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Personal Opinion on using public hunting grounds to get a ticket to bounty anyone, forever.
I know this is going to be addressing one person in particular, but my issue is more that it's being allowed than who's doing it. Although I firmly believe the person doing it knows the situation is bullshit and does it anyway.
A player/organization should never, EVER be given free rein to claim a public area forever. During sanctioned events, sure. Otherwise, no. New Dika is one of the best leveling bashing areas in the game, and one person is able to hold it hostage for "roleplay" they're so lazy they don't even take part in it? Placing holomedia and graffiti is NOT partaking in roleplay. People should not be expected to SEE the holoprojector, and then walk back and forth until it shines. And then to read all the damn graffiti they ever see, just to understand if a place is being camped by a griefer. That shit isn't okay. I went hunting during a xenohunt, and got a huge bounty thrown upon me. Which is less the point, than the person who did it wasn't online during my hunting OR during the bounty placement to my knowledge. Even if they were, I should be WELL aware they're online and forcing conflict on me because they're actually interacting with me.
Imagine if I decided the Ironbound liked snake people. So we set up a holoprojector, some bugs, and some graffiti saying don't come here or we'll have you killed. Not even, we'll kill you, but that we'll sit on ships or in safe rooms and have other people kill you. Now imagine the other end game areas had the same from other groups. It's a bloody bad president to allow to take place.
Areas inside faction territory being patroled by factions? Good. That's game supported, hardcoded conflict openings.
Are public resources becoming points of conflict? Fantastic, they're short term and most importantly you AGREE to take part. Great.
Public areas being "claimed" by someone who's only RP is to splash some notes and then place bounties? That's straight-up griefing.
Imagine if someone who ruled the pvp scene got bored, and decided they'd claim that creepers and rock giants are their long lost cousins and anyone who touched them was going to die. That is finding a paper-thin bullshit excuse to kill someone for no reason. And you can say that 'death costs next to nothing' all you want, but it has very real effects on people who want NOTHING to do with that shit. People who work hard not to die as a part of their character. People who do any other roleplay reasons to avoid player combat. Why is arbitrarily claiming a very public and very good hunting ground allowed? Why are you allowed to place bounties for a manufactured crap reason, and do it to the ENTIRE player base now and forever?
And the system supporting this bullshit, the Bounty System, needs to be fixed. This system is broken in the way it inflicts death upon someone without giving away for the target to A) Check why or
Win. Seriously, you can't kill the person who placed it and have it cancel. I don't think killing the BH who attacks you ends it, but it might. A target has basically zero way to interact with the situation, other than to die. This means people can abuse it by placing a bounty while you're not around, then sit in a ship or a safe room and laugh as there is nothing that can be done. The person has one option, die.
"Dying once means nothing, just take it and move on." Has legitimately driven players from our game. I personally know people who would rather quit the game, than deal with the fact that anyone can bounty them for the flimsiest of reasons, and they have basically no recourse to deal with it in a way that is positive to them. I know people who have quit because of the damn Dika situation. Because it shows clearly that people are both willing to grief from safety without even nothing to TALK to the person they're ordering killed, and that they're -allowed- to do so by the administration.
Forcing death on people because they're in a public area doing the thing they play the game to do, an area you have no actual claim over, is not an acceptable thing to do. Ever.
A player/organization should never, EVER be given free rein to claim a public area forever. During sanctioned events, sure. Otherwise, no. New Dika is one of the best leveling bashing areas in the game, and one person is able to hold it hostage for "roleplay" they're so lazy they don't even take part in it? Placing holomedia and graffiti is NOT partaking in roleplay. People should not be expected to SEE the holoprojector, and then walk back and forth until it shines. And then to read all the damn graffiti they ever see, just to understand if a place is being camped by a griefer. That shit isn't okay. I went hunting during a xenohunt, and got a huge bounty thrown upon me. Which is less the point, than the person who did it wasn't online during my hunting OR during the bounty placement to my knowledge. Even if they were, I should be WELL aware they're online and forcing conflict on me because they're actually interacting with me.
Imagine if I decided the Ironbound liked snake people. So we set up a holoprojector, some bugs, and some graffiti saying don't come here or we'll have you killed. Not even, we'll kill you, but that we'll sit on ships or in safe rooms and have other people kill you. Now imagine the other end game areas had the same from other groups. It's a bloody bad president to allow to take place.
Areas inside faction territory being patroled by factions? Good. That's game supported, hardcoded conflict openings.
Are public resources becoming points of conflict? Fantastic, they're short term and most importantly you AGREE to take part. Great.
Public areas being "claimed" by someone who's only RP is to splash some notes and then place bounties? That's straight-up griefing.
Imagine if someone who ruled the pvp scene got bored, and decided they'd claim that creepers and rock giants are their long lost cousins and anyone who touched them was going to die. That is finding a paper-thin bullshit excuse to kill someone for no reason. And you can say that 'death costs next to nothing' all you want, but it has very real effects on people who want NOTHING to do with that shit. People who work hard not to die as a part of their character. People who do any other roleplay reasons to avoid player combat. Why is arbitrarily claiming a very public and very good hunting ground allowed? Why are you allowed to place bounties for a manufactured crap reason, and do it to the ENTIRE player base now and forever?
And the system supporting this bullshit, the Bounty System, needs to be fixed. This system is broken in the way it inflicts death upon someone without giving away for the target to A) Check why or
Win. Seriously, you can't kill the person who placed it and have it cancel. I don't think killing the BH who attacks you ends it, but it might. A target has basically zero way to interact with the situation, other than to die. This means people can abuse it by placing a bounty while you're not around, then sit in a ship or a safe room and laugh as there is nothing that can be done. The person has one option, die."Dying once means nothing, just take it and move on." Has legitimately driven players from our game. I personally know people who would rather quit the game, than deal with the fact that anyone can bounty them for the flimsiest of reasons, and they have basically no recourse to deal with it in a way that is positive to them. I know people who have quit because of the damn Dika situation. Because it shows clearly that people are both willing to grief from safety without even nothing to TALK to the person they're ordering killed, and that they're -allowed- to do so by the administration.
Forcing death on people because they're in a public area doing the thing they play the game to do, an area you have no actual claim over, is not an acceptable thing to do. Ever.
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Providing sufficient warning is given, there's no reason to be upset over this. If you have been verbally warned that X area is protected and there'll be consequences if you continue, you're fair game. This obviously isn't the case if someone declares an area is protected, just so they can hunt where you wanted to.
So let's say someone decided to protect all the rock giants in the Ixsei Desert, or all the leech orchids in New Dikamazi, by bountying anyone who bashed them. If that were the case, then I would agree with Rylek that this decision would be an unsustainable PK motivation and not appropriate or supported by the context of the game. Those monsters were put there, by me, to be smushed, so that players can pick up the XP and the loot that falls out of them. I haven't received any evidence to support that this is what is happening here. If I'm wrong, let me know, obviously.
Now let's move onto the concept of NPCs who are not hostile. Denizens in towns and settlements are not set up by the game staff to be bashing targets, but rather are intended to be quest givers, shopkeepers, and flavor/lore dispensers. By Denizens in towns I mean NPCs who are clearly just going about their lives and are not explicitly flagged or coded as antagonistic/enemies.
That's not to say you can't bash non-hostile denizens if you want to. Maybe you have a beef with all the Xariel children on Prugita or are deeply offended by the religious beliefs of the Jin on Thait. Go ahead and murder every single one of them if that's the case. It won't hurt my feelings. I'm just saying they aren't considered an XP resource or a "free" target. There might be roleplay consequences to killing them all. Someone might get mad. It might be a player response. It might be an NPC response.
Again, I'm not addressing Rylek's situation specifically here. If players are being prevented from bashing a bashable target by the use of the bounty system, that's worth investigating. If it's an RP response to murdering a bunch of townsfolk somewhere, I think that sounds like an OK use of the bounty system to me (within the pre-existing PK rules of course, i.e. you can't bounty someone a dozen times if they keep doing the behavior you don't like. You will need to come up with another solution).
Zersiax and I had a conversation about bounty fixes today. We would indeed like there to be more recourse for players who have been bountied to react to their situation. We have bumped it up on our priority list and will be looking into fixes in the next couple of weeks.
She also does not bounty people unless she has already spoken to them about it, and they persist in attacking civilians again.
She doesn't by any means camp the asteroid waiting to entrap unsuspecting bounty victims, or ever claim ownership of it. But she does protect the NPCs there when she can, and has been consistently roleplaying it for over a RL year. Most people know that if you kill the ordinary people in ND then Keiko will be mad at you. It's not griefing or unreasonable. It's not the same as killing the aggro soldier selassians in Ixsei, or the Bushraki looters in Jelle, or the Nabian guards in Prugita.
It's like going onto the Blood Ark and killing Lane Kaos and Ruto and Edrit and the hydrowarden and that annoying kid and all those other Jin NPCs. Keiko has NEVER said don't bash in ND, just that if you murder the civilians you get a warning and then you get bountied. It's not hard. It's not OOC, and it's in no way griefing.
Issuing someone OOC repeatedly for their perfectly reasonable IC actions is way more griefy. Blowing up player ships in non-pk areas with no RP reason is griefing. Calling people cowards for not engaging in combat when you know they don't pvp but you attack them anyway is... possibly not griefing but it's questionable and certainly antagonistic.
If you want to RP it with Keiko she is always happy to RP, but you have never once actually engaged her IC about this (as far as I know), you just jump straight to issuing her.
People constantly complain that there isn't enough conflict in SM, but as soon as it comes along but isn't on their terms they shout and cry and stamp their feet.
There are different kinds of conflict. I don't like or engage in pvp, neither does Keiko (mostly). That's what the bounty system is there for.
"And you can say that 'death costs next to nothing' all you want, but it has very real effects on people who want NOTHING to do with that shit. People who work hard not to die as a part of their character. People who do any other roleplay reasons to avoid player combat."
-(This literally made me lol.)
- Like the people you call cowards for leaving combat situations?
- Like the people asking you not to murder their civilians?
- Like me?
I would think you had misunderstood what Keiko is asking in ND but it has been explained to you repeatedly. So I'm not sure why you keep saying that Keiko is "claim[ing] a public area forever" when that just isn't what she's doing in any way.
Like Eukelade said, the bashing mobs of ND are the orchids and mechs. Go at it. Everyone is welcome. But roleplaying being a protector of a peaceful, non-aggro population of civilians is legit. No area is being camped. Nobody is being griefed. Fucking calm down and YOU stop griefing someone who is a really good and valuable player who has made an impact on the SM world, just because either you've misunderstood, or maybe you don't like your actions having consequences or something. Maybe you want to be invulnerable and to have everything your own way, I don't know.
I'm sick to death of double standards like this. Some people are allowed to barge around doing the in-game equivalent of taking lunch money and stealing candy because "it's [their] RP", but they will then repeatedly target one person OOC because they don't like a part of their RP, without even trying to resolve it IC. Then to make a huge public forum post hounding them more AFTER you've put them through the shit of being issued. You want conflict? Sort out your RP issues in character! This had NOTHING to do with OOC griefing until you took it OOC because you didn't like it.
Keiko is doing nothing wrong.
*mic drop*
-Can you please create a new GMCP tag for monsters that are:
- safe to be smooshed or
- not "supposed" to be smooshed
This would allow people who want to avoid becoming open pk for killing a public area npc from accidentally doing so. Currently, nowhere in our help pk file does it state that killing public npcs open you to free pk. It probably should if that's the case.
I got frustrated at having no response or recourse. Sorry.
Rylek - I actually really like that in-game, just like the real world, you can generally kill whatever you want, but that killing certain things has consequences and different meanings to different people, who may roleplay their responses as is appropriate to them and the laws and regulations for that place. I mean, if you pick fayleaf in Litharge the immortals will murder you. It's not griefing or an ooc issue. I don't think it should have or needs hardcoded delineation, personally. But obviously that's just my opinion. I manage to bash in ND a lot, as do a lot of people, and Clover has got to like 6 bazillion talents now just in ND without murdering civilians. Very few people actually get bountied in ND, but Keiko talks to people a lot about it and tries very hard to make people aware of the local law. I personally don't think "Don't murder civilians" is a particularly unreasonable rule to have, especially with so much other stuff there to bash.
I agree that the bounty system really does need fixing. If there is a clear consequence to your actions, however, I don't personally think there's a need/rule to discuss it before bountying (and I'm a super non-combatant). There has to be a valid reason and it can't be done repeatedly to grief people. People you embezzle from don't sit you down for a cuppa before they place a bounty, and if you catch someone hacking your CAC do you ask questions first? There is very little that can be done in game at present to enforce civil laws, which I know admin were looking at as per the last discord discussion. But if you know you're breaking a rule/law then facing the consequences is a thing, right?
A lot of work went in to protecting the civilians in ND by various players. If you went into a bar and punched the bartender and then were kicked out by the bouncers, I would think(/hope!) you would not be outraged that nobody had told you in advance that you weren't allowed to assault the bar staff before kicking you out!
Gravithicc - Most people know who OP was talking about and he made it very obvious. Your comment did not mention the bounty system at all, just your dislike of a specific character. One who is not even here and who is roleplaying within the lore of the game. Hence why I asked for clarification.
I'm also sorry Eukelade for my own frustration. I've tried to keep this one more appropriate!
I know it's just a drop in the bucket, but it's something. More changes coming.
From an RP standpoint, Flipilaria has a vested interest (that I'm not going to discuss the details of, find out in-game) in ensuring the continued growth of the New Dikamazi colony. It would make absolutely no sense for her to stand idly by and watch spacers attack them. The Orchids and the Mechs are fair game (being that they're a public menace to the NDM Colony), but the Bushies are not.
I typically offer someone one warning after pulling them off a Bushraki. After that, I attack. It's that simple.
Ask me anything, I guess. But honestly, if a basher is attacking a colony, planet, etc, that someone has established RP around defending, that basher should expect to be PVP'd. I would also attack (probably without warning) if someone were attacking the citizens on Biloxan, as an example.