Posted by Klaak on July 8, 2000 at 13:58:32:
In Reply to: Read this one, the one above might be confusing posted by Imbrogno on July 8, 2000 at 08:19:08:
> Imbrogno, Arolin is right about this. Ignore him as much as you wish, but it doesn't change the fact. I've played ALOT of chars, and interracted with ALOT of arbs. I've seen maybe one or two arbs in almost three years of playing CF that have not abused their powers. EVERY arb that I've killed or attacked outside of town has flagged me for it, with no criminals even logged on that they could try to justify the flag by saying they were "persueing" the criminal and I was obstructing justice. > I agree with most all of this. It's not right when Arbiters abuse their powers and flag you for no reason. However, 9 times out of 10 you don't know whether they're pursuing a criminal or not. Realize that Arbiters get tells all of the time letting them know where a criminal is, so if they're running down Eastern Road to go to the past where there is a criminal, that's reason enough to have guards. Some Arbiters might flag you for attacking them at that point and some may not, I'm one of the latter because I know if you attack me while I have guards I'm just going to fuck you up and hope the guards get the last blow, I don't need to flag you. As to if it had been you being attacked, I wouldn't do it unless I knew the guards were no threat. *grin* Typically, when I was on an even level with the arb, the guards were no threat to me as a berserker rager. Usually I would only do such in an area that I could move around easily while thirsted, and if I didn't have to deal with a whole group of players as well. I can recall several times when an arb caught up to me while I was flagged and they had to call for backup because their guards died and they were getting stomped on. But that's beside the point. > This was Kopentol's policy after the rager's started taking the book. Basically this was before the war began and arbiters were getting raped, so Kopentol looked over the laws, the books, and all of the other regulations and realized that it didn't say anywhere that somebody defending a cabal against retrieval of the book could not be made wanted. So from that point on if you defended the village against arbiters who were trying to retrieve the book, AND THERE WERE NO CRIMINALS INSIDE THE VILLAGE AT THE TIME, you could flag said villager. It says specifically on the pillar or in the books, however, that an arbiter cannot flag a person for defending their cabal if the raid is to get a criminal that is inside. Heh, Kopentol. I killed him so many times I almost felt sorry for him. Actually though, the incidents I referr to were not when the arbs were taking the book back. They began before the village started taking the book, and were actually a good deal of the cause. I can remember the details of one time in specific where there was a criminal inside and Golmagus and a younger arb who's name started with "M" were raiding to get to the criminal. I could harm the younger arb, who was also a mage, so I came out and attacked the arb (not his guards). He ordered his guards to rescue him, and was autoassisting, so after the rescue he fled, then returned and flagged me for "attacking his guards". This caused Golmagus's guards to attack me, so I fled and went to the destructor to heal up. The moment I was flagged, Golmagus started chewing out the younger arb for unjustly flagging me, and while they were trying to figure out whether he was right or wrong, Nesam attacked Golmagus (Golmagus being a mage) and so Golmagus stopped defending me as a result. Now this much I don't have any problem with, as a lich is very clearly an evil arb and a mage, who by right has no need to defend a rager should he decide not to. However, I should never have been flagged for it in the first place. I wrote a note about it, no reply and nothing was done. When it became apparent the flag was not going to be removed, the village quickly banded together on my behalf and took the book. After we had the book, I sent another note to arbiter saying why we held it. A week or so later, Octavia flagged me for defending while she was after a criminal inside the village. By this time I had ranked up and was just below her range, and her guards were not a threat to me while thirsted so I promptly killed them and told her to remove my flag, which she would not. Again I sent a note and it was ignored. Again, the village took the book in retalliation. Some time later, I was flagged for attacking an arb who had their guards, and there were no criminals around for them to claim to be persuing, and was flagged for it. After they died, I told them to remove my flag, and when they wouldn't, I didn't bother wasting time with arguing. I said over cb that I was going to take the book for my unjust flagging, and ran to ofcol, waltzed through the stern guard, and had the innerguardian convulsing before any other ragers could get there to assist me. We took the book and again I sent a note about it. Shortly after these happenings, as well as a couple other ragers being flagged without just cause, the village began taking the book whenever they felt like it, simply because they were fed up with the nuicence the arbiters were becoming. Until this time, the village had been instructed to leave the book alone unless permission was given by Nesam. The arbs and ragers always squared off whenever a rager killed a mage in town, but it was at this point the the feud began to form between the arbiters and the village. Only then did ragers start to get flagged after trying to prevent the arbs from retaking the book. > Arbs are not meant to be invulnerable under threat of death of attacking them. > Agreed, and I never flagged anybody for attacking me outside of a protected city, regardless of whether I had guards or not. > Agreed for the most part. > They are NOT meant to be used for anything else, such as exacting revenge, or settling personal vendettas with people who have not just committed a crime. > Agreed. > Affecting players not in your range with manacles and guards is grossly unfair. For them to be able to mess you up, and there's not a thing you can do about it, is simply not right. The xp penalty if fine, so long as lowbie players don't have to deal with hero guards. > This I do not agree with. NOBODY would play an Arbiter if they knew they might be forced to rank-sit at 15 so that somebody would there to kill the lowbie criminals. NOBODY in their right mind wants to rank sit at 15, 20, 25, 30 and so on just so they can be there in the off chance that a criminal in their range might come around. What would happen is there would be one lone hero arbiter on and the level 30 morons would run rampant breaking every law in the book and the arbiter could do nothing besides flag them. Special guards wouldn't attack them, he wouldn't be able to manacle them, so he's virtually worthless. The Galadon cityguards aren't enough of a deterrence to keep those level 30 criminals from not continuing to run around and slay every pk in sight. In your happy little world once you were wanted you'd have free reign over any city without big nasty cityguards because the arbiters can't do a damn thing to do you. That'd be stupid IMHO, and is not likely to ever happen, ever. > Now if Arbiters was a super popular cabal with more applicants than we could handle I'm sure this might be taken into consideration, but it takes a special breed to play an arbiter and there just aren't that many of us out there who try to do it well and for the most part succeed. > So you're stuck with special guards, deal with it.
It wasn't that I wasn't aware they were persuing a criminal, I knew for a fact they weren't because I could see there were no criminals logged on. There were many arbs that this happened with, but the most prominent one that comes to mind was Octavia, though she not the only one. These arbs would go EVERYWHERE with thier guards, even ranking, and would flag anyone who attacked them. I killed two arbs with extremely fucked names I couldn't remember if my life depended on it, while they were ranking, and was flagged for it. I could not get the flag removed so just ditched it to get rid of the inconvenience. Keep in mind, most of these arbs were mages or were traveling with mages, which is why I attacked.
> When I was a rager, I've defended the village from a raiding arb and got flagged for it.
*shrug* I didn't say it was necessarily you who was doing it.
> Flags are meant to be issued to people who break a law in PROTECTED AREAS, or by interferring with capturing a criminal.
I suppose you do have somewhat of a point, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. This at least I can handle as I've had to deal with it many times, and have gotten good at getting myself out of the area before the arbs even notice me. I still don't like it, but it's dealable.