Some Great Memories

[Starz]

I played back in 2011. I started off a total noob who didn't even know about directional blocking until a player named Echeri taught me.


The Tindrem graveyard taught me danger. I'd walk in and see blues ganging up on grey and red players and think, where are the guards?! One time a player named Lyfender died, and I looked in his loot bag — he had a steel spear and some other armor, with other players already looting him. I managed to snag the steel spear before dying to another red player myself.

Once I learned about murder counts and the blue/grey/red system, I found a player in the graveyard fighting an undead walker. I walked in front of him mid-swing and he flagged grey. I killed him and actually felt bad about it — but hey, it's a hardcore game! That trick worked occasionally, though I still wasn't much good at combat.

Then one day I walked into the graveyard and found a player named Misterio fighting ten blues at once — weaving in and out of a bush on the left side, healing up, popping back out. He killed every one of them. After that I walked up and asked him for lessons. That's where I actually learned to fight.

Made a red account and roamed Vadda with my teacher. We used to punch a specific house to glitch our heads through the door where a chest sat — our hybrid gear and maces were stashed in there. Eventually I learned how to sneak into Tindrem through the slums and get into the graveyard without the guards attacking.

Joined a few guilds and explored more of the map — I remember Hawk and BR. I also joined ES, but the guild leader kicked me out because I didn't speak Spanish. LOL.

Moved to Bakti and joined nWo. Our job was defending the town from reds and greys. One night about 30 reds from ES rushed through Bakti, killing guards and players left and right. I just watched it all from a rooftop.

Joined another guild whose goal was taking RPK keep. About 80 of us marched down the mountain on molvas loaded with siege materials. We broke through the gate — and then got completely obliterated by a flank. So many dead molvas.

Then necromancy came out. I had no idea what it even was — I just heard it was dangerous. Death Hand? Death Knight? Black fog? I had a bunch of alts, and I added necro to my thief/mage build. Learned about crawling hands — you could use them to drag loot bags around. There was a rooftop near the bank in Tindrem where guards sometimes wouldn't target you. I'd log my foot archer up there while running my thief down below, checking the pockets of AFK players to see who had something worth taking. Once I found a target, I'd snipe them from the roof, then crawling-hand the loot bag away from the guards' range — repeat two or three times — and profit.

Mortal 2 came out, and I was playing in Meduli, grinding for gold and gear. Picked up a big circle shield and started finding AFK players with decent loot. I'd casually push them toward the edge of the water until they fell in, sank, and drowned. Then I'd jump in after them — guards wouldn't target you in the water — grab the loot, and walk away clean. They drowned themselves, so no murder count. LOL, profit.

 

[Jackdstripper]

What is this? The tale of "from shit, to shitter"?

You really went through all that evolution just to end up greefing AFK players in nube city? Seriously? That the culmination of all your knowledge and training? The epitome of your pvp experince...Greefing AFK nubes with bordeline exploitation tactics....

And then people wonder why nobody plays this game.

 

[Teknique]

Brings back some good memories. We probably intersected on a number of occasions

Was it misterio in the GY Or Tinape or were they the same person.

Good chance I was there for that flank and maybe even helped orchestrate it.

 

[Starz]

Brings back some good memories. We probably intersected on a number of occasions

Was it misterio in the GY Or Tinape or were they the same person.

Good chance I was there for that flank and maybe even helped orchestrate it.

I definitely remember seeing you! It was misterio. We had some great fights in there! You were hard to kill lol!

 

[Embuscade]

Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ? L'histoire de « passer de la merde à la merde » ?

Tu as vraiment traversé toute cette évolution pour finir par harceler des joueurs AFK dans un quartier de débutants ? Sérieusement ? C'est ça, l'aboutissement de tout ton savoir et de ton entraînement ? Le summum de ton expérience PvP... Harceler des débutants AFK avec des tactiques à la limite de l'exploitation...

Et ensuite, les gens s'étonnent que personne ne joue à ce jeu.

It’s pretty clear that when you PK in town in MO1, it’s to play the part of a sociopath and a scammer con artist: there are some fun things to do. The fact that the game’s tutorial doesn’t teach you anything and leaves you to figure things out on your own isn’t necessarily a good thing. There’s a bit of this idea of learning to endure suffering, like soldiers in the army.

And then there’s your post-traumatic stress syndrome: depending on that, you’ll either reject this game or enjoy it and choose how to become a true predator. How do you want to play PvP? In small 2v2 teams? Or in a massive guild, like a 20-player zerg?
Or I could just ditch the whole thing, learn PvP, and try to teach it to others—and explain the rules of conduct to them. But in this game, there’s no concept of cutting off hands or fingers or scarring someone, and despite all the deaths, the dead remain fully capable of causing harm.

So screw morality—let’s just beat the crap out of each other. No wonder there were racists back then and people high on coke, crack, and worse, guarding the dungeons 24/7.

To be honest, I’ve rarely seen so many messed-up people in PvP video games; I remember on Albion Online seeing a former soldier who had this massive need to follow orders—which he’d made up himself—and he’d been farming for over 48 hours without logging off, sleeping just 4 hours a night. The guy ended up in a hospital bed or a facility for veterans, (I’m assuming that’s the least bad outcome—I don’t really know for sure.)

One day, in our world, we’ll have to take complex trauma into account and avoid causing it unnecessarily. The dark side appeals to teenagers, but honestly, in the long run, you don’t take anything good away from it—it just sets you up to become a more broken person in the future.
Strangely enough, from that time, I remember that Aivara the Russian and her paladin guild were seen by my former guild leader as total pieces of shit and assholes who only did PvE and weren't real warriors.


Strangely enough, from that time, I remember that Aivara the Russian and her paladin guild were viewed by my former guild leader (I think his username was Raziel) as total trash and jerks for doing PvE instead of being real warriors.

- In the end, he was still a guy with a major survivor bias—the Dunning-Kruger effect, or whatever it’s called—and his worldview stemmed from his experience of succeeding in cruel and difficult situations, a sort of “no taboos” environment where there were still a few taboos, though.

- Anyway, a mix between the Behavior Ladder and the Thinking Ladder—recalling the final image from the WaitButWhy blog.
- All this to say that we don’t all have the same level of knowledge, and that taking advantage of others’ epistemic humility—their naivety, their kindness—to turn the tables on them… it’s no wonder this game is full of jerks, who may no longer be that way today, but who used to be, or who have spread their despicable methods to others.

 

[Ibarruri]

It’s pretty clear that when you PK in town in MO1, it’s to play the part of a sociopath and a scammer con artist: there are some fun things to do. The fact that the game’s tutorial doesn’t teach you anything and leaves you to figure things out on your own isn’t necessarily a good thing. There’s a bit of this idea of learning to endure suffering, like soldiers in the army.

And then there’s your post-traumatic stress syndrome: depending on that, you’ll either reject this game or enjoy it and choose how to become a true predator. How do you want to play PvP? In small 2v2 teams? Or in a massive guild, like a 20-player zerg?
Or I could just ditch the whole thing, learn PvP, and try to teach it to others—and explain the rules of conduct to them. But in this game, there’s no concept of cutting off hands or fingers or scarring someone, and despite all the deaths, the dead remain fully capable of causing harm.

So screw morality—let’s just beat the crap out of each other. No wonder there were racists back then and people high on coke, crack, and worse, guarding the dungeons 24/7.

To be honest, I’ve rarely seen so many messed-up people in PvP video games; I remember on Albion Online seeing a former soldier who had this massive need to follow orders—which he’d made up himself—and he’d been farming for over 48 hours without logging off, sleeping just 4 hours a night. The guy ended up in a hospital bed or a facility for veterans, (I’m assuming that’s the least bad outcome—I don’t really know for sure.)

One day, in our world, we’ll have to take complex trauma into account and avoid causing it unnecessarily. The dark side appeals to teenagers, but honestly, in the long run, you don’t take anything good away from it—it just sets you up to become a more broken person in the future.
Strangely enough, from that time, I remember that Aivara the Russian and her paladin guild were seen by my former guild leader as total pieces of shit and assholes who only did PvE and weren't real warriors.


Strangely enough, from that time, I remember that Aivara the Russian and her paladin guild were viewed by my former guild leader (I think his username was Raziel) as total trash and jerks for doing PvE instead of being real warriors.

- In the end, he was still a guy with a major survivor bias—the Dunning-Kruger effect, or whatever it’s called—and his worldview stemmed from his experience of succeeding in cruel and difficult situations, a sort of “no taboos” environment where there were still a few taboos, though.

- Anyway, a mix between the Behavior Ladder and the Thinking Ladder—recalling the final image from the WaitButWhy blog.
- All this to say that we don’t all have the same level of knowledge, and that taking advantage of others’ epistemic humility—their naivety, their kindness—to turn the tables on them… it’s no wonder this game is full of jerks, who may no longer be that way today, but who used to be, or who have spread their despicable methods to others.

I started playing MO1 ages ago as a terrible griefer. I spent my time murdering innocents and horses in Meduli with a character named Stenko. I attacked miners, robbed them, killed donkeys and horses, and even went into town and murdered AFK players. Later, I became a trader and never killed anyone again. I discovered that being a good guy was more fun. That was the great thing about MO; you could always start over.