Since last monday, it\'s been 5 years of me and PS, so hah, I\'m still the person who\'s seen the most here, and I\'m still the best! None of you will ever beat me!

As the topic says, happy Valentines Day.

Hope all of you guys and girls have someone to share the day with, and get some fun out of it.

http://www.gamergod.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=180

Read and be amazed.

Well, tomorrow is the big day for some, and others have to wait for the day after tomorrow, but merry christmas to all of you anyway.

Anyway, I figured I\'m a litte late this year, but nonetheless, yay me for being around for 4 years and blah blah blah, see you again next year, if any of you survive that long.

A thing I believe would be an excellent feature somewhere in the future would be that having natural gifts in smaller and bigger quantities. For example, at character creation, the server gives you 30 points of gifting that it randomly distributes into everything on your character. This could result in you being generally gifted in everything, or majorly gifted in say blacksmithing. There should be no possible way to tell what it is you\'re gifted at until you actually figure out what it is by trying diffrent things. If suddenly you realise you learn a skill twice as easy as other people, or you generally fight much better than others near your skill level, then you can easily figure what you\'re gifted at. You may not like it, but that\'s life. I never said anything about this being a fair thing.

You might be extremely gifted as a jeweller, but all you ever wanted to be is a baker. Great dilemma. Should you do what your heart wants, or what you do the best?


Pros / Cons

+ You can get a bonus at doing something.
+ Encourages people to try out diffrent professions before settling with something they believe to be \"teh l33t\".
- Might encourage people to continously re-create their characters to get a good bonus, thus increase server load.
* Some people will complain about it being \'unfair\' that he/she is better than they are, however... Think about it. Isn\'t it also unfair Ronaldo is good at soccer, and you are not?

This is the first time I start a thread in this part of the forum, and it probably will be the only one I\'ll start for quite a while since this is ultimately one of the most extreme kinds of PvP you can encounter.

I\'m going to make this as simple as possible, while still explaining what it is all about, so most people understand what is I mean.

If there is something you don\'t understand, or don\'t like, feel free to ask about it or tell why you don\'t like it however if you reply with the statement \"this sux\", then you\'re an idiot and I\'ll be more than happy to tell you that. Try and keep flaming in the guild forum so Aendar can delete it for you.

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The idea of it all is pretty simple actually. Live and let live, or kill and get killed. To be more specific. You can attack anyone, anywhere without any pre-programmed punishment what-so-ever. This does not mean, however, that someone will not come and kill you for killing him. That\'s his choice.

So, by this I mean to suggest open PvP\'ing anywhere. Yet, if a city should have rules about no fighting, there shouldn\'t be guards storming in as soon as you pull your sword. The only reason why guards should appear is a) they were nearby and saw the fight or b) someone shouted \"Guards!\" If none of the above happens, noone stops two or more people from killing eachother in the streets.

Now, this can all be abused by griefers and highlevels, and we need some security so the lower end of the players don\'t get mercilessly slaughtered for nothing at all. First of all, every PK and PK attempt a player has made is to be logged in a seperate file for each character, stating agressor and time as well as who dies. And by PK attempt, I mean every unprovoked offensive action against someone else. So if you attack someone, you are the agressor and you get logged for the attack. If you kill someone who started out with attacking you, you get logged for the kill however since he is the agressor, that can be used as a counter-argument if you should ever get charged for anything.

Another thing that is to be implemented is the Death Council and Permanent death request system. This quite simply means that if you kill someone who really deserves to die for good, you can submit a permanent death request on him accompanied with a reason of why he must die, and his character will be rendered useless until the Death Council (a group of volountary people - plot designers, devs, GMs, players with high knowledge of ingame issues) either approves or denies the request. Should this feature be abused in such a way as that you kill someone and makes his character useless simply for annoying the person, your character (which most likely is of equal strength or better) will recieve a 30+ day ban, or in worse cases an account ban.

The Death Council will also be those in control of which of the \"permanently\" dead characters can and will be revived. For instance if a good priest of the holy order of goodness is killed for a worthy cause, a group of priests might contact the DC and request him to be resurrected. Not because the person who owns the character wants to play him again, but because there is a story behind the resurrection. This is where the plot designer\'s oppinion really kicks in as he has to decide whether it is a good or a bad idea to let the person come back to life, and whether he can contribute to the plot of the game in some way or another. If this feature is abused heavily by annoying people who just want to play their dead characters, they will simply be ignored forever, and in worse cases they might recieve a ban in some way.

Another thing this system allows is a way to perform guild wars. For example, a guild settles on an area and puts up signs saying this area is restricted, and anyone who enters will be killed. If someone enters and dies, he has been warned. Now, a diffrent guild wants the area and they engage in an all-out guild war, then all PK logging between the two guilds is disabled, and the guild war starts as soon as one guild challenges the other, and lasts for at least 24 hours to prevent abusal. One guild must still withdraw from the war, however, and suffer the penalty, whatever this might be.


Pros about this system:

* Effective, and it allows everyone to kill eachother, it allows pickpocketing (pp\'ing is an aggressive PK act, by the way), it allows duels and it allows everything else in the PK system.
* It provides a good way of dealing with those who constantly abuse the fact that you can do anything - permanent death.
* If some person goes rampage in a newbie area, it will be easy to contact a GM or highlevel player who can get rid of the insane player, and submit a permanent death request. The system is not for abusal, it\'s to allow people to do anything.
* It lets players who have a great influence on the community (evil as well as good) be resurrected and possibly play as a part of the ingame plot, or just take part of a side quest in some way or another.
* It allows the players who have the power to set the rules. They are no longer hardcoded into the game.
* Whole areas or regions can be controlled by powerful players or guilds, where they set the rules. If someone kills them, they get to make the new rules.

Cons about this system:

* A player can ruin newbies\' playing experience, however he also faces the risk of losing his character for good. That is often enough to make people think twice before going on a killing streak.
* The permanent death request can be used to prevent some people from playing their characters while the request is pending. However this can result in a 30+ day ban if abused.

Additional features that go under the same thing as this:

* City tax / Protection money
If you don\'t pay, the guards wont help you if you get attacked. Tough luck.

If both people have paid, the guards kill the agressor (if the attacked person hasn\'t responded to the attacks).
If both are attacking eachother, they both get killed by the guards. Simple as that.

* Modified NPC behaviour (idea by Axsyrus)
If an NPC sees you kill someone, they might report it to the city guards, or let the word flow around in the city, meaning NPCs might be unfriendly or scared of you, maybe they wont sell you items or in worst cases they might expell you from the city.

* \"Who killed me?\"
If - when you get killed - you don\'t have your killer\'s name plastered all over the screen, you might not remember who the person is. This adds to the realism of an ingame murder. However, if you do remember who killed you, you have but another reason to kill him/her.


Now, if you feel like adding anything to the idea, please say so. Do not simply say it\'s a bad idea because you can\'t do this or you can\'t do this, or it\'s a bad idea because you can do this or that. Like I said in the beginning of the post, if you can\'t give a valid argument for your thoughts, I am rightfully entitled to call you an idiot.

Think about stuff before you post, and think about what you write. Re-read it yourself after you\'ve posted. It prevents others from misunderstanding and becoming angry at you.

New news on the PS site (lazy people click here)

Short but very informative interview with Talad, including some great screenshots from the CB Arena. Great work.

Edit: Not -that- short though. It does hold some text.