When Bad Things Happen
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This is a discussion topic I've recently thought about. It doesn't necessarily pertain to me personally, but I know there are certain scenarios.
Bad things happen to your characters. It's going to happen, it is inevitable. Now, naturally, no one wants bad things to happen to their characters (I understand a few might be deliberately, say, play a thug just to get beat down or whatnot though.), but the plain black and white truth is that it is going to happen, whether it be PvP (In which case, your character loses.), you die on a quest, your character gets robbed, you name it.
The discussion is, how do the victims handle their situations? "Treat IC, IC." Yes, this is natural, but it is not always so simple. Or I think a better question would be:
How does the culprit make it fun and entertaining for the victim? Because in the end, that is the sole reason why any of us are here. To have a good time.
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Biggest thing for me is knowing it happened for a reason. Every time I've died in PvP, its been part of a bigger story, wherein OOC I knew the risks my character was getting into, and that things like FD, backstabbings and the like were on the cards, and in choosing that path for my char, accepted the possible consequences. Biggest thing that bugs me is when I am killed/mugged or whatever for little to no IC reason, where I haven't met the person before, and they do it because I look like i has teh phat lewt. I think as long as it furthers a story, that I've chosen to be a part of, I'm happy with whatever consequences arise.
Dieing on quests/due to lag/etc, I think you have to learn to get through in your own way. I've had it all happen to me, and I think the knowledge that its a game gets me through the worst of it. And, generally, solo questing = easy muniez :lol: . Silver lining and all that.
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From my experience, nobody wants to die. Even when it's extremely well RPed, rarely somebody will go to the chopping block willingly. It's the attachment to the character that stops people from going along with certain "bad" scenarios, hoping for the epic dodge that will save him or her from the almost certain death.
There is a thing about CoA though, that making a good character takes a lot of time and dedication. It's hard to be a willing target when you know a lot of your work is about to go poof.
Personaly, if I were ever put in such a situation, I would leave it all to the game mechanics up to the point of "grand finale" where I would let RP take over. A battle, is a battle, but at some point you have to have the RP, especialy if you know one of the sides won or lost. It might be unfair, it might be heart breaking, but hey, it's life. Things happen you would not expect and especialy like. You eat a poisoned meal and fall over dead? If the rolls do not lie, that is what happened. You suddenly get pushed into a chasm to certain death? What would you do in RL if it hypotheticaly happened? Not much I think.
Death is one thing, but when it comes to robbing somebody there must be etiquette on both sides. The victim will not behave like a little baby, while the robber will not be a full ninja looter. You might be looking for one specific thing, in which case you take the one item. Torturing is preety much the same thing, with honesty from both sides requiered. Certain rules and boundaries have to be layed out in order to make the experience enjoyable, allowing both sides to see which one won or lost and to what extent.
I know I am sticking a lot to the "Rolls" in my ideas, however I see no other way in resolving some of these cases without them being involved. It can "lag down" a game extremely, but on the other hand, to a certain point I think they are needed.
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From my experience, nobody wants to die. Even when it's extremely well RPed, rarely somebody will go to the chopping block willingly. It's the attachment to the character that stops people from going along with certain "bad" scenarios, hoping for the epic dodge that will save him or her from the almost certain death.
There is a thing about CoA though, that making a good character takes a lot of time and dedication. It's hard to be a willing target when you know a lot of your work is about to go poof.
My last went to the block kicking and screaming IC, but OOC I was actually rather happy with it. I went to the block willingly, sure, a lot of my work was undone, but it made the work others had put into the plot (Gromfia, for those interested) a lot more worthwhile, and saw their plans come to fruition. I'll not begrudge them their effort cos I lost out. :D
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I am willing to let Meir be killed by someone for being a Necromancer. I am tired, and bored on how hard has become to accomplish anything with him. The bad guys don't want to hung out with me, the good guys openly hate me. The neutral guys, well some hate me anyway, in Meir. So, yes, I am more than willing to let him bite the bullet and get it over with, for good. Hey, you guys just gave me an idea on how to retire him, I was just asking about that. Funny thing is that some people found entertaining the misfortune or shortcomings of Meir. :lol:
It is going to be a while or I will never feel that way with a rogue. Keep it RPing and good luck finding reasons to kill Robert, unless you just want to, then I am sure you will find some reasons.
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I don't mind death when it's IC.
It's when the death is an absolute OOC experience that it pisses me off.
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I like to make sure my victims know exactly why they're being attacked. I also send them a tell in big friendly letters; "Don't Panic" if I know that the PvP is for purely RP purposes, and will not result in death or even a mugging; rather, it will lead to further tense interactions in the future, with more people involved.
However, this rarely works, for some reason, and I often will receive all sorts of OOC gibberish about how lame I am.
So yeah, 99.99% of the time, people are going to cling to their characters, even if there's been an OOC promise that their death is not going to occur. It's natural, or something.
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Realizing the person you are victimizing is a person who has spent many hours, usually equal to yourself in game, playing to achieve a goal- one which you could have just stumped, usually helps.
I'm all for violence, just keep in mind not everyone is a winner in every scenario, and it helps a whole lot if folks are understanding on both sides of the board.
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Realizing the person you are victimizing is a person who has spent many hours, usually equal to yourself in game, playing to achieve a goal- one which you could have just stumped, usually helps.
This is something we need to remember, IC duelling and pvp is all fine and well, characters will also die on quests, you dont like it but its going to happen anyway.
We as players should make a point of not acting in a malicious nature to other players, Im talking to the bystanders watching a duel that decide its funny to loot them while they are on the ground regardless of the number of people watching. (imagine if you were at the scene of a fight and some weasel rifled through the losers pockets when he fell down and the fight was over).
You can say all you want that its in character for a chaotic evil rogue to do that, (and pretty much anything else you want to do) your still being a dick and it was completely unecessary. The looting system is not there for that purpose and in my opinion it goes against the spirit of community.
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Sending "I pwn u's" or "Yo ass is mine" in tells usually breaks the ice.
If you're able to joke about pvp with your assailant makes it moar fun.
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Yes, what b-rock said.
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There must be a reason.
There must be a story behind.Otherwise it's just bad. But if there's no reason or no story and it happens, I usually swallow sadness (and send some faxes) and carry on with a new puppet.
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A good death is one that has had build up via rp for awhile before the event takes place,thats is a must have for pvp now that said you don't have to rp with the exact victim before the event if the character that is killed is part of a faction you could of killed them as a message to the rest with the min of rp with the dead guy,but when doing things like this it's best to be sure the faction knows somthing bad could happen to there members.
Death on a scripted quest always hurts but if the peaple your with steal your gear it is just lame there is no "fun" for the victim…Stealing gear is not the same as using somone elses potions and wands to save the rest of the parties asses.
Only real advice i can think of for those that suffer from lame party members is don't work with them again.
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All right, I'm hearing good things here. I think B-rock makes a great point too: OOC Courtesy. We can all be friends here. I think knowing that you're telling some sort of a story with a friend rather than some dumb stranger looking for PvP to mug your gold without any solid role play, just so his character can have that much more gold, isn't cool.
DMs fall in this same category I think. They're not out to hurt anyone's feelings, it usually helps a lot more if you as a player achieve some sort of friendly recognition with them (For example I remember when Raevear had the shit beat out of him by the Cornucopia, me and Moloch simply had a laugh over it.).
What Almadyr said falls around those lines too. If you're going to steal, hurt, kidnap, etc. another character IC, it's best if there's a specific reason and that that reason is played out in role play to make things interesting for everyone. Not just because "Oh well I'm a thief." or "I'm a killer."
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I have run across players who run across the two extremes
on the one side (mainly people who post here) who show courtesy
to other player (even when they do not really deserve it)to the other side the ones who view the game as just a game and they want to get the most gold and they will prey on other players to do this, they eventually get caught in game or ooc, some improve and become better players, some get banned, and some find a way around the bans and repeat and rinse (these ones rarely care about the forum)
I think it will be always like this, the only thing we can do it try to teach the ones who are not doing it right, and avoid the ones who refuse to change
and we should in special cases always keep records and screenies for the dms when things get too out of hand
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Rav's right, the best way to get these ideas out there is to "lead by example". Possibly the most difficult thing to do on the server is to walk that line in PvP, where you can keep your character as violent as they should be without treating other players' characters as stepping stones.
You don't need to kill or even loot your enemy, or even humiliate them; be more creative and think about how else you can get at them - if they're a priest of Chuantea then leaving animal carcasses on roadside shrines would rile them up; burn books; burn their books; take an ear; try and get them exiled…
Be more creative - if you're one of those in a position where you've another character at your mercy then you're helping outline the future of PvP on CoA; if you're remorseless about it or kill the character and then say "thanks for the fun, bai" then that person will be working by that standard for the future where it's a case of who's mechanically stronger beating up the other, making a speech and then killing them.
OOC-courtesy rings hollow when 99% of the time you don't need to go OOC to spare the other guy or even involve them in something rather than end that character.
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Bad things happen. Best you can do is pick yourself up, dust yourself off and carry on. If you like the character, you can plug away, even from the dreaded crash lost/full loot. Eventually you can get back everything and more. Or, start something new and go another direction. A rule I always try to live by is, when considering some action, would I think this was cool if someone did it to me. Not is it justified, or within the rules, or IC for the character, but rather, if what I'm about to do was done to me, would I be happy about it. This tends to rule out a great deal of PVP action, as I find I wouldn't like it if I was on the receiving end, and therefore don't do it. Tends to make me play characters that aren't overly confrontational, but keeps me happier in the long run.
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while I agree with everything said so far..
I personally still hate dying. Period.
Its not something rational. I go into whatever thinking..well Im probably gonna die here but afterwards I still yell obscenities at my monitor cause I just died.The only times I've come out of the losing end of pvp well was when it was
with a player who I have spent some large amount of ooc time with whether usually in the form of previous characters being friends/allies etc.knowing you can trust the player on an ooc level and are still chatting ooc whenever you log on makes a world of difference to how you feel on your toon's death.
death to something like a DM quest or whatever is far better as they are usually about to rectify anything that went wrong on an ooc level (ie lag)
and i usually can take this in my stride.and after so many years playing on this server ..lag death still shits me so much I usually need to log out for at least a day to get over it.
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Trust. A perfect word, Turbo. And friendship.
I constantly chat with people OOCly via PMs in game. I have a lot of laughs at the comments I share with people while my character is ripping enemies apart with his axe. Those are the people I would definitely trust to make me feel better if something bad happens to one of my characters for whatever reason.
I hate dying too. Sometimes I easily cope with it though (like recently Raevear died three times in a row, kicked me back over a dozen thousand experience, but I was kind of glad it happened).
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I have no real,problems with PvP, with a few caveats.
Have a reason. Nothing sucks more than being randomly attacked by someone you don't know, and who would have no real reason to attack your character.
Except…
Please, for the love of all that's good and holy, set people to hostile if you intend to PvP them.
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