PK in NarutoMUD

[Gatz]

A touchy subject indeed, PK (Player Killing) is something I feel belongs on NarutoMUD...but needs some creative wrangling so it doesn't grow into a griefer paradise. So, this is my idea:

Everyone is free to kill anyone. That's right, you see a dude, you can go rape him beyond belief. As long as they are level 10, which marks them as deadly. However, it comes at a price. Killing someone nets you a 'Wanted' status. Guards wandering around towns would attack you on site, normal town shops wouldn't sell to you, and regular players could come after you and kill you without any penalty.

What is the reward for becoming wanted then? Well, there'd be towns which harbor wanted types and don't mind you sticking around. Plus, taking down high profile players would net you experience and Ryo. Essentially, making the game a lot more of 'they're out to get you'. However, if you get killed when you're wanted, you then get transported to 'jail' and regular death penalties of having to retrieve your corpse and losing experience and ryo come with it, as well as losing your wanted status.

Wouldn't newbies get bashed to hell then? Good question. the wider the level range, the less reward for the PKer and less penalty for the PKed. If the range is very wide, the PKed won't even drop a corpse or lose anything. They'll simple be transported safely back to their bind spot, and the PKer nets nothing. This'll balance out a level 100+ player coming and just doing an insta-kill on a low level player who couldn't fight that high.

Of course, to also make things interesting, becoming wanted means that ninja NPCs will be spawned to hunt wanted players down and attack wanted players randomly. In the case above, where a player just got ganked, a ninja opponent would be spawned right on the spot to fight you. They ninja would come in multiple flavors but they'd use skills and be difficult to beat, but net similar experience and ryo rewards as killing a player.

The last piece of the puzzle is bounties. Bounties would be a "black market" system where players who want revenge on a player can put a Ryo bounty on their head. When killing a bountied player, that player will drop 'evidence' of their death. You then return that piece of evidence to a bounty office and get your Ryo. On top of all this, if you see a bounty on someone, including yourself, you can either pay to raise it or pay the bounty office off to remove it.

Putting all these pieces together, sort of outlines the general strategy of PK. I'm not entirely sure if I want to add an element in to have players be kicked out of their village for attacking another ninja in their village. However, this seems like a good enough base to appease players on both sides of the fence.

I'm sure some folks will have strong thoughts on this. So, go for it.

[Shiro]

I object to completely open pk for a couple of reasons. First off as a mudder, I tend to avoid pk muds like the plague, if I notice a mud labels itself as pk I won't even give a second glance. Second, the types of players this move would attract would be detrimental to the mud. We are going to have a hard time convincing the average mudder that we are different from other anime muds, namely dragon ball muds, if we share the same pbase demographic as them. Which happens to be thirteen year olds who love pk, anime, being over 9000, and who have the collective intelligence of a rock. Thirdly, Naruto despite all it's action is not about random acts of violence, but every fight has a clear cause. Even villages which have completely opposite ideologies avoid coming to blows because they prioritize a peace treaty which keeps the various nations from going to all out war. I would suggest if NM was to implement pk, that pk would require a valid ic reason, and would need a bit of rp before to justify. If the nations were to go to war then I would suggest that pk be set by area and not as a blanket thing.

[Ichiro]

Shiro makes some good points. Also, the skills in the MUD are not even remotely balanced enough in a PK-sense to afford for PK to be implemented....I will write more tomorrow.

[Isamu]

I think PK could be a good thing, but with our smallish pbase, I think PK could disturb the balance we've set up. PK should only happen around the same level range that you gain off aggro mobs, so a level 60 can't go feel superior by beating up a level 20. Now that I think about the lower levels, the range might be restricted further, since a level 20 could easily beat a level 10...
In any case, PK should be restricted to certain areas, ones not under the watchful eye of the Uchuukage. Potentially, the Riyoku area just before reaching Hitokurou could be a good area for this system, plenty of paths, so one could avoid a PKer.
I agree with Shiro on the point of PK being IC, though I'm not sure how exactly that would work, authorization by Imms?

[Yamashita]

It sounds like a good idea, but I don't think it would work in NarutoMUD as it is right now. Until we have a bunch of other areas where one would be safe from potential PKers. I would be cautious though, for one of the reasons that Shiro mentioned: many players don't like the feel of PK MUDs and either don't try or leave once they discover there's free PK. Honestly, I like the idea of PK in the arena, and maybe at some point, when the implemented world is larger, we could have some areas in which free-range PK is tolerated, but none of those areas should be required to get from one place to another, especially at low levels. This would probably work to appease both the fans of PK and those that avoid it like the plague, to quote Shiro.

[Sukotto]

Perhaps those who wish to PK could go to a place, pay some ryo, and be sent into a special PK zone that cannot be accessed other than paying the entrance fee? Once the fee is paid you get spawned into a random room in the zone and are free to kill as you wish. Then when you are done you go to a room, talk to a person, and be sent out of the zone. It's just an idea.