The problem is that you have made a point of not ever having a straight up bashing area, but always with a quest of some sort. In order to stop quest griefing with impunity, you made those territories enemy. Now, people that bash there are free game to be farmed by anyone for any reason. If you fixed that, a lot of tears would dry up, I think.

You seem to forget before players complained (very loudly) when they couldn't defend an area.

I do not believe in "bashing areas". Every area has RP significance and quests. (And, no, I will never change my stance on that and introduce "bashing areas".)

Then people are going to complain that they die while bashing, that they're being griefed by it and don't feel safe. Hopefully you have a brilliant idea to please everyone at the same time.

Can someone remind me when players complained about not being able to defend areas? I'm trying to remember if there were any mitigating factors there. For years and years we've been saying treating enemy territory in bashing areas (RP significance or otherwise) and enemy territory in areas people are expected to defend (Celestia, Delport, prime Mag, Etherwilde, Faethorn which has historically been a huge bitch, etc.) the same is a mistake.

For example, did ANYONE benefit from gorgogs being enemy territory? Isn't that just for people who want consequence-free PK?

Then they shouldn't bash in enemy territories. And before you tell me it is 'impossible', I can give you long lists of examples of things you can lucratively bash without being enemied to anything. Not to mention you can influence as well without any chance of enemying for xp and gold. Further, it has always been our stance that murdering sentient beings should often have consequence. If you choose to murder merians or krokani or viscanti or dwarves or whatever in their home areas, what is wrong with there being consequence? I think that enriches the roleplay and makes you think before you kill a denizen rather than viewing any mob as a bag of xp and gold.

^^^

Thank you.

There were complaints from Celest and Mag when they couldn't defend the sea quests which adversely affected their orgs, and this went beyond those areas to wanting to defend denizens in other places.

I don't think it creates the reaction you want in most people. The threat of being ganked and losing hours of effort doesn't make people more generously inclined towards denizens or bashing areas generally. It just invokes frustration when it happens. For that matter, there are times I would be perfectly happy disregarding any given set of sentients' right to life (Presidio, say) but just don't bother because it's not worth it. Although I'm not sure you could say that actually made the RP "worse", it certainly didn't enrich it.

EDIT: Ah, yeah, the sea areas. That would definitely count as mitigating circumstances, under the "areas people are expected to defend" clause. We'd have complained if we couldn't defend our villages too, but that isn't the same as asking, say, the moors to be enemy territory if you kill aslaran.

Oh, you mean how Serenwilde can't defend the centaurs in Hifarae now?

To get the effect you want, you have to aggressively police people's RP. Otherwise it's an excuse to gank, on a plane that is supposedly the one safe from PK. Mechanical effects will never stop people determined to grief others.

Do you want the spawns to be defendable too?

Real question here. Gorgogs/merians opened up this can of worms and a number of people on both sides regretted it after.

Rocs and manticores too, now that we have Halli/Gaudi.

In other words, you want to kill viscanti in the Presidio with impunity. And what of those Magnagorans who may well complain that we are ignoring their rightful RP that they should be able to defend those viscanti? This isn't theoretical, we got multiple complaints about this over numerous areas from all the organizations.

Anyway, I simply disagree with you and believe it does enrich RP.

So when I kill and camp who dares to touch in , that's just me enriching my RP. If people complain about this, we can quote your answer here.

Certainly more enriching than killing for the sweet gold drops.

Which is, frankly, all some players seem to view mobs as. Crap to bash.

We never said prime is safe from PK but it is regulated by the Avenger.

No, we are not going to aggressively police RP.

You choose where you get enemied to. If you do get enemied to an area, you know the consequences. We can look at some areas (like Gorgogs) where you can be enemied to the creatures but the area itself isn't loyaled to the creatures.

Anyway, this is getting a little off subject.

And, Ragniliff is right. Why are some areas this way and not others? Why aren't the spawns and centaurs loyal to anything? Let's just be consistent here, all or nothing.

Well, that philosophy and the philosophy that all areas should have RP significance and sentients and so on seem incompatible to me. I would much rather have the latter than the former, for the same reason I'm quite happy Avechna doesn't drop suspect if a bully feels somehow insulted by a victim and justified in having another go.

EDIT: Fair enough about the off-topic though, I was typing my post while that came up. I'll drop it.

One last thing though: I don't have much input on the topic of actual griefing because consequent to the fact that this stuff happens, on neither of my alts have I bothered to go far out of the home cities unless I'm visiting a foreign org for RP. Which is to say that because avechna may as well not exist most of the time, I have little inclination to bother. So maybe that tells you something.

It's a matter of degree. I think being able to do so while the Avenger looks away is fine, but the stacked death penalties on top of that turns many players off. If you look through this thread, I think this is about the only thing you find a lot of players actually agreeing on, particularly from separate orgs!

It also isn't applied universally or evenly. You'll get those extra penalties in merians/gorgogs, but not in the moors for aslarans/krokani due to the way the territories aren't being matched with enemied status.

Would you at least consider an in-game poll on the matter? That way it's truly open to the whole game for input, instead of just the forum community. It might be eye-opening.

Except mobs don't complain about being griefed. I understand the admin's point here, but you can't say "We have a griefing problem" and in the same breath say "People who bash sentients are free game for anyone." If people are being griefed in other ways, let's discuss that, but apparently we've already solved the issue with bashing areas and can move on.