PK, or player killer is when a player for no real reason is able to attack another player (this will not be in the game) except in very limited areas of the game
PvP, or player Vs player, is when a player can attack others for some reason and he is also a target to the other player. Many games today have this as the primary motivation for their game and as such not only encourage it, but make it mandatory. We will not make it mandatory, but optional to partake.
Now the current line of thought among the people who want PK is that it can be done and enforced easily. In reality the only way this would be done is with very extreme penalties, and thus make it a moot point.
Some have said that extreme PKers can be banned, well I?ll ask you for a full proof way to ban people on a free game specially when IPs are can be random. We don?t have the luxtury of credit card name or address banning. There are ways yes, but it would require our intervention in an extreme way, and no one from that household will be able to play until they change ISPs or hardware configurations depending how it is done.
And as the story line of the game as it stands now, such anti-progressive activity would be viewed as treason, we would then have to have secret police investigating such activity and rendering the character unplayable.
As such it would be poor game play.
And I think it is much better to simply say this activity will not be in the game at all.
Now that said.
I think it would be a great game if we where all part of one side or another all fighting for control of some type and each looking after number one (ourselves) and that the game focused on our actions and we where both friend to some and foe to others.
But the simple answer to my much longer proposal then that with explanations to many areas of that was this ?Sounds like a great game, but it will not be Planeshift?.
So while I am one of the most sympathetic to the PK and PvP areas, it is not planned to be in this game as wanted.
Don?t think that I got this subforum started to have people accusing me of not having the foresight or grey matter to understand the possibilities and many positive things both these things can bring to the game. If anything it is the opposite. But sadly it is not me you must win over, or even other people who frequent these boards.
And to date I have not seen a system of PK that I really like that would fit our game. Taken to an extreme I can tell you that if this system had PKing at this point, it will suck badly. As people would not really know who is who and there is no real way to con people at this point. So there really is no low level person we can protect well from high levels. And so even trying to balance would be really hard because progression is much more 3 dimensional in that just because someone is supposedly more powerful does not mean he can?t easily be killed by some not so common method that he just does not have the defenses for.
As such it is very simple for someone to have your number and become your bane. This may seem cool, but it is not, it simply means anyone may have the potential to take you out, and at the same time be immune to anything you can do to them. Guilds would be able to rule areas for a given amount of time just by laying claim, or as suggested charge a toll for using that area.
This is by far against everything this game is about. But nothing is stopping any of you, or me for that matter from making a game where this activity is encouraged. Most of this game will be open source and as such, you can apply the rules and models you want and start a game of your own. But it will not be Planeshift.
