Preventing Insane PvP on MP

[Jota]

To Devs/Peaceful-Community,

A lot of people is discurssing what this game might turn into when MP be released (As of the title, I'm doing a reference to others games that have MP and have turned into unruled PvP zones).

My suggestion to prevent Free-Griefing all around the sector is to keep the Players busy with their own survivability: Add the necessity to constantly (but not always) protect the Station against asteroid's collisions, Finding Water n/o any other Life-Mantaining element, State of mind, and so on...

Thanks for reading.

[tamyao]

Like that idea!

[Mach]

There might also be neutral sectors where weapons are disabled and clans can communicate without fear of surprise attacks.

[Sorestlor The Stone Mug]

Yes a nutral area should definetly be an option to the server owners so that there is somewhere that is safe. Alternatively there could be an area where you could attack but if you do hit a ship with a projectile built by you then a bount gets placed on his head rewarding the hunters (based on how many shots or something) for killing him so it sort of makes it peacefull unless you want to loose all your resources and ships.

[Helmic]

You then run into the ramming problem, though, something that's been up people's asses in EVE for ages.

I think the solution lies in custom server settings and giving server owners the tools to custom-tailor the experience for what they're looking for. A build server may prevent you from bringing spacecraft into another's territory without permission, for example, or preventing collision and weapon damage except when both parties agree to a fight. A server all about massive PvP battles may have a public shipyard for different factions so no one ever runs out of space ships to shoot with. Servers aiming to emulate EVE could have true no PvP zones, zones with NPC ships that act as police, a bounty system, et cetera.

For all that to happen there needs to be robust modding support. Only so much of that can come with vanilla Space Engineers.

[CorruptMemory]

Originally posted by NCiv Helmic:

You then run into the ramming problem, though, something that's been up people's asses in EVE for ages.

I think the solution lies in custom server settings and giving server owners the tools to custom-tailor the experience for what they're looking for. A build server may prevent you from bringing spacecraft into another's territory without permission, for example, or preventing collision and weapon damage except when both parties agree to a fight. A server all about massive PvP battles may have a public shipyard for different factions so no one ever runs out of space ships to shoot with. Servers aiming to emulate EVE could have true no PvP zones, zones with NPC ships that act as police, a bounty system, et cetera.

For all that to happen there needs to be robust modding support. Only so much of that can come with vanilla Space Engineers.

I put in a discussion post about ensuring that Server Owners who host servers have a lot of freedom in this game in the ideas section with no responses. I really, REALLY hope that before the MP server software is released they really flesh out administrative issues for owners.

[Sorestlor The Stone Mug]

Originally posted by NCiv Helmic:

You then run into the ramming problem, though, something that's been up people's asses in EVE for ages.

I think the solution lies in custom server settings and giving server owners the tools to custom-tailor the experience for what they're looking for. A build server may prevent you from bringing spacecraft into another's territory without permission, for example, or preventing collision and weapon damage except when both parties agree to a fight. A server all about massive PvP battles may have a public shipyard for different factions so no one ever runs out of space ships to shoot with. Servers aiming to emulate EVE could have true no PvP zones, zones with NPC ships that act as police, a bounty system, et cetera.

For all that to happen there needs to be robust modding support. Only so much of that can come with vanilla Space Engineers.

In my post (i dont know if you were talking partly about that) i said that you make it so that if anything you built causes damage to someone elses ship. So if your ship rams into someone or if you loose a piece of your ship and ram it into someone itl be marked as your stuff and you would recieve the bounty.

[CorruptMemory]

My quote is from NCiv Helmic about server support because that is what he is talking about, erver support. Minecraft had virtually no really good tools for Server Owners when multiplayer was released. It took modding groups that built the Bukkit server hooks and mods like Essentials that helped server owners. To this day, stock Minecraft servers are absolutely terrible from an administrative point of view. The best servers need some light modding just to get basic tools like temporary bans.

Any idea that supports a multi-gamemode server such as PVP or Build servers NEEDS better administrative tools serverside so that Server owners can implement them. The problem I see is that 90% of the community are NOT server owners and are not thinking about these issues. However, when Multiplayer comes, it will affect their whole gameplay if per se, I as a Server Owner and Admin cant ensure you cannot be griefed on a build server or have no way to designate safe zones for players in PVP servers.

My largest fear is that stock multiplayer will be as useless for public servers as stock Minecraft servers are, and we will be relying on free mod support for 4-5 years to run decent, public servers.

[Helmic]

That's pretty much the nail on the head. We need to learn from the efforts of the Bukkit team and have that sort of functionality and modding support from the get-go.

Minecraft's a pretty good lesson in how to not support your modding community. Bit.ly links monetizing other people's mods, multiplayer cheats posted in the offiical forum for all to use because an admin that didn't understand English 100% misinterpreted a letter he got, mod authors that intentionally make their mods incompatible with others because they don't like so and so's fanbase. And everything breaks every version. As great as some of the stuff modders have done, it could have been so much more.

[Sorestlor The Stone Mug]

Well i dont think that will be a problem the devs in that interview seemed to say they were goinging to add a ton of options. But you never know eh.

[Jota]

Originally posted by Trolldier:

There might also be neutral sectors where weapons are disabled and clans can communicate without fear of surprise attacks.

The main reason I didn't assumed this position is because I want to prevent the griefers themselves, not their actions. I think it's more effective.

[Sorestlor The Stone Mug]

Remember in the mp outside the possible neutral sectors griefing would not be greefing its just attacking a ship.

[Jota]

Originally posted by Sorestlor:

Remember in the mp outside the possible neutral sectors griefing would not be greefing its just attacking a ship.

Of course, I used this expression because I was a Minecraft's player, so either block spamming or massive destruction are grief types for me.

EDIT: Actually, massive destruction without any reason, like faction wars or any other roleplay/gameplay thing.

[Helmic]

"Roleplay" is a shaky excuse. Sometimes it's legit, sometime's it's contrived specificly to justify griefing, and no matter what it requires a human being to moderate what's what. It's why GMod roleplay servers are notoriously awful.

[Jota]

Originally posted by NCiv Helmic:

"Roleplay" is a shaky excuse. Sometimes it's legit, sometime's it's contrived specificly to justify griefing, and no matter what it requires a human being to moderate what's what. It's why GMod roleplay servers are notoriously awful.

I can only agree with your argument, but I hope you have understood my intetions.

[Helmic]

Yeah, I understand, half the reason we're here is for the huge epic space battles. I just always get jumpy when I hear someone puts down "roleplay" somewhere in a server's rules without understanding all that entails.