General: Getting Ganked

SBFord

Getting ganked is one of the most frustrating and maddening aspects of PvP play in MMOs today. In The Rant this week, Adam Janovyak talks about ganking from a personal perspective. If you've ever experienced the thrill...or agony of ganking, check out Adam's column and tell us about your experiences in the comments below.

For those of you that have never been ganked, it’s really something you need to experience. You will be walking around, farming, trying to get to a quest objective, exploring, or just generally minding your own business. When, just for the fun of it, another player who is marginally higher level will swoop in and beat the crap out of you or it will be a whole group of people beating you up. It usually happens right near a quest objective that you need to get to and they will just hang our around that area for the next half hour or so. It is, by far, one of the most frustrating experiences of all time. I would put it in my top five list of “things that piss me off in MMORPGs”.

Read more of Adam Janovyak's The Rant: Getting Ganked.

Reizla

Ganking is one of the reasons I'm not playing faction based PvP games. Like you Adam, it pisses me off extremely and life's too short to be mad at some teenage kid that aroused when he kills -20 levels below himself...

cassina

First rule of pvp : there are no fair fights, if you give your target a fair chance you failed miserably at tactical planning of your attack

Ceridith

Personally I don't see how ganking adds anything positive to an MMO.

I played UO back when there was only the PvP ruleset. I wasn't a noob or a carebear. In fact I could, and can, hold my own in PvP when things are relatively fair -- of course that's the thing, they rarely if ever are. I was just a player who prefered to be off doing my own thing, and when I was interacting with other players it would be to work together constructively, either to craft something or down a mob that couldn't otherwise be done solo.

Of course, the gankers had their own little game to play. They decided that I, and others like me, were their content. If I wanted to be off doing my own thing, well too bad for me if they found me. If I wanted to work together with other players? Well I better watch my back with strangers, because they could very well stab me in the back, literally, and loot all of my gear.

And that's the disconnect. I do not want to be content for other players. I don't play the game for the amusement of other players. I don't enjoy being ganked, on any level, I see absolutely nothing positive about it. Yes, it pissed me off, yes it caused a lot of hatred. But, all of it was irrelevant. Even if I did recover from a gank and round up some friends to go after the ganker/s, it wouldn't matter. They would be long gone, usually having switched to a different character to hide behind. There was really, very little disincentive to be a complete d-bag.

It's really no wonder why, when the PvE ruleset came to UO, that the vast majority of the population flocked to it.

FFA PvP rulesets, while nice in theory, are rarely ever executed well. If there are little to no consequences to ganking or otherwise harassing and/or killing other players, then it will run rampant in a game. Of course, the moment you add penalties or restrictions, the ganker crowd whines and moans that the system isn't 'truely FFA' because they can't so easily get away with being a jerk.

That's why I explicitly avoid FFA PvP ruleset servers and games, or any game with a large focus on PvP even if it's optional. To have fun playing on my terms, not on the terms of some punk living in their parent's basement who thinks it's funny to gank, dry loot, and/or corpse camp another player for no good reason.

Paradigm68

First of all, we need to establish that ganking and griefing are two different things. A difference that is usually over looked.

That being said, I'm not a pvp'er. not good at it, don't look for it. But the possibilty that I might be attacked while attempting to do whatever it is I'm doing adds a lot to a game for me. Games without some type of open world pvp in it usually lose my interest after a while without that dynamic.

And nothing in an MMO ever gets me more more excited and happy than escaping a ganker, and engaging in some smacktalk bragging about my skillfull cowardice.

Ceridith

Originally posted by Paradigm68

First of all, we need to establish that ganking and griefing are two different things. A difference that is usually over looked.

That being said, I'm not a pvp'er. not good at it, don't look for it. But the possibilty that I might be attacked while attempting to do whatever it is I'm doing adds a lot to a game for me. Games without some type of open world pvp in it usually lose my interest after a while without that dynamic.

And nothing in an MMO ever gets me more more excited and happy than escaping a ganker, and engaging in some smacktalk bragging about my skillfull cowardice.

Not all griefing is ganking, but most ganking is griefing.

A player ninja looting, or smack talking, then getting ganked in response, really isn't so much a gank as it is retribution.

In my opinion, a player or group of players that ovewhelm another player or group of players in power, either through levels, gear, or numbers, and whom kill the weaker group without provocation or explicit gain (aka they're mainly just doing it because it's fun to gank), are griefing. That's the majority of ganking.

cheyane

I love the reverse psychology that people use on the boards to try to make people who do not want to play PvP games because of ganking as cowards who ragequit and are not playing the games properly. That we are ruining their fun by refusing to deal and discover the great games that is to be experienced by just growing a pair and playing a "real" game.

 

I am quite happy playing the consensual PvP games and I enjoy them and I get my jollies playing those. I don't want to deal with games where people prey on people like me and like someone else said we become the content. I am not happy to play like that and so far the attempt to make me feel small and shallow about the games I choose to play has yet to work. The truth is they need us to make their games fun more than we will ever need them .

Kyleran

Has to do with the game mechanics really, and whether or not there's any real purpose to killing the other player other than to get one's jollies.

In WOW its just sort of annoying to be killed while in mid-pull, other guy doesn't get much for it, just serves to slow you down.

Contrast that with EVE where looting someone's blown up ship is part of the economy and driving force behind the game play and from my view point there is no such thing as a fair fight, only winners and losers and you should do everything in your power to win and win big.

Paradigm68

Originally posted by Ceridith

Originally posted by Paradigm68

First of all, we need to establish that ganking and griefing are two different things. A difference that is usually over looked.

That being said, I'm not a pvp'er. not good at it, don't look for it. But the possibilty that I might be attacked while attempting to do whatever it is I'm doing adds a lot to a game for me. Games without some type of open world pvp in it usually lose my interest after a while without that dynamic.

And nothing in an MMO ever gets me more more excited and happy than escaping a ganker, and engaging in some smacktalk bragging about my skillfull cowardice.

Not all griefing is ganking, but most ganking is griefing.

A player ninja looting, or smack talking, then getting ganked in response, really isn't so much a gank as it is retribution.

In my opinion, a player or group of players that ovewhelm another player or group of players in power, either through levels, gear, or numbers, and whom kill the weaker group without provocation or explicit gain (aka they're mainly just doing it because it's fun to gank), are griefing. That's the majority of ganking.

 So any interaction that is not consensual and equal is griefing? That is ridiculous. Griefing is when they are trying to ruin your game by not letting you play. It has to be a sustained repeated effort to rise to the level of griefing. Ganking is a bump in the road and the natural consequence of playing a game with other people.

Amaranthar

1. 
   There is "griefing" and there is "getting griefed". They both are equally bad as far as causing players to opt out, or in simply ruining a player's game day. In getting griefed, it doesn't matter to the griefee is he's ganked by one guy all the time, or different groups all the time.
2. 
   Ganking in pure form, not considering the grief possibilities, is good tactics. Especially if the game has that oh-so-rare quality of actually mattering.
3. 
   I love PvP, but I hate games that allow players of that bent to just rampage through the world and force it to be only and all about PvP. There are many other aspects of these games that I'd like to see in them, and like to enjoy, without always ending up on someone's spit.

Dark_Elf81

Well i'll just start out... i didnt read all of the messages up there past mine. But i can give you a sight on my experience in this. If you like it or not... its up to you...

 

Well I do like some fairness in fights. True... there never is any fun in loosing and therefor use the most common sence of prepare for anything at all times. It went well in my early years of wow. It was fun to have to watch my back now and then.... and try to evade some others. The thing is... too much is too much. Befor the big PVP arenas came up i got ganked litteraly. They were around 8 chars... at about 25-30 lvls higher than me... they didnt leave this town i was hiding at ... at all... they were camping the camp... for new players... and it wast just for half an hour... they were there all day long. I tryed to log in again about 8 hours after... and they still were resting out there... just waiting for some new players to leave the town for Honor points.

It was hell... hour after hour not able to do anything but hicke in a corner... at some places it was even worse... at lower lvl you couldnt cross areas with your lvl range of mobs... cause there were gankers out there waiting for days... just for the thrill of killing off easy kills... sigh.

 

But grief aside. At least the pvp arenas made that obsolete... too bad they took away the dishonor as well... at least that was something that could keep them from killing off the low ones.

 

On the other side of the medalion... i had a good experience once as well... some highend high equiped shaman tryed to chop off my head... and i ended up kicking him dead. It was a hard and long fight, but i ended up winning with just low end equipment. Guess he thought he could do anything as long he had the "higher" gear. Proved him right.

 

But thats just my experience there... its never fun to loose... if it stays fair... its allways fun to challenge your abilities. Tweeking here and there to get better...

 

Cheers

centkin

Griefing is the lowest form of pvp and unlike most pvp is pretty evil.  The whole idea of finding someone with no chance and just offing them when they are doing other things is ...  Well if you get your jollies out of it, it says something about you.

It is also not fun on the recieving end.

This is far different from when you are working on an objective like the RvR in warhammer and are clashing with enemy forces. 

I guess this is part of why I never liked "open rvr."  The idea of taking a group of players and hiding along a traveled route to waylay people going by was never the role I liked.  The only time it had any validity was when it was stopping people from getting back to the big battle where you were taking a keep or holding onto one.

I prefer a little more structured pvp where you arent shooting fish in a barrel or being shot by other people while cleaning your barrel.

Games that encourage griefing actually use it as a mechanic to discourage soloing.  In essence if you want to do the solo material you need to do it in a group or you will be ganked.  This was one reason why I did not come back to aion until they had the homeland buffs in -- of course they removed those which was a bad idea from my pov. 

Doesnt matter anyway -- I cant get any enjoyment out of playing aion when I am not playing rift now that I found rift.

DevilXaphan

I concur that greifing is just purely for spite while ganking is a legitimate form of PvP. Both are not liked by the pure PvE crowd but getting ganked is just part of the game with PvP instituted.

I don't condone gate camping or griefing but i will gank someone if they are considered the enemy in the game i play. Also i have been on both ends of the PvP spectrum.

mCalvert

To answer your question, if you run up to a ganker and cant hurt him, he will kill you, over and over and over. He doesnt care that you cant hurt him. He needs to increment his kill ratio. I know because I tried it in Rift. I died 30 times in about 2 mins. I would die, respawn, run up to them and stand there, and theyd kill me. I would die, respawn, and attack them, and they would kill me. I would die, respawn, and just stand at the respawn location not moving, theyd run up and kill me. Eventually, I just stopped respawning and went afk.

Sovrath

I think it's important to note that getting ganked or evern griefed is not an issue for players who clearly understand the rules of the game world and are there precisely because those rules exist.

 

It's usually people who are on the fence about such rules or who probably shouldn't be playing an open pvp game or being in an open pvp area.

In addition:

The second thing that being a gankee does for you is give you an adrenaline rush. Seeing that enemy player rolling up to me on screen gets my blood pumping!

 

It's important to note that the above quote is not a positive for all people. For some reason there is a group of pvp'ers who find it hard to believe that players don't want the above mentioned "feeling".

Some don't. Not everyone has the same reaction to an adrenaline rush. And though some might find the feeling positive, some will find it a negative.

I will say that for the right people, being in an ffa area or in an ffa game can be a plus because they will push themselves to be stronger. That was my experience in Lineage 2. However, I will also have to say that I only enjoyed the large scale pvp events between clans/alliances or the sieges.

ffa pvp is not for everyone and people on both sides need to realize this.

vanderghast

problem is that in games there's no repurcussions to anti social behaviour, unlike in real life.  If developers could come up with a system that allowed random murder but also penalized someone HEAVILY for taking part in it if caught, then you'd have something.  Like once someone was flagged as a murderer, if they are "caught" or killed they suffer permadeath.

 

I always thought a game that had open PVP but yet had some sort of in game player run justice system would be an awesome game.  You'd have players that hunted the gankers, some sort of judge and jury system, etc.  Sentencing the player to "jail" made that character unplayable for a certain amount of time, executing them results in permadeath.  I dunno, there's tons of cool stuff you could do, just no developer has the balls to do some truely innovative and completely new features anymore.

Rockgod99

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think it's important to note that getting ganked or evern griefed is not an issue for players who clearly understand the rules of the game world and are there precisely because those rules exist.

 

It's usually people who are on the fence about such rules or who probably shouldn't be playing an open pvp game or being in an open pvp area.

In addition:

The second thing that being a gankee does for you is give you an adrenaline rush. Seeing that enemy player rolling up to me on screen gets my blood pumping!

 

It's important to note that the above quote is not a positive for all people. For some reason there is a group of pvp'ers who find it hard to believe that players don't want the above mentioned "feeling".

Some don't. Not everyone has the same reaction to an adrenaline rush. And though some might find the feeling positive, some will find it a negative.

I will say that for the right people, being in an ffa area or in an ffa game can be a plus because they will push themselves to be stronger. That was my experience in Lineage 2. However, I will also have to say that I only enjoyed the large scale pvp events between clans/alliances or the sieges.

ffa pvp is not for everyone and people on both sides need to realize this.

I would hope by now everyone would realize that.

For me I play on a pvp server (most of the time) because it makes my world feel real. There are cons though. Cons for me are getting camped.

I have no issue with some high level kicking my ass. What i do hate is having the same guy wait on my respawn just to continually kill me.

But with that said Pvp servers offer many positives for me. On a pvp server the faction vs faction hate is at an unbelieveable level. When I played WoW i fucking hated the other side.

Also on Pvp servers i've had a few fights that even 6+ years later i still remember like they happened last night.

For every shitty camping bastard moment i've had there have been ten glorious large scale battles across some zone, a memorable one on one fight and just some sick ass "Oh shit" moment.

When I think about the pros the cons mean nothing.

But i am aware many people feel differently.

Terminus-Est

I won't play any PvP game because of the ganking. It just isn't fun. I wouldn't play any game in which I randomly die now and again for no fault of my own through lag or game bugs, and I see no difference with ganking. There is nothing I can do about it, so it is a pointless exercise.

DevilXaphan

Originally posted by vanderghast

problem is that in games there's no repurcussions to anti social behaviour, unlike in real life.  If developers could come up with a system that allowed random murder but also penalized someone HEAVILY for taking part in it if caught, then you'd have something.  Like once someone was flagged as a murderer, if they are "caught" or killed they suffer permadeath.

 

I always thought a game that had open PVP but yet had some sort of in game player run justice system would be an awesome game.  You'd have players that hunted the gankers, some sort of judge and jury system, etc.  Sentencing the player to "jail" made that character unplayable for a certain amount of time, executing them results in permadeath.  I dunno, there's tons of cool stuff you could do, just no developer has the balls to do some truely innovative and completely new features anymore.

There are a few games out there that have penalties for killing players in PvP, they just have a gradual build up on the number of kills.

pierth

Originally posted by Rockgod99

For every shitty camping bastard moment i've had there have been ten glorious large scale battles across some zone, a memorable one on one fight and just some sick ass "Oh shit" moment.

 

I've experienced both positive and negative situations you've described and to be honest, I've had more positive ones on newer servers where most people are still in basically the same level range. On more established servers I find far, far more instances of the negative.

 

Overall, I tend to stay away from PvP servers especially in games where they have other PvP outlets (usually instanced PvP) because it's just more likely to have negative experiences than positive ones for me in today's MMOs- particularly due to there being no repercussion for PKing just for the hell of it (as was brought up earlier). Overall until there are reasonable checks and balances for MMO PvP I'll stick to TF2 for my PvP desires.

Deivos

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think it's important to note that getting ganked or evern griefed is not an issue for players who clearly understand the rules of the game world and are there precisely because those rules exist.

 

It's usually people who are on the fence about such rules or who probably shouldn't be playing an open pvp game or being in an open pvp area.

In addition:

The second thing that being a gankee does for you is give you an adrenaline rush. Seeing that enemy player rolling up to me on screen gets my blood pumping!

 

It's important to note that the above quote is not a positive for all people. For some reason there is a group of pvp'ers who find it hard to believe that players don't want the above mentioned "feeling".

Some don't. Not everyone has the same reaction to an adrenaline rush. And though some might find the feeling positive, some will find it a negative.

I will say that for the right people, being in an ffa area or in an ffa game can be a plus because they will push themselves to be stronger. That was my experience in Lineage 2. However, I will also have to say that I only enjoyed the large scale pvp events between clans/alliances or the sieges.

ffa pvp is not for everyone and people on both sides need to realize this.

Pretty much anyone who isn't a closet masochist or doesn't like undue stress doesn't like that feeling. There's a reason there's a term 'adrenaline junkies'. It's not a universal or majority thing.

 

I play Mount&Blade. I play it because it is a specifically PvP game an has a high degree of skill required of the players as opposed to banking on stats or equipment.

 

Hell, just last night I beat a dude in chain and a big damn mace while I was in a dress and using a wooden great sword.

 

Sometime's I'm not so lucky. Like there was multiple times where I was the last person alive against six plus players. At that point I just accept the inevitable.

 

To say being ganked is a fault of the person getting ganked is like blaming someone who just watched their car get run over by a monster truck for their car getting demolished. Yes, dying i an aspect of a game people must acknowledge. However, dying to people who have no intention of a far fight is pointless. Neither person gets anything out of it (I'd hope in a good system) and the ganker proves they're nothing other than an annoying twit with a questionable mental stability.

 

To say that it's not an issue to those people who 'understand the rules' simply means that they are willingly accepting that someone somewhere is going to go out of their way sooner or later to kill them or absolutely no reward or valid reason. That doesn't magically make it not getting ganked, that just means that player has a high tolerance for other people's ignorance.

 

This isn't just an ffa PvP issue. It's seen in factional war games a lot. It's part of why I prefer skill based PvP games, gankers just inherently can't excel in them and that means we get more respectable combat.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Rockgod99

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think it's important to note that getting ganked or evern griefed is not an issue for players who clearly understand the rules of the game world and are there precisely because those rules exist.

 

It's usually people who are on the fence about such rules or who probably shouldn't be playing an open pvp game or being in an open pvp area.

In addition:

The second thing that being a gankee does for you is give you an adrenaline rush. Seeing that enemy player rolling up to me on screen gets my blood pumping!

 

It's important to note that the above quote is not a positive for all people. For some reason there is a group of pvp'ers who find it hard to believe that players don't want the above mentioned "feeling".

Some don't. Not everyone has the same reaction to an adrenaline rush. And though some might find the feeling positive, some will find it a negative.

I will say that for the right people, being in an ffa area or in an ffa game can be a plus because they will push themselves to be stronger. That was my experience in Lineage 2. However, I will also have to say that I only enjoyed the large scale pvp events between clans/alliances or the sieges.

ffa pvp is not for everyone and people on both sides need to realize this.

I would hope by now everyone would realize that.

For me I play on a pvp server (most of the time) because it makes my world feel real. There are cons though. Cons for me are getting camped.

I have no issue with some high level kicking my ass. What i do hate is having the same guy wait on my respawn just to continually kill me.

But with that said Pvp servers offer many positives for me. On a pvp server the faction vs faction hate is at an unbelieveable level. When I played WoW i fucking hated the other side.

Also on Pvp servers i've had a few fights that even 6+ years later i still remember like they happened last night.

For every shitty camping bastard moment i've had there have been ten glorious large scale battles across some zone, a memorable one on one fight and just some sick ass "Oh shit" moment.

When I think about the pros the cons mean nothing.

But i am aware many people feel differently.

But I don't think they do.

There is a difference between people coming from games like Dark Fall and Lineage 2 and games like WoW or Warhammer.

It was even Aion's issue as the developers sort of danced around the fact that though players could focus on what they wanted (pvp/pve) they still had to deal with both.

Or you see a player complaining that some higher lvl player was taking over an area or town. Happened in Lineage 2 all the time.

These games are made for this. And they are for players who expect this and can come to grips with it.

But then there are players who say they want ffa pvp but hate being overmatched or outmatched by numbers/levels.

That's fair but they need to understand that some games are like this. There is nothing wrong with that as there should be different games.

But if players don't want to be tackled they shouldn't be playing full contact football.

kalinis

i so disagree with this rant. Getting ganked offers nothing to a player. if u cant fight back because they are 20 or more levels above u or because they outnumber u 10-1 whats the point. i used to play on pvp server in wow.

i switched to a pve server cause trying to level a 30 in stranglethorn being ganked and camped by 70s or 60s or 80s wasnt fun. i was usually forced to log out and go do something else . it totally ruined my game time.

if i tried to get help  i either got told dea l with it its a pvp server. or when the peope high enough to help out showed up the ganker would run so u never got any revenge as they would log out and ud only see them again once u were all alone.

how is this any fun at all. Sure maybe u get your jollies off killing and camping players 20 or more levles below u but thats not fun to me. im not afraid to fight guys one on one if im near there level but when i cant even hit u whats the point of trying.

being forced to quit playing a game i enjoy because some jerk wont stop killing me isnt fun or enjoyable and the only thing i learn from it is how to log out cause i have no chance of playing whatsoever.

Vargur

I enjoy PvP, but I also prefer to limit those fights to certain zones, so it becomes consentual. I RvR'd a lot in DAoC, and enjoyed it because few people entered the Frontiers without looking for a fight. There were some, but most people accepted being killed while PvEing in a RvR zone because that was one of the risks.

I tried FFA PvP in AoC, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. There were too many gankers running around waited to attack me until I was fighting some mob. The lack of an alliance system made it difficult to view anyone outside your own guild as anything but a hostile. You got to learn a few guilds as friendlies, but often we killed others because they just happened to be in the vicinity when we gathered a group to purge some enemies from the zone. I still recall getting a message from a player who was fighting the same people as us, and I killed her/him in the fog of war.

In DAoC I often soloed as a hunter. I snuck around and reported enemy movements for Midgard and often received little rewards aside from the satsfaction that  had helped my realm. Often I was caught by gank guilds or elite groups who were looking for 8vs8 fights, but they held no qualms about stopping and killing my lonely buttom if given the chance. If someone else brought two groups to take them out though, there would be no end to the crying about the unfairness.

Deivos

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Rockgod99

Originally posted by Sovrath

I think it's important to note that getting ganked or evern griefed is not an issue for players who clearly understand the rules of the game world and are there precisely because those rules exist.

 

It's usually people who are on the fence about such rules or who probably shouldn't be playing an open pvp game or being in an open pvp area.

In addition:

The second thing that being a gankee does for you is give you an adrenaline rush. Seeing that enemy player rolling up to me on screen gets my blood pumping!

 

It's important to note that the above quote is not a positive for all people. For some reason there is a group of pvp'ers who find it hard to believe that players don't want the above mentioned "feeling".

Some don't. Not everyone has the same reaction to an adrenaline rush. And though some might find the feeling positive, some will find it a negative.

I will say that for the right people, being in an ffa area or in an ffa game can be a plus because they will push themselves to be stronger. That was my experience in Lineage 2. However, I will also have to say that I only enjoyed the large scale pvp events between clans/alliances or the sieges.

ffa pvp is not for everyone and people on both sides need to realize this.

I would hope by now everyone would realize that.

For me I play on a pvp server (most of the time) because it makes my world feel real. There are cons though. Cons for me are getting camped.

I have no issue with some high level kicking my ass. What i do hate is having the same guy wait on my respawn just to continually kill me.

But with that said Pvp servers offer many positives for me. On a pvp server the faction vs faction hate is at an unbelieveable level. When I played WoW i fucking hated the other side.

Also on Pvp servers i've had a few fights that even 6+ years later i still remember like they happened last night.

For every shitty camping bastard moment i've had there have been ten glorious large scale battles across some zone, a memorable one on one fight and just some sick ass "Oh shit" moment.

When I think about the pros the cons mean nothing.

But i am aware many people feel differently.

But I don't think they do.

There is a difference between people coming from games like Dark Fall and Lineage 2 and games like WoW or Warhammer.

It was even Aion's issue as the developers sort of danced around the fact that though players could focus on what they wanted (pvp/pve) they still had to deal with both.

Or you see a player complaining that some higher lvl player was taking over an area or town. Happened in Lineage 2 all the time.

These games are made for this. And they are for players who expect this and can come to grips with it.

But then there are players who say they want ffa pvp but hate being overmatched or outmatched by numbers/levels.

That's fair but they need to understand that some games are like this. There is nothing wrong with that as there should be different games.

But if players don't want to be tackled they shouldn't be playing full contact football.

The proper analogy would be 'If players don't want to get tackled by a freight train while playing football, they shouldn't be playing a hackneyed version of football where older athletes can drive vehicles on the field.'

 

Though I guess you'd leave out accuracy for the sake of making a point.

 

Just come out and say it.

 

'I like being able to savagely beat to death people that don't have a chance. I'm satisfied every time I see a new corpse of an otherwise innocent bystander left in my wake, because I have no emotional or rational connection to other people that makes me understand that I just ruined someone's day and committed to what in the real world would be homicide.'

 

Is it so hard to say it?

 

I personally love playing PvP games because I love fighting people. It's not a fight if there's a clear victor before the fight even starts, then it's just boring. Part of the reason I've always loved doing SCA and tournaments in real life, because it's just more satisfying to me to have a challenge.

 

Ganking annoys me not because I die, but because there's no challenge. There's no tactical or quantitative value in games generally to beating people outside my level range, so I don't do it.

When people do it to me I suck it up and keep going. If they continue, I'm forced to wonder just what is wrong with them, because they obviously lack respect for other people, and definitely aren't doing PvP for any real combat or reward external to the glee they get from murder.

 

Just because a high level player can park themselves in the middle of a town full of new players and go on a killing spree doesn't mean that was the intentions or design of the game. That simply means that there is some assumption of self regulation and value judgement.

 

Rather the reason I made that post before inquiring about the progressive degradation of player quality in PvP games. I remember playing Planetside and having plenty of respect for other players. Playing on full PvP servers in DAoC and AC I had the same experiences. I've come back to those games and sen marked degradation, and it's obviously in part due to a new generation of gamers as much as it's older gamers just caving in.

 

And again why I make my point on skill centric games being my preferred PvP type. People just can't be as homicidal, because there's no one clearly below some 'level' to pick on.

Rudeasp

Just QQ don't play PVP if you're not willing to PVP. As far as PVE I've been known to train a bunch of mobs to a member of the other faction just to die so they would aggro them successfully killing them Good times.