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Comments
I just want to know if its okay for me to someday to over throw the Tyrannous by brute force, kill all Mhaldorians one at a time and then reign myself supreme ruler of the pandas. Then invade the Garden and ascend myself as Goddess of the Pandas, then kill all who dare utter my name. Without the fear of being shrubbed.
a Bunch of you are whiney b*****s
Please, nuke this thing. XP loss needs to be in for the beginners, to teach them how to not die, but they shouldn't be so scared of losing XP that they stay out of combat. The end, XP loss in, woo-fucking-hoo. The PK laws are -rather- simple. If you have RP reason, do it.
@Scarlatti @Gaia @Vastar
Oh. Just play the game.
Like it is a game.
This is my favorite game.
When games upset me, I take a break.
Serious note: try changing your faction, class, race, traits, House. You have put in your due time - this time was not wasted. Step down from Grand Father, bid farewell to your home and go on an adventure.
Jacen is Spire Hayabusa 200 years ago. I was Mr. Kharon. I was their hotshot, the only one who cared to PK. I tried to change them, and a lot of things were for the better! I got Grand Father, did some good things. I designed their Icon Plane, I designed most of their falcon (collaborated effort, but the bulk wording was mine!), I still hold the Silver Scorpion artefact. Then I left them, in a good spot, with great pride in my achievements.
Sounds like you need to shake things up. Come to Ashtan, if only temporarily. It's not betrayal, it's pilgrimage for betterment.
My interpretation of the first point in the OP is something like:
The new PK rules leave much of the determination of what's acceptable in PK up to the judgment of the players involved, with the admin available as arbiters in cases where two parties can't agree on what's reasonable. Since opinions on acceptable behaviour vary widely across the player base, it would be nice to have a feel for the precedent set by previous admin rulings, to help in judging what one is likely to be getting into in getting involved in a particular conflict, and what sorts of behaviour are likely to be considered egregious enough that the admin would want to hear about them.
Assuming that's roughly the goal, I think you're going to find that explicit admin opinions are fairly scarce, for a couple reasons. One is that they mostly appear in the context of issues, which are not supposed to be discussed publicly. Another, maybe more important, one is that there's just not that much that's explicitly disallowed across the board. The system, as I understand it, is essentially that everyone is expected to act with common sense and decency; if your idea of common sense and decency differs from your opponent's (as it inevitably will from time to time) and you can't resolve the matter between yourselves, ISSUEs are there as a way to ask for arbitration from the admin. Those rulings, for the most part, are going to be highly context dependent, and often won't translate well into hard and fast rules about specific actions that are or are not legal.
For example, the one explicit admin statement on forums that I recall off the top of my head is the stating that retribution after leaving a Treacherous Plane for actions on that plane is illegal. IIRC, that was met with quite a bit of (justified, IMO) criticism, because it seemed to run pretty counter to the spirit of the new rules - there are contexts in which chasing someone out of UW or Annwyn would be sensible and justified and contexts in which it wouldn't, and just making it a blanket rule seemed like a step back to the old "rule for every situation" system.
So I think the answer is that your best bet is probably to try to get a sense of how various potential opponents are likely to behave and look for opportunities to play with people where neither side is likely to feel the other has crossed any lines. If you do find yourself in a situation where you feel a line has been crossed, then yes, that's what ISSUEs are for. But note that that doesn't mean that ISSUEs are a replacement for the Mark system. "So-and-so just killed me, I'm not good enough to kill them back, the Mark system is unreliable [for whatever reason, not sure of the status there], and I have no other ready means of retribution" is an unfortunate situation, but not in itself a reason to ISSUE - resolution doesn't have to involve successful retribution; I think that that sort of reasoning for issuing (or issuing based on the old pk rules) is a lot of where the anti-ISSUE attitudes on forums comes from. If So-and-so repeatedly kills you for no reason or more than is justified by whatever RP basis is behind it, that's where violation of the PK rules comes in, and that's what ISSUEs are for. Different people will have different thresholds for when something's bad enough to ISSUE over, but people who claim that you should never ISSUE over PK should generally be ignored. If the admin think you're being too thin-skinned and filing too many ISSUEs over small things, they'll let you know; their opinions are the only ones that matter on that topic.
All that said, for general guidelines, @Jarrod's look pretty good. Try to have fun, and if you're not, find different people to play with or try to talk to the people you are playing with and figure out something better.
Edit: removed a little flamebait at the end there.
We missed you.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
That might be cats.
-
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important
Kinda seemed relevant.
I don't disagree that a "suck it up" mentality exists in the PvP crowd, however there is a reason for that perspective. Achaea is one of very few games out there that offers something for every one, whether you're a tea-time roleplayer or hardcore PK enthusiast (or both, or whatever). Achaea's PvP scene is also pay-to-win, with the bonus of being able to grind for credits as a free player.
Now, since Achaea attracts both tea-time roleplayers and hardcore PvPers, there's often a conflict of interests in the middle ground. Obviously there are players who are interested in pure socializing, and there are players who just log in for the PvP, and players who dabble in both, one more than the other.
Now the thing with most freemium games (freemium being a mixture of free-to-play with premium perks) is that, in most titles with PvP these days, free players are the content for paying players. This is an opinion shared by many devs and gamers (seriously, Google "free players are the content" or variations of). The paying players with their $300 artefacts, in any freemium title, need to feel that their dollars were well spent - that means being able to steamroll free users in the PvP battlegrounds.
Of course, Achaea is unique in that regard because Achaea doesn't just offer PvP equipment in its cash shop. It offers all sorts of unique little cosmetics that also appeal to social gamers, like flower pots and non-decaying letter kits. Thus, everyone is ultimately a paying player, which sort of goes against the grain of most freemium / pay-to-win titles out there. In most P2W titles, the attitude is "well, you didn't spend $300 on artefacts, so you have no right to bitch that I rekd you". In Achaea, the attitude is "I might not have as many PvP artefacts, but I'm loaded in credits and minipets, so I have as many customer rights as you do".
This can cause some headaches for Achaea's staff because they need to juggle the happiness of every one; social RPers and pure PvPers alike. That leaves us with "well, if the free / social players aren't the content for the PvPers to grief, what is the content for the PvPers?". You could answer "well, PvP is the content unto itself" but in a P2W game, its not enough to be competitive - nobody wants to spend hundreds of dollars to merely be competitive. You want to spend hundreds of dollars to steamroll people. Now, who is easier to steamroll - someone equally as artefacted as yourself, or someone who only dabbles in PvP?
So the "Suck it up or you're a little bitch" attitude mainly comes from the mainstream PvP attitude where paying, PvP-minded players are encouraged to get their kicks from being able to decimate the little guy in a few strokes of their cash-shop broadsword. Achaea is unique from those games, however, in that PvP is only one aspect of the game, and its a truly player-driven world that appeals to people with conflicting interests / gameplay styles.
Having said all that, its also easier for Achaea to reign in the griefy players, being a smaller community. Imagine if an "issues" system existed in a huge, AAA budget title with the PK rules of Achaea (PK is okay as long as you're not a jerk). The amount of time a company like Blizzard would have to spend sifting through issues would probably cost them thousands of dollars in hiring dedicated staff to just go through issues all day.
TLDR summary: Most pay-to-win game companies have the luxury of not worrying about retaining free players, since their income is derived from artefacted PvPers. Achaea doesn't have that luxury and also offers something for every one in its cash shop, so every one is eventually a "paying player" if they stick around long enough. However, the "I pay thousands of dollars to steamroll non-PvPers" mindset is pretty much encouraged by most big-budget game devs, whereas Achaea tries to strike a balance, which is fairly difficult, evidenced by the existence of the ISSUES system which would be an enormous migraine for a company like Blizzard.
One thought however, is that in your model, the people that'd be mad would be "pay to win" players, and the people they'd be mad at would consistently be the non "pay to win" players. This differs from the actual case, because most "pay to win" players are actually quite content, and many of them are in fact the ones upset about the rules and enforcement (like myself). It is invariably apparent that players that pay IRE more get away with far more rule-breaking than non-paying players, to the extent that many of the rules aren't even considered "rules" anymore, because they are so frequently ignored (see Forum rule 1: Don't be a Jark, or Carmell's post about getting ganked because she dropped a rite). (Some) "Pay to win" players are just as upset about this as free players, as it makes the game less fun for everybody in the long run.
I think you've definitely exposed a huge driving factor behind the "problem" that many people seem to have with the PK rules of the game, however I don't think it's the entire picture. Something has to explain the fact that people like me who have paid far more than the average player, want to see the rules made more strict, or simply be enforced properly as they currently exist.
1) Give people the ability to do, essentially, whatever they want, whenever they want.
2) Choose, willingly, to use a system that entirely relies on case-by-case admin judgement for disputes.
3) Encourage/foster the mentality that issuing is bad because it's a waste of admin time*.
4) Encourage/foster the culture that ostracizing and insulting people for using ISSUEs is acceptable.
5) Dismiss and Delay the vast majority issues for vague or totally unspecified reasons in order to establish that filing them is, except in extremely severe cases, a total waste of time.
In the end you have a system that entirely relies on the fact that admin handle issues, but is designed ground up to minimize the amount of "handling" that must be done, or is actually done. The way I see it, if you're not willing to commit to the time involved in such a system, then simply don't use it. It's certainly unethical to design your game rules around an ISSUE system (that we pay you to maintain) that you, in almost every way possible, discourage people from actually using to resolve disputes.
* which is actually bullshit, because it isn't a "waste" of admin time. It's part of what I'm paying you for, which is (just a reminder here) considerably more money than every other computer game I've ever purchased, several times over. Secondly, the people who deal with issues are volunteer admins who in almost all cases, have nothing to do with coding - so the whole community-developed theory that "time spent dealing with issues could have been better spent working on multiclass" is completely false, but has never been openly stated by IRE.
As it stands, the reality is this. I can log in, and PK a random player, with absolutely no reason whatsoever and know with 98% certainty that I will face no punitive action for intentionally breaking the PK rules. This is, in my opinion unacceptable. Enforce the rules, or change them to something you're willing (and/or able) to enforce.
This is why there's an anti-issue culture in Achaea: it's because you lose nothing meaningful when you die. I will never understand why people get so mad about something that doesn't matter.
People like Shecks who PK and still throw around issues like they're going out of fashion are another thing altogether. Neither of these groups make sense to me.
You shouldn't be issuing people for PK unless you're actually being griefed; i.e., if the game is becoming totally unplayable for you, and it's through no fault of your own, and there's nothing you can do IC to get out of it, you might have a valid issue. Other than that, unless they're breaking the rules of the game, there's absolutely no reason to get the admins involved. Just man up and take a death or 30, it's really no big deal.
I would estimate that my characters are illegally attacked and killed almost every time I log in for more than 5 minutes at a time. Furthermore, most of the time it's large groups of people running around 5v1ing with soulspears or whatever.
So no, it isn't the .5% I lose by dying that I care about, it's the fact that I can't play the game the way its intended to be played, because a significant portion of the combat crowd thinks that "He is a citizen of Targossas" is a legitimate reason to repeatedly kill someone's character.
I can tell you for a fact that I don't care at all about dying. Dying has almost nothing to do with this conversation. It's about the game and the way it's played, and unwelcome, unprovoked aggression, typically in grossly "unfair" scenarios, that people have a problem with.
Lastly, the trivialization of in-game death is bad for the game, in my opinion. Death should matter. If your argument is "Why do you care about dying so much?", my answer would be "Why the hell wouldn't it?".
Where I agree with the fact that "if it's not playable, not your fault, nothing to do IC to escape" warrants an excuse for an issue, I don't think it's justified to constantly kill the same person over and over unless you formally rivaled each other.
If one is an enemy to a City and one person from that City constantly kills them every hour, it'd just be ridiculous.
Besides, in my opinion, one death makes more RP sense than several (most of the time). "I've got your head, revenge obtained. Stay out of my way, enemy"... Something like that.
This is why I think that the "rival" system is a great idea, people just seem to forget about it.
Now, those ass-hats that issue at the drop of a hat need to be shunned, just like those who skirt the PK guidelines.
And believe me, I'm all about putting on the big-girl panties, even if they're supported with some good ol' ranting, but let's be honest. If we disagree on something and I smash your face, will you call the police? Of course. Admin= police. I mean, you'll fight back, but in the end, unless you win the fight, you'll probably make the call. Nothing wrong with that. And knowing that before hand, I'm going to ensure I have a good reason to fight.
I am a midbie, a monthly subscriber, and a newbie at PvP (never had the RL time to study it). After playing 4RL years, this is my opinion in the matter. I felt urged to post the following because Ernam touched a class of players which I belong.
I think that you all are right. Everyone in their own part. Atkillum comment is very insightful because it really focuses on a permanent conflict of interest between two classes of players. Ernam and Silas ways of thinking are more focused on a player attitude towards PvP and its consequences.
Anyway, although I have experienced being ganked a couple of times for apparently no reason (and within the wall in my City) I cannot say this is a common practice in the realms. When I died, I just wanted to get openly involved in combat, and I always defend the City, no matter what.
I admit one thing. The XP loss sucks, and benefits the IRE only, in terms of needed presence in the realms for grinding purposes. However, this game is hardcore in the first place, and if you want to play it safe, I guess you can and quite easily from what I have seen. The XP loss is mitigated in your own city, and removing XP loss may have all the detriments pointed out already.
What may be frustrating is the lack of RP from the PvPers. I do not like that, but I guess they are not interested at all. They are loosing something from what the game has to offer. It is their problem. Incidentally, if I had the skills or the artefacts to kill them one by one, I will assassinate them one by one, and then RP about that. I mean I witnessed a sparring between two opposing faction, with no RP at all, just to learn combat. This is unacceptable RP wise. I RP the situation, warning my House that something extremely suspicious was going on. I was told that as long as it is done for combat it is acceptable. I strongly believe it is not.
In my opinion the game runs just fine, but the players sometimes do not. The Admins are making any effort to keep the game alive and making people spend money on it. It is a commercial fun park, remember that. Keeping the game alive it is not a easy task at all, and sometimes the Admins slip on bananas' peels (i.e. the Conclave Magi Robe thing). So far, they managed consistently from what I have seen.
Besides, it is still a game, even if you spent 5000 USD, or you are willing to spend that amount of money to excel. Of course, not all gamers are willing to spend such amount of money, and also if you are smart (i.e. if you invested tons of RL hours in learning) you may need to spend just a little and be good at PvP.
Most notably, I think it is not easy to balance thoughts and comments for elite players sometimes. They invested so much money and time that it is hard for them not to be biased. Excitement and frustration are feelings connected to addiction, and as players, we are all addicted to this game, because it is a good game. This feelings erupt sometimes IC or OOC. I got upset with @Xinna once, so I am a victim myself. I did not TELL her anything nasty, but I was upset (I was killed as an innocent bystander with a bow). I did not issue her, I excused, and moved on.
We must remember to be fair and balanced in our comments and IG.
It is hard for everybody, but good things tend to flourish, good attitude helps everyone. Bad things, issuing and flagging as abuse do not help at all.
Let's evolve from trolls (no IG troll offended...) and keep the community a nice place to express ourself.
A midbie.
The act of intentionally trying to bother people in any way, outside of the game, is harassment, and should not be tolerated by anyone in the community, be they admin or player. Casting blame on the players reporting this behavior, instead of the players causing the problems, which you (probably unintentionally) seem to be doing is entirely irrational and seems to be somewhat common. If I could change any one thing in the game, it would be dramatically stricter enforcement of OOC harassment rules within the game and game forums.
The reason this (harassment) gets confused with illegal PK is that they tend to come hand in hand. Typically people who "enjoy" harassing others use PK (along with other methods, like abusing in-game political power, and OOC attacks on forums) as a means of getting their thrills by causing the misery of people they do not like. More often than not, when people issue over PK, they're doing so because they believe that people are harassing them. Not because they miss their 1% experience.
One of the most common things I hear from players who quite visibly enjoy harassment is the trivialization of their behavior. "It's just textp", or "it's how the game works, just quit if you can't take it", etc are common lines of thought, among others, that are all aimed at fostering a cultural atmosphere which will allow players to "prey" on other unwilling players, without consequence. Games that allow this have, historically, all been terrible.
Y'know I can see how you feel that way, seeing as how (from my perspective) you're sort of the current whipping-boy of the forums, no offense. I've had very few IG interactions with you, aside from when you helped me configure your limb-tracker, but I do notice drama follows you like moth to a flame, for whatever reason. idk / idc. Probably Bluef exacerbating it with clan logs, ironic because she's quite easily griefed herself lol.
"The reason this (harassment) gets confused with illegal PK is that they tend to come hand in hand. "
Your situation sort of reminds me of how people used to treat Carmell years ago. Back when Achaea had pretty strict "eye for an eye only" PK rules, and issues were a lot more rampant. I remember a sect of players, particularly Mhaldorians, that vehemently disliked Carmell so much, she even got grief from them on the forums. People talked about her on OOC clans, the whole nine yards.
Now, Carmell wasn't exactly angelic - she was fairly notorious for getting involved in PvP situations, or sticking her nose into PvP situations, and then using the PK rules as a shield, and flipping out issues like pancakes at an iHop. It got to the point where Cain, someone who has probably spent a good re-enlistment bonus or two on Achaea, was shrubbed once or twice for "griefing" Carmell. By griefing I mean like, I think one of the issues he got shrubbed for was he kept defiling shrines and killing her when she went to witness. Some people say thats against the rules, I guess technically it is(?), I've always felt that you should be prepared for a fight if you go to witness shrines, but I'm a PvPer who enjoys any excuse to fight and has never issued anyone.
Carmell seems like a pretty different person these days, and gets involved in group PvP with some frequency and no issues involved. Or maybe nobody cares about griefing her anymore. Hell, Cain just got into Targossas. Hey, if Carmell and Cain formed a tag-team, would they be called Carmain? How much confusion would that cause?
My thing is that either they have RP reasons to harass someone IG within a strict boundary or they should not. It is very poor gameplay from them.
The membrane within IG and OOC is very thin, as always. It is an inherent problem with all RPG. Additionally, if you add huge monetary and time investment, this membrane is particularly weak. I never had the grounds to file an issue, but I am not as active as others. I try to keep a balance between my RL and IG activities, so I do not get overly frustrated if something bad happens to my IG. I know that elite players running organisations got extremely frustrated. Maybe they suffered an IG disadvantage because of OCC reasons, I am not sure. This is wrong if done for OCC reasons, but IG I think this is backstabbing politics, the game is advertised as so, I believe. At least, decent RP should be recommended.
However, OOC harassment out of the forums or IG is beyond Admin intervention. This cannot be fixed. Even @bluef had problems with that, or even @sarapis many years ago had to call the cops to scare a avid player because his life was threatened (!).
My point is that RP could be the medicine, before any IG issue. If the offenders do not react properly, then issue. Still I never had problem so far. I did not want to blame abuse and issuing per se, but these should be used as a last resort remedy. Against OOC harassment, OOC remedies are needed. There is no other way around, and the Admin should not take any liability on that. It is illegal, wrong, and unwise.
It is not super common for people to spend tons of RL money in a text game. So, I cannot expect to get the most reasonable attitude from these individuals (sometimes they do, sometimes they may do not) but as long as these individuals keep the fun park alive, I have a tolerant attitude. It is not honourable, but practical. They invest a lot, expect a lot, and get upset a lot. I invest less, and my expectations are lower. That is my equation.
Against OOC harassment, OOC remedies are needed. Registered letters are the medicine for any OOC issue. Legally speaking, judges will laugh (for now) in my country. However as the internet culture is spreading quickly, maybe in the future these issues will be treated somehow. The Law follows the society's needs, it never anticipates, sadly.
Anyway, my major concern is towards the MUD culture as a whole. It must survive. For example, the Admins are clearly trying to get new player, giving benefits which were unimaginable years ago. A server side curing system, the no-brainer package, a new client, and such. These elements conflicts with the elite players, who are the creators of contents, and try to bend the rules in their favour (I presume). Balancing these factors is extremely difficult and will probably fail if we, the players (elite and midbie) do not cooperate between each other with a grain of salt. Money are not enough to keep the fun park going, the customers make a big deal of the context.
The problem is not the game, nor the Admins, but the players.
I am sorry for this long post. I love the MUD culture, and I research on MUDs constantly. I know, I am late, but it is still fascinating at least to me. This is the only internet community I am active with.
A midbie.
P.S. Everybody please use the RP flag IG!
Yes sir, I do.
That's $170 to Achaea per sale, assuming credits bought through website. That's great for all of us, carry on!
@Austere if one day Achaea servers bankrupt and shut down I'm blaming you.