Quick Questions

[David]

While I am just a player, a player who feels that they have been made an example here of late. I will make comment on that reply. While Akanbar is just a game, it should be left at that A game. If players are being punished, then quite honestly the punishment should be the same across the board. I recently sat in the lands while a shout was called for a Divine asking for help, a Divine shortly appeared after. This same case was made to me that shouting for a Divine is silly because they have outside lives and if they wish to be seen then they would make themselves present to mortals. My player was obliterated for asking for said help, and that other player was not.

As far as the current trend, I disagree that there is not a line being drawn for specific characters. Certain players have disguised into cities and gone on killing sprees, summoning citizens from protected rooms, slaying them, and stealing their weapon to burn it in a forge then facing no punishment. There are no clear laws stated on what is or what is not allowed to be done inside a city when a Captain or Military leader are marching their guards at you. Previously, I as a player was told that if a player is active aggressor and is in an obscure part of the city (Ie Templar being within the Warden Guildhall…) and is marching guards that they could be attacked. David has had previous experiences with similar cases and nobody has ever told him no or slapped him on the wrist.

I cannot speak for the entire population of this mud, but I can safely say that I feel this is a lot of the issue on why the population has been lacking lately. Certain players are held to a different mold whether the admin like to admit it or not. Life is like that though, and life is not fair…this I understand, but Akanbar is a game, it is not life……a game that should be enjoyable for people to safely log into and play. The sad reality of it all is that, I should not feel that for posting this that I will be punished ig for speaking my mind. For as a player, speaking our mind is the only true power we have……

I have since scaled back my time in Akanbar to re-evaluate my character.....I have enjoyed myself thoroughly for roughly 5+ years thus far and would like to put another 5+ years into it.

[Jaethor]

Somehow, I knew the matter of Kinzie would arise. You are free to ask her just how much I tore into her for shouting for such, however, her's was indeed an emergency. Your shout was because you couldn't find your horse. Her shout was because an important shop was dysfunctional and would not sell to anyone.

[Pyrok]

There are no clear laws stated on what is or what is not allowed to be done inside a city

There isn't, and there never will be. This is probably due to the fact that each incident has to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Granted, things get seriously confusing, but the general 'golden rule' of playing any game, be it MUD, MMORPG, or any staff monitored multiplayer game for that matter, is that the admins always have the final say in everything. This obviously leads to those who're consistently on the (im going to avoid saying wrong here) 'losing' side of the argument to become confused at first, then bitter, then extremely resentful.
This leads to posts like David's. It's an inevitable facet of a multiplayer situation where despite any sort of rulebreaking or blatant asshole-ry the admins always have the final say. I state it again because it's just how it is.
We don't have to like it, you don't have to play. Some of us just accept it as it is, and make adjustments to how they play their game.

I recently sat in the lands while a shout was called for a Divine asking for help, a Divine shortly appeared after. This same case was made to me that shouting for a Divine is silly because they have outside lives and if they wish to be seen then they would make themselves present to mortals. My player was obliterated for asking for said help, and that other player was not.

This is... somewhat different. Admins are busy, some probably more than others, I say that out of ignorance rather than any sort of premeditated jabs at any administrative parties. They get called upon for everything from a typo, to a player getting stuck in the Void (that happened to me, that was actually kind of funny. Pyrok, doomed to eternity in limbo for not wearing pants at one point in his life) to major issues such as a quest being bugged and the questor getting incredible amounts of gold.
What that probably was? They got called upon so many times that day, or week for little stupid things that aren't even problems, or even problems they cannot fix right then and there (Jaethor himself has stated despite his awesome abilities, he's still not able to do certain things) and just snapped. Admins are like the grocery store clerks, they take an extreme amount of flak for all the things we can see, or guess at, but receive very little in the way of compliments for the things they do do. So, they snap occasionally.

They're human, yes we hold them to a higher standard than we "mere mortals", but they're still humans behind that bright cyan text. (it is bright cyan right?) We've all snapped ourselves, why are we expecting any different than that for the admins?


What I'm getting at is this: Don't let admins get you down. They're doing their job, you definitely will not like it. But they''ll have the wrath of the rest of the player base (and the head admin) to deal with if they don't do something about the things that go on. No you won't get to know what criteria they have all the time, and yes, asking may get you obliterated or turned to stone. That's the price we pay to play a free game, on a server somewhere in the world that Zycandos somehow pays for every month (i suspect Gandalf level wizardry there), in a world where alot of the onus for entertainment is NOT on the admins part but on our own, with the stipulations that we do not break the game, or break the established rules or defy the admins final say.

[Oskar]

The situation was discussed with Lady Ilessa as well as Lord Zycandos and agreed upon that it was an illegal attack.

Not to be rude, but I think Lady Ilessa is pretty biased. But she dislikes me as well so in this situation maybe not.



Moving on, I thought the same thing as Dimetrius until after Lord Jaethor's post. So I re-read News 219 it clearly states a defender cannot be attacked unless they come into the raiding room and attack first.

In recent days we appear to have had several breaches of the player killing
rules during the conduct of raids on other cities. For the sake of clarity, I
set out the main concepts that apply below, but above all, you should bear in
mind that when you are raiding another city the citizens of that city have
the right not to get involved in the fight if they so choose.

In general, the onus is therefore always on the defender to make the first
move, until they join in the combat, they are not a valid target. This is
however subject to several provisos where a pre-emptive attack is
appropriate.

Defenders who enter locations they would have no reason to enter other than to
defend (notably the outpost towers)
Known defenders who enter a location where the raiding party is, and loiter
there also open themselves up to a pre-emptive attack. (Note the word known,
ie, someone who regularly defends against raids)
Other citizens of the defending city can be asked to move on if they insist on
staying in a location that the raiding party was already occupying. If they
fail to do so after a suitable window of opportunity (say a minute), they can
then be attacked.

Please note however on the last point that this is not a mandate to go and
loiter somewhere to annoy people going about their own business by asking
them to move on from parts of their home city.

Finally, a word on defenders attacking others. Once they are in your city or
outpost towers citizens of other cities always make themselves a valid
target. Other than this, known repeat raiders can be attacked within the
immediate vicinity of your guards (one location away only). Once a defender
is killed, they cannot be attacked again until they once again enter these
areas. Attacking includes summoning and other movement skills!

If any part of this post is unclear to anyone they should speak to a god to
seek clarification. The excuse "I wasn't sure what you meant in that post"
will not be accepted..

[David]

Somehow, I knew the matter of Kinzie would arise. You are free to ask her just how much I tore into her for shouting for such, however, her's was indeed an emergency. Your shout was because you couldn't find your horse. Her shout was because an important shop was dysfunctional and would not sell to anyone.

I couldn't find my horse because it was gone completely due to a bug.... which I felt as a player who had invested time/effort/mithril bard into said level max horse was worth elevating to a shout.It was much different than just simply misplacing a horse, but if that was the case....well so be it. But again, I went through four warhorses/two mithril bards in the course of two real life days. It may not have required a shout to you, but at that given time my character felt a shout was needed. I got reimbursed 100g for the whole ordeal, but that doesn't take away the underlying issue that I was met with an obliteration whereas she was not. I do not see how the importance of selling product in a shop is any different than a horse that is used in everyday battle is any different.

Also, what of the topic of people disguising in and summoning/destroying weapons with no punishment? I believe you are aware of the specific example I am referring to? I am not seeking a reply, nor trying to be petty, but there seems to be lines drawn on what is expected from person A compared to person B.

As for Oskar's documentation for the post from 2007.....It does not directly mention anything about marching guards and how a defender within a city should react to such. The post itself being a bit dated (5years in 2 months?) does leave a little to be questioned? Such as the statement of

"In general, the onus is therefore always on the defender to make the first
move, until they join in the combat, they are not a valid target. This is
however subject to several provisos where a pre-emptive attack is
appropriate."

So if I read this....and have a Captain marching guards at me in game.....do I view this as the first move? I view it as them joining in the combat....as Dimetrius's player stated they have intent on killing you just as they would by coming in and attacking you. Just by bringing five npcs....they are assured of the kill.


Perhaps I am beating a dead horse here(no pun intended....or perhaps so?), and if so....so be it.

[Chyren]

Not to be rude, but I think Lady Ilessa is pretty biased. But she dislikes me as well so in this situation maybe not.

1) That's extremely rude to say that an admin was biased without having knowledge of the conversation that took place.

2) If you feel like an admin dislikes you and that it is unfairly affecting you, your character or your play experience, bring it up to Zycandos.

[Viridiana]

Not that my voice ever really carried any weight around here, but much like Chyren, I too can be inactive and still be an opinionated pain-in-the-ass. (No offense)

At least -I- feel the jumping was appropriate if the captain was marching guards against the invader. They didn't just happen to be repositioning guards at that moment or going for a bender at the pub. They were moving with a specific purpose of combat. Yet the invader was punished.

However an invader coming into a city and going on a killing spree, summoning citizens that were in locked, secure rooms, more than likely trying to AVOID the invader and inevitable death. The invader goes unpunished.

If the rules are going to be enforced with the consistency of newborn excrement, then that is how the players are going to treat said rules.

And while dropping Zycandos' name is a fantastic way to shut us up and just accept that these 'discussions' are actually taking place. That does not negate the fact that these rules change on-the-fly more often than Aurelias has a bowel movement. (Sensing a trend here?)

The whole thing just reeks.

On a slightly different note, I think the idea of Elysiums Patron showing up in Golgonath's city centre, berating a Master in front of citizens, and doling out punishment in-character is completely absurd. Bralnok would NOT have allowed that to happen, but rather perhaps doled out the punishment Himself if He saw fit. Stop stonewalling player ascensions or at the very least find some way for Golgonath to get some Divine representation. This is getting out of hand and borderline abusive/exploitive.

(And no, I'm not throwing my name in the hat, I'm not even around anymore. Just coming back to this is sickening.)

[Chyren]

Hey that's not fair, I log in at least once every few days.

[roeshak]

(And no, I'm not throwing my name in the hat, I'm not even around anymore. Just coming back to this is sickening.)

Off topic but uhm... You're aren't coming back?

[roeshak]

This is a question though, its something that I recently had a discussion with someone about. Are rifts a way of cheating a cities shields? I have seen it done several times before and no one has ever gotten in trouble for it but apparently now people are afraid to even try this because of the idea that they may get punished. If it is, that's great if not... I'm starting to question why we have these skills in the first place, I've seen so many skills get fixed because of raiding reason and such so this is a big question to me. I have seen people get in trouble for having someone summon others into an enemy city and I understand this being wrong, but are and if they are why would rifts be wrong to use?

[Dimetrius]

Stop stonewalling player ascensions or at the very least find some way for Golgonath to get some Divine representation. This is getting out of hand and borderline abusive/exploitive.

(And no, I'm not throwing my name in the hat, I'm not even around anymore. Just coming back to this is sickening.)

Kudos, darling! We miss you!

Also, when am I going to be able to get married?

(Unlike the flaming faceroll, this is something I would REALLY like some feedback on!)

[Miri]

Are rifts a way of cheating a cities shields? I have seen it done several times before and no one has ever gotten in trouble for it but apparently now people are afraid to even try this because of the idea that they may get punished.

Nope, we tried that a while back, the sheld stops the two people from connecting. Well, either we were doing it wrong or someone put a fix on it.
I think the rules state somewhere that you can only enter an enemy city through the gates. When I was still in Elysium, we gated into Golgonath through someone who wasn't enemied. We got zapped/disfavoured/had to deliver a public apology, all that fun stuff. So if we draw from past experiences, assuming the rules are still the same, it's a safe bet that you'll get punished. But having said that, I think it's a tad disappointing that people have to avoid being innovative because they fear punishment.

[David]

City shields......must be down for a rift to be created. Once the rift(s) are created then you can easily jump back and forth between cities. So unless you plan on meeting 10-15 all unsurp demons sometime soon and taking down an npc gate/next room of 10-20 npcs and then taking down a centre of 10-20 npcs.....all while hoping a Captain does not jump on to march 5-10 npcs more at you. I do not think this is no longer an option.

I just feel somewhere down the road that too many rules/laws have been created revolving around combat and what we as players are meant to expect out of our generally roleplaying characters in a war. We always are forced to ask ourselves what are the laundry list of laws revolving around what is the next step. I agree that there should be some, but somewhere this got lost and it truly makes wanting to disguise in or raid a chore. To note disguising in just feels like a suicide attempt with the mass amount of patrol each city has and trying to form any sort of conflict within a city is thrown out the window. We all aren't bloodthristy animals, but at the same time we shouldn't need a debate while in a raid or within a city whether attacking someone who is marching guards is okay or not.

These reasons among many other reasons is why I just cannot commit time I usually dedicate to Akanbar anymore. I was told that the admin are saying that people are just taking my side on matters, whereas I just feel that it's people finally speaking up for what they feel is wrong with this game. Bring back the enjoyment...

[Viridiana]

Also, when am I going to be able to get married?

We should get married. We can combine our paintings collections and share tiaras!

Roeshak: I'm always around, even when I'm not. Mostly in the wee hours of the night performing Mistressy duties and getting feedback from the Circle. Sometimes, I just Shadow Still and keep an eye on you all.

[Viridiana]

So if we draw from past experiences, assuming the rules are still the same, it's a safe bet that you'll get punished. But having said that, I think it's a tad disappointing that people have to avoid being innovative because they fear punishment.

I apologize in advance for the bad paraphrasing:

Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty. - John Basil Barnhill

In an OOC sense: Mortals should not be afraid of the gods. Gods should be afraid of the mortals.

Take that as you will.