PK Rant

[pjnow]

Sigh, after a couple of years of offline play with occasional forays onto BNET I decide to start a HC Zon online.

Don't ask me why, I just thought that it'd be a challenge and worth a go.

I don't twink and I play slowly and was being very careful about where I would play and what games I joined. At clvl 22 I joined a game to do an Arcane run to level up some before taking Duriel on. I party up with a Druid and a Pally and off we go. I'm 20 odd steps inside fighting a boss pack of Goat Boys ( and wondering why Pally and druid aren't helping ) when the Pally goes hostile on me. I'm trapped, try to pop a tp but mr Pally charges me and boom , one hit kill, I'm dead. I then get to watch as Pally and Druid have a good yuk.

My first HC BNET char and I'm barely into Act two when some PK puke decides that he'd get his jollies by ruining someone elses work. I haven't seen anything about a hostile consent button in the 1.10 info. I'm hard pressed to understand why Blizzard wouldn't make that change.

If I had the time I'd go off and make myself a PKK and spend some time helping rid the realms of PK vermin. :angry:

[--Pete]

Hi,

In best TV cop voice: "Sorry for your loss."

This topic, BTW, has been done to death, and by people who could write a page for each sentence you used. Buzzard isn't going to do a thing about it, they think it's just grand as it is.

Oh, and: "If I had the time I'd go off and make myself a PKK and spend some time helping rid the realms of PK vermin." Adding to the problem isn't a particularly good way of solving it.

--Pete

[pjnow]

Thanks for the sympathy.

A rant ( albeit a short one ) by it's very nature doesn't always lend itself to logic.

I've been lurking ( so to speak ) in these forums for a longish while ( since the spring of 2001 ) and up until now have followed the PK discussion with a sort of detached interest ( <smug> That PK stuff won't affect me, I never play HC online </smug>, heavy sigh, <sheepish> smack forehead </sheepish>)

I just needed to vent a little <_< .


Off to rebuild another HC Zon, I'll be much more careful about the company I keep this time.

[Brista]

Sorry to hear about your experience here :(

There is the Pandemonium Fortress here. There is also the Amazon Basin

Both give you a chance to arrange to play with people who won't PK you

[gekko]

This topic, BTW, has been done to death, and by people who could write a page for each sentence you used.

Sorry to lengthen what has been, as you say, beaten to death. I've read Sirian's protest several times, and the HC element is the one that none of blizzard's responses touch on (or so it seems to me). All the garbage about adding excitement or reality simply falls apart when you consider HC. It is NOT exciting to have to worry about permanently loosing your character with virtually no warning. It is even worse when you consider blizzard's poor track record of combatting hacks on the realms. Permanently loosing a character to hacks is not exciting, period. Even if you have a good attitude concerning HC chars (death isn't the end of a HC char; it's the begining of a new one <--- not my quote, can't remember who said it), it's not a good thing to lose it to hacks (particularly not on the "hack-free" realms).

I also saw the amazon basin and the pandemonium fortress named, and I'd like to add my voice to that. Playing with good people is always a pleasure, and any games set up through those two excellent forums (I'm including WT in the "forums" btw) will be filled with great people.

gekko

[Casperi]

>> I haven't seen anything about a hostile consent button in the 1.10 info. I'm hard pressed to understand why Blizzard wouldn't make that change.

Actually, in the Bill Roper interview he mentioned that there might be a time delay for hostile mode. So after you hear the warning sound you'd have a few seconds to react before it takes effect.

G. Frasier's recent announcement confirmed that they have addressed ways that grief players unfairly attack others.

[Kasreyn]

I'm hard pressed to understand why Blizzard wouldn't make that change.

Simple, they love PK's and PK's are one of their main consumer demographics. They will never remove PKing, because it would alienate their customers (i.e., antisocial 15 year old boys). In a three word sentence: Blizzard Loves PK's. Memorize it.

Disagree? Then YOU try to come up with a reason why you cannot create "coop only" games, or why both players are not required to click Hostile. There is no such reason. Blizzard has created a game in which people can attack each other with no warning and no responsibility. It annoys me when people say this was somehow accidental. BULL#$%&. Blizzard knows full well that their games cater to PK's. To Blizzard, allowing PKing is a game feature without which a certain target market will not be interested in buying their product.

-Kasreyn

EDIT: P.S. If you become a PKK, you have become as bad as them. I've said it before, a PKK is nothing but a PK with an excuse.

[Archon_Wing]

How is being a PKK just as bad? I see nothing wrong about staying to fight whoever was pking

People are free to come after my ear. However, the bugs, hacks, and exploits are the real problem and must be fixed.

[Kasreyn]

Allow me to explain.

First off, the context: At least in the old days, on Bnet, a PKK was a person who killed "PK's" all the time. Obviously there wouldn't be time enough in his day to first be attacked by each of them, then retaliate in self-defense! (there's clearly no problem with fighting in self-defense: more power to you!). So, instead PKK's would attack "PK's" who never attacked them yet.

Wait... hmm... so the question is, How does the PKK *know* his victim is a PK??

Very simple! He doesn't. There's no way of knowing unless the PKK was an eyewitness to the original PK'ing - which is very rare, of course. So if you look at it logically, it's clear that PKK's are merely vigilantes, operating on hearsay evidence. And you expect any sane, right-thinking person to support this?

Most PKK's are interested in the same "kicks" that PK's enjoy. They justify it by claiming - note I say CLAIMING - that they only attack PK's. But who can trust their word, or their judgement? It's a slipperly slope to start down. Best not to even begin.

That's why I say "A PKK is just a PK with an excuse".

-Kasreyn

[dahak_i]

I still have that picture that Spiderdrake (I think) drew and posted about this.

"Dead Jimmy Glue"

...found it while cleaning up my system for a full format.

[D-Dave]

As I am feeling kind of nostalgic lately, I may just add alittle story from the old ages (anyone remember 1.03):

[Start D1 narrator voice]
Once upon a time, long before Heroes swarmed the slopes of Mount Arreat and some hidden place that has become the major meat sorce for the famous Rogues "D2X-Burger", on a realm named Europe. (close eyes now and remember the Star Wars Theme playing)

During this time a great battle swept across Europe. Two teams determined to win some odd race for "first level 99 Realm Char" engaged in fierce competition and laid constant siege to Diablo's hideout. This battle later became known as the Great Conflict.
[End D1 narrator voice]

The two teams competing were "Gerbarb" and "Rusbarb". Due to not having any source of good exp past some point back then, someone came up with the idea of creating a team character. Games usualy consisted of three stages:

-first: a "sweeper" team [btw, those teams usualy consisted of a Sorc (Static field), a Paldin/Amazon Combo (none of them alone were realy fast back then) ... ah those were the sweet days Bowazons were as popular as elemental druids are today]
cleared the way from River of Flames Waypoint and all of the Arcane Santuary leaving just one seal. After that one or two of the team search for an Exp shrine and open a tp next to it as well as one in the Chaos Santuary

-second: game is filled with supporters leaving one space free, inform the "coordinator" that the game is "ready"......wait for a while (anything from 1 minute to 1 houre, depending on coordinator's skill)

-third: team character joins game and is informed where to find exp shrine, on go "sweepers" and "fillers" open last seal, release Diablo and bring him down to 1/3 or maybe 1/4 life. In the meantime the Teamchar uses the exp shrine, takes the tp down to the CS, leaves the party and kills diablo (says thank you and leaves for next game)
...rinse, repeat...

Well, this was not the way the game was meant to be played but OMG it was a real adrenalin rush. (especialy because one of the core team let me take the Teamchar for about 1/2 houre...feeling responsible for the work of roughly 100 players is rather arousing) To me it best compared to playing foootball/hockey or any other teamsport.

After reaching the 90s, the PK-community identified "Gerbarb" and "Rusbarb" as prominent targets to easily gain some sort of reputation (and/or to tip the scale towards the favored team). To prevent those assassinations a friend and I transformed our Paladin/Amazon Sweeper Combo into a pair of Bodyguards :ph34r: :ph34r: (read PKKs).
Some may despise me but it was actualy fun to be called into various games (average interval 5-10 minutes) and show those PKs that with good teamwork a little paladin and a weak amazon (bow bug) could more then handle them, so yes I got my "kicks" but I don't realy feel guilty about that.

As I see it, PKKing is absolutely legitimate if used as means of self-defense / defending others, even if you are not eyewitnessing it but are called for assistance by people you know (and you can trust).

'nuff said. ;)

P.S. Thanks for providing me a vent for my nostalgia, even if it is within a dead beaten topic.

[whereagles]

LOL man, losing a lev 22 char is nothing.

I for one like hostile as it is. Gives me the chance to spank anyone that is annoying me :)

[Tal]

EDIT:&nbsp; P.S.&nbsp; If you become a PKK, you have become as bad as them.&nbsp; I've said it before, a PKK is nothing but a PK with an excuse.

I inadvertently became a PKK last night. I was doing the council in Hardcore Hell and two of the council spawned PI with one of the council being fanatacism and another LE. I was having a very difficult time of it, a guildmate was trying his best to distract them when they backed me to the WP. I popped back to town to come down my guildmate's TP just before the hostility sound went off. The would be PK had figured out from our conversation where we were and popped into Travincal in the hopes of taking us out while we were occupied with the council. I guess a fanatic group with an LE was too much for him. :D

[Baajikiil]

I for one like hostile as it is. Gives me the chance to spank anyone that is annoying me&nbsp;

Question: Would a hostile timer prevent you from taking your hostility out on someone who annoys you?

It would almost eleminate surprise PKS(they would find other ways, but they are harder), and would also stop a few hacks from working. It would also allow you to still hostile and drive away people who annoy you.

I know this issue has been beaten to death before, but obviously this person has not thought about it...

Also laughing at someone for losing their lvl 22 character is not neccesary. A lvl 22 may be nothing to you, but for someone's first realm HC char it can be a blow to lose them to a PK.

Dueling has it's place, but grief players should have no place in HC(or in SC for that matter). It's a never ending battle though; the more creative they get in prevention, the more creative the grief players get in implementation. The only thing we can hope is to make it harder for them, causing some to quit.

[Occhidiangela]

Not Spiderdrake, who posted that pic. :)

I wonder if Bolty should put in into the avatar file. :)

[whereagles]

Well, I meant I like 1-way hostility.

A delay doesn't bother me. I actually think it's a good thing because it leaves anti-PKers with just about NO excuse vs 1-way hostility:)

[Kasreyn]

A delay doesn't bother me. I actually think it's a good thing because it leaves anti-PKers with just about NO excuse vs 1-way hostility:)

What do you mean by excuse? If you mean, "it leaves those opposed to PKing no argument against 1-way hostility", I seriously beg to differ!

Coming into someone else's game and hostiling them, even with a delay, a warning sound, and all the time in the world to escape, is still rude and disruptive. Who wants to have their co-op game ruined by a hostiler? Who gives a flying frazoo, plainly, if there's a delay? It just means you have to flee your game to avoid being PK'd. Wow, thanks. I love being forced out of my game to avoid slimeballs.

No, a 1-way delay does not cut it. Either there must be an option for no-hostile-allowed games, or there must be a mutual hostile selection requirement. Anything else is a useless half-measure indicative only of Blizzard's ongoing love affair with PK's.

-Kasreyn

[Baajikiil]

Anything else is a useless half-measure indicative only of Blizzard's ongoing love affair with PK's.

Admitted, that's exactly what a delay would be, a compromise. I'd much rather see Blizzard make a compromise than to see them do nothing.

As it stands currently, I'm afraid to play with half the people I meet on bnet because I can tell they have a good chance of being a PK(and I only play HC). A hostile delay would be nice for me, because it would allow me to play with others more easily.

Although you would still get the jerk hostilers you usually do, I'd just handle them the same way I do now. Ignore them and they go away. Or, assuming they are still in the game after I've taken a snack break or something, I just find a new game. It's annoying, but not too hard.

The only real problem I have with the hostile system now is losing my HC characters to cheap PK tricks. A timer would eliminate many of them.

[whereagles]

Look, one of the arguments against PKing was that some of the PKers resorted to dirty tricks like waypoint trapping or cast-hydra/tp-to-town-and-hostile, with which they could kill people without running any risk whatsoever.

Now, this is indeed lame and it's certainly something Blizzo could improve on.

So, if dirty PKing tricks are removed from the game and PKers are forced to play fair, that leaves anti-PKers with *only one* argument: that they have the right to play the game without being bothered by other people. An argument which I can refute by saying exactly the same thing: if some one is bothering me in game, I also have the right to kick him out, by force if necessary.

You see, there are always two sides to the story. Democracy is also a fine principle but in practice it's the guns that rule.

Now, as designer, you can either make your game a faerie tale and eliminate PKing OR you allow unilateral player agression, like in the real world. Blizzo chose the latter, but know this: it wasn't an easy decision. Inside Blizzo there's about as many pro-PKers as anti-PKers. (This was known during the Max/Sirian debate.)

I like unilateral aggression for various reasons. I can assure you in the faerie tale world, I'd be done with D2 in 4 weeks... :)

[Kasreyn]

So, if dirty PKing tricks are removed from the game and PKers are forced to play fair, that leaves anti-PKers with *only one* argument: that they have the right to play the game without being bothered by other people. An argument which I can refute by saying exactly the same thing: if some one is bothering me in game, I also have the right to kick him out, by force if necessary.

How? The game creator does not have a Boot button to eject undesirables. (This is actually a third solution to PKing, albeit a less effective one). You mean eject by force. Excuse me for shouting, but GET A CLUE! An anti-monster build character could be higher level than an anti-player (PK) build character harassing him, and still be unable to eject him from the game by force. You may have the "right" to kick someone out by fighting in self-defense. But not all of us want to have to resort to that, or can.

Now, as designer, you can either make your game a faerie tale and eliminate PKing

This confuses me. What makes you think game designers have an obligation to make computer games anything like reality? If I wanted to deal with the stress of assholes forcing themselves on my personal space and threatening to kill me, I'd go out and drive around town during rush hour. Thing is, I don't enjoy that. I *do* enjoy playing computer games, which are an ESCAPE from putting up with assholes. Yet you claim, for some silly ideal of realism, that assholes should be allowed to follow me into my own game?!

OR you allow unilateral player agression, like in the real world.

Again, why does it need to be anything like the real world? If unilateral aggression didn't exist in the real world, I think a lot of people wouldn't play video games in the first place.

Blizzo chose the latter, but know this: it wasn't an easy decision. Inside Blizzo there's about as many pro-PKers as anti-PKers. (This was known during the Max/Sirian debate.)

Bah and humbug. I stick to my guns: Blizzard is in love with PK's. They've practically done everything but write a big red label on the game box saying "THIS GAME IS DESIGNED FOR SURPRISE CHEAP-SHOT ATTACKS TO RUIN OTHERS' FUN!!" If there are anti-PKers in Blizzard, they speak out rarely and shut up fast whenever there's any danger they might change anything. Though I personally can't claim to have EVER seen a Blizzard employee make a personal stance against PKing.

I can assure you in the faerie tale world, I'd be done with D2 in 4 weeks...

So be done with it, go away, and leave those uninterested in being harassed alone. It's not OUR fault you can't retain interest in the game, and need to meddle with others to get your jollies. If D2, for itself, isn't fun for you, find some other game instead of bothering people who still do enjoy the actual game.

PKing excuses demolished in this Kasreyn post: 3

1. You can kick them out if you don't like it!
2. PKing is realistic!
3. But PKing is fun for me!

1. No, you can't, plus it requires sinking to their level.
2. Realism can go take a running leap, who needs it?
3. Not for me, and you're no more important than me, so screw off.

-Kasreyn