By the same argument, if the reputation system is so harsh on pirates that they will be unable to buy anything with their hard-earned money, they will leave. What will Vendetta be then? A game with no need of weapons at all, where nothing prevents your from making money but the economic system. A Utopia, or a copy of the real world. Neither of those make for a good MMORPG.

Pirates are nearly as essential to this sort of game as traders, if not more so.


I think that what this discussion fails to take into account is the fact that the population is split into three nations (and most likely, later into even more factions). This simplifies things, since each player can have a reputation with each nation and faction. If SercoMan kills ItaniDude, his reputation drops with the Itani. If at the same time, Serco was hostile to Itani, SercoMan's reputation rises with Serco. If at the same time, Serco was allied with Itani (yeah, right), his reputation goes down with Serco. Possibly, his reputation will go down with _any_ nation allied with Itani at the time, etc.

This does not get rid of the pirate-trader problem, of course, but it minimizes it. The pirate and trader will most likely be in opposing factions. Otherwise, the pirate risks losing reputation with his own faction if he kills the trader, which would be really bad for the pirate. If the trader kills the pirate, he loses reputation in a faction that is opposed to his own, which isn't all that consequential to the trader. At the same time, he gains reputation with his own faction, which is quite good for the trader.

-Nerd

> By the same argument, if the reputation system is so harsh on pirates that they will be unable to buy anything with their hard-earned money, they will leave.

Ultimately, and somewhat Ironically, it is that very argument that leads to the de-clawing of a reputation systems punishments, leading to the disutation where its easy for pirates to metagame the system.

> What will Vendetta be then?

Probabbly in dire need of a larger server to handle the capacity.

> A game with no need of weapons at all, where nothing prevents your from making money but the economic system.

Patience. A real supply and demand economy demanding that cargo pilots do more than run static routes. NPC pirate activity. All make a hardcore cargo pilots life interesting enugh to keep him online.

> A Utopia, or a copy of the real world. Neither of those make for a good MMORPG.

Excuse me? The real world is an utopia? Games are - as far as I know - a form of escapisim. An escape from the harsh realaties of real life into a utopia where players have a measure of control over their characters destiny.

> Pirates are nearly as essential to this sort of game as traders, if not more so.

NPC pirates yes. PC piracy however is all but impossible to distinguish from griefing.

--
Actually, from my side, the discussion implicitly assumes a tri faction setup - thats exactly what Jumpgate has, and the arguments you present are exactly what Jumpgate tried. Feel free to visit www.jossh.com - which shows how many pilots are online on Jumpgate and check how well those ideas worked for them.

baadf00d: Right now I don't have time for a full responce to that. I can only say the following. A reputation system isn't going to magically appear. It's going to take alot of work. I'm not an optimist. I'm a cynic. Ask anyone here about how critical I tend to be of any suggestion. But on the other hand, a reputation system isn't impossible. I could write out the specifications for one (in 20 pages or so). My experience is that it takes about six months for most players here to catch up to why I am making the suggestions that I'm making, but that the developers usually got there before me. So I'm inclined to think that in terms of reputation systems, whether we will see one implemented or not, it certainly has been considered.

In all frankness, the developers of Jumpgate were a bunch of incompotents. That hasn't been my experience here, though to be completely honest, I frequently doubt whether the developers will be able to pull off a success; but, it has nothing to do with thier lack of ability.

baadf00d, you've given one example of a reputation system that failed because it was declawed - where the developers missed and lopped off the paws. One example is not enough to prove anything. A game where all one does is trade in not my vision for Vendetta, and I doubt that it is anyone else's.

I don't want to play a game where the path to success is to go back and forth between two places as quickly as possible (and change routes occasionally). NPC pirates don't cut it. I can kill NPCs in a single-player game if I want. To make Vendetta into a trading game is to take away its multiplayer aspect.

"> A Utopia, or a copy of the real world. Neither of those make for a good MMORPG.
Excuse me? The real world is an utopia?"
Hence the word "or." I should probably not have put that comma there.

If a game is a utopia, there is no challenge, and thus no reward. I'd like it better if the real world were a utopia, and games were challenging.

And I'm talking about more than three factions - those are nations, not factions. In case you didn't notice the Vendetta community has already made quite a few factions of its own - without a system of factions even being implemented into the game.

I'm not sure about the potential of the three-nation system, especially if there is no friendly fire. However, getting rid of the nations at this point is inconceivable.

Ah, here is the conflict of interest. The only way to keep the pirates in check (ultimately) is to use NPC police to harass them in space that traders should find friendly. Belive me, players will NOT form an effective police force. Purely because patrolling is a dull job and the lack of excitement tends to attract the ... lets be polite and call them not so good pvpers.

Thats just human nature.

Anyway, *your* vision for Vendetta is pretty irrelevent (unless of course youre actually a stealth dev :P) That is, your vision for the game is one way to play. If Jumpgate DOES have a lesson, its that players all have differing expectations in a game. And quite a lot of them expect a game where trading is something they can do. Others want to PvP. Very few however are willing to play the role of helpless trader to be destroyed at will by pirates. Not for long at least.

Anyway, my point is, that as an (assumedly) PvPer, one must not fall into the trap of assuming that all potential pilots get their kicks in the same way - for instance that all pilots find "risk free" cargo runs as boring as you obviously do.

For crying out loud - I ran a full 500 cubic meters of Uranium between Hyperial and Oct Core in Jumpgate. Thats one and a half hours of flight - with a full 7 minutes dedicated to breaking because the stations give ships a 100m/s launch velocity. in which my cargo ship - usually capapble of 500 m/s barely reached 200 by the time i'd crossed a 40km sector.

All I met was some low grade AI that I easilly dispatched with my lasers, and, frankly I had fun. Yet more frankly, if some pirate HAD harassed me, i'd simply have logged off for a few weeks. The fun was not in the risk of piracy. It was in the navigation of the ship - tricky with a commodity that masses 22,000kb per cubic meter and one has 500 cubic meters of the stuff inthe hold. It was in the knowledge that few other pilots could do this - get the navigation spot on, sector after sector.

It wasnt even a particularly lucrative run. But it did spike production of certain items that were otherwise in short supply.

So to you, Vendetta should not be a multiplayer game at all? Where's the element of human interaction if all you're fighting is bots? Some people may certainly want such a game, but Vendetta is not it because Vendetta is a multiplayer game.

The devs will need some seriously powerful servers if you expect there to be more humans than bots. I mean, look at any MMORPG. There are tons of NPCs all over the place.

Right. This is to be a MASSIVELY Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The initial plan was for 10,000 explorable systems. What you have been playing on is one little server, and hardly top-of-the-line at that. The devs are very much aware of the network requirements and have been building those in for quite some time.

A guy called Bartel is somewhat famed, amongst MMORPG builders at least, for his basic research into, well, MUDs at the time. He classified online players as falling into 4 idealized behaviours:

1. Killers,
2. Socializers,
3. Achievers,
4. Explorers.

Group #1 are your players that are playing the game primarilly to test their combat skills vs other players. The socializers play the game as basically a graphical chat client. Achievers are there to make some number attached to their character as large as possible - be that credits, or experience - or pretty much anything the game gets a "Top 10 <richest/most experienced/etc> players" listing for. Explorers desire secret knowledge - of remote places that the other groups of players never visit.

The point is, in any online game, a lot, if not most, players are engaged in activities that do not involve PvP violence. Group PvM.non violent PvP is also an option: knowing information other plsyers dont, being able to predict/anticipate market cycles beter than other players.

A lot of players, and I hope the developers too, wish for something more than just a quake-in-space.

http://guildsoftware.com/vendetta.html

I'm not saying that the game should discourage trading. The best way to do that would be to get rid of it altogether. I am saying, however, that the "killers" amongst us should be given a chance to have fun as well. And that the "achievers" should have a bit of a challenge in their achievement.

The problem with Jumpgate, as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to it, is that the numbers and ideas aren't properly tweaked, not that they're wrong altogether. Pirates can be as successful as traders there, which is clearly a bad thing, since pirates have more fun as well. If, on the other hand, the system was tweaked so that pirating would be less profitable than trading, then the "achievers" wouldn't pirate.

There also needs to be an outlet for the "killers" to have their killing, naturally. Hence, the storyline, and a few dangerous trade routes to pirate.


Another point: If you want a nice, PC-pirate-free trade route, stay in your own nation's sectors. In the final product, I'm sure that there will be many enough. If you're willing to take a risk for extra profit, smuggle between nations, etc., but be aware of the danger. If you want to go back and forth between sectors without interacting with any PCs, find a single-player game instead of shaping a MMORPG into one.

So what youre saying is, in your mind, killers are players that have fun preying on defenseless targets? Theres a word for that - most MMORPGs call that sort of player a griefer.

If Jumpgate is anything to go by, most Killers have a dandy time killing other Killers. Certainly its more ... interesting to attack players who are capable of fighting back. More challenging certainly.

Your conclusions regarding piracy in Jumpgate are also totally wrong. Its never been possible to make a profit pirating in JG. The pirates have always been the rather well equipped 2nd accounts of massively rich players who - due to their connections in the major pirate squads - have no trouble making oodles of cash on those so called "high risk" routes.

Finally, you PERSIST in making an incorrect assertion that the only "valid" form of PC interaction is violence. Please get a clue. A lack of PC piracy does not imply a lack of PC interaction.

"Pirates can be as successful as traders there, which is clearly a bad thing, since pirates have more fun as well. If, on the other hand, the system was tweaked so that pirating would be less profitable than trading, then the "achievers" wouldn't pirate."

Two things:

First, pirating should be MUCH more hazardous and difficult a profession than trading. In my experience, pirates already have a much tougher mindset than traders, and they learn to roll with the punches life gives them. A pirate with not much to lose in the first place is far more likely to pick himself up and keep on playing after a death than a merchant with his financial empire riding on a crucial run. A tough fighter is welcome to try his hand at being a pirate, but a successful pirating run should be akin to a successful flag cap in the current system. Remember, in the wild a predator makes a successful kill roughly only 1 out of 10 tries.

Second, there should be a clear division between traders and piraters, and it should be very difficult to go between the two professions. Otherwise it would be all too easy for a player to hoard up a small fortune by trading, then rule the trade routes with an iron fist of expensive ships and equipment. The best trade routes and deals should only be open to trusted members of trading guilds. If a trade guild member went over to being a pirate, the repercussions should be harsh and he should be hunted down by his own guild. It should be even more diffcult for a known pirate to go back to being a trader, for obvious reasons. Right now there is no distinction between "pirate" and "trader" except for individual playing styles, so the vets of the Vendetta Test form a kind of brutal autocracy of wealth and power, going from trading to pirating to trading, while a new player must work *very* hard to get a foothold.

As I said in earlier posts, a reputation system doesn't have to be perfect to be interesting.

The sample system I'll outline doesn't so much take in to account not so much the motives of the players, as it tries to simulate the player's actions might appear to observers in the real world.

First of all, unless the game simulates some massive monopolitical institute a person will never have just one reputation. He will have a reputation with respect to each of the many different factions in the game. To keep matters simple, I'll describe such a system for the rather simple universe we have now, but keep in mind that the universe is likely to get much more complex. In fact, Incarnate seems to be hinting that the current universe might cease to exist in the very near future (which makes me want to hang around on the server with a big sign that reads 'The End of the World is at Hand'). But nonetheless, since I'd only confuse people if I started talking about a completely different universe I'll stick to describing the game universe we have in common.

The current vendetta universe has roughly 15 or so factions. There are three obvious factions which players currently belong, a bot faction of little or no consequence which I like to think of us the self-replicating leftovers of some ancient alien war, a faction of bots that flies around in furies and can which can be thought of as the major non-PC faction, and one faction for each of the stations not controlled by the Itani, Serco, or (the at present inappropriately named) Nuetral Territories. Of course, several of those independent (small 'i') stations could be in league with each other, but for now lets just keep it simple. Assume that the final universe could have more and that these factions would probably have a more complex structure as dictated by the RP content.

Initially everyone's reputation with respect to each faction is neutral, with the possible exception of thier starting faction which might think of them in the most slightly positive of ways (lets call it a +1 reputation bonus but keep in mind that all the numbers here are just pulled out of the air). What does this mean? Well, it means that every faction gives you basically no special treatment. You don't get the benefit of the doubt, but neither does anyone openly descriminate against you. You don't really have any friends, but neither does anyone especially dislike you. That said, this might be a good time to point out that in addition to the computer quality of 'reputation' there is a reputation which you have with respect to each of your other players and the two might not at all be related to each other.

To keep things sane I suggest a reputation cap of some sort - in this case lets say between -30 and +30. Another sanity inducing feature would be to increase your reputation by +1 if it is less than zero every time you die (this assuming dying would carry some penalty like experience point loss). We don't want n00bs getting stuck with negative reputation they can't get rid of, and n00bs (having no experience) don't lose much by dying.

To modify your reputation, you are going to have to do things that get peoples notice. Mostly that means blowing up bad guys, doing favors for people, and proving yourself trust worthy. I'll deal with each case in turn.

Blowing up a bad guy is usually a good way to convince people you are on the same team as they are, and a good way to convince the bad guys that you are not on thier team. Please understand that I am not making a value judgement when I say 'bad guy'. Obviously, if you are Itani other Itani are the 'good guys' and the Serco are the 'bad guys', and vica verse. And please understand that I'm not equivocating either by making that observation. It may be that on person's hero is another person's terrorist, but that doesn't mean that there isn't right or wrong. In the game, the Itani can be a brutal, ammoral, empire. They really can be the simplistic bad guys facing the noble Serco. Or the other way around. Or the game can be more nuanced. I'm merely saying that the RPG story doesn't have to be tied to the reputation engine or vica versa.

Each faction would have a relationship to each other faction, for simplicity that relationship would either be favorable ('allied'), nuetral, hostile ('at war'). Presumably, a faction would normally have a favorable relationship with itself, but its posible in some decadent self-loathing empires or borderline anarchy societies that a faction could have a a nuetral or even hostile relationship with itself. These relationships will be chosen by the RP designer and modified by the RP designer in order to suit the needs of the major story arcs he wants to tell. Each relationship modifies how the faction views violence against that faction. If a faction has a favorable attitude toward a faction, violence against that faction causes the attacker's reputation to fall. If a faction has a nuetral attitude toward another faction, it tends not to care about violence against that faction so long as it doesn't occur in its own back yard. An attack on a nuetral guest of the faction is likely to be treated as an attack on the faction itself, while an attack on a member of a faction that the first faction feels neutrally to in some remote location is likely to be regarded as 'none of its business'. An attack on a faction that another faction is hostile too is like to be regarded favorably by that faction.

Therefore, attacking someone will modify your reputation with respect to every faction that cares. A typical case in the current universe might be a Serco attacking an Itani outside of station 7. Suppose that initially the attacker and the attacked party have neutral reputations with all factions except thier own. Suppose that the Serco are nuetral with respect to the Itani, the 'station 7' faction is nuetral, the Itani faction is favorable with itself, and the NT are hostile to the Itani. In this case, because the attack is occuring in space not controlled by the Serco, the Serco faction doesn't care if one of its members is making a living pirating the Itani. The Itani faction cares because it believes that it is one of 'the good guys' and so the attackers reputation will fall with respect to the Itani. The Nuetral Territories care because they think the Itani are one of 'the bad guys' and so the attacker's reputation climbs as far as they are concerned. The 'station 7' faction doesn't really give a flip about the Itani, but disapproves of any violence in its front yard as a matter of principal and didn't think of the Itani as a threat.

So what happens? Well, whenever the attacker fires a shot, maybe neither the NT or the Itani are in any position to judge anything about the event. But 'station 7' immediately takes interest, and files a protest to the attacker (he gets a message) and activates a couple defence bots to go investigate. The attacker is forced to make a 'legal check' to avoid losing 1 point of reputation with respect to 'station 7' immediately. Since 'station 7' has no feelings one way or the other about the attacker, this check is made without a penalty. At this point, as far as anyone observing the event is concerned it might just be an accidental discharge. There are two cases, either the attacker hits someone, in which case he immediately is forced to make another 'legal check' at a penalty because its looking like a suspiciously well aimed accident now, or else he misses. But in either case, the station is aware that there has been a recent discharge of arms by the attacker.

If the Serco attacker hits the Itani, he's crossed the line and now the Itani and any other faction favorable to the Itani force a legal check on the attacker. Since the attacked individual as a favorable reputation with his own faction, the attacker gets a penalty on this check with respect the Itani.

Suppose the defender shoots back before he has been hit (but after being shot at). Guess what, this provokes a legal check
against any faction that cares too. As far as 'station 7' knows, these are just too trouble makers getting into a fight after insulting each other's mothers. It does however know who through the first punch, so it gives some benifit of the doubt
to anyone else throwing punches right now so the legal check is easier, but the defender might still fail and even if it is
self-defence will lose reputation. Likewise, if the defender fired first, as far as 'station 7' and anyone else knows, he's the attacker. If you don't believe me, imagine how you'd feel as a bar owner and this happened. Imagine how police are likely to respond to a fight breaking out near them. I tell you the truth when I say that you can bet that if both parties aren't arrested, then the one that is arrested is the one that is still standing unless you've got lots of witnesses on your side.

Similar things occur when someone gets hit. Once you've hit someone that hasn't before hit you and lose a legal check, the
station starts (at least for a few minutes) looking at you more skeptically and starts looking less skeptically at people who attack you. Also once you've hit someone and lost a legal check, the station NPC's go hostile on you. They refuse to let you dock. The defence turrets start firing at you. The defence bots start chasing you. If attacker's reputation with respect to that faction was sufficiently negative, then this would have happened as soon as he entered the system.

And again, similar things occur when someone is destroyed. If you weren't seen as defending yourself at an earlier stage, then the check is much harder and the lose of reputation much greater.

In summary:

1) Fired a shot in an inhabited area or near a non-ally. Roll a legal check or -1 reputation. (Additional legacl check if no one has fired in one minute.) If failed, local faction gives bonus on anyone else's legal check for firing shots within 5 minutes, and penalties to the shooter on all other legal checks within 5 minutes. This penalty is cumulative with other penalties but not with itself.

2) Hit a target: As above, but legal check is harder. (Additional legal check if no target has been hit in 5 minutes.) If failed, local faction gives bonus on anyone else's legal check for hitting you for 5 minutes, and a penalty to the shooter. This penalty is cumulative with other penalties but not with itself.

3) Destroyed a target: As above, but legal check is much harder and failure means -3 reputation. (Even better would be a system which increased the penalty depending on the difference in the player's experience). This check is applied for each target you destroy regardless of how much time has elapsed since the last time. If failed, local faction gives big penalty on any further legal checks you make within 5 minutes, and anyone that attacks you has a big bonus on thier legal checks for the next 5 minutes. The local faction probably goes temporarily hostile to you regardless of your reputation.

Another way to improve your reputation is to do favors for people. In game terms, this means that the reward for a successfully completed mission can include a small reputation advancement (usually +1) with the faction with which the mission is associated. I don't want to outline a mission structure in this already long post, but the assumption here is that once you've attained more experience points than a missions difficulty factor you know longer get experience for completing the mission. In the same way, well programmed reputation enhancing missions would check to see if your reputation fell within a certain range and would not modify your reputation if it already fell outside of it. For example, some missions might only grant you a bonus if your reputation fell between -5 and +3. If you were already a notorious pirate with a -18 reputation, helping old ladies across the street isn't going to help you, and if you are a boy scout with a +10 reputation, well helping old ladies across the street is just expected of you. In this way, you can't just keep repeating a mission in order to enhance your reputation. In some cases it might be a pretty good idea to encourage more experienced players to spread out by not giving reputation rewards if the mission was beneath the players difficulty factor either. Superman doesn't enhance his reputation by saving alot of cats. People expect more of him.

The third way to alter your reputation is by proving yourself trustworthy, or conversely by proving yourself untrustworthy.
In some cases this overlaps with the above. For example, if you perform a series of missions you are being considered more trustworthy because people (NPC's) know they can count on you to get things done. But it also means being honest in your day to day doings. Honest players don't try to sell things that don't belong to them. Honest players obey the laws. If an ownership system is properly designed this can end up covering a really broad area. For example, each bit of cargo should have an ownership flag. A pirate blasting a cargo ship and taking its cargo must find a dishonest fence to sell it to, or must find a way of forging freight documents or else attempts to sell the cargo will result in sharp reputation loses (again probably with a legal 'saving throw'). A player scanned by an NPC police bot better have licences for the weapons on his ship, or else (again with a legal 'saving throw') face fines and reputation loss. A player mining widgets or picking up scrap metal better have a salvage license for the system he obtained the widgets in (or else do his work in unclaimed lawless territory with the risk of pirates) or else face fines and reputation loss if he tries to sell it. A player carrying contraband cargo needs to find a dishonest buyer and avoid police scans or he to is likely to find his reputation slipping disasterously. Conversely, honest citizens when they are caught by the law pay thier fines, so it might be possible on small reputation loses to recuperate some of the loss by paying a fine (or even allowing yourself to be executed!).

As for penalties for low reputation they can be extensive:

1) At any negative reputation, most merchants aligned with that faction overcharge you for goods and services, and underpay
you for things you sell to them (roughly by 1% per point of negative reputation). Some merchants, usually those with the best stuff will outright refuse to do business with you. With across the board low reputation you are forced to seek out dishonest merchants and pay thier high prices.
2) Below -8 or so reputation, a faction is immediately hostile to you at all times (even if they would otherwise look favorably on your faction). They do not let you dock at thier stations. They make every attempt to destroy you if they see you. (Note that your own home faction would probably have at least some dishonest stations (a 'criminal faction' willing to take you in.)
3) Below -10 or so reputation, a faction put a bounty on your head which does not go away until your reputation climbs back
positive. (I'm assuming here that there will be major changes in the bounty system before long).
4) Below -12 or so reputation, every time you enter an inhabited system there is a small chance an NPC bounty hunter will be created. This bounty hunter will chase you from system to system until destroyed.
5) Many missions will only be available to players if they have sufficient reputation with the faction the mission is associated with.
6) As an extreme example, if your reputation with your faction falls to -30 or so prior to finding an unlicensed cloning lab (which do inferior work at higher prices), you suffer permanent character death if you die.
7) Reputation can directly effect many RP skill checks that determine how well you get along in the universe. For instance, the law really is out to get people with low reputations and they are much more likely to be blamed for violence they are involved in even if it isn't thier fault.

Can the system be metagamed? Sure. Is this a problem? Probably only if we have chosen or numbers poorly, or designed or missions badly or so forth.

Very long post, took me a half hour or so to read and comprehend. Don't ya think that the devs probably already made a reputation system, though?

In all that, you specify how factions view players. A player has a set of reputations, one for each faction.

Thats great, but *how* does Pilot Alice see Pilot Jack? Because each player has their own personal reputations with the various factions, the fact that Player Jack nominally belongs to a faction does not imply Jack has that factions relationships with other factions.

In fact, given that there are 3 PC factions, how does this system help at all? All it really does is define NPC vs NPC and PC vs NPC relations.

So now, for the sake of argument, NT are neutral to almost everyone, Serco and Itani are hostile.

Alice and Jack are two new accounts, Serco and Itani, and their starting faction relationships are all neutral.

Are they neutral to each other (because their personal reputations are neutral) or are they hostile (because their factions are hostile)?

"Don't ya think that the devs probably already made a reputation system, though?"

Yes, I do. But I got tired of listening to all the .... people yelling 'the sky is falling'.

baadf00d: What the heck are you talking about? Are you asking me to write a system that will somehow force players to respect (or not respect) other players?

Alice and Jack can be hostile if either decides to be hostile, or they can become close friends and engage in TS in private chats if they want. It's all really the same to me. However, if Alice decides to ambush Jack and destroys him, then she alters her reputation as I outlined above. The computer is not going to take over and force Itani Alice to fight Serco Jack just because thier two factions are currently hostile.

So then your system fails to solve the problem outlined originally - a reputation system to control piracy. That is why this thread is here. At least, my reading of the thread seems to indicate that a reputation system is a means to allow piracy by controlling it.

Your system, as it stands, locks players into a small set of PC factions with static faction relationships, and then makes the faction relationships irrelevent anyway by allowing PCs to have their own reputations with factions regardless of their faction's standing with the other factions. And doesnt seek to explain how piracy is to be controlled.

Did you even read his post? It entirely solves piracy. If somebody pirates, their reputation goes down. Go down enough and you're staring at a screen of PCD.

f00d, how in the hell do you propose to regulate how people behave towards each other? You get a char. info and it says: "This person is hostile to your faction, bounty of 50000c for his destruction" or "This person is friendly to your faction." And you know: "Hey, this guy isn't someone I want to screw with" or "Hey, I'm gonna kill him and get that sweet bounty!" "Or, he helps my faction out in need. Good person to know." Their reputation tells you who they are, not how to behave towards them.

Quite simple really.