I'm not going to beat a dead horse into the ground ala a locked thread on the BF but, reading through that thread brought me to an interesting question, "Is the payoff for bravery greater than or at least equal to the payoff to being a complete coward?" Honestly, the trend you're referring to in that specific character reminds me of a hell of a lot of people I fight. From the druids who only are aggressive to me under a full moon to the trip from behind a mongoose monkeys to the assassinate/flee spammers, the prominent mode of thought is "Kill as many as possible, die as rarely as possible." I'm not as guilty of this as others (I've at least con died a char and come close a few other times), but even I tend to be like "#### this, I'm bailing", because a full loot just isn't worth a 20% chance of getting your cabal item.

Long story short, do the Imms and players feel maybe there is a way to give incentive towards being 'ballsy' and risking your neck *a bit*, while still having death be meaningful? If so, what types of things can be done to help decrease the gank-whorery and cowardliness?

I tend to think to meet the disincentive to die granted by full looting, you have to create a disincentive to be cowardly with nasty titles. Branding people cowardly though, obviously, can cause some spam whining. I'm not sure what the answer is but I like to stir up debates so get to it.

To some extent, playerbase ego helps us out here. People like to be known as the one who played Mr. Badass. The PBF system helps out here as well, by providing information like the Gank-o-Meter and related data. Most people don't want to be the guy who spends 200 hours irritating the other players.

The reward system also tends to reward exciting characters over highly conservative ones. The staff is more likely to watch characters who do a lot of fun stuff, and "big" rewards tend to be tied to exceptional achievements. If some guy ganks the worst PKer online 3 times in an hour... even if he does it a lot, it's not going to add up to a "Hey, reward him." moment. On the other hand, we have given out sizable rewards to guys who fend off a big raid all by their lonesome, which makes sense to me both IC and OOC.

Even one heroic moment like that can get you a reward that you'll have for the rest of that character's life. Unlike a set of gear, it's often something you just can't replace. I'm the first one to prod the staff towards giving out more rewards like that (and Nep is coding something very cool which will open up a lot of doors there), but I want it to be because they're watching RP and action more, not because we're lowering the bar so much that anyone can get them.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Got my first hero a custom title. I'm sure some of the IMMs watched my patheticness at PK yet saw I still stuck with and kept plugging away, instead of pussin out whenever a gang came callin.

Short side note. Big props go to the IMMs recently. I've been seeing a lot of custom titles, quest skills, extra legacies, etc. I, and hopefully the rest of the playerbase, thanks you for the extra time you(the Immortals) have been investing into the game.