I don't think you understand. Over half the time, when you guys formed up on the road outside, it was because Malicia had just LED A RAIDING GROUP INSIDE to kill denizens/guards. We then got more guards and pushed them out, after which they called for backup and just sat on the road (this is when you showed up). They were able to do this because they had no loss, even the ones who died while getting forced out got resurgemed, and then you could try and force us to pray by taunting us from the road. Let's see- if Daevos and co. go inside and kill all the guards in Rockholm, then stand right outside it... you're going to go away while they just stand there?

Now I'm curious, do you have a link to find it?

Meh, I guess if Estarra is willing to handle the mass issues and emails and forum rants that will come about from people knowing its 100% subjective, than that would be the best route.

I'd really hate for development to suffer.

I think that yes, the Admin should step in and tell people to knock it off for a period of time if their actions are becoming excessively antagonistic to the point where it is driving players away from the game, or making the game into a chore rather than a joy to play.

No, I don't think there should be an automated system for "griefing". The Avenger and Karma seem to do the job of monitoring PK fairly well.

Overall, I think there's too much random violence in the realm. I hear of things like Malicia's "bounties" that have driven people in my guild away from the game. They won't leave the city because they don't want to be jumped by random Serens looking to "cash in" on these offers of reward. Mind you, these people are typically NOT fighters or prominent players, so they have little recourse from such an action. It's these kinds of things that I think drag the game down when they happen. Sorry to single you out here, Malicia, but this is just a prime example of what I'd consider to be random violence. When INDIVIDUALS are targetted by GROUPS, then the Avenger and Karma systems fail us, because they are not designed to regulate that kind of action.

If anything any player does threatens the well-being of the game or the playerbase as a whole, I would think that you wouldn't need to consult us to fix it.

Genos, every game has its griefers. The games with less RP (such as counterstrike) tend to have even more. We tend to call those people hackers or cheaters.

If there is a game and a system, there are people who will become so competitive that they will cheat or do what they can to get rid of competition.

Since baseball analogies are the fad this days, let me try something....

Imagine a pitcher hits a batter in the head....

I feel you are being extremely defensive of the quest system.

First, I think it is important to either agree or disagree that grief is not objective. It is a very subjective term used all across the board to condemn certain actions. Given we are not going to define grief for X-reasons, grief can thus manifest as anything and everything taken to an extreme.

For example, let's take the Gorgog quest: most people who release the Gorgogs do so to have something extra to bash. I honestly never gave a damn that Magnagora was losing power because the reality was (and is) that Magnagora has lots and lots of power so the impact would be minimal at best.

However, there were people in Magnagora who felt their lives were being made hell by having to constantly seal the Gorgogs. Of course, the people who wanted to bash were botching the quest left and right so I can understand the frustration.

In the end, it was possible to have two separate motivations ("I want to bash" versus power drainage) to do the quest. However, the sides that were losing out always translated the actions of the person who released to the Gorgogs into the situation that effected them (the loss of power) and in turn viewed the constant release of the Gorgogs as a means to personally take up their time and annoy them and thus grief them.

I skipped some of the past arguments, but I support the subjective gods peacing POV if there are checks and balances, such as:
A) A god peaced Narsrim:
The targets of his grief have an ability (democratically) to veto this
A god peaced Narsrim:
If all a majority of the RP gods disagree(w/ the peacing), they can veto it...

Dunno what else but something like this would have input from the targets etc..

Actually no, the more people you kill the more impact the karma system has for the individual.

Generally yes, but basically what Estarra's trying to determine is whether the playerbase will support it. Would administration reacting to some player X has repeatedly killed members of city Y so that the members of city Y will not leave the area or never log in by delivering a warning to said player X be a worthwhile thing? The ultimate idea being, does the majority of the player base feel this is overstepping the bounds of a game they've invested time into (thus creating more dissatisfaction and ultimately creating a similar problem) or does the majority of the playerbase feel this is a fair reaction to hopefully provide some level of a reminder to players that tend to forget that their enjoyment shouldn't destroy others enjoyment on a daily basis. It's a weighing of the scales, which direction does the playerbase want Estarra to go. Warning/administrator or free reign aside from avenger?

I feel the karma and avenger systems are adequate. There will always be people complaining unless Lusternia becomes completely non-pk.

Allow me to be a bit radical here. While I agree that there are people being put off by raids, there are others being put off by the stagnant pace of nothing ever happens in Lusternia anymore. I can't remember the last time I fight outside the arena.

For me, it used to be exciting, just leaving the safety of my city/commune seems like an adventure. And I did get killed by random people from time to time, but death is just part of the game. Then people whined and there was karma. Now I can go bash in the same room with my enemies and nothing would happen. If I attack my city/commune enemies on neutral territory, I am labelled as a 'griefer' and get status.

It all comes down to which group to please: the pacifists or the combatants? We already have the avenger and karma, faethorn and village revolts have also been changed to tone down conflicts. Please do not add anymore to discourage conflict or Lusternia will turn into a rp-mud.

And I agree with Narsrim on his point about stealing. From an OOC point of view, theft caused much more grief than being killed and there should be a system to deal with thieves, not raiders.

You should implement Phred's idea.

Explain some concepts about the game and how it affects players lives. Give people a nice list of what they can expect will happen to them, and where would be a good way to draw the line. (such was what Phred posted)

What quests? The only ones left I see are the Supernals and the Sea ones, and the Gorgogs, kind of. Stag/Crow were taken out, Faethorn is now undoable.

While removing theft from the game entirely is entertaining, I think it highly restricts the RP of the world.

I’m going to have to be an advocate of the Admin stepping in when someone is actually going out of their way to cause grief. After leaving the Serenwilde I definitely knew the feeling…a certain person would actually ask people in their city to watch for me when I went off plane just so they would be able to kill me without suspect…I logged in and had to stay within the confines of the city, I really could not do anything because the person who was after Athana was hardly ever out of the realms when I was and he was one which I had absolutely no chance of ever killing…he killed me hunting, he killed me when I went comm shopping, I couldn’t even spar someone in the arena without exiting to find him waiting there…that was probably one of the most depressing times I’ve ever had in Lusternia and karma cursing only made him want to kill me more. So in conclusion…I'm all for this because I don't want anyone else to feel as cruddy as I did then.

Do you know why online games like Counterstrike has so many griefers? There's no RP and the systems of many large MMORPGS have things like mob training and corpse camping. In Lusternia we have RP that can and will affect people. If we run around randomly killing people it will have consequences such as being hunted down or being ousted by our own allies. On such large online games you have no consequences, there's so many people it'll be hard for people to actually remember your name much less do anything about it.

Besides, you said it yourself. If there's a game and a system, people will become so competitive they will "cheat" (which usually has dire consequences because it's abusing a bug and for the most part isn't possible) or do what they can to get rid of competition. What I'm saying is people shouldn't be able to "get rid of competition" to begin with.

My personal views on this?

Simple

1.make guards stronger, would help stop raiding.
or
2.reduce their power cost, which would help those like glomdoring keep more of them around, and would help the Serenwilde actually be able to cover more of our enterances.


Edit:You want to have glomdoring/serenwilde/magnagora/celest be actually safe, that's the best option I see, as it stands there are multiple people out there that can tank loads of guards, slaughter them, and head on to other things.

Guards are fine as is, they're already strong and fairly cheap, the cities just get a huge advantage there, with statues over totems too. And this isn't necessarily about raiding, it's a different topic altogether.

Only way you can do that is by making the game non-interactive.

We have seen people go so far as to try to make people break up with thier boyfriends or girlfriends over stuff done to them in a mud.

Its sad when a game comes down to a question of who is more annoying/persistant. Or who has more free time on their hands to stand around doing nothing.

I don't think any changes to the normal game mechanics such as quests or the like is going to change the existance of griefers. Even Achaea has its griefers.

so if it isn't about raiding what is it about?

jumping people while they are hunting? if they are unable to flee?

"fighting dirty" (including:stealing things with the skills that are hard coded? such as vestiphobia affliction, and various others?)