Posted by Rufus on 09/02
People know me as the one who stands around waving the 'yank pkill
entirely' banner with a lot of flair and whatnot. Well, I wasn't too
keen on any ideas of expanding pkill until a discussion happened
on the godlist about ideas surrounding PKOK.
Is the environment for pkill bad right now? Yup. Is it players' fault?
Yup. Is the environment going to change? Likely no, as we've all seen
it going into its downward spiral over the last few years.
So we're left with one of two things... attitude adjustment of other
people (not likely to happen) or do some code-based things that will
entice more people to enjoy what features pkill has to offer.
My opinion (and this is MY opinion, not a statement from the staff)
is that we've tried many avenues and not one of them have worked. The
PK environment continues in its downward decline. So we're doing this
to answer the many "I would ifs...". Fact is, people don't want to deal
with pkill the way it is currently. They would, however, like the player
to player challenges that pkill brings. If we could get 90% of the
playerbase participating in a feature that takes a good 40-50% of the
coding time, rather than 25 to 30% of the people, THAT to me is a
forward progress of the mud. And if I'm right about the way it's being
implemented the ability to change it from one mode to another (pkill
how it is now, PKOK, or a few other variants) is a matter of a single
command and a config file change (1 line). It's not like backing out
of a poor decision would be months worth of work.
I'm not exactly all-for the pkok switch. I still don't like pkill, end
of story. But I'm also patient enough to wait the thing out and see
what it has to offer (since i'm not doing any of the coding on it, I've
been rather detatched with the technology issues, I only have a sketch
overview of how it's to work). But trying to second-guess Ea!'s work
on the matter is, at this time, a little silly. I for one won't exactly
know how things work until they go in. Some people, who have posted
regarding this topic seem to know how everything's going to work... don't
count on it.
-Ruf
From: Tristen
Wednesday, September 01, 01:53PM
I'm not too sure I'm keen on the PKOK thing at all, though its probably
due to lack of information, mostly, which leads to pessimists like me
assuming worst case scenarios, no offense intended.
However, it -is- reassuring to see even a personal opinion being posted
by an imm on the subject , because it lets me, as a mort, have a look at w
what's already been brought up so I don't go over it again when
discussing/talking it over with imms on channels.
Having been told by one imm that "we've already discussed all that" my
response a was something along the lines of,
being a mort, I couldn't know.
So I really appreciate Rufus' post, even though I may not agree with it.
Tristen (and his multitude of brown men)
From: Darkheart
Wednesday, September 01, 09:31PM
First off, I'd like to say I appreciate imms committing their current
opinion (subject to change, not final, only an opinion, etc etc) on
the discussion boards for us non-imm players to see. It is hard to
feel safe and represented, not knowing at least the current opinions of
those who have more a hand in making decisions than the rest of us,
or at least I, do.
I have to disagree on the downward spiral on pk, however. I personally
think it's much better than the days when Kahn, Daavya, Keyzer, and the
others who held the name Grendel before us had "control." Currently,
as arrogant as I may sound saying this, me, Dune, and some others of
our clan probably have the "control" if you can even put it that way.
Heck, even the lowly knights feel safe and sound being active. :p
The pk atmosphere in general has improved a thousandfold. The fightsystem
is changed in such a way that it is more flexible than before, eliminating
the expert-player chars which had to be created and competed against only
with chars brought up with pk in mind even before creation. Now a great
deal of eq shuffling can be done even at lvl 50, allowing for more room
for adjustment.
Not to mention that the general pkbase is more adept at pk. It isn't ofte
that you come about people who you see being totally clueless at pk--like
me a few years back who died fleeing invis to mobs/dts or not knowing
how to open a door while blind, etc etc. Now, at least ppl with the
desire to run away have the ability and knowledge to do so. Not to
mention multi's and permas rarely come from the "dominant" group in pk,
which has very different nuances, imho. It is one thing to have the
underling multi and get punished for it than having the dominant group
get away with everything. At least me and Dune pride ourselves in not
indulging too much in such, and from the way we are treated and accepted
by other active pk members of this mud, I will again arrogantly assume
that such is so.
The problem in this mud, as always, harks back to imbalance of information
and the general fear of the unknown. Unclanned, and those that haven't
spent much time in the clanned life don't see past the initial jumps that
is almost a rite of passage for every new clanned char on the block. Clan
life changes depending on the age of your character, meaning the longer
you have been around as that char, the less frequent jumps are that
target you -- provided you like to keep it that way by keeping a
low profile.
I admit that it isn't friendly to all sorts of RP, but that should be
just something ppl have to work with when deciding a char's RP. It'd be
nice if everyone could RP the invincible warrior or the mage, but there
can be only one of those, RP or no, and the rest will have to live with
the fact that life doesn't come as planned.
In general, there is plenty of room for RP if you admit and accept the
limits of yourself and your char, while also accepting the simple nature
of those other clanned. Ppl clan, at least I do, to seek new prey and new
challenges, and a newly clanned is a must-jump at least once. And with
good damage control, things will end there. With a long-term goal in mind
such jumps are less than small dents on your char -- heck, my pkers have
died tons, yet most of them managed to retire swiftly.
Darkheart Harkzael
From: TheThing
Wednesday, September 01, 11:17PM
Rufus, I thank you for sharing your thoughts
Darkheart, . . . . . . . . ok, I will bite my tongue for a change
I still think that exp is harder to get than it used to be and getting the
25 mill to retire is far too difficult without a LOT of help
I hope that an imm reads my post above and that the imms
take a look at this issue, things are not the same as when you all
played active characters, oh blessed gods
humbly,
TheThing
From: Sandra
Thursday, September 02, 12:39AM
Well, I had planned to hold off on posting regarding the pkok issue
because, well, not all the details are worked out yet, and I don't
want what I say I think may happen to be taken as gospel. However,
I will say that some of the opinions Rufus has regarding pkill, I
agree with 100%. We've tried a few different avenues regarding
regulating the pkill environment with little or no success. I would
think that the best thing for everyone to do is to give it a fair
chance.
In response to TheThing...
Most of the immortal staff plays their mortal characters regularly.
Currently, I alone have 5 active characters, and way more than I
care to admit archived, that I switch on and off when the mood
hits me. Point being, we know the difficulties/lack there of, of
gaining experience. We play, just like you do. Personally, and this
is my opinion only, I don't think 25 mil is difficult to get. Enabled
or not. It's been done countless times, and by numerous people. If
you take into consideration that the 'normal' exp for a L50 mob
before the fight system change was 70-100k, and the 'normal' is now
20-40k, you'll notice that the 25mil now, is almost equal to the 100
mil of the old system.
-Sandra
From: Kae
Thursday, September 02, 05:35AM
I probably spend more hours online on my mortal characters
than on my immortal. It suits me fine to work on my area when-
ever healing up :)
-Kae
| 