Blue Pker

[Fass]

Well, the game has to be fun for everyone, not only for the ones that enjoy killing players. That's why people complain, some liked Trammel, other didn't, and others still think there are better ways to make it even for everyone without creating Trammel.

It's a matter of fairness, not of concern about how people choose to play. I don't think this thread is about being angry at PK's, it's just discussing the blue PK issue, that is something localized in the 2010 era T2A-look-alike UOSA, a problem of our time, not of the "ever perfect OSI T2A of 1999".

A lot of people already showed how a lot of things we have in here are not era accurate, more because of the fact that this is a free shard and computers and internet have changed in a way that allow new problems to arise. The opposition to possible changes is probably related to the PK's that are too scared to play the hard mode and want to keep picking on people that have fun doing their own thing, in an unfair setting. People forget that every day there is someone trying to play here, re-learning the game or playing it for the first time because they heard how awesome it is. And then, instead of being amazed by the open world possibilities, they feel that they are being abused. They didn't die fighting, or because they were unlucky and stepped into the path of a dark knight. They died because the mechanics can be abused and no one will protect him while he is weak and learning. They died because anyone can kill them and get away with it.

I don't want the T2A experience to be changed, I just wish this could be discussed and a solution could be found, in a way that the Second Age won't be hurt or deturped.

In my opinion, the beauty of the T2A is the matured out UO experience. You have the best part, the original lore, uncomplicated skills, a fair amount of items and mechanics that work for combat. You are also free to do what you want, you can kill. I like this possibility. You can murder someone that did something that you dislike, you can be at war with other guilds, that is all great. But the original proposition of the karma system was to make people think twice before becoming a mass murderer. There was a price to pay to be able to kill and steal. Blue PK's take away any reason they have and break the game in a very childish way. You can kill to annoy people. You can kill to slow down the achievements of others. You can kill because it's so easy to do it and not lose anything. You can murder people and still retain a high amount of karma by farming monsters and pose as a honored knight later. This is a sad excuse and abuse of mechanics that might be outdated due to current circumstances. There is no beauty in it. The T2A OSI experience was different. Trammel was created not because of blue PK's, but of PKing at all. We like PK, we just dislike unfairness. I want to know that the people that kill me will suffer consequences that are comparable to the ones I face. I lose items and fame, what do they lose? Karma? They decided to kill me, not me. They should lose something that wasn't as easy to obtain as karma.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

+1

I am not one myself, but I have observed the behaviours and attitudes of the "talented PKer" (blue, or otherwise), both "back in the day" and here at UOSA (in-game, and here in the forums): they repeatedly assert --and demonstrate!-- that they do not need, nor even want, the use of any "cheap", exploitative mechanics to do what they do.

Blue PKers were always a hazard in-era, and the unfortunate newb was always the preferred target (assuming one was to be found) for whatever perverse reason.

The degree to which this phenomenon can be abused at UOSA is directly related to other abuses involving multi-clienting: these abuses need to be curbed directly, or indirectly by somehow curbing multi-clienting.

With some frequency, I have observed in-game behaviour that either blatantly violates this shard's harrassment policies, or comes very, very close: I don't want to heap more (and dirtier) work on Derrick & co, but some of these problems will persist until certain members of the community are either reined-in, or decide to go elsewhere, to some other shard that doesn't actually expect its real-world people to abide by real-world laws.

Both styles of behaviour have led to another, not-infrequent, observation: the player entirely new to UO (like the fresh tamer who thought her newly-tamed pair of bears could protect her from a PKer -- a sad but true story) who persists for a few days of play, and then disappears forever. I peg these newbies as school-age RuneScapers (someone found UOSA, and word spread across the schoolyard), as there is suddenly 3-8 of them over the same 3-4 days, and then they all go, never to return ...

Personally, I'd like the shard to grow; I'd like to see new people arrive and discover the unique features that makes/made the t2A microcosm the wondrous cornucopia of possibility that most our community does indeed appreciate.

Unfortunate as this truth is, it is entirely to be expected that it is these abusing players, Blue PKer and otherwise, that are driving prospective new UOSA-members to other games like WoW, Rappelz, SotNW, 12-Sky, Aika, Aion, etc., or even back to RuneScape ...

SS

[Mikel123]

Actually, blue pkers are much different, in tactics at least, these days than they were back in the day.

In 1999, the blue PKer (or "noto PK" as they were called during our era) would look for people who inadvertently flagged grey (such as, looting a non-guildmate friend's corpse for him while he walked out of the dungeon as a ghost to look for a wandering healer). Or they would look for someone with a blade spirit or fire field up, run through it to turn the person gray to them, and then fight them.

Also, they'd try whatever they could to get someone to turn gray - verbal taunts, etc.

Here, they just sit in the game logged in for 24 hours a day, burning a long-term murder count every day and a half or so.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

I agree with your observations, but, because of multi-clienting, blue PKers don't even bother with "noto"-Pking: it's too easy to simply log-in and idle-off murder counts, while you play a different account; it's ridiculously easy to play every day, and murder someone everyday, and yet never have even one character go red; and do all of the above while one ghost or other trawls for new victims.

The truly-observant individual might note that my vote in the multi-clienting thread immediately followed posting my remarks in this thread.

SS

[BobDobbs]

I'd rather deal with the blue PKs on UOSA than the noto-pks on OSI.

With a blue PK, you run away and you recall or you die. With a noto PK you get harassed and griefed endlessly. Folks should be real careful what they wish for.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Um, gee, Blue PKers will noto-PK: they just don't have to sit and wait for the opportunity; they can noto-PK, or just plain PK and idle-off the murder counts.

Please, don't try to make "more" sound like "less", and vice versa.

SS

[BobDobbs]

Those are things you should probably ask before proposing drastic changes to the shard, whether you really like them or not.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Oh, Bob Dobbs! Some might consider you a master of circumlocution.

You also demonstrate a penchant for misrepresentation.

Neither "quality" assists any discussion, as the vital insertion of argument is absent.

Again, you imply that more is, in fact, less which, naturally, can not be true within the bounds of our 3-dimensonal universe (including any virtual extension of that reality); similarly, down is not up.

Please refrain from pointless, contrary, insistence.

SS

[Panthor the Hated]

Requested changes are NEA - but please continuing arguing like it matters...

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Exactly as NEA as three free accounts, combined with multi-clienting.

SS

[BobDobbs]

Playing UO without a retail CD is NEA.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

That's the solution, Bob Dobbs: continued obfuscation, whether it is to the point, or not.

I must remark that you, and certain others, seem to be pretty whiny only about giving up an exploitative advantage; these objections are delivered with an air that suggests some inexplicable delusion of self-entitlement. 12 years after, I'd have expected someone to be able to play this game, without the need to hold his/her hand, barring developmental handicap.

The "changing this would be NEA" whine (fallacy: irrelevant conclusion) has been firmly, and rather easily, rebutted; now you are whining, "if you change this, you have to make everyone play from CD, so there", which is, rather obviously, argumentum ad absurdum.

I think you folks are playing in the wrong sandbox. Of course, stealing a 9-year-old's marbles also carries consequences.

SS

[BobDobbs]

I don't multi client. The only thing I have ever used it for was to macro with. I don't own a bunch of houses, I don't ghost, I don't PK. I have never abused or exploited anything on UOSA.

You type a lot but you don't really say anything.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

I say rather a lot with very little typing: a lot of typing says much more; nothing I do, or fail to do, has anything to do with your inability, or petulant unwillingness, to comprehend.

I am gratified, even pleased, to learn that you do not abuse the facility of multi-clienting. However, some of our fellow players do, and some of these abuses constitute outright exploitation of shard mechanics, while others only come "dangerously" close, and perhaps do cross the line on occasion.

I merely entertain the straight-forward opinion that the ability to exploit shard mechanics should not constitute a "right" of UOSA players.

With some irony, I note here a correlation to in-game lore: Blackthorn argues that people are essentially moral and ethical in nature (compare in-game literature to philosophies espoused by our real-world's Mikhail Bakunin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakunin), and do not require artificial, external impositions (i.e. laws or rules) to make moral and ethical choices; Lord British asserts that people must be guided, and their behaviour invigilated, to minimize abuse.

Hmmm, once again, microcosm mirrors macrocosm ...

SS

[Dagon]

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