Challenging Etiquette

[Seytra]

Well, if your notion of \"improving and expanding the game\" equates to \"catering to the powerleveller / PKer and making PS become more like any other MMORPG\", you should not be surprised that you meet strong opposition. If this is what you want, I hope that PS takes much longer to get there than it took the universe to become what it is today!

Edit: as for your challenge spam problem: I haven\'t had auto-decline fail once for me?

[Darkblade]

I\'ve seen a few instances when it becomes the RP community VS the PVP peoples.

Considering that situation, it ended with a bit of a mess...
The PVP player was insisting that nothing was wrong, even though we explained from our point of view multiple times.
(If a player stays in context and is killed because of it, it is considered murder... At least, to us.)

In fact, I think those who want to PvP should earn the right to do so, instead of randomly spamming people challenges.

[zanzibar]

Limit PVP to the arena, and call PVP outside of the arena murder, or \"disturbing the peace\" if it\'s consentual.  However, there needs to be a way then to get to the arena quickly, or else people won\'t use it.  A teleportation device, spell, or gateway would provide this.

[Seytra]

Considering that you usually set a time for the duel to start IRL (like noon), the way to the arena won\'t be much of a limiting factor, at least not if the duel is RP\'d correctly.

I think we need to make death more inconveinent, for example by moving the respawn point way out of any commonly travelled area. This would solve
- /spawn abuse
- deathspawn
- unnecessary duelling, at least to an extent.

Let\'s put it somewhere in the hills, for example, way off the ojaroad and teffy hill.

[buddha]

Seytra pointed out exactly why the dueling happens in the plaza.  This is probably the only practical solution, since these guys aren\'t going away.  Even behind the temple or somewhere out of sight would be nice.  Perhaps two spawn points: one for brand new people and one for people recently killed OR even random spawn points.  That would suck for the new guys, though...

Another thing I feel is needed is for we RPers to STAY in the plaza and set the proper tone.

[Cha0s]

And then we could go the Arabel route (NWNers, check out the server City of Arabel ): In Arabel open PvP is allowed. Go ahead, kill who you want. However, there are consequences. If you randomly kill people, you are considered to be murdering. The first offense (if you\'re caught) sticks you in jail (2 or 3 REAL days I believe). The second offense gets you banned from the city (it may be third, not usre).

In other words, random murderers end up losing their characters (though in PS there\'d probably a few more chances, i.e. 5 murders = character wipe). There can also be a system for appeals in the event of any unclear issues. This ties in with the city guard idea I mentioned somewhere around here. The city guard enforces this and puts people in jail when they\'re caught murdering, stealing, etc (of course the people could petition GMs if they think their case is unfair). The city guard would NOT be able to wipe characters. This would control PvPers and make the game more realistic. The downside to this is that newbie PvPers would get angry and leaves PS. Then again, for some people, that\'s an upside.

[Darkblade]

I agree that the PvP area should be in the arena.
Mostly, that\'s what it\'s for, right?

A little bit OT: RPers (including me) need to spread out a bit... I\'ve never seen any in Akkiko or the other sections of Hydlaa. Just the Tavern and the Plaza.

On Topic\'d
I\'d say that spawn points should be in the major cities (currently Akkiko and Hydlaa), and the Arena.
If possible, those who die from duels should go to the Arena, while those that die from \"natural causes\" (Rampant Ulbernaut or Teffy) should spawn at the nearest point.

\'Course, I have no idea if that is possible.
It should be, but I\'m pretty sure I\'d be quite a bit of work.

We just need to find a way to move the PvPers, because otherwise they\'ll stay in the Plaza...
Ideas mentioned above probably should work.

@Cha0s: I think we agreed that Open PvP is not an option?

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Cha0s
In other words, random murderers end up losing their characters (though in PS there\'d probably a few more chances, i.e. 5 murders = character wipe). There can also be a system for appeals in the event of any unclear issues. This ties in with the city guard idea I mentioned somewhere around here. The city guard enforces this and puts people in jail when they\'re caught murdering, stealing, etc (of course the people could petition GMs if they think their case is unfair). The city guard would NOT be able to wipe characters. This would control PvPers and make the game more realistic. The downside to this is that newbie PvPers would get angry and leaves PS. Then again, for some people, that\'s an upside.

If you wish to make such a force of people who punish others for PKing, you have the typical power-abuse question. Will these people - who obviously aren\'t a part of the dev team - abuse their power, and punish people unnecessarily? And starting to demand that the GMs - who already are a volounteer force - do all this extra work just isn\'t a good idea.

To put it in another way, PlaneShift simply isn\'t designed to use open pvp\'ing anywhere. To use some kind of guard force, would require a whole restructuring of both the PvP system, the setting and the game mechanics, and it would be a big amount of wasted work when the current system works just fine.

What people need to realize is just that killing stuff isn\'t everything there is to do in an online game, so there\'s no need to concentrate so much about what\'s cool and what\'s not.

[Nikodemus]

*notices another thread involving pvp*

I\'d like to comment few thoughts up here

Originally posted by Cha0s
In other words, random murderers end up losing their characters (though in PS there\'d probably a few more chances, i.e. 5 murders = character wipe). There can also be a system for appeals in the event of any unclear issues. This ties in with the city guard idea I mentioned somewhere around here. The city guard enforces this and puts people in jail when they\'re caught murdering, stealing, etc (of course the people could petition GMs if they think their case is unfair). The city guard would NOT be able to wipe characters. This would control PvPers and make the game more realistic.

I can\'t see how game may be more realistic because of character wipes. Imagine yourself sitting at the comp and suddently you are wiped. I dont think so that this sounds realistic. :s
I agree that if there was pvp, there need to be punishment system as mentioned above and in many other places, but it needs to be logical and realistic (in the right meaning).

About spawning:
I can\'t understand why people constantly are asking for different spawn points.

PS news 2004.08.25
In CB we will have a first implementation of the Death Realm (DR). When a character dies, his body lays on the ground, lifeless. No one can touch the body since it\'s surrounded by a magic death aura. Touching that aura can be fatal to anyone. The spirit separates from the body and asks to the gods to be resurrected. The Death God, being evil and greedy, asks a magical item to bring him back to the world of the living. If he refuses or has nothing to give, he is thrown to the Death Realm. In the realm of death everything is dim and shadow and the spirits of the dead cannot die again, they may be knocked out but never die no matter how badly they are wounded. Here he must find an exit from DR to come back to life.

This don\'t mention that the soul comes back to its body in the place where it was, but it seems logical. When you comes back to life, curently you spawns at plaza, what means your body ot teleported. Why? I have no logical, rp explanation and thats another reason why i\'m posting.
So when you die and later comes back to life, you should be there where you died.

Originally posted by Kiva
To put it in another way, PlaneShift simply isn\'t designed to use open pvp\'ing anywhere. To use some kind of guard force, would require a whole restructuring of both the PvP system, the setting and the game mechanics, and it would be a big amount of wasted work when the current system works just fine.

What people need to realize is just that killing stuff isn\'t everything there is to do in an online game, so there\'s no need to concentrate so much about what\'s cool and what\'s not.

I agree planeshift isn\'t currently designed for open Player Killing. Also I agree that adding open pvp\'ing needs a lot of work and restructuring the game mechanics. But it won\'t be wasted work and the current system isn\'t working just fine.

So many people are asking for open pvp (if not everywhere, then at some area) because it involves great amount of situations which can\'t be done without it.
If we dont have open pvp, then we loose much also on rp aspect because we can\'t roleplay many of our actions, which should be possible. We can only tell tales in the tavern about such situations which has never happened.

[Monketh]

Nikodemus, you just have to get someone to go along with it.  Given that death is not a big deterrant currently, this should not be too difficult.

I have to agree with the idea of respawning in the location of death, as it prevents travel-by-death as we have currently.

[Seytra]

Originally posted by Nikodemus
I agree planeshift isn\'t currently designed for open Player Killing. Also I agree that adding open pvp\'ing needs a lot of work and restructuring the game mechanics. But it won\'t be wasted work and the current system isn\'t working just fine.

So many people are asking for open pvp (if not everywhere, then at some area) because it involves great amount of situations which can\'t be done without it.

I might be wrong, but it seems that almost all of the people asking for open PvP are exactly the ones that are why open PvP is a bad thing.
The system as it is works very well for everyone except these, save some minor issues that can be worked out.

Originally posted by Nikodemus
If we dont have open pvp, then we loose much also on rp aspect because we can\'t roleplay many of our actions, which should be possible. We can only tell tales in the tavern about such situations which has never happened.

As I said somewhere else, the only ones who can handle the victim side of PvP are exceptionally good RPers. These, however, are the minority. It is easy to be on the murderer side, but hard to be on the victim side. The others who might not mind being on the victim side are not RPing at all, but only powerlevellers who want some sort of ranking system, griefers and other abusers like farmers who use PvP to keep legitimate chars from entering their \"turf\".
Therefore, the average RPer would be served badly with open PvP, and the exceptional RPer will agree to the duel with other exceptional RPers. You can easily agree on a duel and then go your ways, and hours later actual hostility can arise.
The powerleveller and other abusers are unwanted and thus don\'t need to be taken into account at all, except to prevent them from showing up in PS.

[Nikodemus]

hmmm, I have pressed wrong key and all my text has been deleted :s

So basicly:
Duel system stops most of the abuses. It allows RPers (who want to have most of the time peacefull life) stay away from unnecessary in their opinion death. We live in \"paradise\" where everybody are safe because they can choose to not fight and walk away like nothing ha happened.
We can\'t be suprised by someone who wants to kill us. There are no battles.
Even of two RPers will agree, to fight they have to explain eachother why they are going too.

Open pk will allow more abuses, but it allow other actions for people who will use this option in the meant way. We can\'t make open pk instantly, because first there need to be somethink what will stop massive masacres.

Basicly, one group of people dont want open pk, because they dont need it so much and fear abuses.  they have bad eperiences from other games where nothing has been made against it, maybe?
The other group of people want pk, because they want adventure where they want to risk their life. And they think it  is so good fun that they may agree for some abuses.
Both groups are roleplayers, but they like to rp different situations.

Generally open pk needs a lot of work to be done if it is going to be done in the right way.  And thats probably the main reason why we dont have it.