On "Gank Squads" and the Complaints Associated with Them...

So I hear a lot of nonsense about "gank squads", and it's really starting to annoy me, because, from what I've observed, the accusations are almost always ill-informed. Some of the IRC PvP is hilariously sad (there's a thread for that that I plan to add to when I get more game time). And, let's face it, most of the people complaining aren't complaining that they would have won a solo fight; they're complaining that they got dropped before frantically mashing their recall macro had the desired effect of teleporting them to the warm bosom of the town guards, where they can curl up like a fetus in utero, dreaming of all of the gold that they might find as soon as those pesky reds go away. After all, the height of excitement, and the greatest proof of skill, in this game is mindlessly spamming "All kill" or, in my case, laying out a ring of blades, is it not? How dare nasty old Felucca get in the way of our fun?!? Can't those reds see the value of such a Trammeltastically tantalizing activity?

Before anyone complains about so-called "gank squads", they might take into account the huge difference between a Razor enabled UO, where everyone hovers over their recall macro like a caffeinated chimpanzee (myself included), and UO in era. If you keep reflect up, and know how to run angles and use LOS, you can always get away from a single PK. You can get away from a group most of the time. And, what's more, "Gank squads" are not even properly that. As most of the PvPers have demonstrated in this thread, they are not stalking you relentlessly through the depths of the dungeons; rather, they are looking for action. Your toon's picture is not scotch taped to their monitor, along with a list of your fears. You are not, necessarily, their sole target, unless you've been an ass; rather, you just happened to be there. And, as they have not yet bumped into any greater action, you are, at that moment, the most interesting thing in the room. What's more, sometimes, lo and behold, these groups do bump into each other and have a blast -- what kind of dark sorcery is this in our MMO? I'd imagine it would be a touch of a pain to organize if everyone were running around solo just to be "fair" to the guys spam-farming Arctic Lords or Gazers with their blades and drags.

But honestly, that's not even the thing that bugs me most about complaints on this account. What bugs me most is that we actually play in a world which is comparatively kind. After all, when was the last time that you bumped into a group who didn't offer to rez and/or gate you after they got you? Hell, the last time CPU got me, they killed the things attacking my forest ostard. And one of my fondest memories is of Mes and his gang spam healing my ostard as they led us up safely from the executioner room to rez. If they have time, some of the guys will even help you recover your corpse, but keep in mind that they are playing the game too, and the game part of it is done once they drop you. From that point on, anything they do to help you is work. I'm not saying that most won't go to the trouble, but I would ask you this: When was the last time you helped someone setup a farming location that you'd been on when you were finishing up as they recalled in. I've seen that happen too, but my guess is that it doesn't happen as often as a red leading you back to your corpse and casting invis after leaving you most of your stuff, your runes, and enough regs to recall while his mates go searching for fun. And as for the looting, when it does happen, you might remember the guy who confronted the Spartans with his whip in the movie 300. When he got his arm cut off he cried "My arm!", and one of the Spartiates rather dryly noted "It's not yours anymore." I think harambe said it best once, though I'm just paraphrasing from memory here: Once you die, everything you have belongs to the guy who got you. Anything you get back -- anything that is left -- should be considered as a gift and a kindness.

Let me tell you a story of another world with which many of us were familiar. 'Twas a world that most of us loved, but looking back, I think many of us would admit that it did bring out some of the worst of our adolescent selves in our late twenties-thirties. In that world, there was no "Will rez and gate" after you got dropped on the ledge in the Ancient Wyrm cavern. In that world, the guy that got you would dry-loot you, carve your corpse, mime doing unspeakable things to it, and then, if he was really a prat, gate you to one tile island, provided you were foolish enough to hop.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy. And when you die, remember that this was the glory that was before all the other MMOs ruined it. Celebrate that this is the glory that is in History Perfected. Relish and cherish the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who get you will rez and/or gate you with most of your stuff minus things they can use immediately. And when the game becomes the source of your frustration, it's time to take a break from the PC.

This is so true. Anyone who's ever played pre-Trammel OSI or played in Felluca on OSI will remember how brutal people were back then. I can only name one time... ONE TIME... in my constant getting pk'd in Fellucca side of OSI servers when I ever got my stuff back... and it was a red who took pity on me for attacking him!

Last time I was murdered on a character was a week or two ago. A new player wanted help with an arctic ogre lord boss, which apparently was never there. I got a little uneasy sitting at Arctic ogre lords waiting on responses from these guys. I saw the scout, and STILL stayed like an idiot. They came rolling in, one even had dispel field loaded (i liked that touch!) they dervished me down and earned it. I got pissy for a second, but mostly because i know i should have left minutes prior.


I then realized that character hasn't died in over a year.... and he's a daily farmer char.


i lost maybe 3 minutes of my life and 5-6k total. I laughed and got back at it.

The ones who flame the most are just pissy people at heart, or didn't learn something about the situation that they could have. (like don't stand in pk city on prime time for 8 minutes... lol)


@Cullinarn The TT red train got me once at dread spiders (hedge maze) and fought off spiders for a good 2-3 minutes and helped me recover. One of them said "did you learn how we got you?" i said no, they explained how they were able to mess up my escape. That one lesson has saved me hundreds of times since then. I kept my unbonded pets, most of my loot and had a great time.

Aye. We've honestly had quite a few classy red groups in the years I've been here (was... elsewhere for the first year or so), but TT will always be tops in my mind. @Mes and those guys were just good people.

I honestly have only seen a handful of instances on this shard that bothered me, and that was all flash in the pan, new folk who spent a couple of days PKing newbies and then quit. To be fair, I did take a couple years off, but if there is a problem, I simply haven't seen it. That's why the constant whining bugs me. Been batting the original post around in my head since 2014, and finally decided to pull the trigger. From a PvM perspective, this is paradise. The reds here are mainly in it for the sport, and almost all of them care about the shard. I just wish we could remember that the thing is a bloody game. Like you said, for 5k, you learned a lesson and became a better player. You'll be able to do more, and have more fun.

The last group that got me, I think, were CPU back in November (might be wrong; I'd have to check my log). And I will never, ever run into those two trees that are side by side again. But, again: instant rez, a bit of collective chuckling about it, and we were all off to new adventures.

I got dropped in Lost lands hunting cyclops back when i first started... what's funny is i thought prior to "I better setup a recall macro.... nah, i never see anyone out here in my entire week of hunting..."
insta-regret ensued.

the latest time i got pked was over this easter event. I was hunting leps, and had hidden on the steps of a house (since its easier to hide in a house...)
i panned over to bring another character to the area. when all the sudden i get the party message. I came back to find out i just screen-swapped right by an active IDOC. Finally got out after about 5 IDOC-Tradition res-kills, and grabbed me a bag of regs. came back and started slinging some E-bolts, managed to loot some stuff. ultimately i lost everything i came with, but left with more.

Once, while playing during my adolesence, I lingered near a tower with a red inside. The tower had cool decor.

Out came the red. They were mounted, and I was on foot. I knew I was done for!

I booked it, trying to find salvation in ~50 Hiding. No such luck.

Killed me right at their doorstep and took everything: death by Flamestrike and a halberd's blow.

Ringmail! I was wearing plain ringmail! Took it anyway.

I made myself visible as a ghost. They cut me up, put my head at my feet, and nonchalantly returned to their tower.

Good times.

I think a lot of it is perspective.

When you're newer, don't have any money, and a death you can't stop comes along then you get dry looted... it's frustrating. And I complained a lot about PKs early on because half the ones I ran into weren't the honorable ones you described. They were out to make me have a bad time, and the death actually set me back significantly.

Now I have 600k in the bank and chests full of supplies to restock in my nice house, I don't care as much if I die or if you loot me. If you need to dry loot me, you apparently need the stuff more than I do. Enjoy it. I'll restock and be out farming somewhere else in a minute.

The only thing that irritates me now is killing my mount/pets just to be nasty. Or kiting them into mobs to let the mobs kill them.

I agree with everything @Cullinarn wrote, very well said. I would like to share some personal observations as a PK. I think most of it boils down to being bad losers and bad winners. There is a sense of helplessness and defeat when you get pked or killed in action that all of us feel to some extend. For most veterans, who have little to lose or who got used to dying, this feeling is just a small tingling easily ignored. But for some people (especially newbies) that feeling is so profound that they can't help themselves from lashing out and talking shit and making posts in forums and taking screenshots and complaining to gms and etc etc...

What people should realize this wonderful game is not fair at all. Similar to life to some extend. You can cry and complain all you want but like Culli quoted, everything on your body belongs to whomever stands on your corpse. Some people with competitive drives use that feeling of defeat to fuel their practice and work hard to get better and enjoy the game more. I know many people who became decent pvpers this way including myself and Anarchy boys. Which brings me to my first advice: Don't be a bad loser.. for your own sanity.

Now what about bad winners? Ironically most of these folks are previously seen complaining in forums and shittalking in game about being griefed, reskilled, mount killed, dry looted and all that. On the other hand, when they get the slightest bit of power over someone they try to do worse than they originally complained about. They keep themselves in check out of a fear of retaliation, and some of them can be seen hiding behind "noob guildies" hoping not to get targeted. Having said that everybody has a breaking point where they turn into bad winners. I have seen many "elite" or god tier pvp'ers doing less than honorable things when defeated enough times. Even the nicest of us all @Cullinarn has a great RP piece on how he turned into an essentially bad winner here. Which brings me to my second advice: Don't be a bad winner... or at least ask yourself twice if that fresh res who keeps calling you names is worth that 20 mana EB.

This has absolutely happened. I've only been here under a year and I've seen someone in IRC rage about being taken out by a "gank squad that is killing pets". This player then went on to do exactly that..not to the players that killed him, but to random other players and became quite notorious for this type of behavior, at least for a short while.

And about being PKd and all that, I've found that after becoming more established it's not as big of a deal. And after you get the hang of how to train pets, have a location to do so and have had them die quite a few times it's not really a big deal to lose them as well. One good example is a player I know of who recently fell asleep while farming with a bonded mare and 2 dragons. When "condolences" were offered based on the obvious subsequent events, he basically said "meh..no big deal, I die a lot."

The biggest thing that does annoy me about encountering PKs though is knowing that other players have the audacity to inject themselves into my game play. I am picky about who I spend my limited in-game time with and these people are not at all worth my time. Now if it is one of those cool OSI-style PKs like @Skunk Ape , I may even stick around for the fight (and of course be defeated by him) rather than hitting my escape macro the same instant that red name appears on-screen.

A hard topic... I have not played on OSI and am used to 5000 skillcap shards where someone farming monsters could and was expected to fight back when a PK appears, if that someone was not a newbie. Instead, UOR offers this "wolves vs sheep" system where a farming char has no chances against a PK, so he always has to run.

On one hand, I like PvP and the thrill of Felucca. All the times when I was PK'd on a PvM char made me raise some PvP chars, join factions, etc.
Yet those times are also the reason why I completely stopped farming in dungeons. I just don't like feeling like a sheep, it's not fun and there are other ways to earn gold.

And while I'm not complaining about this too much, I really don't understand PK motivation, can't imagine myself being a PK and can't see running on a PvP char against PvM chars for anything else than ego boost. Running around in PK gank squad feels even more fucked up... when you're running alone, at least your kills are fully yours.

Edit:
@Twister there made it a little easier for ya, quoting from pork fried rice cause he explains it in a comical way

Is this irony or have you read my post as "I don't know how to PK"?

I think the barrier holding this server back from stagnant to success has a lot to do with its PVP. There are so many players here that are alone some by choice others think it's by choice and then of course there's the rest.

A huge if.. but if only those players would break out of their shells step into a social environment and engage in player versus player no matter what the form, I believe this server would take off like a rocket.

If CTF was automated 24/7 by queue for example.

I've always said that custom UO servers live and die by the health of their PVP environment. It is what balances a purposely unbalanced world. Without , like a ticking time bomb it's only a matter of time.

For those of you that don't understand why reds travel in groups... well if you can't figure that out on your own you're at a point where I don't think anyone can reach you.

To explain any further will be just pandering to ourselves.

Two points on this:
1) Sorry, I don't believe that anyone actually makes or made living on UOR from PKing.
2) Even if it was true, should it command my respect? Looking for victims that can't fight back is not a way to earn respect, IMO.

I'm not advocating for any anti-pk measures. PK-ing should be allowed as a dark side for people who feel no shame in chasing unfair fights. This injects some rage in the community, and rage is the fuel that UO runs on.

For the same reasons that all the big farmers are play as discord tamers and triple boxing the champ spawns or ironmanning the instances with a slayer-weapon-weilding dexer in trammel-land, PK's too run around in "gank squads" (for the most part). It's the most efficient way to go about killing people, it should be no surprise to anyone.


Ignoring the reasons why PKer are so thirsty for a kill, or how the noteriety/statloss system is fundamentally broken due to change in the meta game since 1999, and the problems relating to how easy it is to farm wealth here on UOR, the solution seems particularly obvious.


Get a group of friends together, and go farm monsters with them so that when the PK's come, it's a more balanced battle (or survival). Until people start doing that, all the complaints are basically meaningless. "6 PK's came and killed me while I was solo farming gazers". What?! You're telling me that 6v1 isn't a fair fight? Better nerf those 6 players then!



Not everyone is playing the game to have an honerable duel, farm monsters, or trade rares. You can't farm monsters for loot in real life so you're doing in wizard land, just as @bart simpson can't murder people in real life, so he takes it to wizard-land as well. The ethics or morality of their actions are mostly pointless when you aren't even trying to solve the problem yourself.

Hehe, I don't have any problem to solve actually. PvM is not my cup of tea anyway (regardless of PK situation), on every shard I played my goal was to get into PvP. My PvM period on UOR was limited to first month, when I was a newbie running on a bard mage and trying to make some gold. So I'm not bothered/killed by PKs at all at the moment.

However, now that I have a few PvP characters, something does prevent me from killing PvMers and newbies when I run around hotspots bored in search of a fight (I live in EU so there's very little action during my playing hours). I get that people who gank PvMers 6v1 don't have that "something", and that's why we're on the opposite sides.

@snap dragon sums it up in a nutshell with this quote. When you find something that bothers you about the game, either find a way to deal with it or find something else to do. And remember: It is "wizard land", and we're all here to let off some steam! However we may choose to do that is up to each of us. We have the good fortune to figure it out together.

I did get that quote I paraphrased from a wise sort, @Balgami. Aye. Part of what makes the game fun is the unfairness of it all. And you are quite right. A lot of the guys complaining about how unfair it is now will be the same guys, in a month, doing all of the stuff they complained about.

Glad you liked the storyline with a lamp. He was a good mate, aside from the fact that he looted us. We were having a blast by the end of it, and he had, I think, the best perspective towards the game of anyone I've ever known: He. Just. Didn't. Care. Because, you know, it's supposed to be fun! Anyone seen him around lately? I miss that guy.

The wolves eat the sheep until the sheep run out... then the wolves eat each other.

Gank squads and Pks are part of the game. I have started maybe 3 months ago and have 6-7 6x GMs and mostly hunt solo and had recently died for my first time to a PK while playing. Mostly my fault and should have gotten away but I'm not going to cry about it. But the one thing I can't stand and have no respect for are the couple of lame ass reds that go around the newb dungeon in Ocollo for AFKers. You don't even deserve to be Red. And when you're hit with one explo and run and hide you show your true self.