var = destroying a quest giver is a crime

[serVar161]

So, no, you're WRONG, any way to identify questgivers will bring much more problems than it would solve to the situation in question.

I understand the identification issue. And the tiles laid around a tree in the forest, or a runestone with the inscription "Don't break it, it's the quest giver," as well as roads to get to them faster - that's a signal to bad people.
But the options I've proposed don't put big targets on them. They'll have to wander through the forest and knock on all the trees. Like woodpeckers. And after they've discovered and destroyed the quest giver this way... he'll show up again. And they'll have to knock on all the trees again. Including the ones they've already walked on. If the griefer is busy with this, go ahead - I think it's a good way to spend their time, and no one will object.

Questgivers are NOT A PUBLIC SERVICE. It's a natural resource-like commodity that can be taken, guarded, hoarded and so on. You are NOT ENTITLED to questgivers.
...
Be okay with it of move on.

I wrote my opinion on this matter here

I like your passion and I consider you a valuable member of this game community, but in this case you state quite a preposterous paradigm on par with "people guarding their stuff and it's unfair, I want to be able to use their stuff too".

I'm positively fuming. And I'm not even a pvper, just a common sense hearthling.

Thank you for the kind words. I initially created the proposal to be able to track down whoever was hacking quest givers, so they wouldn't do it with impunity like they do now. That's all. But then the issue of alts arose - what's the point of tracking down a newly created and "unnecessary" alt? So I added a proposal to "enhance" quest givers, requiring a power level to destroy them, so that if someone wanted to do this, they'd have to make them their main character or someone they'd spent enough time and resources on, not just two minutes creating. This created a problem with identification. Sometimes you need to express an idea, a thought, to see its positive and negative aspects, to develop it. And based on these, adjust the idea, adding something new or removing anything that could "do more harm than good." Objective opinions like yours are very helpful in this regard - thank you for that, I appreciate them.

[serVar161]

This is actually a fair point; I agree. I just happen to appreciate the idea of 'crimes against the Hearth' (criminal acts are described as 'breaches of the hearth-law' in the lore) including killing its inhabitants: namely, spirited trees and rocks and so-forth. I've always thought of quest givers as representing distinctly spiritual beings -- completely different from hunting wildlife for food and clothing.

Killing one should bring bad fortune in some way.

Exactly.
I don't know if they're alive or if it's a power center or something else, but it's logical.
When someone infiltrates your territory or commits some other crime, a trace is left—an "astral disturbance" or something that allows you to find them. Destroying the quest giver (and preferably an attack as well) should also logically cause such a "disturbance" and leave a trace..
It was suggested that they're allowed to be claimed so that people fight over them—to generate activity. Traces are more likely to generate such activity.

But the main thing is that there will be a choice:
- Do you want to track down who did it
- or do you just cancel the task and do another one?
Right now, it's impossible to track down.

Those who hack will also have a choice:
- Do you want to destroy, but it will leave a trace?
- or don't destroy.
Right now, they just hack—it's easy and there are no consequences.

[Hasta]

Killing one should bring bad fortune in some way.

Because... why? I concede on traceable questgiver killers, but why does an act of destruction should be punished in any way by default? This just looks like an attempt to impose one's morals on others via divine intervention. No, I disagree, the act alone should not bring any consequences. BUUUUT said act probably should be traceable.

musings about tracking

This part of your idea I can actually get behind, also it fits nicely with my idea on how to soften the blow of a QG's demise on players questing in the area, described... eh, somewhere:
- Killed QG leave a "ghost" QG that can receive deliveries of items and reports of completed tasks;
- The "ghost" QG does not give new questlines that require interacting with him (i.e. "ghostly" quests will require reporting back to another random QG in the area).
- The "ghost" lingers for a few days, incorporeal, passable and indestructible (like a dryad for example), then disappears for good and fails all the remaining quests involving the destroyed QG.
(addition) - The ghost can be rightclicked to receive a scent of a brand-new type of crime, "A whiff of hooliganry" (or better name), that allows to track whoever destroyed the QG.

No debuffs or punishments are applied to the "perpetrator" on committing this crime, since oftentimes questgivers just end up built unknowingly into a freshly-builty palisade or something. The QG is identified only AFTER it's destruction (by appearance of the ghost). And also it does not limit any player or faction ability to passively discourage other players settling in the area by walling-off questgivers.

Yes, I think that would be an improvement to the game's intricacy. Now someone make a new thread when jobr is reading the forum so he gets to see these suggestions XD

[serVar161]

This part of your idea I can actually get behind, also it fits nicely with my idea on how to soften the blow of a QG's demise on players questing in the area, described... eh, somewhere:
- Killed QG leave a "ghost" QG that can receive deliveries of items and reports of completed tasks;
- The "ghost" QG does not give new questlines that require interacting with him (i.e. "ghostly" quests will require reporting back to another random QG in the area).
- The "ghost" lingers for a few days, incorporeal, passable and indestructible (like a dryad for example), then disappears for good and fails all the remaining quests involving the destroyed QG.
(addition) - The ghost can be rightclicked to receive a scent of a brand-new type of crime, "A whiff of hooliganry" (or better name), that allows to track whoever destroyed the QG.

No debuffs or punishments are applied to the "perpetrator" on committing this crime, since oftentimes questgivers just end up built unknowingly into a freshly-builty palisade or something. The QG is identified only AFTER it's destruction (by appearance of the ghost). And also it does not limit any player or faction ability to passively discourage other players settling in the area by walling-off questgivers.

Yes, I think that would be an improvement to the game's intricacy. Now someone make a new thread when jobr is reading the forum so he gets to see these suggestions XD

The temporary ghost option maintains a balance between "bad" and "good." On the one hand, you can destroy the quest giver, while on the other, you can still turn in the quests.

The new smell, and the smell for destroying a quest giver in general, needs some thought. To ensure that those who accidentally destroy them don't pay the price. At the same time, to prevent bad people from destroying quest givers in a way that looks like an accident. Also, this addition of something may lose out to the option of using an existing scent.

("Not giving out quests" is a good condition. When I was talking about a simple way to combat isolation, this was precisely one of the methods. The quest giver remains a quest giver, but stops giving quests while within the claim's territory. Or within a short distance of it. Then isolating them would no longer make sense. But that's if they decide isolation is illegal. For now, I'm only interested in destruction.)

Creating a new thread combining the discussion results is a good idea. However, existing threads with discussions and differing opinions will allow us to better understand people's moods and thought processes.