Well, I got my switch changing the game nod again. I was starting to miss it. Peen ++. All I got from that was it's time to go gaudi.

Honestly though, as much as disincentivizing raiding is lovely, doing it too much, as is now, really is a big cause for raiding, as raggy said.

You mean "jumping" I think.

...yes. I am not entirely sober at this point good catch.

You can still type. You clearly are still too sober. As your Captain, I hereby order you to drink more.

I'm going to keep it willfully short, because I have a tendancy to not do that.

Often times, it isn't the act itself as much as the attitude surrounding it. Especially when you're stomping someone who is hoplelessly out gunned, be it by numbers, circle, whatever, not behaving in an arrogant and condescending manner can go a long way to keeping the game a better place. There are few traits I find less appealing in a person in real life, and for better or worse, that translates over to characters as well.

That said, I'll finish with two G.K. Chesterton quotes, who is far and away my favorite overweight essayist from early 1900's England.

"A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author." - I think this applies to our roleplay and characters as well. Take that as you will.

"Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity." - The Man Who was Thursday, 1908 - I don't feel this one requires any qualification or explination.

This goes both ways, too. I know some people who just can't seem to help themselves when it comes to sassing back and stirring the pot once they've been victimised, only to have it repeat around that very basis. I also can't count the number of times where, as a GA, I've just had to tell people to shut up, keep their head down, and get a better attitude if they want to be harassed less.

My turn to chip in my few thoughts which basically go around to say that Raggy got it pretty well. All this talk about tethers, karma curses, and nonpk flags are, at best, band aid fixes. Address the issue which is causing combatants to jump people in neutral territory over actual raiding, and I'd say that would go a long way towards fulfilling the bloodthirst players experience from this conflict-driven game.

Which creates its own problems, which gave rise to the changes to raiding in the first place. Random jumpings, to my mind, are generally far better than getting your org stood on by a force that has more people/fighters/better skills than you ad nauseum.

I feel that it would be a good thing to create positive incentives for people/combatants to move to "down" orgs. Such would require a way to measure "down" and "up", but if it were carried out well, it might do a bit to pump some small bits of life in to orgs like Gaudi/Halli.

Aie. Trying to spread the population out doesn't seem like it'd be ever feasible though because of the particular mix of benefits which causes people to drift over in the first place. Unless you're talking about some rather extensive benefits, I don't think things like a free hme blessing or 20% off the next credit purchase made to switch would appeal much to the bigger folk.

And yes, the fact that altering the reason why people are getting jumped would indeed bring another slew of problems, but I don't think patching up the current circumstances with a move that works in A, B, or C scenario but X, Y, Z will cancel/break/hinder/alter etc. it will be as efficient either.

Human nature: Give anyone means and motive, and they will do so at every opportunity.

It's the means and motive you've gotta target.

I'm fine with losing experience if I gain some roleplaying. I don't mind Xiran getting jumped if it is part of some interesting roleplay or leads into some fun dialogue or debating. When Xiran gets killed repeatedly and the reasoning doesn't get more nuanced than "we're in enemy organisations," then it's disappointing.

Instead of changing the means, I'd agree with changing the motivation, the roleplaying behind jumping. Maybe it's something for guilds or cities/communes to address. Something that should be part of the orientations for new players. Not part of the "learn this this and this" orientation, but the unofficial sort of orientation people go through as they learn about the culture of the place they're in.

On that note, I miss when there was some concept of "really-really-really non-com". I remember once when Seren was on a ship aetherbashing, and Rockholm got raided, and we saw Xiran on deathsight. The collective crew reaction was something like,

"WTF. Did Xiran just die to a raider. We're going to go back and SMACK THEM."

And we did.

Question: Does me not being able to complete the Seren Epic Quest count as being griefed? I get jumped when I try to influence fae, and I need to do that in order to complete the Seren quest, which is already difficult because of the Full Moon time constraint.

Yes, I can do fae in advance, but I need to do the last one closish to full moon. At one point I had Barrin trying to get the fae for me whilst other Serens distracted the Gloms, but wew were unable to get it. On the other hand, org quests are kinda directed at damaging enemy orgs. Except, that's not what I'm trying to do, I just want my Flame of dae'Seren. The tether is a good idea, it will stop me dying, but it doesn't help me much, because I can't influence fae when I'm boomeranged.

Possible solution:
Alter the Seren Epic Quest so that giving the Doe the last fae doesn't result in her giving you the item. When you give her the item, she tells you that when you want the item, you must say a certain phrase, and she will give it to you. This will let you do it all in advance, and not rely on New Moon coinciding with lack of Glom jumpers.

Repeating my earlier solution to being jumped for leading novices through Faethorn to elemental planes:
Adjust values of other planes in the commune college quests so that it is no longer neccesary to go to elemental planes.

Thing is, the motivation which does drive the jumping I've seen stems from the mechanical means available to them. Plain and simple, raiders don't like the trapped feeling they get when encountered not only with the substantial amount of defenders they hoped to attract, but the org and shrine powers which accompany them too.

I mean, unless people are suggesting that if x-defenders or allies are in the raided area, then these powers would fizzle out or not be able to be put up, then the combatants will keep resorting to other areas or methods to get their peekays on.

The general concensus from the admin and the playerbase though seems like they want to keep piling on org defenses even if the org has the people to fight back, so this avenue or plan doesn't seem to be feasible from the beginning.

I think a npk flag would stifle rp if it interfered with defending. A lot of org rp and individual rp is wrapped up in loyalty to an organization. It'd be pretty frustrating as a player and a character to have to give up the defending aspect of that loyalty in order to avoid personal grief. Not to mention the frustration that would come from knowing that if an avatar went down or something similar, you're going to be one of the people spending time to reverse the affects of the raid or the frustration for people who can still defend who are dying repeatedly while other people stand around who can't help without opening themselves up to griefing later.

I don't think there is as clear a line between combatants and non-combatants as some of the discussions here have implied. I think there are three categories, combatants, non-combatants and defenders. Defenders are just that, the people who will help defend against raids or in situations with direct benefit to the org (say, village influencing or aetherflares) but who aren't particularly interested in raiding other orgs or fighting for the sake of fighting. I would count myself as a member of the defenders group, so I might have a skewed view of how many people really do fall into this category. But I would be rather sad to see any solution implemented that would force me to choose to either not defend or to not have have greater gank-free movement since I would have to choose the later and the only combat role I'm really interested in is supportive.



Libraries, theaters, prestige competitions, artisanals, cultural centre, the family system, peaced revolts, non-org quests, and influencing. Those are, off the top of my head, the ways this game is made for people who aren't interested in combat. The skills may not revolve around the non-combat aspects, but that doesn't mean there aren't parts of the game designed and made for us.

I am firmly against the idea of an npk flag, because pk vs. npk is not a boolean value. It's more like a sliding scale. Perhaps you like to pk with people your own level in mutually-agreed-on spars. Perhaps you go defend. Perhaps you go along during village revolts. Perhaps you really do raid. But in any case, having a pk/npk flag will just cause people to grief those who have pk flags for whatever reason, with the excuse of "What are you complaining for, you have a pk flag, you're free game."

I used to play Discworld MUD, which had a strict PK/NPK system. Being a PK (which was mandatory for one guild) was hellish - people would randomly attack/steal from you, anywhere. I spent several RL weeks speedwalking everywhere that wasn't my guildhall, and jumping whenever someone entered the room. Not fun!

The problem is that epic quests are meant to cause conflict with your directly opposing org. It might help talking to the people jumping you, many people will leave you alone if they know you are doing the epic. If they don't it tends to resort to having the most friends. No manner of anti griefing mechanics will help with this, in fact anti griefing mechanics would more then likely protect those seeking to sabotage epics.

StarfireQ, I am pretty sure that the consequence of delaying your epic quest, relative to the fighting in Faethorn, is only a coincidence. Not to say griefing epics isn't done, but this isn't the reason for fighting happening at these times.

I do not know if it is intended that non-pk griefing be addressed in this thread. I can think of several instances where quests or diverting quests, or otherwise upsetting the non-combat activities of someone can be a lot more griefy than killing them. Somehow I feel like these are better to do, even if they are more annoying, simply because more effort goes into them.

It will offend, but this post does wrankle a bit. The epic quests yield huge rewards and they all, from all the orgs, have their quirks and frustrations...why do you feel like you are entitled to it being simple?

Luckily, it's not longer possible to steal from people. Literally. You cannot pick up anything from shops without mechanical perms.

Also, it sounds like the solution is everyone should join Glomdoring.

Yep, got absolutely nothing to do with blood house honour.