Extended Treatise on That Which Really Should Be Bloody Obvious to Anyone Above A Grade School Level of Mental Development
There exists a popular misconception that actions in the H&H game world can be neatly classified as being either "offensive" -- in the sense of doing harm to other players -- or "peaceful" -- in the sense of not doing harm to other players. On the basis of this misconception some people have suggested that players who exclusively perform actions pertaining to the latter category should be kept safe from actions sorting under the former. While this conclusion -- that peaceful players should not be subject to PvP -- does indeed follows from the premises -- and in this sense isn't a logical fallacy per se -- it nevertheless remains the case that one of the premises necessary to arrive at this conclusion is deeply and fundamentally flawed. Namely, as pointed out above, the false belief that there exists a clear and formalized divide between offensive and peaceful actions, so formalized and neat, in fact, that it can be reduced to computer code and determined mechanically. As an afterthought, the careful scribe is want to ask himself: Do these suggesters -- in their postings so full of self-righteous ire -- also propose do replace our real life court systems with punch-cards and calculators?
The H&H game world attempts -- to no small an extent -- to simulate events and processes of the real world in a digitalized form. In so doing, it would be an object of abject failure if, along with the beauties and wonders of real life, not also some of the difficulties associated with it were to be emulated. Some difficulties are, indeed, impossible to abstract away, simply because they follow from the very essence of that which we, admittedly, are trying to simulate. One such difficulty is crime.
Players in the H&H game world share the same "physical" space, and, also, the same theoretical potentials for affecting it. Some actions performed in order to affect the game world are, however, mutually exclusive with other such actions. For example: If I claim a piece of land, you can not also claim it. If I wish to see a tile plowed, it can not also, at the same time, per your wish, be planted with grass. Players in H&H have certain means at their disposal to deny other players the execution of certain actions. Such means include walls, claims, physical occupation, consuming, destruction, etc, but these actions in fact only compound to make the point infinitely more true: The land which I have claimed, you cannot claim. The basket that I am carrying, you can not carry. The apple that I have eaten, you can not eat.
To further develop on this point, let us make it painfully clear that this relation is so integrated in the very essence of H&H that it is impossible to even play the game without performing an action which is mutually exclusive, at least in time and place, with another action. If you are standing on the tile which I wish to plow, I cannot plow it. This means that the nub who has just created his first character and logged in, by the mere act of existing, is denying other players certain courses of action -- the most obvious one being interaction with that particular tile, but, as said nub starts to play, more and more actions will be denied other players by his act of simply playing. There is no shame in this, the number of potential actions is so great so as to approach the infinite, but, nevertheless: by acting in the H&H game world you are denying other players options that they would have had, had you not been playing the game.
When one adopts and understands this perspective, it becomes clear as sparkling morning dew on a well mowed lawn that there does not exist a clear divide between offensive and peaceful actions. Every action you do denies another player some potential action. In speaking with von Clausewitz, we can observe that combat, thus, is only the continuation of action denying by other means. If you stand on the tile I wish to plow, I can hurt you to make you go away. If, on the other hand, I can't attack you, then you have the means to permanently and irrevocably deny me particular courses of action for as long as you and your whims see fit. And, in this sense, every potential action is always offensive or, every potential action is always peaceful or the distinction is meaningless, whichever one you prefer.
As a child I often enjoyed and participated in a fun little game called "The Air is Free". Perhaps it was due to some particular gift in my childhood self, but I remember observing already at that young age that there was something very fishy about the often repeated commandment of the grown-ups that I must never hit another child. The game -- which is more an act of playful ***** than an actual game -- consists of doing every annoying thing in your power without actually touching the other child. You can invade his personal space, you can wave your hands back and forth around his face, but you aren't actually touching him, and, since the air is free, you can always maintain that you did nothing wrong. Only a very stupid child buys this, of course. A smart child hits you in the face, as he should, and, indeed, that is how the game usually ends.
I now ask you to conjure up the vilest demons of your most cruel, childish imaginations. If the air was, indeed, free. What is the worst you could do?
New players, I would also like to add, should be, and are, particularly easy to target. The amount of investment needed to create one is so small that affording them any means of special security is inviting for them to be used as grief-machines and if they die, not much has been lost. Imagine, if you will, what you could do if new players were untouchable for the first 12 hours of game time. Jeez-louise, that would not be a pretty sight.
Enjoy.
