Lately I have found myself thinking how important items are. Not just from an armor class, damage or mana perspective, but more along the lines of the history of the item, be it local to that particular object, the given server or across all of Pantheon. Allow me to provide some examples:
Wouldn't you like to know who first looted or crafted that particular item? (I seem to recall EQ2 did something similar to the former)
Or perhaps you're interested knowing the lineage of that item across adventurers' hands? Imagine finding out that the short sword you're holding was once revered by that famous player "Elvish Presley"!
Or maybe, that you're the server first to find said item. Or, the first in Pantheon!
Maybe you want to know the highest damage incurred for said weapon, and against whom and when.
Digging deeper and outside the realm of items:
Possibly you're interested in knowing who was first to reach max level for a given class, or race/class combination.
Or that you want to know when a dungeon was first unlocked and by whom.
Does this kind of data interest us players?
As a data geek, my answer is a yes.
Does it hold bragging rights? (see what P99 did on "Green" with server firsts; and on that note, check Zorkon's server first thread from 2017 here: https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7677/server-first)
But is it feasible?
Yeah, not really interesting to me. While I could see the attraction for rare/notable items off raid mobs (though these would most likely be NoDrop), why would anyone care about the history of some cracked staff they looted off a bandit? Most items that are of the common variety are common for a reason: They are easy to obtain and exist pretty much everywhere. It's the 'named' items (but really only those from the highest, most difficult named NPCs) that hold any long-term notability.
IMO:
Feasible? Of course. Audit trails/logs have been part of databases since databases have existed.
Does it have value in a database for an MMO? Possibly, but only if your design is objectively poor in other key areas.
Given what they've done since February 2014, I have zero confidence this team could even implement what you describe at all, never mind without serious performance issues.
Part of the challenge of systems like this is that, historically, they've been a 'great idea' and then very little effort goes into design prior to implementation.
A good example is EQ2. They had monthly stats like what you describe, at least, for a while. The problem? There were bugs within the game that incorrectly attributed actions to the players that were a) cheating the most or b) playing correct, but getting bugged numbers.
Plus, they didn't reset the metrics that should have been reset monthly. Because they had no appetite to fix the bugs (low priority bug, low priority system), there was no priority in addressing the broken metrics.
So, you saw damage values up to the limit of unsigned 4byte INTs for months, or names of global, server, and similar "firsts" be people who were notorious cheaters, and/or banned players. Why give them the spotlight?
To me, and those in my guild interested in Pantheon, leaderboards are a separate topic to "firsts". Leaderboards limited to server scope and reset monthly might be fun for a minority of the target demographic, but I see no value in public first tracking, given history.
It's also relevant to understand how such public information affects how your game is perceived. What do I mean? I mean, it's logically impossible to have a system that both limits and satisifies a player that produces 1% of a level of XP per day versus another player that produces 100% or 1000% of a level of XP per day. So far, there's no indication (thank $deity) that Visionary Realms has plans to artificially limit play time to XP gain.
Given that premise, guilds will have max level characters in the absolute minimum amount of time. If the intent is weeks, it will be days. If the intent is months, it will be weeks. If the intent is years, it will be months. So why does this matter? Because the public values will be statistical outliers ONLY. Not the mean, media, or modal averages, not the 1st, 2nd or third standard deviations. None of that. It will be the absolute most absurd cases, most of which won't ever be possible again, because of nerfs.
Think of it like this. Guild XYZ plays the game entirely the way it's intended, within all the caps and limits, for the first week. They literally play 168 hours straight, and get 6 players to level 50 in the first week.
The developers take note, and make adjustments. Now, and forever more, it's impossible to approach, beat, or compete with those "firsts" or values, because the game no longer permits it, and never will again.
Do you let the records stand, knowing the playing field is now entirely different? Or do you reset them and risk the ire of a minority?
If you want to talk about metrics, and how logging can be used for normal data analysis, yeah, I guess it might be an interesting discussion to some people, but there are standardized metrics for all compliance frameworks already. (ISO, NIST, FIPS, PCI, etc) Precious few RL orgs are willing to implement even those, because the objectively valuable metrics always highlight risk, unethical behavior, and internal inefficient processes. If you start tying those to executive compensation, eeeegh. Bad day for everyone. :) The bugs don't like the light.
While it may not be your intention, it's worth noting that within the scope of the schema of a given org, databases with sufficiently detailed audit logs act as the equivalent of unique token authorities, without any additional infrastructure, cost or fees. In other words, unique item tracking & tokenization is trivial. It also has similar challenges as rebranded modern solutions looking for problems, and the same logical quandries in a digital environment.
As long as 24x7 customer service (if there will even be such a thing for this game at launch) can instantly restore accounts to a previous datetime after incidents, either in large groups or individually, I think that'll likely be enough to start. Item tracking like this, displayed via the live client, doesn't seem like it would be a meaningful launch day goal, to me.
From a practical perspective, while databases can do the following, how do you present this value to the player, and would you really want to?
Datetime,ItemID,ServerID,GlblSrcCustID,GlblDstCustID
Mon Oct 25 09:34:33 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:34:38 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:34:44 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:34:49 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:34:56 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:00 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:08 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:14 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:20 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:25 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:30 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:37 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:41 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000598743,000321743
Mon Oct 25 09:35:48 EST 2021,4f3c502387a1,000101,000321743,000598743
...
(imagine potentially hundreds or thousands of rows more, per item.)
and so on. I mean.. now what? Do you put limits on how much history is tracked, knowing it'll be exploited?
No, ok, so you just limit the display of the data to the client, which means the history isn't actually shown in it's entirety. Now players can effectively hide the history to other players.
If you 'solve' the problem by only storing and showing the OLDEST 10 or 20, then there is even less value, as players will just trade it with an alt 20 times then sell it, and there's no displayed record.
Fine, ok, you think, I'll show the oldest 10 and the newest 10. Same issue, you're hiding the real history if you omit any part of it.
Maybe you let it grow without bounds? Sure, you could do that, but what are the consequences? Just the CSR's get to see it, then what's the actual value to paying customers, live in-game?
You limit the rows returned for the live client, but the CSR tool now has to accept results without limit? mmm fun! Are you going to try and transfer and display thousands of rows of data from the persistence layer, through the server, to the client? Goodbye bandwidth, hello latency!
What happens when you merge servers. Uh... Ok, now.. uh, we need to.. hm.. keep the historical server record for incidents, but update every item log, globally, prior to the merge, to reflect the new server/home. Will this unduly delay the merge timeline?
Also, does this create a new entry and/or consume an entry that has limited display real estate in the live client? Maybe we should have hidden/invisible entries.. ay yi yi! :D
I did not read all the replies so not sure if someone said this already. I personally am not super interested in stuff like that, but interested enough that I wouldn't mind that data existing. My main issue with it is what if the person doesn't *want* that info advertised to the world. As long as players are able to keep their own info private it seems fine to me. But then I suppose it would have to say "The first person to loot this item is anonymous, but the second person was: Lafael" or something like that haha.
I couldn't care less about anyone's journey in-game other than my own. I don't care about world firsts. I don't care about who looted / crafted what when.
All I care about is what I am doing with my adventure within the world.
I also don't want people sending me tells because I crafted item X that their buddy bought from some rando and he wants me to make him one too.
I don't want people sending me tells asking where I got rare item X because I was the person who looted their buddy's item.
I don't want people knowing where I am, what I am doing, or what I have done unless I explicitly tell them.
Unless the data is useful for more than stroking one's e-peen and data nerds..... Forget it. Not worth having IMO.
Great replies, admittedly not what I expected ;) Thanks vjek for yours as well.
Having read the comments, perhaps server firsts and other accomplishments are more suited to disposable servers. I.e. TLPs and the sort. Rather than permanent mainstays.
I would find it interesting to know who crafted an item, or for rare items, who looted it. Being able to see my personal max damage would also be something I may want to see, but admittedly, offers little return.
Lafael said:Does this kind of data interest us players?
As a data geek, my answer is a yes.
Does it hold bragging rights? (see what P99 did on "Green" with server firsts; and on that note, check Zorkon's server first thread from 2017 here: https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/7677/server-first)
But is it feasible?
No, I have no interest in this type of data.
And for the record my thread was not intend to promote these types of goals in Pantheon, but to concede VR MAY choose to implement them anyway, and IF they do these could be a non game breaking benefits to a/the Progeny system (people often ask what non-game breaking benefit's Progeny might hold) IF VR chooses to have this type of data that would encourage people to rush to "End Game" (<-- my problem with this data) then at least some good could come from it.... X Progeny Levels of each achievement Instead of one level as most games.
Normal for most games:
"First Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
Becomes:
Progeny:
"First, First generation Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
"First, Second generation Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
"First, Third generation Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
"First, Fourth generation Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
"First, Fifth generation Level 50 Dwarf Warrior"
My problem is how this data could, and would, be utilized to negatively impact the community. For instance, "We only want you in our group/guild/raid if your scores are above x for item y." Or, "We only want the best of the best in our guild, so you must have scores above x to be in our guild and if you don't maintain those scores, you will be removed from the guild."
The way I see it, publishing these states does the community more harm than any possible good that could come out of it.
I think the best implementation of the proposed is optionally to allow the crafter of an item to include his/hers signature on the item. This is also a natural thing in real life crafting for skilled crafters to leave their initials or the like in the craftet item. This would in my mind not break immersion.
However a full history of an item, all owners, when it was traded and price, which monster were slayed by a weapon, etc., that doesnt seem like information which would naturally be obtained by simply inspecting an item inside the game.
I think statistics about the game could be interesting on a game external place such as a website, and could allow for some healthy admiration and aspiration for glory inside the game.
BitCrunzh said: I think the best implementation of the proposed is optionally to allow the crafter of an item to include his/hers signature on the item. This is also a natural thing in real life crafting for skilled crafters to leave their initials or the like in the craftet item. This would in my mind not break immersion.
I agree with you, as does the Crafting dev Nephele:
"I support a maker's mark (ie, "made by: Jothany") as part of the item description. In a social game I think it's very important for people to be able to get their name out there through the items they create. So, unless there's a technical reason that prevents it, Pantheon will probably track and display who made crafted items whenever it makes sense to do so :) "
These details would be interesting to know after the fact. After the first, second, and third expansion or at the end of the MMO's duration. Otherwise, it seems artificial. I don't particularly care who gets what server first, but it would be amusing to know who drank the most alcohol, how many bottles, and what type. Who died the most other than Roenick. Things like that. Who was suspended the most for training? Who leveled from 1 to max with an empty slot, which slot was it? On p99, there was an odd incident several years back where a player attempted to hide a stolen item by ground transferring it between characters in bags filled with meat pies. For whatever reason they seemed to think that doing so would somehow keep the item from being traced. Not only did the GM find the perpetrator with ease, but the community was shown that we too would be caught if we ever thought of the perfect crime. There wasn't a server first for illegal activity, but that could have made the top of the list. The least that player could have done was fill the bags with items that all shared the same icon or something. Why meat pies?
On the item side of it I think a makers' mark is obviously the go-to. The crafter adds their name to the item right.
For the History of the item I think it would be cool if say a player with XYZ level in Perception, or perhaps some sort of enchanting crafting skill + perception, would allow the history to be "written" on the item.
So don't just make every item have the item's history on it. Have it be a purposeful endeavor that someone has to seek out a crafter/lore master to magically see the history and etch it on to the item.
GeneralReb said: For the History of the item I think it would be cool if say a player with XYZ level in Perception, or perhaps some sort of enchanting crafting skill + perception, would allow the history to be "written" on the item.So don't just make every item have the item's history on it. Have it be a purposeful endeavor that someone has to seek out a crafter/lore master to magically see the history and etch it on to the item.
I like the possibilities in this. I think it would be awesome if some few loot drop items would turn out to be Perception triggers. Not the majority, but some amount of them. I would expect them to be above average loot, perhaps Named pieces or high value rewards from Bosses. They should not be identifiable as 'Perception Loot' to the majority of players. Only when someone of very high skill examines it will they reveal their secret. As with Perception in general, I wouldn't expect immediate material rewards so much as clues to unknown areas, the start of a grand quest, or a huge reveal of 'forgotten' lore that itself contains hints and clues to lead explorers down new paths.