just wondering, what are everyones thoughts on the ploot changes?

I personally love the change, but then again, it's no secret that I don't care to pkill. Basically, I think people who like to pkill are going to hate the change and people who don't like to pkill are going to like the change.

I'm seeing this change making the mud more like pre-lock when you could only loot 5 items. Killers will only have time to loot the items that they really want from someone. The biggest difference of course is that you can no longer blow up corpses so those implants will essentially become !steal, unless the killed person is really really really slow to retrieve.

How do I think pkill will change because of this?

Well, instead of people having triggers/aliases to blow up a corpse, people will have triggers/aliases to automatically loot corpses to get the most that they can get before the killed person retrieves.

Secondly, I see a lot more group pkilling so that they each person grabs some item out of the corpse, essentially making it a full loot (minus implants).

In the end, I don't really see pkill changing all that much from this ploot change.

I hate this change…the way I see it, pk is getting more and more restricted. Even with the 5 item loot, you would have time to choose what you wanted and all. And now? You barely have enough time to get one item before they retrieve.

But really, pk is being driven further and further into the ground. Back in the day, a lot of people pked, and there was hardly any restriction. Then, !summon to lawless zones came into place (cause I used to summon/kill in skullport). Then 5 item restriction came about. And now the pk system is changed in a way that after pking for a while, your character is deemed useless to run around the mud, doing zones, not to forget just basic socializing. Cause them rep hunters track you even in your own house. And now, there is even a less reason to pk with this single-loot-at-a-time policy implemented.

I agree that Tempus is a great mud, the best one in my opinion, but there are other muds out there that have ultra restricted or no pk. Tempus' old pk system was great, and i know many people that loved it. I personally liked it, far better than i like it now. Those that hate pk should go to a !pk mud… or maybe i'm playing in the wrong mud..

This reply is from Darkesoul, cause he couldn't do it himself…

I have to agree with both Lysolchip and Red on this one. If you hate pk you will love this change, and the changes of late do seem to make pk not worth the benefit. If pk is going to subject the killer to harsh sanctions such as the rep huters and bounty hunting, yet give them little chance of real benefit, it will disappear from the game fairly quickly I think. Like Red, I have always enjoyed pk whether I wa the victim or the slayer. Pk adds drama to the game, because if you as a player ventured out into what was once the dangerous world of Tempus, you had to stay on your toes. This made for better players in my opinion. Back then, you had to learn the zones inside and out. These days you have players askng where they can exchage cash for gold on the PROJECT channel. For some reason, now players who use audience members or elementals are at greater risk from their own minions than they are from any other player. Personally I fail to see how spending money to learn a spell such as instant audience or conjure elemental is worth it knowing you may be paying money to get your entire corpse taken by one of them should you die in their presence. I made reference to "the dangerous world of Tempus' a few lines ago. When us older players started, newbie protection lasted until level 6 mort. There were many DT's, full loot etc. As dangerous as it was to play, it was exciting because the odds seemed to be stacked against you at nearly every turn, and you were forced to use your wits to survive. DT'ing sucked, as did being fully looted, but you could overcome it. Those who quit playing the game of Tempus because of a full loot or being Pk'd or from a DT were probably looking for an excuse to stop playing anyway IMO. Very little was given to the players, and most everything a player got they damn well earned. These days newbie protection lasts until gen 5, true DT's have disappeared from the game with only a few exceptions, players no longer have to fear much of anything, and I could be wrong here, but it seems less exciting to me. Red, I will say that IMO, the economy being what it is does as much damage to pk as the new ploot system, because EQ isn't worth much because there is so much of it. Supply vs demand. If you can re-equip yourself for next to nothing then why would you consider buying your stuff back for 50m or more? (which is about what they used to charge as I recall). I personally had a great time on April Fool's Day because I logged on to find that the Mud from back in the day was back! Too bad for me school got in the way, because otherwise I would've stayed all day because the blood was pumping in my veins again! As someone who truly loves Tempus and has ever since I died in the Newbie Tower because I attacked a silver fly, it would be nice to see some element of danger return to the mud. I hope people don't look upon this post as whining on the part of someone who yearns for yesteryear, because whining is how we got to this point now. I don't profess to have all the answers, and no PK system will ever be perfect, but perhaps a bit more balance might be possible with the following proposal. Otherwise, there will be no need to have the Tempy Award Catagory of Most Feared Pkiller anymore IMO.

Morts cannot be pkilled..period. They also should not be allowed to be spam leveled, because they would need to use this time to actually LEARN the game, areas to level at etc. This is easily done by keeping them in Academy until they remort.

A player of a specific gen can only kill a player of their gen or higher. ( If a gen 1 player has the skill/knowledge to take out a gen 2+ then the player who gets killed by a lower gen had a lesson they needed to learn anyway. Keep the rep system with the rep hunters, but only increase the rep if the player killed is lower level than the PK'er (to penalize severely for cheap pkills such as when a player just remorted). Looting of corpses should be limited perhaps for those of lower gens to one piece of eq per gen because they have less ability to re-eq themselves. Full loot could go into effect after gen 5 because if you can't re-eq after gen 5 you have MUCH bigger problems than being Pk'd. Dt's are great! They forced players to actually READ the room desc's and check their exits. Bring those bad boys back grin Your thoughts and feedback welcomed, my rant is done.

Xiphoid/DarkeSoul et al.

This reply is from Darkesoul, cause he couldn't do it himself…

I have to agree with both Lysolchip and Red on this one. If you hate pk you will love this change, and the changes of late do seem to make pk not worth the benefit. If pk is going to subject the killer to harsh sanctions such as the rep huters and bounty hunting, yet give them little chance of real benefit, it will disappear from the game fairly quickly I think. Like Red, I have always enjoyed pk whether I wa the victim or the slayer. Pk adds drama to the game, because if you as a player ventured out into what was once the dangerous world of Tempus, you had to stay on your toes. This made for better players in my opinion. Back then, you had to learn the zones inside and out. These days you have players askng where they can exchage cash for gold on the PROJECT channel. For some reason, now players who use audience members or elementals are at greater risk from their own minions than they are from any other player. Personally I fail to see how spending money to learn a spell such as instant audience or conjure elemental is worth it knowing you may be paying money to get your entire corpse taken by one of them should you die in their presence. I made reference to "the dangerous world of Tempus' a few lines ago. When us older players started, newbie protection lasted until level 6 mort. There were many DT's, full loot etc. As dangerous as it was to play, it was exciting because the odds seemed to be stacked against you at nearly every turn, and you were forced to use your wits to survive. DT'ing sucked, as did being fully looted, but you could overcome it. Those who quit playing the game of Tempus because of a full loot or being Pk'd or from a DT were probably looking for an excuse to stop playing anyway IMO. Very little was given to the players, and most everything a player got they damn well earned. These days newbie protection lasts until gen 5, true DT's have disappeared from the game with only a few exceptions, players no longer have to fear much of anything, and I could be wrong here, but it seems less exciting to me. Red, I will say that IMO, the economy being what it is does as much damage to pk as the new ploot system, because EQ isn't worth much because there is so much of it. Supply vs demand. If you can re-equip yourself for next to nothing then why would you consider buying your stuff back for 50m or more? (which is about what they used to charge as I recall). I personally had a great time on April Fool's Day because I logged on to find that the Mud from back in the day was back! Too bad for me school got in the way, because otherwise I would've stayed all day because the blood was pumping in my veins again! As someone who truly loves Tempus and has ever since I died in the Newbie Tower because I attacked a silver fly, it would be nice to see some element of danger return to the mud. I hope people don't look upon this post as whining on the part of someone who yearns for yesteryear, because whining is how we got to this point now. I don't profess to have all the answers, and no PK system will ever be perfect, but perhaps a bit more balance might be possible with the following proposal. Otherwise, there will be no need to have the Tempy Award Catagory of Most Feared Pkiller anymore IMO.

Morts cannot be pkilled..period. They also should not be allowed to be spam leveled, because they would need to use this time to actually LEARN the game, areas to level at etc. This is easily done by keeping them in Academy until they remort.

A player of a specific gen can only kill a player of their gen or higher. ( If a gen 1 player has the skill/knowledge to take out a gen 2+ then the player who gets killed by a lower gen had a lesson they needed to learn anyway. Keep the rep system with the rep hunters, but only increase the rep if the player killed is lower level than the PK'er (to penalize severely for cheap pkills such as when a player just remorted). Looting of corpses should be limited perhaps for those of lower gens to one piece of eq per gen because they have less ability to re-eq themselves. Full loot could go into effect after gen 5 because if you can't re-eq after gen 5 you have MUCH bigger problems than being Pk'd. Dt's are great! They forced players to actually READ the room desc's and check their exits. Bring those bad boys back grin Your thoughts and feedback welcomed, my rant is done.

Xiphoid/DarkeSoul et al.

This reply is from Darkesoul, cause he couldn't do it himself…

I have to agree with both Lysolchip and Red on this one. If you hate pk you will love this change, and the changes of late do seem to make pk not worth the benefit. If pk is going to subject the killer to harsh sanctions such as the rep huters and bounty hunting, yet give them little chance of real benefit, it will disappear from the game fairly quickly I think. Like Red, I have always enjoyed pk whether I wa the victim or the slayer. Pk adds drama to the game, because if you as a player ventured out into what was once the dangerous world of Tempus, you had to stay on your toes. This made for better players in my opinion. Back then, you had to learn the zones inside and out. These days you have players askng where they can exchage cash for gold on the PROJECT channel. For some reason, now players who use audience members or elementals are at greater risk from their own minions than they are from any other player. Personally I fail to see how spending money to learn a spell such as instant audience or conjure elemental is worth it knowing you may be paying money to get your entire corpse taken by one of them should you die in their presence. I made reference to "the dangerous world of Tempus' a few lines ago. When us older players started, newbie protection lasted until level 6 mort. There were many DT's, full loot etc. As dangerous as it was to play, it was exciting because the odds seemed to be stacked against you at nearly every turn, and you were forced to use your wits to survive. DT'ing sucked, as did being fully looted, but you could overcome it. Those who quit playing the game of Tempus because of a full loot or being Pk'd or from a DT were probably looking for an excuse to stop playing anyway IMO. Very little was given to the players, and most everything a player got they damn well earned. These days newbie protection lasts until gen 5, true DT's have disappeared from the game with only a few exceptions, players no longer have to fear much of anything, and I could be wrong here, but it seems less exciting to me. Red, I will say that IMO, the economy being what it is does as much damage to pk as the new ploot system, because EQ isn't worth much because there is so much of it. Supply vs demand. If you can re-equip yourself for next to nothing then why would you consider buying your stuff back for 50m or more? (which is about what they used to charge as I recall). I personally had a great time on April Fool's Day because I logged on to find that the Mud from back in the day was back! Too bad for me school got in the way, because otherwise I would've stayed all day because the blood was pumping in my veins again! As someone who truly loves Tempus and has ever since I died in the Newbie Tower because I attacked a silver fly, it would be nice to see some element of danger return to the mud. I hope people don't look upon this post as whining on the part of someone who yearns for yesteryear, because whining is how we got to this point now. I don't profess to have all the answers, and no PK system will ever be perfect, but perhaps a bit more balance might be possible with the following proposal. Otherwise, there will be no need to have the Tempy Award Catagory of Most Feared Pkiller anymore IMO.

Morts cannot be pkilled..period. They also should not be allowed to be spam leveled, because they would need to use this time to actually LEARN the game, areas to level at etc. This is easily done by keeping them in Academy until they remort.

A player of a specific gen can only kill a player of their gen or higher. ( If a gen 1 player has the skill/knowledge to take out a gen 2+ then the player who gets killed by a lower gen had a lesson they needed to learn anyway. Keep the rep system with the rep hunters, but only increase the rep if the player killed is lower level than the PK'er (to penalize severely for cheap pkills such as when a player just remorted). Looting of corpses should be limited perhaps for those of lower gens to one piece of eq per gen because they have less ability to re-eq themselves. Full loot could go into effect after gen 5 because if you can't re-eq after gen 5 you have MUCH bigger problems than being Pk'd. Dt's are great! They forced players to actually READ the room desc's and check their exits. Bring those bad boys back grin Your thoughts and feedback welcomed, my rant is done.

Xiphoid/DarkeSoul et al.

oh damn, posted it 3 times :P sorry

oh damn, posted it 3 times :P sorry

When there was full loot, i used to sell back entire sets for not even near 50 mil. No one has that kind of money nowadays, cause everyone is getting spam lvled and remorting too fast. I sold Brywing's EQ back for 15 mil…Sathyrnn's for 35m, cause he can afford it :P I'm sure Brywing could afford 35m too, but is EQ really worth all that? The most expensive loadable item in the game right now is probably a rose, which goes for about 8-10 mil. Everything else you can get for about 500k. I honestly never load EQ. Do any of you ever see me selling stuff? sometimes, but not to make a living. Majority of my EQ comes from pking. I kill someone, loot their corpse, and the goods are spread among my characters. But if one of my lesser equiped characters got pked and corpse-saced, no biggie. Just load a monocle, some thick glasses, buy a pelt, and just work your way to better EQ. All i'm saying is that I would like to see PK back in the game like it was before. There's so less of it, and the consequences outway the benefits like steel and paper. There's really no point in pk anymore.

hey, good idea, lets make it so you cant spam level noobs until gen 5, wouldnt want them getting HURT would we?!

Currently, newbies seem to be defined as players under lvl 25. Yet gen 5 seems to be the first chance they have of actually being in any sort of danger outside of mobs or a damage search. Whatever limit you set to designate a "newbie" is the point up to which they should not be allowed to be spammed IMO. (I am talking ONLY about truly new players here btw). If players are going to be considered newbies until gen 5 as it seems they are nowadays then keep em in academy and let their hands be held until then. shrug See my previous post above for my opinion on how to handle pk between those players who actually enjoy taking risks and having fun while doing it. DS

I have my own personal opinion about pkill; that is irrelivant at the moment. I am here to comment on what's already been said before I put my opinion forward.

Lysol's initial comments were almost completely right about the opinions on the change.

As for the rest of the posts… yes, there are harsh sanctions on Pkill. Last I checked, there always was at least some sanction until you went and lost protection in whatever way lost it at the time.

Also, I am plenty rich enough to be paying nearly full price for my full set of eq. I sat down and earned 40 mil gold the hard way, just because there are eventualities such a death-traps and pkill.

(Opionions start now. If you don't care for my opionions, stop reading.)

Probably not all of you remember, but I did, in fact, play back pre-lock. I never really got that far, because I never had much equipment. Why was that? Full loot. I don't have the benefits of having an automatic "who zone" every tick; I have to manually do about 90% of the active playing involved with my character, including checking the who-list for potential threats and keeping mobs down with mostly unaliased chains of abilites.

Back in the day, I found it exciting to play not because of the risk of a player killing me, but the actual rush of getting out in the world and doing something I've never done. Pkill was about the same as a death-trap I had no control over. The only time I was ever not horribly dejected after a pkill was when Miscreation did it, and that was because he was nice enough to give me back the vast majority of my stuff.

I know that right now, I'm fairly happy with my 2 gen-4 characters and the 40mil in the account that I worked my ass off to get. I'm happy with the eq set that I have through my own work and careful cultivation of the friendships I have on the MUD. But I know that I'll have to remort one of them sooner or later. After that, everything I bothered to work for is at risk of simply disappearing at someone else's whim. I can do everything in my power to prevent it, but it is going to happen in the end, regardless of what I do. Without all the stuff that I worked my ass off to get, I don't get to go do the things that I actually want to do. Then I get bored.

Now it's time for a little side story about Diablo 2. Back when I played that game, I REALLY worked hard to get my stuff. Hundreds of hours online hoping to get that first SoJ, then when I got it I literally finished my set of equipment on my Paladin. He got put aside so I could make my Sorc, then things got interesting. During my regular group-leveling runs, a few fairly powerful players decided to join in and attempt to assassinate the group. While they were held up, I switched characters and killed them before I could even see them (nasty Paladon damage auras.). Then the two would-be pkillers got on their strongest characters, and tried to stop me. After handing them both their asses on a silver platter, they had the audacity to tell me that "I sucked for using {absorbtion equipment}." I just laughed. I guess the moral of this story is that I'm willing to pkill when there is need.

But you know what the difference is there? Absolutely no risk of losing anything, aside from pride. Pkill was available at all times and levels, but it was only for the rush of the kill. It had no bearing on the (fairly active) economy and wasn't so rampant that it ever drove anyone I knew away from the game. Tempus is a completely different story.

So in regards to the pkill policy - do whatever you want with it. So long as I still get to see the new places and do new things, I really don't care. I've been pkilled before, and I will be pkilled again. I may even end up pkilling someone if there is need. I won't pretend to like it, but as long as I can get back to regular life it will not bother me one way or the other.

And people who pkill to get equipment? You're troublesome. If anything, you cause unnessesary inflation in the equipment market because you force the people who go out and load the stuff to bear the burden of not only the people they supply, but those whom take as well. The increased demand drives prices up. That is why pre-lock, equipment was expensive. Not only were we all a bit richer (and gold worth less, in that regard) but the equilibrium price had to rise to meet the demand of the people who needed equipment for themselves, then needed it again after losing it.

As an honest question not meant to offend, what do you see non-arena pkill and ploot as doing for a game? I am curious as to what the actual or percieved effects are.

Ok i didnt have much of a problem with timeless's post until this part:

"And people who pkill to get equipment? You're troublesome. If anything, you cause unnessesary inflation in the equipment market because you force the people who go out and load the stuff to bear the burden of not only the people they supply, but those whom take as well. The increased demand drives prices up. That is why pre-lock, equipment was expensive. Not only were we all a bit richer (and gold worth less, in that regard) but the equilibrium price had to rise to meet the demand of the people who needed equipment for themselves, then needed it again after losing it."

Unneccesary inflation!? EQ is worth almost nothing right now, everyone has what they need, and they are happy with it. No one has the incentive to go pop eq because people dont need it anymore. I have enormous lists of good EQ that i've popped that people just dont need.

PK can boost the economy by re-supplying the principal of 'supply and demand' right now, there is no demand, and lots of supply, so there is no worth for anything. If for some reason everyone in the game lost their eq, there would be lots of demand on less supply, making eq worth lots more.

i personally dont like the changes either…yea you get pk'd fully looted and your stuff SOLD back to you….at least you dont lose all of it….newer ppl are bitching and complaining that full loot sucks but i can only think of a couple ppl in the last 4 months that have had their stuff kept after pk

when i got my first set of good eq as a mort i was pk'd and fully looted by jakezor and had to re-eq myself cause he kept everything….when i was anywhere from gen 1-4 i was pk'd numerous times by misc and his various multis and was only sold my eq back once….i was and everytime i lost everything i stayed and got new eq….

i dont see the big deal its not like you have to start completely over when you pk'd…all you have to do is re-eq or just buy back your stuff….if you dont have enough money im sure one of your friends and or clannies will loan you money if they can….no one really sells back eq for that much anyway unless it is really worth alot of money….

so to kill full loot and make it to where you can only take 1 item at a time pretty much eliminates pk in general….i guess the only thing to do now is to pk and sac a corpse if you want that much revenge on someone even though that would suck complete ass but hey if they cant take your eq then why not make it to where you cant get it back either….i personally would not like to have my corpse sac'd if i were to be pk'd….but these changes are changing a great mud and getting rid of something that makes it different from most muds….ive played a few other muds just to read over the policy so i could see some of the differences between tempus and other muds….and all of them had EXTREME restrictions on pk where tempus had very little except to protect newer players….and as i think red put it if you cant re-eq yourself at gen 5 or higher there is a serious problem imo….

I honestly think everyone in this post who is complaining that pk has been eliminated because of the change is being extremely melodramatic and exaggerating the situation. I don't see how looting 1 item at a time makes pk not worth it anymore as many of you are saying.

First off, with triggers/aliases, you can easily set it up to "get corpse" 3-5 times before the person can retrieve if you have previously examined the person or located your desired objects. It's not like people didn't have triggers/aliases before to blow up a corpse as soon as a person died. This is just a different form of that. In addition, if you have a person(s) help you (as what happens with many pkills), the group of you can end up full looting someone anyway. My multis have been pkilled a couple times in the past few weeks, and it was done by at least a couple people standing in the room to make sure a corpse was destroyed/looted.

In response to Rahvin claiming that "equipment is worth almost nothing right now and people having everything they need", I have to completely disagree with that. Since the new auction system has been put in, I've seen a crapload of my inventory sold, not to mention many people buying decent stat equipment for lower prices. This goes to show how many people are still looking for better equipment that they can afford. (By the way, I have to give kudos to Nothing for implementing the new auction system. It's very nice, other than all the crashes.)

In response to Kakorat's post, you say the only option left to do if you really hate someone is to sac their corpse. Well, I'd have to argue that even before the change, if you really hated someone, chances are you'd sac their corpse anyway (or junk their equipment in front of them). It's nothing new. If you hated someone before the change, you could have done the same thing.

Lastly, about Red's comment that "if you cant re-eq yourself at gen 5 or higher there is a serious problem imo….", I agree. However, 2 of my multis have been pkilled recently, both of which were full looted, and one of which I wasn't even offered the option of buying back my equipment. (On a side note, I did pay 100 mill gold to get one of my multi's equipment back, minus a piece of quest eq, so don't tell me that you can't get money off pkill anymore) It's not that I can't reequip this character, I could easily do that. But let's face it. Many of us have quest equipment, imm enchants/attracts, or other irreplacable equipment. We work hard spending our free time to pop equipment, make money, and deserve the equipment we get. I think most people will agree that they can accept losing everything to a DT because it was in their power to explore exits and read descriptions better. But, when you're full looted from a pkill, that really sucks because there is really nothing you can do to prevent that.

So, I see the change as a good thing. Now those pkillers who pkill for treasure have to choose the most important items to loot off a person, most probably quest prizes and imm enchants/attacts. Those pkiller who pkill because they're pissed off, well like Kak said, they can sac your corpse (and they could do that before).

I absoutely hate to see all these low gens pkilled and sold their equipment back. It always seems that the big people are picking on the little people. Now at least, they don't have to buy as much back. I find it funny that except for Darkesoul, all the people bothered by this change are all in the same clan. In fact, I don't see much pkilling at all other than by the people in Purgatory. It seems to me that people who enjoy pkilling tend to flock together. It happened before with Blade pre-lock. It seems that those who enjoy pkill tend to pick on those who don't like to pkill instead of enjoying pkill amongst themselves. I don't know…correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll end by quoting Red, "Those that hate pk should go to a !pk mud… or maybe i'm playing in the wrong mud.." There will be no way to satisfy everyone, and I think Tempus should decide what it wants to be, a pkill mud or not and see what the aftermath brings.

what i was talking about saying that PK isnt worth it anymore is: rep hunters. if you can only get even 3-4 items of EQ its not worth it, when your rep goes to true killer and there is nowhere that you can be safe.

if this system stays, at least town down the rep hunters a little bit so they are handleable

Lysol, you speak like it's easy to loot a corpse now. It's ridiculous that you have to "plan" out and make an alias to loot what you want. It should be you choose what EQ to take. What it should be like is your corpse is unretrievable for 15-30 seconds, so there is at least a chance to pick out what we want. After that 15-30 second timer, you can retrieve. But of course, there is a waitstate for looting, say, 5 seconds sounds fair. And your corpse is only unretrievable if killed by a player. Cause right now, there are people who retrieve fast as hell. I know Chaos does, and I believe the way he does it is by reconnecting after death, therefore bypassing death waitstate. Lets say you backstab him to death..his corpse is gone before you recover from your backstab. He's done this several times to me, and i've reported it. It's against policy to abuse loopholes in the mud. Reconnecting after death to avoid waitstate is exactly that.

And Lysol, I don't pk because i'm in Purgatory. I PK because like Darkesoul said, PK brings adds drama to the game. Back in the day, you know how much I was pked? All the time. I've had my EQ junked in front of me, my corpse sac'ed, been there, done that. I could be in a different clan, and i'd PK too. PK is fun, it's one of the better aspects of tempus IMO.

About EQ. EQ is hardly worth anything anymore. Like I previously stated, the most expensive loadable EQ you can buy right now is prolly a rose of shadow. They go for about 8-10 mil. Everything else? Oh 500k will get you a pair. It's great that EQ is now randomized; it allows players to constantly strive for better EQ.

I just think there is too much restriction on PK. I bet even the fastest player can barely loot 3 items off the corpse of the slowest retriever. Since reputation has been added, players have been shy of pk. Why? Because rep hunters are no cake. And basically, your character is destroyed. I only PK because I'm trying to bring it back into the game. And with all these new policies and restrictions, everything i've done is taken away.

Well, I guess we just differ in opinion then. I don't think it's ridiculous to plan out what you loot at all. Before people planned out how they would blow up/destroy a pkilled corpse. I don't see how this is different. You exam a person or you locate an object that you want and find it's on them. And you so, you loot these objects from the person just as you would make a trigger to blow up a corpse. I don't see much difference…Both require planning. About Chaos and other people who might disconnect to retrieve. Well, I and I hope most people don't cheat to retrieve, and as a result, there's a significant waitstate where I do believe 3-5 items are lootable, assuming it's an alias/trigger to loot.

Second, I didn't say you pkilled because you were in purgatory. I was just making an observation that it seemed that the people who enjoyed pkilling and enjoyed that whole aspect of the game have lately been clanning together. I don't argue that before there was more pkill between clans, but lately it seems to me that the biggest pkillers all migrate to 1 clan.

Last, I have to disagree again about EQ being worth so little. A golden snitch would easily be worth 200 mill. A perfect demon faced talisman would be worth at least 20 mill. A perfect golden ring would be worth at least 50 mill. I mean the list goes on and on…how much is a !break item worth, how much is a ⁹⁄₉ imm enchant worth, how much is a 50 ave dam acidic worth, how much are arm spurs worth? I'd argue that with randomization, equipment is worth even more now. You're right. People strive to get the best equipment now with randomization and I also think it's a good change. But now, with randomization, these perfect pieces of equipment that we all strive to get are worth a hell of a lot more.

Alright guys, I normally don't bother to post on the Realms but this is a topic that everyone seems to feel very strongly about.

I for one do NOT like the fact that they are taking out pk'ing from the mud. Now I do not like to pk or do not like to be pk'ed, but tell me when was the last time you actually had fun going out exploring without having to look over your back every few minutes or so to see if someone was coming after you. For me it breaks the monotonous times of leveling and getting equipment. I really don't mind having to buy my equipment back at exaggerated prices (and Red I believe I bought my eq back from you for 30 million and 3 ambrosias for my quest earring) but I was fine with it and remain so.

In the end this is only a game, I know that is overly used but it's the truth. If you can't create an environment for everyone to enjoy themselves in then what's the point of playing the game at all. This mud was founded by friends to have a place to talk and have fun. I consider every person on the mud as a friend of mine, even though I have been relentlessly pk'ed by Miscreation and picked on by countless players. I don't care if you can't stand to see my name on the Who list, in the end we all play here to have fun. We need to be able to come up with a way to accomdate everyone. I know the imms have been striving for just that, but pk is being slowly driven out of the mud.

Instead of bickering and blaming everyone for everything why don't we all just put our personal feelings aside and come up with a real way to fix the pk system so that everyone's as happy as is possible no matter what your preference to player killing is. We could really work some stuff out with this if we would quit whining and bitching and just actually talk about a solution.

Here's 2 possible ideas I had:

1. Why don't we just take out player killing for equipment all together and just make the whole mud arena for player vs player confrontations. Instead of telling people let's go to arena you could just run out and kill them at will. This wouldn't address any problems people have for player stealing, but it would be an interesting twist to killing other players who are in a zone just so you can get that item that you want/need.

2. Have it to where all player corpses are non-lootable by other players and instead have a random number between 1-5 items drop out of the players corpses when they die. This would make it to where you would always be able to get items from players and would even add a challenge to the pk'illers about getting that one item they want. You could also take off the rep with this system and bring back the killer flags for other players to be able to kill the killers for a random item that they stole from another player or their equipment. They would still be hunted by Devils, but give them a chance to fight them off. They would be hunted relentlessly until they either die from another player or devils. You could set the player !summon, !recall, and not allow them to enter into any arenas until the killer flag has been taken care of. They would have to run around dodging demons to get to a safe spot to die or have someone meet them somewhere and also have the chance that their friend would die from the devils trying to help them.

You'll have to excuse the improper use of grammar and/or sentence structure in this.. I haven't been to sleep in awhile and just wanted to put my feelings up here and get any opinions. Try and talk about this and not just blame each other for fucking up the system that the immortals have been trying hard to work out to make everyone have an enjoyable experience from Tempus.

i say we just bring back the TG system :D

I say forget about old systems of how things were done and get together and work out a way for everyone to be happy with what we have or will have in the future.

I know there's a way for everyone to get enjoyment out of the mud without banning pk'ing… We just all have to make some sacrifices and sit down to talk about the possible solutions to this problem we've been having for soo long. This is the oldest argument I know about on Tempus, and I'll admit I have only been here since after the latest wiz-lock. Nothing has been done where everyone is happy, either a select few people are happy and others are mad or vice-versa… Why don't we find a way to put our personal feelings aside about this and come up with a way to make it work.

Alright enough sappy talk. Just try to think of how other people on the mud feel and not just how you do. We all want to be happy in our own little worlds, but that's never going to be possible unless we all work out a way once and for all..

Right now no ones happy with the current system. The player killers are getting shafted and the people who want to be left alone are still being killed. I don't want to see pk taken out of the mud altogether because the majority of the players would rather not do it. If everyones unhappy with the current setup lets find a better way to work it out.

OK, i just got an idea that i think would work. pretty much what i've gathered is: people arnt pk'ing because there arnt any good rewards for PK'ing anymore, and people also dont want to lose eq.

heres what i propose:

either change the current bounty system or, put in some guy in unholy modrian who rewards you for pkilling people. i dont know if the reward would be money (if it was, i dont know how it would be made so you couldnt arrange with your friends to PK each other for gold), or just some kind of reward that doesnt harm the person who's been pk'd. it probably wouldnt be AS much fun as pkilling someone for they're eq, but it might be a good middle ground.

i donno let me know what you think

Well, why not have pking just act like you've been bounty hunting the person, when you pkill someone outside of arena it transfers x amount of gold from one account to the other, depending on the relative levels of both players.

Alright, I myself do not like the plooting thing. After certain certain things like Red said it makes looting players corpses impossible. Well maybe not impossible but I dont like having to go out and waste my chars reps just to get one piece of eq. I remember pkilling acid with my thief cause I have yet to pkill someone with him yet. I found him and capped him.. Before I even had the chance to loot ONE ITEM the corpse disappeared. Why? Cause of the waitstate of backstab. Now if an imm reads these let it be known I mean no disrespect its just simply my opinions! but why? Yall are going out and changing things that you all think its right. Yet do you guys even go out and try them yourselves? Do you guys even know how hard it is to even get eq after pkilling someone these days? Sure you can go out and load them. I can go out and load anything I want but what is the point of having no conflict what so ever on the mud? I myself love conflict as mortals and immortals have seen already. Without conflict where is the fun? Most of you people wouldnt mind just standing around lolly gaging and wishing everything would be fine and dandy. Sorry but that sucks.

And lysol.. your posts piss me off. There is a reason that your chars get capped and sold for so high. Its because we know your ass can afford it. You dont pkill so you dont know how the situations are. Why not actually growing some balls and pkill someone and try to loot somethings. Triggers in pkillin? haha triggers are slow and asking for errors. I never use em and I have yet to see someone who actually uses triggers for pkilling.

Another thing that pisses me off is that you bastards brought up newbies and crap. Newbies are spoiled as it is. I say if they can be spammed lvled then they should be able to get pkilled. There is nothing on the mud that annoys me more when a newbie asks me to spam lvl them. I tell them no and they go to ask questions about why and how they are lvl 25 and crap. Who cares? If you cant run halflings or elvens and sell thier eq and get money and buy better eq and lvl yourself then you dont need to be lvled. I see people running around spam lvling newbies and then I hear em projecting crap. that just sets everything off. Now what ever happened to not spam lvling newbies? Anyway Im off subject it was just brought up so I commented.

Anyway! I dont think there is a point in pkilling in groups. I rarely have done it and when there was group pkill there was errors. Its a lot easier to hunt as one than it is to hunt in a group. In a group you start relying on people to do certain things that can fail. Say Red and I went out pkilling and I relied on his word stun or drowsy or something. I walk into the room. He reads everything to see whats going on realizes hes suppose to stun/drowsy someone and the person recalls. Or what if I was going to use him to loot the corpse and he typoed something and the person retrieves?

And lysol there is a way to satify everyone. Stop changing everything. what was wrong with killer flags or thief flags? That was tweaked to where ya lose gens and more than one lvl and stuff like that. Then there was the gen 5 thing.. Now there is the slow loot thing. Seems to me imms are trying to satify the new people instead of the old people. If it wasnt for the old people who actually know things how would bugs be found? Things get loaded? Stuff get learned? People these days just know about 4 zones, mavernal, kki, drachs and forest of lamogra. New people teach newer people these zones and thats it. There is no need for any other zones. Old people still run hell, run brand new zones, and test zones and mobs and give thier imput on it. And as most of you can see. As with all these changes went the stability of the mud. I love when I can be deep into an annoying zone then BAM crash.

I have an idea… and it may be crazy!! but why not talk with the MORTALS about the changes and get thier imput before you put them in? yeah I know its crazy but what could it hurt? I mean what would you rather have? Put it in then let mortals complain about it then yall call us ungrateful and give us the speech about how imms are volunteers and dont have to do what they do or talk with us..get our imput tweak it a bit maybe test it a bit then take it out if no one likes it. I mean think about it. I heard the imm volunteer speech enough..I get it like 4 times weekly so I came up with my own speech. ahem We mortals are volunteers too, without us you guys will be expanding a mud for no reason. You all might build and expand the mud but we play the mud. We give our time just as much as you all do and try to make the mud grow. Of course you all say we do not thank you but then again when was the last time you thanked a mortal for playing the mud? Somethings dont need thanks. You build a zone and you are confident its a badass zone. Do you really want 20 people thanking you for the zone or do you want people to run it? I mean I didnt make the lvling system but I dont run around and after every lvl thank the coders for making the lvl system allowing me to lvl :P

Anyway let it be known to any imms who have read this. I ment no disrespect and if you guys need any clarification about anything I said send me a tell. I dont want to lose another char due to my opinions or actions. But thats my 43 cents.

Thank you for that Dyne.. I'm going to try and get some immortals to take a look at this topic tommorrow and get their opinions as well on the whole subject. I would like to see them involved in this as much as we are. It affects everyone not just us.

Lysol you said: "Last, I have to disagree again about EQ being worth so little. A golden snitch would easily be worth 200 mill. A perfect demon faced talisman would be worth at least 20 mill. A perfect golden ring would be worth at least 50 mill. I mean the list goes on and on…how much is a !break item worth, how much is a ⁹⁄₉ imm enchant worth, how much is a 50 ave dam acidic worth, how much are arm spurs worth?"

If you read more carefully, i said loadable EQ. You can't load a snitch, hell, you cant even get it in quests anymore. And I honestly don't think 50 ave dam acidics are worth much. I have about five 49.5 ones just lying around. A perf golden ring or demon talis is, okay, worth a lot too. But that's beside the point, cause people don't even sell those damn things.

Lysol you said: "Last, I have to disagree again about EQ being worth so little. A golden snitch would easily be worth 200 mill. A perfect demon faced talisman would be worth at least 20 mill. A perfect golden ring would be worth at least 50 mill. I mean the list goes on and on…how much is a !break item worth, how much is a ⁹⁄₉ imm enchant worth, how much is a 50 ave dam acidic worth, how much are arm spurs worth?"

If you read more carefully, i said loadable EQ. You can't load a snitch, hell, you cant even get it in quests anymore. And I honestly don't think 50 ave dam acidics are worth much. I have about five 49.5 ones just lying around. A perf golden ring or demon talis is, okay, worth a lot too. But that's beside the point, cause people don't even sell those damn things.

i've never seen a demon faced sell for more then 7.5, even perfect ones…

Well, why not have pking just act like you've been bounty hunting the person, when you pkill someone outside of arena it transfers x amount of gold from one account to the other, depending on the relative levels of both players.

how that double posted boggles my mind…

LOTS of stuff to look at. Mostly irrelivant to what I want to say right now. So, I'll address each in its own little mini-topic…

The EQ economy -

PLoot does change this. We can agree on that. The contention is, is that a good change or bad?

I can see the viewpoint of the people who say it is good. Having equipment higher in price makes things good for the people who can go get it. I wouldn't mind selling some perfect hazards for an obscene amount.

The other side to this argument is that the prices might actually be "right" right now. It isn't too hard to get a starter set of equipment for the moment - and that is a good thing for new players and old players starting new characters.

Also, randomized EQ changes things. A "perfect" item may one day turn out not to be so perfect after all - only the Imms have privlage to look at the maximum stats. Sure, they tend to share the info… but not always :). The Randomization added a huge boost to the Tempus economy - one way or the other, it should stick.

Where do I stand in all of this? Neutral. I can see the benefits to both sides of the argument, although picking one or the other may result in basically taking sides of "New vs Old." Pkill does increase the average price of equipment, as well as easier money zones. I do stand by the statement that just Pkilling for equipment is troublesome to the people trying to load it (having had to go hunt down equipment myself), but I can't really say if that's such a bad thing in the long run.

Mortal/Immortal involvement -

I completely agree with Dyne on this one. The Immortals build the MUD, but us players are the lifeblood of the system. If we all work together in harmony, it would be a perfect world.

But it isn't.

Immortals are people, just like players. We all have our agendas, being people. Those agendas will conflict. The Imms want the MUD to expand the player base, while the players want to have fun and keep playing. If both of these are in concert, all is well. Pkill and policy is where a wrench gets thrown in.

The real trick here is, "How can a policy be written that can accomidate everyone?" It can't. Plain and simple. Which is why having actual mortal/immortal votes on policy would be good - keeping the majority of the playerbase happy would be the most logical (read cold, impersonal) solution.

So regardless of which way the wind blows, I'm all for having more mortal involvement in MUD decisions. Maybe not everything, but at least the stuff that directly affects us.

Power Leveling -

This is an interesting case. It is true that it is impossible to learn enough to really survive out there if you get rushed from level 25. It is also quite clear that it is the most efficient way to gain the experience.

I don't think that the fault here is totally the players themselves, or the policy on power leveling. Sure, the players can exploit the opportunity and learn nothing. Sure, they may only know the big 5 zones.

There's the real catch - the big 5 zones. I know that Immortals have a way of measuring zone traffic. Look at the traffic in the zones - there is a massive discrepency in the players in the "good" zones and the "other" zones. Basically, there is an imbalance in where people go. Why is this? I will personally say that I go to Mavernal far too much for my own good. Just recently, I went to Elysium - a more challenging zone. Then end result is that I got a higher volume of (harder) kills, worth about the same per kill as Mavernal, if not less. I still run these other zones; it is just a higher risk and lower reward.

So basically, power leveling is just a common symptom of a myriad of problems. I personally think that a player should do as much of their first mortal generation themselves as they can, as that is one of the best ways to learn. I would also support a bit of rebalancing, as big of a project as that is. I have no illusions about how massive and difficult looking at every zone and getting it to feel "right" would be; it could very well be an impossiblity. It may, however, be a needed change.

The big picture, and post topic: Pkilling -

This one is a toughie. Everyone has their own opinion about Pkilling, and how much/how little there should be. There's lots of potential solutions, but every one of them would make someone else unhappy.

Having the entire MUD effectively arena would be interesting, but in the end would probably play out like Diablo 2. I remember that me and an old friend of mine eventually got powerful enough characters to get equipment en mass. Between the two of us and other players doing similar, and the lack of equipment loss, there was an enevitable crash in the economy, even with the influx of new players and characters.

The random equipment drop idea is still on the "restrictive" end of the scale. It would not change much from what we have now, noly randomizing what people get.

Having straight-up full loot would be a throwback to older days. Some people hated it, others loved, it, but everyone playing dealt with it. Truth be told - it may actually be a better option. Coming from an absolutely cold, logical, and impersonal point of view, the combination of new-player protection and full-scale war of higher gens would prove to keep life quite interesting.

(Tangent) I do completely agree that if you are over gen 5 and cannot get back at least some of your equipment (I wouldn't want to try to hit up level 7 hell for some of the EQ I payed top dollar for) there is a very real problem. I am already gen 4 and can load a decent enough set to get by on until I could purchase the real stuff - most people should learn how to do this before they hit Gen 5, IMO. (/Tangent)

I think that the best possible options may be these:

-Protect the newer players, but make them learn. Raise the power leveling restriction to the last 9 levels of the first gen, if not eliminating it from gen 0 altogether. It may not be the most popular thing, but -new players need to learn to play.- If anything, at least create some sanctions about it - no taking a new player to Abyss, for example. If possible, set it so that some zones will "block" a player of low level from entering them. I've seen this before, and it seemed to work out fairly well.

-The "Pkill equal gen or higher" is interesting, but may be too limiting. I think its on the right track though, so here's a variation: PKill is limited to players down to HALF you current generation (rounded up) or higher. I have no clue how that would work, but it's a thought.

-Let full looting commence. As much as I hate to say it, it is probably the most sound solution to the rapidly dropping equipment prices. To counteract the whole "making people immensely unhappy" thing, I propose this: allow some form of !loot flag to be created, and only have it applicable to an item via a quest item. That way, people who put in some work can get their most valued treasures protected without having to blow 25+ qp for an oedit. Set the item price to something high, but more feasable than a QP. Let's say 10 QP to start.

-Take a hard look at zones getting a lot of traffic, and ask why that happens. There may need to be some small changes here and there, because of the minor (or possibly major) imbalances that exsist. This should force players to learn some new zones, and make the MUD as a whole more healthy. I think.

So with that, I'm done. I probably said a few things that were a bit overboard, and probably made little sense and times. Hopefully though, I said something constructive in all that rambling that will help get this whole situation amended.

I'm way too tired for a full fledged thought provoking reply tonight. But I thought I would share something to chew on.

I've been playing Tempus for some time. When I started, newbie protection lasted untill level 6. If someone thought that meant you could freely pk newbies level 7 and above. Fireball quickly changed your mind. This was the Tempus I knew as a newbie…

• There was full loot.
• There was nowho (who -zone to guarantee you know who's in your zone? please…)
• There was remort invis.
• There was FULL anon, hiding class and level. (Seasoned players anon'd all multis immediatly, you weren't guaranteed to know who was what)
• There was no "trust" system to save you from summoning.
• DT's were true and honest Death Traps.

And when you typed who 8 years ago, at 1st level, while player killing was all but unrestricted, with no detect invisibility, not seeing those who are remort invis, and not seeing those who are nowho.
You would get a screenfull of players. Tempus was alive and bristling.

Something to concider, -Narc

You know, that's exactly what i've been trying to say. Thanks Narc.

I believe Tempus has been and is going through changes to make it more 'newb' friendly. I know I was extremely skeptical when I first began to play because of all the rinvis, but as I became more accustomed to it and higher level it just became another thing to me. I kept 1 character at level 49 at all times just to see who was online. I was fortunate in that I didn't make the wrong people mad when I began playing and went through my new player status blissfully alone and untouched(except for all the dt's of course).

I actually do miss the old Death Traps. Nothing brings about the sense of wondering while exploring that knowing the next room you step into could be your last. Damage Traps just don't hold the same kind of fear for players.

I think Narc's post has some merit, from everything I've heard Tempus was alot more popular when pk'ing was a free for all. I think we've gone past the point of bringing it back to the way it was though, without driving out some of the older and dedicated players.

I understand that the random eq dropping pk is subject to alot of bugs and problems with possible spam killing of players. With the current system we have and the gen 5 protection any new player would know by then what to do if/when they were killed and know how to avoid the possibility of being spam pk'ed. With all the clans that are beginning to sprout up along tempus arch, a new player would be hard pressed to actually make it to gen 5 without joining of the available clans.

I would agree with everyone on the point of Power Leveling new players, and yes before anyone brings it up I do help new players level occasionaly. Normally it's just to get a player past a couple levels so they can get a knockdown skill or whatever to help them out. I have never or would I ever think of leveling a level 25 character to remort and have them miss out on the experiences that come with being those levels. The most I try to help new players with are equipment and directions/ideas of where to go to help them level or obtain items. We really need to tone down the Power Leveling a little bit. When a remort comes on Project and starts asking questions that are designed for Newbie… Somethings seriously not right.

I actually think the EQ Economy is fine. There's no major overages of equipment that alot of people have and there's no shortage of equipment for players that need it. The equipment that everyone has might not be perfect, but there's only a select few that have the knowledge and skill level to load themselves full sets of perfect equipment. I don't see what the big deal with people not having alot of money. Has everyone forgotten how to a money run? I made the money to buy my corpse back from Red not by selling equipment, I give away equipment for free.. I did it by money runs. If you need money we all know where to go to get it.

Despite the fact that you had to resort to insulting me Dyne, I do have to say that I agree with the majority of what you posted that wasn't related to pkill. I do think the newbies are remorting faster and faster without learning anything but those 4 zones. Those 4 zones definitely need to be revamped with stronger mobs and/or less exp. Also, I completely agree that the more experienced players contribute a lot to the mud. It would be nice to have more mortal involvement in these changes that are happening.

But, to return to the topic of this post - the pkill situation. By the way Red, sorry, you're right, I didn't read your post clearly enough. But, regardless, my point was that many people have equipment that can be looted that is worth a lot (whether loadable or not), making pkill still worth it.

About the not grouping to pkill. Come on Dyne. You (as loathing) and Pitt just group pkilled one of my multis a few weeks ago. It seemed to work just great in that situation.

But, anyway, you're right Dyne. I don't pkill and don't really know that much about it. In the ~3 years I've been playing here, I've only ever pkilled once in self-defense and really didn't enjoy it at all. (By the way, this was Kraz and I was able to discharge and blow up his corpse, so I'm not sure what happened there since Red was saying he disconnects to retrieve). A couple people said they enjoyed the danger and risk of being pkilled. Well, that's not really fun to me at all. I don't enjoy having to continually who zone and I don't enjoy walking through HS and being stunned/pstolen from. I don't enjoy pkilling and I really don't want to be forced into that world.

So, possible solutions…In addition to the ones that have been posted already, I'll again throw up an old idea. Why not have the option to choose to be set pkill or !pkill? It would have to be an account wide thing that could never ever be changed. This would allow those like me who only desire to level, quest, explore, and chat do that. And it allows all those who like the pkill aspect of the game have it without ruining the game for others. The only real argument I've seen against this is that there would be no way to kill annoying/obnoxious people, but I'd be willing to let the admins do their job and handle this problem.

Well here's a list of thoughts about pkill that alot of people, pkillers and non pkillers alike, aren't going to like. But I firmly believe that anybody seriously considers them and thinks through how it would play out on Tempus, they can agree that it respects both those that enjoy pk, and those that don't.

I'll start by stating plainly the root almost all the complaints on Tempus.

-We are all lazy-

The players, and the Immortals, none are innocent.

When we as players complain that this or that class is too weak.. or that the other guy's is too strong. It's because we would rather there be less work involved to achieve our goal. Or we think it's easier for the other guy and we want it to be that easy for us, or for it to be as hard for him as we percieve it is for us. Why are the big 5 zones the big 5 zones? Because they are the McDonalds Drive-thru of Tempus. They are experience as fast as possible. They are money as fast as possible. All the rest are viewed as a waste of time, other than to get equipment. This is because the payoff isn't as easy compared to the Big 5.

In pkill, the pkillers don't want to deal with the hunters that are hard and pervasive. Those hunters are badass and killing them is hardwork, and relentless, because they don't cease, even in your own home. (I will say the fact that hunters are so overwhelming that a person can't even hang out and socialize is absurd. Furthermore the fact that a hunter appears to be the same for a gen 10 true killer as it is for a gen 1 true killer only furthers the problem of the big picking on the little.) Pkillers don't want to deal with flags that cause loss of levels, or even towards the end of the flag era, loss of gens.

On the flipside, those who feel like Lysol (not picking on or judging you, you are just a fresh example here) don't want to deal with pkillers at all. Pkilling is an annoyance to them that they would rather not even have to think about, let alone worry about. To the point that who -zone is considered bothersome, despite the fact that it is a powerfull, and very new, tool to evade pkill.

I could go on for the length of a novel pointing out ways in which the lazyness of us all (I am not excluded!) manifests itself in our opinions, complaints, ideas, and requests on Tempus.

So here is my pkill proposition. As a disclaimer, I believe it to be sound and well thought out. But I'm by no means trying to be Narcissitic and claim that it's fully developed and perfect ;)

The system is open pkill. I think keeping newbies defended from pkill is important. Should be respected by players, but should be inforced by the Immortals. Shielding pleayers with from pk with code for any length of time from the real Tempus that they will eventually face isn't going to do them any favors. Sure getting pk'd as a newbie may seem harsh to an onlooker. And it is. But there's more to the pie than just the slice. As a newbie, getting pkilled by the cruel veteran, and then witnessing a Justice wielding Immortal devine some richeous retribution on your behalf, adds to the majesty and wonder of Tempus for that newbie. All mudders must have some reasonable imagination, and the majority of newbies are younger people. There is plenty of opportunity here for something that is considered a bad thing, to be an enchanting event for a newbie, and one that can hook them even more. If there are people who are willing to give the effort. A large change of the system is player vs. player damage. One of the real problems with PK on Tempus is the one hit to severly cripple, if not kill aspect. Lysolchip mainly dislikes PK because he feels that it is random, and uncontrollable. This is due to the ease of killing another player. I suggest damage from one player to another be dropped to 10% for starters, and tweaked from there. This makes pkillers work for their kill. It justifies a full loot, including implants or destroying the corpse if a pkill is successful. Not because the pkiller is big and bad and gen 10. But because he had to know the zone your fleeing from him in. He had to use the proper tools to disable you however necessary. And he had to be persistant enough to actually make the kill. The other aspect of this, is it gives respect to those in Lysolchips' position who dislike pkilling. The victims have a real fighting chance of escape. A stun backer doesn't mean death anymore. It means stand back up and defend yourself, or flee and get the hell out if you wish. Victims will be more respected by pkillers, because now pkilling your character that you've worked hard on is no longer a walk in the park. You will survive the first hit, and you will fight back. And if you're Lysolchip, you'll be hitting hard too ;) Here comes the kicker that nobody is going to like, but is necessary. No instant recalling. The one hit kill now is necessary, because if they don't die immediatly, they recall immediatly. Instant recalling is probably the largest manifestation of the overall lazyness of everybody that exists on Tempus. I am for the newbie return command, newbies need time to get their bearings, gain a concept of their Vitality (move), and how to navigate around the Mud. But for the rest of us, we know how to get around, and we know how to get back. We choose to recall because it's fast and easy. If it were taken away, we all, including myself would groan. But the simple fact is we don't need it. And my belief is that while recalling is still in the game, you won't see a satisfactory pkill system on Tempus.

In benifit to no more recalling, and open pkill. It is now in everybody's best interest to learn the zones of the mud. If you don't know your way around, and your attacker does. Good luck staying alive. Imagine being gen 2 with Tkk chasing you around Drach's with no recalls and not knowing where you are going. That is a tight spot! But not so tight if you can effectivly retreat. Secondly, there is now a benifit to learning other zones in the mud. The highly popular zones are also highly dangerous because of the population. A zone that all the pkillers know well, is not the best zone for your health. I think we will see the zone popularity scales become a little bit more balanced. Thirdly, the dwindling economy of Tempus will be more energized. Going to get those hazard claws means more than getting them, it means getting them and getting back alive. If you are the one getting the claws, you can fairly ask a higher price than they sell for currently.

In possible modification of above, keep the recall spell for Clerics and maybe Knights. But change it so that it can only be cast on others. This will make these classes much more attractive to group with. Along with mages, who can summon their clerical friends back home once they have been recalled :)

In a short overview concept to recap above. Player Killing needs to be more similar to mob killing. It takes a minute to kill the real mobs, and the real mobs can't just disappear away from their killers. In truth, killing a player should be a greater task than killing a mob. The real intelligence and retreat factor of a real person would add to the challenge, and bring a balance to PK.

Anyhow I think that is enough for now. I ask that those who actually read all this consider it legitimately. And not make judgements quickly good or bad. What we all really want and need here are good ideas, and plenty of them.

-Narc

Kudos to everyone who has been posting on this thread…this has always been a touchy subject and always will be most likely.

Sathrynn and Dyne I commend you for calling for ideas from players who play the game and are the ones truly affected by changes as they occur. Whining and bitching about something is NOT the same as expressing ideas for how to make something better so let's throw some ideas out as Sath and Dyne call upon us to do! I totally agree that while there will never be a "perfect" pk system that those who enjoy pk and those who do not, can agree on a system that both sides can agree is at least balanced. Those players who might worry about spam pk, let me say this, I have never been a fan of those who choose to pk only those lower gen then themselves, effectively insulating themselves from any real risk. I have never been a fan of those who wait until someone remorts then pks them. I call that cheap. This in my opinion is why those who dislike pk dislike it so much. If we can eliminate or lessen the "cheap" pk, I think most players could live with being pk'd once in awhile. If I as a player was killed by another player when I was level 45 and they were level 49, I could live with that alot better than if I was level 12 and they were 49. (Assuming the gens were roughly equal of course) The other thing I will say about spam pk is that as your Head Mortal Admin, you can believe that I am not going to allow it. Just because you can't see me on the who list does not mean I am not online and aware of who is doing what. I know several players who will attest that when I want someone to stop what they are doing, I can be very persuasive :) I can't recall who had the idea about a random # of items being automatically dropped by a vicitim of pk, I like the idea as long as it pertains strictly to items worn/held or wielded by a player and not items in the players inventory. I will direct you back to my previous post when I posted under one of my morts where I suggested that the rep increase be based on the level difference between the pker and the victim. You want to pk a freshly remorted player? Fine. Eat a huge rep increase and have rep hunters pay you a visit. I am thinking about somewhere along the lines of 10 rep increase per level difference but it could be more shrug. The gen of a pker is important to address also imo because honestly, what gen 1-5 player would feel capable of getting retribution on a pker who is several gens higher? That is where the idea of only killing those who are your gen or higher comes into play.

After playing Tempus for as many years as I have (I also harken back to the days Narc was referring to but not as far back as Narc) I have known players on both sides of the pk fence. Lysolchip has a point, some players just want to play without being accosted and I have no problem with that. As many of you may be aware players who are new are auto-enrolled into clan Academy. They are !pk and this is so they can learn the game without being vicitimzed by the more experienced players. If the above suggestions are not to everyone's liking, then how about upon the creation of a clan, the creators of a clan choose whether it is to be a pk clan or a !pk clan? It would be account based so if you made a new character, they would be auto-enrolled in whatever clan their main char is in shrug Then the only players who could particiapte in non-arena pk would be those who are clanned in pk clans. If none of your chars are in a clan they can neither pk nor be pk'd? Under this system, every single possible victim of pk would have the backing of an entire clan to help them re-equip themselves. Players such as Lysolchip would be totally unaffected by pk altogether as long as they do not choose to join a pk clan. Players choosing to be in a pk clan would be subject to pk and full loot with no sanctions such as killer flags, rep increases or anything of the like. Spam kill each other at will. Hell, maybe a few clan wars might break out..I say bring it on grin Thoughts, Ideas, etc welcomed. P.S. The thoughts expressed above are soley my own, and not intended to reflect as those of the other Imms here on Tempus. just my own personal thoughts and opinions :) -Skellington

This brought up an interseting subject Narc, a long time ago Azi hollered or projected, cant remember which, "what would you all think if you had 7 times as much HP?". I asked if damage would be raised also, and he said "maybe mob damage, but not player." So, what would happen would be something like Narc said, people would actually go through battles similar to many arena fights in PK.

However, i dont think taking out Recall is the answer. Instead, heres what i propose: If you are hit by another player, you cant recall for 2 minutes, or 1.5, or 3, or whatever people decide on. 2 minutes is an insane amount of time for a player to get killed in, that way, the player killer would require skill and would have to follow the player through the zone trying to catch him, and yet the other player would have a good chance of getting away, after the !recall time runs out.

This would be badass.

I don't want anyone to think that I am criticizing them or their ideas in any bad way. What I am going to do is point out some minor flaws that I happen to see so that we can look at them and see what we can do about fixing them.

Narcissus's idea is very interesting. Making it harder to pk someone would indeed lower the risk of going out leveling and make it safer for people who don't like pk. The only thing that you will see change with that is for every 10% of damage that you reduce player vs player combat, you will get another player grouping together to pk. Instead of 1v1 instant pk's as we have now. You would get 3v1 or even 5v1 player killing instead. You try to run from 5 different people at once and see how far you would get. There is also a problem with taking out instant recalling for every player. How would you recall from isolated zones like astral/heaven/hell/abyss/gith/amoria and all the other zones that are one way in and your there until you recall. I understand that this could be fixed with a few recall portals from those places back to where you entered from. Just wanted to point it out.

Skellington's idea holds more of a possibility or working in my opinion. Like Narcissus said.. we're all lazy in the end and those kinds of major changes would not go over all that well with most older players. Player Killing clans and Non-Player Killing clans seems like a good idea, and very well could work out great. I was just pointed out by a fellow player, that I will leave unnamed, that they have friends that are both player killers and non-player killers and the player wouldn't like to be seperated from them like that. Now I know you can get cell phones and talk to each other through tells and social in houses. I just wanted to put the players thoughts in here, since I don't think they will themselves. The only major problem I see with this idea is that we currently have roughly 6 players, that I know of, that currently participate in player killing(If I've lumped you into this group I'm sorry, but I won't name those players here). The majority of the mud will essentially become !pk and leave the people who enjoy killing others on the short end of the stick. More then likely all the player killers would join 1 or maybe 2 clans and only have a limited number of people they can effectively kill. This would take out some of the enjoyment for those that like to kill discrimately and/or just like to bug the hell outta people by killing them.

I don't think in the end there will be a way to take pk out of the game altogether. Just recently I proved to an immortal that I could effectively kill their mortal that was under newbie protection. I won't say how I did it, but I've bugged it and most players know the way I used to do it. No one is ever free of being pk'ed is all I'm trying to say, if you piss someone off badly enough they will find a way through a bug to kill you in the end… I'll shutup now, thank you everyone who posted with ideas and all those that have looked over this post and are trying to come up with an idea to share.

Hi! Its me again! First I like to say pkilling will be uneven forever thats why its pkilling. If everyone was even there would be no pkilling. Pkilling is based over the element of surprise. If you have surprise you have the advantage. Its so uneven a lvl 49 mortal can kill a gen 10 lvl 49 without even trying. Its not that hard.. Anyone can do it. All it takes it surprise. Even with the element of surprise things can go from your favor to the other persons favor. Sure there is people who dislike pkilling but seriously? What is the problem? As most of you know my char dyne is loaded with tons of crap. Yet about a week ago I lost ALL of my eq. Sure dyne is one of my main and most played chars but I got re-equip and I got more damroll and ac than I have before. What Im trying to say most of you leave after being pkilled and losing all of your eq. So what? Its not like money is rare and hard to get. There is kki and learander and abyss and skullport and all those little runs that can easily get you enough money to buy your crap back or buy new items. Besides what are friends and clannies are for? Whenever I needed items or help with something or trying to re-equip a char my friends and clannies gave me stuff. Items are not hard to get either. So what if you dont have the same exact stats as before. Its not the end of the freaken game. Those of you that think you are being picked on. Thats not true. Most of the time people like red or myself are bored and want to see a little blood. We see someone thats out and about and cap them. There is very few times I have kept all pieces of eq. Those times that I have was because I seriously hated them. So anyway it is not the end of the world if you lose all your eq. You can re-equip. So dont think wow I was just pkilled I lost all my eq this mud is unbalanced and unfair and this should be done and that should be done. Its a game. When you arent unhunted you have fun and those who do hunt do have fun also. So why not just everyone have fun?

As for your comment lysol about the group pkill thing. If you actually saw what happened when you walked into the room you would see. Sure my clannies and I were there to pkill you but if you actually seen all the stuff that happened and all of the confusion that was going on you would have been amazed. But you were too busy being stunned to see any of it or to know what was going on. After that pkill you can ask any of my clannies that were there that I said over clansay that I couldnt believe that actually worked. I even talked about what had went wrong and how to fix it if we ever do something like that again and everyone was just saying..uhhh? Just because one group pkill was a success it doesnt mean it always will be. Like I said anything can happen within the pkill attempt. Hell you could have stood and screamed and capped us all or something. Wouldnt that have been some shit :p

There is people who will always dislike pkilling.  Some of you dont like pkilling cause it happened to you.  I remember when I first started to play.  Back then sure I was a newbie never got my first char over lvl 32.  I had people like kano and misc and hassan and all those other badasses back in the day pkilling me.  I had people summoning me to lawless zones constantly.  Sure back in the day fireball frowned upon certain people harassing newbies but I just kept being pkilled.  I wont lie I hated it.  But there is good from pkill.  I learned to avoid pkill situations.  I learned a lot from pkilling then soon afterward DS and I decided to hunt a few people.  At first I just wanted to loot thier crap and be done.  But I was guilty by association.  After being hunted I decided I was gonna hunt.  After a few adrenaline rushes and mistyping I got pretty good at it and started to enjoy it.  some of you pkill on accident and think wow I just did this that sucked sorry I didnt mean to.  But ask yourself.  It was fun!  you want to do it again but afraid of what might happen.  pkillers pkill nonpkillers and pkillers pkill pkillers.  its a vicious  cycle.  Go out one and and just pkill a random person.  Weither its your friend or someone you hate.  Id chose a friend cause then you can say opps sorry mistyped and they will say its no problem or something.  

Also this is for some of you that think you are constantly being hunted. Running the same zones over and over again really isnt that hard to find out who is where. If i wanted to cap someone Id run to mavernal, kki, then dracs to see whos there. Why not listen to narc and find another place to lvl? Sure not everywhere gives xp or cash like those places but who knows maybe you will find a badass items or uhh..what am I looking for… FINALLY EXPLORE SOMETHING and learn something new!

I think with timeless's random drop eq thing is a neato idea but as long as you have a choice of what you can get. I dont wanna pkill someone for a tail of scorpion and some hard leather bracers. Tis a waste of a rep. And Im with skellington, pkilling a freshly remorted char is kinda cheap. I never done it.. well I have but I didnt know I just saw my chance and took it but I dont think anyone does do that anymore. And I found a lot more stuff I found interesting but I cant remember it so I cant comment on it besides Im tired of writing on here for now. gonna go lvl or something. thats my 35 cents.. someone stole the rest of my cents.

Hi.

Active posts are always a good thing, along with rethinking and reflecting upon how we do things. Tempus hadn't been around for too long when I created my first character, and a lot has changed since then. At the same time, some things haven't changed at all, like discussing how best to handle PK.

I cannot begin to calculate how many in game and out of game conversations have been had on this subject, and it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon.

The total tonage of ideas I've heard or have had myself concerning pk is mindblowing. There are just so many different options. Some dig the unrestricted way used to have, some like the fancier things like bounty n' such, and some aren't certain.

I'm not sure there is perfect solution to it. Tempus is a mixed bag, and we like to try different things. One thing for certain is that the Imms do listen to ideas, read your posts, and try out solutions with our morts.

So please keep your opinions and ideas coming; we enjoy the discussion, and appreciate the feedback.

• wish * head architect *

Hey, again obviously my ideas on a pk system I'm sure are far from perfect, but I thought I'd touch on some things brought up here about it, and on some other ideas aswell. And truely what I say does not apply to everybody in every situation.

I have toyed with the idea of having !self-recall be set for a limited amount of time after being struck by another player rather than just having a permanent !self-recall. It defanently has some merit, but I personally came to the conclusion that it wouldn't properly get the job done for a few reasons. The first being accidental pvp damage while grouped or otherwise. It would be an awful nusance to be grouped with a friend, and one of the two of you accidentaly tag the other, and now the both of you are potentially stuck for two minutes. Yes you could both get back the hard way, as I think we should ALL have to do ALL the time. But lets be honest, when we're planning on the easy way back, we're not planning on the hard way :P The second reason is that it negates the effect !self-recall would have on players actually get out and spreading throughout the mud's different zones. Tempus isn't the biggest mud out there, but I'd venture to say it's possibly the biggest small mud out there as far as adventuring choices go. However, the truth is we as players as a whole simply don't venture out into the Tempus universe as I think we can all agree we should be. This actually has many adverse side effects on many people. Running the same handfull of areas over and over wears us out as players. Boredom can creep in quickly, and a bored mud is a viscious self-pepetuating cycle. I have a feeling it is one of the reasons Tempus has still failed to become as popular as it really has to potential to be. Tempus really is a kickass mud! Secondly it is un-motivating to the builders. A builder works hard to make a zone, it is alot of monotonous work. And any builder wants to have a zone that is appreciated and explored. Unfortunatly in the current state of things, the way a builder builds a zone that leaves him/her feeling worthwhile and fulfilled is to make the zone unbalanced. Either too much money, xp, or savory items for the challenge. These zones are great for fast money, fast levels, ect. But they get beat to death, they get old, and we soon yearn for something different. If a builder doesn't do this, they'll find their zone all but vacant most of the time.

As far as one-way zones go, well, you can look at it two ways. It would be rather easy to generate an exit in these zones… But I really don't feel this harnesses the opportunity that the situation presents. Why shouldn't there be a few zones out there that require a little bit of extra effort or planning? A readily available solution to players that wish to go to these one way zones is to get the help of a Cleric or possibly a Knight (recall = remort spell??) who can recall you. If we take the time to use our minds, we can bring the assistance of a remort phyz who can open a portal. I think maybe remort bards have the ability to generate portals of some type too now? Hey! We can add value to some classes now that's something other than how well they can kill a mob or another player for a change! Another issue that Tempus has… newbies are all but worthless to the larger more seasoned players. This means they aren't as embraced as they should be. It is time consuming work to help a newbie without just spamming them, with little payoff, and I think calling it little is being generous. Imagine a gen 10 Monk/Psi seeing a newbie Cleric who can recall them, or mage who can summon them home as a valuable asset for a change, and newbies can make some cash off of services! The relationship between veterans and newbies has opportunity here to really take a turn for the better. More new players will stay as they will feel some love and value from more of the mud's player base as a whole, and suddenly newbie pk isn't as enticing to others either… Anyway.. Locating a potion or a scroll that casts teleport on yourself is also a more roundabout, but feasable option to the lone adventurer, to get teleported into another random zone from which they can exit normally. This ofcourse would require a decent knowlege of the mud as a whole. But that is hardly a bad thing! This is really isn't a problem at all, but motivation for us all to get out there and learn the game that we love so much! The turn off to many really is that this requires effort. Some would call it a "pain in the ass". But to that I thumb my nose. We have the opportunity to make something like running Drach's an accomplishment, rather than a given. And when it is an accomplishment, we get more enjoyment and satisfaction from it as players, and I think the builders will enjoy it a little bit more too. Furthermore, as some of these one way zones sit now, I can defanently agree that with !self-recall the effort required to run and return from these zones just isn't going to be worth it. I'm sure however that the imm's can find some candy to dab around to make the journey tempting ;)

Something that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned about the loss readily available instant recalling, is Tempus and afterall, it is just a game. And sometimes real life beckons when we don't expect it. When this happens while you are deep in level 7 hell and no fast way home pre-arranged, you're just not going to have the time to get yourself back to your house, or inn. This is a problem that I concede is a shortcoming of my idea. And I can think of no perfect way to satisfy both. I do however offer that forcerenting is always an option. And for those of us who are going to be down in the depths of these outreaching realms, we really should have the money to afford a day or two's worth of forcerent. If I'm not mistaken, linkless characters are currently protected from losing eq and the like from death. If they are not, adjusting this would not be difficult, (naturally as always, it's concidered a crime to use this technique to avoid pk) perhaps the costs of forcerenting could be lessened.. All in all, this is a far cry from the issue of the century ;)

About group pk. I think it's no secret that I am a supporter of fairly un-restricted pk. That being said, I have defanently partaken in my fair share of pk involvement. I've run with Adragan, Machiavelli (Mordecai), Lifeline, Kano, Miscreation, ect. ect. Some of the most memorably pkillers that Tempus has known from the past. I can honestly say from experience, that even these talented pkillers look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football when it comes to efficient group pkilling. And keep in mind!! This is while killing another player is like killing fly! Organizing an effective pk party has always been just downright hard. The only times that I've seen it work consistantly well is either with one summoning, and others attacking, or with summoning to a haenous aggressive mob that keeps the victim occupied in a way they are not always prepeared for. Both of these techniques are all but castrated when damage done in pvp combat is reduced to a fraction of what it is now. When pvp damage is reduced down significantly, there is no lasting way around having to work for your kill. THere is also no lasting way around the victim having a fighting chance at mounting an effective defense, or having a fair opportunity at escape. I'm positive if there was a way to do some tests and crunch some numbers, you would find that the more players you add to the party for a pkill, will make the effort exponentially difficult to orchestrate. I say, if you know your zone, run from 5 attackers and see how many can actually keep up ;)

To touch on the idea of random eq popping out of a corpse upon pkill. This idea is not a bad one, and defanently has merit. I would not support this notion whatsoever if pkill were made to a true hunt and battle as I have proposed. For the killer(s) will have put in the sufficent effort to deserve their full loot. If pvp damage remains unchanged, or not changed to the point that stun/backer can still mean your death, then I am more okay with it. My only concern is, as I think Dyne pointed out before. Being that what pops out is going to be random, I think that this system risks promoting more spam pkilling in order to get that item that you want to pop out. Nomatter what system of pkill Tempus runs if it does run one, the one thing that I really frown upon more than anything else is spam pkilling. This takes the game out of the game, and makes people personally miserable. It's simply harassment, even if your reason is to get that demon-faced talisman to pop out. Losing your talisman isn't nearly as bad as being subject to spam pkill over it. We play the game for enjoyment, and when being spam pkilled you just can't enjoy the game. With a single death and full loot, it sucks, but you can get over it, move on and re-equip, and re-evaluate whether you really need to be sporting attention-grabbing artifacts.

About pkilling freshly remorted characters. I may be alone on this one. But I see no problem with it. Remorting is a venture to attain greater power for your character. We selfishly want to gain that power without worring about the possible concequences of making ourselves weak again. Being weak recently after remorting is just part of the risk you take in your quest for power. A quest for power should be risky!!!! Part of the strategy I remember from mudding years gone by on Tempus, is remorting and leveling as stealthily as possible. This is just another good motivator for people to get the hell out of ECNP and Mavernal and into the less traveled zones with their 20th level gen 8's. And if you are discovered, it is a game of cat and mouse that is short-lived.

Why don't we all know more than a handfull Tempus' zones inside and out? Because we are umotivated to do so. Why aren't we all as involved with newbies as would be ideal? Beceause we are umotivated to do so.

Finally, I agree that these changes are something that we will all groan about. Those of us that have been around for some time will be effected the most, and will justifiably be groaning the most. I have no doubt that if Nothing and Skellington decided to say "Here Narc, have your way with Tempus", that I would also be kicking myself over what I would also be putting myself through! However, we are all groaning right now as it is too aren't we?

-Narc the long-winded.

Just so you all know, this discussion is pointless. The ploot change was made for a reason, just like every other change that we make, and it's here to stay.

Firstly, none of you know what the long term plan is. I keep these things secret because I don't feel like listening to the flood of complaning I'll get if I don't. Darkesoul keeps saying that people are under newbie protection until gen 5. That's not even remotely true. People are FORCED to enter the work of PK at gen 5. They can choose to enter it at any point before that. The fact that people aren't entering the world of PK until they're forced to tells me that most people don't care for PK at all. That being the case, that's what Tempus will promote. The fact that 5 or 6 people are unhappy, regardless of how long they've been here, is irrelevant.

Secondly, none of you seem to be hitting on what the real issue is. It's a fact that Tempus has a very small player base, and that fact is the root of most of the things that are wrong with Tempus. If we had 50 or 60 players on at a time, the current PK system would be near perfect. The ploot restrictions would force pkillers to get the eq they want from multiple sources, thus spreading out the grief. At that point, I could lower the rep penalties, make rep tick down faster, and do lots of other cool things.

Unfortunately, as most of you know, we're lucky to have 20 people on at the same time. What really pisses me off is that newbies come on, ask for some help, and you people ignore them. So they quit and never come back. I see it at least once a day. If you really want Tempus to get better, if you really care about it, if you want it to be fun and exhilerating again, quit being so fucking selfish and make an effort to keep the new people that come along.

The above post is not directed towards anyone in particular, and certainly not at everyone. Nobody needs to reply and say, "Hey! I help newbies!". Those of you that do, I know who you are.

N

"The fact that 5 or 6 people are unhappy, regardless of how long they've been here, is irrelevant."

Yes, if we had a player base of 50 or 60 people 5 or 6 people being unhappy would be irrelevant. But when those 5 or 6 people quit, the active player base would be at what, 7 people, 8?

Well thanks for your imput. I mean if that was the case then why dont you just get rid of some imms? I mean if the player base is so low why must we have 10 imms with 2 mortals? and if we dont help newbies enough and you are watching this why not help them? :P

NO ONE.. I MEAN NO ONE helps newbies anymore cept maybe 3 people that I can think of. Everyone else just does it cause wish or some imms asked them so they can get a qp or whatever wish gives them. I seen people in acedemy that dont do crap to help newbies. I will be honest with you. I dont help newbies. 1 time out of 3 newbies I will prolly get one equiped and tell them a bit of stuff and remove my trans/invis eq so they can send tells if they need something. But I dont have the patience sometimes to help them.

Newbies want too much its so hard to tell whos a newbie these days. Sure if you see the academy badge they are a newbie but there has been times I seen a newbie get killed then make a new char and beg for eq and what eq that was given to them they give to the other char. Or they just want more eq so they can sell it. But either way its your mud do what you want shrug this post wasnt meant to offend just ment to say my opinion. :)

In this case, Dyne is exactly right. We have WAY too many imms, especially ones that don't do shit. I expect to do something about that at some point.

It's a rather touchy situation though, as I'm sure you can understand. What Dyne is saying is EXACTLY the reason that I said no more hiring is to be done from the playerbase. Unfortuantely, there are some people that have chosen to ignore that. But that is getting into things that you as players shouldn't concern yourselves with.

Dyne, someone like you who really just doesn't have the patience to help a newbie, I wouldn't want trying to help every newbie that comes along. That's nothing against you, just a statement of what I see as the truth. However, if you really help 1 out of 3 newbies, then that's great. If everyone did that we'd have a much larger player base and everyone would be happier.

Heartsbane, while we have a small player base, that doesn't mean that I'm going to make a change just to make 5 or 6 people happy when it would make the majority unhappy. Truthfully, there are a few people on Tempus that are nothing but troublemakers and I would love to see them leave and never come back even if they were the LAST players on Tempus.

N

Hang on.. Im writing this down… Nothing and Dyne agreed on something…

I disagree with the new PLoot. To me, it makes having a pk system pointless. Whilst I am not a pker, I don't look down my nose at those who choose to do so, and I don't think they should be any more limited. In the world of role play, why do we have to have imms hold our hands so we can NOT bitch about something else?

I seems to be an effort to try and get rid of PK. I mean, I dread the thought of being PKed, but hey, its what makes the little sliver of excitement run through you when you see Percival pop outa nowhere or Red calmly walk into HS.

Why don't people enter into the PK system before they are forced to do so? It can't be safely assumed it's just because they are not interested in PK. I love PK, I'm also not entering myself into the PK system untill I have to. Why? Because my characters don't have the marbles to tango with those gen 7 and up. It would just be suicide for me to enter pk right now.

I've stated it 2 times already before this, but maybe a third time without being all P.C. about it and something will click.

Why is it suicide? Because one single hit kills me. There is no strategy to PK on Tempus, other than find him, and don't let him know you're chasing him. THAT'S IT! If you find him unawares, he is dead, or you are a typoing motherfucker.

Now in my situation, I can't kill on the first hit, but I know I'll be killed on the first hit. So therefore it's just suicide for me to get into PK right now.

Change the system to give a gen 2 a fighting chance at escape against a gen 10 and not everybody is going to wait untill the last minute. I can run from the big boys, I can kill those closer to my own strength. Doing this is very very easy. Get rid of the one hit kill bullshit. Drop pvp damage down so that combat between two players is actually combat, not wham bam thank you ma'am.

Even when given a large selection, pkillers stick to smaller victim groups. They are tried and true, they are easier to manage. Grudges inevitably come about from PK also. If you get killed by someone, and whine and cry to that person, like most people do. That pkiller is more likely to kill that person again, than if the victim kept their mouth shut. But people don't keep their mouths shut, people don't go out and kill the unknown risky character when the one you know you can kill is available. Grief isn't going to be spread around, the strong pick on the weak. That is human history, that is the way people work, that is reality. The ONLY way to help control this is to strip the strong of the overwhelming strength. The ability of Tempus characters compared to their ability to take a beating us unbelievably disproportionate. Mobs need to have 20k 30k and sometimes more hitpoints to stand up to the stronger player characters for any reasonable amount of time. Strong player characters have more like 2k, 2.5k Max, if even that much.

People are also selfish, that is just another truth about people that isn't going to change. Individuals can be generous, individuals can be honorable. But people are selfish, and people pick on the weak. We talk about how few players Tempus has, but it has enough to show all the signs of mob mentality rather than decent individuals.

I'm sorry if the truth sucks, but it's time to get realistic. If anybody wants people to help newbies, it needs to be made profitable for people. And I don't mean bribes like qp's or money for helping newbie X. I mean they have to be seen as investments by the player base rather than annoyances. If you want a drastic example of how it's done, strip all damage done by all players to anything down to 10% of what it is now. And watch people group like mad just to run mavernal. Watch the clans fight over newbies to add to their ranks so that maybe they can can get a group together of sufficient size to run Drachs.

Kraz was one of the most notorious pkillers of the post-wizlock age… and he was a gen 1 MAGE. You have some decent points in your last paragraph, chief. But you can pkill with a mort if you want to.

Kraz was one of the most notorious pkillers of the post-wizlock age… and he was a gen 1 MAGE. You have some decent points in your last paragraph, chief. But you can pkill with a mort if you want to.

What is true and what we percieve as true are two different things. And we only act on what we percieve truth don't we ;) I was talking about the perverbial me.

If my (my being anybody) perception is that I couldn't ever hold a candle to a big bad gen 10 who can squish me like a fly, and do it by accident, than I'm not gonna come out of my !pk shell untill I don't have a choice.

It's the things that players actually respond and react to that need to be considered and worked with. Not necessarily what is true.

If you want to call kraz a pkiller… yeah lets pkill newbies and freshly remorted people. Thats not being a pkiller thats being a coward. once in a blue moon he would pkill someone other than a newbie or a fresh remort. :P

…… I'm not even going to respond to that.

Since this thread has been designated as pointless, I will waste my time only once more on this subject. A heartfelt thanks once more to everyone who gave input on this issue regardless of which side of pk and or the ploot issue you championed. Normally tossing ideas around and discussing them can lead to not only a greater appreciation of an opposing view, but occasionally to an improvement upon what system is being utilized at any given time. After re-reading my posts I found I was indeed stating erroneously that newbies are protected until gen 5 when in fact they do have the option of removing the protection prior to that. I apologize for that.
Allow me to use this analogy: Since a player begins at gen 0 level 1 and can end up at gen 10 lvl 49, Gen 5 is roughly half of their "leveling life". If irl anyone were to protect and shield any child that they were raising from the harsh realities of life until they were lets say 45 years old, they would be 45 years old with no clue how to function independently and you would have done them what favor? shrug I think what you will end up with is merely a gen 5 player who gets killed by someone they have no realistic chance of getting revenge on, and after being killed repeatedly so the killer can get the equipment they were after in the first place, they leave the game anyway. You have merely delayed the inevitable. If the notion that the majority of players on Tempus really do choose to be !pk, and accordingly things will be geared that way, what harm would be done by implementing a system proposed in earlier posts that will allow the players to choose (account wide) to be pk or !pk and let nature take it's course? I submit there would be a DRASTIC INCREASE in pbase just in word of mouth alone, when players on both sides of the pk/ploot issue spread the word. Those who choose not to pk would certainly be grateful at that change, and tell their friends, while those players such as myself who enjoy pk in the only style it was meant to be (balls to the walls, no prisoners no whining and no penalties) spread the word to their friends. I am saying that under a system such as this, every player would be happy whichever side they choose. As for the idea that everyone should stop being so f******* selfish and help a newbie out, many of us have in the past. We have stopped what we are doing and get them some basic (or better) eq, given them some starting gold, given them advice on what areas to explore at their level, what spells/skills are worth buying, or whatever else should have been provided at the time of creation anyway, just to see them delete 5 mins later. Sorry, but many players do tend to shy away after reliving that scene a thousand times. Players see THAT scenario more than once a day. So players who DID decide to stick it out longer than 5 minutes and have goals that they aspire to achieve, and can't be bothered wasting time on 100 newbies in the hopes that 2 or 3 might stay can be considered selfish, and personally, I don't blame them. I was never blessed with the intelligence required to start and maintain a MUD of my own, or I would be posting on my own webpage now instead of on this thread lol, but I think most of us are mindful that at the end of the day, what Nothing says is the way it will be. Period. I hope noone reading this thinks I would dare to even think I would tell anyone how to run their game. It's their game for a reason. Finally, as for Kraz, Dyne you sure called a spade a spade on that one. Regardless of what character of Nate's you name, they all share a common trait. He preyed upon those who were weaker than himself; mainly newbies and the freshly remorted (I don't think that is even up for any serious debate), and on the rare occasion when a player did stand up to him after perservering and genning up, he would befriend them because he knew they could beat him. The pattern was there and it was blatantly obvious to anyone watching. He was/is a coward's coward. Period. I hope that whatever happens in the future of Tempus, it ends up bringing it the pbase it truly deserves. I have made many friends and even a few enemies, but I had a blast the whole way. Whatever happens, enjoy :) DS

I have to agree with Narc here. I believe that most players really would love to pkill if they had the gens/levels and power to do so. I think the reason that the majority of people do choose to stay under the newbie protection is because they want to bide their time to be the strongest that they can be before they have to pkill. If say protection were moved up all the way to gen 9, I think people would wait for that also, simply because they want to have the biggest advantage that they can have. Sure, there are a couple exceptions like Kraz and some thieves who turn pkill on to be able to psteal, but there are so few of these.

However, while I agree that most people would like to pkill, I want to again speak for the minority of us who don't enjoy that part of the game at all. If I remember correctly, I was the first person to hit gen 10 after the wizlock. I probably could have killed the majority of the player base at that time, including getting revenge on those that had pkilled me numerous times pre-lock. However, I honestly don't enjoy that part of the game, so I didn't. The one pkill that I have done, which I stated before was killing Kraz, I didn't enjoy at all. Some people like me just don't want to be involved in that aspect of the game.

I just don't understand why people who don't want anything to do with that part of the game have to be forced to join it. Do we force people to quest in the types of quests that they don't enjoy? Do we force people to have to explore zones that they don't want to explore? I respect everyone who enjoys pkilling and if they love it so much, then I think that they should be enjoying it together. If you truely love pkill for the sake of pkill, then wouldn't it be more fun to hunt/kill people who also enjoy it as much as you do? It's like hunting a ferocious animal versus hunting an innocent deer.

So, I'll chime in with Darkesoul here. "What harm would be done by implementing a system proposed in earlier posts that will allow the players to choose (account wide) to be pk or !pk and let nature take it's course?" And by this, I really mean it would have to be a system where the player would have to choose forever whether they wanted to be pkill or not. This could never, ever be changed. Otherwise you would have those people that I talked about earlier who would get to gen 10 and then decide that they now want to enter the game, after they've had protection for all 10 gens. That would be completely ridiculous. And for the pkill side, it could be changed to however little regulation that the pkillers like, with full loot to spam pkill.

But hey, if this is all this talk really is futile, then fine. We'll all just have to live with it, embrace the changes and move on. At least we've all said what we wanted to say.

Let me clarify something. The reason why this conversation is pointess is because it's not going to change anything. Not because you guys are stupid or you don't have good ideas or anthing like that.

The fact is, one of the points of my earlier post is that I'm not done implementing my current ideas for changing around the PK system. Ploot was changed because of things that are going to happen in the future.

Since I'm not done implementing the things that I currently want to try, none of these ideas that are being posted here can be acted on. Once I fully implement the current idea, if it doesn't work, or needs to be changed, or everyone just hates it, THEN is the time to have this discussion. Right now, I'm not willing to listen to ideas becuase I can't use them.

N

Yes lysol lets just make sure everyone knows! LYSOL WAS THE FIRST GEN 10 but dante was right on your ass! Yes you could have pkilled a lot of people and you should have. I mean now its not like you play on your mortal much so why not cap a few people and go back to immland… what harm could it do? :D

Im just posting for the hell of it. I really dont have anything constructive or important to say. so uhh…errr…hmm.. HI GUYS WHATS GOING ON?! yeah.. Im bored sorry :P

i would just like to say that i like the new changes even though there still is no full loot….but the new changes are kick ass

I just want to say these new !PK and NPK and CPK zones absolutely fooken rock :)

I can now pkill people and they won't lose anything, therefore I won't feel guilty. NPK for the win!