Development feedback requested on communication between the factions during RvR

[Amboss]

As most of you already would know, AION is a PvPvE game based on the conflict between Chun, MA and Yong. When you leave out the NPC race Yong, the basic conflict of the AION world is a Realm VS Realm (RvR) between the Chun & Ma.

The form of the RvR in AION is not a static form like a Castle Siege. RvR could happen anywhere whenever there is a fight. So for example, for the people who like to roleplay, there might some cases where the player has to beg for mercy or tell the enemy about his situation. Normally in RvR system based games, the chatting between different Realms/Factions would be impossible. So players would use social actions (emotes) to explain themselves.

But what if normal discussion with the opposite characters was possible?

We all know the disadvantages. RvR can make the players feel angry and unsuitable words might be spoken between them. Or some players might use that feature to try to annoy others. We are all aware of that. So I guess the question would be…What advantages / disadvantages do YOU think there would be to have a system allowing enemies to talk to each other? Would it be more fun or do you think the negative aspects would be too important compared to the positive ones?

Let us know what you think about it. And to ease the Feedback gathering, what about structuring your post as follows:

• Advantages
• Disadvantages
• Your final opinion

[osric]

heya amboss

advantages : as you mentioned there are situations where enemies can be persuaded into mercy, and even in real life enemy nations communicate in reasonable discussion. the biggest advantage i can see comes into play when dealing with the dragon situation. there may be times when the chosen and fallen would benefit by teaming up to drive the dragons from a certain area or in defense. in this situation communication between the factions would be quite helpful

disadvantages : you said it. harassment, flaming, annoyance, talking trash, etc etc. this can REALLY ruin a game environment, especially since once it starts it seems to never stop. it would be nice to see a mutual respect between the warring factions. yeah we're enemies, and we have a natural hatred for kind, but we realize you have reasons for fighting, just as we do. we'll try to kill you, but we'll be mature about it.

final opinion : unfortunately, judging from past experiences, i think the amount of trash talking and flaming will far outstrip the amount of cooperation or mutual respect. in my eyes the disadvantages will be much much more common then the advantages. for that reason i dont support full time inter-faction communication. perhaps a way to send mail messages (not including items or money or anything) to members of the opposing faction? or an ability to turn on or turn off inter-faction communication?

[Ithium]

Hello all.
Please forgive any oddities in this post, it is only my second one on the website. To begin, I would like to say first of all the PvP system that is being developed really interests me and seems like a very orginal twist on a classic system that works. Which usually turn out to be the best ones. But to answer the question:

Advantages: the role playing possibilities, as stated in the question, are phenomenal. This could really lead to amazing stories evolving by them selves and help players from both sides really understand eachother and act out a story that would normally be beyond the scope of similar MMOs. It even opens up opportunities for the two sides to come together in rare instances to battle a common enemy: the race of dragons. Also it will help to build a sense of community and comraderie for the game. It may bring players together in a community that is rarely seen for this kind of game. It could also avoid a great deal of frustration if a low level character finds him/herself stuck in a high level opposing area, and just wants to get out without dying too much. Also, items and services could be bartered across realms.

Disadvantages: Of course this could lead to a great deal of heckling name calling and annoyance. And if a player is trying to role play and announces their presence to the opposition in order to do so, it may draw opportunists like flies to...you know what I mean. This could also lead to frustration if a strategy is being discussed and someone accidentally leaks the info to the opposing team. Or even lies about a strategy, sending it on purpose to the opposing side hoping to trick them. Often in MMOs, shouts, spams, and bartering are difficult enough to block out of one realm, but adding in a second could cause major problems.

Final opinion: I think it would be a great feature to try out for the beginning parts of the the game, and then try to get some feedback from the players in game, or throw a poll into the log on screen. If player feel strongly enough about it, they should be willing to let the devs know. If it works, it could be another orginal game enhancing feature on top of so many others that sets this game on a completely different level.

[Stoney]

I have to agree with osric on his assessment on the advantages and disadvantages.

But...I personally feel that some sort of communication is a must between the 2 factions. The use of just emotes is very frustrating, there needs to be some sort of "spacial" chat that all people in that general area (no more then 50 meters imho) can all "hear". The factions are already segregated into 2 halves of the globe. I also believe people should be able to send private messages (PM's) to people of the other faction, but I would not like a "world wide channel" which would really just end up being used to flame. I also feel that you should be able to either turn off or ignore PM's or chat from the opposite faction. Yes flaming and trash talk can be annoying but it also adds alot to the game imo. I dont like the WoW model of having to go to the forums to communicate with the other faction, but that is just my opinion.

edit: Amboss...maybe you could set up a poll for this thread to help with your feedback. Maybe have it ask if people want communication between the 2 factions or not, or maybe some type of limited communication, might help.

[Zinrae]

Well I can't think of any other advantages/disadvantages that haven't already been explained at the moment.

I also think there should be a chat implemented that allows you to communicate with other players in your vicinity. Yes, I'm sure there will be people that use it for taunts and such, but I think people should be given a chance to use it properly. You could always just let people turn it off. It might also help if the game environment is conducive to friendlier interactions between the factions. For example, you could have a couple missions where it would be easier if the two cooperated(but not required). It might also help to not have every other NPC saying "death to the other faction, they killed my friend," or whatever.

[Paxton Trinket]

I'd agree with enabling the ability of some form of chat that only goes a certain distance and works with both factions; However, make it have the option of being disabled at any time if the person starts wasting your time with trash talk and whatever derogatories they want to use.


Besides, they're from two different worlds more or less, so why would they understand each others language?

[Zinrae]

Originally Posted by Paxton Trinket

Besides, they're from two different worlds more or less, so why would they understand each others language?

They're from a different world, why whould they speak English? -_-

[osric]

Originally Posted by Zinrae

They're from a different world, why whould they speak English? -_-

lol, they dont, they speak their own languages and the game engine translates it to english for us

[Kinspawn]

first post yay!

Advantages: im sure many people will have friends who might play opposing races, so its nice to be able to chat. It can help out when a mutual neutrality benefits each race I.E when partying in the same area.

Disadvantages: the flaming etc. also it adds a nice effect when not being able to understand enemy speech, also applies to RP fans. Also you can insult enemies infront of your own race, with them being oblivious :P
Its also a battle between angels and demons, i think people would be more patriotic towards their race if they arent able to communicate cross race, kinda adds the taboo also. Another point, when an enemy is co-ordinating attacks then would be pointless if the enemy race can understand.

Final Opinion: i think its best to not be able to communicate cross race, unless its in a neutral non-pvp area. I dont think the races really need to be able to talk, if someone on the enemy race pleads for forgiveness, who would actually show them mercy? so they can stab you in the back? i know i wouldnt

[goatus]

Well, I think that enabling free chat/text communication between two opposite fractions in PvP game isn't really good idea. From my expirience amount of cursing and trashtalking would go out of control really fast, ruining fun from game. And ability to block certain ones or turn of crosfraction chat woudn't really change that.

But on the other hand i feel like communicating with opposite fraction in certain situations could rise fun factor a lot. So there shoud be some cool way to communicate. My ideas are:

Mail, since most probably Aion world will have some form mail servce, then why not make it crosfraction (You can easly imagine that some npc's working in mail service know both languages) This would help players in making crosfraction friends/enemies without having to use forums of some sort.

Some skill/spell that require both sides to use it and then allowing them to speak freely to each other. I see it as a spell requiring some medium price material component (So it wont be overused). Once you use this spell, your opposite fraction target recives massage in combat log (And some visuall efect too) that you are initiating conversation and then he can decide if he wants to use spell and talk to you or just ignore you.

Anyways sorry for my crappy English ;]

[Joy]

Advantages: RP. Alliances. Agreed neutrality while grinding levels. Able to strategize against Dragons.

Disadvantages: Griefing. Spamming. Distracting of players during PvP (If you were highly organized and this nub sent you a bunch of gibberish, clearing your text box, it'd be annoying).

Final: Basically stuff you already knew. If only there was a way to filter out the people able to use this function... maybe make it only available to guild leaders or even party leaders? There's no way to tell if they're going to abuse it also but it's just a thought. Also, if you choose to have them not communicate, don't let them able to just spam gibberish to me. Put up some "This player is not of the same race. Tell not received." message.

You could also make it like SWG though, and have the two races start off with different languages and have a quest where you can earn a book to learn the other's. You could maybe even learn the language of the Dragons at some ridiculous high level and sneak by them while they're talking about battle strategies... so cool! :3

[FeyraN]

• Advantages
• Disadvantages
• Your final opinion

[/QUOTE]

Advantages -

To be able to communicate with other races//factions allows for drama to build up. PvP is ""NOT"" fun without drama. It's no fun going around killing random people just for the sake of killing. It's only fun and satisfying when you kill someone that you hate the living hell out of someone and wish they would fry in diarrhea. When you can't communicate with the other races//factions drama builds up within your own faction and then you just hate the people in your own faction and want to kill them repeatedly, but it doesn't go over so well because they are on your side.

Disadvantages -

People and enemies may spam you and such, but as in Lineage 2, there was no faction and anyone could message you enemy or not and there wasn't a problem in that game anyways. As long as there's a block-list implemented or a feature that allows only people on friends//clan list to message you that would be superb.

Final Opinion -

You should definitely implement communication between races. If you do not implement it, people go by their own ways to communicating through forums or Vent anyways to bypass your filter.

[Pancak3s]

Pro: -More flaming
-Being hated more by the other faction....
-Driving more pvp... bigger social issues, agruments, conflicts amoung each other.
-You get to know the enemy

Con: None

Final Opinion: GO with it.... being able to talk to another race/faction was one of the best parts of Lineage

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Pancak3s

Pro: -More flaming
-Being hated more by the other faction....
-Driving more pvp... bigger social issues, agruments, conflicts amoung each other.
-You get to know the enemy

Con: None

Final Opinion: GO with it.... being able to talk to another race/faction was one of the best parts of Lineage

I love your logic. More drama = more fun? As long as it doesn't spill over into crazy fights on this forum. Anyhow, my opinion? Go for it. Communication of some form, instant communication, is important for epic battles and tense situations.

[Minako]

* Advantages
Comunication is always better. What If I have friends joining in my server but they chose the other faction? Why shouldn´t I be able to talk to them? Or what If I meet someone in the middle of nowhere and none os us feels like PvPing but we do want to talk? Some of the battles I´ve enjoyed the most is when afterwards I could talk with people from the other side. And, generally speaking, being able to understand and hear others is the way to go, never the opposite. Let players fix their own issues.
Dunno... I'm used to understand the people around me, to suddenly be stuck with a bunch of people that I can´t understand... It just doesn't sits well with me. Even when visiting countries with language I don´t know, there is still a bunch of things that allows me to understand. But this is just a game and emotes can´t compensate the lack of words.

* Disadvantages
Mmmmm ... you need to implement a block list and you´ll need GMs checking screenshots to ban possible offenders so no one can insult me, my mother, my sister, their relationship with his dog and several other unsavory comments. Someone overprotected may need a couple of valiums. But that´s life, your neighbour can scream to you whenever he wants and your life doen´t end.

* Your final opinion
Leave it oppen and allow the players to regulate each others (of coursee you may need to ban some people that goes totally over the top, but then if it was blocked people will find the way to say the same, but it´ll be offline and you´ll have 0 control over it). Drama is always going to be there and, as someone pointed, I'll rather have the drama with the other facion than with my clanmates.