Number Three could be remedied in about 5 minutes with an understanding power minister.

I'm not wholly sure if I'd say this is the right attitude.

The Lusternia I first encountered as a novice was a very dangerous, unsafe place. I died a lot, but it was all a part of the lore I encountered, the players I met and interacted with, and the general atmosphere. And this was before I even made a Glomdoring character, so you can't really point at that and say it's an exception.

Even compared to recent history, things aren't as good as they used to be. The examples are not often out in broad daylight, but it's pretty clear the Celestine Empire had it way better than we did (ex: Cririk firmly believing that his request of 1,000,000 gem clusters from Celest was entirely reasonable).

If people are getting so upset that they don't want to play the game anymore due to a couple deaths, is it because killing is out of hand, or because we've lost part of the original atmosphere somehow? Sometimes I get a vibe that people believe they should truly be safe anywhere they want to go, and if we do that, Lusternia ceases to be what the histories have it primed to be, and it ceases to be the all the things that made me stay and play.

Maybe, just maybe, there's some failure in presentation going on here. I don't know. It's hard to say without knowing the details behind what's transpiring or the circumstances surrounding them. But I'm doubting this is the right way to go either.

Post moved here.

Jeesh, guys. Please forget the epic quest. I did say from the beginning that I wasn't sure if being killed for it was being griefed or not. I promise to never ever bring it up again.

But my original concern was for being killed whilst helping novices do the planar quest. I don't want a free pass. I want people to not attack me when I'm helping a 16-year old tae'dae named Pandamonium visit Water.

Thus, the planar collegium quest encourages me to go to Faethorn for non-com reasons. But Faethorn is dangerous. This is a problem.

Last time I bitched at Glomdoring for having to go bum a cubix off someone to finish that quest for a novice, I got told quite clearly that jumping novices doing the planar was NOT ok, and if we let them know before hand it wouldn't happen. Has that changed?

Maybe the tether idea has moved on, just finished reading through the thread, but I really don't feel it would end up solving griefing.. at all. I think griefing would just adapt to tether and go right on with what it's already doing (although I haven't seen much, but I've been back for only about a week).

I'm not sure if griefing is a huge problem, I've been gone too long to know and not been back long enough to have noticed it. I can remember far worse types of griefing than being jumped from before I pretty much called it quits to do my school year, but that's beyond the point of this thread. I also don't think, if griefing is as bad as being claimed, that a mechanical thing would be the greatest response for it. No, I don't know what would be, I've been on all sides and I've seen "griefers" and "meanies" on all sides so it comes down to perspective in many ways. I do know that certain people get their kicks from jumping/raiding/whatever regardless of the consequences, but they'll be there no matter what.

As for planar quests, telling an enemy you see on QW that you're just doing that tends to go a long way, I know you can't always see people and yes, sometimes jumping just happens anyways. Being out there and stating your intention tends to go a long way on many occasions.

Some rambling thoughts.

From the beginning, off-prime was designed to be a PK zone, a wild frontier. That's where PK players were meant to go to jump others and setting foot on another plane meant you understood you were free game to those who hunt others.

Prime was a different story. While we didn't want the prime plane to be a completely safe zone, we wanted it to be relatively safe and thus the Avenger and karma was designed to help regulate that.

Off-prime, of course, we had put in conflict quests where people could raid and there could be consequences, thus siphoning conflict from prime to off-prime so that those involved in PK could actually accomplish something. Over time, it seemed as though raiding put too much stress on some organizations so we increased the strength of discretionary powers, added cool downs, etc. until we thought a balance was reached where raiding was possible but not so easy that it could completely demoralize another organization.

Reading through these threads, I'm wondering why people who don't like to get jump are on other planes. Yes, there is the occasional quest, but surely, if you know you are going into a PK frontier zone, you could brace yourself for the consequence and the need to be extra vigilant. Maybe the concept that outer planes are PK zones has been forgotten? When you guide a novice to an outer plane for a collegium quest, do you whisper how dangerous this is and that you are risking your life to help them? Maybe the outer planes have gotten too important that players believe they have to be there and now are demanding more protection. I don't know!

I do seem to hear more about Faethorn than anything else. Am I wrong on that? Should Maeve provide more protections to commune members in Faethorn? Should warnings be announced if enemies of Faethorn enter? Guards be sent to protect commune members or whisk them to safety? Again, I'm not sure.

I do like the tethering idea, but I like most of my own ideas! Of course, it won't change people or stop tethering but does offer a one-off safety net for those who dare to risk themselves off-prime. I'm not sure I take well to the complaint but then I have to wait to go back to off-prime. Hrm.

I am surprised not to hear a more rigorous defense of off-prime being completely open PK zones. Not sure what that means.

/ramble

Well, there's nothing really wrong with your idea, as far as ideas go it seems like it could in theory work, but just a worry that it may in the end become a wasted ideal or effort.

To be honest, I'd rather have the Avenger protect Faethorn than see the tethering idea implemented. It seems very artificial.
I already suggested making it harder to find people. If you actually have to walk to places and check room by room (aside from scrying which would trigger aethersight) to surprise someone, jumping would certainly not be done as often.

I don't think any sort of extended grace or non-pk flag should be toggleable. Just like Grace of Innocence, once you reject it, it's gone, and you can't get it back. Why would it suddenly not be okay to attack that guy who spent decades terrorizing your org? Because he decided to take a break? Nope, sorry, doesn't work like that. At worst, that could end up being protection for some griefers.

I'm not sure I like the idea of Avenger protecting Faethorn.

I'm also not keen on making it harder to find people.

Any other ideas? Warnings for friends of Faethorn? Fae guards escorting you to safety?

So yes I really am curious about this entire novice leading claim. My personal experience with members of glomdoring including Krellan is, that when you tell them beforehand you are helping a novice with their planar quest, they will not attack you. Though one of them popped up to give some Glomdoring is better propaganda once

@Estarra:
Personally I think Faethorn has some of the funnest conflict. Faethorn isn't owned by anyone and so is a battle ground, everything that can be done in it is conflict related so people going there should be ready for consequences. I actually wish mechanicly opposing cities had a similar neutral, easily acceseable but linked to 'safe' territory, off prime region to play in. I really do not see a need to change faethorn.

I think the reason many people refrain from defending off plane = free pk is because it is so..self evident by the nature of those planes. (Also saying then stick to prime sounds rather mean even though it is logical advice)

Faethorn is the off-Prime combat ground of choice. No Nexus discretionaries, no Shrine powers (shrines just don't last there), so it's all down to the groups themselves; and thus it becomes a mass slaughter zone of everyone. With the current alliances, you also don't have people really 'attacking' Faethorn itself (most people have become unenemied to Faethorn so that they don't have to eat a 2 mil essence loss); if you're with Glomdoring you can't attack Faethorn, and if you're with Serenwilde you can't attack Faethorn. But boy can you murder the heck out of anyone else you see there.

With scuffles migrating there (ease of access, lack of pesky powers, lack of death penalty, etc) it's not really unexpected that it's difficult to quest. The question at this point is if you want to address Faethorn in particular, and what direction you want it to go in. Do you want planes to be inherently riskier? Then you can take some of the stress off of Faethorn by addressing things like Distortion which has been made far too strong as well as enemy territory essence loss for Demigods (those are two of the most stifling changes to off-Prime conflict). Alternatively, do you lock things down more by putting more restrictions on Faethorn?

Or a bit of both?

The 'rigorous defense' of off-plane activity is mostly the discussion of raiding being choked off just a tad too much, from reading the thread. It's supposed to be dangerous, sure, but it's less dangerous when the risk so greatly outweighs the reward everywhere except Faethorn & Astral. This leaves Faethorn exceptionally dangerous and everywhere else decidedly less so.

I think Faethorn gets a lot of attention because it's sort of a Planar cross-roads, anybody without a cubix has to move through there to go between elemental planes so it's an easy place to catch somebody or spot them and then follow them to elemental.

There's also the fae to influence which is something I think a lot of nom-coms like to do, except doing so I guess is supposed to be a point of conflict between Glom/Seren.

It's also the only neutral open PK area in the game that doesn't have insanity or a draining essence cost for demi-gods. If the cities could meld their or gather fae with causing political drama with their commune allies, the place would probably be an even bigger combat zone.

EDIT: Maybe some unaligned elemental or cosmic planes that people could fight over, that nom-coms doing whatever are a bit less likely to be passing through, could take some stress off of Faethorn?

No one so far has claimed that they should be safe anywhere they go, just that it'd be nice to walk around faethorn without getting insta-ganked.

At any rate even if you disagree that griefing is currently a problem I don't think anyone can, hand on heart, claim that there should not be a system set up to stop griefing from ever BEING a problem. I'd much rather want this done now than in six months or so when it starts being a problem to me and not just to others.

The reason Faethorn seems unusual is that it is unusual: it is one of only three major off-prime areas that is not org territory, and the only one of those three that is not a pure bashing ground (Astral and Catacombs being the other two). We have a name for fighting on any of the other planes: raiding! A possible but unrealistically huge solution would be to implement neutral/abandoned elemental and cosmic planes with quests and things on them.

I'm not sure that would help much. A lot of the raids are 'Hey, there's X person's org folk in Y, let's go kill them and then kill whoever comes to defend / avenge them!" Death tends to be an attractor of attention. Fewer people passing through means less attention or interest unless you put some large incentives to go there regularly (for example, more essence mobs).

Here's an idea for Faethorn.

What if Maeve (if alive) during the Moon cycle makes it impossible to harm any Serenwilder (and prevents them doing any harmful action).

Vice versa when Maeve (if alive) is in the Night cycle for Glomdoring.

When Maeve is in her neutral cycle, there's no protection for anyone.

While I like the idea of having neutral elemental and cosmic planes (although, for lack of elements, that might have to be restricted to cosmic), it wouldn't change anything for the noncoms. It's just one or two more places to check with your cubix/scent, which takes an additional two seconds on your check of all of the planes.

Edit: Nevermind this line.

I like Lehki's idea of having another Planar cross-roads, although I'm not sure how well it'd work at relieving stress on Faethorn in practice.