Hi there Timmy! Are you new to the server? Just rolled a new class thinking to yourself: “I’m gonna take it slow and have some fun along the way.”? And what’s this? The slow and steady challenge glyph. Fits the bill perfectly, it gives you some nice perks every 10 levels but it cuts into your XP rate. Well, that’s a little poopy but right next to it there’s an easy fix – the war mode glyph which would bump your XP rate back up. So what if you’re always flagged for PVP (even in friendly territories), you’ll risk it, right? I mean you can always fight back when attacked by others and it might even create a few fun moments. Afterall, they say world PVP can be quite fun sometimes.
Oh you poor, innocent, naïve soul… Don’t you know that human beings are just the worst? Well, let me be the first to tell you that right this second, just as you're about to click that shiny “Enter World” button there are a bunch of try hard, sweaty, mouth breathing, small minded nincompoops (usually rogues) sharpening their weapons, waiting for you to press that button so that they can begin stalking you through /who, gank and corpse camp you out of the game. And if you’re unlucky they might just be waiting for you right next to your starting zone. See, these are called griefers Timmy and right now there’s no real way to protect yourself against them. So, you might want to hold off for a bit on those challenge glyphs…
But I ask you, is that really good game design? I would argue that it isn’t. See, we should want players to take up the challenge glyphs, I mean they are part of the server’s features, they are there to enhance and make the game more fun. But what about little Timmy, do you think he’ll be having fun with all those griefers around?
So, I offer a game design solution. Behold! The Bounty Hunter System.
The system should be simple enough to be easily implemented and at the same time easily scalable in case it turns out to be a success.
First things first. What are we trying to accomplish with the system? To put it simply, players that are high level should be discouraged from killing low level players. Blizzard implemented something along these lines with the dishonorable kills mechanic. But this doesn’t take into account the fact that human beings are just the worst and griefers don’t really care about the Honor System they just want to cause more grief. So here’s how you grief the griefers:
IMPLEMENTATION PHASE I
Framework:
We will begin by implementing a custom NPC in every capital city. He should be located in a flavorful area, preferably a seedy underbelly. This NPC will hand out 1 daily quest that will task the recipient to hunt down a Wanted player. The quest will reward 1g plus a random battleground Mark of Honor (optional) and will require 1 Wanted Player to be killed.
Wanted System:
Each time a player kill counts as dishonorable (Yes this includes civilian NPCs) a 24h visible and unremovable debuff will be applied to said player. A system message will be broadcast to all players stating that: “<Player Name> has become disreputable and a bounty has been placed on their head. Visit a local bounty hunter to begin the hunt.” This debuff essentially places the offending player on a 24h timeout or risk being hunted by anyone that takes up the quest form the Bounty Hunter NPC. And seeing how it’s pretty easy to track someone using /who this includes being corpse camped and farmed by multiple players with the same daily quest.
In order for this not to be considered unfair by the offending player a way to remove the bounty should be made available as well. The offending player should be able to clear their name by paying an amount in gold to any capital city guard and/or Bounty Hunter NPC. However, this amount should vary similarly to how the repec cost varies so as to discourage multiple offenses.
Closing Thoughts:
Could this system be abused? Potentially, any system could theoretically be abused but having the bounty wipe mechanic scale with repeatable offenses makes it so that a player operating two different accounts would only be able to make 1g per day at most and so the effort wouldn’t be justified for such a low reward.
Would this system stop ganking in the open world? No, at most it can only discourage such negative behavior and at best it really depends on how players adopt it going forward and what they do with it.
Would this system harm world PVP? No, ganking low level players or civilian NPCs =/= world PVP, anyone who says otherwise is supporting toxic behavior and believes that having fun should come at the expense of someone else’s fun. These people should get a life in my honest opinion.
IMPLEMENTATION PHASE II
This system is scalable as I said in the beginning and could be expanded to included either a custom faction with its own reputation system and cosmetic rewards or it can be hooked directly into the capital city reputation system. At this point it’s too early to discuss so I’m leaving this point open for the time being.
I think adding a system announcing that you gank people is going to encourage ganking, particularly if you find ganking somewhat enjoyable already. If you're in a guild this becomes even more of a joy as you can use this to farm people trying to kill your disreputable player or have your guildies kill their own disreputable player for marks.
Nodoba Level 60 Hunter
Wolf Council (Officer) of <Wolfskull Clan>
Vorick Level 60 Warrior
Vanguard of <Wrath of the Forsaken>
And numerous other characters
Editor of the Gutter
I see your point. A system message might be the wrong approach but the other method would be just to allow players sort it out themselves which could work in theory. I believe Kevin Jordan always favored this approach in his design of vanilla WoW.
The 2nd part of your argument is actually something I considered and is in my opinion an acceptable outcome. Full scale world PVP is always good as long as it's community driven.
While the idea sounds awesome on paper, the 1st thing it came to mind was to kill one of my low alts using a 2 accounts and then log on my main and kill my offender alt to collect the reward
What's stopping players from teaming up to split the bounty reward? Player X griefs, player Y kills player X, they share the gold? Plus, an easy fix to not get killed is to turn off warmode. The reason why there's an xp bonus is because of you are potentially kos to other players.
