None of us need to concern ourselves with any of this since the game itself will attract a number of players proportional to its value, and that value is only determined by one group: the developers.
I disagree.
The player community has a lot to answer for in terms of the games value. We are the life blood here, the developers just create the rules, I know that's a very limited way of expressing how much work they do and I don't mean to demean them by it, but we are the ones who take their rules and breath life into them and the quality of that life is largely up to us. It's like that with any multi-player game, they are just as fun as the people you are playing with make them be it an online MMO or a table top board game.
When new players arrive in the wasteland they are usually sold on the idea of the game already because of their love of fallout (otherwise they will probably devalue the game themselves unless they learn to love and appreciate it) but many soon get frustrated and leave due to other players devaluing the games experience for them ( and I believe that many of those players are true fallout fans).
Now, I'm not saying that there is a right an wrong way to play this game, but there is perhaps an appreciating and depreciating approach to the game.
When we enrich each others gaming experiences, we enrich the game's value at the same time but because it's free and open it's very difficult to stop players from devaluing the game or indeed even objectively saying that they devalue the game, it is after all a matter of opinion in the end. But I would say that The Lost Children is/are on to something with their original suggestion here.
Ultimately, in my humblest opinion, when the server's player numbers dry up I think all of us who are willing to need to ask ourselves what we are doing wrong, why are they not growing and what can each of us do to maintain and increase them.
so...
I kinda like it being underground with splinter groups attempting their own Fallout Online variations; an Open Fallout essentially.
However, one thing I would like to see is more support for the small-group roleplayers, something closer to the kind of multiplayer Neverwinter Nights has.
I would like to see more of those kinds of players too. Perhaps you could recruit some to Fonline from the Never Winter Nights community?
P.S.
That's a good idea; I was thinking though of a metagame sort of reputation that applies no matter which character you use. With Fallout, moral ambiguity is to be expected so a Player Kill or two wouldn't be a big deal, given a little time the meter would swing back to neutral. But for players doing mass suicide bombings and other devil spawn activities, I think it would be nifty if they got to experience bad karma effects no matter which account they were using.
For example towns would start generating bottlecap bounties on that player's alts and other players could kill them and bring in ears for the reward. There could be radio frequencies with announcements saying which town the fugitive was last seen in. The idea is that grieving and other criminal activities would get lay-low cool down times while other players could get rewarded for policing activities; it would just be more balanced I think.
many suggestions have been made about how to end griefing but it would seem there is no way to implement a karma system for a player (rather than his/her characters individually) without introducing paid accounts, which will never happen. However keep an eye out for 2155 beta tests.
But don't worry, I think griefers still receive negative karma, just not through game mechanics
