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[...] The journey is the reward is a f—–g lie [...]

Rik says:

I don’t want to lessen the sting of defeat, what can be done in PVP to cause the sting to happen less often?

“The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.”

See, by reducing the agony, you also reduce the thrill. However, if you feel you must, you could simply not allow looting in guild warfare and other sanctioned battle systems.

I don’t like that idea at all, but if you look at my system, ownership marked items would still apply the light gray flag on anyone taking such things. Even in sanctioned warfare, and after the war is over. This would reduce the incidents of players losing their most prized possessions.
They can go back to the battle site with another character of theirs, or give an OK to loot to another friend, to retrieve their ownership marked things.
There’s some “unrealistic” features here by neccessity. Lets say a large guild war battle is over, and some of the victors loot ownership marked items. Especially if the war is not over yet, these players now become subject to the light gray penalties, and during the next battle may well end up dead, and awaken in their enemies prison for 3 days, taking them out of the war for this period. I don’t think this is bad, but it doesn’t make sense when stacked up next to the rest of the warfare rules. I’ve always felt that sanctioned wars needed some way to actually win anyways, so maybe dying to an enemy should leave that character in a prisoner of war camp for a while. I haven’t thought this “victory conditions” thing through, that’s just an idea. Another rough idea that I’ve had for a long time is to simply drop those who die against the enemy from the “list”, taking them out of the warfare picture. But again, I haven’t thought this through so I’m not sure if there’s any affects from it that wouldn’t be good for the game.

But when you speak of winning percentages, you’re thinking of a PvP only game if you leave out all the other things players should be able to do in a fantasy world.

I am very much aware of that. I’m trying to design a PvP system that would be fun if it existed all by itself, then when it becomes part of my Very Cool Virtual World it will be the greatest thing since the world wide web. Clearly in the real world we have things like Darts and bowling, and clearly people enjoy it even thou on average half of them lose every match. Logically, either the people at the bottom lose a lot and quit, and need to be replaced, or they see they are improving and stay, and move up in ranks, in which case they need to be replaced. This could be done with people trying out different things in the larger virtual world, maybe some simple quest to encourage sampling, then most quit to try something else. I guess really what I’m saying is that if the journey was the reward, then defeat must really be horrible. I don’t want to lessen the sting of defeat, what can be done in PVP to cause the sting to happen less often?

Also: Crime follows naturally and necessarily from the enactment of law. It’s the same reason that turning on a light creates a shadow. Laws are made for breaking; a law never stops crime, it simply lays out ritualized consequences for retaliation.

Working justice system or not, crime is inescapable. Trivialize crime and you trivialize law, which is a strong reason why crime needs proper implementation as well as responses to it.

Allowing crime to be perpetrated in game does take away the fun from all but the criminal

Does it really do so for all players? Perhaps even the majority? Likely, but it doesn’t for me.

I and many other people play multiplayer games for the sense of challenge; to match wits with other players, not to passively recieve mindless positive feedback from killing drones. If another player outsmart me and steals my items, or hides in the bushes and kills me when I’m recovering from combat, I respect their success and would tell them so (that is, if I was allowed to communicate with them). Granted, many people get angry in these situations, but I get angry when these situations are denied me through what I see as artificial or arbitrary rules.

I think Morgan’s first Guy Kawasaki quote sums it up perfectly. No great creative work (I think any kind of product design is covered by this as well) will please everyone. Trying not to offend people will just create a watered-down, mediocre experience for everyone. It is possible, of course, if you know your target demographic, to cater to them. But this creates a static customer base, and often leads to a spiritless reproduction of ‘tried and true’ patterns, and an industry incapable of reinventing itself or evolving.

My example would be the Marvel/D.C. controlled comic industry. By myopically focusing on what would entertain their pre-existing readers, they rendered themselves obsolete in the face of the more diverse and idiosyncratic Japanese comic industry. Contrast the american model with the Japanes, which attempts to have multiple comics that cater to every concievable whim and prediliction of their possible readers.

Of course, the population of comic readers in Japan is much higher than here. It’s odd that we don’t see more innovative games coming out of Korea…

Eli

More accurately, crime is something we generally do not desire; however, crime is indeed necessary to a virtual world.

The overall most important thing to remember, is that this is a game. We are here for entertainment purposes, and are paying to play.

Allowing crime to be perpetrated in game does take away the fun from all but the criminal (unless you take the sting outta the crime, or again base a whole game around criminal behavior)

Sure you can bring out ideas like ‘if there was a working justice system’ or some such, but we haven’t seen it so far. Crime is just griefing, it’s not a game feature at this point.

Crime is something we don’t need.

More accurately, crime is something we generally do not desire; however, crime is indeed necessary to a virtual world. By definition, the virtual world provides players the liberty to choose from a variety of options — options that include opposing worldviews. Should the player desire his/her character to become the King of Thieves or an underworld Crime Boss, the player should be provided those options. Without the options to deviate, to travel an offbeat path, to combat and transform the status quo, the virtual world becomes a mere shell for an idealistic utopia that disdains personality in favor of conformity.

In the keynote to which I previously referred, Guy Kawasaki said [sic]

You ship a product, you think the product is perfectly positioned, you know the right marketing, you know the right niche, you know everything, and then you put the product out there. Low and behold, customers who were never anticipated start purchasing the product in large quantities, and using the product in ways never imagined.

Some people will freak out, "My god! Who are these people buying our product? They are using our product in ways we never anticipated. Get sales and marketing in here! Get engineering in here! Hire a better PR firm! Change our ad agency! We want the intended customer to buy our product and use our product the way we intended."

You know what? That is just stupidity. I’ve never heard an investor say, "You’re selling too much product to the wrong people." I’ve also never heard an investor say, "Be careful. Your company is quickly approaching a monopolistic position."

As an entrepreneur, just take the money. Make your investors happy. Take the money.

I believe that we can design to support emergent gameplay. We can support emergent gameplay by providing players the open-endedness they require to branch from the intended design. I don’t mean that we should respond to every player’s request for a new feature. I’m talking about the design process that occurs prior to launch. When players are provided the resources and tools they need to explore and learn, they’ll explore and learn. As an added bonus, through emergent gameplay, players will also adopt behaviors that increase their subscription lifetimes. The Wikipedia article on emergence describes the emergent gameplay of poker. Poker is not fun because of the opportunity to gamble for monetary gain. Poker is fun because the experience is different at every table. If the experience was not different at every table, poker would cease to be played. Many so-called "successful" computer and video games are not continually played by droves of people beyond the few years after their release…

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was a popular single-player role-playing game that involved the paths of the Darkside and the Lightside. The Star Wars universe neither defined the Darkside and Lightside as inherently good nor inherently evil. This perspective encouraged flexibility in the players’ approaches to play that enabled players to seek their own destinies [as certain characters.]

Fable: The Lost Chapters provided Good and Evil as opposing worldviews, however, there was only a single objective — to be an extreme. Fable‘s reputation system was actually the driving aspect of the game. Completing Good deeds resulted in a Respected reputation while completing Evil deeds resulted in a Feared reputation. The changing reputation allowed players to experience the virtual world as a dynamic society where "what you did defined you". Players’ actions affected how the people (AI) reacted. "You are defined by how people perceive you. Your actions only affect what they perceive." If player characters were deemed "criminal", player characters were pursued by law enforcement. This perspective also enabled players who accepted this truth to seek their own destinies. The game questions the player [as a certain character], "Who do you want to be? How do you want to be remembered?"

Morrowind: Oblivion featured a similar justice system which involves the side of the law retaliating against the criminal underworld, and vice versa.

Divine Divinity featured a similar reputation system; unfortunately, reputation had little effect on gameplay. I believe some quests were enabled by a higher reputation, just as some treasure sanctuaries in Fable were enabled. This system is an acquisition-focused gimmick. You’ll find this gimmick in World of Warcraft called the honor system. By achieving some status, the player can access certain areas and some merchants; overall, this system contributes little to the total experience — the total [learning] experience being more than a beautified spreadsheet for crunching numbers. Second Life has proven that the acquisition-focused system can work in a social world; although, for how long this system can work in a social world is not yet determined.

Ultimately, the answer to the following question becomes the deciding factor with regard to crime and justice systems: how do you define "right" if you’ve never known "wrong"?

But when you speak of winning percentages, you’re thinking of a PvP only game if you leave out all the other things players should be able to do in a fantasy world. A player that likes to be a blacksmith more than anything else, wins in different ways. So too do all the other possibilities of play style in a well rounded game. And a well rounded game, that’s the goal I would think.

Take a look at the games that are currently available. They all are very good at one or more things, but none of them are good at everything. Some don’t even try to put in many aspects. And none of them have tried to tie everything together in a meaningful way, with PvP being the heavy favorite in this category. They are all less well rounded because of it.

Another aspect about percentages that’s out of whack is that, if 20 players are PKed and looted by a single PKers, who in a true justice system faces punishement if caught, when he is caught then all 20 victims suddenly feel the joy. And the same goes for thieving.

Beyond that, most PvPers I’ve seen enjoy a good fight more than they do winning. I’ve seen many get together after fighting and chat, “good fight” and all that. It’s not really the winning or losing, it’s the enjoyment. And remember too, in a system with true justice you still gave guild warfare and possibly other ways to engage in battles. Only, in a game that strives for more meaning in the game world, you can also add more meaning to these wars. Lands, resources, even anteing up with some coin, guild wars can mean something beyond bragging rights.

The journey can be meaningful.