Out of boredom, I was reading another forum last night. In this thread people were complaining about being grieved because they would defend their city and then be hunted like mad afterwards. Now, the side that generally does the raiding had been complaining for a long time that the other side was not defending. So, they drew up a sort of OOC agreement in which the raiders would IDM the defenders which would result in neither side gaining infamy. If done properly, the defenders would not be infamous. Therefore, they could not be hunted everytime they stepped out of the city by the opposing force.

Well, it appears there were some from the raiding side who refused to agree. Their argument was that it would interfere with their RP. They are in an evil city, so it's in their nature to mercilessly hunt good aligned players.

The argument was then made that fun > RP in cases like this. Why? Because if your roleplay interferes with the fun of another organization to the point that they could not even defend their organization without being hunted everytime they stepped foot out, your RP is then made void.

What a shock! How could you say RP is of less importance than fun?!?!? I am glad you asked. In short, we RP because it IS fun. If some forms of RP interferes with the fun of a considerable amount of players to an extent like that, it should be relaxed and OOC comprimizes should be made to insure the fun of as many as possible.

Now, no flaming me!

Discuss!!

Disclaimer: We don't seem to have this problem very often from what I've seen. I just want your opinions.

IDM?



Please remember, not everyone who plays Lusty also plays/has played other IRE games. Don't just randomly throw out terms like that and expect everyone to understand.

Indemnify. It's basically a way of telling the game system, "Don't do anything bad to this person if they do something bad to me." So, their alignment doesn't drop, etc.

It'd be cool if you could do that with the avenger. Of course, no one would, but...

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, the point of these games is to have fun, so more or less -anything- should be subservient to that goal. It's also always nice when people have a level of self-consciousness that lets them think about what they can do to make the game more fun for other players, including IC opponents. After all, none of us are playing -against- each other; we're playing -with- each other. It's good when someone can give someone else a break, even when they don't have to, in the name of everyone having fun playing the game.

On the other hand, part of a good story and a good game is that bad things can happen to you without your permission, and this takes a certain level of self-consciousness as well. If there is a superior force in the game world that has their way with another group, a good solution is to work ICly to figure out a way to raise up a force against them as opposed to pushing for OOC limitations. If the evil players are constantly hunting the good players, then the good players can push back. They can submit. They can negiotiate.

I think the issue in the particular situation you describe is that one side isn't willing to give the other a break just in the interest of having a good game, and the other side isn't willing to do the things they very viably could do to rectify the situation in-game.

In THEIR situation, both sides were arguing that the game is no longer fun for them. One side wanted to raid and enjoy PK. They cannot do that if the other side refused to defend against them. The good side refused to defend because everytime they did, they ended up infamous, which resulted in the evil side hunting them.

Just a note: In this other game those who are infamous are basically open PK to other infamous types. They could kill them without punishment. IDMing someone means that you give them permission to attack you without them gaining infamy.

In order to fix this problem, both sides agreed to IDM the other before raids. So, the evil side can get their fill of raiding and having others defend against them. And, the side being raided could actually raid without worrying about being killed back to novicehood. Therefore, both sides would be made happy.

I don't see how any of this relates to Lusternia at all. Our PK system doesn't allow for such things to be a problem.

I never said it did relate to Lusty. Please go back to my first post. The topic is roleplaying and what would you do if it interfered with other's fun to this huge extent. Apparently, someone didn't understand one part of it so I had to explain.

"I em ebil and so I can and will kill everyone good, muahaha!" was never considered good RP, by any mean. Therefore those who say that they are right because of their RP should be laughed at and told to stuff it.

I also see a design flaw here. It's probably one of those IRE muds which name stars with an A, but it doesn't matter. There shouldn't be an infamy gain if killing raiders while they are on enemied territory, that's what. Ta-dah, problem solved.

Exarius made a lot of good points in other threads how saying "It's my RP" can get in the way of enjoyment for those involved.

RP is very important. However, it should never get in the way of sportsmanship and general good faith. You may play the most evil Mage in Magnagora, or the most Righteous and Zealous Paladin in Celest, but you should also know when to quit or if the actions are "too much" for the playerbase.

At the same time, I would never use "it's not fun" to excuse poor RP. This game is a MUD, a minority game in a world of eye-candy. RP should be enforced, OOC should be limited, no idiot names or kewlspeak.

It's just knowing how to balance it.

I lol'd.

My opinion on the subject is simple: Good roleplay is enjoyable and interesting for most parties involved, by definition. This doesn't mean you have to play sugar-coated characters that are nice to everyone (It works both ways - You have to be able to enjoy being on the business end of the stick, if it's roleplayed interestingly). Anyone who tries to use roleplay to justify raiding probably has no concept of RP in-game and just wants an excuse to kill stuff.

Why bother with an excuse, at the end of the day it is just agame. Games are meant to be fun, if you enjoy killing and raiding then do it. The rpers can stick to rping, and the pkers to pking. The only problem with this is the only slightly encouraged thing is raiding which is vastly overdone. This leads to Rpers trying to be combatants and asshole pkers decide to kill them outside of raids/defense. Thus the ranting, now when the ranting occurs a large movement of rpers flock to the forums and complain. The solution? Pkers stick to what they do, go kill people who actually WANT to fight. Stop with the constant raiding and be a man, go walk around prime and taunt the other fighters. The best part about Achea and Imperian? 1 vs 1 fights and small/large team fights happen. Raids aren't constant so they seem like something special and anyone who just wants to sit back and pick flowers(Damn RP hippies *shakefist*) can. Really the problem with Lusternia is moderation, everything is to the extreme.

Cause counting fools, all of them. If they want to play lawyer with a ludicrous system that basically penalizes players for defending their city, Minae's going to be really surprised when Achaean conflict is diluted and marginalized even more than it is now.

Bottom line is, the game of Achaea at the moment seems to be "either give us relatively easy fights out of Arena or we'll team joo! lawl." Took a few IC centuries to have a perfect storm of overpowered abilities and artifacts, poor design and implementation in the PK and Infamy systems, utterly unrestrained players who are desperate for pwnage, and player governments wholly unwilling to fight back against the problem. If it's a cynical attempt to promote other IRE games, congratulations: it's working quite well.

It's really a shame. I like the producers, most of the Gods, and a great deal of the players in Achaea. They've decided on their Issues/Infamy/Open PK system, and they'll have to live with it.* But say what you want: absolutely no one in Lusternia is going to break the game for everyone else. Revolts, wildnodes, and events still happen here without the nonsense that has completely bogged down Achaean politics and gameplay. Free PK and conglut make fighting hear about a million times better, and there seems to be no question that our system works to promote conflict that really matters. Yay Lusternia: even with thousands sunk into Achaea, I'm not going back.**

* - If I had to say the one thing I love about Magnagora compared to Mhaldor? We don't spend bloody eternity crying to our mommies that the events are all fixed against us just because we lose. Even when Cancer is designed so well for defenders. We'll get you yet, Celest!

** - Anyone who has ever played an IRE game will understand the futility of declaring a permanent hiatus.

I think roleplay is really important, but I think you can roleplay without being a huge . I think it's extremely lame when people use roleplay as an excuse to do whatever the hell they want to anyone they feel like. Yeah, it's a game and you should be able to do what you enjoy, but it's not like everyone else is just a robot here. We're all here to have fun.

That's really all I have to say about it.