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Other => FOnline:2238 Forum => Archives => Suggestions => Topic started by: kttdestroyer on January 20, 2011, 06:38:59 pm
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Well, in my opinion, there should be few ways to control city. I will start with 2 ideas of alternatives:
1. The town is to be captured (just like now) and is to be invested in, it will generate very little income at the beggining if any. The faction in control have to build it up, like bank, stores, crafting house, pub. Those investments will each generate the income of the town. Those things should take some time, and to reach a steady income should take maybe 4 days. The Cost of investment should return itself after lets say 5 days.
2. Town could be raided, in a way of killing all traders, bankers and who ever represents the upgraded buildings. The money gained (looted from the corpses) will be represented with lets say 2 days of income (that NPC is killed and it will take him 3 days to respawn (more days then money gained of) and start generating money towards the controlling faction again). Destroying buildings and its upgrades doesint give anything (exept maybe rep drop, if the reputation would work correctly, otherwise no point).
The idea is to allow raider factions to do what they do, instead of taking control of the town they dont really want. Allowing them to take the money, without having to take the control of the town (like raiders suppose to do). Also, the town maybe would need some supplies now and then, which would ensure that the faction that controls the town, really wants the town (maybe repairs on buildings? or killing rats in the mine would give some boost towards this and that, in other words, things that you only do if you care about the town other then just income).
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I totally like you suggestion.
Raiders should take just loot and go away from city without taking it for themselfs.
Or maybe there could be cooldown(Like 1-5 RL days) for taking city under control?
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I already suggested the raider part.
So long ago i cannot remember what i called it...
Soooo yes to your suggestion, I like how you have to actually maintain the town than just buy militia and leave, wtf?
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Or maybe there could be cooldown(Like 1-5 RL days) for taking city under control?
You mean that counter would be 1-5 days isntead of 15 minutes??
I already suggested the raider part.
So long ago i cannot remember what i called it...
Soooo yes to your suggestion, I like how you have to actually maintain the town than just buy militia and leave, wtf?
Yes, me too. http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=10929.msg91441#msg91441 (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=10929.msg91441#msg91441)
And some other old ideas if anyone doesint have anything better to do: http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=10853.0 (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=10853.0)
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I like it. Just the profits should be based on player actions. The more players buy, sell, mine, craft, shovel the more caps (and/or other stuff) goes to the gang holding the town.
Ghost towns don't give a profit.
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Yes something like this should be made.
The thing with raiders is: they can raid but cannot be raided. Offense is the best defense so the raiders would be untouchable and thus hold the upper hand.
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Well, acually, i think that raiders always hold an upper hand. The only thing that the faction that defends town gets is support of locals (players, like now in WWP, which is not much acually). But in most situation, the raiders always hold upper hand, in history and such. It was always harder to create a society, build a town, then to destroy it. Even as example can be given a body guard and a killer, the body guard has to protect his client, and the killer doesint care.
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Well, acually, i think that raiders always hold an upper hand. The only thing that the faction that defends town gets is support of locals (players, like now in WWP, which is not much acually). But in most situation, the raiders always hold upper hand, in history and such. It was always harder to create a society, build a town, then to destroy it. Even as example can be given a body guard and a killer, the body guard has to protect his client, and the killer doesint care.
In fonline the raiders have even bigger benefit because they can do harm when the real defenders aren't even there (midnight, worktime).
In real world there is always way to find out who the raiders are and where they live and then storm them. But in fonline they live in their unreachable base and can prepare as long as they want and choose the precise moment to strike.
So to get this kind of investment system work, the raiders must be either encouraged to attack when the defenders are present and discouraged when the players aren't there. Or there must be a way to strike back against the raiders. Or both.
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Yes, well, current TC system is acually facing very simillar problems. I personally, dont have anything against set TC hours (like in the old days).
Anyways, one way, to allow the defenders to strike back:
The Raiders enter city
Kill the NPC they want to rob
A reward is put into the Raiders base
The faction that was in control of the town, now sees the raider base for 16 hours.
They can attack the raider base and try to get back what was stolen from them.
If the 16 hours pass, and the Defending faction dont manage to get back the loot from raider base, the loot turns into caps for the raiders.
Well, i dont like it 100%, but its an alternative.
Either way, i think what is porpose of this Idea about Raider/Defenders, is that, to not to destroy the defenders vision to hold the town (like we have now in the game world).
Also, this could be altered, that to take control of town, it requires more then just 5 people. I would suggest some starting money too, like 10k. To discourage gangs from taking town, if they just take it for "lolz" or money.
The other thing is, that a Raid is not end of the world, if it shows too good for raiders and too bad for defenders, one could possible set a limit of lootable NPCs per hour/30 min or something.
And the thing about the attacks at night, Devs tried to get around this with setting this hours of when people can TC. Its very hard thing to deal with this in a reasonable way. But yeah, that is one idea. To have set hours for TC.
Maybe, also, there would be a multiplicator, which would deliver its multiplication number from amount of players online. For exemple, if you kill a NPC to raid loot defenders money at night, when 50 people are online, you will get a penalty. If there are 250 people online, you will get a bonus (both in amount of money, and in amount of time it takes for NPC to respawn as both should be connected).
With/Without the Raider/Defender system, it could be possible to discuarege town taking at night by making the amount of bribe (if it would cost to take the town) also depend on amount of players avalible on the server (or amount of players needed to take the town, would grow when low amount of players online). Ofcourse the amout of players calculation should by dynamic, an idea would be to make a check for amount of players online every day automaticly, and store it in a file, then let it automaticly count out the average - highest - lowest and go from that to decide what bonus / penalties should there be, possible counting out % of the highest.
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The Raiders enter city
Kill the NPC they want to rob
A reward is put into the Raiders base
The faction that was in control of the town, now sees the raider base for 16 hours.
They can attack the raider base and try to get back what was stolen from them.
If the 16 hours pass, and the Defending faction dont manage to get back the loot from raider base, the loot turns into caps for the raiders.
What's stopping the raiders from picking the loot from that locker and carrying it away? Or should the locker just stay locked till 16h and winner gets the price?
Well, i dont like it 100%, but its an alternative.
It has holes, like night time capping. Better think of something else. How about this: after the raid, the loot doesn't yet exist in material world. It is stored in server's memory. Everyone who participated the raid are wanted by the town for x ammount of time. The faction guarding the town has automatically the right to hunt them down. They can also accept other players to do it after checking their status. Then we just have to find some cool tracking feature to track those raiders. If the raider is killed the bounty hunt is partially succesful and his faction loses wealth from the loot stored in the server's memory. Part of the stolen loot is returned and bonus is also paid. Once the time passes, the loot is given to the raider faction's locker somewhere.
All that's lacking is some sort of tracking system. How to catch a dude on the worldmap, or logged out?
Also, this could be altered, that to take control of town, it requires more then just 5 people. I would suggest some starting money too, like 10k. To discourage gangs from taking town, if they just take it for "lolz" or money.
Yeh it could help a little. A gang has to know that it can hold the town long enough to actually profit. Then again, with current capflow, people would still cap just for the lolz even if it took 10k and never made profit.
Maybe, also, there would be a multiplicator, which would deliver its multiplication number from amount of players online. For exemple, if you kill a NPC to raid loot defenders money at night, when 50 people are online, you will get a penalty. If there are 250 people online, you will get a bonus (both in amount of money, and in amount of time it takes for NPC to respawn as both should be connected).
Dude this might be it. Multipliers based on players online could be actually utilized in many other purposes too.
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What's stopping the raiders from picking the loot from that locker and carrying it away? Or should the locker just stay locked till 16h and winner gets the price?
Yes, thats how i "see" that solution. The box/bag is only open-able by the town controlling faction until the time passes, then it becomes avalible for raiders to grab.
It has holes, like night time capping. Better think of something else. How about this: after the raid, the loot doesn't yet exist in material world. It is stored in server's memory. Everyone who participated the raid are wanted by the town for x ammount of time. The faction guarding the town has automatically the right to hunt them down. They can also accept other players to do it after checking their status. Then we just have to find some cool tracking feature to track those raiders. If the raider is killed the bounty hunt is partially succesful and his faction loses wealth from the loot stored in the server's memory. Part of the stolen loot is returned and bonus is also paid. Once the time passes, the loot is given to the raider faction's locker somewhere.
Aah yeah, thats intresting, together with bringing back the tracking function! :) Sounds like good fun, also opens option for a lot intresting situations that are purely based on players creativty.
All that's lacking is some sort of tracking system. How to catch a dude on the worldmap, or logged out?
Maybe if player logs out when the timer has not yet passed, the character dissapears but the gold stays in form of a chest/box, that remains visible until the timer runs out and can be tracked down. Same with World map, he would become down trackable even if just staying on world map (the bounty hunters from town controlling faction would simply encounter him even if he is not in-map).
Or, an alternative could be that the timer only counts down when player is either moving or in map and is logged in. So, he needs to try to escape for this amout of time (the timer could be a lot shorter then though like 30 min or 1 hour).
Yeh it could help a little. A gang has to know that it can hold the town long enough to actually profit. Then again, with current capflow, people would still cap just for the lolz even if it took 10k and never made profit.
Yeah, well, the economy is not good, and it brings problems to a lot of things. Like mutants (mutants are indeed expensive, but with current millionare gangs not really). But that is a problem on its own in my opinion. Hopefully there will be some changes to this.
Dude this might be it. Multipliers based on players online could be actually utilized in many other purposes too.
Yes, and i think it is a lot more dynamic, more life like. I agree :)
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An Alternative/Addition:
What about if towns overtaking wasint just one time but was 3 parts (or more/less)?
I mean, right now you go start the timer and in 15 min town is yours. What if each Town was splitted in parts. Like say Redding for exemple:
1. Mines
2. Bank
3. Sheriff
Now, when you take over the mines, the town is not over taken, only 1/3 of the town. There is also a cooldown that is lets say 1-2 hours between the parts. So, You can take 1. Mines, it takes 15 mins, and you have to wait 1-2 hour before you can proceed to next part. The Town that owns 2/3 of town gets the caps, the town that controls 3/3 of the town controls militia and caps. This could lead to some more extended fighting.
Not just side swaping each hour of the town, but acual Battles of Towns. This would also give a lot more ability of gang in control to react. One could even extend this to more parts and lower time limit. The fights for Total control of towns would last sometimes even days, but, will also be harder to loose. If we took 5 parts for exemple, the attacking faction would need to win 2-3 times per day in 2-3 days. That would also make "Battles" and "Wars", you can win a battle but need to win many battles to win the war. ::)
(I posted it here instead as it would just get wasted in other topic)
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I mean, right now you go start the timer and in 15 min town is yours. What if each Town was splitted in parts. Like say Redding for exemple:
Yes it'd be much better if it took longer to capture single towns. It'd be much more athmospheric if gangs centered their actions around their favourite towns rather than taking them randomly and skirmishing across the wastes without bigger picture than fighting itself.
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Yes it'd be much better if it took longer to capture single towns. It'd be much more athmospheric if gangs centered their actions around their favourite towns rather than taking them randomly and skirmishing across the wastes without bigger picture than fighting itself.
From my experience on private Ultima Online server it is to game master to create background and make animation who bring reason to the TC. This server need animator GM, for random activity on south, but for north fight to... It is ti them to create organisation with some goal and bring player tteam to join them. Of course those GM have to be recruting in player base...
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From my experience on private Ultima Online server it is to game master to create background and make animation who bring reason to the TC. This server need animator GM, for random activity on south, but for north fight to... It is ti them to create organisation with some goal and bring player tteam to join them. Of course those GM have to be recruting in player base...
totaly agree, today we was thinking about something like that on teamspeak.
not only about real game masters and also about some big organisations driven by players. atm we have enough people and power to do something good, new organisation with some new goals but we are very limited, its hard to do something new without any help
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From my experience on private Ultima Online server it is to game master to create background and make animation who bring reason to the TC. This server need animator GM, for random activity on south, but for north fight to... It is ti them to create organisation with some goal and bring player tteam to join them. Of course those GM have to be recruting in player base...
So the game master should now "fix" your lack of creativity/boredom? I can safely assure you that none of the gamemasters will try to make some "animation" for this clusterfuck of TC fights.
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So the game master should now "fix" your lack of creativity/boredom? I can safely assure you that none of the gamemasters will try to make some "animation" for this clusterfuck of TC fights.
Why not? Ok, call him TC-Master or whatever, who cares anyway. Some people who will play role of NCR army leader, BoS elder, raider leader, trappers leader, slavers' leader, VC leader, BH muties/humans leader, etc.
PC factions can be work like "people groups" or "people alliances" or "big parties", while main force can be NPC factions controlled by "GMs", who will organize TCs with some "atleast poor story", PC faction will join some NPC faction and take part in that TC for side of PC faction.
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Won't happen.
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Won't happen.
Argh, and I even not telling about New Reno families and 24/7 slaughtering there because of 3 GMs from different families wanting to control New Reno parts!
So you don't want more player interaction and fun GM activity?
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So you don't want more player interaction and fun GM activity?
This all was tried out before (Reno Families for example) and failed due (who would guess?) the players sabotaging stuff, shooting random people for the lulz, calling quests/npc/etc "faggot shit" and so on. That's why I said no GM would have the patience and the nerves to do such a thing.
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Surf Solar I experience some realy nice RP server of Ultima Online with a LOT of PVP. But the PVP was make for some objectif and yes GM can do thing player cannot. You have to create a history, a background for this server, make some character with charisma, this character have to be play by GM etc... Do you have any experience of RP MMMO server? If yes without any "gm" help? If yes tell me I will try it ...
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Of course those GM have to be recruting in player base...
Damnation. Now everything is clear-- We shouldn't have bought our GMs on eBay.
Also Surf Solar is right. We tried a lot GM influenced stuff already, but a lot (a lot? Most of it, if it wasn't nazi-controlled) failed because of players who want to ruin the fun for everyone. It's just how it is. Public events with lots of players don't work in a game where nobody is invincible. Doesn't matter if you write 10 lines of background for your GM character or 10 A4 pages, nobody is interested in such things.
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Well, personally, i do believe a GM could be there, to "push" somethings. However, the server is somehow static, there is little dynamic "things" in game. So the game remains very simillar each day.
A town cannot be destroyed, they cannot grow. (They never change, TC in Modoc on friday, is same as TC in Modoc on tuesday)
There are little combat scenarios, as the tactics are pretty limited. (most often there are maybe 1-4 possible ways to attack, and even less to defend)
The battles overally are instant in practise, becouse of lack of firinig delay for weapons (as one of the things i believe causes this). The best fights last for maybe 20-30 minutes most of the times, and that is very seldom, and even then the acual fight takes few seconds (what takes most time is the organization parts).
Overally, in my opinion, a game CAN be made to have elements of "RP AND PVP" together in one, without GMs manipulating the world in real time towards the "RP PVP scenarios". But, the game must include this "seed" of RP in many elements of the game.
What i mean with that is, is if the players are very limited (not limited if compared to other games, but limited towards a perfect state then a lot for sure) in how they can manipulate the world, then there is little happening in the world, meaning the world doesint interact back at you (Peacekeepers take all towns, and what? nothing, North Bandits take them back, and what?). North Bandits attack NCR, and what? some guards die, 20 min later they respawn and nothing happend. What could be dynamic here, would be if each town had few states of economy (good, average,bad) and it would be affected by player actions, for exemple, as we now have wipes every once in a while, so one wipe maybe NCR would be very poor, (in poor state it would loose some buildings perhaps, and a lot beggards running around, and less guards etc), another wipe maybe it would become strong (and even take part in TC? if NCR player faction was to be included). Maybe epidemy strikes though some towns? Enclave air drop at Gecko? A bit too much, but the purpose is same.
The most RP-PVP elements we have are acually community based, but as we have learned, it is not possible to keep a town, unless peace with everyone (which eliminates the PVP from the RP-PVP). Also we have APK and PK, but after you kill same person 20 times in TC over and over it becomes pointless to find a reason behind killing this person. We got base looting, which is RP indeed in my opinion, mostly becouse some player DONT do it becouse of a choice they have made (however, in this decision is where the RP part in this ends here in my opinion), most of those things are very based on community and then game, not the otherway around. Another small thing we have is ability to kill merchants (merc merchants) and town leaders, which is good exemple on how the game can create scenarios (by player actions that effects the world which in turn affects him/another player back) for RP-PVP.
That counts also in random encounters (the caravans are way better then at first, when they pick up loot for exemple, a small thing, but interacts with player a lot more), random encounters could be even quests, some special mobs that are connected to other players (like, in one encounter, a player finds something, and in another encounter a diffrent player get asked by a npc he encounters to find the item the first player found)
A little of both, wouldint hurt ::)
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Well, personally, i do believe a GM could be there, to "push" somethings. However, the server is somehow static, there is little dynamic "things" in game. So the game remains very simillar each day.
Players cannot be allowed to affect the state of the wasteland as long as they don't share the same views as the npcs. Players do things for the lulz, excitement and interest, npcs do things to stay alive or uphold their society. So if lead was given to players, the world would be a smoking ruin pretty fast. Or there would be a giant penises or swastikas drawn everywhere with whatever materials it was possible to do.
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So the game master should now "fix" your lack of creativity/boredom? I can safely assure you that none of the gamemasters will try to make some "animation" for this clusterfuck of TC fights.
2238 is more or less competitive server - the only thing to do inside the game system aside from crafting/trading/exploring (which gets old fast) is town control. Ergo, by being hostile to TC you're being hostile to the most active part of the playerbase - recent TNB vs TPK battles were literally involving 50% of the server population in a single location on an almost daily basis. It happened without any GM support, so I don't see how you could accuse the players of lack of creativity if your endeavors as GMs weren't even close to being this popular aside from singular events like NA vs DA which, incidentally, were mostly also gang based.
Now, I could think of a thousand and one ideas on how to make this server even more lively with proactive, positive GM action based on general server "rules of physics" (instead of item spawning, free exp high HP Izual's NCR army, which was essentially "cheating", ie. free of limitations normal players had to overcome but still quite succesful and fun to encounter/fight against) - but I won't even bother seeing how you all seem to have enforcer mentality (ie. "we're here to punish" instead of "we're here to help with creating something") and lack any 2238-based experience in leading even a mildly succesful group of players. Just some really basic food for thought - an NPC faction doesn't require complex scripting, new framework etc. - it requires a GM leader (and I mean someone who is actually qualified and proven), a location (there are plenty already in), a carrot on a stick to make players want to join (custom skins, maybe some god tier items for faction leaders spawned every week/month) and a transparent set of rules to keep the rest of the server from yelling "that's cheap!" or "abuse!". How about a faction stylist GM to give the currently existing gangs a bit of a personal touch instead of the current copy/paste Combat Armor image? But to do that you'd have to have some love for both the game (and I mean the game as it is, not the game as you want it to be) and the current PvP system/mechanics - and the current GM roster is sadly lacking individuals with these qualities.
So yeah, I'd support NPC factions led by new GMs with all my heart (as would probably most other players), but since your attitude is extremely hostile and dev's attitude seems to be quite defeatist I don't think it's going to happen in the foreseeable future. I'd love to be wrong about this one though.
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I...
Damn it's so hard to say that...
I totally agree with Nice_Boat.
I always thougt there should be GM, wich would give us the storyline of the game. They should make event with sense, coming into a big background story, where players bring their own stuff - and loose or win it,. Give skins for RP faction, and god tier items in some big PvP events in real towns.
GM as leader of NPCs factions is a great idea and would rbing a great dynamic to the server.
So the game master should now "fix" your lack of creativity/boredom? I can safely assure you that none of the gamemasters will try to make some "animation" for this clusterfuck of TC fights.
It's really sad that a major GM (and dev now I think) have so much hate/contempt for one of the biggest game mechanic, wich create many interactions, diplomacy etc into the game. Something that can involve half of the server (and I bet you think "the worst half"...).
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GM controlled factions are planned since the very first day. So far it has not been possible due to the lack of various other prerequisites.
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Already planned.
Just wait until this game is done, or if you can't - leave the beta. Enough said.
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Man, Nice_Boat has spoken the truth, I fully agree.
The problem is that none of current GMs are interested in PvP or TC. Most of them are not even playing and I´m not blaming them, they just want different game. But still, there are lot of players that are playing this game ONLY because of this hated feature.
Like I stated elsewhere, game is evolving and so is its playerbase, some things will be more appreciated now than they were before.
In order to please the crowd, I propose to have one new GM that is interested in PvP and will try to make the game more entertaining.
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I suggest that on next TC fight Surf Solar and Izual will visit team inside city with biscuits and tea and discuss nature of man with players to entertain them. Wipe will come and sing few songs, Voland will take few players on short trip to Vault 13 and Bob will smash some few randomly spawned by Rusty monsters.
I also think that all Rogues should get Super Mutants (with this faction they got most to do) 'skins', TNB (or how tha hell CS is called nowadays) Enclave 'skins' (they are badasses in the end) and TTTLA PA 'skins' (as they are knights in shiny armours saving the innocent) for roleplay purposes.
Yes, I am narrow minded but not as much as you.
P.S.: Izual is abuser and NCR army soldiers/players had 1000 HP and APAs as armours under skins of CAs. Ah, almost forgot that all had 3x BRD.
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2000 hp. Which is why we won every fight.
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P.S.: Izual is abuser and NCR army soldiers/players had 1000 HP and APAs as armours under skins of CAs. Ah, almost forgot that all had 3x BRD.
You forgot the 20 living anatomy.
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and 5x better crit
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P.S.: Izual is abuser and NCR army soldiers/players had 1000 HP and APAs as armours under skins of CAs. Ah, almost forgot that all had 3x BRD.
It doesint sound very RP ::)
Players cannot be allowed to affect the state of the wasteland as long as they don't share the same views as the npcs. Players do things for the lulz, excitement and interest, npcs do things to stay alive or uphold their society. So if lead was given to players, the world would be a smoking ruin pretty fast. Or there would be a giant penises or swastikas drawn everywhere with whatever materials it was possible to do.
I dont believe that it is the players that are to share view of NPCs, its more that the NPCs should share the view of players (otherwise becouse of the stupid AI it wouldint bring anything to the game). The NPCs should react towards the player though (if a GM was general for NRC army for exemple, he could respond, as long as he plays it smart like most faction recruiters do, he doesint have to recruit players who want to damage the NCR).
In my opinion thats what its all about, the interactivness of the world. Now if the world is over taken by raider factions, then a GM can always enter and push it a bit to the other side so both sides can enjoy the game (like NCR, or like Raiders/Enclave if the thing goes other way).
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Ergo, by being hostile to TC you're being hostile to the most active part of the playerbase
How dare people have their own opinions! Alsoplus too a sheer amount of people involved something doesn't change the opinion of one on this feature.
It happened without any GM support, so I don't see how you could accuse the players of lack of creativity
You may go a page back in this wonderful thread and enlighten yourself that it wasn't me who screamed halp for GM support in Town Control.
if your endeavors as GMs weren't even close to being this popular aside from singular events like NA vs DA which, incidentally, were mostly also gang based.
I don't care what random gang XY does an alliance with gang ABC to fight alliance 123 again. The same happened before, just under different names. Gangs aren't rooted in the Fallout universe, some atleast try it, majority is here to pwn, to random PvP. That's why you won't see GMs helping with TC stuff and the general negative attitude towards it, it's like throwing pearls before swine, even if it's a pity for the small amount of people who really want more then just the usual combat. And yeah, now you really hurt me that my "endeavours" as a GM weren't as popular in the pr0 player base as some random non fallout gangs fighting. :(
Now, I could think of a thousand and one ideas on how to make this server even more lively
Yeah, we all know what you think of yourself and how high you set yourself, you always have the best ideas, we should thank you that you praise this thrad with your presence, etc, pp, yawn.
with proactive, positive GM action based on general server "rules of physics" (instead of item spawning, free exp high HP Izual's NCR army, which was essentially "cheating", ie. free of limitations normal players had to overcome
Yeah, how dare someone tries out something. Thankfully there is always one NiceBoat to bemoan this. Btw - everyone was free to send an application to take part of the "cheating" and "abusing". I didn't see your application there. How comes? Oh right, then you couldn't whine about it here, goody goody.
but I won't even bother seeing how you all seem to have enforcer mentality (ie. "we're here to punish" instead of "we're here to help with creating something")
I am sure you again have all the worlds best ideas about it - no wonder - seeing your actions of your gang speaks for themself in "we're here to help with creating something". And sure, stuff like holding mines for people to mine didn't happen if I just don't think about it - Nice Boat Style.
and lack any 2238-based experience in leading even a mildly succesful group of players.
I am sorry we're not as elite pr0players as you.
Just some really basic food for thought - an NPC faction doesn't require complex scripting, new framework etc. - it requires a GM leader (and I mean someone who is actually qualified and proven), a location (there are plenty already in), a carrot on a stick to make players want to join (custom skins, maybe some god tier items for faction leaders spawned every week/month) and a transparent set of rules to keep the rest of the server from yelling "that's cheap!" or "abuse!". How about a faction stylist GM to give the currently existing gangs a bit of a personal touch instead of the current copy/paste Combat Armor image?
Wow, thank you for that huge and widely detailed description, no one has ever thought about THAT! If this is what you mean with "I have dozens of ideas.." then holy shit, we will have a bright future! ::)
But to do that you'd have to have some love for both the game (and I mean the game as it is, not the game as you want it to be) and the current PvP system/mechanics - and the current GM roster is sadly lacking individuals with these qualities.
The game is evolving and is not centered around your PvP (even if you might want it that way). Also, it has nothing to do with "PvP Mechanics" to do GMing. Ofcourse you'll know it better, likewise.
So yeah, I'd support NPC factions led by new GMs with all my heart (as would probably most other players), but since your attitude is extremely hostile and dev's attitude seems to be quite defeatist I don't think it's going to happen in the foreseeable future. I'd love to be wrong about this one though.
NPC factions are planned since a long time (read Lexx' and Izuals posts) which is a totally different thing then the TC interferring some guys wanted here (won't happen). RJs post was quite nice btw. :)
I always thougt there should be GM, wich would give us the storyline of the game. They should make event with sense, coming into a big background story, where players bring their own stuff - and loose or win it,. Give skins for RP faction, and god tier items in some big PvP events in real towns.
GMs aren't responsible for the games background story progression.
I dont believe that it is the players that are to share view of NPCs, its more that the NPCs should share the view of players
lol'd.
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I dont believe that it is the players that are to share view of NPCs, its more that the NPCs should share the view of players
But this would mean that we'd have for example vault city randomly killing players in their own city, or camping unguarded mines.
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GM controlled factions are planned since the very first day. So far it has not been possible due to the lack of various other prerequisites.
GM controlled/supported factions is a concept, not a game mechanic. If you talk about missing prerequisites, you're in my opinion missing the point. The point being that such factions could (and probably should) be more or less very much like the current gangs, but with some designated themes, prerequisites for candidates and rewards for members. You could implement it right now in a matter of minutes, you could've done that 6 months ago - adding the "NCR Rangers" or "Enclave Squadron Alpha" gang name and a faction terminal in an existing location isn't exactly rocket science, same with selecting talented individuals to make it work. Adding another layer of PvP mechanics like zone control or whatever you're working on is not going to change the basic fact that the GM team lacks people capable of successful leadership and well-meaning interaction with the entire playerbase, or even construing believable conflicts/scenarios inside the gameworld framework.
To make this critique a bit more constructive, the closest you ever got to achieving something meaningful was Izual's effort at creating the NCR Army, but there were obvious mistakes that made the project ultimately flop:
- the faction had no persistent impact on the game world; it was more of a player driven special encounter than a group with actual goal
- since there was no persistent impact, there was no long-term reward for participating, hence not enough experienced recruits
- heavy handed handling when it comes to supplies and character stats - while having everything supplied to you by ther army may be realistic, it's not a good game mechanic when everyone else has to work for his stuff; this contributed heavily to the general perception of the Army being that it's an abuse of the game world - hence even less experienced recruits
- heavy handed handling when it comes to player discipline - again, while having people parade on the base square and go through basic drills and chores may be realistic, it is not enjoyable gameplay - even less people willing to join
- as much as this may hurt, it's a fact - generally incompetent handling during combat situations which combined with "cheated" stats and equipment led to the Army having a rather terrible reputation among normal gangs - they were either the bringers of sudden death or free loot supply, ang given their lack of persistent and predictable goals they couldn't be interacted with on a meaningful level by other factions (you couldn't ambush them, you couldn't fight them over something important or prestiguous - as I've said, just a really weird random encounter)
Successful GM-driven, NPC based factions should share the following qualities:
- be allowed to take part in TC to create meaningful, persistent interaction with both gangs and other NPC factions
- have clearly defined, openly stated goals and boundaries in which they operate
- take active, roleplay-based actions in the server's faction diplomacy environment to pursue the aforementioned goals; this means being active on IRC, forums and the server itself to actually be competitive when going against player based gangs; leaders behaving out of character in this context (no matter where - IRC, forums or server) would be completely unacceptable
- perhaps publish a monthly "faction review" with immediate goals stated, to make their behaviour transparent and predictable and to reflect their more "open" nature (this could exclude the more in-depth intrigues and secret alliances, which could be revealed after they stop being relevant) - this would have an additional effect of creating a persistent server history and improving the general immersion
- faction members should generally get their exp, stats, supplies etc. on their own; important members would get faction-specific hi-tech hardware in extremely limited quantities (like, 1 or 2 PAs monthly for 5 guys or something like that, a bit more weapons - make it more of a sacred relic than everyday occurence on the battlefield, just like Gauss Pistols right now or CA a few wipes ago when it was uncraftable) - the rules for getting supplies should be public, dynamic and generally subject to constant playerbase review and discussions to keep it all balanced
- while important member and faction leader in-game discipline as far playing "in-character" should be maintained, normal members should be allowed to act more or less at will with some very basic constraints not to scare people away; a normal NPC faction member should be encouraged to roleplay by good leadership embodied in giving a good example and the leader maintaining the faction-specific mood, not forced by an arbitrary set of rules or some specific code of conduct
- in combat situations, good leadership and proper tactics would be a must to maintain the credibility of the faction and the spirit of competition among its members; this means using voice communication software, creating a members-only forum and doing all the things that normal gangs do; this is an absolute must or else such factions would just share NCR Army's fate in being considered extremely cheap and/or incompetent when it comes to solving tactical situations.
As you can see, all of the conditions can be fulfilled with the game mechanics we have right now, this very moment. All that is needed is a few good, competent men willing to make it happen. Heck, even placing the faction terminals inside the faction-specific WM locations wouldn't be required - it could just as well be normal basecamps with the only server-related prerequisite being the devs providing faction names for these groups.
To sum things up, FOnline 2238 is more or less a roleplaying game. A good roleplaying game session is not created by a good rulebook and rolling 2 dice instead of 6. It is created, first and foremost, by good gamemasters coming up with good stories. Consequently, introducing new functions into the 2238 server world is not going to improve the overall experience - allowing a few dedicated and competent people prove themselves at demanding jobs of leading NPC factions and writing the overall narrative of this gameworld, a narrative that can be heavily impacted by actions of gangs and perhaps even single individuals is going to work wonders.
To sum it up, it really is all about design philosophy, not about going into specifics and creating more and more complicated code while losing sight of the bigger picture. Countless examples, both pen-and paper and online prove that human-oriented approach is more effective and flexible than leaving it all to mechanics and calculations. The devs will of course choose as they please and the players will judge them on their choices. I think that the ever-diminishing server population and the rise of other FOnline projects are clearly a sign that some change is necessary.
Also, wall of text critically hits you for 3243262 points of damage.
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Well, in my opinion, there should be few ways to control city. I will start with 2 ideas of alternatives:
1. The town is to be captured (just like now) and is to be invested in, it will generate very little income at the beggining if any. The faction in control have to build it up, like bank, stores, crafting house, pub. Those investments will each generate the income of the town. Those things should take some time, and to reach a steady income should take maybe 4 days. The Cost of investment should return itself after lets say 5 days.
2. Town could be raided, in a way of killing all traders, bankers and who ever represents the upgraded buildings. The money gained (looted from the corpses) will be represented with lets say 2 days of income (that NPC is killed and it will take him 3 days to respawn (more days then money gained of) and start generating money towards the controlling faction again). Destroying buildings and its upgrades doesint give anything (exept maybe rep drop, if the reputation would work correctly, otherwise no point).
The idea is to allow raider factions to do what they do, instead of taking control of the town they dont really want. Allowing them to take the money, without having to take the control of the town (like raiders suppose to do). Also, the town maybe would need some supplies now and then, which would ensure that the faction that controls the town, really wants the town (maybe repairs on buildings? or killing rats in the mine would give some boost towards this and that, in other words, things that you only do if you care about the town other then just income).
And if raiders are too weak they will always die and lose all their stuff.
And if raiders are too strong they will take over the control of town.
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I don't care what random gang XY does an alliance with gang ABC to fight alliance 123 again. The same happened before, just under different names. Gangs aren't rooted in the Fallout universe, some atleast try it, majority is here to pwn, to random PvP. That's why you won't see GMs helping with TC stuff and the general negative attitude towards it, it's like throwing pearls before swine, even if it's a pity for the small amount of people who really want more then just the usual combat. And yeah, now you really hurt me that my "endeavours" as a GM weren't as popular in the pr0 player base as some random non fallout gangs fighting. :(
This is an Online game, so ofcourse it will be player infuenced and in my opinion thats the beuty of it. What is the diffrence between fallout 2 Khans and North Bandits? What is the diffrence between the Lawyers and Sherrif in Redding attitude in fallout 2? How are those 2 factions not fallout universe factions when they could easly be ones as well? Its too bad both of those have to act same in the game, becouse the engine is not responsive towards factions. Its like saying, only fallout 1 and 2 factions should exist... That would leave us a lot creative options indeed. And, if you ask me, i would not play such game personally, what i love with Fonline, is the faction system (and some other things that are not often seen in other games).
I dont believe that it is the players that are to share view of NPCs, its more that the NPCs should share the view of players
lol'd.
? Care to be more "expainful"?
And if raiders are too weak they will always die and lose all their stuff.
And if raiders are too strong they will take over the control of town.
Yes, everybody risk loosing stuff in this game mate.
Maybe they would, but they might loose cash on it, meaning, the raiding should be more risky and profitiable (raiding should be easier and quick money making, like constructing a house is easier then burning it down). What raiders dont really should have is support of the people (either NPC or Players).
But this would mean that we'd have for example vault city randomly killing players in their own city, or camping unguarded mines.
That is possible, thats why there must be rules of which every memeber of NPC faction has to apply to. If a Vault City member kills a Non-Ghaul / Non-Raider then he should get a minus indeed and eventually throwed out of Vault City, if he kills random players in VC then he should be throwed out straight away, either by VC leader, or by the game system...
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(http://files.sharenator.com/Whats_Going_On_In_This_Thread_Huge_Collection_of_Randoms-s400x541-66557-580.jpg)
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like, 1 or 2 PAs monthly for 5 guys or something like that
I dont think NCR should have PA/APA at all... Would just look wierd. Unless they somehow raided the BoS base.
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They said already that players are acting stupid and childish and it'll fail, and really... even if someone will start it even since today, there will be someone who will try to ruin everything because he is bored.
Also Surf Solar is right. We tried a lot GM influenced stuff already, but a lot (a lot? Most of it, if it wasn't nazi-controlled) failed because of players who want to ruin the fun for everyone. It's just how it is. Public events with lots of players don't work in a game where nobody is invincible. Doesn't matter if you write 10 lines of background for your GM character or 10 A4 pages, nobody is interested in such things.
So what? Someone isn't doing what you want? 1st time warning before all players, every next player who will do something stupid will be banned for 1000 years. And ruin by what? Coming somewhere with dynamite and exploding lots pijamas? It's ok, they were standing there, he was roleplaying suicidal terrorist, he came and exploded poor bluesuits, nothing special, everyone can die in this world. Coming with bazookas and miniguns and kill everything on sight? Consider it player-based event, why can't someone come and start killing everyone on street at centre of city with minigun? It's fun!
For example: one GM playing role of raider leader, he isn't fighter himself, he will observe battle in GM-stealth without using his imba 300% skills and immunity to everything. PC factions can't start TC, as I said before, PC faction just a community of players with a base. Noone can join NPC faction himself, he must 1st ask that GM or better GMs, if there're more than 1 responsible for that NPC faction, and after that he'll be invited, if he is a loner. If he is in a PC faction, then thier leader should add thier faction to that NPC faction and it'll work like alliance, so NPC faction will consist of loners who belong to it and PC factions. GM(s) will use radio channel or anything to warn about activities of thier faction, for example raiders are going to rob Hub caravan, while Hub caravan has a faction too with thier GM who waring about caravan moving from Hub to VC, whoever will escort it will get a reward, and then a PvP between Hub caravan guards and raiders somewhere in the wasteland! May be even turn based.. well probably not.
And how someone can ruin this? Some raider will shout "MUAHAHAHAHA!" and explode his raider friends with dynamite? Well... he is a raider, may be he has problems with brains. Hub caravan guards will get a bazooka and kill his fellows? May be he is a traitor or crazy sociopath or both. Saying "i pwn u nub, because i'm cul raider and you shitfag"? Who cares? Everyone can say whatever they want. If faction will grow too big (2 major PC faction will be there), then there could be separate missions against 2 or 3 other factions like raiders robbing Hub caravan, other raider group attacking NCR ranger safe house and 3rd raider group defending thier base from...emm well anything. And all of these 3 events in the same time, to balance power of factions, but it's only if one NPC faction will be too powerful, so it'll be 1v2 or 1v3.
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I dont think NCR should have PA/APA at all... Would just look wierd. Unless they somehow raided the BoS base.
Yeah, this kind of equipment would be faction specific. Hell, it could be even event specific. Imagine the news of a new stash of hi-tech equipment hidden somewhere in the desert spreading all over the forums with some screenshots and a list including Gauss Rifles and Pulse Rifles with the information that it'll become accessible in a week at 6PM GMT. Imagine the activity this would spur - people going all over the place looking for intel, factions fighting over access to quest-specific NPCs played by GMs, finally a showdown at the stash because shit goes wrong and at the last moment the coordinates are transmitted all over the wasteland and the defence grid is still on preventing the first faction to get there from exfiltrating with the goodies. And yeah, you get Tier 4 equipment in TC during the weeks to come. So what? It's limited and can be made to break down faster/be irreparable. The point is everyone involved had fun, it wasn't scripted, it didn't require fascist-level GM overwatch, it was a PvP conflict with lasting consequences and a new background and it involved spontaneous roleplay when talking to quest-specific NPCs. How come nothing like this happened yet? Perhaps Surf_Solar and people like him were too busy writing sarcastic posts and being angry at players for not living up to their True Fallout Standards to even notice the possibility ::)
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I wasn't the one who started to be a smartass, NiceBoat.
And reading all this stuff you are suggesting here is showing the obvious fact that you have no experience in GMing and are underestimating the amount of work done behind it. It sure does sound nice on the paper and similar stuff was planned. Ofcourse you will now reply (and frankly I don't care) that we are incompetent and such, but keep on living the dream.
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GM controlled/supported factions is a concept, not a game mechanic.
In order to do this, various mechanics need to be done first. But of course, you would not need anything, just an immortal character who can run around and talk about god and the world. Players for sure will follow you.
You could implement it right now in a matter of minutes
Hahaahahahahaha.
Hahhahaha.
Hahhahahahahh.
Hah.
Hehe.
Good one.
So what? Someone isn't doing what you want? 1st time warning before all players, every next player who will do something stupid will be banned for 1000 years. And ruin by what? Coming somewhere with dynamite and exploding lots pijamas? It's ok, they were standing there, he was roleplaying suicidal terrorist, he came and exploded poor bluesuits, nothing special, everyone can die in this world.
Damn, you are right. Why did we added guards at the New Reno Fight Night? People exploding all around was just normal after all. Especially because they hammered people out of the map who wanted to see the fights.
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I wasn't the one who started to be a smartass, NiceBoat.
And reading all this stuff you are suggesting here is showing the obvious fact that you have no experience in GMing and are underestimating the amount of work done behind it. It sure does sound nice on the paper and similar stuff was planned. Ofcourse you will now reply (and frankly I don't care) that we are incompetent and such, but keep on living the dream.
Spawning items is possible. Introducing new maps is possible with minor server updates, having people make simple ones is easy. GMs impersonating NPCs is certainly possible. Teleporting people to aforementioned locations is possible. The ammount of work is negligible when compared with events like NA vs DA or Ares tournament and even more negligible when compared with persistent "events" like the NCR Army. You have all the tools to make something like this happen, especially since you can make the playerbase work for you instead of you working against it. How many events have failed or were affected because you couldn't micromanage each and every player's behaviour? Plenty. Bombings during the boxing tournament? Trolling in Ares? It's obvious you can't make everyone behave the way you want him to. What can a Game Master do? Look into the player's heart and pull the right strings. Make him care for something, create a series of obstacles for him to overcome and give him the reward at the end. Make people compete for something, create meaningful interactions. Players have extremely limited possibilities compared with GMs and they've made this happen (see Wichura's Fight Club project for refference). That's just RPG basics 101, straight out of "Gamemastering for Dummies" and it's genuinely embarassing that I have to tell you that.
And if you say you can't impersonate a Mysterious Stranger With Key Information and spawn a specific number of item X at point Y or complicate this sequence to the point it becomes challenging and entertaining then oh well... perhaps the dev-team should find someone who can?
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I am sorry, but :
And reading all this stuff you are suggesting here is showing the obvious fact that you have no experience in GMing and are underestimating the amount of work done behind it. It sure does sound nice on the paper and similar stuff was planned. Ofcourse you will now reply (and frankly I don't care) that we are incompetent and such, but keep on living the dream.
applies even more after reading your last post. You have no idea what you are talking about and yet you keep on being a smartass and pretend to know everything, everything is easy, hey I am Nice Boat, I know everything, etc. This was my last post here as it's just wasted time, but keep on building your own reality here on the forum.
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Every map needs to be controlled, checked, tested, maybe even overworked, then includet into the game. In at least a few cases, speciall scripts might be needed.
The ammount of work is negligible when compared with events like NA vs DA or Ares tournament and even more negligible when compared with persistent "events" like the NCR Army.
It is not. Of course, you will now answer that it is. After this I will answer: Have you worked on the game already? Your answer then will be no. Just to sum up what happens next.
How many events have failed or were affected because you couldn't micromanage each and every player's behaviour? Plenty. Bombings during the boxing tournament? Trolling in Ares? It's obvious you can't make everyone behave the way you want him to. What can a Game Master do? Look into the player's heart and pull the right strings.
My god, you are pulling one joke after joke here. :)
Beside this, all your writings is nothing but loosely words. You know, talking about something and *doing* something are two different things. I can talk and write about creating the best rpg of all times too. But would I get it done?
As long as you don't come with a detailed plan that is in the realms of realism to do, I can't take you serious.
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In order to do this, various mechanics need to be done first. But of course, you would not need anything, just an immortal character who can run around and talk about god and the world. Players for sure will follow you.
No, they wouldn't. They'd think you're drunk and make nothing of it. Would they follow an Enclave captain allowing limited access to tier 4 weaponry and armor and providing good leadership, TC and most of the 2238 faction experience for some basic adherence to common sense rules in return? Of course they would. Some might even leave well-established gangs for that.
Hahaahahahahaha.
Hahhahaha.
Hahhahahahahh.
Hah.
Hehe.
Good one.
Assume you have someone competent enough to organize and lead a faction while acting in-character most of the time. Assume he'd be subject to peer review. How much time would it take to introduce a new faction name and give him GM status? What features would have to be implemented to allow for such an extraordinary feat, which incidentally has been accomplished by oh-so many player groups without any guidance numerous times (aside from the custom name and GM thingie)? But yeah, laugh it off. I'm laughing too, seeing how your competition is getting way ahead in terms of both conceptualization and actual coding.
Every map needs to be controlled, checked, tested, maybe even overworked, then includet into the game. In at least a few cases, speciall scripts might be needed.
You have no shortage of maps. Testing can be outsourced to a large extent, there's a plenty of 3rd party options. And if that doesn't work, you could always use a faction base with some spawned NPCs to stand in for the cache from my example. Adapt, improvise.
It is not. Of course, you will now answer that it is. After this I will answer: Have you worked on the game already? Your answer then will be no. Just to sum up what happens next.
My answer will be yes, I have worked on the game. What now?
My god, you are pulling one joke after joke here. :)
Beside this, all your writings is nothing but loosely words. You know, talking about something and *doing* something are two different things. I can talk and write about creating the best rpg of all times too. But would I get it done?
As long as you don't come with a detailed plan that is in the realms of realism to do, I can't take you serious.
I've provided a step by step guide to introducing NPC-based factions requiring a two-step intervention from the devs. You're saying that's unrealistic. Faced with such a response, I'm actually at loss for words.
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Yeah, this kind of equipment would be faction specific. Hell, it could be even event specific. Imagine the news of a new stash of hi-tech equipment hidden somewhere in the desert spreading all over the forums with some screenshots and a list including Gauss Rifles and Pulse Rifles with the information that it'll become accessible in a week at 6PM GMT. Imagine the activity this would spur - people going all over the place looking for intel, factions fighting over access to quest-specific NPCs played by GMs, finally a showdown at the stash because shit goes wrong and at the last moment the coordinates are transmitted all over the wasteland and the defence grid is still on preventing the first faction to get there from exfiltrating with the goodies. And yeah, you get Tier 4 equipment in TC during the weeks to come. So what? It's limited and can be made to break down faster/be irreparable. The point is everyone involved had fun, it wasn't scripted, it didn't require fascist-level GM overwatch, it was a PvP conflict with lasting consequences and a new background and it involved spontaneous roleplay when talking to quest-specific NPCs. How comes nothing like this happened yet? Perhaps Surf_Solar and people like him were too busy writing sarcastic posts and being angry at players for not living up to his True Fallout Standards to even notice the possibility ::)
Yes, this is a scenario you got right there. It could even be 3 gauss pistols, or just gauss ammo. But PA also works as things now do get destroyed over time. Such things also would be the "seed" towards diffrent TC, meaning like we have currently, a team with 3 gauss rifles does impose a scenario over the battle (gauss rifle is very nicley implemented btw, rare in an amount that is good and not overpowered to insane levels). What we also need more in my opinion, is that the victory/defeat means something more then just winning/loosing stuff. Like taking over town is bigger thing/more influencing the world and the town over taken. The current situation when town is just switching sides is not really intresting in my opinion... Maybe something like 24h Perma death in TC per Town ::)
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No, they wouldn't. They'd think you're drunk and make nothing of it. Would they follow an Enclave captain allowing limited access to tier 4 weaponry and armor and providing good leadership, TC and most of the 2238 faction experience for some basic adherence to common sense rules in return? Of course they would.
Of course, everyone would follow for APA. And a few days later, we have a server cluttered with APA.
I'm laughing too, seeing how your competition is getting way ahead in terms of both conceptualization and actual coding.
Do so. I don't even know what competition you are talking about.
My answer will be yes, I have worked on the game. What now?
Never saw you in our dev channel.
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Of course, everyone would follow for APA. And a few days later, we have a server cluttered with APA.
8 suits of armor per month is hardly enough to clutter the server in a matter of days, especially if they were irreparable or would break down faster. Remember CAs when they weren't craftable? Was the server cluttered? And they were easily obtainable in relative terms. Keeping stuff in low supply really isn't rocket science, you know.
Never saw you in our dev channel.
Because I don't work for 2238, neither do I plan to. I just play here from time to time, man.
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Because I don't work for 2238, neither do I plan to. I just play here from time to time, man.
Then bless whatever you are working on with you stuff and don't clutter this forum/game with your bullshit.
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Because I don't work for 2238
Then don't say you worked on the game. You never wrote a single line of code for the game, you never includet a map, you never wrote, planned, constructed includet a quest from beginning to the end, you did not wrote any npc, etc. pp. yadda-yadda. But of course, you say "yes, I have worked on the game."
Like I wrote in a post earlier: Talking about something and doing something is not the same.
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Then bless whatever you are working on with you stuff and don't clutter this forum/game with your bullshit.
That was really relevant and helpful to the discussion at hand, thank you kind sir.
Then don't say you worked on the game. You never wrote a single line of code for the game, you never includet a map, you never wrote, planned, constructed includet a quest from beginning to the end, you did not wrote any npc, etc. pp. yadda-yadda.
Is 2238 the only FOnline project out there, or am I missing something here? And even if I didn't - what does it have to do with GMs impersonating certain characters and preparing simple quests, selected factions having GM support in their activities and following certain guidelines and the devs including restricted faction names for these new groups?
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FOnline: 2238 is different than other FOnline projects. We use different tools, have different scripts, etc.
what does it have to do with GMs impersonating certain characters and preparing simple quests, selected factions having GM support in their activities and following certain guidelines and the devs including restricted faction names for these new groups?
Tell me. You started with talking about how easy everything is.
Also to follow a suggestion thread from a few hours ago: This thread might be locked in sooner future, so prepare folks.
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As i reat through walls of text here i stumbled across the comments about NCR army. I'd like to clear some things out here:
To make this critique a bit more constructive, the closest you ever got to achieving something meaningful was Izual's effort at creating the NCR Army, but there were obvious mistakes that made the project ultimately flop:
- the faction had no persistent impact on the game world; it was more of a player driven special encounter than a group with actual goal
I think you misunderstood the main idea of this project. What's the goal of an army? Right! To protect something. In this case this "something" was the NCR itself and the cities which were more or less under the control of it. This started as a RP project in the FO world and of course it needed some time to organise the players who were participating in it (btw did you took part in it yourself? Can't remember right..). The "goal" of it was a) (in roleplay terms) to secure public areas aswell as patrolling around the NCR controlled places and b) (out of roleplay) to organise players into some kind of meta-faction beside the usual player based gangs and groups.
- since there was no persistent impact, there was no long-term reward for participating, hence not enough experienced recruits
Reward for participating? You mean to get "l00t" or some fancy NCR armors? Maybe i get you wrong here. The "reward" was to have some fun and also, for some players, the chance to actually get the feeling, to be part of something bigger. I'm speaking of those who don't think of big gang fights in first place when they hear "Fallout Online" for example.
- heavy handed handling when it comes to supplies and character stats - while having everything supplied to you by ther army may be realistic, it's not a good game mechanic when everyone else has to work for his stuff; this contributed heavily to the general perception of the Army being that it's an abuse of the game world - hence even less experienced recruits
- heavy handed handling when it comes to player discipline - again, while having people parade on the base square and go through basic drills and chores may be realistic, it is not enjoyable gameplay - even less people willing to join
- as much as this may hurt, it's a fact - generally incompetent handling during combat situations which combined with "cheated" stats and equipment led to the Army having a rather terrible reputation among normal gangs - they were either the bringers of sudden death or free loot supply, ang given their lack of persistent and predictable goals they couldn't be interacted with on a meaningful level by other factions (you couldn't ambush them, you couldn't fight them over something important or prestiguous - as I've said, just a really weird random encounter)
I think those arguments can be put together since, at least for myself, they draw a clear picture of how the army was seen by some gangs.
First of all the characters in this army had no special stats. Neither they had special weapons or armors. Of course some of the armors looked different to a normal BA for example but actually they had the same characteristics like any normal one. Same goes fort the weapons of course!
Second is that those chars never went out the Military Depot itself. People were lead back to it after a mission. This made sure you couldn't abuse them to get some friend a new weapon/armor or ammunition.
- they were either the bringers of sudden death or free loot supply
Now thats the main problem here. Bigger gangs saw them as some kind of threat to themself, right after this project started. But the main difference here was the fact that this was a roleplay project, included in the actual Fallout world itself. Some big gangs didnt get that into their minds. The army never interrupted TC-fights or cared about gang politics at all. If i trololo go into the NCR with my 10 buddies and shoot everything down there (inlcuding NPC guards) i shouldn't cry/wonder when after this some army force shows up and takes care of this. Same goes for public places like HUB, where some big bad gang needs to expect some reaction of the government if they just try to claim the whole place for themselfs.
To be honest, in my eyes some gangs just faced the fact that they couldn't do such things, like mentioned above, without the fear that some strike force will come and punish them. But then what was the reaction? Instead of accepting this as a part of the game world like some of them always also claim to be (playing the big raider-gang-roleplay ;) yeah) they cried and screamed ABUZE! which wasn't the case.
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big shame really, that could be intresting topic about towncontol, maybe even devs began to treat seriously sugestion of players who actually playing tc and want to change something to better, help making this game more intresting for everyone.
about creativity of players and their small or bigger projects - we cant start anything becouse we cant even get a name for our projects, which are supose to be related to tc. every free gang names has taken or inappropriate.
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FOnline: 2238 is different than other FOnline projects. We use different tools, have different scripts, etc.
Is it that different when it comes to what a GM can and can't do? Are you telling me giving a faction a custom name (didn't VSB get one? how many times was the list updated with new names?), giving someone GM status, spawning items and teleporting people is that hard? Come on.
Tell me. You started with talking about how easy everything is.
1. Create NPC-based factions.
2. Make qualified GMs lead them.
3. Setup a system of rewards.
4. Let these factions function in the general faction environment.
5. Observe, make minor adjustments and improvements.
6. Repeat 4 through to 6.
For quests:
1. Make announcements on the official forums.
2. Keep it simple, without actual development work involved. Keep the scenarious realistic as far as the game world is concerned, be aware of what players are capable of.
3. Make GMs impersonate NPCs instead of being gamey enforcers/overseers. Let the players do their thing.
4. Spawn rewards at specific locations, spawn critters and use teleportation when necessary. Improvise, have all the mechanical GM work hidden from the participants.
5. Observe, note what went wrong and what went right.
6. Repeat 1 through to 6.
Is it that hard? I mean, really? Impossible? Out of reach? Because the ridiculous part is that all these things have been done before in a rather erratic manner, mostly with no specific goals or attempts at seamless integration into the game world in mind.
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Are you telling me giving a faction a custom name (didn't VSB get one? how many times was the list updated with new names?), giving someone GM status, spawning items and teleporting people is that hard? Come on.
I never wrote anything like this, never wrote about anything like this.
3. Setup a system of rewards.
Details are missing, just like always. But yeah "System of Rewards" sounds better of course.
2. Keep it simple, without actual development work involved.
Thanks captain obvious. There aren't many possibilities if you don't want the ever repeating shit to hit the fan.
4. Spawn rewards at specific locations, spawn critters and use teleportation when necessary. Improvise, have all the mechanical GM work hidden from the participants.
Can only be done with a very small group of players. Else the fastest player will grab everything and the rest got nothing. "Improvise" is also great again. Lack of details are explained with "improvise!"
5. Observe, note what went wrong and what went right.
My god, so this is what we forgot all the time! Thank you again, captain obvious.
Is it that hard? I mean, really? Impossible? Out of reach?
You know what would be even cooler? GMs playing some NPCs who lead an epic battle of Faction A against Faction B in a complicated political plot around Vault City and Gecko!
See, that was super easy! Wait, there is actually hard work behind it to explain, prepare and make sure that everything will work out correct, logical and in a more or less realistic way and so it does not result in "let's make a group, run to some location and kill everything"? Must have overlooked that somehow...
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I dont want to cause a flame but... Maybe there should be something like a "RP-GM" "position", a GM that only purpose would be to create temporary "things" in game, affect the world so the world is more living interaction towards the player. Well an idea.
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by the way, since some dev are reading this topic i have an opportunity to ask about 2238 storyline/timeline!
i mean how big can be players influence on fallout history. what we can change and what things we cant do
im asking for serval reasons, one of them is idea for project rp-pvp developing by our small commnity (~80 players?)
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Details are missing, just like always. But yeah "System of Rewards" sounds better of course.
Why would anyone want to work out the details if the very idea met with so much hate, reluctance and "this can't be done" bullshit? At this stage it is more important to work out whether having GM led custom factions acting as the military arm of NPC factions with custom, high-end rewards is acceptable. Actual rewards are a secondary thing and since they'd be spawned by faction specific GMs instead of being managed by scripts they could be adjusted any time with no effort aside from brainstorming.
Thanks captain obvious. There aren't many possibilities if you don't want the ever repeating shit to hit the fan.
Shit did hit the fan because none of the previous scenarios were flexible. You were depending on players following a specific chain of pre-designed actions in an open environment and when they didn't you ended up with a clusterfuck. You wanted to have nearly perfect remote control over living human beings with extremely limited ability of affecting their behaviour, what did you expect? The failures were directly caused by a flawed event design philosophy - to make it work in a sandbox, you just present the players with a situation that is going to create conflicting interests, provide them with a period of exposition and have them go at it with whatever means they deem necessary and whatever creativity they can muster. You place new content in said sandbox and you have them work it out. If they don't - too bad for them, no rewards today. The only difference between creating pen and paper RPG sessions and creating FOnline events is the fact that with FOnline the GMs have limited instruments of control, so they have to make it all more open ended. Think of LARPs for example - how do they make scenarios for such games? Do they make restrictive events? No, they place key people to impersonate key NPCs at key locations, they tell the players more or less what to expect and they make it play out without much intervention.
Can only be done with a very small group of players. Else the fastest player will grab everything and the rest got nothing. "Improvise" is also great again. Lack of details are explained with "improvise!"
The more resistance there is at the goal, the more people are needed to overcome it. Nothing wrong with having groups of players compete with each other to get there too. Want an example with server limitations in mind? There you go.
Forum post:
- indication of a rumour of a group of treasure hunters setting of to get a weapons cache with hi-tech stuff
- the group got ambushed at the site by Nasty Robots, they're working at the base mainframe to turn them off
- there's a Mysterious Dude having remote access codes to Nasty Robots' mainframe scheduled to arrive somewhere in the NCR
- the scenario starts at 2.14.2011 GMT 18.00
Carrying it out:
- spawn some nice weapons and a few human NPCs at low level mariposa
- spawn some Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance
- have a GM masquerade as one of the Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance, make him airstrike the shit out of anyone willing to force his way in
- have a GM masquerade as The Mysterious Dude in the NCR, make him roleplay, he wants 10k caps for access code card, radio frequency to transmit them to Nasty Robot GM (so he doesn't airstrike the Chosen Group) and a password
- the group has the code, transmits it - but whoops, the trapped bounty hunters screwed something up, the airstrike bot-GM is out of the picture but the remaining Nasty Robot critters are still in place and the mainframe is sending information about defences being deactivated on all frequencies (server announcement, perhaps a few times)
- the group that got to the Mysterious Dude first has a headstart, but at that very moment every single wasteland faction is hell bent on getting to mariposa as fast as possible
- they probably go in, defeat the Nasty Robots and get their hands on their equipment
... and from now on god knows what happens next. Probably there's a series of ambushes, a lot of confusion and most likely everybody has a chance to take a shot at the reward. Hell, even a loner might sneak in and snatch a gun or two. Everything's done using same mechanics as the notorious Zombie Defence events, a forum post and some basic roleplaying.
Of course this example is crude, too simple and probably shouldn't ever be employed as is - but it goes on to show that it's possible to make it all work with what we have right now. Satisfied?
You know what would be even cooler? GMs playing some NPCs who lead an epic battle of Faction A against Faction B in a complicated political plot around Vault City and Gecko!
See, that was super easy! Wait, there is actually hard work behind it to explain, prepare and make sure that everything will work out correct, logical and in a more or less realistic way and so it does not result in "let's make a group, run to some location and kill everything"? Must have overlooked that somehow...
You're missing the point. There would be no hard work, no explanation, no making sure that everything works out correct. You place two factions with conflicting interests in a single environment, you have their leaders run politics based on roleplaying instead of "gang mentality" loss and profit and you let them use some serious carrot on a stick to recruit some serious grunts and you end up with political plots more complicated than you could ever think of on your own. Why? Simply because if you set those factions like that you end up with 20 people thinking about the most efficient ways of playing it out instead of a few devs/"do-it-all" GMs who generally tend to have more important work to do and can't be arsed to care that much.
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Why would anyone want to work out the details if the very idea met with so much hate
See. I ask you to explain and come up with details. You never do it. Still you write wall of text and more wall of text.
You were depending on players following a specific chain of pre-designed actions in an open environment and when they didn't you ended up with a clusterfuck.
Did we? I don't think so. At least I can't remember any. Come up with examples or let it be.
to make it work in a sandbox, you just present the players with a situation that is going to create conflicting interests
Thank you again captain obvious. I bet you 10 to 1 that such events will always either A attacks B or A defends from B. Players are trigger-happy.
Forum post:
- indication of a rumour of a group of treasure hunters setting of to get a weapons cache with hi-tech stuff
- the group got ambushed at the site by Nasty Robots, they're working at the base mainframe to turn them off
- there's a Mysterious Dude having remote access codes to Nasty Robots' mainframe scheduled to arrive somewhere in the NCR
- the scenario starts at 2.14.2011 GMT 18.00
Carrying it out:
- spawn some nice weapons and a few human NPCs at low level mariposa
- spawn some Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance
- have a GM masquerade as one of the Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance, make him airstrike the shit out of anyone willing to force his way in
- have a GM masquerade as The Mysterious Dude in the NCR, make him roleplay, he wants 10k caps for access code card, radio frequency to transmit them to Nasty Robot GM (so he doesn't airstrike the Chosen Group) and a password
- the group has the code, transmits it - but whoops, the trapped bounty hunters screwed something up, the airstrike bot-GM is out of the picture but the remaining Nasty Robot critters are still in place and the mainframe is sending information about defences being deactivated on all frequencies (server announcement, perhaps a few times)
- the group that got to the Mysterious Dude first has a headstart, but at that very moment every single wasteland faction is hell bent on getting to mariposa as fast as possible
- they probably go in, defeat the Nasty Robots and get their hands on their equipment
This is the first time you come up with details. Was it really this hard? You could have done the same already 3 pages ago.
You're missing the point. There would be no hard work, no explanation, no making sure that everything works out correct.
Then tell me why it was talked about GMs need charismatic characters with written down backgrounds and shit, if - now - it doesn't matter.
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Also I want to add that stuff like NB posted as example is done on a regular basis, just not with huge amount of players. Hell, we even did this last night in The Glow, everyone was happy, everyone liked it. Probably Nice Boat couldn't participate because he was too busy to show others "how shit is done".
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See. I ask you to explain and come up with details. You never do it. Still you write wall of text and more wall of text.
I did come up with details about everything aside from the actual rewards involved. What more do you want, pointing to specific people who are in my opinion appropriate to lead such factions? I don't believe that'd be appropriate - it should either be an arbitrary dev decision, or a community vote.
Did we? I don't think so. At least I can't remember any. Come up with examples or let it be.
Ares tournament - "gather round people or the event is cancelled" *some dude blows up* "THAT'S IT" *airstrikes everywhere*
Boxing event - bombings, bombings everywhere.
New Reno gangs - "yay, let's make a roleplaying event at the most popular recreational PvP arena on the server" *everybody starts wondering why are there powerbuilds killing people everywhere*
... I'm sure people will provide you with more examples.
Thank you again captain obvious. I bet you 10 to 1 that such events will always either A attacks B or A defends from B. Players are trigger-happy.
Oh, how about having them take part in an auction inside a protected city? How about having everyone come to a meeting inside the Crime Lord's hideout unarmed, with John Wayne and Keanu Reeves (GMs in disguise) guarding the entrance? Tell me how much real world money are you willing to bet and I'll take your odds any day.
This is the first time you come up with details. Was it really this hard? You could have done the same already 3 pages ago.
I wasn't aware you wanted me to go into such details.
Then tell me why it was talked about GMs need charismatic characters with written down backgrounds and shit, if - now - it doesn't matter.
I didn't talk about about written backgrounds and shit. I said GMs who'd lead those NPC-based factions would have to be charismatic and experienced enough to actually make such factions succeed while acting in accordance with the game lore when it comes to making wasteland politics.
(...) just not with huge amount of players. (...)
Well, there you have it.
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Ares tournament - "gather round people or the event is cancelled" *some dude blows up* "THAT'S IT" *airstrikes everywhere*
Boxing event - bombings, bombings everywhere.
New Reno gangs - "yay, let's make a roleplaying event at the most popular recreational PvP arena on the server" *everybody starts wondering why are there powerbuilds killing people everywhere*
Yeah, it's the GMs/Devs fault if people are too stupid to behave to the simplest rules.
Well, there you have it.
You have what? Oh no - only a small amount of people could participate - the others were busy shooting others in random northern town XY?
If an event is designed for a smaller amount of people I won't let more people in there. Doesn't mean that it won't be repeated though.
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Boxing event - bombings, bombings everywhere.
So lining up to get them into the building is "following a specific chain of pre-designed actions in an open environment" that leads people to bomb up each other?
Oh, how about having them take part in an auction inside a protected city?
Wow, sounds cool! What to sell? Everyone has everything, after all. Giving out power armors to gain attention? That's kind of lame. Also I see various problems:
- Do players sell it on their own?
- How to make sure payment between buyer and seller will work out good?
- Will the stuff get stashed somewhere or the players keep it? Will the players have it with them or bring it later? If first: It could get lost fast.. thief, bomber,... if second: How to make sure buyer / seller stuff works out good?
- How to clean up the possible chaos that can happen with many players in a small area? We only have a more or less short perception-range.
- What if a big group of players shows up and attacks everyone? We remember: protected town != 100% secure town. The whole event could go down the shitter 2 minutes after it started. Or even before it started at all.
How about having everyone come to a meeting inside the Crime Lord's hideout unarmed, with John Wayne and Keanu Reeves (GMs in disguise) guarding the entrance?
For what? To have players there? Also a GM can only overwatch so-and-so many players. It's fiddle-work to check everyones inventory for explosives and other weapons. A mass of players can't be hold back by a GM.
Tell me how much real world money are you willing to bet and I'll take your odds any
How much will you bet? I am tensed to see how the outcome in your FOnline game will be.
I wasn't aware you wanted me to go into such details.
Of course I wanted, that's what all the fuzz is about. Talking about loose things is like talking about nothing. Getting straight points is what matters. You write about this and that and the other thing needs to be like this and that and the other thing. But you never have been specific. Your nice list a few posts ago about what to do (1. think about something not complex, 2. keep it simple. ...) is something my 2 years old nephew can come up with. It's common sense and therefore not helpfull in this discussion.
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Forum post:
- indication of a rumour of a group of treasure hunters setting of to get a weapons cache with hi-tech stuff
- the group got ambushed at the site by Nasty Robots, they're working at the base mainframe to turn them off
- there's a Mysterious Dude having remote access codes to Nasty Robots' mainframe scheduled to arrive somewhere in the NCR
- the scenario starts at 2.14.2011 GMT 18.00
Carrying it out:
- spawn some nice weapons and a few human NPCs at low level mariposa
- spawn some Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance
- have a GM masquerade as one of the Nasty Robots at mariposa entrance, make him airstrike the shit out of anyone willing to force his way in
- have a GM masquerade as The Mysterious Dude in the NCR, make him roleplay, he wants 10k caps for access code card, radio frequency to transmit them to Nasty Robot GM (so he doesn't airstrike the Chosen Group) and a password
- the group has the code, transmits it - but whoops, the trapped bounty hunters screwed something up, the airstrike bot-GM is out of the picture but the remaining Nasty Robot critters are still in place and the mainframe is sending information about defences being deactivated on all frequencies (server announcement, perhaps a few times)
- the group that got to the Mysterious Dude first has a headstart, but at that very moment every single wasteland faction is hell bent on getting to mariposa as fast as possible
- they probably go in, defeat the Nasty Robots and get their hands on their equipment
... and from now on god knows what happens next. Probably there's a series of ambushes, a lot of confusion and most likely everybody has a chance to take a shot at the reward. Hell, even a loner might sneak in and snatch a gun or two. Everything's done using same mechanics as the notorious Zombie Defence events, a forum post and some basic roleplaying.
its the part which Id comment as being made by cpt. Obvious the most, I can get myself shocked enough thats the one you like the most.
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So lining up to get them into the building is "following a specific chain of pre-designed actions in an open environment" ... tell me, how should we get them in the building? Teleporting everyone in one-by-one, so they stop bombing up the folks?
Either accepting the bombings or realizing that having such an event run undisturbed is impossible would be a feasible conclusion.
Wow, sounds cool! What to sell? Everyone has everything? Giving out power armors? How cheap...
How about buying a daughter of an NCR diplomat captured by raiders in order to later use her to blackmail him to gain leverage on the NCR Rangers GM-led faction? Have you ever ran a real life RPG session? You seem to be lacking interesting ideas as far as creating or modifying narrative is concerned.
For what? To have players there?
Let's see... they could be trying to convince him to let them guard Mordino's copious jet transport scheduled to hit the streets in Reno? Some of them may be trying to earn some caps to buy muties for TC, some might want to double-cross the mafia and hit the stash themselves while others might've been coerced by VC representatives to hand it all over to them in return for a temporary cease-fire in TC.
How much will you bet? I am tensed to see how the outcome in your FOnline game will be.
Weren't we supposed to bet on me creating an in-game situation during an event where fighting wouldn't be an advantageous option (or wouldn't even be involved for that matter)?
Of course I wanted, that's what all the fuzz is about. Talking about loose things is like talking about nothing. Getting straight points is what matters. You write about this and that and the other thing needs to be like this and that and the other thing. But you never have been specific. Your nice list a few posts ago about what to do (1. think about something not complex, 2. keep it simple. ...) is something my 2 years old nephew can come up with. It's common sense and therefore not helpfull in this discussion.
So you want me to write event scenarios? Because that's what you end up asking me for if I am to get any more specific. Same with NPC-based GM-led factions - you want me to select the candidates and make faction rewards lists? Because again, that's what's left if I were to get into more detail - and doing that would be pointless if you disagreed with the very idea of having GM-led player based representations of NPC factions in the first place.
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i see that Lexx and Nice_Boat is going on really huge offtopic . . . cant you argue on PM? its Suggestions...
about Town Control its true that big gangs (with very experienced players) will always lead city. Why? i think that its all about how easy is to get good stuff on low level (crafting , vs encounters , bank interest). Make items harder to obtain so maybe then gangs wont use best stuff at town control.
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You seem to be lacking interesting ideas as far as creating or modifying narrative is concerned.
I asked *you* to give examples. Cool that you rotate it into this direction.
How about buying a daughter of an NCR diplomat captured by raiders in order to later use her to blackmail him to gain leverage on the NCR Rangers GM-led faction?
What happens if players kill her 5 minutes after the event started? You stop everything? Either way, it sounds like it would end soon after into a shootout once again.
So you want me to write event scenarios? Because that's what you end up asking me for if I am to get any more specific.
Exactly. I want to see your perfect ideas that will not end in a mess.
you want me to select the candidates and make faction rewards lists?
No, I wanted you to explain the "system of rewards" because right now it's just that: Fancy words.
and doing that would be pointless if you disagreed with the very idea of having GM-led player based representations of NPC factions in the first place.
Surprise, surprise: I never said nor wrote anything like that. In fact, I only wrote this:
GM controlled factions are planned since the very first day. So far it has not been possible due to the lack of various other prerequisites.
I didn't even wrote what these prerequisites are. Though it didn't stopped you to shot it down with this:
GM controlled/supported factions is a concept, not a game mechanic.
Never did I wrote anywhere that I dislike or am against Faction Masters (yes, FMs and not GMs, as it's written in my about 2 years old text file) who take control over various parts of a faction in combination with players to play through various scenarios.
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What happens if players kill her 5 minutes after the event started? You stop everything? Either way, it sounds like it would end soon after into a shootout once again.
Why would they kill her if they could exchange her for a load of caps or having a meaningful faction do what they want? There are numerous ways of staging it so that a shootout wouldn't be probable (ie. advantageous to anyone involved). And even if they killed her, there would be consequences like having the NCR Ranger faction hell-bent on killing them, the NCR event characters refusing to deal with them et cetera. The point is that such events shouldn't be like single adventures in pen and paper RPG terms but more like a persistent campaign that lasts until the wipe with every action players undertake having serious long term consequences as far as politics are concerned.
Exactly. I want to see your perfect ideas that will not end in a mess.
So you've seen a few, the point is avoiding a mess is doable if you give people something worthy of their trouble and requiring peaceful action instead of going in guns blazing.
No, I wanted you to explain the "system of rewards" because right now it's just that: Fancy words.
FMs (I like this term so I'm going to use it from now on) would give out 8 tier 4 items fitting their faction (PA, APA, Pulse guns, Gauss Rifles/pistols, Vindicators) with a limited supply of ammo every month. They'd distribute it among faction members. If a faction becomes too wealthy, they receive no further supplies (easy since it's not scripted but based on item spawning). To keep wasteland from overflowing with tier 4 items they should have severe repair restrictions (ie. repairable only at faction NPCs or having a limit of one or two repairs before becoming broken beyond repair).
Never did I wrote anywhere that I dislike or am against Faction Masters (yes, FMs and not GMs, as it's written in my about 2 years old text file) who take control over various parts of a faction in combination with players to play through various scenarios.
So what's standing between you and bringing new faction names and FMs in right now? All you really need is designating correct people to lead them, giving them some time to organize and setting up their bases (as I've said, as faction terminals at places like Navarro or the NCR would require some work normal faction bases would make bearable replacements with some bullshit background story about going undercover or something like that). It'd actually help a great deal in balancing it out if we had a trial run at the end of a session, especially since people seem to be a bit bored and there's probably going to be no major TC fighting until the wipe.
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Why would they kill her if they could exchange her for a load of caps or having a meaningful faction do what they want? There are numerous ways of staging it so that a shootout wouldn't be probable (ie. advantageous to anyone involved). And even if they killed her, there would be consequences like having the NCR Ranger faction hell-bent on killing them, the NCR event characters refusing to deal with them et cetera. The point is that such events shouldn't be like single adventures in pen and paper RPG terms but more like a persistent campaign that lasts until the wipe with every action players undertake having serious long term consequences as far as politics are concerned.
For tah lulz! Or just to grief... maybe for science - lets chceck if her skin can resist explosion blast! Oh well... Just for lulz! xaxaxa
Consequences? Well... should I make new alt? Oh well... I dont like age... or maybe sex of current one(s)...
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For tah lulz! Or just to grief... maybe for science - lets chceck if her skin can resist explosion blast! Oh well... Just for lulz! xaxaxa
Consequences? Well... should I make new alt? Oh well... I dont like age... or maybe sex of current one(s)...
Does making a new alt affect how your faction is perceived by other player factions? Don't think so. Then maybe it's preventing other players from recognizing who you are? Most of the time - nope, and keeping a low profile is a royal pain in the ass since it strips you out of your player-to-player reputation. And well, if you want to make life on this server miserable for you and your group - by all means, be allowed to do so. You can try creating an alt identity complete with a different IRC and forum profile later if that comes around and bites you in the ass... but I wouldn't expect people to actually try that. The point is alting works for bypassing mechanical consequences, it doesn't work for bypassing your standing with other players (in this case, FMs and GMs acting as various independent characters). In our example, killing the diplomat's daughter would work more or less like cheating in a trade transaction with another player - yeah, you get all the kicks and giggles for screwing someone over, but nobody is going to do business with you in the future and you will receive nearly universal contempt. Need a rationale for treating every alt like the character that made the crime for the narrative purposes? Call it a vendetta and treat them as a family. That's more or less how it works with the gangs anyway.
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I think both Lexx and Nice_Boat have right, even if it sounds weird.
With community we have there's hard to start an interesting event, where at least 1/3 of participants wants to troll, write "Izual fag!!11 xd" or smash random people with SMG. However not much is needed to run a fight club for example - a good spot (I miss a peaceful cellar in Boneyard), unarmed chars and few apes with guns as security. And yeah, shot down anyone who obviously doesn't want to participate. GM could jail all dumbasses, again and again, and again, it's a matter of one click and put a name into a pop-up window (transit to map -> *poof*, magic done). Even the most retarded dude will sooner or later stop coming to ruin someone's fun if his char gets jailed every time.
What I really miss in player-running-events is lack of useful GM tools, like respawning dead players, setting spawn next corner instead of somewhere on the desert, spawning items out of air (most of prizes in our events were crafted/bought/stolen/whatever, what takes time). Special thanks to Samira, she helped us many times during our noob fun.
we cant start anything becouse we cant even get a name for our projects, which are supose to be related to tc. every free gang names has taken or inappropriate.
Yeah yeah, I've heard that pathetic line already. You cannot into roleplay because you don't have "Gay Niggers From Outer Space" faction name. Lame excuse, but I can't expect a lot from an ape.
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Yeah yeah, I've heard that pathetic line already. You cannot into roleplay because you don't have "Gay Niggers From Outer Space" faction name. Lame excuse, but I can't expect a lot from an ape.
haha, excusme mr roleplayer - that was an attempt to offend me ? i really expected something more form a court jester.
ok, without any flame - looks like you still dont get what is all about, actually i can help you.. in polish language. i dont really want pretend to speak english, becouse i dont.
maybe you funny traveling theatre troupe can do something more then using sience or some expensive items, giving cars or organising 'fight club' for 10 players.. try organise something for 80 'pvp appes' - this is real challenge
its so fucking hilarious to read gm's / 'roleplayers' whining about community! yes its community fault! haha, why we have such community? ofcourse becouse of gameplay / mechanic a inefficient gm's. please tell me im wrong! ;)
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why we have such community? ofcourse becouse of gameplay / mechanic a inefficient gm's. please tell me im wrong! ;)
You are wrong. ;)
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Does making a new alt affect how your faction is perceived by other player factions? Don't think so. Then maybe it's preventing other players from recognizing who you are? Most of the time - nope, and keeping a low profile is a royal pain in the ass since it strips you out of your player-to-player reputation. And well, if you want to make life on this server miserable for you and your group - by all means, be allowed to do so. You can try creating an alt identity complete with a different IRC and forum profile later if that comes around and bites you in the ass... but I wouldn't expect people to actually try that. The point is alting works for bypassing mechanical consequences, it doesn't work for bypassing your standing with other players (in this case, FMs and GMs acting as various independent characters). In our example, killing the diplomat's daughter would work more or less like cheating in a trade transaction with another player - yeah, you get all the kicks and giggles for screwing someone over, but nobody is going to do business with you in the future and you will receive nearly universal contempt. Need a rationale for treating every alt like the character that made the crime for the narrative purposes? Call it a vendetta and treat them as a family. That's more or less how it works with the gangs anyway.
For me it sounds like basics are wrong. We need anti-alt account system. Something that would say account Account of mr. Johnny which have 3 characters and every one of them belong to one faction. If he screws something up, hes reputation as a player not a character goes down and with him whole faction looks bad. From what I heard account system is in development so... In devs we trust. I'm looking forward to this.
...try organise something for 80 'pvp appes' - this is real challenge
So bigger = better? And by orgnise You mean throw guns in and let them kill eachother?
You are wrong. ;)
That's not enough. Write why he is. :P because I think he is at least partially right.
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You are wrong. ;)
No, but he's right to a large extent. There are hardcore trolls in this community, yes, but the vast majority of PvP apes would participate in a persistent, story based campaign based around faction activity. In fact, they already do - just look at all the diplomacy, alliances, propaganda, ideological explanations for some actions etc. Contrary to popular belief, a PvP ape is the most creative sort of player as he is competing against other players instead of NPCs or a predesigned rail-like story, hence he is required to jump through the highest hoops. The point is a lot of this creativity is currently wasted because there is absolutely no effort to offer those players some narrative aside from their own - a problem that would be overcome if Faction Masters and faction events chained into some sort of a campaign were introduced.
For me it sounds like basics are wrong. We need anti-alt account system. Something that would say account Account of mr. Johnny which have 3 characters and every one of them belong to one faction. If he screws something up, hes reputation as a player not a character goes down and with him whole faction looks bad. From what I heard account system is in development so... In devs we trust. I'm looking forward to this.
Well yeah, but... no ;D I mean anti-alt would be great, but stuff like FM factions and faction events can be done without it being in place. Actually in player on player interaction, aside from TC combat, alting is not a problem for the reasons mentioned above - players act on their own reputation and their own personality, not on the "reputation" of their alt.
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Well yeah, but... no ;D I mean anti-alt would be great, but stuff like FM factions and faction events can be done without it being in place. Actually in player on player interaction, aside from TC combat, alting is not a problem for the reasons mentioned above - players act on their own reputation and their own personality, not on the "reputation" of their alt.
Yup! Player works for hes own but You can become another "player" just by few clicks. You can have two alts: Troll character - happy suicide bomber and Serious RPG char/Serious PvP char - which is officially used by this one certain player so we Know that Vilaz = Joggler (some trader from North) AND Vilaz = Broken (This asshole with bb gun and mauser who break bones all around wasteland). Both of them should work on Your (player) reputation not only mr.GoodGuy (RPG)/mr.Dread&Doom (PvP)
Damn... it's whole duality of FOnline (ying&yang) ...where was my point? Nah... nevermind I'm going back to books :>
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Read the whole thread (skipped nonsense egoOT).
Boat are you sure GM is absolutely required to make players roleplay? Can't the mechanics just encourage players into such activity that even when they are powergaming to the fullest, they still look like being part of the wasteland, roleplaying without actually knowing it. You can't force players into thinking along with the fallout storyline but you can encourage them to look like they are part of it.
Setting a simple goal required for everyone would be a start. You can't get players motivated if they don't really need anything. You told that players should be rewarded with cool hightech stuff. No APA or gauss will make someone move his ass if he's not interested in pvp related stuff or even fighting, we got such players and it's not a sin to hate fighting. It's actually more credible behaviour than desiring to fight all the time.
Basically everything is explained here (http://fodev.net/forum/index.php?topic=11392.0). It has some stuff to read but I read your texts so you owe me 8)
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Read the whole thread (skipped nonsense egoOT).
Boat are you sure GM is absolutely required to make players roleplay? Can't the mechanics just encourage players into such activity that even when they are powergaming to the fullest, they still look like being part of the wasteland, roleplaying without actually knowing it. You can't force players into thinking along with the fallout storyline but you can encourage them to look like they are part of it.
The point about "roleplaying even when powergaming to the fullest" is a valid one and I agree with all my heart. Actually, that's about the only thing you can do in an open server with no rules as far as code of conduct or behaving out of character is concerned. The problem is no ammount of mechanics is going to force that, because acting like a person inhabiting the game world instead of acting like an efficient killing/crafting machine is something quite separate from them. I mean yeah, you can introduce the necessity to fulfill some mechanical goals like getting water, food, even more complicated stuff - but at the end of the day it results in people doing it in the most efficient way possible, avoiding interaction with each other because everyone is a potential threat to everyone else. You had examples of how it plays out in crafting, in mining, in doing NPC quests.
I would say that what makes a person roleplay is not a set of elaborate mechanics, but rather players interacting with other players outside of combat. Right now the only incentives to act like that in macro scale are trade and gang politics. Both have their own "narrative" - trade has people with established reputation, good buyers, good suppliers - it's almost like a meta-community. TC politics are the heart of this server right now and their narrative is even more complicated - you have people doublecrossing each other, people compromising over alliances, uneasy truces, espionage, propaganda, well-known fighters, even a bit of spontaneous artwork - generally good, very creative stuff. That's about as good as roleplaying without GMs is going to get - and some people might say that it's good enough.
The problem here, however, is the lack of a storyline. Gangs, despite all the complexity of TC politics, work to fulfill a set of repetitive goals - take control of the towns, win some battles, gain prestige, make propaganda, recruit more people, take care of the supplies, rinse and repeat. It's all being done in a mechanical manner because TC itself is a simple script mechanism lacking any real context except some aniomosity and sympathies forged in the community during months of gameplay. You can't really accuse people of acting in a robotic manner if all they're doing is adapting to a clockwork-like mechanism. The only moment this cycle stops on its own for a while is immediately after the wipe, when people have to do something a bit different and not as repetitive to set their powerbase up (and unsurprisingly, most players consider the beginning of every 2238 session the best part of the overall experience).
Introducing NPC-based FM factions with goals differing from all the "standard" gangs is basically breaking up the circle. Suddenly, normal gangs have to start taking the NCR or the Enclave very seriously, because they have the potential to influence their standing. And if NCR and the Enclave are acting more or less in accordance with Fallout lore, they force other players to act like inhabitants of the Fallout world by the very virtue of their existence. If you add gang-related events that have the potential to make a serious impact on the balance of power, the gap between cost-effectiveness of taking robotic action and acting like a wastelander widens even more. And if you coordinate the events and the Faction Masters' goals to link everything into a partially self-writing, partially prescheduled narrative, players stop acting and thinking like robots when playing the game altogether and start acting and thinking like people inhabiting the wastes, just because it gives them more power inside the gameworld. Furthermore, when the narrative is well written and the events and factions' reactions keep being surprising, unpredictable and fresh, every gaming day becomes as exciting as the post-wipe day, or even better.
Setting a simple goal required for everyone would be a start. You can't get players motivated if they don't really need anything. You told that players should be rewarded with cool hightech stuff. No APA or gauss will make someone move his ass if he's not interested in pvp related stuff or even fighting, we got such players and it's not a sin to hate fighting. It's actually more credible behaviour than desiring to fight all the time.
Agreed, and that's why faction-related storylines should include politics, trade, persuasion etc... and for players who are not interested in gangs, people like Surf-Solar could carry on with doing their thing, creating small events and breaking up the monothony of day-to-day wasteland experience. The problem of a lack of narrative and robotic nature of the game is equally familiar to loners and gangs, the difference being that you can make all the gangs participate in a TC related storyline while it'd be impossible to create a persistent narrative for loners (every few guys would have to have their own GM which in all honesty would be nuts).
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looks like you still dont get what is all about, actually i can help you.. in polish language.
I'm waiting, because you are right - I still don't get your whining about faction name that is oh-so-needed for you.
It's not the first time I'm asking you about it and not the first time you promise me to explain, then do nothing. But, like I said - I can't expect much :>
maybe you funny traveling theatre troupe can do something more then using sience or some expensive items, giving cars or organising 'fight club' for 10 players.. try organise something for 80 'pvp appes' - this is real challenge
In fact, Mr Ape, me and my noobs do something, more or less interesting or fun. We organised "Rescue princess Miriam" small event in our bunker, for 16 or 17 apes and 7 bunker defenders - I give you numbers, because you seem to like them. It was bad prepared, especially the balance of sides, my fault, but as you can see we've tried and did something. However I understand you don't know about it - you personal are not welcomed on any our "event", even the trees chopping competition if we ever do such thing.
What happened with famous Broken Hills Roleplay Project you were involved? Please, don't start this "we need faction name and goddamn devs don't give it to us" shit again here. What was the real cause? Boredom? Other apes?
How to make Teh Ape Event in few steps:
- send global message "cum to V15 naked"
- spawn in hidden location 100 armors, 200 guns, 10000 ammo
- teleport all from V15 to hidden location
- wait 15 minutes
- airstrike hidden location
- send global message "thank you for participating, come again"
Background? Storyline? Who cares about reading anyway.
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I mean yeah, you can introduce the necessity to fulfill some mechanical goals like getting water, food, even more complicated stuff - but at the end of the day it results in people doing it in the most efficient way possible, avoiding interaction with each other because everyone is a potential threat to everyone else. You had examples of how it plays out in crafting, in mining, in doing NPC quests.
The important part of this necessity is that it has to come in par with npc factions and town control. You get water from either npc factions which means you have to obey their rules or from unsafe towns by conquering.
TC is already "balanced" in a way, because it's related what players do to each other so last thing remaining is to decide how npc faction reputation is achieved to maintain water supply.
I would say that what makes a person roleplay is not a set of elaborate mechanics, but rather players interacting with other players outside of combat. Right now the only incentives to act like that in macro scale are trade and gang politics. Both have their own "narrative" - trade has people with established reputation, good buyers, good suppliers - it's almost like a meta-community. TC politics are the heart of this server right now and their narrative is even more complicated - you have people doublecrossing each other, people compromising over alliances, uneasy truces, espionage, propaganda, well-known fighters, even a bit of spontaneous artwork - generally good, very creative stuff. That's about as good as roleplaying without GMs is going to get - and some people might say that it's good enough.
However too much of this happens outside the game world. In addition lots of this happen out of player's own initiative rather than ingame necessity. Players trade out of boredom. Having a constant goal to fuel the interaction wouldn't be bad.
The problem here, however, is the lack of a storyline. Gangs, despite all the complexity of TC politics, work to fulfill a set of repetitive goals - take control of the towns, win some battles, gain prestige, make propaganda, recruit more people, take care of the supplies, rinse and repeat. It's all being done in a mechanical manner because TC itself is a simple script mechanism lacking any real context except some aniomosity and sympathies forged in the community during months of gameplay. You can't really accuse people of acting in a robotic manner if all they're doing is adapting to a clockwork-like mechanism.
Storyline: "survive" should be all thats needed. Having some ever-present menace (dehydration) lurking behind should keep everyone at their toes and constantly looking for ways to keep it away. TC is already player interaction, so there'd have to be a way to increase rep with npc factions only via team work with the other members. This way we have constant player interaction fuelled by game mechanic.
A simple quest example to receive rep in ncr: scout unsafe location x. Come back alive. If a tagged group receives the quest, only one needs to return alive. The location could be either unsafe gathering place or a location where enemy faction can perform a similar quest.
Introducing NPC-based FM factions with goals differing from all the "standard" gangs is basically breaking up the circle. Suddenly, normal gangs have to start taking the NCR or the Enclave very seriously, because they have the potential to influence their standing. And if NCR and the Enclave are acting more or less in accordance with Fallout lore, they force other players to act like inhabitants of the Fallout world by the very virtue of their existence. If you add gang-related events that have the potential to make a serious impact on the balance of power, the gap between cost-effectiveness of taking robotic action and acting like a wastelander widens even more. And if you coordinate the events and the Faction Masters' goals to link everything into a partially self-writing, partially prescheduled narrative, players stop acting and thinking like robots when playing the game altogether and start acting and thinking like people inhabiting the wastes, just because it gives them more power inside the gameworld. Furthermore, when the narrative is well written and the events and factions' reactions keep being surprising, unpredictable and fresh, every gaming day becomes as exciting as the post-wipe day, or even better.
It is doubtful if you can force someone to do something in fonline. Players are immune to basically all natural threats like fear of death so it's hard to force them to act naturally.
This demands lot of work and interest from the narrative writer. It'd obviously be totally awesome if it worked. Having a gm to keep up our interest is unreliable but provides excitement in burst-manner. However mechanical encouragement offers long-term, reliable and constant motivation. Then again they don't capsize each other.
Agreed, and that's why faction-related storylines should include politics, trade, persuasion etc... and for players who are not interested in gangs, people like Surf-Solar could carry on with doing their thing, creating small events and breaking up the monothony of day-to-day wasteland experience. The problem of a lack of narrative and robotic nature of the game is equally familiar to loners and gangs, the difference being that you can make all the gangs participate in a TC related storyline while it'd be impossible to create a persistent narrative for loners (every few guys would have to have their own GM which in all honesty would be nuts).
What's still problematic with these storylines and background story based encouragements is that they don't necessarily barge in your tent and demand you to do something. I've never participated in an event because they are out of the gameworld occasions.
An ever present common goal could work as global balancer for player activity. There's got to be something that basically everything you do boils down to. Currently players reason their actions with real world excuses like excitement and the lulz. However the reasons for actions have to result from ingame encouragements like maintaining water supply.
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I got into the discussion late but I really like the dynamic world events idea and implementation of more NPC faction action. If chucklehead 1 goes to NCR and acts like a total fuckass, then its logical that NCR gets annoyed. If mad enough (obviously violence will be the thing here), they will only need to KO chucklehead 1 and proceed to "interrogate" him. Thus his base location is revealed and NCR raids the shit out of it. With GM control, idiots in the wastes will realise that complete dumbassness will not be tolerated by the major powers and result in severe reprisals.
I have also suggested a "battlegrounds" type setup where their is persistent and dynamic fighting happening between major powers with players either joining factions for specific and "bind on equip" gear. Players can also choose to stay out of allegiances and hire themselves out as mercs and get completely different rewards.
In the end, its the devs who will ultimately decide whether they will keep the violence for the lulz system in place with max player base of around 400 ish or stop all the idiocy and give players an alternative to "shoot for da lulz".
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or stop all the idiocy and give players an alternative to "shoot for da lulz".
You do know that it takes time to develop content?
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Hmm... I think that it would be good, when the NPC factions enter the game, if player factions had ability to control some places/valubles. Like Jet maker in Reno. Mines in Redding, or slavery (and i bet a lot more can be easly figured out). The places/valubles that NPC factions need. So, there they can start trading with those valubles with NPC factions. Maybe its a lot better way to "make caps" then controlling poor towns in north (i still dont think north towns should give so much profit, it doesint really make sense that such poor towns make any profit, unless they trade with NPC factions, and to trade with them some good relation must be present?) Well, some thoughts before i acually see how it will work.
For exemple, Fight for Power Plant in Gecko. Power Plant access could give ability to negotiation power supply to VC (VC could agree or not agree, depends on the price, and the gang, VC leader would try to act as roleplay). But first what is needed in my opinion is to making it harder for a gang to control whole north. I mean, a gang with 40 members against a gang with 20 members. Gang with 40 members should have control over more towns then 20 member gang. howver they should not control all, and gang with 20 none. Right now it is: The bigger gang wins one fight and then wins ALL towns very often, in other words, one gang gains advantage and dominates for moment and gets all town, then the other gangs gain advantage and takes all towns back, its like ONE fight for all towns all the time.