Know what's harder than living by a code? Trying to join a respectable guild with a history as a "PK". If you can tough it out and not be a completely random PK, the rewards are there at the end. The best policy to adopt is one of intelligently choosing when to attack other players and having good reason for doing so aka contesting a raid spawn, not killing a million poor saps out in nektulos who are going to spam shout/ooc about your reputation. That is, unless, you're in a guild large and organized enough that it doesn't matter what you do. Even still, if your would-be "together forever badass" guild disbands, you may never outlive that reputation.

Has there been a game since EQ where one could really be considered a PK?

I honestly don't know.

I do recall that I caught all kinds of shit for refusing to live and let live with opposing faction when I played WoW. Had a grand time doing world PvP in that game for a few months at release.

Was a good read. Passed ample time during class. Lol

I could never have played under Rallos' retarded "pk vs anti" bullshit pseudo-rules. It's a pvp server, you picked red, I'm going to kill you if I can, you are going to kill me if you can, period. Only exception to that rule should have been guilds, or an agreement on the spot. This supposed "Free For All" server had turned into Free For Nobody by the time I started playing (couple months before Velious).

This is why I picked Sullon Zek. I honestly tried Rallos for a short time, but those gay ass rules combined with me flying solo (those few people I knew irl that played weren't quite so "immersed" in the game as I was), yet still wanting to fight people, I had no choice but to pick Sullon. I wanted to fight people! I also desperately need a little bit of backup, because my highest level char before then was like a 19 warrior on Terris-Thule... I also made sure to find out which team needed help the most, and picked it, and never looked back. Was fun as hell being scared shitless by the big bad red-con <Ruin> players running through EF to go kill Vox when I was a newbie leveling there and in blackburrow. Was fun as hell to contest zones, have "territory" and even newbs to protect/claim, have big named scary bad-guys to chase down as a group, or eventually be the big named good-guys clearing a whole group/raid out of places. Granted the good team's substantial victories on the battlefield were few and far between, but they meant the most.

Ahh the memories. I can appreciate this dudes tales, despite his "I'm the best there ever was, and ever will be" vibe, because I've played a few video games in my day, and the epicness of old school everquest pvp still tops any other game I've ever played. That's why I'm here, not-so-patiently waiting for live :)

In short: You're a nerd, but so am I for being here, so I liked the story.

Darkfall, Mortal Online, Starquest Online, Eve Online, Darkwind Online. Those are a few that come to mind. All but EvE are indy projects. Starquest was the most hardcore of them because you could actually kidnap other players.

Pretty good read bro.

Thanks.

With the exception of EvE, I'd never heard of any of those games. The car game looks hilarious while Mortal Online seems pretty interesting. Is/was it any good?

Fun read, you make the low levels sound fun.

RZ -> player decided "teams", that could ally with/against others or none at all. be broken up, reformed w/e.
SZ -> hard coded teams, f'ing ridiculous evil team advantage. iksars, ogres, best old world leveling spots.

I'd really be curious to see how the fighting on SZ stacked up against RZ at the end game in terms of meaningful PvP.

RZ wasn't as cut and dried as some are making it seem. Yes, there were hardcore anti-pk's and hardcore pk's, who essentially lived for their chosen art. However, these rules you speak of were optional. I came across many people of ...dubious... motives, who were neither pk nor anti-pk. What's more, it was common knowledge that many of the high end anti-pk's had low level or delevelled alt's for pk'ing fun.

I guess RZ would have been hard for people who seem to innately follow suggestions, or try to 'go with the crowd'. The people who prospered on RZ tended to take a 'fuck you, I'll do what I want' approach. You had to make your own game, because there was no pre-configured, compulsory team of buddies for you to join - if people thought you were a fuckstick, then you were going to die, whether at the hands of pk's, anti-pk's or anyone inbetween. Hell, if you were enough of a fuckstick you could manage to get yourself pretty much kos to everyone.

There was never really a friendly group of randoms you could sidle up next to, ask to join their group and have a blue-tastic exp grind for a few hours. You had to use your instincts as to whether these people were worth the risk of grouping with. In the pk guilds it wasn't uncommon for players to gank their own guildmates over loot, personal rivalry or plain lulz. I remember Darkenbane trying to do it's first pk raids in the planes - take a guess what happens when you put 30-40 pk's, half of whom seemed to have ADHD, in one place with nothing to do for an hour whilst the officers and leader tried to organise and start the raid...

There is no denying that team-based pvp can be fun. However, the notion that some absolute retard can be untouchable forever because they rolled the same team as me is....unpalatable.