| June Archives Click here to go back to: GZR Archives |
|
| Who Framed Anti Rabbit?: Special Report From GZR's
Undercover Operatives in Holtburg and Yaraq 6/27/00 - A well-known Anti-Pk tradition is that of using a "rabbit" to scout out a chaotic town, to spot exactly who is and who isn't a Random PK. The rabbit manuever is neccesary because in addition to being murdering scum, PKs are often liars....those who are supposedly "staunchly Anti-Pk" when your 40th level melee is there, will quickly change their stripes when faced with what they think is an easy victim. A case in point was the Darktide debut of my kid sister, who started innocently enough in Holtburg. As she appeared at the spawn point arrows began to swish past her and war spells filled the air as the archer and mage who'd been camping the spawn point let loose on her. She quickly fell, and sent out a call for help I arrived at Holtburg about 5 minutes later, and the evil archer and mage were still camping the spawn point. I greeted them with "My name is Zang, you killed my sister, prepare to die.", and quickly cut them down. So, true to form, the lying began. "We were just defending ourselves", the evil PK archer whined. "No, you attacked her." "She's lying! She attacked us after saying 'peace', she's a damn PK!", the archer lied again. He went on and on, adding more and more details to his lie. It was an amazing piece of fiction. I killed him when he turned red again to signify my disaproval of spawn-point camping. I then helped my kid sister get to a nice spot near another town where she could gain a few levels, and she happily began to thin out the local Mosswart population, while chatting with some "rabbits" who were busy killing Xai lowbies in Yaraq.
The rabbits announced that they'd killed or driven off all of the Xai lowbies and their allies in the Yaraq cow field, and everyone was happy.
Then, horrible reports of betrayal start coming in from her friends. Several vassals of Sagacious, Protey, and Eraw were reported to be killing the "rabbit" force in Yaraq! What would cause supposed Anti-Pks to start killing lowbies who were killing Xai vassals....and laughing about how they always kill newbies near there?
My kid sister told me what was going on, and I quickly contacted the apparent leader of the supposed "Anti-PKs" nabbed in our undercover sting to question him as to why he was killing innocent lowbies who'd been killing Xai lowbies.
He stood on his reputation. But what was I to believe?...the screenshots provided by my sister's friends or the suspect's word? I'll leave it to the GZR's readers to decide, post on the message board thread below and let everyone know what you think. (Click here to comment on this story)Turbine Closing
in on "Drain" Exploiters Briggs: I'll ask for the forth time. Did you drain.. Mage: You want answers? Briggs: I think I'm entitled to them. Mage: You want answers?! Briggs: I want the truth. Mage: You can't handle the truth! Mage: (continuing) Son, we live in dungeons that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by mages with wands. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Zifnab? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for warriors and you curse archers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That draining through walls, while tragic, probably saves lives. And my magic, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about, at pubs, you want me behind that wall. You need me behind that wall! (boasting) We use words like Feazh, Zhapaj, Malar...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent researching spells. You use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a warrior who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very vulnerability spells I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a wand and stand behind a wall. Either way, I don't give a darn what you think you're entitled to. Briggs: Did you drain behind a wall? Mage: I used the skills Turbine gave me. Briggs: Did you drain behind a wall!? Mage: You're goddamn right I did! Silence... Briggs: Please the court, I suggest the developers be dismissed so that we can move to an immediate Article 39a nerf Session. The witness has rights. (Click here to comment on this story)Xai Monarchy
Caught Using Exploits!: Possible Mass Bannings to Follow? "It's crazy", said one Turbine employee who asked to remain anonymous, "The reports of rampant exploiting and bug abuse were flooding in so fast that we actually had to shut down all of the servers for over an hour tonight just to free up enough Sentinels to respond to each of the complaints." Our reporters were able to interview several concerned Anti-PKs, who revealed exactly what the PK exploiters and bug abusers had been doing: GZR Reporter: So, I understand you personally saw Xai himself use the exploit? Concerned Anti: Oh yeah, a bunch of us raided Yaraq and killed about 10 of Xai's people, and when we chased one of them East we ran smack into Xai at the outpost. GZR Reporter: But what exactly did Xai do? Concerned Anti: He used Life Magic on General Zang, and then pulled out a melee weapon and killed him. He must've done like 60 damage a hit. We all saw it. GZR Reporter: Isn't Xai a mage? How could he use a melee weapon against the General? Isn't Zang specialized in melee defense? Concerned Anti: I'm telling you man, it's an exploit! They call themselves "Life Mages", and they use a bug called a "Vuln", and no one who doesn't use the same exploit can stand against them. Later, our GZR reporting staff found a senior Sentinel who had this to say about the rampant exploiting on Darktide: "We take this "Life Magic" exploit very seriously, and we're looking into several options for dealing with the problem…..and we're also highly concerned about the proliferation of exploit websites that actually advocate the use of these bug abuses." GZR will continue to keep our readers informed as this story develops. (Click here to comment on this story)New War Spell
Discovered! (Click here to comment on this story)Effects of Game
Rules on Player Behavior: PK vs Anti-PK on AC's Darktide
Server Pretty much, there is nothing to do in AC but fight. You can fight monsters, or you can fight players...but beyond that what do you do? The few tradeskills are basically an afterthought to the game rules, in much the same way that PvP combat itself is an afterthought added to the game rules. For true territoriality and nationality to develop, where different "nations" carve out thier own turf, there needs to be something to do other than engage in combat. If part of your population is actually productive at a non-combat activity (like farming, or wall-building) then you would start to get a true division of labor and develop societies as advanced as the first mesopotamian cities or even up to the early bronze age. As it is however, everyone has the same occupation basically. everyone is a warrior (with swords, or spells, or arrows..but still warriors). This lack of a division of labor puts everyone at the level of nomadic tribes of warrior/hunters with no real non-combatants....ie: about the level of our distant tribal ancestors from the middle stone age about 40,000 years ago. So, within this context, the subtleties and complexities that arose when people first formed city-states and divided labor among warriors, farmers, artisans, and rulers isn't really possible. Also due to this context, all politics is really reduced to it's simplest stone-age form: Is this person a stranger? Or is he of my tribe? The reason that the PKs do well is that they follow the dictates of the game mechanics very well. They kill all those who are not of their tribe, and waste no time worrying about things that AREN'T dictated by the game mechanics. In this way, it can be said that the PKs are always closer to "winning" by sheer virtue of playing by the rules. The Anti-PKs on the other hand, are trying something different....they're trying to define their "tribe" not as just who is in their immediate family-grouping (allegiance), but as who is alligned with them on philisophical grounds. Anti-PKs see everyone who is an Anti-PK as someone who is in their "meta-tribe", or larger grouping. This worldview would be similar to the forming of the first city-states 5,000 or 6,000 years ago....when people who were not actually physically related began to gather together into large settlements. The early cities were bound by something other than blood...like a common language or religion. Unfortunately, the Anti-PK style of play and worldview is actually counter-intuitive to how the game mechanics are laid out in Darktide. You can't build permanent structures, you can't form lasting "real" associations above the family (allegiance) level, and there literally is nothing to do other than fight monsters or people.....basically a pretty good copy of the Real World about 40,000 years ago. In order to see anything more advanced, the game mechanics themselves would have to encourage and reward behavior that is more advanced than the mid to late Stone Age. In the meantime, the PKs are certainly correct from a strict game mechanics interpretation that Anti-PKs are "stupid" and "don't know how to play the game". But I personally don't play games simply to mimic the behavior models that the game mechanics dictate. I play to have fun...and trying to organize people into something BETTER than a stone age nomadic tribe is what I want to do....and I don't care if that's "stupid" or a "noob" thing to do. (Click here to comment on this story) |
||
Copyright © 2000 by General Zang Click here to go back to: GZR Archives Questions or Comments?
Email me at: [removed] |
||