While I do not disagree with some of the people, such as crafters, who do not enjoy getting slaughtered, I think we need to get something clear. If you are expecting people to be nice to you out of the goodness of their hearts, forget it. What other players are doing that upsets you is exactly what this game's design allows them to do. You cannot expect anything more or less.

So where does this leave us? Notorious has handed you a game with a set of rules that you are stuck with, at least for now. Are they going for realism? In the real world after a global disaster, no one would care if you were a crafter, a low level noob, or a suckling child. They will kill you and take your stuff. They may even eat you and use your bones for weapons, armor and Lincoln Logs for their own children.

Seems to me there are only two options (or a combination of both):

1) Notorious starts coding in some safety mechanisms to make things easier for players not interested in combat.
2) The game community comes together and figures out a way to deal with this as best they can within the construct of the game play mechanics.

We know that #1 will work, but it will also start restricting the game in ways we may not even understand yet. Some trade off may be ok here, but only testing will tell. #2 is a serious wildcard because basically the only option we have is to "police" each other with our own combat players. This will require a lot of effort, and would likely end up being a gameplay style that would take up most of people's play time. Basically they have to become military or police players that spend all of their time working that aspect of the game.

The bottom line is that complaining about these things isn't going to accomplish anything. Players are not going to play by your version of the rules when the game allows them to do anything they want, more or less. Understand that there is a fairly large chunk of the gaming population that gets off on griefing and being bullies for no other reason than Mommy and Daddy didn't hug them enough. They are the same people who have little sense of values in the real world, or they are cowards who like to e-bully because they have no strength (of any kind) in the real world. They exist, and you have to game with them.

I suspect in the end if Notorious doesn't plan to deal with this through gameplay mechanics, the game will suffer the loss of players who are more interested in community building (crafting, medicine, social, political, etc) and the game will devolve into a PvP-fest until everyone gets sick of it and leaves. Real longevity in a sandbox game relies on a nice balance of everything so that it pulls in a diverse player base. I personally do not believe player policing will work to any degree that will make people happy. It simply requires some to take on a huge responsibility and trade actual game time for a second job.

Thoughts?

** EDIT FOR CLARITY ON THE PVP ISSUE: I am not saying PvP is bad. I enjoy it myself. The people I am ripping on above are the griefers who simply play the way they do to irritate others. You are welcome to disagree, but I think they suck. I also understand that what constitutes 'griefing' is subjective. Those of you who are looking for a PvE only game are in the wrong place.