Persistent World Rountable: The Role Playing Experience...

#41 Sounds ok until you think that the creature/player that killed/pk'ed them could then simply kill them again. I favour the knocked unconcious method, where only really severe damage actually kills a character.

Waking up from being knocked out leaves the character weak and in need of healing, but the attacking monster is set to leave the area when it's combat partner (the player it knocked out) is unable to fight.

Later areas of the game world have creatures that will devour the player after they are knocked out thus stopping players exploiting knock-outs to avoid tough fights.

#42 @Eric
There was a mode like that in an addon for NWN if I remember, can't for the life of me think of its name, when you died, you went to this place and you had to find your way back to life, there was no time limit, but there was monster who if they killed you, you were gone to hell, and its a much thougher fight out of hell BUT the rewards were great! Cool new weapons that couldn't be found anywhere, this meant that if you went in for the big fight, got killed you still got something out of it meaning people are more willing to go and fight, so if your game is heavy on the fighting this might be an option, but if fighting is only a part of it, you don't want everyone to going fighting and deing.
I also like Daniels idea of walking around as a ghost, you could then post a reward from beyond the grave for revenge.

Here is an idea for the GM thing, why not make dedicated gamers sub-GMs, they form a council for complaints and such ingame, so you have to go to the council building in the middle of the country to state your case and that. Take the players from the Beta tester or long term gamers, and give them an extra month subscription. Also you could have some players being the law in some of the outer regions, you now the regions in every game where the big monsters are, but very little control over player actions, so you could have some big fighter class as the police and they hear all complaints of PvP and such. I know there is a problem with them messing everything up and abusing the power.

#43 @Stephen: Fighting or finding your way back from the dead is pretty cool. Dunno about getting unique loot from it though(at least not in a reliable way, because then people will run around trying to die, lol).

As for the GM council thing, I don't know. Might be a good thing(players policing themselves, and within the context of the game which invites roleplay and deeper immersion). Might also be a bad thing(the GM's on the council banding together against certain people who will then leave the game because of politics). You could put a bit of anonymity into it, where the council is made up of NPC's, and the GM's have the option to assume the identity of one of these NPC's upon login, and they're effectively that NPC for the duration of that session. In this way, you have a somewhat natural rotation of council members and the same faces on the council. You can also limit the time spent as a council member by a GM, so that they can't monopolize the time spent as that character. So, if player X has used up their 20 hours as that character for the month, they have to wait until the next month for the next opportunity to play as that character.

Also, the roleplay requirements for these characters should be more strict, as they are perceived to be more integral to the game than a player, whose session is transient, and whose responsibilities to other players are much less(or perceived as such).

Actually, this is a good idea for extending to other parts of the game for other, more "important" NPC's. Maybe PW's can include a special "roleplayer's" account for those who want the added challenge and responsibility of being able to assume different identities of NPC's in the game for periods of time, up to a certain limit. This could be worth an extra dollar or two a month, depending on how you charge for service, or you can make it a normal function of the game to open it to everyone. Attach a rating system to it so people can vote on the NPC's "performance", and the lowest rated people, or those who have complaints against them can be restricted from participating in that function.

#44 What if we expand on the council thing, the biggest merchant in the land became minister for commerce for that land, has to decide on tax and all that commerce stuff. So the best soldier in the group is the officer and leads everyone into battle, so within the game the good RP players are rewarded with status, and if the server was something like EVE where its the 1 universe, so the champion of X is known across the land as the leader of the soldiers of X it might encourage players to RP more.
@Ted
I like your council idea, if you had a council where the memebers change but it was staged. For Example we have a council of 6, member 1 is replaced on monday, member 2 on wednesday, etc etc, so the rule set down by the first guys is carried thru, because if the same complaint keeps coming up then they will just refer to the last case, and so on.

U could have the unique weapons from the afterlife, but you might suffer permament marks because of it, if you takes something belonging to hell they would want it back wouldn't they?

Not being a much of a coder, I am just imagining that this would be a nightmare, maybe its too much?

#45 I suppose you could exapand even further on your idea to make complete governments, having control over certain variables, you could add such pointless things as VAT and council tax :) Maybe it is going a lil far, but hey why not, it might be someones perfect game, i guess you could have different parties, each with their own ideas and policys, maybe kik out a certain race, or be biast to female players, could all end up leading to some interesting situations, civil wars, rebellions, strikes, assasinations? Alot of MMO's are suffering from content, as they cant make enough of it, but then what they are trying to do is control the players, forcing them into doing certain things, maybe thats where they are going wrong.

Out of curiosity how many of you lot would play a game with all the features listed in this thread? permanent death, goverments, different languages, player missions, the possibilty of actually discovering new things and scientific advancements that could change the world, death councils, and the fear that if you go through that forest it could be you last living moment? Do you think it is going to far having all this? or just the tip of the iceberg :)

#46 I think that would be cool, imagine training up a character to assinate people that might just collapse the whole goverment in the game! To be able to tell your stories of near death escapes, and meaning near death. i think the problem is in hardcore players don't want to build a character and have him wiped out in seconds. U could have his soul possess his fav weapon at time of death and so a random charcter picks up the weapon after so you have a new body and new skills?
Working on player councils could be cool, giving those guys that don't really like to fight, but like to talk to people a place in the game. And giving the fighters a legacy!

#47 @Stephen: Unless you're employing the players, you shouldn't create static slots or change over times like specific days, because the players may not be around to fulfill it. Probably something like advertised open NPC slots when they log in(in the game menu, so they can start up and say "okay, I feel like being so-and-so today...click...").

Also, you wouldn't want them laying down the law, just enforcing and interpreting it. Otherwise you'll have problems in the world, and you'll lose customers. What you could do is provide a lawbook to them and basic info on the character and functions of that character in the game, as well as a personality guide. Sounds like a bit much, but since we're talking about depth of gameworld here, it would call for it.

@Daniel: I might play a game with all of these features if it was implemented correctly. Of course, the whole purpose of this thread is to get a bunch of ideas out there and bounce them off of each other and get feedback to make them better, or spawn new innovative ideas possibly. That doesn't mean that all of these features might make a good game, some of these ideas run counter to each other on different levels. As far as the innovation part goes, this really is the tip of the iceburg... ;)

#48 Another idea for RP experience is to give the crafters a purpose. What I would propose is that the shops in the cities become the players when they make a crafter. Give them the keys and let them have a blast. Now if the shop fails do to the player not upkeeping it then it transfer back over to the city which would continue to sell things.

So if there is a weapon shop in the city and it is owned by the city it sells generic things and buys stuff from the players. Then a person logs on and just wants to craft weapons and not fight. During the creation process the person sees the shop in the city and decides to take it up. The player then gets a standard set of items to sell in his shop though once they are bought it is gone. This would give the player a chance to make some cash and can also add his items that he creates. You incorporate this into the player made missions and he'll get the raw materials without ever having to fight on his own. From a RP standpoint it would be a dream come true for both the shop owner and the fighters.

@Daniel: This is the tip of the iceberg however as with any iceberg be careful where you step otherwise you will fall off and it will be a bumpy ride all the down.

#49 Not only is falling off an iceberg a bumpy ride, but usually the water is cold and causes serious shrinkage(well, it's what I heard anyway...).

@Eric: That store idea sounds like an extension to land ownership. I don't think it would be a good idea to hand the shops in a PW over to a specific player completely for the simple reasons of economics(price gauging) and the fact that they won't always be there(or you could solve this by having it revert to NPC control, sort of like an employee running the store while the owner is out, which is fine). I'd still want a few NPC shops around to give competition though.

I'd been looking at features for crafting, and came upon the idea of "work areas" that can be set up in the game. They can be set up anywhere, and the more tools you have in your work area, the easier crafting becomes and the better quality items you can craft. So, a guy in the desert can craft a weapon, but the quality and success rate will be lower in general than a guy just outside a city working in a building he built and populated with a workbench, machinery, tools, etc. The same goes for magic. Instead of just having spells, there will be rituals where you need to lay out certain items, and the "completeness" of that layout will affect the outcome. Of course, the tradeoff here is time and resources, because you can't sit down in the middle of a battle and do a ritual with the layout and all unless you really hate your character.

Here's another idea that just popped into my head: Say you have an NPC-run shop with multiple counters, like a department store has. Some of these counters can be "rented" by player merchants(attach whatever criteria to allow these to be rented that you prefer). Now you have a person selling their items in an established store until rent is up or they run out of things to sell, or just get bored of it and leave, opening the slot for the next player who wants to do that. That gives players the ability to get a jump start on building a business that will allow them to build/buy their own shop.

#50 @Ted: Okay I like the renting space in a shop but figured that if they owned the shop in the city for competition alone they wouldn't price gouge. If they do they loose the store because it couldn't be maintained.

For spells I always thought a cool way to do spells was to have players be able to tweak the basic spells in order to make unique spells. Have the ability to add and modify certain things and people would have some uniqueness. Sure people would say that if you combine X with a bit of Y it deals Z damage but some people don't want that. I play CoH right now and my character is a Ice Blaster. My two damage powers are Ice Bolt and Ice Blast. Now most people say fill those two powers with all damage in order to be the best. I decided I would rather shoot faster and do a little less damage. That makes me unique from many others because why they may have done alot of damage I am still shooting while they are waiting for a recharge.

#51 Being able to tweak spells would be nice, you could have it so when you are doing a ritual say, the amount of time you spend doin the ritual will affect a specific attribute, just like the slower a metamorphic rock cools the larger the crystals for example, as well as ratios of ingredients or whatever magical things you may use :)

The rented store thing would be a good touch, it gives players that want to setup a shop a chance too. Though you have to find a way to make players actually come to the store to buy things what happens alot in MMO's i find is players become completly self suffcient, if you want a sword you can make one, or just go buy a skill so you can, or if you want some healing potions again you just go make them yourself. If you can somehow get players to shop, there will then be some competition between shop owners, for prices and quality.

#52 @Daniel: Why is that people want to be self suffcient? For me if I want to craft I would pick up crafting but I know the person that dedicates time to it is better off with my money than the time it will take for me to get to his lvl of skill.

Perhaps if we could squash the self sufficency then people would be willing to experience the game more.

#53 Exactly, I believe it is all down to the power gamers who just want to be able to do and make everything as well as flatten everything in a matter of seconds, though devs dont help it half time, as they make it too easy to get new skills, for anyone willing to sit their earn enough money you can learn anything.

Maybe you could stop it by limiting what the players can learn,as techincally, you can't be a master in every subject, you wouldnt be able to take it all in, you would end up forgetting lots of things. So you could implement something along the lines of the more you take onto learn the more likely you'll forget it when you try and use it and mess up the spell/move/crafted item/etc, perhaps a roll of the dice too see if they have or not. It is hard to think of a system where you stop people from being self suffcient, but then again give everyone the chance to do what they like.

#54 @Daniel: I hate to say it but SW:G has a pretty good skill system going on. For myself the only flaw was that they gave the player enough points for 2 professions so most people could do stuff on their own.

Also with the 1 account per server it stopped them from having a multiple characters that would do everything. Not sure if that is the right thing to do but if you want to make RP a part of the game then having multiple character slots IMO would be a BIG NO.

*Off topic a bit: I just wanted to say I am enjoying this thread and people can gather some great information from it. Hope that it grows into something good.

#55 I think it already *is* something good, so far =) More people have participated than I thought would, and a lot more discussion has taken place than I thought would.

FYI, I'm going to open the next roundtable thread in the next day or two, I'll post the link and subject both here and in the Resources section, which is where these threads will be submitted. I was thinking of just one resource, and updating it with each roundtable thread that is made so that it's all centralized.

Okay, back to the thread at hand:

@Daniel: Sounds like "skill degradation", where the disuse of a skill for a certain amount of time leads to it slowly crawling backwards. When the player decides to train that skill again, it trains faster up to the point at which the player reached before, then continues on it's normal speed. This would simulate someone getting "back into the swing of things" with a skill they haven't used in a while. You can also vary the rate at which it degrades, or the rate at which it's learned again depending on how long it's been since the player has stopped using it(obviously, someone who hasn't gotten on a bike in 10 years will have a harder time than if it was only 2 years).

#56 Cool. Lots of free material for my design docs. *helps self* :)

#57 It's not all free, you chimed in with a thing or two in this thread yourself ;)

#58 Hmm as far as skills and stats are concerned, do you think it is best to show the player what stage they are at or not to let them know? I ask this as I was just playing Horizons, not only is it just a bunch of people going round hunting mobs x for y amount of xp type thing, but all they are interested in is getting their strength up or health up or something. Though at the same time it is nice to know where you are etc.

Also, when a character is 'born', they could be given say a natural talent in some area, it would be completly random, but you would only start to find out this as you develop more, so for example you might be born with this natural skill of being able to use certain magic types better than others.

#59 @Daniel: For skills and stats that is something I always thought took away from the game. I know for some people that is there thing. They like to crunch the numbers and see that they are getting their money's worth. For me the only thing I care about is my health and power/mana/endurance/etc... I would like to see a number and graph bar on that.

For everything else the only thing I would care to see is that if I get something that increases me in someway that it would say by how much. For example a enhancement that increases my damage by 5. That means whatever damage I am doing now will increase by 5 points.

I do not like the random natural talent. It would allow for griefers to complain. I remember once reading about a game that was going to allow each player to have parents and that in time as the game aged it would allow players to be parents to another players to teach them the ropes. I found that idea somewhat warped but to give each player a set of parents who would teach them the game and the profession the player chose might be a good thing.

#60 I like the idea about natural talent, lets say bob here has a natural flare for fire, he could still expand his character as a fighter, just like everyone else, he just has more luck with anything to do with fire.

I like the skill degradation thing aswell, couple it with an expanded version of dungeon siege skill tree, so the more you use something the better and more damage you do with it and so on.

I just going to go back to the player power here for a second. A player controled kingdom would be very very dynamic, as it allows the player to feel more important and it could change because of one persons actions. The PvP in the game would be so much more important as it could be a really important person in your rivals kingdom your fighting. Yes I agree it could be a logistical nightmare and might lead to problems at first, but the fair king's empire would expand because more people would folk to him because they have a better chance to grow. Evil greed, backstabbing, lies all should lead you to as much success as good! And when the players have to govern themselves, the loop holes get shot down, because does the king want his economy underminded by a loop hole? No! Also if the players are incharge then the stories are much more fun to play as the players incharge have more at stake. Just imagine leading a group of friends against a kingdom you despise and bringing it burning to the ground! The only thing is you would need a system in for banking and respawning, other wise some people would feel hard done by, if their kingdom and life was wiped out while they were sleeping.

Tweaking the spells is a cool idea too. Your own spells, which you could then teach people! Imagine a mad mage making a messed up spell that wipes out half the city, well it sounds like a new quest for revenge!