Vote On The Way Combat Should Work!

[SirSnowMan 318]

Why doesn't the staff just do what would benefit the server. "Cough Cough, PvP..."

This rp crud is just gross, and at this stage can't be helped.

[Joe_Blackman 253]

How does PVP give less freedom? The reality is that RP fighting has ended up doing what it was originally supposed to prevent: players exploiting and powergaming without any real RP, subjecting anyone unfortunate enough to fight them to a 30 minute diatribe of sidesteps and catching arrows and dodging blades and insta throwing a dagger into your skull. It's disgusting, and something that disgraces the concept of roleplay.

If they can't roleplay, help them. Or just try to avoid them, rp fight with those who you know who'll cooperate well. I, honestly haven't met anyone who powergames to those levels.

[gg12gg 69]

There were a lot of little things that amounted to that achievement, and the combat mechanics were certainly one of them. No doubt, the entire landscape of RP, as LotC recognized it, changed or started changing when RP fighting became the hot topic. It's amounted to blisters like Kingston, which is universally agreed upon to be a place sorely lacking in wholesome roleplay, leading to its eventual condemnation. However, the continuation of RP fighting will no doubt continue to be the abrasion that allows for further blisters. We've popped one (Kingston), but there will likely be others. And where there aren't hot spots that anyone can point out and say, "we don't go there anymore," there is all of the sub-par and contrived combat that fills the gaps in the isolated spaces between what could be described as civilization, like so much puss deserving of several moist cloths. 

We've entertained RP fighting for about a year and a half now. What good have we accomplished with it? Is there a crowning moment that the server can recognize as across the board as something monumental, that wasn't of our own design, that didn't go too far, that maintained an unfaltering level of normalcy, reason, and logic? Perhaps. Maybe there's a good handful of folks who've had their share of personal poetry dedicated to glorious combat, a veritable monument unto themselves. More likely than not, however, that singular cluster of moments that are like beacons to you exist in lonesome among a sea of dark, nebulous frustration. When I talk to people about RP fighting (even just by uttering the phrase), there isn't any story (good or bad) that isn't prefaced by a long exasperated sigh.

I want to say we've brute-forced creativity, that we've forsaken responsibility in lieu of a system that caters to the lowest common denominator, but, while I do trust this, it isn't entirely true. I would feel more comfortable saying that we've given up on it completely. Where did our imaginations flutter off to that we can't fix for ourselves a few simple interpretations of encounters that don't come pre-packaged with imagery and implications? When did combat become as common as conversation, that we can't see options that stand in contrast to violence?

The one thing that RP fighting has done that I cannot simply forgive or forget is the tidal wive of encouragement it has lent brutish characters who rely on their meager skills with a blade rather than their wits (or common sense). A certain level of sophistication has gone extinct between the start of an encounter and the eventual brawl that has made mindless violence so approachable and, thus, common. I will admit, I can understand the appeal of controlling every little digit of your character as though s/he were a marionette, thrown into a customized locomotion to satisfy personal visual desires and themes, but maybe that's not such a good thing. Maybe we've been given too much control, and we've spoiled a good thing. RP fighting has pulled away the direction and structure of simple design, entirely, allowing for just about anything to slip through, with nowhere to go or where to stop. We've watered down our beer, we've washed away the spice, and I believe that many people can agree that a lot of water has slipped through, thus squelching any and all taste.

Are we so afraid of change that we cannot muster the courage to give this a try? Ironically, we would likely discover that combat would be less common, and that's all we tend to complain about. More than that, we wouldn't be devoting so much of our resources, so much of ourselves, to lengthy yet temporary battles that we're likely fuming about by the end and try as we might to forget (and that the world will forget), anyway.

 

Yes, RP fighting gives you details, but they are biased by your own craft. Yes, RP fighting lends you control, but it removes restraint. Yes, RP fighting has given strength to the weak and options to the fearful, but has left our minds feeble and unkind.  

We've cut out holes that only we, as individuals, may fit into, expecting it to be the same shape for anyone else who might try to step inside, and so we've shut ourselves in. We've developed a science of warfare that we've mistaken for poetry. We've barricaded ourselves inside a fastness of frustration and angst, believing it freer and worth the price. And now we have something simpler, something that does not imitate creativity, but requires it. Something that forgoes the process and free-design of RP fighting for tension, for climax, for denouement, for swift resolution, and to see the world keep going without so much as a shrug in place of the cataclysm an RP fight very well may have left in its wake.

We've given this a try for over a year and a half. Let's try something else.

 

Quoting this since the pages are getting filled up with disinfo.

[LaCabra (Soda) 1519]

Really? You'll get hated on for wanting to PVP? Why, it's almost like the server doesn't like it or something.

 

To be honest I think that PvP will be better because it's less of a dragging your nuts through broken glass and thorns experience. It's so freaking painstaking just to land a punch because people overpower themselves. PvP gets rid of that, as has been stated plenty of times.

[ryno2 1285]

Really? You'll get hated on for wanting to PVP? Why, it's almost like the server doesn't like it or something.

the group that dislikes you for wanting to PvP doesn't represent the views of the rest of the server or the players thereof; it seems fairly evenly divided if this poll can be taken as evidence. 

[Telanir 6975]

Really? You'll get hated on for wanting to PVP? Why, it's almost like the server doesn't like it or something.

 

Oh don't you go supporting rp-combat you alchemist... there's an entire part of the pvp plugin dedicated to you. >:)

 

Otherwise theres no reason for me to develop it at all.

[Haldon 72]

While I will respect and abide by any changes the staff make to the server, I have to vote against this new rule and go for RP over PVP combat.

 

Roleplaying a fight is much more interesting than the old 'click click click', and it takes into account any training, advantages or even disadvantages that each character has.

If PvP is put as default, I believe we will have crippled old men killing veteran war tanks, players killing each other simply for obtaining MC items and just a general sense of chaos. 

 

To those stating that most fighting was done in PVP when the server was first up, I feel that I have to point out that it made a lot of players angry. I still remember walking along the kings road one day and being confronted by two undead players. After a bit of RP, my character was killed in PVP. I did not mind because, one, they would have out-powered my character anyway and two, Things like that don't bother me. They Rp'd it well beforehand. Once I had been sent back to the temple, one of the two messaged me to apologise.. I thought it very strange and assured him that I really did not mind. I was told that players often got angry at them for this approach, and so this player felt guilty and felt the need to apologise for what was actually good RP. 

There were so many players getting angry at each other and calling 'no RP kills' on each other because PVP was used and ban reports were at a high.. So no.. I do not believe that going back to that system would be a good idea.

 

Then again, there are so many RP fights interrupted these days because players feel that a move done in a RP fight was powergaming etc.

If a compromise was made between the two styles, I feel that this would be the best way to go. Saying it'll be one or the other will upset players either way you go with it, but a compromise might make more players in general happy with how the server deals with this issue. 

[Telanir 6975]

Well, no offense... But not every had asked for you to develop the plugin. When you sort of announced it, I inititally thought "Oh. He made a plugin and now he's going to go ahead and force it on us. Great."

 

Well no I was kidding. As for plugins, it's funny how much they are taken for granted. You can go ahead and roleplay without any of my own or Alec's plugins, but the server won't get far. ^-^

[ski_king3 0]

That's beside the point. I'm asking why the entire playerbase is participating in it if they don't like pvp on a rp server.

 

Because there's no way you're going to find a 50, 75, 100, or 300 person battle on a PVP server. It's exciting, to do it every once in a while, with RP forts and such, siege weapons, the whole 9 yards. Even those are more RP than a 15 second PVP of 1v1.

[Samson Option 9652]

Might I remind everyone that it is a privilege bestowed to participate on the server. Just thought I'd remind everyone.

[V0idsoldier 1139]

Might I remind everyone that it is a privilege bestowed to participate on the server. Just thought I'd remind everyone.

This

 

This 

 

This. 

 

Everyone sit back and relax, things will work out.

[Samson Option 9652]

In response to Jistuma in Cyndikate's thread:

 

Bad things about PVP fighting:

Powergaming (being injured, being a non fighting character, being a weakling, being an old man doesn't matter)
Powerhungry players will appear
Itemhungry players will appear more frequently
Armor and weapons are more important than anything else (maybe race status as well)
Ban Reports for insuficient rp before pvp
A
whole location where rp is the normality can be destroyed by one player
with armor and weapon (read as, locations where people want only to rp,
can be annoyed so easily by one person going there and pvp'ing)

 

1. /setinfo "An injured man", emote *walks around with a limp,
problem solved. You most likely won't get PvPed, but in the Fallout that
is being warned against by other RP arguers; supposedly you will.

 

2. Already happened, look at Horen Lol

 

3. Already happened, powergaming RP fighters who pull the OOC inventory stunt.

 

4. For soldiers, this has been the case. Wide generalisation.

 

5. Better to deal with than grey area "I know what I am talking about, I am 6'5 elf, I can do backflips and throw weaponry"

 

6. Exaggeration, can be fixed with my system easily.

 

PS: I like, respect, and thank all those that are atleast willing to try out the Aegis system.

[Gorum© 623]

Heh, well I'll credit you that it's certainly missing something. But it's not some fancy plugin. It's the nice playerbase we had from before. Nowadays, it's become about who can kill the most of who the fiercest warrior is as if it's something to wear like a medal. But really, does it it matter? We don't need a fancy plugin. We need to return to being hospitable and fair towards each other.

 

 That stuff comes with a happy player base, and I guess that won't be possible since most people despise the idea of something LoTC was created to be.

[meg 1994]

PS: I like, respect, and thank all those that are atleast willing to try out the Aegis system.

 

This makes me wonder....Back in Aegis, when the RP system was suggested, how open were people to it? Maybe the issue isn't RP fighting or PVP fighting, moreso that the playerbase has become more close-minded, cliquey, and against change? Just a thought...

 

 

 

Also, guys, PLEASE don't just quote tons of things that have been said before. It's just unnecessary Spam... :I

[V0idsoldier 1139]

This makes me wonder....Back in Aegis, when the RP system was suggested, how open were people to it? Maybe the issue isn't RP fighting or PVP fighting, moreso that the playerbase has become more close-minded, cliquey, and against change? Just a thought...

 

The rp system was suggested mid Asulon, and if I recall was met with the same reaction as this. When we changed from PVP Default to RP default, some veterans left and there was a big flame war. But we made it through that, and we can change again. This community is close minded at times, but everyone will end up happier. They don't think they will, but they always do.