The second bit was put on the ledge a lil but I respect your ideas and concerns.

Just sayin’ , I´ll read it too.

Paladins see this behavior and stop being paladins because it is a waste of time because recalls and ganks rock. Reds take over again as they always have with their only opposition being the O/C guilds that happen to be trying to find enemies in the dungeons or PvP hotspots.

Most reds are reds because they don’t enjoy PvE and enjoy making their money off of people who do enjoy PvE. Most reds aren’t reds to be PvPer’s. They take advantages when they see them and run the hell away when they don’t have them. You think being red attracts PvPer’s but I totally disagree. People into PvP go into O/C or set up duels or only log on for tournaments.

This system is based on a belief that PK’s are PK’s because the ability to kill anyone gives them the ability to fight anyone, but I think you need to reanalyze the PK mentality. The ability to kill anyone gives them the ability to select their kills from the largest pool of players in the game and get their loot. A smart PK minimizes his chances of dying in that fight. A smart PK will never fight a paladin 1v1, there is just no reason to. A smart PK will only fight a paladin 2+v1 with ventrilo and sync drops. How does blessed plate armor help that? You may get the occasional 2v2 which will actually be a good fight, but those small occurrences, and the small groups of reds who fight for that reason, aren’t enough to make an impact on the server.

I hate statloss and I think you’re right in trying to find an alternative, but I don’t think this is the right route. I know Divinity implemented a time based stat loss which was a really promising idea if they had made it last longer. That way you’re still out of the world for a while, but you at least don’t have to macro your character back up after you res. Make it scale in terms of length with the amount of short term murders or with the amount of people you’ve killed since you last died. This maybe doesn’t give less incentive to be red, but at least it gives less incentive to go on killing sprees in the Brit GY because risk vs reward isn’t good.

The bounty system still seems like the best reason to hunt reds if it can be made in a way that can’t be exploited. What better reason is there to kill some red other than getting large amounts of gold? Or maybe just ditch the paladin idea and lead to killing reds making you gain points that can be put towards other things, i.e., bless deeds, leet sandals, a ticket for two to Walt Disney Land, and other such things. People eat up pixel crack like its.. well.. crack. Give them a way to get their crack by killing reds and they’ll kill reds. Make reds unable to recall out of a dungeon and they’ll die. Hell make a system so if you kill x amount of reds you get a blessed backpack that works for a day only when you’re killed by a red. That way we don’t get our loot and the guy who just died with 10k on his body doesn’t cry.

And for christ’s sake, just give blues unlimited help options. I know the game isn’t supposed to be easy, but if you give them unlimited help options out then the newbies will at least not have to spend 50% of the game seeing things in grayscale and listening to creepy dead music while running the same route from the dungeon every time. The game isn’t fun while your dead, I played Darkfall for a free trial length, as a total newbie, and the thing I liked most was that when I died I respawned somewhere and didn’t have to run around as a ghost. Or put wandering healers wandering through dungeons or something. I hate seeing some guy in bone armor be killed in deceit with no way out, what incentive does that guy have to keep playing?

Reds on the other hand should be penalised and be unable to recall in dungeons…whether you put in a timer for after combat or killing a Blue as well is something that might be a good idea considering there won’t be any stat loss from normal PvP.

Either of these systems would work I kinda like one of the first two more though. Or a combination of both. System two where pally/pk cant recall in battle with the addition that if blues attack a red first the blue cant recall when they start losing.

But it’s a good way to make it dangerous to be a PK , where they can’t just roam about griefing and nuking everything and everyone.

Now, there are ways to circumvent this sort of stuff from happening. Some more obvious than others, but most of the ones that would be vital to encourage (or force) PvP between Paladins and PKs would require some major changes to the source code. One thing that hit me right off the bat is that Paladins need some sort of snare/stam drain otherwise reds will just run away from them all day refusing the engage. The easiest way you could implement this is just to add some sort of skill that when cast on a PK, it overburdens their weight for 5-10 seconds or so. Or you could just give Paladins a speed buff, but that would be somewhat ridiculous in the grand scheme of things (and a hell of a challenge to code if you want to do it right so that Paladins can’t just sprint around the world all day).

You would also have to give the PKs a reason to actually fight Paladins as well. I could give you a few ideas, but you said you didn’t want PK’ing to be easy, so I’ll let you figure out a solution instead of rambling and ranting.

Just remember; Adding a system where Anti-PK’ing is the judicial system only works if the Anti-PK can actually get close enough to do anything to the PK. I’ve been a PK since 98 on Great Lakes and would love to see and/or try my hand at an Anti-PK system like this. However, since you didn’t delve to deep into the Paladin’s perks/bonuses/skills, it sounds like it will be next to impossible for Paladin’s to actually catch a PK even if they know where the PK is. Simple “strategy” isn’t going to catch a PK that full well knows a Paladin will eventually be coming for him.

Also it’s not like being booted from a paladin guild completely eliminates your ability to attack / fight / kill a red. It just makes it even.

-Reds: Want the PvP, your loot (regs, weapons, etc), and maybe your head.

-Blues: Want their gold, to PvE in peace, chop wood+mine+craft in peace, etc.

-Blues/Reds lose all their loot, clothes, regs, crafting junk, weapons, etc when they die (exactly the same loss)

So the only difference between Reds and Blues is the reason they play the game. Reds generally want to PvP exclusively so let them, but you have to give Blues a benefit which isn’t game breaking BUT beneficial to play a Blue. I think I read something about Azaroth saying,” Just give them blessed clothing”. Why wouldn’t that work? Blues could buy bless deeds (only usable to Blues) so if you have your favorite outfit on, which most people know what they wear in UO about now, they could always have it if they are Blue. A stipulation to prevent exploiting is to have a system like the Chaos/Order shields, where it will blow up if worn by a Red or if you go Red while wearing the blessed gear it blows up.

Fairly simple idea and it gives the blues their uniqueness and Reds the sheep to kill without the incentive to have their favorite outfit perma. Everyone knows that re-gearing sucks, but so does having a dead server. Reds vs. Blues are what makes UO the game we all played and have loved for this long. IPY was badass the first time around (even after the first wipe) and I believe it will be just as huge this time around.

Stat loss is still needed. Alone it may not be a solution but combined with the Paladin system it could. IMO, stick with the short term and long term counter system to discourage uncapped perpetual PKíng, then add the paladin “dispatched” stat loss on top to bring paticular fear to facing Paladins.

Otherwise who would play a paladin over a red? Like mentioned above, reds get to have fun where ever and when ever they want plus the loot/riches from kills and you dont need to work hard to PK. Whereas paladins will need to acheive the status, and then are effectively limited to hunting only reds, cutting off a portion of the games content from them. Paladins need to be attractive, and lets face it, there are easily going to be much fewer Paladins then reds if nothing else due to the time it takes to become one and the way Paladin will be forced to play a paticular way and so have less freedom.

Now, a slight point id like to make in general about why I think not just statloss to discourage PKíng, but incentives to being *shock* nice, are necessary for the sake of the shard:

The crux of the matter is human nature has proven that if left to their own devices, players in MMOs will be immature, disrespectful and happily boost their egos and enjoyment at the expense of others. This does not reflect the civilized real life we all live in, but in MMO’s this IS how people behave. The flaw with UO was that it never encouraged players to be anything else, and what I believe Az is trying to do here is put in a counter-measure to this aspect of UO. Currently, vanilla classic UO would be on the scales 85% heavier to PKíng, generally being a selfish ass and making many peoples lives a misery (result=rage quitters).
The Paladin system hopefully will aim to make the balance more even and bring about a server where people are rewarded for actually being decent and not for being a twat.