At the end of the day it looks like you want to forego gameplay for history but that isn't really what you see in games because the goal isn't to be a history book, it's to have fun and engaging gameplay. Even the most "historical" games concede to this rule and implement historically incorrect methods in the sake of gameplay.

You admit to that gameplay being possibly awkward, un-fun and time-consuming but for the sake of your history. Like say above, games don't have realism for the sake of realism. They have realism where it doesn't make the gameplay awkward, un-fun or ridiculously time consuming compared to the rewards given.

Again, I support being able to be a tyrant but if your argument is that the option of counterplay is to be historical rather than good gameplay, that's where the disagreement is.

Posted By Goblij at 11:13 AM - Thu Oct 11 2018

Posted By Beathan at 10:55 AM - Thu Oct 11 2018

Posted By Takeda_Shinukage at 10:44 AM - Thu Oct 11 2018

Posted By Beathan at 1:18 PM - Thu Oct 11 2018

And, with regard to counterplay, I don't see any difference between your process and mine.

-skip-

For instance, if outlawry requires that the noble declare the reasons for the declaration of outlawry, then they can be investigated and shown to be false.

Bingo. That's the difference. You would have an immediate way to attempt and counterplay an unlawful conviction where you don't in your case.

In your case a bunch of guards can legally show up at your home and say you been told to kick rocks and gtfo. There isn't counterplay to that. The only counterplay is now spending all of your gameplay trying organize a rebellion to get your stuff back which borders on the "is it really worth". Which could take days, weeks, months. You are trying to remove a person in power. That process in itself requires 28 days using the coup mechanic. That doesn't even factor in time spent preparing. Then there isn't even a guarantee you get your stuff back, it could be sold and in the case of property someone else could now be living on it legally so you would, etc.

So your only counterplay to getting boned is spending over a month to try and overthrow someone. That doesn't sound like good gameplay what so ever. Especially to non-combat or pvp oriented players.

You could even argue the amount of effort and time it would take for a wrongly exiled farmer (example of a non-pvp oriented player) to overthrow the land isn't worth when it that month+ of time you could likely start another farm somewhere else. This would then mean your sole counterplay mechanic isn't even worth invoking, meaning that their is practically no counterplay.

That just seems VERY awkward to tell a farmer: 'if you want to see your farm again, spend over a month trying to overthrow the government'.

Awkward? Maybe. Historical? Yep. Possibly unfun? Yep -- if you build a farm where a tyrant rules, but that is avoidable by being careful in selecting where you build a farm. Time consuming? Well -- if your goal is to have the chance for an immediate counter-investigation, possibly from the dungeon or exile or wherever your false conviction has put you -- to develop information to motivate an uprising, which then has to be planned and implemented as you describe -- then yes. If your goal is to cut to the political chase and start planning the uprising, then no. In either case, there is counterplay -- there is just different counterplay. It seems that I prefer one set of counterplay (political/social) and you prefer another (character action), but that is just a play-style preference. I also note that there are game dynamics that will allow for both our play styles regardless of whatever choices the Devs make on post-investigation law enforcement (or outlawry without evidence or investigation).

However, there is an option that could make your process work -- appeal to higher authority. If the Duke can over-rule a Count and the King a Duke, then that is possible. However, that should be as possible for declarations of outlawry as for wrongful or unsafe convictions. It also could be very likely frustrating (if your appeal is ignored) and time consuming (if the higher authority drags its feet considering the evidence) and unfair (open to prejudice, nepotism, bribes, corruption, etc. -- but I'm fine with most of that as game play).

However, an appeal process does allow an ingame evidence gathering process, and could even apply if the conviction is for meta-offenses like "griefing." (Meaning that my observation that your proposal doesn't address the griefing problem is mediated somewhat.) An appeal process would be a complicated dynamic, however -- and it would still allow for unchecked tyranny by the king (who is the final appeal). (At least unchecked by anything except the "overthrow the tyrant" dynamic.) You could sell me on that kind of appeal process -- with outlawry being an available penalty for conviction -- thus mixing all these things together. That would be fun, but fairly complicated, and I have not idea if it can be implemented in a game setting like COE.

You want to throw some sources out there that say all of this? Otherwise it's all pointless speculation from the both of you. Lets keep it SIMPLE:

We know there will be ways to defend yourself, your property, your town, etc! Thats all we need to know!

People will attack us? yep We can build? yep It isn't easy to siege a place? Thats what they said!

Ok, problem solved. Making overly complex theories of everything that comes to your heads in a topic about "griefing" will not get anywhere. It changes nothing about the game, when it is released, or what will happen. You guys are way overboard!

I have to disagree here. We know there are going to be player-created laws. We know that there will be a dynamic criminal investigation system with cat-and-mouse type detective work. We think that there will likely be a bounty system -- because that was suggested for explicit contract enforcement -- and could apply to the implicit contract (law) enforcement as well. The Devs have mentioned that there is a "capture" dynamic involved in that ("capture contracts" were mentioned) -- and this raises the possibility of detaining PCs against their will. Otherwise, we know nothing of law enforcement after investigation -- probably because that dynamic is still under development. This is why, I think, this is exactly the right time to theorize about it -- because we know the Devs read these threads and we might say something in our theorizing that makes them say "oh, wow -- we should do that; now, let's see how we can ..."

However, to get back to what we know. The bounty hunting enforcement dynamic is probably all you need for outlawry; and the capture dynamic may be all you need for imprisonment, depending on how long a person can be captured. An exile dynamic would also be useful -- and shouldn't be hard to implement.

Then, with regard to griefing -- if the players have the power to use these tools to outlaw, imprison, or exile other players they think are griefing -- then we can enforce (or allow) griefing based on our own judgments -- and different communities can be more or less tolerant of such player behaviors.

I don't know, Goblij. Your simplicity sounds a lot like faith. And I agree with Caspian that we shouldn't be operating on faith.

We can certainly take what we know about the contract system and contract enforcement and extrapolate how it will work for law enforcement. We can then hope that it can apply to griefing and that when Caspian said "there is no griefing, only crime" he wasn't ignoring the fact that griefing can be done in non-criminal ways, but was instead saying that we, as players, could choose to criminalize griefing by using ingame punishments to penalize people who play as griefers, misusing and abusing the game mechanics and systems.

Takeda -- I don't think I am defending historicity over game play. I agree with your game play first principle. I am also not opposing counter-play. I think we just have different styles of play and therefore find different kinds and levels of play and counter-play fun.

I prefer strategic play, and strategic response, to tactical play -- delegating tactical play to the implementation of strategic play. It sounds like you prefer reactive tactical play to strategic play. Fortunately, from what I see, COE will have something for both of us -- and will also make each of us accept some of what the other enjoys, but we enjoy less.

But, the bottom line is that there will be player-made laws -- and that leads to the abuses of tyranny. Players can and will make tyrannical laws. They also will likely enforce the laws in tyrannical ways. This is a result of the power hierarchy inherent in this game -- where the nobility, up to the royalty, are players and not NPCs.

It's good to be the king. At least until your people guillotine you. And, in the end, if you aren't the king, you might need to resort to the guillotine.

Posted By Nobody Special at 7:09 PM - Fri Oct 12 2018

Posted By Deftly at 12:36 PM - Wed Oct 10 2018

From reading all the information(here and other posts) the problem doesn't seem to be Griefing vs Crime, it seems to be RPer vs non-RPer. People seem willing to accept "his character likes to fight" so it's okay that I was attacked vs "he doesn't have a backstory and just likes to PvP." This is pretty much shaming one playstyle for another. Not accepting the way someone plays because it's different from yours seems much more harmful to the community vs ganker.

Can't say I agree here. The CoE devs seem (from my limited view so far) to be pro-RP. If they didn't care about RP and immersion, then why bother having such a strict name policy, for example?

I don't care really WHY a villain's reasons are for killing me in-game, but don't kill my RP immersion. That was really the point I was trying to make in the other griefing thread. I'd rather someone keep silent while doing their deeds then hear "U MAD BRO?" over and over.

Shaming one playstyle over another? Considering that serious RP games are a minute fraction of a percent of all the multiplayer games out there, it seems to me that the RPers are getting most of the abuse. Are there RPers that abuse non-RPers? Sure. And they don't help the cause at all. I'm not even asking people to spend time engaging in RP - I'm asking people NOT TO BREAK IMMERSION, via OOC or any type of RL tropes / memes.

I don't think it's a lot to ask, but unfortunately I think there's going to be a degree of obnoxious RP, and antagonistic non-RPers.

If that's your only issue, it's likely that will be solved by an ignore feature. While it can be argued that the ability to mute someone with and ignore feature breaks immersion...someone doing what you're worried about breaks immersion by your own complaint, so meh, break it once per person to prevent them from doing it over and over again.

Guys a tyrannical despot will make their shitty guards violate crimes.

A Shitty person is shitty.

These things don't need to be moderated from a divine force. There is no such thing as griefing. If the developers have the opposite stance. The game will surely fail. The developers don't want impenetrable laws. They want both the nobility and the lower class of people able to do horrible things to other players to inspire conflict.

You can't mute an annoying person in real life your only option is to report the person and hope some one will help you. This game isn't going to create safe spaces in most domains. Don't expect other people to not be able to create conflict in the way they do.

People will lose their spark of life fast if they play carelessly. Death alone will make these types of players unlikely to live past 4 months. Then add the crimes they do to that list. And that time will be shortened quickly. A disruption of another group is a valid strategy when at war.

We don't need to sensor how people talk to each other in character. As they sad being racist in character is going to be fine within the game. So expect waerd to be called horrible things and expect other tribe people that want to espouse rude behavior to be a thing. If that isn't for you this game isn't for you, the game is a social game as much as it is a PvP one. People will do horrible things in both areas.

Limiting the social evil things is not a smart thing to do. Let the local domain leaders handle the generally nasty people that just want to cause chaos. They will be pushed out of the community pretty fast.

You need to use your imagination why they said LOL NOOB GET GOOD. You don't need a back story for that to make any sense why he is taunting you. Just look at it like some one is saying "Ha ha ha! You're a green leaf, with experience you may be able to beat me, but today, you didn't do anything of value against me."

Think of these people as insane people, insanity makes the game interesting. People will eventually die out that does these things. It can become very expensive to support that play-style.

Posted By Nobody Special at 8:09 PM - Fri Oct 12 2018

Posted By Deftly at 12:36 PM - Wed Oct 10 2018

From reading all the information(here and other posts) the problem doesn't seem to be Griefing vs Crime, it seems to be RPer vs non-RPer. People seem willing to accept "his character likes to fight" so it's okay that I was attacked vs "he doesn't have a backstory and just likes to PvP." This is pretty much shaming one playstyle for another. Not accepting the way someone plays because it's different from yours seems much more harmful to the community vs ganker.

Can't say I agree here. The CoE devs seem (from my limited view so far) to be pro-RP. If they didn't care about RP and immersion, then why bother having such a strict name policy, for example?

I don't care really WHY a villain's reasons are for killing me in-game, but don't kill my RP immersion. That was really the point I was trying to make in the other griefing thread. I'd rather someone keep silent while doing their deeds then hear "U MAD BRO?" over and over.

Shaming one playstyle over another? Considering that serious RP games are a minute fraction of a percent of all the multiplayer games out there, it seems to me that the RPers are getting most of the abuse. Are there RPers that abuse non-RPers? Sure. And they don't help the cause at all. I'm not even asking people to spend time engaging in RP - I'm asking people NOT TO BREAK IMMERSION, via OOC or any type of RL tropes / memes.

I don't think it's a lot to ask, but unfortunately I think there's going to be a degree of obnoxious RP, and antagonistic non-RPers.

Breaking your immersion is not a bannable offense.

Exploitation of a bug or unintended use of game mechanics is definitely bannable, and SBS will definitely fix what was being exploited. In this case, action will be taken whether someone is "griefed" by the exploit or not.

Harassment will likely be bannable, but SBS are the ones who get to decide what harassment in this game is, not us. It will probably have to do with specific people or accounts being targeted, and likely will be determined on a case by case basis.

Literally anything else will be fair game. This isn't just an RP game, or a PVP game, it's both. Both will happen, and will not always happen together, or at the same time.

I think most of us know what you mean, ViktoriusIII. To some extent, most of us are tired of talking about it. Even so, it's good of you to bring up the issue, especially with a detailed kind of griefing that might not have been described before. Remember it so that you can test it either in a formal test period or early in the actual game.

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 2:51 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

Posted By Kyre at 8:03 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

... unintended use of game mechanics is definitely bannable,

THIS is the whole point i was trying to argue.

NO unintended use of something is NOT bannable. If an npc is selling something for a better price then he is buying them, ITS NOT A BANNABLE OFFENSE. Its SBS' responsibility that those kind of things wont happen.

If I use a duplicationbug sure. That is not as intended.

But buying and selling from traders is. Its not my fault the A.I. is faulty.

You know what I mean?

I think this is a perfect example of "spirit of the law" vs "letter of the law".

If a developer mislabels an item on a vendor, and a whole crap-ton of people notice it, take advantage of it, make insane amounts of money, ruin the economy, and break the game...but they didn't "technically" exploit/cheat, is that ok?

I think most reasonable people would say "no, that is not ok." It's why, when that happens in MMO's, egregious violators are typically banned, suspended with the gains removed at the least.

"It's not my fault the AI is faulty" is flawed "logic" similar to saying, "It's not my fault they left their keys in the car". You know what you are doing is wrong (or you should if you are being honest with yourself, that is).

Regardless, there will always be people like you, who take advantage of every mistake or loophole the developer overlooks, typically ruining things for others.

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 5:55 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

Posted By Poldano at 9:50 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

I think most of us know what you mean, ViktoriusIII. To some extent, most of us are tired of talking about it. Even so, it's good of you to bring up the issue, especially with a detailed kind of griefing that might not have been described before. Remember it so that you can test it either in a formal test period or early in the actual game.

Thanks. Will do. If this has been established (although not enough if I look at some answers :D) I'm totally fine with it :D

Posted By Marovec at 9:55 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

Posted By Viktoriusiii at 2:51 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

Posted By Kyre at 8:03 PM - Mon Oct 15 2018

... unintended use of game mechanics is definitely bannable,

THIS is the whole point i was trying to argue.

NO unintended use of something is NOT bannable. If an npc is selling something for a better price then he is buying them, ITS NOT A BANNABLE OFFENSE. Its SBS' responsibility that those kind of things wont happen.

If I use a duplicationbug sure. That is not as intended.

But buying and selling from traders is. Its not my fault the A.I. is faulty.

You know what I mean?

I think this is a perfect example of "spirit of the law" vs "letter of the law".

If a developer mislabels an item on a vendor, and a whole crap-ton of people notice it, take advantage of it, make insane amounts of money, ruin the economy, and break the game...but they didn't "technically" exploit/cheat, is that ok?

I think most reasonable people would say "no, that is not ok." It's why, when that happens in MMO's, egregious violators are typically banned, suspended with the gains removed at the least.

"It's not my fault the AI is faulty" is flawed "logic" similar to saying, "It's not my fault they left their keys in the car". You know what you are doing is wrong (or you should if you are being honest with yourself, that is).

Regardless, there will always be people like you, who take advantage of every mistake or loophole the developer overlooks, typically ruining things for others.

1. "people like me" thanks for assuming I'm the one wanting to do it, when I got bashed multiple times for trying to raise awareness to the issue. No I don't abuse systems. Only if it becomes a necessity to keep up with other players.

2. the problem YOU don't seem to get is, that its a scale, not a black and white issue. on the complete left is purposefully abusing a bug (like multiplication) that was not intended in any way to be a feature and cannot be rationalized, while on the other hand we have completely only ever doing what everyone else does, not trying to find the best way of doing so.

And everything else is in the middle. (talking about standart mmos right now. obviously) And if I find a dungeon that gives me nearly 2x xp then all the others? Is that abusing the system? I'm twice as fast as everyone else now. Is crafting an item that is worth 20x of what I had to pay for the ingredients abuse? Is going on the market and buying every healingpotion and selling them for WAY higher prices abuse?

And yes yes you probably have clear answers to all of them. But ask 10 different players and you'll get 10 different answers. So they can't simply say "okay we'll ban you if you do that dungeon over and over! but if you sell items to npcs that are 100x of what it should be thats fine. "

This is why no MMO punishes system abuse. Only ever bugabuse. Things that are not intended to work in the way the player does it (like duplication). But if THEY screwed up the balancing of prices/rewards and so on, it is not the players fault if he does it.

It is not a scale. You are either using an exploit, or you are not.

The number of people that do something that is wrong, doesn't excuse how wrong the thing is.

OBVIOUSLY not every exploit is created equal.

If it is a mostly harmless one, or if you only use it a couple times, SBS will likely let you off easy, or assume that you did it by accident. Little to no punishment would be given.

If the exploit is more serious, or you use an otherwise harmless one so many times that it is obvious you are simply farming it, you will likely get a more serious punishment. Perhaps a temporary ban would fit here.

If an exploit is large enough, or farmed enough, to affect the game at large in a significant way, you are not going to get away with that. That would be a permanent ban.

Your examples are still terrible, btw.

Selling an item to an NPC that is "100x what it should be": I'm going to assume you mean selling shoddy items for large sums of money. Even if the NPC is incapable of recognizing that it is getting a terrible deal, this wouldn't exactly be a farmable exploit. The NPC would not have infinite money to waste buying your backpack trash, and it definitely won't buy more of something that it currently needs.

Buying all the health potions on the market and reselling them at much higher prices: There is no mechanism being exploited in this example. It's simply playing the market.This would be very hard to do, and probably would not last for very long at all. The people who sold the items to you are just going to stop selling to you, make more of the items, and sell the new items at normal prices again.

It is very hard to take you seriously when all of your examples are so obviously not applicable, even to what little we know about this game so far.

As this discussion so elegantly came to another deadlock, I think it may be useful to focus on what we actually can do, that is, what the developers and the people enabled to do field testing can do before official launch. There is Pre-Alpha, Alpha-I, Alpha-II, Beta-I, Beta-II, Exposition and a Stress Test before launch. I reckon that provides sufficient opportunity to identify potential glitches, abuse options, and whatnot. Additionally, it is when SBS can test potential issues as well.

It could be helpful to have fans (notably the most concerned and critical) help out by enabling then to provide input via a special forum aimed to gather info on potential issues, without them actually being part of the community doing the testing. So, next to a bug-report forum, have a 'potential-issue-report' forum, where people can post their concerns about issues that may play a role upon launch, based on their own experience elsewhere and/or plain doomwatching.

Thinking possibilities is nice, but thinking problems may also have its use.

These concerns should be specific and concrete, just as the issues reported in past weeks in threads like these and the ones reported by ViktoriusIII. I'd say there should be no obligation to provide conclusive answers to reported potential-issues, as that may conflict with various SBS interests, so such a forum may appear to be a one-way-mailbox. But having it as a forum will support the possibility for others to add their thoughts to any identified potential-issue, maybe even come up with possible solutions (ways to solve issues or counter potential abuse). Sure, there may be lots of speculation, but we're having that anyway, now and until launch. Better channel the power of concern and criticism and put the input to good use. Concretely, the reported potential issues can be translated into design improvements of mechanics and code and transferred to appropriate test protocols to be used in one or more of the many stages of field testing CoE has planned.

Producers can learn the most from their most critical customers. I've experienced this in practise in several companies I worked for. It's great, it's true.

SBS could even consider to hire a few notorious MMORPG griefers/abusers or add a few 'ethical game hackers/abusers' to their SME team. ;)