APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[tmp]

PvP games with hard coded sides and no equalizing mechanism don't work very well.  This is not a new lesson.

As opposed to what? No matter the approach people are always going to bitch about PvP games, since at the end of day one side is given to find their anus sore.

[dwindlehop]

Persistent Counterstrike makes me hot. Do want now.

Although, if someone could see fit to make a clone of this concept with a Mechwarrior Mercenaries flavor, my inner sf dork would appreciate it.

[Lantyssa]

Persistent Counterstrike makes me hot. Do want now.

Although, if someone could see fit to make a clone of this concept with a Mechwarrior Mercenaries flavor, my inner sf dork would appreciate it.

Several of us would.

[cmlancas]

Persistent ANYSYSTEM_01 would be nice, I think. It's the draw to an MMO; a persistent world I can give a shit about. (Or at least try)

[HaemishM]

I like the way they were talking about the game, but as with any MMOG, beta or shut it.

[tmp]

Having watched the videos, character customization is quite amazingly done... not only flexible but pretty easy/intuitive to use. With ~100 active people per city/server can see it working pretty well too. Population skew probably isn't going to be so bad either -- the 'cops' get to look cool/customizable too, and quite few people like to step on nuts of game punk-wannabes.

I fear the number of Chuck Norris clones, though.

[Hoax]

Persistent Counterstrike makes me hot. Do want now.

Although, if someone could see fit to make a clone of this concept with a Mechwarrior Mercenaries flavor, my inner sf dork would appreciate it.

Several of us would.

Thirded.  Oh sweet lawd thirded.

Persistent ANYSYSTEM_01 would be nice, I think. It's the draw to an MMO; a persistent world I can give a shit about. (Or at least try)

agree+1

I like the way they were talking about the game, but as with any MMOG, beta or shut it.

This is super true for this particular game, that has been on Webzen's site for fucking ever, if you play either of the games they have actually released (Sun and Mu online if I remember right) they were super derivative terrible pos kekegrind crap.  Also where is Huxley?  It always sounded much further along then APB fucking 4 years ago when they first were talking about their game stable.

I almost don't need to post anymore, you all covered everything I would have added.

[Slyfeind]

PvP games with hard coded sides and no equalizing mechanism don't work very well.  This is not a new lesson.

As opposed to what? No matter the approach people are always going to bitch about PvP games, since at the end of day one side is given to find their anus sore.

What immediately comes to mind is letting players hop servers, all the time, anytime, to anywhere. Look at it another way, and it's Guild Wars or Tabula Rasa where the whole world is instanced.

Other than that, don't code the sides, and just give people a sandbox to cause trouble in. Let players work for the punks or the cops depending on faction standing, and let them switch sides depending on how they play.

[Merusk]

PvP games with hard coded sides and no equalizing mechanism don't work very well.  This is not a new lesson.

As opposed to what? No matter the approach people are always going to bitch about PvP games, since at the end of day one side is given to find their anus sore.

What immediately comes to mind is letting players hop servers, all the time, anytime, to anywhere. Look at it another way, and it's Guild Wars or Tabula Rasa where the whole world is instanced.

Other than that, don't code the sides, and just give people a sandbox to cause trouble in. Let players work for the punks or the cops depending on faction standing, and let them switch sides depending on how they play.

Yes, 'zero faction' or 'sandbox pvp' is what I was thinking of.  That or the FPS mechanism that WoW battlegrounds stole.  Limited number of people to each side, with objectives.  Then, when one side has an overwhelmingly ridiculous population advantage, it doesn't affect the central game play as much.

The bitching you mention, tmp is all about win/ loss and not what I was speaking to at all.

[LK]

It sounds like the persistent worlds will actually be like dedicated servers.  You have a Crackdown-esque city you can login to, any server with your character, and the server remains up but ... maybe the world is static? I don't know, there are a lot of details missing.  I do think that this is just a fancy way of masking game lobbies and that this is really just an FPS / GTA-esque game design where you do your stuff in games similar to FPSes ... that is, in instanced / isolated game environments.

It's a lot to go into but if they pull it off I will definitely sign up for it.

[tmp]

What immediately comes to mind is letting players hop servers, all the time, anytime, to anywhere.

Well that in itself is not equalizing mechanics -- when players hop to another server because the one they're currently on puts against overwhelming odds, they're mostly looking to be on the winning side i.e. create the very same situation for some other guy, until that one jumps to yet another server in search of upper hand etc.

Other than that, don't code the sides, and just give people a sandbox to cause trouble in. Let players work for the punks or the cops depending on faction standing, and let them switch sides depending on how they play.

So how does a cop grind* faction to become a punk if they have change of heart or just want to switch side for a day? Take missions and repeatedly shoot other cops in the back until they get enough 'punk faction'? (if that's at all possible) Just no... 

Much easier imo to just let them have characters for both sides. These could connect to any server indeed whie maintaining personal rating record, for what i care... binding them to single small server doesn't sound like the best idea so hope that's not part of design.

*) since that's what it becomes, grind in no-grind game

[cmlancas]

It's probably a choice like Horde or Alliance. Pick one and there ya go.

[LK]

I'm foreseeing an incentive system, like Double-XP or something, for playing a side that is underrepresented.  Planetside does it.

...

Shit, now I want to play Planetside again.

Must remember its evil...must remember its evil...

[tmp]

Yes, 'zero faction' or 'sandbox pvp' is what I was thinking of.  That or the FPS mechanism that WoW battlegrounds stole.  Limited number of people to each side, with objectives.  Then, when one side has an overwhelmingly ridiculous population advantage, it doesn't affect the central game play as much.

Well from the description it sounds like that's what the game does, except it creates 'virtual battlegrounds' in what's bigger environment where other people also have their own paired conflicts. So if there's 100 thugs and 1 cop, then that 1 cop gets offered actions that match his personal rating vs any 1-5 opponents while remaining 95-99 of the thugs sit twiddling thumbs because the system can't find the match so they get 'no go' when they try to register their crime plan or something.

[Velorath]

Ok, so he mentions the "experienced" cop taking out 4 "noob" thugs.  What's going to happen 2 months into the game when the cop: thug ratio is 1:250 and it's 4 'experienced' thugs against the lone cop who bothered to login that day.

People jump over to playing cop characters because that provides them with 250 targets to choose from as opposed to the other side where 250 people have to fight over one.

[HaemishM]

You know, I had thought that there would be a problem of people not wanting to play the MEC in Battlefield 2, and that it would cause an issue, but it isn't, because the server drops you into a team. Maybe this will do something similar, you play your cop character when there's too many punks.

But since we have no idea if this game will follow a sandbox world or instanced server zones, trying to figure out how they'll balance player populations seems to be jumping the gun a bit.

[Merusk]

Ok, so he mentions the "experienced" cop taking out 4 "noob" thugs.  What's going to happen 2 months into the game when the cop: thug ratio is 1:250 and it's 4 'experienced' thugs against the lone cop who bothered to login that day.

People jump over to playing cop characters because that provides them with 250 targets to choose from as opposed to the other side where 250 people have to fight over one.

That's what they said about Horde/ Alliance in WoW and Hib/Mid in DAoC.  Proved to be untrue as a whole without other incentives. The "Pretty" race in WoW got a lot of Horde rerolls, but I have no idea how/ if DAoC ever fixed it.

[Velorath]

Ok, so he mentions the "experienced" cop taking out 4 "noob" thugs.  What's going to happen 2 months into the game when the cop: thug ratio is 1:250 and it's 4 'experienced' thugs against the lone cop who bothered to login that day.

People jump over to playing cop characters because that provides them with 250 targets to choose from as opposed to the other side where 250 people have to fight over one.

That's what they said about Horde/ Alliance in WoW and Hib/Mid in DAoC.  Proved to be untrue as a whole without other incentives. The "Pretty" race in WoW got a lot of Horde rerolls, but I have no idea how/ if DAoC ever fixed it.

In DAOC and WoW if you wanted to reroll, you faced the prospect of a long PVE grind to max level (and then gear after that, expecially in WoW) before you became viable in PvP again.

[stu]

Hard Out Here for a Pimp (NSFW)

I'm with Big Gulp. I want to be Bad Lt. Dirty Hairy works too. 

[Slyfeind]

Well that in itself is not equalizing mechanics -- when players hop to another server because the one they're currently on puts against overwhelming odds, they're mostly looking to be on the winning side i.e. create the very same situation for some other guy, until that one jumps to yet another server in search of upper hand etc.

Yeah, it can result in rampant server-hopping. You could have the server keep track of the load, like "Cops full / Punks available" so no cops can log on there. (No, that's not perfect either. Online games suck and we need to stop playing them. Let's burn down the Internet.)

So how does a cop grind* faction to become a punk if they have change of heart or just want to switch side for a day? Take missions and repeatedly shoot other cops in the back until they get enough 'punk faction'? (if that's at all possible) Just no... 

Agreed. Fuck no, hell no, fucking fuck the craptastic shit that is faction grinding. No, I don't have an answer for this either. Something fun though, that the player can look forward to. Probably something involving trusting the opposite side to let them in their group. "Honestly Mr. Police Officer, I can change my evil ways! Just let me group with you once...."

Much easier imo to just let them have characters for both sides. These could connect to any server indeed whie maintaining personal rating record, for what i care... binding them to single small server doesn't sound like the best idea so hope that's not part of design.

Yeah, but then everybody would log onto their winning-side character until a server full of punks (or cops as the case may be) would stand around, bored, stare at each other and then demand the devs put duelling in the game because the regular pvp sucks.

[WindupAtheist]

Give me an 80's action movie police chief who says things like "You used a bazooka... to kill four thugs... who were stealing a television set... then drove your car up a ramp and onto the back of a drug dealer's semi truck, then killed the driver and drove the truck into a crack house?  DAMMIT RIGGS, YOU'RE A GOOD COP, BUT THE MAYOR IS GONNA HAVE MY ASS FOR THIS!" and I'm fucking sold.

[Azazel]

Colour me interested.

Now wake me when it's either having an open beta or is close to release.

[eldaec]

PvP games with hard coded sides and no equalizing mechanism don't work very well.  This is not a new lesson.

Worked fine in daoc, and I can't think of any other PvP-focused mmogs that ever tried it, what games are you thinking of?

[TripleDES]

A MMO without levelling, but great graphics and an open comtemporary world? Sign me up, especially if the intended gameplay actually pans out as planned.

Hope it has huge shopping malls in the world, to perform a car chase in, a la Blues Brothers or Crank.

[UnSub]

Give me an 80's action movie police chief who says things like "You used a bazooka... to kill four thugs... who were stealing a television set... then drove your car up a ramp and onto the back of a drug dealer's semi truck, then killed the driver and drove the truck into a crack house?  DAMMIT RIGGS, YOU'RE A GOOD COP, BUT THE MAYOR IS GONNA HAVE MY ASS FOR THIS!" and I'm fucking sold.

That made me think of this:



which can only be a good thing. I'll be interested when more info comes out.

[Lantyssa]

I loved that show!

[Slyfeind]

Worked fine in daoc, and I can't think of any other PvP-focused mmogs that ever tried it, what games are you thinking of?

If by "fine" you mean Hibernia was always outnumbered and Albion pwned everybody all the time until Midgard and Hibernia teamed up which meant Hibernia and Midgard could never ever fight until Albion got bored and laid low for a while so Midgard could beat the crap out of Hibernia then Albion zergs in and cleans up the mess and this cycle continues for years and years and years, then yes, I'd say it worked fine in DAOC.

[tmp]

They should have 3rd faction though.

[Merusk]

What sly said.

Also, there may be no "killing x mobs for level +1" 'grind' but unless you're able to instantly carry your "rep" and be an 'expert' as soon as you switch factions, there's still a 'grind' associated with fllipping teams.  Just doing away with an XP bar doesn't mean there's no advancement grind cock block.   That will be there in ANY game with advancement/ 'character development' that is done per-character instead of per-account.

[Velorath]

What sly said.

Also, there may be no "killing x mobs for level +1" 'grind' but unless you're able to instantly carry your "rep" and be an 'expert' as soon as you switch factions, there's still a 'grind' associated with fllipping teams.  Just doing away with an XP bar doesn't mean there's no advancement grind cock block.   That will be there in ANY game with advancement/ 'character development' that is done per-character instead of per-account.

Difference being, the game is supposed to match you up against somewhat equal players or groups, so you can reroll and jump right back in without getting crushed.  You can't reroll in WoW or DAOC and immediately jump right back into PVP.

[TripleDES]

Does anyone know when it's supposed to be released? Remotely tentatively?

[cmlancas]

Difference being, the game is supposed to match you up against somewhat equal players or groups, so you can reroll and jump right back in without getting crushed.

If this can actually function properly, it may finally be the end of the DIKU grind as we know it. 

[Dtrain]

I will only play if I can customize my character as the type of neon leopard print spandex, leather and spikes wearing gang member that was portrayed in such 80's classics as Double Dragon and Final Fight. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this.

[Righ]

The positive reaction for this upstanding title bodes well for my own game in development, Date Rape Online.

[Phildo]

Can you be in a gang that fights for positive change?  Like, you only go around beating up OTHER gangs, and tagging things like "stay in school" and "only losers do drugs"?