Question to all the warriors here. It being a known fact that bow is the common use weapon in Gor as guns are to knives in RL, does anyone ever desire the old use of the sword in combat? Granted it would be impossible for any sim to enforce the use of melee over bows, but in personal preference dose anyone else miss using swords?

By the books, swords were used over bows all the time by the red caste ..... bows beeing seen as a peasants weapon, although crossbows were used at times by guards. I think it be impossible to enforce a melee only rule in SL like you say, and as Warriors we should be strong with all weapons as a conscequence.

Bows came in with the panthers. As a result, combat in Second Life's Gor is mainly done with bows, since that's the way raids are now done. Laura is a wilderness setting, so this aspect has been covered simply with the choice of Gorean setting and good region design. I'd wager the warriors in Laura favored the bow, because the wilderness favors the bow or the spear.

Nonetheless, I don't think swords should be forgotten. By the books, that's generally the weapon of choice, and had more respect. That's even true in Second Life's Gor, since it's generally harder to be good with a sword for most players.

I usually have my crossbow set ready, because that's what's needed most in a hurry. But I always carry my swords, just in case!

Well, I am sure some of you noticed my announcement last night regarding the meter settings. I think it is unrealistic to make rules outlawing bows, but swords (or spears) seemed to be the favored weapons of most warriors. With that in mind, our meter settings are such that a sword strike should be much more damaging than a bow hit. For review, those settings are:
Smaller splash: Bows in Laura only do splash damage at 1.75 meters instead of the 'normal' 3.5m.
Stronger melee: Melee weapons (those that support "enhanced damage", such as Navar's) will do significantly more damage than arrows. Up to 40% damage per strike, in fact.
Weaker females: Kinda self explanatory, but reduces the benefit of panthers sniping, since they get hit harder by return fire.

Some of these may be under review as we join up with Northern Woods, but that is where they are set now. We can't *force* melee weapons, but we can encourage.

I have to admit that Elovar and Fuzsea are big fans of clothing, lots of clothing, laughs!!; so they will often wander about the City with just a sword and or dagger because a bow doesn't always look good with what they might be wearing, especially if it is a cape.

I also have a slower computer so getting me down with a bow in a running fight is not that tough but try me with a sword or dagger sometime, especially if the area of combat is in close quarters and confined, grins....

As a Tarnsman, anything but a bow just isn't going to work very well. I do have a spear and can throw my daggers but going up against others who are armed with a bow is going to get you shot down pretty quick.

I have also found that when the lag has my already slow computer showing me the world in one second stop motion and my bow stops shooting arrows I can still swing my sword. I may not see what I am swinging at for seconds at a time but at least it will work when the bow quits.

It is true that swords (and spears don't forget) were favored over bows by the scarletts, though Tarl made sure he knew how to use, and used bows and crossbows.

For game purposes, a bow is going to defeat a sword almost anytime as a matter of game mechanics. In the game you can run and fire a bow accurately, try to do that IRL, and it's much more difficult than swinging a sword at a sprint.

I am pleased with the decision to make mellee stronger, and that should be benificial in confined areas such as inside a room.

I am getting involved with the push to stop the run-and-shoot bow work. There is a movement afoot to limit bows to firing while standing still, or moving very slowly, and I am all for it. The scoot-and-shoot thing needs to end, as does the "machine gun" bow that fires once a second with unlimited arrows. I want to see a quiver that runs out.

This is not just for realism sake, although it is far more real, but so the red caste of Gor, who used swords and spears, and were rightfully respected and feared, can return to that place in SL Gor.

I suppose that another angle to look at is the effect of weapon damage. In RL both swords and bows are weapons that unless they hit something vital, cause you to die by blood loss and shock.

You get an arrow deeply into a leg or a gash from a sword and you aren't going to run very far. Muscle loss from a gaping wound or the pain caused by an arrow are going to be very much in the forefront of anything you as a human are trying to do; even adrenalin is only going to get you so far; eventually your wounds are going to take you down and if you don't get help, you die.

Having to put 10 or so arrows into someone just to knock them out is a joke. I know it is great fun for some to run around and shoot the hell out of everyone but it is not very realistic and I think lends heavily to the Outlaw raid mentality where the day is all about the fight and not RP.

Juz some thoughts....

I'm all for ammo running out, but I think there should be random boxes of arrows around that if you run over, you pick them up. As well as med packs and weapon upgrades. Just run over them and sustain your life longer.

I would LOVE to see more sword combat. Unfortunately, as it has been stated, the environment of not only Laura, but of SL Gor in general, is one of long-distance raiding. I have rarely ever been in a situation in my 8 months in SL Gor where I was able to use my sword in an actual real RP fight. Why? Because most of the time I am being shot at by restless panthers or from a wall of an outlaw camp we are raiding.

Let's come up with some great RP ideas for SWORD fighting shall we?

**thinks hard and walks away to come back at another time with a whole slough of ideas**

Ok, last nights trial raids showed the value of swords and spears over bows in a lot of the situations as far as I am concerned. The only person I capped I did so with my sword during the raid on our City back in the tight quarters of the buildings and cages of the Slavers Compound.

Laughs... I am starting to look like a walking armory but it seems it is handy to have all the weapons on ahead of the RP to avoid clunky explanations of how I suddenly came to have a sword in my hand when I was clearly only wearing a bow a moment ago.

I think I am going to work a lot more with my spear too, ...thoughts anyone?

This is why I carry a full set of weapons, and made sure I can fall back to fist combat even if someone takes them all away (or catches me in the bath house!).

I've been considering a spear for a while now, because while slow they have an excellent reach. After watching the raid last night, from the splendid view on the infirmary's roof, I'm even more convinced. The girls I saw that were using them did very well. If I got anyone with my crossbow, I suspect they were already wounded beforehand. The firing delay, distance to the targets, and the speed the targets were moving, while in those conditions, made it very tricky.

I'm going to go get a spear today actually. I agree sword and melee, on our sim at least, is the way to go, in tight quarters. I still say the bow on a panther sim though just because their settings will be in favor of that AND the distance you need to battle at will be much greater.

Which brings me to a question on my bow settings....

As a Tarnsman on the wing or as a Tarnsman on the ground turned sniper I have my arrows set to long distance which seems to make them go right through someone without registering if I am close. Does anyone know if this is by design?

I went through my weapon settings last night and made a few changes such as prim arrows instead of sculpty, arrow speed now set at 60 instead of whatever default was, closed channel "0" to lower spam (my bow gets spam?) and insured once again that the dyna channel was indeed in the "on" position. Also chose the safe zone setting for the spear though I don't know if it was already there by default. The documentation is pretty limited so it is hard to know.

I don't know at this point if any of these changes I have made are going to do anything or not but will post whatever happens or seems to happen because of them.

I have to also agree with Byrons observation about the girls with the spears.. they were kicking ass!!