EXP Absorbtion in HJ

A graphical MMORPG with no ruleset is doomed to fail without a good community. Pinnelipe and the rest of you are all right, and that's entirely why.

With the state of graphical MMORPGs and the people that play them today (as referenced in another topic where the oldschool MMO-ers are losing their genre) leaving the game in a total state of anarchy would make it practically unplayable. People that play on PvP servers are hardcore PvPers. Introduce a game with only PvP servers, and you have another DAoC or Guildwars, where nobody is interested in the actual game, but the community spirals into a PvP grief-fest devoid of RP and otherwise any human intelligence.

The Fallen works because of its community, and was introduced long after the origional game was released, and tweaked extensively. Part of the community wanted to AFK-script, and wanted to RP much darker characters, so the community seemingly developed into vagabond groups, then larger, much like a tribe, or guild.

This is much like what would happen in an actual state of human anarchy. Chaos needs order, and in total chaos, order will eventually be reinstated. The strong will become stronger, and the weak will dwindle and eventually be consumed by the strong. Until government is re-established, and the concept of Anarchy is once again taboo.

I hope to god Simu wouldn't even for a second think of giving us a game they'd worked over a decade on and have no rules, free PvP, and no GMs like in The Fallen. That'd be like saying "Hey I worked really hard on this! Please destroy any chance it ever had of succeeding!"

Think about how many people play WoW and other MMORPGs currently that many of us wouldn't hesitate to remove from the already polluted gene pool, and then think of how many of those people would flock to HJ en-masse like a disgruntled slew of elitist silverback gorillas.

We need control, we need to eliminiate botting, and we need RP for a good community. Crappy community = crappy game. We seem to have lost sight over the years of what was so good about a multiplayer RPG in the first place. Working together, and enjoying ourselves. Save the working against each other and competition for the real world. MMORPGs used to be a place you could go to relax, and get away from the stresses of the real world. What good is it to fret and bang on your keyboard because someone PKed you, or KSed you, or stole a mob you'd been camping for hours, or ninjalooted you... the list goes on and on of ways we have learned to wrong each other in MMORPGs.

If and only if there were free PvP in HJ, there should be a complicated rule system very RP in nature on when non-duel style PvP should legally be initiated, like there is in Dragonrealms. If you're hanging out in your guild's spot outside town or whatever, and some random joe comes up and gives your wife a pat on the behind, you should have the right to RP a spear right through his throat (or at least try). Likewise, if you catch someone's hand in your pocket, it's your right to cut it off. Randomly running up to someone already in combat and stabbing them in the back unprovoked is the antithesis of RP, and should be strongly reprimanded in a game where free PvP is ingame.

Some areas, of course, these rules would not apply, say for such a "true" PvP area if you will, like a warzone, or contested grounds, an arena, what have you. If this concept were to be established... (and I think it's a good idea to quiet those "hardcore" PvPers out there) then for the love of god and all that is holy don't make frequently hunted/quested/grouped areas free PvP. Nobody appreciates their grinding time being impeded by someone. That's interrupting YOUR game time, time you spent money on, for someone else's cheap, meaningless, and probably brief amusement.

I'm... rambling a bit, I apologize. Simu, the Fallen is great, but it's not for HJ, not now at least.
 
I think you missed the point.

The Fallen is separate from DragonRealms, but both exist and have those that want to play one or the other. So the suggestion was to have both Hero's Journey (for a healthy, normal, roleplaying community) and Hero's Journey: The Fallen (for the people who prefer that style of play).

The problem with not having a HJ:TF and just keeping one normal ruleset is that you are then lumping everyone in one group, and the different playstyles will quite directly grind against each other and make everyone's time spent playing less fun. And as you pointed out, having only a HJ:TF style for everyone is equally undesirable.

Having both, though, would work just as it does for DragonRealms. You install HJ, and go to your server list. You pick what you want: either the well enforced, peaceable, roleplay centric servers; or you choose the unenforced, riskier, pvp and no-rules centric servers. Everyone wins.

Yeah, just like with DR:TF, there will be a period of anarchy before things settle. But it will be short, things will settle. And after the first chaotic beginning, you can always choose the normal servers, or the fallen servers, as you please, and everyone can be happy.

~Dune~
 
Whatever they do I hope that they have a pop up window or something explaining the rule set of that server. Not a huge wall of text that everyone skips but a few very pointed bullet points.

I'm tired of hearing people on "RP" servers yell out in the common chat that they just picked the server because it had a low population, or they didn’t know what RP meant..
 
Better yet? A self policing system like in DR, with actual GM intervention.

You break rules on WoW? No one stops you. They're unenforced. The other players can't do anything, and the GMs do nothing. What good are rules if they never apply?

You break rules in DR (and hopefully HJ)? The playerbase responds and self polices, using what powers it has to suggest (sometimes strongly) that you read the rules and abide by them. You insist on breaking rules, GMs get involved and it is NOT pretty.

Simple as that.

~Dune~
 
Better yet? A self policing system like in DR, with actual GM intervention.

You break rules on WoW? No one stops you. They're unenforced. The other players can't do anything, and the GMs do nothing. What good are rules if they never apply?

You break rules in DR (and hopefully HJ)? The playerbase responds and self polices, using what powers it has to suggest (sometimes strongly) that you read the rules and abide by them. You insist on breaking rules, GMs get involved and it is NOT pretty.

Simple as that.

~Dune~

That is one of the things that killed me in WoW especially on RP servers.

I actually had one incident of a name report I did on a RP server. I usually ignore names especially in WoW but if someone is an asshat, I will report it.

Well normally I get the usual replies from GMs saying due to privacy reasons we can't tell you anything but will investigate. Well I am not sure why or anything but I actually got a response back saying the name was not offensive in anyway and nothing would be done about it. That Blizzard only worries about offending people and blah blah blah. I wish I could have responded back and said something especially pointing out it was a RP server and show them the Blizzard page of rules on RP servers although they wouldn't care in the end it just annoyed me and I actually quit WoW later on from it. I did go back again with a different attitude but none the less that email killed me really and leaves me of no hope of anyone actually enforcing their RP rules.
 
See, that's something that bothers me. They're concerned with "offending" people. Not because they care about people being offended, but because their legal team tells them to, so they can't be sued so easily. Clearly you were offended by the name, but since it wasn't in the range of things "offensive", ie lawsuit-worthy, they did nothing.

~Dune~
 
They can't be sued. You can't sue over not being allowed to call yourself "asshat42". Point out ONE lawsuit where a player sued a game company.

People say all this B.S. about 'you can't do that' or 'we'll sue them' but really there is no way to do that. As the propriator of a service, they have the right to refuse service to anybody for absolutely any reason. They have the right to do with your account whatever they please for absolutetly any reason.

The only things you can really sue for is them selling your personal data without proper notification (just needs to be in the TOS), or charging too much on your credit card. That's it...
 
I guess I do agree with Dune Walker in the sense that there should be a HJ:TF server, as well as an RP server. I also think, that both servers should be RP. Still, without any GM intervention which comes with The Fallen, RP would have to be community enforced.

The self-policing in DR was great, and I hope it will be in HJ as well. The only flaw with the self-policing system is that if someone killed you in DR, and it was unprovoked, it still took away from your gameplay time. It was still frustrating, even if that person wound up in the infamous "cell" for a while. They'll probably get out eventually, and when they do get out, will harass you RP style in conjunction with the rules to no end.

It's natural for folks to carry a grudge, I suppose, but I've had trouble in DR like this before. *ponders the idea of an in-game restraining order* I just wonder if folks who do things like this feel that you only called a GM because they started something you couldn't settle yourself. Like they feel like there never were any rules to begin with, and you're just crying to mommy Simu cause someone pushed you in the playground. I dunno...

Anyway, onto the naming policy... *sigh* I would hope that RP names would be enforced as well. Futuristic or modern names as well as obviously offensive ones should be under the magnifying glass. I'm pretty sure "Chuck Norris" wouldn't be an acceptable name, nor "Robocop" or "Asshat" for that matter. We can only rely on the community to notify GMs of these infractions, unless Simu wanted to do with the original Everquest did: having a couple GMs approve/disapprove character names before they're even allowed into the world.

Personally, I don't think anything you can find in a dictionary should be an allowable character name. Neither should any historical character, or movie name/character, or modern name like Chris or Susan... but I'm not in charge of the naming policy. Meh, we'll just have to see how Simu decides to do it, I guess.
 
I dunno about dictionary entries, some of those can be nifty names. Some should of course be filtered out, but I'm having trouble thinking of normal words that are really all that bad.

A gnome named Doorknob.
A dwarf named Tankard.
A human named Sprinter.
An elf named Canorous.

The only type of dictionary entry names I can imagine definately being off limits are proper names and titles and stuff, like Pope or Damascus or Jefferson.

~Dune~
 
I see your point, but with GM approval on character creation the few anomalies where dictionary words are still somehow RP can and will be addressed. I just think this is one of the few things EQ1 did right.
 
Urg, yes I can not stand stupid names! They ruin the RP experience! EQ1's idea sounds ideal, but do you really have a few GM's on all the time filtering names? Seems a bit tedious?
 
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