Guards

[John80sk]

Well, Zanzibar's thread got me thinking about practical ways to stop people from things like killing each other in front of Harnquists...

Now, lets face it, beating an NPC in combat isn't exactly difficult, regardless of their stats.  It's even easier to run away from them, as they seem to rarely be able to find your position.  So, what's the solution then?  To me, it's quite simple, a gm run guild of town guards.  Basically we'd find a gm willing to be the guard leader, and they'd manage a group mature enough to handle the responsibilites of a guard.

Now, the main difference between guards and regular players is that they'd be able to challenge anyone at any time in city areas, no accept or decline, they just get to kill you.  This right here is the reason why it would have to be GM run, in order to prevent it from turning into the guild everyone joins so they can kill whoever they want.

In the long run an arrest ability would also be nice.  This would also go hand in hand with a non lethal duel option, where basically they'd defeat you and force you into a forced follow type deal.

Other than the ability to challenge anyone in Hydlaa and Oja however, guards would be identical to normal players.  I think this in itself would lead to much more interesting RP, as 'evil' characters would have to avoid the town guards, and 'good' characters couldn't go around slaughtering people because of something they said, etc.

Anyways, as usual, I know this post probably isn't the best written, but I think you all get the idea

[Zan]

I seriously doubt this will work ...

1) GM's have different jobs and adding this to their list will either require many many more GMs or sacrifice their help with sorting out bugs and keeping abuse to a minimum.

2) I predict quite a few posts about "GM's jailed my character .. I'm being treated injust! Whine whine whine ..." their popularity among the players is already pretty thin, no need to kick it down further.

NPC guards and a good "crime & punishment" system is what we need.

 Player guards for RPs are strongly encouraged by me but they can't be granted real power, they'll only have as much power as the people who RP with them give them. And since everyone is very reluctant to submit to anyone else .. that is doomed to fail.

[Garile]

hmmm I would have to disagree. With enough effort it could work quite nicely having a guild of players that act like guards with just a little bit more power. However it's true people would have to be selected carefully and that would be quite a strain on GMs.

It would however be a step between being a player and a GM and that makes it interesting in my eyes.

[Idoru]

I think it is a brilliant idea (not only because I was thinking something similar myself ;o))

The problem with waiting for NPC guards is that even in commercial games the NPC AI is pretty easy to evade.

I think it would be reasonably easy to find 'guard' players who are mature and reponsible enough to have this ability. Maybe make it so they create a new account and get certain advantages in stats, give them the ability to do a /who for the player name and it gives their /POS (quite OOC but its just an idea to help them find the trouble makers) or just let them create a new kind of RP with groups of guards going round searching for these players and asking others whether they have seen them.

The only problem IMO would be that unless they are Enki or not in Hydlaa its still not much of a punishment to be sent to the DR, they would be back in a couple of minutes and be even more irritated. Maybe after the 10th time they've died they would give up on their nefarious activities, I would hope so atleast.

[Zan]

Have either of you tried RPing a guard? Try 'punishing' people as another person and see how they react ... I can assure you that 90% will not react well Having players, GMs or anything in between being responcible for punishing other players for reasons they think are right .. it's just asking for a whole heap of trouble and complaining. Let the game mechanics handle this and nobody can complain about anything except about the game itself. That kind of complaining will always be there anyway

Don't get me wrong, personally I'd love to see other players pick up the role of city guard but I've tried it myself and I don't see much good coming out of. When I tried it I was ignored, laughed at or killed in duels most of the time .. rarely taken seriously. If I was given powers to actually control the mob I couldn't be ignored anymore .. but I don't think it would be accepted.

[neko kyouran]

You mean you want a PS version of the Crimson Knights?

[Garile]

*smiles*

Someone who watched it aswell

Well about the same idea exept that in thatserie it's a game where death actually means something annoying and it is very OOC.

If guards like that would be implemented in PS they should be selected on roleplayskills and obviously a rudimental lawsystem should be thought out so the guards don't punish what they feel is wrong, but simply becuase persons are breaking the law. The people who feel pissed about that I don't think really understand the goal of the game. If you do something wrong IC you should accept atleast as a player the IC punishment and not start complaining about people playing their part.

[zanzibar]

I'd rather avoid having real people do such things, because those people would then be targetted for harassment.  If a NPC does it, or if it's built into the system, twerps will have no one to attack except the game itself.... and calling a NPC names doesn't do much harm to anyone.

[Narure]

I dunno they haven't been talking to me much lately... 

[Under the moon]

* Under the moon hmmmmmmms.

I could be a fair guard, and I know Zan could. I could also name a bunch of other folks who could do a fair jobs as well. The problem remains the same. GMs can not be everywhere, and players can not be everywhere. Nor can they be on all the time.

I -am- in favor of being able to become a guard with special 'powers' (like /kick-out-of-tavern-you-n00b), IF they could be used with respect. But, that would only be an RP backup to the true system.

I shall repost what I wrote in the other thread.

But I do say a big NO to having the GMs step in for one main reason. GMs don't want to be babysitters, and they can not be there all the time. In the future, PS may have thousands of players on at once, and GMs can not cover all of the areas that are not ok to fight in. In my system, I outlined two things that would specifically curb the need for GMs.

One was the /stopfight command that other players can do if they see the fight as disruptive and OOC. This -could- be used to troll, and some creep could run around trying to stop all dueling, but the system could be adjusted to curb that. Prhaps multiple /stopfights would be needed from more than one player.

The second is even more simple. The system already supports various PvP zones (though not in use yet), and a duel spamming trigger. Any place that is deemed as not good for fighting can not be fought in without alerting the guards. This includes just challenging, even if it is declined. I am in support of guards that can automatically ‘poof’ into the scene with special guard-only-glyphs, then ‘poof’ the offender outside the city gates with a stern warning. The ‘killing’ for duel challenging I do not like, as it goes directly against the Settings saying killing for a crime is rare. Porting to a random point in the middle of nowhere is a much better, and much more realistic (in a magic world, that is) way to do things. And, much more irritating for the spammer. Once again, the system would need some tweaking to work well.

[Illysia]

Why not have it so that the guards can take the weapons of duelers and maybe impose a fine based on percentage. As was seen with the last wipe, people take notice when they lose money and valuable items. This would prevent the need to kill and about whining, well, people in the real legal system whine all the time about fines that they earned. There isn't much that can be done about that.

[John80sk]

1) GM's have different jobs and adding this to their list will either require many many more GMs or sacrifice their help with sorting out bugs and keeping abuse to a minimum.

I'm talking about a particular GM who would be appointed to oversee this, perhaps even a new GM to do so.

2) I predict quite a few posts about "GM's jailed my character .. I'm being treated injust! Whine whine whine ..." their popularity among the players is already pretty thin, no need to kick it down further.

Warn followed by an IP ban.  Problem solved.

I'd rather avoid having real people do such things, because those people would then be targetted for harassment.  If a NPC does it, or if it's built into the system, twerps will have no one to attack except the game itself.... and calling a NPC names doesn't do much harm to anyone.

Aren't real police officers the targets of harrassment?  If it gets OOC then the guard would report it to their gm masters and they'd get banned.

I could be a fair guard, and I know Zan could. I could also name a bunch of other folks who could do a fair jobs as well. The problem remains the same. GMs can not be everywhere, and players can not be everywhere. Nor can they be on all the time.

Neither are cops, but it helps to have someone patrolling the city anyways, doesn't it?

The truth is that GM's are too busy to deal with every n00b, and most people don't want the responsibility of being a GM.  However, people being allowed to RP a guard and continue to play the game normally with no other responsibilty other than to RP would be a lot easier.  Not to mention a lot of this can easily be implimented, while working NPC guards most likely won't happen for years, if ever.

[Karyuu]

Anyone with any ability to mute/kick/ban other players will have to be hand-selected and tested, and it would take a very long time to amass a decent amount of trustworthy guards.

Besides, we all thought it would take years for maps to be implemented, but they're already here. Sometimes development is unpredictable in the best of ways.

[John80sk]

I'll take your word for it when NPC's work... at all

No, they don't get to mute/kick/ban.  They would report people, and would be taken seriously unlike most petitions complaining about other players are.  Their only real ability now would be to kill players without having to worry about them declining with the current system.  Hopefully in the future Yliakum will have a prison as well, so they can be 'arrested'.

[Karyuu]

They would report people, and would be taken seriously unlike most petitions complaining about other players are.

All petitions concerning other players should be taken seriously. If they aren't, it is a fault of the GM considering the petition :]

Their only real ability now would be to kill players without having to worry about them declining with the current system.  Hopefully in the future Yliakum will have a prison as well, so they can be 'arrested'.

Considering how the current combat system works, even if you can strike someone without challenging them you're not going to be able to do much damage unless you're both standing around. A bothersome individual can run from guards endlessly, thus rendering the entire setup quite useless.