Non Violent forms of PVP

[maelwydd]

what you're describing isnt a sandbox.
that is called a 'managed event'.
the world you describe is a nanny state...where you have someone watching your every move to make sure you don't step outside of some preordained set of rules/laws/restrictions...and if you did there were severe consequences. That is not a sandbox.

sandbox is make your own rules. make your own laws. and of course figure out how to enforce them.

it's a sandbox because the player shapes their reality...they don't just fall into someone else's pre-set version of it...and if you don't like the reality you've dropped into, then you have the power to change it. The key concept is that the players have the power to enforce whatever vision they want. It's up to the devs to deliver us a (working) game that gives the tools to the players to effectively control and manage the world. There are alread a ton of games out there where you get to play in a dev imagined reality with preset rules and standards.

oh, and to your question...i will absolutely not play a game that dictates how i have to play it. If i want to play an evil entity...great i should be able to. If i want to play as the good guy...great i should be able to. The funny thing is, we typically try to allign ourselves to the side that stands the have the most fighting to do. In this game that very well may be protecting the crafter states. You just can't do a game like this then try to shove it into some pre-conceived box.

Sorry but the game was totally sandbox. They just didn't allow dicks to play.

Official Griefing Rules
I. Definition of Griefing

Grief-style playing, or grief-ing, is illegal. Grief-ing is defined by any style of play that makes the person playing a character feel legitimate and genuine distress and anger through disruption of their gaming session.

A. PvP, CvC

The primary area where the team gets griefing complaints is when one character kills another. On #, we will make an important distinction: Player versus Player (PvP) is prohibited. Character versus Character (CvC) is allowed. A "player" is defined by the person sitting behind the screen playing the game. A "character" is defined by the alternate personality you portray within the game. Characters can have disagreements and fight over them, but as soon as it becomes a personal matter between the players behind the characters, it is no longer justified.

B. What counts as griefing?

As you can see from the definition above, what counts as griefing is somewhat vague. The team will not attempt to define every conceivable instance of griefing. We can give both rules and guidelines for how to conduct yourself in CvC combat.

The most important aspect of the definition of griefing is the phrase "legitimate distress." Stress is a natural part of any game. There are always things we don't like, things that frustrate us, and things that make us angry. None of these things are "legitimate distress" and none of them are griefing. But where does it cross the line from natural stress into legitimate distress? Genuine and Legitimate Distress is generally any kind of stress that exceeds the expected IC vision of #.

Example 1: Your character is involved in a faction war and gets killed by an opposing player. The Player doesn't RP the situation great but at least made an attempt. The player took some potions and arrows from your corpse amounting to about 1000 gold. No griefing.

Example 2: Your character is a completely new level 1, unknown to anyone. A level 18 character hits you with a death spell and then loots you. Just for kicks they meet you on the way back to your corpse and kill your character again. The player sends no tells, and doesn't say a thing IC. Griefing.

Example 3: You exchange tells regularly with other players. One of the players sends numerous tells. None of them are benign or threatening but you're beginning to get annoyed with them. You ask them to stop but they continue. You send an email to the Team who politely asks them to stop as well. They continue. Guilty of both griefing and disobeying the Team, A ban is highly probable.

1. Burden of Proof

The burden of proof in any CvC encounter rests primarily upon the initiating and/or victorious character or party. It is your responsibility to take steps necessary to ensure the fun of the other person.

2. The Dislike Setting

Prior to initiating any CvC, the attacker should set his prey to hostile. The prey should not use this as an OOC warning to start buffing or run away. Setting hostile allows the defender to react properly and for spells and feats to operate properly once the battle starts. Yes, it is easy for a person to forget every once in a while, but flagrant or consistent disregard of the rule will be punished by vault jail.

3. 24 hour cooldown between fight-encounters

If two characters engage in a fight that ends in either a trip to the death-plane or a bleeding script, the two characters should not engage in another fight in the same 24 hour period. For example, the death planed character should not immediately try to kill the second character upon returning from the death plane. Both characters are free to pursue fights with different characters provided there is IC justification and both characters are free to relate the situation ICly to other characters who may take action on their own, but no two characters should engage in a multiple CvC fights in the same 24 hour period.

4. Proper IC motivation

The attacking character must show that their character had proper motivation for attacking (and presumably killing the defending character). You cannot use the excuse “because my character is evil.” Proper IC motivation means something that is deep, well-defined. If you can describe your motivation in a single sentence, then your IC-motivation is insufficiently developed. The goal of this rule is not to encourage people to develop elaborate justification, but to encourage them to immerse themselves in the world-setting and to meet many characters and develop relationships with them, some of which may be antagonistic.

5. In addition to having an IC motivation, it is the burden of the attacking-player to state the IC motivation to the opposing player. This can be done IC, through a battle-cry and conversation in the bleeding script (preferred), or by sending tells to the other player. A player who fails to make his IC motivation clear to the other player is in danger of grief style play.

6. Team Investigations of Griefing

Log files are imperative to investigations of griefing. Without any log files, the team is very limited in what they can do to follow-up griefing reports. Consequently, all players are encouraged to save log follows from CvC incidents.

7. Retribution by the victim

If the victim is able to discover through IC means the identity of their assailant, either they or their friend may retaliate against the assailant or any of their known friends. This meets the requirement for an IC justification. Any further battle is still subject to the other requirements of CvC encounters, i.e. setting hostile, providing IC justification to the opposing player. All players are strongly encouraged to avoid allowing the need for retribution to get out of hand by either widening the scope of the encounter or conducting retribution disproportionately. Remember, in CvC encounters, it is the responsibility of the players involved to look out for each other's fun.

8. Logging out to avoid consequences Any player who logs out of the server to avoid the IC consequences of their actions specifically in relation to a CvC encounter but this also applies to other situations is committing an Exploit. First offense will be a 2 week term of Vault Jail. Second offense is Banning.

II. Policy on Role-playing sexuality and Pregnancy

A. Adult Server

is considered an adult server. Players are free to explore any of a number of issues that might or might not be appropriate to children. We have seen fit however to place important restrictions on some aspects of sexuality. While some players may feel that non-consensual sexuality is a standard feature of most mythologies and many good works of literature, we have deemed it inappropriate for #.

B. Roleplaying Sex Crimes in # or any owned ## medium is expressly forbidden

1. A sex crime is defined as: a. Any non-consensual In-Character sexuality of any kind b. Any non-consensual Out-of-Character sexuality of any kind c. Any form of sexuality that involves a person under the age of eighteen whether consensual or not.

2. Roleplaying sexuality includes: a. Physically role-playing specific acts. b. Generating any story involving any such sexual acts. c. Making IC accusations or spreading IC rumors about sexual acts. d. Including Sex Crimes in your character's background.

3. Punishment: There is a zero-tolerance policy for Role-playing sex crimes. Punishment will be immediate ban from the server. Please do not look for any loopholes. If what you are caught doing is considered to be in violation of the spirit of the rule, you will be banned.

C. Roleplaying Pregnancy

1. Pregnancy will not be allowed on ## in any form. The Team recognizes that two players may have their characters get married, but the players are not to Role-play pregnancy.

2. PCs will not have any children until they are permanently retired and become NPCs, and those children are not playable as PCs.

3. After you have permanently retired your PC, Do not roll up any PC’s child as a character. PCs do not have children, either before becoming a PC, nor during their time as a PC, nor do they have playable children after retirement. This is to avoid either cheesy backgrounds or cheesy new characters.

4. Punishment for the first infraction is a simple warning, followed by vault jail and/or banning.

III. Policy on Pickpocketing

A. Do not repeatedly target the same PC, especially Newbies. This is considered unrealistic. This will be considered griefing.

B. Do not pickpocket a PC engaged in the crafting script. The menus prevent them from reacting appropriately.

C. When using pickpocket on a PC, you must set hostile before making the attempt. While this does make the attempt more difficult, the other person is forced to set you to hostile before responding appropriately.

D. Rules on Items Taken: Sometimes the engine may permit you to take items that should not be pickable. Examples include items bigger than a pocket, such as shields, armor, and most weapons, or plot items. If you receive such an item by accident, you are immediately required to return it in inconspicuous OOC way and you may not use any knowledge of the item in an IC way.

IV. You may be griefing if…

These are the most common things that are reported to the Team concerning griefing. Incidents are judged on a case by case basis, but in almost all the cases below, you will probably be considered griefing...Let the griefer beware.

A. You participate in some form of faction war (guild or other) and kill people who are not participating in the war

B. You kill an opposing faction player, and then kill them again when they retrieve their corpse and have only 5 hitpoints.

C. You kill the same person multiple times in a short span of time.

D. You kill someone in the faction war without giving any indication of which side you are on before killing them. A small battlecry would suffice. But simply walking up and killing without warning is borderline.

E. You repeatedly loot the same player in a short period of time.

F. You loot dry any player.

G. You say that any of the above mentioned cases do not apply to you because you are an "evil character".

H. You attack a PC who is defenselessly stuck in the crafting script (or any other ###### script that renders them defenseless).

I. You harass another player in tells: This includes but is not limited to sending numerous unsolicited Tells,failing to stop sending tells when instructed by another player to stop, sending tells that contain inappropriate content such as sexual or racial slurs, sending otherwise disrespectful or insulting tells to other players.

J. You threaten another player with griefing charges in order to duck out of IC responsibility for your character's actions.

K. You use racial slurs, curse excessively, use sexist language, taunt excessively or otherwise denigrate another player.

[Dubanka]

Sorry but the game was totally sandbox. They just didn't allow dicks to play.

again with the name calling. tisk tisk.

logical rational response, get called names. hrmph.

[maelwydd]

You got in before my edit, forgot to add ruleset...see above

[Redemp]

Person 1 : Geez, people who steal old ladies purses are assholes.
Person 2 : You calling me an asshole
Person 1 : No , unless you steal old ladies purses.
Person 2 : Well I don't, but it sure sounds like you're calling me an asshole simply because I admired her purse.
Person 1 : .......
Person 2 : So you ARE calling me an asshole!


....... Yeah

[Vicid]

How is it a sandbox if you're penalized (with your character being deleted essentially) for doing what the game's mechanics let you?

[Dubanka]

sorry...nanny state.

the game is dictating when i can, or can not do something. and if i violate those arbitrary constraints i'm banned.

ok johnny, wait for jimmy to be ready...jimmy are you ready? Ok johnny, go try to steal from him now that he's ready. Oh nice try *clap clap*. Oh, now dont you bows talk mean to each other...cmon now, be nice. Oh jimmy, why did you have to kill johnny...i know he just said some mean things to you, but you didn't need to kill him. Now i have to ban you for killing him when he wasn't ready to be killed.

ick.

[maelwydd]

sorry...nanny state.

the game is dictating when i can, or can not do something. and if i violate those arbitrary constraints i'm banned.

ok johnny, wait for jimmy to be ready...jimmy are you ready? Ok johnny, go try to steal from him now that he's ready. Oh nice try *clap clap*. Oh, now dont you bows talk mean to each other...cmon now, be nice. Oh jimmy, why did you have to kill johnny...i know he just said some mean things to you, but you didn't need to kill him. Now i have to ban you for killing him when he wasn't ready to be killed.

ick.

It is called playing with others in a social game. I guess you also didn't read the rules otherwise you would make a joke about something that doesn't happen. Guess you don't get it because the game requires a certain level of maturity. Guess you just don't get it.

[Vicid]

For the record we would love you to build a jail in game and try to force us in to it. It wouldn't be very good right now without asset destruction but assuming one day the devs have asset destruction and no safe zones an in game jail would be very welcome.

[maelwydd]

How is it a sandbox if you're penalized (with your character being deleted essentially) for doing what the game's mechanics let you?

It only penalises you if you abuse the level of freedom given by being an unreasonable arse.

For the record we would love you to build a jail in game and try to force us in to it. It wouldn't be very good right now without asset destruction but assuming one day the devs have asset destruction and no safe zones an in game jail would be very welcome.

I hope they do introduce it.

[ifireallymust]

I fully intend to destroy resources and "grief" my unwanted neigbors and enemies as much as possible.

You know why? Because I am a roleplayer. A good one at that... I plan to utilize real life war tactics in leading my band of apocolyptic bandits and ruffians.

Historically there are many instances where "Scorched Earth" military strategies have been utilized by both attackers and defenders. Beating your enemy isn't always about man on man combat.... Sometimes you have to starve them out. Why would I leave you trees to build walls and weapons with? Why would I leave your crops intact so you can have well fed and hearty warriors to fight me with? Why would I leave your rivers flowing and unpoisoned?

"In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's brutal conquest and subjugation of the North of England, William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees, and slaughtered the inhabitants. Foodstores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over the winter. The survivors were reduced to cannibalism, with one report stating that the skulls of the dead were cracked open so that the brains could be eaten. Between 100,000 and 150,000 perished and the area took centuries to recover from the damage."

I will leave a wake of smoking ruin in my path... Why? Because I can. Because I want to. And that's well within the realm of good roleplaying.

History has provided us with many "griefers". Did people sit around and wait for "God" to put artificial limitations on Adolf Hitler? No, people banded together, built a war machine, and whooped his ass. Mind you that many of these people were dirt poor uneducated peaceful farmers like my Grandfather.

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Murder Herd's role in DarkFall was a great example of this. We constantly harrassed everyone that was not in our guild. We killed people by the hundreds on a daily basis. We refused every single offer to ally, to change our ways, and to submit to the massive alliances. CoC offered us elite positions, our own holdings, treasures, etc... Yet we still told them to stuff it up their asses because we had integrity and stuck to our chosen roleplay and playstyle despite it's downfalls.

This resulted in about 30 guilds equaling about 300 people sieging our city. It was an epic battle. If it weren't for the general douchebaggery of the CoC I'd say it was a perfect example of the player base governing itself and absolutely a great example of the politics that can evolve in an open world. Unfortunatly Darkfall turn out to be poopy not long after that and almost everyone quit... but that's beside the point.
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So enough with this whiney griefing shit. There are people in the world that want to hurt and destroy for no other reason than to watch their victims suffer. That's reality, and Xsyon should be no different. You can't have good without evil. So learn deal with it in game, learn to appreciate it for the dynamics it can bring, or find something else to play.

Epic battles are nice. So are successful assassinations with real penalties for the targets. Like permadeath or severe, difficult to regain stat loss.

You mentioned Hitler, so I'll mention my favorite assassin (it's just a shame he failed):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser

Elser chose the next anniversary of the Hitler Putsch, when Hitler would return to Munich, and decided to kill him with a bomb during his speech.

Long story short, this guy worked entirely alone to construct a bomb in a pillar where Hitler would be giving a speech. He built it perfectly and concealed it perfectly, and it went off exactly when it was supposed to. But Hitler got lucky and wasn't there when he was supposed to be. Now I'm not a fan of bombs for assassination, because there's too much chance of killing an innocent bystander, but Elser had brains and courage, and he was motivated by the belief that what he was doing was right. And he didn't need a zerg to back him when he finally decided to take action. Elser was just unlucky, and sometimes that's how it goes.

And I bring Elser up because, with proper mechanics to prevent tribal leaders from losing their vulnerability to assassination by swapping out leadership roles or confining leadership roles to low level alts or to one player without regard to tribe size, an assassination penalty could counterbalance the numbers game in many ways. Powerful leaders of large groups should always fear the the shadows, poison, or an arrow from a nearby ridge. Just as everyone from homesteader soloers to other large tribes would have to work hard and smart to defend themselves against your numbers in the picture you've painted of your ideal MMO world, so you and all leaders and all their followers should have to work hard and smart to prevent assassination, theft, and sabotage from within and without. Want realism, then look past numbers. There are other ways to win wars.