Leaving the world and scripts, Going offline and safety. Options

[ni1s]

evolution ending where they revert back to primordial soup and then back again when they log in

If I cast a Lightning spell over your Soup, would I be able to turn you back to normal while you're logged out still?

I'm still not sure about this. Having a PC that you spend a lot of time grouped with and RPing with just standing about under control of an AI script would kill the feel of that character a bit for me.

Agreed. But having your character disappear in a cloud of smoke( or your favorite exit effect ) removes a bit of the feeling that you are in another world, a role playing world. And I think that's worse than your character being out of character.

[Xoshua]

I'm new at giving ideas for PW but I'll try.

This may be a dumb thought but I understand, as a Player Character, we do not want to advance in skills while away. But what if they "logged out" and the persons character would work on a skill... For example, if he/ she had strength as a main skill, they would do physical training, pushups?. Or if they studied magic, they could study up on their current spells? If an archer, practice shooting or techniques, or so on. I don't think its fair for someone to go away and end up dead, or gained skills, or lose skills, or so on. But that's the whole point of logging off... So the person can keep the same skills the same LV... Any ideas on that?

[joshpurple]

( I think you are excellent at giving ideas for PW Josh! -And Thank You for doing so! )

[Minthos]

Oh gosh, now we have two Joshes? :/

[Tecknowolf]

I would have to say I am with Dwilf on this one. I think I have commented on this sort of idea before, possibly on another forum. To me, this is a patch for a larger hole, which could be taken care of by actually fixing the root of the problem.

I don't think I would want to play a game that levels me or does anything while I am not there. That doesn't seem to promote immersion at all, and only worsens the fact that its a game that you are playing just to be better than the next guy. The focus is on skills, or levels, or how much money, or whatever. This would mean that is what is important in that game. Thats what you would need to do in order to contribute, compete, stay afloat, be better than the Jones.

What about the experience of playing the game? Wouldn't it be great to feel satiated just to log in and play, no matter what your standing was? Wouldn't it be great to actually log in and play with your friends, no matter what level they were, or what yours was? Wouldn't it be great to start out on a quest that would make you famous all over the world and you didn't have to be level 60 to do it?

These questions need answers, and I do not have all of them yet. I know Wish did some of this. I know we can do that and more, we just need to stop coming at ideas from angles where other games are. I hate the use the catch phrase, but lets "think outside the box" a little.

Keep the ideas coming. Someone give me a better reason to allow offline play, cause to me that doesnt mix well with a dynamic world. Instead of them logging in and turning on the macros, so they are run client side, now they are running from the server. Either way, a macro is a macro, imo. All you guys are doing is giving it another name, AI.

Ok you want a better reason. I have been working on this for over a year. Not saying my idea is best but you asked for idea's.

Why does the average person play stand alone games like Dungeon Siege or NWN? Adventure, and to get away from the grind of life. So what do they do in games like EQ, WoW, and Vanguard, they grind from level 1 to what ever the dev's set as the limit, grinding for both exp. and gear/items on the way. So basicly the game becomes more focused and developed around grinding the exp. and items as well. Then why do game devs create this format? Easy, and we all know the word. Treadmill. You and your friends are playing a MMO, lets say your friends gain a few levels on you. You need to catch up to them to join them in dungeons that are higher level. So you also need new gear, which makes you play more just to catch up to your friends, who are also leveling to get to new area's and get new gear. All the while you are paying the company a monthly fee which makes them very happy. The longer they keep you playing the more money they get. (end of back story)

So why allow offline game play. You want to make a game that sets itself apart. Focus more on the game play and let the players spend time playing and enjoying the Characters they want instead of all that time creating and training and equiping them. Look at how Eve Online allows you to train while off line. Players love that feature, and it can work very well for MMO's of this nature also.


You as a game dev have scripts for NPC's. So you can set waypoints for guards to patrol, behavior settings for how one npc acts towards another(factions), and so on. Well, have a clean and easy interface with these options so a player can have multiple routines and actions set. I would think that for player safety that they should generally only use these in a town or safe area to avoid being killed. How would these work?

So my character focuses mostly on blacksmithing, and I have a nice little shop set up to sell stuff from. I have a list of routines and actions in a pull down menu that I made previously and a short description so I can recognize what it does. I am about to log off so I can go out and see a movie. I set my character to NPC mode in my shop, have it stand at the front so people can still come in and buy stuff or sell their junk for me to melt or even to fix or sharpen armor and weapons. If the game has other vendors/players who mine and smelt ore to a metal I can use. Set that vendor as a waypoint so if while I am gone my character needs more material he can go and retrieve it as needed. Or if he needs leather wrapping for a hilt or some fine wood for a axe handle.

If your character is a combat orientated character you can have him set to protect a town you are bound to. Or you might have him be used as a NPC guard and hire him out to escort merchants selling items between towns. (making a Player NPC guard not lose exp but be able to be paid for services to offset wear and tear on equipment?)

As to training and skills, in another post people discussed what would prevent people from just macro'ing like in UO to become a GM(Grand Master). You set a fatigue meter so you can only train so much in NPC mode. So if you are offline say 9 hours while at work, you can train for 15 minutes every 2 hours. Combat skills can be either sharpened through practice like a martial arts 'Kata', a training dummy, or a local Man-At-Arms with the required skill you want. Merchants would learn through a Master of their profession at a local craft guild hall or shop and so on.

How would this affect immersion and gameplay? Well your character would always be in game. Instead of playing to keep up skills or abilities you could do that offline and just enjoy your character while you are online. You are right, macro's are not always good, but they aren't always bad either. As you said that doesn't mix well with a dynamic world, but does players popping in and out make it dynamic? If I can just log out anywhere and log in anywhere then I am a nomad. If I can call a place home, say a specific town then I can feel an attatchment to that area, a sense of community as it were.

[Maxwell]

Very Nicely put Tecknowolf, I have to say that the this kind of play seems to allow more of a sense of home, or loyalty. Some people may see this as marcoing or cheating, but with this you can actually play your character when you log on. You can go hunt, enjoy quests, or just hang out at the local tavern and get into a bar fight, instead of trying to reach the next best skill.

This is just how I see things and I am trying to emphasize Tecknowolf's post.

[Jerky]

To me, these are workarounds for the real problem. Effort x Time-played in the game = power in the game. If we can change that equation, there is no need for your solutions. This is my way of saying that I still am not a fan of offline play. There are definite advantages for the server if players leave the game world. Yes, technically, this does not make the world truly immersive, but that is not the overall goal. Immersiveness is a goal, but not the holy grail.

Many players do not care about it at all. Look at how popular other commercial MMO's are. They all have this equation that I mentioned above. In order to get by, and feel like the game is worth your money, you need to feel like you are progressing to a goal. At least thats how current MMO's get you sucked in. It is not about immersion, it is about gratification. I have said it many times on other MMO-related boards, and I will say it again. Gratifying players' every desire is a very dangerous thing to be playing with. Ethically and realistically. I call it "obese child syndrome." Parents nowadays are facing a self-inflicted epidemic with childhood obesity as they continue to feed their children more, and allow them to indulge in things that are not healthy for them in portion sizes that are much more than they need. To me, game design is approaching the same paradigm.

As technology is providing better ways of creating believable, immersive virtual worlds, gameplay is becoming the focus. Graphics really only take you so far, but it is what the players do in the world that make or break a game. Making gameplay elements intended to addict a player is a dangerous thing to play with. Giving them everything they ask for is the same thing. Yes, yes ... you have to give players some things they ask for, but like the fat children, when is enough enough? As a game designer (or for us, as those who discuss possible game design decisions) when do we have to say not every idea is going to cut it. There has to be concessions, and, lets face it, we do not have the same capacities as a commercial project.

Now, back to the topic at hand, immersiveness and offline play...
To me, any offline play only encourages people to play the game just for the wrong reasons. The need to get ahead and compete drives people to figure out ways to exploit the game. Allowing them gain anything without actually doing anything is pretty much admitting that the things done in game arent worth a damn. If skills can be gained from a script, doesnt that mean they are really worthless. What good is a game that is based on skills, worthless skills? Not very much at all.

Now, this next part is just me shooting from the hip to try and throw out an idea to spark some discussion on this issue. What if any person in the game had a chance at killing one of the toughest monsters (as an example)? What if a brand new character had a chance at doing something that, in another game, should take a level 60? The playing field would be even and there would no longer be a need to offline train anything. There would not be any elite people running around, or so it seems. The next question would be, what is the incentive to play a game if anyone else coming in could do what you can, 30 days into it? Well, there are many possible solutions to that one. I would love to hear some of yours, but one possibility would be percentages.

If the game was skill-based, as we plan it to be, then what good would gaining skill do? It could increase the chance to actually do a specific task. Chance to hit, chance to critical, chance to do massive damage, chance to knock down, chance to successfully cast, chance to pick pocket, chance to tame, chance to catch, chance to create, chance to craft, chance to discover, chance to understand, chance to .... you get the idea. If your skills increased your chance to be successful at what it is that you try to do, then there would be incentive to actually try and do something.

The gap between newbies and oldies would not "seem" so far, but upon further inspection, would still be there. That is not to say a newbie and an oldie could not group together. By all means, the world is a world. Anything should be possible, just not probable. In Wish, newbies could still help defend their village against tough foes. They still had a chance of causing damage and looting it. I know, cause I did it. As a relatively new player, I was able to participate in events that I would not have been able to in other games.

See, when you try to solve gameplay ideas from the perspective of other games, that we all know, there is no thinking outside the box. There are some tried and true things to stick to, of course, but there is a blank canvas for the rest of the world. Imagining you will play this game like you have played game X is not a fair comparison. What if this game is not anything like that one? Most likely, there will be similarities, but we want you to think this game is different. It will be, especially if I have anything to say about it. Which, thank goodness, I do .

[joshpurple]

Great posts all, I'm very impressed with the depth/reflection on this (and two Josh's, *evil laugh here,* soon, soon we will take over the world! *trips, falls down stairs* ).

Jerky's post makes me think of Battlefield style combat/actions, -but I don't mean to fall back on a game and get locked in a box. Just that in BF players are all 'equal' in knife to knife fights, -although those players who have mastered the controls will do much better (side note, I think BF does a great job with helicopter flight).

That approach seems to put a great emphasis on weapons and vehicles (which can have a lot of merit to it). Most players I've talked with really enjoy the BF player action. Unreal Tournament does a similar approach, BUT gives the players TONS of 'pick-ups' to aid in player power (and I'd guess all of that could = FPS gaming).

Soooo... >Ack!< ... although many games already kind of do this, why not create two modes, 'FPS Play,' and 'RP Play.' 'FPS Play' would be a play mode that would call up a separate Scene Manager, -which would be set to put almost everything on a min./lowest level of system resource use (256 colors, no shadows, no physics/dynamics calculations<*that could change>, Short line of sight, only actions of ... 8 frames or less, etc.) When the FPS scene manager controls the action, the character would become a placeholder/reference object in the RP scene manager. True, there's a lot lost on an immersive level, BUT I am trying to think of how OGRE can/might handle this & how that would translate to game play (hope that makes sense).

Anyway, this creates some options for 'Leaving the World.' You could leave the world in 'FPS Play,' or in 'RP Play'(Note: I think it would still be a good idea that player death could occur in 'RP Play'). Leaving the world in RP Play, would pretty much = you are gone & you can not be killed. You're a place holder object (might be kind of cool to allow certain events to be 'Global,' that would affect ALL objects?). If you choose to leave the world in FPS Play, you are taking a big risk & could be killed. This gives the players a choice, but it would be my guess that most players would select leaving the world in 'RP Play.'

For any kind of Skill improvement, training, spell studies, etc. Players would need to be Active in RP Play. FPS Play would be, FPS play. Conditions for risk/possible death in RP Play could = logged out when traveling/moving, Global environmental damages (earthquakes, Floods, etc.), assassination attacks, falling, certain magical spells/artifacts, etc.

Well, it's just a brain fart.. maybe it will help trigger better ideas!

[RicoSuave]

Very interesting, JP. To add to that, perhaps you wouldn't have to have FPS-mode be a FPS-screen. It could simply be a mode to switch TO & FROM... not just an adjustment to the viewscreen.

We could even have more than just two modes: FPS, RP, Macro'd (for logging-off or unattended play), NPC/AI-controlled, and so on.

If anyone follows webcomics, there is one called 'Order of the Stick' that made a good point for battle that Jerky alluded to in his last post... using the old AD&D rules of a 20-sided die, 1 out of 20 level one newbies will still hit a level 100 monster per round rolling a "natural 20"... not doing much, but connecting regardless. If anyone has even been bit by Fire Ants, they know that there is strength in numbers. And I'm sure that Jerky was one of the many newbies that actually made a difference.

I would still like to keep that for PW. I'm not saying that I expect a new player to solo-kill an troll, unless that troll is a new player too, but at least help a group and make a difference.

As for offline-progression, instead of skills, what else could we do to make logging-off actually worthwhile? A few ideas I can think up as I type this are: gaining resources (flour, minerals, herbs), gaining a rested-state (been done with WoW), gaining social-status (schmoozing the public). All three of these are based upon character improvement. Some might like this, others will not. We just read Jerky is one of those that do not...

So let's move out of the character development sense and try something else "outside-the-box." This outside-the-box thinking might work, or need to be revamped dramatically, but it's an idea. This world we are creating... we're planning on it being enormous. What if travel was an integral, key part to economic survival? You could tie it to trade, refugees, questing, etc. You could either be logged in and walk that distance while awake, or do it while you're at work/asleep/Family Night/etc... but it's going to take you 10 hours regardless; Live with it!

If one travels while logged in, there will obviously be a bonus. He/She could interact with others on the trade route, learning, trading, exploring, mining, networking, so on. This is something the logged-off player will never and could never have. But at least he/she gets to the destination. Automatic travel could be initiated from milemarkers on the side of the road. A simple gump could pop up asking the player to select which already-known location they would like to travel to. AI would take over and the character could log out, or simply sit back and half-watch the screen while reading a book, doing homework, watching the Simpsons, etc... but it's going to take the full walk time required.


NOW comes the fun part! Throw in random encounters. The logged-in character is now prepared to engage whatever beneficial situation might be there... the offline character never gets that.

OR, have random bandits (or player-bandits) appear from time-to-time. The logged in player traveling alone might have wished to group up instead. That opens up another avenue of ingame travel. Offline characters wishing to travel may have to queue up at towns, cities, milemarkers, whatever to form a decent sized caravan for protection. This is a con to offline travel and a pro for online travel. Thus being online means no waiting (a bonus, reward for playing), while offline travel means only lost time.

We can explore this travel idea even further and have NPCs or players lead the caravan for a small fee from the travelers. In past forum threads we discussed the idea of professions never thought of before... here's one. The traveller! (I think I'm going to make a caravan leader and call him 'Donner'). For those that don't get it, Google search "Donner party" or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party.



This traveling system (if vital to PW player economy) could be a great way to make logged out still useful for players WITHOUT them gaining any real advantage over anyone else. Nothing is gained or lost except time... which is the EXACT thing we were discussing earlier. What do you think? I don't see any flaws in it at the moment, but then again I have a two-week old boy that hasn't let me get sleep lately.

I'm willing to lead a discussion group on this idea if we think it could actually work. Let me know.

[RicoSuave]

(I was really hoping for some discussion on the above post)

[joshpurple]

Heh, heh I appreciate that response, and Thank You Rico! (Pardon my delay, sorry!) Glad to hear you are taking care of your boy! (congrats again, and I'm sure you are tired! )

Indeed I know the Order of the Stick, great stuff! (I've been playing D&D since... ~age 15? So since 1980, maybe even 1979 .. I'm a geek! ).

Good ideas all, first, just had to say that.

Areas of consideration/focus: The number of different modes possible. Wandering Monsters. Player/NPC interaction. Challenge/Level of difficulty. And Travel (including Global events).

The part of Off line play is very tough, since -a 'base' level of game play is needed. What are the 'defaults.' Then, I guess, building off of the defaults to see what works & what doesn't.

For a 'default' level of play, I would guess (and this is just to start, not the final version/way it would work):

Start where you log out & your character is then gone from the world.
A combat system.
An Inventory system.
A Character Health / Stats system.
A communication system.
A Time system (based on movement in-game, player walk speed).
A persistent Game World (how that saves, Server Side / Player side).

And lots more after that (like skills, spells, etc. Lots more)

------------------------
So, the more different modes we have, the more we will have to work out how all of those modes will work in relation to; Combat, Inventory, Character Stats, Communication, Time, etc.

Examples; When I'm in 'Combat Mode,' can someone access my inventory and use it? Would it put that person in 'Combat mode' if they try to use my inventory? If someone is Off line, can their inventory be accessed? (more examples here, based on the list of 6 above).

I do like the idea of having lots of different modes, but I started with FPS and RP as an example of just using two, like a 'Global' mode (RP), and a 'Local' mode (FPS), -to possibly ease the level of complexity for having to 'blend' all of the different modes into the game. Again, I like the idea of lots of different modes .

For inventory, if the player goes Off line, with just the 'default' set-up, s/he would need to give the other players the inventory items they might want, before s/he logs out. Otherwise, they would not be available.
If that were to change, I could see where, as part of the communication system, you have your player friends added to your 'group,' then you could select your Off line player friend and send a note (or he would get a note); "PlayerWarrior001 used 3 healing vials from your inventory." A kind of log for him/her to see when they log back on. BUT, doing that could lead to LOTS of problems. Like, what if you can give your Off line player inventory items to carry? Would that become the 'Ultimate Bag of Holding?' Since s/he is not in the Friend group of the hostile Players that surprise and attack your party, the enemies would not be able to take any of the Off line player's inventory (or maybe, not even able to attack him/her). Players would create an account, and name the player, "My Bag of Holding Goodness Player." And just use that player as an Off line player that is grouped as a Friend. As long as that player is Off line, nothing can be stolen from them, if they die, very little will be lost, maybe they can be in charge of your mount & keep that safe? (BUT, I can see mounts as falling into an NPC class).

Combat system, -there's so much on this, I think it would not be a bad idea to say, to start, if you are Off line, you out of Combat.

Character Health / Stat system, -most likely this would need to be tied to a World Time system. Off line I can see World Time passing and that would allow for affecting stats, -healing. But, being able to Travel Off line & Heal, creates problems. If you go Off line when you are attacking a town, and you've suffered 90% loss of Health, the player could travel in a circle & get the 'Auto Travel Heal.' If entire armies used this method... I would guess it would get a little silly. You'd want to make sure that players would not Min/Max Off line Travel and Healing (and players Min/Max everything, I think ). Maybe, no healing if you are moving? (to start that is, the healing on a boat, or in a floating castle, etc. would maybe be a 'Global' location & as long as the 'Global' object is moving, but not under any 'Local' control, it could be used for moving and healing. BUT, that would be a very powerful 'object,' a special class of object ).

By default I like the idea of, you log out, you don't move, but with Time, you will heal.

For Global Time, I'm guessing, all will move constantly forward, VERY little will affect this ( BUT, time would be different in FPS play. In FPS play you would really not be able to safely, log out, let time pass and heal. My thought on that is, if you are in FPS play and you log out -your character is standing there & can be attacked, looted, killed, etc.).

Jumping a little here, but I see PW as being more PvP in style. If it was PvE, or Single Player mode, or Single Player mode with just friends ( limited form of Multiplayer game), then RP mode and FPS mode would need to be considered for both PvP & PvE (for how it might work..? )

I'm by no means hitting all of the items, -but I think it helps to consider starting with a small default level and building up from there (Fear of being overwhelmed ).

The Persistent World creates a LOT of areas where logging off can lead to dangers for the players. I don't think I want to encourage players to 'enjoy' Off line play. Or, have players try to Min/Max how they use Off line play to their advantage. I would push the idea of, 'you want to play PW, and you want to play it TONS!'

Part of that would be Wandering Monsters, or Random Encounters. Having NPCs, monsters, etc. 'pop' into existence would probably help balance the server load (so not ALL entities would have to be tracked by the game engine), BUT having all entities not 'popping' into the game -might be something players would REALLY dig . This is again, another HUGE area. I can see having entities that work as resources, 'popping' in, -example; Fish, deer, lone herd animal type, insect type, etc. But, intelligent predators, those that are 'player killer' types, -it would be kind of cool if that IQ does get 'tracked.'

So, how does the intelligent 'player killer' type in a Persistent World get to interact with the Off line player? (or even the player in RP mode). My thought on this is; In FPS mode, it kills you. In RP mode, it might get to kill you. So you might have situations where an intelligent 'player killer' could use a 'Global' type of attack to do damage to RP mode, or Off line players. Example: Evil God Floods a town, a Lich Meteor storms a boat/ship, a massive plague hits the land, etc. BUT, I do not like the idea that, when logged out, your character could be killed. That just really sucks for the player. SO, I hope that this 'system' would encourage players to; Go RP mode, find a safe place, and then log out (very much like what we do in Real Life, ... most of the time, when we want to go to sleep).

Well, that's enough of my rambling . There's so much MORE to consider, but it's good to discuss it . My apologies to those who have covered these items a million times, I'm sure many of these topics have been gone over and over. Leaving the World and Off line time is a big one. Again, I can only guess, start very small & try to create implementations that would = less work / less complexity, BUT like Jerky mentions, are still 'Outside of the Box.' (I always welcome any feedback, good or bad, and I Thank You for it! ).

[uulonze]

I would go for charactor log off completely. This can save your bandwidth and let others have a change to log in (if server full). Also add immuse timer when log in, such as 5-10 sec to escape monster if you are in wildness or PK should there be any.

[Devils-Hawk]

Hmm, as i don't think leaving players in the world is really feasable because of server load, lag, etc ... and just logging them off just invites cheaters, i thought about a 2-way approach.
If a player goes off or disconnects ( does not matter here ) (s)he will just cast your typical "Change to Stone" spell. The spell takes a certain amount off time where the player is still vulnerable to attacks but if you log off on your own u can choose to still control the player ( only running, no other interaction ) or just log off. After the spell is complete the players stats and inventory is saved but the statue of the player remains.
Now the statue can still be attacked by aggressive NPCs or other players. It has a certain amount of hp and if it gets destroyed the player will loose the exact respawning position and will be sent to a respawn point( begin of dungeon, nearest town, generally speaking somewhere its usually safe ). NPCs will only begin to attack a player statue if no other targets are around or not at all ( eg beasts, non sentient beings, ... ). If a player reconnects while the statue is still standing, (s)he will respawn at the exact same position (s)he was before by bursting out of the statue . If the character is still in the process of going to stone, the player will have to wait till the process is finished ( cheater protection ).
In town areas/safe locations its pretty annoying having all thoses statues standing around, so its probably best to just have them crumble after some while. Now with this setup you can add all kind of things (possibilities only): Being healed while in statue modus. Getting some gold/exp/stat penalty if it is destroyed. Striking poses before loggin off and letting others laught at you. Having a unique statue types for different races ( elves become trees, humans will change to mummies, ... ).

just some ideas, flame away
devh

[Jerky]

Welcome to PW devh, and thanks for sharing that idea. That is a very interesting and unique idea; I'm impressed. That being said, there are a number of flaws with it (it's my job to find them, and help the idea be refined).

The first issue I see with this is that we are leaning a certain way in PW to have players stay in the game whether logged in or not, including having NPC workers, and all their 'alts.' The only way I could see a player actually disappearing from the world be to have them go inside their house because the player didn't give them anything to do while away.

The second issue with this is that griefers would take advantage of this system hugely. You would have players who just want to be jerks and go around killing statues.

The third issue is for performance reasons, but our idea also has this problem. To have so many things in the game world, the clients would be drawing a lot of extra geometry that wouldn't be serving a purpose. The server wouldn't have much of a problem with the statues, because to the server, a statue isn't going to take more resources than any other mob or npc, or item sitting on the ground.

Now, what I would like to see statues for is for player graveyards, and monuments. I think a player becoming a statue would only happen after a great deed, which is totally different from this idea.

Back to player logoff, I could see a player finding a place to hide, like you did in UO, but that would be a player choice, and I am still not sure if I would want them to disappear or not. But on that token, we'd have players running around exposing hidden players trying to get them killed, etc, but maybe that's just a risk the player must be willing to take? That's a tough one. We want the game to be accessible to players who don't have hours and hours of free time to play, so it's something that needs a good idea to fix.

I was originally against the idea of giving your character something to do while logged off, but I am now for it. We will have to keep things minimal, so it doesn't bog down the server, but maybe we could allow players to set up "bot" servers which host their offline scripts, so our servers wouldn't be the ones doing all the work. If you can't beat 'em, why not join 'em?

So, lets redo your idea a bit and see what we can come up with. Thoughts?

[Jerky]

Just had a thought:
If players would stay in the world, and would therefore be vulnerable, they would need some sort of safe house/shelter. What if we allowed players to setup safe Inn's across the world. So we allow players to decide the best places to provide inn's for travelers, and then they can set them up themselves, paying an NPC to run it for them, and possible setting prices. Might be interesting.

[Brotoi]

It seems to me that allowing simple activities such as buying/selling while offline would be very beneficial. However, encouraging combat activities, or allowing an online player to defeat the avatar of an offline player, just sounds like a really bad idea.

Mining might be useful as an activity the PC could continue with while offline. Traveling (as a passenger in a caravan or ship) over extreme distances would be another. Simple, repetitive crafting using components on hand (making arrows, for example) would be a good activity for the avatar to engage in while the player is absent. Any kind of boring gameplay that would have the player doing little or nothing beyond staring at the screen would be perfect for the avatar to engage in without direct control.

I do like the idea of using some kind of reward system to encourage players to check into an inn, make a campsite, or just crawl into their own bed in conjunction with logging off. When they log back on, they'd be back at their campsite, or whatever. Having some kind of cost in association with this, however, would seem like we were punishing the player for having a real life. Not a good direction to be moving in, I think.

[echorev]

I'm in favor of travel, because if our world is really so big, then it might take an offline session to get anywhere.

[Jerky]

Yes, I've got a good feeling about some of our ideas thus far regarding this. I think this is yet another area where we have the opportunity to set the trends for future MMO's.

I'm loving the travel idea, and I already have crafting, mining, harvesting, etc on the list. Of course, while in the game, some of those things could be done by the player's NPCs, or "stabled" characters.

But yes, definitely, Brotoi, we want to avoid players feeling punished or penalized for having to step away. Adding a slight challenge or minor inconvenience is one thing, but creating Pain is another. <-- that's a good link to read on the subject of player "pain."

[sblmnl]

[quote name='echorev' date='Mar 8 2008, 05:26 AM' post='13371']
I'm in favor of travel, because if our world is really so big, then it might take an offline session to get anywhere.

As someone who doesn't have a heap of time to play, being able to do routine, repetitive crafting tasks while offline would make the game a LOT more attractive - not being able to do this legally in UO, for example is one of the main reasons I quit that game after they introduced bulk orders - standing around at my forge banging out hundreds of the same thing to get another order to make more of the same stuff didn't feel like any kind of alternative world I wanted to be in. But I digress.

My 2c :-

1) In a rp sense I see a limited range of offline crafting could sort of replicate the trance-like effect of repetition in rl :-) As well as crafting skills like arrow-making etc already mentioned, you could heal up/tend to your weapons and armour (assuming they deteriorate faster eg in the rainy/steamy places on the map; if you've been wading through poisonous, fuming swamps, this would presumably be a fairly frequent requirement); spellweavers would perhaps meditate or mix up stock-in-trade potions etc.

Admittedly it can be decidedly counter-immersive to have a lot of afk avatars, perhaps it could be explained as "concentrating," so you see a message "[Name] seems to be absorbed in his/her work" and maybe the toon, when approached, could spam something like "Sorry I'm busy right now" in the local area only, more (or less) politely depending on their temperament (allow a longer text to be set by the player and it could also be a way to leave messages for prospective customers, friends etc ) Perhaps "concentrating" avatars could also have a coloured aura or similar you can see from a distance & know not to bother talking to them if it's going to annoy you that they're afk.

2) Skill gain should not be the primary objective of offline crafting, etc. (In fact I feel it should not be a primary objective of the game, for the same reasons Jerky explained earlier). With crafting, naturally you do gain expertise if you do something over and over but it's limited how much you can learn this way, so should be at a low level, eg making hundreds of yew arrows might increase your efficiency at working with yew and therefore maybe your ability to craft an exceptional (high value) yew longbow, but only a bit. Instead you would gain a huge amount of skill when you first learned how to make, and then actually successfully made your first yew longbow, and again each time you made an even better (higher value/more exceptional) one. You'd need to be awake and paying attention (online) to craft high-end bows or other equipment.

In the kit-maintainence example above, well-maintained armour might not rust as fast. It's not hard to think of other examples.

3) The "slight challenge/minor inconvenience": you would need to be somewhere safe like a guarded location eg, town workshop, or an inn - love the player-run wayfarers' inn idea, being able to pay for a meal and a safe place to sleep is a plus not a minus. You might also be able to shelter at another player's house if they invited you in.

To ensure it's only a minor inconvenience, its impoprtant to have a number of options for leaving the game, the "turn to stone" idea is a good one too, I think you should be invulnerable, but crumble (disappear) after a suitable period and wake up in the same spot (the anti exploit part being some kind of stat loss or delay in becoming fully functional after you log back in - there would have to be some aftereffects of turning yourself to stone, right?) or, if you have insufficient skill to cast the spell properly, perhaps you wake up at the closest waypoint instead of where you logged out, with a bit longer stat loss.

Given you've taken the trouble to learn to cast that spell well enough (or, you remembered to pack that elven cloak/ you have high hiding/forestry/ranger type skill if you're camping in the forest - another good solution someone mentioned) it should make you invulnerable to attack while offline. I totally agree that enabling other players, creatures etc to "damage" you while offline, is just asking for griefing behaviour.

I also think that houses/workshops outside guarded areas should be safe only if you remembered to lock the door! <-this depends somewhat on whether we have permadeath but if not, there should be a chance that if you permit other players, critters access to where you are in your creative trance (offline macroing) there's always a chance you can be attacked. Yes it would suck to wake up dead in your house like that but hey, that's why we have locksmiths and guard pets isnt it *still misses her Wish boxer dog* :/ . If you take the trouble to lock the door or set a guard you should be OK, except for "global" events possibly. You also may not be able to rely on town guards to 100% personally guard you from thieves eg if you keep valuables on you while you're sleeping in an inn, as they might be called away to protect the town/encampment from marauding bandits, wolves etc. but there should be a pretty high chance that town thieves will be apprehended and you'll have your goods returned. As above if you hire a personal bodyguard or command an appropriate pet to guard you you shoud be 100% OK.

4) To discourage the sort of "mule" scripting you see in UO, with avatars staying logged in all night and "magically" having thousands of whatever item they were making in the morning (not so good for the economy), you'd need to be limited to using whatever resources are in your inventory. When the avatar has finished its particular task, or run out of the resources it needs, it should go to bed (become a stationary object, kinda like the statue idea but a sleeping body lying in a bed) - this might help with the server load problem Jerky mentioned. (I've always thought it wierd that in most games, the beds are always empty lol). Then each time you login = you wake up, yawn, stretch etc :-).

If your avatar is holding something that you want a friend or guildie to have access to when your avatar's offline, put in a shared container chest at the guildhall or in your house etc before logging off and send them a pigeon to let them know. Simple.

Therefore the "challenge/inconvenience" is having to find the safe place, remember to lock the door, and get all the stuff together that you need.

5) I am not sure I support offline resource gathering. Apart from introducing issues associated with players potentially becoming super-rich by (ab)using it to hoard vast quantities of resources, it just doesn't make sense to me that this is something you could do in a "trance". Also, you need to go outside your house/town and as we all know, it's a dangerous world out there ;-0 which introduces a whole raft of new issues to manage server-side. We seem to all be agreed that resource gathering as implemented in monthly-fee games is mostly mindless clicking (that apart from some possible dangers of being attacked could equally well be done offline, by macroing) which can be incredibly time consuming (and mind numbingly boring). I am not anti-macro at all, nor much of an rp-er but it can also be a reason to explore and a chance to gain experience by interacting with the world outside your front gate. In pre-industrial world, resource gathering shouldn't be an activity restricted to only a hardcore rp fringe, which is a possibility if you let people macro it. In short, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater...

I think we should aim for nothing less than to remove "time spent in the game clicking on things" - irrespective of whether online or afk - as the major differentiator of access to basic resources and therefore of access to many skill building opportunities. This could be acheived by increasing the spawn rate of basic materials for everyone so that they are cheap, and easy and quick to obtain. You could either buy cheaply from well-stocked NPCs, or if you want to chop your wood yourself as a noob with your noob hatchet, you should be able to harvest large amounts of the wood common in your area without needing to spend lots of time on it. (Another way to help this would be to tweak the resource quantities required for items). Perhaps your resource availability/skill gain could even be higher if you've been logged off for a long time though this might be difficult to implement.

The exciting thing here is that breaking the nexus of skill development with "mining", "gathering" etc activities would provide the opportunity, instead, to link it instead to your real experiences inside the game world. In fact if you think of it as "experience" rather than "skill" it makes a lot more sense I think.

An example: the number of wood etc you get from rarer trees might be based on something like the quality of your axe, your expertise as a forester - your knowledge of trees, experience you've developed perhaps from ranging through different forests becoming familiar with the different trees that grow there, plus seeking out and learning from expert foresters in other locations etc rather than how many hours you've spent chopping trees. Imo this was one of the things the original Wish got wrong I think, my char was an elf yet the only way for her get enough resources to to train as a noob forester/bowyer was by spending her days hacking at trees??.

It would probably mean that instead of needing to find particular mobs to level up combat skills on, you'd gain experience pretty fast just by using your weapon to attack a wide range of them, and maybe some form of powerleveling from grouping with more experienced players, plus learning from npc "experts" in places you travel to. To me this would be vastly preferable to the ability to level up offline by whacking away at a training dummy.

I don't claim that these are new ideas but I think the overall points that the primary way to gain skill shouldnt be from doing the same thing over and over, irrespective of whether you're online or not, and that you'd clearly need to be "awake" (online) to do this, are worth making again. I think to have it any other way would be to miss a huge opportunity to maybe be the first game that really puts the gameplay at the centre of the experience, rather than grinding particularly for new characters or time-poor players like me. Which brings me to the travel issue:

6. While alternatives to foot-travel are essential I think, I see offline travel as only acceptable from one known place to another known place, and only if it takes a bit of planning and effort, eg, you have to find a caravan master /stable master/public teleporter thingy wherever you are and pay the fee to be transported to the (known) location. If we have a permaworld (not instanced) this could provide another player job role, otherwise may need to ibe something which should be done only via NPC rather than players - in Guild Wars (instanced) there is a similar thing players have developed where your noob avatar pays a higher level player to "run" you to an area you haven't yet visited. If they make it, it will be opened on your map despite the fact you've just been idling at the starting point. You're paying the player for their exertise in being able to stay alive while running thru hordes of attackers, plus knowing the way. This is not a bad thing per se but it is very open to scamming.

Would most posters here agree the only way for most characters to open a new location on your map (ie unless there is a teleporter etc available) should be to physically walk/ride there, either solo (taking your chances) or as part of a guarded caravan or similar (more defence but still an attractive target for bandits etc)...?

I personally wouldn't want to see "offline travel" either via players or npcs as becoming the preferred mode. The fact that getting from A to B could be such a huge adventure in the original Wish was part of why it was such a great game - you didn't have to make up your "travellers tales", it was just what actually happened to you while you were logged in:D

[Minthos]

Too long, didn't read.