I can tell you for a fact I know hundreds who quit becuase of PK's. That is on just the server I played. See my post above in response to Uvtha, you seem to forget all the others out there who had the problems. I think maybe you were one of the people doing the PK'ing--they never seemed to have an issue with the killing.
And I can tell you for a fact that thousands stayed because of the PvP. If the PvP was so bad and so rampant and held so many players back, then explain all of the houses, vendor shops, large guilds, and 7x GM players there were? Hmmm? How do you explain all of that? How do you explain the 100,000+ players that were on UO back in t2a and before trammel?
Yeah, I PK'd. I PK'd reds and anyone else who attacked me. PK'ing was just reserved for people who killed blues, it was anyone who killed another player's character. And when I wasnt fighthing reds, I was in the dungeons killing trolls, ogre lords, lich lords, and I spent a lot time at the bone wall too.
The only people who had issue with the PvP were the people who couldnt handle it, that simple. Instead of just leaving UO and going to play EQ or something else, they came on the forums and she-dogged over and over until the devs caved in and made trammel.
I remember an entire guild that left LS because a PK guild camped their keep because they wanted a keep. The guild that owned it were mostly crafters. After days and weeks of friends trying to help protect the guild they gave up and left UO. They got tired of every hour of the day having pk's invis'd outside and kill anyone that recalled in. I know several shops that closed up because of thievs and pk's that would stalk thier shop and steal them as they stocked or from customers after they bought. So please try speaking your nonsense somewhere else.
If you want nonsense, read your own post. There is no way an entire guild can get camped like that. Its sad when people have to resort to lies to keep up their weak arguments.
If that guild had a keep, they could have just banned the theives and killers from it. Problem solved. Same applied for the people who owned shops. "I Ban Thee", three simple words that solved a lot of problems. Thats what I did when a red was waiting to ambush me in my shop. I ban thee and the person was ejected from the house.
But your little story about the guild having their keep camped by the reds, thats just plain, flat out bull if I have ever heard it. If that was the case, it would have attracted the attention of every anti-red guild on the server and a war would have erupted and the reds would have been driven off. People helped other people back then, and an event like that would have drawn the attention of every player on the server.
The solution to all of this is simple. The devs can put in seperate retro servers and you dont have to play them. You can stay on your post-AOS servers and leave those of us who want the real UO back alone.
