I wanted to take a little time to review some of the past threads about PVP before expanding my thoughts on this. I don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to speak for them by quoting sections of their posts, or trying to form a consensus(which is very hard to do just looking at years of forum posts). It's also worth pointing out that a roughly equal number of people have voiced
support for the current rules. To the topic at hand, just to get the ball rolling though:
I would say that with how people often respond to the warning with immediately buffing up instead of answering in osay maybe we should make the reply optional.
So are people interested in counting smotes? Timing the length or a prelude?
The problem with this method (and honestly, the OSAY method), is that it gives a disenfranchised party something to latch onto and complain about--and both parties something to try and game around or skimp on. The complaint I made was admittedly nothing but that: I got rocked, lost an item, and in my fury looked for even the most negligible thing to latch onto to explain how I lost. I imagine this accounts for a bulk of complaints.
Any method where you give a "decorum" for someone to adhere to, the complaints will arise from those who adhere to them against those who break them--so why not try removing all but the barest, most necessitated courtesies and really hammering home the policing on people who break those cows we consider most sacred?
What would happen if we just went back to doing a proper rp before a pkill situation and limiting pk to one on one combat? I'm fine with people issuing ooc warnings, but I don't see it as essential. I'm of the opinion that If you've earned a pk and can't tell ic then you may need to step back and see what's going on.
I agree that the OOC bit is a redundant.
Now I just really try not to bother anymore with PvP (a pretty difficult thing when Kelemvor's chosen is turning a blind eye to all those zombie makers XD), and twice since I've made that decision I've done what's asked of me in helpfiles and walked away ICly from a tense situation, and both times I was told OOCly from the other player(s) that it was poor form and a let down on their side.
The two threads these quotes are cited from, for full context: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20096 & viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20662
Gripes surrounding the modern rules for PVP, historically, have to do with the OOC warning seeming at best unnecessary, at worst, an abuseable line to throw a complaint down over. Then there's the actual wording of the rule itself:
If you believe a PvP situation is likely then you
..must notify the other player as soon as possible via OSAY and the
..other player(s) must acknowledge that.
Specifically, the bit about them needing to acknowledge it has, in my personal experience with PvP, been the largest "grey area" about the whole thing. Some people interpret this as them needing to
agree to the PvP. I had an unfortunate experience once where an IC situation was escalating quickly, and I issued the OOC warning only to be told "No". ICly they continued to act very aggressively but when I again tried to make it clear that PvP was likely, I had to sit through a solid 5 minutes of being berated in OSAYs before they logged out on the spot. This was unfortunately was not a new player, but a veteran around longer than me who ought to have known better.
Even when it's not interpreted that way, there's an uncomfortable greyness in them needing to
acknowledge it. I could recount half a dozen times I have, or seen someone else, issue the OOC warning only for the other party to never respond to it. Their character will sit there on the fountain, nose in the air, hurling smug insults at someone who could take their head off at half effort - But they never cast an aggressive spell, and they never acknowledge the warning, so what are you supposed to do? Sometimes I just kill them anyway, but it's never an enjoyable experience.
These are again only personal experiences, I can't speak for the experiences others have had with PVP. It's also worth noting now that I haven't actually engaged in aPVP situation recently - The last time I did was nearly a year ago, now. It involved upwards of five people who were not coordinating any of it OOC, yet none of us felt the need to observe the rule about warnings, and it was one of the more satisfying experiences I've had with PvP in my time on FK - But it was followed not a few months after by a prime example of "unhealthy" PvP. For the most part my experience with PKs have been extremely negative on FK and the #1 reason for that is the "clunkyness" inherent to this OOC warning.
It's not really a secret that I dislike the rules surrounding PvP, though. "Why do noncombat spells start a PvP confrontation, but drawing a sword doesn't?", "If my character's friend sends a tell for help but I'm 11 rooms away in an area, am I supposed to just watch?". Then there's some personal philosophy as well. I don't osay to the red dragon that a fight might be about to break out; He's a dragon, he knows what he's doing and why we came marching in with weapons drawn. I don't see that there's a significant difference between the risk we accept by wandering into the Underdark where we could potentially die, and the risk we accept by antagonizing other murderhobos.
I also think that the success of the first Starving Festival event, counting both contenders and interested parties sponsoring them, shows that at least a significant portion of the playerbase wants more than an increase in reward, but an increase in
risk. I don't think that PK should be open season as we do still have new players to think about, but broadly speaking I don't think bad things happen often enough to nearly enough characters. Which is a shame, because players almost always remember the RPs resulting from the bad things that happened to their character as one of the highlights of their time on FK. It's exciting. Unfortunately, negative experiences with PvP "conduct" means a lot of players actively avoid engaging in it(I'm now one of them, unless my character's been drawn into it in a way that's difficult for them to refuse).
Anyway, I imagine a lot of this is total word vomit so forgive me. Once again, I'd just like to say that I have been mostly disconnected from the game for the first half of 2018, so I can't speak for what the environment right now is like. I'm eager to see what other people are saying about this topic. I feel like I should just throw this on at the end of this post too, but nothing I've said is meant to be a personal attack on anyone, or taken as hostile in any way.
