We know there will be systems in place similar to trivial loot code...even if they aren't identical.
It has been mentioned that if players are to powerful for an encounter, some mobs might call in "friends" to help them or if players are way to powerful the mob might "run away" aka despawn.
Intentional training, with the intent to kill another player, is what we used to refer to(I think may have even been Brad's words) as circumventing the PVP switch. This should be a (permanent) bannable offense, period. Figure out a warning system or whatever, but this is a capital offense with the highest level of punishment. The same goes for buffing mobs and letting them loose with the intent to cause the death of another player.
Reckless training, training to clear to an area to skip content, or repeated trains to zone that could and should have been avoided, which result in the deaths of other players should fall into the PNP. This one will obviously be tougher to police. Crap does happen that isn't malicious. People will make honest mistakes. This is where community "policing" and a robust guide program come into play.
I challenge every player worried about this kind of thing to commit to being a guide. Let us, as a community, actively be a part of the solution.
JK, I ain't got time for that. Gotta camp that haste belt.
oneADseven said:Kilsin said:It may be best to take a breath and re-read my post with a clear head man, I clearly separated the words "Train" and "Stealing" with a full stop/period (.) and then in a new sentence described how frivolous claims would hamper the GMs.
For some reason, you combined the two and twisted my words to suggest that I called kill stealing and training - frivolous, which I did not.
For reference:
The more serious breaches will, of course, be handled quickly and professionally by VR but if you get "trained" in-game or someone "steals" your kill and you come to the forums to rage and tell us how much the game sucks because we didn't have a GM there within 0.004 seconds to deal with it, then that person is probably going to have a bad day. The more GM's get spammed with frivolous claims/incidents the longer they will take to deal with other, more legitimate incidents, which is why I spoke about teamwork and community power/policing for smaller things.
Again - More on this when the time is right and we are closer to much larger scale testing.So is training and kill-stealing considered a serious breach or a frivolous claim?
Kill stealing and Training are very different.
Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack, if someone was waiting there first then you have to either choose to apply some game etiquette or not, it is not a reportable offence and a GM will not bother with such reports unless it is malicious or in combination with other offences like abuse etc.
Training can be accidental so it would come down to each situation and be judged case by case, if someone is running for their lives and you get caught up it is not their fault nor is it a reportable offence but if someone intentionally trains you and in some cases repeatedly, then yes, that is a breach of the guidelines and will incur punishment, most likely a warning if it is the first offence.
We have been very clear though and stand by our statement: "Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon."
Thanks for the clarity Kilsin. This has been a subject that has had a lot of debate within the community. Even though this won't really make some of us feel any less worried about potential toxic behavior in the game, at least we know where things stand at this point.
My concern, and I think that of many others, is that we don't let competition get so fierce that it starts to push people away. A little friendly competition every now and then is fine and even healthy. But if the average player ends up having to fight other players just for the rights to a camp or a kill, on a regular basis, that's giong to turn a lot of people off. Doubly so, because competition tends to bring out the worst behavior in people online.
If we were to clone the EQ model for Pantheon, with named mobs spawning primarily from placeholders at static camps, then I fear that competition would become the norm for any camp that had value. The more valuable or rare the mob or the drop, the worse it would get. Even if it didn't descend into training and harassment, it's a safe bet that there would be a number of players not really having much fun, because they were so focused on fighting other players over the content.
So, I am hopeful that the team is going to do the right things in the content design so that competition is really only about certain special encounters - and not something that happens commonly. I've posted before about randomizing spawn locations and times, about putting things on shared loot tables, and about using triggers for encounters that need to be tied to a specific location. I know that it's early yet as the team is really just working on the initial content for the game, but it would be great if we could hear about whether these methods or others are being used to help insure that competition is special.
Someone asked me yesterday what it was like in the first years of EQ, and whether we used to have guilds really upset at each other over raid targets. The response I gave them was that oddly, we cared a lot more about someone taking a named mob in a dungeon than we did about them taking a raid mob from us. The reason for that was that not counting planes, raid targets spawned generally once a week. They were so rare, and special, that everyone just accepted that they were contested and so the competition was generally friendly and respectful. By contrast, at least on my server, there wasn't a day that went by where you didn't hear about someone getting trained out of a camp in a dungeon, or having to deal with a kill stealer or a ninja looter - and these were mobs that you could camp and spawn multiple times within a few hours unless you were just unlucky.
This is just my memory of course and people on other servers, or playing later in EQ's life, might have had different experiences in all respects. But at least to me, I think it says something important about when competition can enhance the experience for most players - and when it really doesn't.
Anyway that's my last feedback on this subject. Looking forward to when we're able to test some of the content. I can't speak for anyone else, but at least for me, I'll plan to devote a portion of my testing feedback to identifying bottlenecks where players might come into conflict with each other, especially if those bottlenecks don't feel special or worthwhile enough to warrant that level of competition.
Nephele said:Thanks for the clarity Kilsin. This has been a subject that has had a lot of debate within the community. Even though this won't really make some of us feel any less worried about potential toxic behavior in the game, at least we know where things stand at this point.
My concern, and I think that of many others, is that we don't let competition get so fierce that it starts to push people away. A little friendly competition every now and then is fine and even healthy. But if the average player ends up having to fight other players just for the rights to a camp or a kill, on a regular basis, that's giong to turn a lot of people off. Doubly so, because competition tends to bring out the worst behavior in people online.
If we were to clone the EQ model for Pantheon, with named mobs spawning primarily from placeholders at static camps, then I fear that competition would become the norm for any camp that had value. The more valuable or rare the mob or the drop, the worse it would get. Even if it didn't descend into training and harassment, it's a safe bet that there would be a number of players not really having much fun, because they were so focused on fighting other players over the content.
So, I am hopeful that the team is going to do the right things in the content design so that competition is really only about certain special encounters - and not something that happens commonly. I've posted before about randomizing spawn locations and times, about putting things on shared loot tables, and about using triggers for encounters that need to be tied to a specific location. I know that it's early yet as the team is really just working on the initial content for the game, but it would be great if we could hear about whether these methods or others are being used to help insure that competition is special.
Someone asked me yesterday what it was like in the first years of EQ, and whether we used to have guilds really upset at each other over raid targets. The response I gave them was that oddly, we cared a lot more about someone taking a named mob in a dungeon than we did about them taking a raid mob from us. The reason for that was that not counting planes, raid targets spawned generally once a week. They were so rare, and special, that everyone just accepted that they were contested and so the competition was generally friendly and respectful. By contrast, at least on my server, there wasn't a day that went by where you didn't hear about someone getting trained out of a camp in a dungeon, or having to deal with a kill stealer or a ninja looter - and these were mobs that you could camp and spawn multiple times within a few hours unless you were just unlucky.
This is just my memory of course and people on other servers, or playing later in EQ's life, might have had different experiences in all respects. But at least to me, I think it says something important about when competition can enhance the experience for most players - and when it really doesn't.
Anyway that's my last feedback on this subject. Looking forward to when we're able to test some of the content. I can't speak for anyone else, but at least for me, I'll plan to devote a portion of my testing feedback to identifying bottlenecks where players might come into conflict with each other, especially if those bottlenecks don't feel special or worthwhile enough to warrant that level of competition.
Good post Neph and it is tough man, we will do our best though, we have multiple strategies to try and handle this while also keeping it in mind while designing the game and creating content and itemization, plus with the help from our awesome community I believe we can keep incidents to a minimum.
Kilsin said:Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack, if someone was waiting there first then you have to either choose to apply some game etiquette or not, it is not a reportable offence and a GM will not bother with such reports unless it is malicious or in combination with other offences like abuse etc.
Training can be accidental so it would come down to each situation and be judged case by case, if someone is running for their lives and you get caught up it is not their fault nor is it a reportable offence but if someone intentionally trains you and in some cases repeatedly, then yes, that is a breach of the guidelines and will incur punishment, most likely a warning if it is the first offence.We have been very clear though and stand by our statement: "Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon."
It's great to see some concrete statements in this area, thanks Kils. I would love a little further clarification on this if I may ask?
You say "Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack, if someone was waiting there first then you have to either choose to apply some game etiquette or not"
My interpretation is that kill stealing *is* considered 'an offense' and shows a lack of etiquette, but is simply not serious enough for GMs to deal with. Is that correct?
You then say "Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue". Are you referring just to training now, or is KSing considered "griefing and harassment" and when repeated, becomes an offense?
In my experience of EQ classic and EQ P99 it was a regular occurence that others would pull monsters you are clearly waiting for and refuse to cooperate/share/join/whatever. A session would then become an irritating experience at best. Sometimes you could spend 30 minutes or more getting a group together and even longer to make you way somewhere only for one or two high level players to turn up and simply take over effectively forcing your whole group to make the effort of travelling to and breaking in somewhere else just because they could.
Kilsin said: "Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack, if someone was waiting there first then you have to either choose to apply some game etiquette or not, it is not a reportable offence and a GM will not bother with such reports unless it is malicious or in combination with other offences like abuse etc."
I am not really that surprised that this is the VR position on Kill stealing as this is how it worked back in EQ1 and we know that much of what inspired everyone at VR is to bring back the old EQ1 feel of MMOs. I know Pantheon not going to be exactly like EQ1, but the vision seems to be the same. I do though want to make some points and maybe Kilsin you can take this back to the rest of the VR team.
First
In regards to "Unless it is malicious".
If you arrive at a camp and see that there are other players there and you choose to steal said camp from them or how was it put it earlier... "Choose to compete", this by my understand IS malicious. You are concious of the fact that your actions will harm the other players game play experience and will make him upset. In other words you are 'deciding' to offend him knowing he will take offence. If this is not maliciousness then what is?
Yes I understand there may be times where you enter a camp area and the other group is not right there (perhaps on a corpse recovery, or some other reason) and the camp looks free, so you choosing to take the camp would not be a malicious act. But in your scenario you know that group is there. "apply some game etiquette or not" the 'not etiquette' in that statement refers to a malicious act.
Second
Over the years after I stopped playing EQ1 and moved on to other MMO's, I would often get into conversations with my friends who I played EQ1 with and we would reminisce about those 'good ole days' in the game we really enjoyed for all those years. In those conversations we would wax nostalgic about all these great things about the game that we miss and lament that they are not around in the newer MMOs. BUT, there was one universal thing that all of my friends said that they did not miss. That thing was the fact that any other player could come and snatch away from you something you'd worked hours to get simply because they could do more damage than you, or in the case of raids could mobilize faster, and the GM's did nothing to stop it. They knew how much their players hated it and yet when you got KS'd and tried to report it, you'd get the standard "There is nothing we can do for you" answer. Unless the other player started training you, you were SOL.
Don't get me wrong, we did all enjoy the openess of the world and the fact that you could run into other groups in every zone. Often times we worked with other groups to move into the deep dangerous parts of a dungeon and as long as people were getting along this was great. But Kill stealing was always the wicked problem that made every single one of my friends say "I wouldn't play a game that allowed anyone to just come and steal stuff with no repercussions." I think this was the MAIN reason (other than Zerging) that World of Warcraft chose to use instances. Now I'm not asking for instances, I don't think that is the only solution for this.
What I am saying here Kilsin is that while VR's point of view may see Kill Stealing as "not a serious offense" your players will always see it as a very major offense and one of the top 3 main things that will ruin their enjoyment of the game. The other two things are players killing you in a PvE environment (aka Training you, Charming a mob and buffing it up so it can kill you, etc...) and players cheating in some way. If any of those 3 things are not punishable offenses then you will see people quit the game as soon as it starts happening regularly. The only people who want kill stealing allowed, are people who want to kill steal.
I do also understand that kill stealing is a very very hard thing to police, as people will try to report people they don't like with false claims and such. I get it, it's not something you at VR want to be forced to deal with. But if you want this game to succeed I'm suggesting that you will need to find a way to deal with it. If that means creating the kind of tools that allow you to successfully replay what happend when a player reports a kill stealer, then you should probably try to get that in place before the game launches. You also have to remember that once you start enforcing a 'no kill stealing' policy, then players will learn quickly and your instances of it happening will go down. All it takes is for people to start getting game bans (even temporary ones) for it and they will think twice before engaging it in. It won't stop it completely, but just having the policy and the will to enforce it will go a long way to curbing the problem.
My prediction is that if Kill Stealing is NOT a serious offense and it starts to happen with no repercussions, then most players will not stick with the game for very long, no matter how great the other parts of the game are. EQ1 got away with it for a long time, but only until there started to become other MMO options that didn't involve kill stealing. Now days, they already have those other options.
TL/DR - VR you may think kill stealing is Not a serious offense, but ALL of your players will want it to be a serious offense. The only players I can think of who won't want kill stealing to be a serious offense are players who want to go around kill stealing.
I hope all of that made sense and I was clear on what I meant. Please Kilsin, talk to the other Devs and pass on what we are saying. You either have to find a way for Kill Stealing to not be possible, or you need to make it a punishable offense (I suggest the later). I am certain that every player who isn't a kill stealer himself will agree. Although I'm sure a bunch of people will probably arrive to say "I'm not a kill stealer and I don't want it to be punishable" but that's the internet for you.
Brad McQuaid said:With Pantheon we've chosen to focus on PvE and making the E in PvE matter a lot more than it has for some time. We've decided to attract gamers who love to team up with each other and take on the AI -- cooperative gamers who want more than session based games but to work together in a truly persistent environment. We've decided to go after people who want to explore and experience vast handcrafted worlds with compelling storylines and quests. We've targeted the online gamer who when they experience something emotionally intense would rather experience that with other people -- that, to them at least, experiencing challenges and even overcoming them together and as a team provides for much more memorable shared experiences
We need to be honest about what Pantheon is all about and to whom it is being made for, the audiences we are targeting. Trying to hide the more controversial tenets so that some people aren't scared away would be a marketing tactic involving dishonesty, and I'm not ok with that. Creating a PR/Marketing plan or approach that avoided talking about the core of the game, that it's a game focused around cooperative play, about community, about challenge, about being rewarded for playing and not accepting RL money or having cash shops, isn't acceptable or ok. Sometimes products or games or movies or whatever *are* marketed that way, but I think it's shady and even sometimes dishonest. So, as you can see from our tenants, our FAQ, our interviews, etc. we are not shying away from letting people know what Pantheon is all about, even if the issue is controversial.
I just hope I can experience the game above, the game I was sold on: A cooperative game centered on challenging PvE content, players who like to team up and take on the AI. I really hope there is a lot being planned to limit head to head player interactions and competition so even casual (less time, not skill) players can thrive, enjoy the game, and try their hand at challenging content without having to fight other players for everything/most things. With the info we currently have it sounds very much like a game promoting social hierarchy where more hardcore (more time, not skill) players, those with better gear or higher levels, will have free reign to take whatever they want and generally stomp on anyone. It's most often just domination rather than any real competition.
Nowhere in the marketing thus far has competition been promoted or stated as a core to this game, and on the site it is only noted as something that has been a problem in the past. So again I really hope there are other plans to protect players from others that seek dominance and to promote cooperation, teamwork, and making new friends instead of tribalism, take what you want/survival of the fittest/might makes right, and head to head gameplay where other groups players are seen as a threat.
The more I read about in this thread the more I want to play on a PvP server lol
But I do have maybe an idea?
Take a look at this page for the old EQ Sullon Zek server ruleset. http://www.tvwiki.tv/wiki/Sullon_zek
<pre>13. Rules such as the Play Nice Policy do not apply to this server when there is a PvP solution available. Characters have the ability on this server to deal with their conflicts through combat. Causing experience loss by 'training' NPCs on other characters would normally not be an offense that would warrant a warning this server. But training done to others on the same team, thus eliminating any PvP solution, is a violation of the Play Nice Policies. ALSO: All rules regarding general decency still apply. Cursing, threats and other such things will be dealt with sternly, and are still unacceptable behavior on any server.</pre>
Training was fine on Sullon Zek for the opposite team. This brings me to think Pantheon needs some form of pvp to counter the griefers.
Enter the Bounty Hunters. Perhaps players can spend a decent amount of currency, and it may take two players to setup a bounty but in doing so that player becomes pvp enabled and people who choose to accept the bounty have the right to go track, find and kill said player for a non-rezzable death.
This could be abused of course so checks would have to be made and a timeframe would have to be in place on who and for howlong a player can setup a bounty.
This would cause the perosn to either log out or go hide, meaning they would leave the effected area and gameplay would resume, in theory.
This could be a nice ruleset server or a mechanic in general.
Someone coming into your "camp" and killing your mobs is not griefing or malicious. You might not like it, but it's not against any rule.
If they stay there and you compete with them for 5 hours and lose all mobs, that's still not griefing or malicious.
I assume what he means is that if someone comes and ks's you, then you leave and that person follows you around ks'ing everything you touch.. that's when it becomes griefing and malicious.
You have to put personal feelings aside and look from a logical perspective. Is said person preventing you from playing the game... no. You have the ability to walk away. If you do, and they continue harassing you, that's when theres a problem.
Exactly Porygon that was also my thought.
It always depends on the situation.
If a high level player camp a low level group and kill every mob they attack instantly and also follow the group through the dungeon. It is per se still a
"Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack" but I guess thats not what Kilsin ment ( or maybe he did).
For me that would be a reportable situation because the main goal of the player isn't the competition, the main goal is ruining the day for the others and therefore it is punishable (at least from my point of view).
The situation where another group is just taking your camp spot: Well not really a lot that you can do about it. We did survived it in EQ1 so we will here. Personally I remember that camps where mostly respected. But I do fear that the behavior of people changed since the beginning of everquest. A lot of mmos in the past taught them, that all content is always available. No need to respect others.
Porygon said:Someone coming into your "camp" and killing your mobs is not griefing or malicious. You might not like it, but it's not against any rule.
If they stay there and you compete with them for 5 hours and lose all mobs, that's still not griefing or malicious.
I assume what he means is that if someone comes and ks's you, then you leave and that person follows you around ks'ing everything you touch.. that's when it becomes griefing and malicious.
You have to put personal feelings aside and look from a logical perspective. Is said person preventing you from playing the game... no. You have the ability to walk away. If you do, and they continue harassing you, that's when theres a problem.
This is a play nice policy in effect. When there is intentional harm. It doesnt even have to be KS'ing or Training, it can be verbal abuse also. I have seen someone get account after account banned because they couldnt keep thier filthy mouth shut in public channels.
Porygon said:You have to put personal feelings aside and look from a logical perspective. Is said person preventing you from playing the game... no. You have the ability to walk away. If you do, and they continue harassing you, that's when theres a problem.
Lol yeah, if someone walks into a bar and takes my pint and shoves me off the barstool, that's fine because I can just go to a bar down the street.
If you're bullied you can walk away, so it's ok? That's the *whole problem*. Someone is *forcing* you away because you happen to be weaker.
And if at your next stop you get bullied again, it's ok as long as it's not the same bully?
And if the original bully bullies different people all day that's ok?
Spread the bullying around around and it's not wrong!
From a "logical perspective" that sounds like a perfect recipe for a terminal toxic build up. It'll be a lovely world when bullies learn they can get away with bad behaviour all day as long as they apply it indiscriminately.
disposalist said:Lol yeah, if someone walks into a bar and takes my pint and shoves me off the barstool, that's fine because I can just go to a bar down the street.
If you're bullied you can walk away, so it's ok? That's the *whole problem*. Someone is *forcing* you away because you happen to be weaker.
And if at your next stop you get bullied again, it's ok as long as it's not the same bully?
And if the original bully bullies different people all day that's ok?
Spread the bullying around around and it's not wrong!
From a "logical perspective" that sounds like a perfect recipe for a terminal toxic build up. It'll be a lovely world when bullies learn they can get away with bad behaviour all day as long as they apply it indiscriminately.
It's a stretch to say someone killing a pixelated monster, that you also want to kill, is bullying. Theres no laws against someone killing a mob you want to kill. You can compete or leave.
There are "laws" against harassing people. Including the gentleman "stealing" something that belongs to you (your drink) and physically assaulting someone (pushing them off of a bar stool). Those are both crimes. You also have more than the 2 options... ...you can call the police... this is just a really bad analogy.
Someone KSing you, as much as you hate it, is not a crime.
Porygon said:It's a stretch to say someone killing a pixelated monster, that you also want to kill, is bullying. Theres no laws against someone killing a mob you want to kill. You can compete or leave.
There are "laws" against harassing people. Including the gentleman "stealing" something that belongs to you (your drink) and physically assaulting someone (pushing them off of a bar stool). Those are both crimes. You also have more than the 2 options... ...you can call the police... this is just a really bad analogy.
Someone KSing you, as much as you hate it, is not a crime.
Generally speaking it isn't against the law to verbally attack, troll, or otherwise talk crap to people online (or often in public) either...so are those people not bullies? There doesn't have to be a law for something to be bullying.
It's not illegal to cut in line so you shouldn't ever be upset if someone were to do it to you, they are doing nothing wrong.
Iksar said:]Generally speaking it isn't against the law to verbally attack, troll, or otherwise talk crap to people online (or often in public) either...so are those people not bullies? There doesn't have to be a law for something to be bullying.
It's not illegal to cut in line so you shouldn't ever be upset if someone were to do it to you, they are doing nothing wrong.
I want you to tell me that you think me coming into a camp and KSing you on a mob is bullying.
Please.
Because you're being silly.
And in most cases if someone cuts you in line, the establishment or event will tske action against said person. If a event raid that line cutting is allowed, you would see alot of people still abiding by the rules and being respectful. A small amount of people would take advantage.
I'm saying that just because there aren't laws prohibiting something doesn't mean that behavior or action isn't rude or a type of bullying. The difference is there is no threat of repercussion online, the reason people don't do things like that (often) in the real world is because most people are non-confrontational and there is a real threat of violence or being kicked out/banned from a location or otherwise denied service. Saying there is no such thing as kill stealing and player on player confrontation/"competition" is encouraged is giving the green light to players to take whatever they want from others and generally push around those who are lesser geared or leveled, enter the "git guud" mentality. "You don't deserve this thing you've been diligently working toward, I do because I am stronger and can beat you (or have more powerful friends)."
It seems to me "Kill Stealing" aka KSing is not what is even being descussed here. Attacking a mob that is not engaged is not stealing a kill.. camp stealing I suppose you can call it assuming camps are defined and recognized by VR.
Kill Stealing as I remember it was after a mob had been engaged somebody would interfere and do over 50% of the damage therefore Stealing the Kill from the person that made the initial engagement.
What is being discussed in this thread is Camp Stealing and in EQ "Camps" were not recognized by management.
I don't think they should be recognized here by VR eather... first hit and it's yours... if you can't Steal the kill by out damaging the other then there will be no such thing as Kill Stealing.
And if you load up an instant cast spell or ability then strength of the player (of the "bully") would also be irrelevant, if little guy hits first and the bully hits big... let him kill it for you then loot it... say thanks and wait for the next spawn. If you both have an instant cast then it's at least a fair competition.
People seem to be using the dreaded "Kill Stealing" name to justify them wanting certain mobs reserved for just for them.... in an open world! Aren't all you who want that basically asking for an instanced world like WOW?
This community is proving to be way more thin skinned than what I was expecting. Equating KS'ing with bullying is outrageous. Surely most of us have enough experience in MMORPG's to know how to handle this situation? Or has WoW with it's virtual baby-sitting mechanics ruined that too?
Porygon said:Someone coming into your "camp" and killing your mobs is not griefing or malicious. You might not like it, but it's not against any rule.
If they stay there and you compete with them for 5 hours and lose all mobs, that's still not griefing or malicious.
I assume what he means is that if someone comes and ks's you, then you leave and that person follows you around ks'ing everything you touch.. that's when it becomes griefing and malicious.
You have to put personal feelings aside and look from a logical perspective. Is said person preventing you from playing the game... no. You have the ability to walk away. If you do, and they continue harassing you, that's when theres a problem.
Spot on, Porygon, thank you :)
Zorkon said:It seems to me "Kill Stealing" aka KSing is not what is even being descussed here. Attacking a mob that is not engaged is not stealing a kill.. camp stealing I suppose you can call it assuming camps are defined and recognized by VR.
Kill Stealing as I remember it was after a mob had been engaged somebody would interfere and do over 50% of the damage therefore Stealing the Kill from the person that made the initial engagement.
What is being discussed in this thread is Camp Stealing and in EQ "Camps" were not recognized by management.
I don't think they should be recognized here by VR eather... first hit and it's yours... if you can't Steal the kill by out damaging the other then there will be no such thing as Kill Stealing.
And if you load up an instant cast spell or ability then strength of the player (of the "bully") would also be irrelevant, if little guy hits first and the bully hits big... let him kill it for you then loot it... say thanks and wait for the next spawn. If you both have an instant cast then it's at least a fair competition.
People seem to be using the dreaded "Kill Stealing" name to justify them wanting certain mobs reserved for just for them.... in an open world! Aren't all you who want that basically asking for an instanced world like WOW?
This game is centered on most damage done, there is no first to engage. That stronger/better geared/higher level player or group can come up and burn a mob you are already fighting (whether at a camp or not) and take credit, this is not considered kill stealing as that doesn't exist.
Kilsin: Is this the official and likely final stance of Visionary Realms? Be better than others or hit the road?
Kilsin said:Kill stealing and Training are very different.
Kill stealing is not a serious offence, every mob in the game is free for anyone to attack, if someone was waiting there first then you have to either choose to apply some game etiquette or not, it is not a reportable offence and a GM will not bother with such reports unless it is malicious or in combination with other offences like abuse etc.
Training can be accidental so it would come down to each situation and be judged case by case, if someone is running for their lives and you get caught up it is not their fault nor is it a reportable offence but if someone intentionally trains you and in some cases repeatedly, then yes, that is a breach of the guidelines and will incur punishment, most likely a warning if it is the first offence.We have been very clear though and stand by our statement: "Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon."
To offer Kilsin a little support here, customer service in an online environment isn't the easiest thing in the world. You have to step back sometimes and examine how this stuff works as it's not as simple as just acting on a report. Trains, for example can as Kilsin stated, be accidental or intentional. It's often going to be a he said, she said sort of thing, so while it could be an accident, the person getting trained could go full salt mine and swear it was intentional just to get the poor sucker pulling the train in trouble for accidently bowling them over with the world’s most angry entourage. The opposite is also true as you could have some chucklehead trying to kill you and your group by feign deathing a train on you so they can move in and claim your camp. This stuff happens and it's not always easy to get to the truth of what actually happened just because some people are assclowns, for lack of a better word.
Just try to imagine launch day with limited staff and a barrage of reports ranging from name violations to account compromises (oh noes, I used my same name and password for the game on some shady third party website and got haxed! /facepalm) to kill stealing to trainings to he said something mean and hurt my fee fees. And then you and your small crew of GMs have to sort through all of that, prioritize it, and then see where the truth might lie in a two-person story all while the forums are blowing up because you haven't answered the 2000 or so petitions for help fast enough with your 10 or so GMs (those numbers are totally arbitrary. ;p )
All in all, I think GMs and guides should probably only handle extreme cases when it comes to behavior as it’s such a subjective thing to so many people. We'll have to handle it as a community in some ways with the GMs maybe popping in to handle the harassment via gameplay abuse and other out there things that we can't do anything about. If someone calls you the son of a motherless orc, or some other hurtful name, you should probably just laugh at that idiocy and move on. That's the sort of thing an ignore button can solve and keep the GMs on more important things. ;p
I know it's a lot to ask that everyone behave like decent human beings and treat others with respect, but hopefully the ones that don't will be a relatively small minority if necessary find themselves relegated to a blackballed list of obscurity should they continue to be a nuisance.