She almost got me

[Occhidiangela]

Could not sleep this A.M. Got up, and to kill time before the kids woke up, I wandered into HC East. Helped a few folks out on a Hell Diablo attack (with Eye_Shadow, 72 Trapper) then wandered off to try to complete the Bloody Foothills quest by myself from bottom to top: that is my next quest due anyway. Players came and went, I gave a sorceress a couple of perfect skulls since my inventory was full and she needed them. Another sorceress joined us, 86. The first went away, the second was apparently invited by her. I was half way up the trenches to Dac Farren when I noticed a green X rapidly coming "down hill" in my direction. No text. Spidey sense tingled, switched to my 2D W set up, Ancient's Pledge Shield for more resists, refreshed Fade, and kept an eye on her as Death sentry mad echutney of a few more Death Maulers. Sure enough, she Teleported right next to me and I hit "esc" right as I heard the little Windows piano chord noise that tells me something weird just happened. Did not see the "save and exit" immediately so I hit the 'reboot' ASAP to cut the Bnet Connection.

A few minutes later, after logging back on, I found Eye_Shadow still alive with about 30-40 percent of her life. Looks like a slower reboot might have got me killed.

Was this the hostile anywhere hack, or a drop hack, or both? I had the feeling that my PC went nutso due to outside interference, and so am not sure. I never saw the Hostile, or heard it, but was not prepared to mess with a level 86 sorceress with blood in her eye. Guess my 1100 life helped. :)

Sigh. I would venture to say that most pubbies I meet when randomly playing are actually pretty decent people, not too rude, reasonably helpful, though an awful lot of them seem to use maphack. The idiots sure do stand out.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, this is where the "statsme" type info would be nice to have in DII, similiar to what they do for Warcraft characters. It would be nice to see stats on the people you are partied with. Things like #PK's, #MonsterKills(personal), character stats. A quick check of someones stats could tell you much about them, and whether they are the type of person you want to play with.

[NuurAbSaal]

Stuff like this plus all the hacking/duping effectively killed realm play for me. I only played softcore but never got my number one char (a necro) above lvl 42. Trading became a joke (check the guest article at http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-bnet-trade.shtml), all manners were abandoned and I narrowly escaped 4 (four!) PK attemps in one day. Getting PKed on HC -> I couldn't take it :angry:

I'm very glad u got away. I mean it.

So instead of starting on PKs I'll rather share that SP can be fun too :)
But, regarding one of the other articles on dii that went up on the same day, there is no such thing as a "good" PK. IMHO of course.
Seems like I started anyway.

Good luck to all realm players and to Occhidiangela in particular.
Nuur

[Baajikiil]

Was this the hostile anywhere hack, or a drop hack, or both?

I've been playing a little more activley in the last few days, and I've seen several similiar things happen. No idea if it is new, but there apparently is a sorc drop hack out right now(if not more than one).

I saw the same person do it in more than one game, in a row. She killed 4 people(total) in 2 different games I was in. Both times, the people she killed dropped. I never actually traveled with her though, unlike the others. Heh, I even warned them that she was a PK.

I've also seen alot of people using "Chicken" or "Chicken Hack" lately. Basically it's a preset macro that makes a portal and goes to town instantly whenever someone hostiles you. I've seen a few people saved by it. Probably a good way to avoid being killed, but it won't help vs drophacks...

EDIT: BTW, the drop hack is used in conjunction with hydras: drop the person, make hydras and go to town. Usually has plenty of time for hydras to kill before the person drops. So, no matter how far from town you are, a sorc can still kill you before you timeout(no hostile anywhere hack needed).

[kandrathe]

I play only softcore on USEast. Mostly in private games with friends, but sometimes if they are not available, then in public games. I've only been PK'd once (about 6 months ago), where I didn't just leave the game when I was hostiled. I was playing a lvl 38 singing barb in a game "Act 5 Leveling". There were 5 people playing, but I was not partied with anyone. A lower level sorceress came to the BFH, was partied with me for awhile, and then she quit. I was in almost the exact place in the bloody foothills as Occhi described when the same account returned with a high level (78 IIRC) barbarian, and came running to exactly where I was, TP'd, went hostile, came back and killed me before I could run. To add to the insult, he then stood there guarding my corpse. It was softcore normal, so I didn't sweat it. I don't know what the arsehole was trying to prove. It seems pretty logical that a lvl 78 PVP barb can kill a lvl 38 PVM singer...

So rest of the story... I went upstairs to my wife's computer, logged in with 'Diana' my then lvl 75 revenge-a-zon (her outfit was; Cleglaw's, Blackthorns, Goblin Toe, "Lionheart" Dusk Shroud, (the old Nef'd)Buriza, 2x Ravens, Eye of Etlich, 400+ in poison and cold damage charms), found him, PK'd him, then guarded his corpse until he was forced to leave without it. I guess I have a high sense of justice. This zon is now lvl 88, and due to the prevalence of hacked items, I've converted her to high MF gear for partying with other high lvl chars.

So Nuur, please don't despair. Play on the realms with good people from the LL! :)

[Baajikiil]

Yeah, this is where the "statsme" type info would be nice to have in DII, similiar to what they do for Warcraft characters. It would be nice to see stats on the people you are partied with. Things like #PK's, #MonsterKills(personal), character stats. A quick check of someones stats could tell you much about them, and whether they are the type of person you want to play with.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Put in a PK count though, and it may encourage the PKs to kill even more...

Inventory scanners are now a standard feature of maphack(well the people I talked to said it came with maphack). You can look at anyone's items. Many people have offered to trade, or have complimented me on my items without me showing the person what I have. I don't think you can see charms, or perhaps not even exact mods on the equipment, but I've had a stranger read off a list of my before before. AFAIK, you can't see inventory, only what is equiped(and not the weapon switch).

I think it has something to do with the fact that a characters equipment is sent to all computers in a game, so that the computers can display the character properly. The scanner just reads this behind the scenes info, and lets you know someones equipment.

Also I've seen some avoid PKs, by looking at their equipment. It's hard to tell for sorcs, but for the other classes, you can often tell a PK by their equipment.

I believe there has been a debate about the use of scanners in D1, and I hope they are short lived in D2(thus avoiding the debate).

[Baajikiil]

all manners were abandoned and I narrowly escaped 4 (four!) PK attemps in one day. Getting PKed on HC -> I couldn't take it 

:o 4 PK attempts in a DAY made you quit? You should see what us real gluttons for punishment(those who play pubbie HC games) put up with. I've had more than 4 attempts in an hour...

Sometimes when I'm lvling on normal or nm baal runs, I see the same PK come into every game I join. They are looking for low lvls to PK, and I'm looking for big games to lvl solo in. We just happen to have the same taste in games...

[NuurAbSaal]

Well, that was some time ago and PK attempts on me in total: about 7, so 4 in one day seems an awful lot to me. :)

I was already more than disgusted with realm play (I had zero friends who played D2 so I was always on my own), never found decent guys who were interested in real teamplay in a party and got offered one too many hacked item for my legit stuff in trading. I spent most of my time playing online SP and if you play by yourself all the time anyway, why not eliminate lag (another problem for me and my 400MHz iMac).

If 1.10 ever comes out (and it will, soon™) I might give it a shot again, guys like you here and the fact that something like the amazon basin community seems to be growing steadily give me hope that in the end legit, teamplay-oriented and fun-to-play-with people will prevail. Ahem, well, I almost got emotional. Close one :)

Btw, I take it PK activity is increasing then... :P

Greetings
Nuur

[Occhidiangela]

Depending on time of day, and who happens to be on and in a mood to kill people.

I have had entire morning runs (which for me last maybe an hour before I have to get back to RL) wherein my char quests or plays in a public game or two with zero goons hitting hostile. I have had other mornings where I jump from game to game, and in each game the same idiot shows up and hostiles folks.

My biggest safeguard is to play in my own area and typically, if I party up with some one, I will often TP to town and do some admin, repair, gambling, or inventory shuffling while I get a sense of who is where and doing what.

When the Spidey Sense tingles, one should just leave and find another game, or start one.

Not infrequently, I will find a few folks who are just questing, and we will /w to each other and make a private game of 4 or 5. That tends to be a very satisfactory on the fly solution.

[Occhidiangela]

His description of the "wug" nonsense heriarchy made me chuckle. Thanks for the link.

I too hate wug as a word. And on those rare occasions that I trade, I occasionally ask "what do you want, I might have it on another character" which invariably leads to either silence or requests for free Windforces I don't need, etc.

About getting PK'd in HC games: when it happens to me, I am usually more irritated with myself than with the jackass involved. I know they are out there. I know how the hostile system works. I have to keep my options open, always eye possible exits, just as I do when I drive a car: keep an eye to a way to avoid an odd incident.

If I did not want to be bothered by PK's, I would not ever venture onto battlenet. But I occasionally get into a public game where a few folks are cracking jokes, or are just being silly, and I really enjoy that. I play this game for fun, and when I find fun, it makes me grin.

Which is the whole point. :)

[NuurAbSaal]

ah, Fun...mmmmm
The times I had on B.net...

There, you did it! With 1.10 I'm back online, I'm sure it's only a matter of hours ;)
I went from "disgusted by realm play" to "longing for realm play" in about two hours.

But it was FUN!
I remember a specific game I started with the intention of getting my Necro through the pain that is early act three and not even leaving town because some hilarious guy started making Necro jokes (before the whole curse bitch thing) and we just kept joking and fooling around for about an hour. We eventually travelled to the rogue camp, bought a merc and let them run around the other's char letting them say stuff like "hi sailor, got plans 4 tonight?" (with the "!" in front) Well, it was funny then, I guess you had to be there :)

Back then I had a great sense of humor, it was called "Soul Harvest" and if you don't speak German you might have a hard time getting that one :P

I really enjoyed the whole "meet people -> chat a bit -> play a fun game ->meet them again and repeat" experience, which by the way is the reason I play streetball which really has nothing to do with this. I guess I just like people :)

About the PK thing, a lot of them seem to use hacks now (I kinda figured that out from your original post, I'm real smart you know ;) ) and I'm a little surprised that noone of these ***** has come up with a way to simply kill everybody on the realms without even having D2 installed yet. There might come a time when your char just drops dead with zero guys in the vicinity because some "genius" figured out how to make his PK char invisible. Or mb I exaggerate. Or should stop whining about something that has never even happened to me. I apologize :(

So now I went from "Hurray, me play again!" to "OMG it's hopeless" in about two minutes. I bet you can't wait to play with me:
(Yes!, lots of stuff dropped from Meph! I loves you - No! I only got a green breastplate! I hates you! I hates you, nasty little hobittses)

This post is long enough already, not connected in any real way to the thread topic, hopefully mildly amusing and now, at last, over

Nuur

[NuurAbSaal]

Freaky double post, don't know how that happened

[Az3ar]

Sigh........ Idiots in the likes of that sorc made me give up Mplayer...... :angry:

Seems like PKs, crashes, and hacks are now the main difficulity instead of the monsters...... :unsure:

[the Langolier]

What exactly is so dangerous about PK's in D2? IIRC from the last time I played, it was actually quite difficult to catch a player off gaurd (most effective for a pk). Going hostile means that your current town portal gets destroyed, you can't use ANYONES portal except for your own, and ofcourse, you have to be in town to go hostile. I believe that your character is not even able to use the TP of anyone who is not in your party. If someone goes hostile with you, shouldn't you have a comfortable amount of time to get back to town? Of course, what I remember is only from playing open.bnet most recently at version 1.08, not on the realms. Is anything I remember about hostility accurate? I am just a little confused as to how they can be such a problem (besides being so annoying).

[Thecla]

Well, I never play in public hc games, but the main issue now is hacks, which can be used to kill you, however much you're on guard.

There are drop hacks, which freeze your game so you can't do anything to protect yourself and wake up dead. Then there are trigger hacks. These initiate an almost instaneous sequence of: 'zon fires a guided arrow (with massive one-hit-kill damage added by all kinds of hacked items, and from a great distance); 'zon casts tp; 'zon goes to town; 'zon declares hostility; guided arrow hits victim; victim dies.

So yes, legit PKs are not so dangerous in D2, even hydra sorcs or others if you know what to watch out for; but hacking PKs on hc (they don't bother to do it unless they can cause real grief to their victims) are running rampant. Unfortunately, although maphack provides some protection against these hacks (somewhat analogous to D1 godmode, though not as effective e.g. apparently there's now a "chicken" option to maphack which will automatically exit your character from the game if their life drops below 1/2...), it seems that Bliz has so far done nothing to neutralize these hacks. This means that legit hc players are reduced to playing private games with people they know, just like in D1.

[ManaCraft]

I've also seen alot of people using "Chicken" or "Chicken Hack" lately.  Basically it's a preset macro that makes a portal and goes to town instantly whenever someone hostiles you.  I've seen a few people saved by it.  Probably a good way to avoid being killed, but it won't help vs drophacks...

From what I've seen, the "chicken" simply saves and exits the game for you as soon as someone hostiles you.

Sure, I've seen people being saved by it a few times. I've also seen it exploited endlessly. Quite often someone will simply hostile everyone in the game, without having any real intentions of PKing, thus causing the chicken to kick in. Then suddenly half the players in the game disappear.


ManaCraft

[Baajikiil]

From what I've seen, the "chicken" simply saves and exits the game for you as soon as someone hostiles you.

Okay that makes more sense than making a tp and using it, much less complicated.

Sure, I've seen people being saved by it a few times. I've also seen it exploited endlessly. Quite often someone will simply hostile everyone in the game, without having any real intentions of PKing, thus causing the chicken to kick in. Then suddenly half the players in the game disappear.

Heh, I'm not suprised, that reminds me of the Korean drop bug. I bet Chicken will not last long if the PKs can cause the users leave every game they join.

[Occhidiangela]

While I have seen Chicken work, I think there is a simpler way.

Use the 4th slot in your belt to keep TP's in. Hostile goes off, you hit 4 and enter the portal.

Fast and effective. :)

[ManaCraft]

Well, I just have tp hotkeyed, since I don't really like wasting potion space on scrolls.


ManaCraft

[Az3ar]

I just keep my finger close to the exit key, and quit in a matter of 1/2 to 1 second....

Though there are tricks, one was used against me, which people act friendly and get your trust, (play for about an hour or 2) then finally they make a tp hostile get out and kill everybody, just like Thecla said, only more devious, because you dont normally expect people to party you for such a long time and backstab so suddenly......

Some other tricks, are when people that played whith you for some time and you know them, and your online buddies, open a game, go to some dangerous area, (Chaos Sanctuary, for example) and they cast their town portal in the middle of some pack of Urdars/Oblv nights/Vile childs, and ask for help, you come thruogh the portal and BAM, your dead in a few secs, this thing bites alot worse than normal pks, because it comes from people who you really thought you could play whith....

Its not only the fact of having my chars killed, its the disturbing fact of how people have their fun by ruining other people's, and they just dont get it, I just wish they would be in the same position, or having a stronger hacker pking them for a change, they would then understand that when you play the game, you play it for fun, not to intentionally ruin other's........

Pks though, are legitimate, but it has gone waaaaay too far......