26.1. Is there a plan to hamper IGE type companies?
Yes, it's very difficult to stop entirely, and nor is there a simple solution, but that doesn't mean we don't plan on doing everything we possibly can to minimize the harmful effects this sort of thing brings to an MMOG.
Source: Official FAQ
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26.2. Will you allow players to buy pre-made characters?
Not from us, no, and we will discourage out-of-game auctioning of players and items to the best of our ability.
Source: Official FAQ
26.3. How do you feel about players selling accounts, items, and other in-game ‘property’ outside of the game, in auctions and/or for real money?
It's too early to announce actual policies, but we will say we've never been fans of selling items outside of the game. Ideally we enter these virtual worlds to escape the real world... who we are, how much money we have, etc. What we earn in-game should have little or no bearing on what we've accomplished in real-life.
When you encounter another character in-game who is equipped with rare items, it's bad enough when you think he might have twinked without warrant, and even worse when you find out he just bought them on eBay. To us, it diminishes the accomplishments of those who actually earned those items by playing the game.
Source: Official FAQ
#1) Sigil's policies regarding IGE and fan sites won't change - fan sites that accept advertisement from secondary services will not be allowed/accepted into the affiliate program.
#2) Regarding game magazines and web sites - there is nothing that either MS or Sigil can do about them accepting advertising dollars from the secondary market. If we cut them off, we would be cutting off one of our primary avenues of attracting new customers.
Source: Taranis
26.4. How will you deal with griefing in general? Will it be tolerated?
Griefing will never totally go away as long as there are a healthy number of players. That said, better customer service, better trained GMs, and game mechanics and systems designed to curtail exploitation should better minimize their effect than in previous MMOG generations.
Source: Official FAQ
Because history has shown that they drive away more customers than they attract, and then eventually leave themselves. Why would I want to subject paying customers, players, to such an environment? It just doesn't make sense. Nor is it, at least to me, very interesting or challenging. Creating an unrestricted PvP online game isn't that hard, especially when it's a persistent RPG world (yes, making an FPS is hard, no disrespect to those guys).
So no, griefers won't be welcome on any server. But I really don't think that's the group you're talking about. I think you and most PvPers want a challenge and worthy opponent.
What's challenging and arguably not totally solved is creating an MMO that is PvP centric but keeps people around, all are entertained at least some of the time, character power is balanced with player knowledge and 'twitch' abilities, etc. Again, that's not what Vanguard is all about, although we have some cool ideas that I think will be very exciting to PvP players who enjoy PvE worlds. But somebody has to make that persistent online pure PvP environment, with the right mix of character advancement, player knowledge, but making twitch matter too...
Doesn't have to be an RPG either. I think we'll see cool MMOFPS games in the future, although they face some even tougher design challenges (the more twitch and less character advancement/power problem as it relates to retention). But at least personally I'd like to play an RPG that realized much or all of this. - 27 October 2005
Source: Aradune Mithara
A player can never be allowed to derive his or her fun at the expense of another player's fun, or, worse yet, several or many other player's fun.
As others posted, the type of player who is like a wolf and must prey on sheep really isn't compatible with these games, even if they were dedicated to PvP. The sheep get eaten and go away. It doesn't work. You can't have fun by making someone else not have fun. Well, you can, but you'll have a game with some serious problems, especially with long term retention. Because after the sheep leave, then the wolf does too, having no more sheep to consume.
Whether players are in a PvE or PvP centric environment or game, the above cannot be allowed. That said, competition will still exist. Someone will be chased away by something someone else does or says or represents. This is where tight mechanics, though not too tight, come in to curb this. This is where customer service comes in. It's also where that balance comes in, where there is competition that is healthy and drives people to excel. A tricky balance, and no solution is right for everyone.
And as others have mentioned, griefing or whatever you want to call the above has nothing to do with PvP specifically. You can grief on a PvE server. And by no means are most or even many PvP fans griefers -- that's a very unfortunate stereotype. The PvPer wants to challenge himself by competing directly with other players, and not just the AI or the environment. And those other players want the same thing. So it's consensual. No sheep. - 27 October 2005
Source: Aradune Mithara
26.5. How will you deal with exploiting, cheating, duping, etc?
Short answer: we won’t tolerate it.
Here's one perspective on exploiting or cheating in MMOGs:
First, an assumption: the desire of the development team and the expectation of the players is that there is a large virtual world to play in, with lots of different areas to explore and advance, and with all sorts of cool items to create and acquire. Obviously, then, there needs to be MANY avenues of advancement: locations, classes/skills, items, etc.
One of the most dangerous types of exploit is one that makes all or most advancement paths significantly less efficient than one or the few. Not only does this drastically reduce the amount of content in the game, it makes those not on the accelerated advancement path unhappy and/or compelled to use the faster method. This variety of exploit has to be stopped quickly. Even worse are 'dupe bugs' and the like, which can ruin an MMOG's economy in hours.
The less dangerous types are when new strategies are found that weren't really planned for, but don't threaten the economy and/or drastically reduce content and advancement paths. These have to be dealt with individually, and sometimes turn out to be pretty cool. Obviously the 'sum' of an MMOG is greater than the 'parts' put into it by the devs -- in fact, we think that's where the 'magic' comes from. And certainly player contributions can be as cool or cooler than what was 'planned'.
So the trick is to watch carefully, and to care for the game's overall health, whether you are a player or a developer. If something is discovered that could damage the game, reporting it is important, and the onus is then on the devs to listen and react.
But, at the same time, if the devs can figure out a way to incorporate a new play style dynamically, post-launch, and it's something that adds to the game for virtually everyone (e.g. is essentially inclusionary, not exclusionary)... well, it's a stop on the long road to player generated content.
Source: Official FAQ
I do want to re-state though that we are very aware that if we go too draconian, trying to stop all exploits, that the game usually suffers to the degree it wasn't worth it. That's why it's very critical we get these things tested in beta. One can come up with a mechanic or restriction that stops an exploit but not realize the full ramifications. I guess what I'm trying to say is there are many things in EQ and in other games that we worked on that didn't turn out the way we wanted, or where some players found ways to use an idea in a harmful way. And we want to address those. But we're going to be very careful about it. And we're going to do our best to make sure the fix isn't worse than what was already there, or that while it stops a few from exploiting, it adversely affects the average player. I just want to make sure you guys know that as much as we don't like exploits and the like, that we're not so fixated on them that we're willing to sacrifice fun.
Source: Aradune Mithara
26.6.1. So there will be camping!?
There will still be some camping no matter what we do, but our encounter system, the way we populate and itemize, our quest system, AES, etc. should minimize the negative aspects of camping without totally eliminating it (some people still like traditional camping, and I think no matter how much better we get at population and itemization, it can't be eliminated anyway).
Source: Aradune Mithara March 21, 2006
Will there be camping in Vanguard? There will be camping. What we are trying to avoid is making camping necessary – it should be avoidable. - January 2006
Source: Aradune Mithara
26.7. How will you address ‘Ninja Looting’?
Our advanced encounter system should all but eliminate the ability of a player outside a group to loot an item they didn't earn.
Source: Official FAQ
26.8. How will you address ‘Training’?
Mostly through better AI, pathing, and the fact that with a seamless world, NPCs will be on a 'leash' system. This doesn't mean that a 'train' cannot occur in a small area, but it does address a lot of egregious scenarios.
Source: Official FAQ
btw, despite advanced and innovative coding already in place to minimize training, it still happens. I think we can curb it, but not eliminate it. Plus all trains aren't bad. I have a screenshot of Oloh and others running like hell with 8 ogres following them after we triggered them to spawn with a quest. Funny stuff.
edit: we're also trying to space stuff out better, use leashes, etc. so training higher level mobs into lower level areas, at least at this point in beta, isn't really an issue.
Then again, the people we have in beta tend not to be the types that would try to do that anyway.
Which is why, in later phases, we actually need aholes in the beta to watch them and look for exploits, problems, areas where you can grief that we didn't already second guess. - 28 October 2005
Source: Aradune Mithara
26.9. How will you deal with competition for resources?
A degree of competition for resources is good in an otherwise primarily PvE (Player vs. Environment) game. There should still be an incentive to have a sense of urgency and to reach certain areas before others, etc. Certainly, were everyone guaranteed equal access to all content, the players' sense of accomplishment would be virtually eliminated.
That said, it can go too far. By having a large world, plenty of content, and an advanced encounter system, we hope to avoid 'too much' competition.
Source: Official FAQ
26.10. How do you feel about downtime in general?
Some downtime is good... resting between fights, memming up, healing, strategizing for the next battle, using the restroom, grabbing a Dr. Pepper... But too much downtime means you're not really playing the game, and that's bad.
Source: Official FAQ
I would generally say that you'll have less downtime than EQ, but more than WoW. See the FAQ and other posts whee we've talked about the problems with having too much downtime, but also why you can't eliminate it either.
Also consider that the downtime may vary depending on where you are and what level you are, and also whether you are in a casual, group, or raid area.
Source: Aradune Mithara
It goes pretty quick, regardless of level. But you still need that pause between big battles. There has to be pacing. It just doesn't have to be annoyingly long. And it's not. Oh and the melee classes often have to do this to get their endurance back up to use their abilities. - 27 October 2005
Source: Aradune Mithara
26.11. What about downtime between battles?
Some downtime should exist between battles to rest up, talk about the previous encounter, plan for the next one, use the restroom, grab a soda, etc.
It's likely the time it takes to recover between battles or sets of battles will vary depending on what the target audience (level range) of the area is, and whether it's casual, group, or raid.
Regardless, the total amount of downtime will be capped, and that cap tweaked during beta such that it hopefully feels 'right' to most players.
Source: Official FAQ
26.12. What about downtime waiting for spawns and/or other events?
Spawns will be based on timers, but our advanced encounter system is designed to reward players for moving through dungeons and other adventure areas. This should seriously minimize the amount of sitting around in one spot doing nothing but waiting for a spawn (camping).
Source: Official FAQ
26.13. What about downtime LFG (looking for groups)?
Depending on how many people you need in your group and what types of characters you want in it, there certainly will be some waiting.
That said, there will be functionality in the game to assist players in both finding groups and keeping groups together.
Source: Official FAQ
26.14. What about the downtime of "Waiting for a bind"?
While we definitely are huge fans of class interdependence, I think it can often go too far, and that at times we took it too far with EQ. One example was binding and making many classes dependent on other classes to bind them. So we made it where you can just type /bind if you are in a bindable area. Essentially, we decided early on that situations where you are blocked from continuing on playing and are instead waiting on a specific class to log in and be near you and then to have to solicit them before you kept playing was something we wanted to avoid (the binding thing was a big mindshift for me, as I was a huge proponent of it being class dependent in EQ -- but it was something Jeff and the other designers argued with me early on in the beginning of Vanguard design and convinced me of the bigger picture, for which I am grateful. I think there are plenty of ways to make classes unique and groups rely on interdependence. - January 2006
Source: Aradune Mithara