussssss... stay in your cave and keep grinding mobs and bosses (eg play wow)
Oh your balls are really something monumental, your grow balls, big balls, in a game. Duh. Real balls.
Originally posted by Amaranthar Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business. But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
We need that in MMORPGs and in our worlds.
I agree with most of the points you've made in this thread. Quoting you for emphasis.
You need a very Diverse World to sustain a population in a FFA Full Loot system.
History has proven FFA PvP games and servers dwindle and die. A smart Player Killer doesn't stick around in a losing situation, so once he is on the bottom of the talent pool he will eventually figure it out and leave.
What history book are you looking at? EVE Online is still going strong and heck, even Ultima Online is still running. I know I logged onto a UO server bout a year or so ago.
Without having read the numerous replies to the OP's post, what would it be like if you could only loot say 2 items or say 20% of the items?
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
People who have the time to waste farming to replace gear, can't understand whats its like have two hours and ONLY spend it having fun. Its another reason why people with loads of time on their hands don't mind Full Loot. The penalty just doesn't matter to them. But people with lives can see that an hour doing essentially nothing productive is a waste. The penalty is BIGGER for us than for them. Thats why they love it. They know when they die, its no big deal, but when we die, it IS a big deal. If you think farming for an hour is NO BIG DEAL, you have no life. Case closed. So its all abotu managing your time and preparing. Some of us have to manage REAL LIFE time. Others don't have to be concerned with that. Real life time is more important than game time. Its a very hard concept for kids to understand, but they will eventually...maybe;)
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
I agree with this statement 100%.
I was flaming the flamers and got a little out of hand=) Sorry about that. I love strategy games too, but single player games really don't have unneeded preparation. All your planning is just part of the game and its all about you. Farming for gold or ISK just never seemed like quality content to me. Its a crutch. Adequate gold should come as you play. You shouldn't play TO make gold. I've done it. But now I'm over it. Of course people can farm if they choose to, but replacing gear you lose isn't a choice. Its a necessity. Just seems like a waste of time. If people don't find it a waste or just see it as a necessary set-back, so be it. They can choose to use their time in any way they want. But I don't. If I'm playing for 2 hrs, I should be having fun and progressing the whole time. Farming for an hour, traveling for another 15 minutes, standing around wiating for another 15 mins...its just not for me anymore. I'm glad some developers see this.
You should try playing eVE Online and join an Alliance. We do not have to farm materials or kill mobs. I killed mobs only for entertainment.
My ship losses on Fleet ops were sponsered by my Alliance. So I did not have to 'grind' PVE beyond the initial investment to buy the ship the 1st time. After that, my Alliance refunded my ship losses fully
You should not assume we are farming everytime we die. That is primitive (no offense to you) and nothing like a real military. A real military is funded by taxation and gains wealth from taking over moons like an RTS
Think of an RTS and you will begin to understand EVE. A military force invades space and takes control of Moons. Then you use the Moons to fund the war effort
Once you lose these Moons all an Alliance has left is funds saved in their banks. Once you make them run out of resources then you have won the war.
No one has to go out and farm PVE in EVE unless they are some sort of Pirate. When you are a pirate though, you make ISK from ransom demands and loot. But I am not a pirate and that is not my knowledge base sort to speak. I am a soldier that does Allliance vs Alliance. I have invaded and taken space and have helped take Moons for my Alliance so we can all be rich
I know I can't handle it. I like PvP, but I also like being able to respawn and get back in the action, not go back to farming for equipment.
I cant handle that either. I would not play a full loot game if I had to farm to replace the items I lost
Like I explained above-- in EVE Online you work for a military (if you do Alliance warfare). The miners, ratters, explorers, and industry pay taxes. This helps the war effort. In addition, when your military takes over a Moon you can use these materials to make new ships and export the unused goods to market hubs for profit
Using the rare moons an Alliance can make a fortune and fund major war efforts.
My losses on official ops would net me 100% replacement for any losses occured on ops.
I used to also go on unofficial ops from time to time which were not funded just to goof around. But on those I would fly cheap stuff. I'd only bring out my big toys for the major ops to help my Alliance invade new space or Defend
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
Full loot isn't bad if the game is designed arround it...
Open PVP can be great if you design arround it...
Full Loot and Open PVP can be great if the game is designed arround it...
BTW DarkFall Online.. IS DISIGNED to be a PVP game... NOT A PVE/PVP game. The PVE is more of an after thought... Something added to the game to help progress players into more PVP... That is one of the largest missunderstandings that people have about DARKFALL online is that it's a PVE/PVP game and it is not.. it is purely and mainly ment to be PVP...
One of the largest problems with many of the games that try to allow open pvp and full loot, is that the games are not deisgned arround that kind of system. They are and I hate to use this but "EQ Clones" And i use EQ because it was the first, 3D mmorpg.
Oh yea... another thing... One of the largest progressive reasons for WoW's ability to spread so fast and be played by so many people... Other then the fact that it's "WarCraft" (Sorry WarCraft as a video game IP was well known before WoW came out... AND THIS HELPED ALOT" was the fact that this damned game could be installed on any P.O.S. system out there...
I'm sorry... but if uncle Bob who hasn't upgraded his computer in 10 years and little billy who got his brothers hand me down left over laptop from college was able to install and play. Then how the hell would it not grow so fast...
THis is where the Big "B" made a great and wise choice when designing thier game... They made it a point to be able to scale the game down system wise enough so that even the poor folk that buy systems from budget warehouses could play. THis and and of itself allowed them to expained thier customer base. Then from that point on it grew... and allowing even the limited computer system owner to play helped out alot..
Oh well.... i like open pvp, and full loot.... it's just a hard system to balance.... and it is a system that as for as now only apeals to a limited player base... I believe that there will be a day when an open pvp and full loot game does make it prime time and with a large player base... It just needs to be a well planed and balanced system... that does not over favor one side over the other.
Originally posted by Amarantha I don't know. You got numbers? The only thing I've seen was a guestimate of around 20k. That's what Shadowbane had when they closed, wasn't it?
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
Without having read the numerous replies to the OP's post, what would it be like if you could only loot say 2 items or say 20% of the items?
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
Well EVE isn't full loot in the sense you don't get everything, you'll get a percentage of the loot chosen at random by the computer. Though it is full loot in the sense that the player that dies loses all his items, although in EVE you get to insure your ship so it doesn't hurt as much.
I feel in EVE the satisfaction you get is knowing you put that guy back atleast 1 hour in game time. Since if he has enough Isk it would still take him 30-60 mins to get fitted out and ready for combat again. Most of the time VETs will travel in groups in cruisers so the financial hit is small but the time set back is pretty nasty. Usually if you died that was it for the evening since even if you had a ship already set up you'd have to get to it then get to your group and that just isn't going to happen 99% of the time.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
BTW DarkFall Online.. IS DISIGNED to be a PVP game... NOT A PVE/PVP game. The PVE is more of an after thought... Something added to the game to help progress players into more PVP... That is one of the largest missunderstandings that people have about DARKFALL online is that it's a PVE/PVP game and it is not.. it is purely and mainly ment to be PVP...
Not sure about that claim. PVP is a focus of Darkfall, but that's not all the game is about.
You can't disconnect the PVE and Crafting elements. They're not optional, because gear is only created through Crafting and PVE. So Darkfall is (also) a PVE game by necessity, even if the quality of PVE may at times feel like an afterthought*.
If Darkfall had been truly intended to be a PVP game, it'd have been a Medieval Planetside where gear was free and instantly selected upon respawn. The removal of PVE and Crafting elements would thus focus gameplay purely on PVP and territory control. With appropriate limitations on how frequently things like vehicles can be spawned, it would be an awesome game with constant warring. It would truly be about PVP.
As it stands, my 1-month DF character has little chance of beating chars with 50%+ more health/damage than I have. Which leaves me little option but to PVE/craft til the character becomes viable. DF may be a "PVP game" for the top of the food chain, but it's certainly not for newer players.
(*Although as much as I complain about DF's mobs being totally cracked out, running in circles, that's exactly what makes them so engaging to play against - the fact that they're not just sitting there waiting to be hit.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Basically I see one thing for each and every negative post about full loot pvp. "I get pkd all the time by people who either gank me or are so much more advanced than I am." I played UO myself and though I did get pk'd some in the beginning while I was mining andf trying to make money for myself and watched my poor little pack mule get killed too. I onlydid this mind numbing grinding for money on a character until I had enough money to buy regs and spells for a tankmage to get high enough to start killing mobs and do some defense against pk's. When I went to Shame for the first few times most people didn't even bother me and some did. Playing pve when the guy next to pve'ing may or may not decide to pk you wnen you get low is rather exciting though. The big thing about people who pvp a lot for fun and play the game for the fun of it all based on skill in the end when everyone pretty much has equal stats and skills was the best part there were no defined roles for people to play. When you played for a while there was a big need for friends just in case you died in Hythloth fighting Balrons and one 2 shotted you. You didn't generally see to many pk's in dungeouns because they were ffa for everyone with no repurcussions for killing themexcept that you had to win or lose, but would take no murder count. When a friend would icq
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
You have any business sense? How much obligations they have to honor if they owe banks $12million and owe unknown amonut to investors? They can just dance around free and not generate income to repay the debts?
It is fairly standard business practice to fold up an operation not paying back loans in time.
It goes against my morality. I would NEVER take a person's rightfully owned belongings, RL or virtual, and I would not enjoy a nation in anarchy where everyone can rob me just so, equally.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I miss full loot rights.. aka.. Dry Looting. There was nothing funnier than the days of listening/watching somebody cry and threaten harm to themselves as you cut up their armor or tossed the weapon they'd farmed in to the trash. Meh... it is a new age of gaming. The "hardcore" players are now time investors.. and the "pvp" players are now called unstable or anti-social. Things have changed quite a bit from the day when gaming was dangerous, exciting and fun.
The fact that you enjoy the first highlighted sentence sort of proves the case for the 2nd one.
Finding enjoyment in the pain of others is a bit twisted no matter how you look at it.
As for full loot, I don't care for it. Neither do most people who claim that they do, they make sure they are always on the winning end of the fight by either ganking lower level players or running in packs that can never lose.
I play EVE, but only because its pretty easy to avoid losing my stuff, even when I'm in low sec or 0.0.
I avoid DF because I believe that it would be far more difficult to prevent being looted, and I'm just not into that.
I agree.
And what's really funny, is that these same people who laugh at the pain they're causing another player, are the very same ones that whine, get pissed, and sometimes, ultimately, quit the game when a player better than them comes along and repeatedly starts killing them, over and over and over, and taking all the phat lewts that they have stolen from someone ELSE.
I don't care what anyone SAYS they "like," no reasonable human being enjoys having things they've invested time and effort to obtain....stolen from them. No one enjoys THAT part.
The gamers that profess to "enjoy" FFA loot PvP, only enjoy it when they have the upper hand and they're the ones doing the stealing. Because no one with any amount of common sense could possible say they enjoy someone else taking all their shit, unless they're actually mentally ill, or masochistic, or something.
Over all, I think for myself, I just don't enjoy playing games with people that have that sort of mentality of enjoying griefing and causing loss, irritation, and frustration to other people. Oh sure, it's "a game," but the fact that someone enjoys any kind of behavior, whether actual or virtual, that upsets and frustrates another person....speaks volumes to me about their real life character. Enough to let me know that they're not the kind of person that I'm interested in spending hours with playing a game.
I choose my online "playmates," in a very similar way to how I choose my friends OFFline. I want to hang around with fairly good and decent people. But that's just me.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
You have any business sense? How much obligations they have to honor if they owe banks $12million and owe unknown amonut to investors? They can just dance around free and not generate income to repay the debts?
It is fairly standard business practice to fold up an operation not paying back loans in time.
So you honestly think they are going to fold their business now because they have debt? How do you think bank loans like this work? Do you think they have to pay all 12 million off today?
If bank loans worked like this many people would be in serious trouble.
Think bout it for one minute- how much time do people have to pay back a house loan? How bout a student loan? YEARS........ Granted I do not know the terms of their bank loan but I'm willing to bank you do not either
I don't even play Darkfall (beyond buying a copy of their game to support them + a sub for a month) but I never see the logic people use to make their arguments. It's the same sort of ill-logic people used when they tried to argue it was vaporware. Now we've progressed to this level of nonsensical
I can count pretty much on one hand of MMOs I've known to shutdown. Hell Ultima Online is even still running. You're going to have a hard time convincing experienced MMO players an MMO is gonna shutdown any minute now without concrete proof and fact
Without having read the numerous replies to the OP's post, what would it be like if you could only loot say 2 items or say 20% of the items?
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
Well EVE isn't full loot in the sense you don't get everything, you'll get a percentage of the loot chosen at random by the computer. Though it is full loot in the sense that the player that dies loses all his items, although in EVE you get to insure your ship so it doesn't hurt as much.
I feel in EVE the satisfaction you get is knowing you put that guy back atleast 1 hour in game time. Since if he has enough Isk it would still take him 30-60 mins to get fitted out and ready for combat again. Most of the time VETs will travel in groups in cruisers so the financial hit is small but the time set back is pretty nasty. Usually if you died that was it for the evening since even if you had a ship already set up you'd have to get to it then get to your group and that just isn't going to happen 99% of the time.
Ways I've seen people get 100% full loot in EVE Online:
* Hold the victim for ransom at a gate camp. Look at their history (age of character). If you're dealing with a vet, offer to spare their clone and implants if they eject from the ship
* Infiltrate a corporation and steal their assets. It happens all the time (I'm not kidding). One of the -largest- heists in MMO history happened in EVE online this way. This was the spark that led to BoB's disbandment.
Good post but yeah I'd consider this a full loot MMO. I've lost entire spaceships due to corporate theft (a spy got access to our POS and stole some of my fully modded PVP ships).
Comments
It all depends on the reason for the combat and the reason for the loot. I think you're missing that part. Contrary to what detractors say, loot drop isn't about ganking newbs and taking their clock parts, although some do enjoy that.
Some of the reasons for loot drops is
- the loot is used to maintain or finance city or war effort
- the loot can take an unprepared enemy out of the battle
- the loot can affect the ability for a side to hold or sieze territory
In AC, the loot drop was originally one item every 10 levels or something like that. It picked the most expensive items from various categories so players would carry items that would drop instead of their regular gear.
Loot dropping for no apparent reason or, worse, an arbitrary reason, doesn't really make for fun for anyone. In games with loot drop, the loot is partof a much bigger picture.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
good way good way
how about
unwear plate armor from death body ,5 mins body ,1 mins trousers ,3 secs helmet etc...
collecting his 1000 stones and 10000 golds from the ground 20 mins etc
and me thinks Full Loot rules are getting somewhere
Generation P
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
I agree with this statement 100%.
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
I agree with this statement 100%.
I was flaming the flamers and got a little out of hand=) Sorry about that. I love strategy games too, but single player games really don't have unneeded preparation. All your planning is just part of the game and its all about you. Farming for gold or ISK just never seemed like quality content to me. Its a crutch. Adequate gold should come as you play. You shouldn't play TO make gold. I've done it. But now I'm over it. Of course people can farm if they choose to, but replacing gear you lose isn't a choice. Its a necessity. Just seems like a waste of time. If people don't find it a waste or just see it as a necessary set-back, so be it. They can choose to use their time in any way they want. But I don't. If I'm playing for 2 hrs, I should be having fun and progressing the whole time. Farming for an hour, traveling for another 15 minutes, standing around wiating for another 15 mins...its just not for me anymore. I'm glad some developers see this.
Well the trick is ensuring the buildup phase is enjoyable. Age of Empires in particular is guilty of a buildup phase which is largely identical each game, and therefore turns into more of a tedious chore than a fun activity. It's less painful in AOE3 than AOE2, but it's still pretty bad. (Most accounts I hear of AOE1 is that your starting situation was varied enough that it wasn't as repetitive...but it also wasn't balanced and you could just outright be map-screwed, which is even less enjoyable than the tedium of the following games :P )
PVP is interesting because your opponent is part of the combat equation and you must react or die. So my assertion is that the buildup phase of MMORPGs should strive to be at least this interesting and varied.
Nobody would complain about Full Loot if it regaining it was as fun as the battle that lost it. Currently that's not the case in retardedly tedious gathering/crafting systems like those found in Darkfall and EVE (although EVE's crafting system is fine, since it's more of a "fire and forget" thing which lets you move on to do other things.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
i don't mind full loot, but teh only way it could ever have a good following is if there was a limit. the biggest complant people have about even a regular pvp game is the HIGH levels ganking people 20-40 levels below them.put a level cap on how low of a person they can kill and more people would play it. i don't mind losing in pvp if i atleast stood a chance. you beat me hey you was better at it than me was all,you run up and one shot me because you're 40 levels higher, then you must suck at pvp and knew it was the only chance you had to beat anyone.
thats teh biggest problem games like DF have is the high levels are killing off the new blood coming into the game and the game will never grow.new people will not stay if they get killed and looted over and over by people with HIGH levels wich they stand no chance at all against. high levels will say QQ more and good ridance but how much fun could a game be if people aren't allowed to play it by the high levels? the game WILL die if new people can't come in and have fun,if they're having fun they'll stay and the community will grow. the more people in the game the more money the devs will have for patches and updates wich means more content for the higher players.
I agree with that or at the very least if they kill someone that much lower than them then they can not loot them. Something to keep the griefers from killing the game.
The way I like to see games solve this is with lateral progression systems. If PVP is a big part of the game, then lateral progression mostly balances things for the newbies. They'll only have to worry about becoming skilled at the game, instead of also needing to invest enough time into the game to be competitive.
You can never eliminate griefing 100% (after all, even in a FPS it's vaguely "griefing" when a skilled veteran totally dominates a round against some noobs.) But you can eliminate a lot of the major factors that cause MMORPG griefing to be over the top ridiculous.
Eliminating them is easy. The question becomes whether we want to eliminate them, as a nontrivial amount of players play RPGs specifically because they can get all these non-skill advantages over their opponent (because many of these same players would lose, if combat were purely about skill.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Oh your balls are really something monumental, your grow balls, big balls, in a game. Duh. Real balls.
You have nothing better than that balls?
One word: UO.
It is well possible for a PvP to keep it's numbers, DAoC did fine also. Eve is doing fine, it is probably the second biggest P2P MMO right now, it do have some kind of justice system but even DFO have a weak one.
DF will however have to be better to get the new players into the game, the first days are very important if you want to keep them.
According to everyone that worked at UO, they were losing numbers so fast that they were going to have to shut it down if they didn't come up with a solution. I played it too, and I saw lots of guildmates and others around leave over rampant PKing. Then I saw lots more leave because of Trammel, because that was the wrong answer for them. I feel that somewhere in the middle is where a PvP oriented game that also wants to be diverse needs to be. And if an MMO isn't diverse, they seem to get stagnant.
Notice something here though. I mentioned lots of other gamers who left that weren't in my guild. You just don't have that, "knowing lots of gamers", in games that aren't sandfboxy like UO was. Sure you see some and group with them and then lose sight of them, but it's not the same. Only people who played a sandbox game really know what I mean here. In UO I knew who I could trust, who I couldn't, where their houses were sometimes, and at other times who frequented certain dungeons, what guilds "lived" where, etc.
We need that in MMORPGs and in our worlds.
I agree with most of the points you've made in this thread. Quoting you for emphasis.
You need a very Diverse World to sustain a population in a FFA Full Loot system.
History has proven FFA PvP games and servers dwindle and die. A smart Player Killer doesn't stick around in a losing situation, so once he is on the bottom of the talent pool he will eventually figure it out and leave.
What history book are you looking at? EVE Online is still going strong and heck, even Ultima Online is still running. I know I logged onto a UO server bout a year or so ago.
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
Josher, you have a reasonable argument but you litter it with unnecessary flames fired at people just because they play a different way than you do. Some people find the preparation part to be a fun part of gameplay.You're assuming that they are 'grinding' and doing things they don't enjoy - that simply isn't always the case. Some people enjoy shopping around for that backup set of modules in EVE or that spare set of armor and weapons in UO. Actually, in almost every strategy game (Axis and Allies, RISK, Age of Empires to name a few) a good portion of the time is building up forces, preparing for the opportunity to strike and piecing together backup plans if the battle goes south.
You have a set amount of time that you wish to devote to your games and a set amount of time for your other activities in life. That's entirely understandable and a more than valid reason to dislike the preparation aspect of strategy games.
Josher, you know MMOs and you know PvP (judging by your posts on these boards). You'd be a real asset to this thread if you would leave out the unwarranted flames.
I agree with this statement 100%.
I was flaming the flamers and got a little out of hand=) Sorry about that. I love strategy games too, but single player games really don't have unneeded preparation. All your planning is just part of the game and its all about you. Farming for gold or ISK just never seemed like quality content to me. Its a crutch. Adequate gold should come as you play. You shouldn't play TO make gold. I've done it. But now I'm over it. Of course people can farm if they choose to, but replacing gear you lose isn't a choice. Its a necessity. Just seems like a waste of time. If people don't find it a waste or just see it as a necessary set-back, so be it. They can choose to use their time in any way they want. But I don't. If I'm playing for 2 hrs, I should be having fun and progressing the whole time. Farming for an hour, traveling for another 15 minutes, standing around wiating for another 15 mins...its just not for me anymore. I'm glad some developers see this.
You should try playing eVE Online and join an Alliance. We do not have to farm materials or kill mobs. I killed mobs only for entertainment.
My ship losses on Fleet ops were sponsered by my Alliance. So I did not have to 'grind' PVE beyond the initial investment to buy the ship the 1st time. After that, my Alliance refunded my ship losses fully
You should not assume we are farming everytime we die. That is primitive (no offense to you) and nothing like a real military. A real military is funded by taxation and gains wealth from taking over moons like an RTS
Think of an RTS and you will begin to understand EVE. A military force invades space and takes control of Moons. Then you use the Moons to fund the war effort
Once you lose these Moons all an Alliance has left is funds saved in their banks. Once you make them run out of resources then you have won the war.
No one has to go out and farm PVE in EVE unless they are some sort of Pirate. When you are a pirate though, you make ISK from ransom demands and loot. But I am not a pirate and that is not my knowledge base sort to speak. I am a soldier that does Allliance vs Alliance. I have invaded and taken space and have helped take Moons for my Alliance so we can all be rich
I cant handle that either. I would not play a full loot game if I had to farm to replace the items I lost
Like I explained above-- in EVE Online you work for a military (if you do Alliance warfare). The miners, ratters, explorers, and industry pay taxes. This helps the war effort. In addition, when your military takes over a Moon you can use these materials to make new ships and export the unused goods to market hubs for profit
Using the rare moons an Alliance can make a fortune and fund major war efforts.
My losses on official ops would net me 100% replacement for any losses occured on ops.
I used to also go on unofficial ops from time to time which were not funded just to goof around. But on those I would fly cheap stuff. I'd only bring out my big toys for the major ops to help my Alliance invade new space or Defend
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
I'm just saying...
Full loot isn't bad if the game is designed arround it...
Open PVP can be great if you design arround it...
Full Loot and Open PVP can be great if the game is designed arround it...
BTW DarkFall Online.. IS DISIGNED to be a PVP game... NOT A PVE/PVP game. The PVE is more of an after thought... Something added to the game to help progress players into more PVP... That is one of the largest missunderstandings that people have about DARKFALL online is that it's a PVE/PVP game and it is not.. it is purely and mainly ment to be PVP...
One of the largest problems with many of the games that try to allow open pvp and full loot, is that the games are not deisgned arround that kind of system. They are and I hate to use this but "EQ Clones" And i use EQ because it was the first, 3D mmorpg.
Oh yea... another thing... One of the largest progressive reasons for WoW's ability to spread so fast and be played by so many people... Other then the fact that it's "WarCraft" (Sorry WarCraft as a video game IP was well known before WoW came out... AND THIS HELPED ALOT" was the fact that this damned game could be installed on any P.O.S. system out there...
I'm sorry... but if uncle Bob who hasn't upgraded his computer in 10 years and little billy who got his brothers hand me down left over laptop from college was able to install and play. Then how the hell would it not grow so fast...
THis is where the Big "B" made a great and wise choice when designing thier game... They made it a point to be able to scale the game down system wise enough so that even the poor folk that buy systems from budget warehouses could play. THis and and of itself allowed them to expained thier customer base. Then from that point on it grew... and allowing even the limited computer system owner to play helped out alot..
Oh well.... i like open pvp, and full loot.... it's just a hard system to balance.... and it is a system that as for as now only apeals to a limited player base... I believe that there will be a day when an open pvp and full loot game does make it prime time and with a large player base... It just needs to be a well planed and balanced system... that does not over favor one side over the other.
Cracr
Yeah but unlike Shadowbane did DFO get €20 million from EU. You don't need so many player when you have little loans.
Still, to call DFOs population as good is maybe a tad optimistic, it have about the same number as Vanguard.
That is probably fine enough to keep the game running so it is acceptable but calling the population "healthy" or "good" is not right.
We can discuss how large population a healthy game should have but WAR and AoC have something between 100-200K players if you want something to compare with.
Good points. Darkfall probably would require fewer numbers to stay in business.
But PvP games always lose numbers when players start finding out who is good at that game and who isn't so good. The bottom starts hemorrhaging numbers, and new bottoms are established, causing more bleeding of more numbers. And at the same time, it leaves no room for any other kind of game play. I'll be real surprised if any game with open PvP and no justice system to control it can stay in business for much more than a couple of desperate years.
Man people still seem so desperate for DFO to fail. But at least people stop calling it vaporware so I guess we've made some progress
Really--- the number of MMOs that altogether just shutdown is still a pretty small number. Hell vanguard is still going strong after all the fuss. I think the big guys like NCSoft just tend to shutdown an MMO if it doesn't meet their expectations. A small MMO just doesnt make a big enough dent in their quaterly reports I guess
But for a small company 10k-20k subs is a LOT. Hell when EVE launched it was smaller than that
I'm not desperate for Darkfall to fail. I call it the way I see it.
EVE grew, and that's what anyone in that number range needs to do. I just don't see a game like Darkfall succeeding at it. I don't think 20k subs is enough to keep any MMO going, with all the costs involved (past, present, and future).
Actually, I think EVE was quite a bit larger than that within 6 months, but I don't really know for a fact.
What are these super expensive server costs you are guessing at? You should checkout gamedev.net and look at their FAQ for running multiplayer server architectures. For a small company like Adventurine, 10k-20k subs is a lot of nice capital. A lot of game studios would simply just die to have that sort of monthly income
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
Well EVE isn't full loot in the sense you don't get everything, you'll get a percentage of the loot chosen at random by the computer. Though it is full loot in the sense that the player that dies loses all his items, although in EVE you get to insure your ship so it doesn't hurt as much.
I feel in EVE the satisfaction you get is knowing you put that guy back atleast 1 hour in game time. Since if he has enough Isk it would still take him 30-60 mins to get fitted out and ready for combat again. Most of the time VETs will travel in groups in cruisers so the financial hit is small but the time set back is pretty nasty. Usually if you died that was it for the evening since even if you had a ship already set up you'd have to get to it then get to your group and that just isn't going to happen 99% of the time.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Not sure about that claim. PVP is a focus of Darkfall, but that's not all the game is about.
You can't disconnect the PVE and Crafting elements. They're not optional, because gear is only created through Crafting and PVE. So Darkfall is (also) a PVE game by necessity, even if the quality of PVE may at times feel like an afterthought*.
If Darkfall had been truly intended to be a PVP game, it'd have been a Medieval Planetside where gear was free and instantly selected upon respawn. The removal of PVE and Crafting elements would thus focus gameplay purely on PVP and territory control. With appropriate limitations on how frequently things like vehicles can be spawned, it would be an awesome game with constant warring. It would truly be about PVP.
As it stands, my 1-month DF character has little chance of beating chars with 50%+ more health/damage than I have. Which leaves me little option but to PVE/craft til the character becomes viable. DF may be a "PVP game" for the top of the food chain, but it's certainly not for newer players.
(*Although as much as I complain about DF's mobs being totally cracked out, running in circles, that's exactly what makes them so engaging to play against - the fact that they're not just sitting there waiting to be hit.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Basically I see one thing for each and every negative post about full loot pvp. "I get pkd all the time by people who either gank me or are so much more advanced than I am." I played UO myself and though I did get pk'd some in the beginning while I was mining andf trying to make money for myself and watched my poor little pack mule get killed too. I onlydid this mind numbing grinding for money on a character until I had enough money to buy regs and spells for a tankmage to get high enough to start killing mobs and do some defense against pk's. When I went to Shame for the first few times most people didn't even bother me and some did. Playing pve when the guy next to pve'ing may or may not decide to pk you wnen you get low is rather exciting though. The big thing about people who pvp a lot for fun and play the game for the fun of it all based on skill in the end when everyone pretty much has equal stats and skills was the best part there were no defined roles for people to play. When you played for a while there was a big need for friends just in case you died in Hythloth fighting Balrons and one 2 shotted you. You didn't generally see to many pk's in dungeouns because they were ffa for everyone with no repurcussions for killing themexcept that you had to win or lose, but would take no murder count. When a friend would icq
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
You have any business sense? How much obligations they have to honor if they owe banks $12million and owe unknown amonut to investors? They can just dance around free and not generate income to repay the debts?
It is fairly standard business practice to fold up an operation not paying back loans in time.
It goes against my morality. I would NEVER take a person's rightfully owned belongings, RL or virtual, and I would not enjoy a nation in anarchy where everyone can rob me just so, equally.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
The fact that you enjoy the first highlighted sentence sort of proves the case for the 2nd one.
Finding enjoyment in the pain of others is a bit twisted no matter how you look at it.
As for full loot, I don't care for it. Neither do most people who claim that they do, they make sure they are always on the winning end of the fight by either ganking lower level players or running in packs that can never lose.
I play EVE, but only because its pretty easy to avoid losing my stuff, even when I'm in low sec or 0.0.
I avoid DF because I believe that it would be far more difficult to prevent being looted, and I'm just not into that.
I agree.
And what's really funny, is that these same people who laugh at the pain they're causing another player, are the very same ones that whine, get pissed, and sometimes, ultimately, quit the game when a player better than them comes along and repeatedly starts killing them, over and over and over, and taking all the phat lewts that they have stolen from someone ELSE.
I don't care what anyone SAYS they "like," no reasonable human being enjoys having things they've invested time and effort to obtain....stolen from them. No one enjoys THAT part.
The gamers that profess to "enjoy" FFA loot PvP, only enjoy it when they have the upper hand and they're the ones doing the stealing. Because no one with any amount of common sense could possible say they enjoy someone else taking all their shit, unless they're actually mentally ill, or masochistic, or something.
Over all, I think for myself, I just don't enjoy playing games with people that have that sort of mentality of enjoying griefing and causing loss, irritation, and frustration to other people. Oh sure, it's "a game," but the fact that someone enjoys any kind of behavior, whether actual or virtual, that upsets and frustrates another person....speaks volumes to me about their real life character. Enough to let me know that they're not the kind of person that I'm interested in spending hours with playing a game.
I choose my online "playmates," in a very similar way to how I choose my friends OFFline. I want to hang around with fairly good and decent people. But that's just me.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
You forgot they have raised 10M Euro (>12Million US) in loan. They also have investors with unspecified put up capital. Good luck paying that off with 10k sub.
So all because they have taken out a loan people assert they are doomed? It is fairly standard business practice to take out loans.
You have any business sense? How much obligations they have to honor if they owe banks $12million and owe unknown amonut to investors? They can just dance around free and not generate income to repay the debts?
It is fairly standard business practice to fold up an operation not paying back loans in time.
So you honestly think they are going to fold their business now because they have debt? How do you think bank loans like this work? Do you think they have to pay all 12 million off today?
If bank loans worked like this many people would be in serious trouble.
Think bout it for one minute- how much time do people have to pay back a house loan? How bout a student loan? YEARS........ Granted I do not know the terms of their bank loan but I'm willing to bank you do not either
I don't even play Darkfall (beyond buying a copy of their game to support them + a sub for a month) but I never see the logic people use to make their arguments. It's the same sort of ill-logic people used when they tried to argue it was vaporware. Now we've progressed to this level of nonsensical
I can count pretty much on one hand of MMOs I've known to shutdown. Hell Ultima Online is even still running. You're going to have a hard time convincing experienced MMO players an MMO is gonna shutdown any minute now without concrete proof and fact
Ideally, I would like to be able to take it all -OR- their items I cannot take/destroy will be destroyed. So what I am saying is what I cannot loot should be destroyed.
Please understand, it's not about 'making someone suffer' per se. It's bout dealing a severe blow to your enemy. This is how you bring a conclusion to a war (you drain your enemy's wallet).
Also, consider the scenario where there is a ganker/hostile that comes into lands your Guild owns. When I destroy his ship- this is a severe punishment. IT serves to discourage the attacker from coming back. And if he does- then I keep killing him until he has lost all of his resources.
So taking just 20% of items or just 2 items, etc is not ideal for someone that is accustomed to EVE Online
Well EVE isn't full loot in the sense you don't get everything, you'll get a percentage of the loot chosen at random by the computer. Though it is full loot in the sense that the player that dies loses all his items, although in EVE you get to insure your ship so it doesn't hurt as much.
I feel in EVE the satisfaction you get is knowing you put that guy back atleast 1 hour in game time. Since if he has enough Isk it would still take him 30-60 mins to get fitted out and ready for combat again. Most of the time VETs will travel in groups in cruisers so the financial hit is small but the time set back is pretty nasty. Usually if you died that was it for the evening since even if you had a ship already set up you'd have to get to it then get to your group and that just isn't going to happen 99% of the time.
Ways I've seen people get 100% full loot in EVE Online:
* Hold the victim for ransom at a gate camp. Look at their history (age of character). If you're dealing with a vet, offer to spare their clone and implants if they eject from the ship
* Infiltrate a corporation and steal their assets. It happens all the time (I'm not kidding). One of the -largest- heists in MMO history happened in EVE online this way. This was the spark that led to BoB's disbandment.
Good post but yeah I'd consider this a full loot MMO. I've lost entire spaceships due to corporate theft (a spy got access to our POS and stole some of my fully modded PVP ships).