Quote from: Delusion on Today at 11:00:47 AMWe all know about the string of dwarf PCs emerging from the dormitory in the Gaj to kill the first PC they saw sitting at the bar. No amount of karma deductions or bans will stop that style of griefing.

It should be a bit harder for that style of griefing to occur now.  Dwarves are now 1 karma, so a brand-new account cannot play one (this is a big reason WHY dwarves are now 1 karma).  Someone engaging in such obvious griefing will be banned.  We would -consider- a resurrection in this specific instance you mention when it's obvious, blatant griefing like that.

As for @Lizzie 's example, the raider could still kill someone for not obeying when they have them in such a situation.  The expectation however would be that the raider gives the victim a "good scene" to the best of their ability as the situation allows.  And if the raider displayed a pattern of this, we'd have a chat with them.  It would all depend on the specifics of the scene.  Ideally the raider would beat the victim to unconsciousness or incapacitate them if said victim wasn't being cooperative.  Maybe leave them for dead and let fate decide their outcome.

These new rules aren't meant to remove PK and danger.  They are meant to expect players to be considerable of each other form an OOC perspective, and work together to create more interesting scenes and stories.  Sometimes death IS the interesting scene or story, but it doesn't have to be.  The ask is that people think "Is killing the other person the only option here, or is there alternatives?" and "If I must kill them, is there a way for me to make it more interesting or meaningful for them?".  There will be times when a sudden, quick death is required, though the expectation is those will be unusual.

This is all going to be a bit of a change for everyone - staff and players alike.  We are going to have to work together to make elevate the community's qualify of Role-Playing, and be understanding and patient with each other as we figure it all out.

It is concerning that PCs dying at the hands of other PCs is anticipated to be so frequent that staff won't have time to fairly review it.

We all know about the string of dwarf PCs emerging from the dormitory in the Gaj to kill the first PC they saw sitting at the bar. No amount of karma deductions or bans will stop that style of griefing. The integrity of the game world is damaged more by nonsensical killings than by resurrection. In one case everyone has to awkwardly play around the nonsense and often adjusts their behavior based on the OOC knowledge that the griefing can happen and on what ways. In the other, everyone can accept that an event was retconned and the players of the killer dwarfs won't get the same kick out of it.

This is a note to state that I removed a post that was off-topic. Please continue this discussion on a very important game policy change. Thank you!

Quote from: Lizzie on Today at 08:19:53 AMI prefer to keep the "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them" aspect of the game. It's what I signed up for. It was in the docs and has been in them for decades. I've found too often that people come here thinking "oh they don't really mean that, everyone will roleplay perfectly, we'll get the exact scene we want before death, we'll be able to have closure and if not I'm sure they'll change things for us when we tell them how unfair it is."

If the person doesn't do what the raider says, the raider can beat them to an inch of their life and strip them naked. Its up to the person's abilities and luck to make it back somewhere safe after that. Or the raider could find themselves in an equally tough spot. There is still meaningful consequences that don't always have to devolve to murder.

I think this is enough for most situations but to your point Lizzie, its up to the raider to decide and then justify that repeatedly to staff. I believe murder will still happen in this game, frequently at that, for example if you spit on a templar or noble, expect to die. But i think the biggest change is it should become much more clear on why you died.

Additionally, I think mercy should be split between PC and NPCs at the very least to avoid people forgetting to toggle back after hunting. It also keeps it from being something annoying you have to keep track of. If mercy PC is toggled off, death would happen as it is currently. The choice of killing a PC really happens at that point where you toggle it off.

In terms of resurrection policy, I am actually okay with keeping it as is, it is unfortunately a two way street of abuse here. Its jarring to the narrative to see people who died be rezzed for whatever reason, and I can only see the people getting rezzed are the people that some staff is heartbroken to see die.

Quote from: Pariah on Today at 09:22:58 AMMy only concern is the extreme players, there are some that view PK as something that should never happen, they are too soft, then there are those that think if they type think I want his boots and he doesn't hand them over, they deserve to die, too hard.  But I have faith that we have more people in that "Goldilocks" zone than the polar opposites.

Yeah I do think most people have pretty reasonable views on PKing. I would say both the 'Pks should never happen' and 'Pking should be a core part of the game' crowds are loud minorities. I still think if you mess with the wrong person, get caught up in a plot or have some other good motiviation to kill or be killed, it should be completely fine. But I want something more than 'you didn't empty out your bag for me in the wavy dunes, now I'm gonna kill you on my 3 months played half giant raider'.

I do think the new advanced start will be nice, we'll have people who don't have to go through the vulture/chalton/scrab and so on up the line gauntlet for weeks to get survivable.

My only concern is the extreme players, there are some that view PK as something that should never happen, they are too soft, then there are those that think if they type think I want his boots and he doesn't hand them over, they deserve to die, too hard.  But I have faith that we have more people in that "Goldilocks" zone than the polar opposites.

Quote from: Patuk on Today at 09:18:24 AMHold on, hold on, hold up.

Quote from: Usiku on Today at 02:49:40 AMIn this instance, we simply cannot open the door to staff being expected to be the 'RP judge' on every single PK, it's just not feasible, there is no way for us to be able to make consistent and fair calls on something like that

I distinctly recall past staff members telling us that PK was a once-in-a-week kind of event. With the rules you've made currently, it'll likely be even less. Even if every single PK ended up contested - and they won't - you'd talk about this once a week at the absolute very most.

Is that really the realm of the impossible? One such a talk a week, at absolute most?

I would assume if someone is getting talked to about PK frequency, they are probably doing it too much, but that's just a guess.

Quote from: Lizzie on Today at 08:19:53 AMI prefer to keep the "I'm a raider, they didn't do what I said, so I killed them" aspect of the game. It's what I signed up for. It was in the docs and has been in them for decades. I've found too often that people come here thinking "oh they don't really mean that, everyone will roleplay perfectly, we'll get the exact scene we want before death, we'll be able to have closure and if not I'm sure they'll change things for us when we tell them how unfair it is."

That's WAY too high of an expectation for a game that started out as a hack-n-slash and is advertised heavily as an unforgiving world with permadeath.  People should expect the worst *for their characters* and then be happily surprised if their PC's lives exceed those low expectations. It says so in the docs.

I understand wanting to keep things harsh and lethal, but consider three things.

1. The world is plenty lethal without rocket-tag PvP. Mansa a while ago posted player death causes and PvP was a massive minority, with Carru being the big bad iirc.

2. Armageddon PvP is just plain bad, without even talking about balance it's very easily abusable for the person who instigates. Stealth, magick and even the crimcode (which honestly protects criminals more than victims) can be abused to screw a player who's not playing in an extremely paranoid manner. This isn't even counting the times where I've seen instigators completely ignore both the virtual world and NPCs just because they know staff can't always react. On more than one occasion while playing Two Moons elves, I was attacked in the room right outside the camp, which should have resulted in like 50 elves ganking these raiders.

3. Generally in game-design philosophy, you match high-lethality with short-term character progression. There's a reason why roguelikes are a popular genre, because you go in, level up fast, experience a lot of stuff and die fast. Having high-lethality with a game that expects progression in the days upon days of playtime on a singular character is honestly just incompatible on a fundamental game-design level. Also note that I don't think this means the lethality of Armageddon overall should be reduced, because outside of PvP, I honestly think death is incredibly avoidable once you learn the game and it's dangers. The game is still stupid lethal, but it's more 'play stupid games win stupid prizes' sorts of lethal rather than being completely unfair like PvP.

Quote from: Agent_137 on Today at 09:16:37 AM@Lizzie for most people this game is too much work for that low of an expectation for every pc. 


It could be different.  It's why I have long advocated for faster learning and wider advanced start.

This was posted while I was writing and I just thought it'd be a valid reference of someone else's opinion. Armageddon can be far too much work to also expect people to be ok with dying so easily to PvP. I understand that Arm has a die-hard fanbase of people that play every day and having it be the only game they play, but this isn't a good experience for new players or for players who want to play Arm more casually.

Hold on, hold on, hold up.

Quote from: Usiku on Today at 02:49:40 AMIn this instance, we simply cannot open the door to staff being expected to be the 'RP judge' on every single PK, it's just not feasible, there is no way for us to be able to make consistent and fair calls on something like that

I distinctly recall past staff members telling us that PK was a once-in-a-week kind of event. With the rules you've made currently, it'll likely be even less. Even if every single PK ended up contested - and they won't - you'd talk about this once a week at the absolute very most.

Is that really the realm of the impossible? One such a talk a week, at absolute most?

@Lizzie for most people this game is too much work for that low of an expectation for every pc. 


It could be different.  It's why I have long advocated for faster learning and wider advanced start.

Stamina regen, stun, focus, even mount stamina...

This is not a good idea.