Hey there, thanks for the fast and thorough response. Please, let me make sure I'm hearing you correctly.

>>1. Is it okay for me to use triggers to kill people?
>>
>>I've always believed no, but there are players who have used
>>them for years to amass a lot of PKs, and of course
>everyone's
>>favorite villain is using them to sleep people. He's
>certainly
>>not alone. I always thought it was just a tough thing for
>>immortals to spot, not seeing from the player side, but that
>>if it were spotted said character would be denied.
>Obviously,
>>this isn't the case or we wouldn't have Shaapa and Marcus
>>wrecking face with triggers over the years. It doesn't even
>>seem to be frowned upon, really, as these characters still
>get
>>titles and tattoos and leader spots and so forth.
>>
>>Please give a clear answer on this. Because either I want to
>>make my own triggers to chase and hit on entry etc., or I
>want
>>the people who do use them denied so I don't have to compete
>>on an un-level playing field.
>
>
>Sorry, but the best you're going to get out of me is from HELP
>TRIGGERS: "Using triggers is up to you, however using groups
>of triggers to automate all or a part of your character is
>called botting, and can be against the rules" with the
>addendum of we never punish first time offenders for this
>without a warning.
>
>This is one of those things that, in our opinion, is most fair
>when it's left to our judgement.
>
>Generally speaking if we see a pattern of someone using
>triggers and we feel confident there's enough automation that
>the character isn't really playing the game anymore then we
>intervene.
>
>

I hear: It's okay to use triggers that do the chasing, killing etc. faster than you could type as long as you aren't automating the character and are present. As long as you're looking on and playing the character the triggers are just providing an advantage similar to any alias or targeting system and therefore are completely acceptable in the eyes of the immortals.

The key thing is your present and in control.


>>2. Is it okay to log off if there's no one for me to kill?
>>
>>I like my Kp/h to be high, but I stick to what I thought the
>>rule was that a log in should be 45 minutes minimum. So
>often
>>I log in and kill nothing but time for 45 minutes and it
>>really hurts my K/ph. I always thought there was some leeway
>>given because stuff happens, but that if you were doing this
>>every couple days you'd be in trouble. Again, seems not be
>the
>>case as characters who routinely do this seem to do alright
>in
>>terms of rewards and recognition, and so I guess then
>>certainly aren't punished.
>>
>>Please give a clear answer on this. I either want to do this
>>myself or have my competition be denied or otherwise
>demerited
>>so we have a level playing field.
>
>We've given guidelines before, but again, we're reserving the
>right to rely on our good judgement for this. A huge factor
>in this whether the player is immediately switching
>characters, at which point we're taking into consideration
>things like scouting, fair-weather playing, etc.
>
>Again, AFAIK nobody has ever been punished for this without at
>least one, and typically multiple warnings.


I take this as it's okay for me to log my one character on, look around, say screw it and go clean my garage. It is not okay for me to log character A on, look around, say screw it and log character B on.

(My wife would prefer option A anyhow.)



>
>>3. Is it okay for me to log off and log back to break grid
>>lock?
>>
>>Let's say I run all my opposing PKs out of Forbidden Forest.
>>They are hiding in guilds and cabals and shrines. Is it okay
>>for me to log out in the inn in the settlement to let things
>>"reset" back to normal and maybe have them return to
>ranking.
>>Then I can log back in and we can have more PK fun together.
>>Or, let's say I take items and no one is retrieving. Can I
>log
>>out for 20 minutes to see if something sort of shakes loose
>so
>>we can get back to killing each other?
>>
>>Please give a clear answer on this. Everyone's favorite
>>villain uses this strategy a good bit, and it seemed like
>one
>>immortal said it wasn't okay, but then nothing happened to
>>that player except maybe a talking-to. He still has a title,
>>tattoo, leader spot and didn't lose the weapon he built off
>>the back of that strategy so I'm a little confused as to the
>>rule here. Maybe there wasn't a consensus among the rest of
>>the staff as to whether that's a violation? Again, I'd just
>>like to have violators punished or someone to say it's fine
>so
>>I can do it too and compete on a level playing field.
>
>I would probably drop the hammer on someone doing this if/when
>I thought there was a pattern of deliberate behavior. Twenty
>minutes is probably a long enough break, though.
>

Twenty minutes is a clear guide line. Thanks. I will quit and tell Siri to set a timer for twenty minutes.


>>4. What's the policy on Discord and other VoIP options?
>>
>>I know this is tough to police, so it seems like we
>shouldn't
>>bother. Is it alright if we start making OOC groups or clans
>>or whatever you call them (similar to like WoW and Eve and
>>other games) and then coordinate over VoIP so that we can
>take
>>advantage of knowledge and scouting amongst a wider range of
>>people. If only one group who likes to push the boundaries
>of
>>rules does this and everyone else shies away for want of
>being
>>rule-followers it kind of creates a disparity in in-game
>>capability.
>>
>>Please give a clear answer on this? Either let's police it
>and
>>punish, or let's make it clear it's allowed so we are all on
>a
>>level playing field.
>
>There is more than one rule that covers perma-grouping,
>abusing OOC relationships, etc. If we're confident that's
>what's going on, we'll respond.


This one confuses me. If I'm on FB chat with my buddy Ron and Ron sees my enemy sleeping at the entrance to the Pine Forest and he tells me and I go kill the guy how could you ever in a million years prove that I didn't just decide it was time to go check that area for something? I mean, unless Ron rats me out, that asshole, but he won't because we're comrades from way back.

I don't think you can ever prove it, so this creates a rule that people who will break rules will break, but people who follow rules will not break. That's an un-level playing field. It seems like this rule has outlived its efficacy because it cannot be tracked and enforced with any kind of consistency due to today's technology.

>
>>I know I don't speak for everyone, but it seems like a fair
>>number of us are confused on what behavior is acceptable.
>>Maybe it's 2 tours in Iraq and 1 tour in Afghanistan making
>me
>>a little weird, and I fully admit that could be the case.
>But
>>I'm used to clear rules of engagement. So, I'm humbly asking
>>whoever is in charge to lay down the SOPs and ROEs regarding
>>the above and enforce them in a way that is clear and fair
>to
>>everyone.
>
>The thing players need to realize is this:
>
>1. If we make the rules incredibly specific with hard cutoffs
>and thresholds then the people you're upset with now are just
>going to tow the line, abuse the letter of the law, and
>frustrate you almost if not equally as much and there would be
>nothing we could do.
>
>2. Almost every player with decent PK chops would have gotten
>denied by now if we came down on every character just because
>a different player accused them of cheating. Pro alone has
>staked his life that every single one of you was using a
>trace-buster-buster to Heartbleed the SCSI port to lag him out
>and kill him. It takes a lot of time to actually catch people
>doing some of this stuff and feel confident enough about it to
>punish them. And then there's that whole we're humans with
>feelings too and some immortals are more lenient or trusting
>than others, sometimes to a fault.
>
>I realize you didn't get your military code book level
>answers, but this is how it is. Not because that's how it's
>always been but because the admins genuinely believe this is
>the most fair, effective method for policing the things that
>unavoidably have some gray area.

Keeping going with that analogy, I agree. In the field we had rules about who we could kill and under what circumstances. There's a term (I think) everyone knows called, "the fog of war." This is the gray are you're talking about. Were there people I killed in the heat of a life-or-death moment maybe I shouldn't have? Yes. Is my conscience clear? Yes. Because although there was some ambiguity to my ROEs they were defined enough that I can feel confident in the judgment calls I made. I would respectfully say that in the case of the above examples you are too vague and have too much gray area. Things need not be black and white, but I think could benefit from a little more contrast in the gray.