I think part of the reason killing is so fun in this game is that you get a ton of eq from it. If you lose all of your stuff from an in-battle death, re-equipping yourself could be just another battle away.

Riskless pk? Ooh!!
/sarcasm

Part of what makes Arctic great, in my mind, is the risk associated with participating in PK. I would hate to see that taken away.

there would still be risk, just not as much.

If i go to trouble of getting 3d6 2/3 prime, 45 weight shield, plus bash hat, dam wrists/hands/held, i don't feel like doing that again. i'm not risk my ass in pk, because i lose EVERYTHING, i'm completely neutered.

EDIT: Plus you wouldn't see clans gobbling up every piece of eq, storing it away like squirrels.

Being a neutral for pretty much all of my arctic career I still have to agree with Kam on this one. The rush I get when I get jumped by a couple guys or when I make an attempt to extract some revenge is definately worth any possibily of losing my equipment. And I think most of the problems you're talking about have already been solved with the new equipment loads.

And as a slightly off topic comment I must say that after playing on and off for a while and not really having a chance to fully explore the new loading stuff I have to say that I really love it. If you play a tank just keep a spare 3d5 weapon on a multi and within about 5 hours you should be + 3 or 4 damroll again. That is, assuming you have played a while and know how to move around, and have at least 1 or 2 friends on the mud. Perhaps the hardcore guys are getting bored but people like me, who play a couple hours a day are really pleased with the new equipment loads.

Storing and everything is fine, but i don't want really have the time to have multiple chars to keep coins and such up on (i am now trying to make a rule of 50+ days)

Keeping a spare 3d5 on a multi won't cost you an arm, a leg, or even a finger or toe.

[color=blue]The risk of PK is one of the factors that makes it exciting, and is one of the reasons I started to play Eve Online. Some people liek Diablo-style games where you can die over and over with no real loss (oh no, lost some gold, like you can't just make that back fast as hell in Diablo). If people risked less, they wouldn't try as hard when it came time to fight.

Think about it, if you go into a 10v10, knowing that all you're going to lose is some xp, and mayybe 1-2 items, and only maybe gain a few items, would you honestly fight as hard as you do now, where you risk all/win all?[/color]

So.. you don't want to risk your prim and a bunch of unlimited shit?

It would ruin the game.

World of Warcraft would be the perfect pvp game if they just made it FFA, with lootable player corpses, and no soulbound crap.

What happens is that when pvp becomes riskless and pointless you get a lot more "trash" gankers. Bored level 30 mage just teleports around from mid zone to mid zone until he finds people to kill, and kills them. If he dies, so what? He just comes back and does it more.

Let's see how this weighs out:

Suggested new system -
We fight, I die, I lose my prime (3d6) and some other random item (+1dam wrist)

Current system -
We fight, I die, I lose everything but we kill someone good on their end and get even better stuff (ex. I lose prime, +dam etc, they lose nobash, dragonorb, immcold, immheat etc)

I like the bigger risk, bigger reward - sorry.

I'm just saying pk is intended to be fun right? why's it feel like jumping out of a plane without a parachute?

Because you're obviously not as good at it as you pretend to be?

Man i have a sufficient knowledge of pk. I am not saying i'm expert, and i don't know what i would do in a ten man, but i have most people beat on patience. Why should i be afraid of a major portion of the game? I fear it, because the effort it takes to get to a comfortable place on a character is not worth the risk.

I used to play a mud where you could only actually loot another playing in ~10% of the rooms. Taking [i]one item[/i] from a player lags you for the equivalent of 6 combat rounds or so, and in most zones once a certain amount of equipment is taken (usually <6 items, but depends on the zone), the dead player is transported out.

People on that game still don't risk their shinies. People still log riskless characters with the equivalent of shop eq to do their pking, people will only pk with 20 of their closest friends as backup, and people still do nothing but sit on the sidelines and bitch and moan about how UNFAIR and DANGEROUS pk is. Unfair? Dangerous? Most eq on the mud in question has 6 months+ decay timer, and all of it is limit 0. All in all, I'd wager that <10% of that mud's population pks on a semi-regular basis (average online population is above 300).

The point:

No matter how "safe" you make pk, no matter how big of a parachute you give the jumper, people who dislike pk and the risks associated with it will ALWAYS dislike it. Their dislike will just go down with rough proportionality to the lowering of said risk factor. For most people, the risk will never be low enough that they will actively engage in pk. The equipment-loss side of pk is fine as it is.

I'm so going to pk all of you guys against pk.

[color=blue]Only problem I have re-equipping a char is the loer load % due to the eq change makes it take alittle longer, but in the end, it's not all that hard to get a new set of +4-5 dam and a 3d5++ prime and 3d5-ish offie, or whatever, it just takes a couple more runs than normal, but with the bonus of knowing the items generally aren't maxxed. [/color]

Could you pop me a hitroll set? I'm having hell trying to level my warrior.

OK so a legitmate example of it not working. What mud is this? I was just throwing out idea, trying to make game more fun, but apparently it wouldn't work. That seems true though, while that loss doesn't seem bad (6 items) over time the same people would still be talking about the risk being too high. I'm a relatively risk adverse person myself. When i'm involved in pk all i can think is: "there goes eq, sucked away, to never be seen again"

Pessimism VS. Optimism
Why not on the flip side look at it as, "here comes eq, possibily some I've never seen before"

AdamG

Here is why a limited item loss on death system doesn't work.

You die, bad luck, you lose your 3d6++ prime. Now the guy who killed you has it.

You gather some friends, track him down, kill him, and he drops a loaf of bread.

You kill him again and he drops a scroll of recall.

You kill him one more time and he drops a red leather bandana.

Now his flag is expired, so he rents.

I think that those with the elite items should be encouraged to use them. Make them hard frag, long decay, but charge a huge ammount in rent for them. The idea that the best eq goes into deep rent seems a bit stupid. I dont know if anyone has Huma's or such this wipe but I can say I definitely have not seen it around.

Fairly uncomplicated, but resource spending, to have items store a list of "previous owners" which would be a death event. System allows 3d6 ++ prime to be looted, randomly, but stores name of owner in item, so on death when it goes through check, if player was involved in pk, it allows that item to be looted, as well as the random one that you always get.

Joe kills Sally, loots Epic sword of death dealing.

Sally kills Joe back, gets back her epic sword of death dealing, and also Joe's recall scroll!

It's funny that you guys would be so adverse to this when it is basically how the mobs work. I would not support this if it went in, because it wouldn't work, like someone said earlier. The reason stated just above by drakantus, while valid, has an easy fix.

The only reason I am adverse to the idea is because I've witnessed systems both similar and much more extreme, and seen them fail to change things.

For people who dislike dying, if they don't lose eq then they are upset to have lost xp (and possibly spells). It all boils down to someone being upset about losing something they put time and effort into obtaining in what they view as a situation lacking fairness and/or fun. I'm not saying there's something wrong with this (because there isn't), but it IS a mentality that will exist regardless of what that "loss" entails in a tangible sense.

Until a person either learns how to avoid death, accept it, or recover from it through game knowledge, they're always going to have difficulty dealing with a R.I.P. now and then - whether it's from a randomer, a DT, or that mob that didn't look too strong until it monkey stomped you.

This wipe presents a good opportunity for neutrals to get out there, explore (or spam) some zones, and actually see eq load for a change. It's not elite stuff always, but it can be enough to get you on your feet - take a risk (I know, I know), band together with some other people you know are most likely too inexperienced to be clanned alts, and swap knowledge on limit 0 eq by running it and helping each other learn HOW to run it.

(Edhit: Ficksing mie eleet spehling, lol)

PK is a part of the game here.
If you don't like to lose equipment perhaps you should try clinging to it a little less. Lose a full set once a month. The game is still fun.

PK in arctic is fun, I've done all kinds of pvp fights in WoW and other mmo games and it completely sucks, ive done huge fights of level 60s and battlegrounds battles and everything, and it's all boring as fuck compared to arctic. If arctic were changed to be similar to that no-risk baby pk crap then it may as well not exist because we can all play guild wars or wow instead.

Then, what if the person got your 3d6++ sword by other means. You are doing some zone with him. A mob disarms you, he picks up your sword.

You are scammed.

You are doing a zone for the express purpose of repoping your sword and the other guy loots it first.

You sell the sword to the guy, then you kill him to get your sword back since you are on the "previous owners list".

There is a huge potential for abuse with such a system.

That's why i was thinking it would be a death event. How about an involuntary loss of eq event? frag/decay of container, cleared when he touches again, but dropping giving (voluntary) would not evnet that.

Not too hard to code still. Stealing would be included. No abuse with this system still.

How about when you die you can log back into the game and instead of losing your life you've only lost some experience, equipment, and spells?

Seems like a dramatic improvement over the kind of death we deal with in real life.

because you LOSE

Part of the pk system itself is loss of equipment and expiereince. One of arctics biggest problems has always been trash characters. This they want low risk high gain pk fights. Which is understandable. But it leaves the players with good eq to have the upper hand. What would end up happening is that you would see pk happening all the time, due to the fact that it didn't cost much, there would be no clan distintion, because the best waring clan would suck if they didn't know how to zone, and pk would be rendered the same as in daoc and wow, useless pointless bullshit that is about as exciting as turning the page of a dictonary. Arctic's pk system shines far above any other mmorpg i've played simply because it's not some complicated, lets give the pussys and shitty players a chance, rule system. It's simple, kill or be killed. You die, you lose everything, so don't die. Thats why there are some zones which only a few know in arctic, and everyone knows every zone in wow or daoc or eq. DT's, lose of equipment. How ballsy are ya?

This mud takes skill. No other mmorpg i've played takes skill. It takes cash, and numbers. Here, which we've seen time and time again, 1 really good player can wipe out a clan of crappy players. Take that away, and it's a text version of wow, which wasn't fun with graphics.

[color=blue]I remember reading pretty much the same thing you said, only somewhere else, but not all MMOs are like that. I know EQ had full loot pk servers(never played EQ, but i've seen people fight on said servers), and it looked more active/fun, and I know in EVE your ship gets blasted and you get podded, you can lose some heavy stuff, with the only real downside being that some of it is simply GONE, you cant loot the corpse (but insurance tends to help).

The day arctics has unlimited eq + Blizzard-style pussy pk is the day it dies. We'll see everyone wearing the same sets of nolime +whatever eq, and it will be ZonerMUD. Personally, I think somethng that might keep some people active longer, woudl be a rent reduction and/or increase in item timers. Alot of people just get sick of having to repop their shit over and over, since it taakes away from exploration, pk, fun, and whatnot.[/color]

Yeah why the most elite of items have the longest decay timers is beyond me. It was nice when i had a silvanesti prime lasting for many days (though i'm sure some poor disarmed bsp or wild was boggling) of play time, but as i didn't do the zone, i shouldn't have the equipment. but a simple 1/1 hands no one gives a shit about and decays a month of game time later makes no sense. Basically what you're making me do is go back into competition for a piece of shit that eventually everyone will have anyways. It's enough that the particular one i'm thinking about will frag easier than most things. So i spend time i could be learning more of the mud, camping a newbie zone.

Maybe that should be a different thread, decay timers do suck though, and make little sense on an unlimited peice of eq, I realize the attempt is to keep eq rotating but why lessen timers on eq that no longer rotates (and the whole idea of eq rotating was a flop anyways, caused fights/threats because people thought they owned it, even lame shit like body +heals). It's best to not have the timers on eq at all because what eq really rotates? I understand the idea but dts rotate more eq then decay timers i would guess, since repopping the whole set usually costs you a few pieces where repopping one items is just time consuming. I realize this is an arctic icon but how many people enjoy it? How much shit eq used to be stored simply in case they ever needed it? It exacerbates the eq problem in the long run.

Raising the rent on the most elite items will still punish those who use them regularly. What if someone has elite gear, and logs every day for 4 hours to use the gear? They're still punished by higher rent for the 20 hours a day they don't log despite regularly using the gear - unless you expect all elite gear to be logged 10+ hours a day?

Also some consideration must be givin to the fact that the elitest eq generally doesn't leave the inn without a 10 man escort, even bsd at it's largest didn't field a constant 10-man which cuts into the ability to use the eq.

The rent on elite items are already huge, a stacked damage tank with humas and maybe some extra prims/healing potions is going to have to log at least every 3 days or so and zone/pk to get some cash or they'll deadbeat/pzrent no matter how rich they are. Some of the highest-quality items hover around the 4 digits in rent cost per day, and it really eats up cash if you have a lot of them.

how about a new type of decay.

items that slowly decay in rent, but are refreshed by playtime outside of peacerooms. since people need to sleep and work, it could be something like 1 hour "active" replenishes 8 hours of being in rent, so on average the item has to be online 3 hours a day or it will decay in rent.

thats assuming the item has a 24 hour IRL decay timer, right?
if not, i'd hate to be sick, or get laid, or have a family function and miss a day of mud
and have everyone one of my items be decayed

The problom with this idea, is that Mavlads gear would never expire. Actually, his gear would go into the negative numbers, and start multiplying. All of bsp suddenly has the mavlad nobash.

AdamG

make it so when your timer goes negative, instead of the item multiplying
your rent cost actually decreases, even becoming negative
so if you pull off a 48 hour mud binge, and then rent for 12 hours to sleep
you'll make a few k in coins just for renting!

mavlad would log for 30 seconds every few days, and have enough coins to thereby rent all the rest of bsp equip!

AdamG

if they changed the looting on arctic and made some cap or made it lag you when you took eq for 6 combat rounds, or you could only take a few items or something gay like that, i would still pk just as much, except i wouldnt loot. if possible i would pick up the corpse and hide it somewhere retarted though. eq is only a benefit of pking, not the sole purpose. its not like i look at them before killing anyways. the fact is, pk is fun because you can potentially get alot out of it and you have the same chance of losing everything you just got.

Yeah, I imagine if such a system were implemented, people would just try to grab entire corpses and wait for the corpse to decay so they could "get all". Really, I think loot limits would (in theory) help neutrals/small clans more than large ones. At the same time, however, neutrals/small clan members generally have less quantity of items worth looting, so I don't know that this would really serve a purpose.

Yeah you sound like a low risk randomer to me. Pk with 26+ characters that have decent eq you popped, then lets hear your comments. The idea of losing everything when you actually earned it in the first place is the true spirit of pk. Even though whole eq sets change hands in big clan pk you can be damn sure the bulk of the eq is loaded by that clan.

Every post i've seen of MsteveM is idiotic

Considering how long it takes to level a character to 30, I'd say a character that frequently pks before level 30 is intentionally a trash character, or riskless pker as Benwa said. However, that's one thing that makes pking with lower chars fun, most of your targets will be level 30 and to beat them with lower levels is sometimes fairly impressive, even if it isn't so difficult. This is the main reason why there shouldn't be any level-based looting restrictions, but I don't really think looting restrictions of any kind would ever be implemented. Why? Because looting is one of the only things that has stayed the same on this mud for as long as I know. If someone wants to look into a solution to the "cost" of death, they need to look elsewhere, like the loss of exp, levels, or spells.

It saddens me that characters aren't deleted anymore for deleveling/dying too much, that was one of the best automatic punishments ever and probably saved the immortals a lot of time from not having to delete suiciders manually. Does anyone know why this was removed? Maybe a lot of riskless exploring chars complained or something, but regardless it seems like it helped suiciders/trash chars more than anyone else. I think the auto-deletion penalty should return.

It's not very newbie friendly while not really punishing someone's trash.

That is the truth, while it sounds good, these trash can make new ones, newbies on the other hand take much more effort. My first wipe I had over 70 deaths on my character that hovered between levels 24-26. A lot of work went into my feeble character just to keep it in that range. Now that is exactly 2 days of 4-5 hours to get to 26 of non power leveling. (leveling and skilling)

The nice thing about automatic deletion, was that it only affected you if you were like 3 or more leveled down at once. If you died, leveled, died, leveled, it never affected you. I had a mage with over 70 deaths on it 2 wipes ago. It was a wipe char, and I still had it end of wipe. As long as I continued to xp, I could die as many times as I want. Where it helps with trash pk, is them that don't xp at all, are eventually deleted, granted many of them would hover around lvl 20 and just relevel every so often.

AdamG

i do. as for the eq, sometimes i do pop it myself and sometimes i pk someone with decent/crappy and just used thier stuff.

thanks

I guess that one wasn't bad.

kk but what if you cant get on that much? thats not really fair to people who cant get on everyday or who can only get on 1-2 hours a day...

-hinata