To be blunt, this article has very little, or anything to do with Open PvP at all.

However, if anyone ever holds an in-game funeral for me (which I sincerely hope they do not), I would find it highly amusing if a group decided to steamroll over the occasion

On a final note, it is never a good idea to compare in game ethics to any kind of real life equivalent...it's pretty self explanatory why they are totally different things. 

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Originally posted by rpgmachine

To be blunt, this article has very little, or anything to do with Open PvP at all.

However, if anyone ever holds an in-game funeral for me (which I sincerely hope they do not), I would find it highly amusing if a group decided to steamroll over the occasion

On a final note, it is never a good idea to compare in game ethics to any kind of real life equivalent...it's pretty self explanatory why they are totally different things. 

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I agree.

-Gooney

It saddens me that we have individuals with no morals playing such a fine game.  Yes, the said server is PvP, however, it was well-known that the funeral was being held.  Show respect.  Even during America's bloodiest conflict, the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops paused from the madness during Christmas to share tales from home and caroles.

There are those that do not seem to pay attention to history nor have the morals to take pause for something so tragic as to rise way above any multi-million dollar a month cartoon, such as WoW.  The offending guild should be banned, however this won't happen.  I do believe every member of the guild should have names shown in ALL WoW forums. By doing this we make the offenders responsible.  The did this for publicity.  Fine!  Let's allow them to be known.  In doing this, they then accomplish the dastardly deed they set out to accomplish.  Noone will party with them.  They will be as infamous as Stalin and Hitler, as warm and fuzzy as Charles Mason, and about as palitable as three day old vomit.

I have no time nor do I care what happens to these reprobates.  As far as I'm concerned, they have NO jobs, no girlfriends, no real life friends, and still wet their beds at night. 

It was pretty funny to see them drop like flies. But the funniest thing is that the guild ruined the event and the only thing the self-righteous people can do is name-call on the public forums. So what? They admitted that they were just being assholes. Like that's going to scare them. Some punishment.

Is it any different than raiding an NPC instance? The game with quests that teach you hate the other faction. Suddenly this real life event is supposed to join them together and ruin the atmosphere. Whose ruining who's game here? And people wonder why role-playing is non-existent. Here a guild role-plays as jerks and actually delivers, and the care-bears want them dead, in real life. Smell the irony, peace-lovers.

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Originally posted by rpgmachine

On a final note, it is never a good idea to compare in game ethics to any kind of real life equivalent...it's pretty self explanatory why they are totally different things. 

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You are quite mistaken.

We are never challenged more in our ethical behavior than when we can "get away" with something. For example, look at the crime sprees you see in the wake of a natural disaster, with looting, rape, and murder. Why does that happen? Because people are suddenly in a position where they can get away with doing things they would otherwise be answerable for doing. You don't really know if you are an ethical person or not until you can choose right from wrong without any consequence other than the knowledge of what kind of person your behavior makes you.

If you go online and act like a jerk just because you can get away with it, don't think for a moment that doesn't reflect on your moral character or lack of it. You will not be punished - other than the knowledge that you are in fact an asshole.

It is rather sad that some cannot distinguish between a game and real life.  It is even sadder that the same lame "well it's a pvp server" arguments keep popping up.  You hold the funeral on the server that person played on, just like in real life you hold the funeral where the person lived, not where they died. 

People need to understand that there is a lline and when not to cross it.  This wasn't about the hunter epic mob getting attacked by some random player, that's an ingame issue vs an ingame player.  This was about a real world event (a funeral) that was ruined by ingame players just so they could ruin it.  Someone of their guild even posted a video of it with the title "So we Pwned this Funeral LOL", which just shows how sorry they really were.  If there were any hypocrites, they are in Serenity Now.

It was mentioned that real gankers/griefers don't attend pvp servers which I believe isn't correct.  Numerous times I've heard of the hunter demon quest mob getting attacked for the sole reason to grief the hunter.  STV has been referred to as Vietenam with all the 60 hunters sniping from the bushes, 60 rogues ganking at nessingway's, etc.  Some (not all) pvpers do take on a bully attitude, but then rationalize it with "its a pvp server and they The Enemy" stance.

The reason so many people equate PvPer with Ganker, is that so many of them are just that.  The fact that many pvpers didn't condemn Serenity Now implies that they condone what they did.  I agree that the anonimity of the internet gave Serenity Now more courage, had they met these people in person I doubt they would of ran into the funeral home and caused a scene. 

I also think that ganking gets people so upset is due to the same bully attitude.  I mean, I want to pvp for the challenge.   How is PKing someone half your level (or less) who has virtually zero chance of beating you proved your "leet skillz"?  That's like playing a FPS in god mode, may be fun for a few minutes but gets boring quick.

I regularly play on PvP servers.... yet I don't gank.  I'm enjoy the challenge of surviving, despite the ganking by others.  I do bring my own morals and values into the game with me, but don't expect other players to do so.

While I wouldn't have ganked the people having the funeral, I fully support the right of the players who did so.  As so many have said, its a game, and on a PvP server, its up to the players to enforce justice.

That doesn't make the gankers "bad" or "immoral" or heartless... it just means they enjoy killing cartoon characters within the confines of the rules.

Does it make me mad sometimes....sure... especially if I was close to achieving a particular goal.  But I'm never going to want to tell people to restrict how they play their game....

This debate was poorly done, it really had nothing to do with the value of FFA Pvp.... and I hope future debates stay more topical.... this one was terrribly old news...

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Originally posted by Amathe

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Originally posted by rpgmachine

On a final note, it is never a good idea to compare in game ethics to any kind of real life equivalent...it's pretty self explanatory why they are totally different things. 

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You are quite mistaken.

We are never challenged more in our ethical behavior than when we can "get away" with something. For example, look at the crime sprees you see in the wake of a natural disaster, with looting, rape, and murder. Why does that happen? Because people are suddenly in a position where they can get away with doing things they would otherwise be answerable for doing. You don't really know if you are an ethical person or not until you can choose right from wrong without any consequence other than the knowledge of what kind of person your behavior makes you.

If you go online and act like a jerk just because you can get away with it, don't think for a moment that doesn't reflect on your moral character or lack of it. You will not be punished - other than the knowledge that you are in fact an asshole.

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I completely disagree with you.

WoW is a Role-Playing game.  If someone wants to play the role of an anti-social assassin who steals and kills at every opportunity, great!  That's their choice.  Part of the point of role-playing games is the ability to play different roles than you ever would in real life.

I don't like open PvP (and usually even avoid restricted PvP) but that's not relevant.  If you hold an announced event in a public unprotected area on a PvP server, you must expect that there will be people playing roles such that they will attack you.

Was Serenity Now playing a role or just doing it because they could?  I have no idea so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

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Originally posted by DrowNoble

It is rather sad that some cannot distinguish between a game and real life. 

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So if you lose a close family member or friend, I can call you on the telephone and laugh at your loss? I mean, it's just a telephone connection  right (just like in an mmo), so it's not real? Maybe I could send you an e-mail and delight in your family member's passing. It's an e-mail (just like an in game /tell) so that isn't real either?

WoW may be a game, but in this instance real life grief was at issue. There is never a reason to screw with people who are experiencing that, regardless of where or how it occurs, or what technology is used to do it.

Yeah... It was in an ingame funeral  Where an Alliance based guild which I believe is supposed to represent the good guys or something like that. Went on a killing spree.

Dispicable is all I have to say. You cannot justify bad sportmanship in anyway. Attacking an unarmed combatant is the same and shooting someone in the back. It is both cowardly and dishonorable.

The best part of that video was the Scatman music...There is nothing like seeing people get killed to someone in the background going Be-Dat-Dat-Da-Do--Dat-Dat-Da-Do over and over again

Seriously though, the gankees were the one's who brought a real life event into the game and so they are responsable for what happened just as much as the gankers. It's not just WoW either...Imagine someone trying to hold a peaceful gather on Mordred.

I think Amathe misunderstood my statement about real life and games.  I am absolutely not condoning what Serenity Now did.  My point was that Serenity Now apparently couldn't separate an ingame mechanic (open pvp) and a real life event (funeral).  So yes, calling me and laughing at my loss or sending disrepectful email would also be umm... inappropriate to put it mildly. 

I bet even today, that in /gu chat Serenity Now probably still brags about it to themselves.  People like that disgust me and are the minority gankers that give the majority pvpers a bad name. 

Oh and sorry Amathe if I sounded like I was sympathizing with them.  I definately was not nor was any of my post meant to be sympathic in any way to Serenity Now.

I didn't read all of the thread, as it got repetitive and boring after the 2nd page...

But still want to get my 2cents off.

As already stated, it's a game. Shall others stop playing it, because you and your friends want to do some peaceful event? Guess not.

Also people are dying everyday.. a lot of people, and as MMORPG are still on the rise, and a Mass-Market now, the players get older too. So even more dead gamers than ever before.

You want to hold a in-game funeral everytime a gamer has died?
I for one would still like to play the game, so if you must have some event like that, do it in an appropriate area. A PVP area is doomed to kill the event, and that's not exactly news... .

The whole topic is kind of stupid.. and the title misleading as I was expecting a real debate on open PvP and not this b######t.

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Originally posted by Estrados

You want to hold a in-game funeral everytime a gamer has died?
I for one would still like to play the game, so if you must have some event like that, do it in an appropriate area.

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I would agree that holding a funeral in a video game is asking for trouble. It's like holding a funeral in an insane asylum and hoping for order. But people make questionable decisions like that when they are sad, and in this case these people knew each other mostly from this environment. So while it was a dubious decision, it still doesn't excuse griefing them.

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Originally posted by Amathe

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Originally posted by rpgmachine

On a final note, it is never a good idea to compare in game ethics to any kind of real life equivalent...it's pretty self explanatory why they are totally different things. 

---

You are quite mistaken.

We are never challenged more in our ethical behavior than when we can "get away" with something. For example, look at the crime sprees you see in the wake of a natural disaster, with looting, rape, and murder. Why does that happen? Because people are suddenly in a position where they can get away with doing things they would otherwise be answerable for doing. You don't really know if you are an ethical person or not until you can choose right from wrong without any consequence other than the knowledge of what kind of person your behavior makes you.

If you go online and act like a jerk just because you can get away with it, don't think for a moment that doesn't reflect on your moral character or lack of it. You will not be punished - other than the knowledge that you are in fact an asshole.

---

Exactly right. The internet has become the modern day 'The Invisible Man'. No one knows who you really are. You suffer no consequences for your behavior once you log off the game, or onto an alt. Make no mistake though, those of you who log onto these online games and forums and glorify in being the biggest Ahole you can be, thats exactly what you are at the core.

I can emphasize with, if not support, Daimen7's senitment about violence. Sometimes I do wonder if people like the players of Serenity Now and others like them would learn some respect, or at least restraint, if their actions caused them to get skull dragged down the block a time or to.

I see little bearing on the announcement, if there was one, for the funeral. People say it was a taunt, or a dare. I say it was most likely exactly what it sounded like. A plea to be left alone while they had a ceremony for a lost friend.

They had it in a PvP zone. Poor planning? Or maybe they were holding it their friends favorite spot in the game, to make it as meaningful as possible? Regardless, people should have had the common decencey to leave them be for the ceremony.

Some of you claim the sanctity of the PvP server as reason enough to justify. But your PvP is meaningless. Whoever you kill comes back, you can't take and hold cities, the face of the game undergoes no changes due to your actions.

So refraining from one meaningless exercise in PvP changes nothing.

As to open PvP, I would agree that it *can* regulate griefers to an extent. It can also give griefers a wider range of targets.

I doubt we'll ever see truely meaningful PvP. On every server the horde seems to be outnumbered by at least 2 to 1. If sides were able to actually take and hold ground, The Horde would have been wiped out long ago, and then what's the point?

Comparing gankers to terroists is just sad!

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Originally posted by DrowNoble

I think Amathe misunderstood my statement about real life and games.  I am absolutely not condoning what Serenity Now did.  My point was that Serenity Now apparently couldn't separate an ingame mechanic (open pvp) and a real life event (funeral).  So yes, calling me and laughing at my loss or sending disrepectful email would also be umm... inappropriate to put it mildly. 

I bet even today, that in /gu chat Serenity Now probably still brags about it to themselves.  People like that disgust me and are the minority gankers that give the majority pvpers a bad name. 

Oh and sorry Amathe if I sounded like I was sympathizing with them.  I definately was not nor was any of my post meant to be sympathic in any way to Serenity Now.

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I think anyone who tries to hold a "real-life" event within the confines of a game universe is either asking for trouble to get attention, or utterly clueless beyond hope.

It's sad that someone died.  It's sad that their friends' feelings got hurt when their ceremony got disrupted.  It's pathetic that they picked one of the high-level contested zones on a PvP server to hold their ceremony, as if the whole rest of the player population was supposed to stop playing their game because someone they didn't know and had never heard of was trying to emote about somone else they didn't know and had never heard of.

Even on a Role Playing server, I would still expect some less reputable characters (note the use of the word, not players) to try something at such an event.

As for people acting like they do in real life.... some do, some don't.  I hope you aren't one of those people who thinks actors all behave just like the characters they play on television?  Some people role play very different personalities in games, for fun, for the challenge of staying in character, or just to let off steam doing things they know they can't ever do in life.  That's the point.  It's a game.  When things in the game start having consequences in your real life, it's time to stop playing and go outside.

Oh yes, I believe part of the topic was about open PvP?  WoW is not actually open PvP.  WoW is a two-sided conflict with areas of contested space.  In real open PvP, any player could attack any other player, regardless of allegence.  WoW doesn't have the mechanics to allow double agents, backstabbing, and playing groups against one another.  When I used to play regularly, there were many times I "worked with" Alliance players who happened to be out grinding or questing next to me, and many other times I would have loved to kill obnoxious fellow horde players who trained mobs on me, or ninja'd herbs while I was fighting.

I am amused by comments of people referring to "acting like they do in real life"

Yes...I act like a dwarven hunter in real life....

or better yet...

I act like a Tauren Shamen in real life.....

running around...killing things....using totems....skinning animals....

that's about as silly of a thought as my WOW characters using a computer to play a MMORPG....

I'm not really saying anything except that I'm amused by the thought!

Yeah, PVP. 

I enjoy the suspension of disbelief when I watch a movie or get into the story of a game. Roleplaying is fun.

Roleplaying on a PVP server can't happen until there is some sense to the PVP like wars that have clear victors vs. being able to run right back into the fray 2 seconds after you die. No fun for me since it comes down to who has the better connection, tighter mod or more expensive computer more often than who knows what buttons to push. Give me a PVP server where I'm locked out of combat for an hour after I die and I'd give it a go.

Sadly most of the people that play PVP would buy "Bucket o' Blood" PVP games with no story just to see how many times they can up their kill count. Plus all the people who like to complain about how much it suxx0rs and otherwise feel like what they have to say means anything against profits. (Like I'm doing here. )

While it's true that people use online games for socializing, PVP games are't built to cater to it. Yet? WoW isn't about social responsibility, it's about killing. Name one MMORPG that isn't.

It's a failing on the faceless gaming community to turn to a faceless medium to try to fill their emotional vaccuum, not the writers of a game. To find those who actually play the game the way the the way the game is designed only surprises those who blur the lines between gaming and social responsibility. To expect EVERYone who PAYS to play a PVP game to one day NOT PVP earns a big "Dur-de-durrr!" Award in my book.

While "it's just a game" and the beauty of the ambush should be applauded. Too many people personally identify with their little pixels and zero's and one's far more than is healthy.

Bottom line for me is if you don't like PVP every day you play, play a different game or shut up.

I play PVP until I can't enjoy the actual game because the PVP is non-stop and senseless for anything more than point counts and one upmanship. Since I gain no personal satisfaction from that in a game, I play games where PVP is optional or cooperative play is all their is.

Weddings in game? Funerals in game that aren't for your character you're deleting? Creepy to say the least, but for some (sadly) the only outlet they have.

Discuss the emotional stability of a million people who pay for the fantasy of a made up world taking the place of a real life ceremony or who intellilgently don't switch to a medium that is designed for such a thing at least.

Never browbeat people who play games the way they are written. That makes you as creepy as those who turn to a gaming community for social responsibility.

There. I feel important now. If this was a PVP server, about halfway through this someone would have killed me, it would have frustrated the hell out of me and I would have switched to a non-PVP forum and never looked back. I can see the video on South Park now.

Consider doing the same. See ya!

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Originally posted by Fflarn

Exactly right. The internet has become the modern day 'The Invisible Man'. No one knows who you really are. You suffer no consequences for your behavior once you log off the game, or onto an alt. Make no mistake though, those of you who log onto these online games and forums and glorify in being the biggest Ahole you can be, thats exactly what you are at the core.

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To be blunt... I agree. It's rather tiring to read people sanctimoniusly defending the attackers (while at the same time mocking the group who wanted to say good-bye to a friend). Sure it's a game, but from what I've read here, the non-gaming event was announced as such. It's obvious the event was intended as a sort of video conference with 3D "avatars."  I imagine most of the people at the activity would not be able to attend the actual one in real life, since they probably live in different parts of the country or even the world. It tickles me silly to hear some callng the event "disturbing" while at the same time callously giving thumbs up to the A-orifices "assertiveness."

If it had been a "funeral" for an actual *fictive* character in the game (not a real person), hey, invite me to the ambush. It wasn't, though.

I would tend to agree that the decision to hold the event in a PvP area instead of a "safer" area was kind of shortsighted. The organizers must have been aware of  "quality" of some of the people playing there, and that they were leaving themselves open to low-lifers that get off doing colorful stunts like that. Nevertheless, that does not detract from the puerile behavior (to say the least) of the "attackers," who (as far as I can tell from these posts) knew in advance the event would be an online get-together of people who could not do so in real life due to geographical barriers, and not a gaming (or even RPG) event.

Couldn't the "attackers," um, play with themeselves like for an hour while that other group held the service? Was that too much to ask? From the constant parroting of the belittling (and tiresome) mantra "it's only a game," it appears that the answer for some is "yes."

I just wanted to add my voice firmly to those shaking their heads at the obvious immatiurity of the "attackers." Didn't want to take a "neutral" or "compromising" stand. The middle of the road is the worse place to drive.

E.