To suggest that pking was the sole reason for the downfall of UO is to suggest that UO wasn't headed towards the introduction of Trammel for only 4 months. Again, statloss has been in the game for a very very long time. Here are the patch notes which describe the introduction of statloss for pks. Observe the date of the patch notes:
12/9/97
Bounty hunting
- When someone is killed by another player, they may choose to report the crime if
- The victim is dishonorable or better notoriety
- The victim is not as bad a murderer as the person who killed them
- The victim is not currently flagged a criminal (two minutes since they committed a criminal act)
- At death, a window will pop up giving the choice to report the crime or not. A player can choose to not report a killing if it was accidental, or if they feel it was especially well-roleplayed, or if it was part of a guild war, etc.
- If a killer accumulates too many reports:
- All of their goods in the bank will be confiscated on the spot.
- The gold they may have had in the bank is added to the local bounty for their head.
- The killer's notoriety falls instantly to Dread Lord. (It is not "stuck" there--you can still rise if you can manage it).
- A bounty is posted on the closest bulletin board listing the killer's name, a physical description (hair color, hairstyle, skin color), a tally of kills, and the names of some of their victims.
- Reports "age" out, but once a bounty is set on you, it remains even if you don't kill anyone else for a long time.
- Every time you get reported after a bounty is set, your bank is cleaned out again, and a local bounty is reissued. This can result in the bounty price continuing to rise. Bounties are local, meaning that different cities may have different rewards and different kill tallies for a given outlaw.
- The outlaw must be killed under the following circumstances:
- The person who kills him must be a player (of course)
- The person who kills him must have a lower tally of reported murders than the outlaw does.
- The person who kills him must be above neutral notoriety.
When the outlaw is killed under the above circumstances
- They lose 10% from all stats and skills on the spot, regardless of resurrection methods.
- A head labelled with their name is automatically placed in the backpack of the bounty hunter.
- The head must be returned to a guard whose beat is near the bulletin board where the bounty is posted. Since bounties are local, returning the head to the wrong city won't work. You can also choose to return it to any of the cities where a bounty is posted, choosing the best based on the reward offered. Also, some cities may have multiple "precincts" if they have multiple bulletin boards; find a guard near the board that has the bounty posted.
- Only the bounty hunter can turn in the head.
- The bounty hunter must be of better than neutral notoriety when the head is turned in.
- Fake heads won't work.
- The gold posted for the local reward will be given to the bounty hunter by the guard.
- Bounties may remain posted in other cities even though the reward has been claimed, but a given bounty can only be claimed once in the world, unless the killer returns to their ways. This will likely result in a killer who has bounties in multiple cities getting killed over and over again by eager reward claimants, for no gain. Our advice is, don't end up with lots of bounties on your head.
Also, keep in mind that the idea of a murderer was, like Order/Chaos or any other addition to the game, an addendum to the rules of the game. Origonally, murder counts didn't exist at all in game, and the noriety title was merely meant to provide a history for your player and define the actions that could be done to your character by other players. The addition of murder counts was a later addendum to the game's mechanics, just like any other addition to the game.
Ultimately, the problem that existed for murderers, and eventually for thieves, was not that they were admitting defeat to pks as an uncontrollable force that would eventually destroy the game, but that simply speaking, the consequences for being a pk were not balanced with the reward that was reaped from being a pk. As a pk without murders or stat loss, you had the ability to attempt to kill a person on sight and take their items. Effectively, the risk and possible consequences for the action that the victimized player took were substantially greater, while the pk had to incur only minimal risk at the time of action, and far less severe consequences after their actions than was warranted for their actions (noriety loss which could be worked off quite easily and a 2 minute criminal timer).
Finally, the idea of no stat-loss, and to an extent the older stat-loss system, are
far outside the purview of UOSA. UOSA has clearly set itself in the middle age of T2A with the use of several post-release additions:
- Anatomy, Tactics, Strength, and Armor (see the November 10, 1998 patch notes)
- Meditation, the new Resisting Spells system, and Evaluating Intelligence (from the Febuary 2, 23 and 24, 1999 patch notes respectively)
- The Thieves Guild, the new abilities for Detecting Hidden and Forensics, and new skills such as Remove Trap and Stealth (from the Febuary 24, 199 patch notes)
- Colored ore for Blacksmiths and the various deed craftables that a Carpenter was given the ability to make (from the Febuary 2 and March 28, 1999 patch notes respectively).
All of these changes were part of the shift that took place from the release of T2A, to the middle of T2A, where
very few significant game mechanics changes were made (aside from the full lockdown system) until January 2000. The changes to murders were also part of this shift, and as such, clearly fit with the system that we have, and with the goals of UOSA.
(*ahem* Wylan, Deacon...my heart jumps when I see one of you guys start running towards my lockpicker, thank god my recall has always worked