Recent content by Erk

Hi guys,

Played on release some years ago and liked the theme of the mod a lot. The shooting aspect was pretty well done, IMO, and the uniforms looked great. What can I say, I very much prefer the vulnerability feeling that rifles bring than the invincibility that Native skillz give you in PW.

I think it is a great move to have more RP based uniforms per faction, and more variety of weapons is always welcome. However, I see that you still have a fairly convoluted crafting system. My advise would be to greatly simplify it. Crafting has always been incredible tedious. In addition it makes you very vulnerable to trolls. Here are some suggestions:


- Automatize crafting: have a prop that resembles a smith station with a dummy to represent the workers. Then, link the stockpiles of iron and wood to an automatic process of restocking weapons (x/second). So as long as a faction manages to get some iron/good, they get rifles / weapons over time. The same could work for any kind of resource (including horses). Some stockpiles could be freed from the resource requirement (but replenish at slower rate, or be priced higher) to keep the supply going in case factions don't bother.

- Infinite and free uniform stockpiles: all clothing should be free. It provides immersion, making the mod overly complex (requiring crafting of everything) has been proven a mistake in PW.

- Rethink the role of money: It is silly that muskets in forts have a gold price. IMHO you could divide stockpiles in two types: i) free and locked, it is accessible only for trusted faction members, it is meant to be the internal supply. ii)priced and semi open: those are the stockpiles that are either public or controlled by factions that want to make a profit by selling to people.

IMO the biggest problem with the MOD is that it discouraged very harshly doing anything a bit elaborate / productive. Most people just trolled with guns.

Best of luck in any case!

This is not a problem, people find out how to play.

The issue is that is being offered is not very appealing, hence the low population counts.

What the mod needs is an active community with scene makers, organizers, servers that stay up for more than a week, new ideas and clans.

What you see as problems for me are interesting additions.

If people have issues differencing their own troops, then perhaps they should come up with clever ways to find out who is who. It is not impossible and it is in fact a reality of armies and battles, friendly fire takes its toll even nowadays.  For me, non instant messaging across the server, no autorecognition of people, clans, persistent scores, reputation over repeat matches, organization. Those are my dream additions to the gameplay.

You clearly prefer survival PW. But I have played that, along with everyone else, for a bunch of years. It ends up becoming always the same pointless struggle where nothing really interesting happens most of the time. Truth is, PW is going downhill. Time for something new. Or not, because I think it is obvious that the majority of people aren´t willing to put any effort into it precisely because the mod seems to be slowly dying.

You haven´t played NW, have you.

Local chat is fine, name tags simply immersion breaking. You asked how I would do it, my interpretation of the whole event idea would be in that direction.

Not to be rude, but the fact that you do not like it does not tell me much. We clearly have completely opposite goals.

The question would be whether there is a community to do what I said. Right now, there is not a proper PW community. So it would requite effort, planning, organization, people.

First of all, this would have to be an event with at least 100 people, if not more. Hence no isolation. No magic messaging makes it all a lot more interesting, IMO.

Second, no name tags and no scoreboards so that it is possible to actually hide your affiliation, opening the possibilities for both ambushes (no magic name tags floating), spies (no metagaming if you don´t know the guy). Furthermore, one could actually fake pertinence to a faction if they are disorganized enough (hence no scoreboards).

Regarding the map, this is a rather weak point to bring against such an idea.

And finally, regarding the roles, those would be chosen by the players themselves. But personally I find it more interesting that way.

All in all, a bunch of personal suggestions for a completely different style. I am not surprised you don´t like it. It is clearly not your style. However, do you play NW? Yet it is wildly popular, a lot more than PW. So enough said.

Easy. I would start a server that comes up 2 times a week for 2 long sessions of PW among people from organized groups.

I would organize those events in a persistent campaign and I would set up a forum for in between sessions.

I would try to have it hosted by some NW regiment server (or even a number of them rotating) to minimize costs. Ideally for free since they would be supported by those regiments who also play.

If I had it my way, I would introduce some modifications to make it have a medieval feel. Examples would be

- No global chat, no faction chat.
- No message on kill, if possible.
- No scoreboards by faction, if possible.
- Name tags disabled by default.
- A good scene that makes some strategic sense, an economy based on scarcity not the current superabundance.
- A max number of people by classes and clan from the start of the event (1 knight for every 5 men or whatever).

Locked servers don t work because people want them to be permanently up. There isn´t enough player base for that. But there is overall enough people to fill a server (200 slots) for events. It would just need to be good enough to be appealing.

Right, because in servers where stuff runs out people do not fight each other with sticks if need be...I have played for years while you came to the forums to claim stuff based on your experience earlier on as a player and administrator. Let me tell you, people do NOT restock reliably. Every large server I have played on has had the very same problem which was solved basically by reseting once a week.

But now let´s examine the logic of your argumentation. No rules is better, but its better in some weird sense because when offered the chance people prefer not to play in such servers. In addition, the vast majority of servers that have lasted any time at all are servers with rules. What happens YOU prefer servers without rules because YOU think they are more fun but the majority of the playerbase disagrees. You tried, you failed (I recall a few of the servers and options you championed with fewer rules and they all died), why keep bringing up the same old argument?

Now, as for event based servers. Those have not been tried beyond the very early PW. Why not? Because we got stuck in the mentality that a server has to be on 24/7. But nothing in PW plays well in such setting, as it is meant to be played in rounds. The persistency of the world actively works against the concept of the mod. In a 2 hours session what you achieve is mostly determined by the left overs of previous players and numerous resets. It is not possible to play as in stocking, warring and calling it a day when you cap the other team s castle. Why? People's sessions don't overlap, breaking the sense of two teams fighting each other. In addition, as I said, the environment is very loaded before you join the server (maxed stockpiles or depleted stock piles, castles with everything broken, etc.).

In a server formed by teams of people who gather specially for events all those issues disappear. The server can be placed in a state where everything is determined by the effort of the teams. Presumably the majority of members stay for the duration of the match. Since names persist through matches, people get to know the others. Furthermore, griefers are extremely easy to find. You don't need rules, you let players basically do as they wish. Reputation and repeat play take care of the rest.

This requires a community, though. A community that has been scared by the chaos that has been PW for years. This does not mean people who want to be walking around in plate armor calling themselves kings. Those existed, but that is not what I defend or how I have played and everyone who has played with me knows it. I defend ACTION RP, not bla bla bla. But even people who like action end up fed up when nothing makes sense and everyone is just shooting each other's backs. Zombie survival where nothing makes any sense gets annoying very quickly. Restocking for half of my session just to be trolled and killed at every moment, annoyingly pressing F? Attempting anything constructive in PW in business as usual is completely useless and people know it. Hence, we need something new as a solution. Not the same old tired song about rules.

Splintert said:

Events is a good way to kill it, if you're going to be like that. You said yourself that you'd only expect people to play once a week. No one's going to do that. Napoleonic Wars and Mount&Musket have/had a devoted community other than their line battle events. Because that's what it takes. No one wants to play PW for an hour and then wait till next week. It's not interesting to the individual any more than getting killed by organized trolls is.

Which brings me to the point. Of course you're going to get killed by trolls as an individual. Why? The trolls have organized. They have structure. They follow a leader. That's the point of PW, Erk. These alleged trolls have figured out how to play the mod while you're still trying to push individualism in a team game.

Instead of doing what everyone has done in the past, whine and try to create a perfect environment by unstoppable force (admins), you could realize that you're getting beat because you're not playing right and adapt your gameplay so you don't get beat anymore. If you don't want to get killed by trolls, organize, become more powerful. Then you're in control of the situation, plus you didn't have to use unstoppable admin force thus leading to actual interesting, dynamic gameplay.

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I know perfectly well how to play PW. Truth is, I have lead different factions for very long periods of time. That´s not incompatible with what I am saying. On the contrary, because I have lead from RPish factions (TW) to robber gangs (quite successfully) including regular factions (castle, then attack other castles, etc.) I am very aware of the shortcomings of the system.

I am not claiming that business as usual works in PW. I am not whining, nor trying to create an admin dominated environment because some 12 years old kept killing me with his skillz. What I am saying is that your theory of order from chaos is simply nonsense. How old is PW? In all this time, no one has realized that no rules is the preferred game mode and the most fun? This has been an option all along and people chose NOT to use it. It must be for a reason and it cannot be the lack of community or what not because setting up a no rules server is the easiest thing in the world.

No rules permanent servers up only works for native. Or to play some zombie survival in PW.  But not everyone likes that. There are plenty of event based games, including but not limited to NW. Have you ever played NW in a regular server when there is not an event? It is pure simple DM. Now and then some people bunch up in a group (I used to do it in native), but it is the most unusual thing. It is perfectly feasible to set up sessions of PW part of a longer campaign and I am quite convinced that same as it works in other games and mods it would work for PW.

The reason why this has never been implemented is because there is no community. The few regulars end up being admins and waste their time trying to police servers where we have random trolls log in with a variety of names or even CD keys just to grief. Anyone with experience leading factions knows that it is a very frustrating experience. That is, not simply bullying factions that go around yelling DROP EVERYthINGZ OR DIE NUB! The reason is that factions have literally no goal, no impact in the world (restocking and what not is a waste of time and boring, better to use existing supplies).

In a server which plays a PW campaign (not Aldric style, rather, regular PW with some further goals) there is no need for rules at all. You could very well have a server up during regular times with absolutely no rules  (for people to get to know each other) and a campaign for the more interesting times. This would require a critical mass of creative people which sadly left the game long ago. By event, not to be confused with hugely admin orchestrated situations. Rather, with controlled environments in the sense that you know that you are facing a lad who will be playing in the coming weeks with the very same name. Reputation, long term relations, long term goals. The things that turn a random troll into someone who cares more about the game.

I still consider myself a great roleplayer when I want to be. However, given past experience and history, the best roleplay that I've had were results of things happening that were "against the rules".

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In an event based server there is no need for rules. If everyone is coming from an organized team and is participating on PW events a few times a week odds are no one will be griefing or misbehaving in very obvious ways.

You cannot expect that from random players that log in with random names. Organization from chaos is clearly not the dominant mode. Blame the admins all you want, but truth is the majority of servers have not been able to enforce 24-7 their rules and yet I have barely ever seen any of that spontaneous interesting stuff.

I will say it again, rules suck. Big time. But they are needed when you have total strangers playing together. Otherwise this is griefer´s paradise. The solution for me is to drop the rules, but also rethink how we play PW (I do not anymore). Perhaps this has not been done besides the very early PW, but that just proves that there is a complete lack of community, not that it does not work. No rules servers have always been around, all have fallen.

Truth is, v4 is completely unplayable. It is supposed to work as a ¨market¨, but it is awefully designed in that sense. What is best for individual players almost never coincides with interesting gameplay, the supply chain depends on some idiotic lord who might spend his or her time welling to random strangers to get things done so that a couple of trolls ruin it all...

It will never worked and it has never worked. Not a single map has been self sufficient, admin spawns have always been a complete necessity. The whole concept is flawed. Events or die, this what I say. It is quite obvious that no rules is not a solution to revitalize PW.

PW did, for a short time, experience random yet organized gameplay in the form of factions organized entirely by players that participated properly. It was back in the day when server resets were every 2-3 hours and later 24 hours or so. These players started from scratch multiple times a day and every time they were forced to organize and create social structure that current PW lacks. Leaders were leaders and soldiers were soldiers. It worked. I know this because I was there. It didn't require rules. It didn't require gear persistence. It doesn't require organized events. It just happens.

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There was a long gap between this and banks in the way we know them. During all that time PW has been mostly random DM. So I don´t think you can expect organized gameplay to happen spontaneously. These were probably groups of players that new each other beforehand that organized that. But when flooded with random people (high play counts) and over time they realize it is pretty pointless.

When all your stupid effort of stocking a castle takes your session, when people keep joining, trolling and logging, when the mod is more than a private playground PW becomes what we have now. Banks have not killed cooperation. I don´t like banks the way they are now, but cooperation and roles were dead long before. People abused bad pricing in maps when the week started and lived out of those savings until the next reset.

I support that event based sessions of PW are probably the best way to bring satisfactory experiences to those who come to PW looking for a  richer gameplay than just native. Not just a zombie survival sandbox. Otherwise, common sense and awful incentives result and what we have right now (which I assume is the same we had when I left a year or so ago).

Anyway, I don´t think that anyone is going to put in the effort to make something different at this point. With server owners everywhere one more childish than the other, a really small community and almost no organizers...

Those were not events. The majority of people were just random players joining the server and some organized gangs came together at certain times to basically bully everyone else. They did not stand a chance, the regular players.  Besides, again there was no purpose behind what was happening, there weren´t that many defined teams, nor a general direction or objective. When two organized clans clashed it was basically native with the annoyance that at some point items run out. Nothing really mattered that much, we barely ever saw conclusion to those wars (people just got bored and left). Far from what I am saying.


What I meant is saying from 17 to 20 or 20,30 PM some clains - factions will join an otherwise empty server and battle (or not) in PW proper knowing that what they do will persist until next round somehow. This can happen twice a week tops and the rest of the time there is a forum up for the in between matches intrigues. One can be creative about it, but that´s in any case how PW was supposed to be played (Lazlo dixit) and how I personally think makes sense. Otherwise, it is what we have now. How is that going?

If no one plays on no server rules is because they don´t enjoy it, hence it is worse.

I never claimed that those events are fun. When I say events I mean playing PW proper with a group of people that have coordinated beforehand in teams. Then what happens in the match, however loosely defined it is, is the player generated content. This is what Laszlo envisioned and how I think PW would be a lot more fun. Add some interesting consequences to the matches (for the next one) and the possibility to continue the gaming sessions over the forums (diplomacy and what not) and I think one has a nice set up.

The whole order from chaos argument is basically a total fail. Not only in PW, in the majority of sandbox games. Unless you give players very strong reasons to work towards some common goals, which simply do not exist in PW. It ends up in madness ruled by the few that play in gangs that hang out in teamspeak.

Regarding my experience, let me tell you that I played in low population servers (20 to 30 players) for a long while before I showed up in RCC. Those servers rarely had any admin and it was law of the jungle. It was fun sometimes, but one got tired of the same old zombie survival game (I call native players in PW zombies).

The reason why events in the way I have mentioned have never happened, in my opinion, is because of the lack of community. Only a few people ever come to the forums. There is no tradition of organization and cooperation a la NW in PW. Server administration is too busy trying to organize chaos and I agree with you, it is a fail. It is a fish that eats its tail. Because PW is basically chaos, it trolls away organizers and since organizers go away only chaos remains.

Chaos is the permanent state of the vast majority of PW servers.

Now you seem to think that cavemen PW style leads to something. I don´t know what to tell you, my time playing the game tells me otherwise. If it was so simple, why is it that no rules servers fail time and again.

The game needs to some meta purpose besides being badass. Events can give it to it.

This is the first public PW you are talking about. I read a post by Laszlo explaining the original purpose of the mod. But I can´t be bothered to look for it.

However, having a look at the original mod thread can give you an idea:

How do you 'win'?
It's all RP and player content.
There are no gameplay mechanics that create victory. We intend to organise RP events in which a kingdom successfully conquers another kingdom's castle if they can plant their flag on the enemy battlements, etc.

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It is not about the admin admin!! problem, its just that the game does not play as intended well unless it is event based.

For my taste, that is. Other people might have other ideas about what is fun in PW and what is intended, I am just referring to what Laszlo seems to have in mind, which is what I think makes the most sense given the mod set up.

Beats me why no server attempted that early on. Could have been a lot of fun.

NOVICIUS said:

IT DOES >>> problem is that everybody want to fight (like native)... i have run faction as serf_lord. this was only time it was working. Enough said..

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players are plain stupid and self destructive in the process... You need strong leadership to stop them taking another yet another castle. You have to convince them that what they hold is the best solution for them. War come to you. You do not need to seek it. You have to get ready for it.

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Erk said:

Failed miserably

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I know what you saying. I felt this to today. I let others to lead factions. I have tried to help them on the way. Failed as i could not pass to them main massage: 4 man at arms is not a faction, just bunch of useless warmongers in PW. It is a good start if they have money to recruit /convince others/be damn friendly.. well.. most of the time they are useless soldiers who even do not know they can feed cows or sell own damn horses.. parasites...

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If you want to make it work you need event closed servers where only regiments or other clans play. And not every day, just once or twice a week. Add some type of long term campaign and this could work. A random internet person will always have a high likelihood of just being a childish troll.