In my opinion unless getting caught for an unlawful murder has very severe ramifications there will indeed going to be a huge free for all murderspree. If catching someone is fairly easy and it indeed has sever consequences for the guilty party then the game will be harsh, but fairly civilised at least in most areas.

NPCs will likely far outweigh players at launch, so even if players get together in groups to gank people there'll be large amounts of NPCs that nobles can call up to fight back. I think most players will not want to be gankers anyway, not when there's such a massive gametime penalty for being caught.

But that's what beta is for, to fine tune these things so that on launch it doesn't devolve into a Rust-like game.

It depends on the mechanism by which crimes are reported, and how characters recognize criminals (law enforcement "recognizing" the criminal based off a sketch, ie 'murderer' written above his head. For example)

As has been stated elsewhere by SBS the Deviant style of play is not only possible, it is encouraged (to a degree).

I believe the ratio was something like 10-15% of players should be deviants - bandits and the like. SBS has stated during testing they will use "dials" to make it easier/harder depending so they get to that golden zone.

Unlike traditional mmos deviants will be the raid bosses, the catalysts for story hooks. These players will be the people driving the Vice side of the story. So controlling them or keeping their actions to a minimum via unduely harsh game penalties goes against the actual intent and design of COE.

There currently are punishments in place and we will likely see these tweaked throughout both development and the live version after launch as well. There won't be wide spread random lawlessness. It there won't be an idyllic non-pvp landscape either.

Keep in mind that 10pct would be all deviant players too. So an even lower percentage would be killers.

@Barghest & @Malais

Let's assume we are in year 2 of the game and the majority of the population are indeed players. Now I don't have any problems with OP players or even squads of them, as you have stated they will be the raid bosses and so on. What I am moderately concerned about is the fact that so far no MMORPG have ever successfully achieved to pull of free for all pvp. There are multiple reasons why it might be easy to pull of with COE chiefly amongst them the fact that there is full loot, the lack of the ability to log out and the RL monetary consequences of Deviant actions. These being the case what if these aren't enough to get us to that golden middle path? What other ways are there to control via game mechanics the population of deviants, without causing issues?

I think disguises will need a nerf. Let's say forensics is super OP and tells you the first and last name of who did it, his description and a picture of his player. Great but you survey your town to realize he doesn't exist. Long behold, the real criminal put on a wig, used contacts, got a scar and tattooed himself. Not only that but he creates a fake ID as well. I don't see how you get past that. Are you going to interrogate all 75+ people? Who says he is even in the same town. By the time you done interrogating everyone the guy could be 2 towns over.

Posted By Antaryon at 4:28 PM - Sat Jan 21 2017

@Barghest & @Malais

Let's assume we are in year 2 of the game and the majority of the population are indeed players. Now I don't have any problems with OP players or even squads of them, as you have stated they will be the raid bosses and so on. What I am moderately concerned about is the fact that so far no MMORPG have ever successfully achieved to pull of free for all pvp. There are multiple reasons why it might be easy to pull of with COE chiefly amongst them the fact that there is full loot, the lack of the ability to log out and the RL monetary consequences of Deviant actions. These being the case what if these aren't enough to get us to that golden middle path? What other ways are there to control via game mechanics the population of deviants, without causing issues?

"Full loot" as in the sense you can only full loot someone if they're coup-de-graced.

There's plenty of other things I often see people glance over, first and foremost, CoE isn't build around combat, I mean that in a sense that almost, with very few exceptions, all mmos are build around the base concept that you need to do combat to achieve stuff, killing monsters will result in gold, gear, etc. by killing you can gain everything, level up crafting, it's often required you do the killing. Therefore in games you'll also often be handed weapons, you'll be able to train fighting or whatever class you chose.

This is not true in CoE, CoE doesn't base it's mmo around combat, it bases it around multiplayer. A crafter doesn't need to touch a sword in his life, nor do an inn keeper etc. And already here we'll fall into the first barrier for the "gankers" First they'll need weapons, armour etc. now we don't know what family and such you'll spawn into, but I don't see families putting armour, weapon etc. in their child hands and then pushing them on their way to go kill stuff. Second: "You won't gain everything through killing" most likely you'll not really gain much unless you had a contract, unless you got other skills like skinning and such, but we're presuming the gankers you're talking about are warriors and such, now they probably also want to learn some skills, so they'll need to find someone to train them, it won't be handed to them on a platter. Then there's the whole "you'll need food to survive" ofc we don't know if it'll be like Minecraft you just stack 64 potatos and are fine to go or something silly, but since everything you carry can be seen on you, but if you anger the settlement you'll get pushed out into the wild and you suddenly have to think about food, water etc. Not to mention that your characters DONT dissapear from the world when they log on, so unless you feel safe the townsfolk might hunt you down and kill you while you're not even at your computer, so seeking "safety" in a settlement has more to it than such.

Then there's also the whole "Size of the world" thing, and the fact that there isn't a mini-map you can just quickly pull out. I'm not saying that it's impossible, I'm just saying it'll be a lot harder than you might imagine. And if you kill off all the farmers, the blacksmiths etc. there won't really be anyone to repair your weapon, and you won't be able to be good at everything, so you might "shoot yourself in the foot" so to speak.

There's also a lot of other things, I'll write more if it is, but I'm sure you'll get the idea :P

This is one of my pet interest. Unfortunately I think’s it’s too early to have a really productive conversation about defending communities from random ganking for a couple of reasons:

1. We know very little about the mechanics. Sure there are vague promises and speculation, but anybody who has followed a game pre alpha can tell you that the game you read about before launch if often quite different than what launches. And I don’t mean that as a slight toward SBS, it’s just the nature of the beast.

2. This early, people’s predictions are often just them insisting the world will be the way they hope it is, and not logically thinking about how it will be. The level of naiveté that some people have concerning how PKs think, act, and what motivates them is …. interesting. Not trying to be condescending or rude, just making an observation.

A week after launch, when we are all sitting here with bloody noses, let’s have this conversation again. In the meantime there are a couple observations I’ll make pretty confidently:

1. There absolutely will be random gankers. At one point UO had teleporting instakill guards in town and stat loss as a deterrent, and it still had random gankers. How many, how effective, and how common? <shrug> We’ll see.

2. A large part of the burden of defense will fall to us. No npc guard is a substitute for a thinking, plotting, hunter that will track them down and give them some of what they deal in. No system of flagging is a substitute for a community that knows who the bad guys are. The communities that band together and take care of their own will be safe …ish. If Beta 1 rolls around and your leader isn’t talking about how to keep his people safe, you better start looking for a new leader. This is a sandbox. In the end we have control if we are willing to take it. We can make it something we enjoy, or let others make it something we don’t.

I could go on about why I think a community that polices itself is good for open pvp and good for the game, but I won’t bore you with any more of my rambling.

@Junkbarbarian @Liva

Those are the kind of reasonings I am interested in. Both of You bring up valid points. I also know that we are only theory crafting, but that is what I want to do, let's assume everything we know about the game will be the best we can imagine and let's try to come up with the "perfect" system we can think of that suits what we know about the game.

So I ask you this @Junkbarbarian, what motivates an avid PKer?

And @Liva I do get the picture, but pls keep the reasons coming for why would PKers shoot themselves in the foot by practicing their favourite thing, killing for the heck of it.

Let's see if we can arrive to a situation where the community could manage their own and could in theory achieve a world akin to our own "deviants" , where everyone if they choose to can live in relative safety.

What motivates the PK? That I think we can actually discuss without going too far into pure speculation because its about people rather than mechanics. Give me a moment and I'll write you a longer post when I can sit down. For now the short answer is that there are different types motivated by different things. That's why no one deterrent stops them all.

I still think anything we say about the subject this early is mostly noise, but maybe we can make some entertaining noise at least.

Ya'll are assuming that players that come from FFA PvP games will give two Sh!ts about the consequences for killing people. 90% won't care. They will kill people just because they are near them and that, in and of itself, is reason enough. This is fun for that type of player. Plus, if you add in the fact that they can rob you blind upon your death, there is added incentive TO kill people.

If you want safe zones, you better either ally yourself with or pay some players with a decent level of PvP skill to keep you safe. Otherwise you're an easy target. You might as well be the crops they farm.

A lot of people in this game think that it'll play like a mix between SIMs and Farmville. In some areas of the world, that very well may be the case, but in most, it'll be a far more brutal and unforgiving world than that. You'll have to fight to get what you want and to keep it.

Anyone who feels like they can truly go through the game without fighting others, AND who doesn't have close ties with a PvP group to move and protect their assets for them, they will be sadly mistaken in nearly all cases.

I realize this is a bit of a blunt way of putting it, but I promise you that this is how it will be. We are still pretty early in the CoE development and it doesn't have the widespread publicity that other big-name mmos have... YET!

I can assure you with almost near certainty that most of the the more ruthless and traditional guilds/groups and players who chase FFA PvP games have not even heard of CoE yet and when they do, they will come here in droves and be a middle finger to the entire CoE community that has never played a game like this before. They will talk mess. They will threaten your settlements. They will antagonize. They will attack you at any and all chances given. This is how FFA games work.

I recommend that if you are a crafter, find a PvP group and use them to push your goods for you. Attach yourself to them because they are going ot be the ones that consume and use your products. They will be the ones out fighting to keep YOUR stuff safe and they will also be your source of economy. All these crafters playing buddy buddy with other crafters is great, but in reality are you going to be selling those crafters your goods that they are already crafting? Are they going to give you mats that they could use themselves? No! Get some PvP'ers who are far more likely to farm FOR you so that you can make them stuff, so that they can farm better things for your, so that you can make better stuff. Feed yourself by feeding the fighters. If you truly want to be a crafter that doesn't fight, you HAVE to directly support PvP'ers in order to be successful.

What does that lead to, I wonder... ? More PvP!

PvP and war between kingdoms is LITERALLY the end-game. Everything you do in CoE will be to prepare you or your allies for war against a hostile force; be it foreign or domestic.

My two cents about the types of PKs and what makes them tick:

Two caveats:

1. This is purely anecdotal based on experience and observation, I do not pretend it is universal truth

2. In most games I have not PKed, so most of my experience is from the anti PK side and is thus biased

I think most PKs fall into one of three groups.

A. The pure griefer. While schadenfreude may be part of the formula for any PK, for this guy it’s the entire draw. He isn’t there to build anything. He doesn’t care about the loot. He doesn’t care about making friends. He doesn’t want a good fight. He doesn’t even care about his character in the long run. He just wants to ruin your day. These guys tend to look for easy targets so the best defense is not to be stupid or weak, or at least don’t act stupid or weak. Sadly common.

B. The hardened PK. For these guys it’s about challenge. It’s about the thrill of getting away with something when the deck is stacked against them. Any black mark will be worn as a badge of honor. Any deterrent short of making PKing not fun, just translates to bragging rights. The more challenge the greater the draw. These guys may actually pass up the weak target to go after a stronger one. I was in an anti PK guild once and a few of these guys hunted us. Probably the rarest. I think these guys actually add something to the game. You may disagree of course.

C. The opportunist. Opportunist is motivated purely by risk reward ratio and may not even be full time PKs.

I should probably clarify what PK means to me. To me it means a player who attacks random or semi random targets using the element of surprise to gain the upper hand. If you are a scout and an enemy soldier ambushes and kills you, that isn’t a PK (not random). A guy on the bridge screaming “None shall pass” and then attacking if you come close isn’t a PK (he gave you an out). An assassin hired to kill you is not a PK (not random). Again that’s just my opinion, and we may or may not agree.

This is a long one but please read if you are interested in my analysis of player griefing and murdering and how to stop it ------

What makes player controlled people kill ? The thrill , the ease , the convienance of being able to kill that incredibly gullible , innocent looking farmer you live next to is what makes us wanna kill other players , not to mention the loot .

It's easy and it's fun , no matter how shallow it is even the best of us in real life will take a video game persona to extreme for simple fun . I see it like this : don't add a bunch of restrictions that make this game less of a sandbox , we should be able to assassinate in towns , if it's easy well getting away shouldn't be so easy unless the kingdom is literally blind, this sounds counter productive but trust me it's not . We should be able to kill randomly when we don't have much time to do anything else , especially if we are a bandit living in a forest near a trade route - it's just another way of making money - it's a JOB . BUT ----

Let's move onto some realistic ideas to limit this : ideally the people and their kingdoms will Be settled in because of the "no deviant skills" at start of alpha, with that being said I think it already eases the turmoil : we don't all have to race against each other for power , most will already have power , how long it takes for them to become jealous of others is anybody's guess but that will only be more exciting - player created conflict. Now what about the newcomers that come in with nothing and want to kill their way to the top ? They can do that , but unless they are willing to spend a frustrating amount of money on souls then I doubt that they will kill Willy nilly whomever they please , which is the second limiting factor , but not the greatest by far .

I believe that having guards that aren't overpowered is one of two of the last few reasons why pking will be better in this game then In others . OP Guards create this feeling of "oh my god we need these super soldiers or else the bad guys outside will be too strong for us" . If we were to have the guards be strong but not unstoppable it would FORCE the inhabitants of innocent blue towns to arm themselves , hire protection or would convince their kingdoms royalty to do something about the ensuing bad player danger in town and on trade routes outside , this creates REAL SITUATIONS that we can't just run away from. Sure it will be hard at first but if you use your community correctly you will never be griefed out of the game , which brings me to the last reason .

The second part to the last "limiting factor" of random murdering would have to be this : economy. Realism . We won't have all of our life savings on us at all times , and even though people who can't create armor will want to kill someone who has it this game will be set up in such a localized/community way that we won't ever be riding around on a horse solo style with a thousand gold pieces and dozens of armor pieces for sale (unless we're ballsy or desperate), as this game is going for a sort of realistic approach (involving economy , transport , and protection). So I'm guessing a small pack of lightly geared players living out in the woods will hardly ever have the opportunity to successfully jump a merchant / trader full of goods that can't protect himself, as he will have hired guards (real players), friends , or at least a protected caravan that could possibly outrun a bandit on foot . Eventually large groups will raid towns , cities and the like but again we should be prepared for that time period of the game - war is INEVITABLE but griefing IS NOT ! With all these reasons put together KoS will be reduced , who knows by how much but I think it will be a LOT.

Lots of opportunities in this game and I truly believe the last two reasons I mentioned will really create a "think first not later" approach with a lot of bandits and also a sense of taking it into our own hands for those who aren't bandits , players will have whole CAREERS that center around keeping other players safe , and that's something we don't ever see in video games - it's always just take care of your real life friends and no one else , but if we have a realistic economy that promotes real players doing services for other real players , well then we can have a safer, less grief oriented world .