So a situation happened tonight that, i personally wasn't involved in, but was watching it from the sidelines and via chat, and we were discussing it as the situation played out. Because i wasn't involved in the situation, i won't explain that side of it, but the point of my post is to bring up the PvP stances.

In my opinion, the "guarded" stance is a stance that causes more problems for dealing with the issue of catering to those who understand that PvP has a place in the RP environment of DR and the different situations that can arise from this RP style. I believe it can cause more “gray” areas for players and interpretation of policy when wanting to bring PvP into their RP situations and opens the door for the few players who see setting people up for a report is a way to deal with how they handle a situation or conflict in game. Im leaving out OOC situations from my point because i dont play DR to be OOC and tend not interact openly in the game environment with players who constantly play this way. Even though i see it as a perfectly ok way to play and i respect peoples playing styles.

I understand the "mindset" (not the stated policy explanations) of the 3 different stances like this. And the majority of players (who aren't guarded or until they read a little further down) i think will agree on this. ...hmmm or maybe not lol.

Open. no problem lets just play, and i won't report.

Closed. I dont want to PvP for my own reasons and that is the last word, Just as im sure you want your playing style to be respected please respect mine. Also there is a chance that i'll take whatever action is necessary and what is stated in policy with regards to consent if you dont respect my opinion and decision
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Guarded. Broken into 2 sorts of people, 1. I have trust issues with people in DR and worry about randomly being killed. 2. Under certain situations i may PvP, and i'll be the judge of that when and if i choose to, and if things don't go my way, i'll take whatever action is necessary to use policy to help me deal with a situation that has left me feeling angry, hurt, embarrassed, frustrated, and also a way to act out a clear cut case of revenge.

Now the open stance is clear cut. both parties know exactly where each other stands, and short of someone intending to go out side of the RP environment i can't see a grey area, and no room for this to be abused. The closed statement, again both parties know where each other stands and, again short of someone going outside the RP environment i can see no grey area. Now the guarded stance, it gets very grey with knowing how things can end up. And like i stated earlier the potential for abuse, because of PvP consent policy, is real. Meaning that, well if things don't follow through with how i would like them to go, ide like to have plan "B" and to jump on the report button so i can have some way of pandering to my pride, help justify this anger i'm feeling,and most of all, a means of revenge.

Was this the intended idea of these stances? obviously not, although not every one who is guarded will act like this, its in this stance that some people who struggle to play DR in a mature way will live out their existance of DR.

There is also the "warn combat" verb to help with the "unknowns" of intentions and to protect oneself from consent issues, but for me, while i'm RPing a heated interaction, by the time i'm thinking about needing to use the warn combat verb, the RP situation has already gotten to the point that PvP is gonna happen and for it not to end in that way is well in a way OOC. or just kinda stupid.

The main reason i'm pointing this out for discussion is to shine a light on those who are guarded under the reasons of example number 2 of the guarded stance. That most of us who are open, are fairly passionate about the game, and our RP, as its a little more extreme? or exciting way to RP. Playing out conflict and PvP especially against those characters who you don't have a history with, you have met for the first time or aren't mates with on the outside of the game can be very exciting, because of the unknowns, and i'll admit that in that mindset of the game you as the player will be experiencing a heightened sense of emotion and it can be exploited by those certain "guarded option 2" people. Where befor you know it you're standing there having to explain the grey area to a GM that you, and yes your own doing and choices, ended up RPing in, but unfortunately the only option for the GM to respond in is the black and white that policy is written on.

So whats my idea, suggestion,belief, and jumping off point in asking for peoples opinions? Take away the guarded stance. Leave just "open" and "closed".

Yeah we have people out there that would like to be open, but are nervous and worry about the random killings or being a target for harassment, but giving them a "well you're not closed, but you're not open" option only serves , i think, to help them react to their concerns, and they never take that final jump to find out that being open... isn't different at all. Infact from the player community, you end up gaining a respect from others that you're willing to role play on a more heavy RP stance than just immersing yourself into the fantasy environment that the "heavy RP stance" implies but less wrapped in cotton wool if you and your character are curious about PvP.

And doing away with the guarded stance would thin out those players that wish to play in the grey area and have a strong desire to make sure things go their way at any cost and to not "policy" play. For me, I would not have to be sizing up that guarded player and be taking a risk that i could come out the other end of this RP conflict with a warning. Basically i'd be looking at that player, If i see closed i know straight away not to mess with that player (in the direction of PvP), and therefore, it would be up to the closed player if they wanted to RP on the other side of the environment, they would have to make the choice to go open, or at the very least hand out consent.

Short and sweet, get rid of the fence! for those of you that are curious... Dont worry, its alot of fun. For those of you that are in the Guarded number 2 category... well, no more living in the safe zone, either all in or all out.


Rifkinn

Also open still falls under the harassment policy, so you can still report if you are open. I agree Rifkinn.

Codiax.
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It is interesting to hear your perspective on this. According to simu Open sounds like it is meant for a free for all no holds barred pvp environment and guarded means that pvp is acceptable as long as it is the result of rp. Based on that if I want to be engaged in pvp I would set myself to guarded. You seem to use different definitions where open really corresponds to simutronics guarded definition. Why is that? Is it the way that simu enforces policy or the way you prefer to play or is it something else?

>It is interesting to hear your perspective on this. According to simu Open sounds like it is meant for a free for all no holds barred pvp environment and guarded means that pvp is acceptable as long as it is the result of rp.

According to Simu sure, but a lot of players use Guarded as a means to pick fights when they want/know they can win, than hide behind Policy if they get blow back from it. Those guarded players are like those kids in school who would give swirlies to the smaller/skinnier kids, then run to the principal when the skinnier kids older brother broke their nose.

>>It is interesting to hear your perspective on this. According to simu Open sounds like it is meant for a free for all no holds barred pvp environment and guarded means that pvp is acceptable as long as it is the result of rp. Based on that if I want to be engaged in pvp I would set myself to guarded. You seem to use different definitions where open really corresponds to simutronics guarded definition. Why is that? Is it the way that simu enforces policy or the way you prefer to play or is it something else?


Well its not for me to comment on how or why or what simu are doing with policy, but as far as PvP stance goes, in my interpritation, dosnt matter if you RP or not, thats besides the point when it comes to consent. Open means, that consent rules dont matter with you, i can walk up to you and just kill you, now ofcause on the 10th time of me spam killing you, yeah a gm would proberlly intervien, but not on 1 2 or maybe even 3 kills, guarded and closed fall under consent rules, and again RP does not come into it. Another way of putting it, i can kill 20 open people in a row, i can only kill 7 guarded or closed people in a row befor i get put in the naughty boy time out room, untill a GM comes along to make sure im not going on a rampage.

For me, I play DR and i RP. thats why i mentioned the RP part, that any time im going to be talking about any form of PvP, there is going to have a heavy RP content to it. thats all. i hope that cleared it up. Also reading quickly what you posted, you might wanna have another quick read over policy.


Sorry if i havnt answered you properlly, im writing this in the dark and at 230am.

Rifkinn

My same statement every time this comes up: I went open on a novice.

He was sniped for 'the lulz' within the hour.

I've got better things to do than fill pools so internet tough guys can 1 shot my noobs. I'd stay guarded because if RP happens I'm totally down with owning up to my death. But everyone says 'GUARDED IS CLOSED' so I just don't bother with the system at all.

Likewise, I've had numerous characters, all open who haven't been ganked. I've heard of more people who have been open for extended periods of time without anyone randomly killing them than someone who decided to go open and got killed immediately (unless you ran your mouth, pissed off a bunch of people prior to going Open, or are disliked for other reasons.)

There's people who my character has interacted with that he dislikes, and if he ran into them again and they happened to be Open, they'd die. In your mind that might be a random ganking the moment you decided to go Open, but rest assured, it would be deserved.

I went open the day profiles were released. I've been ganked a total of 2 times. Both by Nefidyne, and after talking in IM's, it was revenge kills for actions I had taken on one of his previous characters years before.

Other than that, I've never once been ganked for being profile open.

-Master Ndin

>>My same statement every time this comes up: I went open on a novice.

>>He was sniped for 'the lulz' within the hour.

>>I've got better things to do than fill pools so internet tough guys can 1 shot my noobs. I'd stay guarded because if RP happens I'm totally down with owning >>up to my death. But everyone says 'GUARDED IS CLOSED' so I just don't bother with the system at all.


In writing out my post there was a few things that i could have covered, and i did write things out and then go back and delete them because i was going off on to many tangents and not staying with the main point i was trying to make, That the guarded stance is pointless and does more harm for PvP instances than it does at protecting the players inreguards to policy, which in my opinion, thats one of the main reasons this was bought in. And also people use it as a form of mech abuse to set other people up.

Also if you can hold onto a resentment, that can be seen that is still with you, because of the way you worded your post, a resentment that one person did to you more than likely a long time ago. I highly doubt that you would be down to owning up to your death. And it seems that your more into pointing out the fact that a crappy thing happened to you, rather than discussing something that hopfully the majority of people are seeing is getting out of date, with the current trends of DR.

Rifkinn

I can't think of a single reason a GM would want to deal with someone who plays policy. There has to be a better fix to the open/guarded/closed situation.

I think you could get rid of the "policy" players pretty easily.

If your open, everyone in the game follows the current policy as stated. A, open person is open to you, a guarded person is guarded to you, a closed person is closed to you.

If your guarded, everyone else in the game is considered guarded or closed to you. You want to play policy? watch out because if you attack an open without "consent" they can hit you with the very policy you are playing.

If your closed, everyone else in the game is considered closed to you.


- Buuwl

>Also if you can hold onto a resentment,

It's not a resentment.

I stating what happened in a calm dispassionate manner. The player who later stated he did it also stated he did it for 'teh lulz'. I had not spoken to anyone, the character had existed for an hour. I went open and parked in front of the empaths to listen to a class.

I got sniped.

Ergo I have better things to do than randomly get sniped because THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.

I don't really care what your opinions are. I simply repeated facts as I do every time this 'closed is for report babies' thread comes up. If that means you think I'm resentful or 'a reporting baby' or whatever else, oh well.

I tried it. Got killed with no RP or interaction. I don't use it. Seems simple and straight forward to me?

Policy-wise, guarded and closed are supposed to have the same implications. The consent rules apply to both. The only difference between closed and guarded is that they are intended to communicate something about the player's willingness to engage in PvP. In theory this is a useful distinction, and I wouldn't want to do away with the option of letting players communicate this preference. However, in practice I would treat closed and guarded players the same unless you know from experience/reputation that you won't be reported for attacking when consent may be lacking.

>>Clerixhax: A lot of peoples experiences seem to come from when the Profile system was initially implemented and you had a lot more Open people, a lot more people that had pent up "Consent Rage" that allowed them to go ape on people when they knew they couldn't get reported.

Recently, the GMs have reiterated that you can't hide behind your stance when your hostile behavior results in PvP, and you lose. (Don't expect to be able to run your mouth with impunity.) Just as the "I'm afraid of being randomly ganked crowd" may base this concern on early experiences with the profile system that may no longer be accurate, some of the "I'm afraid of attacking guarded players" crowd may be looking at early experiences that are no longer an accurate reflection of current policy.

A lot of the concerns about closed/guarded people abusing their stance will clear up as additional actions are implemented in the profile system. (Currently, certain actions like stealing get you locked open. In the future, first strikes will automatically change your profile stance.) And although the Open crowd generally frowns upon reporting, I think you should be reporting players who are abusing their PvP stances.

"First strike while Closed will definitely set you to Guarded, multiple first strikes while Guarded in a TBD period of time will set you Open." --DR-Zeyurn (07/02/2010)

>>Aim4: So many problems develop because people choose to twitch back and forth from 'game mad' to 'real mad' and this can manifest in any number of ways.

This. A while ago, Leilond conducted a "DragonRealms PvP Preference" survey, in which 15% of participants said that they PvP "to inflict suffering on another player." That result doesn't reinforce the link between being PvP open and role-playing.

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>>You basically hit the nail on the head "unless policy enforcement is being abused by people who are guarded." Does it happen always, of course not. Look at >>the options this presents though, say a guarded player and an open player are RPing, and they are having an argument that is escalating to the point where >>they are probably going to PvP. Can the open player attack first? Well sure, but at what level of confidence do they have that they aren't going to get >>reported for unconsented PvP? The guarded person certainly has the right to report the open person for attacking them if there wasn't any clear consent.

>>Now look at the flipside, the guarded person is in complete control of the situation, they can attack first without fear of any such report. Also look at the >>penalties from each point of view, the guarded person has 0 possible penalty, except a text death if they lose the fight which is literally 0. The open >>person has the ability to get a warning, which is 6 months of no experience drain, and a warning on their record for life.

>>I'm not sure when a warning is considered non-stackable with another warning but let's just say it's 6 months. 6 months of playing is a long time to not get >>into a conflict if you want to RP with anyone when the entire game's focal point is about combat and violence. If the open person gets a warning, they for >>sure aren't going to go anywhere near a guarded person for PvP and chance another warning that can hold a larger penalty. Does that make sense?


And this is the point im trying to make with people being guarded, as i said in my post, there isnt just 1 type of guarded folk, there are two, and i'll say it in a different way 1. there are those guarded players who are curious to PvP RP but have reservations about it, either by personal experience or from the way other people have explained to them what it means to be open. and 2. Those who want to be selfish about the way they RP and play the game, struggle with the concept of good sportsmanship, and would also like to keep an ace up their sleeve if everything dosnt go their way when it comes to RPing the situation out.

Codiax you explained it very well the dilemma that you are faced with when wanting to RP conflict and use the system that is in place to help us not get ourselves into policy/consent issues, but when that system has (in my opinion) a great flaw.

And pointing out that in an effort to enjoy the game as we would like to enjoy it, we risk having our characters scared, and that taking the choice/chance that the worst wont happen, we can end up with our characters being damaged in a way the is difficult to fix. All because we are following through with playing in a direction that the game is supposed to nurture and encourage for our individual playing style, but in an effort to curb or safe guard us from bad behaivor, sets up a situation that allows abuse.



>>Ergo I have better things to do than randomly get sniped because THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.

>>I don't really care what your opinions are. I simply repeated facts as I do every time this 'closed is for report babies' thread comes up. If that means >>you think I'm resentful or 'a reporting baby' or whatever else, oh well.

If you are going to "simply reply" maybe try doing it without the type of punctuation and sarcasm you have in your replys otherwise people will see you as having an some kind of emotional investment with your opinions as i do and still believe you do. And i dont recall anyone in this thread implying being "closed is for babies", only that the closed stance in DR is a personal choice of how you would like to hold your PvP stance and that is just as notible and has its place as open does. By sending a very clear message to the other person regarding what your intentions are with handling a potential PvP situation. I think your very much missing the point of this thread.

Rifkinn

While it has been discussed thoroughly before, this has been a good and enlightening thread for me. The Profile system and changes to death were implemented while I was gone on a long break, so after I came back I read through a lot of the discussion to catch up. It's interesting to see how perspectives have evolved. My character is Guarded (hopefully type 1? I can't recall ever reporting anyone for PvP), so I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the issue.

First, reasons I'm Guarded (instead of Open):

ICly:
My main character is a very low-conflict sort of person. If someone steals from her, she'll report them to the guards rather than try to blow them up. If she finds a necromancer in Therengia, she'll offer them a moongate out of the province rather than trying to melt their face off. If someone is picking on a novice, she'll take the novice somewhere safe and educate them on how to defend themselves/avoid bullies. Her temperament and skills are just not focused on fighting, and she would rather use her wits than violence to solve her problems.

OOCly:
While I find roleplayed PvP immensely exciting and entertaining, there are few things that frustrate me more than random PvP disrupting the other things I'm trying to do. I can accept that random ganking is a thing of the past (and good riddance!) but in DR conflicts often don't end with one death. Indeed, it's often good RP to continue to hate the person you hated yesterday. The problem is, this kind of ongoing conflict can be very disruptive to everyday play if the players aren't communicating OOC/on the same page.

Further, I feel like players who want to RP conflict have all the tools they need to do so safely right now. I've never found Consent policy confusing (though apparently some people do). And WARN is freakin' awesome - I don't really follow your logic in the original post.

>>while i'm RPing a heated interaction, by the time i'm thinking about needing to use the warn combat verb, the RP situation has already gotten to the point that PvP is gonna happen and for it not to end in that way is well in a way OOC. or just kinda stupid.

If you're already checking someone's profile to see whether you should continue a conflict, why not WARN while you're at it?


To summarize:

1. I don't mind PvP, but if you try to start a conflict with me, I want to try to roleplay a way out of it without violence.

2. To quote AIM4, "I don't mind PvP but if I fight with you, I don't feel like fighting nine of your friends/alts as well."

3. I don't mind PvP, but if I fight with you, I don't want it to turn into a months-long conflict with little RP other than you ganking me from time to time.

4. I don't mind PvP, but if we fight, I want to have clear OOC communication about it.

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>>The 'out of the blue what the heck?' ganking isn't really much of an issue. But I can see where some people treat life and death a little differently in game. If I wanted to tell Erixx he's being overbearing or something, I could probably expect a BG to the face.

And then celesi logged in.

/sigh

How many games have more then two PvP stances? None that I can think of, because there are only two stances: Open or Closed. You either want to PvP, or you don't. Things like the old World of Warcraft PvP-RP servers don't count, because they were designed as PvP servers where everyone could run around saying "ye olde" and "for sooth!". People who want to go Guarded don't really want to PvP, they just want to fight someone when it's convenient for them. When they're not hunting, when they don't have their skills freshly locked, when they can get something out of it or when they know they can log in a HLC and step on someone without fear of retribution or admonishment.

The only way to resolve this and end this conversation once and for all is to get rid of Guarded all together. If you want to PvP, go open. If you don't want to PvP, stay closed. If you want to attack someone while closed, you get locked open for 24 hours. If you switch to an open stance, you can't go back to closed for 10 minutes (keeps people from baiting while open then going closed to play policy). If you kill someone while open, you're locked open for 2 hours. That prevents anyone from hiding from policy. This is nice too, because if there's a group conflict occurring where the majority of one group normally spends their time sitting around a bin with a Closed or Guarded stance, they can go Open for the conflict itself and then a mere 2 hours later they can safely return to their braiding. If you want to RP a specific conflict with a singular person, they've had that mechanic in place for years. It's called challenge.

^
What the guy above me said.

Posted while i was writing mine.

+1

-Zerreck Arkarm

Sure it is. On the PvE servers you could raise and lower your PvP flag. While lowered (closed), no one would/could touch you. Drop your flag, you were open. If you attacked someone who was PvP open, regardless of your stance, you were locked open for a small window of time. At that point you could either continue to fight, hearth or log out for the day. This is what PvP needs to be in DR. Policy has to be taken out of the equation for everyone's sake and the player needs to choose if they want to engage in PvP or not. If the answer is yes, they have to be able to live with the consequences.

>>You have players hiding behind the "Guarded" status will like to play policy. They'll attack players that are Open when they know they can win, but as soon as there's retaliation they're quick to hit the Report button when they lose.

Sounds like a player issue more than a stance one. It's not like you're unable to attack players and/or be annoying while closed.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>>If they were Closed, they wouldn't be attacking anyone in the first place.

Yes they would.

Or they'd be annoying in ways that are still obnoxious and would still be consent if they weren't closed.

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