I would like to think that this is a whole new breed of people behaving in such a shameful manner.
The other night, I was running around Darktide with some old friends, really having a great time, and watching as they ambushed a gang of Bloods outside a town. It wasn’t that big of a deal – there were four of us (three high levels), so jumping a group of six people (mid levels) unprepared for a fight was not some big battle. My friends made quick work of them while the Bloods either recalled, tried to run, or put up a fight. I didn’t think much of it until we all started getting a ton of tells.
Sniveling Brat tells you, “fag – lesse u tri that agin when we r rdy”
Sniveling Brat 2 tells you, “omg that was bs – why dont u fight sum1 ur lvl”
Sniveling Brat 3 tells you, “fu”
Sniveling Brat 3 tells you, “fu”
Sniveling Brat 3 tells you, “fu”
Sniveling Brat 3 tells you, “fu”
You squelch Sniveling Brat 3.
I’m not trying to single out Bloods here, but out of the dozen or so encounters that we had, they’re the only ones that spammed all of us with such messages. I couldn’t believe they included me in the blame – I mean, they saw me spending most of the fight just trying to pick a target. And the funny thing was, I didn’t do anything effective. I got off a few shots for maybe 12 or 13 points of damage, but most of my shots missed or lodged themselves in my own foot. And yet they needed to include me in their sniveling? What’s up with that? I dunno, I mean, maybe they thought I’d write a story about what great wusses they were for getting their butts kicked by fully-buffed people twice their level or something and felt the need to defend their position with such cleverly-written defenses like, “OMG USUQ” and the like?
Now granted, there have always been whiners on Darktide – every server has it’s share of them. And lately, I’ve noticed what seems to be an increasing trend of people that just can’t handle loss. I watched a fight between two 100+ level PK’ers on FF last week. It was fairly typical – first the debuffs, then trying to land a shot on each other. One of the players then did what I thought was kinda a crazy move and ran up to the other guy to fire off a ring spell – but crazy or not, it actually worked, and he won the fight. When the second player came back, instead of complimenting him on his bold move, he instead asserted that “rings r 4 pussies.” And the other guy didn’t loot him, didn’t say a word to him – nothing! I don’t know, maybe I didn’t see the winner sending the other guy tells of “MY RING SMOTE YOU AND YOU SUCK BECAUSE RINGS ARE THE GREATEST!”
I just don’t understand this sort of behavior. Is this like some secret Folgers’s commercial or something?
“We’ve secretly replaced all of the people on Kwip’s server with dipshits that have the maturity of three-year olds. Let’s see if he notices!”
It’s not everybody, of course. And hey, I’ve certainly had my moments of outrage with perfectly legal behavior.
Of course, legal behavior isn’t always the most acceptable behavior. In my instance, Elle ran up whilst I was placing items in the transaction window to buy the house and managed to put them all in before me. (S)he got the house. It was perfectly legal behavior. I hadn’t completed the transaction, and was taking long enough that (s)he managed to run from wherever (s)he was and claim it before I could get all the items in the window, then promptly kick me out and take all of the items the previous owner (who had been holding the house for me – we had it all planned out so it would go perfectly smoothly, ha ha). (S)he ran up, dumped all her items in the transaction window, and promptly kicked me out and took everything in the house. Completely legal-like.
But what an asshole.
There wasn’t anything I could do. I sent (her)him a message to tell her(him) exactly what I thought of them, but then had nothing left to do except go about my business and take comfort in the fact that had it been on Darktide and not Frostfell, (s)he would’ve not only stole my house, but then PK’d me and looted the items I was going to use to buy it.
And as ticked off as I was (and still am, as you can see by the fact I won’t stop whining about it!) about the whole affair – what they did was completely within their rights. They didn’t exploit, they didn’t cheat, they didn’t even send me taunts afterwards about what a swell house it was.
But what an asshole.
Everyone gets all up in arms about people doing things like PK’ing you. They want to tell you why you got lucky killing them this time, or how you’re a wuss for not taking them on one on one, or how they weren’t buffed, or how your tactics/method of killing are weak or some such rubbish. But really, getting PK’d is such a small matter – sure, you might lose some equipment, but if you’re worried about that, then you’re playing as the wrong color. If somebody gets a kill on you – and they don’t use an exploit or hack, of course – then they’re not doing anything wrong. They simply have won that round. If you can work off the vitae, buff up, and go back and kill them, then swell, you won the next one. But I sure hope they don’t act like as big an asshole as you and send you non-stop spam whining about how you won unfairly, how you suck, blah blah blah.
See, what gets me is that if someone does something that’s rather par for course (PK’ing you when you’re red, for example) and doesn’t make a big deal about it, then you turn around and go ballistic – then YOU are much more likely to be wearing the Asshole Hat then they are, let me tell you. And truth be told, I’ve known a lot more people OUTSIDE of the PK’ers to act like this than PK’ers themselves. When PMS Rage and Isaac used to blow through Uziz and mow everyone down and then bail out before the high-levels got back to get them, they weren’t being assholes. They were being smart. If they had gotten those kills and then sent bragging messages to all of their victims, that would be one thing. But I never once got a message from them, never heard them say anything nasty about anyone; they just came in, mowed us down, then ran away. It wasn’t very brave, sure – but it wasn’t being an asshole. And in fact, I went on to be friends with those guys – Isaac even became a vassal of mine and produced some pretty insane experience for me. So yes, they killed people weaker than themselves – but they weren’t assholes about it.
Sigh. Does this make any sense?
I guess it’s like this: so many people go on and on about PKs, and UCMs, etc, etc. I’m more worried about PAs – Player Assholes. And while I find that it’s great that we have some rules in place that are going to prevent people from exploiting bugs and such, I wish there were a way we could establish some sort of code of conduct that covered basic decency towards each other. Yes, I realize that this would be a nightmare to enforce, and I hear all of your arguments “Well, who’s to say that behavior X is unacceptable, but behavior Y is fine?” but honestly – I don’t care. I know it will never ever happen. It would be great if some MOG out there actually had the manpower and desire to have “Conduct Police,” but I recognize what a slippery slope that is.
No, what I wish is that the players would police themselves. That it wasn’t a matter of following rules that forced you not to behave like an ass, but rather, common decency. Kill me all you want, that’s not an issue. I like being ‘at war’ with various monarchies and whatnot. I accept that we can’t all get along. But that doesn’t mean we have to be jerks about it, does it?
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