Player vs. Player (PVP) & Murder

[Detomah]

Is player killing allowed?
Yes, players are allowed to attack and kill other players. We believe that meaningful PvP combat is a vital part of a successful massively multiplayer online game. However, we also recognize that many PvP encounters are in the form of non-consensual "grief killing" or "random acts of cruelty", which we do not condone. Therefore, Player Killing in Athiria comes with strong penalties regardless of the reason. Declarations of war and consensual duels will minimize the impact of the penalties, but they will never be completely erased. When you kill another player, various factions will almost always suffer, especially the factions representing the citizenship of the victim. In Athiria, PvP is not a separate system as it is in many other games. It is not possible for us to build a "smurf" server because to do so would completely and destructively alter the balance of the other systems in the game. Athiria provides unprecedented levels of ownership to its players in the form of houses, cities and various other social instruments. To implement a server where none of that could be threatened would completely destroy the meaning of that ownership, and, therefore, breakdown the integrity of the server. It is for this reason we are modeling the Athiria PvP system after many features that are present in the real world. If you kill a player character, expect your life in game to become significantly more difficult, as NPCs and PCs will both begin to react to you in a manner appropriate to your "inappropriate" behavior. Nobody should expect an easy life after murdering another player.

What do you mean murder?
In Athiria, the term "murder" applies to the non-consensual killing of another player.

Is every battle non-consensual?
Absolutely not! Obviously, the opposite of non-consensual is consensual, and we consider consensual conflict to be truly meaningful in the game world. This is reflected in Athiria with the ability to declare duels and war declarations between guilds, cities, and kingdoms. Issuing commands from the respective individuals or leaders starts these consensual battles. Once the server knows that both sides have accepted (engaged in) a consensual duel or war, any resulting deaths will not be considered murder since they were casualties of war versus grief-killings. Both sides must accept the combat before the death will be considered not a murder. Using this mechanism we hope that dynamic struggles between player-run cities will result in epic tales and sweeping sagas. PvP is a good thing and is necessary in a world where players have so much control over their environment. We have designed these rules to allow meaningful PvP and to minimize non-consensual PvP, a.k.a. grief killing.

So you will not be able to eliminate grief killing?
We could eliminate it simply enough, just by disallowing PvP combat unless you are in a duel or war. However, we are not going to do that, and for a very important reason. By labeling every non-consensual kill as a "murder", the server can properly deal with the event in our faction system. More importantly, it will allow for a player-driven justice subsystem that is built into the player-run government system. With this system, any non-consensual, grief killing of a citizen of a player-run government opens the perpetrator to various forms of punishment by the government of the victim. So, if you murder a citizen of a player-run government, that government will have the ability to punish you.

What is a player-run government?
Player-run governments has a FAQ section of its own. For purposes of the PvP topic, it needs to be known that governments are able to define who is able to carry out justice for its citizens ... it could be a special bounty-hunting group or every single citizen that can dispense justice. It boils down to being able to impose a number of different sentences on a captured murderer. Alliances between different player-run governments are very important here too, allowing a potentially very tight noose in which to capture murderers.

Depending on how the government is setup, a citizen of that government could be granted the power to carry out justice for its citizens. If they hunt down a murderer, happen upon a murderer, or befriend someone that has murdered one of his fellow citizens, then they will be able to carry out a number of different sentences on that player. We have set it up so that if the murderer has died and his/her corpse is on the ground, then justice may be enacted upon that murderer by any player of appropriate citizenship/alliance with the power to do so.

Given the above rules Player A is from Dakvia and Player B is from Caluven. Player B murders Player A in non-consensual combat. Player B will suffer negative faction adjustments for Dakvia and their "murder" flag will be turned on for the city of Dakvia. Player C is also a citizen of Dakvia and is a member of their military guard. In Dakvia, guards have the ability to dispense justice on criminals. When Player C defeats Player B in combat, or happens across the fallen corpse of Player B, Player C has the ability to dispense justice on Player B for being a known "murderer". Another player, Player D, is from a non-allied city Kremen and happens across the same corpse of Player B. Player D would have no ability to dispense justice on Player B, because the crime was not committed against Kremen.

So if I catch you I can kill you. What prevents you from doing it again?
As a citizen of a player-run government, the punishment is at your disposal. Those that can dish out justice will have the ability to imprison characters, ban characters from entering their cities or even delete the murderous character from the game. Yes, I said delete, which is also known as "Permadeath". After many hours of hashing this decision around the design table, we came to the conclusion that unless you could get rid of the offender permanently, any justice system run by players would be ineffective and horribly abused.

Will Permadeath be a detriment to playing?
It will only be a detriment to you if your primary goal is to cause grief for other players by non-consensually killing them. Once you have murdered a citizen of a city, you might as well not show up in that city if it has a permadeath penalty, because yes, you can be deleted from the game. If you murder a player that is not a citizen of a city, then by default you can only be punished by that victim. Needless to say it is much more "safe" to declare your citizenship to either a player-run or NPC-run city. We hope that the end result will be a small few players that manage to live with the "murderer flag" and are considered dangerous, while the vast majority of grief killers will be low-skilled, easily defeated players with nearly new characters.

So it is possible to make your way through life as an assassin?
Yes it is. You will always know, however, that you are one wrong step from starting your character over, but the thrill should be enough to make it worthwhile. Witness the Hardcore players in Diablo II and you will see that some people will try it. The major difference in Athiria is that the justice is player-driven, not just dumb AI that can bring your character to an end. To live as a murderer in this environment you are going to have to make allies and never let yourself go unguarded. Kill too many people, make too many enemies, and you will have a hunting party after you. While living as a player-killer is possible, the rest of the players in the world have the ability to set the culture of the game to their liking because they have the tools to eradicate non-consensual, grief killing on their own. We feel this design will meet all of our goals and not deter from the desire to have meaningful, consensual PvP in the game.

It should be mentioned that NPCs will react to you properly, and crimes will be automatically reported to the authorities where appropriate via the faction hits you will take as a murderer. Built into the government management system, and the player-driven justice system, will be various reporting mechanisms to help its citizens dispense justice to the appropriate characters. The information will be readily available to the public on our web site, on the web sitefor your city, and from in-game sources (i.e. books, newspapers, bulletin boards, guild/city commands…).

Can I defend myself against an attacker without getting a murder flag?
Yes! If someone attacks you, then that person is the aggressor and you are in self-defense mode against that person. If you defend yourself successfully, you will not get a murder flag because you were in self-defense mode. The only way someone can get flagged as a "murderer" is by being the aggressor in non-consensual combat, outside of duels and war declarations.

I just saw my friend get attacked. Can I help him defend himself?
Yes you can! However, you must consider how you want to help your friend. If helping your friend means you will engage the aggressor in combat, then you must group with your friend BEFORE you engage the aggressor. If your assistance is inoffensive to the aggressor (i.e. a healing spell for your friend), then you may assist your friend without grouping with them and without worry of getting a murder flag. The rule to follow is that inoffensive actions imply intent based upon whom the action assisted. Since murder is precipitated by an aggressive action it would be impossible for us to determine your intent when you attack the aggressor without some other indication of that intent, hence the grouping requirement.

What if I help a combatant while not grouped with either the aggressor or the victim?
This situation will follow the same rules as above. If you are not grouped then you can only resort to inoffensive help, unless of course you are trying to help the aggressor commit murder. If you want to defend someone using an offensive skill against the aggressor, then you must first get his permission to group together. In the cases where help has been given to both sides, the worst result of the PCs you aided will be applied. So, if you heal the aggressor, allowing them to kill the victim, then you will share the murder flag with them. A dialog will always be presented to you if your actions could result in receiving a murder flag. The dialog will allow you to cancel your action before it takes effect.

It is worthy to note that when an NPC kills a PC it is considered "murder" in all cases. NPCs killed by PCs are always consensual combat scenarios. These two rules limit the involvement of NPCs in aiding non-consensual combat situations by ensuring that any player-controlled NPC actions have their effects transferred to the PC as if they were directly involved (i.e. charming).

What about groups? What happens if I group with a known “murderer”?
In every MMORPG, grouping is where some of the cut and dry rules of single player conflict can become cloudy. In Athiria, various events are triggered when another player resorts to non-consensual combat. You can group with anyone that you want at any time; there are no restrictions on this. However, if a group member becomes an aggressor in non-consensual combat with another player, then they will be removed from your group and you will be notified of the reason why. If you invite a player into your group that is marked as an aggressor, then a dialog box will inform you of this giving you the ability to reject that person from joining the group. In all cases, party members will be notified. If you decide to remain grouped with a "murder flagged" PC, then any action they perform will also apply to you, which could leave you with a murder flag as well.

What other forms of punishments are possible?
For murder, banishment and permadeath are possible penalties. Jail time is another penalty in the justice system, but not for the crime of murder as it is not permanent in nature and would provide a loophole to the permadeath rule. The following diagram should detail the answer to this question more clearly (see attachment).

Who is able to enforce these punishments?
For punishments, it does not matter whether or not it is a PC or a NPC, as all types of punishment are available to both. Governments indicate through their government management dialogs how they want NPCs to react when discovering a murderer in their vicinity. This can be done on a personal level or at an aggregate (ie default) level. PC guards can see the same information that NPC guards see, the only difference being that if a PC catches you, they might not obey the order of their government and carry out the sentence it wants. PCs always retain the option to carry out any sentence or none at all. The social dynamics of a player-run government should be able to deal with PC guards that continue to disobey their cities justice rulings. We chose things this way because we did not want to limit the role-play ability of the PC guard, whom might as well be an NPC if his/her hand is forced all the time.

What is Banishment?
Banishment can be executed on a murderer instead of permadeath, and it removes the murder flag. Banishment has the penalty that you are forever unwelcome in the city that banished you. If you enter a city that has banished you, then you automatically consent yourself to combat with any PC or NPC in that city regardless of whether or not they are a citizen of that city. The murder flag in this case is gone so at least no one can permadeath you, unless you have murdered again since your original banishment. However, they can attack and loot you without getting themselves a murder flag. Banishment in this regard can never be removed from your character. If that were possible it would allow a loophole not unlike jail time.

Then why have Jail Time?
Jail time is used for lesser crimes against a city. If you get caught for one of the lesser crime types, then jail time is an optional sentence that becomes available to the offended government. In many cases murder is not available as a penalty for a particular crime, and banishment is not made absolute as it is with murder. When using Jail time, player-run cities will have the ability to lock you up for any amount of time that they deem appropriate. The duration is set by the leaders of the city in their government dialogs, and will be publicly listed for all citizens to see. The jail time penalty is applied evenly across all enactments of the crime for which it is intended. It is worthy to note that you cannot delete a character from your account if it is serving a banishment or jail sentence for a lesser crime.

What is an example of a lesser crime.
Theft is one of these lesser crimes. If you steal something from someone, and that person or someone in the vicinity notices your theft, you will have a "thief" flag set on your character and you will take a faction hits with the city you performed your crime against. If you are caught, found dead, or otherwise rendered unconscious in the vicinity of a PC/NPC that can deliver justice to you, then the sentence may be carried out. Once the duration of that sentence wears off, the "thief" flag is removed and you are free to mend your ways.

If I try to steal from you what happens?
Insured items are protected, not capable of being pilfered, and will not show up on the user interface of the thief as available for taking. Insurance on items is magical and applies to both death and theft in the same regard. In effect the insured item binds itself to you and magically will return to you. If you do manage to pilfer something from a victim without getting caught, then so be it. Be aware that every PC and NPC with a perception skill will get a chance to detect you at the time of the theft and can call you out to the victim. NPCs might even take action against you. If your theft is discovered, the situation is resolved as listed immediately above. The only way the "theft" flag is removed is by jail time or banishment from the offended city for whatever the duration necessary.

What about leaders that change their city configuration on a whim to abuse the jail system?
City leaders are not quite that powerful. Any change to city laws has to be approved by the governing structure of the city. In a democratic city, this would mean that the change would be put to vote by all of the citizens. In a republic or socialist city, the representatives in government would put this same change to a vote. Only in a monarchy would the leader of the city be able to change the rules at whim. That is why it is called a monarchy. In all cases except the monarchy, leaders will have to be particularly strong, or your crime particularly sufficient to sway a quick vote for a change based on you being the target of the sentence.

Can murderers and rogues wear disguises to gain entry into the city?
Yes they can. Every time they pass a guard or another player there will be a test to see if they are recognized. The disguise skill, their faction standing, and the PC/NPCs perception skill all affect the chance of recognition. Cities have the ability to enhance, either magically, or through training, the ability of NPCs to see through such disguises. In short they have the ability, but the more you are hated in a given city, the larger the chance that you will be discovered. Enter at your own risk and reward.

Are you intending the murder flag to be enforceable worldwide or citywide?
Murder flags are enforceable worldwide. This has to be the case so that cities cannot harbor terrorists. While we strive for realism, the intention of the "murder flag" is to discourage "grief-PK" activities. Giving murderers any type of safe haven would directly conflict with this goal; therefore murder flags are valid for justice purposes throughout the world.

Why not make the “turning on” of a murder flag, a political player-run system?
While that would be ideal, it would also be a major loophole for a group of players to band together and cheat the system. Therefore, the murder flag is automatically placed upon a killer when non-consensual combat results in the death of another player.

One of the things that defines a rogue is the ability to sneak up on people and kill them. This would not happen in consensual duels, and there are people that do not want to be labeled as a killer. How is something like this handled in Athiria?
Unfortunately, murder has to be murder for all cases. The simple fact that you wanted to play an assassin and kill another person without them being able to defend themselves means that you should be able to take responsibility for your action. While I can see the merits of your argument, it would be a major loophole to try and code "intentions" into the assignment of a murder flag in non-consensual combat. If you wish to be a rogue without the penalties of murder, you must abide by the rule and not murder. We recommend you find yourself a cause to fight for, if not already provided by your guild and/or city, and bring your roguish skills to bear in that scenario. Declarations of war are there for that reason. Or, you might still choose to live as a murderer. Either way it is your choice and you know the possible consequences ahead of time.

How do you protect your possessions?
Various forms of protection will be available. Players can hire guards to follow them from place to place. In larger cities, insurance will be available for items that will magically protect those items from being looted upon death. Cities will also provide mechanisms, such as banks and guild vaults, to protect items of value. In addition to these, there are ways to use the magic system to protect yourself for little-to-no cost and there are ways to use a few of the other features of the game to protect your items as well. By default the game does not provide "automatic" protection, but every player will be able to afford some kind of protection such that, with a little planning, deaths will not be a traumatic item loss situation.

What about looting rights to unprotected items?
Looting rights are simple. If you die, anything protected (by spell or insurance means) will remain with you. Anything that is not protected can be looted by what killed you, and then by anyone after an as-yet-undetermined amount of game time has passed. When looting rights are not clearly defined, a max damage algorithm will assign looting rights. This prevents a newbie character from delivering only the killing blow and gaining looting rights.

Declarations of war can offer more flexibility regarding looting rights. Guild and city leaders will be able to specify in their configuration dialogs whether or not specific wars allow same-faction looting. "Same faction" looting means that if you kill someone with whom your guild/city is at war, anyone else in your guild/city can also loot that victim.

Personal duels also offer flexible looting rights. The default for duels is that no looting is allowed, which allows two people to spar without worrying about losing any items. This default can be changed to however you wish to role-play the situation, to include looting of all unprotected items.

What exactly is insurance?
Insurance is a form of magical protection. It is a spell that can be bought from NPCs in cities. Without going into detail about our magic or item system, insurance allows you to protect your equipment in the event of death. Magic in Athiria is an ever-present force in the world and insurance uses this magic force to bind these objects to you, even in death.

What happens if my guild/city declares war on another guild/city and the declaration is not reciprocated? Can we still attack them?
When a city/guild declares war on another city/guild the target of the war declaration has 48 hours of real-time to respond to the war request. If they respond in the negative or fail to respond, we are setting up a system by which the remaining cities in the world or the remaining guilds in the city can declare war for them without their consent. The system would use a vote where majority rules. If the majority of your peers do not support your war efforts, then those efforts would be prohibited and further action would be viewed no differently than murder. If the majority of your peers condone the action, then war would be declared for your city and you can commence the beatings. Using a system like this should foster political relationships between cities and their leaders. Declaring war on someone has repercussions in the real world and so it does in Athiria.

Consider the Sept 11th, 2001 attacks on the US as an example, because this is from where we are modeling the system. The US is terrorized; they declare war on Afghanistan who does not reciprocate the war declaration. In this case the U.N. steps in and says attacks by the US would be looked upon favorably and that essentially it is ok to attack Afghanistan given the cause.

Are there safe areas for newbies?
New characters will enter the world in a location where they can get used to the UI, combat, and magic system without the worry of PvP. Very minimal skill gain will be allowed in this area, quickly forcing the character into normal areas of the game. After exiting this starting area, you may not re-enter and are on your own. If your starting city can afford the military strength to keep its streets safe, you might be able to find relative safe harbor there as well. Otherwise, as in real life, keep to well lit areas, travel with a friend or three, or know where the nearest guard is in case danger finds you.

How will you handle some of the problems that area effect spells bring to the PvP encounter?
Mages in Athiria will have the ability to create items called Glyphs. They are special focus items that can be given to a player in order to protect them from harmful spells that are cast by the mage that created them. Glyphs can be created that are attuned to the individual caster, the guild of the caster or the city of the caster. If a glyph is created that is attuned to a guild or a city then harmful spells cast from any mage of that guild or city will not affect the holder. The glyph is created like any focus item and has a relatively weak ethereal presence in comparison to other focus items. Glyphs and the aforementioned dialog box warnings should be enough to stop the accidental casting of harmful area effect spells on friendly group members.

What can I steal?
Items that are magically insured or worn on the person are not susceptible to theft. Coin/item pouches, bags, and any other inventory items are possible to steal. Of course, there are difficulty modifiers to stealing the various items on a person. A purse should be easier than the ring that is buried in the bottom of the backpack the character is carrying.

Is the thief flag automatically placed upon your character like the murder flag?
No it is not. When a player successfully steals from another player, all NPCs and PCs in a radius surrounding the victim will get a chance to see the theft using a perception check. When a PC witnesses the theft, they are sent a message indicating that it happened. They are also given a report link in the message that they can click on to automatically report the theft to the authorities. If they do not report the theft within 8 game hours or before they log off the game, then the game considers them to have not done anything about the theft and the ability to report a thief is lost. When an NPC witnesses the theft, it is automatically reported to the city faction of the victim in the same manner that murder is reported.

How will you deter thievery as a popular grief sport?
The life of a thief is a difficult one at best. If he is caught, the penalties can be quite severe. Jail time has no set limit, so player run governments are free to assess the penalty for thievery any way they want. The same goes for banishment time. In addition to the potentially severe punishments one can receive if caught, the thief automatically consents to combat with anyone that notices the crime, NPC or PC alike.

Can I steal a glyph?
Like any focus item, when a glyph is removed from a person it is destroyed in the process.

Are focus items protected from insurance?
Yes. Focus items can be protected using item insurance.

Can murderers form guilds, villages, cities and kingdoms or is that option reserved only for non-murderers?
Being flagged as a murderer because of your desire to participate in non-consensual PvP doesn’t directly prevent you from participating in any specific part of the game. What it does do is make that participation harder because your character could be subjected to the laws of their your victim’s city/cities. The most important aspect to remember about non-consensual combat becoming a murderer is that a murderer has no authority over the laws they become subjected to. That is entirely based on the laws defined by the victim’s city. Even if a group of murderers travel together, a group of justice seekers will always have the advantage of re-spawning after death, whereas the permadeathed murderer is gone forever. Still, murderers can form guilds and cities of their own. Maintaining such an organization will be just as difficult as, if not more than, being a murderer by itself. Adventuring/hunting/mining for resources is made more difficult as well, because justice can be enacted regardless of how the murderer dies. As permadeaths mount, your city population decreases making maintenance and growth more difficult. Eventually the group of murderers will be small enough that justice seekers can more easily hunt and exterminate them. Once permadeathed, you create another character for non-consensual PvP, but you will have to re-invest the time required to make it skillful enough to provide a challenge to other mature characters that are not subject to permadeath. The life of a non-consensual murderer is not intended to be an easy one.

When you kill a murderer do you gain full loot privileges on their corpse?
Looting rules do not change when you kill a murderer. The player’s uninsured items are available for looting. Permadeath causes all of the player’s personal items to vanish into the Ethereal Plane as the magical insurance energies binding the item to the person dissipate. Rules for political, business, military and other leaders that are permadeathed have not been decided upon yet and will be released when the issues relating to other game play systems have been worked through.

How expensive will insurance be, and will there be a cap on how many items can be protected?
How expensive insurance is will be determined in beta. It’s one of those parameters that cannot be stated with certainty until people are actually playing the game. The only cap on how many items you can insure will be the funds that it takes to insure them. If you can afford the maintenance, then you can insure your items. This is subject to change if testing shows that casual players are being unfairly targeted by this system. Insurance costs shouldn’t make up the reason why you are online most of the time. Insurance is necessary because without it we would have a full looting free for all where players had no real recourse against losing items when they die at the hands of another player.