I'll also say that my favorite tactic was often labeled a griefer tactic although I'll still vehemently disagree with that assessment.
In the first couple of months I had a lot of advantages. I'd already been playing for months so was familiar w/ the ins and outs of the game - this led to me being one of the first GM mages on the server (when magery was the only way to really fight). I had a fast connection and single digit pings when most people were just starting to get 28.8 modems - I was often accused of cheating as I'd appear to warp around people's screens (from my perspective I could easily overtake people who were riding horses when I was on foot). While I wasn't particularly good at PvP from a player skill perspective, I had enough advantages that I could count on 2 hands the number of people I actually feared.
At the time many new players would find themselves dastardly due to clicking on the wrong thing once or twice - they didn't even mean to do anything wrong and half the time it was due to lag. So what I'd do is dress up in newb gear, hang outside the dungeon near Britain and pretend to be very lagged. At the time you couldn't see people's skill levels (stuff like this is why they put that in) so you'd just see my character name, that I was dastardly, I appeared to be a n00b and I could barely move.
So then these brave souls would attack me, often in a pack - not because they actually thought I was a bad person but because they a) could and b) I was an easy target who couldn't fight back. I'm sure you can see where this is going, after I'd wipe the floor with their whole crew they'd come back and call me a cheater and a horrible human being. Sorry, I wasn't the one attacking a defenseless n00b.
And yes, one could argue this from an RP perspective that in fact my char was a criminal and they were meting out justice but approximately 0.1% of people actually were doing that despite what they'd claim, the rest were just being turds.
That's an awesome anecdote. I remember a guy with low ping wiping out my entire guild. We were running around getting slaughtered with our guild leader shouting to stay calm and regroup but it was a massacre. There were also some really famous warriors who could turn a battle later when factions were introduced (the game had already lost most of the fun but faction war was a fun feature).
In the first couple of months I had a lot of advantages. I'd already been playing for months so was familiar w/ the ins and outs of the game - this led to me being one of the first GM mages on the server (when magery was the only way to really fight). I had a fast connection and single digit pings when most people were just starting to get 28.8 modems - I was often accused of cheating as I'd appear to warp around people's screens (from my perspective I could easily overtake people who were riding horses when I was on foot). While I wasn't particularly good at PvP from a player skill perspective, I had enough advantages that I could count on 2 hands the number of people I actually feared.
At the time many new players would find themselves dastardly due to clicking on the wrong thing once or twice - they didn't even mean to do anything wrong and half the time it was due to lag. So what I'd do is dress up in newb gear, hang outside the dungeon near Britain and pretend to be very lagged. At the time you couldn't see people's skill levels (stuff like this is why they put that in) so you'd just see my character name, that I was dastardly, I appeared to be a n00b and I could barely move.
So then these brave souls would attack me, often in a pack - not because they actually thought I was a bad person but because they a) could and b) I was an easy target who couldn't fight back. I'm sure you can see where this is going, after I'd wipe the floor with their whole crew they'd come back and call me a cheater and a horrible human being. Sorry, I wasn't the one attacking a defenseless n00b.
And yes, one could argue this from an RP perspective that in fact my char was a criminal and they were meting out justice but approximately 0.1% of people actually were doing that despite what they'd claim, the rest were just being turds.