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Hardcore Servers?

Fuzz

By Fuzz
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Fuzz Newbie

Fuzz

Posted
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For any of you people that played Diablo 2, you will understand what I mean by this.

 

The idea would be that much like there would be seperate PvP servers, you could have seperate Hardcore Roleplay servers for those who would like to pursue that style of play. What it would entail is that if your character dies... well, that's it, he/she is dead. kaput. gone.

 

Since SWG doesn't rely on "levels" and instead focuses on skills, this wouldnt be as massive a setback as, say, a level 60 EQ char permanently dying.

 

What this WOULD provide is an interesting dynamic... while there would be problems with griefers, and easy system of bounties could be initiated to create a sort of lawfulness... you kill a lot of players, you start getting notorious... stormies start watching out for you and trying to apprehend you... other players decide to cash in your bounty by hunting you down... therefore you had best tread carefully. The exception to this rule could be for Bounty hunters or those with specific missions to kill another player.

 

For example. Suppose Raum (PC) has a bar on Tattooine, in Mos Espa. It's not in the greatest location, but its roomy and he has a lot of entertainment and great drinks. However, Vlag (also a PC) has a competing bar on the other side of the city, next to the spaceport.

His location gets him a little more traffic, and as such, Raum's not pulling hte profits he wants... he decides "hey... maybe its time for Vlag to retire early..."

He puts out a low-key ad to a few patrons that he is looking for seedy bounty hunter types... a couple of PCs respond to the call. Their job? Go take out Vlag, since the city really isnt big enough for the two cantinas to be competing. In order to "officiate" this bounty within the game, you could have something similar to a trade window, but which allows services to be traded. Raum opens up this little window and sets the bound as "Kill Vlag", typing in Vlag's name, since he is a PC. (and names are unique) The trade would be a certain number of credits, that would be transfered to the PC that actually kills Vlag's bank account. That player would also incur a lower bounty for his actions, since he was hired, and not just griefing.

 

Now, on the other end, maybe someone in Raum's bar overheard the deal, and decides they can make a quick buck by tipping of Vlag... well now... Vlag decides maybe he needs some bodyguards, and thus hires out some PCs to defend him... now its interesting.

 

Obviously, to stop a pair of griefers from continually hiring each other out for assassinations, you would have a limited number of executions you could sign out per period of time, (say, one a week to begin with) but with certain skills (like maybe a local law enforcement skill) you could step up that number a bit to become your own self-styled crimelord.

 

 

What this does is create a dynamic that is wholly seperate from the standard game... were this a standard server... well, if someone shoots Vlag in the head, he'll just pop out of a cloning cylinder, almost good as new, and resume his place at his cantina... this gets Raum nowhere. However, suppose it was hardcore... well, then paranoia sets in, and death is quite final.

 

Now suppose you have a really well developed character, and are getting overly paranoid about the fact that you could be killed at any moment and lose all that hard work... well, you implement a little "living will" system in which a player can, say once a month, goto some place, most likely a bank, and markup a "Living Will Sheet" in which, based on how many skills and how much money and posessions you have, you can mark off certain personal posessions as being left for your next of kin - your next character. Perhaps if your character develops to a high enough point in a certain skill, they can leave behind a small fraction of their current skill to the new character... roleplay it as paid classes in the skill. This would be quite limited, however, since if you let people transfer more than the most minor levels of a skill, there really is no point in the Hardcore aspect of the game, its just the same character with a new name.

 

 

Personally, I would LOVE to play in this type of setting, and I'm sure there are quite a few others. It allows for entire player-made cultures and alliances to spring up, as a rough equivalent of a "realistic" SW Universe slowly pieces together. Rampant murderers or criminals in general could all tally up bounties that just get higher and higher, enticing other players to take the risk in hunting them down. In fact, apprehension doesn't have to be the end of the road for the master criminal... suppose you are a dashing smuggler that is apprehended and interred in an Imperial garrison, awaiting execution. Well... perhaps, based on your notoriety and bounty level, (lower bounty level = more time) you have a "stay of execution" - a period of time in which your friends can rally together and produce some funds to bail you out... or maybe just break you out... or maybe, if some of the guards are also PCs, bribe you out... the sky is the limit.

 

 

I wouldn't expect them to implement anything NEARLY this complex for the initial release, I'm just curious to see if I am the only person that would REALLY enjoy this type of gameplay... who knows, maybe they could work on it for an expansion or do something like Dark Age of Camelot did with PvP servers, and patchit in at a later date...

 

-Fuzz

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Gonkish Newbie

Gonkish

Posted
Posted

Well thought out.. Just a few notes:

 

- there IS an in-game "window" for PC-created quests (like bounties).

 

- bounties do NOT carry a fine (since they are in fact a legal agreement), but ASSASSINATION (which is what you're describing) can actually get the bounty hunter marked as an outlaw and have bounties placed upon HIS head for doing your dirty work.

 

- griefers.. I doubt they'd even bother playing on such a server, since they'd be the first ones with bounties on their heads. Griefers are griefers because no one can really "get back at them" for what they do. They get off on that. In a hardcore server, people can (and will) kill them for being stupid. Thus, no griefers (which is good, actually).

 

- What's to stop some person from hiring out the majority of bounty hunters, mercenaries, and the like to go and slaughter an enemy (in terms of the GCW) or rival (more like something you described), every time he/she is faced with competition. Sure, there'd be bounties on heads all over the place, but it's doubtful that the leader could be killed without a hefty price being placed on his killer's head. (Genocide != fun)

 

I do agree on the fun stuff with hardcore servers, and the idea about the "living will" is interesting, but imho the entire hardcore system is flawed in that it leads to "power leveling" (even though SWG is skill based) on a massive scale. Of course new players are at a disadvantage. They're new, they're underequipped, and compared to the veterans, relatively unskilled. What's to stop a PA or whatever from simply camping beginner spawn points and killing any entrants onto the server? If you really want to go out on a limb, that PA could have the entire planet to themselves, or, in a much broader sense, the entire server. That would not be fun.

 

That's not to say that hardcore servers are full of spawn-campers. They're not. I'm simply saying that there will need to be some limits on the "hardcore" nature of the server if it were to live beyond a month...

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