[MUD-Dev] Striving for originality

[szii at sziisoft.com]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>

> *Gets annoyed* That's a load of crap.  Pulling up some stats, I
> see that in the past month there have been 16679 PK deaths, for an
> average of 555 a day (on Achaea). Given that we get about 1400
> characters/day logging in, that's every character dying to PK
> every 3 days, on average.

Please note the "according to the few imms and players I chatted
with."  Didn't mean to offend you, I was just stating my own
personal experience.  I wonder why, if you're pulling ~555 pk deaths
a day do people consider PvP dead there?  It was an open chat
channel...maybe I just hit an off-peak lull in the playerbase.
Dunno about the imms though.  *shrug* Either way, I didn't mean to
offend you.

> The players who think "PK is dead" are inevitably the players who
> are much more interested in bullying people than in using PK as a
> roleplaying tool. They like to engage in that ridiculous age-old
> MUD

I disagree.  PK != bullying.  The best fights are against similar
level/gear opponents.  Mind you, I left Sullon Zek (no rules PvP
server) to get back into MUDs so I'm not a "bully" as you state.
(At least, I don't consider myself so.)  If you'd like, I'd love to
hear your thoughts on the Achaea PvP system and what you've run into
via offlist emails.

> They only have more incentive to level if levelling is
> important. It isn't particularly important in
> Achaea. Incidentally, we found that there are almost no players
> who really enjoy being constantly under threat of attack.

I had a long dialogue with my wife earlier today on this exact
point.  She went from a very hard-core no rules chaos server to
another similiar one where PvP ability is controlled by a flag.  She
conceeded that while she loves being able to explore the world more,
it's a little "too nicey-nicey."  She won't toggle the flag because,
like Achaea, PvP isn't the focus.  Me personally...I live for that
danger.

> We've tried to cope with the various PK problems with the
> following rules, collectively hated by all bullies and griefers,
> and most teenage boys.

If I truly wanted to grief under your ruleset, as confirmed by the
Imms, all I have to do is piss a bunch of people off via chat
channels.  I can start a verbal war, just not a physical one.  I can
verbally harass people, but not attack them in-game.  I can make
someone mad enough that THEY contract a hit on ME and then I'm good
to go.

I'm just playing along...I'm not that annoying, but it can be done.
I loved the "teenage boys" part.  *laugh*

> What these rules have the net effect of doing is preventing people
> from killing someone else for less than what we consider a good
> reason. Well, it doesn't actually prevent people from doing so,
> but it does discourage people from doing it.

Actually, elsewhere in the rules it states that random attacks and
such are punishable by ban/zappage.  Even should something happen I
have the option of just reporting it and watching the fury of the
Gods "make that person's life very difficult."

So with all of that said, it's EXTREMELY difficult to start a fight
and possibly why the players at that time felt that PvP was all but
dead on Achaea.

I'd love to continue this off-list, but I'm sure you've retraced
these grounds 1000x and are quite tired of it. =)

-Mike

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