I've played RuneScape sometimes for months without wearing my armor even once. There is a LOT of non-combat activity in that game, ones which can make you a very wealthy player. ATITD is an absolutely non-combat game but personally I found it boring after like 3 months. RuneScape was way more fun, still trying to find a game which can replace it (looking at you, ArchAge ! )
Quests which are in fact real quests. Meaning not go to X to kill Y mobs but rather to achieve things. That could include killing stuff but could also include many other things. Like rally others, use diplomacy to broker an agreement, to get something built (or destroyed). There are alot of things you can have as a quest which does not neccessarily include killing.
But have no killing at all, could become somewhat boring. Like watching a fantasy movie and no one getting slayed, or a sci-fi flick with no ships being destroyed. Would be kind of boring.
But I agree, current state of activities in MMORPGs is kind of brainless killing sprees.
I have thought about this. A lot actually. I mostly came to the conclusion that the present situation is a collision of developer habit and the expression of human competition. The fact is that most of the games I played from a very early age were forms of simulated combat of some kind (for reasons I won't get into I can accept that this is more to do with my state of mind. My state of mind is far from rare though).
Hide and seek - stalk and kill
US football - warlord v warlord ground based conflict with air options.
Mahjong, checkers - area denial
Chess - global geo-politics
I could go on but I think you see what I'm getting at. While not an exhaustive list one common feature is that these games in their nominal state require another opponent to play against. This is where I think that we really hit the problem in that it's much easier to fashion a "non-violent" game for the one than for the many. I say it with quotes because we need to look at the so-called violence in video games.
If all you do is gather and craft in a game, all well and good. Add a few other players and you can all gather together...Unless the gathering nodes despawn on use. Then I'm trying to gather faster than you and vice versa. This is a bit of a downer really so here's an idea: Let's fill the game world with dangerous beasts as to limit the population of gatherers in a given area. Hmm still a problem? Well then let's ad level gates to the nodes so you have to reach a tier to use it. While we're at it let's add levels to combat as well so only the best players can get the best nodes. The issue is not the violence that will result. It's the limited quantity of crafting nodes that spawns the competition. Video game violence is no more violence than playing with lego is being an engineer. It's just a mechanic to mask the competion between you and you fellow players. Think PvP with surrogates.
You could easily make a game without violence but it would be very difficult to make a game with no competion. If you simply wish to eliminate the simulated aggression and gore you will need to address players desire to compete. If you can engineer a world with no player/player competition, you may still be able to have violence but for story reasons rather than simply kill 400,000 rats. This may seem like splitting hairs but players can tell the difference. There are games, mmos included, with no violence and no player competition so it can be done. It just may not be as populare as the games with competition.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Just bumping this before I sign out for a bit. Everyone interested in what we found so great about old MMOs, and those that wonder why there aren't more non combat stuff in MMOs.. watch! The highlighted bit, or the whole thing.
Been playing Sims 2 for years. Wish after designing house, donning custom assassin's creed garb, and petting pink-n-blue polka dot doggie I could go out and KILL MONSTERS. But, alas, after satisfying my CuStOm DeSiGnInG → needz ← I must go online to an mmo to satisfy mybloodlust.
Imagine if the game makers thought to COMBINE THE TWO.
To answer your question, nothing worthy remains after the killing and that is just wrong.
Deep Crafting and exploration would be a nice activity. you would be hard pressed to find that such a game would be nothing more then niche at best.
Humans love violence, indeed when ever talk of killing babys and such would come up in Wow geenral the excitement of players would ignite. not once did i ever see anyone call them sick or evil.
And it would go on for hours. it was like a serial killer convention all just logged on. much more scary seeing the replies then fighting arthas or whatever blizzard thought was evil.
So it strange but could be done. in the end you would have to be super creative but it could be done.
it's my personal feeling that all of humanity is inherently cruel for the sake of being cruel or sadistic pleasure.
Thanks for that link. That was an interesting interview I hadn't seen before. The fishing story was very cool. However...
IMHO, MMOs are just another form of entertainment that bear a lot of resemblance to books and movies (animated ones especially.) The main difference is that we get to be part of the story and change it (albeit temporarily.)
In fiction and movies there are many subjects that appeal to many different people. Some seem to appeal to a large number of people and those types of books and movies are produced often and in large quantities. There are other books and movies--quite often better ones--that appeal to a much smaller number of people and those are made less often and in smaller quantities.
But the one thing 99.9% of them have in common is that they depict a world or situation that is more interesting than the typical everyday RL of most people.
When I get home from work, sit down with a book, watch TV or play a computer game, I don't want to simulate in any way shape or form those things I do in my RL. I want to read watch and play about unusual situations that are not normally part of my life: adventure, epic fights between good and evil, etc. is what I want in that alternate reality.
I have never been an MMO fisherman and, frankly, I have a hard time understanding those who are. Applying the same logic I use in stating why I like to do the dungeon crawling and monster slaying I enjoy to them, leads me to the conclusion that those must be people who in their daily lives are secret agents, Navy Seals and detectives who just want a place where they can fish when they relax in an MMO
I don't know if last nights events at the Batman premiere in some way motivated the OP to start this thread. If it was its completely understandable as the normal healthy reaction to those types of incidents is to recoil away from all violence, My thoughts and sympathy are with all those poor people who were subjected to that horror...
However, I suspect that the vast majority of us will continue to crave fantastic conflict in our entertainment just like we always have.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I don't want to play a game where there is no fighting, where fighting isn't the main focus, maybe there is a market for it, but it interest me not at all. I had thought I liked sandboxes, but after really understanding what people mean I don't. I don't want to craft for hours, build a house, own a lot and cut the trees myself, I don't want to open a tavern or black smith's shop. I want to go out in the world and kill things and take their stuff, given the opportunity i'd like to do that to players, I'd like this experience to be only very lightly guided or not guided at all. I don't even want quest per say. I want there to be lore. Like if I camp these ruins maybe as I do so I uncover the history of the place what happened to it, etc. Maybe I want a themepark with no rails??
Some of the same mental systems kick in during virtual combat that kick in during real combat so it's easier to make virtual combat exciting than making virtual cooking or crafting exciting.
If you're going to bypass player combat, then I think you'd need to focus heavily on gathering, crafting and resource management. You could even have combat that the player doesn't directly control, similar to RTS games. A focus on players interacting with each other would (I think) be necessary. Some combination of trading or group building/crafting would go a long way towards keeping people interested.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I have thought about this. A lot actually. I mostly came to the conclusion that the present situation is a collision of developer habit and the expression of human competition. The fact is that most of the games I played from a very early age were forms of simulated combat of some kind (for reasons I won't get into I can accept that this is more to do with my state of mind. My state of mind is far from rare though).
Hide and seek - stalk and kill
US football - warlord v warlord ground based conflict with air options.
Mahjong, checkers - area denial
Chess - global geo-politics
I could go on but I think you see what I'm getting at. While not an exhaustive list one common feature is that these games in their nominal state require another opponent to play against. This is where I think that we really hit the problem in that it's much easier to fashion a "non-violent" game for the one than for the many. I say it with quotes because we need to look at the so-called violence in video games.
If all you do is gather and craft in a game, all well and good. Add a few other players and you can all gather together...Unless the gathering nodes despawn on use. Then I'm trying to gather faster than you and vice versa. This is a bit of a downer really so here's an idea: Let's fill the game world with dangerous beasts as to limit the population of gatherers in a given area. Hmm still a problem? Well then let's ad level gates to the nodes so you have to reach a tier to use it. While we're at it let's add levels to combat as well so only the best players can get the best nodes. The issue is not the violence that will result. It's the limited quantity of crafting nodes that spawns the competition. Video game violence is no more violence than playing with lego is being an engineer. It's just a mechanic to mask the competion between you and you fellow players. Think PvP with surrogates.
You could easily make a game without violence but it would be very difficult to make a game with no competion. If you simply wish to eliminate the simulated aggression and gore you will need to address players desire to compete. If you can engineer a world with no player/player competition, you may still be able to have violence but for story reasons rather than simply kill 400,000 rats. This may seem like splitting hairs but players can tell the difference. There are games, mmos included, with no violence and no player competition so it can be done. It just may not be as populare as the games with competition.
Thanks for the repply. If this topíc was a religious question in disguise, would you realize what you just answered?
Some of the same mental systems kick in during virtual combat that kick in during real combat so it's easier to make virtual combat exciting than making virtual cooking or crafting exciting.
If you're going to bypass player combat, then I think you'd need to focus heavily on gathering, crafting and resource management. You could even have combat that the player doesn't directly control, similar to RTS games. A focus on players interacting with each other would (I think) be necessary. Some combination of trading or group building/crafting would go a long way towards keeping people interested.
Google/Windows financed this http://www.khanacademy.org/ to make "Learning Exciting". You bet they did spent a lot of money to "design" this. Its basically a non combat MMORPG with strong competition design. Only problem is that they will monopolize the truth on most controverse topics. So it leads to no violence...
i believe its not about "killing" so much itself, rarely ever hear someone say "i want to kill people/mosters/whatever!", but i want to "fight people/mosters/whatever!"
Imo it boils down to the action, to want your character to do something cool and entertaining.
Although i personally believe, that a MMO where even combat and fighting itself is only a sidenote can be done, i would love companys to start and take some small steps to make combat better and take the mass murderer/genocide feel out of it. (More or less depending on the actual game and setting of course)
For example by making combat more meaningful, with consequences, or just have the character stun/intoxicate (just thinking of Batman AA/AC here because i am playing right now, action packed, but with a bodycount of next to zero) enemys more often, or by having the player fight less but harder enemys.
Originally posted by Interesting Originally posted by lizardbones Some of the same mental systems kick in during virtual combat that kick in during real combat so it's easier to make virtual combat exciting than making virtual cooking or crafting exciting. If you're going to bypass player combat, then I think you'd need to focus heavily on gathering, crafting and resource management. You could even have combat that the player doesn't directly control, similar to RTS games. A focus on players interacting with each other would (I think) be necessary. Some combination of trading or group building/crafting would go a long way towards keeping people interested.
Google/Windows financed this http://www.khanacademy.org/ to make "Learning Exciting". You bet they did spent a lot of money to "design" this. Its basically a non combat MMORPG with strong competition design. Only problem is that they will monopolize the truth on most controverse topics. So it leads to no violence...
What? *looks around*
Stop drinking random chemicals. You will live longer.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Thanks for the repply. If this topíc was a religious question in disguise, would you realize what you just answered?
I think so. If you were to ask me what is the nature of humanity I would say it is to forever be in agon with his (neuter) world. If you asked me what purpose of humanity is I would say it is to find a way to express this agon without it leading to self destruction. In short, the reason we are here is so that we can keep on being here. No easy task. While philosophical I don't think it is particularly religious.
For the record I am a heathen.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy. ______________________________ "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
This conversation feels familiar. Oh, yeah. Kid popping into MUD in about 2002, ">where's gfx? **kid has disconnected**"
In general, the answer to "Is/was 'there ever anything else?' is yes."
The real question you want is "Can you get a player to sit still for a different idea?" But that answer, depressingly often, is 'no'.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
My main game is Rift, and I prefer the non-killing activities of exploring/artifacts/harvesting/crafting/AH. Tbh, I think combat is the weakest part of any hotkey game, so I don't play them in a killkillkill way.
yesi agree i remeber in UO not fighting in fact i new people that never ever killed 1 thing they just gathered mats and crafted and sold stuff and hired me to protect them on there mat gathering exspaditions i do miss uo at times i wondered a lot why games did not follow uo and why they never upgraded there shit to modern gameplay
I have wondered about this since SWGpreNGE days. I still have no direct answer. there are certainly plenty of options, but the mechanics of implementing them in their current form, I am afraid, would not draw significant enough attention, nor provide enough 'action' in an mmorpg.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
First four or five posts pretty much covered it. There's plenty to do outside of running around murdering things and several MMOs already successfully incorporate that kind of content.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This topic immediately reminded me of an article by Raph Koster that I read some years ago: The evil we pretend to do
Basically, MMOs by default are about genocide against intelligent races for the purpose of acquiring power in a way that isn't heroic at all, and it's weird that we're all okay with that.
Vangard Saga of Heros had a diplomacy tree you could level up in. Your combat would not level up though unless you killed stuff. But you could effectively just do Diplomacy and earn a in game living from it.
SWG you could be a trader or merchant and make things or entertainer.
Eve online you can mine play the market or industry without killing
Comments
I've played RuneScape sometimes for months without wearing my armor even once. There is a LOT of non-combat activity in that game, ones which can make you a very wealthy player. ATITD is an absolutely non-combat game but personally I found it boring after like 3 months. RuneScape was way more fun, still trying to find a game which can replace it (looking at you, ArchAge ! )
Quests which are in fact real quests. Meaning not go to X to kill Y mobs but rather to achieve things. That could include killing stuff but could also include many other things. Like rally others, use diplomacy to broker an agreement, to get something built (or destroyed). There are alot of things you can have as a quest which does not neccessarily include killing.
But have no killing at all, could become somewhat boring. Like watching a fantasy movie and no one getting slayed, or a sci-fi flick with no ships being destroyed. Would be kind of boring.
But I agree, current state of activities in MMORPGs is kind of brainless killing sprees.
My gaming blog
I have thought about this. A lot actually. I mostly came to the conclusion that the present situation is a collision of developer habit and the expression of human competition. The fact is that most of the games I played from a very early age were forms of simulated combat of some kind (for reasons I won't get into I can accept that this is more to do with my state of mind. My state of mind is far from rare though).
Hide and seek - stalk and kill
US football - warlord v warlord ground based conflict with air options.
Mahjong, checkers - area denial
Chess - global geo-politics
I could go on but I think you see what I'm getting at. While not an exhaustive list one common feature is that these games in their nominal state require another opponent to play against. This is where I think that we really hit the problem in that it's much easier to fashion a "non-violent" game for the one than for the many. I say it with quotes because we need to look at the so-called violence in video games.
If all you do is gather and craft in a game, all well and good. Add a few other players and you can all gather together...Unless the gathering nodes despawn on use. Then I'm trying to gather faster than you and vice versa. This is a bit of a downer really so here's an idea: Let's fill the game world with dangerous beasts as to limit the population of gatherers in a given area. Hmm still a problem? Well then let's ad level gates to the nodes so you have to reach a tier to use it. While we're at it let's add levels to combat as well so only the best players can get the best nodes. The issue is not the violence that will result. It's the limited quantity of crafting nodes that spawns the competition. Video game violence is no more violence than playing with lego is being an engineer. It's just a mechanic to mask the competion between you and you fellow players. Think PvP with surrogates.
You could easily make a game without violence but it would be very difficult to make a game with no competion. If you simply wish to eliminate the simulated aggression and gore you will need to address players desire to compete. If you can engineer a world with no player/player competition, you may still be able to have violence but for story reasons rather than simply kill 400,000 rats. This may seem like splitting hairs but players can tell the difference. There are games, mmos included, with no violence and no player competition so it can be done. It just may not be as populare as the games with competition.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Just bumping this before I sign out for a bit. Everyone interested in what we found so great about old MMOs, and those that wonder why there aren't more non combat stuff in MMOs.. watch! The highlighted bit, or the whole thing.
Been playing Sims 2 for years. Wish after designing house, donning custom assassin's creed garb, and petting pink-n-blue polka dot doggie I could go out and KILL MONSTERS. But, alas, after satisfying my CuStOm DeSiGnInG → needz ← I must go online to an mmo to satisfy my bloodlust.
Imagine if the game makers thought to COMBINE THE TWO.
To answer your question, nothing worthy remains after the killing and that is just wrong.
Deep Crafting and exploration would be a nice activity. you would be hard pressed to find that such a game would be nothing more then niche at best.
Humans love violence, indeed when ever talk of killing babys and such would come up in Wow geenral the excitement of players would ignite. not once did i ever see anyone call them sick or evil.
And it would go on for hours. it was like a serial killer convention all just logged on. much more scary seeing the replies then fighting arthas or whatever blizzard thought was evil.
So it strange but could be done. in the end you would have to be super creative but it could be done.
it's my personal feeling that all of humanity is inherently cruel for the sake of being cruel or sadistic pleasure.
Anyways would love to see other options.
you're left with farmville, 2nd life piece of crap.
Human beings love violence it is a fact of nature, even if we don't want to admit it sometimes.
Look at how we devide our history, 1st world war history, 2nd world war history, vietnam war, the golf war, etc.
Seems as if that is the single most important history points for humanity, why should our games be any different ?
Angry Joe's Guild Wars 2 video review
Aerowyn's Video Compilation of ALL things Guild Wars 2
@Taugrim explains why the fanbois don't get it
Thanks for that link. That was an interesting interview I hadn't seen before. The fishing story was very cool. However...
IMHO, MMOs are just another form of entertainment that bear a lot of resemblance to books and movies (animated ones especially.) The main difference is that we get to be part of the story and change it (albeit temporarily.)
In fiction and movies there are many subjects that appeal to many different people. Some seem to appeal to a large number of people and those types of books and movies are produced often and in large quantities. There are other books and movies--quite often better ones--that appeal to a much smaller number of people and those are made less often and in smaller quantities.
But the one thing 99.9% of them have in common is that they depict a world or situation that is more interesting than the typical everyday RL of most people.
When I get home from work, sit down with a book, watch TV or play a computer game, I don't want to simulate in any way shape or form those things I do in my RL. I want to read watch and play about unusual situations that are not normally part of my life: adventure, epic fights between good and evil, etc. is what I want in that alternate reality.
I have never been an MMO fisherman and, frankly, I have a hard time understanding those who are. Applying the same logic I use in stating why I like to do the dungeon crawling and monster slaying I enjoy to them, leads me to the conclusion that those must be people who in their daily lives are secret agents, Navy Seals and detectives who just want a place where they can fish when they relax in an MMO
I don't know if last nights events at the Batman premiere in some way motivated the OP to start this thread. If it was its completely understandable as the normal healthy reaction to those types of incidents is to recoil away from all violence, My thoughts and sympathy are with all those poor people who were subjected to that horror...
However, I suspect that the vast majority of us will continue to crave fantastic conflict in our entertainment just like we always have.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I don't want to play a game where there is no fighting, where fighting isn't the main focus, maybe there is a market for it, but it interest me not at all. I had thought I liked sandboxes, but after really understanding what people mean I don't. I don't want to craft for hours, build a house, own a lot and cut the trees myself, I don't want to open a tavern or black smith's shop. I want to go out in the world and kill things and take their stuff, given the opportunity i'd like to do that to players, I'd like this experience to be only very lightly guided or not guided at all. I don't even want quest per say. I want there to be lore. Like if I camp these ruins maybe as I do so I uncover the history of the place what happened to it, etc. Maybe I want a themepark with no rails??
Some of the same mental systems kick in during virtual combat that kick in during real combat so it's easier to make virtual combat exciting than making virtual cooking or crafting exciting.
If you're going to bypass player combat, then I think you'd need to focus heavily on gathering, crafting and resource management. You could even have combat that the player doesn't directly control, similar to RTS games. A focus on players interacting with each other would (I think) be necessary. Some combination of trading or group building/crafting would go a long way towards keeping people interested.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Thanks for the repply. If this topíc was a religious question in disguise, would you realize what you just answered?
Google/Windows financed this http://www.khanacademy.org/ to make "Learning Exciting". You bet they did spent a lot of money to "design" this. Its basically a non combat MMORPG with strong competition design. Only problem is that they will monopolize the truth on most controverse topics. So it leads to no violence...
"Killing" in MMOs, well...
i believe its not about "killing" so much itself, rarely ever hear someone say "i want to kill people/mosters/whatever!", but i want to "fight people/mosters/whatever!"
Imo it boils down to the action, to want your character to do something cool and entertaining.
Although i personally believe, that a MMO where even combat and fighting itself is only a sidenote can be done, i would love companys to start and take some small steps to make combat better and take the mass murderer/genocide feel out of it. (More or less depending on the actual game and setting of course)
For example by making combat more meaningful, with consequences, or just have the character stun/intoxicate (just thinking of Batman AA/AC here because i am playing right now, action packed, but with a bodycount of next to zero) enemys more often, or by having the player fight less but harder enemys.
I want to kill.
And look badass when I do it.
Google/Windows financed this http://www.khanacademy.org/ to make "Learning Exciting". You bet they did spent a lot of money to "design" this. Its basically a non combat MMORPG with strong competition design. Only problem is that they will monopolize the truth on most controverse topics. So it leads to no violence...
What? *looks around*
Stop drinking random chemicals. You will live longer.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think so. If you were to ask me what is the nature of humanity I would say it is to forever be in agon with his (neuter) world. If you asked me what purpose of humanity is I would say it is to find a way to express this agon without it leading to self destruction. In short, the reason we are here is so that we can keep on being here. No easy task. While philosophical I don't think it is particularly religious.
For the record I am a heathen.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
I just finished watching the link posted above about the creator of Ultima Online.
Very interesting. He said 30 to 50% of players on Ultima Online NEVER PLAYED COMBAT. I was one of those when I started.
This conversation feels familiar. Oh, yeah. Kid popping into MUD in about 2002, ">where's gfx? **kid has disconnected**"
In general, the answer to "Is/was 'there ever anything else?' is yes."
The real question you want is "Can you get a player to sit still for a different idea?" But that answer, depressingly often, is 'no'.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
yesi agree i remeber in UO not fighting in fact i new people that never ever killed 1 thing they just gathered mats and crafted and sold stuff and hired me to protect them on there mat gathering exspaditions i do miss uo at times i wondered a lot why games did not follow uo and why they never upgraded there shit to modern gameplay
I have wondered about this since SWGpreNGE days. I still have no direct answer. there are certainly plenty of options, but the mechanics of implementing them in their current form, I am afraid, would not draw significant enough attention, nor provide enough 'action' in an mmorpg.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Simple
Building and creating
First four or five posts pretty much covered it. There's plenty to do outside of running around murdering things and several MMOs already successfully incorporate that kind of content.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This topic immediately reminded me of an article by Raph Koster that I read some years ago: The evil we pretend to do
Basically, MMOs by default are about genocide against intelligent races for the purpose of acquiring power in a way that isn't heroic at all, and it's weird that we're all okay with that.
Vangard Saga of Heros had a diplomacy tree you could level up in. Your combat would not level up though unless you killed stuff. But you could effectively just do Diplomacy and earn a in game living from it.
SWG you could be a trader or merchant and make things or entertainer.
Eve online you can mine play the market or industry without killing
UO you can be a fisherman or blacksmith