Sacred/Safe Space

[h4x0r541]

It is pretty complicated, but it would allow RPers to RP, PKers to... not do anything... and would also prevent spamming (kinda).

It allows the PKers a safe place to hide from those who would otherwise "police" them, doesn't it?

It would allow them a safe place. But it wouldn't really do any good. I mean, their AP would be static. They could hang out and... talk. Plus, these safe houses will become a place to check for player hunters/trackers. It would actually become the worst place to hide after a kill. Because they're low on AP, its not going to regenerate, and they will leave tracks when they leave, and can't get very far. Trackers will probably start to check safe houses regularly...etc. 

Theoretically, they could just wait in there forever, but they aren't killing people and thus aren't PKers anymore. they're policing themselves. saves us all the effort of killing them if they just hang out in RP huts.

[FirstAmongstDaves]

FirstAmongstDaves,
I do like that clear explanation a lot. I have a couple of those type players myself.

BUT.. what if part of the Role Play is killing other players, even just once ?  They deserve to tell their stories too, right ? The ones who get killed FOR telling the stories... they cant retaliate without loosing their right to free speech ?

Or not ?  I am starting to guess not.  We are missing out on some great tales, I am looking for a fair way for the story-telling not to get lost in ALL the violence.

I would prefer not to kill, but being a target sure gets old. I realize most of my personal kills are in response to my RP partners untimely deaths...

No, no human kills at all, in my scenario. Either you are a pacifist and always turn the other cheek, or you lose the significant privilege of the safehouse.

(Thinking about it, it might actually get mercenaries some business. If you are a pacifist who wants revenge, you might hire someone for a hit.)

Personally, for natives I think it should be scripted as a sacred temple, and for outsiders a church or a tavern.

"You fire at SillyLillyPilly. The spirits swirl around you and whisper, "Violence in our sacred place displeases us." and your [bullet/dart] disintegrates into grains of sand."

or

"You attack Cyadora with a machete. The pungent rum stench of the tavern overwhelms you and you miss and trip over, looking rather foolish."

[Buttercup]

But possessing or malevolencing someone else to kill someone is counted as a kill for the other person, not yourself. So, you could force someone to not be able to use a sacred space by putting a kill on their profile.

But even without that, there should be a time limit, where if you haven't killed for a certain length of time (2 weeks? 4 months? I've no idea what a good time limit would be) you could be able to use the space again. I can imagine someone saying, "Hey, I already used the "reset kills" thing, but it's been two years since my last hit, and I still can't go in. This sucks."

As for no AP regeneration:

* Buttercup , with 1 AP left, enters the hut.

Sorry, you're out of action points. You get 0 action point every 20 minutes so come back in about infinity minutes if you desperately need to finish moving somewhere or killing something. Return this time tomorrow to have around 0 action points. Obviously you can play any time you want and the number of action points you start with will vary depending on how long you leave for.

Maybe only regenerate AP if you have less than 10 AP or something?

[lama]

For the sake of getting this implemented, I'd suggest to make this work in current set-up of game mechanics.

[CyAdora]

Lama, I am not sure it can work within the current constructs. It needs some way to not be abused by "evil-doers" and a AP regeneration lag is the most obvious.

Alone, a temple... nothing remarkable...

Unless we add a new item (spirit crystal) which would turn a otherwise plain stone temple into a "sacred (safe) space".

If we had "temples" they could act as any other building, until a spirit crystal was introduced...

SillyLilyPily enters the small, stone-arched temple and places her spirit crystal into an opening near the center of the room. A swirling vortex of lights and air would engulf the room, as everyone in the room would enter a dream state (100% fail rates on attacks) and then would be protected until the crystal was removed by its owner. Regeneration of AP would stay the same. You could only enter a "sacred temple in use" if you had not killed a player for a week. Otherwise it would show as not available to enter. You could leave a temple at any time during the"session" .

This could work with the temples being WAY out of the way (2nd map) AND only with more than one person.

So any rogue killers could not abuse the safety.   You have to be with at least one other person for the spirit crystal to work.  So does that mean the bad guys team up ? 
How about you are eligeble to use a spirit crystal if you have not killed for a week ?

Spirit crystals could be available at all the traders (ten gc or one gem )as well as searching temples and ruins at 20% rate and are multi-use.

[Neil Tathers]

That would make Spirit Crystals way too easy to get, for something as powerful as they can be.

And it would make it easier to abuse.

[FirstAmongstDaves]

A crystal as described would work but strikes me as a complex way of meeting an objective that could otherwise be achieved much more simply.

But possessing or malevolencing someone else to kill someone is counted as a kill for the other person, not yourself. So, you could force someone to not be able to use a sacred space by putting a kill on their profile.

Could it be changed so its a kill for the possessor?

But even without that, there should be a time limit, where if you haven't killed for a certain length of time (2 weeks? 4 months? I've no idea what a good time limit would be) you could be able to use the space again. I can imagine someone saying, "Hey, I already used the "reset kills" thing, but it's been two years since my last hit, and I still can't go in. This sucks."

As for no AP regeneration:

* Buttercup , with 1 AP left, enters the hut.

Sorry, you're out of action points. You get 0 action point every 20 minutes so come back in about infinity minutes if you desperately need to finish moving somewhere or killing something. Return this time tomorrow to have around 0 action points. Obviously you can play any time you want and the number of action points you start with will vary depending on how long you leave for.

Maybe only regenerate AP if you have less than 10 AP or something?

Perhaps if you have less than 10AP you can only regenerate AP up to a maximum of 10AP?

I'm increasingly of the view that this is an important development for new players and non-PKer players.

[CyAdora]

Interested players, not having killed in a weeks time, could be worthy of using the power of a spirit crystal (obtained at the trader, 2 gems or 20 gold ish.) Then be able to enter into an stone arch to activate the spirit crystal... WHICH.... transports them, via the ancient powers, to a location where the only interactions are speech. (I would love the summit of the mountain to be the place.) There could be 10 options for having "your" RP, a black box theatre type, in the squares around you. No way to leave but the way you entered.
You could RP with anyone from the island this way. But only return to the "game" area from the place you had started.

The summit, or the convergence of sacred space, would be the central square and one move option in each direction. For better communication, the "theatres" could be named, and even be used for shartak-wide, communications. (Great for non-forum, non-IRC players to metagame. Maybe even offering a new-player info area as well?)
Maybe new players could start with a one-time use spirit stick to have more personalized start?)

[Spaghetti]

I can definitely see this being abused as it appears right now.

Let me put it this way, if I had access to one of these, would you like me using it to my advantage?

[CyAdora]

Would you have access to this ? (No player kills for a week, maybe 2 weeks or more.)
Would you ?

What part would be used to your advantage ? AND yes wouldn't more efficient game-play be enjoyed by all ?

[FirstAmongstDaves]

Transportation to a non-combatative part of the island doesn't seem to fall within the fundamental premises of the island of 8 player hubs. I don't know... it just doesn't sound right.

Having a safe house in each of the player hubs fits in more with the core concept of the game...?

[Tracer.]

Why not make it so that the wandering shaman themselves are a safe place? And this is only negated when they're killed, but people who have killed that specific shaman before or are in the process of that are not protected (A little tweak that would give some limiting thing to killing a shaman)

This way no one can wait out all of Shartak's history nor can they stay safe forever due to the motion of the shaman unless they move around with it though they would never build up AP and eventually run out. It wouldn't be smart to do it with a home one of course considering they're stationary and would lead to huge huddles of people when a place was under attack though it is entirely feasible as an idea on doing that.

[AlexanderRM]

Fungi Juice would become troublesome/rampant.

You would have wasted the juice.

"You drink a bottle of fungi juice and surprisingly it pours right through you and makes a puddle on the floor"

I don't like the idea of wasting valuable items while inside. I wonder if perhaps it could also disallow inventory-affecting actions? It makes sense that if you can't be injured or recover energy inside due to a "dream state", your items would stay the same as well.

Transportation to a non-combatative part of the island doesn't seem to fall within the fundamental premises of the island of 8 player hubs. I don't know... it just doesn't sound right.

I'd also like to note that the magic on the island... isn't really as... "developed"... as you'd expect. Yes, shamen bring people back to life, and there are spirits and PC shamen who can affect them, but essentially, apart from holidays and charms, the only real magic I can think of that can't be argued to only affect spirits (I.E. wailing damage damages the players' spirit, or whatever...) is the shamen bringing people back to life, which only like 16 shamen on the whole island- 8 at special magical points- can do. There's nothing like teleportation or fireballs in the game.

I wonder if perhaps you could enter a "dream state" with some special (reasonably rare, but a not incredibly so) substance comparable to fungi juice, which causes quasi-telepathic "hallucinations" or what-have-ye while there, essentially moving your mind to some dream world while leaving your body in a similar state to after having been revived by a shaman. This might help with the AP problem by letting you save the AP you had, and having a separate, temporary value for the dream world.

It'd be interesting if you could perform whatever actions that could damage other players in the dream world and maybe even gain moderate XP, though the former would have to be done in such a way so as to not defeating the purpose of the idea...

[h4x0r541]

The suggestions are leaning more toward intangible and complicated things.

What if instead of some kind of mystic "peace area" this were re-thought as maybe a.... bar, or a restaurant, or someplace where people gather to hang out and trade.

To facilitate this, there would be several guards in the area. Violent actions in the area would result in a beating and being thrown outside for a certain period of time. Both parties in the violence would be thrown out (both the victim and the attacker). There would also be a shaman to prevent wailing. The guards would remember who they have thrown out, each subsequent throwing out would result in increased beatings as well as an increased "exile" time.

Preventing Pkers from abusing this:
Players can request that the guards reject "wanted" players. If enough people "want" a player, they will not be allowed to come into the area for a certain amount of time (depending on how many people want them, and also factoring in the amount of people they have killed). The amount of "votes" required for the guards to reject a player would depend on their player kills and may also factor in things like time since last kill, was the voter the last person they killed... etc.

This is ridiculously complicated.
Summary:
PKer kills someone, runs into the local establishment, local friends and/or citizens contact the establishment and the establishment throws them out.

PKer is hiding in the establishment, someone takes a more direct approach and just attacks them. Both parties are thrown outside, PK hunter kills PKer, however, PK hunter will not be allowed back in for an amount of time.

PKer enters establishment and attacks someone, gets thrown out, finishes the kill, is banned from the establishment.

Basically, the "establishment" takes a "no violence in here, take it outside" approach to the entire thing. As opposed to a "lets figure out who is the good guy and bad guy here" approach.

Also, maybe the guards can be bribed?

Elaborating on my previous suggestion (about speak points):
Maybe instead of calling it something different, you can only use your AP for non-violent actions, any AP that regenerates inside the safe zone is lost when you leave. If you run yourself down to 0 AP by talking, you are automatically booted from the safe zone to regenerate your AP outside. (flavor text about needing fresh air or something)

h4x

[CyAdora]

What if the home shamans had stone archways built adjacent to their squares. Arches of "sacred space", which only a worthy player (no player kills in 30 days)* holding a spirit crystal could get the option Go Up or Go Down and then have the choice of 8 areas to be able to interact verbally. AP regenerates normally.

Any player not "worthy" and or without a crystal could pass right under the archway unaffected.
"You walk under a long stone arch and feel that you are missing something."

When you enter the arched square as "worthy" and with spirit crystal, you would get an option to engage the crystal's power.... after which you feel a force pull you up or down to the "sacred space".

The hard part is altering the code to allow different rates of AP regeneration.  SO leave the AP alone, make them exclusive to non-lifetime pkers.

Q: Can we make shaman killing a no-no but keep animal killing ok ? Code-wise.



On the note of shamans and griefing. What if the regeneration cycle of a shaman were cut by 50% every time he was consecutively killed within 24 hours of re-spawning?
1st kill- Tapran stand up at 24 hours... (how it is normally)
2nd kill within 24 hours of re-spawning - Tapran stands up at 12 hours
3rd kill within 24 hours of re-spawning- Tapran stands up at 6 hours
4th kill "  "              "   "                  - Tapran stands up at 3 hours