PK clan thoughts.

Posted by Chaykin on 01/23

Back when oldstyle pk was around, there was a problem of people being randomly jumped who didn't want to be. They didn't like being attacked by strangers they had no quarrel with, but they tolerated it to some degree, and why? Because a lot of the social atmosphere of Legend revolved around the clans, which back then were naturally all pk clans.

Clans were a lot more important (as shown by the fact that becoming pk enabled used to be popularly called "clanning") because not only were they the only means of protection from one's enemies, but also they were the chief stage upon which much of the RP and social interaction was played out. You also got a nifty clanhall to hang out in. So, it was a tradeoff. You'd deal with the random jumpings in order to reap the benefits.

However, in the wake of pkok and player housing, much of this is no longer true. Pk clans have lost much of both their good and bad aspects. If we got back some sort of option similar to oldstyle pk, which way would the pendulum swing? Would we get back some of the importance and fun of pk clans of days past, since they'd once again become important to survival and socializing? Or, since it's no longer necessary to pk to be in a clan, would oldstyle pk simply be a niche product used only by a few "hardcore" people who never minded the random jumpings?

Discuss. :)

From: Skar Tuesday, January 22 2002, 12:43PM

If the original pk atmosphere had not decayed so much over time, the imms would have had no reason to install pkok. Pkok isn't the reason pk decayed, it is the result. Certainly, pk continued to change after pkok went in, and that system is responsible for the evolution after it was installed, but that doesn't mean things were perfect before.

There was indeed a golden age of pkill here, when all of the things you said were true. Then there was the Fall, when players either forgot good sportsmanship or new players never learned. After a time, the imms installed pkok.

You make it sound as if pkok single-handedly destroyed all that was good about pk when the truth is that many of the things you remember -- rp and social interaction, clans that meant something and protected each other, etc -- were almost entirely gone before pkok.

However, your final point that some analog to the old pkill system would change the pkill community once again is certainly true. In fact, it seems obvious to me. Good or bad is hard to know.

From: Chaykin Wednesday, January 23 2002, 03:30AM

You have a good point. A lot of the action in pk that I spoke of dried up before pkok was installed, as a result of all the random jumping and the poor sportsmanship of the pkillers who dominated it, it's true.

I think many of the same players who helped bring this about are still playing and probably would be the main people to make use of some sort of option for oldstyle pkill. But many of them have grown since then, and even those that haven't don't really have the option of randomly killing those who are unwilling to be randomly killed, since those people would just avoid oldstyle pk in the first place. The question is, would we see enough sportsmanship in the oldstyle pk arena to make it attractive to those who have never tried it before? And if they were, might we see some of those older, good qualities of pkill and pk clans restored?

Chay