Quote from: Kavrick on May 24, 2024, 03:22:47 PM

Quote from: eska on May 24, 2024, 03:17:13 PMWe all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

It doesn't help the trust situation when you have some people in the community that say 'as long as pking is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'.

Don't just read the last sentence please.

On the other hand, what is wrong with 'as long as PKing is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'? This is the main reason for a death in Zalanthas, and this is valid RP.
Is there someone causing me problems? Yes.
Will they stop anytime soon? No.
Can I kill them or get them killed? Yes.
Mantis head for them, no more headache for me. The problem is solved.

Quote from: eska on May 24, 2024, 03:17:13 PMWe all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

It doesn't help the trust situation when you have some people in the community that say 'as long as pking is an easy solution to my problems, I'll do it'.

Quote from: Kavrick on May 24, 2024, 02:28:09 PMThe new rules are incredibly reasonable and well-written.

That is why I said there are rules and trust the staff.

Even though I sound like a player who kills other PCs, in my many years of playing time I killed less PCs than the count of my PCs which ended up PKed.
I am not arguing that one should kill in every opportunity. But when I read posts in this thread, I kinda feel that there are people who support the idea in every situation one should give the other party another chance first. There are situations where you can choose to do it. However, this should not become a rule for PK. If you need to die and you die, just go with it.

In one case, a red robed killed my Guilder PC in a locked room using his half-giant guard to subdue me. I was furious like hell, because I was loyal and other shit and he gave me lame excuses for the murder. He probably had his own reasons. I just gave a quick break to smoke a cigarette and started creating the next character. Did I do so because I was satisfied with how well the scene played? No. My PC was supposed to die sooner or later, or I was gonna store it at some point. So I didn't report this PK.
Another hunter I played was killed at Abili Pah by two desert elves when resting. They jumped at me out of the blue and I had no weapons drawn. I panicked, instead of fleeing I drew my weapons, got bashed and mantis head in a minute. They probably planned their attack, wayed their timing, used thinks and feels. I never saw any part of it. For them it was a well-played scene. For me it was mantis head in a minute. I was furious and angry. Smoked a cigarette and went for the next character. I didn't report this PK as well.

What my point by giving these examples is, we shouldn't restrict PK in game. If one thinks that they got killed by a "toxic" player, they can report it and let the staff take care of that player. Most of those "toxic" players and staff has already be driven away. So trust your staff now.

We all want this game to continue and grow. We cannot succeed it, if we cannot trust each other and the staff.

Quote from: Armaddict on May 24, 2024, 11:43:24 AMa measured response

Well put. And Usiku said this was the 1st step and the easiest step because it doesn't require code changes. The level of interest in improvements and change on the staff side is noticeably higher than even when I was staffing in 2023.

One thing that you and Roon both touched on is the prisoner's dilemma. And I saw it a lot staffing Crimson Wind. Putting your character at a coded disadvantage in the hope the other party will do the same for mutual benefit is precisely the prisoner's dilemma. And the key assumption in the prisoner's dilemma is that the prisoners cannot communicate with each other before they make the decision.

One good way to break that limitation is giving everyone threaten and evade https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58925.0.html so players can queue up their action and be safe to type out emotes and says. Another way would be some way to communicate an OOC truce that pauses coded actions. And something I've seen in other muds is an engagement system such that being in a room isn't the same as being in melee with everyone else in the room. I'm happy that coded improvements here sound like they're now on the scale of sometime instead of on the scale of never.

Quote from: Bogre on May 24, 2024, 02:21:59 PMI'm with ERS on this - yeah, you can play a raging sociopath who PK's everyone they see indiscriminately, and gloat in how 'IC' that is. But should you? That's the real question here. Is that useful for the game? Is it fun for someone on the receiving end? What does it add to a collaborative story other than one person's 'I wanted to play a serial killer and it was IC for me to PK lots of people'.

This is an excellent way to word the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish.  It is consideration for other players' stories and their time, but it doesn't mean you can't kill them.

It is kinda sad to see that there's pushback against the idea of 'be considerate to your fellow players'. I understand a lot of people who seem to not like the idea of PK rules are some of the more dug-in, long-time players, but whether you agree with it or not, there are reasons why Armageddon has a reputation for being toxic among the mud community. This game is a collaborative effort, 'love thy neighbour' is an attitude that benefits literally everyone who plays the game. This coarse, un-empathetic attitude towards other players is self-destructive and does nothing but push people away from the game, old and new.

I keep seeing the strawman that's supposed to imply that people don't want PKing to exist, but nobody in this thread once has said that they think PKing shouldn't be apart of armageddon. People are just saying that you should look for alternative answers to a problem first, and that if you do decide to PK someone, at least make the roleplay experience on the receiving end be a good one.

And to add onto the above, I don't know how many Armageddon players have played other RP games that have PvP, but this is basically the standard in all of them. The idea that you should be responsible and think about the person behind the character you're killing when you do it is only a completely alien idea to the Armageddon playerbase, and even the staff have acknowledged this when you read through the new rules. The new rules are incredibly reasonable and well-written.

Quote from: Dresan on May 24, 2024, 08:35:25 AMIf you play long enough you generally don't care about being killed and many of us do play characters which certainly deserve being hunted and killed.People should still expect to die and sometimes it will suck.

I think this is very untrue. Many of us who have played an exceptionally long time, who play characters that are often long lived and definitely have a lot of work put into them creatively generally care a lot about being killed. I might not care that it ends in a sensible manner, or that occasionally it is senseless or you might not know all the details. But that's not really the issue- it's that many times recently I have felt like there was zero consideration on the other player's part - the max karma race PC that subdued my 3 hour old char still wearing newbie clothes and started hammering into them, getting clan dumped and initiated on so NPCs could kill my character, in absentia incrimination...and in this thread you can see a lot of people who feel similarly.

I'm not against PVP, conflict, or PK. But when it's the first, fast, and most common options players choose, it's really a driver to either avoid interacting with other PCs, figuring out some other way to avoid the grief, or, like some have posted, not feeling a desire to play because of the concern some members of the community don't care about how they kick around in the sandbox.

I'm with ERS on this - yeah, you can play a raging sociopath who PK's everyone they see indiscriminately, and gloat in how 'IC' that is. But should you? That's the real question here. Is that useful for the game? Is it fun for someone on the receiving end? What does it add to a collaborative story other than one person's 'I wanted to play a serial killer and it was IC for me to PK lots of people'.

Quote from: Roon on May 24, 2024, 12:35:08 PMStuff

I agree there are a number of improvement that the game can make in terms of code to further support the RP and gameplay, however I have to admit that in the last couple years a number of significant changes to code have been made that have left me rather impressed. For example, the combat changes including those made to to stun weapons were very important for future improvements to overall experience. 

Unlike other games, code is often where this Mud has excelled at a bit more than other places and where I am often least concerned about. I think to both its merit and demerit this game tends to move slower in terms of policy and culture changes. I have faith as time passes more improvements will come that will address concerns around mercy and consequences of deadly combat beyond just full out knock out or death.

Some of those things mentioned here on issues with health regen and overall combat discussed further here:

• Health regen idea
• Legacy combat system

One of the big problems with combat is that if you can't either instakill someone or actively prevent them from getting away, it's far too easy for the target to just type flee and run way the hell away before anyone can do anything about it. In nearly all cases, as soon as someone flees, they are 100% safe and their opponent has no chance of catching them again. If someone backstabs you down to 1 health, you can flee and run from one end of Allanak to the other before the attacker can act again. For all intents and purposes, we all carry The One Ring and the only way we die is if we don't have a chance to slip it on our finger.

Due to the near-impossibility of killing anyone without either huge bursts of damage that end them before they can react or a locked door to keep them from getting away, players will always resort to one of those things, and they're both kind of unsatisfying. It reduces the list of "things that are viable" to a very small number. Without one of those modi operandi available to you, you pretty much can't kill anyone. As such, players tend to design their characters with this in mind, at least when they're playing a concept that might end up having to kill somebody for one reason or another.

Over the years, various changes to the code have made it exceedingly difficult to become exceptionally skilled in the conventional DIKU melee combat skills. It is still possible, but most characters never have the opportunity to pursue it because they simply don't happen to be clanned with some old badass who's willing to spar them up (which will be even more rare in seasons, don't forget) or have knowledge of - and willingness to abuse - some very twinky methods that will get you in trouble if caught.

But you know what's pretty easy? Maxing out sap or archery or fireball, or rolling absolutely incredible strength and etwo'ing a club, or whatever else the "PvP meta" revolves around. So people resort to these, because they're accessible and they work even if you got stuck at journeyman weapon skills. And when you kill someone that way, they're not very likely to feel like it was a cool death. They probably died faster than they could type out a response.

Meanwhile, if you did make an effort to make it cinematic and go "Harhar, time to die! I've got you now! Revenge is finally in my grasp!" they will, in my experience, usually respond with: west west west west north north east east north north close door lock door. So, this game barely leaves room for cinematic deaths.

Quote from: Dresan on May 22, 2024, 12:29:11 PM

Quote from: Krath on May 22, 2024, 12:04:07 PMStaff could bring back the mask that hide mdesc to solve this issue.

This should be an ability linked to assassination techniques(backstab or sap) which only lasts for a couple minutes after performing the attack or be an assassin skill that activates for a limited time after attacking from stealth.

It should not be an item that freely allow people to act like fools without IC consequences.

Thats an awesome idea.  It makes more sense too.  If you only get the chance to glance at someone you may not recognize them if they are masked and cloaked, but if you are around them for any length of time, you would notice their mannerisms and the way they move and recognize them as someone you know or have seen before.