You simply have to put some safe areas in the game.
It's impossible, people hardly care about who is who, they just kill whatever moves to improve their freakin kill/die ratio.

I tried learning the game, none of my charecters made made it even past 30, funny right?
I reach pk range and i am getting killed all around. get stripped of money and most eq. Than i simply end up starving to death because they even take the food and i have no cash left. So i delete. Pretty ammusing for an old player who can get 5 mill and godlike eq in 2 seconds, but you're simply not letting new folk into the game.

I tried to make an ALL neutral char, who has no problem with noone, and still everyone want to kill me, rp no rp reason no reason. Just for their damn pk ratio.
I am allmost dead going to rest in a central city and some lowlife comes and kills me in a temple just because it's good for pk ratio and easy, especialy when i am allmost dead.
And there is no place i can even rest normaly without someone tryng to kill me. Get all my cash again and send the charecter into my full "deleted" bucket.

Make one city a place with no pk

I am pretty much a new player too (playing my third charecter now), and all i can say is that you are just over frustrated. I get killed a lot too, i just dust off and try again.
Deing and loosing your equipment is hard, but it's part of the game. Learn to find basic equipment, use bank keep on going. Eventualy you find people who'd help you out.

About safe places, you are not completely right. There are safe places. The Eternal Star Inn for one. I hardly ever seen anyone fight there. There are your guilds, most people usualy don't attack in guilds.

About the rp and pk. You said people don't care about rp, they just kill you? Well that could be rp af an evil charecter. They kill you to gain power, or sometimes simply because they need to do something evil ;). I say take it easy, dust off, get on the road.
If you ask me that story with food is just an excuse of frustration, at level 30 i am sure you can find way to get a bit of food untill you get more coins. Oh and, use banks that helped me out.

As for exploring, If you want to explore try playing a hiding class. Their pk usualy sucks as trade for the ability to hide, but if you don't do well in pk you won't feel any difference, and you'll have more chance to go around finding new places.
I suggest take a ranger, you won't be a strong oponment to anyone with a ranger, but than again you allready arn't. Rangers have unique hiding skill, they have the best chance to stay out of trouble's way. Rangers can find food and water without needing coins so that'll ease up your life.

To sum it up, yeah the game can be rough, but it also can be fun. I myself hate seing people give up and delete when they hit 30. Pull it off untill you get to know people who you can travel with, and it'll get quite better. And most important, don't get frustrated about death.

To state it mildly, your post contains a great deal of exaggeration, and it's making it difficult to take your point seriously.

Your most recent character died a total of 4 times on the way up to level 30. In your post, you mention:

I tried learning the game, none of my charecters made made it even past 30, funny right?

Getting to level 30 takes quite a bit of effort, actually. And along the way, you've gotten at least 6 trains, which is more than enough to maximize your attributes and offset the 1 point of lost CON. If I was looking around and seeing new players being pasted repeatedly as soon as they hit PK range, I'd consider making changes, but if anything most of the players have been fairly courteous to newer folk of late, at least in my observation.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I'll agree that of late most seem more corteous, and while I don't think there needs to be "safe" zones in the game, I do wish that lowbie RP was somewhat more policed than what it is. I can't tell you of the various occasions that fire giant X, or even gnome/dwarf X has just strolled up and spammed bash. Granted, I don't die to it like I may have when I was a newer player, but the fact remains that some prickish people seem to enjoy just spam killing anything that moves. And yes, I know that no matter what you're gonna get these folks. My thing is just that if someone does this at hero, its usually a good way to get align changed/titled as such. But at the lower ranks (where most of the newer players seem to be) its just looked over and explained off as someones "role" or just learn to deal with it, etc. I guess I would just like to see people who do this deterred from doing such by making some sort of IC penalties for it.

I agree it's at least a minor problem. Being fragged for no apparent reason is offputting when you're expecting an RP game. Save for CF's great areas and well-considered rage delete feature, I would have left over it as well. The argument that "It didn't really hurt you." - while important to make - still misses the point: Is this fun?

That said, how on earth could this be fixed? I've seen far more RP-centric games still have trouble with low-level serial killers, or else become so restrictive that appropriate PK is stopped. When an offender can easily create a new character, how can you effectively punish him?

Certainly I'd encourage veteran players to uphold community standards. (As in: Please don't strengthen obvious non-RPers by allying with them.) But mostly, I think this comes down to encouraging newbies:

1) The game does become more RP-oriented at higher levels. Even going from 10 to 20 seems to greatly improve RP. Patience.
2) At low levels, you can easily re-equip well enough to level in a threesome. Soon, most of your lost equipment will be obsolete anyway.
3) You can now make up for con loss by wearing a +con item or two, without even spending a train.
4) Every time you die, you learn how to better avoid future dangers. Think how useful that'll be when people start killing you for RP reasons!
5) If you're at the end of your rope, get some advice. Many higher-level characters have a IC interest in mentoring potential future allies. We've also got this great forum to ask questions on....

>That said, how on earth could this be fixed? I've seen far
>more RP-centric games still have trouble with low-level serial
>killers, or else become so restrictive that appropriate PK is
>stopped. When an offender can easily create a new character,
>how can you effectively punish him?

This is a good summary of the problem we run into.

There are no easy good answers, but we're open to suggestions.

Come up with some number of deaths at low levels that starts distending you backwards into lower pk ranges. This gives newbies and weaker low level characters a little bit more survivability in the mid ranks. Ranking to 30-35 would automatically clear it, as well as landing a couple of kills.

I can think of ways to abuse it, but with some thought and fleshing out, it could be made less abusable and might help.

I disagree with this for the same reason I disagree with PK-free-areas. What will wind up happening is that the people with no real PK range will wind up talking more #### than the Emperor with 400 pks because they're absolutely free from reprisal.

Talk #### merely because you know you are out of pk, and your range instantly becomes distended to 51.

My (old) mud had similar problems. What they instituted was an
account system. You create an account and all of your characters are
listed under the umbrella of this name.

The role of this account is to allow you to reap benefits for
consistantly good RP. The account benefits they allow are:

*add a last name during creation
*select traits that shape your character's personality (at the expense of trains)
--Pack Horse - able to carry more weight
--Cowardly - easier to flee from combat
--Eagle-eyed - increases the max scan distance by 1 room
*select special races (currently only one)
*flag yourself as a follower of a god from creation (only visible to the IMMs, not other players)
*recieve powers based on the god you selected to follow
*create a family heirloom that grows in power as you rank (not rot_death)

(they're listed in terms of # of points required: least to most)

I'm unsure what measures they use to stop you from making several
accounts, but I'm sure there are some.

This would help in determining which roles a person typically plays,
which characters they have played previously, any notes IMMs care to
flag the account with, and any other trends that might present
themseleves during the entirity of their career here.

Hope this is helpful.

-aunes

I like them in theory, but not so much in practice. A few reasons:

1) Barrier to entry: If someone pops by, you don't want them to have to spend a ton of time registering. You want them to start doing the fun stuff. This can be waived by making the account system optional or delayed, but then the account system loses the utility of keeping away griefers, etc.

2) The Rich Get Richer: Experienced players already have a tremendous advantage over newer players. I don't want to supplement this advantage by letting them start new characters with built-in character perks (the extra race, equipment, status, etc. you mention) which would further exaggerate the gap in player skill.

3) Preaching to the Choir: The kinds of players who would make use of the account system aren't the ones who cause you to put one in. Anyone who cheats, griefs, harasses, or otherwise detracts from the game is just going to register multiple accounts, or ignore the system if it's optional. You can make this painful by linking rewards to a "clean", established account, but then you run into the aforementioned rich-get-richer effect that much harder.

4) The Black Cloud: As Nepenthe recently mentioned on the Battlefield, we make it deliberately difficult to track a player from one character to the next. (Some players give themselves away by repeating the same mistakes, but that's not our problem.) Only a few Immortals have the archival access to reliably do that sort of thing. If you do this too well, you create a system where people can coast on reputation, or can't recover from their mistakes. Countless examples exist of players who were on a ####list at one point, but later quietly turned into well-respected members of the CF community. On the flip side, if an otherwise solid player makes a "throwaway" character, he or she shouldn't be protected from being, well, thrown away.

I like account systems from an organizational standpoint, but I feel like if we implemented one that was safe from the above four concerns, it would end up being a product with only cosmetic utility, and I can't justify committing the resources which it would require.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I agree with many of your objections and here are my views and also
how my (old) mud went about fixing them.

Barrier to Entry:

For those who create characters not attached to an account, the
creation process asks if you would like to create one. This is what it
looks like during the creation process.


(mud) offers an account system so that you may group your characters
together, and build up a standing record of your accomplishments.
Characters on accounts which have earned good standing through past
actions will be eligible for special rewards and benefits that those
who choose not to take advantage of our account system may not be.

Accounts are to be used by one person only. Shared accounts are not
acceptible under any circumstances, no excuses. Therefore, any rules
infractions committed by one character affects the standing of the
account as a whole.

Note: if you already have an account, please disconnect and re-login
using your account name at the name prompt.

Do you wish to create a new account (y/n)?


Fairly straight forward, I believe. When accounts were being
introduced, you had the option of your current character being your
account.


Rich get Richer:

I compeltely agree with your assessment in that a similar thing
might not work here re: rewards. The way my (old) mud worked, you
start out with approx 14 trains to up your stats (we did away with
rolling b/c everyone just used rolling scripts) in order to tailor
make your character. In exchange for these various skills, you trade
trains. Want to be a linguist and learn racial languages easier? It
costs 1 train. Wish to be able to dual wield weapons that normally
wouldn't be dual wield-able? 2 trains. Wish to create that heirloom? 4
trains.

Its not exactly empowering the character over others because, in fact,
you're crippling yourself in the longrun. Itreally starts to weigh in
because you're effectively trading -1/2 dexterity (or some
equivalent) for the ability to hold 100 extra pounds.

That being said, there are only 3 (to my knowledge) traits that offer
a mechanical advantage. The others (nearly 30 or 40) are for
role-playing purposes. Things such as Blacksmith (weapons don't dull
as quickly) etc just offer traits to your concept'd character.


Preaching to the Choir:

I'm not saying that my mud was immune to the people who are
harrassers and what not because of accounts. I'm just saying that
accounts offer a worthwhile addition to the current populace by
rewarding those who consistantly perform well.

The Black Cloud:

So it is known, accounts aren't viewable by anyone else, save
immortals. I would imagine that the IMMs have methods to see who you
are and your past characters regardless of accounts or not.

Regarding poor performance.. the way, to my knowledge, that the
account system works, is we are only docked points (and consequentally
rewarded them) is due to poor roleplaying (and, I assume, cheating).
I've also heard allusions to having to document why on every docked
point (which happens rarely, to my knowledge). As such, throwaway
characters and people who do poorly at first need not be discouraged,
so long as they play the role they've stated that they want (in their
ROLE).

I hope this post better illustrates the point I was trying to make
and addresses some of your concerns.

-aunes

That said, how on earth could this be fixed? I've seen far more RP-centric games still have trouble with low-level serial killers, or else become so restrictive that appropriate PK is stopped. When an offender can easily create a new character, how can you effectively punish him?

Yup. I've seen games go so far as to demand a written reason before you initiate. This of course leads to the problem of players submitting crappy written reasons to justify their behavior, just as they will have crappy answers available if you pull them aside for a chat.

We're not interested in going down that road. We have the role command to explain each character, and if you don't fill it in, you're basically telling me that your character's RP will be obvious from observation. (And if it isn't, don't be surprised if bad things happen to your character.) And if you do write a role which basically says "I'm a crazy guy who will try to kill anyone! Raaah!", it doesn't excuse paper-thin behavioral RP.

Once I'm done with my current project, I'm going to go back to doing primarily low-level (1-20) oriented tweaking. Some more tools for the immstaff (and possibly players) to use might be on that agenda, but I'm not convinced the problem is nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I might have to challenge Droky to another calculator duel over the distention formulae, but there are other directions we can go.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I tend to think most pk'ers I see are actually above par RP'ers, comparitively speaking. I just think its a common problem amongst people from RP muds that they expect to be warned that they're going to be attacked. They expect a grand dialogue prior to and following every interaction, and CF really has never worked like that.

The element of surprise is an important one, and my orc isn't going to explain to you why he's going to walk up and kill you. He's a savage orc, he's not walking over to hand you a knit area rug.

Anywho, its a typically recurring theme that "I didn't get warned I was going to get attacked" = "bad or no RP".

It's true asking for pre-fight conversation is too much to expect in a PK game. But shouldn't there be some reason a character chooses one target over another? Besides just that he's there and in PK range?

The -very best- RP I've ever gotten from a kill is someone who spontaneously told me that he killed me for my stuff in service to an evil faction. The nine other PKs (plus several thwarted attacks), I've had to prompt people for RP, with indifferent success. (Newsflash: If you're supposedly trying to intimidate someone into serving <insert evil group here>, you might want to mention its name.)

And while I can understand truly diabolical characters slaughtering random passerby, it's still kinda hard on newbies. Are there no corresponding roles where people try to adopt characters into their factions? If I see a playerbase overwhelmingly hostile to me - IC or not -, why should I stick around?

While I note that some characters, both low range and high range are lame in their bloodthirstiness, I'll also state something else...

"The argument that "It didn't really hurt you." - while important to make - still misses the point: Is this fun?"

In any situation where there are the elements of winning, there are the elements of losing. And losing will never be fun, no matter how much you sugar coat it. For the most part, dying isn't that big of a deal, and revenge is far sweeter than many give due credit. The most satisfying experiences I've had in CF was pasting people who thought they could just walk up and bash me down with their 24th "Lowbie Fire Giant Bash Specialist" or LFGBS™ for short.

So my answer to this problem, as my answer is to many other problems, is that the only way to take the power into your own hands is to become able to adequately defend yourself. No amount of Immortal policing can replace that as the best defense mechanism against Quake-style players.

"...the only way to take the power into your own hands is to become able to adequately defend yourself."

CF is not a skilless game. On average, a newbie is going to get pasted. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. CF is not a game for those who won't deal with character death; such players will never stick around in any case. It's the meaningless frags that are objectionable.

"And losing will never be fun, no matter how much you sugar coat it."

On the contrary. One time when my character was killed, my killer at least granted me three words describing a faction when asked why. I wasn't ecstatic about losing 1/3 of a con point and a few baubles, but I got something in return: a story element to enrich my roleplay. Hopefully my follow-up roleplay will give other people some enjoyment, too. RP makes anything more fun.

"No amount of Immortal policing can replace that as the best defense mechanism against Quake-style players."

As mentioned, newbies can't miraculously win every such fight, just as immortals can't miraculously intervene in every situation. It's no more fair to blame the newbies than to blame the immortals. How about blaming the people who can't spare three words of RP? High community standards for roleplay are the best control we're likely to see. (And with so much emphasis on grouping for leveling, community opinion isn't something to sneeze at. I'm sure that's one reason RPlessness is less of a problem at higher levels!)

But, you'll find 'not dying' much easier and faster to learn than 'winning'. If he got to you and attacked you, without you noticing him, you didn't use where enough. Also, avoid Galadon and if you see said LFGBS on where while ranking, assume he's going to try to come over to you and kill you and take evasive maneuvers.

Its an old wise addage to not stick around for a fight you didn't start.

As far as not RP'ing after a kill, my marans typically would say something to you...my scions might choose to gloat...my tribunals would say something about the law...but aside from those, typically I don't say anything after I kill someone. Its not bad RP to not chat it up with your victims and that isn't anything that has ever been punished. Not every character is diplomatic and vocal. And more often, they simply assume you know why you got killed.

...but aside from those, typically I don't say anything after I kill someone. Its not bad RP to not chat it up with your victims and that isn't anything that has ever been punished. Not every character is diplomatic and vocal. And more often, they simply assume you know why you got killed.

I'd agree it's not necessarily bad RP (assuming compatible role, motive, etc.), but it often isn't good RP to silently walk away and/or ignore conversation either. As an experienced player, it doesn't require a great deal of effort there to elevate the experience for the defeated.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

But to be honest, the reason I typically don't go much into it, is often I'm assaulted with a slew of complaints about how I shouldn't have taken any loot and shouldn't have attacked to begin with and etc about how my character should act, which invariable is 'some sort of way which would never detriment them'.

I don't really ignore people, but I'm definately leery about initiating the post fight convo, because I've learned that some people just get more pissed off if you try to talk to them.

Yup. Some people just lose all dignity when they lose a fight, and there isn't so much you can do about that.

Basically, you can say a couple things and see if the person is just going to rant/lecture/whatever in a vaguely OOC manner. Most people won't, and you can do something there. If they do, just go on with your business, and don't worry too much about that character in the future. But generally as the victor you have a better opportunity to initiate some decent RP there.

It needn't be friendly in an IC sense, of course. Creative taunting or gloating can be fun for both sides as long as it's not the "OMG! PWND!" variety.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Well, having gotten PKed 5 times in 24 RL hours (perhaps 8 online?) has given me inspiration to make suggestions. (And no, the RP never seemed to go beyond, evil alignment+available target=PK attempt, though of course I'm not psychic.)

1. Balancing classes at low to mid-level would indeed help a lot. Despite playing a shapeshifter, none of my dozen or so PK losses had anything to do with ragers - they had to do with me being a pretty safe target at that level, given the right spell or prep to pierce invisibility. If there were more risk that a PK attempt would end in the initiator's death, there'd be far fewer attacks with low RP motivation.

2. How about a log that tracks one's killed targets (race/class/alignment), and the first three tells the PKer makes afterwards? This is reviewed at the immortals' whim, so a level 40 character could get punished for silly kills made at level 20. I think this would have value as a deterrent.

Examining target choice, role, and post-kill RP should make it reasonably clear what kills flow from RP. Immortals have to make their own judgements, of course. Personally, the difference between hack n' slash and (evil alignment+available target=PK attempt) isn't obvious.

3. With all the PKs, the community's interest in newbies seems more a desire for fresh meat rather than desire for roleplay partners. Giving the opposite impression would be useful, even if nothing could be done about low-RP PKs.

It may be worthwhile to give modest incentives to socially involve newbies/lowbies. Just to toss out some crude ideas: Perhaps a faction's guardian gets five extra HP for every active faction member under level 25. Perhaps socializing in the inn could give experience points similar to observation XP. Perhaps giving Heralds an impressive cabal power dependent on spending lots of time in the Inn would encourage them to be there and lead converstaions.