Earthrise teases new beta screenshot, reminds players of SWG

Wow, I have to say you've summed up my impression too. I wasn't excited about the game at all until people started murmuring the letters S, W, and G. But that got me too look more closely. And... wow. SWG/AO with eyecandy! I suddenly understand why Jef wants to cover this!

I bummed out on Fallen Earth for the same reason you did. Too depressing (this coming from someone who loves deserts IRL, even). But this looks lush.

@ Angel:

IIRC there will be no 'servers', it should be one giant shardless community to exist in.

And as they haven't detailed exactly how the higher security areas will work (I doubt they'll copy / paste EvE's concord functionality). If you're looking for something akin to baking cookies in the safety of your kitchen, then I don't think you'll have to worry about a robber breaking in and stealing your money (ie. getting ganked in highsec empire in eve).

I agree Angel. Every part of this game is sounding like what me and a lot of other players want....except for free for all style, open PvP. I may still check the game out, but not until I see how the community reacts to the PvP play.

I am in hope that when they realize there are a LOT more PvE players interested in a game like Earthrise than there are PvP that the focus PvP will drop a bit. If you can have 2X the number of players with some PvE servers why not do it?

But pve lovers have sooo many mmo options, leave this one to us pvp minded players, we only have 1 ( darkfall) at this point to choose from. Arena style pvp in a pve game is not at all what we look for, so that removes 99% of all mmos as an option.
I'm a bit worried about item insurance i read about in a prev article, i hope they make it costly enough and some kind of upkeep or pvp might become unmeaningful.

As a former SWG player from launch who's also pretty interested in PvP games live EVE, Face of Mankind and Darkfall, I have to say I'm very happy that Earthrise will be bringing in PvP.

I don't think PvP was well implemented in SWG, though. Hopefully MS has incorporated the best from the above games.

I would love a PvP world with ramifications to your actions. Meaning, there should be a gameplay system to help enforce laws and make the moral decision to kill another player mean something.

Right now, in PvP MMOs, killing another player means nothing really. I love the idea of having the risk of road bandits and such, but I also truly think that bandits should have the equivalent risks that being a bandit in the wild west would have (for instance).

Sure perma-death is probably the best answer for outright player killers, but since that does not really work, it is up to the developers to come up with other creative options to both make killing another player exciting and part of the game, but also something that is filled with more danger of just loosing the fight. Greifing and player killing should be a big choice.

Of course, exceptions to the rules - faction warfare, grudge warfare, etc...

@Brian!. Look up Darkfall's PVP Outlaw system, it sounds like what you want but without perm death.

@ Smoke2000

Shearing? heard of it. PvP fans essentially have a standing demand that all PvE MMORPGs have PvP servers or some kind of isolated systemic PvP, which is perfectly fine. So, why not the reverse for PvE fans? Why not have a separate PvE server if a multi-server system is going to be used.

Hell, It would be a fascinating experiment in class balance given the classes would be balanced for a PvP environment over a PvE environment. It would be interesting to see how that would turn out.

I also look to the 80/20 rule and what that could mean for PvP centric games like Earthrise. given that 80% of the MMORPG playing population and potentual players prefer PvE and 20% prefer PvP why not court that 80% to strengthen the PvP game? It only makes sense.

There will be "PVE safety areas", they're going with a setup similar to Eve.

Ie.

High security areas
Medium Security areas
Lawless areas.

DarkStryke,

A safe area does not male it PvE. Look at EVE. the safe areas are not actually so safe. even if there would be a lock-down on harming others there will still be camping ah la gate camping.

I think it is a error to not offer a PvE server, assuming they use a multi shard system. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who have been looking for something like Earthrise since NGE and legacy UO that is not PvP. What Earthrise potentially offers as a PvE or PvP game is an answer to the question of what the real next gen MMORPG will be like. PvP is not essential to that formula though it is at the core of Mastheads vision of ER.

@Joker The outlaw system is just slightly more advanced than Ultima Online's red-flag system.

Killing and not being able to go in towns is not a punishment. Now, if anyone who traded items with your character was also flagged an outlaw, then maybe. That would make it so that you would have to convince others to become outlaws for doing business with you.

What I am talking about is a clear system for justice/revenge. Every time you damage a player or loot their corpse or basically cause harm that player would acquire revenge points to use on you.

Those points could be used to enforce justice. Each player would have a list of top 50 or 100 offenders, anyone with less revenge points is just removed from the list. You can also forgive anyone and remove them from your list (friends). Players can use these points to do things like locating their nemesis. They might use more points to curse their nemesis (temp stat loss and such). They might trade their points away to a bounty hunter who collects points to grief the griefers. You might trade your points to a player controlled area/town/etc... and that player becomes banned from that area (perhaps guard killed when seen or something).

This is just a snippet of a system - but something more than some lame "outlaw" flag that means nothing.

richard dean anderson