Why Roleplay Servers Will Never Work
- Thread starter Doomwizard
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Being an admin on Nexus, I can state that people have no idea what randoming is. 
Erk
Knight
Splintert, you forgot the fundamental starting point.
We want to avoid people using robbing as the best excuse to random.
I think it is settled that asking for all the gold inevitable ends up in someone dying.
Now, who says only peasants will get robbed? How will you prevent an epidemic of "legal" randomers saying "give me everything you have or die" to anyone they want to random?
People already use robbing as an excuse for randoming. They count on the victim not being willing to pay, since most people prefer death to paying 500g. Now give them the possibility to as for everything to anyone and they have the card to kill anyone they want.
By the way, the only thing I do when I play PW nowadays is to RP a bandit. At some point, the gang (Ahkmed, Robert Thompson, Sister Onward, Mario, etc. and me), decided we would specialize in tin cans. We opened quite a few. So I am not claiming to be a saint.
We want to avoid people using robbing as the best excuse to random.
I think it is settled that asking for all the gold inevitable ends up in someone dying.
Now, who says only peasants will get robbed? How will you prevent an epidemic of "legal" randomers saying "give me everything you have or die" to anyone they want to random?
People already use robbing as an excuse for randoming. They count on the victim not being willing to pay, since most people prefer death to paying 500g. Now give them the possibility to as for everything to anyone and they have the card to kill anyone they want.
By the way, the only thing I do when I play PW nowadays is to RP a bandit. At some point, the gang (Ahkmed, Robert Thompson, Sister Onward, Mario, etc. and me), decided we would specialize in tin cans. We opened quite a few. So I am not claiming to be a saint.
Erk said:
We aren't trying to change people's motives. We're trying to make them unsuccessful through game mechanics, leading to a decrease in their prevalence. We make them unsucessful by stopping them through ingame force, organization, and intelligent gameplay.
This is basic MMO min-maxing theory. By making something less fun or less profitable, you make people do other things.
No amount of rules or admins will change what people want to do. That's why we leave it up to the players to stop activity they dislike through ingame methods. Roleplay.
Erk
Knight
Admins exist to fix situations that cannot be dealt in game.
No one can stop a randomer in PW. At least until he randoms quite some people, depending on ability.
Self management doesn't work given game mechanics and type of players (even you argue that randoming has to be punished).
Give me all your gold or die is no better than randoming.
I am surprised though how you moved from advocaring for admins judging per case basis to no limit to robberies.
No one can stop a randomer in PW. At least until he randoms quite some people, depending on ability.
Self management doesn't work given game mechanics and type of players (even you argue that randoming has to be punished).
Give me all your gold or die is no better than randoming.
I am surprised though how you moved from advocaring for admins judging per case basis to no limit to robberies.
I'm arguing for no hard limit. Admins still need to exist to stop fringe cases. If no one can stop a randomer, then what does a limit accomplish? A randomer will random, a robber will rob. No limit gives the robber more freedom, and the randomer gets banned no matter the presence of a limit or not.
"Give me all your gold or die" should be met with an immediate stab to the face, not "i cal adin u cant rob i of all muny !"
I'm not advocating an admin presence at every robbery. I'm advocating the replacement of admins with steel.
"Give me all your gold or die" should be met with an immediate stab to the face, not "i cal adin u cant rob i of all muny !"
I'm not advocating an admin presence at every robbery. I'm advocating the replacement of admins with steel.
Serann
Master Knight
The thing with no hard cap is that admins are going to be called for every second
robbery, because the robber and robbed will almost always disagree over what
amount is legal. The robber is always going to push for as much as possible and
the robbed for the opposite. And in the end, robbers will always outnumber serfs
and their guards, because robbers only have to be at one point while guards have
to be everywhere.
robbery, because the robber and robbed will almost always disagree over what
amount is legal. The robber is always going to push for as much as possible and
the robbed for the opposite. And in the end, robbers will always outnumber serfs
and their guards, because robbers only have to be at one point while guards have
to be everywhere.
Erk
Knight
ehm
I disagree.
First, why is it better to have an admin judge on a per case basis. I fail to see any good reason and I see many issues with it.
Second, a randomer can disguise as a robber to avoid being banned. The limit is meant to deal with it. It is not an hypothetical case but a crude reality that robbing can be used to random. The limit helps. People who are smart and evaluate well whether to pay or not can make it out. If you are not willing to pay, you accept the risk. Limits stop randoming because you can evaluate ex post whether it was randoming in disguise or not. Without limits, how would you know? Who will judge what is fair? How will you hold someone responsible retroactively? And all the several reasons I have already sketched.
Third, replacing admins with steel doesn't work. If you do so, people can climb to roofs and headshot randomly. Or can go in hangs demanding "all your gold or die". Or many other things. It doesn't work. Reputation doesn't help either, you can change your name.
No one stops me from joining a server with a couple of good fighters and odd names and lance everyone I come across under the banner of "all your gold or die".
Trolling is a reality. Everyone accepts that randoming should be punished. Give me all your gold or die is randoming.
Maybe some other people can jump in the discussion, I have the impression that as we talk you go more and more towards "no rules is better"...but I thought we agreed on the necessity of some minimal rules.
I disagree.
First, why is it better to have an admin judge on a per case basis. I fail to see any good reason and I see many issues with it.
Second, a randomer can disguise as a robber to avoid being banned. The limit is meant to deal with it. It is not an hypothetical case but a crude reality that robbing can be used to random. The limit helps. People who are smart and evaluate well whether to pay or not can make it out. If you are not willing to pay, you accept the risk. Limits stop randoming because you can evaluate ex post whether it was randoming in disguise or not. Without limits, how would you know? Who will judge what is fair? How will you hold someone responsible retroactively? And all the several reasons I have already sketched.
Third, replacing admins with steel doesn't work. If you do so, people can climb to roofs and headshot randomly. Or can go in hangs demanding "all your gold or die". Or many other things. It doesn't work. Reputation doesn't help either, you can change your name.
No one stops me from joining a server with a couple of good fighters and odd names and lance everyone I come across under the banner of "all your gold or die".
Trolling is a reality. Everyone accepts that randoming should be punished. Give me all your gold or die is randoming.
Maybe some other people can jump in the discussion, I have the impression that as we talk you go more and more towards "no rules is better"...but I thought we agreed on the necessity of some minimal rules.
My rules were "no randoming" and "no revenge killing".
You see, back in the 'day', before all the advanced admin tools none of these things were a problem. Why? People were randomly shot from the roof of buildings in the Valley of Swamp map all day. Robbers killed their victims without a word. Factions went to war without waiting 3 minutes in their castle. Why did it work? How can people call it the "golden age of roleplay" if there were effectively no restrictions on what players can do?
Because players are doing it.
As an admin during that time, I can tell you I only existed to stop spawnkilling and asshattery. The rules were really just there to give me a 'reason' to get rid of people causing trouble. Nowadays rules govern not only the players lives, but the admins as well. Why is this so? Because the admins are ****. They have no dedication to the mod, no dedication to the players, its only them and their server owner friend who wants to own a server so he can random and spawn stuff and ban people at will.
As such, a small group of players with swords does a better job of administrating than a dozen current-quality admins. By taking out robbery limits and leaving it up to players to stop robbers, roleplay is created from what you're calling randoming. Admins, then, will only exist to stop that person from killing at random, that is, respawning and doing the exact same thing he did before (most of these will also be filtered out by the no-revenging rule).
Suppose there is a serf with a cart full of iron ores that he just mined. An armed man approaches him, demanding the cart. Serf calls for admin. Admin arrives. Admin sees unguarded, unarmed serf with a cart full of valuables. Admin perhaps advises the serf to bring protection or go to less dangerous areas, and leaves the area or becomes invisible to watch. Why is this such a bad situation? The admin isn't proding the player along, instead he is leaving it up to the player to play while merely supervising.
There is a huge difference between a robber demanding all of someone's gold and a robber who is running around demanding everyone's gold for the sole purpose of killing them, and any admin who cannot tell that shouldn't be an admin in the first place.
You see, back in the 'day', before all the advanced admin tools none of these things were a problem. Why? People were randomly shot from the roof of buildings in the Valley of Swamp map all day. Robbers killed their victims without a word. Factions went to war without waiting 3 minutes in their castle. Why did it work? How can people call it the "golden age of roleplay" if there were effectively no restrictions on what players can do?
Because players are doing it.
As an admin during that time, I can tell you I only existed to stop spawnkilling and asshattery. The rules were really just there to give me a 'reason' to get rid of people causing trouble. Nowadays rules govern not only the players lives, but the admins as well. Why is this so? Because the admins are ****. They have no dedication to the mod, no dedication to the players, its only them and their server owner friend who wants to own a server so he can random and spawn stuff and ban people at will.
As such, a small group of players with swords does a better job of administrating than a dozen current-quality admins. By taking out robbery limits and leaving it up to players to stop robbers, roleplay is created from what you're calling randoming. Admins, then, will only exist to stop that person from killing at random, that is, respawning and doing the exact same thing he did before (most of these will also be filtered out by the no-revenging rule).
Suppose there is a serf with a cart full of iron ores that he just mined. An armed man approaches him, demanding the cart. Serf calls for admin. Admin arrives. Admin sees unguarded, unarmed serf with a cart full of valuables. Admin perhaps advises the serf to bring protection or go to less dangerous areas, and leaves the area or becomes invisible to watch. Why is this such a bad situation? The admin isn't proding the player along, instead he is leaving it up to the player to play while merely supervising.
There is a huge difference between a robber demanding all of someone's gold and a robber who is running around demanding everyone's gold for the sole purpose of killing them, and any admin who cannot tell that shouldn't be an admin in the first place.
Serann
Master Knight
So, in a server with roughly 60 people, all shouting for admins, an admin always have to make a judgement call on everyone?
You do realize that in the golden age, this wasn't present because admins literally had no ability to do this. They couldn't be there and that was the end of it, pretty much. And robbers had much less reason to rob, because there was nothing to gain from it. of course, there were still randomers, but they got tired of being spawnkilled quickly, after you got them once.
You do realize that in the golden age, this wasn't present because admins literally had no ability to do this. They couldn't be there and that was the end of it, pretty much. And robbers had much less reason to rob, because there was nothing to gain from it. of course, there were still randomers, but they got tired of being spawnkilled quickly, after you got them once.
Serann said:
Exactly.
Either way this is getting nowhere. A percentage robbery limit would be better to have than the current strict, meaningless 500 or 1,000 denars. We don't have to agree, but at least we're showing that both sides are thinking things out. That's already a hundred times better than current rule makers.
Someone brought up something about players playing like Native?
Erk said:
You seem to be confusing the act of killing another player with the act of randoming another player. Let me explain this to you.
This is killing another player:
*Spawn*
-Hey, you! Give me all your money or I will kill you.
-No, you can go suck it.
*Kill*
This is randoming another player:
*Spawn*
*Kill*
Serann
Master Knight
That would be accurate, Rasorath, if randoming hadn't become a usual term within PW,
which by now defines insufficent reasoning for killing someone, rather than no apparent
reason.
I mean, otherwise, randoming would be just impossible, after all, everyone has a reason
for doing something.
which by now defines insufficent reasoning for killing someone, rather than no apparent
reason.
I mean, otherwise, randoming would be just impossible, after all, everyone has a reason
for doing something.
Erk
Knight
Ehm
Seriously, would anyone think that making unreasonable demands or death is not randoming? It is randoming v2, where the lad in question doesn't want to get banned.
In any case, proportional limits already exist in Nexus. Victory!
Our little lobbying exercise was successful. What bothers me now are the rules regarding war.
Apparently the no rules scenario was causing trouble, since some people just declared at will inside a castle or wherever. I can of like that scenario, knowing that at any time there can be war and having to guard the castle. But I find myself short of arguments to convince the nice Nexus owners to place it again.
Metagaming, though, that one has to be removed IMO. It is not possible to enforce, why then bother to write it and give an excuse for people to argue around it?
Scene design could be a third final topic of debate. Most people don't have a clue about incentives when they design a map.
Seriously, would anyone think that making unreasonable demands or death is not randoming? It is randoming v2, where the lad in question doesn't want to get banned.
In any case, proportional limits already exist in Nexus. Victory!
Our little lobbying exercise was successful. What bothers me now are the rules regarding war.
Apparently the no rules scenario was causing trouble, since some people just declared at will inside a castle or wherever. I can of like that scenario, knowing that at any time there can be war and having to guard the castle. But I find myself short of arguments to convince the nice Nexus owners to place it again.
Metagaming, though, that one has to be removed IMO. It is not possible to enforce, why then bother to write it and give an excuse for people to argue around it?
Scene design could be a third final topic of debate. Most people don't have a clue about incentives when they design a map.
Korbal
Sergeant
Even being clever was forbidden. Being a assasin i wanted to kill the target with a crossbow from the roofs. Since i wanted to prevent to innocent causalties i paid some guy to talk to him.
Since my helper was wearing colored armor i easily could headshot the target. Whoops admin teleports and tells me i was metagaming and punishes me with a slay. Since he couldnt see me from the distance i was cheating.
Since my helper was wearing colored armor i easily could headshot the target. Whoops admin teleports and tells me i was metagaming and punishes me with a slay. Since he couldnt see me from the distance i was cheating.
Erk said:
War rules are really hard to argue against more restrictions, I've been trying for a while. So far the only success was removal of the "you must send a messenger" rule. People always seem to be afraid of some ridiculous concept "ninja cap". I fail to see how a ninja cap is even a bad thing, it proves that the defenders of the castle can't even defend against people who aren't shooting at them.
Metagaming rules amount to nothing since there's really no possible way to metagame short of server condoned ones (Teamspeak servers...). Server owners should've realized this by now, many people have supported the removal of metagaming rules for a long time.
Scene design. Yes, please discuss
Erk said:
Exactly: it has always been and shall always remain a bull**** reason for admins to punish people who beat their friends, who are generally hanging out in a TS talking all about everything anyway, and that's part of the reason they won't remove it-- it benefits them.
Erk
Knight
OK, I'll break the ice.
I like maps that give factions a purpose. For instance, in Borderlands v1, we linked the chest to exports of all resources inside the castle. That way, getting more caravans in your castle AUTOMATICALLY meant more gold.
So the purpose would be: attract caravans. Now be protecting serfs coming to your lands you made automatic gold. Furthermore, since we had iron doors, the Lord was the only one who could get it. The hope was that it would buy loyalty.
So I like maps that give OBVIOUS objectives to players. Not taxing a road or a mine or anything like that. Not enough organization nowadays. Something that makes such things almost automatic.
I like maps that give factions a purpose. For instance, in Borderlands v1, we linked the chest to exports of all resources inside the castle. That way, getting more caravans in your castle AUTOMATICALLY meant more gold.
So the purpose would be: attract caravans. Now be protecting serfs coming to your lands you made automatic gold. Furthermore, since we had iron doors, the Lord was the only one who could get it. The hope was that it would buy loyalty.
So I like maps that give OBVIOUS objectives to players. Not taxing a road or a mine or anything like that. Not enough organization nowadays. Something that makes such things almost automatic.
