Citizenship System

[Omightis]

Hey everyone I'm Omightis top dog content creator for Mortal Online 2 on twitch because it's a game I believe in, and have passion for to see it succeed long term. I watched a youtube video of Asmongold reacting to Josh Strife Haynes speaking about why "Hardcore MMOs Fail" Alot of the video speaks about how the majority of mmo players are casuals that don't like to join a game that wipes them every time with no chance of progression.

So, lately I've been thinking about this idea where in Mortal Online 2 there should be a citizenship system. Basically the way this works is depending on where you reside and to be more specific where you place your home if its within a cities domain like Meduli, for example, than that means you are a citizen of Meduli. Now the cool part is, with citizenship, you get rewards. For example, lets say a player that just wants to focus on fishing wants to reside in Toxai, so the guild holding control of Toxai provides incentives like if you come to Toxai and build your home and business here than you get citizenship and depending on what you provide to the economy of Toxai you get rewards. Perhaps the guild holding control of Toxai will provide assistance in giving you mats for a fishing boat to help increase your business which in return improves the economy for Toxai. Citizens of the city will be protected within city grounds however outside the city grounds its still a hardcore full loot pvp so be wary. Guild guards can perhaps patrol to provide protection to the citizens out in the immediate woods so they can gather safely. (guilds will be patrolling due to TC anyways)

This I think can be a good mechanic to provide a transition for casual players that are unfortunately majority of the players in the mmo genre. Fact is the majority of mmo players are a bunch of Nancies that prefer casual mmo's instead of hardcore but unfortunately we need them to keep MO2 alive (financially) with this system in palce the game is still hardcore pvp so we are not taking anything from that but allows for a good start up for new players. You dont wanna join a game a few months in and just get wiped every time with no chance of progress because everyone around you that had a head start is "hardcore is life" we want the population of the game to increase overtime not dwindle for the success of mo2 I head @Henrik was already thinking of placing a mechanic like this in the game, not sure if its exactly what i'm thinking but what do you guys think? Honest opinions no *toxicity you bastards

 

[Kokolo]

I think veterans will have better responses to this than I have. They knew how and why people in MO1 played inside their houses and keeps and never left. Weather it's because of the limitation to being specialized for crafting, or just disliking PvP. I can see more people staying in towns and not leaving as a potential issue of this system.

What I see missing from this citizenship system is rewards for PvP. If you are going to reward people for staying in a city, why not reward people defending it? And then you get into the whole issue of what exactly a game reward is and how much does it detract from a sandbox experience.

All in all in a game like this I think the players should be the ones to reward other players. That is what you mentioned with the guilds supplying materials, which I don't see how different it is from without said system. "Hey [guild] can you get me some wood for my boat? I'll give you the equivalent of gold value + 20% in fish. Sounds good?".

What does it mean that citizens will be protected in city grounds? How is that different from just having guards? Does it protect you even if you are a thief / murderer?

Most MMO players being casuals isn't "unfortunate", it's reality. What I think is unfortunate is that people think adding casual mechanics to this game is going to improve the experience. I have infinitely more respect for games that try to be the best at what they are, than indecisive games stuck in between genres because they couldn't figure out who they are trying to cater to. This is more of a general remark than a response to your post as I know you do not want to see the game lose it's direction and vision.

 

[When4everfails]

I think veterans will have better responses to this than I have. They knew how and why people in MO1 played inside their houses and keeps and never left. Weather it's because of the limitation to being specialized for crafting, or just disliking PvP. I can see more people staying in towns and not leaving as a potential issue of this system.

What I see missing from this citizenship system is rewards for PvP. If you are going to reward people for staying in a city, why not reward people defending it? And then you get into the whole issue of what exactly a game reward is and how much does it detract from a sandbox experience.

All in all in a game like this I think the players should be the ones to reward other players. That is what you mentioned with the guilds supplying materials, which I don't see how different it is from without said system. "Hey [guild] can you get me some wood for my boat? I'll give you the equivalent of gold value + 20% in fish. Sounds good?".

What does it mean that citizens will be protected in city grounds? How is that different from just having guards? Does it protect you even if you are a thief / murderer?

Most MMO players being casuals isn't "unfortunate", it's reality. What I think is unfortunate is that people think adding casual mechanics to this game is going to improve the experience. I have infinitely more respect for games that try to be the best at what they are, than indecisive games stuck in between genres because they couldn't figure out who they are trying to cater to. This is more of a general remark than a response to your post as I know you do not want to see the game lose it's direction and vision.

It's never going to be 100% safe and people who play need to know that, but with TC if they allow towers and guild to place npc guys with a black list it will be alot safer. Also over in meduli when stress test was going on we (koto) had a meduli militia channel in our discord and anyone could join it if they wanted to so when a invasion happened we could muster up the militia if we needed to. So players could still do whatever game style they wanted and if they wanted to defend their homeland and get some pvp they could join the fight. It's definitely a good idea what omightis is throwing out and we need stuff like that to keep the casuals in game.

 

[Omightis]

I think veterans will have better responses to this than I have. They knew how and why people in MO1 played inside their houses and keeps and never left. Weather it's because of the limitation to being specialized for crafting, or just disliking PvP. I can see more people staying in towns and not leaving as a potential issue of this system.

What I see missing from this citizenship system is rewards for PvP. If you are going to reward people for staying in a city, why not reward people defending it? And then you get into the whole issue of what exactly a game reward is and how much does it detract from a sandbox experience.

All in all in a game like this I think the players should be the ones to reward other players. That is what you mentioned with the guilds supplying materials, which I don't see how different it is from without said system. "Hey [guild] can you get me some wood for my boat? I'll give you the equivalent of gold value + 20% in fish. Sounds good?".

What does it mean that citizens will be protected in city grounds? How is that different from just having guards? Does it protect you even if you are a thief / murderer?

Most MMO players being casuals isn't "unfortunate", it's reality. What I think is unfortunate is that people think adding casual mechanics to this game is going to improve the experience. I have infinitely more respect for games that try to be the best at what they are, than indecisive games stuck in between genres because they couldn't figure out who they are trying to cater to. This is more of a general remark than a response to your post as I know you do not want to see the game lose it's direction and vision.

wonderfully explained, I really appreciate you putting in your 2 cents. I absolutely agree with you, games should be the best of what they try to be instead of catering to everyone. I hope my thread didn’t spook you with the idea of “adding casual mechanics” that’s the last thing I want. Mo2 will always be a hardcore sandbox mmo, what I was merely proposing was perhaps an incentive that allows casual players to have a seamless transition from casual mmos to a hardcore mmo. by placing rewards given by players in guilds to have more people live within their walls in regard to what they want to do (fishing, woodcutting, mining) This way every joe shmo has a stepping stone into a heartless world like nave that can eat you up and spit you out in seconds.

One idea you brought up was reward for pvp, I don’t think that’s necessary. Pvp is already high risk high reward, there’s a chance you can have a full inventory of loot from a successful day of pvp or the opposite. Why I brought this up was so casuals don’t get wiped every chance they try to play this game so in the long term Mortal Online 2 can grow in population not dwindle like it did on MO1. Because the unfortunate truth is majority of mmo players are casual, us “hardcore players” are the minority, so if we want a long term mortal online 2 like RuneScape, or wow. Than without losing our integrity of “hardcore” & without adding “casual” mechanics, maybe we can have the start up just a tad approachable so those causals can bite the bait and invest into the game which in the long run what we all want. We want a game to run for years that gives us amazing content, not a hardcore game that’s only good for 2 years because it couldn’t keep a population excluding all the blood thirsty elitists. Hope I made sense.

 

[Omightis]

It's never going to be 100% safe and people who play need to know that, but with TC if they allow towers and guild to place npc guys with a black list it will be alot safer. Also over in meduli when stress test was going on we (koto) had a meduli militia channel in our discord and anyone could join it if they wanted to so when a invasion happened we could muster up the militia if we needed to. So players could still do whatever game style they wanted and if they wanted to defend their homeland and get some pvp they could join the fight. It's definitely a good idea what omightis is throwing out and we need stuff like that to keep the casuals in game.

Well said brother, I really appreciate your thoughts on this!

 

[Farligbonde]

wonderfully explained, I really appreciate you putting in your 2 cents. I absolutely agree with you, games should be the best of what they try to be instead of catering to everyone. I hope my thread didn’t spook you with the idea of “adding casual mechanics” that’s the last thing I want. Mo2 will always be a hardcore sandbox mmo, what I was merely proposing was perhaps an incentive that allows casual players to have a seamless transition from casual mmos to a hardcore mmo. by placing rewards given by players in guilds to have more people live within their walls in regard to what they want to do (fishing, woodcutting, mining) This way every joe shmo has a stepping stone into a heartless world like nave that can eat you up and spit you out in seconds.

One idea you brought up was reward for pvp, I don’t think that’s necessary. Pvp is already high risk high reward, there’s a chance you can have a full inventory of loot from a successful day of pvp or the opposite. Why I brought this up was so casuals don’t get wiped every chance they try to play this game so in the long term Mortal Online 2 can grow in population not dwindle like it did on MO1. Because the unfortunate truth is majority of mmo players are casual, us “hardcore players” are the minority, so if we want a long term mortal online 2 like RuneScape, or wow. Than without losing our integrity of “hardcore” & without adding “casual” mechanics, maybe we can have the start up just a tad approachable so those causals can bite the bait and invest into the game which in the long run what we all want. We want a game to run for years that gives us amazing content, not a hardcore game that’s only good for 2 years because it couldn’t keep a population excluding all the blood thirsty elitists. Hope I made sense.

Solutions to this might be a PvE server which caters more to the casuals along with a Full loot server.

Or maybe a runescape like mechanic so you can have something similar to prayer so you can keep certain item's on death.

Or split the world into zones, and give the ability to turn pvp on/off in different zones, problem with this is that you want to place keeps in zones with full pvp and give players the ability to utilize the TC feature.

 

[ATC Forgiven]

There is a lot of talk back and forth on how to cater to both sides of this coin. I'm honestly not sure what that solution is. I've discussed having blue zones with everything from no contact in the city to having limited loot drops x distance out.

In the end I think the guild system may be the solution. Henrik stated that the controlling guild could blacklist players based on their personal stance towards others. This in turn would allow for those guilds to have open conflict with other guilds then remove them later to allow for trade. This sounds pretty epic.

Omightis what you have suggested here could be done in a handful of ways. Good guilds can more often than not offer these services because they have the resources gathered prior. They can then use them to promote their guild or gatheres to come and stay in their territory. As a pve player I want that protection so that I can live and learn the game at my own pace. In return those seeking the best armor, weapons and mounts will greatly benefit from having a strong group of gatheres and crafters.

Its my opinion that pvp pushes the game. Tournaments,festivals and any other planned event shows the community as a whole. But that gritty "Hey,don't take x route there are bandits" feel gives us that sense that the world is alive. That there are dangers. In real life I fill my gas tank up and sometimes even chexk my tire pressure before I go into an unknown side of town. I don't want to stop in real life fabernum and find out there is a guttersnipe trying to hit me up for my bike. This is a worthwhile conversation. One that I hit gets way more attention before release.

 

[Putzin]

I mean this idea is going to happen no matter what if a guild doesn’t want you in their territory they will likely have the means to remove you so naturally people living in a castles territory will get along with the owning guild.
Also I think Henrik has said a few times in order to build in someone’s territory you have to buy it from them or something

 

[Rorry]

Many people seem to have this idea that the hardcore nature of MO1 was the cause of its demise.
The opposite was true, in fact. The more SV changed the game to be "safer" the more the population dropped away. (I know that isn't the only reason.)
MO1 was at its height and population was booming when it was at its most difficult/hardcore. There were many guilds that would help new players, the game didn't need to hold any hands, people did it. I am not trying to say that a tutorial island is a bad idea or anything. Just that after one leaves there, they should be encouraged to join a guild, and learn to protect and be protected by their guild rather than learn to think that some mechanics will protect them, because they always fail. It is more likely that people will give up if they get disappointed by imperfect mechanics than if they fight as part of their team and lose.

 

[MeduliKaren]

Nah..

 

[Bladeer01]

first , i'm not into the actual game discution etc so , sry if i'm out of place


having played mo1 : hardcore itself wasn't the problem ; it was the mechanics around it ; like first one to hit is the bad guy , i mean , hey , mounted bow vs mounted melee is the perfect example of that , if the melee hitted first he won like 85% of time xd if the bow hitted first he had an actual chance but got a kill count ( for memory , 5 killcount meant bye bye town entry for life )

having guild territory with blacklist is good and all ; but we need fucking npc zone with 0 control of players , i mean , we don't want walled ressource anymore ; right ? fabernum was taken by a red guild once , it litterally mean no man's land zone for all other ;

or even so , solo player being put on black list for petty reason , then what ? start from scratch if your base is in that town ? griefing is already easy as fuck so , nah , don't give other way to legalize griefing in pseudo safe zone xd

i'm ok with going with town rep or thing like getting bad rep for killing someone ( please i want a witness system xd ) but blacklisting ppl in ACTUAL NPC TOWN ? nah , not for me

i've read about something like not full loot in town , yup , that's a good idea


crybaby here at your service

 

[MomoWang]

I agree with Rorry and some others, MO1 was at its height when there was lots of PVP. We lived through the Great Wars, the fall of Empires (keep goes up, keep does down), the Age of AQ, etc.
MO is a full-loot hardcore game and shouldn't apolgise for that. If you only die once a day, then its a good day. As a PvE and crafter, I love fighting. More fighting, more death, more loot loss = more demand for materials.
The new territory/nation system will give you some of the benefits of citizenship you have hinted at. As you gain reputation with the Territoty/Nation you'll get benefits, they are looking at things like cheaper prices on the vendor, reduced taxes at hte broker, guards will actually heal you etc. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
The big change in MO2 is the map size and the limit of only one character. It will make casual gaming without a guild very difficult. It will force specialisation and trade to a new level. Doing a run to GK to deliver materials will now become a major adventure rather than a midnight activitity.

 

[Ibarruri]

I tried to create a citizenship system in MO1 in Tindrem and organize a government and caused a civil war hahaha
From my experience, the people in Myrland are very suspicious and jealous of their freedom. They hate the rules and reject anything similar. Good luck trying but I doubt it will work.
The tribes and guilds of this community tend to organize things simply.
Maybe it's better this way.

 

[MyrmexThraxvágr]

Citizenship could be a way aswell for people to gain rewards pve wise for helping a settlement grow or make their own. Perhaps even grow their reputation to become someone with social standing that could influence the fate of a whole nation.

 

[Dayde]

Part of this thread has gone off topic a little.. and, well, I may as well join in

In my opinion, the biggest reason MO1 saw such a huge decline in server population was not because they failed to hand-hold new players, it was due to two issues: 1) new players expected a learning curve, and probably welcomed it, but found it difficult when there was little in the game to guide them, and 2) Tindrem was toxic and unfortunately the first thing new players experienced.

I talked to too many new players that left simply due to the experiences within Tindrem. My first advice for new players was to leave Tindrem asap.. spend time in Bakti (where I played the most), and see the real communities of MO. I feel that Haven was added to MO1 too late, and addressed the wrong things new players were looking for.

Back on topic:
In general, I like the idea of having a citizenship system in place as the OP described, but would like the standings to play a big part of it. If you choose to place a house in the city limits of Meduli, then your standings of the Tindremic empire should increase, while all competing tribes should see a standing decrease. I also think something like a citizenship system needs an in game component.. perhaps an interface that opens when you interact with the Town Magistrate. I think the reason player-initiated things such as this never got too far in MO1, was simply due to the lack of an interface to support it. I do not think any player in MO, veteran or new, is afraid of complexity.. I think what caused systems like this to fail in MO1 was their dependency on the forums (not in game).