Captain_Python
Rogue Scholar
I have been looking around the POTBS Community Website, and I found an interesting article about piracy (it is actually 2 articles, but here it is):
*Beginning of Article*
Pirates looting and sinking merchant ships is entirely acceptable and `in-character` acceptable in terms of grief play. In the game, of course, those pirates will find NPC and PC pirate hunters coming after them, they'll face `player-organized` convoys that make it difficult to take a victim, and so forth.
The fascinating thing about this milieu from an MMG perspective is that it was full of PKing, and in response the "players" organized their societies to better respond to the threats. It's a very dynamic relationship and a very interesting one for a game such as this. By supporting a legal system of sorts and providing both NPC and PC law enforcement, and giving PCs the ability to band together for either safety or greater threat, we recreate that historical reality. Yet as with that historical period, all this only works to the extent that people step forward and make it happen. We'll provide the tools, but we're expecting players to `self-organize` in interesting ways on both sides to pursue their goals.
I think that most of the 'griefers' will gravitate towards the navy and privateering. Being a pirate is going to be *hard*. The scenarios the original poster described are certainly possible. I could get all my friends together in a giant fleet of `high-end` naval ships. We've all had to work our asses off to get those `high-end` ships, and now we're going to... what? Attack merchants? Then we lose our naval status, become criminals, and kiss our ships goodbye. Attack privateers? The first time we attack a privateer of our own nation, we lose our status, etc. Attack pirates? Sure, blast them out of the water. Piracy is supposed to be hard. Attack other naval ships? Sure; you're now doing *exactly* what we want you to be doing. You're acting as naval ships should act.
Turn our ships over to friendly pirates? No problem; as long as our pirate friends don't mind losing that ship after a day or two, and as long as we don't mind flushing our `months-long` naval career, and any shot at the Admiralty, down the toilet.
The question is not: can you grief? Of course you can. The question is: How much work are you willing to put in for a few moments of griefing fun? If it takes you months to get to the point where you can spend an hour or two griefing -- will you put those months in, over and over?
Most of what is thought of as 'griefing' in other games ends up being 'gameplay' in ours:
* Navies freely kill each other when their nations are at war, and eye each other warily when the nations are at peace. A `trigger-happy` captain might cause an international incident, even start a war if tensions are high enough -- and will probably be busted back to commanding a rowboat as punishment.
* Privateers raid merchants when their nations are at war, and lurk menacingly near the shipping lanes when they're at peace. An `over-ambitious` captain might take a prize ship he shouldn't, and that ship would be returned to its owner with a `carefully-worded` apology -- and the captain would be hung for piracy.
* Pirates will attack merchants whenever they think they can win -- but the fights they can win will be against smaller merchants who have ventured far outside naval protection alone, or who have fallen out of their convoy, or ventured into dangerous `pirate-infested` areas. They'll spend the rest of their time running from fights, hiding, pretending to be merchants, and steering well clear of every naval and privateer player in the game.
Ask yourself this: if you were a griefer, which PvP model would you prefer:
* "Here's a massive ship with massive cannons; any that you lose will be replaced free of charge. You can freely attack any of these targets, sink them, capture them and send them home, whatever you like -- but ONLY these targets. Don't attack anyone else. When you're not fighting, you're a loved and respected hero in every port our nation controls."
* "Here's the best ship you could afford, with the best cannons you could scrounge up. If you lose the ship or the guns, it's out of your pocket to replace them. You can freely attack anyone in the game, but you can probably only manage to kill half of them, if that. While not at sea, you can only hide in a tiny handful of disreuptable ports, and are hunted down anywhere else."
The goal is not 'make sure there's no griefing', it's 'channel griefing behavior into gameplay we actually want'.
Other thoughts, on scanning the thread:
*Ok, me and my friend, French privateers, engage two cutters and a sloop; we target the sloop as the 'easy kill'. First off, why? What's to be gained by killing the sloop? If we lose our ships, we lose our ships; we haven't gained any 'exp' or 'realm points' or anything like that if we sink the sloop before going down. The sloop is the least threat, and presumably we want to win the engagement -- so we're going after the cutters first, to neutralize them so we can capture the sloop at our leisure. Second, the cutters are going to tear us apart if we ignore them to focus on the sloop. They're fast, `well-armed`, nasty little ships, and were I their captains, I'd slice your rigging to pieces, sweep your decks with canister, and then we'd escort the sloop away from your crippled ships.
And finally, it's very true that sinking is just not going to happen that often. Why would you ever want to sink someone? It sends their cargo to the bottom; you get no prize money; you make it harder to take ships in the future because `no-one` will surrender to you or offer you a bribe. The only case where sinking is the best option is in naval vs. naval engagements -- and in that case, the ships involved don't belong to the captains. So you get sunk in a naval battle -- who cares? You lose a little reputation, you get a replacement ship. It's not *your* money going down to the bottom of the sea.
*End of Article*
Observations I have made from this article are that being a pirate is like being a predator of nature. You don’t see a lion going for a adult elephant, but for it’s younger, weaker young. So you won’t commonly see a pirate vessel going for 3rd Rate Ships, but for those small little merchants, and won’t go for either if they are together (at least the intelligent ones won’t go for it. Of course animals have more common sense than some humans). For this reason, I think that maybe that is why there were fewer pirates that we thought there would be. At it’s high, there were only 20 to 40 pirate vessels out at sea, and only about 2 to 5 of those could be considered ship of war size (meaning they can take combat like naval vessels).
I also noticed that a lot of guilds are being formed before the game. I expect that until POTBS Release 2 or 3, that some stupid group of 5 to 10 ships will attempt the legendary Pirate Fleet. Of course it is historical that maybe 2 or 3 vessels might get together, but I don’t think that until this world gets most of it’s good aspects (The POTBS world won’t have all the cool stuff until a few releases are out, including avatars). I can imagine what the Pirate Fleet would look like. 3/4 of the fleet will be small Sloops, Cutters, and Ketches, and then we will have a few big ships that will be transformed from merchants, or Sloops of War, or even Frigates. Then either the Spanish, British, or French Navy will get a few `3-rate` ships and Frigates into a Fleet and take out the fleet quickly. But for myself, I won’t be playing the game until a few releases are out (and hopefully I’ll have the correct internet hookup).
I think this game will become a almost recreation of the world of that time, as in we can finally figure out what their politics were like back then, what was more important to them back then, and what their general opinions truly were of pirates back then. I can’t wait until they open up the North and South American coasts. I think that we will have occasional periods of high and low periods of pirates, and we will experience the after affects of wars when quite a few privateers turn Pirate, and the Navies will deal with them. There might even be a few familiar situations in the game. Remember in Sea Dogs that one mission about investigating the pirate raiding between Highrock and … what was the other port with a governor?… anyways, a investigation finds a corvette is causing trouble, and you have to kill him. In POTBS, there might be a particular pirate that might show up in some area that has to be eradicated.
Here is the point of the poll:
If you were going to be a pirate, would you be a gentleman pirate that gave mercy, making you less noticeable as a pirate, or a bloodthirsty pirate that killed everyone, and the Navy would be quickly taking care of you due to you are killing citizens of the Crown? The first one makes for a longer career, but the second makes a more exciting combat career, but a short one like Blackbeard’s. Remember how violent his career came to a end?
Choose, one. Which one is more popular I wonder?
Here is the second part of this thread, Pirate Tactics:
What would be some good pirate tactics to use in POTBS or in the real time? I do wonder what a good tactic would be for using a big ship to take smaller vessels that are most likely faster? Share.
*Beginning of Article*
Pirates looting and sinking merchant ships is entirely acceptable and `in-character` acceptable in terms of grief play. In the game, of course, those pirates will find NPC and PC pirate hunters coming after them, they'll face `player-organized` convoys that make it difficult to take a victim, and so forth.
The fascinating thing about this milieu from an MMG perspective is that it was full of PKing, and in response the "players" organized their societies to better respond to the threats. It's a very dynamic relationship and a very interesting one for a game such as this. By supporting a legal system of sorts and providing both NPC and PC law enforcement, and giving PCs the ability to band together for either safety or greater threat, we recreate that historical reality. Yet as with that historical period, all this only works to the extent that people step forward and make it happen. We'll provide the tools, but we're expecting players to `self-organize` in interesting ways on both sides to pursue their goals.
I think that most of the 'griefers' will gravitate towards the navy and privateering. Being a pirate is going to be *hard*. The scenarios the original poster described are certainly possible. I could get all my friends together in a giant fleet of `high-end` naval ships. We've all had to work our asses off to get those `high-end` ships, and now we're going to... what? Attack merchants? Then we lose our naval status, become criminals, and kiss our ships goodbye. Attack privateers? The first time we attack a privateer of our own nation, we lose our status, etc. Attack pirates? Sure, blast them out of the water. Piracy is supposed to be hard. Attack other naval ships? Sure; you're now doing *exactly* what we want you to be doing. You're acting as naval ships should act.
Turn our ships over to friendly pirates? No problem; as long as our pirate friends don't mind losing that ship after a day or two, and as long as we don't mind flushing our `months-long` naval career, and any shot at the Admiralty, down the toilet.
The question is not: can you grief? Of course you can. The question is: How much work are you willing to put in for a few moments of griefing fun? If it takes you months to get to the point where you can spend an hour or two griefing -- will you put those months in, over and over?
Most of what is thought of as 'griefing' in other games ends up being 'gameplay' in ours:
* Navies freely kill each other when their nations are at war, and eye each other warily when the nations are at peace. A `trigger-happy` captain might cause an international incident, even start a war if tensions are high enough -- and will probably be busted back to commanding a rowboat as punishment.
* Privateers raid merchants when their nations are at war, and lurk menacingly near the shipping lanes when they're at peace. An `over-ambitious` captain might take a prize ship he shouldn't, and that ship would be returned to its owner with a `carefully-worded` apology -- and the captain would be hung for piracy.
* Pirates will attack merchants whenever they think they can win -- but the fights they can win will be against smaller merchants who have ventured far outside naval protection alone, or who have fallen out of their convoy, or ventured into dangerous `pirate-infested` areas. They'll spend the rest of their time running from fights, hiding, pretending to be merchants, and steering well clear of every naval and privateer player in the game.
Ask yourself this: if you were a griefer, which PvP model would you prefer:
* "Here's a massive ship with massive cannons; any that you lose will be replaced free of charge. You can freely attack any of these targets, sink them, capture them and send them home, whatever you like -- but ONLY these targets. Don't attack anyone else. When you're not fighting, you're a loved and respected hero in every port our nation controls."
* "Here's the best ship you could afford, with the best cannons you could scrounge up. If you lose the ship or the guns, it's out of your pocket to replace them. You can freely attack anyone in the game, but you can probably only manage to kill half of them, if that. While not at sea, you can only hide in a tiny handful of disreuptable ports, and are hunted down anywhere else."
The goal is not 'make sure there's no griefing', it's 'channel griefing behavior into gameplay we actually want'.
Other thoughts, on scanning the thread:
*Ok, me and my friend, French privateers, engage two cutters and a sloop; we target the sloop as the 'easy kill'. First off, why? What's to be gained by killing the sloop? If we lose our ships, we lose our ships; we haven't gained any 'exp' or 'realm points' or anything like that if we sink the sloop before going down. The sloop is the least threat, and presumably we want to win the engagement -- so we're going after the cutters first, to neutralize them so we can capture the sloop at our leisure. Second, the cutters are going to tear us apart if we ignore them to focus on the sloop. They're fast, `well-armed`, nasty little ships, and were I their captains, I'd slice your rigging to pieces, sweep your decks with canister, and then we'd escort the sloop away from your crippled ships.
And finally, it's very true that sinking is just not going to happen that often. Why would you ever want to sink someone? It sends their cargo to the bottom; you get no prize money; you make it harder to take ships in the future because `no-one` will surrender to you or offer you a bribe. The only case where sinking is the best option is in naval vs. naval engagements -- and in that case, the ships involved don't belong to the captains. So you get sunk in a naval battle -- who cares? You lose a little reputation, you get a replacement ship. It's not *your* money going down to the bottom of the sea.
*End of Article*
Observations I have made from this article are that being a pirate is like being a predator of nature. You don’t see a lion going for a adult elephant, but for it’s younger, weaker young. So you won’t commonly see a pirate vessel going for 3rd Rate Ships, but for those small little merchants, and won’t go for either if they are together (at least the intelligent ones won’t go for it. Of course animals have more common sense than some humans). For this reason, I think that maybe that is why there were fewer pirates that we thought there would be. At it’s high, there were only 20 to 40 pirate vessels out at sea, and only about 2 to 5 of those could be considered ship of war size (meaning they can take combat like naval vessels).
I also noticed that a lot of guilds are being formed before the game. I expect that until POTBS Release 2 or 3, that some stupid group of 5 to 10 ships will attempt the legendary Pirate Fleet. Of course it is historical that maybe 2 or 3 vessels might get together, but I don’t think that until this world gets most of it’s good aspects (The POTBS world won’t have all the cool stuff until a few releases are out, including avatars). I can imagine what the Pirate Fleet would look like. 3/4 of the fleet will be small Sloops, Cutters, and Ketches, and then we will have a few big ships that will be transformed from merchants, or Sloops of War, or even Frigates. Then either the Spanish, British, or French Navy will get a few `3-rate` ships and Frigates into a Fleet and take out the fleet quickly. But for myself, I won’t be playing the game until a few releases are out (and hopefully I’ll have the correct internet hookup).
I think this game will become a almost recreation of the world of that time, as in we can finally figure out what their politics were like back then, what was more important to them back then, and what their general opinions truly were of pirates back then. I can’t wait until they open up the North and South American coasts. I think that we will have occasional periods of high and low periods of pirates, and we will experience the after affects of wars when quite a few privateers turn Pirate, and the Navies will deal with them. There might even be a few familiar situations in the game. Remember in Sea Dogs that one mission about investigating the pirate raiding between Highrock and … what was the other port with a governor?… anyways, a investigation finds a corvette is causing trouble, and you have to kill him. In POTBS, there might be a particular pirate that might show up in some area that has to be eradicated.
Here is the point of the poll:
If you were going to be a pirate, would you be a gentleman pirate that gave mercy, making you less noticeable as a pirate, or a bloodthirsty pirate that killed everyone, and the Navy would be quickly taking care of you due to you are killing citizens of the Crown? The first one makes for a longer career, but the second makes a more exciting combat career, but a short one like Blackbeard’s. Remember how violent his career came to a end?
Choose, one. Which one is more popular I wonder?
Here is the second part of this thread, Pirate Tactics:
What would be some good pirate tactics to use in POTBS or in the real time? I do wonder what a good tactic would be for using a big ship to take smaller vessels that are most likely faster? Share.
" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> Then there are the days when you just want to blast everything out of the water - sink 'em and who cares about cargo or prize ships or whatever... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dev.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":d:" border="0" alt="dev.gif" />
:" border="0" alt="pirate2.gif" />
" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" /> 
" border="0" alt="onya.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> 
" border="0" alt="icon_wink.gif" />
" border="0" alt="icon_praise.gif" /> <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" /> ah yes i'd forgotten that more than one pistol might be carried into battle.