Spam Hunters.

[Moofassa]

Something should be done about spam hunters. My character, whom hunts to live, runs through the sands, forest, and grasslands, to find literraly corpses upon corpses of animals. What is the deal; with that? No one really goes out to just kill animals, so it's clear that there are people using them to solely better their skills.

Something should be done about Spam Hunters, i've seen a certain short, hairless thing, sleep, eat and shit out the grasslands, rarely going into town, only to seel things, thats horrible IC playing. Spam hunting should be stopped!

[Agent_137]

if you catch them, email the mud.

and i hate them too. there's no beasts for those rare days when i want to hunt beasts.

[da mitey warrior]

You do know that NPCs out in the wild fight eachother, right?

If you find an unskinned corpse of a game animal chances are 95% that it was killed by another NPC.

And what are you complaining about, it just makes life easier for your PC. You can skin them yourself without having to do the work of killing them yourself.

[Ayashah]

Oh, yea. Skin that rotted, left for weeks corpse that's filled with maggots and stuff now.  *wink*

Really, just because a corpse is there doesnt mean its a fresh kill. I could see someone going to try and see if the hide is salvagable but any meat I got off something like that I would toss away. Someone might have shot it with a poisoned arrow or cut it with a poisoned blade.

The point the others were trying to make was that its extremely unrealistic to just go on a spam killing spree JUST because you can. Or maybe it is realistic for your pc. If your pc's background is one of insanity or sadistic in nature, go for it!

When I play a hunter, I usually specify before the hunt exactly what we are hunting. I dont care if there are fifty duskhorn out, if we are out to get skeet, we are hunting skeet. I use the IC reason of not wanting to weaken the herds or its time for the cows to drop their young.

To cop a long used phrase: "Just because the code allows you to do something, doesnt mean its IC to do so."

[Ghost]

My current PC does not have skin skill, and I sometimes have to get out into the desert.  Now if an aggro critter comes, I defend myself, until the critter is either dead, or.. well..left crumpled on the verge of dead.  At which point, I USUALLY leave the body there.  I dont know how to skin that thing and make profit, so I leave it.. Maybe other wild beasts go and eat that and leave me alone while I make my way.

I dont know if there are too many other PCs doing this though.  I do not leave that much bodies all around.  So either there are more PCs like me, or there are spam hunters, or it is the NPCs doing.

[Anonymous]

My PCs without a high skin skill would still try to cut a chunk of meat off.

A desert full of slaughtered and unskinned creatures is jarringly unrealistic to me.

[Bestatte]

I hate spam hunting too - but if the NPC critters are killing stuff and not skinning/junking the corpses, what kind of example are those NPC critters setting for new hunters who don't know any better?

They ride though the area and see corpse after corpse of dead critter and think (like the original poster of this thread thought) - oh - well if there's all these dead things on the ground, I guess it must be OK since if it wasn't OK the staff would do something about it!

I'd love to see more of the aggro critters skin/destroy their kills. I mean - why else WOULD a kylori kill something, if it wasn't hungry? Is the kylori trying to boost its unarmed skill or something?

There are some critters that devour/destroy their prey. I'd just like to see a couple more of them do the same.

As for spam hunters, if I had no integrity at all I'd start following them around shouting "MY KILL MINE!" and start an arguement with anyone who disagreed. Unfortunately I have integrity - so I ain't gonna do that.

[Angela Christine]

Oh, yea. Skin that rotted, left for weeks corpse that's filled with maggots and stuff now.  *wink*

Really, just because a corpse is there doesnt mean its a fresh kill. I could see someone going to try and see if the hide is salvagable but any meat I got off something like that I would toss away. Someone might have shot it with a poisoned arrow or cut it with a poisoned blade.

What is wrong with eating maggots?  You must not spend much time at the Gaj.    You can't spell maggots without Mmmm.  Low fat, high protien, high fiber goodness.

Some people can tell if a kill is fresh or not.  "Hunt" will return a special echo if there has been a battle there recently, and does so reliably at low skill levels.  A body and a recent battle usually indicates that the body is the result of the battle.  Be careful, whatever killed the critter may be right around the corner!


I like that bodies don't decay, because there are a lot of things that might be left over: shells, claws, teeth, bones, some skin, and even some meat (depending on the size of the beast and the location of the meat it might dehydrate before it rotted).  Very few things could eat an entire saltworm or even an entire scrab in a single sitting.  There might be plenty left that is salvagable.

There are good things to do with that magotty meat.  Cook it!  If you aren't a good cook it will probably be destroyed in the attempt, which you can interpret as it being too far gone rather than another, "oops, I dropped it in the fire!"  Sell it!  Let some other poor sap eat the maggoty meat, city folk will eat anything.  :twisted:  Or you can simply try skinning it, and then junk any parts you don't think would reasonably have been salvageable from a half-rotted or heavily gnawed corpse.  But don't skin it and then leave meat on the ground, skinables lying on the ground looks just as bad as bodies lying on the ground.


AC

[HunterOfTheNorth]

Is this happening to the south?,  I haven't seen much of it to the north.  What i have seen is meat being left on the ground after skinning something (poeple just taking the skin and bones), which though my character frowns at, others see this as normal (because the meat feed the land so to speak.)

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

My suggestion is to communicate with fellow hunters in the region. Just casually mention over a mug of ale that some dipshit's been over-hunting in the area, and gauge their reaction. Maybe they dont' realize over-hunting is OOCly rude and ICly dangerous to their livelihood. Maybe they also noticed that the skreet's been a bit thin or the scrab's a little light this year. Maybe you and some of the local outdoorsmen could hunt down the feck, calmly explain to him that what he is doing is naughty and wasteful, and then drive your point home with your foot.
Basically, what I'm saying is you should try to make this an IC issue, and not an OOC one. Not accusing you of whining or anything, I'm just saying this could be a good RP oppuritunity, for those that choose to look at it that way.
It's conflict. There's a problem. Do what you can to solve it.

[Delirium]

Welcome back, FDMW.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Oh, yea. Skin that rotted, left for weeks corpse that's filled with maggots and stuff now.  *wink*

Go ahead and skin the damn thing.  A corpse will rot away to nothing if it is left around too long.  So let the code worry about that, and if you find it, skin it.

[jhunter]

Oh, yea. Skin that rotted, left for weeks corpse that's filled with maggots and stuff now. *wink*

Really, just because a corpse is there doesnt mean its a fresh kill.

Hrrrmmm...well I just noticed a couple of others already answered with both points that I was going to mention on this subject...

Yeah, what AC and ERS said.

[jhunter]

Oh yeah, and I'm going to say what I said before on this subject. It might be IC for their character to do so, I say deal with it IC instead of whining about it on the GDB.

They're killing all your game and wasting it when you need it to survive?

Do something about it IC.

[Savak]

Leaving corpses isn't, in and of itself, bad roleplay.  But, it IS a common symptom of people going out trying to powergame.  Most Zalanthans aren't forest rangers nor versed in animal husbandry, and would be more versed in "take what you can while you can" than "only kill one duskhorn today, one tregil tomorrow..".

At any rate, my point isn't that leaving carcasses scattered everywhere is the cool thing to do, but that there is a difference between leaving carcasses and poor roleplay, however fuzzy a line it may be.  If you're not fully & consistently playing up your character's actions, thoughts, and emotions throughout, it's very easy for not only your fellow players, but for staff, to assume the worst and react accordingly.

-Savak

[Mordere]

I just wanted to chip in my 2 cents. I happen to agree with Savak very much on the fact that not everyone is going to be supremely ecologically aware.

I play a hunter who's ecological awareness begins and ends at refusing to hunt duskhorn colts, so they can get bigger, so he can hunt them later. The character is what some of you are calling a "spam hunter" in that he goes out with empty bags, and comes back with full ones to sell, killing as hard and as much as he can. Why? Because if he doesn't, someone else will. Better me then you.

Some people say "I hunt to live." I say quit whining. If you don't have a pile of animals sitting on your doorstep, take a walk around the block. If that's not ic for you, starve, or dig up a root. I hunt to live as well, and I live off the money I make selling what I kill. I've discussed the ethics of this with some people, and some feel it's unrealistic to go out, and sweep the land for everything you can. Tell that to real life longliners, who string out 30 miles of fishing line, and pull in everything from swordfish, to sharks, to Flipper's momma.

Now I do realize the thread in question is about leaving bodies, but I've seen others about killing enmasse period, so I'm just chipping in my opinion about killing enmasse in general. Do we need more animals in, as some people have asked? No. I don't think so. I enjoy the first few days of the rl week being plentiful, and then having to scour the land for things to carve up. I roleplay it as migration, and personally love that things are limited and finite.

I -do- agree with Bestatte (I think she was the one who mentioned this) that shopkeepers should purge their inventory during the week. I won't kick that dead horse though.

To sum it all up: Kill what you can, as soon as you can. If you don't play enough to have the time to actually scour the land and hunt for stuff to slaughter, don't play a hunter. Sorry if I seem curt, but I'm tired of hearing people cry about it. Anytime someone accomplishes/does something someone else can't do, they're called a twink, or a powergamer. Might as well call a woman a slut because she gets laid more then you do.

Cheers.

[Anonymous]

Heres a little food for thought. If the issue is with a tribal hunter type of fellow its likely bad roleplay to be skinning animals and leaving them everywhere. However, I would like to point out examples of the near extermination of bison, otters beavers and other creatures in North America. In these cases, these animals were hunted for their valuable pelts as fast as they caught be trapped/caught. And at least in the case of the bison, white hunters for profit would only take the tongues and hides, leaving a trail of skinless bouvine corpses.

Although I dont play anything remotely resembling a hunter or a skinner, it seems the concern should be in the "why" as oppossed to the "deed" in this situation

[Kill4Free]

Lots of you seem to forget that we only "see" a small fraction of the amount of wildlife out there, there are loads of virtual animals that we cant hunt, and new animals are spawned often enough to make it worthwhile to hunt.  
Even if you kill every animal you see on the way there, that isnt likely to be overhunting, as odds are you missed quite a lot as well.  Unless you are systematically checking every single "square" for signs of life, then someone might be able to make a case of overhunting.

[Cenghiz]

We only need to notice one thing, that would be enough to stop spam-killing:

If you try to raise a skill more than an unknown amount based on your wisdom, it stops raising. Killing all day would probably be the same as trying only 3 battles. More would only risk your life and PKP. Even in a twinkish mindset, overhunting does not mean much since money means nothing if you don't sit in bars to waste it, hunting all the day.

PKP: Precious Karma points.

[Ktavialt]

Lots of you seem to forget that we only "see" a small fraction of the amount of wildlife out there, there are loads of virtual animals that we cant hunt, and new animals are spawned often enough to make it worthwhile to hunt.  
Even if you kill every animal you see on the way there, that isnt likely to be overhunting, as odds are you missed quite a lot as well.  Unless you are systematically checking every single "square" for signs of life, then someone might be able to make a case of overhunting.

If that's true, then consider all the virtual hunters out there as well. If
PC hunters are killing all the NPC wildlife, chances are so could all the
VNPC hunters kill the VNPC wildlife.

[Kill4Free]

I doubt there are many virtual hunters, as almost all of the commoners rarely, if ever leave the city.  I can probably say that the bulk of the city's 'active' population is player based, all the ordinary boring people are vnpcs and npcs as players are only willing to do so much.

But you can also assume from the statement in the helpfiles, that the people of zalanthas are ecologically aware, and apply that to the vnpcs.

[Larrath]

Oh no, there are *tons* of VNPC hunters.

As far as my understanding goes, each Merchant House employs something in the vicinity of three to five hundred Hunters.


House Salarr makes a lot of equipment from chitin and bone and leather, and all of this has to come from somewhere...not to mention the mekillot, bahamet and silt horror equipment.  Realistically, I presume that about thirty hunters would go together in order to safely tackle a mekillot.

House Kadius...well, House Kadius probably employs a bit less, but still.  They have hunters.

House Kurac has a very large military force, but I don't know if all of these people would count as hunters.


Suffice to say, though, that there are enough VNPC hunters to make any Joe Hunter an insignificant addition to a House's task force, at least for the first couple of years.

[Kill4Free]

And you prove me wrong
But then overhunting will be almsot impossible as you said above, for almost any-one person.

[Ktavialt]

And you prove me wrong :)
But then overhunting will be almsot impossible as you said above, for almost any-one person.

But... if you assume that the playerbase's overhunting represents what
the VNPC's overhunting is, then perhaps =). Either way, I'm all down for
the Armageddon Immortals making IC drawbacks to overhunting, forcing
players to layeth the smacketh down on people that they know overhunt.

- Ktavialt

[jhunter]

Either way, I'm all down for
the Armageddon Immortals making IC drawbacks to overhunting, forcing
players to layeth the smacketh down on people that they know overhunt.

I'm not.

The imms shouldn't have to.

Those that are ICly affected by it, should ICly DO something about it rather than make it an OOC issue, because the fact of the matter is that it is an IC issue.

A pc hunter is overhunting in the territory where you hunt and is making it hard for you to get by?

Do something about it.

My opinion of it is that people don't want to do something ICly about it and would rather have imm intervention it is because they don't wish to risk getting their precious pc killed on an OOC level.

More conflict?
Well there you go people, a perfectly good IC reason to have more conflict and people are whining about it OOCly and passing the opportunity up.

I really do see why imms sometimes get a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" feeling when it comes to trying to please the players.

:roll:

[Ayashah]

Oh, yea. Skin that rotted, left for weeks corpse that's filled with maggots and stuff now.  *wink*

Really, just because a corpse is there doesnt mean its a fresh kill. I could see someone going to try and see if the hide is salvagable but any meat I got off something like that I would toss away. Someone might have shot it with a poisoned arrow or cut it with a poisoned blade.

I think that those of you that responded to my post with that quoted and said to go ahead and SKIN the corpse, didnt read where I said go ahead and try to salvage the hide??  So I wasnt saying I wouldnt SKIN it but that I, myself, as a pc, wouldnt trust that some elf or psycho hunter/mage didnt poison the meat. My pc would rather not take a gamble with its life unless starvation or death was approaching due to hunger.

[Anarchy]

Well, if you dry and salt meat, and keep it covered, or in a barrel or somthing - it can last awhile, dont let that fool you, i think salted and dried meat can last like, two three months.

If you tan a skin/hide, it lasts.

Overhunting is a half in half thing. I mean, tribal people will not over hunt. Because they arn't that ignorent, they have most likely felt the
sting of a food source running thin. - City dwellers have NOT. Tribals often move around - they dont grow things, they cant. City dwellers can.
Its like the Native Amercian's and the English settlers with the bufflo, why would the cities care about some animals? What would the cities care about some savages starving? Hell, to the cities killing off the savages would be a good thing. Or do what the romans did, draw them into the cities, help boost the population of their state - more population - more taxes, more bodies, larger army, and all they had to do was wipe out a stupid animal, none of their soldiers are going to die in minor wars/raids, etc.

[Agent_137]

the docs say zalanthans are ecologically aware, as stated here under the heading "overhunting"
http://www.armageddon.org/rp/subguilds/hunter.html

Therefore, overhunters are abnormal, and your average zalanthan will look down on that to varying degrees.

I encourage every player to tend to this in an IC manner, be it killing the bitch because he's going to end up starving YOU out at some point, or offering friendly hunter encouragement...whatever.

I don't know how much a problem this -really- is, so i'm not going to advocate any more immortal action than already happens.

[Kill4Free]

Hmm, that sounds like fun, if you suspect he is overhunting, hunt him  Ironic, yet efficient.

[jhunter]

the docs say zalanthans are ecologically aware, as stated here under the heading "overhunting"
http://www.armageddon.org/rp/subguilds/hunter.html

There are a few things wrong with that doc as I have pointed out to the imms before. I disagree with some of it and believe it to be an extremely one-sided point of view.

I really think it should be edited to correct a few things about it and to represent more of an opinion that Anarchy had stated.

I doubt that those from the cities would give a fuck about overhunting unlesss someone else's was preventing them from getting what they need, tribals might feel that way however.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that in a "harsh" world -everyone- is going to be so environmentally conscious, the whole notion is rather absurd IMHO.

Also the comparision that a human hunter taking down a tembo is equivalent to a human hunter taking down a grizzly bear...THERE IS AN ENORMOUS SIZE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO...a tembo assess about the size of a human...a bear...even a black bear is nearly twice the size of a human. Killing a tembo with a melee weapon is equivalent to taking out a large dog, not completely unrealistic at all.

[Ktavialt]

More conflict?
Well there you go people, a perfectly good IC reason to have more conflict and people are whining about it OOCly and passing the opportunity up.

I really do see why imms sometimes get a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" feeling when it comes to trying to please the players.

:roll:

Do you even read what I write? I don't know how the hell you came up
with the response you did. By IC drawbacks by IMMORTALS I mean if
players overhunt, reduce the number of certain kinds of animals
respawning in that area next Saturday.

Auto-answer people like you make me sick,
- Ktavialt

[Kill4Free]

That wouldnt make any difference at all, as first of all, there are enough people scouring the hunting areas, so every day, almost exactly the same amount of prey die.  If they reduce spawning quantity, all that will do is make everyone get less prey, but, all the animals players can see, will still be killed at exactly the same rate.  Overhunting?  Then according to your logic, they had better reduce spawn times again.  And it will be a pretty much circular route, till there are no animals left at all, and no animals are spawned at all.

[Kill4Free]

The only thing that players consider overhunting, basically, is some people kill the animals before they do leaving them not a lot left to kill.

[Larrath]

Killing everything non-uber within 20 rooms of Allanak, in my book, is overhunting.

If you ride out of your city-state half a day after a crash or a reboot and barely find anything within fifteen rooms or so, this is overhunting.  If the same number of creatures is killed over a period of five RL days, this is not overhunting.


And if the number of animals is reduced, hunters will hopefully play with enough realism to decide that this particular type of animal has been hunted too much, and that it needs some time off to breed again.

[Ghost]

Let me toss my idea here.

Answering it "Deal with it IC" is not the best solution.  Alright, it would be IC if it was not in playability terms.
What if the guy is not playing the game at the time I log in?

I have a similar problem there.  Not hunting, but shopping.  I need to collect X amount of a good that is only sold at one shop, and a guy keeps logging in just after reboots and buy all of that good that the NPC sells.  Once I even logged in after the reboot (Which is 3 AM in the morning here) and the guy even beat me in that even with a few seconds. (yeah I should not emote all the way through).  And that just made me want to kill him, but the guy ran away. I followed him, hunted down his tracks but he was spam RUNNING away.  Hmmphh..  I could of course kill him later if he was not "The figure in the most commonly worn cloak around the local area".  So I could not.  [/story]

Relate this to overhunting, and you get the idea.

EDIT:  Well, I just tossed my idea for "Deal with it IC: Kill the motherfucker" idea.  If you are referring it for RPing not to be able to find meat, or anything to live on, then it is fine for me though.

[Larrath]

Then talk to other hunters and get *everyone* to want to get this guy down.  You can hire an assassin if you know who it is, or bribe a templar.

There was ways to deal with this ICly, but this does not mean there should not be OOC results to this.  I think that the whole view here is wrong; staff members removing a couple of tandu spawning points are not punishment to everyone in the MUD.  (For some reason, I can see Carnage and Callisto snickering already).  This is simply the realism of - "If you kill something, it will not reproduce, as it is dead.".



About the character logging in just after reboot and buying all of the Item X's from a store...find out as much as you can about this character.  His name, sdesc, equipment, mdesc if you can, the thing that he bought and where and which room he quit in, if any.

Put all this in an email.  If he is hiding in a room somewhere, you can wish up for someone to find the PC/account name, send them the complaint with everything you know, and then have the whole thing forwarded to the MUD account.


This is blatant bastarding and I see no reason why people should not complain against repeated offenders.  There is no reason why they cannot leave one or two of these items for someone else, or to just not log in and immediately grab the one item from the store.  When I had a character who needed items that only sold one per crash, I sometimes grabbed them two hours after reboot (I log in two minutes after the MUD is up, normally), sometimes I waited for a few days, and sometimes I didn't get them at all.  Fortunately, the competition was scarce on this item, but the point stands.


If someone is twinking or powergaming repeatedly, dig up as much information as you can, make a log if possible and appropriate, and mail the staff.

[Ghost]

Well, for some reason, Larrath, I can not find much about that guy.  Most of the reasons are about the log in times and all.  And I have already emailed at least twice about this shopping.  But I dont think with such little information, Staff can do anything at all.  The only time I had chance to see him was the time I saw him shopping, and he did run away that.  I believe he can run away any later incident, and I have no ways to recognize the guy.  Since I dont even get a "look" chance before he enters "e".

Well, what I am doing now is waiting for the crashes.  Then I spam walk and get as much as I can, because, there are MANY things to do for me waiting in line, and I need to buy as much as those goods right away.
*shrug*

Now about spam hunting, this can be related as the same.  If hunters are logging in in different times, then they may not be able to recognize who is wiping the desert out, and who is not.  And if they can not know who, they can not kill the guy.

[Agent_137]

the docs say zalanthans are ecologically aware, as stated here under the heading "overhunting"
http://www.armageddon.org/rp/subguilds/hunter.html

There are a few things wrong with that doc as I have pointed out to the imms before. I disagree with some of it and believe it to be an extremely one-sided point of view.

I really think it should be edited to correct a few things about it and to represent more of an opinion that Anarchy had stated.

Hm. Yes, I could see that being the case also. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to go with the docs over your (albeit seemingly solid) logic.

And twinking spam hunting should be emailed to the mud account, and left to be tended by the immortals. Only they know the whole story, or at least, most of it. This is the OOC part of the solution.

As suggested before, the IC part of the solution is killing the bastard. You don't need solid evidence. You don't have to be right. You just do it if it's something your char would do. Hell, it'd be funny (OOC wise) to see a guy beg for his life, pleading that he wasn't overhunting at all, and making excuses.

Of course, if you are going to hunt this guy down, make an good chapter out of it, eh?

I could see a dwarf ranger with a focus of cleaning the wastes of filthy city dwellers who come out and disrupt the carefully balanced eco system. He'd take just what he needed to survive, and eventually die to a Byn troop or something. Heh.

[Lazloth]

Well, for some reason, Larrath, I can not find much about that guy .. The only time I had chance to see him was the time I saw him shopping, and he did run away that.  I believe he can run away any later incident, and I have no ways to recognize the guy.

(a.) You're assuming it's the same dude boot after boot.
I won't argue with you, but I can't think of a helluva lot to buy right after a boot that you could possibly need that badly (or that there's such a fight for).  If you've never seen it in 'list', (b.) how do you even know it's [still] sold in the same place?

Alternately, if it's such a big deal, why not (c.) wish up for the vendor to be animated and plead your case that way?

[Ghost]

(a.) You're assuming it's the same dude boot after boot.

I may be wrong with that assumption.  I agree. But if there are a few more dudes like that, I am going to cry.

(b.) how do you even know it's [still] sold in the same place?

I know because if I witness a crash and go there, it is there.

Alternately, if it's such a big deal, why not (c.) wish up for the vendor to be animated and plead your case that way?

Did that and not just once.  No answer.  But it is OK, I am playing it out, as if the order has not arrived yet.  (I will stil kill the guy if I find out though, so no more delays in order's arrival)
[/derailment]

Well.. I feel the thread is getting derailed into "spam shopping." Which I believe, is not a problem of more that a few guys like me.  And if I am right, there is no solution to it as far as I can see.
*shrug*  And if I am right, spam hunting might have some problems that can not be solved that easily.

EDIT: Because I felt like it.

[JollyGreenGiant]

An entire 3 pages of this thread, and no mention of Vikings yet?

LOVELY SPAM, wonderful spam!