Hello!

For those that celebrate Christmas, we hope that it (and your weekend) was restful and awesome! For everyone, welcome to another Monday, and that means it is time for Question of the Week. Here is our last QOTW for 2009, but remember we'll be back next week in 2010 with more information and other awesome things you've come to expect and love on Mondays. Let's get to our questions this week:

What happens when we kill criminals? Do players gain faction standing? Or do they loss criminal karma (can that value go negative)?
 
A: Yes. Killing criminals will generate extra Contribution reward specific for the faction that the character is currently affiliated with. They also will probably receive better monetary rewards based on the investment in Item Insurance the criminal has been using to protect his items from looting. Criminal Karma is not lost when the criminal is killed, but it is lost over time. Extreme criminals need to really watch their back, though. They may suffer a chain of deaths if they are not able to protect themselves for the time  needed for their record to clear itself. Criminals should most likely stay away from safe zones during this time in order to not to trigger guards and to consider their  previous targets, who might be ready for a little revenge.
 
What if a criminal attacks a criminal do they gain more criminal karma (become more criminal) or do they lose karma and get closer to rejioning the rest of society?
 
A: Criminals cannot clear their records, nor do they generate additional Karma by killing other criminals in safe zones. The only characters who benefit from killing a criminal are law-abiding citizens of any faction. Criminals' main incentive in attacking other criminals is redistribution of loot in their favor. While laws apply between normal players, criminals often find their own kin very hard to trust.

That's it for this week, now it is time for our ER Funfact: The favorite drink in Masthead Studios is Coca Cola. Are you surprised?

I knew I was forgetting something this morning... brb, and see you on the rest of the forums!

~m.

Excellent news it is indeed Zorky.

The more I hear about the territorial control, pvp and criminal workings of the game the more excited I get looking forward to the day I get to travel to the lands of Enterra.

Good question of the week to end the year on and look forward to more and exciting news in 2010.

Good question, as far as conti goes I do remember them saying they penalize their faction's players for shooting neutrals as that's against the law. I'm guessing going down to the market to slaughter some neutral players might end up with a lowered standing for conti. Wasn't any mention of Noir holding the same views that I can remember, of course that just means it wasn't mentioned.

Its nice to see that criminals can't do anything but wait out their time.

The next question to extend this would be does this kharma factor in the entire account or just the character? If there are alts is there a drawback to going criminal on one and playing the other while the criminal status wears off in whatever time it takes? Will be seeing a weekly griefing out of players then a cooldown for the timer to drop? Might not be a bad tactic to go on a rampage in a market district that has a higher chance of afks and let a cohort clean up the loot.

What would really be nice, is if criminals could bribe some officials in the "safe" zones to allow them temporary access. But if the criminal did anything illegal while in town then its no holds barred on that person.

Just seems like something that would be prevalent in a corrupt world like this one is, despite those trying to be "good" doers.

Maybe it's me who hasn't quite understood all the aspects of faction and being criminal in a faction, but is there a way for a criminal to make amends for their crimes? I thinks it's a good idea to make criminal karma decay over timer (hopefully both while online and offline, but faster when online) but I also think it would be a good if criminals had a way to actively work towards becoming a better person so to speak

But what if the mushrooms were really, really rare, and you had to eat each one you found and each one had a chance to kill you on the spot? And then your corpse was free for looting?

It is about choices. And that choice has no meaning if you can easily circumvent it with alts.

I agree.  It appears that every action has a consequence in this game, which is most beneficial to those who have no intentions of "going rogue".  But to be honest, I don't believe a criminal has to worry so much about being attacked by guards in the safe zones.  At least they know to stay away from those areas.  But if a criminal knocks off the wrong person (faction not withstanding) more than likely they are going to have a bounty on their heads and will be under the constant threat of being pursued and hunted down by other players.  And the stealth ability that will be available to all players will make that very, very interesting...

Action ---> Consequence ---> Ballance

The beauty of sandbox!