by Pictor » Fri Apr 22, 2011 8:30 am
The problem with "realism" as a problem solver in MMOs is that all MMOs share a single unremovable unrealistic trait: Specifically, the separation of player and avatar.
In the real world, there are a few barriers to "exit"; Firstly, you don't know what happens after you die. Secondly, it's final; You can't come back in a new body. Thirdly, most people have a general reluctance to die hardwired into them. None of these things exist in an MMO.
Then there's the whole aspect of not being able to be in control of our body at all times. In the real world, we sleep. We can be awoken. In an MMO, if you don't have access to a computer, you can not be awoken. You don't sleep in a house, you simply shift into stasis and cease to exist. In HnH, your body can be pulled from the ether and killed via scents, but you're still not "awake"; It's like pulling somebody from stasis to find they're in a coma.
What makes matters worse is that a lack of barrier to exit means that players won't put up with much shit. There are no starving africans or slaves in MMOs. If they're not enjoying themselves, they'll simply leave. This is one of the massively overlooked reasons why old school UO actually survived as long as it did; Because there was no other choice. If you wanted to play an MMO, there it was. Once a choice was presented (Everquest, namely) the slaves and sheep who were tired of being shat on simply left for greener pastures.
Finally, a player who wants to hang around, will. You won't be able to get rid of them. The only way to kill somebody in an MMO is to make them want to die.
The point of all this is that it throws off a lot of traditional solutions. Fear of retribution is severely weakened, meaning it's effectively impossible to discourage people who are determined to be assholes. Also, execution doesn't serve as long term protection. The guy can just come on back in a new body if he wants. At best, you inconvenience him.
The ultimate issue with this is that if you have a poor system, you drive off a lot of people. Some of the more tenacious fans are so thick that they see the bleeding of players who don't agree with them as a good thing. The assumed goal of any MMO is to cater to the developer's desires. Usually, "having a large playerbase" is one of those desires. It can be secondary to other desires, but it's still significant. Incidentally, is it just me, or is the active playerbase about half the size that it was at the end of world 4? Whatever, I'm rambling.
Don't fool yourselves; Haven and Hearth is not, in fact, lawless. Lawless would mean no claims and no scents. No, Haven and Hearth follows a very simple rule:
First Come, First Serve.
Consequences exist purely for those who seek to violate that rule. Scents are left in violation of that rule. It doesn't matter why you did what you did. All that matters is that you violated that rule. He laid a claim there. He found that rock first. He decided to stand there before you arrived. He was there first, and that's all that matters. Scents are simply consequences for contesting that rule. The fact is, a swarm of newbies can block in a player anyway. A sufficiently advanced player may indeed be able to kill those who do, but the game still treats him as if he violated the golden rule.
The key which separates HnH from most MMOs is that you CAN break its golden rule (with enough LP, at least).
And that's the real beef of it. You have your rules, and those rules can either be broken or not, and if you can break the rule, it must have consequences. Two things define the rule: How difficult it is to break, and, assuming you can break it, how severe are the consequences? In HnH, the difficulty of breaking the rule depends on the action (murder, theft). The consequence severity depends on how severely you broke the rule. In WoW, you can't break the golden rule when it comes to people on your faction. In Eve, you can break the rule anywhere, and the consequences depend on where you break the rule. And then there's war declaration and what have you.
HnH actually has a very, very simple ruleset. And it could be expanded. Village vs Village Warfare, for example, as a means of altering (or removing) the consequences of violating the golden rule. Retribution allowing trespassing and theft in order to recover stolen goods without consequence. But these are just thoughts off the top of my head.
The main point is to realize that the rules do exist, and they can be tampered with.
This wall of text has gone on too long.
