- Non-Combatant Mode is now disabled for new players (the Non-Combatant Mode will still be available for older players currently in this mode). – See below
- The option “Kill” has been replaced with the “Knock Out” (it was simply creating confusion, because in fact, nobody can be killed with the meter).
- The default skin is now the Nomos skin.
FREE Upgrades are available at the Entrance of Nomos or KOS, in the game room, next to the SGS vendors. The upgrades are always FREE. If you don’t receive it, make sure that you didn’t mute Kora Zenovka.
This is a mandatory upgrade. Older versions won’t work anymore. It is almost impossible to keep 100% compatibility with 62 previous versions, so this time the upgrade is not optional.
None Combat Mode
After a great deal of thought and consultation we have decided to discontinue the use of None Combat Mode in SGS sims.
We do however realise that many people entered the game because the none combat option existed.
So we intend to proceed like this.
Anyone who plays exclusively in none combat mode at this time will be allowed to remain and play in that mode for the foreseeable future. If they decide at some point to switch to Default mode they will not be able to return to None Combat.
All other players and all new players will no longer be able to choose the None Combat mode option.
We feel we should explain some of the reasons for this change so here goes.
We always attempt as much as possible to make our game playable by all types of Role player, even though this approach usually leads to us being complained at from both sides.
It was never part of the plan to include None Combat Mode in the original design of the meter.
We introduced it rather reluctantly later on due to a few requests, and to solve a couple of lingering problems.
We hoped that it would eventually find its own place in the system.
It was originally, just as it says, a totally none combat mode. If you chose it you could not fight at all in the sim.
This was quickly seen as impractical as no player could sensibly exist in a violent society totally devoid of conflict. So we added the ability for none combatants to use text based combat.
A few good players have managed to integrate the None Combat Mode into their RP without it causing any great conflict within the system.
But a great many more have used it as a way of controlling the game beyond the rules.
For instance, by starting conflicts with players in default mood then retreating behind the protection of None Combat to argue out the outcome of the fight. Or by using it control when and where they fight if ever.
It has also become the combat choice of people who simply dislike game meters, but who still wish to play in the sim.
It should be clear to anyone who has tried the SGS game just how much effort we have put into creating a meter based system and that we are obviously totally committed to meter based role play.
So unfortunately we feel that anyone who does not like Game Meters or meter based combat is frankly in the wrong place.
Another important reason we originally Introduced this mode was because the last game meter we created promoted fight on sight, and to begin with many SGS players were being attacked for little or no reason by some players mentally stuck in the old system, or deliberately trying to break the new one.
We know that this is still the major argument used by None combatant players, that they cannot tolerate being attacked for no reason. We absolutely agree with this viewpoint.
However, in reality this situation hardly ever occurs now, except amongst new players or those who are basically little more than griefers.
And if it does occur, and you are genuinely attacked for no reason at all, then we are quite prepared to place temporary bans on offending players.
Another important point that we may not have expressed clearly enough is that in our sims there is no character death, unless this is specifically requested by a player.
All meter based combat in our sims results in the looser being beaten unconscious, never being killed.
Death in RP is a big deal for most Role players who spend a great deal of time developing their characters, we fully understand this. So we have taken the possibility of death out of the system, unless a player deliberately wishes to retire their character permanently.
This “no death” rule also ends the unreality of players who have been killed, suddenly reappearing as the same character shortly afterwards, looking for revenge.
We believe that Default Mode, now gives ample opportunity for protection against unwarranted attacks.
It is a true Action Role play Mode, because it allows for a mix of good role play but still retains the possibility for some form of conflict, which is inevitable in the dangerous worlds which we have tried to portray in our Sims.
This conflict, being meter based, is also somewhat out of the control of the player, which we feel makes for a more exciting place to be. Rather than a world where the player controls all aspects of their survival through unrealistic limits, which leave little or no possibility for real feelings of fear and danger to occur in play.
The game Meter and a characters life in the sim are an integrated whole that tends to break down if any part is not functioning correctly.
This certainly includes the disabling of the combat/conflict part of the game.
This does not mean you have to fight to be in our sims, but you must be open to the possibility of conflict, or we must wonder what it is you are doing here in a supposedly extremely dangerous place.
If your character is weak or pacifist in nature then they have as much right to be here as anyone else, but they just have find their niche in the scheme of things and to develop ways to survive that avoid conflict in a big bad city teaming with maniacs and murderers.
We called our take on Meter based role play, Action Role play, stressing the Action element first.
None Combat Mode, in most cases we have found, tends to diminish action.
If you are at present a none combatant player we would urge you to give default mode a try. You will most likely find that the difference to your play is negligible and possibly more interesting.
Please understand that we are not banning text base combat.
We are happy for two players to resolve their conflict with wholly Rped combat.
But this would be a special case and up to the individual players involved to agree upon it. Normal conflict in SGS sims is resolved via SGS weapons using the game meter.