You don't want PKing because you haven't REALLY experienced it.

Ill give you an example of an experience I had in UO that shows the importance to me of highs and lows. Im 29 now so I was playing UO back when I was still in high school. I woke up one morning and thought id get a half hour of gaming in. (This is another thing about UO that was great, I didn't have to commit a string of hours in order to have fun in the game) I headed over to Britain GY to see if any PKers were out killing helpless newbie, and without a doubt there was and he attacked me right of the bat and in the long haul managed to kill me. I of course was mad but not that I lost some of my most prized gear but that I had to go to school and couldn't re-suit and go back out to avenge my death. However, a few weeks maybe a months down the road I came into contact with the very same PKers who I remembered all to well. The end result was his head in my bag and me getting back my weapon along with several of other items back. It felt good. I still remember that PKs name today, "Sprocket" you bastard! That was over 10 years ago.

I can hardly remember any enemy I had let alone some of the allies in any other MMOs I have played, yet to this day I could ramble off a list of people from UO.

 

@ Sirinan, "But what then is the difference between PK?ing and non-consensual PvP?"

Just because I consent to PvP, that doesn't give another player the right to attack me without consequences. This is a game that will be based upon Virtues. Committing a crime should not only be against the law (by definition), but should violate a virtue. Committing murder should be an even greater violation.

If you attack someone unprovoked, that should be a crime. Criminals should be able to be attacked by any PvP player without penalty, because doing so upholds the law. There should be a timeout on your criminal status, so that if you commit no further crimes, you get 'time off for good behavior'. Otherwise, your flag is reset upon death. Death should be good enough to pay your debt to society, particularly if there will be full loot.

If you kill someone unprovoked, that is murder, and a murderer is a PK. For murder, you should be an outlaw, and mere death does not absolve you of your crimes. In UO, it took 5 deaths to become a murderer, and each murder took something like 8 hours game time to evaporate. Once your 'count' dropped below 5, you were no longer considered a murderer.

I think one murder makes you a murderer, should SotA adopt this system. Not sure if just not killing people is adequate however, but I can't think of a better system that punishes the crime. What ever punishment is used, it can't be so harsh that no one ever becomes a murderer, because there is game play value to having murderers in the game. For one thing, it gives Anti-PKs like me something to do.

Duels, arena fights, and guild wars would not follow this system, because that would be PvP by consent between both parties.