PK Rant

[Kasreyn]

Love ya Occhi, but I gotta argue a few of these points, k? ;-)

and it allows for the player killing others, an explicit design decision made when Diablo II was released.

Now I have no problem with duelling, but IMO Blizzard made a bogus, irresponsible, and possibly mean-spirited move when they decided to allow unilateral hostility. A mutual requirement won't bother anyone BUT griefers, so how can it be opposed? Certainly not on grounds of gameplay value for non-griefers.

The required mutual hostility would preclude the sanction of other non PK griefers

I don't follow this at all. How would it preclude it? As far as I can tell, at the moment there is no way to sanction ANY griefers of any kind, aside from fleeing the game, which means they've won: they managed to disrupt your play experience. Every time a non-grief player flees from a grief player, the grief player wins.

Think it through: a jerkoff using the boot button to screw with everyone who entered the game.

Easy answer to that, don't join games jerkoffs create. ^_^ IMO under such a system, if you create the game you can boot whoever you want. Your game, your rules; don't like it, make your own game. One requirement I would make: you (the game creator) must be in town to boot anyone. This would cut down on using booting to steal drops, which is the only real abuse of this that I can think of. I would require a minimum time spent in town (say 10 seconds) also, but this might prevent being able to stop a griefer before he does whatever he's planning. Yes, if someone wants to be a jerk, he can boot/ban people for no reason. But they'll just find other games; he'll be the one who winds up alone when people start to shun him. I don't see the problem.

and the design feature that was intended: you have to watch your back in some games.

The problem is, not everyone is interested in this "feature". So why couldn't Blizzard respect their customers enough to give them a choice as to whether they would experience this feature? I mean, it's not like they force you to play only HC characters as soon as they become available. Not everyone is interested in that threat level, or challenge. I'm one of them - I've still never created a HC character, and probably never will. So why force everyone to deal with player hostility? Simple, it makes a certain group of customers interested in buying / continuing to play the game because they can get their kicks, and it makes Blizzard seem cool and relevant to the gaming crowd (which is at least the same age range as the PK demographic, if not always the same temperament), which keeps Blizzard popular.

-Kasreyn