I think Fallout Online should take lessons from the early days of Ultima Online. Because Ultima Online had very very distinct qualities about it that keep it the most popular MMORPG for nearly a decade Pre-WoW.



#1. Anyone was able to attack anyone ANYWHERE. The game was built on complete anarchy and because of that, players were forced to protect each other when stepping out of guard zones. A reputation and color system was used to determine if Town Guards would attack you, or not.

#1 Player housing, a player could "claim land" and build a house. Decorate. Defend. Even lock their doors when they leave to protect their horde of junk inside.

#3. Every item in the game was able to be STOLEN!!!!. Yes even items inside your house were not safe. A thief could easily steal your house key and go ransack your home. Fun stuff man.

So i wonder.. Have any of the Developers ever played or know about Ultima Online in its early years????
Was a great game man, would work great for FO:O.

#1. Anyone was able to attack anyone ANYWHERE. The game was built on complete anarchy and because of that, players were forced to protect each other when stepping out of guard zones. A reputation and color system was used to determine if Town Guards would attack you, or not.

PvP will be consensual, meaning you can't go around killing randomly.

I like some ideas, other, I've already tried and dislike. Stealing is something I somewhat like, what I don't want is that someone can steal your key and break into your house and steal all your stuff, big gamequitter there.

But I'd like to be able to build houses and stuff (expensive and you must protect it, but I think it'd be fun).

they sounds like good ideas, not so much the stealing one because i don't want to fall pray to the shady sands shuffle

See, and this is why the transition from a Single Player RPG, to a MMORPG is going to be so difficult.

In Single player, the player is empowered to make evil/good decisions. You can shoot that caravan owner, or help him by purchasing goods.

But in a MMORPG, you are up against other warm bodies behind a screen, and if your only option is to trade or talk, then the entire immerse world that FO created, is now not-existant.

Im not saying the entire FO world is fair game for being killed. Im saying that outside of towns and outposts. Everyone and everything should be fair game. Otherwise it just does not work. Surely someone can come up with a balanced reputation/notoriety system. One that allows for complete freedom, but also allows new players to level up and hoard junk without fear of being ganked.

There should be consequence and reward for everything in this game. Again i go back to Ultima Online's murder/PK system.

In UO, Reputation is based on color.

Blue : Innocent. Attacking a blue player will flag you as criminal. Killing a blue player will flag you as murderer. Blue players can freely enter any town or establishment without getting attacked by guards.

Grey: Criminal. Stealing, or attacking another Blue player will flag you Grey. A grey player is free to be killed or attacked by any player without the consequence of guards killing you. Also, town guards attack these players on sight. Being grey only lasts a short 5 minutes from you last crime commited.

Red : Murderers. These are the infamous players who attack everyone on sight. Being flagged a murderer means you have attacked and killed over 10 "Blue" players in the past 72 hours. A red player is attacked on site by town guards and all other players can attack reds. A serious penalty is administered on death called "Stat loss" which decreases the Red players skill once they are killed. Stat loss lasted 2 hours.

All and all UO's rep system allowed Players themselves to deal out Justice to these punks who just want to kill everyone. And stat loss allowed good players to feel accomplished once a red was killed. Because now that player's skills are so bad, he cannot fight PvP for atleast 2 hours.

I dont know, now im just ranting. I for one would just like to see a similar system in place for FO:O.

Afterall, it is a wasteland. Not a tourist attraction.

Sorry guys, but the official dev statement, is that this will not be the 'hardcoe PvP, UO-style' game you're looking for. There won't be FFA PvP, player item theft, or the like.

Remember that UO was 'ruined' by Trammel because nobody wanted to play UO. Sure, it had it's players who loved the anarchy and immersion. But not enough to support the game; or else they would never have changed anything.

And you only have to play the F2 mod FOnline: 2238 for a little while you realize why Free-for-all sounds good on paper, is terrible in practice. It ruins new player experience. It keeps the PvP veterans and 'zerg' guild on top, and once their on top, they are nearly impossible to dethrone. Bottom line is, in FFA PVP, you let a small population of hardcoe gamers dictate the play experience of others, instead of the developers. That's a terrible idea in my opinion, considering that these players could turn the world into something entirely un-Fallout like if they wanted.

Instead of FFA PvP, I think that FOOL can bring some new additions to an MMO game, as inspired by the original gamesas games. For instance, players might be able to attack any NPC they wish (with important NPC being guarded.) Maybe the (inevitable) PvP zones can have PvP missions that pit teams of players against eachother, such as raiders vs. caravan guards. I think FOOL can be distinctly Fallout without trying to be an online version of the original game. Again, if you want that, try FO: 2238 and tell me what you think; it's completely free.

Of course, like I said, PvP zones are inevitable. They're in every new MMORPG, pretty much. Let me tell you my experience with AoConan's FFA PvP zones. Even right after launch, they were barren. Empty of all players except those guilds building little fortresses, and they didn't PvP much because it was already a pain for everyone to gather resources and build stuff. I say, if you give people the choice between having fun, or getting their teeth knocked in by a ganker every 30 minutes, they'll avoid those PvP areas like the plague. If you don't give them the choice, they'll avoid your game like the plague.

Shut thy mouth, fallout 2238 was a great game, as long as you werent stupid and played with a group no-one dared attack you for fear of being hunted and killed, that game is one the most fun mmo experiences iv had. Also you argument about getting one group on top is completeley fallout esque, the ncr is on-top right now and difficult to un-throne, and like in-game clans the brotherhood of steel was on-top until it started die beacause of elitism.

Fo2238 was good for the first 5 minutes as I ran around looking for a gun.. oh damn.. look 50 players just around the corner. Step 1) Install. Step 2) Play a day. Step 3) Uninstall. Well I guess we're just a couple of problem solvers

people didnt just randomly loot in that game, its happend to me 4 tiems and all those times the looters got killed and my clan got my stuff back

Oh I tried to join a group.. it was a trap Well I guess we're just a couple of problem solvers

I was using FOnline:2238 as an example for why a FFA Fallout game doesn't work; you may disagree and even say that FO:2238 proves just the opposite. But, please, do not turn this thread into a discussion on the other Fallout online game. Don't go off-topic please, and just comment on the original post if you have nothing to add to the discussion otherwise.

I'd also like to add that FFA MMORPGs (not just the aforementioned indie title) force players to join clans for protection. I'm a fan of teamwork, and actually I love PUGs, for PvE or PvP, it's why I play MMOs. But I'll join a 'zerg' or 'hardcoe' clan when hell freezes over.

UO color was not a Rep color but a good/evil color.

And worse was that who ever was control a server could determine what actions made you good or evil.

On one server the control hated thieves so when ever you stole not matter whom of, you got red colored.

On another server, (early in UO development) you never got grey for a short time, you were either red or blue and it all depended on how much farther into blue or red you were.

Plus UO got so silly that the 'King of Thieves' was so powerful that he would run around naked and do what ever he wanted. Unless you were a 'God Killer' character you couldn't hurt him and even if you were one that could hurt him it didnt' hurt him much.

IF that is what Fallout Online will turn into, I am out of here.

A bullet in the right location, should hurt you, if not kill you out right. (Or defeat you, depending what exactly that is going to mean in the FoOl game.)

Dave Chase

You would probably start in some civilization (maybe even choose) and has strict laws where you can't attack other players or you just wouldn't want to.

Okay, I've never really played any MMOs before, so I don't understand the basic knowledge/lingo that most of you do, so question: If they WERE to put houses or some kind of asylum into the game, how exactly could they offer that to players with issues like map space? Wouldn't they eventually run out of room? I know that this is probably a pretty simple answer, but like I said, I'm primarily a single player/regular multiplayer.

UO had Siege Perilous, a shard (server) where there was no trammel and catered to people who actually play for a challenging and fun environment, not to bake bread.

If Fallout Online offered that as a choice; I'd be very, very pleased.

Some places in mmos can have instances, which is like being in another dimension, imagine opening the door and going through a loading screen. So if the house looks like X -space big on the outside, it could still be 2Xs -space on the inside. Well I guess we're just a couple of problem solvers

Game FOnline: 2238 is widely known as shoveling shit...ask anyone...the only thing you do is shovel Brahmin shit for experience... anyway if PV13 will be kill anyone on site...than I won't play solving quests, just spend the entire time sitting on some cliff killing everyone in my scope...while my friends loot the corpses...so well se how it's fun to play...at least I'll have some fun one way or the other...

sarcasm?

I've spent like, 15 min max shoveling shit with my latest char, and that just for a little bit of xp and money to buy brahmin skins...


anyways:
as I said first: PVP = consensual, so no random killing anyway.


If they go fps/3d person view/iso with no map traveling (like old fallout) then I hope (this is IF players are able to get houses) they would have instances to houses, some people wouldn't like this idea some would, I'd like it because it would solve the issue with space. Some would also complain about unrealism but that depends on how you handle it, there could be a closed gate that when you use it, a menu will appear, letting you choose some destinations (one of which would be your house if you have one).

If they do have map traveling like old fallout then space would be no problem, they should go fonline style if so (you are only able you see your tent (house) unless you are sharing with someone else).

As someone already said, PvP is consentual which also means your 'steal anything' suggestion wouldn't work.

Player housing could be worthwhile, but in FOOL it would have to be very strictly controlled to prevent the wasteland from becoming a bustling metropolis.

sure I'm always sarcastic hehe... I used to kill brahmin..but anyway what really impressed me was capturing towns...maybe it would be fun to implement this in PV13 for example a large raid group wants to attack a town...so each player in town will be given a choice to defend the town or be neutral...I think this would be fun...I would definitely be in one of those battles even if I die and loose all my stuff...

A link to capturing town in Fallout style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71_JwpLQ444 the battle starts at 2min.

But still I have a lot of bad over this one good for that game heh...

Any and every MMO forum in history have a "FFA PvP or GTFO" thread. If the major MMO's don't adopt a FFA type PvP you'd think we'd start to get a hint of what the largest part of the MMO player base wants, right?

If you as a developer want a FFA-style, steal-and-loot-everything game that have serious death penalties I think you will undoubtedly turn a lot of people away from your game. There seem to be some form of idea behind this that the fun part of an MMO is to piss people off by making them suffer from their ingame deaths. The most fun I've ever had in an MMO was having a good group of friends PvP'ing and having success because we were ok players that worked well toghether, not because we took other peoples stuff or because we made them suffer severe death penalties. Hell, we didn't want them to stop coming for us, something they'd definitely do if they feared the penalties of failure. The combat itself, with fun and well rounded classes, was the fun part, for most of the part.

I want a game with fun combat, a game that let's you actually play it for as close to a 100% of the time as possible. I don't want to run around looking for my corpse, I don't want to be forced to log off because I can't afford to pay the death penalties, I don't want to be shoved into an endless grind for money or reputatition and I certainly don't want to be forced to reroll because some level 80 character killed my level 1 character and stole everything but his quit-button.

Giving players too much responsibilty will inevitably result in players taking advantage of the game. In the end I think it boils down to what most players can endure in the form of penalties from ingame death.