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crayon
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Post Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:52 pm      Reply with quote

Hey folks, I'd like to open up some discussion on PK, and hopefully establish some general community guidelines and expectations with regards to how, why, and when PK is used.

Personally, I've always felt that there should be something of a code of conduct with regards to these things, on more or less an honor system, to prevent abuse. Or even an IG code of conduct to minimize escalation.

One unfortunate side affect of the coded environment is that conflict will pretty much escalate at exponential rates, because sometimes players are more willing to escalate things in code than their characters ought be to commit violence.

While it's challenging, beyond a certain point, to really police these things fairly, I do think that players strive to play their best, and having some community standards would help, if not so much rules as guidelines.

For the thread itself, I'd like to issue a guideline: we can discuss, and disagree, but there will be no arguing.

Here are some of my own thoughts on the subject to open some discussion:

- One shouldn't treat a PC like a mob during a PK attempt. When one kills a PC for 'things' they add almost nothing to the game. In exchange, they take away a great deal. When they do this with minimal to nonexistent RP, it verges on outright abuse. Other PCs are not things. They ought not be treated as pieces of one's own story so much as stories in and of themselves. Does the ending make sense? When one disregards this innate quality they cheapen, stifle, and cripple the ability of a game to serve as a storytelling mechanism.

- On the other hand, one also shouldn't be AFRAID of PK, either as the initiator or the victim. PK still has an important place in some stories, and it shouldn't be overly feared or avoided. It CAN be done with RP, sometimes great RP. The trade off on this, is that in order to not fear PK, one kind of needs to not have around a dozen reasons to be afraid of cheap PK.

- People should be more willing to engage in nonfatal combat. Unfortunately, existing combat isn't exactly conducive to this, and people are more likely to escalate than just take a beating.

- This ties in to losing. One shouldn't really obsess over whether they win or lose an IC fight on an OOC level. Especially not to such an extent that they ignore RP to endeavor to try to prevent 'losing' (ignoring injuries, escalating unnecessarily, spamfiring, twinkwalking, etc.). At the same time, this shouldn't be taken to mean that using actual TACTICS is discouraged.

- I was a participant in Bastiangate. I would really rather not see murderballing as a tactic in PK again. Not even so much just because it's cheap as because it's spammy and crippling for RP. Maybe some IG code of conduct for interfamily conflict would open up the possibility for smaller skirmishes.


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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie

Post Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 6:39 pm      Reply with quote

Hey, look, a topic nobody wants to touch with a ten foot pole. I'm going to get a twenty-foot pole to poke at this with real quick.

This boils down to two arguments/concerns/threads, and I'm going to unravel them so I can address them separately.

Quote:
Hey folks, I'd like to open up some discussion on PK, and hopefully establish some general community guidelines and expectations with regards to how, why, and when PK is used.

Personally, I've always felt that there should be something of a code of conduct with regards to these things, on more or less an honor system, to prevent abuse. Or even an IG code of conduct to minimize escalation.

- One shouldn't treat a PC like a mob during a PK attempt. When one kills a PC for 'things' they add almost nothing to the game. In exchange, they take away a great deal. When they do this with minimal to nonexistent RP, it verges on outright abuse. Other PCs are not things. They ought not be treated as pieces of one's own story so much as stories in and of themselves. Does the ending make sense? When one disregards this innate quality they cheapen, stifle, and cripple the ability of a game to serve as a storytelling mechanism.

- On the other hand, one also shouldn't be AFRAID of PK, either as the initiator or the victim. PK still has an important place in some stories, and it shouldn't be overly feared or avoided. It CAN be done with RP, sometimes great RP. The trade off on this, is that in order to not fear PK, one kind of needs to not have around a dozen reasons to be afraid of cheap PK.

While it's challenging, beyond a certain point, to really police these things fairly, I do think that players strive to play their best, and having some community standards would help, if not so much rules as guidelines.


This boils down to Rules of Engagement; this sort of thing was attempted so many times that by the time I arrived to Shadows of Isildur in '06-'07, three years late to the party, it was already an old hat. Rules of Engagement don't truly end up working, and they're probably a waste of time to type. Admin-enforced Rules of Engagement with bannings/etc. for rulebreakers don't even work; loose guidelines are a good thing, but...people likely won't follow them. I'm not going to poo-poo this anymore, though: I'll try to be helpful with the second half.

Quote:
One unfortunate side affect of the coded environment is that conflict will pretty much escalate at exponential rates, because sometimes players are more willing to escalate things in code than their characters ought be to commit violence.

- People should be more willing to engage in nonfatal combat. Unfortunately, existing combat isn't exactly conducive to this, and people are more likely to escalate than just take a beating.

- This ties in to losing. One shouldn't really obsess over whether they win or lose an IC fight on an OOC level. Especially not to such an extent that they ignore RP to endeavor to try to prevent 'losing' (ignoring injuries, escalating unnecessarily, spamfiring, twinkwalking, etc.). At the same time, this shouldn't be taken to mean that using actual TACTICS is discouraged.


The problem/reason/source of escalation is one of pride; people hate to lose, both in and out of combat. Clanleads need to realize that they are not the Sun King; they are not the state. They're a loosely-accepted, possibly-hated, possibly-liked person that could be deposed or assassinated with incredible ease. When someone bothers your organization, the -sole- response is not to kill them, or go to war. You beat them up with fists or you beat them up with a hammer to the face, or you -try- to and lose. You fight and attain minor concessions, not "everyone who just caused a diplomatic snafu is going to suffer in this war." PCs in Families are civil servants, mobsters, and family members all wrapped up into one brutal package. War is a last resort, and shooting guns all over isn't something to step into lightly.

“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

Sun Tzu said that; it's tailor-made for RPIs. We're playing flawed human beings. When you play, your character -needs- to make mistakes. No matter who you play, it's your responsibility to -give the enemy opportunities to win-. Minor victories, small things--if it's a brawl, you kick the shit out of him, but let him get one good hit in. He's your underling, and you sure as fuck make sure he knows that when he steps out of line...but sometimes he outsmarts your PC. You're going to blow his brains out--but he gets the last word in. You need to give other players the tools to -beat your PC-. You give other players the tools to make you look like an arrogant asshole, to make you look like a coward. Give people the tools to shove their dirty little fingers in all your character's wounds, to make him bleed and cry and scream and -hurt-. They'll return the favor. Playing to win is a lose-lose situation for all of us.

Re: nonfatal combat? It's not hard. I mean that -fervently-. It's not hard to kill people, but it's equally easy to -not- kill them if you keep guns out of the picture. Nonescalated, violent combat in which both parties want to -live- more than they want to -win- is easy. I've played in ten-vs-ten melees, twenty PCs fighting with real weapons and real armor; none dying. It's not hard. All you have to do is try. I can't stress that enough. If you want to kill a PC it's pathetically easy, and if you want to create sustainable combat, that's workable too. Hit not kill, let people flee, etc. Stop when people collapse.

Finally, a suggestion, specifically aimed at Staff. The reason players are so wont to shoot guns willy-nilly is the removal of coded consequences with resulted in _people getting hurt when you fuck around with guns_. Other people get shot. The code shouldn't automatically have you killing babies with every bullet, but -vNPCs should get wounded-. You want to try and bring back PK with consequences? Bring that code back.


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It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
Hyriana
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Post Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 7:28 pm      Reply with quote

First off, god yes, characters realistically being able to have weaknesses is great, I wish more people would do it.

grandpa wrote:

Finally, a suggestion, specifically aimed at Staff. The reason players are so wont to shoot guns willy-nilly is the removal of coded consequences with resulted in _people getting hurt when you fuck around with guns_. Other people get shot. The code shouldn't automatically have you killing babies with every bullet, but -vNPCs should get wounded-. You want to try and bring back PK with consequences? Bring that code back.


This is something we could use not just in gunfights but overall as a whole. The Metro gates, the hatch, when those things break people /die/, monsters flood the streets. With former turf quests, rolling hookers and gangs and children for chips should engender their hate for us. I can see how in this setting characters could be uncaring about that as long as long as they're safe, but all this stuff has consequences. VPCs are people too and if we don't treat them like that they should be throwing shit at us in the streets. For all that was wrong with the Hilda plotline I /loved/ that the VNPCs down there just hated our guts for pushing them around. Maybe this means we need more staff interaction in that line so people don't 'forget' that VNPCs are just that, not static objects that dispense chips or die off camera.


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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
kel
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:38 pm      Reply with quote

Maybe we should have the link to this treat show up in bold, repeated text during every log in.

Cause, seriously?


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kog
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:30 pm      Reply with quote

I'm going to disagree with 'Give people the tools to shove their dirty little fingers in all your character's wounds, to make him bleed and cry and scream and -hurt-. They'll return the favor' - flat-out doesn't happen in almost every instance of gunfighting I've seen. I'm at the point where, when people start getting shot at, I just log out because there'll not be any story built to it, there won't be any RP to get out of it other than 'grr they suck we have to kill them'. It seriously just sucks, and I'm at the point where I DON'T trust players to be capable of any meaningful contributions to the game as a source of conflict - and I'm proven right time and again.

Be it a person twink-walking away from a situation when guns are drawn, getting shot at because autofire, then spending an entire mag in an ambush (before twink-walking through the market, three times total, with 2 stars of health left), or randomly ganking another Family's quest (because putting on a mesh, walking over, typing in collect earnings and then gtfoing is SO HARD AND RP HEAVY, guise), or randomly shooting the crap out of NPCs while wearing a mesh, just...faith in playerbase's ability to have any sort of meaningful conflict is 0. Maybe I'm not the best at playing weaknesses out either, but I feel like I was at least giving it an honest effort. Now? I'm just not going to bother, because there's really no point.


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kel
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:02 pm      Reply with quote

Really, I have a feeling it's just a small handful, that are cheerily making the game more or less unplayable for everyone else. I hope the staff will look into disciplining for this sort of behavior. Perhaps account suspensions, or even bans.

And if they haven't already, guns and ammo should certainly be removed from the character creation shop.


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grandpa
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Entrenched Oldbie

Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:07 pm      Reply with quote

kog wrote:
I'm going to disagree with 'Give people the tools to shove their dirty little fingers in all your character's wounds, to make him bleed and cry and scream and -hurt-. They'll return the favor' - flat-out doesn't happen in almost every instance of gunfighting I've seen. I'm at the point where, when people start getting shot at, I just log out because there'll not be any story built to it, there won't be any RP to get out of it other than 'grr they suck we have to kill them'.


I'm not talking about gunfighting. The problem is that lolpk shows up because nobody's losing or even fucking playing together up to the lolpk. I'm absolutely in agreement with you that this sucks, but I'm not talking about PK. I'm talking about pride, about -losing-, about playing out a situation instead of typing 'draw; fire npc' repeatedly because you can get away with it. The lolpk exists. I get it. I'm saying that if you want to -get rid of it-, you need to play with people. You need to make yourself available for the nonlethal fun. Right now, this? This isn't playing with people, and it has -utterly nothing- to do with what I was talking about. This is what happens when roleplay is ignored and nobody plays woundable, interactive characters. When's the last time any Reds played with any Niners via anything other than radio? I'll tell you one thing: I've neither seen nor heard of a damn thing, and nothing -positive- has happened publicly in weeks. Nobody's putting time in to make this anything worth remembering; it's best buried and forgotten and the moment.

Quote:
Be it a person twink-walking away from a situation when guns are drawn, getting shot at because autofire, then spending an entire mag in an ambush (before twink-walking through the market, three times total, with 2 stars of health left), or randomly ganking another Family's quest (because putting on a mesh, walking over, typing in collect earnings and then gtfoing is SO HARD AND RP HEAVY, guise), or randomly shooting the crap out of NPCs while wearing a mesh, just...faith in playerbase's ability to have any sort of meaningful conflict is 0.


Take a step back. You're obviously in with people OOCly, hearing things, being told things. It's probably better if you -don't hear this shit- that people are doing, because it -absolutely- will kill your will to play the game. That said, maybe it's not worth playing if it's that bad. But I think hearing about these things OOCly(your clear, decisive, fervent descriptions make it clear you did) is poisonous.

Quote:
It seriously just sucks, and I'm at the point where I DON'T trust players to be capable of any meaningful contributions to the game as a source of conflict - and I'm proven right time and again.


Absolutely. It's pretty pathetic.

ETA:
kel wrote:
Really, I have a feeling it's just a small handful, that are cheerily making the game more or less unplayable for everyone else. I hope the staff will look into disciplining for this sort of behavior. Perhaps account suspensions, or even bans.

And if they haven't already, guns and ammo should certainly be removed from the character creation shop.


Again, just going to say it; nobody's -playing-. The Families aren't leading the playerbase in any manner. The Reds and Niners were 'at war' for two days before there was a post in the Boozer. You want to not see dumbasses running around lolpking...well, -lead-. -Act-. -Do-. Get out there.


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It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.
kog
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:22 pm      Reply with quote

Actually, while trying (and perhaps failing) to keep my character concealed like you're supposed to with the rules and all, this is all stuff I've seen/dealt with myself IG. It's a real headache, and it's why I AM logging in way less, because the magic's just sort of gone, replaced by a nagging fear of getting lolpk'd for ph4t l00t. Also, that's why Reds/Niners won't happen other than radio - who's gonna trust the other side to not just twink them to death? It's not one side, both groups have people like that, and they're steadily sort of flooding through the rest of the game.

This isn't on admin either, before Crayon or someone slaps me, it's on players, and I have no idea how to 'fix' it other than to avoid situations where players are the driving conflict source, because obviously as a whole they're not up to it.


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slyviolin
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Sometimes I struggle with my demons. Other times we just fuck and have cheesecake.

Post Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:32 pm      Reply with quote

Can you really judge peoples aversion to this topic only 5 hours after it was initiated Grandpa? Sorry but I think I'll use you as an example to prove my point.

The problem isn't a playerbase problem. I dare say a lot of the playerbase that use the forums read Crayon's post and like me thought 'well duh, that's just common sense', didn't have anything to add to it and moved on without posting anything. The majority didn't think 'shit, this is me all over the place let me just turn my head and pretend it was never posted'. Then you have to also account for the players that don't use the forums.

In my opinion the problem isn't a playerbase problem. It's a problem with a few (two?) individuals out of the whole playerbase that are ignoring the commonsense politeness or pk unspoken ettiquette. Trying to stir conflict without rhyme or reason or roleplay which doesn't add anything to game except segregation and turning people away since the liklihood of them dying a unsatisfying death with no roleplay is high.

My suggestion to a fix : Admin sit these individuals down and talk to them and /or handicap them if they continue to be detriments to the game.


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Chrjo12
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Post Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 12:03 am      Reply with quote

The rando pk, which as said above seems to be started by the same people, could prompt interesting rp, but the reactions aren't being handled appropriately. RP is either shut down forcibly by leaders (sorry to point fingers, but only leaders can order an entire faction to rp 'x' way) or by fear of getting superganked.

Tbh, delete guns. Or gold. Make guns a melee weapon. That'd be neat.

I think pure melee would fix a lot of things. Gives gankee time to react, even if they're getting ganked by three people. Having time to flee before getting loaded up with severe and grievous wounds out of nowhere lets people feel at least a little more free to move about Rust instead of getting holed up in their faction base and picking their nose until 3-4 other people show up.


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