The first point I would like to make make is I have liberally stolen what I think are good ideas from other games and other threads to compile what I believe what be an enjoyable and workable system.
My view on MMO's is that they should have as much realism and freedom of morality as possible, everybody plays them so as to play a role, some want to be villains (rp villains NOT griefers) and others want to be heroes. Neither is truly possible if all rules are server enforced and all PvP is consensual. That said, very few people want a game in which lower level and non combat characters become marginalised as they are unable to defend themselves against constant attack, if we wanted that we might as well all go and play WoW where you don't have true professions, just trade skills which are a side line to a main combat class. Thats my rant and explanation out of the way on with *my* system for pvp and crimes.
1. Consensual PvP or dueling: Any player can challenge any other and shall specify before the challenge is accepted whether or not it shall be to the death. Either way there is no looting allowed (though placing wagers in advance is fine). Duels that are not to the death will end when one of the players reaches 1hp and both players will automatically halt their attacks.
2. Guildwars: Before deciding how to implement guildwars it needs to be decided on why you are implementing them, what will be accomplished by this process? I have seen several good suggestions on the forums so I shall only skim briefly over the surface. I am personally in favour of having the guilds ruling the world, each guild gains a rating based on its membership, assets and alliances which ascertains its standing on the councils (this can be server-wide or my preference each city having its own giving the guilds real connections to their homes) A guild which wishes to declare war on another wagers a certain number of its guild points upon the outcome of the battle. The battle goes on until every member of one of the guilds has been killed once OR one guild manages to beseige their opponents guild hall for a certain length of time. Any allied guilds may join the battle, and any guild may declare war at most once a (day/week/month)
3. Crimes and Punishment
i. Theivery - Pickpocketing will yield a smallish (2-5) percent of the victims carried wealth, each attempt as well as having a chance to succeed or fail has a chance of detection. If not detected the victim will not know untill they next open their inventory at which point they will be informed "You have been robbed" If the criminal is detected he willl lose law points (more in a bit)
ii. Murder (PK) Have safe points, I'd recommend homes, inns, churches and guild houses no PvP is permitted in them.
With that one restriction any player can target and attack without warning any other player. If this is witnessed by lawful NPC's or is reported by the victim (can be processed by simple script) the criminal will lose several law points. If the killer goes on to loot the body they will gain a larger percentage of the victims wealth (~25%) and more law points will be lost.
4. Legal kills Any player who is on a low enough law points total is freely killable with no penalty this also applies to anybody who starts non-consensual PvP (for a short while, the allows friends of the victim to defend them) This could be represented by a change in colour of the players name.
5. Law points These could be gained from doing good deeds such as killing most wanted criminals or certain quests, they are lost by commiting crimes, as a players total goes down merchants will give them worse deals and eventually when they hit a low enough total they will not be allowed entry into cities (NPC guards will attack on sight) Bounties can also be posted for players with low enough LP's. Law points will very slowly increase to a certain above middling value as a player goes without commiting crimes or getting caught.
6. Punishment As death isn't very permanent a suitable punishment for anyone who is caught while having a very low law total would be the stocks surrounded by guards for a number of ingame days. If a lock is placed holding it shut it allows players who are roleplaying villains to risk capture them selves attempting to rescue there comrade.
Done as you can probably see the last couple of sections are somewhat abbreviated because my fingers are getting sore (and its almost time to leave work) if anything is unclear or contradictory feel free to post and I'll do my best to clarify or if needed revise this.
Cheers for reading
