When I think about tempus, I think about sortof a meeting place.. I mean, for some of us, (I'm assuming there's more than one person who would agree) leveling, and pking are even, or secondary to socializing, joking, and experimenting. If, as it seems the case, you take away, the ability to do this, safely, then I think you risk loosing alot of dedicated players. However, to some, leveling, and even pking, is the sole or main reason that they play.. and limiting them; with an overprotective system of rules and consequences, you risk loosing (or boring to death) another important populus within the mud. It seems to me that there has to be some middle ground between an all out 0 saftey bloodbath policy, where people become scared to leave anywhere, and are unable to aquire and keep a charecter and items, and a ridiculously restrictive pk policy, where active predetors face complete extinction or isolation, with little or no chance of redemption..

There has to be a way to accomidate, to some extent everyones needs. A policy like that would have to protect the following:

1) Socializers. 2) Newbies 3) Low level players (I mean to say multis) 4) PlayerKillers 5) The average joe, the moderate who may want to slip in and out of these ranks.

The Following Abilites:

1) The ability to interact with your peers, w/o fear of betrayal or death. 2) The ability to level, in some sort of saftey, at any level. 3) The ability to attack, to instill a little fear and build a name for yerself. 4) The ability to avenge, or extract revenge. 5) The ability to make money, or aquire items, some other way than just farming milling and camping.

So I guess, the question is, how do you protect all of these diverse people, and thier equaly diverse interests, with a single policy? How can you balence fairly, such paradox positions? I'm not an immortal or and operator or an administrator or anything, but I would think that, it would be sortof your job to protect the interests of the people who make your job important and prestigious. At the same time, that's got to be difficult.. and maybe, downright impossible. But ya aughta try I think. Here's my suggestion, albeit a bit infantile.

1) You retain a reputation system, and use that as your base.

2) Instead of a ridiculously slow rate of reputation depletion, it decreases faster at higher rates of reputation, and slower at lower. That way heavy duty pkillers would need to kill more often to keep thier intimidating status, and one or two time pkillers would have to wait awhile to become trustworthy again.

3) NVZs remain, but are instead than all protecting, are completely safe for newbies and innocents, are unpleasant for the recreational pkiller, due to guards and merchants distrusting them, and are completely UNSAFE for the notorious.

4) Killer Flags and Thief flags, remain gone, (I never liked them anyway, too absolute) rather, as you become more notorious, you become easier to find, and less safe, the rp spirit might be that the more famous you are, the easier you are to find.. the less sympathy the gods have for your saftey. Perhaps if you're really really notorious, guard mobs could shout your arival, warning people in the city.

I hadden't thought of a looting policy, but full seems the easiest to enforce, and the most true to life.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts and suggestions on the subject.. Tell me whacha think.

-Ill

I think you may have hit that right on target ill. the other night when nvz's were removed and such, i had a couple players messaging me over aim asking what was going on and why we had ruined the game… because for them the game was lvl'ing and socializing. i couldn't tell them why as i haven't been on much due to school, but it concerned me that such a drastic change was made so suddenly. i hope to see some sort of REAL middle ground get reached before we actually do lose a large group of players…

Even if a middle ground is established it is still pretty hard to get everyone back to normal once everythings been derailed. Some people probably just logged in into their loadroom with some other people that was just camping there waiting for them. I'm pretty sure they were VERY shocked to see "you have died press enter" or what ever message the second they logged in. EQ and implants can be replaced but something so drastically out of the ordinary can really traumatize some people.

Maybe there should be a set limit on how many people a person may kill depending on their reputation. Going over that limit would probably cause their rep to raise and some negative concequences. I totally think that getting a reputation of a -unfriendly- or what ever it is just by attacking someone with that reputation is weird because why would i be classified as that rep when i kill someone that has obviously killed many other people. Perhaps killing someone with a significantly higher rep will make you more "good" in some sense.

Perhaps a way to make it so that not everybody is killing who ever they want because they can is by adding like a bounty based on their reps. For example, killing someone with a really high rep and presending the corpse to some exchange place will give them a really nice reward, a medium rep for a medium reward, and a low rep for a low reward.. If getting a higher rep will cause other people to go after you for the reward, i think people will not just kill everyone in sight because they can, but rather just kill once in a while because someone pissed him or her off.

I personally think the answer is simple. Leave NVZ's completely gone, but bring back killer/thief flags. It leaves people the option of pkilling, but they get penalized if they hit the wrong target.

I would have thought that would have been a great middle ground. Kill those you can with impunity, apart from your reputation, where ever you like, but beware hitting the wrong target cause you'll still get penalized.

I think you would be amazed at how little PK is going on right now.

I think everyone is freaking out over a very small problem. The first night things were gone people went a bit crazy, and there was a lot of pkilling. After that, things settled down, and people got bored. I feel completely confident almost 100% of the time to sit in Holy Square, even with it as a VZ. I still go on money runs and leveling, because i dont have to fear being summoned, it is much easier. New penalties for having a higher rep will also balance things out, it will be difficult for people with high reps to stay in mod, and people will settle down a bit. I think everyone should stop worrying so much, and see how it plays out

I wish I had saved the logs.. peoples pk count going up 10-50 kills in 2 days.. that's (I would say) a "surprising" number.

Well, there's two things about that. First, there was a small bug that gave 2 pkills for every actual one pkill. That's inflated the pk counts to a hysterical degree. The other is that when the initial pk freak-out happened the first night, even then most of it was only among the same six people, all of whom were enjoying themselves immensely. (there were notable exceptions done out of hate).

Hmmm then whats stopping me from making a lvl 12 borg, wait in some common place where people gather(like hs) then self destruct and annoy alot of people because it probably only does like 1 damage?

Also i dont see why you should lose life points/hp for getting pked. Isnt having to get all your junk back from the other people punishment enough?

You don't lose lp/hp. Sorry, forgot to put that on the news. :P

All I have to say, god damn bout time. Ill said it perfectly for me :P I'm just lazy and didn't want to type all that out ;) But seriously, I still refuse to play Tempus because of the nvz thing. Too many people want me dead! (Who knows why!) Well… maybe not alot, but a few select :P And for what reason? Just to do it. In my opinion, that's kinda stupid. Why pk just because you can? Ohh, you big badass you, you can pk an idiot (me) who doesn't know how to play. Congrats. Mindless killing is stupid. Tempus shouldn't be stupid :P

-Aco

I'd have to go with hearts on this on. Yeah it does kinda suck that you dont have the security that you used to. But with people not being able to summon, Pk happens less. And if it does happen its totally spontaneous and a lot harder to plan. With the new track the way it is it takes a lot longer to track anyone. Since you have to filter through everyone elses track. besides HS has become a lot safer due to holy defenders and the cityguard thing. I think if you don't want to pk or get pk'd dont make people have a reason to do so. I admit i went crazy with the random pk the first night. It was wicked fun, but of the big pkers ive talked to they have said they are toning it down since the fun has been kinda taken away since theres not much to worry about. If you are in the game only to socialize, make a character wear no eq. then you dont have to worry about dying. problem solved.

With other muds i have messed with. There were main classes and sub classes. The main classes were like, rogue,healer,offensive magic,warrior. In the subclasses there were the normal class choices, but there was always one or two classes under an option called pk class. So if you wanted to pk you were a monk subclass from the healer main class. Something like tat might satisfy people.

Or having it so when you create a character you can set them pk or no pk. If they are no pk they cant pk or be pk'd and let each account only have 1 pk character.

I don't know i think its fine. True i dont stay in Hs for more then a second or so, only to activate an alias. But i think that if you want to talk to a group of people, go somewhere discreet group em, then go where you want to to talk to them.

shrug Just some random thought.

I have to say that I also mostly agree with Ill's post. A huge social aspect of the game has been lifted. While the lack of NVZ doesn't prevent people from chatting still, or from being 'safe', it does prevent people from being safe in the same location all at once. I know I don't feel as safe chatting in HS anymore and I don't log on nearly as much because of this. In my opinion, it would be nice to have at least one NVZ returned, like HS, for those of us who really enjoyed socializing on Tempus.

I think that people will pk whether you have done something to provoke it or not. Some people pk for the money/eq they get out of it, it doesn't matter how nice you are. Also, just because I like to sit and chat with certain people doesn't mean that I'd want to be grouped with them or be in a position where they could kill me. I don't trust them but I'd still like to chat with them about random things.

As far as my time spent on Tempus, I know that I would squat in HS a lot and if a newbie came along I would be there to help them and answer any questions that I could. I enjoyed doing it and I like to think I helped a bit.

I do like a lot of the changes that have come along with the pk system and I hope there are more new things to come. I'm just not happy with the loss of NVZ.

In reality when someone kills another person they are a murderer and there are consequences, why not make it similar in the MUD, sure you can run around PK'ing, but then you get hunted by the law, similar to reality. This would make PK'ing far more risky, and perhaps a bit more exciting, which I am sure would suite the PK'ers out there just fine. Perhaps have a large reward for killing a notorious PK'er. Kind of like the Tempus wild west grin. You could even post "Wanted" signs and a rewards based on how wanted a particular PK'er is. This would balance PK'ers with "bounty hunters". This would encourage players who want to PK to PK each other (and collect the bounty), whereas PK'ing a player who doesn't PK would have a heavy consequence.

Just my newbie 2c grin

I feel sorry for you smaller players who can get killed in one hit. This change doesn't really affect me or the other gen 10s.

Although, I wonder what triggered such a drastic change.

While I'm not against pk, the problem I see is as Jakezor said, a gen 1 has no chance of defense, or retribution against a gen 4, let alone a gen 10.

Maybe a player based bounty system could be implemented, say I get wacked, and have some cash stored up, I can place a 'hit' on whoever killed me. Have a mafioso, or whatever, have a list and the amounts offered, and to collect the head of whomever needs to be sold to him. However, restrict the bounty to those that have been pk'd by said character, with like a 2 hour time limit or something. Cap the amount offered, not total, to like 10 mil, and those on the list are excluded from placing bounties. It might also be necassary to curtail bounty collection to heads that have been pkilled by others, that way suicide is not really worth it. A nice little e-mail to those who have places bounties could make a recently deceased day.

This could probably give pkillers reason to kill each other, and those innocents a sense of justice. Might also be a sweet way to collect alot of cash fast.

Just a thought,

Gab

Everyone is complaining about losing the social aspect of Tempus.

Why dont you guys start congregating in the arena? Make the arena the new HS? Granted, you can still die.. but with no affect. I mean, hell, I dont know how many times I wanted to psiblast someone for a dumbass remark… friend and foe alike. That way, you can… and no hard feelings if its a friend. And you relieve some tension if its someone you hate.

Pking is a part of tempus however i believe that pks should be justified. this new bounty hunter thing is great. I also believe that in order to be pked you should either have to have your toggle on (however this would be an easy escape to a pkiller who knew people were out for his ass)or have a rep higher than innocent. Innocents and newbies should be immuned to pking, since most people with innocent reps are probably against it. I also have a problem with Gen 10 players killing morts for absolutley no justified reason.(As in "just because they can")

        In my opinion here are your justified reasons:


        1) If someone steals from you

        2) If someone steals from or kills a friend of yours

        3) (As ignorant as this sounds) If someone has a piece of eq you want. However you could just steal it.

Killing someone for insulting your favorite movie or band, or because they share different P.O.V. on certain issues, is plain out stupid and players like that can all go to hell. Everyone else keep enjoying the game.

Hans, I would agree with your idea that those of "innocent" rep should not be pk'd.

After all, what good is reputation now anyways? I honestly don't know.

Well, if your rep is high enough, you get thrown in jail and all of your eq taken away by the cityguards of a city. It's happened to a few people so far. Also, if your rep is high, chances are people are gonna come and bounty hunt you. Not to mention the most recent addition of porting demons that go after the criminally insane. I know I'm leaving out other consequences of high rep, those are just the ones that stick out in my mind.

How are peoples views on pstealing? I am personally sick of every time i get some decent eq someone steals it. Then when i steal from another player everyone gets mad at me. Is it just stun stealing that is frowned upon? What about us non thief classes that cant steal? Shit, people are gonna steal, and if someone has a piece of eq i want, I'm gonna steal it. Stunning is the only way i can, so thats what i do. Besides, 90% of accounts have thieves for that soul purpose. Well i have a monk for that reason. Think he's my only char? Nope. I tried not pstealing but if that's the only way to get ahead than screw it im gonna do it.(Not from my friends You know who you are):)

Well, I have been the victim of a stun/steal thief myself..and it was very frustrating. Luckily, I made peace with the person and got my things back.

Will this happen all the time? No.

Personally, I think that the thieves stun is a bit over-the-top.

Why?

1) I have never seen a thief miss a stun on another PC, regardless of the target's dex. 2) I saw a mort 35th level thief, naked, stun a seriously high gen thief character 3) Stun lasts WAY too long 4) The monk's stun pinch is apparently much harder to accomplish on someone 5) The mage "word of stun" doesn't last very long at all, by way of comparison.

Now, I'm certain that thieves would argue against this, but how about putting another command and/or wait time in there after stunning someone…and also not making stun last so long.

Here's my idea: For eq that is worn, the thief cannot steal it outright. However, the thief can steal it, provided that they remove it from the vic first and "place" it in the vic's inventory. So, they would have to do something like: remove XXX Bubba (making it go into the inventory) steal XXX Bubba

I would also like to see all of the stuns balanced out–time wise. A thief stun shouldn't last longer than a monk stun, nor a mage stun spell. And vicea-versa.

I would also throw out the idea that stun, since it's considered an attack, has to hit like a regular attack (I don't know if it does right now or not).

I would also propose that the victim's CON be used as the saving throw base, not the DEX. Why CON? Simple: the healthier you are, the easier it is for you to shake off/resist the stun attack. As a trade off, the higher the attacker's DEX, the more of a bonus to "hit" the stun on the vic (not that the vic couldn't resist, of course).

Just some thoughts….

When I was gen 1, i'd miss stuns on gen 10s

shrug

I saw Demerzel who was a gen10 ranger/thief miss a stun on Miscreation who was a gen10 cleric/phyz

stuns miss sometimes :)

I am a 42 level monk with a 20 dex and with my stun pinch at superb. I hardly miss with that and it seems to last for quite some time, (well most of the time). I stunned Miscreation, on the first try, and he is a, what gen 8 cleric? ( he did get up and kill me after i comboed him) However, even as a stun user, I would love to see some anti-stun eq, or something worn that reduces the probability of a stun landing. What I would like to know is, how many pstealers do we have in Tempus? It has only been done to me 3 times or so, but by three different people. I got laughed at when I announced it over holler. Then when I stun/stole a ring from a player, I was told that it was a messed up thing to do by a lot of people. Is it a common thing to psteal, or is it a rare occurence, only done by a select few people? Do most people think pstealing is wrong? Someone please answer that for me.

I don't care about pthieving. Hell, my own thief got killed by his own dagger cause some other thief was naked.

Just a point. I think you'll find all the stuns last exactly the same amount of time. 1 tick. If you hit the stun towards the end of the tick it will seem very short. Of the 3, the Thief stun is definitely superior. Mage Word stun is nice against mobs, basically useless against players. All the mage disable spells fail most of the time against players due to high saving throws. Not a complaint…just informing those that don't know :p

Monk stun doesn't initiate battle. That's a reason it's so good. I agree with Elric in that Thief stun is superior, just because it hardly misses and because it's just that damn good.

If you noticed, the thief's skill list is very short, and half of their skills are rather useless. To make up for it? They can stun/steal/backstab. Those are their main three skills. Without these skills being as they are, Thief would be an obsolute and out-dated class.

wow, im utterly confused. Just came back today from a 7day long camping trip. I think this is twords the lack of HS as a safe zone? Why not make HS back into a safezone, or make a portal from HS to the arena? I hate walking to the arena (low stamina + high burden = lots o crawling), and it's kind of out of the way. Why not use the statues in the fountain as a way to the Arena? that would make Nevermore's idea a bit more feasable.

Just my humble thoughts.

Arena isn't that far out of the way my man. It's what 8 rooms away from HS? Craedric just try and find a forceball or something, that'll solve your problem me thinks.

Back to subject:

As far as this thread is concerned, there are an assload of issues that exploded from someone simply saying that they didn't like the new system and what not so I'm not really sure where this thread has gone, and what it's really about. I suppose it's still about pk, and no long er about "imms not talking to morts" (which i've never had a problem with, at all, ever) or the obligatory "jake being an ass, so everyone else be an ass too" not that everyone has been an ass or anything. I hope you know what i mean. Oh, and there's the conspiracy theory about how theres sooooo many things being hidden from the general "public" (which i don't see why it's so important to know absolutely everything about the future of tempus but that's just me)

As far as clans are concerned, i've only been around for a year and wasn't in neurotik when it split (why did it split anyway?) Take it from an insider, Haven is going nowhere fast. There have been way too many…WAY too many mistakes made by, not only jake, but by a lot of the leadership in who we let into the clan, and how we dealt with various issues with other clans. After the first time we lost a lot of members, mainly rayne and mildain whom i thought were a MASSIVE loss, haven started getting desperate for members and just started picking people up…obvioulsy when that happens bad people are picked up and continue to screw the rest of us over. All that's happening with have now, is me and heart trying to get things better…kinda. Personally i don't think i'm going to be in haven much longer, because there's no future for haven. Haven's become nothing more then a hub for convenience it seems. there's no comreadery between members, at least much.

Now for the real issue: PK Honestly, the pk-ing isn't really THAT bad. At this point, truly new people to the game are in academy, which i think sets them !pk until 49 or so? i don't remember, but newbie pk is no longer an issue at all. as far as non newbie pk, i recently got pk'd for my frist time and i was PISSED. mainly because i was hoping people would forgive and forget but it just doesn't work that way. I bounced back with a whole hell of a lot of help. Honestly if you want to deal with pk, make friends. as far as i've seen, having good friends who are willing to help you is probably the best defense you can have, beyond being gen 10. So obviously pk is a part of the game (as it's been stated constantly) so really, get used to it, it's inevitable. If you did something to deserve it then don't be suprised, if you did absolutely nothing….then don't be suprised either. that's all i really have to say

oops i meant for this to be in the pk'n thread….my bad

Good post. Not too long ago, i fell victem to a case of "My bodys not too far, i'll just walk there". I was 24, so i didnt think anyone could loot my body. Well, as a knight, my movement blows. I eneded up crawling a good ¹⁄₄ of the way, and when your using telnet, thats NO fun. I arrive at my destination, and when i reach the room where my eq shoulda been, i found scraps of it, namely, my graffix, my noobie gear, and some random drops i'd had in my invo. Anything of any importance was gone, and the only person nearby was….o god, i cant remember his name. O something. Well, i ask him if he saw anything, and he said no. I found it odd that he wore the same groin eq that i wore, but i ignored it. Bieng in a zone with cleaning droids, i asked a few higher-ups, mainly firestorm and a few others, to kill all the droids in a large radius around the spot. When nothing turned up, i realized that i most probably had someone camp my corpse, waiting for it to decompose, and then they stole the eq. I thought about quiting afterwords, but thanks to the kindness of people on tempus, i was reequipped and my confidence was bolstered. What tempus needs is more people like Willms, Firestorm, and Ludlow, and less Squirrels and whatever that O guys name was. Sorry for the long story, but the point is - tempus has a group of players who enjoy helping others and are kind, trustowrthy people, and then there is a group of players who steal from you while you sleep in the healer chamber (not doin that again : P). I shall attempt to stay in the first catagory, so long as my heart is Irish and my coinbag full.

Hey craedric, Thanks for mentioning me as a "nice guy" and I am now. But I used to play a jerk of a char, Reached 58 kills I believe,So I consider myself a reformed ass. I play nice now. Ruining the game for others is just a shi**y way to be, and thats the way I was, however the people of tempus see that I have changed so I was actually able t level without getting bounty killed every 25 seconds.

…I was making you look good. Your not supposed to bring that up silly! Just stand there and smile for the nice man with the camera : )