Head. Meet. Wall.
A friend of mine laughs at my propensity for sticking my hand into the flame fest that are forums. I tell her I read the Age of Conan forums because it makes me feel smart, but I'm lying. I just like raging and ranting and raving. I'd probably be that German kid that bit a keyboard in half and shat on his wall if I had the courage to webcam.
In any event, what annoys me?
This should once again be read in your George Carlin voice, as if he is doing his "People I can do without" voice ...
People who defend ganking with ludicrous propositions
You know, I don't care if you defend ganking. It makes you look like a basement dweller and that's what people will associate with you, but that's your choice. What irks me ... hah ... saying irks as if that does justice to the venom in my veins ... what irks me are ludicrous propositions. For example:
"You can level to 20 without going to these two massive zones that have about 25 of the 40 quests scattered through them"
It makes me want to reach through the monitor, grab an ear and haul them off to the bathroom with a wooden spoon. Yes, players can level to 20 without touching either White Sands OR Underhalls. It means they will be doing a lot of grinding and missing out on two of the more visually appealing zones in Tortage with some fantastic mood and plot elements so that some level 25 asshole isn't killing people in a level 12 questing zone. The answer is not to tell those players to go play somewhere / something else. The answer is to deal immediate, bloody death to the level 25 asshole and to do so repeatedly until he logs out and goes to cry in his mommy's skirts.
It's not that hard. And YES, that is what SHE said.
Comments
./wink. There is a difference though between ganking and camping. I gank. These worlds are created to (at least in most MMOs I know of) to be a war. If I see you, you are dead. Or I am. Or we escape eachother. But either way, there will be an encounter. Level makes little difference. Camping, however, I pretty much don't do. If you do something to piss me off, then sure. But ganking I will defend. Camping? Nah.
[ ] Renting
[ ] Own home
[ ] Playboy Mansion
[x] Basement dweller
[ ] Other. (Please specify) _______________________
?
I'll take the basement apartment please.....
I'm going to side with Stigg on this one. I never go to lowbie zones with the purpose of ganking but when playing on PvP servers I always followed the rule of "if it's red its dead" (or I will die trying.) I have never camped another player unless thoroughly provoked and I usually don't mess with people doing escort quests.
I only camped someone once in WoW.
A 70 mage in STV was sitting outside Grom'gal, killing any lowbie horde that came out of the town. He had a stealthed lowbie dwarf friend nearby for some unknown reason. My buddy and I and were helping out a casual friend with some quests, and as we exited the gates she was one-shot. IIRC, this mage was skully to both of us, but only just so. we rushed him and surprisingly, beat him and his friend down. We let his friend go when he rezzed and killed the mage three more times before he presumably logged.
If I could have camped the goddamn warlock that used to fly around Hellfire Citadel killing everyone, I'd have done it in a heartbeat. Bastard made every hellfire instance twice as long as it should be, and even killed a couple groups entirely. That gnome was part of the reason I was happy to take my prot pally off of a pvp server.
Let's see...
PvP on a PvP server? No wai!
PvE Server -----> That way
Reroll Carebear.
Etc etc. I think those are the most oft heard comments on my server's forum whenever someone complains about ganking. If you can't deal with it, get the hell off a PvP server. Do I think it's fun? Not particularly. However, it is fun when you can hand some back instead. As such, you've got the right answer right there in your post, which sits firmly within the scope of a PvP realm.
Alrighty, here goes:
I first rolled on a PvE server with regard to WoW. I have one thing to say about the PvE server: /zzzzzzz wut?
I re-rolled to VeCo (RP-PvP), where Tan had been, and -loved- the whole "oh crap, I'm fucked" panic of having to look over my shoulder. It added...well, an additional dimension for the game to me back then. What's that word I'm lookin' for here, immersive I suppose. Every ??/skull player I'd come across in my lowbie days I'd /bow at if I happened to be running along the road and find one (or they'd find me). Sometimes, they were merciful - other times, not.
It took me quite a while to fully understand Stigg's view on gank until one night I was following him through Burning Steppes and watched as he whacked some hapless gnome warlock who simply had the misfortune of being in the right area at the wrong time. I commented, "Y'know, that little guy was a whole 10 levels below you." (Paraphrasing here, really.) Stigg, "We're at war, I'd expect the same from him if our places were switched. If it's red...it's dead, or I'll be dead. Either way, someone's gonna die." Fight or flight, put 'em up or shut up, if it's red it's dead, spank and tickle, so on and so forth.
I see what you're saying, I think, Tan. And, yeah, it sucks (like a Hoover!...just not in the happy way) that someone has elected to make life...the unlife of lowbies utterly impossible. Rather reminds me of that Southpark episode. Choices? Gather as many upper level players who might give a hoot as you can and go camp the 'tard or...nose to the grindstone in the lower level areas (thus, yes, missing out on the niftiness of the regions you mentioned) with the sole purpose of chasing down that level 25 asshat when you can handle him.
No, I think you're moistly all missing ... wait. That's meant to be mostly. Missing the point.
I understand the concepts of ganking. I understand that it is part of the game and the reason for a free for all PvP server is open world PvP. It WILL happen. If a player doesn't want that, they can reroll PvE. I do get upset from time to time, but I remind myself it's [Resurrect] and you're back in the game.
I'm not a big fan of White Sands PvP when the players target lowbies. This would be equivalent to a level 40 camping the path between where the Forsaken Start out and Brill or whatever the first town's name is, because it allows them to earn honour points faster. It would be better if they were fighting others that are more of a challenge. That's PvP right?
Remember. Age of Conan has NO Factions. It has NO safe zones. You can and will be killed speaking to quest givers, watching animations, zoning, etc. You will be camped on the rez pads, etc.
I don't like that behavior, and to me it is a failure in the game design when new players, just trying their feet, are met with an axe to the face. It acts as a dicouragement in a game that is already losing subscribers and failing more by the day.
By the same token, that weeds out the ones that won't have the grit to play on a PvP server in Age of Conan. So, it has it's upside too. I know my K/D ratio is horrible, but I have fun every day with it.
So it's a toss up. My problem with it comes in when people use illogical justifications for it. (Not that it happens, it will)
For example, calling it PvP and a learning experience is bullshit. A character 15 or so levels below you will learn nothing. Admit you're just ganking. That's fine, just don't be dishonest about it.
Telling them to avoid the zones though is my problem. Those are WELL designed zones. And the answer is not to avoid them, but to gather like minded players and to take the fight to the gankers.
Does that make more sense?
Yes, it does. Sadly, with nothing implemented (and even if there was, like how WoW has with the...uh, no honor gained for killing someone far lower than you or however) to dissuade such: it's going to happen until either a.) someone with bigger epeen and/or weaponry comes along to bash in the skull of the aggressor, b.) the asshat has a younger sibling who decides to try and make poptarts via the CD player and fails (thus fucking up that system for a few days), or c.) the support staff actually takes a supportive stance and collectively goes "hmm" while drinking their ridiculously priced lattes/cappuccinos/espressos/whatever-fusion drink-of-the-week and implements -something- (rule, ingame mod regarding griefing).
I appreciate where you're coming from Tan, I do.
A long time ago, hell, about a month or so into playing WoW (on Bloodmyst Island of all places) trying to level up my hunter, we (the island's population that evening) ran into a rather bored Tauren shaman who'd decided to take out...everything. TBC had only been out for maybe 2 months and, for whatever reason, the shaman wasn't max level quite yet (though in his 60s, evidenced from his mount). There were maybe 12 of us out there, waiting to turn in our quests with no NPCs to do so. We kited, we died, those of us who remained alive kept kiting...and he died via the gryphon master. Of course, he made us pay for that but the time we'd spent getting him to the flight master to die was just enough time for a paladin to come and kick his ass.
What's my point? Get enough pissed off lowbies together and maybe, just maybe you can mow him down.
Reminds me of the Noggaholic video when the wall walking patch went out. The day before, the whole nogg crew rolled level gnomes and wall walked around the entire world. While they took the boat from BB to Ratchet, a (probably) level 40 or so troll attacked one (flagging himself). Next thing you know, all (hundred or so) level 1s started attacking the troll, dealing (on occasion) 1 point of damage. After a ridiculously long time, the troll finally succumbed to the rank 1 frostbolts and grew daggers stabbing him and died. Best part of the movie (until the GM showed up).
wall. walking. /cry you just made a little part of my heart die with the reminder of this.
yes, i loved wall walking. granted, i didn't do it in BGs or anything like that. however, i did love to explore various zones via this way. sigh.
Yea, it was a sad day. Nothing like slow falling into SW. Or running the WSG flag from the second floor of the alliance base to the second floor of horde's. Good times. I still can't believe they destroyed the path to the top of Org.
i remember accidentally finding my way from, uh, where was it...swamp of sorrows and wending my way across the hilltops to end up in Redridge (north of duskwood). granted, that was kind of a boring walk. what i thought was cool was finding things when i'd come down out of the hills - like the gravemarker from that walk.
Gravemarker? SS OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN!
I used it to find the aircraft landing strip on top of IF and the house below...Arathi Highlands? And loads and loads of boundary pixelated floors. And imaginary walls.
I have to admit though that nothing was anywhere near as cool as Developers island and GM Island from playing on a private server. Seriously worth the process to get it up and running.
wished i'd remembered to SS the time i had pip on the turtle slow-falling from the airstrip.
....and did you SS your private time?!?!?
Not anymore. Too many HDD wipes. I'm going to be reconverting back soon though. Fraden probably has some!
Yes. And that is a massively flawed game mechanic. Having no guards be able to defend the helpless players is downright idiotic. I had a single PVP encounter while playing AoC and it was when I (as a... hunter? Ranger?) encountered another hunter/ranger out on some islands. She was only a few levels higher than me (iirc, I was 15 and she was 17). I didn't stand a chance. I attacked her first and could only get her to about 70%. Then I tried attacking her while she was fighting a crocodile. Together, the croc and I got her to about 60% before I died. I did everything in my power to get the odds in my favor...waiting for her to get to 50% while fighting two humanoids... still couldnt do anything against her. More than likely it was because I had no idea what I was doing, but even so, a few levels difference was seemingly impossible to overcome. I can't imagine the frustrations brought on by many level difference and repetitive killing without a safe harbour to rest in and get away from the onslaught. At least in WoW we could slowly get away to a safe location.
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