Reputation in general

[wkstrm]

So we’ve discussed reputation in relation to crime in this thread: [Stolen items and how to handle them][1]
[1]: Stolen items and how to handle them
But what of reputation in general?
I think reputation played a huge role in medieval society. If you had a bad reputation you were less likely to live in the towns or villages, because people would drive you away. You would probably get more harassed by soldiers and so on.
Having a bad reputation would probably also have an impact on trading, with a bad reputation very few people would give you trading oportunities while a good reputation would yield more trading oportunities and possibly also better prices.
Having to sleep in the barn at the inn could be the result of two things, amount of money you’re willing to pay and your reputation. Having a person with bad reputation in your house is seldom a good idea.
While walking in town, the guards would probably be more keen on keeping an eye on you if you have a bad reputation than if you’re a well known and liked person.

What do you people think about this?

[blepable]

As long as such a reputation system is in the context of different groups and locations - villagers in Town A might really dislike you because in Quest X you favoured their cousins in Town B. However the Lord (and his soldiers or retainers or whatever), who owns both towns, might like you because your actions aided those under him and prevented him having to get off his ass (depending on the disposition of the Lord to hard work)

That and reputation would have to depend on the importance of the quest in the context - the Lord of the town probably wont ever care that you found the missing chicken (or whatever) but the chicken keeper probably will. However, if the chicken keeper is in a bad standing in the town, will the villagers really care that you found his poultry?

To summarise; as long as reputation isn’t a perfectly universal Oblivion-esque points based system - e.g. if working in a pub for a day nets you 1 “reputation point”, you could grind being a bar staff for reputation based discounts (like shaking enough hands in Fable III, if people can follow my thought path).

Point is I don’t want to see a universal Oblivion/Fable III-ish reputation system. Mainly because they’ve never felt right.

[Paawool]

Reputation can be separate in two way.

• Combat reputation, can be according to your combat stat point and the number or the fame of person you have defeated. This can trick ennemies to avoid combat and flee or apologies to you when it is high.

• Then good or bad reputation, according to your gamestyle so PNC can trust you or not.
  Can be a point on a circle with:
  Vertical axe -) mercifull to butcher
  Horizontal axe -) honorable fair man to Bandit

So you can be a fair main ( always loyal and honest) butcher (no mercifull, fight ennemies to the death and high number of kills)

[j_kolosovskis]

This is very interesting. How to make a reputation system that feels right, and at the same time does not require complex scripting of every NPC in the game…

I would imagine using some sort of NPC grouping - wealth based groups, status based groups, location based groups, etc. You would acquire reputation based on interaction with these groups (one NPC could be a part of many groups) and have some defined mechanism of reputation propagating within the group that an NPC is a part of. And perhaps give the reputation some decay to account for people either forgetting or no longer caring about your deeds. Then have some weighting system for defining reputation ‘leaking’ across groups. I think I still went over the top here with complexity, but maybe this will serve as a point of inspiration.

[wkstrm]

Very good points by all of you so far. Many new aspects that I did not think of when I wrote the post. One thing that comes to mind is the “reputation system” in Fallout 1 & 2. You go to a place, noone knows who you are, so your reputation there is 0, unless you’re in a faction, then your reputation depending on faction will give you a plus or minus. Then, by doing various quests inte the town you will gain some reputation points and people will start to either like or dislike you. I liked that system, although it was very basic. With todays technology I guess it could be developed a lot more and actually have a bigger impact on the player.

Anyway, I’ve seen other reputation systems in work, some that have worked good and some not so good. In Ultima Online they had a very good one. Ultima Online is a MMO RPG for those who did not know. You basicly had 3 types of reputation. Blue, which was innocent, grey which was criminal (you were flagged for a short time) and red which was murderer. The NPC’s would react in various ways to this. Innocent players would be able to interact with all NPCs, criminal players would not be able to interact with the NPC’s during when they were flagged (the NPC’s would just tell you off that they do not deal with scum like you or whatever) and murderers, well. Going into town as a murderer would make all NPC’s call for guards and the guards would attack you. Interaction with NPC’s as a murderer would be impossible. And all other players would also be on to you since murderers are not tolerated.

I’m not saying I want reputation systems like this in Kingdom Come, but they might be a guide or hint on how it has been done in other games (not flawless). I hope we’ll get more interesting ideas coming in!

Also, someone mentioned reputation in groups. I guess the lord of a town doesn’t care much if you find the loney farmers cow, but he would maybe be more interested if you caught a thief or broke into the armoury. Fame on the street and fame in the court of lords are to various kinds of fame! There are peoples heroes and public enemies. Therefore I thnk reputation is an important part of a game like this!

[evil_blond_goth]

Surly that would also depend on weather the stuffing was missing also!

[Ambaryerno]

I’d just hope that reputation isn’t like Oblivion’s giant neon signs so everyone in the town you’re currently visiting automatically knows you killed a guy in another town ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MAP. Reputation should be localized initially, and spread slowly from there.

[loksley]

To make it even more complicated, but also more realistic:
In the late medieval society, clothing has played an important role. Expensive clothes were the equivalent to modern expensive cars, for instance. A new buisness-partner will react different, if you go there by a Mercedes Benz or a filthy small car.

But in medieval society it was not only important if you wear wealthy clothes, but also it was very important to be dressed proper in different locations or situations. Working on the field in your brouche/underpants is allright, but going to church or to a meeting with your lord in underpants would be a very bad idea!
You could even easily guess the social rank and profession only by the clothing!

In detail: Medieval clothing of this period roughly consists of usually three layers: Undergarment, trousers and doublet, jacket/coat. Equivalent for women: Undergarment and socks, under- or housedress and the outer dress (there are exeptions, of course… ) . It’s OK to show your undies at home or if you work hard. Doublet or housedress is OK at work, sports or at home, but if you go out you are only completely dressed with you jacket/coat an hat on. It’s even similar to our grandparents in the early 20th century: My grandfather would never go to church or to the towncenter, if he was not properly dressed in his suit… waistcoat, jacket and with his hat on, even on medium-hot days.

Why I tell you that stuff? For my taste, there are much to much underpants and shirts visible in the screenshots! Additionally it’s all very mixed up: Wealthy and poor side by side. It doesn’t look entirely “real”.

So maybe it might be a good idea to add proper clothing even to the reputation system.

[Ambaryerno]

Agreed. It really breaks the immersion in games when you can run around naked (or as naked as the game allows) and no one takes notice.

For that matter, I’d love to see blood-stained clothing actually impact how NPCs would respond to the player (asking him if he’s hurt, suspicious looks from guards, etc).

[wkstrm]

I seem to recall they mentioned something about blood stains and that you need to wash yourself if you get dirty.

[Dovahkiin]

Being feared would be a nice reputation in this game, so that only the brave will dare oppose you.

[loksley]

I would suggest at least three simple independent reputation trees like this:

Attitude: Hostile - suspicious - neutral - friendly - friend - good friend/allied/husband

Fame: scum - despicable - unknown - notable - well known - famous

Rank: beggar - poor - normal - respectable - wealthy/noble - nobleman

For instance: If somebody is “neutral” and “well known” than he is potentially dangerous. If he is additional “poor” than the attitude changes towards “suspicious” , but if he is “wealthy/noble” than it changes towards “friendly”.
… and so on, you all know such systems.
Now we could easily integrate clothes:
If you run around in blood stained clothes than “neutral” changes towards “suspicious”. If your fine clothes are dirty, than your rank will sink some points. If you go to church in underwear, “Attitude” and “rank” will decrease a little bit. Wealthy clothes will give points to “Rank” and maybe you can stealth into the castle, even if you are in the attitude “hostile” if the guardsman don’t know you… witch leads towards the question if the reputation system will be global or if you have an individually relationship to single or defined groups of NPCs …

I think that could add some additional fun and immersion to the game.

There is the opportunity for a lot of funny work for the scripting guys and also for the poor game-designers to balance it

[thiomay]

NPC could have multiple factions that all could have there own player reputation that modifies the NPCs opinion of the player. So quests in a settlement may influence a ‘settlement faction’ including all inhabitants but at the same time change the reputation of a guard or noble factions. Whether the player is known throughout the the map would depend on if previous quests modified a local faction (for example guards of one city) or a larger faction. (like everyone, or nobles of the realm)

The question is if people recognize the player character if they haven’t met him. I think this is where cloths are important, different factions may react differently to different clothing. It would be weird if a beggar would talk down on the player for running around in dirty cloths. Rank should definitely influence Attitude but the NPC would either have to know the player characters true rank or judge him by his clothing.

I’m not a fan of good or evil reputation systems, at least in this game it wouldn’t fit but it would be cool if NPCs assessed your strength based on armor weapon and previous events and fear the player accordingly when being threatened.