The Tri-poll: What does multiplayer mean to YOU?

[Soranor]

I voted for option 1.

If I didn't want the danger of being attacked by other players at all, I can play singleplayer.

Since Elite is all about realism, as far as it gets, I assume violence in multiplayer will be like in the real world. If I attack someone in a first world country/the civilized and secure star systems, I will be treated as a criminal, hunted by the police. If I do it in a remote place of some anarchical state/star system, I might get away with it completely. Except for my bad conscience of course.

I hope there will by some safety system that stops me from misclicking my plasma accelerator while looking at another ship this time.

 

[erikfinnegan]

When I read the topic "what is multiplayer for you" I had hoped to find this option :

Many tools and scales to interact socially.

While opening fire is a means of interaction, social to some extend when you have friends, but PvP should really only be a subset of the toolset available !

Chose option 1

 

[Tamereth]

Open PVP would be my preference, but with a cavet.
Going around killing other players should have a down side, such as a bounty system. This should be set so that having a high bounty against your name really hampers your day to day playing. Say NPC's won't give you missions / traders don't want to deal with you etc. You should be flagged to other players clearly that theres a bounty on your head so they know to run away / run you down and get the bounty. Or if it gets two high NPC bounty hunters come after you at every turn.

 

[nats]

I answered, but I dont know what PvE stands for - Player vs Elephant maybe? I assume PvP stands for Player vs Player. I am not that into multiplayer as you can tell, I very rarely play multiplayer games tbh.

 

[Kerrash]

I answered, but I dont know what PvE stands for - Player vs Elephant maybe? I assume PvP stands for Player vs Player. I am not that into multiplayer as you can tell, I very rarely play multiplayer games tbh.

'Environment'

 

[Darkoba]

The first, the 'they will be better than me' will apply anyway to NPCs as, as far as I know, Elite : Dangerous will not be a skills levelled game. The only diference is the more difficult NPCs may only be generated away from start locations (but as most of these are random I expect they could be found anywhere). Therefore this is probably not a PVP / PVE issue, if they are better than you, NPC or otherwise, RUN!!!

The 'they will keep comming after me' is the griefing scenario. On this point players will have to rely on FD's management and policing within the game. It's a risk I will be willing to take and I can imagine that if the majority of players find the controls don't work there will be a lot of pressure to put them right.

I have heard some statements discussed that PVP players will spend all their time looking for other PVP players to fight for the challenge. I feel I am safe in saying that the vast majority of us will just be playing the game as normal, we will enjoy these encounters when they present themselves but will be happy with the NPC interaction most of the time.

Now I wonder if I can get any measured feedback / non passionate responses to this??

A well balanced, optimistic view. I, too, would like to think that most of us will be playing the game as 'normal'. I feel that things should be kept as simple as possible, with 'real' justice systems throughout the game. What, in practice, is the difference between griefers and 'legitimate' pirates? The pirate player knows that there will be systems where they can trade, rest and hide out, and other systems where there's a price on their head. The griefer, with luck and a well thought out system, will be subject to similar penalties, and may eventually be discouraged from griefing. (I know, I'm an optimist).

I voted for locations where I couldn't be attacked, but on reflection, this creates an artificial scenario, whereas, if (as in real life) attacks can take place anytime, anywhere, their likelihood tempered by the local civilisation / justice systems, a more realistic immersion will happen (IMHO).:S

 

[Halvron]

General consensus

I'm wavering between options 1 & 2 but voted for 1 under realism with the expectation as per many that the viper presence will prevent most people attacking. Nothing in life is certain though

 

[Darkoba]

A proposal for a realistic, unified PvAll environment with serious repercussions for the few so called "griefers" and high reward for the one being "griefed", making griefing useless and a benefit for the potential victim.

Top voted option: One global ruleset - everyone can be attacked everywhere.

Restrictions and serious consequences:

IN LAWFUL SYSTEMS
a) If police arrives quickly enough in lawful systems to disable the attacker
-> victim can escape, set out a bounty afterwards on the attacker

b) If police does not arrive quickly enough, victim eventually gets destroyed if unable to escape
-> Victim gets paid out for lose of space ship and cargo
-> Attacker pays a high fine which goes directly to the victims account minus a small regulation fine

-> Self regulating system. No benefit of attacking, only for people who want to end up broke constanly losing credits. Victim gets rewarded by earning credits and loses nothing but a couple of playtime minutes and gets a free adrenaline rush plus credits.

IN UNLAWFUL SYSTEMS
a) Pirate first disables ship and can take cargo, if victim agrees to release its cargo. By releasing the cargo, they enter a "gentleman´s agreement" that the victim will NOT be destroyed, and that the victim will NOT initiate a self destruct sequence. Players can buy a monthly "pirating insurance" which in case of a pirate assault refunds 100% of the cargo value and ship value, should it be destroyed.

b) if Pirate choses to destroy victim ship and breaks the gentleman´s agreement, he gets flagged as "Murder". Victim gets ship and cargo refunded. A universe wide bounty is set out making the "Murder" free to be shot and destroyed by anyone within the next 48 hours of account playtime.

c) If Pirate destroys other ship without entering a gentlemans agreement, there will be a permanent bounty on this character. The bounty hunter killing the "Murderer" splits all the Murderers ships and possession 50/50 with the victim.

d) If the victim breaks the "gentlemen´s agreement" and self destructs, blowing up both his and the pirate´s ship, there will be no benefit for the pirate nor the victim, both will lose their ship and cargo, no insurances will pay out.


DUEL OPTION ALWAYS POSSIBLE
You can hail another ship, in all systems (except high traffic homeworlds) and request a duel. If the other ship agrees, no repercussions will apply. Special titles ("Elite Duelist"), high rewards for successful Duelists.
If a third ship intervenes without officially joining the duel, it will be considered as "unlawful" activity, making the intervening ship "criminal".
Up to 32 ships can join a duel, but the same number of ships has to be on both sides. (e.g. 2 vs. 2, 4 vs. 4, etc.)

ARENA SYSTEMS
Systems of gladiator sports
PVP where you enter in ship vs. ship combat winning ranks and prizes, whatever you lose will be gone, no repercussions whatsoever, no duel requirement, anything goes.


Advantages: NO splitting of the playerbase, NO filters necessary, NO immersion breaking by keeping all mechanics and consequences in fiction, serious and effective repercussions for unlawful PvP in place.

.

Well thought through. Just two minor points...

If the pirate breaks the 'gentleman's agreement', he should get a permanent bounty, just as if there were no agreement made.

In a duel situation, it might be more reasonable to have not only the same number of ships on each side, but also the same TYPES of ship, with the same or similar armament.


ADDITIONAL COMMENT:
Although combat is undoubtedly a part of Elite, I feel it is not, nor should be THE central theme. The central theme is living in the 'whatever century it is', with all its facets (like living in today's world with its facets).

Those facets in Elite include interstellar trading, travel, exploration, self defense, generally trying to improve your lot or following a dream, and, if it's your bag, ripping off others by fraud or piracy.

Anybody who joins Elite: Danger with the express and only aim to 'shoot 'em up', kill and pillage mercilessly, will be missing an awful lot of worthy experiences.

 

[Elrawkum]

In a perfect world...

We would all share the same space, there would be no griefing, there would be systems in place to minimise accidental griefing, people will respect each other.

I'm choosing option 1 because in a perfect world that would be the ideal - a shared universe with everyone's gameplay styles catered for and any griefing issues or desire not to get involved with PvP combat is entirely dealt with within the framework of the game world itself and any mechanics the devs implement outside it (through groupings, session matching, mechanics, balanced rewards/punishments, technological solutions and so on)

So, and apologies if this has already been suggested (I read the first 20 or so pages and then started glazing over but didn't see anything like this up to then...), how about an in-game, story-consistent 'technological' solution to the PvE/PvP problem?

A piece of tech which simply prevents another (human) player from weapon-locking/targeting you. You tick the box which says "leave me be, I don't want to fight" - or in practical terms the 'PvE' button - before you log-on (or even at character creation if you wanted to make it permanent and non-switchable), and your ship is fitted with, essentially, an 'anti-EPF' targeting scrambler.

They'd still see you, you'd see them, you can still affect each other (ramming might be an issue, mines might cause a problem, line of sight would still be effective - tip: don't stand still...), PvEers couldn't just tip-toe through a battlefield, but it would still make it a lot more difficult for other players to kill them. Meanwhile, you could be messaging your attacker, "I'm on a diplomatic mission! Please don't shoot.", call the cops, the cavalry, the boys... or initiate a jump and just get the hell out of there (the 'scrambler' would prevent them targeting your jump point too).

This way, even PvE/PvP encounters would generate some dramatic tension, opportunities to role-play, socialise (you might get on and team up) and maximise the immersion and utility of the entire player base (rather than being completely segregated). Otherwise there's a risk of 'never the twain shall meet' and having two slightly less 'alive' universes than one larger, more dynamic one.

A few issues and potential problems spring to mind almost immediately(and I almost didn't post it as a result), but wanted to throw it out there as one potential avenue to explore to see what people think.

PS - it's taken me a while, but this is my first post here, so if you think the above idea absolutely sucks and that I'm a first rate idiot, be gentle in how you say it, if you would. Cheers.

 

[Darkoba]

I have a question for all of these people who say PVE is easy.

What rank did you achieve in Elite before dying? What rank after 20 deaths, after 100?

Did you ever even play the original game before coming here wanting to make another Eve?

Tell you what, Why don't you try playing E when it comes out. Play it solo until you reach Elite, then tell us how easy it was.

I am going to play it just that way, but I will also be playing with friends to achieve the same goals I have.

Fromhell, you keep saying we should try PVP, maybe we'll like it. Perhaps you should try PVE to see what YOU are missing.

Also, please be sure to reply with your commander name, that way I can drop my ban-hammer on it.

The good thing is that by the time the game is finally released, you will have most likely moved your aggression off to some other new game you want to mold into your image and we won't have to be concerned with you any longer. Notice, I did not state worry. That would indicate I have some concern with you. I don't.

And one other thing, Fromhell... Why is it that the only posts I see from you are strictly dedicated to PVP? With as passionate as you are for PVP, we all could appreciate that same passion put to constructive use. Your input into the ship designs would most likely be refreshing. As would you comments into the fiction, storyline progression, and other play based game proposals.

I truly look forward to seeing more posts from you here and in the Private Backers forums.

Nicely put, Serpentstar. Essentially, I would like E: D to have the same 'feel' as the original Elite (I played on the 'Beeb' in the 80's and 90's), but with current graphics, improved controls and the ability to fly with friends (real or AI). Anybody who wants to get into the game merely to destroy as many other players as possible needs to grow up or get some therapy.

That said, I suppose if some players want to be able to blank out others, then it's their right, but I can't help feeling that a single universe (PvALL??) would be the closest to 'reality'.

 

[Gravity]

Policing the illusion of reality in multi-player

It's likely that the Elite universe will be big enough that you can just fly away from places where other players are shooting at you constantly with their superior weaponry. I'm sure that allowing a free-for-all will be balanced by other elements of the game that will curb players' abilities to exploit others' weaknesses to excess.

What bothers me more is if it becomes impossible to escape the continuous prattle of players talking about the game in such a way that it spoils the illusion of it being in a living, breathing universe. As soon as someone starts talking about the real world while they're in game, it ruins the atmosphere as far as I'm concerned.

While the idea of playing multi-player in Elite is really exciting, I'm sure many people will have had the experience of playing multi-player games in which a significant minority seek to outdo each other in spoiling the immersive quality of the game-world for the rest. For example, they may hop from A to B instead of walking, use text-speak and emoticons, make bigoted comments, or just broadcast nonsense on all available channels. It becomes the default mode for copy-cat players to demonstrate their mastery over the game, rather than for them to make any attempt to try and preserve the inherent realism of the game-world or stay in-character.

I'm concerned that we early backers (many of whom are devotees of the previous single-player incarnations of Elite) will be at the mercy of all kinds of annoying behaviour once the retail version is released to the general public, and perhaps even before that.

May I suggest that those of us who subscribe to this viewpoint should police the game to root out all forms of annoying behaviour by other players and make it our number one aim to spoil their enjoyment by destroying them without mercy until they learn the lesson that it's not cool in Elite to spoil the illusion of reality.

Perhaps there could be some sort of limited duration invisible 'kick me' marker that we could apply to others' ships. It would make those we deem to have broken our code of ethics a target, particularly in police states. It would also help to give those of us who prefer not belonging to clans a sense of collective power. It wouldn't actually be necessary to identify yourself as belonging to the group of players with this mission you see. Nor should it be linked with status, I think, because some of the most successful players can also be the most annoying.

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

Option 1 would split the player base in a worse way, by making the players that don't want to engage in PvP just play alone. You still won't see them, but on top of that you are forcing those players to never see anyone else.

This is quite alot like saying you wouldn't have played ELITE or FRONTIER as long the the NPC's were allowed to attack you during a trade run. If an NPC could attack you (or vice versa) a player should be able to as well. ELITE is not WOW nor is it EVERQUEST. The unpredictability and insecurity of being alone in the VASTY NOTIHINGNESS that exists at the corner of NO and WHERE is one of the defining attributes that makes ELITE, ELITE. The Police and other security forces, not to mention other players working the Bounty Hunter angle (or that just enjoy the chance to be a hero now and again) will serve to make the ELITE fiction and universe more real, visceral and exciting. I think it will balance itself out. You just can't remove the risk and still have a game that can be called ELITE.

ELITE has never been, and should never be, a game about SAFE places and happy, fluffy unicorns.

 

[Consili]

To me option 1 is the best situation for a few reasons:

• It is more realistic.
  
• There is no confusion of where the game allows you to engage.
  
• There is no 'goose guarding' just outside of safe zones making a band of lethality for anyone crossing that border.
  
• There is no fleeing back to a safe zone where suddenly PvP just stops.

However I think there should be high and low security areas:

1. In highly developed space there could be a high level of security by NPC forces and perhaps even an automatic bounty placed on the head of anyone who attacks someone else within this region. That way there is nothing specifically stopping someone from opening fire, but there are factors in place which discourage it (and the perpetrator would probably not survive the encounter).
   
2. In low security space there would be less ubiquitous patrols and surveillance, allowing for people to fight one another between patrols or in blind spots in the system.
   
3. In zero security space all bets are off, you are on the frontier and there is no established safety net put in place by any of the 3 factions. Perhaps if a large enough group of people decided to carve a piece of space out, they could establish a kind of unofficial rule there, and charge travelers for their protection or some such.

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

Yeah, no. PvE players simply do not wish to engage in combat with other human players. That's it.

My opinion is is you want PVE ELITE, play single player. I expect then you might want the devs to add the option to turn off the ability for NPC's to attack you, though. If ELITE: Dangerous is going to be multiplayer then it should remain true to it's namesake and be just that- Dangerous.

 

[twincast]

(I thought I had already made an account here during the campaign? Apparently not.)

PvP for all is obviously more realistic and immersive and what have you, but denying people the option to stay away from it will be immensely frustrating for some for no gain other than some elitists being able to feel good about themselves. For the record, I hate magic save zones, though.

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

Nope.... I just wanted a game about cooperation and story - Basically If there is no PVE mode I'll happily kill you if you attack me....

I just would rather not make the game exclusively about killing.... BUT I came to the conclusion that any hopes I had for an MMO style game went out of the window - this will be TF2 in space - ok fine - I'm highly ranked on that I'll just kill my way to Elite (Ok Dangerous cos I'll get bored and TF2 is much better) and **** the bounties....

I care little for where this game is heading now - the majority want COD/TF2 in space - fine - that's what you're getting. You can dress it up with trading in the crippled predicable (yet unexploitable) economy, and gearing up your 50 ships, but basically this game is an FPS.

So...what you're saying is you didn't want to play ELITE, you wanted to play a different game with the same title? ELITE has never been much on story; the joy was making YOUR OWN STORY by playing how you wanted.

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

In the same thread but in DDF I posted...

Ok... here is what I think about PvP in ED... feel free to express your opinions!

PvP won't happen very much!

Why?

In a heavily policed system - Core Systems
If you PvP you are at risk of being attacked by Police, NPC Bounty Hunters, PC Bounty Hunters and general players (who may or may not have been asked by the target player to help out).

In not a heavily policed system
If you PvP you are at risk of being attacked by NPCs Pirates, NPC Bounty Hunters, PC Bounty Hunters (high end) and you might find yourself waiting around because PCs won't go into those systems, limited trade, limited resources.

Like I said earlier... You can't switch off NPCs, what is the difference between being killed by an NPC and a PC?

FD's matchmaking should be good enough for you not to be instanced with 16 players who are in an alliance, who may wish to attack YOU! I would also of thought that by default you are matched by ping and total time played .. not only that but matchmaking would also take into account if you are solo or allianced (to a point)

Applause

You sir are a wise being. May you live to a thousand years old!

 

[DarkWalker]

That said, I suppose if some players want to be able to blank out others, then it's their right, but I can't help feeling that a single universe (PvALL??) would be the closest to 'reality'.

When realism reduces the enjoyment it's not only worthless, but actually dangerous, to a game.

Fortunately seems like removing groups is off the table, so I will be able to bypass that potential bit of unwanted realism. So even if the "All" group is forced PvP and there is no official PvE group, I still should never, ever, see myself engaged in unwanted PvP.

ELITE has never been, and should never be, a game about SAFE places and happy, fluffy unicorns.

I don't want safety. I want enemies firing at me, I want danger and challenge at every turn. But I DO want absolute control over whether that danger can be another player.

To put it bluntly, I've played, and usually (if they have an ending) beaten, about every important space sim in the last decades; the whole Wing Commander saga, the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games, the Elite games, the X series, and so on. I like both space sims and PvE challenge.

What I won't ever engage in is non-consensual PvP; I dislike that enough that I prefer to leave a game I otherwise like rather than risk unwanted non-consensual PvP. It's not going to be any different with Elite: Dangerous, I will play in whichever mode or group allows me to face the hardest PvE challenges without any risk of PvP at all.

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

Fair point... I think if you wanna do shared grouping against NPCs with like minded people then that is facilitated already with on the fly private groups...
"Hey buddies, fancy doing this without other players for a while" - kinda thing (yeah I saw you in DDF, but responded to your post here)

I totally understand what you think of lack of story in the original games, I defended FE2 in an Amiga forum a couple of years ago

The problem I see is that a lot of people seem to want a game made for a general MMO audience and not necessarily ELITE. The one guy thought ELITE and Frontier were boring and didn't like them-- but he wants THIS game to to built so that he can play WOW in space. I respect their views but this is ELITE- it is not like any other game and should not be built and designed around gameplay mechanics in use by other games or defined by other genres. As has been said, ELITE redefined how games were played (and I LOVED the way it did that!) and if it redefines it again I'm all for it. I just don't want it to mimic everything else to please a few people. Elite build it's own market before and quite frankly I don't think it NEEDS the people that won't play it if it doesn't clone their WOW experience.

As for me, when the game comes out, I aim to misbehave. And I expect full well that a few players will get together and hunt me down. See, I just created MY own story

 

[CaptGrumpyPants]

Well, there are a couple levels to this:

- If I'm not in the mood to engage in PvP then I will not find PvP, at that moment, fun. Or, rather, the frustration of being forced into a PvP situation against my will more than cancels any fun I could have with the fight. Killing myself means I "waste" less time with an activity that won't provide me with fun and can get back to something that will be fun for me faster.

Are you going to suicide everytime an NPC pirate attacks you, too? I haven't seen any option that gives you a smurfy world where nothing will attack you at all, did I miss something? In your example I can't see a difference between PVE and PVP.