If a mercenary/ Bounty Hunder/ Freelancer/ whoever kills someone and doesn't post in 48 hours he gets shafted for PvP abuse. All fine and dandy.
Now someone posts a bounty and doesn't pay, closes the board for whatever reason. Is that PvP abuse as well? Is someone posting a bounty obliged to bay registered hunters on his board if the claimpost is prior to the closepost?
What is an acceptable timespan for paying bounties? Sometimes you have to wait 2 months before getting paid.
Bountyhunters have to oblige to countless complicated rules, but at the end of the day, they don't get paid.
Bottomline, if you don't have time and money to post a bounty, don't do it and if you do, face the consequences for being sloppy, just like every merc?
I suggested to the EDGE folks that they wait another day to see if Liberty pays up and, if not, press for a sanction under the rules concerning scams and pvp abuse.
There isn't a hard rule saying that you need to pay bounties.
However, that being said, you need to pay bounties.
It is a requirement that people demonstrate that the cash is available. If someone is slow to pay, we can encourage them to be more prompt. (points at thumbscrews)
This is not about this specific bounty (although it triggered me thinking about this topic, I'll admit) but the fact that it often takes ages to get paid, often reminding people on skype to do so, which is annoying.
Taking ages to get paid doesn't bother SO much. Depending on the definition of ages. I know I lagged now and then with MercNet back in the day but, well, payouts took about 3-4 hours and sometimes I had papers to write.
A month is insane. A week is touching on the red zone. Closing a bounty and saying lolgtfo is sanction worthy.
Seeing how most factions don't have any actual gain in running a bounty board except for the fact that they contribute to the role play of mercenaries, I understand why they are reluctant to pay up after it takes up a lot of faction cash and does little in turn.
For example, I never understood why Liberty has a bounty board to begin with. There's a pirate there near every lane, and clearing them usually does not require much effort, nor does it make the public opinion on the "Navy's competence" better. Waste of money from Liberty's side imo.
Anyway, I don't think whoever made the bounty board could have reasonably foreseen that there would be such a flood of claims, it was not the intention of the guy to get mercs to kill people for no return (while I'm certain a lot of mercs take enjoyment in doing that). If you're worried about how long it takes them to pay, I suggest running your own bounty board, which actually has more than a wide variety of targets designated. If I was Liberty, I'd just pay out the money owed and close the whole thing down.
It's usually the corporations and traders complaining about the lack of security, I suggest encouraging them to set up their boards (since they actually have some sort of cash inflow, as opposed to military / police factions) in order to avoid further situations like this.
Rules defining a deadline in payment, and someone specifically elected to deal with a faction's bounty board would be all nice and dandy, of course, but it would probably achieve more and more people getting discouraged to actually make a bounty board. After all as I said, most factions don't have an actual gain in running one.
Imo the whole thing should be reworked from the base.
Generally house boards pay out very little. They're a mechanism through which groups can operate. At about 1 million a kill you can fund a bounty board on 100 million for a very, very, very long time. Five hours of trading can elicit months of gaining external support in keeping the roads clear and mercs off your own back.
Because mercs are rarely unemployed for long.
In houses with little outlaw presence your 100 million will last even longer. With groups with a heavier presence you're likely overwhelmed and thankful for the support.
The majority of high pay bounties come from groups who consider themselves either overwhelmed by a force which is vastly superior in number or wish to otherwise even the odds. Or maybe just want to inflict a great deal of hurt on a group which is beyond their reach but has in some fashion damaged them. Otherwise bounties don't generally pay out that much.
Was about what The Major said, but he ninja'd me :angry:
So meh, it needs to be re-thought somehow. There is no incentive to keep paying bounties, and this might lead to problems indeed.
Have larger bounty boards only pay in increments. IE one must earn at least ten mil worth of bounties to be paid. Should make processing a lot easier
Well Dusty, in role play it may be the interest of certain Houses to keep their mercenaries but out of it I have to say, they are rarely of any use.
See in Rheinland there are 20 registrants on the bounty board, three proved to be useful; a guy who has been submitting quality role play, other two being the Reavers and the BHG| obviously. Now, you can't really evaluate a mercenary's usefulness without going through all that useless paperwork on both sides, only for him to disappear.
In addition, in Rheinland for example, there's often enough not much for lawfuls to do. I personally wouldn't object to having more enemies, even though it is not in the interest of anyone in role play, it would give us more things to do. But now I'm investing real cash to keep people on my side for role play reasons, who may be more useful on the opposing side, just to follow up with role play. With all honesty, most mercenaries deal with targets that House Militaries could easily eliminate as well. Might sound stupid or selfish, but it's the way it is. As far as I'm concerned, staying on the good side of mercenaries is only an in-role play interest, not an actual one.
Now, once a faction invests material things to obtain non-material gains, I understand it eventually becomes a boring and seemingly useless procedure.
Surely, I'm not saying mercenaries are useless. But the bounty system has serious flaws and it definitely could use some reworking, in order to encourage the use and usefulness of mercenaries, not on the contrary. More rules would only result in the latter.