Isildur on PotBS, July 2007

[Vetarnias]

I originally posted this in an ongoing thread in another section, but since I am hoping that Isildur will reply, I am starting a new thread here.

Yesterday I stumbled upon comments made by Isildur on an external site, a blog entry discussing ganking and PvP. Isildur dropped a few comments there in July 2007, including this one which I regard as the most revealing:

Note that I put ‘hardcore’ in ’scare quotes’ to indicate I was ’sneering’ at the term. Because the people who want fun competitive PvP are already playing fun competitive PvP, in GW and in WoW and in EVE. The people who want to gank are waiting for the Next Big Failure to come along, to let them grief noobs for a few months before it shrivels up and dies. This is because every sane developer has learned this lesson: griefing and ganking doesn’t just lose you the $15/mo from the person who was griefed. It has a multiplicative effect, creating an environment in your game, and a reputation outside your game, and people tend to steer clear. ‘Play to Crush’ as a selling point and marketing slogan probably lost SB twice the players it ended up bringing them.

Competitive PvPers will show up to PvP in Pirates, because our PvP rocks, because it’s fun and rewards player skill. Griefers will show up and discover there’s not much for them to do, because player skill isn’t what they really want — what they really want is 6v1 ********s against weaker opponents. Unsurprisingly, I like the former and detest the latter. And I was never even a victim in UO, so I don’t have that ancient bitterness to explain it. But I did fight an awful lot of evenly-matched PvP battles — with open looting and stat loss — in Kesmai.

Source: http://brokentoys.org/2007/07/23/see...darkfall-newb/

My questions to Isildur:

1) Given the prevalent impression surrounding PotBS that the vast majority of the PvP is actually ganking, how should we interpret your reference to the "next big failure", which you will probably concur looks strongly ironic at this point in the game's history?

2) Given your preference for skill-based PvP over ganking, are you satisfied with the general state of the game in this regard, especially in the context of DrewC's comment which all but legitimized ganking as an appropriate style of gameplay?

3) Is "no crying in the red circle" in danger of becoming the 2008 version of "Play to Crush", even with no advertising campaign built around it?

I wish you would drop by for a response.

[johnnyjet]

Originally Posted by Vetarnias

I originally posted this in an ongoing thread in another section, but since I am hoping that Isildur will reply, I am starting a new thread here.

Yesterday I stumbled upon comments made by Isildur on an external site, a blog entry discussing ganking and PvP. Isildur dropped a few comments there in July 2007, including this one which I regard as the most revealing:



Source: http://brokentoys.org/2007/07/23/see...darkfall-newb/

My questions to Isildur:

1) Given the prevalent impression surrounding PotBS that the vast majority of the PvP is actually ganking, how should we interpret your reference to the "next big failure", which you will probably concur looks strongly ironic at this point in the game's history?

2) Given your preference for skill-based PvP over ganking, are you satisfied with the general state of the game in this regard, especially in the context of DrewC's comment which all but legitimized ganking as an appropriate style of gameplay?

3) Is "no crying in the red circle" in danger of becoming the 2008 version of "Play to Crush", even with no advertising campaign built around it?

I wish you would drop by for a response.

LOL Vet, good post, but you're hitting a nerve, be prepared to duck.

[ummax]

they've changed direction is all

if you go through archives you can see this
they openly condone ganking and griefing cause "war is hell"
they allow uncoded unregulated bounties and extortion because they allow and condone griefing and ganking cause "war is hell"

The game now and the philosophy now is not the philosophy they had in beta its changed. Why? I have no idea however it has changed and its obvious in what is happening

They said they were not creating a grindfest yet they created some massive grindfests similar to the korean grinds this can be seen in the building of line ships which are the "epic loot" of this game

They said they were creating a game where people would have non gank type PvP but suddenly we are told "war is hell and its never fair"

They said they were creating a game of strategy however the red ring decay system is turning off to reduce the grinfest they said they were not creating but that removes the strategy

They said they created a game that required player skill however levels make the difference and ships make the difference skill is secondary to that

They said a lot of things and now its being taken back over time and this game is only 2 months old.

If you dont want hardcore pvp and ganking this game is NOT for you.

[Ged Bligh]

griefing and ganking doesn’t just lose you the $15/mo from the person who was griefed. It has a multiplicative effect, creating an environment in your game, and a reputation outside your game, and people tend to steer clear

Wow that's quite a find, so does the FLS vision not include ganking?

i agree with all Isildur's comments but whatever happened to Potbs, it looks like the opposite has come true!

really confused now.

Rusty - we need an explanation.

[Cat Swift]

I think I can predict the answer. "No one is forced to go into pvp zones".

If no one went solo into a pvp zone, there would never be 6on1 ganks.
If everyone that went into pvp zones was in a 6 person group, then all pvp would be competetive 6on6 matches.

So whos fault is it?

If the servers were 100% pvp everywhere, it would definately be a griefers game.

[beltpouch]

Originally Posted by Cat Swift

I think I can predict the answer. "No one is forced to go into pvp zones".

Exactly. You cannot be "ganked" in a game where PvP in completely consensual. Barring a glitch you cannot ever be flagged PvP unless you clicked a button that made it happen.

[Halod Crane]

Kindof agree with Cat here.
I imagine a large portion of the people who complain about ganks, are looking for solo pvp. Are you telling me those people are going to turn down a freetrader in a santiago? No, most of them will not.

If you go into a circle, either spec/fit to avoid being ganked or bring friends. There are numerous guides at this point for how to avoid the gank - and numerous skills available to you as well.

[Lepper]

War is hell, and Sun Tzu was an absolute genius...

Of course, my thoughts supporting those two statements are not in keeping with FLS's current policy.

[Loktofeit]

They designed a game where someone who does not want to PvP can avoid it. It's a game where player skill is more valuable than character skill, and - more importantly - there are a wide range of ways to avoid or escape combat.

You cannot ever get involved in PvP in PotBS unless you willingly and consciously make a point to do it. If a person who is not looking for PvP willingly sails his boat into avoidable hostile waters and gets sunk, you're going to blame the game for that?

[Vetarnias]

Originally Posted by ummax

they've changed direction is all

if you go through archives you can see this
they openly condone ganking and griefing cause "war is hell"
they allow uncoded unregulated bounties and extortion because they allow and condone griefing and ganking cause "war is hell"

The game now and the philosophy now is not the philosophy they had in beta its changed. Why? I have no idea however it has changed and its obvious in what is happening

They said they were not creating a grindfest yet they created some massive grindfests similar to the korean grinds this can be seen in the building of line ships which are the "epic loot" of this game

They said they were creating a game where people would have non gank type PvP but suddenly we are told "war is hell and its never fair"

They said they were creating a game of strategy however the red ring decay system is turning off to reduce the grinfest they said they were not creating but that removes the strategy

They said they created a game that required player skill however levels make the difference and ships make the difference skill is secondary to that

They said a lot of things and now its being taken back over time and this game is only 2 months old.

If you dont want hardcore pvp and ganking this game is NOT for you.

Still, that's all a little too pat, if you ask me.

It doesn't explain why the developers made a 180-degree change on their game vision less than six months before general release, and a change which, according to Isildur's earlier comment, would doom PotBS to failure.

Why the vision was changed and at whose request, I do not know. Perhaps Isildur or any of his fellow developers can shed some light on this. But surely someone realizes now that the red-circle compromise, while it would have worked fine in Isildur's initial concept, has no raison d'être in a hardcore game.