This is true, and I didn't say they weren't...however, I have yet to hear anyone OOCly upset because the Water Lords or the Celestia angels got killed, not in the same way as if they were PK'd a couple of times. Though I do have a limited experience in Lusternia in particular.

You missed a couple of very large threads/rants about that very subject, actually. Back when it was being done consistently, every time the things respawned.

Okay, I'll accept that. 7 out of 10?

Edit: Okay okay, no more derailing. Good topic!

First, I'd like to thank Elostian for posting a very interesting topic.

Nextly, I'd like to point out that I feel one of Revan's points to be particularly true. Namely, that people may play a game for a psychological reason. It is usually these people who get hurt the hardest by "Non-Genlemanly Behaviour" and who run away from the game or start to really dislike the game after it happens.

For your Magi - Occultist example, take into consideration what happened. The Magi were having fun playing, then the Occultist came into their guild hall. At first, a few might have thought, "Ooh! This'll be fun!" And then everyone died. A few might have laughed, the first time, and then the Occultist returned. The Magi players stopped having fun. There wasn't a safe-zone for them in their guild hall.

From the Occultist's perspective, he was having a grand ol' time. But if he kept at it, he'd probably get bored after a while. Why? Because there's no challenge in it. The Magi fell like flies, they were leaving, so what good would it have to do it?

Compare that to Lusternia. The differences are quite vast. You have guilds with practically no one in them, orgs with few active players, and then that org gets raid. Surely, the first time or so it was fun for the raider. And then they keep coming back. What keeps them coming back?

Other players. And not from the org getting raided, but their own org. The people in their own Org encourage them to go back and do it again. The raider gets orgfavours and guildfavours and sometimes orderfavours for doing this. Their in game friends give them a pat on the back and tell you that you were right for doing what you did. And you know what? It feels pretty darn good to get all those compliments.

And then you go back again and again and again. And the org getting raided? They still don't have the forces to stop the raider. So, at first, the Org responds with enemying that raider. The raider comes back. The Org responds by killing enemies weaker than the raider, only to get killed right after by the raider! That makes things absolutely no fun for the people from the raided-Org.

The raiders will use the logic of, "I should have been attacked, leave the (sometimes level-80+) novice alone!" And then they will go back to the Org, and raid again. And more people will leave. And then they will come to the forums to complain, only to be told by the people from the raiding-org to not complain about it.

Was the raider an indecent person in game? Perhaps. Were they influenced by those around them? Most definitely. How does the raided-org feel? Like there's no point in defending or playing, because that raider is just going to kill them again.

Now, you see, if the raider lost sometimes, or really, really had trouble with a fight, then it would be different. Then the raided organization might have fun. Like the old-school nexus fights. Why were those fun? Because everyone fighting was leveled equally for the most part, and had similar yet varying skill in in-game-fighting.

So, that explains the raiders. What about the people who are just mean in game?

First, you have people that just have mean and/or gossipy characters. Being told OOC you're a jerk for RPing such a character usually causes the RPers of such characters to go . After all, it's your character, not you.

Next, you have the people who are mean and/or gossipy people. Being told OOC you're a jerk causes these people to give either the, "No I'm not, you're the jerk. " or the "Yup, I am, deal with it! " These people either don't realize how they're acting or they completely acknowledge it and don't care. Of course, Shiri pointed out the latter response may be a "Nyah nyah I don't hear you" type response, which is quite possible.

You also have the people that have characters who just do not agree with what characterB is doing. So they let characterB know it. And characterB responds with a threat, an angry response, or tries to undermind the character who said that to them. And they you get those characters that said they do not agree with characterB being followed and looked after like hawks until they slip up just enough somewhere for characterB to rat them out. What do you do with these situations? Well, these actually seem warranted to me, because they're completely in-game interaction and I think aren't too horrible. Stressful, yes, but horrible? No.

RPing is stressful, whether it be via chat, IM, e-mail, forum, or game. And it takes a special sort of detachment to be able to feel completely different from your character does. Some people are very able to do this because of various psychological dispositions. Some are able to do it because, "Hey, it's a game, I don't care". Some are able to do it because they've been RPing for a long time, and they're used to it. And others get overwhelmed by the stress and experience it as if it's actually happening to them. And why is RPing stressful?

Because there's conflict. People who quit because of conflict seem silly to me. Why?

Because life is full of conflict. And when there's no conflict in life, you're bored out of your mind!

Would you quit life because things aren't going your way? I certainly hope not! Perhaps get upset and think about it. But not actually do it.

Lusternia is a conflict game because it is a game. Lusternia is a conflict game because it has RPing. And that makes it twice over a conflict game.

There's my view on it, enjoy it, hate it, either way, it's here to be read.

PS: I'm sorry for posting so much.

I would like to add here that it can go vice versa as well. As human beings we tend enjoy the feeling of excitement and danger. Some of us actually want to get jumped every now and then. It makes the game more interesting when we have to be careful when going to the public areas. Most importantly, it provides us with acceptable reasons to kick their ass off later, something we all secretly want to do every now and then. Again, games are there for us to be allowed to do it.

When this doesn't work, as mentioned so many times already, is when a super-op Warrior of the keeps attacking a Priestess of the Sacred who plays the game for other reasons and has no chance or interest to constantly be defending herself against them.

Excellent post, Elostian.

I agree with everything you said. And especially what Xenthos said about people taking legitimate conflict too far. It's definitely possible to have conflict that both sides enjoy, without people just being jerks. To give two examples:

Shuyin raiding to attack Daughters of Night = usually acceptable, unless I'm in a bad mood. Daughters aren't really valuable from an OOC standpoint, and it's fun to get in a group and chase him around (one can imagine the Benny Hill theme playing in the background) until he escapes or (rarely) we get him. Shuyin rarely goes over the line, and when he realizes he has, he genuinely feels bad about it. He's funny and a fun person both IC and OOC.

Narsrim raiding Earth multiple times a day to use scale up 500 times = unacceptable. I've never had a Mag character, but I've heard about this. Making a complete and utter nuisance of yourself for several RL hours versus people who can't defend against you (and most likely, the vast majority of them have never even done anything to your character besides be in another org) is just incredibly lame and serves no purpose. Most of the time, you don't even gain anything out of it (see: cutting down trees in Glom off-hours for 50gp lumber piles, or starting forest fires for...nothing) and it causes other players a huge headache. (Also, so as not to upset the Celest and Seren players by being one-sided, I think Thoros raids Celest too much, and his killing all the mounts in Seren was definitely WAY over the line.)

Playing in Glom, I've been on the receiving end of what I would consider "griefing" time and time again, with little or no retaliation from my own side. It's frustrated me as a player and made me want to just log out (especially after seeing the other side celebrating their "victory" and saying how fun it was), and I know there are some people who just qq whenever there's going to be a nexus weakening or we're getting raided. Most recently, Seren has been frequently cutting down our trees. What's the point of that? Even if we end up with zero totems, what then--are people going to raid Glom on prime? Yeah, that's profitable. All it's accomplishing is making our already overburdened druid players try to gather ravenwood nuts for hours so they can plant trees that will probably just get cut down again. When things get to that point... isn't it time to sit down OOC and reconsider?

Yes, this is a "conflict game", but it's very very possible to have fun conflict without just smashing someone into the ground for no reason other than your ability to get away with it, and no profit other than the feeling of dominating a helpless opponent--who, OOC, is a person just like you, who you'd probably have fun interacting with in any other context.

Fake edit: and as I was writing this post, a low-might friend of mine told me about how she attacked a commune enemy in the forest who was doing a tree-chop raid off-hours (didn't kill them) and in retaliation they jumped and killed her, making her pray, when she was questing in Paavik. Come on, people.

Having been victim for awhile now to MMOs with populations far larger than Lusternia, the interweb's lack of quality control has gradually lead me to assume that most 'things', whether it be events, people, or interactions are going to end up terribly unless proven otherwise. So most of my politeness is already thrown out the window.

It's been affecting me in-game, too. Loads of people (and I'm including inside Serenwilde here) tend to assume Alianna's some dumb, slobbering brute incapable of any deep or philosophical thought simply because she spends most of her time fighting Glomdoring. When people start calling her some bloodthirsty warmonger that cares absolutely nothing about Seren/Seren aspect XYZ/something else multiple times it starts to get really distressing and makes me want to actually BE bloodthirsty so she can beat them over the head so they would shut up.

Likewise in an in-game fashion I've adopted from Nejii (and just Nejii) the habit of calling everything an 'it' when the thing in question is something that..isn't pro-Seren in any tangible way. Of course, I don't ever call these people 'its' to their faces, but I know Lisaera's been starting to reprimand the both of us for not speaking more politely. Back to manners school, I guess?

Anyways, point is, I probably should take more initiative myself to make Alianna not seem so...one-sided. It was never largely encouraged outside of Order interaction, and in some cases (See: Conflicts that ended up making me frustrated, like raids) it only encouraged me to make her more aggressive.

Also, I have to bring this up, Elostian. The last interaction we had? It made me sad. I'm (fairly) sure part of what happened was totally accidental, but I lost a load of exp while in the middle of this really rare...urge to bash loads. When there was absolutely no sign of an 'Oops, sorry' or similar hint it was an accident it didn't make the interaction feel as fun as I would have hoped, and it felt a little over the top.

He's taking after The Moralis?

I try my best to be a fun villain, and I generally keep a close eye on my IC enemy's reactions via OOC channels, and whenever I notice that they're not having fun anymore, I usually stop. I think communication helps immensely in that regard.

Hell, there have been numerous times when I just leave of my own accord if I notice that there wouldn't be much of a fight to be had. All perfectly justifiable ICly, of course. I can understand the need to compete though, I myself am one of those people and I've reached a bit of a plateau in terms of IC achievements that there are times when I feel that I should be doing bigger things in order to get that "high". That may come at the cost of some text xp for Glooms or whoever, but generally, I've seen that if you're a good sport about doing it, they generally understand.

While I know that there will always be jerks in every game, I'm glad (and proud) to say that Lusternia at least has a better class of player all around.

Nooooooooooo, I just woke up.

We must have very different views of Magnagora. There are times when Mags can be downright horrible to eachother for no other reason than "I can" or "I outrank you." As far as Mag goes, there is a core group that talk OOCly on a regular basis and we get along, IC and OOC because we are around eachother all the time. Outside that, I don't see the Magnagoran community as a cooperative one. Glomdoring is very communal (no pun intended), they get along and work together and rarely squabble. Magnagorans tend to devolve into cavemen rather quickly and start insulting eachother or pulling petty nonsense to one up the other person. It can get pretty OOC sometimes. If people are reluctant to backstab eachother, I believe it is usually because it will backfire on them and will make someone higher up mad. A lot of "my friends are bigger than your friends" stuff. Heck, just look at the Mag news boards since the last election. The hostility over a little election was obscene.

I'm guilty of it, don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect and I have my moments, but I do try to keep it under control and I can honestly say I've done my absolute best to make sure I'm not griefing someone to the point they no longer enjoy the game. I've been on the receiving end of it several times, and it's a real downer. There are an alarming number of people that play this game because they enjoy making life difficult for others.

That's just my perspective. I'm one of the ones that will ICly screw over my children if I had to, and they know it.



You do a good job of being approachable but not friendly. I might want to choke you for making me write another book, but you do an awesome job of walking that thin line.



Don't feel bad! You're still one of the most enjoyable people I RP with.

I agree that the combat imbalance leads to a lot of stress and frustration. ICly, I might be more skilled than some Demi warriors. I could beat Rika as a BM when I was a geo, for isntance. As a Nihilist and her as a BC, there's not much I can do to her if she can cure aeon...so now she's not afraid to jump me should the opportunity arise...and what can I do about it? Run? I can't say I'm better than her, because mechanically she can win..and to disagree with that would be OOC. Not saying Rika jumps me all the time, she's just an example. The problem is there ARE people that just jump people constantly for no other reason than they like to swing their arties around or kill people they know they can kill. Desitrus is almost infamous for patrolling the UV and killing random Mag. Narsrim and Talkan are known for killing random Mags for no other reason than they can. Do they have IC justification? Sure. Is it there real reason? No, probably not. Maybe they aren't making a point to ruin someone's fun (sometimes they are, but for arguments sake we'll say never), but they are ruining the fun. What can you do? We know they are making the game less enjoyable for people and are refusing to police themselves, but they are justified in their actions and there is no way to tell them to stop without going OOC...which interferes with the gaming environment.

There are more than a couple people that lose their sense of decency when they log on. They'll be rude to just about anyone as long as they can get away with it, and that person's enjoyment never crosses their mind. That's a problem, and I have no idea what the solution is. I will say that the issue system, flat out, does not work. I've issued twice, and the responses I recieved for very real, and justified problems were dismissive at best...do I don't bother with it. If you are big enough/rich enough to be one of the OP elite, you don't have to worry about others infringing on your gaming experience. If you aren't, you can't do much but put up with it.


Wow, I'm such a pessimist. I will say there are more pleasant people than annoying griefers, and they keep me coming back for more. It's just the griefers tend to be the loudest.

Magnagora is very friendly and helpful as long as politics are not involved. They only seem to get ugly if you are running against them in an election or politically working against them. I don't think I've ever seen someone do something because "I can" or "I outrank you.", without having some sort of city, guild or order politics behind it.

Haha.
Hahahaha.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Oh christ, but your naivety is charming. Like Myrkr, except with less "I'm a rebel, respekt, anarchy, yo".

Gigglefit.

What about me?

Interesting timing how the divine come in and post now, when Magnagora is actually fighting. Instead of thinking about this a month ago when mag was getting wasted every 15 minutes. Just throwing the idea out there.

Here are my thoughts. I skimmed through some posts in the thread so some of it may repeat itself. But whatever, I wanna talk too!

Un-Gentlemanly Behavior (I'll call it jerkish from now on, because it's shorter. Griefing works too) isn't always about PK. But it's always about conflict, usually between organisations. That's pretty obvious. The conflict itself is not bad, it provides you with source of IC drama and interesting stuff that happens. What's wrong is when it happens without moderation. Some examples - made up or those that actually occured in Lusternia's past:
-When Ladantine actually made a difference for Magnagora, New Celest was just killing him over and over. The second after he got brought back, he got killed again. This is also a case of bad game design, because an important mob was ridiculously easy to kill and very hard to be protected, that's why it was changed. But Celestian individuals who did it acted in jerkish way, because they didn't restrain themselves instead opting to cause unnecessary grief.
-Killing others for no good reason. To be more specific, the no-good reason is often either "they're in an enemy org" or "they're an enemy", but in the latter case only if that enemy didn't do anything wrong against your org for a while.
-Camping enemy villages right at the entrance, trying to lure defenders out and kill them without having to deal with excessive PK penalties and them respawning at the Nexus. That's idiotic and borderline bug abuse to me.

Anyway. Jerkish behavior happens when you can't restrain yourself and see that actions you make are simply hurting the other people OOCly. That's usually connected with actions that do not provide you with IC benefits - if you go out of the way to grief others only because you want to feed your ego, whether you realise it or not. For example, killing dwarves in Rockholm or Angkrag is NOT griefing, no matter how excessively done. It provides your organisation with visible in-game benefits without a lot of harm for the other org, except for them losing the same benefits. So it's okay in my eyes. But raiding an enemy city or other territory is usually griefing, because it doesn't give you any in game benefits and you're doing that only to kill guards (no benefit, grief for others) and opponent players who show up (XP benefit, but too small to count, and even more grief). Finally, you're a bigger jerk if you attack someone who can't defend themselves than if you do it with people that can. Assaulting a newbie for no good reason is even worse than assaulting an experienced PKer for no reason. Same for raiding when you just KNOW the enemy org has no fighters who can put up a fight logged on at the moment. It can even turn a non-jerkish situation into a jerkish one, but it's rare and best to judge it in case-by-case basis.


Okay, I diagnosed the problem as I see it, perhaps using more words than it was necessary. Here's my solution to the problem.
People who act like jerks should be socially ostracized. It's the only way to stop them. You have to make them feel that their ways are NOT welcome in the game, not until their ways of acting change. However, there is a significant problem, and it's probably the most important part of my post.
These people tend to be good in PvP, obviously. And this is why even when they are hated by opposings orgs, the org they are in usually likes them, giving them priviledges of some kinds. This MUST not be. Players from the org must open their eyes and separate the IC and OOC barriers, seeing that these individuals, even if they help the org ICly, are OOCly jerks and should be snubbed (not the command). Otherwise you just encourage more jerkish behavior from their part - have the guts to stand up to the griefers, even if they're from the same org as you! And if you're afraid that the griefer will just leave and join an enemy org, do the same - more guts, stand up. And hope the other org's people will do the same. If not, they were meek or idiots anyway.

Final notes:
-It may seem that griefers won't crack under social pressure. That's not the case - it's simply that they get this pressure only from "enemy" players and not from their org's ones. That's why pressure was usually ineffective. I saw people act more reasonable if they were chastized by everyone, including the majority of their org's playerbase.
-It may not always work, but works often enough to give a damn about it.
-I plan to make sure this happens in the other IRE game I'm moving to, Tears of Polaris.
-From my experience, you can't leave a game like Lusternia when you're frustrated. At least not permanently. You'll come back eventually.
EDIT: -Krin, your post shows that you can't separate IC and OOC, or don't give a damn about what happens to other orgs as long as yours is okay. That's immature, and put more thought into your words before writing them. Thank you.

odd how im not Magnagoran but ok. I also believe somone who can seperate IC from OOC completly is probably more likely to greif etc. Its the people that say they don't care that more often or not are the problem. I tend to feel annoyed when krin is annoyed, I molded krin how I wanted him and if something doesn't work out. yea I have a connection with him any one who has played this game for 3 years (or how ever long I have) say they don't have a connection with their character I think is probably not being honest with themselves.

yes that was edited some.

Slightly tangential.

In terms of defending Celestia against extreme odds I'm having much more FUN. Why?

I bought credits and learned conglut. My experience loss for death is minimal. I can make it up in 10 minutes or so. Previously it was an utter pain because if Celest wasn't completely organized before charging in, you die and you've lost a good 30 minutes plus of bashing time. I am much more willing to try different strategies now.

To tie it in to Elostian's thesis a bit, I think the fun quotient of the individuals defending their guildhall would be a lot higher if they didn't suffer a strong penalty for death.

PvP is the center of these discussions for the simple reason that the PvP fans can force PvP on the rest. There's a lot of things people come to Lusternia for: bashing, culture, crafting, mudsex, events, and more. But any idiot with no legitimate excuse can easily force me to engage in his favorite activity, PvP, and I can't stop it -- the only method of countering PvP is more PvP, so it's not like I can threaten him with his favorite activity as a deterrent. If I was just as able to force him to watch a play as he was able to force me get into a fight, I bet I wouldn't be on his To Grief list!