Relatively new site on MMOG theory and design.

[Arthur_Parker]

It may very well be.  I don't have anything to lose by exploring the conceptual design of the game though.

I don't know that much about Darkfall.  Seriously I don't.  Can you give me a quick rundown of the main points that give it the potential to stand out from the crowd?  Your post above kinda assumes everyone here knows a lot about it and due to it's "reputation", I don't think that's true.

[Slayerik]

It may very well be.  I don't have anything to lose by exploring the conceptual design of the game though.

I don't know that much about Darkfall.  Seriously I don't.  Can you give me a quick rundown of the main points that give it the potential to stand out from the crowd?  Your post above kinda assumes everyone here knows a lot about it and due to it's "reputation", I don't think that's true.

Im with ya. The last time I visited the site was like 2 years ago, previous to the smell of ozone that I now whiff when my browser loads up the site. Lets hear em!

[Lindorn]

I don't know that much about Darkfall.  Seriously I don't.  Can you give me a quick rundown of the main points that give it the potential to stand out from the crowd?  Your post above kinda assumes everyone here knows a lot about it and due to it's "reputation", I don't think that's true.

Well I'd say it's reputation is pretty bad overall, but you can see that just based on the responses since I posted what I did about it earlier.  So I would assume that most people have heard of it and written it off as "vaporware" but I can't say I blame them, especially at first look. 

To list some points that will make it "stand out" from the crowd, you can probably find a lot of the present effects of such a system in a game like Eve Online.  Regardless of what you think about Eve-O; the politics, economics, and overall social dynamic are all driven by the players.  The players make choices about how to deal with each other and that in turn affects the game world.  That is a pretty prevalent concept in Darkfall as well.  The combat is FPS based which is pretty out of order for most MMORPG's.  So we are talking overall about a world that nurtures and encourages a diverse guild system and a rich social environment.  The focus will be there as opposed to on regularly updated raid/PvE content.  The advancement system will be skill based like Ultima Online and there will be no levels.  Supposedly this is one countermeasure for griefing (everyone is pretty close to equal footing) along with other things like the alignment system that penalize you for breaking your racial "specifications" regarding PvP.

There is supposed to be a pretty in depth physics engine with collision detection which is pretty innovative for MMORPG's.  You won't be able to "pass through" people.  This is intended to allow for player formations as well as being able to "plug up" choke points during sieges in strategic areas.  The devs have also claimed there will be a weight calculation system that will calculate momentum and weight on either side of a fighting formation to "push" back the opposing side.  This way players can gain and lose ground during a battle.

From what I've seen and heard I would liken the combat to the Battlefield series in many ways.  (FPS, when you die you are "incapacitated" until finished off by an enemy or revived by a healer")  As far as PvE goes the AI has been really built up and talked about by the devs as they plan to make monster spawns migrate and move in response to player movement.  Hunting too many of one spawn causes the creatures to recede and be "outpopulated" by other creatures.  (resources are not infinitely renewable).  Monsters only drop what they carry on them.  (Orc with sword and shield doesn't drop polearm).  The monsters also are said to respond to a players actions during combat; for instance a running player might see a mob pull out a bow and start shooting him on his way out.

There is a dynamic star and planetary system as well as the fact that there is nowhere you can't go in the world.  In WoW for instance you are essentially "caged" in to particular zones and you can't physically occupy any area of the world due to limitations.  Darkfall's world will be totally accessible in every spot to players.  The game will incorporate city building and territory control, as well as trade routes, resource mines, and other "empire building" tools.

As you can see this is pretty contrary to what most mainstream games offer and the list seems too good to be true, which has led many to say that it IS too good to be true and the whole thing is bullshit.  I feel like I'm in no place to make an educated decision either way and honestly like I said earlier it doesn't really matter.  What I enjoy is looking at the design concepts and how they impact the players.  In that respect even just hearing the ideas benefits my overall approach to gaming theory and virtual world design.

[Rendakor]

Holy fuck, did he just fall for the same trap twice in one thread? It would be hilarious, if it wasn't so sad...

[Lindorn]

Holy fuck, did he just fall for the same trap twice in one thread? It would be hilarious, if it wasn't so sad...

I'd say it's pretty safe to assume at this point that I don't care whether it is a trap or not.  If I didn't want to answer the question....I wouldn't answer it.

[WayAbvPar]

Lindorn, how good do you think Darkfall will be?

ROFL. I was totally thinking the same thing. Thanks for brightening a Monday morning. Well played.

[Arthur_Parker]

To list some points that will make it "stand out" from the crowd, you can probably find a lot of the present effects of such a system in a game like Eve Online.  Regardless of what you think about Eve-O; the politics, economics, and overall social dynamic are all driven by the players.  The players make choices about how to deal with each other and that in turn affects the game world.  That is a pretty prevalent concept in Darkfall as well.

This just means they have an open pvp system, the politics form naturally because of the freedom the players have to act as they wish, the rest is just fluff.  What are the specifics, is it full open FFA pvp anywhere or there are set safe areas as with UO (towns) & EVE (Empire) or is true FFA pvp as with SB and AC1 darktide?  What about towns and cities?  Do the players build them all or are there a set number of capture the flag cities/castles like in L2?  Are there set factions, can you attack your own faction?  What's the situation on corpse looting?

The combat is FPS based which is pretty out of order for most MMORPG's.  So we are talking overall about a world that nurtures and encourages a diverse guild system and a rich social environment.  The focus will be there as opposed to on regularly updated raid/PvE content.  The advancement system will be skill based like Ultima Online and there will be no levels.  Supposedly this is one countermeasure for griefing (everyone is pretty close to equal footing) along with other things like the alignment system that penalize you for breaking your racial "specifications" regarding PvP.

There is supposed to be a pretty in depth physics engine with collision detection which is pretty innovative for MMORPG's.  You won't be able to "pass through" people.  This is intended to allow for player formations as well as being able to "plug up" choke points during sieges in strategic areas.  The devs have also claimed there will be a weight calculation system that will calculate momentum and weight on either side of a fighting formation to "push" back the opposing side.  This way players can gain and lose ground during a battle.

It won't be FPS, they might want some twitch elements like AC1 but the servers can't handle FPS with mmorpg numbers.  EVE and SB can't handle more than a few hundred clients in one area and both of those have point and click movement systems.  What game engine are they using?  They aren't going to try and make their own are they?

Either it's an open pvp system or it's not, there is no countermeasure to griefing in a FFA pvp system so its silly to talk about one, you can just limit the open system with things like safe zones or factions.

Collision detection is already in the WAR beta (unless they dropped it as they knew it was going to be difficult).  Weight calculation, Jesus, they want a mmorpg with FPS style combat, collision detection and intend to calculate momentum...

From what I've seen and heard I would liken the combat to the Battlefield series in many ways.  (FPS, when you die you are "incapacitated" until finished off by an enemy or revived by a healer")  As far as PvE goes the AI has been really built up and talked about by the devs as they plan to make monster spawns migrate and move in response to player movement.  Hunting too many of one spawn causes the creatures to recede and be "outpopulated" by other creatures.  (resources are not infinitely renewable).  Monsters only drop what they carry on them.  (Orc with sword and shield doesn't drop polearm).  The monsters also are said to respond to a players actions during combat; for instance a running player might see a mob pull out a bow and start shooting him on his way out.

There is a dynamic star and planetary system as well as the fact that there is nowhere you can't go in the world.  In WoW for instance you are essentially "caged" in to particular zones and you can't physically occupy any area of the world due to limitations.  Darkfall's world will be totally accessible in every spot to players.  The game will incorporate city building and territory control, as well as trade routes, resource mines, and other "empire building" tools.

As you can see this is pretty contrary to what most mainstream games offer and the list seems too good to be true, which has led many to say that it IS too good to be true and the whole thing is bullshit.  I feel like I'm in no place to make an educated decision either way and honestly like I said earlier it doesn't really matter.  What I enjoy is looking at the design concepts and how they impact the players.  In that respect even just hearing the ideas benefits my overall approach to gaming theory and virtual world design.

Is it zoned and are there limits on player numbers in a set area?  EVE and SB both crap out with too many players, AC1 had a good system with portal storms to remove excessive clients.


So in summary.  Some kind of open pvp system (alignment means it starting to sound like factions to me), skill based advancement, PVE, raids, monthly updates, FPS (hello, 64 players in one area) collision detection (lets reduce that 64 players number), weight calculation/momentum (lets reduce the number again), Super AI (guess the server isn't busy enough), moving variable spawns & a lot of loot tables. 

Is there a set limit of say 100 players per server?  Because I don't see how all this is possible.  I also don't see any new ideas, the variable spawns were planned for the original warhammer online that got cancelled.  Reduced resources were in UO but think they got turned off as they were just a massive pain in the arse.  Also wtf is a "dynamic star and planetary system"?

[Merusk]

Lindorn how do you feel about Hero's Journey?

Aww, man? We're calling that one VW too?  Crap, I had some small hope it'd happen.  Simu does nice work.

Well I figure it deserves honorable mention for being the Duke Nukem of MMO's even if it does manage to come out eventually.

Y'know, I was trying to figure out how long it's been in development, and I just can't recall.  They won "best of show" from MMORPG.com at E3 2005.. but honestly I can't recall hearing anything about it prior to 2004ish.  Hrm.

Either way, it's sure not likely to meet that "2007" release date they've got plastered on the site right now.

[HaemishM]

Atriarch is AFAIK the longest-developing vaporware MMOG besides Dawn, but neither are likely to ever be released.

Lulz, Darkfall.

[Johny Cee]

The combat is FPS based which is pretty out of order for most MMORPG's.  So we are talking overall about a world that nurtures and encourages a diverse guild system and a rich social environment.  The focus will be there as opposed to on regularly updated raid/PvE content.  The advancement system will be skill based like Ultima Online and there will be no levels.  Supposedly this is one countermeasure for griefing (everyone is pretty close to equal footing) along with other things like the alignment system that penalize you for breaking your racial "specifications" regarding PvP.

There is supposed to be a pretty in depth physics engine with collision detection which is pretty innovative for MMORPG's.  You won't be able to "pass through" people.  This is intended to allow for player formations as well as being able to "plug up" choke points during sieges in strategic areas.  The devs have also claimed there will be a weight calculation system that will calculate momentum and weight on either side of a fighting formation to "push" back the opposing side.  This way players can gain and lose ground during a battle.

[/quote]

Skill system vs levels:  I thought we had come to the conclusion a long time ago that skill systems were pretty much functionally equivalent to a level system?  Grinding out 7x GM <uber skills> is pretty much the same thing as grinding out max level,  as long as you make it such that the GM or max level toon has a distinct advantage over the unmaxed skill/level player.

Skill system versus level system isn't the problem.  The problem is the huge differentials in effectiveness between low and high levels/skill amounts.

More FPS characteristics:  Quite a few MMOs have huge amounts of FPS qualities now.  DAoC,  the last time I played it,  was getting pretty close to being a FPS in small scale and the zerg on zerg action. 

Player formations:  A pipe dream.  Formations are by nature unfun.  Do you play a football game to play an offensive lineman?  Because that's what your pvp would be.  The vast bulk of the combatants would be locked up in a formation,  while a few people got to run around and actually have fun.

Formations sound interesting,  at the time you make contact....  but for formations to work you have to move and coordinate the formation at all times.  Formations would turn a night of pvp into stick and follow for hours while some douchebag yells at you to stay in formation.

It just increases the amount of cat-herding.

[Lindorn]

Wow, lot of questions.  I'll do my best.

Skill system vs levels:  I thought we had come to the conclusion a long time ago that skill systems were pretty much functionally equivalent to a level system?  Grinding out 7x GM <uber skills> is pretty much the same thing as grinding out max level,  as long as you make it such that the GM or max level toon has a distinct advantage over the unmaxed skill/level player.

Skill systems have the potential to be just like leveling systems, however that isn't always the case.  It really depends how the developers intend to implement such a system.  Of course if a skill system is implemented in such a way that it is lengthy and time consuming (including the fact that it heavily increases the effectiveness of your character) then it will be for all intents the same thing.  So there are two things to take into account with %skill based progression.

1.  How much disparity is there between 0 skill and maxed skill?
2.  How long does it take to reach max skill from 0? (or how long does it take to be "effective")

Player formations:  A pipe dream.  Formations are by nature unfun.  Do you play a football game to play an offensive lineman?  Because that's what your pvp would be.  The vast bulk of the combatants would be locked up in a formation,  while a few people got to run around and actually have fun.

Just because formations are an option doesn't mean that you are going to see two organized blocks of players approaching each other in tight units.  In Darkfall they have implemented manual blocking which essentially allows you to form a "shell" against an enemy group.  Coupling this with the idea of forming up at a "choke" point in a strategically advantageous area like in the gatehouse of a city, and you could have a lot of possibilities here.

Arthur:

1. Players build cities.  There are other cities that are the "starting" cities for each race, and do provide some protection for newer players.  There are no safe zones.

2.  There are set factions based upon race.  However, the only forced impact this has on you is which situations you will take alignment "hits in".  For instance the Alfar race are enemies with everyone, therefore they can attack anyone without taking an alignment penalty, and everyone else can attack them with the same lack of penalty.  You can attack people within your own faction and can create totally ARAC guilds, although these guilds will be more difficult to manage and those who attack their own faction will take alignment hits (with the exception of possibly the Alfar).

3. Corpse looting is totally open like Ultima Online.  All equipped items and holdings drop upon death.

4.

It won't be FPS, they might want some twitch elements like AC1 but the servers can't handle FPS with mmorpg numbers.  EVE and SB can't handle more than a few hundred clients in one area and both of those have point and click movement systems.  What game engine are they using?  They aren't going to try and make their own are they?

They have not publicly announced the game engine or technical details about their server technology.  They claim their client is completed and they are awaiting a publisher, and that all technology is sound and workable.  They have hinted at new methods of server technology and data calculation but have given no details.  This is the kind of stuff that generally makes people skeptical, which is understandable.

The PvP system is open and I believe that a player social construct is the best tactic against griefers.  In my experience greifing is far worse in games that have stringent limitations on what a player can do because most griefers (bu nature) use those mechanics to cause further grief....

Is there a set limit of say 100 players per server?  Because I don't see how all this is possible.  I also don't see any new ideas, the variable spawns were planned for the original warhammer online that got cancelled.  Reduced resources were in UO but think they got turned off as they were just a massive pain in the arse.  Also wtf is a "dynamic star and planetary system"?

Dynamic planetary and constellation system meaning everything changes continuously and interacts in the atmosphere/sky/weather/etc.
To date they claim 10k players per server, although I have no idea what kind of technology they have behind the servers or communication like I mentioned earlier.  (They haven't stated how).  You have to remember too as far as the "nothing new" claim that Darkfall has been at least in the conceptual stages since 2001, so a lot of this was pretty revolutionary for it's time.  As far as I'm concerned innovation is anything successfully implemented in an MMORPG that detracts from the mainstream.

Your skepticism is going to remain in the area of server stability, lag, and the whole idea of 10000 simultaneous players in an FPS style MMOG environment.  I don't blame you as until recently this wasn't even seen as an option for most developers due to limits in technology.  I still have no idea how they are planning it but there are really only two possibilities.

Either they are delivering....or they aren't.  Again my number one concern here is the nurturing of a social dynamic.  Also I would disagree with you that politics are a direct result of an open PvP system.  I personally believe that economic scarcity is the main reason players will associate with each other on the political level.  Limited resources are the primary reason behind political systems in sociology.  PvP merely provides players with the ability to achieve their political and economic goals through force.

[Amaron]

Y'know, I was trying to figure out how long it's been in development, and I just can't recall.  They won "best of show" from MMORPG.com at E3 2005.. but honestly I can't recall hearing anything about it prior to 2004ish.  Hrm.

1999 was the year it was officially announced.

[Oban]

... Again my number one concern here is the nurturing of a social dynamic.  ...

What modern 3D MMO nurtures a social dynamic? 

[Lindorn]

What modern 3D MMO nurtures a social dynamic?

Eve Online...and that's about it for the mainstream.  I view that as a problem.

[Arthur_Parker]

Corpse looting is totally open like Ultima Online.  All equipped items and holdings drop upon death.

They have not publicly announced the game engine or technical details about their server technology.  They claim their client is completed and they are awaiting a publisher, and that all technology is sound and workable.  They have hinted at new methods of server technology and data calculation but have given no details.  This is the kind of stuff that generally makes people skeptical, which is understandable.

To date they claim 10k players per server..

Full looting, unknown game engine, new server technology, 10k players per server.

Sounds a lot like this little game

[Venkman]

If Darkfall ever hits a public beta of any form, I'll be surprised. Atriarch is the right parallel already drawn.

What modern 3D MMO nurtures a social dynamic?

Eve, ATiTD, SL, vSide, SB, and . But it depends on what Lindorn means by "modern", "mmo", "nurtures" and "social dynamic" 

On the rest of the stuff:

Going by years-old memory here, but didn't they have formations and player blocking in Shadowbane? And I know they had blocking in UO because they had to remove it due to all the easels blocking monsters :) Not impossible in this genre.

And on formations, anyone here who has ever been on a raid has been in a formation. It's just that they had to manually align themselves. "Formations" does not meet RTS-style force-people-into-a-box. It means gaining advantage by coming to a battle in some other form than a drunken zerg rush.

[palmer_eldritch]

Skill system vs levels:  I thought we had come to the conclusion a long time ago that skill systems were pretty much functionally equivalent to a level system?  Grinding out 7x GM <uber skills> is pretty much the same thing as grinding out max level,  as long as you make it such that the GM or max level toon has a distinct advantage over the unmaxed skill/level player.

Skill system versus level system isn't the problem.  The problem is the huge differentials in effectiveness between low and high levels/skill amounts.

If the game is all about maxing out your character then a skill system can be the same as a level system in the sense that you still end up grinding. But there are still other differences.

In UO my main character was an archer and a mage. He used archery for fighting, and magery to travel around and heal. I'd kill things with my bow rather than spells, because I enjoyed doing that.

Only a skill system is likely to allow someone to make a character like that. Even if a designer in a class game did create a mage-archer class, they probably wouldn't also make a halberd-archer class or a mage-thief class and so on. UO gave you a lot of freedom over how your character worked, which I enjoyed.

(This is early UO - later they made different skills complement each other, such as lumberjacking and axe-fighting, which basically created classes by stealth as far as I can see. You were encouraged to choose certain skill sets rather than just picking the ones you wanted. But I am talking about the early days).

However, this did only work because UO was a game which you could enjoy without designing your character for maximum effectiveness. If I had cared about making him the biggest bad-ass ever, I would probably have designed him differently. But you didn't need to do that in UO - you could have fun with a slightly gimped character.

So it's true that if it's all about being the toughest then you need to choose the skill archetype which lets you kill quickest, which is for all intents and purposes a class. But I'd personally like to see more skill based games - in the right game system, they give you more freedom than classes.

[HaemishM]

Shadowbane had formations, that mostly just didn't work well at all. They gave no bonuses, they were just a more varied form of autofollow. As soon as one person clicked on the ground to go somewhere else, they were separated from the formation.

Formations sounds great for PVP, but in practice, not so much because all they are is autofollow with shapes. PVP would be better if formations were about bonuses for staying within certain radii of each other and the group leader, instead of forcing players to follow the leader's pathing. Also, with the small numbers usually associated with MMO PVP (under 100), formations are pretty much worthless because militarily, formations served purposes of communications, logisitics and morale boosts as opposed to being pretty marching patterns. The Greeks didn't marched like they did for a reason, the mutual protection of overlapping shields. Since most MMO's don't allow you to block for another person (without a special skill) or to dodge incoming attacks, formations are just unnecessary.

[Lindorn]

I agree Haemish I don't think there should be some "auto function" for formations.  I think the players should hash that out on their own.  Although I think bonuses that encourage the use of such formations would be a great idea.  That way the players have the immediate payback of said formation, without some confusing auto follow function that ends up just being a pain in the ass.

But it depends on what Lindorn means by "modern", "mmo", "nurtures" and "social dynamic

Yea I was thinking this same thing earlier.  I didn't mention Shadowbane because I didn't consider it modern....but then again Eve came out roughly the same time....so...I don't know.  Then you have second life which really isn't a game at all.  It's really all about those definitions as you say.

[Nebu]

I think an easier solution is to give bonuses of various types (offensive, melee, ranged, defensive, resistances, etc) with a radius of effect.  Should people fight in close formation, they would benefit from such bonuses. 

[Arthur_Parker]

Also I would disagree with you that politics are a direct result of an open PvP system.  I personally believe that economic scarcity is the main reason players will associate with each other on the political level.  Limited resources are the primary reason behind political systems in sociology.  PvP merely provides players with the ability to achieve their political and economic goals through force.

Came back to this because you seem to have an overcomplicated view of it. 

Any open pvp system will result in politics, guild warfare etc, there doesn't even need to be an economic system.  If have a simple game with a single island hosting 200 mob spawns locations, add 3000 players in an FFA environment and you will see guilds/gangs form immediately to fight for control of the best spawns. 

You can influence what happens to a certain extent with resources but a total lack of resources won't stop gangs forming.  If you remove the 200 mob spawns, the players will just name sections of the island and fight over those instead.  I can't think of a single type of game where gangs/guilds won't form naturally when anyone can kill anyone else, safety in numbers and all that.

[Lindorn]

I think an easier solution is to give bonuses of various types (offensive, melee, ranged, defensive, resistances, etc) with a radius of effect.  Should people fight in close formation, they would benefit from such bonuses.

This is a great idea.

Those mob spawns like you said are resources that aren't large enough to sustain the entire population indefinitely.  Therefore scarcity exists.  If you take away those spawns the players will claim territory...because land is a scarcity.  Heck even glory or respect is a scarce resource.  My intent isn't to overcomplicate or state the obvious here, but simply that when you think of it in it's more abstract manifestations, it becomes clear then how cause and effect factors into player behavior.  If you understand that then you really have the opportunity to make a kick ass game.

[Arthur_Parker]

So you agree that gang/guild politics are a direct result of an open PvP system?

[Lindorn]

No, I think politics result from the scarcity of resources.  I think this is more visible in open PvP systems because players have a direct means of forcing those political goals on one another.

[Chenghiz]

I think

What you think doesn't really have any bearing on the discussion. What does sociology say?

On another note, with the complete lack of safe spots in Darkfall aren't developers essentially removing the only thing that keeps the majority of EVE players playing the game? (Since we're comparing the pvp to EVE here.) How do people recover from catastrophic losses?

[Arthur_Parker]

No, I think politics result from the scarcity of resources.  I think this is more visible in open PvP systems because players have a direct means of forcing those political goals on one another.

So if we make the island 10000 times bigger, plenty of land for everyone, no mobs, no vendors, no quests, no resources except land which is plentiful.  3000 players in a FFA pvp system won't form gangs/guilds with political dicussions that mostly revolve around kicking each other in the nuts?

[Chenghiz]

No, I think politics result from the scarcity of resources.  I think this is more visible in open PvP systems because players have a direct means of forcing those political goals on one another.

So if we make the island 10000 times bigger, plenty of land for everyone, no mobs, no vendors, no quests, no resources except land which is plentiful.  3000 players in a FFA pvp system won't form gangs/guilds with political dicussions that mostly revolve around kicking each other in the nuts?

If you consider WoW which is probably fair (resources, loot here I guess, reside in instances and guilds do not gather herbs/ore en masse) then no, there is no real politicking going on. Discussion mostly revolves around who pwned who but there is no real political discourse.

[Lindorn]

If you consider WoW which is probably fair (resources, loot here I guess, reside in instances and guilds do not gather herbs/ore en masse) then no, there is no real politicking going on. Discussion mostly revolves around who pwned who but there is no real political discourse.

Yep perfect example of a place where there are no guild politics.  The reason they don't exist in WoW is because there is no necessity for them to deal with one another on the macro level.  All guilds have equal opportunity access to unlimited PvE content and gear, therefore they have no need to deal with each other.

In a world where you expanded the resources to cater everyone (your island) there would still be politics for sure.  But again concepts like "winning" and "honor" can also be scarce resources as there is never enough for everyone to "have them".  I do however believe that if you did expand your world to have unlimited resources that you would see a drastic reduction in macro level social interaction.

[Arthur_Parker]

In a world where you expanded the resources to cater everyone (your island) there would still be politics for sure.  But again concepts like "winning" and "honor" can also be scarce resources as there is never enough for everyone to "have them". 

So you agree that gang/guild politics are a direct result of an open PvP system?  As "winning" and "honor" are player created concepts automatically introduced with the players and not coded.

I do however believe that if you did expand your world to have unlimited resources that you would see a drastic reduction in macro level social interaction.

No I don't buy that comment either, there's not much else for them to do except interact at the moment so introducing something they have to gather will cut it back, also have you ever played a networked RTS when everyone had maxed resources?  It's not peaceful.  Resources steer guild politics, help define the battlefield, location, strategy etc but the freedom of FFA ultimately is the reason that political interaction is required for that type of game.  You just can't seem to admit when you're wrong.  Those couple of lines you wrote about Darkfall  "politics, economics, and overall social dynamic are all driven by the players.  The players make choices about how to deal with each other and that in turn affects the game world", it's nice fluff but it can be shortened to just "FFA PVP", the rest comes naturally.

Do you want to talk about how over 90% of players hate FFA PVP now?

[Lindorn]

I just can't seem to admit when I'm wrong?  So because I disagree with you I'm wrong by default?  Give me a break man.  Why did you turn what was a nice discussion into a personal issue?

There are corporations in Eve Online that are highly involved in the political environment that exist in "empire" space where the option for "FFA" PvP doesn't exist.  And if you want to argue that someone could suffer the wrath of concord and kill anyway I'd argue that there is a miniscule impact by the "threat" of this.  Even war decs for most random guilds are a non issue.  So while I do believe social institutions are a natural result of human behavior I also believe that most of that is motivated by scarcity of some kind.

I should have said "conflict" is the primary result of scarcity in resources, instead of politics.  Because as you say politics can occur in most environments.  It is politics that puts a reign on those conflicts by default....therefore indirectly resulting from "scarcity".  So I will concede that what I should have said is "conflict" not politics.  However politics exist solely to bring order to the chaos of conflict.

"The players make choices about how to deal with each other and that in turn affects the game world", it's nice fluff but it can be shortened to just "FFA PVP", the rest comes naturally."

I don't believe this is true.  If the world were fractioned or instanced even with the implementation of PvP you wouldn't see this kind of gameplay....so your deduction that FFA PvP is the sole reason that all player politics occur is not accurate in my opinion.  There was no "fluff" about what I said.  If you don't like that type of gameplay I don't blame you or anyone else for that matter.  However like I said earlier I'm exploring the concepts, and I'd like to think I've done my homework.

[Lindorn]

also have you ever played a networked RTS when everyone had maxed resources?  It's not peaceful.

Also this really has no bearing in our current conversation.  If you want to bring in unrelated games from other genres I could ask you why, assuming your theory, there is no politics between battlefield 2142 clans....after all the PvP is totally free and open right?

[Merusk]

You've got it backwards.  Scarcity of resources is the primary cause of conflict.

Also, PvP doesn't necessarily involve killing your opponent.  There was plenty of PvP in early EQ without being on the Zeks.  It involved conflict over the scarcity of mob resources.

[Lindorn]

You've got it backwards.  Scarcity of resources is the primary cause of conflict.

I should have said "conflict" is the primary result of scarcity in resources, instead of politics.

I did say that :D

[Merusk]

Ok then I don't know how I misread that. I blame drink.

[Chenghiz]

I think I'm confused as to what exactly you mean by 'politics.' As I understand it, you're using that term as it refers to the game of winning the favor of a group of people in whom power lies, be it a voting body or a governing body. In that context I don't really see how (individually) resources, economy, or open PVP have anything to do whatsoever with 'politics.'

In the context of an open PVP MMO where groups of people, guilds, vie for control of scarce resources without any restrictions on the conflict, I just don't see political interaction even taking place as I understand it.

[edit] I was forgetting the very important fact that more than two player factions are involved. In that case politics would indeed play a very real role in the gameplay.