PK, PPK, PK, PPK...

Player killing on Alter Aeon has always been limited to registration, and while we have various arenas and temporary PK, we also have permanent registration - known as PPK.

PK has never bothered me much, but it's never really interested me either. PPK on the other hand I've tried a couple of times. I could never get into it, and it also seemed like I could never get away from various instakill issues.

Instakill reared its ugly head again a few days ago, and after fixing the specific instakill bug, it occurred to me to simply cut all PK damage in half. That clearly reduces the instakill problem, yes? However, there are some problems.

The biggest of these is that the existing PPK population doesn't like it. There's a few of them that do, but largely the response has been negative. A number of them say that PPK has gone from a threatening, risky affair to an irritation they can easily and always run from and survive. Others note that the power to heal has been effectively doubled, giving casters with a lot of mana huge advantages. Both of these criticisms are good, and sufficient to convince me to revert the change.

However, the instakill problem still lives. The current consensus is that judicious limiting of various instakill mechanisms is the best way to go forward. Barring any major objections, we'll probably go that route.