06-09-2009, 02:02 PM
Maybe the faction system could still work out...
So back to our example:
You: +2000 orc faction -2000 dwarf faction (orc faction player)
Jim: +500 orc faction +2000 dwarf faction (dwarf faction player / orc faction spy)
Fred: +500 orc faction, 0 dwarf faction (orc newbie)
As far as the Orcs are concerned, you attacking Jim is the same as attacking Fred. Orcs don't know that Jim is a dwarf-hugger, they just know that they kind of like him.
You would basically have to avoid fighting either of them (within sight of the orcs) unless you wanted to lose faction.
If we borrow from the Planetside system then it would work like this --
You're a griefer. You want Fred's sword. You attack Fred in plain sight. The Orcs see this and you lose faction with them. If Fred fights back, he loses faction too (perhaps at the same rate as you) but the bottom line is you still lose faction whether Fred fights back or not (just like you would wrack up grief in Planetside regardless of who started the fight).
If this was a one-off fight, you can get away with it.
If you make a habit of it, you'll quickly be KOS.
In the end, it will be very unsafe to "gank" anyone in a faction town. You can do it but too much will make you KOS to that faction. It will always be safe to gank in the wilderness where the factions have no witnesses.
Incidentally, I really like the idea of..."faction osmosis".
You don't actually have an "orc faction" in the EQ sense. Instead, you have faction with individual orcs which will go through the Orc community via osmosis.
Let's say Orc1 sees you kill Jim. You lose Orc faction with Orc1. You then kill Orc1. There were no other witnesses. No other orcs will hate you for your crimes because they don't know what you did.
You go to town and give a load of lumber to Orc2. This makes Orc2 like you, +50 orc faction. These 50 faction points will leak out of Orc2 and into the community until everyone likes you a little bit. (Mechanically, maybe every orc has two faction pools: "personal" and "community". When you handed the wood to Orc2, he gained 10 personal and 40 community faction points towards you. The 40 points will distribute to other orcs but he'll always keep his 10.)
If you wiped out the whole village, none of the other orcs in the world would even know (NPCs trying to run away would take on a whole new meaning. In most MMORPGs, they only sort-of run away because they're not actually meant to go anywhere. In this game, if an NPC runs away, he's going to take your -5000 orc faction from wiping out the lumber camp and go share it with everyone in the next town, where he was running to. And similarly, he probably has -500 personal faction and -4500 community faction. Your misdeeds will play on everyone's mind but the orc who saw you do it will have a deep hatred of you forever.)
Also, the server that's running this game needs 1 terabyte of memory.
So back to our example:
You: +2000 orc faction -2000 dwarf faction (orc faction player)
Jim: +500 orc faction +2000 dwarf faction (dwarf faction player / orc faction spy)
Fred: +500 orc faction, 0 dwarf faction (orc newbie)
As far as the Orcs are concerned, you attacking Jim is the same as attacking Fred. Orcs don't know that Jim is a dwarf-hugger, they just know that they kind of like him.
You would basically have to avoid fighting either of them (within sight of the orcs) unless you wanted to lose faction.
If we borrow from the Planetside system then it would work like this --
You're a griefer. You want Fred's sword. You attack Fred in plain sight. The Orcs see this and you lose faction with them. If Fred fights back, he loses faction too (perhaps at the same rate as you) but the bottom line is you still lose faction whether Fred fights back or not (just like you would wrack up grief in Planetside regardless of who started the fight).
If this was a one-off fight, you can get away with it.
If you make a habit of it, you'll quickly be KOS.
In the end, it will be very unsafe to "gank" anyone in a faction town. You can do it but too much will make you KOS to that faction. It will always be safe to gank in the wilderness where the factions have no witnesses.
Incidentally, I really like the idea of..."faction osmosis".
You don't actually have an "orc faction" in the EQ sense. Instead, you have faction with individual orcs which will go through the Orc community via osmosis.
Let's say Orc1 sees you kill Jim. You lose Orc faction with Orc1. You then kill Orc1. There were no other witnesses. No other orcs will hate you for your crimes because they don't know what you did.
You go to town and give a load of lumber to Orc2. This makes Orc2 like you, +50 orc faction. These 50 faction points will leak out of Orc2 and into the community until everyone likes you a little bit. (Mechanically, maybe every orc has two faction pools: "personal" and "community". When you handed the wood to Orc2, he gained 10 personal and 40 community faction points towards you. The 40 points will distribute to other orcs but he'll always keep his 10.)
If you wiped out the whole village, none of the other orcs in the world would even know (NPCs trying to run away would take on a whole new meaning. In most MMORPGs, they only sort-of run away because they're not actually meant to go anywhere. In this game, if an NPC runs away, he's going to take your -5000 orc faction from wiping out the lumber camp and go share it with everyone in the next town, where he was running to. And similarly, he probably has -500 personal faction and -4500 community faction. Your misdeeds will play on everyone's mind but the orc who saw you do it will have a deep hatred of you forever.)
Also, the server that's running this game needs 1 terabyte of memory.