Concerning auras:
I like the idea, but would limit it to those characters that would have the ability to ''see'' auras. Alignment is generally decided by law (which is classically based on mad ravings of prophets, which are based on deific rulings)... therefore those who would have anything to do with the supernatural (priests, witches, seers, oracles, and the like) would have access to the ability to perceive auras.

Concerning PvP:
If you examine the reason for mindless PvP, I believe the main motive is the power trip the aggressor obtains from the confrontation. Hence there''s no real reason why they would hold someone hostage or for ransom... hostages and ransoms are usually begotten by political terrorists, not small time psychotics. I really don''t know what to do except allow the roleplayers to decide (Out Of Character or In Character, whichever applies) what happens to PvP PKers, because the game is not designed for them to rule.

I do plan to implement "overpowering" concepts, such as using rope / shackles / etc to bind a character to immobilate them, but I may make them voluntary too (rather acting out the part than powertripping over another character with ropes and such).



MatrixCubed
http://MatrixCubed.org

I think that if there are no gains from simple PKing and a lot of risks, the PKers wont get too powerfull, and so, they wont get very good at PKing. If the game requires serious cooperation to advance, the mindless PKers wont stand a chance in the latter phases of the game.

The newbie PKers shouldnt be able to know not only the aura of their victim (great ideea btw), but their level, fighting skill, magic ability, weapons quality, etc. So, unless they do some research on their victim (which takes them out of the smalltime psychotic category), they will most likely attack a guy more powerfull than they are (sooner or later).

As for the more advanced players, they can be thwarted from mindless PKing by more subtle ways, cause they have a lot to loose.


A good deterant from PK would be a tactics option for every player (like the coward setting in adom) that cuts the attack alot and increases the defence alot. If killing takes a lot of time, the victim can shout for help or run away, at least if he is near a town. Or, he can try to talk his way out. Tales of hidden treasures, true or not might just do the trick. Or, even if the PKer is a better warrior than the victim, he just might not be able to do the required damage anyway and just bugger off.


Newbie players should travel in packs (at least with some NPC'' round them) in remote good for ambushes areas. Single travelers in dangerous places probably have a reason for such confidence, and they should be left alone, or else.


PKing isnt really that bad. It allows for a lot of intresting stuff happening. It should only be hard and risky. And near impossible in some safe havens like towns, etc. Or plain impossible near churches, temples, etc. Magic things happening like energy shield that protects the attacked or the attackers weapon turning to dust can work. I think out of game actions against PK-ers like kicking off the server or not allowing too many characters are worse than not allowing PK at all. Hanging, beheading, throwing out of guilds, polymorphing into orc and banning to orc city (where PK is not only allowed, but encouraged, as the mindless newbie PKer will soon find out ), etc make the game a lot better.


PS

Just remembered a great Nethack feature : engrave "Elbereth" on the dungeon floor and the creatures (PC''s) around you cant attack

I think the idea of auras is a great one but I think it might be better to implement it as a reputation system similar to the one describe by Sandman. The weaker your opponent is than you the more your reputation decreases (To discourage killing of newbies). A character''s reputation wouldn''t necessarily be available to all characters. As well as a reputation characters could have a fame rating to indicate how well know a player is. This would dictate how much information is available about a player. For instance if a player is famous then you could easily determine their reputation, strength, etc but if the character is relatively unknown then, unless you''ve had frequent encounters with them, you would be unable to determine their reputation. Fame would be determined by the frequency and magnitude of a players actions, for instance if a player went around murdering a lot of other innocent players they would become famous (or rather infamous) very quickly and their reputation would become very well known.

The single most effective way to reduce PKing, IMHO, is to give it significant consequences (loss of reputation, becoming wanted and having a bounty on your head, merchants refusing to trade with you among other things) and little reward.

With regards to resurrection, I think that it should be allowed but in the way it is in pen and paper RPGs in that you are resurrected by fellow player characters and if they choose not to resurrect you then you are dead. This would encourage players to group together into teams, and if the players decide not to resurrect a fellow companion word could get round and their reputation would decrease. A lot of the problems with MMORPGs comes from the fact that there is very little to do other than kill, kill, kill.

Minute per second? Is this a game or a sim? So, a good chat might last for hours or days in game time? I don''t think too many people will want to play with their character for 16 minutes (16 game hours) and then let them sleep for eight minutes.

Interesting people doing interesting things in interesting locations. Watching your character sleep or use the out house is not an interesting thing.

Some suspension of belief is part of a game or story. It you really want to simulate the waking habits of online users, make a virtual artifical world populated by computer avatars ala
Tron, Snow Crash, or Donner Jack. A game about a game so to speak. Everyone except the bots knows that they are holograms or VR constructs. Death and age are not issues since you can be digitally restored. This opens up the possibility of many virtual worlds with specific rules for magic or high technology. Kind of like a VR version of WestWorld...

Just my .02 credits.
--
TAZ

The reputation system sounds like a better idea, after all pkilling isn''t really a problem if we can eliminate the "powerful prey upon the weak and the new" syndrome that seems prevalent.

However, I believe it would work even better, if combined with alignment. (Elemental alignments are used for clarity) Should a fire-aligned, high-level player gut a low-level fire-aligned newbie, they would lose a large amount of reputation (someone who slays their bretheren is usually dispised). If the newbie had been aligned with water, the more powerful pkiller would still have lost experience, but only half as much (The victim never stood a chance, but then, the victim was working for the enemy.

Conversely, a weak water-aligned player-character slaying a powerful water-aligned player would only gain half as much reputation as if they slew a fire-aligned power (Again, they slw their bretheren, but they gain respect for their prowess).



Virtual Worldlets, the home of online worlds

The ''aura'' idea was mainly formed to create a situation where both parties could be appeased:

a) the ones that want to stay out of PVP while at the same time remaining with the slight threath of getting killed by others (because it DOES add to the game in my opinion, when there is always that feeling of being watched, being hunted)

b) the ones that want to play PVP but do want some sort of challenge out of it AND do want some form of ''standing'' for their efforts (in short, they want to see the effect of their kills)

The aura itself could be made into a nice graphical feature (at night, those with dark auras might go undetected, but they sure would stand out during the day; and playing a knight would finally pay off, as your armour will shine even brighter with the bright aura of your good deeds surrounding it)

Still, the idea of somehow showing the deeds of a player graphically and really creating a consequence for those deeds, can be applied in more than just RPG settings. Imagine playing a Quake-type of game, where players can gain power through
a) collecting powerups (the slow way)
b) killing other players (the fast way)
Killing another player would grant power, but also a darkening of ''aura''. And a darker aura makes you a more attractive prey to other predators, as they will gain more from killing you than from killing a light aura player.

The aura seemed like a good solution for the RPG PK issue, because there are a lot of other options that can be combined with it. For example, you could, as mentioned, only make certain players be able to detect the auras. Or the auras could only be detected in certain circumstances. Maybe a spell (See Aura) would have to be cast first. And maybe there could be counterspells to (Hide Aura) which would make for nice infiltration quests.

And of course, the ''status'' effect would be huge. I bet players would try to become either as ''bright'' as possible or as ''dark'' as possible.

But in the end, I think it would be most important to make the ''aura'' fit in a persistent world. Personally, I find the reputation systems always a bit lacking, because they depend on ''witnesses'' of your actions. If I kill a victim when nobody is around, there should be no complications from that murder, for example.

I''m sure there could be reputation systems that DO work though

I don''t really like the aura ideea. If you''ll hard code the punishments for PKing, why allowing PK at all ? Why not make an arena where PK is allowed and let the players PK only if they want ?

Instead, you should focus on ways to make a crime''s author more detectable. Have NPC''s remember who passed by and where they went. Have some spells that can test whether a character killed other character. Have some companion pets smell a track. Have some close friends of a character know when something bad happened to him and call the cops(family maybe?). Create a NPC ghost after the character goes away and let this ghost haunt the PKiller. Make some classes (paladin, necromancer) able to learn stuff from this ghost. Or, able to cast a "free spirit" on the ghost to clear the evidence.

Things like automated aura/reputation drive the fun out of killing. Killing should be a very extreme crime, punishable by, obviously, death. (No resurection please). Killing and getting away with it is so so fun, I woudnt want it banned from a game. Not after going to so much trouble to allow PK anyways.

And getting killed needs some newbie stupidity too. Why the hell did he travell alone ? Why did he go into the dark forest ?! Why did everybody back in town learn he won the lottery ticket and he has his pockets full of cash ?!

If you hard code a system for Pkillers to work within, it simply channels pking, works it into a meaningful direction. This is not the same as dropping it entirely. Doing away with pkilling has too many repercussions. The ability to pkill is sometimes necessary.

For example, a thief steals a valuable item from you. You catch them doing it. If pking wasn''t possible, in this situation, you could do nothing to force them to return the item. Seriously wounding them would make them change their mind however.

What the aura system does is limit pking to only those situations where the player has been pushed to extremes, and to the dedicated pkers, who will indirectly find themselves forced to slay each other.



Virtual Worldlets, the home of online worlds

I agree with diodor, if you want a "living, breathing" world it would be much better to find ways for real life consequences. After all, where´s the fun if everyone can see you´re a good or a bad guy.

IMO if there are enought repercussions for killing then players will think twice about it, without pking losing its appeal.

That´s just the way it goes, sometimes you get a dagger in the back when walking home from the tavern.

There have been a lot of good ideas here, pets, spells, npc witnesses, maybe forensic magic (tells you what the offender looked like, or maybe recall the last memories of the victim.. but probably expensive). Then, if the identity of the killer is known there can be wanted ads all over town, with automatic checks if the player sees a criminal (maybe an inelligence roll to determine what he recalls?). Bounties for capture? Punishment that´s according to the offence... hanging for a murderer, but maybe public flogging (loss of reputation, maybe some stats get lowered), or chopping off a finger or a hand for thieves, fines for other stuff, maybe banishment from the city.... there´s a lot of alternatives.

Then people will think twice about killing, even if they are set on the evil path (if you knock him out and steal his purse you will at least live if you get caught)....

I have some really cool ideas for alignment that are dependent on actions and witnesses, but I''ll save those for a surprise in the game.

"And when you kill a man, you''re a murderer. Kill many, and you''re a conqueror. Kill them all... oh, you''re a god!"
- Dave Mustaine, Megadeth

Who says alignment and good/evil are not relative?




MatrixCubed
http://MatrixCubed.org