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I abjectly refuse to play a "bad guy" anymore. And I'll lay out my reasons:

1. The thief guild owes taxes that are sky high the last I heard, but they don't get any income from any of the shady stuff that goes on in the city as far as I'm are of. If I'm mistaken, then I'm glad, but they should get an automatic income from all the stuff that goes on in the South side if we're really trying for a living, breathing world in my opinion. I've always had an issue with this. It's doubly so with this guild tax thing.

2. The XP penalty. I have been told time and time and time again about recommends, but that's simply not realistic. I don't want to play a blood thirsty maniac, nor do I want to play an all-out butthead, so I'm basically SOL as far as the recommend system goes. I also don't like the implications of such statements, which is basically that if I'm not getting the recommends, then I must just suck and deserve to lose at the XP sink gamble of the bad guy, even though I'm doing my best to play a role that is desperately needed in this game. Playing the subtle, long term bad guy is not rewarded in this game from my experience.

I'm not even taking part in plots for the QP. I'm taking part in them to get my rec level up.

3. This secrets system as it stands now is the most ridiculous thing I think I've encountered in this game. I understand the need to prevent abuse, or keep some secrets, and I am fine with that, but there is literally no reason manholes in the middle of a public street or square should be so secret that I can't find any of them doing a search thorough. This matters for those of us that want to play sneaky sneaky, explorers, and just badish guys in general.

More specifically on a personal note, the sewer system is my single favorite part of this entire game, and I can't even get into it now because of the way this system is functioning, and I am very unhappy about it.

4. The PK system is out of sorts, in my opinion, and it's a huge danger to somebody that plays a bad guy. The system, as far as I can tell, is literally that people can kill at the drop of a hat as long as they have a cnote. I mean, we have to app to be a serial killer, but there's no hard set requirements as far as PK goes that I can tell other than the cnote, and I think that, in the spirit of having to app to be a serial killer, the reasonings for killing people should actually have to be pretty high, like, say, this person killed my lover (revenge) or that person is a direct threat to my life (self defense). If we have to app to be a serial killer, then random killings just shouldn't be allowed in my opinion.

5. RP is extremely hard to get involved in. I've sought the thieves guild and got lucky beyond belief in getting in at all. You actively have to justify it, which I understand and is typical, but half the useful skills that exist you have to actually know exist in the first place in order to purchase them. Steal, lockpick...both of those would be great for thief characters, but you'd actually have to play a thief to know that they exist at all because they're not listed under the purchasable skills. It's a lot like bard-oriented characters not being able to purchase anything but sing or dance unless they already know that things like drums or strings exist. Again, I've always had a big problem with this, but I've never brought it up.

6. Rename is a mage only thing and not only mage-only, but fire-only. I understand it, I even agree with it in concept, but it is one less incentive to play a bad guy. It means that if I screw up before I'm able to make up the XP sink, I'm SOL. Of course, it also means that I have no idea what I'm going to spend my QP on now, either, but that's another issue altogether.

7. Your less typical bad guy, like evil Orderite, is even worse. Nobody wants anything to do with Order characters, and I don't blame them, because I will openly confess that I don't either. You risk your char's life with every single interaction with an Orderite, especially the Inquisitors, and the truth is that as much as we can talk about how they all eat and breathe the Church ICly, if every interaction with the Church actively results in such a risk, real people are not just blindly going to interact with Church officials. They're going to naturally cower in fear and they're going to be looking for any excuse to escape that official's presence ASAP, especially if said person is an Inquisitor, a Cardinal, a Bishop, and just the higher ups in general. That's not to say that they won't confess regularly or take the teachings seriously, but that is to say that their interactions with unknown Church officials are going to be tinged with fear and hesitation every. single. time.

Edit: Over all, the way that I sometimes see legitimate issues met with brushing off for reasons that basically amount to "it's supposed to be hard" or other such things leaves me with no other conclusion but than that it's just in general not desired that people play bad guys and, in some arenas, making it as painful as possible is the desire. I mean, I know I can't be the only person to bring up any of these issues, and I don't know the staff to be unreasonable by any stretch of the imagination (in fact, my schemes and horrifying stories have been encouraged by more than one in the past), so I'm not really sure what's going on with all of this.

What do I propose as solutions:

- Make at least some of the sewer grates in public streets easily accessible.

- Give the thieves some kind of passive income to account for their supposed illicit activities since they don't really have the option to make parts of the guild public like other guilds do (or just do away with the guild tax system that I will bluntly say I think is stupid, but it's not my call).

- Give the same kind of XP rewards for RPing with Orderite characters as one does with cyans because that kind of XP boost is the only thing that's going to make it worth the risk, at least in my eyes.

- The recommend system is the best thing we have, certainly better than the old one, but it would be nice if there was some reward that doesn't depend on the kindness of other people's hearts, you know? Or having to constantly give up stupendous RP. I'm sorry, I'm not the genius that some of the people on this mud are, but I'm actively striving to give solid, fun RP. I think it's garbage that those of us that aren't in the Top 10 of everything ever can sink massive amounts of XP into a char and then can just lose most of it at the drop of a hat. Perhaps 1% for every X amount of OOC months the char survives? Perhaps replace the QP award for being on the activity leader board with a % of XP back? Perhaps make a certain % of XP purchasable with QP up to a certain cap after death? Perhaps a 1% for every second or third time we use the teach command? I'm far from saying that I think that I deserve the same kind of rec levels that somebody who does awesome, dramatic RP like Lando, Casimir, or Veiss does, but I think there's something to be said for those of us who add value in more subtle, long-term ways or who simply bring value to the table because they're actively contributing to the game with lots of RP, skill sharing, or other things like that. It acknowledges that contribution, and I don't really feel like that's being done right now.

Every sewer grate should be currently set to searcheasy - aka, if you fail to find a grate on a search when a grate is actually there, it is a bug. It should be automatically successful. Please bugnote it if you're searching in a room where you know a grate is and you don't auto-find it, and we'll fix that ASAP. So hopefully that fixes one concern at the least.

The exits do need to stay hidden, though, to prevent people who don't know what they're out for wandering into them. If even one sewer entrance is non-hidden, travel may take people into the sewers, noobs may go get wrecked by crocodiles, etc. So the compromise is this current searcheasy situation.

EDIT: Also, rping with Orderites also gets you the same bonus as cyans already - or at least a similar RPXP bonus, anyway.

There are a lot of good points here, and I'll try to give my opinion on them:

1) Can't really speak to this, I've never played a thief. All other guilds get auto paid based on the current status of the economy (basically, %x goes to the crowdn, y to the church, z to the merchants etc)- if thieves don't currently, I agree that they should too, perhaps influenced by the current city report corruption rating.

Their guild hall- most other guilds recently rationalised their guild hall sizes down due to the incoming taxes, I certainly did as Merchant GL. That said, as an off the grid covert guildhall, I personally don't think they should be charged taxes at all, as long as they stay within a reasonable size.

2) I didn't find the need to be a blood thirsty maniac or butthead to receive recommends (although I'll agree that the bigger waves you make, the more you're likely to receive.) Note, you can recommend yourself for things you're doing that may not be readily apparent enough that others notice it happening in general. I've done this a few times.

3) Can't speak to this much either- never been an explorer or a user of secrets.

4) I do think that there should be good, solid grounds for killing someone- I'm personally much more in favour of ruining them or teaching a lesson if I can, but there seems to be a jump straight to pkill approach at times.

5) The hidden skills is something that riles me as well. I've reported it before, but staff, please make all skills visible to all players (excepting magic for non mages, I suppose)

6) I'm cool with the rename thing as it stands currently, it never made sense to me how the system worked before.

7) This is tough. Playing an Orderite often means people will outright avoid you which isn't fun. I've burned out from it (and other Order-related stuff). On the other hand, it is an essential role for the game- but it is easy to see why it can be tough keeping someone in these positions for any length of time.

Thanks
TPB Zei.

Takta pointed out that the sewer system should be accessible, and that's right on the money. I couldn't research the ones that I've looked at before, but I was able to go to a final spot on a public street that I'd left out, and was able to find the sewer grate with a search.

The XP bonus for Orderites I've never noticed before, but thanks for the heads up on that one as well.

As to Zeita's comments, as much as I can grumble, the new system for rename is a great deal more logical, and I definitely am in favor of the change from a thematic standpoint, and I agree with her on it.

As Tenebrae I RPA'd a smuggler run for all the shit we had been stealing and got bank. Also made bank on kidnapping. I've talked with staff repeatedly about getting a passive income for thieves and I really think they make a good point against it; with a passive income, there's no reason to go thieving! Kind of defeats the whole purpose of a thief guild. I could go either or for not being taxed though.

As for the rest... I really feel like it comes down to the nature of the beast: there is very little way to track subtle RP, whatever that RP might be. Most of the passive boosts you've listed won't apply to just 'bad guys', whatever your definition of that might be, but to a whole range of characters - some who might be maintaining their activity with poorly constructed one liners and a character whose personality consists of reactive decisions based on whatever is most convenient and lets them win at the time.

Certainly not a person I'd want encouraged to stick around! Regardless, I digress.

Let's flip the coin over for a moment; Orlando and I are rarely online. For me, when I'm online, it immediately becomes a matter of "What can I have Casimir do that will cause instant fun for me and some others?" I go pretty big, usually - but I'm not consistent at all and probably have one of the lowest RPXP totals because of it, regardless of recommends. You're rewarded for your activity and consistently providing to the game simply through the amount of XP you get for all that RP - which probably far outweighs the reward I get, really. It doesn't take much to get up to 100% rec at all now, especially with plots giving rec too, and the ability to rec yourself so if you survive for a good time there's minimal XP loss when your character finally kicks the bucket.

I'm curious to know though; what type of play, exactly, do you feel is unrewarded (aside from skill sharing... which I feel doesn't really need to be rewarded? I dunno.)? You mentioned subtle bad guy RP. Are there any examples you could offer?

Just a quick response:

1. Taxes for coverts doesn't seem IC, so I'll have a thought on that.

2. What XP penalty? This one I find strangely at odds with the later one saying recommends are good. Recommend rewards are QP and XP, and not getting one is not a penality.

3. From the description of the secrets system, it's clear that you don't know how the secrets system works. Secrets can be found by searching, generally relatively easily. Secrets were installed because we had a search command no one used because there was a method to game the system by trying 'open <direction>' on all possible exits in a room. Not only was this system severely gamable by OOC info, it could easily be programmed into a macro, and finally it completely undermined the search function. The only thing the secrets command does is makes sure that if you find something, you can REMEMBER that you found it and never have to search again.

4. There are tougher requirements on good guys trying to kill bad guys than Joe Blogs trying to kill Jane Doe. Public executions and such not only require rigorous investigation by the "good guys", there are requirements for public executions to be considered valid PKs. This is in favor of bad guys, imho, as they're more likely to play assassins, killers, etc.

5. I was unaware that you had to play a thief to even see covert skills. I'm not sure when this change crept in, but I'll investigate that. That said, the other aspect about RP being hard to get into bothers me a bit - general RP should be as easy as typing 'where', and I'm not sure what else you're looking for. No one on the game owes anyone else time or involvement in their plots.

I will discuss with the Tenebrae what's going on with regards to 'how difficult' it is to get into the thieves, but generally speaking, that's in player hands, and I don't know what might have happened with your particular characters that they may not have gotten 'the love' so to speak. It would be remiss of me to assume that the Tenebrae is doing a bad job because some people can't get in. I'm not of the opinion that entering a guild should be as simple as 'seek and ye shall receive'. Guilds, particularly coverts guilds, can be dangerous to be a member of, and doubly dangerous if their members haven't proven trustworthy. It really is on players seeking to prove their worth, and for good reason.

Also, being a thief is not a requirement to being a 'bad guy'.

6. I think this is appropriate.

7. XP bonuses and the like are in place to help there, but it's a tough theme and it's been around since 1998. It's what attracts people to play on TI.

With regards to your solutions:

- Sewer grates are search easy, so with a bit of effort on your part, you can find them.

- I agree with others that suggest passive income is a problem. I don't see why we'd do it beyond individual members getting their class incomes, and I don't actually see giving them money stimulating people's willingness to play a bad guy.

- The XP for Orderites thing is also already in. I guess it's just not widely known, or it hasn't stimulated people to play them as much as desired.

- There are many rewards in game that don't link to people being kind - in fact Recommends just give you more QP and XP. Any player who plays can get QP and XP as easily as any other player. Recommends are the only 'additional system above and beyond' and it sounds as if you may want this abolished because you don't receive recommends often. Given that recommends are a positive addition, I'm not intending to abolish it... but to note your other suggestions:

+++ Purchasing XP with QP is already in game. HELP IMPROVE. Not sure I see how this stimulates bad guys.
+++ I don't get why a % of XP back (back from what?) is better than QP that can become XP or be used for other things.
+++ People are already rewarded for teaching. XP + RP + Skill advance > practicing alone + Skill advance. I'm not sure I see the bad guy link with this.
+++ Most people do not lose XP at a drop of a hat, even the worst players tend to get XP back at death, and generally longer term players get far more XP back at death. So if you put a lot of time into your character, you'll get XP back. I think you get 30% back even if you never lift a finger. Bad guys do have an advantage here due to bonuses on public executions.

There are a few things in your post we can look at, but my overall impression is that only a small portion of these changes actually have any chance of encouraging 'bad guys'. They just aren't linked to people's intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to play bad guys - or where they are, the link is generally weak.

Kinky - the XP penalty for playing a baddie is because they die more often.

I'd think it would make sense for any and all hidden rooms to be tax exempt unless disclosed to the Reeves. Tax fraud gives us something to RP about in a big way.

I'd agree re: hidden rooms being tax free- you're effectively paying more up front (cost for hidden exits) for the very fact that it is off the books.

Geras wrote:Kinky - the XP penalty for playing a baddie is because they die more often.

I'd think it would make sense for any and all hidden rooms to be tax exempt unless disclosed to the Reeves. Tax fraud gives us something to RP about in a big way.

I figured the recurring cost for hidden rooms is bribery - someone built the thing, so someone knows it exists. Even though codewise all the money goes to the Reeves (or does it? does it go "away" or to a guild?) ICly some of that would be hush money so that folks don't tell.

I figured the recurring cost for hidden rooms is bribery - someone built the thing, so someone knows it exists. Even though codewise all the money goes to the Reeves (or does it? does it go "away" or to a guild?) ICly some of that would be hush money so that folks don't tell.

That's not how it works when people add on to their house without a permit in my neck of the woods... :3