AOC - General Information

[Pyksel]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Old Fart

You and I have certainly played enough PvP MMOs to know, I'm sure, that this just plain won't work. Once the first batch of no-lifers/jobbers get to 80, leveling up is going to be so immensely stupid that these PvP servers will become ghost towns. You can promote some "bounty" system all year long, but I think most people on this forum know in their heart that it's going to be a disaster after 1-2 months unless this is changed.

And what's to stop the "uber" guild (of asshole PvP kiddies, of course) from placing huge "bounties" on anybody they don't like, thereby running all of FunCom's subscribers away from their game at top speed? This can't possibly be the way FunCom really intended to release this game.

See you on the "unofficial Role Playing server" a month after release, after you've been perma-ganked and perma-pissed on your treasured "FFA PvP server".

I certainly share the same skepticsm that you express GOF, perhaps shedding a bit of light on the developer intentions for bounties might provide a bit of hope to some of the concerns that you, I, and others have.

*note* Once the AoC forums are back up I will cite the specific source this came from, but rest assured it was from one of the devs (LordOrion I believe).

bounties:
While PvP is not allowed in the safe areas there is no reason PvE cant be allowed. Using the bounty idea posted perhaps griefers and the like through some mechanism could run to the safety of town and still have consequences for their actions.

The payback wouldnt be by the players directly but by NPC's

So lets pretend I have a perfect system designed so that placing bounties on people isnt exploited and only true griefers and not PvPers are getting bounties.

When the griefer goes to a safe area he is still holding a flag on his character saying he is wanted. A group of armed NPCs approaches the character and states that he is wanted for crimes committed and a bounty lies on his head for X amount. If he tries to run or do anything the NPCs attack him. Maybe he can win, maybe he cant it could be based off the size of the bounty how many people come after him. Or perhaps you could bribe your way out of the bounty by paying the bounty + an additional amount. (This could get harder also as you had a bigger bounty)

So I get upset with some guy and decide to gank him, I do so when he is fighting a mob and I am way higher level so I am eligible for a bounty. The guy puts a bounty on me of 50 gold and I run off to town. 3 NPCs approach me and I think I know I cant take them and that I dont want to have them keep coming after me so I try to bribe them. I spend 65 of my own gold to buy them off.

Now I have been killing a lot of people and I have built up a 5000 gold bounty. I run into town and a large group of 10 armed soldiers comes looking for me. No way I can fight them but to bribe them would be 8000 gold way more than I have. So they drag me off to jail or kill me. And maybe they loot the items the same as someone would in PvP

Of course this is a pretty complex way of dealing with it, you can just wait for the guy to leave safety and get him then too
At this time I do not want players to be able to collect the bounties because it opens a world of exploits.

The purpose of the bounty system is to remove the safety of safe areas of the game for those who are found to be guilty of crimes against society.

What people are saying and I tend to agree is a completely open FFA system would make too much of the world defined by the players. I can see how that could be true and in order to grasp REH world would require a ton of rules for factions and guards and assassins etc.
The bounty system I propose is not a Pvp Bounty. That can be worked out by the players no reason for us to code it. The bounty system I am working on is one that allows griefed people to put bounties on the griefer and remove the safe areas of the game for the griefer until they pay for their crimes.

I don't necessarily agree that this is the best approach to alleviate perma-ganking, but I do feel as though the developers are looking at the issues from a unique vantage point instead of letting the players direct how it is run.

[Wilfan]

It's going to be real fun suiciding lowbie alts into people farming with area effect spells/abilities.

[Darph]

Bought a FP sub, got key thingy... Wonder if this downloader will ever let me download..

[The Hiram Key]

"What's that Lassie ? Funcom has fallen down the ole well again ??"

[matmanx2]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

"What's that Lassie ? Funcom has fallen down the ole well again ??"

And by that you mean that you are expecting a total disaster of a launch? Well, it's certainly within the realm of possibility. Funcom's track record for this sort of thing isnt good and an MMO is probably the hardest product to try and launch successfully in all of entertainment.

I am encouraged by what I played during the PVP weekend, however. I suffered no crashes and the game ran and looked good. If the launch can meet or exceed that level of quality with the rest of the levels in there then I am happy.

[Tolanin]

Ok i got the opportunity to play finally and i gotta say i was impressed.

Performance was reasonably good on my q6600 and 8800gts(non g92 version) i was getting 35ish fps in the city with a few other players around on medium settings (still looked really good) It stuttered once in awhile but nothing bad, no worse than the stutters in most games.

The starting quests are honestly the best i have ever seen, they beat wow easily. Dunno much beyond the starting quests but that alone is gonna pull alot of people deeper into the game imo.

Those were my biggest fears really, on older hardware it might be worse but this is no where near so bad as vanguard was in terms of performance.

Now my biggest fear is gonna be whether pvp drives to many people off, i hope not and i hope they explain it well enough that people realize pve servers still have border pvp.. at worst i think we will end up with a EQ style split where there are some pvp servers but way way more pve servers... but maybe it wont be tht bad.

[Snugglebear]

Originally Posted by Tolanin

Ok i got the opportunity to play finally and i gotta say i was impressed.

Performance was reasonably good on my q6600 and 8800gts(non g92 version) i was getting 35ish fps in the city with a few other players around on medium settings (still looked really good) It stuttered once in awhile but nothing bad, no worse than the stutters in most games.

The starting quests are honestly the best i have ever seen, they beat wow easily. Dunno much beyond the starting quests but that alone is gonna pull alot of people deeper into the game imo.

Those were my biggest fears really, on older hardware it might be worse but this is no where near so bad as vanguard was in terms of performance.

Now my biggest fear is gonna be whether pvp drives to many people off, i hope not and i hope they explain it well enough that people realize pve servers still have border pvp.. at worst i think we will end up with a EQ style split where there are some pvp servers but way way more pve servers... but maybe it wont be tht bad.

A better starter quest than the orc "whip those lazy peons!" starter quest? GTFO.

[Draegan]

You save a whore who you have to escort to the city. In the mean time she follows you around and claps and squeals in delight when you kill mobs.

[Hasto]

That is pretty awesome. Can you give her a golden shower?

[Snugglebear]

Golden shower would seal the deal, indeed.

[Kodylan]

Wait until you see the next quest she's involved in later on in Tortage.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Kodylan

Wait until you see the next quest she's involved in later on in Tortage.

I don't think it's as good. But it's cool.

[spronk]

interesting, the beta servers are being moved today from East coast USA to Europe. Wonder why? I really, really hope they are not going to coloc all their servers in Europe.

[Tolanin]

Originally Posted by spronk

interesting, the beta servers are being moved today from East coast USA to Europe. Wonder why? I really, really hope they are not going to coloc all their servers in Europe.

only thing i could think of was they want to use those us servers for open beta but i dunno.

[DMyst]

Does that mean all the servers for open beta will be in Europe? None in the US?

Aren't most of their player base going to be in the US?