As to the question: I note that PVPers tend to very much enjoy ganking, being fully aware that there is a human being behind that avatar. Sure it’s not real, but having observed players who will continually killNPC’s or continually spawn kill (killing another player as they respawn after dying) , it strikes me that the player behind this type of PVPing avatar is not someone I’d want to be around in real life.
The debate over PVPing and Hardcore PVPing (ganking) is old and ongoing, I was just curious how dopers felt about it.
Playing against thinking targets is vastly more interesting than MMO AI. It’s the people who seem to enjoy playing against the AI for whom you want to worry about their mental state.
So the players who enjoy grouping up against the big bosses or other mobs are the ones who are sick, rather than the ones who like to sneak up and kill from behind while others are distracted killing the bosses?
I see two types of players in PVP. The first who enjoys playing the game, interacting with the game world, following the progression, the second enjoys derailing the gameplay of the first.
That’s a griefer, I’d say. I have issues with griefers in most online games, but not with people who honestly play the game the way it’s supposed to be played.
For example, back in the day (1998-1999) I played a lot of Ultima Online, and my friends and I decided to play evil highwayman type characters- we’d lurk in the forests using the “hide” skill, then pop out at certain choke points on the trail, and basically say “Your money or your life!”
Needless to say, few people took the first option, so we usually ended up killing them, stealing their crap, and dismembering the carcass so they couldn’t resurrect immediately.
People thought this was horrible PKing, when in reality, we were actually trying to play highway robbers- there is a difference between playing an evil character, and being a griefer.
Griefers goal is to mess up the other characters, regardless of alignment or goals, etc… Evil characters are evil… they can work together toward a common goal, etc…
I wouldn’t classify gankers at “hardcore” pvpers, and yes, of course they’re emotionally retarded. PVP is only interesting when each player has some chance and skill matters - a huge amount of the world pvp in WoW is a bunch of guys killing guys 40 levels lower than them when they could just 1 shot the lower player and the lower player would never be able to harm them even if the higher player sat still and did nothing for 5 minutes. They gain nothing except the knowledge that they made someone else’s life more aggravating. It’s pure griefing and a pretty clear demonstration that your life sucks so bad that you resort to something this pathetic to feel better about yourself.
@bump - yes, I agree it’s griefing. But that type of PVPer claims that it’s all part of the game. I wonder about people who pay a subscription just to grief.
@SenorBeef - agreed. Emotionally retarded is a good way to explain it.
PVP games don’t generally advertise as “World Ganking”. They also don’t generally advertise as “Come get ganked 42 times in a row while trying to turn in a quest” either. PVPing is one thing, ganking or griefing (to which I referred to as Hardcore PVPing) is another.
Many games have been forced to add features that cut down on griefing, such as a spawn timer. It would seem that the game devs agree that griefing isn’t part of the game.
No they don’t, but pvp rules are always clearly explained.
Killing you in a pvp game isn’t griefing. And the devs in this kinds of games go for as broad an appeal as they can, they don’t want to lose any subs even from the people who roll on a pvp server then cry when they get killed.
No one said that it was DigitalC. However, griefing is griefing and many agree that ganking goes beyond PVP and into griefing territory. Including the game houses and devs.
So, I take it your answer (to the question at hand) is no.
No, of course not. What’s mentally ill is playing a pvp game then crying when someone kills you. You are missing the ENTIRE point of the game. I’d love to hear what game houses and devs you mean, ganking was allowed and rampant in both WoW and Rift, the only two games i’ve played this year.
Posts like this make griefing sound awesome, I have to say. Hypothetical for me as I’m not a gamer, but such a nerd howl must be music to the ears of real griefers.
Only drawback seems that you have to be pretty engaged yourself to dish out the grief, like you can’t do it from day one and need to log some hours. So some cognitive dissonance required there.
You must be mentally ill, because it cannot possibly be the people who can’t stand being killed by others and play a game were others are allowed to kill them.
