Heres my suggestion for an alternate curb on Pk.

The Furies.

Atop Avechna have a flaming vortex shoot up from the peak and stay like a beacon. The population having thus angered the gods by their wicked ways have brought retribution upon themselves and their world. Within this flaming pillar beings composed of the flames of divine wrath would be seen swirling and writhing about within this conflagration. These would be the furies.

When a person was killed by another mortal upon the prime plane a fury would be attracted by the violent act and descend from the flaming pillar to act as guardian for the person killed for a period of six months. Any offensive action taken by the person killed upon another player within those six months would repulse the fury who deeming them just another mortal bent upon destruction would leave their entrourage. Bashing would not cause the fury to leave. Influencing would. Traveling to an open PvP plane such as astral would strip the fury in a persons entourage as they are not beings meant for planes other than the prime.

Vitae and other methods of insta rez would not attract a fury, only true deaths resulting in a trip to the fates would attach a fury to the person for protection. They could willingly be dismissed from a persons entrourage at any time.

The fury would be treated as an entity that could be seen like a demon or dragon turtle in a persons entourage and would act as a high profile warning not to attack this particular person.

The fury would have a basic attack with a weapon of the divines choosing doing pretty good damage but when they hit their opponent they would also set them on fire with divine wrath. This unquenchable fire would burn up a specific amount of XP. The formula of which the divine can work out what is fair.

Defensive castings or healing by the defender such as pentagrams or the like should not remove the fury but any offensive action by the defender against the attacker should cause the fury to detonate (no damage to anybody but perhaps something along the lines like the firecracker going off but set up to be a fireball) in a fit of rage and leave their charge. If the defender doesnt run and chooses to fight they shouldnt gain the advantage of the fury in combat as they are choosing to engage in PvP.

The fury will be attached to the persons entourage so if they run the fury will move with them it wont stay and fight or hunt down an attacker.

If the person defending allows the fury to strike and waits till the attacker is being engulfed in divine fire and then decides to go on the offensive thinking the attacker will lose xp from the furies fire then more xp from a double death they should think again because it should be set up so that any offensive action taken by the defender after the fury has begun its attack will result in no loss of xp to the person who started the fight.

Set it up so the xp loss of the attacker is tied to the duration of the fire attack. The fire burns the attacker for 40 rounds for example with each round deducting an amount of xp. If the fire makes it to 40 rounds without the defender performing an aggressive action upon the attacker the xp loss becomes permenante. If the defender attacks the aggressor before the flame has finished its 40 round burn then the xp that had been banked is given back to the attakcer and the fury leaves the defender.

The fury should be strong enough that it will be the defenders weapon and all they have to do is heal themselves and defend against afflictions and the like or try to get away. Being killed by a fury is divine justice and as such this type of death would not give the attacker a fury of his own upon leaving the portal of fate.

A defender who decides to fight back and manages to kill their attacker would give the attacker a fury of their own if they are sent to the fates. Its seems this would be a contradiction but would work because the attacker who lost could A)willingly dismiss the fury B)keep the fury thus promoting less PK C)Ignore it and attack somebody else at which point the fury would instantly leave anyhow.

A simple formula should be in place such that if a person with a fury is killed upon leaving the fates they then get a level 2 fury to guard them for six months from the date they were killed the second time. If they are killed a third time then a level 3 fury will be with them etc, etc up to a max of a level 5 fury. Each level of fury should look different and have different weapons that do increasingly more damage and cause more xp loss for the flame burn.

Furies would not work in the three cities. Your own cityguards and citymates should be the main defense in a city and you dont want a person who is enemied to a city to be able to walk into that city with a fury looking to make somebody lose xp by being a jerk and yelling profanities for example forcing the citizens to attack them. In addition they would not respond to attacks by cityguards or statues or any of the aggro mobs.

Furies should not be unkillable but should be quite tanky. If a fury is killed prior to the six months of service are up if should reform and begin following the player again. Maybe a game day for it to reform. If in that time the player is killed they would come through the portal and then have a level 2 fury. You want a penalty for attacking somebody on the prime with a fury but not make it impossible to kill them.

Anyhow thats my contribution.

What if this happens:

Serenwilder A wants to kill Magangoran B
Magnagoran B also wants to kill Serenwilder A
Serenwilder A is sneaky and get Serenwilders C-G to kill him so he has a level 5 fury
Serenwilder A challenges Magnagoran B to a duel
Magnagoran B accepts
Serenwilder A lets B get the first hit and just sits behind the totally unearned fury.

The problem here is that you can use a kill by person C against person B. This is not the case with things like avenger and karma, which match the punishment to the killer.

Sorry all I do is shoot down ideas, but I have no ideas of my own. It's a very difficult question.

When you leave the safety of your city/commune, you should expect to be jumped by your enemies (or if you prefer, bad-rp-murderers). Especially when you are going into enemy territories or doing a quest that would hurt the opposing organization. The possibility of being attacked or getting caught makes up part of the fun. Even if you are murdered in cold blood for no good reason, there are ways to deal with that already. The Avenger is one, your guild champion is another, or getting your friends to help.

When people say "I just want to bash and quest in peace", may be the answer does not lie in curbing PK, but opening up more Newton Caves areas for non-novice.

Man...we already got the avenger, it's a bit buggy and complicated, but it works, why make ANOTHER automated system, with more bugs, more complicated, more restraint, instead of just getting the avenger to work up to the point where "excessive" PK isn't possible, or at least very unactractive?

At the end we'll have 7 different systems to curb the so called excessive pk, why don't we just ban PK from Prime entirely, cause every single time someone dies, even just a single time, they'll shout: I'm sick of all this PK! Curb it!

Not sure if the divine can do this, but why not keep track of PK-deaths, and see if it -really- is anywhere near excessive? Or are people just shouting wolf everytime they even THINK they're gonna get hurt.

Plus....there are already furies about. Just not for that, of course.

The problem with all of these suggestions that I've read so far is that they are ultimately attempts to treat the symptoms of excessive PK, rather than trying to change the atmosphere on the Prime in such a way as to make PK a less necessary/useful option.

The Avenger is bad enough without complicating things with Karma and Furies and Crusaders or what have you. You'll have systemic theoreticians having to provide detailed maps to warriors delineating the means by which they can attack one another without suffering the wrath of the myriad possible regulators. It will be as bad as Clementian Achaea, and that's saying a lot.

Stop trying to solve the problem of excessive PK on the Prime by making involvement in PK harder and/or more punishing. Just make it less useful. As it stands, almost anything important that can be accomplished in the realm can ultimately be countered by killing. This is the source of the problem, and is what must be treated directly, rather than the symptoms that result from it.

I would like to see the root of the PK problem solved by a push for more RP solutions however reality is you have to force people to be passive. Problem players actively look for ways to make life difficult for other players, its what they are playing for and no amount of RP incentives will change that. The only thing that stops excessive PK is putting leashes on the dogs in the form of punishments or restrictions. The dogs howl at the restraints and some will leave but Id rather see a pack of dogs leave than have them drive off the good RP'rs with excessive killing.

Lets not cry wolf... I have not seen many of those players last very long...

Some of you may recognize the above quote is from an Article by Richard Bartle. He developed the Bartle Test which is a pop psychology personality test of dubious use but interesting nonetheless. In any event, it provides as good a definition of a PKer as anything else.

So, then, if you are jumped on the road, it's just as likely it's because you are considered someone's prey as it is you actually did something to someone. No matter what we do to try to "change the atmosphere on the prime" will not address those who like to kill for the sake of killing. They'll be here as they are everywhere. They add an interesting dimension to the game in small and infrequent doses but we do want a balance within the game to help make it indeed a small and infrequent affair.

While I make no claims it is anywhere near perfect in accomplishing this, I do personally like the karma system because it has an RP base, gives someone who does die an alternative means of retribution, and overall I think will make people think twice before attacking another. No, I don't want a dozen plus systems to address PK or to make so complicated as to cause grief to legitimate conflict, but I do want something to help make Lusternia a more inclusive world than just for PKers.

Except that if it's more beneficial to be on the other planes more often than the prime, the PK will move there, as was always intended. So I'm not sure I see why it's impossible to implement changes to currently existing systems in such a way as to make the majority of important conflict take place on the other planes, where if that's where you want PK to take place, it should have been to begin with.

I've said it once and I'll say it again.

Please, those of you who are being killed excessively to the point that it makes you want to quit playing the game, speak up. Because I don't see how that is happening at all.

For people who complain about it just being them logging in and raiding and getting killed and raiding again, etc (Rexali), who's fault is that? Stop raiding.

Any character who is 'high profile' in their city is going to have conflict and people out to get them. But that's life. Look at celebrities and the peperonis or whatever their called. Look at world leaders getting assassinated. Why should it be any different here?

The game is fine. Please don't change it.

Papparazzi. (Or two ps, I forget.) Is the word you were looking for in place of peperonis.

The Pepperoni are out to get me!

Pepperoni are a small meat snack.

I've made it a point recently to keep death sense up, and I have been seeing very little pk. I think Sabriel is right, PK might not actually need to be reduced.

I like the karma idea, I think it adds a lot of fun to the game, and makes life all that more intersting.

Philosophers can have even more things to explore.

After reading the quote however, I still feel like the playing around with EXP would reduce non RP killing, and increase RP killing because of the whole "cause pain" factor.

Just to say, before karma is implemented, I think it's a very weak idea. PK thrives in Lusternia. It isn't excessive, it's just right. The truth is that the minority of loudmouthed people (people come to the Forums to complain, it's a fact) have now ruined this aspect of the game, by making the Immorts think the majority support any of these 'curb PK' ideas. In addition, it's alienating the paying customers (the majority of which are PKers). I hope whoever made the decision to put karma in has thought about it very, very thoroughly.

I agree with Amaru, Sabriel, and especially Rhysus...I'm not sure why the divine are against improving the planes for combat so much...but:

I am 100% sure that by giving us a good reason to fight on the planes, the PK on prime will -drastically- drop, into almost a nothingness where even the Avenger would barely be necessary.

I even dare say that most, if not all...major combattants will agree with me on this. If not, speak up, if so, proves my point.

...your point? I don't really see the funny part.

--> Planes were meant for a lot of PK, Prime wasn't.

--> No reason to fight on the planes whatsoever.

--> All PK happens in Prime, it's too much.

--> Give us a reason to fight on the planes, PK will happen there.

--> More PK on planes, less PK on Prime...problem solved.

Seems relatively simple to me, where is the faulty part in my logic?

Compared to Karma, I think improving the planes won't hurt Lusternia one bit, especially not with our tiny playerbase, many of Achaea's guilds have more people on-line than Lusternia's entire realm (and they have a lot of guilds), I'd say it's still easily controllable with less extreme restraints than Karma, or other frustrating and unavoidably, bugged, automated systems.

I also didn't know that "We want your input!" meant, "We want to laugh in your face!"

I liked the primebond idea more.
Curses, this topic made me post here again. Guess I'll have to go find my avatar.