I think that one major issue with the avenger system lies not in the system itself, but in the culture that grew around it. It stimulates people not to care about PK and to kill indiscriminately; I don't see why the Avenger system should be taken as a free pass to be a jerk, but that's how a lot of players approach it - You can kill anyone, anytime, anywhere, for any reason, as long as you don't kill them more than once on neutral prime ground in the same RL month.

I know enough about codeing to know that it would be hard to code. Just because a handfull of people think the idea is good doesn't mean the idea is practical.

There's a large amount of contradiction inherent in the whole PK-protection system set up in Lusternia. The "avenger culture" (it's not quite as bad as I'd've expected, though, and it's certainly better than Achaea's in this regard) is part of it. The concept that "off-plane raids" are somehow less damaging to people than Prime raids and thus that the former should be sanctioned more than the latter, despite the fact that now MORE people conglutinate on Prime than in places like Etherwilde, where most of the beings the Commune can be hurt by the death of exist, is another. Yet another is that when a raider attacks a denizen, he doesn't autodeclare the organisation, so anyone showing up to defend can be killed at no loss to the invader and the apparent logic this is based on, that being that it's somehow more impersonal to kill someone during a raid than to hunt them down individually DESPITE the fact that the former gets everyone else involved too, since while a few people avoid combat entirely most people reason quite correctly that if other beings from their organisation are being attacked, especially ones that have an impact on their power/commodity production, or whatever, they ought to defend them. You could argue that fixing these contradictions would make raiding ridiculous since you couldn't just attack some mobs and drag people who would otherwise remain uninvolved into combat to kill them (which, let's face it, is the goal of a good 90% of raids, no names mentioned). But I'm not convinced that that's what's needed, because obviously enough people want conflict in some form and where do you stop? If Ixion, Tuek, Athana, Shorlen and all the rest just quit Serenwilde, and someone wanted to hurt Serenwilde, they'd either have to kill all our mobs repeatedly (how fun for everyone) or drag uninvolved people into combat to kill them, and I'm going to stop talking here because I'm sure I was making sense earlier but I'm not really now, which is what you get when you try to post from work with whatever bloody installation is going on next door practically deafening me and...yes. Stopping.

I never actually paid attention to the fact that attacking denizens doesn't auto-declare you to the org. How messed up is that? "Yes, you should go defend your people, but by the way, you get suspect for it and Avenger is watching you you evil person, how dare you harm that innocent soul who just attaked you people!"

Not quite. If you hit them, you're fine. But so are they, if you try to stop them.

THAT is entirely unfair. I also can't code. I use the free mushclient system I found in these boards and I've added a few aliases to it, but I don't know how to change any of the triggers or scripts or variables. I don't even know how FIND most of them. I've TRIED to set up a few triggers of my own, to do things that didn't come with the free system and they don't work and I don't know why they don't work and I can't figure out why they don't work. I can't even seem to make my own gags or colors or anything. I've read the help files (the mushclient program ones, not the ones written by the free system's creator - who's name escapes me at the moment ) and they are distinctly UNhelpful. But then I've used zMud on different games before and those help files were even worse. WHY are helpfiles always written as if you already understand all that crap? If I understood it, I wouldn't NEED a freakin helpfile.

Anyway, I'm personally insulted by your implication that I'm stupid and I shouldn't be playing cause I can't code. I'm insulted on the behalf of Everiine who you were talking to. I'm insulted on the behalf of whoever else you just unfavorably compared to a retarded monkey. I was reading at a 12th grade level in the 3rd grade, thank you very much - ask the Florida public school system, they tested me enough.

Now, I'm going to finish reading the posts here, so I can add a comment that is actually on topic and hopefully conductive to the conversation.

Alright, now, I don't like the pacifist thing because I agree with whoever asked why being a pacifist would protect you from being attacked. Also, with the waiting period from the time you last killed someone to the time you can become a pacifist, you're basicly a pacifist who can be hit on a lot anyway - and considering how long the wait is, anyone who's gonna get fed up with being killed will probably get fed up and leave anyway.

I don't like the idea of mini orgs cause some of our orgs right now are understaffed and frankly, I'd rather have more big orgs (lost cities and forest!) if we've enough people for more orgs.

The Primebond thing would be cool, if it were stripped when you went into enemy territory or something, I suppose.

Personally, I'm throwing in with the camp who doesn't think a hard-coded solution is the way to go. I don't have a suggestion as to what would work, but I do think it could be handled ICly. I'll think about it more, but I'm at work right now and I've gotta get some actual work done for a bit.

I like the Primebond idea, myself. That way we could just get rid of the Karma system altogether, and I think it would stop a lot of griefing. And it's probably easier to code in, rather than a whole pacifist system, or new orgs with new skills, too. If it is something that the Admin had offered before, then that means they probably already have it pre-coded out and ready to go, and it wouldn't take that long to implement it.

So Primebond would be a pre-defense, kinda like putting up Thirdeye and Deathsense, and only take two power? And then once someone started attacking you, what would it look like to them, and to you, so that you know that you're being attacked?



Hey, I found the original thread in which Primebond was discussed. Here it is.

I'm with the view that the solution here needs to be a social one, not a mechanical one. Lusternia mechanics already do the best job I've seen of curtailing griefers, and that even includes social MUDs where physical combat rules don't exist. Every world has its sadistic jerks, and they'll always be able to find inventive loopholes to exploit for making others miserable.

That begs the question, though, of, "What about Lusternian society do newcomers find off-putting?" We've already heard a number of theories about that, but the underlying truth lies in the further question of, "Why do newcomers show up here in the first place?" Give them what they're looking for, and they're going to stay.

So how about this? Let's stop arguing about it and ask them. Next time you're dealing with someone who seems to be a genuine newbie, take time out from teaching them how to bash or trying to make them a model citizen, give the role-playing mask as rest, and just ask them OOC what they hope to find here?