This is in reference only to gankers/someone who kills players who are obviously outmatched, not to other forms of PvP:
There is only one reason why people gank, it is fun for them. It is fun for them for the same reasons it is fun to exert dominance over someone in real life, to show that you are better than them and see them cower. It feels good to know you are better than someone else at something. I think some people crave this feeling much more than others, but everyone is suspect to it due to human nature.
There are probably a lot of psychological reasons for someone to have strong cravings to exert dominance over others to the point where they search out lower leveled players (or take time from their normal game) in a video game to kill those players. Some are probably serious problems but most are probably just small things, like not having a healthy enough self esteem, feeling trapped in a bad job or bad family situation, getting older and feeling helpless to stop your aging process... Simple things that we all experience to a small extent.
It does not take very much time out of our normal gaming experience to kill another player lower level than us, and it even is nice to do because it removes us from the monotomy of leveling/etc... So I am not surprised that people do it. But I do believe that a 'perfect' person who is completely moral and has a healthy self esteem would see no reason to kill players of a lower level, and would never gank. They would find other ways to break the montomy of the gaming experience, or just put the game down for a while and do something else.
I have ganked while leveling in order to break the monotomy, as well as searching out lowbies specifically to gank them. I feel like the inherent fun of it dropped within the first few people I killed, and after that I just did it because it felt good, the fun was in the 'ownage'. But really I didn't do it much longer after that, because it just made me feel sorta pathetic as I reflected on myself and realized that this is fun only because I am owning them, and I am only owning them because my character is a higher level.
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
To that end, I think people need to realize that "one size does not fit all" and that people are (gasp! The Devil you say!?!?!?) different.
So there are people who are just complete bastards in game and in real life and people who can be "evil" in games or just be a pk'er/ganker and generally good people.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
That's epic dude. I'm sure you were the catalyst to many broken keyboards and punched monitors XD
Also I agree with you. I used to PK a lot more than I do now when there was great risk involved for both parties, D2 a great example. Now I only PK if I am going some place and I see a squishy. I basically flip a coin on whether to kill or not.
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
At least it's a good way to spot posters you can imediately dismiss in other posts with such a warped reality sense. I wouldn't trust their judgement on anything after an insight to how they think, in this thread
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
That's epic dude. I'm sure you were the catalyst to many broken keyboards and punched monitors XD
Probably, and it was a ton of fun. When someone went hostile and tried to PK me it was fun too: the rush of excitement as you try to get to safety and not lose your character.
But I would say there really was more of an equal footing in D2, because even very low level players had the opportunity to escape from a high level PK due to the way going hostile worked in the game. So since there was equal footing, I don't know if I would even call it ganking... Although the PKer really wasn't running much risk of losing their character while other players were. Its hard to say what ganking is exactly and if it applies there or not.
If it were super easy to kill lowbies in HC D2 and they had no ability to escape, I wouldn't have done it (nearly as much at least).
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
Well, in Lineage 2 we did lose a percentage of our xp which could be a bit of time lost.
To that end, in a game like Aion, nothing is lost except for a small amount of abyss points.
I think where the real issue lies is that some players are more about what they are doing at the moment and are not interested in a world that is perhaps a bit more dynamic where their play can be interrupted.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
At least it's a good way to spot posters you can imediately dismiss in other posts with such a warped reality sense. I wouldn't trust their judgement on anything after an insight to how they think, in this thread
Dismissing insight from different perspectives is the absence of logic.
I also don't see the point in judging a persons sense of 'reality' based on video game preferences. Last I checked, the virtual world allows people to break away from reality.
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
To that end, I think people need to realize that "one size does not fit all" and that people are (gasp! The Devil you say!?!?!?) different.
So there are people who are just complete bastards in game and in real life and people who can be "evil" in games or just be a pk'er/ganker and generally good people.
Part of the issue is that people who may be nice in real life, act like jerks online because they don't realize they're being jerks. Even though in their eyes they might think of it as 'just part of the game' to walk up to another player and shank them and take their stuff... repeatedly... doesn't mean the person they're doing to feels the same way.
It's less of an issue these days because there are so many different games and subsets of those games via server rulesets. It's mostly at the point where if you don't like PvP, you don't play a game or on a server that forces it upon you.
The problems occur where there are lack of choice, or significant overlap within a game.
Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player...
But that's why there are so many different MMOs with vastly different rulesets. Because different players want different things out of their MMOs. So if you don't want PvP, don't play in a game that allows for 'surprise' PvP. Likewise, if you enjoy ganking people, don't complain when you run out of victims when they decide they've had enough and go to a different game.
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
At least it's a good way to spot posters you can imediately dismiss in other posts with such a warped reality sense. I wouldn't trust their judgement on anything after an insight to how they think, in this thread
Fibben, I don't even totally understand whos side you are on with this post, lol.
I think Anu saying that Reality != Game World is definitely true, but he is missing the point of why ganking would be looked at as stupid/wrong/annoying. Most people who do not like ganking and wish others would gank less do not think that the game world is reality, that is not why they think it is wrong; that is a strawman argument.
The game world is not reality. But the social interactions within the game are real interactions between real people, and therefore there can still be negative and positive interactions, and bring happiness or unhappiness to the users, and therefore there is a moral choice associated with social gaming. (Trash talk and PvP could be a positive interaction if both users accept it as so, etc).
The reason why it is wrong would be that it is disrupting and annoying others with no positive reprocussion. You are being abnoxious for the sake of being abnoxious. The game is not real but the annoyance and loss of time that the gankee experience are real. Morally speaking (adopting a utilitarian viewpoint), you should probably avoid actions that cause others to feel annoyed or lose time, unless those actions also carry with it something positive that makes the action worthwhile.
The action of ganking carries with it a positive feeling in the ganker, probably, which could be argued to be why ganking is morally OK. Yes it makes the other player feel annoyed and wastes their time, but that is within the confines of the game (and therefore they agreed to accept such transactions) and you as the ganker get a lot of pleasure out of ganking so the action is morally positive overall.
But we should probably look deeper into why the ganker gets pleasure out of ganking, which goes back to my last post... The ganker probably gets pleasure out of ganking because the ganker is a bit messed up in the head (not trying to insult; everyone is messed up in the head to some extent).
It doesnt take a lot of psychological hang-ups to get someone to enjoy ganking in a video game; after all, its just a game, and the moral situations we face in a game are insignificant to those we face every day in real life. It doesnt really matter much AT ALL, very very little. Which makes it much easier to make morally wrong choices, since it matters so little... Much like tossing a plastic bottle in the trash instead of recycling bin. Such a tiny thing; such a no-biggie.
But if we are only enjoying the ganking because we have low self esteem or some other mental hang-up, then that would arguably void the morality of the action. I think this is the case...
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
Well, in Lineage 2 we did lose a percentage of our xp which could be a bit of time lost.
To that end, in a game like Aion, nothing is lost except for a small amount of abyss points.
I think where the real issue lies is that some players are more about what they are doing at the moment and are not interested in a world that is perhaps a bit more dynamic where their play can be interrupted.
But play is interrupted in regular PvP all the time, and the people who are against ganking are not against regular PvP or against interrupted play.
I think most gamers like interrupting play because MMORPG play is so boring... Quest quest quest... We just like interrupting play for something enjoyable on some level, and getting ganked is not enjoyable on any level; its really annoying.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
EDIT
"Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player..."
No....... Absolutely no, nobody in EVE can "PvE in peace" everything a player does affects every other player, they affect the economy and they devalue some items and inflate the cost of others, a mission runner will dump loyalty store items on the market which makes them cheaper and they inject minerals into the economy making those cheaper while items missions runners commonly use will go up in price.
So if they can affect me I should sure as hell be able to affect them in return.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush, Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light, Company of Heroes II.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
"Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player..."
No....... Absolutely no, nobody in EVE can "PvE in peace" everything a player does affects every other player, they affect the economy and they devalue some items and inflate the cost of others, a mission runner will dump loyalty store items on the market which makes them cheaper and they inject minerals into the economy making those cheaper while items missions runners commonly use will go up in price.
So if they can affect me I should sure as hell be able to affect them in return.
Face, meet palm.
My point was that entirely excluding any PvP aspect of Eve, the game has several gameplay mechanics and aspects that players purely interested in PvE would, and do, enjoy. In fact, it's many of those PvE oriented players that keep the game's economy churning out new ships, weapons, and munitions for PvPers to blow each other up with.
Eve is a unique hybrid in that it needs both PvEers and PvPers to survive. Take away the PvP and the PvE quickly becomes meaningless. Take away the PvE and the PvP likewise becomes irrelevant. The point is that the two need to be balanced so that PvEers can do their PvE thing without being screwed every step of the way, hence why there is sec space.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
EDIT
"Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player..."
No....... Absolutely no, nobody in EVE can "PvE in peace" everything a player does affects every other player, they affect the economy and they devalue some items and inflate the cost of others, a mission runner will dump loyalty store items on the market which makes them cheaper and they inject minerals into the economy making those cheaper while items missions runners commonly use will go up in price.
So if they can affect me I should sure as hell be able to affect them in return.
Those psychopathic carebears are obviously idiots and as someone who is against ganking I would like distance myself from them completely, lol.
But I would like to hear how a healthy person could get enjoyment out of killing someone in a game who is vastly inferior to them level-wise? I have gone on and on about how I think it is linked to feeling superior than the gankee, and that is linked to some unhealthy mental attribute like low self-esteem... What are some other reasons why someone might enjoy killing lowbies repeatedly with no real difficulty?
And again, I don't think this 'unhealthy mental attribute' is necessarily a serious problem. This is just a game we are talking about, not a major moral offense, and I wouldn't make the claim that all gankers need to see a psychologist or something... Maybe they just need to do some self reflecting as to why they enjoy causing annoyance to other players.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
Today yes, if you don't want to PvP don't play a game that forces PvP.
This was not always the case however, when choice in MMOs and/or server rulesets were extremely limited.
But as I've said, if PvPers are going to play the "suck it up, that's how the game is" card, they need to live with the fact that their games are never going to have a very large population.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
Today yes, if you don't want to PvP don't play a game that forces PvP.
This was not always the case however, when choice in MMOs and/or server rulesets were extremely limited.
But as I've said, if PvPers are going to play the "suck it up, that's how the game is" card, they need to live with the fact that their games are never going to have a very large population.
PvP was never mainstream. It never will be. I also believe it's the one thing holding sandbox games back from being truely successful
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
Thats true!
But I have a romantic idea of what PvP is, and I really believe it can come true! We just need the correct game mechanics to encourage more fair PvP and discourage ganking. Ganking can even be possible still in these games, but just discouraged.
I can think of a lot of ways to implement this and you can probably too. Some simple, some very complex (but fun).
I agree though that it is annoying when people whine about PvP servers or PvP MMORPGs. I like to choose PvP servers and I know that ganking is going to come along with that, it is totally worth it to be a on a PvP server. It is not ideal though; far from that romantic PvP ideal that I feel a game can accomplish.
I like how most of you have portrayed yourselves as humanitarians and real all round nice guy who love to PK for all we know you could be a hitman.
All this thread managed to show is that it takes all kinds of people to play a player killer.
If it managed to show that, then the thread is a success as far as I am concerned.
I'd be the last to deny that some socially inadequate jerks call themselves "PvPers". All I want is recognition that not everyone or even the majority of those of us who like to pit our wits against real people are sociopaths.
To answer the question in the topic. Its not so much about what someone does, but more about what the reason is for doing it.
So yeah, I think a PKer/ganker can be a nice person or an asshole. Totally depends on what their reason for ganking is.
I usually have my doubts about the gankers who just are out to destroy other ppls fun. Partypoopers are douchebags usually in my experience
On the other hand, the ganker that expects it can happen any moment to himself and simply enjoys the thrill of the hunt or being hunted, can be a very nice person in rl. That one just looks at it as some kind of sports.
The partypoopers usually set the tone for a FFA PVP game though.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
Today yes, if you don't want to PvP don't play a game that forces PvP.
This was not always the case however, when choice in MMOs and/or server rulesets were extremely limited.
But as I've said, if PvPers are going to play the "suck it up, that's how the game is" card, they need to live with the fact that their games are never going to have a very large population.
I'm OK with that. The MMO ecosystem is large enough to allow plenty of niches.
The question can a pk/ganker be a nice person in RL? The short answer for me is probably not. The same personality traits that cause an individual to get enjoyment from ganking someone are also the same traits that tend to make an individual self centered. That does not mean they cant be sociable and part of an "in" crowd, however, as people grow up and become adults and "in" crowds are not quite so important those same traits will usually cause that person to become lonely as people no longer have a social reason to hang out with them unless they change in some form or fashion.
I can't disagree with this post more. Dude, we're talking about games here! Seriously... I know several people in real life who are absolutely vicious in games. Yet, these same people are some of the nicest and most caring friends I have ever had.
Reality != game world.
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
At least it's a good way to spot posters you can imediately dismiss in other posts with such a warped reality sense. I wouldn't trust their judgement on anything after an insight to how they think, in this thread
Fibben, I don't even totally understand whos side you are on with this post, lol.
I think Anu saying that Reality != Game World is definitely true, but he is missing the point of why ganking would be looked at as stupid/wrong/annoying. Most people who do not like ganking and wish others would gank less do not think that the game world is reality, that is not why they think it is wrong; that is a strawman argument.
The game world is not reality. But the social interactions within the game are real interactions between real people, and therefore there can still be negative and positive interactions, and bring happiness or unhappiness to the users, and therefore there is a moral choice associated with social gaming. (Trash talk and PvP could be a positive interaction if both users accept it as so, etc).
Yes, it is true that interactions in MMOs are between real people. But, with the exception of cheaters, those interactions are never beyond the scope of a game and the rules that define it. When a gamer decides to play a game where non-consensual PvP is allowed, they are not justified to become overly upset when someone endulges in that type of activity. It is part of the game and should be expected as such. It's like someone playing Tekken in an arcade and getting pissed off that another player kicked their ass. Yeah its annoying and it cost them a quarter, but that's the game and that is what they should have expected the moment they started.
The reason why it is wrong would be that it is disrupting and annoying others with no positive reprocussion. You are being abnoxious for the sake of being abnoxious. The game is not real but the annoyance and loss of time that the gankee experience are real. Morally speaking (adopting a utilitarian viewpoint), you should probably avoid actions that cause others to feel annoyed or lose time, unless those actions also carry with it something positive that makes the action worthwhile.
I tend to agree with you when it comes to the morality of ganking players for the sole purpose of causing them grief. This behavior is asshole-ish and morally questionable, but still I feel there is a big difference between messing with another player in a video game and trying to ruin someone's day in real life. The post I was responding to originally was arguing that any PKer/ganker was probably a bad person in real life... an assertion that I whole-heartedly disagree with.
The action of ganking carries with it a positive feeling in the ganker, probably, which could be argued to be why ganking is morally OK. Yes it makes the other player feel annoyed and wastes their time, but that is within the confines of the game (and therefore they agreed to accept such transactions) and you as the ganker get a lot of pleasure out of ganking so the action is morally positive overall.
But we should probably look deeper into why the ganker gets pleasure out of ganking, which goes back to my last post... The ganker probably gets pleasure out of ganking because the ganker is a bit messed up in the head (not trying to insult; everyone is messed up in the head to some extent).
It doesnt take a lot of psychological hang-ups to get someone to enjoy ganking in a video game; after all, its just a game, and the moral situations we face in a game are insignificant to those we face every day in real life. It doesnt really matter much AT ALL, very very little. Which makes it much easier to make morally wrong choices, since it matters so little... Much like tossing a plastic bottle in the trash instead of recycling bin. Such a tiny thing; such a no-biggie.
But if we are only enjoying the ganking because we have low self esteem or some other mental hang-up, then that would arguably void the morality of the action. I think this is the case...
I don't agree. I think many people gank other players simply because they see them as an enemy in a video game and they enjoy the act of combatting real players more than NPCs. This is why I personally tend to love PvP. But then again, I am not the type of gamer who would go out of my way to try and ruin someone's day (the jury's still out on these folks). I usually look for relatively fair fights and, once the fight is over, I tend to leave the other player alone unless they come back for revenge. Its just a game to me... and honestly I think it should be for everyone. In my opinion, it is the ones who take things too seriously in a video game who are the troubled individuals... not the casual PKer/gankers.
Comments
This is in reference only to gankers/someone who kills players who are obviously outmatched, not to other forms of PvP:
There is only one reason why people gank, it is fun for them. It is fun for them for the same reasons it is fun to exert dominance over someone in real life, to show that you are better than them and see them cower. It feels good to know you are better than someone else at something. I think some people crave this feeling much more than others, but everyone is suspect to it due to human nature.
There are probably a lot of psychological reasons for someone to have strong cravings to exert dominance over others to the point where they search out lower leveled players (or take time from their normal game) in a video game to kill those players. Some are probably serious problems but most are probably just small things, like not having a healthy enough self esteem, feeling trapped in a bad job or bad family situation, getting older and feeling helpless to stop your aging process... Simple things that we all experience to a small extent.
It does not take very much time out of our normal gaming experience to kill another player lower level than us, and it even is nice to do because it removes us from the monotomy of leveling/etc... So I am not surprised that people do it. But I do believe that a 'perfect' person who is completely moral and has a healthy self esteem would see no reason to kill players of a lower level, and would never gank. They would find other ways to break the montomy of the gaming experience, or just put the game down for a while and do something else.
I have ganked while leveling in order to break the monotomy, as well as searching out lowbies specifically to gank them. I feel like the inherent fun of it dropped within the first few people I killed, and after that I just did it because it felt good, the fun was in the 'ownage'. But really I didn't do it much longer after that, because it just made me feel sorta pathetic as I reflected on myself and realized that this is fun only because I am owning them, and I am only owning them because my character is a higher level.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
To that end, I think people need to realize that "one size does not fit all" and that people are (gasp! The Devil you say!?!?!?) different.
So there are people who are just complete bastards in game and in real life and people who can be "evil" in games or just be a pk'er/ganker and generally good people.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Here is some logic that sums things up quite well.
A lot of gamers here seem to be in need of a serious reality check. These are bloody games, don't forget that.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Oh and a lot of you are using the word PK, which always reminds me of Diablo II not MMORPGs. In D2 I loved to PK, but it is really difficult to pull a PK off in D2 due to the 'hostile' system in that game. And I played hardcore mode (permadeath), so the high risk, high difficulty and the ear trophies associated with PKing in D2 made it extremely fun. I felt bad about permadeath killing people in D2 but it was just so fun I couldn't help myself; and I feel like PKers in D2 added an additional element to the game that made the game so fun, so I felt like I was contributing to that rather than hurting people.
But when it comes to traditional MMOs (without permadeath) death is just a nuisance (as opposed to HC D2 which it was an epic struggle to survive), so getting ganked is just annoying, stupid, boring, pathetic, and it retracts from the gaming experience for the gankee as opposed to making the game more exciting.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
That's epic dude. I'm sure you were the catalyst to many broken keyboards and punched monitors XD
Also I agree with you. I used to PK a lot more than I do now when there was great risk involved for both parties, D2 a great example. Now I only PK if I am going some place and I see a squishy. I basically flip a coin on whether to kill or not.
At least it's a good way to spot posters you can imediately dismiss in other posts with such a warped reality sense. I wouldn't trust their judgement on anything after an insight to how they think, in this thread
PKers are not the enemy - they are playing the game within the rules.
It's the cheats that get my goat - damn botters and illegal macro users.
Probably, and it was a ton of fun. When someone went hostile and tried to PK me it was fun too: the rush of excitement as you try to get to safety and not lose your character.
But I would say there really was more of an equal footing in D2, because even very low level players had the opportunity to escape from a high level PK due to the way going hostile worked in the game. So since there was equal footing, I don't know if I would even call it ganking... Although the PKer really wasn't running much risk of losing their character while other players were. Its hard to say what ganking is exactly and if it applies there or not.
If it were super easy to kill lowbies in HC D2 and they had no ability to escape, I wouldn't have done it (nearly as much at least).
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Well, in Lineage 2 we did lose a percentage of our xp which could be a bit of time lost.
To that end, in a game like Aion, nothing is lost except for a small amount of abyss points.
I think where the real issue lies is that some players are more about what they are doing at the moment and are not interested in a world that is perhaps a bit more dynamic where their play can be interrupted.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Dismissing insight from different perspectives is the absence of logic.
I also don't see the point in judging a persons sense of 'reality' based on video game preferences. Last I checked, the virtual world allows people to break away from reality.
Part of the issue is that people who may be nice in real life, act like jerks online because they don't realize they're being jerks. Even though in their eyes they might think of it as 'just part of the game' to walk up to another player and shank them and take their stuff... repeatedly... doesn't mean the person they're doing to feels the same way.
It's less of an issue these days because there are so many different games and subsets of those games via server rulesets. It's mostly at the point where if you don't like PvP, you don't play a game or on a server that forces it upon you.
The problems occur where there are lack of choice, or significant overlap within a game.
Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player...
But that's why there are so many different MMOs with vastly different rulesets. Because different players want different things out of their MMOs. So if you don't want PvP, don't play in a game that allows for 'surprise' PvP. Likewise, if you enjoy ganking people, don't complain when you run out of victims when they decide they've had enough and go to a different game.
Fibben, I don't even totally understand whos side you are on with this post, lol.
I think Anu saying that Reality != Game World is definitely true, but he is missing the point of why ganking would be looked at as stupid/wrong/annoying. Most people who do not like ganking and wish others would gank less do not think that the game world is reality, that is not why they think it is wrong; that is a strawman argument.
The game world is not reality. But the social interactions within the game are real interactions between real people, and therefore there can still be negative and positive interactions, and bring happiness or unhappiness to the users, and therefore there is a moral choice associated with social gaming. (Trash talk and PvP could be a positive interaction if both users accept it as so, etc).
The reason why it is wrong would be that it is disrupting and annoying others with no positive reprocussion. You are being abnoxious for the sake of being abnoxious. The game is not real but the annoyance and loss of time that the gankee experience are real. Morally speaking (adopting a utilitarian viewpoint), you should probably avoid actions that cause others to feel annoyed or lose time, unless those actions also carry with it something positive that makes the action worthwhile.
The action of ganking carries with it a positive feeling in the ganker, probably, which could be argued to be why ganking is morally OK. Yes it makes the other player feel annoyed and wastes their time, but that is within the confines of the game (and therefore they agreed to accept such transactions) and you as the ganker get a lot of pleasure out of ganking so the action is morally positive overall.
But we should probably look deeper into why the ganker gets pleasure out of ganking, which goes back to my last post... The ganker probably gets pleasure out of ganking because the ganker is a bit messed up in the head (not trying to insult; everyone is messed up in the head to some extent).
It doesnt take a lot of psychological hang-ups to get someone to enjoy ganking in a video game; after all, its just a game, and the moral situations we face in a game are insignificant to those we face every day in real life. It doesnt really matter much AT ALL, very very little. Which makes it much easier to make morally wrong choices, since it matters so little... Much like tossing a plastic bottle in the trash instead of recycling bin. Such a tiny thing; such a no-biggie.
But if we are only enjoying the ganking because we have low self esteem or some other mental hang-up, then that would arguably void the morality of the action. I think this is the case...
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
But play is interrupted in regular PvP all the time, and the people who are against ganking are not against regular PvP or against interrupted play.
I think most gamers like interrupting play because MMORPG play is so boring... Quest quest quest... We just like interrupting play for something enjoyable on some level, and getting ganked is not enjoyable on any level; its really annoying.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I have met more psychopathic care bears playing MMOs than psychopathic pvpers, the care bears regularly make RL threats or promise to hunt you down IG until you quit and just generally torrents of abuse.
Its very sad really the way they cannot dissociate what happens in a game from real life and it seems like its been that way from the dawn of online games as the quote in the second posts dates from 1994! I would go one further and suggest anybody who makes claims of "PKers" or w/e you call it are unstable IRL has the same trouble telling the difference to.
Seriously if games drive you that crazy that you start believing that someone has mental health issues IRL because they killed you in a game you need to cancel your Internet subscription and do something else for a hobby.
EDIT
"Eve is a perfect example of this. There is a vast non-PvP portion to the game ranging from mining, crafting, trading, etc, however there is still a considerable side of PvP with the game. There are no other games like Eve, and only one shared server for it, so there's only one ruleset. This is where problems occur, because different portions of the playerbase want different things. The PvEers generally want to PvE in peace, while many of the PvPers would love for all space to become zero sec so they could potententially hunt down and pod every single player..."
No....... Absolutely no, nobody in EVE can "PvE in peace" everything a player does affects every other player, they affect the economy and they devalue some items and inflate the cost of others, a mission runner will dump loyalty store items on the market which makes them cheaper and they inject minerals into the economy making those cheaper while items missions runners commonly use will go up in price.
So if they can affect me I should sure as hell be able to affect them in return.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
A lot of "carebears" equate being PKd to having someone kick down their sand-castle or have someone walk by and knock all of the chess pieces off of the board.
They're just games, but it's still pretty frustrating for the victim when some complete stranger come by and basically destroy whatever enjoyment the victim was having prior to the incident.
Does it warrant death threats? Not by any means.
But at the same time, the fact that people being annoyed to the point where some of them are making threats agaisnt your life, should give you a hint that some people don't like to be bullied in an MMO anymore than they would like to be in real life.
Just because a person feels bullied in a game doesn't mean they are being bullied. It just means they made a bad choice in servers/games
A lot of people can't handle PvP because they have a romantic idea of what PvP is until reality hits them. I don't see that as being the fault of anybody but themselves.
Face, meet palm.
My point was that entirely excluding any PvP aspect of Eve, the game has several gameplay mechanics and aspects that players purely interested in PvE would, and do, enjoy. In fact, it's many of those PvE oriented players that keep the game's economy churning out new ships, weapons, and munitions for PvPers to blow each other up with.
Eve is a unique hybrid in that it needs both PvEers and PvPers to survive. Take away the PvP and the PvE quickly becomes meaningless. Take away the PvE and the PvP likewise becomes irrelevant. The point is that the two need to be balanced so that PvEers can do their PvE thing without being screwed every step of the way, hence why there is sec space.
Those psychopathic carebears are obviously idiots and as someone who is against ganking I would like distance myself from them completely, lol.
But I would like to hear how a healthy person could get enjoyment out of killing someone in a game who is vastly inferior to them level-wise? I have gone on and on about how I think it is linked to feeling superior than the gankee, and that is linked to some unhealthy mental attribute like low self-esteem... What are some other reasons why someone might enjoy killing lowbies repeatedly with no real difficulty?
And again, I don't think this 'unhealthy mental attribute' is necessarily a serious problem. This is just a game we are talking about, not a major moral offense, and I wouldn't make the claim that all gankers need to see a psychologist or something... Maybe they just need to do some self reflecting as to why they enjoy causing annoyance to other players.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
Today yes, if you don't want to PvP don't play a game that forces PvP.
This was not always the case however, when choice in MMOs and/or server rulesets were extremely limited.
But as I've said, if PvPers are going to play the "suck it up, that's how the game is" card, they need to live with the fact that their games are never going to have a very large population.
PvP was never mainstream. It never will be. I also believe it's the one thing holding sandbox games back from being truely successful
Thats true!
But I have a romantic idea of what PvP is, and I really believe it can come true! We just need the correct game mechanics to encourage more fair PvP and discourage ganking. Ganking can even be possible still in these games, but just discouraged.
I can think of a lot of ways to implement this and you can probably too. Some simple, some very complex (but fun).
I agree though that it is annoying when people whine about PvP servers or PvP MMORPGs. I like to choose PvP servers and I know that ganking is going to come along with that, it is totally worth it to be a on a PvP server. It is not ideal though; far from that romantic PvP ideal that I feel a game can accomplish.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
If it managed to show that, then the thread is a success as far as I am concerned.
I'd be the last to deny that some socially inadequate jerks call themselves "PvPers". All I want is recognition that not everyone or even the majority of those of us who like to pit our wits against real people are sociopaths.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
To answer the question in the topic. Its not so much about what someone does, but more about what the reason is for doing it.
So yeah, I think a PKer/ganker can be a nice person or an asshole. Totally depends on what their reason for ganking is.
I usually have my doubts about the gankers who just are out to destroy other ppls fun. Partypoopers are douchebags usually in my experience
On the other hand, the ganker that expects it can happen any moment to himself and simply enjoys the thrill of the hunt or being hunted, can be a very nice person in rl. That one just looks at it as some kind of sports.
The partypoopers usually set the tone for a FFA PVP game though.
I'm OK with that. The MMO ecosystem is large enough to allow plenty of niches.
Give me liberty or give me lasers