MMORPGs + friends

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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

No, he went to go work on that after he left EA.

I know that he was unhappy with how UO was being shaped. He believed it should have been up to the players to shape the world, not the developers.

He was right.

The game was an addiction when the threat of PKs loomed. I left right before it got nerfed.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
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Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

It's beyond fucked up today. My guild used to run THE vendor place on LS. We made a fucking killing. I think stratics still has the fucking place listed. I'll link it later whilst not "working" on my Mac.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
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Troy
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Post by Troy »

I thought he got canned because the fool built a castle and declared himself a monarch or something.



Edited By Troy on 1123009273
mbilderback
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Post by mbilderback »

And the other side of the pvp coin.... when you kill another player, are they fully lootable? No bullshit "insurance" or "binding" or anything?

Basically, are there serious consequences for death?
Ok, here's how the game world handles death. You have a basic low level clone that can hold so many skill points, it costs more and more money the more skill points you have. So when you are podded (they blow up your ship first, then you have an escape pod, they have to blow that up to kill your character) your clone gets activated and you have to buy another. This isn't too costly unless you have attribute enhancing electronics in your character's brain, then you can loose millions in implants.

As for the ship, you can 'insure' your ship, but it works like it does in real-life. You insure for a couple of months and it costs about 1/4 the price of the ship so it's no small cost AND you cannot insure cargo, weapons, or other modules. For instance, I lost a ship a little while back. It cost 38m to buy the ship and had approx 5m more in modules. It was uninsured, so I only got 8m back. Luckily the corp was able to provide a replacement.

If I had spent the 10m or so to fully insure the thing (There are varrying levels of insurance) I would only have gotten approx 38m back, so net I'm out 15m.

There are REAL losses for dying. You can loose months worth of skill training if you don't keep up your clone. It will ALWAYS cost you money, usually a lot.

When I do trading, I will take out an Industrial ship, no guns, purely made for hauling shit around. The cargo commonly costs about 10m per shipment, and that's cheap, the ship only cost me about 2m. Even if the ship is insured, I loose 5x that much on the cargo alone, that's not even taking into account my 8m in modules.



As for healing from third parties, it /can/ happen, but I've never seen it done. And, almost all PVP is done in <0.5 space where if someone looks at you wrong, you can shoot them.
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Post by GORDON »

Ok, so there are losses for death... but are there benefits for the guy who kills you?
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Post by mbilderback »

There are. I always get loot from NPCs, not sure about PKing, since I've never done it. But usually, PKing is done for other reasons typically.

For instance, Pirating typically involves finding a weaker ship (transport, miner, smaller combat) and using a warp interdictor while beating it up. Once you get them to half or lower armor, you contact them and demand ransom. Usually you get it.

Corp wars are fought over territory, mining rights, and other such things. Lotsa combat.

I can't speak with authority on PK benefits.
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

I never minded blue healers. Our always worked better than others, and we could still score our kills. At one point, we would score more kills than normal, because our target felt they were safe, and stuck around too long. I didn't mind the NPKs either. They just became a target themselves. . . That is, after I learned how to PvP of course. Before that, I hated them. But, it gave me a goal that I payed to achieve for 5 years.
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Post by mbilderback »

Oh, yeah, G, one other benefit. A player can put bounties on other players, so you can actually be a bounty hunter for a living and make good monies.
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Post by Malcolm »

Oh, yeah, G, one other benefit. A player can put bounties on other players, so you can actually be a bounty hunter for a living and make good monies.
They tried that in UO to madcap, zany, comic results.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
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Post by GORDON »

Oh, yeah, G, one other benefit. A player can put bounties on other players, so you can actually be a bounty hunter for a living and make good monies.
They tried that in UO to madcap, zany, comic results.
Exactly.

Murderes would wait til the bounty got high, then have a friend kill them and deliver their head. Friend and murderer split the bounty between them.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
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Post by mbilderback »

Oh, yeah, G, one other benefit. A player can put bounties on other players, so you can actually be a bounty hunter for a living and make good monies.
They tried that in UO to madcap, zany, comic results.
Exactly.

Murderes would wait til the bounty got high, then have a friend kill them and deliver their head. Friend and murderer split the bounty between them.
Yup, heard of that in Eve as well, but 30+ million isn't worth killing yourself over and splitting, but it sure as hell is worth blowing up someone else's ship and getting the reward. Most straight PVPers that would get a high bounty have over 100mil in implants alone, and implants can't be removed.

UO didn't have anything that you would ALWAYS loose when you die. Eve has that in implants. Sure, things will happen like that, but I've seen a lot of criminals with high bounties continuing about their business.
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Post by GORDON »

UO didn't have anything that you would ALWAYS loose when you die. Eve has that in implants. Sure, things will happen like that, but I've seen a lot of criminals with high bounties continuing about their business.
You always lost EVERYTHING when you died, no exceptions.

Eventually they put in stat loss.... 5 kills in 40 hours, you go red. Die while red, 5% stat loss across the board... that hurt.

And then they started inventing "blessed" items, which you wouldn't lose at death. This means people could now carry around their overpowered halberd of whoop-ass with no fear of losing it at death.... things went down hill from there.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

Also, how long till the next dupe bug fucks shit up? What's the dev team like?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
mbilderback
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Post by mbilderback »

UO didn't have anything that you would ALWAYS loose when you die. Eve has that in implants. Sure, things will happen like that, but I've seen a lot of criminals with high bounties continuing about their business.
You always lost EVERYTHING when you died, no exceptions.

Eventually they put in stat loss.... 5 kills in 40 hours, you go red. Die while red, 5% stat loss across the board... that hurt.

And then they started inventing "blessed" items, which you wouldn't lose at death. This means people could now carry around their overpowered halberd of whoop-ass with no fear of losing it at death.... things went down hill from there.
Sorry, I should have narrowed my scope. If you wanted to get the bounty on your head, you could put everything away, get axed, and get everything back. In eve, even if you went out in the smallest ship (9k cost) to get blown up, you'd loose all your implants. You can't take those off long enough to let your friend kill you.
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Post by mbilderback »

Also, how long till the next dupe bug fucks shit up? What's the dev team like?
Good question. Well, CCP, the makers of the game run a forum on their website where the developers will post questions, listen to comments, and everything else. Then, they put any patches onto the test server (the only other server, but it's not for regular play, only testing) and there will be more discussion on the website. So far patches have definately seemed to follow popular opinion. There has been a huge patch lately mostly involving missles and how they behave. It was somewhat controversial, but the majority of the levelheaded people I've heard seem to think things are being handled well.
Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

How will they respond to something that breaks in the in-game system, like the shit that happened on Siege Perilous a bit back? Roll it back or try to adjust?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
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Post by mbilderback »

They actually had a similar issue with the latest major patch. Some of the systems wouldn't load, as soon as you jumped in your screen would go black and never load. They tried for 2 days to fix it, rebooting the servers at least twice. Once they realized there was a major issue, they rolled back for a short time, fixed what needed to be fixed, and re-released. A week later and I haven't heard of anyone else getting stuck in systems. :)
Malcolm
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Post by Malcolm »

How do the game mechanics work? How long does it take to "max out" my dude or at least get him competitive w\ the rest of the world? What's the learning curve? More importantly, what's the skill gain curve like? How much macroing is involved?
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
mbilderback
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Post by mbilderback »

Uh, Malcom...it's free to try, why not give it a shot?

Game mechanics? Depends on specifics, what part are you most interested in?

Max out? Dunno, never seen anyone maxed out even knowing some who have played for years.

Competitive? There's always someone better, always someone worse. I've been playing 3 months and can hold my own.

Learning Curve? Pretty sharp, helps to have peeps to talk to (player corp).

Skill Gain curve and macros? No macros, a single skill you set will train whether you're doing anything, sitting around, or offline. All you have to do is set what skill you want to train at any particular time.

Check it out and make your own assertations.
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Post by Malcolm »

If it cuts into my drinking time, it gets to go thru a rigorous screening process.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
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