In-game Politics & Player Driven Content!

Bardtic

Just wanted to start a new discussion in order to hear some of our awesome community members thoughts! During the recent PAX panel it was discussed that in a game with mostly Player Driven content, the game developers lose control of what players experience within the game. Each player will have a drastically different experience based on the server and location they start. So here are a couple questions I thought would be fun to hear peoples thoughts on:

1. What, if any, player driven rules and regulations do you think the leading guilds will implemented and attempt to enforce on their servers?

2. What politics and diplomacy do you expect to see in game? For example will powerful guilds offer military protection in return for taxes and crafting supplies, kind of like an unofficial guild vassal system?

3. What kind of harassment and griefing do you expect to see as the game progresses? And what can we do as a community to ensure that new and more casual players enjoy their experience within the game? Hardcore players like me are the minority, the rest support the future development of this game.

Sorry for the long winded questions, but thought it would be fun to hear peoples thoughts on the subject as we are in a bit of a content draught before Alpha 1.

Feel free to answer as many questions as you are interested in! Looking forward to hearing some other peoples points of view.

Hurf Derfman

I think that player agency will be the most powerful tool in this game outside of mechanics. This will either lead to powerful empires ruling an entire continent or absolute and total utter chaos to where people can't get past city-state warfare. Either way I'm honestly here for it.

Bardtic

@Hurf Derfman Thats true, each server has the chance to be entirely different. Here is an interesting quote from the wiki:
We're gonna keep track of the history of the world so that we can tell people the story up to the current day. A player who's brand new, who's come in at the six-month mark can take a look at each server, what each server has done, how each server has tackled the storyline; and they can decide for themselves what community they want to join; what version of the world that they want to take part in.[113] – Jeffrey Bard

If the above is true then new players can choose if they want to play on a server with chaos or with empires.

Hurf Derfman

Right?? Sounds metal af.

Demidreamer

Having options like that, would be like visiting a parallel dimension. Given enough years I will most likely be on all of them at some point.
I do kinda hope for a legacy name, or surname option. I would take my same legacy name from swotor.

shadiss

I think you are going to see a mercenary system evolve to address each of your points. Hire a mercenary (guild or individual) to guard your assets, hire a mercenary to deal with a griefer, etc., maybe even hire a mercenary to go out and farm some herbs for you. Or why not just have that mercenary do all those things and pay him well.

HellFrost

I'm 99 certain that this game will mirror L2 when it comes to player driven politics. So most likely there will be 2 tier1 alliances battening each other out for prestige raids and best resource spots. Tier1 alliances will hold majority of power in the world and will be able to do whatever they want.

This means that if you don't belong to tier1 alliance most of the hardest difficulty content won't be available to you as you won't be able to challenge them. Unless they make all world raids spawn at the same time, the tier1 alliances will simply keep them on their lockdown.

There will be some tier2 alliances around that directly doesn't get too much involved in tier1 politics but support either one or the other side for sieges/node development etc. and they kinda get the free pass to do some lower tier raids if they happen to be doing the raid and the side that shows up to challenge the raid is the side that they support.

Balrog21

During the first few months I see the pop trying out all the systems to see how they work, in all aspects, in other words total chaos.
At the 6 month mark I see intrigue, racing to finish the story and then guilds that like to dominate try to control large sections of the world. The world is a huge place, total dominance seems out of grasp to me. I also see the dedicated making some true bank as they push through the pushing systems phase, and settle in to their favorite locales, setting up shops, taverns, and freehold, I think the dedicated people will become well known and sought after by many players. Political intrigue will be a major thing in the world as we settle into Verra, some good some bad.
These are my Hope's and thoughts anyway.

Bricktop

I think it will be entirely possible to "Vassalize" other guilds. If you continuously PK a guild every time you see them and they don't have the stones to try and fight back, I could easily see a more aggressive guild offering them a peace treaty where they have to pay X amount of gold and items monthly or else people start getting PKed again. If their entire guild is on the verge of quitting the game because they can't do anything without getting killed, it may be a better idea to just pay up until they can gain a bit more power or a strong ally. Yes sir I could easily see people targeting raiding and trading focused guilds to try and extort. Not that I would know anything about that.

Yoanna

As for your questions 1 and 2 just look into human nature, we will see every little bit of it, although quite differently on every other server. I sincerely hope that they are able to strike a balance between guild since, level of influence they generate and map size so that it gets highly unlikely that a server gets dominated by one alliance of idiots.
I think politically we can learn much from EvE Online. Why should AoC be different?

As for your third question: we will see as much as we as a community accept to tolerate. And we are the corner stone that new players feel fine coming to Verra. We are the ones to make or break the place. We are the ones to make Verra great or just let it degrade in a gank fest nobody really enjoys.

Kneczhevo

I can't add anything to this discussion. It's all been said. ☹️

Hurf Derfman

Kneczhevo wrote: »

I can't add anything to this discussion. It's all been said. ☹️

I know right?? Can't wait to play the game!

Voidwalkers

1. First thing I can think of is monopolizing access to metropolis, resources, farming spots, raids etc.

2. Apart from normal war / siege diplomacy, there would probably be mercenary style relationships, and of coz buying/selling of access rights to monopolized resources / contents.

3. Not sure if you can call that griefing, but may be periodic mass ganking / mass caravan hijack events? In Eve Online some major alliances would occasionally declare a "burn Jita / Amarr" event and destroy every single transport ships entering / leaving the major trade hub systems just for the sake of it, effectively paralyzing trading for days.

Hurf Derfman

Voidwalkers wrote: »

1. First thing I can think of is monopolizing access to metropolis, resources, farming spots, raids etc.

2. Apart from normal war / siege diplomacy, there would probably be mercenary style relationships, and of coz buying/selling of access rights to monopolized resources / contents.

3. Not sure if you can call that griefing, but may be periodic mass ganking / mass caravan hijack events? In Eve Online some major alliances would occasionally declare a "burn Jita / Amarr" event and destroy every single transport ships entering / leaving the major trade hub systems just for the sake of it, effectively paralyzing trading for days.

These things could honestly go either way, that's kinda the point.

If they implement the systems well enough players will have to work together to over come other players obstacles.