- When a player logs off, if he is not in a designated safe zone (such
as an inn), he leaves a ghost. No ghost is left if he logs off in a safe
zone.
- Create a statue object with a different xlat - transparency..
- If he back logs on within 10 minutes, there is no penalty.
- If he does not, he suffers a penalty. How severe the penalty is depends
on how many times he has exhibited this behavior in the past..
- The first time, he just gets a nasty mail.
- The second time, he loses his most valuable number item.
- The third time, he loses his most valuable item.
- By the tenth time, the penalty is actually equivalent to a death.
- This behavior is to prevent people from abusing the system, and yet
allow them a couple of accidental ISP problems that are outside of
their control.
- Mudmail is always sent to inform the player of his penalty.
- System keeps track of the number of users gained or lost in the last
10 minutes. If it's a loss that's greater than 35%, then any players who
don't log back on suffer no punishment.
The idea is to prevent PKers from 'hitting and running'. If they log
off, they are then forced to log back on in less than 10 minutes, it's
harder for them to escape. The system failsafe is to protect ourselves
in case our routers go down and then don't go back up. The punishment is
kept reasonably light for situations when a player cannot control his own
connectivity (i.e. his ISP goes down).
The biggest hurdle to overcome is the re-education of our players. Players
must be told of the new rules day one. This should be done in every medium
available to us.