This forum is specifically for questions from the playtest team and the public at large.

Ask us anything.  Your questions make us think about the answers and properly analyse the issues involved.

Gameplay, advancement, systems, items, transport, socializing...

We have many of these issues designed already but posting documents won't help you to understand what they mean to you as a player.

Answers to your questions will.

So please, ask.

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I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Before I state my question, I would like to compliment the way the concept of permadeath has been conceived for Faith. (Although I believe there may be an imperfection to the Faithful/Faithless model, I will consider that more fully later.) It is, I think, the most important feature in an advanced virtual world.

In the context of freely indulging players' creativity, would a player who makes and sells something along the lines of books of racially offensive jokes (assume they could catch on), or vehicles for cheap with racial slogans affixed to them (think trader in ATitD), be a special consideration, with the potential for such an action to break realism and offend other players into leaving the game?

To what extent will "Global Moderators" exist to deal with abuse of features (outside of bugs and hacking)?

Can I ask questions about the state and organization of the Faith development team? (To not appear tactless, I will now type up the two previous questions. ;) )

Thanks for your questions, and i'm delighted that someone finally decided to use this forum

Player-created items will not be immediately set-in-stone, rather there will be a fixing, drying or settling time associated with them depending on the item type.  Put it this way, i think we can fictionalize pretty much anything if we need to.

If you paint a racist slogan on a wall, you might well expect it to rain overnight and wash your work away, for example.  If you draw a large penis on your jacket, you should expect it to smudge to unrecognisability as soon as an admin notices what's happened.  All item creation will creat an admin alert and we will be able to view those items in context at our leisure.  I hope we'll be able to review them all and even if not, there will be functionality to allow players to report abuses.

Global moderators are essential to maintain the fiction and to "move and shake" events in the galaxy.  We'll be relying on them a great deal (even if they end up being us).

Feel free to ask, we'll answer anything we feel will not compromise the project.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Thank you for your quick response; I have a few more questions.

What will be the role of player narrative? You mentioned that global moderators would "move and shake" events; what kind of events would require the action of global moderators? Would the Faith team narrate larger plots beyond the influence of ordinary players?

What marks an item's creation? Will "items" be created through the implemented functions of classes of items (such as different types of wood-refining tools, to be used at certain stages of the building / construction process)?

Some other questions, not related to your answers to my previous questions.

Will mouselook be utilized in some capacity? Will view rotation consist of (at least initially) rotating only one's head and/or upper body, or the entire body?

From what I've read, I assume you'll be not implementing the major significance of player names found in modern MMOs. That is, I won't be able to click on any individual and see who they are, nor will I be able to communicate with someone from anywhere with /whisper Person Text. (If that statement is incorrect, there's no need to respond to these next few questions.)
Will names have /any/ significance in the world itself, outside possibly being written on an item like an ID card that a player would start out with (which is an item that could, potentially, be stolen / forged / destroyed, of course)? Also, since I've mention ID cards, on that topic, if names don't have significance, then what will allow players to distinguish between one another. If not avatar creation, which isn't precedented but would be certainly amazing if you could pull it off--DNA scanning?

Will (contemporary) voice chat be implemented?

If you don't wish to answer any of these questions for fear of compromising the design concepts, please don't hesitate in (or apologize for) asserting confidentiality. I'm just curious what kinds of ideas you all came up with.


Edit: Also. How is the team approaching design? That is, in what order or using what method are you focusing on different design issues?

Just to address one of your questions, Faith has a strong association with reputation. The intrigue, influence, and soverignty of it all will rely fairly heavily on someone knowing who you are. Obviously the center of this is in the name.

Your name will be very important as you live your life in Faith. As far as distinguishing avatars? Sometimes looking like everyone else has its advantages, wouldn't you agree?

Player content/narrative is king.  We certainly don't intend to be altering anything players have set in motion unless we consider it to be "bad" for the enjoyment of the majority of players.

Yes, we will occassionally be prodding at things, mostly to open content areas which are unexploited or to set off story arcs we feel players will enjoy taking forward.  However, we certainly won't be the prime movers in the game.

We make the world.  Players can live in it.  Once we're happy that they have the guidance they need, we should retreat from the world completely as developers, although i like to think that maybe we'd enjoy playing too.  Apart from that last bit, the precedent is well set and very longstanding.  Fiat lux.

Mouselook will be implemented although the exact mechanics of this have yet to be fully settled.  Various options present themselves, some of which connect with your next question - yes, we hope to allow players to create avatars which are individually recognisable.  The "look" mechanics will make this as straightforward as possible, as will image scaling techniques.

Voice chat will certainly be implemented - it's actually so straightforward that it boggles the mind that so few MMOs have implemented it already.  We do it all the time in simulation work.

Design is a concept-up affair based on necessity.  One of the reasons that names aren't being implemented is because we don't see a pressing business case for them and, in fact, we have identified many positives from not including them. The same goes for the traditional inventory system, the traditional /tell!/whisper commands alon with "datapads" etc.  Or even non-playermade maps.

If you need more information than this, please send me a private message.  Some things should not be discussed in a public forum.

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I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

I would agree, Arashi.

> If you need more information than this, please send me a private message.

Done. (As you know.)

And a few more questions, the answers to which I happily understand aren't necessarily confidential:

Questions about realism-based features.

Will the physics engine support the level of detail that a person could fashion their own throwing knives (assuming sufficient tools for working with metal were obtainable), without the design team having implementing throwing knives specifically, based on principles of how mass and momentum operate and the ability for players to specify throwing technique? (This is just an example which would help me to understand how deep you're aiming to go with both game world's physics and player creativity.)

Will there be any kind of third person view?

Has the system that Gith came up with at http://edgecase.net/devsite/blogs/kronecker_delta/archive/2006/05/04/2380.aspx been reviewed for implementation? If so, what changes, if any, have been made the way in which criminal activity is detected and determined? Have systems for criminal judgment and punishment been established?

How high will land stretch? Infinitely high? What would deter me from attempting to build a literal Tower of Babel (reaching up to heaven, if you aren't aware of the reference), with support from my neighbors, of course?

I've heard you mention datapads, but I'm not familiar with the concept. Could you explain them briefly? I suspect it's the datapad described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapad#Datapad, but I don't understand what its significance is in virtual worlds.

Questions about the system of Faithful and Faithless.

This one is descriptive. You mentioned in the Zeke's Faith for dummies topic that the Faithful can't kill or steal. Is this intent-based or physics-based? I would assume intent-based, unless there's some kind of higher power involved in the Faithful's lives which prevents them from even killing accidentally, which would require tremendous processing power to implement in any case. Unless you are heavily overstating the amount of creativity allowed in Faith, there should be many ways to kill a person which they could do accidentally, such as stepping on a trap which would kill all Faithful and Faithless within the room. And unless you monitor all conversations a person has, perhaps that Faithful who set off the trap could have spoken to a Faithless who set it on behalf of that Faithful. Well, in that situation you could say that Faithful are allowed to ask others to do the killing. However, this could apply to a situation in which a person believe they are pulling the trigger of a gun with no bullets. Unless you monitor all conversations, including deciphering ones not plainly communicated, that would be a tricky situation. And yet another case would be someone who is told that an item was stolen from them in the first place when they were too young to recall. I wonder if murder by Faithful would become so easily done that Faithless characters would become just expendable tools to brutal and obvious commit crimes against other players who are too intelligent and/or experienced to be had by the various "accidental" means which the Faith team is playing catch-up trying to implement ways to detect. While Jagen offered, "As a Faithful, you cannot purposefully kill another, so if you shoot them in the face, it'll have to be non-lethal" but for the sake of realism, I hope the system is more complex and flexible than constant miraculous survival. (Correct me if I have the wrong impression.) I'm sure you've put a lot of consideration into this issue, and I would be interested to know what you have come up with on it.

How solid is the terminology "Faith", "Faithful", "Faithless"? Are these just working terms or have they been decided upon very fully?

Richard R stated in Zeke's topic that the Faithful are followers of religion. Is religion something they must specify at the time they create a character, or could a player start out and never state their religion, or start out and begin their own religion? What will be done for Faithful who decide they wish to become atheistic? Can Faithful convert to other religions? If players are allowed to start their own religion, what will you do if a player wishes to create their own religion, but call it Christianity and say they're the Messiah? Are Faithless unable to convert to any religion? Edit: I noticed in the "Gith's Q's" topic (partially accessible through search) that Faithful can't become Faithless and vice verse in a direct sense. Just to clarify, these questions are mainly to discern how inclusive the "talent" of the Faithful is to how the Faithful are defined, and how that will be enforced.

Questions about content.

How much land would you estimate an average city to cover? The largest city? An average town?

What will be the incentive for players to stay active in a particular area rather than traveling around? Expenses? Will players have to work for a living? Will they have to work to be able to travel or live luxiously?

In a given town at 3 in the morning, will all the NPCs be sleeping and all the player characters be awake? In the town plaza of a typical town on a given day at noon, what percentage of players will be residents just enjoying a feature of their town and what percentage will be travelers?

In what situation will players start out? Will they have homes? If so, what kind, and where? What items will they have?

Can't think of any more at the moment. Probably that's more than enough.

1. Yes. Although the team would be alerted by item creation systems and if those knives happened to the whole House of Flying Penises thing, i think they might shatter very quickly.

2. 3rd person view will in fact be the default but it's isometric 3D rather than top-down 3D.  For examples, combare Splinter Cell with WoW.  We're going for the former.

3. No, i haven't had time to review Gith's system yet.  I suspect from an initial reading that aspects of it will be accepted for Alpha.

4. Your neighbours should deter you and if they don't, expect some unclement weather because i certainly will.  Given the commonly available building materials (wood, stone, clay, adobe), i'd consider sucha tower to be a physical impossibility.

5. The faithful will be restricted to non-lethal weaponry.  Of course, lethal guile is always an option.  Further, they can eb resurrected, which the Faithless cannot.

6. I think we're pretty settled on those terms.

7.  The religion of a Faithful character must be decided at point of creation.  It cannot be revoked, nor can a Faithless character ever become Faithful.  They may (and most probably would be well advised to) join a Faith and worship like anyone else, but they will never be resurrected on death.  Nor will they ever be restricted from murder or theft.

8. Yet to be decided.

9. We aim to build atomic communities with a high degree of self-sufficiency.  Travel will not be easy or cheap.

10. In no given town on Earth at 3AM is everyone sleeping or awake.  That's just silly.

11. When players begin the game, they can accept temporary employment and lodgings if they so choose, along with loaned equipment which must be returned or paid for.  TANSTAAFL.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Thanks, I believe I just have 4 more queries, then (Edit: concerning what we've discussed here):

So, will you be enforcing the religion of Faithful, so if they declare conversion they'll be banned or otherwise censored? If so, have you anticipated that forcing a player to choose something that is a major part of their character's definition right off the bat without any deep knowledge of it could inhibit their ability to role-play (or do you disagree with that premise)?

What will distinguish night from day in-game, in terms of player activity? Have you conceived a mechanic that will work to sustain the distinction? Some you may have considered would be having day/night depend on what area of a virtual world a player is in and encouraging players from certain time zones to live in certain cities, allowing for such populations of NPCs that you can retire most of them at "night" to create a noticable effect, or assuming a skewed representation of players and orienting day/night based on player activity. (We're both aware of issues involved in each, I'd assume.)

Then, if lethal guile is permitted, have you considered the situation I described earlier, in which "murder by Faithful would become so easily done that Faithless characters would become just expendable tools to brutal and obvious commit crimes against other players who are too intelligent and/or experienced to be had by ... various [indirect] means"?

I'm still not familiar with the sigificance with datapads, or the House of Flying Penises reference, by the way. Could you explain those?

(Note that when I ask "have you done this" I definitely don't mind a yes/no answer because I trust that if you have considered it then you will definitely address it reasonably.)

Sorry i seem to answer these slowly.  They're pretty in-depth and not the kind of thing players seem to ask as a rule.  Therefore, i have to make certain that i'm answering them properly.

Apostacy is a tricky subject.  We obviously don't want people switching religion for fun + benefits they way they switch faction in so many other games.  The first thing to bear in mind is that apostacy was extremely uncommon during our reference timeframe - nobody was "born again" or any other such silliness, nobody could stand up one day and say "Right! I am now a Pagan/Wiccan/Believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodly Appendage" without throwing away pretty much their entire life, often literally.

Moving to another culture was possible but rare and conversos were mistrusted deeply or simply shunned.  I do not buy your argument regarding roleplay - the various religions are responsible for resurrecting Faithful characters. RP all you like, you're not going to just throw that away and in any case, it may help reduce the inevitable "I'm so special/uber/different/interesting" roleplayer-type who's parents were murdered by [insert generic enemy here] and is marked by Destiny for [something we've all heard before].

Night/Day processes are still in the design phase and thanks for your thoughts on that matter.  Really right now i'd like consistant mechanics and art.  Day/Night cycles can come later.  If we were to generate the universe right now, it would create its own day/night cycles based on planetary rotational speeds and orbital velocity.  I like Physics.

Have we considered the Faithless becoming expendable tools?  Absolutely!  I think that's exactly what we're aiming for, actually.  A Faithless character who's been in-game for a year should be someone who can really play the game to it's utmost.

The Datapad is a Star Wars Galaxies thing.  It held your in-game email, a full galaxy map, stored vehicles and even pets and droids, kept waypoints, the works.  It was like a PDA/Portable Hole on steroids.  And it made too many things far too easy.  The point about Datapads is that they've become a shorthand for me to use instead of actually describing an unnecessary game feature which everyone assumes must go in simply because other games have it.  Not all features improve playability.  Many damage it.

The House of Flying Penises thing is my own personal joke referring to players making objects which we feel are deliberately obscene and refers to the excellent Chinese film, House of Flying Daggers.

---

I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Cael:

...the inevitable "I'm so special/uber/different/interesting" roleplayer-type who's parents were murdered by [insert generic enemy here] and is marked by Destiny for [something we've all heard before]...

Don't forget the descriptions of characters eyes being mysterious/piercing/intense/soulless*

Maybe we should add a "Cliche Mode" to our random character generator?

*delete as applicable.

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Chris E-A. It's in the name.

Chris:

Cael:

...the inevitable "I'm so special/uber/different/interesting" roleplayer-type who's parents were murdered by [insert generic enemy here] and is marked by Destiny for [something we've all heard before]...

Don't forget the descriptions of characters eyes being mysterious/piercing/intense/soulless*

Maybe we should add a "Cliche Mode" to our random character generator?

*delete as applicable.

 

That would be the perfect companion to some of our other design features regarding the genre of MMO's. :)

It could be like the "cheese" in Super Street Fighter : TNG. That woudl be very neat.

Now that I've found the appropriate forum to ask questions (my apologies), here's another one:

We have two characters: a Faithful and a Faithless.  If we find an item on our Faithless character that we're really fond of and want to keep (a dress, for example) or something we think would benefit our other character more, will there be a way to transfer the item to our Faithful character to ensure we won't lose it?

I may be having a bad day - i don't understand the question.

 

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I have plundered the fen,
Through all secrets i spy
Old Madd ap Maddonwy
knew no more than I


In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister - Goethe

Can people transfer items between their characters?

 

For instance in WoW you can use the mail system within the same faction.  Or in Galaxies you could leave stuff in a common house.