So we've had this idea posted a few times, I wanted to resurrect it in a modern way.

In the comm screen, there should be a separate tab for Bounties.
These will list all bounties, laid by nation, and by player.
You should be able to lay a bounty on someone's head with a custom amount, in this screen.

Some rules, however.
1. Minimum bounty amount is 200,000c
2. You are only allowed to place 1 bounty per 24 hours.
3. The total amount for all bounties laid by you, must not exceed your current credit balance.
4. The bounty is paid to the killer on completion of the kill, from the bounty layer's credits.
5. You must select a validity time (time that the kill must be done in)
6. You cannot change the validity time after the bounty is laid.
7. Some kind of parameters for the kill (e.g. station kill, moth kill, standard kill)

Where station kill is any kill in a station sector, moth kill, is a kill of any Behemoth variant ship, and standard is no special parameters.
You can select both, moth and station kill, so that the kill must fulfill both parameters in order for it to count.

The main Bounties screen would have a list, Name, Bounty Reward, Parameters, and Payee.

So the Comm -> Bounties -> Add bounties
would look like this
Name:
Credit Payment:
Parameters: ()Station Kill, ()Behemoth Kill, -- Or ()Standard
Display Payee?: Y/N

Any Comments?

Good idea, but to avoid a scenario where a player can place a bounty and spend the money, the money should be deducted when the bounty is placed.

This is a good system, but the condition system needs to be comprehensive, even when it is comprehensive, there is nothing to stop people from using their abuse alts to claim the bounties. Instead of a conditions system I suggest having a whitelist of people able to claim the bounties that the bounty offerer can modify

I'd prefer a blacklist rather than a whitelist. If you want to be that exclusive, you should be hiring assassins rather than posting bounties.

And +1 to savet. They should take the bounty money immediately, and return it automatically if nobody achieves the kill in the allotted time. Makes things simpler for everybody involved.

there is nothing to stop people from using their abuse alts to claim the bounties.

How so? You mean like griefer alts?
I read that as the player sets a bounty, then logs on to an alt to claim it, which wouldn't make much sense. lol. But yeah, that could be a problem. I would like to see it more comprehensive, however I was just proposing the idea.

I'd prefer a blacklist rather than a whitelist. If you want to be that exclusive, you should be hiring assassins rather than posting bounties.

Yes, I agree with this.

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Maybe comprehensive in specifying what ship they fly? And even what sector they are in?

+1 generally, but I think there is a lot of over thinking going on here.

I'd recommend a two tier implementation, so as not to completely freak out the devs into never doing this:

1st: A bounty can be placed on anyone, including your own alts, and claimed by anyone who kills them. Bounty rewards must be deducted from placers acct. at the time of placement.

2nd: Further expansion (including adding conditions for kills, and/or people/nations who can claim the reward).

No, a blacklist can't work because that places the burden on the person setting the bounty to know the names of all the abuse alts which is impossible, it has to be a whitelist. You would just have a public listing of bounties and allow people to apply for that players whitelist. Similar mechanic is already in use with the nations where you have to go talk to the marshall to be a registered bounty hunter. You could use something similar to keep abuse out of the system.

but it can't be a blacklist.

Greenwall they aren't going to do it anyway, might as well just blarg

Kierky, the potential problem is that if Ecka puts a bounty on Rin, I could log in with a different account while already logged in as Rin, kill Rin with it, and then transfer the money to Rin.

And alts aren't the only problem. I could just offer to split the bounty with somebody if they let me kill them.

TRS: No, that would just be silly. I'm not arguing that it's not the solution. What I'm arguing is that the solution is more absurd than the problem it attempts to solve.

Sometimes you just have to leave some possibility for abuse. That's the risk you take when you post a public bounty on somebody, vs. hiring an assassin (which would be more pricey).

Hmm, yes. But perhaps a more comprehensive conditions system would correct some abuse factors.
Also, now thinking about the blacklist, this would cause problems with the new accounts to kill yourself.
Whitelists would make more sense.
Or a combination whitelist blacklist. Like making an exception that people under 3 months subscribing time cannot claim it, or trials. etc etc.

But I agree, technically you can abuse lots of things in the game. After all I want another way to throw around my creds.

Yeah and I share your pragmatic approach here, there's always going to be potential for abuse and that's the way it is. The simple fact is you're paying for somebody to be killed who is just going to re-spawn, so it's kind of idiotic really the idea of having a bounty system at all. What's the point? In a universe where there is virtually no impact from dieing, why would we bother with bounties at all?

I think that's what it comes down to, there's no point having such a system in the current state of the game. I could personally afford to fund a 500k bounty on ecka for the next 10 years quite comfortably, so it's going to be a little absurd whichever way you put it.

zzzzzz

+1 to whatever as long as I can put a bounty on myself.

Self hate issues. Don't ask. :P

Heh, actually I'd probably do that as well. I like having an outstanding bounty on my head. Makes me look more badass :) (More seriously, it helps motivate people to fight me.)

I'd be more motivated to kill people who have bounties if I didn't have to truck halfway across the galaxy to get a list of them.

When you encounter somebody you can check their character page to see if they have one.

Hmm, maybe we should get Savet to move his bot to the Dau capital (if it isn't already there), and add an open-access way to query it for the bounty list (via PM of course, to avoid spam). There would be an element of trust involved, but it could be fun.

He's not a bot, he's a player with reduced interactivity. But I'm not opposed to whoring him out for such purposes.

I might have to add in a special condition though, that if the bounty carrier has a warranty, their anonymity is protected.

Yeah, that would be reasonable. Maybe even allow people to make extra payments to have the "last seen at" bit hidden while leaving the rest, if they want more privacy but still want people to know of their bounty. I probably wouldn't bother paying that, but other people might.

+1 to custom bounties, but as long as it have same standing consequences as killing the enemy yourself.

+2 to collect payment when placing bounty. No matter if ever gets collected or not, that cash is gone into nation's bank.

Examples:
(SercoPlayer1) places a bounty on (UITplayer2). When collected, SercoPlayer1 have exactly the same reduction of UIT standing as if he killed UITplayer2 himself, considering location!
BountyHunter penalties remains unchanged.

UITplayer2 places a bounty in UIT nation on SercoPlayer1, who is Serco PoS. Then ItaniPlayer3 claims the bounty inside UIT space. Both UITplayer2 and ItaniPlayer3 receive Serco-600.

UITplayer2 places a bounty in UIT nation on SercoPlayer1, who is Serco PoS. Then AnyPlayer4 kills SercoPlayer1 in grayspace. No penalties.