PKs

It's only 2.5% and you're a tamer. You've gotta be rich by now.

Ya but it takes a long time to train magery to full and its certain death when gank squad rolls in. Weeks worth of time and bandages gone and wasted. I would rather see a penalty of perhaps unable to rez bonded pets for an hour or so. That way pet killers only cost me an hr of play instead of a weeks.

A very good point Stranger, but the guy that has invested his hard earned gold on a slayer weapon/instrument, magic armor, potions and some regs almost depleting his bank account in the process in order to get to those higher end spawn to FINALLY be able get some decent gold built up is just as pissed off by getting ganked as the guy who loses his pets.

Albeit the person who has bonded pets is heavily invested and has spent a vastly larger amount of gold in the process, but to a newb getting ganked can be almost as devastating.

Not that PKing shouldn't be allowed, freedom of choice is what has made UO one of the greatest MMO's in the history of gaming, but a system that would allow the policing of murderous activity would help balance things out IMO.

Depends on your location, if your somewhere like elder gazers where u see them rolling in this will work but if your somewhere like aw then they are on top of you too quick.

^^ And this is the beauty of classic UO.

NO other game out there can screw with your emotions like this game does.

Honestly i dont see how people without pets get pkd. A simple recall macro and your gone. Ive even considered playing a dexxer bard for farming so i sont have to die trying to save pets.

Have you ever tried an escape macro like the one I described? It actually is pretty effective. If you've got reflect up, or even better, protection to make sure you get that gate cast, it's pretty damn smooth.

Hm might work with protection i didnt think of that.

Doesn't mean we all enjoy that part of the game or that it somehow justifies a system of practically zero repercussions for "screwing" with someone.simply because the incentive to hunt down PK's would be too time consuming and unproductive for those that have PvP characters.

I've played since 1997, I've Pk'd, played siege and was heavily into factions when it came out but as I see UO in it's next incarnation, the freeshards, I tend to think that a better system of checks and balances could be implemented.

Pking should always be a part of the game but there should be an incentive for the community to police itself when it comes to PK activity.

In regards to other PvP outlets with incentive, Factions has a long list of changes waiting to be implemented, that could help. It has been discussed many times but the tendency for people to get demanding and put ultimatums on such changes, seems to get them put on the back burner more often than not. There's a few threads about it and I honestly think that working towards finding the best way to make Factions rewarding with tangible value as well as action, is going to be the greatest force to reduce PK gank squads with nothing better to do.

One of the better ideas was something along the lines of a Faction Champion Spawn that would crop up in a town and have major incentives to take down. Something that only Factioners could attack and regularly occurring to drive the action to specific locations, often.

Much of the changes will rely entirely on the ability to have 'households' so abuse is negated as best possible. Right now, everyone can have blues, reds, and a different faction for each account. Under a household system, you would not be able to have more than one Faction alignment across your accounts.

Touching on that point, perhaps a system of reward for those true to the Justice virtue, could play into it. Something where you can't have a murderer character, at all, in order to have a Justice character. The Justice character could then have the option for greater rewards when hunting murderers and perhaps even thieves. If they stray from the path of Justice, they lose that ability. Perhaps even a special dungeon or event type thing that only they could access.

Yes, the alternative rewards for players of Chaos (murderers/evildoers) could be worked in as well. However, as it stands, they already have the incentive of taking whatever loot they find on their victims, which can occasionally be highly valuable.

Blaise, you are really forging ahead with great ideas here! I hope you keep it up and maybe if others jumped on that bus we could get some meaningful changes implemented here.

Last time I checked JoinUO.com there were only 2 servers that were doing worth a crap. This one and some AoS server, and the numbers are skewed due to the amount of accounts you can have and how many characters you have macroing. I know that I have 3 characters online 24 hours a day. If I'm playing the other 2 accounts are macroing. If I'm not playing all 3 accounts are macroing. Let's be honest, this game is for old has beens like us who can't let go. It isn't attracting new blood at a rate that is sustainable, it attracts old players coming back. Would I like to see this server blossom and explode in population with exponential growth year over year? Absolutely! Should that be achieved by morphing the server every time someone cried? Hell no. Does there need to be an incentive to hunt PK's? Nope. You don't have to bribe me into doing something. If I feel it needs to be done then I do it, otherwise I adapt and move on. About the only thing that could happen to make these servers grow like you guys want them to is if OSI completely closed the doors.

I've been watching the amount of online players and who is online for the last few days (thanks to the nifty tracking stats of the website) and there are usually about 5-7% of the population notated as a murderer online at any given time. I would venture that 25% of those are dead and macroing off short terms and 50% of the remaining are macroing skills or just macroing time and the remaining 50% are actually out PKing. So that puts about 2% tops of the server in prime time actually out PKing. That equates to about 10 PK's running amuck in game out of 525 ish characters online. Divide that by 3 accounts per person and thats 175 people online minimum. So now we are at about 8% of the playing population is out PKing (which still seems high from what I've actually seen) and not all of those PK's are running together wiping the floor. I would hardly call this an epidemic that needs addressing. What I call it is people get butthurt when they want to play a MMO like a Single Player game and get forced to interact negatively with someone. So what does all my #' crunching mean?

GET SOME DAMN FRIENDS OR JOIN A GUILD, OR AT LEAST GET A RECALL MACRO. PK'S AREN'T A PROBLEM.

For the record I do not have a PK. Or a guild. Or any friends in game. Nor a problem.

Regarding "households", Pork Fried Rice had an interesting idea in another thread, which was to shut off the Platinum timer for red characters logged in.

I don't have a PK, I'm in a guild and I don't have a problem either but that doesn't mean there can't be a revamp of the bounty system that simply offers gold as an incentive to hunt down PK's.

Seriously, what kind of incentive is gold when there are many players on this server flush with literally millions of the stuff?

Sometimes a little change is a good thing.

Ervin, for someone that doesn't have a problem you sure punched that caps button pretty darn quit, perhaps you have a dog in this fight afterall.

Just as a point of discussion, would a revamped bounty system hurt the server? If so, how? DISCUSS

Ervin, PKs aren't ruining the server but they are rampant and the fact that you don't see packs of blues out looking for them, is a pretty clear indicator which hobby has more incentive/action. Shutting off platinum gain for idling reds would be a nice slap in their face but probably not really effective at curbing anything. It would just suit to make PKs feel more like second class citizens than us PvMers already make them feel.

They are an integral part of what I love about the game but I can't for the life of my rally enough people to just hang out and wait for them to come around, when we're ready to fight. If they track more than 2-3 actual pvp chars in their hunt, they just aren't going to that spot.

In short, blues need to work smarter, not harder. Get a pack of buddies at the ready, and send out bait-farmers to lure them in. Let them die with some meager loot as we wait by our runebooks ready to gate in and swarm the murderers right back.

I guess we don't truly need great incentives, but it's not easy to have Justice ready fast enough for the quick escapes that PKs tend to make.

My dog in the fight is that I love the old UO where there is one ruleset for the lands. That is my biggest requirement ina shard. Add monsters, add crafting, add custom stuff. Keep neon colors, item properties likes AoS, and keep carebear areas out of UO and I'm OK. I enjoy the feeling of I am not safe anywhere I go. I like knowing that if someone tries to screw me over and I can give it right back to them.

Maybe it's because I'm such a red blooded deep conservative American that the thought of handouts and someone being my nanny just makes me want to puke.

.

from the meme folder of atraxi

Who?

Just don't ask...