PK Rules and Consequences

Austere

Damn me for giving the little man the tools they need to be a big shot(with some work), and not asking for them to pay for my electric bill (which I do have to look at)

My tracking has not been 100% Sarapis approved*

**should have named it Gamera**

Ernam

I'm not sure why you're going after me so much for what I am doing.  My system is not the same as your system.  It isn't even close.  Please mind your business, and I will mind mine.  Not sure why everything you guys do has to be so fucking hostile.

Bluef

Aktillum said:

Probably Bluef exacerbating it with clan logs, ironic because she's quite easily griefed herself lol.

Not my clan. Not my clan logs. Not my post of the pastebin with the clan logs in the original thread. Not even my thread. Dat's the truef. 

I really like what @Shibumi‌ wrote about roleplay being the best medicine. The only problem with that is you can't force anyone to roleplay with you. Attempting to roleplay with people who only want to use you as a whipping post for their gaming frustrations will probably get you ignored with an eventual issue of harassment. 

Here again, @Shibumbi has said it perfectly: The problem is not the game, nor the Admins, but the players. I couldn't agree more, but I do not think that the true problem players are being identified or dealt with well.

Who the 'bad guys' actually are in Achaea's MUD Community is all a matter of perception. There is a blurring of the truth on forums and even OOC clans that makes it difficult for players to pick apart IC villains from genuine toxic players (or vice versa). Moreover, the truth is easily replaced on the forums by any comfortable concept of who is toxic that will please the majority -- or the elite, who majority often agree with.

That's just how online cultures and societies generally work. People who control a disproportionate amount of wealth, prowess, or power are seen as superior to the rest in terms of abilities or qualities, so their views naturally carry more weight, even when they're not really constructive and actually part of the underlying problem. 

Austere

Edit: Not the place for this. 

Saibel

I think that the main factor people are skirting over is the demoralizing feeling a player gets from being killed, illegally or otherwise, particularly when unable to seek retribution on their own. Sometimes it's just about the principle. Someone attacks you and you're going to seek a little payback. Xp loss is a side-effect of death; it generally has nothing to do with people who rage out about being killed. It's easy to say 'suck it up' when you're a beast at pvp and can handle the matter if someone offends you, never having to rely on a mediocre mark system. Marks lose contracts left and right in raids, so I can imagine a person with a legitimate gripe may end up feeling less than satisfied.

We do have a anti-issue culture amongst the elite pvp'ers and they have the luxury of that viewpoint. Not all do. Just being objective here. I never issue and tend not to take anything in Achaea too seriously. I have a lot more fun that way!

Aktillum

I wouldn't say its only elite pvp'ers who are anti-issue, unless you mean elite pvpers like, people who only care about pvp, and not elite pvpers like, people who are actually good at pvp. Personally I only play for the PvP, but I really suck at it. Like, I'm terrible at PvP, honestly. I used to think I was good because I could kill people 1v1 as a Monk in the Zmud / ACP days, then I tried playing affliction classes in the modern SVO times and realized how much I truly suck and can't code worth a damn and don't have any motivation to learn.

Having said that, I've never issued anyone in 14 years of playing Achaea, whether or not I had a legit gripe about them "illegally" killing me or not. I think issues are for really serious things like sexual harassment or repeated killings with no justification. Someone setting me back some textp, while admittedly rage-inducing when you're in your 70s-80s and there's no end in sight to that god awful PvE grind, it just doesn't warrant complaining to the admins. For me, at least. Others feel differently, everyone has a different threshold. Complaining to the admins should be a last resort after you've exhausted your IC resources - actually, I'm pretty sure thats what the old help PK (or help issues?) used to say.

What're we talking about, again? Its almost 1am. Issues aren't bad, if you use them when you have a real legitimate complaint about being harassed/griefed, and not as a weapon for retribution, I guess.

Jacen

The problem is that while there is a general anti-issue attitude for non-harassment actions, there's also incidents that have been brought up where big name PvPers have said "Hey, that should definitely not happen" 

What's the point of having rules and standards (outside of harassment) if you're not supposed to enforce them?

Austere

My anti sentiments were perhaps misworded a bit.  While issuing is fine,  most of the time it is used offensively to attack a player or character the issuee doesn't like.  A lot of time the word harassment is used way out of context to exacerbate the problem and I stand by the idea it is a waste of admin time.  While some people think they are owed admin time for buying credits,  I don't think the time of three payed individuals should be solely focused sorting through,  what is probably more times than not,  useless garbage.  If you honestly have a problem,  issue.  If you issue more than twice and they get dismissed, stop wasting the valuable time of admins trying to further your own battles.  Take a step back and either identify the problem,  or take a break. 

Tohran

Aepas said:

tl:dr whole thread

Fixed that for ya, big guy. Even added a nice picture too!

This thread has once again degraded into a "He's dumb" "lol no u" asshattery fest that seems to happen quite a lot when combat starts being questioned. 

The OP wanted a briefing on the now unwritten PK rules. (Personally, I liked the 15 page PK rules help file. It avoided this kind of thing pretty easily.) What has been given is an indictment of issuers, issues, PK in general, XP loss, the removal of XP loss, a definition of a sociopath (hi), and me swearing some. Congrats everyone, this is, per usual, a carnival of shame.

Ruth

I've actually played most, if not all of the IRE MUDs and personally, I've noticed some stuff about them removing XP loss:

- Conflict gets boring after a while. Sure, you'll not be losing any xp if you die, but there's just no thrill to a conflict where you gain and have nothing to lose. It cheapens the sense of victory.

- The barrier of entry to participating in conflict remains more or less the same. Not everyone would still be interested in being a part of the conflict and the inevitable frustration of combat will also put people off of conflict participation. I agree, though, that people are always going to have varying experiences when engaging in conflict.

- There will be a shift towards group conflicts. Really huge group conflicts.

 - Endgame won't be anything unique or meaningful anymore. Much less motivation to bash up for endgame because why bash if you receive no xp loss for PK and can only gain xp? Might as well try to steal/farm conflicts and kills for xp.

- Hand in hand with the point about conflict getting boring, people turn to bashing and other activities for more excitement.

Talysin

Strata said:

Ernam said:

I think it's somewhat naive to state that you are "constantly" being issued and state that "the issuers have a psychological problem".  I certainly wouldn't let my daughter go out with someone who was been accused of date rape a few dozen times, but has never been convicted.

I didn't say I am constantly being issued. In fact, I didn't refer to any specific individuals at all in my previous post.

Ernam said:

It isn't normal to get issued "constantly".  I PK significantly more than the average player, and I am virtually never issued by anyone, for any reason.  This "problem" that you are describing isn't a systemic one, it's just you and a few others who believe that you should be able to do whatever you want to whoever you want, with absolutely no regard for the fact that people play the game to have fun, not to be your punching bags.  I can respect the fact that you want the game to be one where everyone is open PK at all times, but you have to respect the fact that that isn't the case.

Now that you have decided what I previously posted should pertain to you, it is obvious that you would take such an opportunity to lash out at others (including myself) in attempts to have them painted in a bad light or possibly even shrubbed. I think recently in Combat Logs you actually asked why I am not shrubbed yet. It is clear that your only intention here is to spread false accusations and exaggerate ordinary PK behavior into illegal bullying and harassment - along with any other avenue that might present itself. Your behaviors are the very definitions of metagaming and harassment - which ARE against the rules.

Ernam said:

Regardless of whether or not the issues against you are upheld or dismissed, the sheer fact that they exist in quantities that warrant the amount of complaining you do about them should say something to you.  Maybe all the people asking the admin to intervene to stop your unwarranted, unwelcome behavior aren't the ones with the "psychological problem".

By stating that "issuers have a psychological problem", you have clearly established that you see all people who file issues the same way, regardless of why the issued, or if their issues have merit.  This reeks of sociopathy*, which is, in fact, a psychological problem.

Definition of "sociopath" and description of your attitude:

A person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial,often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

I'm also a little sick of this made-up crap about "winning" using Issues.  Nobody does this, or wants to.  If people are issuing you, it's because you're doing things that are unwelcome, and in their point of view, illegal.  The only reason you've made up this ficticious straw-man argument is so that you establish yourself as the victim instead of the portrayed multitude of people who are filing issues against you.

Without being an admin yourself (Weren't you recently shrubbed and forum banned for stating that your system is "Sarapis-approved"?), and without me giving out details on issues and who wrote them, there is no way for anyone except admin to know who has issued me and for what reasons. I will say that you are the only person who has ever written issues on me (all of which have been dismissed) that had absolutely no substance other than benign attempts to have me punished as a form a metagame that so far hasn't worked for you and probably has you quite pissed off. You're now grasping at straw-mans (pun intended) trying to make this whole thing look like "Strata is playing the victim card and all of his friends are slandering me." None of this is true. I don't have a crew of forums-underlings that say what I want them to say. These people say things because what I say makes sense, and what you say doesn't.

I enjoyed reading the sociopath part though. Didn't think I was perceived as intelligent enough to be accused of that.

I'll just put in some anecdotal evidence here. When I first started getting my feet wet with PK again, @Strata and I fought multiple times in Annwyn. He didn't follow me topside to continue the fights when I ran with my tail between my legs (multiple times). Strata never attacked me topside while I was randomly wandering around, even when I jumped him in Annwyn. He didn't even freak and grief me when Talysin said he was obsessed with him.

So, I don't think Strata is one of the people that you're talking about. From what I've gleaned about Strata, he may be a bit of a troll, but he appears to have a genuine want to see this game's PK scene improve for the better (I often use his "rainbows and sunshine" phrase to make points about the ludicrous state of some PK rules and PK changes).

I agree with a lot of your points though, I do think there are some people who are more interested in doing whatever they want than having meaningful interactions (e.g., Santar). I do think there is a culture in Achaea of blaming the victim (who issues) instead of questioning the behavior of the attacker. However, I believe that the system tends to work - people who grief get shrubbed either permanently or for a very, very long time.

Sometimes I even do these things, and I don't consider myself a griefer. If someone jumps in me Annwyn and runs topside, you better believe that I'm going after you for that crap, even though it's technically illegal. In my defense, the people I do this to are typically ones who enjoy the conflict regardless and don't care.

Silas

Saibel said:

I think that the main factor people are skirting over is the demoralizing feeling a player gets from being killed, illegally or otherwise, particularly when unable to seek retribution on their own. Sometimes it's just about the principle. Someone attacks you and you're going to seek a little payback.

This is 100% the problem. People think that getting somebody punished by the administration for killing them is payback. It's this vindictive use of issues as a weapon that makes me wish issues were purely for OOC harassment, and couldn't be filed for anything that happens to you IC.

People need to learn and accept that sometimes they're going to lose. I have probably 2000+ deaths and I don't give a single fuck about PK, but I've managed to not issue anybody in around 10 years. It is not a big deal.

Eld

Silas said:

Saibel said:

I think that the main factor people are skirting over is the demoralizing feeling a player gets from being killed, illegally or otherwise, particularly when unable to seek retribution on their own. Sometimes it's just about the principle. Someone attacks you and you're going to seek a little payback.

This is 100% the problem. People think that getting somebody punished by the administration for killing them is payback. It's this vindictive use of issues as a weapon that makes me wish issues were purely for OOC harassment, and couldn't be filed for anything that happens to you IC.

People need to learn and accept that sometimes they're going to lose. I have probably 2000+ deaths and I don't give a single fuck about PK, but I've managed to not issue anybody in around 10 years. It is not a big deal.

Certainly ISSUEs are not meant as a source of IC retribution for single incidents, and people who argue against using them as such are perfectly justified. It's extending that attitude to "You should never issue over PK ever" that's problematic. We have a system where the main determinant of the acceptability of a hostile act is whether it's justified in the context of the surrounding RP, with the admin as the ultimate arbiters of what counts as justified; telling people that they should never ask the admin for a ruling when there's a disagreement about justification is just saying that each person gets to make their own rules with no one else having input on whether those rules are acceptable or not.

Put another way, your wish that "issues were purely for OOC harassment, and couldn't be filed for anything that happens to you IC" is a false dichotomy; the whole premise of issues as an available avenue of recourse in the PK laws is that things that happen to people IC can and do cross lines into OOC harassment. One of the main problems with the anti-issue attitudes that people are talking about is that different people have different opinions about where those lines are, and it's too common for those in the "I never issue for anything PK-related" camp to shame others for issuing in cases where they feel it's justified. 

"I never issue for PK" is a perfectly fine statement. "You should not pursue the primary available avenue for resolution of this situation that you perceive as OOC harassment" is unacceptable. That does mean that you're going to get some people who will issue over situations that most of the playerbase would agree have not crossed that line, and that'll be annoying for those on the receiving end of the issues, but I'd much rather see a few frivolous issues than a culture where people who feel genuinely victimized on an OOC level do not feel free to pursue resulotion.

Silas

It's not just "a few" frivolous issues, though. I would wager that the majority of issues filed for PK reasons are frivolous and probably vindictive.

Strata

Silas said:

It's not just "a few" frivolous issues, though. I would wager that the majority of issues filed for PK reasons are frivolous and probably vindictive.

Which is why the vindictive issuers have learned from their previous failures and have shifted the context of their issues to unsubstantiated claims of OOC harassment. You, sir, must be a prophet. When are we getting multiclass?

Eld

Silas said:

It's not just "a few" frivolous issues, though. I would wager that the majority of issues filed for PK reasons are frivolous and probably vindictive.

If that's the case (which it could be, but guesses from anyone not privy to the actual numbers are meaningless), then it's on the admin to let those issuers know that those issues are not in line with the pk rules and to punish them accordingly if they persist in filing them. The rules go both ways, but trying to shame people into not seeking enforcement of them is not the answer.

Silas

The rules don't go both ways. You don't get punished for filing frivolous issues; you're completely free to keep issuing until one sticks. Thus, player pressure to not file frivolous issues. We are the proverbial sock full of pennies.

Austere

@silas, I never noticed this until recently,  but you are a pretty smart dude.  Always been on opposite end of the table from you, so it is hard to agree sometimes but the past few posts have been awesome.  Thank you

Eld

Silas said:

The rules don't go both ways. You don't get punished for filing frivolous issues; you're completely free to keep issuing until one sticks. Thus, player pressure to not file frivolous issues. We are the proverbial sock full of pennies.

To the bolded, fair enough; that's probably better overall, anyway. If truly frivolous issues are in fact so rampant as to be a problem, admin should probably do something to curb them, whether there's a problem and, if so, how to deal with it, are not questions I have sufficient information to form solid opinions on.

To the rest, the problem with the player pressure against issues is that even if it's mostly pressure specifically against filing frivolous issues as a substitute for IC conflict resolution (which I think it mostly is, by and large), it often comes off as a complaint about issues in general. It's very easy to get the impression from reading forums that a significant portion of the playerbase (probably a small, but vocal, minority) are likely to ridicule people for filing issues over pk in general, legitimate or not, and that impression is what matters in terms of discouraging people from filing issues that they do honestly believe to be legitimate.

And, of course, there's the same old problem that people's opinions on what's legitimate or frivolous vary widely. If I file what I feel to be a legitimate issue and someone pops it up on Memorable Quotes or something where it spawns a few pages of vitriol, I and a lot of people reading that are going to be discouraged in the future from filing issues over apparently legitimate violations of the rules, and that's bad for everyone who wants and expects those rules to be enforced. That particular kind of case would be ameliorated by better enforcement of the rules against discussing issues without permission (which would be good), but there's a lot of discussion that doesn't involve specific issues that still contributes to the general impression of anti-issue sentiment.

Iuneos

I can't believe that this conversation has lasted this long.  

Eld

Iuneos said:

I can't believe that this conversation has lasted this long.  

You must be new here.

Jacen

Iuneos said:

I can't believe that this conversation has lasted this long.  

Yep! Its been a decent discussion so far (read: thread not locked yet) but I'll admit I feel like the answers I set out to get haven't been given yet. Oh well, hopefully we'll get there.

Nim

Iuneos said:

I can't believe that this conversation has lasted this long.  

I can't believe it's not fifteen pages yet. I am disappointed in everyone, especially @Silas.

Ernam

I know for a fact that game admins:

1) Do punish people for frivolous issues.  I've heard multiple people state that they've received disfavors etc.

2) Do dismiss a large quantity of issues based over technically illegal PK, purely because the issuer didn't "RP" enough (which, like I mentioned, is actually forbidden by the rules of ISSUEs).

So the admin do punish and dismiss issues that you might call "frivolous", that are technically completely legitimate complaints, in what I consider an attempt to discourage people from filing issues at all.  This seems to be in line with what @Silas and others are asking for.

My problem with this is simply that the rules themselves don't (at all) line up with how they're actually enforced.  The rules quite clearly state to file issues for unwelcome, unprovoked PK, particularly if it's repeated, or if its believed to be part of a harassment problem.  However, all flaming and issue-hating aside, I've filed countless issues against people for exactly those things, which have been completely dropped.

I think a lot of you are hitting on something with the whole "fuzzy line" between what is acceptable and what isn't, but the PK rules are not really that fuzzy.  In this and other recent threads, multiple people state that "He is a soldier" or "He is a citizen of Targossas" or "She walked into the room with me", or "He actively defended Targossas last week" are all acceptable reasons to kill people.  None of these are acceptable according to either the game rules, or the general sentiment of this thread.

Yet when those occur, often repeatedly, and someone issues, that person's name is drug through the mud on every OOC outlet available to the person who was issued.  It's not uncommon to see pastebins of issues on every OOC clan a person has available to them.  Despite forum rules, the fact that someone issued is frequently mentioned on the forums.  Since the specific content of the issue is not allowed to be posted, the community tends to instantly assume that it was frivolous, particularly if they already "don't like" the person who filed the issue.

I've also frequently seen people who are ruled against in issues still succeed in completely destroying the issuer on the forums or other avenues of communication.  Despite the fact that they were so overwhelmingly guilty that the admin actually did something about it, the forum jury will still cruficy the issuer, every time.  The only exception to this seems to be sexual harassment or stalking, because belittling those acts is taboo.

The fact is, if you're being issued repeatedly, you're repeatedly doing something to people that is unwelcome.  It shouldn't take admin punishments to understand that if every time you "win" against that guy you hate in-game, he issues you, then even if you think you've done nothing technically illegal, you should probably stop anyways.

Eld

Ernam said:

My problem with this is simply that the rules themselves don't (at all) line up with how they're actually enforced.  The rules quite clearly state to file issues for unwelcome, unprovoked PK, particularly if it's repeated, or if its believed to be part of a harassment problem.  However, all flaming and issue-hating aside, I've filed countless issues against people for exactly those things, which have been completely dropped.

Well, not exactly, to the bolded. HELP PK says "If players are repeatedly attacking others with no justification whatsoever, this is the point at which the administration should be involved." If someone's hunting, say, Blackrock or Enverren, unaware that Mhaldor claims protection over the denizens of those areas, and a Mhaldorian comes along and kills them without warning, it's unwelcome, and will certainly seem unprovoked, but filing an issue instead of trying to find out IC why they were killed isn't going to get them very far. In general, even if an attack appears to be unprovoked, or you don't see an obvious reason for it, making some effort IC to figure out why it happened and/or to work through the situation in an IC manner (whether that involves successful retribution or not) will go a long way toward establishing a basis for an issue (if by the time you've done that, you still think an issue is the way to go). Also, filing "countless issues" isn't going to help your credibility.

I think a lot of you are hitting on something with the whole "fuzzy line" between what is acceptable and what isn't, but the PK rules are not really that fuzzy.  In this and other recent threads, multiple people state that "He is a soldier" or "He is a citizen of Targossas" or "She walked into the room with me", or "He actively defended Targossas last week" are all acceptable reasons to kill people.  None of these are acceptable according to either the game rules, or the general sentiment of this thread.

That's a pretty wide variety of things, and depending on context, any of them could be perfectly reasonable reasons (though "She walked into the room with me" on its own wouldn't be). Being a soldier or getting involved in defense of cities other than your own are both instances where your character should expect to be involved in conflict pretty regularly and to die some, and there will be a higher expectation to brush off a few such incidents and move on. Yes, you can still issue for them if there's no justification, but the bar for showing that the attack was unjustified will be higher than if you actively avoided combat.

Bukariin

Eld said:

Well, not exactly, to the bolded. HELP PK says "If players are repeatedly attacking others with no justification whatsoever, this is the point at which the administration should be involved." If someone's hunting, say, Blackrock or Enverren, unaware that Mhaldor claims protection over the denizens of those areas, and a Mhaldorian comes along and kills them without warning, it's unwelcome, and will certainly seem unprovoked, but filing an issue instead of trying to find out IC why they were killed isn't going to get them very far.

Yeah, but here's the problem with your example: If I were hunting Enverren and a Mhaldorian came along and told me "Hey, this place is under the protection of Mhaldor, if you hunt here again I'll kill you" that would be acceptable.

If this person came to Enverren and found me hunting there and killed me without warning, I'd definitely seek to hire on this person right off the bat.   That's my IC resolution, and if he doesn't like it, he shouldn't be killing midbies without warning for obscure RP reasons.

E: I think my point is that, regardless of the situation, there's an expectation of warning, of some sort of "heads-up, what you're doing will get you killed" which should present itself in most situations if it hasn't already.  Obviously if you're raiding a city you don't need to be told that you can be killed, and if you're defending a city you could be killed in it.  If you happen to be in a city that is being raided (but you aren't defending) you have a reasonable expectation of a warning to leave before being killed.

Carmell

The easiest way to deal with the whole problem is if people all people realize that we all play to enjoy the game and PvPer's don't push conflict on those that play more for RP for hours a day.  I'd be a lot less annoyed if I was allowed to do things I enjoyed in game besides dealing with someone defiling a shrine just to see who will come fight them or the two or three hour raids we've been getting lately.  Yes the PvPers do seem to think that just because they like it everyone should and don't take RPers thoughts into it.  Anyways i'm going back to doing things I enjoy.

Dunn

Shrines can be reraised. You shouldn't feel obligated to respond to defilings, IMO. If your RP is dictating that you should, but it's not something you the player want to do because it's truly affecting you... then don't. It's a game.

Bukariin

Carmell said:

The easiest way to deal with the whole problem is if people all people realize that we all play to enjoy the game and PvPer's don't push conflict on those that play more for RP for hours a day.  I'd be a lot less annoyed if I was allowed to do things I enjoyed in game besides dealing with someone defiling a shrine just to see who will come fight them or the two or three hour raids we've been getting lately.  Yes the PvPers do seem to think that just because they like it everyone should and don't take RPers thoughts into it.  Anyways i'm going back to doing things I enjoy.

....and at the same time, there's some players who need not be told that dropping piety in a room with somebody defiling your org's shrine could lead to PVP.

Razha

Defiling a shrine is basically saying to the world, hey, I'm looking for a fight. If you're in an order you're expected to treat that as an attack on your god and resolve it (in the preferred way of your god). This pretty much makes orders pk organizations, which is obviously gonna be a problem as they are also great for roleplay. You know it's a shame the Bal'met saga wasn't used as a god renaissance like the house one, where you have a strong combat orders vs more rp intensive ones. Just my two cents on it, take it with a grain of salt.