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They're meant to be sorta vague, because I hate enumerated PK rules. We have a small enough playerbase that we can take issues as they come and figure it out. We also expect players to be adults (I know, I know) and use basic common sense. I'm just not going to discuss hyperbolic attempts to drag 'hotspot' out to mean the whole world.

The word REVENGE is very specifically used here. Revenge is PK for something past tense. Showing up to defend the aegis you put down during someone's attempt to destroy it is not revenge, the act is still ongoing. If they use a group, and you bring a group, neat, it's a group fight. If you go find them hours after it's gone, no.

Essentially: The Aegis are not meant to passively sit there and generate you PK cause. The core to understand is that it's not you building something and it deserves to exist; it's that you are putting something like a preemptory attack out in the world and waiting. When it hits, YOU STARTED THE FIGHT.

If you weren't there to defend it, you don't get revenge for losing the fight you started. There is some leeway left for things like making trap rooms, or tricking people into them as active combat methods. Hence only really caring about hotspot locations. Essentially, I should approve every single issue where your Aegis hits someone you have no cause on.

Ask yourself "Do I have cause against X?" Because an aegis is like an attack on a loooooong timer.

In cases where no one is hit, or it's destroyed while you're gone, we're saying that to claim revenge (pk at a later date) it needs to either have been somewhere you have a reasonable reason to pk people over or somewhere you own and were protecting. Again, think of it like a delayed attack. It is unreasonable to think you deserve cause on someone later because you started a fight and they fought back. If it's at NoT, even if it doesn't hit the person who destroyed it, it's like you left an attack waiting to hit them at any time, it's silly to give you cause for them removing it.

The aegis is aggressive. Justify its aggression, not how people respond to it.

E:

I missed the bit about single deaths. That's meant to handle people putting up silly issues, death is not that big of a deal, whatever. But if someone treats it like "I get one free pk causeless kill on every player" I'll end up punishing you because the larger picture matters more than the time saving "don't waste our time" rules.

This is probably gonna be the only time I try to discuss this on this thread, because I'm already sure that it's going to devolve into a series of agrees/disagrees split between all of the parties involved with what galvanized this whole thing. Plus, you and I are both well aware that I've been less than cordial elsewhere about this whole affair and I'm going to remain respectful since this is the forums.

By your own logic, any aegis is considered aggressive, including mere observation aegises or any aegises that have not even hit someone -- as well as anything that is arbitrarily referred to as a "hot spot" or "frequently used path". My problem with the new precedence that you established is that not every conflict is, nor should they be, a group-based conflict and Aetolia already exists as a game where almost every conflict boils down to groups, thus absolving individuals from the actions that their characters make. For the record, I would've been fine with a decision that was: "All aegises are wiped from Scidve/Observatory at the start of the round" or basically anything that didn't undo the three previous issues in the diametrically opposite direction from where precedence had been established. This is twice now where issues have been leveraged like to repeatedly complain things that one side doesn't agree with, despite prior receipts and decisions being known to the issuers and they press ahead with the issue anyway, in the hopes that the administration will just get tired of dealing with it and side with them. It happened with Warhounds Track, and now with aegises.

What you've effectively done now is make it to where an individual that has placed an aegis, by the wording of the rules, is now subject to it being camped by a group of people for any reason and that individual cannot do anything in retaliation unless they bring a group. Neither side has any real roleplay reason to make this a group conflict. Forgive me if I'm not interested in yet another conflict mechanism where people can just throw bodies and an automated script at something and then go hide in their city to avoid accountability for the actions of their own character. Additionally, attuning an aegis is not an offensive action in itself unless it hits a person, especially if it's just something like an Observation glyph. That's like me claiming that an Allsight Rite is somehow an aggressive action. It's not, nor is placing glyphs, or traps, or any other sort of persistent effect if they're not targeting me or doing a non-detrimental passive effect. It'd be one thing if my aegis actually hit them first or caused a detrimental effect, but I guarantee this issue is going to come up again when Shadow Sentinel becomes a thing and people go around disarming each other's traps. If your precedence here is maintained as with aegises, it's just going to boil down into: "Well, the Sentinel whose traps are being disarmed is not allowed to do anything because the disarming Sentinel roamed with a group and then the conflict is over and I can't get any retribution because they all went home". Forgive me if I don't think conflict should be based around on and off peak times and, again, who can throw the most bodies at something. The conflict should remain between the person who laid the traps (or attuned the aegis) and the person who is disarming (or dampening the aegis). Anyone else who gets involved is knowingly taking a risk in doing so, by virtue of the fact that it is not an open PK zone nor is this an established means of group combat.

As a complete aside over aegises, there are no current, feasible situations that would generate any sort of organic PK outside of the organized group PK zones we periodically have, and maybe another situation where someone goes trigger happy off of a perceived "insult" and even if there was, the aggressors can simply go and hide within their cities to "hold out" until the administration grants an arbitrary decision on a time limit in terms of what is feasible for retaliation, as well as just roaming around with a giant group. You already see this with bounties where people who actually do something against an organization will literally just never leave their org unless it's with a group or not log in until the bounty timer is run out. If that's the direction that Aetolia is going to go, I guess that's fine, but I guess I find such a design philosophy subjectively boring. I believe that if you're claiming that this is conflict-based, roleplay game, people should be held accountable for the actions of their characters. Roaming around with a group because one side either can't muster enough bodies to retaliate and then declaring the conflict objectively over from that point onwards is, at least in my opinion, a poor way of facilitating this and it flies in the face of every past decision thus far.

Edit:

For clarification because Iadra's statement below is misleading, here is the previous precedence that had been established with aegises:

Message #1553 Sent By: Alecto Received On: 11/22/2020/1:46
"(Mass: Caitria, Nisavi, Iadra) Issue 21659: There was a great deal to unpack here, but essentially
this: An Aegis being set up and attacked is cause for the person who owns the Aegis. We do not
intend to have pages of PK rules, so keeping it simple, your cause only lasts for a limited amount
of time. Finding the group in the act and having a little battle over it is plenty, we will not
approve an act that creates 'cause' like hash marks. We will not apply a set amount of time for
revenge if there was not a battle, but a RL day or so would be logical. So... one death, no
punishment, but do not use Aegis as means to collect cause for later dates."