How to deal with players making other players vampires…

[mortal Offline]

1. Don’t allow it at all. This seems the easiest yet most lazy choice. Simply don’t allow it. You must be embraced by a NPC. This will prevent abuse or overpopulation too quickly.

2. Only characters of a certain age can embrace or you need permission from NPC/High rank PC. A PC must EARN the right to make more vampires, much like how it is done in Vampire the Masquerade. They may have to earn rep with the right people, do tasks, ect. They would probably also need to show they are not monsters with low Essence.  Also very young PCs may not be allowed to embrace at all while a much older and proven PC could make more than one vampire?

3. Other ideas could be that your crimes affect your children and your children’s crimes affect you. If say you make someone a vampire and that idiot turns around and goes pyscho? Well guess what. You created him, his crimes will now be placed on your head as well. Or say you get sired by a evil PC? Well maybe NPCs will come around asking where your «parent» is and they dont like hearing «I don’t know». Or players could come after you too.

I think the suggestions I came up with could possibly help or make for interesting ideas for the developers to consider.

[mortal Offline]

I think the first option is the most sensible in most respects. I think players should be able to turn other players but it must be a mutual consent. Think of like an item trade (or similar) where both players must accept before anything takes place/transfers.  Having transformation forced upon you would not be a god practice in the sense that people will have paid money for the game and then are having restrictions/actions forced upon them that they may not want. I think people would leave the game rapidly if that was the case.

[mortal Offline]

I’m just making suggestions is all, just opening a discussion because I know some people were bothered by the idea of players selling off the embrace for tons of money or currency, withholding the embrace, ect.

[mortal Offline]

I do agree that becoming a Vampire should be purely related to NPC activities, give the mortal player some good, hard, old fashioned work to complete — a quest line perhaps, or a build up in reputation before earning the ‘privilege’ of becoming a Vampire! Not only does it make it more of a goal for players to reach towards, but it also makes it more unique to the player. Take ESO for an example, one can simply buy off a bite, it’s not really a Vampiric experience perse, and this game will most certainly be Vampire-Central. So the transformation and the means of getting the bite? That should be special indeed.

Oscar Cool more like Oscar Uncool

[mortal Offline]

I think they will make it so that you can be embraced by one of the NPC sabbath leaders (probably increasing  the chosen sabbath reputation), and will give players the option to embrace as well. I’m guessing there would be an intro quest before you were embraced by a sabbath leader, while player embraces would be based on personal deals. Also I kind of like the idea of players withholding their embrace or selling it in game for currency if that’s what they wanted to do.

~Shadow is but the result of light.

[mortal Offline]

Oh of course, players selling their embrace is definitely a fine thing to do. I just believe it shouldn’t be the /only/ way to do it, forgive me if I didn’t make that clear!

Oscar Cool more like Oscar Uncool

[mortal Offline]

Players selling the embrace is a bad idea as far as the whole setting immersion thing. Then what if there are too many vampires? Overpopulation and you may embrace someone who isn’t worthy of it and is a total jackass? The crimes of the son visited on the father and vice versa sort of thing?

[mortal Offline]

^ Exactly

Oscar Cool more like Oscar Uncool

[mortal Offline]

It is a vampire themed MMO. If every player character is a vampire (which is very likely) then that’s what it will be. I don’t see ‘overpopulation’ of Vampires being a problem.

[mortal Offline]

No its not a purely vampire themed mmo. That is simply the first supernatural they will focus on AND you can stay mortal. Overpopulation IS a problem. Did you not read about how you’re supposed to keep your nature a secret? KINDA HARD TO DO WITH A TON OF VAMPIRES RUNNING AROUND…especially when I predict a lot of them will be moronic kids acting like superheros and supervillains with fangs.

[mortal Offline]

Sorry, I don’t believe I was clear. From an RP perspective, I 100% agree with you. However from a real-world, ‘I just spent actually currency to play a game’ standpoint vampire (or any other supernatural creature) population cannot be allowed to be an issue. For example, you spend X amount of money on the game since you want to play a vampire but then because of an population cap you aren’t allowed to. How is that fair? How is that consumer friendly? The game would crash and burn very quickly. 

I think there needs to be separation of expectation between roleplay and gameplay. 

[mortal Offline]

I’m extremely 50/50 on this issue; I sympathize with both ends of the isle here. Based on my own desires out of the game I’d say I lean slightly more towards RP over Gameplay buuut well that’s just me and my selfish opinions, I realize it’s not necessairly a valid direction for the developers to move towards just to appease me if the majority don’t want the same thing out of it that I do.

So far I’ll say that if player Embraces are indeed a thing, the cost should be considerable so one cannot simply and easily «sell» them off without a notable loss. Maybe it losses most of its current Essence or maybe it can’t gain more for an X amount of time. Maybe whatever the childe in question does affects the sire too from both an RP and Gameplay perspective (for example abandoning missions could have a negative reputation penalty on both- if less on the sire -or dying could draw from the sire’s Essence to resurrect due to some sort of soul bond or attunement or whatever) that keeps the question of Embracing from being just a cakewalk.

Sure, people can still make «throw-away» characters and go through the process to make themselves eligble to Embrace and not care about the consequences, but if we’re going down that slippery slope we might as well not have a system at all because there’s always some way around it or cause different problems in the process (the NPC-only sires doesn’t solve the problem of Vampiric overpopulation for example). I think there can be found a middle ground for the idea of player Embraces yet.

[mortal Offline]

When i was playing Star Wars Galaxy, pre-NGE, many players were not Jedi. And many players were Jedi. And it was fine, because there were so many options for you to play in this world.

But for Dogma, i see it as a Vampire-sim, with some non-vampire food running around. I think the only way to deal with it is with a large NPC human population, and very small NPC vampire. Let the players rule the vampire society.

[mortal Offline]

Well the Dogma team have already said they plan other species such as Werewolves and not everyone will want to become a Vampire though a lot will.

Therefore the Embrace (if were using VTM terminology) should be optional if only mechanically.

I think Hunters, if there is some, should be NPC only though, why someone who hates Vampires would join a predominantly Vampire game is beyond me, smells like virtual trolls to me.

The shadows are moving again

[mortal Offline]

You just said there would be other species. Who says it will be predominantly vampires? And whats wrong with a cap in some games? That would make the embrace more special and worth while so people wouldn’t throw it away for one. You talk about «player friendly» yet the devs already said you could PvP just about anywhere. Does that sound player friendly to you?

[mortal Offline]

From my experiences playing Cam, I have only met one fully human player over the span of five years between three cities. I’m positive people are gonna play a vampire game for the vampires, there will be the occasional player human, but they will be rare. Werewolves wont be released until after launch, so anyone playing will be playing a vampire or human after launch. As for a cap, I for one do not want to be forced to play a human all game and I don’t think I’m in the minority here. If someone really thinks a cap on vampires is a good idea for RP, then by all means play a human character for immersion. If you don’t want to play a human character, then you should know why a cap on vampire player population is a bad idea.

~Shadow is but the result of light.

[mortal Offline]

A group of players could FORCE a cap you know. I could see that happening. «We didn’t approve this new ebrace, kill it and the sire.» Much like how its supposed to be in the Camarilla if you don’t seek approval from the Prince first.

[mortal Offline]

Becomes difficult to track though, especially considering there are no less than four different factions at play here rather than one united. But hey, could theoretically be done with some work from the players.

[mortal Offline]

There’s a colossal difference between a game developer forcing a cap and players attempting to force a cap. I’d actually like it if the prince of a city could place a blood hunt on a character, but like Karavolos said, it’d be incredibly difficult to track a blood hunt on all unapproved vampires. This would create political strife and in game conflict that could easily be resolved with a bunch of neonates with a common enemy. But honestly we have no idea what the final game will look like, or how the prince will be able to run a city.

~Shadow is but the result of light.

[mortal Offline]

I like option two, that’s the way we rp’d it out. This often led to some of the most amazing rp’s that I’ve ever had the privilege to participate in. Look there’s going to be corruption and abuse. There certainly was when we rp’d, but remember we are playing monsters. Fuck fairness. The more corruption the better the rp’s will be, period. The only thing that’s important is that we make sure that there’s a system in place that everyone must adhere too. If you find away around that system well… more power too ya. that just means your smarter then the average Joe. The only thing I’m concerned with is making sure that people who can embrace have earned the right too. You can’t be afraid of chaos. Chaos is what make’s the world of eternal worth being apart of. That’s my two cents :) 

She wears the guise of a woman, but I never thought of her as one, or even as a vampire, for that matter. She is Queen and castle both; Her dominion - the river Styx, the untold dead she's drowned in it - Her subjects

[mortal Offline]

UrbanMagi wrote:

There’s a colossal difference between a game developer forcing a cap and players attempting to force a cap. I’d actually like it if the prince of a city could place a blood hunt on a character, but like Karavolos said, it’d be incredibly difficult to track a blood hunt on all unapproved vampires. This would create political strife and in game conflict that could easily be resolved with a bunch of neonates with a common enemy. But honestly we have no idea what the final game will look like, or how the prince will be able to run a city.

This! I think people are putting their RP wants over the fact that an actual game is being made. A game that needs to be balanced and that people pay money for. Putting a ‘prince’ in charge of who is embraced is a bad idea for several reasons:

1- What if that player just trolled in that role?
2- People have paid money to play a game where they can be a vampire (as a selling point),  that cannot be withheld.

Yeah PvP could be a solution to enforcing this cap but look at that from another perspective, it wouldn’t be far off bullying and harassing new players.

This game has amazing RP potential but it needs to be a game first.

[mortal Offline]

You realize that the WoD Vampire MMO was going to have a Prince in charge of cities right?

1-Too damn bad? A prince doesn’t have to be nice, IF they have the power to be a dick and stay in power that’s exactly what happens in the Camarilla and Sabbat. I see the same thing happening here. If you don’t like the Prince you have to kill him off or replace him or leave the city.

2- See above? I didn’t say withheld. I said they kill you AFTER the fact. Thus you’re a vampire. Grats. Now try to survive the murder squad cause you were embraced without permission. Which IS part of Vampire the Masquerade, which this game is somewhat based on, and was made in part because CCP failed bigtime to make the VtM mmo.

Have you even read Vampire the Masquerade? That’s EXACTLY what happens to new vampires. Neonates are bullied and harassed and used and discarded. I don’t get why you think Vampires play nice with noobs. They don’t.

[mortal Offline]

A prince can absolutely troll in that roll. Sorry. Vampires don’t play nice in VtM and I assume they don’t here either, since this is based in part on VtM. So your only recourse if the guy in charge is jerk is to replace him, kill him or keep your head down. Sorta like in real life in those less democracy inclined areas…

[mortal Offline]

You’re all assuming the factions aren’t just «Clans» btw! They could be clans just like in the Camarilla or Sabbat, who have their own internal structure and secrets but who are part of the same «sect». If they were all totally seperate factions how in the world could they all be in the same city without all out war being a constant possibility?

[mortal Offline]

I can’t get over people wanting things to be balanced and fair in a VtM setting. It’s just silly. I know when we rp’d we left the embrace up to the individual clan leaders instead of the prince of the city. It was originally up to the prince, but the gig became like a revolving door. It was VERY hard to keep the job, thus made it hard to plan out big rp’s. Placing the clan leaders in charge of that stabilized our rp’s.

She wears the guise of a woman, but I never thought of her as one, or even as a vampire, for that matter. She is Queen and castle both; Her dominion - the river Styx, the untold dead she's drowned in it - Her subjects