🚀 go-pugleaf

Martgen wrote:
> 
> Greetings avid gamers from across the globe...
>
> What I would like to know is:

I will focus my answer on RPGs, as I do not play RTS games.

> * What games do you feel have been affected by this so far?

Diablo and Ultima Online are the two I have played.  Both were
negatively impacted by PKing, IMO.  In Diablo the PK problem was only at
the nuisance level, because players had the option of playing in private
games, could easily exit games when threatened, and because PKing did
very little harm to a character.  In UO, the PK is much worse and is a
major reason for me quitting the game.  In UO, PKs posed a constant
danger, and even worse in my mind, contributed to the decline of a
friendly co-operative atmosphere.  PKing inspired distrust, vendettas,
and generally anti-social behaviors.  Also, because so many PKs focused
on "munchkin" styel exploitation of game design to attain maximum power,
PKing in UO had a detrimental impact on role-playing.  The basic problem
I have is when PKing is non-consensual, that is, player A does not want
to fight, but player B attacks A in a predatory fashion.  If A truly
does not want to fight B at all, then B's attack compromises A's rights
to enjoy the game he/she is paying for.  

> * What games do you see being affected in future?

Unfortunately, any online-RPGs, graphical MUDs, or massively multiplayer
persistent world games that allow PKing.  I am curious to see how
Everquest, Asheron's Call and Diablo II deal with this issue.

> And:
> * What do you do to decrease the chance of this happening? Are there
> certain strategies, game configuration parameters, chat zones or methods
> of game hosting you use to minimise the chances of letting 'bad' players
> into or affecting your games?

After months of play of both Diablo and UO, I think the only real
solution is to segregate the players into two groups by offering them
the chance to play by different rules.  Enough people believe that PKing
is crucial to Role Playing that those people should have a place to play
by those rules.  However, enough people also hate PKing and want no part
of it so they should have a chance to avoid it.  I suspect that just
having a PK switch with both types of players existing in the same world
wont work.  The basic issue is that some people want to play
competetively while others want to play cooperatively.  I think these
two groups are mutually incompatible and have to separated.  In a UO
style game, I firly believe that some servers would need to be
designated non-PK servers, where things like stealing and PKing were
simply not allowed by the game engine.  Also, some servers would need to
be open to PKing, to give people who like that sort of thing a home. 
Lastly, even on the non-PK servers, there should probably be places
(such as arenas), where players can fight, by MUTUAL consent, but
without the predatory anti-social aspects of PKing.

My 59 cents

Dan