Survey: Right/Wrong pk reasons

[etso]

Im talking like between 35 and 40, there are alot of good people to fight, I only kill some newbs, and all of them deserve it. I agree with getting rid of the fire giants bashing ninja;s and thieves at level 28

[formalism]

I've got an idea that doesn't directly address the niche pk issue but may nonetheless be effective in curbing it. I've noticed that the emphasis seems to be on getting to 50 and fighting it out there, where the real fun is. I wonder, then, if it wouldn't be advisable to change the usual rate at which experience is gained to cut the time it takes to get to level 50. Either the required TNL could be cut from anywhere to 25%-50% or mobs would grant a correspondingly increased amount of experience.

Like I said, it doesn't fix the rampant pk issue (what Dav is really trying to fix is the attitude of players, after all), but perhaps it can be used as an auxiliary way to help keep it in check, since a faster leveling rate not only encourages people not to niche, but allows others to level very quickly out of the range of niche pkers. I'm sure there are a ton of potential drawbacks, one of which (off the top of my head) is that rank 50 wouldn't seem to be such a great achievement anymore, nor would players be as heavily invested in their characters if they're so easy to pinnacle. Anyways, the idea's there.

Edit: Just thought of another problem, even more serious: newbies would be leveling too quickly to properly learn the mechanics of the game.
Edit: Hmm, perhaps we can fix the above newbie problem by increasing leveling rates only at certain ranks, from 30-42, the levels which typically constitute the site of niche pking, but then that might only move the niche pking to levels before 30. Maybe I'm thinking too much.
Edit: In other words I guess it'd be little more than a permanent surge . Not much of an idea after all (sorry if my edits make the post sloppy).

[Matthais]

I guess I just have a hard problem with all of this. I remember back when I had to plow through lvl 30 necros raping me when I was naked or with Balomar bodyslamming my gnome to death 6 times in an hour. Many of us survived the nonsense that comes with the territory of being new.

I might be wrong here, but the classes that are the easiest to niche are the shamans and necro's which have 0xp. Granted, ranking them at times is not easy. Increase their xp penalties and they will be less able to trash lower rankers. (I always liked the method of imms making morts specifically designed to rape trash pkers.)

I like to think that a lot of people are rather over ambitious when they first start mudding. People are attracted to things like rangers, ninjas, paladins, and dks because they think they are cool not because they are easy to rank. They don't fully understand that an elf paladin will be touched by every pker within 5-7 ranks.

There is always the option of giving everyone the power to only stun their opponent. That will make more new people less aftraid of fighting other people then if they knew they would die and be full looted.

I also believe that people get more pissed off at looting more than getting pked. Make looting equipment a priviledge and only allow looting coins until a specified lvls, same can be said for thieving skills.

More rules, regardless of their good intent, make playing more of a chore. Rules also are broken easily. If your going to do something, it will definitly need to be coded in; not some moral rule that is subject to personal interpretation.

Its funny you ask ideas from a collection of forum dwellers that primarily pk at 50 already. Open up the irc more. 20 minutes of heckling from the vets is more than enough to embarass someone enough to stop pking at a low level.

[Davairus]

Balomar was denied, after most of you guys complained furiously and demanded we do something. Don't be telling me now that you ate your lumps and it turned you into cold hard steel, I was there too, and remember you guys whined like a bunch of girls about them. They were unfazed by your complaining (leaving your "heckle them on irc" theory rather dead in the water), but to this day, those denys the Immortals did have affected the way they play the game - they play at 50 and cabal now. They're cleaner than you guys are in fact, after formely being the dirtiest players in the game. In my mind, punishment was a complete success and I'm glad we did it.

We got the 'pk rules' helpfile now which doesn't really add anything new since we've always had an "all kills must have a roleplay reason" on it. We spelled out some of the obvious shit which has gotten characters denied, and not everything which has been posted here. I decided to make particularly strong points about not picking on newbies and not playing silent pker if youre nto an evil 50. The "pk rules" is not a complete laundry list of everything, its just the major stuff that should have been there from the start, to take some of the guesswork out of what a "roleplay reason" is. What any good player knows. Targets of interest, not targets of opportunity, is what its all about.

Two people have already been punished for pk/loot without a sufficient reason, both abusing the same newcomer to the game. I was not lenient.

[Trillian]

[Davairus]

These are my personal rules

- if the player attacked me first (or opposing cabal affiiliations), I full loot/sac if I can
- if I attacked the player first (i.e. he gave me a reason), I take what I want first, then try to full loot so nobody vultures him, and I sometimes return what I dont want to keep
- if the player just died and I'm vulturing, I just take what I need and drop or return other shit

I am not going to write looting rules up, though, I think that can be left up to the player, just dont full loot/gold newbies because you can, obviously. If you can't figure out something sensbile for yourself, then just treat stealing/looting like you were making attacks - choose targets of interest, not opportunity.

[divsky]

How about this?

I'm a thief. He has gold. I blackjack my target, with no intentions of killing my opponent, just of stealing his gold and maybe some flying scrolls or whatever.

Of course, whenever this happens they retaliate and try to kill the thief. And of course, the thief in self-defense kills back. Now what will happen when the victim complains to the gods that they were attacked unfairly? Is a blackjack/steal considered and attempt at PKing when no follow-on aggresion continues and it is fully the vitcim who continues the aggression? I ask this because it has happened. People automatically categorize stealing as PKing.