Piracy

[Tyrrano]

Piracy is becoming a plague. Opportunistic players wait for weapons to drop, kill entire towns, then steal a boat and kill everyone in sight. This disrupts the core of the game because they play as if they are only out to win. Also, with varying schedules, exiting a locked building, attacking, and leaving again is unbelievably easy. It is very difficult to stop such attackers especially with the supposed restrictions on weapon resources some areas have imposed. It is insane to allow developing societies to be quashed again and again by the pedantic actions of youths just out to win. There should be changes allowed to prevent the exit of a locked building, an attack, and re-entry, a slowing of the process to allow for the varying schedule of other people, such as making such an action traspire at the end of an 'hour'. That gives everyone a chance to defend themselves. Passing through locked doors taking an 'hour' is very reasonable. Undocking should take ... two 'hours' or some such long period of time to discourage the raiders that think they can attack, undock, redock, attack again, and ruin towns that have no ability to defend themselves other than to hide.

[The Industriallist]

I entierely disagree, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the absurd suggestion that raiding, pillaging, etc. is in any way detrimental to the core of the game, or that 'playing to win' is in any way wrong, so long as that is a property of the character. Obviously, if a player has devoted their entire account to piracy there may be a problem, but not one that warrents this type of solution.

Secondly that it is overly difficult to stop such raiders. A little experience in the KDS region shows that piracy tends to be a suicidal occupation when faced with an effective opposition. I think they've put away over a half-dozen pirates in the past 10 years or less.

Thirdly that there's anything absurd about 'developing societies' being quashed by pirates. Here on the moderately unpleasant globe we call earth, groups that couldn't defend themselves have always been crushed, slaughtered, and enslaved. Cantr hasn't even approached the level of hazard that ought to be present.

Fourthly, that the decidedly different issue of buildings in warfare as a problem. It is true that at the tech level where only iron is available, a locked building is a nearly unbeatable weapon, if your enemy gives you a chance to use it properly. Although an iron shield is nearly as effective, and much cheaper and more convenient to use. That is now a very thin tech level, however. Organizations can easily aspire to produce their first steel in the same year as their first iron. Furthermore, if building use was weakened to the degree you suggest, the defender advantage that is widely appreciated and most likely reallistic as well would be destroyed, and in fact replaced by a significant attacker advantage. Additionally, such a modification would make safe handeling of dangerous prisoners entirely impossible.

A fifth point is the difficulties that result from processes that take only one or two hours. Such actions can cost essentially an entire day to a player who cannot log on frequently.

A sixth is that in-game restrictions on weapons resources have no bearing here, they are rather problems (or possibly solutions) to be dealt with in-character. Besides, if you can't find a way to get steel weapons, you aren't trying hard enough. Crowbars...those are a mite tricky.

A seventh, and much less interesting point is that you ought to know the meaning of words before you use them...'pedantic' had nothing to do with what you are talking about, unless I'm deeply confused.

[Junesun]

I happen to know that Jos is about to introduce something that will make sure people need more time if they want to slaughter a whole town, so that the town gets more chances to defend itself.

[Agar]

Sounds like another combat system change. Ye gods. Soon we'll have to travel great distances to find rare and elusive sources of water, because if we don't wash our hands after eating we get sick and die.

[The Industriallist]

I'm hoping for something minor but effective. Like no more than N hits per day, for some small N (3-5 I would say).

Or even 2-is attacks per hour...though that gives evil people who log on a lot (like me) an immense edge. Which is a bad thing.

I'm enthusiastically hoping that it won't be something where hurting people takes actual time...

Guess we'll see.

[Solfius]

I would personally prefer a combat project, as that would keep in with the style of the game, mostly being project based, and "progress" becomes hitting your target.

Actually, it would be quite fun to have a combat project....if you could imagine you attack a person, so every hour untill you break off you attack (attack values would need adjusting for balance and fairness to once a day players), they could choose to attack back (carry on attacking even if the original attacker breaks off) or counter attack (attack until they stop).

Possibility of reflex defense according to player setting (only for attacks directed at the character) but possibly not desired by some players - discuss.

And what would be really interesting would be a melee effect where if you have X attacking Y, Y attacking Z, Z attacking A, A attacking X, B attacking Z, C attacking D, D counter attacking. (ie, a group of people engaged in combat forming "chains" of x attacking y) then missed attacks could hit other participants in the swirling combat (only for attacking, not counterattacking) which would lead to an element of tactics perhaps (because all attacking at once could lead to friendly on friendly accidents)

[Jos Elkink]

I entierely disagree, for a number of reasons.

Nice analysis!

And indeed, the change will be a fairly minor one leaving the basic system in tact, just reducing the amount of damage one person can do in a short amount of time. I'm still busy tweaking it, though ...

[Pirog]

I think the idea of having it take a little time before a ship has undocked is good. It could take one "hour" before the ship actually leaves the dock...making it possible for other people to border the ship or kill the pirate.

An hour isn't that much, so it shouldn't make piracy impossible...but the current undocking system isn't very realistic.

[Junesun]

Yes, the current undocking system is especially unrealistic because docking takes several hours.

[The Industriallist]

Not always. It's a matter of where you are...I undocked and redocked the next hour once.

[Pirog]

But was that with an ocean going bulky wooden ship with capability for storing vast amounts of cargo and people?

[The Industriallist]

Noo...longboat. But then, I expect the bigger ships are faster than the longboat, not slower...

[ephiroll]

Opportunistic players wait for weapons to drop, kill entire towns, then steal a boat and kill everyone in sight.

I just want to say, that someone doing this isn't a "pirate", they're an opportunistic animal that is content to sit around waiting for something to fall into their laps. Real pirates don't sit and wait, they put as much work into their operations as town leaders do. At least the good ones do. Two of the pirates on K island put about 18 years into getting set up, and another of my chars as put even more time into things. I'm willing to bet that's why no one can touch them while most other pirates don't make it past point C.

And amen to The Industriallist's seven point retort a few posts back.

[SickGerm]

If someone does attack your town from a locked building or vehicle just lock yourself and everyone in the town in a building together and the person outside will eventually have to go outside or he will starve just have like a ton of food in the building you are going to hide out in so everyone doesnt die and a few weapons for young people to use.

[SekoETC]

And what kind of a pirate would they be if they don't have a crowbar? They break the door, and even if you go attacking him in the sneaky tactics, you'll only get one hit a day even if there's several people, and probably they got healing food too.