Serious concern/question about being a bad guy

*Since this thread is getting more attention and people know me from other games and are now wanting to join in the conversation then I will amend my opener here but still keep the original text for posterity sake as you read and catch up.

This thread wants to focus on in-game mechanics that already exist that will allow for good guys to choose to partake in a risk/reward situation and those bad guys that are the potential punishment waiting for them. This game offers much potential for discussion and that is all we want is an open discussion for ways to be bad, and no this thread is not promoting the killing of unwilling participants. Our version of pvp is the literal definition of player vs player on a more small scale version outside from guild/city raids. We are discussing a way for good guy players to seek risk and how bad guy players can be the counterpart*

I want to start this off by saying that I understand how taboo pvp is to a large portion of players. Most people want great story arc progression and maybe others are interested in pvp just enough for the rewards, achievements, gear etc. I would like to present another type of player, not necessarily a roleplay type person but a person who wants to be a bad guy. I want to know how this game will appeal to those of us who aren't looking for dungeon glory, who don't have time for world politics or a sense of life long goals... I want to discuss the person who likes being the bad guy, the guy who was raised with nothing given to them, who learned that the only way to get by is to take it from others and to inflict a little pain so others know how he/she feels.

I have watched some videos and read some articles/posts and I do feel like I have an entry-level understanding of this game's open-world pvp structure, but I feel like it is a far more punishing system, then it is a way to play the game. As stated above, I get that the vast majority of people aren't going to be interested in this but there are plenty of people who like being the bad guy and every good story or hero needs a bad guy. This game has the bounty hunter system and some guild and zone pvp but I have yet to see a full break down of actual pvp focused gameplay.

I don't want to just be a griefing player killer, but I do want some incentive to play a bad character that keeps the fancy lads and goody players on their toes. So far I see more in=game mechanics dedicated to punishing these types of actions and only allowing just a tiny taste of the bad life, I don't see anything that rewards players for taking this path. This game gives you religious arcs that lead to exclusive items, titles and even new skill augments. This game allows a player to build a restaurant in popular hunting areas to benefit the dedication of their time to crafting delicious food and planning a location to be the best source of buffs in that area but what about the bad guys?

Is there really no underground sub-faction that has rewards certain individuals for throwing a wrench into something? A reverse bounty system? An unholy religion that promotes being a bad guy? I mean look at some of the possible skill combos necromancer, trickster, assassin, charlatan, shadow lord... This game provides the bad guy prototypes but doesn't embrace the full potential? Please please please tell me that with all the love put into this game and all the "doing better than other mmos" doesn't mean that you have written off the classic villain player character in light of trying to making people a completely safe and comfortable feeling.

I know a lot of the devs in this game mention older mmo games as inspiration so I am sure you guys remember Ultima Online? You had a full on red player system that basically turned you into a different type of player. Will this game have something like this or is it only that internal system that punishes you for being bad by basically making you completely useless after so long so that you are no longer a threat to even a level 1 critter.

Can someone please link or explain something related to my questions/concerns? I would obviously love to hear from a dev or tester.

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SSRogue

Haraxa wrote: »

@SSRogue
Hey, I think I understand your point, but I have the feeling you're mixing three things, that should be seperated (and it isn't helpful that the developers use the term "corruption" for both and do not seperate it by different words).

Thank you for the breakdown and your thoughts. I really appreciate the effort. I am very happy with the caravan system and the city raids and no I am not looking to just gank people, but I was wondering if there were just simply more to offer characters with less than virtuous morals. Obviously I keep going back to the religious system because it has so much potential in my eyes for a cult or god who wants his disciples to walk that grey line.

CaptainChuck wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

Asking for a certain type of playstyle that allows you to have fun at the expense of others is a selfish thing.

Yet again I have stated several times that I am in fact NOT wanting a system to reward griefing players, but I do acknowledge that killing either NPCs or some players can and honestly should be something that a bad faction would require a player to do, that being said you already have every opportunity to kill someone so that is not a valid reason to assume I want griefing.

Conveying something based on many games worth of experiences is hard I guess, perhaps I am not the most articulate wordsmith, but I with a game as vast and AoC and with so much thought into all these systems, I just wanted to know from people currently testing or mayhaps a dev if there were any other systems for characters that want to be bad.

An example: Player wants to be a follower or an NPC faction or religion that is dark natured. They require you to prove yourself by hunting a noble creature. Your next step is participating in a caravan sacking and donating a portion of the loot to the faction/religion and now you are in it. You get maybe an appearance change to look like a follower but you want more, so you seek out a quest line to really prove yourself. Maybe you are asked to actually become corrupted to taint yourself for the optimal title, or you stay completely away from pvp and you are asked to repeatedly do bad things to other NPCs in other nodes or religions. Maybe becoming part of this actually does make you bad and a rival religion who is the holiest of all holy can always be flagged to you. I dunno, I'm just curious as to the potential.

SSRogue

Vandersexxx wrote: »

The best bad guys will be the ones who rise through the ranks in a community and then find a way to kill the leaders of a guild or node and steal. Pretend to be a normal player and then strike when no one expects it. I'm hoping to see some real treachery unfold in the future.

That is some political corruption like in EVE

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

Maybe you are asked to actually become corrupted to taint yourself for the optimal title

Again, Steven has said that there won't be any encouragement to gaining corruption - as it is strictly reserved as a penalty.

In the same way people that want to be good have to ind their own way to do that, people that want to be bad have to find their own way to do it.

SSRogue

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

Maybe you are asked to actually become corrupted to taint yourself for the optimal title

Again, Steven has said that there won't be any encouragement to gaining corruption - as it is strictly reserved as a penalty.

In the same way people that want to be good have to ind their own way to do that, people that want to be bad have to find their own way to do it.

Noaani, ur precious. I hope your pure heart shines bright in the world. You keep being the beacon of hope for others but please if you have such a biased opinion towards a mechanic then why follow the thread?

You keep laser focusing on just one aspect of this topic or its potential. I will not completely ignore corruption mechanic potentials because they actually exist therefore it is something in the game, it will most likely never get utilized further because of what it is intended to do but you are not a dev I assume and cannot speak for them. I just keep throwing out possible potential options based on the lack of knowledge on the topic as "what if" situations for some likeminded players and maybe a dev or someone will chime in one day.

You should not be so dismissive of creative/wishful thinking just because you have no interest in the subject matter. For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did. So please, my friend, my precious friend... please be constructive, we don't need negativity or people putting down others for just thinking about things in a game that isn't finished and isn't fully revealed.

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did.

Intrepid have no interest in alternate ruleset servers.

SSRogue

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did.

Intrepid have no interest in alternate ruleset servers.

Really now, cuz I have heard that they have tossed around the ideas for potential updates further down the road for servers to cater to groups like role players and certain siege war scenarios, once they see how players fit into the game and they start seeing community-wide wants.

Bardtic

@SSRogue I don't think your requests are out of the question. I would personally like to see them allow people to host private servers with custom rule sets at some point. The main issue at the moment however is Feature Creep. Steven said in the AMA or one of the interviews that they have a pretty clear idea of what the game will be on launch. They are going to focus on delivering those concepts before adding any new features.

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

Really now, cuz I have heard that they have tossed around the ideas for potential updates further down the road for servers to cater to groups like role players and certain siege war scenarios, once they see how players fit into the game and they start seeing community-wide wants.

Got a link?

Noaani

Reign118 wrote: »

I would personally like to see them allow people to host private servers with custom rule sets at some point.

AAA MMO's don't do this.

Honestly, any game that allows for private servers instantly loses it's MMO status.

Caeryl

SSRogue wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did.

Intrepid have no interest in alternate ruleset servers.

Really now, cuz I have heard that they have tossed around the ideas for potential updates further down the road for servers to cater to groups like role players and certain siege war scenarios, once they see how players fit into the game and they start seeing community-wide wants.

Steven has explicitly stated there will be no roleplay servers. Wherever you got your rumors, you should think twice about believing them

Asri

There is a reward for playing as a bad guy: you get to participate in as the quarry in the Bounty Hunter system. That's content not available to the non-corrupted.

If you don't want being bad to have consequences, to be reviled or hunted for it, then you aren't really interested in being a bad guy player, you are just interested in making other people unhappy, as you say, "inflicting pain." From a business standpoint, people whose gameplay is making others miserable are players that cost you money.

You can RP as a bad guy. You can do bad things with consequences. You can be a thief. You can join a warmongering guild. You can destroy cities and fight in wars. You aren't going to get skill trees and bonuses for making other player characters unhappy.

BlackBrony

I think you're not understanding corruption properly. You don't get corrupted because you kill people, you get corrupted because you kill people that don't fight back, therefore killing an innocent player.
This player will drop MORE resources if it doesn't fight back, so unless you're going for really low level players, many should fight back because it's in their best interest to lose less resources, unless they have none, I'm not sure what happens here.

So, if you're a level 40 player a kill a level 10, well, yeah, you're not really a *bad guy*, you're just a bully, and I would actually laugh at your """reputation"""".

Now, what can you do as bad guy? Well...

- you can potentially harass characters and drive them away from certain places. You can damage them, but not kill them. As long as you don't kill them, you're not corrupted
- raid caravans
- infiltrate guilds to get information about nodes or attacks
- religions: haven't heard about religions being "good". There might be religions that require to steal stuff during a siege, for example.

Now, on the other hand, things like: stealing from other players, forging, etc > this have direct negative impact to other players, and I don't think it should be encouraged. You can already scam people by just being really good at convincing, but that's more of trait of your personality, not your character.

I think there are plenty of things you can do

SSRogue

noaani wrote: »

Reign118 wrote: »

I would personally like to see them allow people to host private servers with custom rule sets at some point.

AAA MMO's don't do this.

Honestly, any game that allows for private servers instantly loses it's MMO status.

Your very confined view on topics that aren't relevant to your personal likes makes you come across as very prudish. I obviously cannot ask you to stop replying but I do wish you can stay constructive at the very least if you insist on replying. The gaming community doesn't need negativity in any form.

Caeryl wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did.

Intrepid have no interest in alternate ruleset servers.

Really now, cuz I have heard that they have tossed around the ideas for potential updates further down the road for servers to cater to groups like role players and certain siege war scenarios, once they see how players fit into the game and they start seeing community-wide wants.

Steven has explicitly stated there will be no roleplay servers. Wherever you got your rumors, you should think twice about believing them

It wasn't Steven himself it was an article written over a phone interview with a few people working on the game and the person didn't say outright that they were doing anything but they said later down the road once they get a feel for how the community responds to the game and how the game evolves that they will consider branching out into new thing and specialized servers were one of them and the potential server types were roleplay, siege scenarios, and few other possible things. One of the female devs (I think) said she gets excited when they talk about the future of the game how they are so busy with everything right now but they love when they can plot out the future of the game because of how passionate everyone is on how great the game will turn out and how the community behind this game so far is amazing and already influencing some of their ideas.

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

Reign118 wrote: »

I would personally like to see them allow people to host private servers with custom rule sets at some point.

AAA MMO's don't do this.

Honestly, any game that allows for private servers instantly loses it's MMO status.

Your very confined view on topics that aren't relevant to your personal likes makes you come across as very prudish.

Name one AAA MMO that has allowed private servers.

This isn't a case of my opinion, this is a case of "they dont' do that".

The first "M" in MMO is "massively", and private servers can not sustain that. Therefore, the second a game offers private servers, they at the very least need to drop that first letter.

Seriously, don't complain about what I am saying, if you disagree with me, point me to a AAA MMO with private servers. If you can do that, then you prove me wrong, if you can't or won't, then you prove me right - in which case you are confusing fact with my opinion.

It wasn't Steven himself it was an article written over a phone interview with a few people working on the game

Stop talking about it and link it.

You are the one here presenting opinions, not me. I am presenting facts.

You are attempting to back up your opinions by citing non-existant articles, and telling others giving you facts that those facts are just opinions.

This won't fly with me.

SSRogue

BlackBrony wrote: »

- you can potentially harass characters and drive them away from certain places. You can damage them, but not kill them. As long as you don't kill them, you're not corrupted
- raid caravans
- infiltrate guilds to get information about nodes or attacks
- religions: haven't heard about religions being "good". There might be religions that require to steal stuff during a siege, for example.

Now, on the other hand, things like: stealing from other players, forging, etc > this have direct negative impact to other players, and I don't think it should be encouraged. You can already scam people by just being really good at convincing, but that's more of trait of your personality, not your character.

I think there are plenty of things you can do

In one of my other replies, I tried to word my thoughts better. Basically everything I'm referencing and things you directly replied to are just thoughts along the path of possible actions to lead to your character being bad. Obviously not everything can work within a game that is more protective of the individual player, but I was more so throwing out things that came to me. There have been a few replies on this thread and another thread talking about guild raids and caravans that went into more potential ways to play a bad character which were very good. One poster had an amazing idea about a questline that would lead to players signing up to take part in an event where you choose to be good and protect the city or bad and raid the city. It was essentially a much smaller version of city raids, that was limited to a part of a city or even a smaller hub.

The idea of this thread is to get people talking and see ideas and hopefully get an actual dev pop in or have a few ideas make it to a Q and A.

SSRogue

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

[quote="Reign118;c-229047".

This won't fly with me.

It is a free world my friend, you can post whatever you want but I choose to no longer reply to you. You obviously have an agenda to defend your views (aka your facts) on a thread that is promoting conversation and exchange of ideas. I wish you the best of luck in your gaming life and your forum wars but I will not waste time on anything that isn't promoting constructive and creative ideas. I am not going to have a pissing contest in a forum on a game that isn't live or even completely finished being developed.

3 separate threads with you having others reach this point with you as I am, you sir are not a positive influence within this new and growing community.

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

3 separate threads with you having others reach this point with you as I am, you sir are not a positive influence within this new and growing community.

That is an odd thing to be counting.

I'm surprised it's that low though. What I will say is that I would assume it is 3 threads where people would rather push their opinion over listening to facts.

A discussion is great in terms of a "wouldn't it be cool if". Such discussions are great, and there is no real need for actual facts in them.

As soon as it turns in to a "Ashes could do this", it changes. This is where facts come in to the picture. That is what this thread is, and so facts are required here.

The facts are -
The corruption system is designed as a pure penalty.
Intrepid do not want to encourage negative behavior.
Intrepid do not want to penalize negative behavior - as long as it is within the rules.
Ashes has no intention of having alternate ruleset servers.
Ashes has no intention of allowing private servers.
AAA MMO's do not allow provate servers.

Now, if those facts happened to coinside with your desire, you'd be happy that I am posting said facts. They do not, and as such, you are associated me and my opinion with these facts - even though I am simply the one informing you of said facts.

Again, a simple link to the article you claim exists is enough to debunk almost half od the above - but you won't be able to do it because you made the article up, as you seem to not be able to distinguish the difference between facts and peoples opinions, and wanted to push your opinion as fact.

SSRogue

Keep up the good posting everyone else!

Noaani

SSRogue wrote: »

Keep up the good posting everyone else!

It's almost like you're trying to say I'm the "bad guy" here, which I find amusing to no end.

Caeryl

SSRogue wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

SSRogue wrote: »

For all you know AoC might make a server will no rules like Ultima Online did.

Intrepid have no interest in alternate ruleset servers.

Really now, cuz I have heard that they have tossed around the ideas for potential updates further down the road for servers to cater to groups like role players and certain siege war scenarios, once they see how players fit into the game and they start seeing community-wide wants.

Steven has explicitly stated there will be no roleplay servers. Wherever you got your rumors, you should think twice about believing them

It wasn't Steven himself it was an article written over a phone interview with a few people working on the game and the person didn't say outright that they were doing anything but they said later down the road once they get a feel for how the community responds to the game and how the game evolves that they will consider branching out into new thing and specialized servers were one of them and the potential server types were roleplay, siege scenarios, and few other possible things. One of the female devs (I think) said she gets excited when they talk about the future of the game how they are so busy with everything right now but they love when they can plot out the future of the game because of how passionate everyone is on how great the game will turn out and how the community behind this game so far is amazing and already influencing some of their ideas.

From the wiki, from Steven and the leads themselves:

Server types

There won't be separate roleplaying (RP) servers.[81]
There won't be separate PvE and PvP servers.[82]

You can try to make a corrupted-heavy server, but just like players will have only unofficial RP servers, you have to work within the game’s mechanics. You won’t get special rules

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