Player Financed Proportionate Bounty System:

Any player may post a bounty, of any amount they can afford, on any other player. The funds will be withdrawn immediately from the posting player, and will be non-refundable, non-revocable.

All bounties per player are cumulative, and will be listed on the players stats, for all to see.

Any player scoring a kill shot on a player with a bounty will receive a reward, not to exceed half the base value (bare frame) of the ship destroyed (proportionate), or the total amount of the bounty posted. The amount awarded to the killer will then be deducted from the killed player's total bounty value.

To avoid having to build a supporting graphical user interface, the system can be implemented with a command.
/bounty "Roda Slane" 10000000

edit:
100 <Roda Slane> you are a total newb that can not kill a orun.
*A 100,000 bounty has been added for "Roda Slane".
100 <Roda Slane> ahole!

An optional exclusive, or inclusive list designating which people may receive a bounty would be an effective way to stop "abuse", and what not. I believe an inclusive list would be especially effective if it contracted to entire guilds. For example, I might declare that only the Vipers deserve to claim Roda's bounty, preventing him from using a friend or alt to clear his head. Alternately, I might choose to hire some less reputable, though no less distinguished freelancers to do away with an annoying if otherwise law abiding citizen. The value of establishing a reputation becomes valuable.

/bounty "Roda Slane" 10000000 [VPR]

Mynt,

Do you not consider the provision "...a reward, not to exceed half the base value (bare frame) of the ship destroyed.." as sufficient to stop potential abuse? For anyone to claim any reward, the bountied would have to lose twice as much (or more). In posting a 10 mill bounty, a player would have to lose 20 mill+ in ships before the reward was paid out in full.

Well, no, I don't. It's merely an incentive for me to choose bountied dueling partners in Sedina. In a sense, having a bounty would make me popular.

As a Viper, I'm obviously in favor of this. The people most likely to accumulate bounties are the ones I'm already hunting. I'd actually like the per-kill bounty to be 80% of the cost of the bare hull. It still doesn't pay to abuse it in that case.

Mynt,

To address your example, perhaps dueling should be excluded from collecting a reward. Having a bounty is supposed to make you "popular" in a sense, but admittedly not in the sense of being a preferred duel partner. I do fear that your suggestion might add to the difficulty of the devs adding this feature.

zak,
It is perhaps reasonable that you would expect your typical prey to have established some "reputation". In regards to the ratio of reward vs ship cost, even %50 was not enough to assure Mynt against potential abuse, and even I feel that %50 is on the edge. Consider a player like tumble, that has hundreds of millions. For such a player, keeping that amount of reward out of your hands would be far more important to him that any cost to himself. %50 at least guaranties that the target has to forfeit at least as much as was forfeited against him.

Roda,

I would note that the other talk on bounty threads of recent should probably be linked in this one:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/20561

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/19493

As far as an interface I would much rather bounties be integrated more into the VO GUI. To implement this as a CLI would make it feel 'cheap' and incomplete. There should be a way to look at all bounties available for hunting. Bounties need to be scalable to a point when the game has an average of 500+ ppl on day to day, such that a player could make a 'living' as a bounty hunter.

In closing, bounties should be a true part of the game, a means of diversifying its players, and not just a 'mini-game' within VO.

Bounties will remain out of place in VO.

The other half of hunting someone for a cash reward is that they don't want to die.

The reason they don't want to die is that they're going to lose something.

Death in VO is meaningless.

Dr. Lecter is emo.

Edit: There's only one thing less meaningful than life, and that's death!

Ok, so make it meaningful - make the bounty $ to the hunter and loss of licence levels to the hunted.

Stackman,

I too would like for there to be a gui, and ways to find stats on rewards, but would rather these things did not get in the way of implementing the basic feature. How about we start with a simple implementation, and then when we see proof that it is and will be used by players, it can be fleshed out.

Lecter,

Of course they don't want to die. who claimed otherwise? What would be the need in placing bounties, if they wanted to die? Careful here lecter. You may be talking yourself out of a lot of reward.

Jackscream,

How about we start with the bounty, and consider stronger measures in a separate thread?

Roda, having been on both sides of a far more rewarding bounty system than the one you're proposing, I can say with a lot of assurance that avoiding getting killed by a bounty hunter is pretty low on anyone's list of VO priorities.

Now, link your idea to this ( http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/20982 ), and you might just have something.

I like the idea of having a bounty system in place, but I think that one thing is should have is a reason for the bounty. Why exactly did someone put a bounty on JoeSixPack for 1 million (for example)?

I could see this being abused. People just putting small amount bounties on random people for no reason at all.

There should be a minimum amount for a bounty and the reasons should be monitored for meaningless reasons.

Roda, I can appreciate it being implemented on an experimental basis of sorts. My concern would be that, due to a command line interface, people might not use it; specifically non-vets. I would hate to add a great game feature that would only be use by people who know what they are doing.

It was my understanding that the background code was the hardest part of this, and that the interface would be a less time-consuming process.

Make no mistake, I want this. I just don't like to compromise.

sakuramboo, adding reasons is too much like forming an HOA (home-owners association). It is inherently evil and will simply be abused. Bounties are not designed to curb lawlessness, they are just a fun part of the game.

sakuramboo, I Like your idea of a minimum. How about 10k? I don't like your idea of having a reason. It is my credits, and if I want to spend it hiring murderers to hunt newbs, that is my option.

Stackman, generally speaking, when someone is mad enough to post a significant bounty, they are willing to learn most any interface required to do so. I think your concerns will be minimized by player motivation.

Reasons bad. Minimums good. 10,000 bad. 500,000 good.

I see your point about the reasoning. I guess I was relating it to the real world in that you won't see a million dollar bounty on someone just because they called the other persons mom a whore.

And I could see someone with a lot of credits making 100K bounties an random newbies just because it would be easy and piss them off.

However, I do agree that if it's your money, you should be able to spend it how you see fit.

I was relating it to the real world in that you won't see a million dollar bounty on someone just because they called the other persons mom a whore.

That really, really depends on whose mother you insult.

Touche.

But, then the bounty is either going to be a court ordered bounty or a mafia ordered bounty. The difference is, one is legal and the other isn't.