Player Killing: Difference between revisions

[['''Player Killing]]''' is the act of killing another player's avatar in a multiplayer game. While the term could apply to all genres, it is used primarily in cooperative focused games (mostly [[MMORPGMassively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGsMMORPG]]s) to designate "unnecessary" kills. Games such as first person shooters don't usually have the term applied to them because the whole focus is to kill other players (if in a team setting, it's usually called "Team Killing" if you kill your teammates). The term usually comes up when it's viewed as a dishonorable action, usually referring to kills that were done for [[Troll|griefing]] purposes.

Player killing can be done either directly or indirectly. Direct player killing is just fairly straightforward attacking of other players. Indirect player killing can take many forms. Whether it be through manipulating other monsters to attack a player, causing a monster currently being fought to perform an otherwise avertable action, abuse of the game mechanics, or simply abandoning the poor victim to fight a monster much stronger than he is without helping out one bit, this has become significantly more common due to the fact that most [[MMORPGMassively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGsMMORPG]]s don't allow non-consensual player versus player any more.

The issue of player killing is as old as [[MMORPGMassively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPGsMMORPG]]s themselves, with Ultima Online becoming infamous for player killing right from launch. The game initially had all incentive and no recourse for player killing, leading to a very hostile world that made starting out extremely difficult. Due to the fact that other players can steal from the corpse after they killed a player, it became a case where the best way to gain wealth was not to actually go out and earn it, but instead to mug other players. All the richest players would end up being sociopathic killers. Over time, many attempts were made to alleviate this issue, but it took a fully optional system of whether or not you would be subject to player killing before players were happy.

One of the major issues of [[The Great Player -Versus -Player Debate]]. Also can be in the form of a [[Griefer]] where a person [[Team Killer|kills other players]] (friend or foe and mostly weak players at that) for the sheer humor of it.

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** The Corrupted Blood Plague: An exceedingly memorable event and held as proof of the [[GIFT]]. Players discovered an ability cast by a raid boss could be brought out of the instance to populated cities, where it would proceed to spread and kill everything. When Blizzard attempted to eliminate this, the [[Griefer|Griefers]]s buckled down and found new, inventive ways of spreading it.

* Plays a big part in the "[https://web.archive.org/web/20141125031238/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=080728 Years of Yarncraft]" [[Story Arc]] from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.

{{quote| '''Torg:''' I kept trying to show Riff how nothing you do in this game means anything! "It's just a shiny endless hamster wheel you run on. Something fun to play here and there but nothing to lose your life to." I was ''wrong!'' I found something! Something in the game, beneath the surface, that is ''very '''real!''''' ''Giving another '''real''' human being somewhere in the real world a '''really''' bad day!''}}

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