This is something that REALLY intrigues me. One of my favorite things about Asheron's Call, especially Darktide (pvp server), was how the community setup it's own "laws". Then on top of that, how people who had bad reputations ended up hurting themselves when it came time for grouping, buying / trading, etc. Darktide was probably the most memorable example of a community really enforcing it's laws. On the Darktide server, it was broken up into 3 "factions". Player Killers, Anti-Player Killers and Neutrals. Towns were controlled by ceratin monarhies. Raids were a very common occurance by PK guilds. But, towns not controlled by a Player Killer guild, had certain rules. I will never forget that when I tried to go to my favorite town / hang out spot, I was immediately killed repeatedly by much much higher levels. This was because I was in the PK Monarchy, Blood. Being new to the server, I had no idea about all this. If you were a anti-pk or a neutral, you could challenge people to duels while in towns or "safe areas". However, if you attacked and killed someone, justified or not, and it was not agreed upon by both parties. You were swarmed by the whole town. Well, everyone in the town. Or if you challenged someone to a duel, agreed to no looting, then you looted them after killing them. The town would swarm you.
Another thing I remember about the Darktide community, was when Blood had control of Arelinthe Island. Now what I'm about to say is unconfirmed. But I have heard several people say that it is true. After Blood took control of the brand new island that appeared, established themselves there. Some people told me that they would sell time to non-friendly players to level or quest there. Despite if that part is true or not, the way that the server ran itself, aka: the players ran it, was amazing. The sense of brotherhood was SO much higher than any other server I played on. Long after Blood basically disbaned. I later rejoined Darktide under a new monarchy, Underworld Dreams. Not only did my patron come help me from the beginning zone with some armor, death items and buffs. 4 other guild members, all of whom i've never met in my life, all guarded me to a dungeon. I thought that was where they'd go their seperate ways... nope.
They told me to wait outside with my patron. Ran in the dungeon, killed everyone there, warned them NOT to come back and had let me have the instance all to myself. All of them guarded the entrance for me for 3+ hours. Keeping me buffed and keeping anyone from coming into the instance. All for a new guildie they've never met before. I was shocked! There are many more examples I could give. But in the end, as games came and went. I saw that kind of community / brotherhood become reduced to embers just smoldering. Hope that this game fans that flame and makes it grow again!
PvP servers can develop their own sub rules because any given group can force their policies on smaller groups as needed. Some of the scenarios that occur can be entertaining or amusing from the winning side's point of view and there are probably just as many tales of horror from the loser's point of view. These types of things should be expected in games where might makes right.
I like organically occuring player rules/laws that crop up and help form communities, be it amogst people adventuring, or trading or crafting.
I don't reall think the point of view from the winning / losing side is relevant on a pvp server. People who have mains on pvp servers, already know to expect those kinds of things. That is one thing I've always respected about pvpers. And what I always was jealous of, not having a main character on Darktide, was that the "AB Wars" and battles over control of Arelinthe Island was basically player created content. And put a much higher value on the items found on the island! Still super jealous of all that :D Sadly I never had any of my RL buddies who wanted to play on the pvp server. :( And now that I'm older, I've lost my bloodlust. I'm not a PvE guy. ^^
VR wants there to be an emphasis on "social constructs" and "meaningful reputation" in Pantheon. These things will develop organically over time but before we can get into all of that, we'll need to see what kind of official rules and guidelines there are as they will govern what is or is not considered acceptable play. Personally, I prefer a world that features fun/healthy FFA PVE competition as part of the core experience. Resources are finite and competition is inherent in an open-world game. If we get to the point where one player feels they are "kill-securing" while another player feels it was "kill-stealing" then there are fundamental flaws in the kill-credit formula. This generally leads to a GM-enforced PNP (Play Nice Policy) and that ultimately undermines the type of emergent behaviors that make a free open world so satisfying.
As an example ... I have heard stories that "camping" was a PNP protected activity in Everquest. If your group was clearing a camp then it belonged to you. This of course would prevent other players from being able to "contest" that camp with the MDD formula. Strangely enough, this same "camping protection" didn't extend to raid bosses. They were FFA and the spoils of war were awarded to the team that claimed MDD kill-credit of whatever was being contested. The idea of players being able to lock down sections of an open-world game, in the name of PNP protected camping, is wack, in my opinion. History suggests that you don't need a PNP in order for this camping phenomenon to emerge -- I observed this first-hand in FFXI where there were hundreds of XP camps that were respected by the vast majority of players.
If someone did not respect the community driven laws of XP camps then their reputation would suffer. Seeing that FFXI was an intensely social group-centric game, players were very mindful of their reputation and weren't willing to tarnish it for some extra XP. On the other side of the coin, there were named bosses. The community decided that named bosses should be competed for. This is because named bosses were really rare and there was an opportunity cost involved with any attempt of hunting them. Kill-stealing was never recognized as a term and if someone tried to make a fuss and accuse other people of invading their "named camp" -- the accusing player is the one whose reputation would suffer.
Players were left to their own devices in FFXI and it was a beautiful thing. Competition for named bosses was embraced as a standard activity while interfering with an XP camp was considered bad etiquette. The players determined these things on their own and disputes were settled with in-game mechanics. GM's weren't bogged down by countless reports of he-said-she-said-I-feel-that-X-is-right. If you want social constructs to develop then it shouldn't be possible to put a GM on speed dial any time there is a disagreement between players. The CS team should be focused on bigger issues like intentional training, griefing, and harassment. Remove the training wheels and make sure there is a clear understanding that "every NPC is free for any player to attack."
I remember several "named camps" in FFXI where the community would generally avoid competing, but they were the exception rather than the rule. It's hard to put a finger on why this happened, exactly, but I believe it revolved around the opportunity cost. The rewards for those specific named may not have been that great and as such, the opportunity cost of competing for those camps was probably too high. Rather than trying to force their way into the camp and compete with other players, they would just leave you alone. They would ask you how long you were going to be there and that was pretty much it. It didn't always work like that, though. Sometimes someone would show up and compete ... maybe, for that player, the opportunity cost could be justified.
Allowing players to make these decisions on their own is a key ingredient of an open-world experience.
oneADseven said:VR wants there to be an emphasis on "social constructs" and "meaningful reputation" in Pantheon. These things will develop organically over time but before we can get into all of that, we'll need to see what kind of official rules and guidelines there are as they will govern what is or is not considered acceptable play. Personally, I prefer a world that features fun/healthy FFA PVE competition as part of the core experience. Resources are finite and competition is inherent in an open-world game. If we get to the point where one player feels they are "kill-securing" while another player feels it was "kill-stealing" then there are fundamental flaws in the kill-credit formula. This generally leads to a GM-enforced PNP (Play Nice Policy) and that ultimately undermines the type of emergent behaviors that make a free open world so satisfying.
As an example ... I have heard stories that "camping" was a PNP protected activity in Everquest. If your group was clearing a camp then it belonged to you. This of course would prevent other players from being able to "contest" that camp with the MDD formula. Strangely enough, this same "camping protection" didn't extend to raid bosses. They were FFA and the spoils of war were awarded to the team that claimed MDD kill-credit of whatever was being contested. The idea of players being able to lock down sections of an open-world game, in the name of PNP protected camping, is whack, in my opinion. History suggests that you don't need a PNP in order for this camping phenomenon to emerge -- I observed this first-hand in FFXI where there were hundreds of XP camps that were respected by the vast majority of players.
If someone did not respect the community driven laws of XP camps then their reputation would suffer. Seeing that FFXI was an intensely social group-centric game, players were very mindful of their reputation and weren't willing to tarnish it for some extra XP. On the other side of the coin, there were named bosses. The community decided that named bosses should be competed for. This is because named bosses were really rare and there was an opportunity cost involved with any attempt of hunting them. Kill-stealing was never recognized as a term and if someone tried to make a fuss and accuse other people of invading their "named camp" -- the accusing player is the one whose reputation would suffer.
Players were left to their own devices in FFXI and it was a beautiful thing. Competition for named bosses was embraced as a standard activity while interfering with an XP camp was considered bad etiquette. The players determined these things on their own and disputes were settled with in-game mechanics. GM's weren't bogged down by countless reports of he-said-she-said-I-feel-that-X-is-right. If you want social constructs to develop then it shouldn't be possible to put a GM on speed dial any time there is a disagreement between players. The CS team should be focused on bigger issues like intentional training, griefing, and harassment. Remove the training wheels and make sure there is a clear understanding that "every NPC is free for any player to attack."
As I recall, the PnP did not cause camping to emerge, but the PnP came into play when someone would come along and start messing with your camp, and after repeated attempts to communicate with them the guide would come along and use the PnP rules to encourage them to move along or face consequences, usually just being ported out of the zone.
I don't know that PnP was so much a hard set of rules, but more like play guidelines. Some servers adhered to them more than others, and some chose to pick and choose which parts they chose to play by. They tended to be more like a checklist of reasons one could make a guide/gm request, to help deal with someone.
I understand what you're saying and that type of experience, specifically, is what I am referring to as "wack." Is it a hard set of rules, or a guideline? Are players being encouraged to "not mess with camps" or are they prohibited from doing it lest they face account-based consequences? How much of a clusterf was it for the guides to try and babysit hundreds of thousands of players who pick and choose how they perceive something that is loosely enforced? If messing with someone's camp shows up as a no-no on a checklist of things you can report people for, it's not really a community driven guideline at all. There is no opportunity for social constructs to form and let the community deal with these things if there is an expectation that camping is something that will be regulated by GM's.
If there is to be fun/healthy competition in Pantheon then participation in competitive activities shouldn't be something that you might get reported for, depending on how someone feels. If VR wants to ensure that there is content that minimizes competition, that recipe was already unlocked in Vanguard. You can apply lockouts to individual mobs and put them on a short respawn timer. Content accessibility is something that should be achieved through good world design, ample content, and in-game mechanics. I don't want Terminus to be a world where players view content as an item that others steal out of their grocery cart, or the landscape as a waiting line where people are cutting in front of their trip to the concession stand. That isn't an emergent social construct ... that's a by-product of enabling players to feel entitled to open-world content that other players want to compete for. Of course both sides are going to be at odds with each other ... the whole process sounds wishy washy and contradictive.
Thankfully it doesn't sound like that's where things are headed with Pantheon.