Now that the FTE/MDD issue has been intensely clarified, let’s move onto the next easy topic: Camps, what are they and who owns them?
I believe camps are more of a community issue than a systemic issue. But, I believe just as much passion is involved.
So, what defines a camp?
What do you have to do to establish ownership of a camp?
How long do you get to keep the camp?
How do you transfer ownership of a camp (other than abandoning it)? Can you even transfer a camp?
Hoo boy - opening a can of worms here, lambchop.
I'd agree that it's more of a community issue than anything else. Hopefully, things won't be so bad that the GM's would ever have to step in and create actual "camp policies", much like what has happened in P99. I don't recall firm policies being on Live, but I could be wrong.
Just yesterday evening, I was on P99 in Sol A. It was late, and there were only 3 other people in the zone, so I was trying my hand at some casual soloing near the entrance (just past the "window room"). Over a bridge, there was 2 goblins that popped on either side of a doorway, and were level appropriate. I would tag them, root one, drag the other around the corner, and kill. In between pops, I'd wander a bit and look for stragglers. Behind me, there were 3 that popped - they were slightly lower, and barely gave any experience, so I didn't much care about them. But if they were there, and I was waiting for my other 2, I'd go ahead and knock them out.
Was I camping this spot? I mean, it wasn't really a "camp". There wasn't a possibility of a named that anyone would farm, they weren't a part of a community recognized camp (I.E. Orc 1 in EC, Slavers pit in CB, etc), but I WAS holding them down and keeping those two pops consistently cleared. So ....was I camping that? If someone tagged one that just popped while I'm sitting there, would I be justified in getting upset? Or since they're random pops on the way to other places, is it all fair game?
Frankly, I lean towards the fair game, but others may say differently. On one hand, I was following the rules of "camping" set by P99. On the other, it's not super realistic to expect those two pops to belong solely to me - nor is it realistic to expect an accidental pull from a passing fellow character to result in a "/tell "Sorry, friend. Accident. Go ahead and grab him off me".
But for community recognized camps?
1. What defines a camp? Static mobs on a timer consisting of 2 or more mobs that aren't set in "thoroughfares". Which means, I woudn't have classified my two mobs in the middle of a pathway as a camp, as it's on the way to everything, making accidental pulls by passing players a guarantee. Edit: OR one quest mob that pops in the same spot in any given zone (I.E. Stormfeather).
2. What do you have to do to establish ownership of a camp? Consistently keep the mobs on a kill rotation. If you're sitting there, staring at a full camp of 4 mobs on a refreshed pop for 20 minutes and not moving, you're not holding the camp and it's fair game for someone who CAN keep the mobs down. That means no long AFK's at camp. If you aren't playing the game, you aren't camping. Additionally, if you die and forget to soulbind yourself, and it takes you 20 minutes to get back? Not your camp anymore. Part of holding a camp is being ABLE to hold it - i.e. staying alive.
3. How long do you get to keep the camp? As long as you're following rule number 2? As long as you want/can.
4. How do you transfer ownership of a camp (other than abandoning it)? Can you even transfer a camp? This, I think, has to be at the discretion of the player. Too hard (and silly) to attempt to police. Frankly, I believe that transferring (or not transferring) of a camp should be something the person currently holding the camp gets to decide on their own. If I'm holding Orc 1, and decide to keep a list, then that should be my decision. If I decide to not keep a list, and the next people that want it will just have to figure it out, that should be my decision, too. Holding a camp should not come with it the responsibility of transferring it after. I'm not a real estate agent.
Additionally, if I DO decide to do a list at whatever camp I'm holding, but then go Linkdead and decide not to log back on? That list means absolutely zilch. Camp is fair game.
I think these rules are fair, while also keeping the competitive spirit most of us miss from the old days. Camps should require effort and dedication to hold, not just through the challenge of the game, but through time and personal management.
Haven't seen you post in awhile beef. Welcome back. Maybe a dumb question but...whats fte/mdd?
1)I think the camps will be defined by the the community.
2)Keep it clear/locked down...responding to camp checks is a courtesy, not a requirement.
3)Until you decide to leave/logout.
4)I don't think of it as a transfer. As people leave the rest of the group fills those slots. Groups change but don't really transfer, the camp just continues on. Once the group leaves it is free for all again.
philo said:Haven't seen you post in awhile beef. Welcome back. Maybe a dumb question but...whats fte/mdd?
1)I think the camps will be defined by the the community.
2)Keep it clear/locked down...responding to camp checks is a courtesy, not a requirement.
3)Until you decide to leave/logout.
4)I don't think of it as a transfer. As people leave the rest of the group fills those slots. Groups change but don't really transfer, the camp just continues on. Once the group leaves it is free for all again.
"FTE" stands for "First To Engage" - usually comes with a text of some sort from the mob in question (someone chime in if I'm incorrect here).
For example, if I tag a Skeleton Monk in Unrest, that monk will say "It's Paladins like you that have ruined our lands. You won't ruin mine". I'm the Paladin, therefore I got FTE on that mob.
If a druid casts a spell at the same time I shoot an arrow, that mob belongs to the first person who tagged regardless of who was actually there first. This rule normally applies to raid targets, when guilds will chase each other to get to the target. Whoever tags first, claims. My unrest example isn't a great one, because it doesn't really apply to camps.
Raid targets work on an FTE system. Camps just need to be held to be claimed. If someone comes up to a camp you're holding and tags a mob in your camp first, they may have FTE, but they're still stealing from your camp. Raid targets usually don't work that way.
In P99, they have frequent "earthquakes" that the GM's create. These reset all raid mobs on the server. Guilds will organize and race to the targets to be the First To Engage.
I personally like the P1999 play nice policy.
1. You may not steal kills.
Kill Stealing is defined as the killing of an NPC for any reason that is already fighting or pursuing another player or group that is prepared to engage that same NPC without that group's specific permission.
The intent of this rule is discourage and make note of habitual Kill Stealers, not to punish those who honestly try to work together or those who make an honest mistake. Its enforcement by the Project 1999 Customer Service Staff will reflect this philosophy.
2. You must comply with arbitration for contested spawns.
There are cases where two or more groups wish to kill the same NPC or hunt in the same area. In these cases, the groups are required to compromise.
If an equitable compromise cannot be reached between the players prior to Project 1999 Customer Service Staff involvement, the P99CSR will mandate a compromise. Any such compromise is final and not open to debate. Refusing to abide by these terms will be considered disruption and may result in disciplinary action.
It is therefore strongly suggested that the groups make every attempt to reach a compromise that they can live with prior to involving a P99CSR, who may mandate a compromise that does not suit you to the extent that a player-devised compromise would.
Note: A "group" in this case is defined as a party of one or more characters that are united in a common belief or goal and are capable of completing that goal.
Project 1999 Staff will not be defining what constitutes a camp. Instead, Project 1999 Customer Service Staff will arbitrate spawn disputes on a per-case-basis. We greatly encourage players to find their own resolution to spawn disputes, as the solution provided by the staff will at best be a win-lose situation, and possbily a lose-lose situation. No two decisions, even at the same 'camp', are guaranteed to be the same, as we will take into account multiple factors in making a determination on a 'camp'.
That being said, you can absolutely "camp" mobs, and you cannot steal another players 'camp'. In general, if the placeholder or placeholders for a spawn are being killed, that 'camp' can be considered held by the player doing the killing so long as they are keeping the placeholders (or the room if there are no placeholders) cleared, within the same zone, do not die or log off. You do not necessarily need to be at the spawn point to call it 'claimed' while it is uncontested, however, if someone else wishes to contest the 'camp' you do need to return to the 'camp' and maintain a presence at or very near the spawn(s) in order to hold it. You cannot hold multiple 'camps' if another group wishes to contest one that you are holding. The player holding multiple 'camps' retains the right to choose which 'camp' to give up.
Please do your best to use courtesy and common sense when interacting with other players in spawn disputes.
It is against the rules to "afk camp" any npc or groups of NPC's by placing a pet nearby and letting it kill while you are away from your computer. Any other form of "afk camping/xping" is also against the rules, and you may be subject to disciplinary action (character de-leveling by deathloop is a popular punishment).
With that in mind I would say a "camp" would be any spot (excluding the zone line) that players decide to set up to gain experience and the adjacent rooms/hallways (if outdoors it's much harder to say) to give groups at least a small area to pull from in peace and so aggressive/hostile players can't just camp right outside another group to choke them out very easily.
Ownership would require keeping the area reasonably clear. AFK/become unresponsive too long and it's up for grabs, otherwise it can be kept as long as there are players to fill it. It can be passed to anyone in the group when the "leader" leaves.
philo said:Haven't seen you post in awhile beef. Welcome back. Maybe a dumb question but...whats fte/mdd?
FTE = First to Engage
MDD = Most Damage Dealt
I see. Seems like that is whatever is coded into the game. Players don't have a choice. Whether its first to aggro or first to do damage or whoever does 51% dmg. There is no debate. Its whoever the game awards the exp/loot. Seems like a moot discussion.
All 3 ways are to similar for me to have a preference. Sounds like people need to choose their battles better.
I reckon the idea of "owning a camp" shouldn't exist. Part of what I like about MMO's is that it is competitive - WoW's system of tagging. That means whoever is quickest gets the kill - and I live in Australia so hardly ever get first tag due to 150-400 ms.
Of course courtesy and community "policing" comes into play here - if someone is an asshole and constantly trying to straight screw someone over, server reputation will punish them.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole concept, but the above should handle any possible issues, given that respawn timers, and other game mechanics are as they should be.
This is one area where I really hope VR decide against just letting the community sort themselves out. There are easy mechanics and rules to use to stop players getting in real-life conflict.
And, no, courtesy and community policing cannot be totally relied upon.
I recollect guilds that were tolerant of or even proud of bad behaviour (and I saw it more and more as the years went by; "We're role-playing evil, selfish baddies, dude! Don't you like role-playing?!"), so, ostracising people who didn't play nice was utterly toothless, because the miscreants always had the backup of their guild and still had a load of people to play and trade with.
I realise there's a good number of people that see contested content as a plus of open-world gaming. Some people insist that beating someone else is the best way to have fun.
You guys need to realise there's a good number of people that see contested content as a negative. Some people think the best fun is had in coordinating and cooperating.
Open-world is so the world feels alive; So we can socialise and group together against the monsters and the environment. PvE. Not so we can obstruct others and have real conflict with other people in a game. I want to delve dungeons and kills dragons and, no, stopping someone else from getting that dragon's treasure does not make it sweeter, it taints it.
Maybe PvP servers should have mechanics and rules that allow heavily contested content. At least then you can fight properly over it, not just squabble in chat or snatch, grab, grief and other unpleasantness before you've even gotten to an encounter.
I play RPGs to band together with other hardy adventurers and slay dragons and the like, not get into RL arguments over who gets to even play bits of content.
Yeah, I realise I'm sounding combative over this. Ironic I suppose. I feel strongly about it: I play games to get away from RL stresses.
I have confidence VR will have play nice rules (like P99 above) and that their plans to combat over-population (spontanious spawning of zone shards) will alleviate tension in the first place, but we'll see I guess.
Play nice rules, work by the mass, but you still have the same problem...
If i lock my door do i keep the thieves out? or simply the good people.
Not everyone cares about the play nice rules, they just like to grieve. Unless you are holding a camp for over 10 hrs i would be wondering why....
A"camp" is so amorphous a concept that it would be hard to police even if VR wanted to - which IMO they should not.
I consider it something for the community to sort out - of course there will always be camp stealers but there will always be douches and griefers in many aspects of any MMO and the rest of us just have to live with it.
Beefcake said:Now that the FTE/MDD issue has been intensely clarified, let’s move onto the next easy topic: Camps, what are they and who owns them?
I believe camps are more of a community issue than a systemic issue. But, I believe just as much passion is involved.
So, what defines a camp? ...
MDD rewarding the group or individual that does 50.000001% damage is the victor.
There's nothing else to it. The game permits it, that's how people will do it. Just like EQ1 today.
And to be clear, I do not support this design or these ideas, but that's how Pantheon is going to do it, and the result is: There are no camps, period.
If three groups want to stand on top of me and chain cast AoE's to tag and get 50.000001% damage on a once-a-week spawning quest mob, just to prevent me from completing my quest, they can, and they will. That's the reality I have to live with.
So, the next argument is, no no, VR has said that won't be the case with quest mobs. Ok, then: (I don't believe them, but ok)
If three groups want to stand on top of me and chain cast AoE's to tag and get 50.000001% damage on arbitrary mobs just for fun, for no reason whatsoever, they can and they will. All good. The game permits it, people will do it. In the past, social barriers might have limited people to being polite or actually communicating with other players outside their guild. Now? No. If someone wants a camp in EQ1, hell, if someone wants an entire ZONE in EQ1, they will simply train every other group in the zone, repeatedly, until they leave, then monopolize and AE kill every mob. Training is permitted (and demonstrated by the devs) and there are no camps.
OGC on Phinny TLP in The Deep was a prime example. If one OGC member showed up? Time to go unless you want to eat three deaths. And the best part? They don't care. Everyone knows OGC are 150+ jerks and they love it. Oh, and do not, under any circumstances, use in-game communication tools either with the guild or with other players (that's guild policy). They love being jerks and they don't care about anyone else except their 149+ friends who are also jerks and fully support their playstyle which is: If the game permits it, they will do it, repeatedly and forever. Don't like it? Too bad. Enjoy the death and silence.
I agree with Dorotea in that camps are something largely for the community to sort out. This starts with a comprehensive Play Nice Policy and this should be written by a combination of VR staff and some long-standing members of the player community. Perhaps VR could strike up some sort of player advisory committee where members are appointed by VR for a term. I do think that having both VR and the players writing the PNP gives it more weight.
I don't agree that we have to just live with griefers or that the community can deal with them entirely on their own. Some folks simply don't care about their reputation and have enough like-minded friends that they're not worried about finding groups, etc.
There needs to be a petition system so that the VR customer service team can deal with the major offenders.
Celandor said:... There needs to be a petition system so that the VR customer service team can deal with the major offenders.
IMHO, In 2019, there will never be enough CSR's available to deal with even the major offenders. Just sayin'.
And to be clear, I don't expect anything to ever be done in a timely fashion. I think having /petitions dealt with at all will be a miraculous unicorn-rainbow dreamland. :)
The last two "indie" MMO's I have played had ticket response times of weeks, not minutes or hours, for sev1/highest priority issues like "I can't login because my character is corrupt".
Whether people agree or not, Vjek is right.
vjek said: In the past, social barriers might have limited people to being polite or actually communicating with other players outside their guild. Now? No. MDD rewarding the group or individual that does 50.000001% damage is the victor. The game permits it, that's how people will do it.
Quoted from a different thread that pertains to this:
EndGamerZ said: The state of players in my honest opinion has greatly degrated from 10+ yerars ago...Pantheon excites me because its going back to the MMORPG roots, what does not excite me is VR being il-prepared for the extremely toxic global gaming community that will sonner jump on a band-wagon of hate than give the game a propper shot.
We will all have gaming sessions hindered or ruined by other players. It is inevitable in an open world game given the current mmo climate. We have to accept that. For me at least, the positives outweigh the negatives.
Reading this, I can understand why things like : only one account on this particular server, no drop, no rent and Trivial Loot Code, would be created.
Funny thing is, I picked a server like that, intuitively, and not completely understanding it. To me, the intent of the game is a place to play, not to make money. I go to work to make money and I like playing games. Its like going to a bar, buying a drink just so you can re-sell it to another patron coming in for a bit more.
vjek said:Celandor said:... There needs to be a petition system so that the VR customer service team can deal with the major offenders.IMHO, In 2019, there will never be enough CSR's available to deal with even the major offenders. Just sayin'.
And to be clear, I don't expect anything to ever be done in a timely fashion. I think having /petitions dealt with at all will be a miraculous unicorn-rainbow dreamland. :)
The last two "indie" MMO's I have played had ticket response times of weeks, not minutes or hours, for sev1/highest priority issues like "I can't login because my character is corrupt".
I think it's rainbows and unicorns to think the community will be able to self-police itself or in any way apply pressure to players to conform to PNP. Ultimately there needs to be a set of printed rules which players can refer to and someone who carries a big stick to deal with repeat offenders.
That doesn't mean that every petition needs to be answered by a VR employee. I can't speak for later years, but early on EQ had a very effective guide program which was an integral part of the SOE customer service envelope. As guides, we triaged the petitions and had very specific guidelines of what we could do and how to handle specific cases. Anything we couldn't deal with was escalated for investigation/action by the GMs. There were even two tiers within the guides, where senior guides would handle certain tasks that didn't require a GM, but weren't entrusted to newer guide team members. While the guides were a form of policing agency, we were also involved in GM events and routinely spent time doing RP with players, conducting weddings, etc. Generally, the guides were well-respected and players liked to see our presence in-zone. My recollection is rarely ever being the sole guide online. Many times there were three or four of us working on the queue and during events, there might be as many as eight. Each server had a dedicated group of guides and there was an additional team who specialized in creating RP events and appeared on various servers to lead/augment the local team. All of us were volunteers who gave up some of our play time to work on another server to improve the quality of life for the overall community. Kilsin has indicated that VR will be putting a guide program together for Pantheon, probably during alpha or beta. I suspect we'll see something very similar to what I have described.
So, for simple petitions like camp stealing, KSing or intentional training, there's no reason why these can't be handled in a reasonable time-frame by the guide program. It's also important to note that just because game mechanics favour MDD or FTE, that doesn't circumvent PNP or any other set of rules set down by VR. You shouldn't assume that whatever the game engine enforces will be the only "law" of Terminus.
Your example of high severity issues like login problems wouldn't be part of the in-game petition queue. There needs to be a separate channel for dealing with technical support and account issues and those issues do need to be handled exclusively and promptly by VR staff. Off-loading much of the day-to-day CS load to a guide program is a great way to alleviate the load on staff, but of course, it does mean that you have to put some effort into the guides themselves, their tools and monitoring their activities. I would presume that we'll see far more sophisticated tools, which will make life for the guides more enjoyable so they can work effectively with a low attrition rate. It's a lot easier to retain great team members than it is to recruit and train them.
I think you're premature in judging Pantheon to be a failure from a CS perspective. This isn't those other indie games you are referencing and this isn't the same player community. Part of the old-school nature of Pantheon will be enforcement of certain values. If that's not the case, then I would agree that Pantheon won't have the longevity people would hope for, especially among experienced gamers.
Celandor said: ... So, for simple petitions like camp stealing, KSing or intentional training, there's no reason why these can't be handled in a reasonable time-frame by the guide program. It's also important to note that just because game mechanics favour MDD or FTE, that doesn't circumvent PNP or any other set of rules set down by VR. You shouldn't assume that whatever the game engine enforces will be the only "law" of Terminus. ...
As the point of this thread, there are no camps, there is no camp stealing, there is no kill stealing, and there is no intentional training. All of those things aren't CS issues, given what has been show so far.
I'm not being facetious. The things that you're describing simply aren't CS issues in EQ1 or any other similar game, any more.
And I'm not assuming anything, what the game enforces are the only rules that will be followed, as history has shown with over a dozen MMOs. It's been that way in every MMO for well over 10 years.
I completely understand and appreciate your pespective, it simply does not line up with the reality of the world we live in, in my experience.
While you'll never fix the issues involved with 'camp stealing', etc., there are ways to keep it less of an issue. More viable camps. Less 'crazy good' loot that only comes from 1 monster in 1 camp on a random 12 hour spawn.
When you really start looking at the 'camp' problems in EQ1 especially, what you end up looking at is really two issues. A large zone with very few viable exp camps, or a rare drop from a rare spawn in a single camp. Both of these type of design decisions made camps an issue. Those faults were then compounded by travel time, distance between other equal or near equal areas, and very valuable drops that weren't replaceable or obtainable any other way.
vjek said:Celandor said: ... So, for simple petitions like camp stealing, KSing or intentional training, there's no reason why these can't be handled in a reasonable time-frame by the guide program. It's also important to note that just because game mechanics favour MDD or FTE, that doesn't circumvent PNP or any other set of rules set down by VR. You shouldn't assume that whatever the game engine enforces will be the only "law" of Terminus. ...As the point of this thread, there are no camps, there is no camp stealing, there is no kill stealing, and there is no intentional training. All of those things aren't CS issues, given what has been show so far.
I'm not being facetious. The things that you're describing simply aren't CS issues in EQ1 or any other similar game, any more.
And I'm not assuming anything, what the game enforces are the only rules that will be followed, as history has shown with over a dozen MMOs. It's been that way in every MMO for well over 10 years.I completely understand and appreciate your pespective, it simply does not line up with the reality of the world we live in, in my experience.
If that's the case with Pantheon at launch, then I won't be subscribing. Perhaps I'm done with MMORPGs then.
Celandor said:Perhaps VR could strike up some sort of player advisory committee where members are appointed by VR for a term. I do think that having both VR and the players writing the PNP gives it more weight.
I agree with you, for the most part, but I'll have to respectfully disagree with this in particular. Maybe your experience has been different than mine, but things decided by the playerbase has always carried less wait to other fellow nerds, versus hard lines decided by staff. While I like the spirit of this message - giving players more of a hand in molding the game they want to play - I don't see it doing anything but causing more arguing/complaining/crying by the rest of the population that wasn't part of that. Not to mention, if the names of those particular players were known among the world of Pantheon, I can imagine those chosen to be harassed for the rest of their days by people who don't agree with their PNP outline.
I'm all for a hard PNP that is enforced by the staff and appointed GM's on the server. Allowing players (who aren't GM's on the server) to have a hand in it will, I believe, make it look more like a stunt and less like guidelines to be followed.
As to those saying VR simply won't have the staff necessary to handle petitions for these types of PNP infractions, if P99 can do it with a staff consisting completely of volunteers, so can VR. Appoint GM's, distribute petitions in such a way that they get expedited to the correct people. A healthy mix of VR enforcement and community policing should work just fine, no matter how much the MMO playerbase has "degraded" over the last generation.
vjek said:Celandor said: ... So, for simple petitions like camp stealing, KSing or intentional training, there's no reason why these can't be handled in a reasonable time-frame by the guide program. It's also important to note that just because game mechanics favour MDD or FTE, that doesn't circumvent PNP or any other set of rules set down by VR. You shouldn't assume that whatever the game engine enforces will be the only "law" of Terminus. ...As the point of this thread, there are no camps, there is no camp stealing, there is no kill stealing, and there is no intentional training. All of those things aren't CS issues, given what has been show so far.
I'm not being facetious. The things that you're describing simply aren't CS issues in EQ1 or any other similar game, any more.
And I'm not assuming anything, what the game enforces are the only rules that will be followed, as history has shown with over a dozen MMOs. It's been that way in every MMO for well over 10 years.I completely understand and appreciate your pespective, it simply does not line up with the reality of the world we live in, in my experience.
Not really understanding your stance here.
Sure, they aren't CR issues in most recent MMO's - but I'd say that's because those kinds of actions simply aren't possible in most recent MMO's. When you have MMO's on rails with instanced, group-finding dungeons, then you have no camps. When you have mobs locked on the person who hits it, you have no kill stealing. When you have leashing, there are no trains. They aren't CR issues because they aren't CR issues - they aren't CR issues because they simply aren't issues, period. Not at the degree that they were in EQ.
If VR is looking to go back to the days of yore, with no rails, no leashing, and more contested content, then they WILL be issues again, and will be petitionable CS complaints. It's been that way in every MMO for over 10 years because they got rid of the mechanics that even allowed those issues to happen. VR, as I understand, will not be doing that.
Or am I missing your point here?
Celandor said:vjek said:Celandor said: ... So, for simple petitions like camp stealing, KSing or intentional training, there's no reason why these can't be handled in a reasonable time-frame by the guide program. It's also important to note that just because game mechanics favour MDD or FTE, that doesn't circumvent PNP or any other set of rules set down by VR. You shouldn't assume that whatever the game engine enforces will be the only "law" of Terminus. ...As the point of this thread, there are no camps, there is no camp stealing, there is no kill stealing, and there is no intentional training. All of those things aren't CS issues, given what has been show so far.
I'm not being facetious. The things that you're describing simply aren't CS issues in EQ1 or any other similar game, any more.
And I'm not assuming anything, what the game enforces are the only rules that will be followed, as history has shown with over a dozen MMOs. It's been that way in every MMO for well over 10 years.I completely understand and appreciate your pespective, it simply does not line up with the reality of the world we live in, in my experience.
If that's the case with Pantheon at launch, then I won't be subscribing. Perhaps I'm done with MMORPGs then.
I don't think there is a need of peeing pessimistics or even depressed of current years and such. While toxicity increased with the appeal of gaming and the slowly growing MMO audience, it has allways been a problem, like PK in UO back in the years.
For the whole perenity of the game, it seems quite inconceivable not to enforce some safeness and courtesy in the playerbase, would it be by strict rules or the action of GM to petitions. There are other games, earlier, that totally failed due to player simply harassing other players (Shadowbane anyone ?), to the point they had the right and freedom to do as they wanted, and they did. But since this isn't real life and no one is forced to bear whatever is slapped in his face, people left the game and it rot to death.
Making unfair competition or bullying of some sort a norm, will only push the game from a "low but devoted playerbase" to "extinct playerbase". While VR doesn't aim for a highly played game, they still aim for a played game at all, and bad behaviour should allways be punished, in some extent. Permabanning troll players and recurrent abuses will not hurt the playerbase as much as letting the game be a no man's land of some sort.