Heh. How about learning to fight or at least run away instead? really, it isn't that hard...

It can be hard to run away if the opponent is good.

And it can be hard to kill if you don't have loads of credits for skills. And ZMUD + a decent system. Just because it's not hard for YOU to do it doesn't mean it's not hard for everyone ELSE to do it.

If that is the case then I want my spores returned to their mono-don't-stop state... because good opponents shouldn't have to fear them. The solution to excessive PK is *gasp* spores and everyone can use them!

A strong RPed kill is just as subject to retribution by way of Curse than any other kill. This doesn't help to encourage RPed killing, it just forces players who wish to get involved in PK to do things they don't have any interest in for the sake of doing the exact same things they did before. Is it a deterrant to rampant PK? Sure, in the same way that terrorism is a deterrant to air travel. The threat is still there, and things are going to go on as they did before, only now there is much more of a hassel.

Most of those people have their own thread for that sort of thing. Please don't bemoan the efforts of those who are trying to improve Lusternia by lumping them in the same category as the idiots who are suggesting class action lawsuits.

I'd just like to point out that the whole reason behind implementing Karma has been /stated/ as random PKing on Prime plane. Random. PKing. On prime plane, which the Divine have already stated They wanted none of save village related stuff.

I can't imagine the number of people which have influenced this exceeding, say 20.

I also believe that Lusternia is an interesting experiment in enforced hands-off Divine "administration". Players are encouraged, through quests, political structures and "enforcers" such as the Avenger, to police themselves.

The trouble is this. There's a handful of griefers who think that their quad transcendant skills are reason enough to kill whoever the heck the want. Damn the consequences, experience is easy to regain. Some try to invent a little RP reasoning behind their thuggish actions, some really do believe they have some Moral High Ground here (like magnagorans killing any serenwilde members floating around, or vice versa.)

The trouble is also this. Mortals are also very very good at finding the "chink" in the armour of the "enforcers". I've copped the end of this a few times - indeed, the reason I left Lusternia for close to 4 months was the Administration brushing off my issue against someone who just ordered Avenger hits for everyone on their PK status - even when they gained PK status before the PK status changes in villages. This was blantant abuse of the PK/Avenger system but the Administration didn't want any part of it.

But, here's the best bit. There's a recent log of Annabelle hitting on Richter. Guess what? Annabelle opened with the first volley, Richter received PK status warning by /defending/ himself. I know Roark and Estarra have commented on this but if the PK status system has this kind of 'flaw', how the heck can you build onto it with Karma? can't you in the Administration see how this is, like the Avenger and spores, like lich and whatever the starburst thing is (vitae?) stealing from stores. It'll be whored. Hard. Why? Because us Mortals can be asshats, and it only takes a couple of asshats to make things unfun for everyone.

Now, I understand this. Its a nice idea, having a hands-off approach to player interactions. think about what the karma system is trying to enforce - players are rewarded for not PKing and punished for PKing. A nice idea, it really is. The trouble is this: it'll be abused. It won't work the way You all think it will, much like this whole realm has since the minute its been turned on. Why? Because the Divine seem to really miss how much of an asshat Mortals can be.

To the Divine: please start assuming Mortals will be asshats. Please, just start handing out Divine Justice and stop with this well-intentioned frameworks to be worked around and used in ways you haven't thought of. Is someone repetitively killing people without cause? RP a damned courtroom, make it a reasonably big event, put the Fear of the Divine in some hearts. I don't think you'll have to do it very often to keep Mortal asshats in line.

To the Mortals: the asshats are among you. You have tried, with random amounts of success, to self police yourself. The recentish public posts are reasonable indication of this. But its your governments which should be mandating some basic good behaviour and without threats. ${CITY} citizen killing indiscrimitately outside of villages or other planes? three warnings and outcity. If each of the three cities did and /enforced/ this you may find that the whole Karma system can just disappear.

My 2c. I'm going back to trying to find commodities. Thats a whole seperate rant, something I'd like to flatten chunks of Celest with.

A final question: why is Achaea so much damned popular than Lusternia? I'd love, /love/, if some of this influence and city related stuff was in achaea. Finally there'd be something to work towards. Why is it in Lusternia, and why aren't people hanging around? Why are there 300 people in Achaea on whilst there's 30 in lusternia?

Because Achaea's RP restrictions are slim to nil, it's been around a deal longer, and they have several staffside advantages due to their being the "Flagship Product" of IRE.

I've found the solution. Divines, once a week allow me for two hours near the shrub button. Then, close the door and leave, and don't undo anything I do with said shrub button.

With just one rl hour a week you'll make a player happy and you wouldn't have to implement karma systems only so those who haven't ever tested them yell at you.

I have realised that shrubbing everyone would solve all the PK problems, but Estarra won't let me!

Not everybody... just around 5/10 people a week at most... And let me do it, pleaaase
Just shrub each week the 10 most issued bullies in the realms. People who are here for the Pk won't be issueing when they get attacked and die due to that. People who just wanted to walk the highways looking for cows will issue when a random psicopath summons/teleports with his gang of friends and complaints that you're not enough experience for them.

Yeah. Mass shrubbings go over real well. You go ahead and try that and see how well it works. Thx.

I don't think she's serious.

Two points:

1.) Karma doesn't care why you kill somebody. Random, non-random, it's all the same to karma. I can and have built up a suspect list of 10 or more people doing nothing but fighting in and directly (1-2 rooms) outside of villages. Nobody on my list could or would complain one bit about anything being 'random'. But still, karma would screw me over. People will have to adjust their RP to fit an OOC system. Hardly ideal.

2.) Theft is -far- worse than killing. Established players -will- leave a game because of one particularly bad incident of theft, they will -not- leave because of one PK death. Being killed 'takes away' at most 1-2 hours (excluding insane levels). Being robbed can wipe out OOC months of work towards something. Once we get some established griefer thieves who use Karma, then you will find people leaving because of them.

Oh and Dag - if you lost 2 levels, you were most certainly AFK. I've played a tae'dae and praying with 0 mana means 70% exp max.

Well...I've lost more than that as a Viscanti with full mana - perhaps level has some input?

That is absolute rubbish! Without a system of any kind, and being unable to read rapidly scrolling text, I generally die within 3 seconds (in game timing). That isn't long enough to run away unless:
a. You have spores aliased
b. You have teleport to x aliased, where x is a player that you somehow know, that moment, isn't on a monolith.

There are probably other ways as well, but I don't know them - and even tying fly and pressing enter can take 3 seconds.

Don't assume that everybody wants to be able to fight in a PvP situation....if you want that, you should go to a pure PK mud.

I'm also fully aware that my city choice means I'll stay at cityrank 1 due to not being able to fight, but that's my choice again - my Serenwilder is too disgusted by the IC actions of some of her commune mates.

As a general standard, I tend to die 1-3 times a day... that's what I get for raiding. Anyhoo, I've died since I was level 1 up to 79 and I've -never- lost 2 levels per death.

I am more and more being swayed by the concept of PK flags for Prime. Primebond would work.

The problem is the handful of asshole griefers running around.

Think about this from a realistic perspective. Narsrim - how many people do you kill in a real-life day? 10? More? In a real life month, I don't care how dangerous the society, killing more than 10 people a month is either murder or war. Your character is either a psychopathic murderer who simply tries to push the right buttons to get enemies to come to you so you can kill them (my theory) or is involved as part of a contingent of warriors sent by Serenwilde to kill Magnagorans (which is in effect a declaration of war).

Killing someone for an action they made 3 years ago? Unless they did something -really- bad, such as, oh, killing your wife or child or best friend, I don't get it. They defended their city from your invasion -a year ago- and you jump them as they are peacefully wandering the roads between their city and the nearby village? Why?

You -assholes- (and yes, that is what you are) is what is making Lusternia a 30 person at a time joke, compared to some of the less RP promising MUDs out there. Lusternia had promise, and griefers have killed most of that promise.

I generally don't kill someone for actions made more than an RL week ago, unless they were particularly vile. Recently (in the past couple months RL) I've killed Tias, who was guarding Southgard against my 'raids', Kaileigh, as a mission given by Brona (she had just joined Terentia's Order, and that was a clue that we had active spies), and Dysolis, for being a total idiot. Three times (he attacked me after I killed him, and attacked me again after that).

Three kills in oh... 3 or more IC years?

First, I want to make it very clear that personal insults on Forums are not allowed (there is a post somewhere). If you cannot keep your mouth clean, don't open it. Furthermore, my suspect is list is FAR LESS that a lot of peoples. I don't come close to killing 10 people a month. I kill you, Rexali all the time because you cannot fight and you try to meddle in my affairs (Ebonglom Wyrm, etc). I cannot help the fact that you are one of the most aggressive yet worst fighters in Lusternia. And as it is, I kill almost 99% of the people I kill because

A) I raid a village and they try to stop me
B) They raid a village and I try to stop them

In either scenario, my PK is legit. Furthermore, you are a hypocrit. You claim in various posts that I am a "bad person" for supposedly (and this is never the case) killing Magnagorans just because they are Magnagorans yet you can kill a person just because they joined Terentia's Order.

It depends on the person. If a group jumps me while harvesting (or otherwise not in of defense of themselves or their territory), I'll put all of the names that attacked on a list and get retribution eventually. Given that people aren't always in the realms or outside of their territory, and I'm not always in a mood to fight, this could take longer than 3 in-game years.

The reason why I put time into learning the combat system was so that I wouldn't be walked all over, and I wouldn't always rely on other people to defend me. Maybe that's a lesson from life that carries over to the game.

If someone decides to be aggressive one day, and it comes back to haunt them several years from now, it is still their fault.

Because of this, those who die may not always be as innocent as they seem.

I'm not saying that pure griefer deaths don't happen. But until you know the attacker's reasons, you can't accuse them of having none.

Thanks for the new announce. It helps a lot to know changes are being made.