RuneScape technically counts as my first PvP moment.
Walking into the Wilderness, not really knowing what to expect, I learned the hard way, as did many players who started off their MMO careers in Gielinor what the term "PK" meant. Donning my recently crafted Rune Armor I thought I was on top of the world.
Yet moments after wandering into the Wilderness, I found myself waylaid by an enemy player who was much more skilled and just simply better all around than I was. I thought I was good, I thought my armor would protect me.
I was oh so very wrong.
It was a memorable experience for sure, one that shaped my days in RuneScape from that day forward, but also shaped how I approached PvP in the MMOs I played moving forward as well. Simply put, I don't like being PKed.
I don't really know anyone who does, for that matter, but I really didn't like them. That experience kept me on the sidelines in RuneScape from that point further, but also in other MMOs I'd play with friends like SilkRoad Online, Pirate King Online, Ragnarok Online (lotta Online's) and more.
That is until another Online was made.
When I first started to play The Lord of the Rings Online, the idea of Monster Play intrigued me, but never because I wanted to play the Monster. I entered then-Turbine's vision of Middle-earth because I wanted to play an Elf Archer like Legolas - something I still do almost 16 years later, not because I wanted to take the role of a major Orc chieftain. However, I knew there would be players who would want to roleplay as a Warg or the spawn of Ungoliant - and I was all for fighting them.
I would remember my friends excitedly talk about their PvP clashes in Dark Age of Camelot or Ultima Online and I wanted that experience for myself. In The Lord of the Rings Online, PvMP as it is known is relegated to a region in the Ettenmoors where players would fight over multiple keeps and chokepoints, controlling the Ettenmoors in a constant struggle for supremacy.
You could start PvMP at level 10 as a Monster Player, or Creep, or you could wait until you were level 50 to truly stand your ground as one of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, or Freep.
My Kinship, Eruchin, started to make a name for itself in the Ettenmoors, but I didn't join them at first. While you don't lose your items in PvMP, I still didn't want to die. Even when the Hunter could still use Desperate Flight to escape a battle in the Moors, it wasn't fun to die.
However, all that changed when we held a Kinship night in The Moors.
Our Kinship was the tip of the spear in a battle near the central keep, Tol Ascarnen. My real life friend who played the Loremaster Ormaz and I led our Kinmates to battle, charging into the NPC enemies and Creeps using them as fodder, staging a back and forth battle that would go on for hours without the keep changing hands. This was one of the healthiest times of PvMP on the Nimrodel server, and we had some of the major Kinships joining the fight such as There and Back Again and The Ainur.
I vividly remember being on our Teamspeak server, hearing our Tank, Jeremy, call out enemies to crush. Being the DPS, I would simply hang back and snipe anyone our Tank pointed out, be it Creep or NPC Troll, whatever. However, while we may have had our own Stealth Burglar getting the drop on some of the creatures, the enemy had their Wargs doing the same.
A Warg slipped around Jeremy and Ghunar, our Battle Minstrel, and stealthily moved towards me. Thankfully, though, I was able to spot him in time and turned my bow on the Warg, causing bleed to start to drain his life. I called the target out in our Teamspeak, but my Kin members were so engaged in their targets as a need to keep the tank and healer alive that I was on my own.
Kiting is an effective strategy, whether you're fighting a Balrog of Morgoth, or a lowly Warg. Except this Warg wasn't so lowly. One of the great things about PvMP is you can see exactly who your enemy is and their rank in their respective army. The Warg, whose name, unfortunately, escapes me a decade and a half later, was a Sentry, while I had yet to achieve my own rank. This was a target that I should not have been able to take down - yet, I did. Part of that was kiting - I ran in circles like no one's business. The other part of that was gear: back in the Shadows of Angmar days, weapon speed and damage type played a much larger role than they do now. And a day before, I had just got the strongest bow in the game from Barad Gularan, Bane of Forvengwath.
Using my Hunter skills to slow the Warg down, cause bleed and eventually stun him, I was able to fire off a Heartseeker attack before the Warg could close the distance. Within seconds it was over, the Warg was defeated and I had my first ever solo PvP kill in an MMO.
I'd been involved in kills throughout that battle, but never that I could claim both the Killing Blow and a solo kill until that moment.
And from there I was hooked. PvMP was a constant staple until about the Riders of Rohan expansion where the fight over the Moors had become a bit stagnant. Additionally, the server rivalries were broken when LotRO consolidated its worlds, causing us to flee the closing Nimrodel for Arkenstone.
However, that night kindled the PvP flame in me. I play games that have a massive PvP element to them now, even if I'm not incredibly heavily involved on a day to day basis. I'm a space pirate in EVE Online, I play as a Covenant devotee in New World. Even in the early days of The Elder Scrolls Online I would frequent the battles in Cyrodiil, aiming to rekindle some of that large-zone PvP that The Lord of the Rings Online had me fall in love with, even if they aren't the same in scale and scope at all.
Either way, that night in the Ettenmoors sticks out amongst the rest, even above the first time I ventured into the PK world in RuneScape.
So what's yours? What PvP moment stands out the most for you? Maybe you were part of a massive seige in EVE Online or a huge battle in Albion. Maybe you were old school, duking it out in the world that Lord British created? Let us know in the comments.
