Some points:
1. You don't PK someone, you kill them. You may still suffer consequences even if the person ends up NLR'd. Players other than the character who died may ask for the PK to be enforced, but it's on them to give the reason why it happened and staff to execute the command. If there's no reason, there should be no PK. If the staff member judges the reason does not fall under PK criteria, then there should be no PK. Everyone in the team knows this.
2. You can bring a horse to a river but you can't make it drink. The playerbase is very, VERY used to "PKing" people. A very bad mindset if you ask me, but toxicity brought this on. Eventually people will part ways with just killing everyone they don't like. Some others will not. The staff team will work to ensure there's some measure to this.
3. Reason why valid PK reasons are not listed specifically outside of very clear case-scenarios is merely for two reasons: First, they would be too many to properly list, and second, we want people to not focus on a "list of things you can pull on your adversary to make sure they lose their character forever".
Now to address some of the points made here.
if this rule is denied I will make a point to give the pk appeal managers plenty to do, god forbid they dont have enough appeals to sort through
"If the staff team does not force players to do things the way I want them to, I will actively ruin everyone's enjoyment of the server". Not the point you think you're making.
It should be written into an actual rule, not a loose guideline to follow
It's an actual rule. We can't tell people who to kill and who not to kill (except very clear-cut cases) when most of these kills occur in grey areas.
I do agree with this, I was under the impression that it *was* an actual rule as opposed to a guideline so I suppose it could be made more clear, unless other staff deem it to not be that impacting greatly on gameplay. Everybody should, at the very least, with the amount of experience and old names that I saw involved, to play as if death escalation was the last resort. It's always been that way, and oft times your PK request would be denied for this very same reason, which I believe still holds true.
It is an actual rule you have to abide to. It tells you that you're supposed to seek less violent resolutions, and that your kills need to have a reason of weight behind them. The rule merely applies to a grey area instead of black-or-white situations.
honestly should just go back to applying for PK auths, showing logs of the offending evidence that would justify you PKing someone
This has not been an enforced thing since Helix is a thing.
im not sure why it changed for this run of hl2rp. ive never seen it formatted like, 'pk first, ask questions and appeal later'
its incredibly stupid
Refer to the above.
The reason for this is it gave us double the work and had the exact same results: We had to review all the auths, dive through logs, and go in circles to authorise one, just for us to find out there was more to it in the posterior appeal of 20 pages (and do the same, review auths, dive through more logs, and go in more circles). Neither the staff or the players deserve this torture.
if its an abrupt and out-of-nowhere encounter it should be treated the same as if you got into a random shootout with an opposing faction, NLR
For anyone to abuse this all they have to do is not ask for the auths themselves. (It has happened in the past. A whole lot.)
I'm a fan of PK first, ask questions later.
RP flows better and actions have consequences at the snap of a finger. Realistically, it doesn't take long to make a brief but comprehensive PK appeal if it was invalid, doubtful or unfair.
Refer to point 1 at the start of the post. But yeah, disagree all you want, some situations happen in a snap and you can't exactly tell people to pause the gaming to ask staff if they can PK them; gladly, we don't need that, as you can kill someone and then staff will decide if they apply the PK or not. If you're caught playing some sort of deathmatcher who murders people relentlessly, you will be accordingly punished for it. But so far people seem smart enough not to do this. I'd say 'Mother's case was more complex than just "I was bored so I RDMd", but ban management needs to deal with that.
I would much rather staff do their job and figure out if there's a valid reason for a PK than to stick all of the burden on the appeal managers
So far staff members are supposed to do a quick check to ensure the PK is at least vaguely valid. They've done it (and even asked me over Steam to confirm) and still do it. We've had two appeals in this time, it really isn't a big deal.
PK managers can handle this stuff, and if they can't I will come back to management and kick those appeal asses, I ain't afraid of paperwork, I write essay's for fun
I did ask you to join me and you turned down my offer, bitch.
That's all really, I'm not turning down this suggestion merely because it's already a thing in the ruleset, but we need players to eventually grow out of a very toxic mindset that years of roleplaying has ingrained in them. Until that happens, we will issue out NLRs or outright voids/resolutions when possible, to drive them towards better port.
Note: We still allow people to come to us and ask for PK auths (or to resolve their doubts regarding a situation where someone will die), but we can never, by any means, give a verdict right off the bat, as we only know the context you told us. Asking for PK auths isn't encouraged but at the same time you may resolve your doubts about something you're planning to do.
