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Should we make PKers have to roleplay it out for 5 minutes before taking these marks? What about a voyage you have to do to take these npc marks.. Will the incursion of a different aspect of a game into their lives make them mad?

I'm Cucker Tarlson and I'll be back with more bad ideas after this break.

That's the core of the problem though. The guy who loves pk is OK with a system that creates more avenues for pk while the people who avoid pk and don't like it dislike a system that creates more of it. You're essentially arguing that the people who don't want more pk are wrong because they don't want more pk.

There is absolutely no way anyone who was looking to engage in PVP would want to do so by initiation via marks. That makes no sense at all. You don't decide to get into architecture by constructing the Taj Mahal as your first project.

I think it's disingenuous for one of the bigger pk players to insist that a system that introduced more pk is amazing and wonderful and anyone who disagrees is setting traps to argue against pvp. There has been a wide variety of responses to this change, all the way from it's horrible and needs to be reversed, to it's ok but has problems, to it won't actually change anything once we figure out what denizens will hire. We get it, you like pk and think a system that potentially introduces more pk is a positive thing - to you. But please be more accepting of the idea that not everyone thinks this idea is interesting. Throwing out terms like red herring just makes it look like you've been deaf to the real arguments that have been given against this change.

Sobby turned 500. We had a party. There was food, drink, song, jokes, stories and a game of "dodge the holobomb" with Lady P. I then said I missed puppet obliterate, so she blew someone up for me.

Best text birthday ever.

PS - Sorry Mezghar

PPS - Thanks for trying Tahquil, pass on my best to you know who.

I think that the NPCs who want to hire should be hiring other NPCs with about their same skill level. That handles removal of the "No repercussions" issue, while not turning the masses into canon [sic] fodder for the folks who come just to pretend to RP so they can kill people.

@Makarios

Since the changes were added wherein a denizen will give you a warning, could we get two things?

1. Make this a CONFIG option to see this message. Have it on by default, similar to KILL etc.
2. If the option is turned ON, you cannot one-shot that enemy due to a lucky crit.

Or, y'know. Option 3: Have it be something you can see when LOOKing at the target. "This target will hire upon you should you assault them."

That's sort of the fundamental problem, if you ask me. The changes around denizens really feel like we're trying to solve a roleplay problem with a PK hammer, which both isn't going to solve the issue and leads to the obvious frustrations.

Keorin has avoided hunting most sentient beings since the start. The problem is that not hunting sentients kind of sucks from a gameplay perspective. You end up cut off from a huge swathe of bashing areas, you become unable to easily take part in hunting contests, you lose a common social activity, and for no benefit. Roleplay doesn't need benefit, of course, but a roleplay choice with all mechanical downside and no mechanical upside isn't one that most people are going to want to take. This is why the choice to hunt sentients is almost always a gameplay decision, rather than a roleplay one. After all, the only time people care if you hunt sentients are when people try to use it to make moral equivalency arguments.

Changing that means adding roleplay resources that are sorely lacking. It means being clear what happens to a denizen you kill, so people actually have a shared understanding of what hunting entails (it's absurd to me that we still don't have that basic fact established). It means that hunting needs to actually have roleplay benefits and consequences, and not solely be in the realm of gameplay. And it means making -not- hunting denizens into a real choice, not a roleplay decision with solely mechanical downside.

This contract business -could- be an interesting part of a broader set of changes, it isn't going to address any of these problems on its own. It's another mechanical solution to a problem rooted in roleplay, and while it gives a disincentive to hunting certain denizens, it sure doesn't give any alternatives to hunting sentients. Some hunters will just eat the contracts, others will learn to avoid the particular denizens they have to avoid, but I don't think that anyone will treat denizens less like experience balloons simply because of this change.

I don't feel like we're lacking in the PK avenues personally. If the denizen hiring thing was to encourage more PK that seems like a poor choice in a poor direction.

RP needs more buffs. Needs to have purpose and a reason. It feels like it's being put on the back burner more and more in favour of the PK scene and that is a real shame.

So you're telling me with a straight face that after months of grabbing a few kills here and there... I have gone 15 months without securing a kill in a raid defense? That's quite the drought for someone who always defends. My question then is, when does the title of "active defender" wear off....50 IG years? 100?