As the title says. What qualifies being a ganker in your eyes?

Just to make it more clear. This question has nothing to do with real life personalities but ingame actions that earns you the title.

We can all pretty much agree on a level 100 killing a level 1 as ganking, but is that it? What about a zerk, is that a gank?

Is ganking as bad as griefing or do you see it as one and the same?

ganking is when a group of people kill a single person 'gang kill' ~ gank' 

However, the term is used pretty loosely. Generally, it just describes a player killing another player when they were unaware. 

"Awh man, Jimbob just ganked me while I was farming Copper Ore!"

to me a gank would be a fast unsuspecting kill.  if it turns into a 1 min fight it is no longer a gank.  in and out before they know what hit them.

Ganker is someone who jumps you in open world PvP while you are busy fighting monsters.

Player who specifically go into lower level zones to kill lower level players.

Also irrespective of level a player who go and kill more than once (repeadetly) other players that are just doing quests, gahtering, etc and just not interested in fighitng, providing that game has no teritorial control and that is not a fight for a land.

Originally posted by Starpower

As the title says. What qualifies being a ganker in your eyes?

 

Just to make it more clear. This question has nothing to do with real life personalities but ingame actions that earns you the title.

 

We can all pretty much agree on a level 100 killing a level 1 as ganking, but is that it? What about a zerk, is that a gank?

 

Is ganking as bad as griefing or do you see it as one and the same?

I would put ganker in the area of psychology as something like Scoiopathy/Antisocial Personality Disorder or Psychopathy.  I would suggest looking into both of those areas further then look how it might apply to a ganker in mmorpg terms.

So to go by the short amount of replies so far

For a PvP encounter not to be a gank. One has to announce his/her arrival. Give the opponant ample time to either retreat or buff up and prepare ...make sure you are the exact same level, then make sure you are both alone so the fight doesn't turn into a 2 vs 1 or more

Interesting.. That leaves only duels and arenas with controlled levels by the developers for it to be true PvP and not ganking

I would define ganking as initiating PvP combat against someone who is currently doing something other than PvP combat. That's the whole definition for me. It doesn't have anything to do with having an advantage in levels or otherwise.

Engaging someone while they're farming isn't ganking.

A ganker is basically a person or persons who go after players that are at a disadvantage in order to avoid a fair fight.

i.e. 5 on 1, Attacking someone at low health, attacking someone low level.

If they're taking the pvp out of pvp so they can claim a kill, they're a ganker.  I know I know, that's pvp, deal with it carebear!

But what's the point in defeating an opponent who had no chance to fight back? It takes no skill and isn't interesting gameplay, it's just being a douche.

Originally posted by waynejr2

Originally posted by Starpower

As the title says. What qualifies being a ganker in your eyes?

 

Just to make it more clear. This question has nothing to do with real life personalities but ingame actions that earns you the title.

 

We can all pretty much agree on a level 100 killing a level 1 as ganking, but is that it? What about a zerk, is that a gank?

 

Is ganking as bad as griefing or do you see it as one and the same?

I would put ganker in the area of psychology as something like Scoiopathy/Antisocial Personality Disorder or Psychopathy.  I would suggest looking into both of those areas further then look how it might apply to a ganker in mmorpg terms.

I don't really care what kind of weird parelells you want to draw to the real world personalities as, this is not what this post is about. Which you would know if you actually read the post to begin with

I've always associated the word ganking to a player who only targets those well below his level,

In WoW-Vanilla When level 60 Rogues in Bloodfang Armor hung out in level 30 questing area's = gankers.(PvP Servers)

In Age of Conan level 20+ players camped entrances to level 7-12 instances on pvp servers and typically insta-killed people as they zoned in.

Both of these games made pvp servers hell. Age of Conan wasnt so bad because its gankers had icons over their heads if i recall correctly.

Ganking is GANg Killing.

When you group up and kill lower levels.

Originally posted by Starpower

So to go by the short amount of replies so far

For a PvP encounter not to be a gank. One has to announce his/her arrival. Give the opponant ample time to either retreat or buff up and prepare ...make sure you are the exact same level, then make sure you are both alone so the fight doesn't turn into a 2 vs 1 or more

 

Interesting

This is good. Simply put then, a ganker is one who doesn't fight fair?

Originally posted by Starpower

So to go by the short amount of replies so far

For a PvP encounter not to be a gank. One has to announce his/her arrival. Give the opponant ample time to either retreat or buff up and prepare ...make sure you are the exact same level, then make sure you are both alone so the fight doesn't turn into a 2 vs 1 or more

 

Interesting

Not for me.

For me it is enough if player attack people on the same level or higher and if he does not attack over and over people who have no interest in fighting.

If that two conditions are met, then it is not ganking, even if said player attack from stealth, attack in bigger group vs smaller group, etc

Providing we're talking about simple mmorpg here (one that has no teritorial control, looting, etc to make things simpl for discussion.

A ganker is not nesessarily a griefer. Gankers may gank someone and move on, while a Giefer will be happy to spend the rest of the day making his target's life a living hell...

i thought it was used for gang killing as well, then that turned into the term Ganking...it has nothing to do with killing lowbies or getting jumped.....http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ganking

Edit: well i guess that doesnt help people have different opinions there too didnt read em...now im curious as to what it really means and where the term originally came from....no way to really know tho =/

Originally posted by Starpower

So to go by the short amount of replies so far

For a PvP encounter not to be a gank. One has to announce his/her arrival. Give the opponant ample time to either retreat or buff up and prepare ...make sure you are the exact same level, then make sure you are both alone so the fight doesn't turn into a 2 vs 1 or more

 

Interesting.. That leaves only duels and arenas with controlled levels by the developers for it to be true PvP and not ganking

It doesn't matter if the fight is fair or not. If you are PvPing, you are doing it to win by any legal means necessary. If your class is unable to handle another class and you need help; then so be it. 

PvP is PvP. 

Originally posted by Psychow

A ganker is not nesessarily a griefer. Gankers may gank someone and move on, while a Giefer will be happy to spend the rest of the day making his target's life a living hell...

That is of course your opinion which I respect. I've seen others disagree calling people like that "psychopaths" "only out to ruin others fun" "a scourage to gaming which the games would be better without"

Sounds pretty close to a definition of griefing.

I guess it goes back to where the term was first used and how it was used. I wasnt aware of it being gang related. Of course in MMO's terms change daily.

One minute Sandbox means a game where players create the content and the next minute sandbox just means freedom of exploration and non linear questing. go figure.

So if killing someone half your level with 0 chance of winning the fight isnt ganking what is the term for it?

Originally posted by Odinthedark1

i thought it was used for gang killing as well, then that turned into the term Ganking...it has nothing to do with killing lowbies or getting jumped.....http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ganking

Haha, I didn't even think to look at UrbanDictionary, but that was pretty much my response to the tee. It's true, that's all ganking it is 'gang killing'.  People like to be imaginitive though :)