H1Z1 (Not actually an MMO) - Server: Antidote (info in first post)

This game is targeted at those who like dayz type games. There are plenty of care bear zombie games out there for those who don't.

vynde_sl said:

Since Smed is still taking suggestions, I played SWG for years (PRE-NGE) and I loved the pvp flagging system. You could've been neutral, covert under a faction of your choice, or overt under a faction. You were flagged for pvp/attacks from other players/faction npcs when you were overt OR when an NPC (Stormtroopers) stopped-and-frisked you and found out you were from the opposing faction. Under this system crafters/entertainers/etc didn't really need to join a faction and could play the game in peace and it wasn't a huge gank fest.

Click to expand...

I loved SWG. Did more crafting and exploring than fighting but did get into it some. Dont think Smed has other things in mind from SWG but the crafting.

For the others:
Full PVP all you want, but Flight nailed is pretty good. I get that some LOVE the pvp. But without the 80% playerbase to help support the game, its just another Planetside/FPS FFA with zombie trash in the way.

The problem with free PVP, no system of regulation and punishment. You can just respawn and rebuild or shoot someone to take their stuff. Which is what all this will be. Darkfall is a perfect game that mimics this problem. If you just repoly/skin the mobs, landscape it would be this. How well it is doing now a days?

There will be a pull, the CounterStrike and Battlefield players will dig this but I just dont see it making it big cash wise for SOE untill they have a good setup to counter asshats and give the carebear crowd a semi safe sandbox!

Apparently those that think the player base is going to shrink quickly havent been paying attention to the popular games of the day. People are not quitting Dayz in disgust after they lose hours of their time, they are quitting mainly due to lack of content in the stand alone client if at all. If this game has even the same amount of content DayZ epoch mod had 4 months ago, but with a less shitty UI, you'll see a huge surge of players swapping over to this.

I think the main problem for you folks is that you see SWG player towns and only focus on that. This is going to be a DayZ MMO because SoE saw how well that game and Rust were doing. The player towns and crafting is the content to keep the people that like this genre of game around. DayZ and Rust have been top sellers for months at this point. There is alot of money to be made in this mixed genre if done right.

Valos_sl said:

Apparently those that think the player base is going to shrink quickly havent been paying attention to the popular games of the day. People are not quitting Dayz in disgust after they lose hours of their time, they are quitting mainly due to lack of content in the stand alone client if at all.

Click to expand...

No one said the player base will shrink quickly. In fact the only thing that was said was that it wouldn't happen straight away.

As for not paying attention I'd guess most if not nearly all of us have played Dayz. So we all know the strengths and short comings of this type of game.

Valos_sl said:

There is alot of money to be made in this mixed genre if done right.

Click to expand...

This is a generic statement that many people make that generally means 'I conceive the majority of potential players as wanting the same things as me and if this game has the feature set I want it's 'done right'.

You carry on this disconnect by creating a 'you folks' and then further assign to 'them' misconceptions about ignoring aspects of the game.



The truth is it's not just care bears vrs l33t pwners. We've all played multiple examples of the varying genres under assessment. The bottom line is there is a minority (usually very vocal) who are all about ganking and griefing and a minority (usually very vocal) who are 'care bear' and the majority falling in the middle who like to have risk vrs reward and consequences for actions.


Those are the two principles that these games need to have at their foundations to have any longevity and to maintain a healthy player base :


i) risk vrs reward

ii) consequences for actions.


Gankers don't want consequences and care bears don't want risk (generalization).



So, yes, Dayz Z is missing some depth. But significantly it's missing consequences for actions as much as anything else to appeal to the majority of gamers, who are neither true care bears or true griefers.

If Smeds new game includes consequences for actions as well as adding depth to Dayzs ideas then it will be on to something. Dayz has some consequences in optional rules and flags which can be applied by server admins but in the majority of cases they don't work very well if at all. Maybe Smed can improve on Dayzs ideas here?

The challenge is that the deeper the non ganking elements are the more stringent the consequences need to be to balance the game. In the majority of cases in past games where ganking is present (UO, Darkfall, Salem etc) it largely relies on the length of time it can take to finish your character and then taking something away from it eg stat loss, perma death. If there are no skills or time invested in developing 'ganker' characters it gets so much harder to conceive let alone implement a system that will work. In the days of multiple accounts, multiple characters and proxy IPs one of the only consequence that has any weight is permanent character death.

At launch it's all new and shiny so the view exists that you can counter ganking by playing in guilds or groups. But there's actually little content in these games outside of mass pvp that encourages this and surveys have consistently shown that MMO players actually like to play something like 70% of their time solo.


In summary - as Dr Neir highlights above - there's a reason why no game has prospered since vanilla UO that satisfies the urges of gankers to go around pissing on other peoples day. Shocker ! Those games that have tried follow, almost without fail, the same timetable of moving from a healthy starting population to a small unhealthy population with gankers owning the forum and 'lol'ing at anyone that tries to discuss balancing systems. And inbetween they invariably have forums that follow the same pattern over time with the same types of individuals standing out.


At the end of the day considering the above there will probably be servers with rulesets that allow ganking and servers that don't. The probability is that :


i) Smed will fail to implement significant consequences to discourage griefing, and

ii) servers that don't allow griefing will prove more popular (over time) and have populations that are healthier and last longer.

If they are going with no lvls or skills to grind, at least give some form of punishment. One way to do this is to have an NPC faction that follows you in little ways with bonuses. Follow the thought for a sec.

As you adventure around you will have an NPC(s) that happens to run up to follow you like a pet. This NPC can be attacked by other NPC(s), zombies, environment and players. You can gain more and more NPC(s), but they watch you and can run off given your actions.

-Longer you have an NPC the better stuff you find, things work longer and you can stave off hunger without affecting your character.

-You can gain more NPC(s) but with a cap limit. This can be increased by having shelter, farms, stockyards, manufacturing/production, medical, actions and special NPC(s).

-Killing is harding to do, you can knock out someone if you wish to take their stuff instead of killing outright. You will have to do the same with their followers to get their stuff. Maybe not all player's NPC(s) will need to take out, some will submit or hide. But remember your NPC(s) will be watching you. Those that dont agree will run off, could stay behind to help the knocked out player and their followers or join them later.

-You can kill, much like SWG with walking up and deathblow but most of your NPC(s) will run from you unless this is a revenge kill from a repeated ganking. The majority of NPC(s) will not want to be with you for this action. Those that will and like you for it will also start attacking your own NPC(s) over time and limit your max cap potential, increase in hunger, things break faster, harder to find better stuff and will run off other followers.

-Being attacked from other players, NPC(s) can help in keeping your stuff safe. They could attack the other player, hide or be killed. At least 1 NPC(s) will live and run off, the attacker wont be able to kill that one NPC(s). If you die, all NPC(s) will run off and haunt the attacking player in small ways over time. They will show up randomly to that attackers group and poison the well. Causing their NPC(s) to end up leaving them or dropping their bonus lvls or helping in creating zombie training.

-Gankers who repeatedly attack the same person will be haunted longer and with more and more neg rating. Problems will start being an issue as the majority of the player's time will have to fight again the negative effects like more and more zombie trains, traps and hunger.

-In groups of players, the NPC(s) will react with each other. If you have a Ganker type in your group/Shelter/Base they will start affecting others NPC(s) that stay there the longer they are there.

-Gankers that want to change their ways will continue to keep getting random NPC(s) running up to them to join over time. They will need to either have gotten rid of their BAD NPC(s) or help in actions that make good NPC(s) happy.

-Being attacked allows for reaction but not deathblows. Even on Revenge action, deathblow will will have some consequences. Best to knockout.

-Shelters will also gain NPC(s) that will stay with it. These will have their own reactions and bonuses.


This is just a short list, nothing in detail but an overview. If they are wanting to storybrick everything they release from here out, this would be a good test!

Stopping ganking would be pretty easy, and won't require perma death.

Just give the zombies AI that includes:

1. We are highly attracted to groups of players who aren't behind permanent structures. The bigger the group, the more attractive.

2. We are attracted to players in the open who do not move for long periods of time. The longer they don't move, the more attractive.

3. We are attracted to groups of zombies.

Done and done. If you can't set up ambush opportunities, your ability to gank/grief is pretty limited.

The game requires some sort of progression, if something as simple as call of dutys weapon progression. Without a carrot on a stick the game is simply a fps game with a giant map. Hollow and boring.

The reality of the concept at this moment of info is youre going to spend at least 15 minutes running somewhere ,get shot in the head and repeat til you do the same to others. I cant see playing it for very long without something with more sustenance.

Flight_sl said:

ii) servers that don't allow griefing will prove more popular (over time) and have populations that are healthier and last longer.

Click to expand...

You've played DayZ, but maybe not Rust. Rust's pve servers are boring as fuck, mainly because once a group walls off their area there is nothing you can do to claim the resources they now control. You can add in decay of structures, but then you need to also add in a way to repair that decay. Then its a numbers game on how many of them can keep going with the upkeep. If you allow players to be able to destroy buildings but not kill people on those servers then you'll have folks that JUST fuck over your buildings. So how do you propose a persistent world handle folks that have already claimed all the prime areas/resources for themselves? Sure they might allow folks to join their community that's already built and existing, but far more people want to stake their own claim or have their own group of friends they are playing with. These are going to be persistent servers, with more then 50-100 people playing at once. I dont see them being the healthiest servers in the long run because a solid amount of players will see the server as full and turn around. Pve servers work "ok" when the servers are 50-100 people and are wiped every so often. But that does not a persistent world make.

As for Neir's suggestion of a negative debuff. Sounds like I can take my haunted ass and sit in someones town and have the hordes do my trolling for me. In fact that sounds hilarious and I would aim to get that sort of debuff going asap to break into peoples establishments with a giant horde of zombies coming for them every time I log in.

Wouldn't the players just kill you to stop the zombies?

Of course, but if there are hiding places then you can have some fun with it. Under a cover of darkness mixed with hordes of zombies at their walls, they might not think to start looking for a person with a debuff right away. There are other possibilities as well, like building a internal structure once inside to give yourself cover. Any sort of debuff that could cause trains of monsters on other you/players is a bad idea in general, unless you WANT situations like that.

Simple solution:

The whole world is PvE (think Warhammer Online). Except there are large PvP islands (80% pve to about 20% in terms of land area ratio). As you approach these areas you'll know based on the look of the environment, sounds, and so on. Scorched earth, with skulls, and these places are radioactive or biologically toxic. In other words Joe Newbie can't just walk into them, he needs some "advanced" gear more or less. Plus all the signs around the area "Danger! Death Zone".

You see, back when the apocalypse happened, these spots were ground zero. Now then, you can find loot and resources in the PvE world just fine, but in the PvP zones useful resources drop more readily. For example, to find a good Car Battery would take you a few hours out in the PvE world, but a few minutes in the "Death Zones". Also a big red sign would flash "Entering Death Zone" plus your NBC gear would start chirping.

The problem with the Death Zones, is that due to the radiation, biological agents, Mcguffin, what ever, people go crazy and deranged and lose their sense of empathy. Hence it's best to go in there with a group you trust so you can more or less keep each other's sanity (that's the "fluffy explanation). Then again, you can't really even trust your group mates. You can go into these places alone obviously but you're at the mercy of whom ever you bump into.

There, solved, open PvP with ganking while having PvE. Pvp is incentivized by making your progression and resource gathering faster.

Add a market or trader. That way those that don't want to enter the Death Zones can buy the rarer loot?

There wont be zones. You should read the first post and see what Smed has said the direction this game is going to take. Its a larger version of DayZ/Rust.

Valos_sl said:

There wont be zones. You should read the first post and see what Smed has said the direction this game is going to take. Its a larger version of DayZ/Rust.

Click to expand...

I said: Think Warhammer Online. I didn't mean Zones like EQ1 or The Secret World. World would be seamless.

I don't get why people want PvE at all in this type of game.

PvE shooters get boring quick.

A PvE game that encourages strong, deliberate PvP does not seem that hard to design in this sort of setting. Or am I alone in this? Mirror the real world. Extremely limited/finite resources with few options for renewable materials. You want guns? Siege the gang that took the local armory with your mohawk (bow/axe) warriors at night or continue to hide in the mountains with your agrarian enclave.

A horror survivor game should be just that a horror survivor. It takes both PvE(Zombies + environment [weather/flora/fauna/sickness/perma death]) and PvP(untrusting/envious survivors) to do that.

Wonder how a really robust Bounty system could work in a game like this.

Reading above I see people talking about realism and what they'd expect in a zombie apocalypse, specifically "us" vs "you" and 'oh yeah.. "zombies". Any territories would have 'known' bandits and 'established' areas or bunkers. Anyone seeing these bandits would pretty much know they aren't trading and would do as zzeris said, fight or flight.

Well if that's the case, one thing realistic and very much within the realm of the game would be a bounty system. Kill gankers, collect loot/rewards commensurate with your accomplishment.

The hard part is that without 'levels', you can't really tell it's a 50 beating up on a colony of 15 noobs. Bounties where individual people or clans could post on one another might work; I've played games that have that kind of system but don't remember the inherent flaws they had.

So maybe clan A could post a bounty on any member of clan b dying, and clan c-z could collect but no one from clan a or b could. Might make it worth it because they'd not only get the bounty, but assume the guns/loot from the kills.

Any thoughts?

edit: bleh, just remembered which game had that bounty system.. Archlord.