SUBJECTIVE!

Unless you could come up with a super duper foolproof objective system that couldn't be abused. But in my opinion, this is something that requires thinking, and no matter how good the coders are, computers can't think, and never will. So subjective is probably best.

PS: <3 your avatar, Estarra.

An example of an objective system:

If you have X suspects, the next victim you kill automatically gains Avenger Status (and thus, you can be slain and peaced).

... it could be done.

My head hurts.

This reminds me of the village issue: Everyone having their own view and talking to defend it, but with no overall idea on what SHOULD happen. We couldn't decide whether we wanted bloody murder in the streets, or for all four sides to hug each other through the Influencing session.

Once we had an overall idea that "Villages should give non-combatants a way to help their city, but not make it completely peaceful" the whole 'peaced/semipeaced/aggy" system we have now came in and, honestly, it seems to be working VERY well (remember when EVERY revolt came with a post whining about what happened there?).

Now the admin might be talking about specific cases of overaggressiveness, but I think the players are trying to show what their real concern is, which is "How compeditive should we be?". In truth, if we answer that, we'll have an idea on what is 'too much' and what is 'oh get a can of hard up".

I put it like this:

I'm from Celest. I love the Light, and follow the Supernals. I was taught that the Taint was bad and Magnagora is our enemy. I've trained, I've learned, I've mastered, and now I can lead my city...to what?

What's my real, OOC aim and goal here?

Should I do everything I possibly can to utterly destroy Magnagora, Scorched earth and kill till all Demons are dead and all players are gone?

Is my goal, instead, to destroy the Megalith and remove all outlying influence the city has? Should I be content and raise a family if Magnagora exists but poweless, and take up arms again the second I hear the Necromantate shield is back?

Is it a matter of 'stop their influence'? Damage their power and harm their Demons until they've stopped becomming a force against the Villages? Should I consider it a win when the raids against us end and the villages are all under sway to Celest?

Or is it more of a race. We have 60k power, they have 70k. We must fight and storm them while empowering ourselves until we're ahead. We CAN kill a Demon or raid a village, but it's not TO kill or raid, just only a means to slow them down and speed us up. If we can grow faster by just sitting around and writing poetry then so be it, so long as WE HAVE MORE.


This determines EVERYTHING as far as the conflict goes. To be honest, I assumed that a nation's goal is the second one: destroy the enemy Nexus and sever their influence of the world. Thus performing the conflict quests ARE useful IF it's directly harming the Nexus (summoning the Gorgogs to destroy the spikes, always working to kill the Demons to directly assault the Necromentate, Raid the villages to slow the comm growth and drive them to revolt: ext). Rushing around killing guards is a Good Thing since it takes resources to rebuild them, but sitting around the enemy town killing random players is useless and griefing: You're not realy doing damage to the city, just trying to piss everyone off.

In the end, if Celest is successful, the Megalith and the players of Magnagora would be out of power, villageless, and left without one of their skillsets. Then the fighting ends and Celest turns to other matters. If Magnagora rebuilds themselves, then you strike again until they stop.

I think that's how MANY people are playing this game right now. As you can tell, though, it's very hostile and would lead to constant attacks and raids.

Now, if that's TOO hostile: if a nation should NOT end up that weak, then we first need an idea on what SHOULD we be aiming for. If the whole point is to stop a nation from 'influencing the world' then the constant village raids DO make sence, but the harrassment in, say, the village planes and the constant slaughter of individual players "before they are the enemy" WOULD be going too far then: having 3 people kill one person while they bash the moors makes pretty much no sense realy: those 3 people should've been raiding that village. If they have no villages and don't seem to be getting any more, then they should be considered 'dealt with' and you should be partying it up and preparing for if they come back.

If it's a power race, then ANYTHING that mortaly damages should be rare. The attacks should be wholy based on power, not slaughter. The constant raids would be going too far after a point, especialy once the nation in question is ahead (i.e. there would be almost NO point for Serenwilde to be attacking Glomdoring right now, especialy since the Fae aren't going to be loyal to Night any time soon). You could even set up a method to basicly say "OK, they're beat up now. Go home!". What Viravain did or was thought to be doing in Glomdoring would fit in perfectly there.

One thing I KNOW we can't do: We can't fight without a goal. We are in a war against each other. ICly, we probably aren't happy until the enemy is dead dead dead. OOCly, though, we're still fighting, and while we can't think of this as Starcraft, we DO need to know when our characters can take a relieved sigh and say "Congradulations, boys. We won.". Even if we don't ever reach that point, we still need to know it's there and we should reach for it, and not go past it.

Once we have THAT, then we can decide who is taking the game too far and who is being a sore loser.

Though I bet only 2 people in all of the forums read all that. Oh well.

Sounds like a good system, but i see one little flaw in it. Sometimes when you kill somebody, it's not to grief, it's because they're causing trouble, but you had to declare anyway. I've had up to 10 people on victims list because they were rousing up trouble in our villages and i don't have enemying powers so i got suspect for killing them. You're on a good track, but there comes a part where indepth thinking is required, to judge if the person was really griefing.

Rousing up trouble how? If they were killing guards, denizens, etc. they would have been automatically enemied.

As Viravain said, names are not important to this topic. I am in the process of trying to resolve the matter in-game with IC means since I am her GM, but it is a situation that does happen, and causes people to lose interest in the game entirely because they do not feel comfortable with leaving the city. I think driving players to such reactions is the lowest form of "griefing" that there is, personally. The situational context is not important to this topic.

I stand by my view that subjective Administration intervention is appropriate in some cases.

But as was demonstrated by Athana and Mell ages back, ATTACKING a village-loyal denizen doesn't cause them to be enemied or even have guards set on them...but they still complain on CT.

My point was simply that there is some expectation by a lot of players that they are free from future consequence. For example, I can participate in a raid on Faethorn, but tomorrow, I shouldn't be able to be punished because the raid was yesterday.

Athana posted that she was in a situation where she felt she couldn't leave Magnagora at times. She neglected to mention that she also took part in in raids and held demesnes. She killed people in groups and when some of those people saw the opportunity to "strike back" when she was alone, they did. As far as I'm concerned, that's not griefing.

That's not true at all. The moment Thoril was slain, Athana was automatically enemied to Serenwilde and the guards slew her. The problem was that until the point of death, the guards did not respond. This only happens, however, when a mob has multiple loyalities where the loyalty to the organization with guards is the "secondary" loyalty.

EDIT:

Ok, I see where you are going with this... but I think that's a whole separate problem to address. Guards and such should respond to loyals upon being attacked not just slain.

EDIT 2:

And for PvP, it should count you as in enemy territory for like the next 5 minutes after an attack.

Yes, slain, but not attacked. Attacking mobs is causing trouble, in my view.

And I think ALL villagers have loyalty to their village before their ruling org...don't they?

EDIT: Ah, you edited, nevermind.

But it is supposed to be dangeours when leaving your city. Especially when you have gone out of your way to make enemies from other organisations. Too many people uses the excuse 'I raided last month, why are you killing me now?'

I suppose I'm assuming worst case scenario, bu I could definately forsee some OOC expectation of certain players to have the gods (who we all know are the admins) handle woes.

Person A: Crap! Alger is raiding the city again.
Person B: Who cares, he'll get peaced eventually if he does any real damage.
Person A: Good point.
Person A: Plus, this might count against him if he raids Celestia later.
Person B: Win-win!

Deciding subjectively is fine as long as it is only done in situations in which the griefer is obviously just being a prick. Slaughtering numerous novices, dropping inappropriate flamed objects all over the place, or continuously performing actions for the sole purpose of torturing another player. For example, keeping someone with bad curing locked for hours on end just to piss them off, while keeping them from being rescued. In these situations the abuser really has no ground to stand on, and a subjective descision would be fine.

I disagree that it is "supposed" to be dangerous when leaving your city. We are not intended to enjoy the complexity of Lusternia from within our cities or controlled villages. There is an entire world out there that should be explored and enjoyed.

I am not referring to people who participate in raids. The case in question is not a combatant, and does not participate in said raids. However, I do think that many are too quick to jump on the "you participated in a raid, you are now damned to eternal attacks from fighters!" bandwagon. One attack, sure, multiple attacks is extremely excessive unless the person is a consistant raider.

Not quite, Icarus. It is supposed to be dangerous on the outer planes... just being outside your home shouldn't be a sizable threat unless you're a rather major figure.

Narsrim, when people steal farmers from acknor, they don't get enemied, but it's my duty to kill said thief. They get suspect on me. Next day, they send in another one, i kill it, another victim to my list, it adds up. Also, sometimes they get mouthy when they show up to do the quest and i happen to be there doing it. Another example would be when I was in delport, doing the quest, when Syrienne, Shayle, and Aurella popped up and killed me because Syrienne wanted to do it. I killed Aurella and got suspect, because she wasn't an enemy. I don't have enemying powers, and the city was slow to enemy anybody, only person got enemied was Syrienne, who got off with no fine, even though she killed me 3 times. Fighting back wasn't griefing. Heh, i remember i got permaenemied to glom for resisting her.

If a griefer is someone who's clearly just gets off on making other players miserable and tries to hide in the cracks between the admin's willingness to intervene and the players' power to self-police, then yes: I'm all for admins being ready to think outside the box to protect the integrity of the game.

Right, but I just fear that it will extend past this. For example, Narsrim goes to raid Glomdoring and kill guards. Narsrim is peaced...

No one was being "griefed" in that instance so far as I am concerned... no player is even being harmed.

I think you're all going a little off-track here.

Firstly, step back and think, "why is the Admin thinking about this?" Estarra has talked about how a couple of people seem to be bringing the 'game down'. This is for specific edge cases, not for generalised actions. This is to make the 'game more enjoyable to play'. I can't imagine that many people would be affected.

If anyone uses this to 'metagame' not defending then I'll lay into them - and ask the city patron to do the same.

I'd actually like it if the city admins would more actively 'rein in' these mortals - so its less of some external force punishing (eg Hajamin 'punishing' griefing Magnagorans) and more about the city self-regulating extreme behaviour.

This is a world, not a game. Although we may RP and "end-game" situation of destruction we have to realise that we, right now, shouldn't be pushing for it. We should be trying to let all four sides grow with the skirmishes for those who wish to participate.

I really would like to see, in a couple of RL years, each of the four factions with a lot of active players, some combatants, some politicans, some artists, all participating together with some light armed conflict. Then the occasional all-out war could be fun. But right now, things are too lop-sided and far, far too brutal.

It's probably when Narsrim does it about ten times in a row is when it's considered griefing. Like Estarra said, it's when the people start wanting to not log back in...