Closure vs unsupported

[Dresan]

Contracting out the death of someone is not only a viable way to kill a PC, it also ADDs to the shared story by bringing someone else into it, and turning a single PC-single PC "shared story" into an actual plotline. ESPECIALLY when the target of the contract is the antagonist - someone who's been pilfering, burglarizing, and then taunting the person hiring the contractor, because that person isn't a crafter-type, who is physically incapable of standing up for themselves.

Does it suck to be the target of a kill? Yup. Should SOME people maybe consider that, next time they antagonize other people? Yup.

If assholes were targeting assholes then I doubt we would be discussing it right now. But that isn't what happens and it isn't what is being referred to here.

Instead, when a player cannot kill another player, and often vise versa, they sometimes use that as an excuse to target anyone involved or related with their 'enemy'. The two reason for this happening being rather common in this game.

1. 'IC Consequences' - if the target of your ire is a sponsored role, special role, or high karma role you have historically taken the risk of a staffer getting involved and reviewing you motives, methods, reports and everything else to see if it was warranted. In short, IC consequences are partially determined by OOC factors before a decision is made on how the world reacts, and/or whether or not you deserve to keep some of your karma. The outcome can depend on who is on the staffer's friend/shit lists. You would have an easier time killing their lover, someone working for them on the side, perhaps a low level clan member they flirt with where IC consequences have been historically much less enforced.

2. 'Strong class combo' - whether they got there through staff boosting, special app, high karma role or just good old fashion powergaming, the time honored art of guild sniffing has not gone away, and decisions are made based upon how strong the character is and likely to retaliate. If sponsored role A thinks you are playing hidden sorcerer, shit slides off them like it were petals of roses until they find out you have a mundane class. Again against skilled character people tend to just target everyone around them. A thread somewhat inline with this topic can be found here: Combat: Arm's Hack&Slash Legacy

This is a crappy situation, and its been allowed for the longest time because it happens in RL, stories and movies. This is what ruthless people just do, they target those around you, so should be allowed in game. However, the game cannot support this type of mentality. Its not enough to kiss the ass of sponsored roles, but I guess you can't do business or smile with X,Y or Z since that will also give people reason to butcher you mercilessly.

And to tie all this back to my original point, when its a fraction vs fraction setting, the primary enemies for these sponsored roles will all fall under category number 1. At that point these bored people often find excuses to flex their virtual muscle on just about everyone else who doesn't fit into one of the categories above, with the flimsiest 'you ain't with me, so you must be against me' excuses. I've been playing on and off since Luirs was destroyed by the mantis invasion, and in all that time I've been involved in 2 pks, one was as part of a military order by a templar to kill a captured criminal in a group and the second time was by accident, using blunt weapons when I forgot to put mercy on. I rarely found reason to murder anyone, yet I've been murdered repeatedly over the years and when I became too hard to kill, those around me begin disappearing, so they weren't just killing my character at that point, they are just killing the reasons i log in at all.

I have nothing again Pk, especially someone just trying to PK just -my- character, but it can get utter ridiculous the lengths people can to go to destroy someone's enjoyment of the game. I  sincerely believe there is a group of people involved in this game who get their jollies by finding excuses to destroy the efforts of others....X has been living Y long, cool, lets kill them/their friends, X is trying to accomplish Y, lets kill/stop them, A is about to achieve B, lets kill/prevent them. They can play high karma roles or sponsored roles, or sometimes they might even be on staff but they do nothing but maintain the status quo and destroy anything standing out that doesn't have protection from another staff member. This problem has been around a long time and is often supported and encouraged by staff. In my opinion, this setting makes the problem more prevalent, with less places to escape or avoid ongoing disputes, and more so because this game's smaller population can no longer afford to entertain staff's bored friends by letting them destroy other people effort for no reason at all.

At the end though, this just food for thought for the upcoming season.

[Riev]

Normally @Dresan I find your posts longwinded and I don't always agree. I wanted to say that to emphasize how much I agree with the above.

Can't kill the new Salarri Merchant? Well. Kill their Recruit crafter they hired 2 RL days ago. With no emotes and no preamble so you can 'send a message'. Did it work? It sent a message alright. I was the new Salarri Recruit, and I walked into a shop and got a zero-prompt mantis head.

We will always have people whose focus is being the best at combat. Whether to flex on other players, whether to feel confident in RPTs, or even just to force social situations to go their way because of the OOC fear they can kill you.


With the new season, and the on-topic non-support of Tuluk and some other areas, I hope that staff will have more time to observe and play WITH us. And if the players are focusing on the story and the roleplay AS WELL AS making sure they don't die to a failed flee from a raider pack, I think we'll be okay.

[Kavrick]

Can't kill the new Salarri Merchant? Well. Kill their Recruit crafter they hired 2 RL days ago. With no emotes and no preamble so you can 'send a message'. Did it work? It sent a message alright. I was the new Salarri Recruit, and I walked into a shop and got a zero-prompt mantis head.

Just to back this up, this has literally happened to me on a brand new crafter that joined a GMH while the GMH PC leader had pissed someone off. I was harassed every day by a gick I could do literally nothing about, it was so bad that I actually stopped playing the game for several months. I was a 4-day old character with no relationships or reputation, I had absolutely zero idea why it was happening or any of the plot around it.

[flurry]

That's really unfortunate and I can see how that would be discouraging. I haven't experienced that scenario exactly, but I've had characters killed for reasons that were not apparent to me.

I wonder if there would be any benefit for players to be required to submit a brief report after a PK. I understand it's expected for some roles, but as far as I know it's not a requirement for all. If nothing else, it would bring staff into the loop sooner for minimal effort.

[Kavrick]

I wonder if there would be any benefit for players to be required to submit a brief report after a PK. I understand it's expected for some roles, but as far as I know it's not a requirement for all. If nothing else, it would bring staff into the loop sooner for minimal effort.

I'm pretty sure PK reports are required, at the very least they're in the Karma requirements. The issue is that staff thinks rp that has happened away from the victim counts. As long as the PKer has made the reasons apparent to himself and staff, it doesn't matter what the victim experiences. I've made a couple of player complaints on characters who have attacked me with zero care for the virtual world, zero rp towards me or any communication as to why they were trying to kill me and I either get 'players are allowed to play bandits' or 'there was rp, you just didn't see it', both of which I don't personally think is sufficient standards for an action that can delete months or even  years of a player's progress.

I do want to make clear that I'm not trying to bash on staff, as if the rules aren't there, I don't expect them to act differently, but my problem really is with the lack of PK-related rules/standards.

[Dresan]

I wonder if there would be any benefit for players to be required to submit a brief report after a PK. I understand it's expected for some roles, but as far as I know it's not a requirement for all. If nothing else, it would bring staff into the loop sooner for minimal effort.

I am pretty sure staff receive reports before hand or are aware of what is going on but again still supported it. A long time ago I reported someone who I thought had cheated OOCly when killing me. Staff told me they found nothing wrong.  Years later the cheater admitted to cheating openly in the shadow forums, mentioning staff knew and made a comment in their account notes but didn't do anything else, this person had old school whiran karma too. Despite the documentation saying otherwise, the game/staff have routinely approved of psychopathic and sociopathic behavior as just being the norm.

Again, it is not even just staff or players, it is really a community/culture problem. People have been asking to make 'mercy' more reliable for years, but the reason given is so combat feels more deadly...in a permadeath game. People have been asking to be able to at least  RP death scenes.  And heck, changes could have been made to make incapacitation a more viable option without leaving the person vulnerable to insta-kill, other games have done it and you can respawn in those. Lets not forget that in this community stealing 100 virtual coins is equivalent to slapping their mother OOCly in RL so the game would lose none of its teeth by allowing people the option to disable people with risking killing them.

And to tie back to my original point, I've no issue with conflict or PK itself within reason but I guess anyone wanting to start shit is going to be need to be even more mindful of not getting caught, leaving no evidence or witnesses. Since there is a risk of the south turning into one big area, you don't have any second chances to start somewhere new or hide if you fail, well there is always a cave i guess. There seems to be much less room for non-fatal troublemaker.

I do hope staff manage to keep the areas we have left somewhat autonomous but I have not seen it be successful outside of city states. We'll just have to see I guess.

[Agent_137]

I don't have time to cross reference docs, but iirc Pk reports are not required unless you're a Templar.  They're expected from leaders. They're preferred from all other players, but no rule says they are required.

My 70day pc was recently whacked for being in the presence of someone who had reason to be annoyed at my pc's boss. So I feel the concerns raised here.

I'm hoping for clearer demands from staff regarding pk and a willingness to rez bad kills. Yes that's hard to be completely consistent and fair about, but the alternative is what we've had and it's not great imo.  We can be the change we want to see all day, but even kills so bad the killer is karma docked won't get a rez.  So why should they change?