Could the Justice System break immersion?

Caroloces · July 2014

Maybe the OP came to ESO by the MMO road as opposed to the Elder Scrolls road, which is fine. The game needs both to be successful. In that case, I have to inform you that the random slaughter of NPCs with a fairly minimal punishment is common to games in the Elder Scrolls universe.

OP here. Actually, I do come to ESO from Elder Scrolls tradition. Yes, in the TES games, slaughter of NPCs is one of the features available to the player. What raises my concern with ESO is that you may have hundreds of players randomly slaughtering NPCs rather than one single player. And why is that bad you might ask? Well, the context of the game implies that the player is part of a community struggling for power and also struggling against a great evil. Whenever I see other players, my imagination sees them in that light. If I were to see players running around just killing NPCs for killing's sake, the illusion is broken. Oh, those are just kids button-mashing their skills because they're bored. That sense of being within the world, that suspension of disbelief (as some people put it), is lost if you're seeing NPCs being killed left and right by some crass player showing off to his friends in his bedroom at home. And how believable would it be to see a Merchant killed, and then respawned a few moments later so that she could continue doing business!

Don't get me wrong, I see a lot of potential in a justice system if it is implemented properly, and that means there's got to be depth and difficulty to going over to the dark side! Dark Brotherhood, anyone?

arena25 · July 2014

I am NOT going to enjoy this system. If I am killed 100 times in 5 minutes because of this, Zenimax will have strong words from me.

Archaole · July 2014

arena25) ) wrote: »

I am NOT going to enjoy this system. If I am killed 100 times in 5 minutes because of this, Zenimax will have strong words from me.

You would have steal or kill 100 times for that to happen, so self control is how should roll

darkmadman187 · July 2014

I hope they don't let interactable NPC's open for killing, I see what people mean whats the point of killing a normal NPC but imagine going to deposit items in the bank & the NPC never being there. Plus a lot of people saying that it takes away the main source of mats..... good.... provisioning is far too easy to level anyway go out & explore the world or buy the mats off someone who has. Also it won't be a case of everyone can kill everyone, if you take the risk of stealing or murdering then you become KOS until the bounty has been paid. Easy gathering = stealing explore the gather like all other crafts = no target on your head, seems pretty simple to me. They do need to make sure they give a reward for the risk though otherwise players will just ignore the feature. Also I'm in no way a PvPer so no bias I only do PvE & crafting

Svann · July 2014

How do you prevent bounty-trading?

SFBryan18 · July 2014

If you haven't noticed already, NPC's are not synced, so if one player kills an NPC, no one else will see it happen. All they'll see is the player attacking something, but the NPC on their own screen won't change.

Animus_Igneus · July 2014

Far too many people in this thread are forgetting that they're sharing a world with other players.

Yes, it would make it more immerse to have such a system in place. But at the same time, you going around killing every NPC in sight as if you were playing Skyrim, is going to ruin everyone else around you's immersion.

You're walking through town and suddenly a 25+ strong Guild of vampires walks in and kills every single attackable NPC in sight.

How is that immersive? When, if there aren't players strong enough to oppose them without getting ganked by all 25, or enough guards to take them down, they'll just run around the city killing all the NPC's and healing each other while every other player wanting to just casually quest and enjoy the world has their experience ruined.

Think of the RP players who might be in the middle of some kind of scene at a market, and suddenly a large group of 13 year olds in Imperial Daedric gear dyed red and black swarm the place massacring every NPC.

The without-limits kill-all justice system of single-player TES games is all well and good in a single player game where your actions affect only yourself, but in an MMO you have the entirety of the community to think about and doing such a thing would also affect them.

That's the definition of immersion-breaking right there.

Dominoid · July 2014

SFBryan18 wrote: »

If you haven't noticed already, NPC's are not synced, so if one player kills an NPC, no one else will see it happen. All they'll see is the player attacking something, but the NPC on their own screen won't change.

They might not even see the attacks. There could be a condition that if a player is attacking an NPC then don't show animations and effects on that player for that time frame.

Anastasia · July 2014

Aortick wrote: »

I think it would add to the Immersion. The More interaction with the World the better. Also, they could make important NPCs Protected so they can't be killed. Solves the issue some might have with Merchants or Quest Givers getting killed.

*Operative word you used there: "COULD".
Will they? Heh.

Audigy · July 2014

Animus_Igneus wrote: »

Far too many people in this thread are forgetting that they're sharing a world with other players.

Think of the RP players who might be in the middle of some kind of scene at a market, and suddenly a large group of 13 year olds in Imperial Daedric gear dyed red and black swarm the place massacring every NPC.

That's the definition of immersion-breaking right there.

Do you think it makes your argument stronger, if you insult everyone who doesn't agree with you?

Just for your information, we are not 13 year old kids as you think - we are grown ups, with jobs, family's some might even have kids and still we believe such a system brings back life to the game.

I don't understand how basic elements of MMOs are questioned every time that a new update has been announced.

First its the group gameplay at VRs so that players couldn't solo world bosses, afterwards it was about the dye system which again annoyed some and now we do complain about PVP in an MMO?

Seriously, don't you think all of this is going a bit too far here and what is the next step, complain about actually seeing other people? Oh right we already had this...

The Devs come up with so many good idea´s and features to make ESO a really living and outstanding MMO and all you guys do is complain every time, because of your own interests in the game that sadly don't fit the MMO genre.

Do I go to a pizza hut and demand a kebab? No I don't, so why cant you people just accept that this is an MMO and there are such elements a part of the game.

You know what I did when someone killed an NPC at Ultima? I just waited a bit and did something else. Its not like these NPC´s are dead forever, plus people get a bounty as we explained so often.

Just accept that the game you play is an MMO, please just do.

epoling · July 2014

I think the real issue is that there are a lot of people that don't understand it is wrong to be psycho / sociopaths who will be abusing the justice system for their own jollies if it is not carefully engineered. One of the things that has killed WoW for me every time I try it is the gang of high-level deranged individuals that run into a low level town and continuously kill every NPC. If I have five quests to turn in and a bunch of jerks are preventing it, no fun for me, why should I even support a game that allows that. Without further clarification from ZOS, people are concerned we will get a similar situation. And there are a lot of these socially maladjusted folks who don't care about penalties. All they really care about is how much they spoil other people's fun. At one time society actively discouraged this kind of behaviour. Now we have video games, movies, TV shows and other forms of entertainment tacitly embraces it if not outright encourages it. If the justice system is going to work, it needs to allow for minimal disruption from the folks who get their jollies by being total jerks. So far no official word on this has come down and people are nervous.

Kraen · July 2014

In my opinion, this is going to be pretty hard to balance.

Want it or not, every MMO is stuffed with trolls. Those trolls are making the lifes of normal players harder, one way or another. Murdering will be the perfect way how to *** off great many players. Troll paradise.

epoling up there is 100% right. Not everyone is aplayer who enjoys the world, realism and whos behaviour is right.

There need to be a huge punishment for breaking the law. Not just a single death. Not just a small fee. HUGE PUNISHMENT.

For your imagination, lets say that group of 4 decent equipped players attack the city of Wayrest. They easily knock off the guards, one shot all the citizens. Who will stop this organized group?