Okay, I keep hearing this 'evil step-child' thing, and I wanna toss my hat in here, once and for all.
Actually, I think Pac has had some rough spots in our history,
but generally speaking, We have achieved a stable, respectful, and welcoming scene. (at least, from a fel/pvp perspective)
I mean, look at last nights events: Chad lost to Kyrite. He then HUMBLES himself and admits defeat, gives a 20million$ handshake to his opponent, and goes about his business. Kyrite then loses to Orion, admits his defeat, and pays the 20mil forward. No questions asked.
We have respectful rapport between long-time enemies. Friends, respectfully killing friends. Wargasm, the GM of the Neo-FL, tells us what they are doing, and asks us, no, BEGS us, to raid them. (we did lose, and it was a blast) We talk, as friends, aside from things like this. He asks questions regarding stuff he doesn't know about, and I reciprocate.
I finally did give Setitoff the duel he has always wanted from me, respectfully. No questions asked. I put up a bit of a struggle, but in all honestly, the guy barely had to heal, and he put me under with ease.. as predicted. We shook hands. I said I respected his youthful talent, he said he respected my honor. Needless to say, hes not saying things like 'you have no place in fel' anymore.. Thanks set. Appreciate it.
I was looking for verite ingots the other night. Stu's sitting in the bank listening to me spam and asks 'how many you need?'. 20k? I replied.
He said 'okay, brb'. He came back, i handed him a mil, he handed me 60k ingots. I said. 'Damn man, thank you.' 'np' he replies. and we went about our ways.
I talk to Sargon frequently....NOT about UO. We talk about cooking omelets. We talk about UFOs. We talk about our home-towns. We talk. As adults. Enjoyably, and respectfully.
I play another video game which i will not mention the name of, with TWO cold-blood enemies of mine. We x-heal each other, and the pwnage is unprecedented. We then shake hands, and go back to killing each other.
I have mature rapport with Morgaine. Another member of an enemy guild, and a citizen of my own city. We talk about the weather where we live. We talk about UO. We talk. We do not hate.
I talk with kyrite. About his broken arm, about his amazing gear, about many things. He has never said anything disrespectful to me, or my clan.
I've even started talking with Chad. Surprisingly, his humor is rich, and extends far beyond UO. Also startling, his real personality is nothing like that of his personality in-game, and on-board. Though I hate playing against him, hes not a bad guy. I am currently working on a new sig for him.
I guess, what I am saying is that people need to differentiate what is hateful trash-talk, and what is just 'UO trash talk'. Yeah, all of us will exchange some harsh words regarding the game from time to time. But aside from what we WANT people to see and read on the boards, we are respectful, and courteous to each other.
If you want to know what I REALLY think:
I think there are three people specifically that cause a lot of this 'bad' drama, and give our shard the bad rap:
1. Tesla. Tesla angers people. He does it on purpose. Tesla has a way of making everything ugly and mean, and tends to bring out the worst in people. He lies, and then tries to deny it, but then admits it. Its a vicious cycle. I have a solution. We just need to ignore him. Not like, say you're going to, then don't. No really, it would be helpful to our community as a whole, if we all just followed through and did it. I shall be the first, as soon as I am done writing this.
2. Hag. Hag has a hard time separating what happens in game, from the real world. She has a hard time understanding that we can HATE each other's play-style, we can HATE each other's guilds and methods, but that it doesn't mean we actually have to HATE each other as human beings. . She, IMO, is the source for much hate, and also, the source of many problems regarding her guild:
a. the no return policy. Sure, asha might have messed things up in the beginning, but we have, for a long time, wanted to resolve the issue, and work towards more respectful policies with M/T.
b. the 'hate policy'. Its almost as if her members have been trained to hate anything that doesn't wear their tag. Moreover, if it wins, its cheating. No respect for talent.. No letting 'bygones' be what they may.
Slave-Girl: Slave girl literally, with every breath, with her entire being, commits herself daily to making other player's lives a living hell. She has a very hard time, like hag, separating game from real life. Its even worse than hag's motto: If its in fel, it is an immoral peice of crap, and deserves to be banned, and their housed IDOCKED, and looted. Spamming about people's real life issues in the bank, just to try to get someone to say something bannable. The person is an evil demon, and IMO, causes great stress to our community.
All in all, and thank you for reading my wall if you have made it this far,
I think Pac has a great community, and our pvp scene is respectful and inviting. People just need to learn to differentiate 'pvp trash talk' from 'hate talk'. They also need to look at things from a more specific perspective:
WHO, is saying WHAT, to WHO, and WHY? Don't just lump us all together as a big hate-mongering class of real-life jerks.
Now in regard to the OP: I stand by what I said, to the man who exemplifies exactly what I have discussed in the aforementioned 'wall': Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
*sip* my coffee is empty. I'll go ahead and set an example, and place Tesla on ignore. Something I should have done a long time ago.
So, if hes not leaving or leaving, I wish one or the other would happen already.