A month or two ago, I had been in contact with KoC and J-D. From
what I can gather, they are the biggest and ONLY long successful pk guilds
on Chesapeake. I have been preparing to write what you are about to read.
It is an article on the life of the pks, the life of the player killers.
Keep in mind, just killing anyone does not qualify as a pk. When I refer
to pks I am referring to those who kill innocent blues as their role, not
those who kill rival guild members, not those who kill reds and/or greys.
Innocent blues is the key, PKing, guild wars, and NPKing are completely
different things. In this article I try to remain completely impartial;
I am not for PKing, nor am I against it. I try not to judge, I am indifferent.
On June 11, 1998
the changes were made, the reputation system, stat loss, and skill loss
on death were now a fact. It was now significantly harder for murderers
to make a living. This is the very thing which caused the overall downfall
of Pks. With the downfall of pking, a new form of war was introduced, guild
wars. So, if those who lived for pking didn't want to continue under the
new regulations, they had an alternative.
The J-D and KoC guilds are VERY different. J-D for the most part sticks
with only Pking, while KoC does just about anything.
Eddie McManus told me, "KoC is guild wars, chaos wars, pking,
thieves, anything evil."
I did go "out" with both J-D and KoC. [Keep in mind I will refer to these
guilds as 'we' and such. I was NOT pking with them, I was just watching.]
From J-D I arranged a time and date with Alice Cooper, the guild master,
to follow their guild around while they "did their thing." On September
19, 1999 I met Mephistopheles of JdD in PaxLair. From there we gated to
ONE of J-D's headquarters. I'd say about 12 members of J-D were there
waiting. They were all very nice, especially Alice. I was told I should
dye my clothes the colour green they were all wearing, so that they didn't
accidentally kill me. Any blues were a target, kill first ask questions
later (if questions were in order) is what basically happened that night.
Every single member was red.
J-D is only a PKing guild. Most PvP guilds have several stones for each
member's different characters. One  stone
of a PK gulid might consist of blue characters, another red characters,
there may be a stone for thieves, ect. The J-D has one stone for all members,
reds, blues, mules, etc. The JdD stone is their old guild warfare stone
but is currently inactive. The reason I say J-D is only a PKing guild is
because that's what they primarily do. KoC as stated above, does just about
everything, J-D is Chesapeake's only popular full-fledged PK guild.
After we met at their headquarters we started on our travels. The basic
way of the night consisted of us recalling or gating from spot to spot.
We'd go to one location, look for blues, they'd kill them, and then leave.
Never stayed anywhere for more then a few minutes. We go, they kill, we
leave. It was very evident that if we stayed at a spot for too long someone
from our side would die.
Dying was something which was avoided at all costs. In fact, it appeared
that everyone in J-D memorized the guard zones around all the towns. They
all knew where to walk, and where not to walk. Except for one of them.
The only causality of the night was a J-D who had apparently left UO for
a while, and just came back. He travelled to close to the guard zone and
ended up a corpse. When he got back to headquarters, it wasn't his loot
which was mourned, but his stat loss.
"I take 20% skill loss on death and because of 20% stat loss
it ends up being 25-30% skill loss because of stat adjustment. So it takes
about 20k gold in reags and about 3-4 days to retrain my pk. The
most depressing part is not the money but the loss of skill and time it
takes." Eddie McManus of KoC later told me.
No one stood a chance against J-D that night. I'm not saying J-D RuLz,
I'm saying, they had 12 reds who knew how to fight, and you were probably
a lone blue with no back up. It was important to keep those type of odds,
dying was not an option. However, I was also told that these types of odds
are not ALWAYS kept. J-D said they do go out in groups of 2-3 or even less.
No spot was neglected, we travelled to several dungeons, T2A spots,
everywhere. They didn't really have any massive battles, all their confrontations
consisted of was J-D running up to the blue, and then looting the corpse.
This was a Pking operation, not a full scale war operation. That reflects
the misinterpretations of what Pking is. Once again Pking is looking for
lone blues (or small groups) and attacking them. If you get into large
groups of blues and reds (like 10+ on each side duking it out) then that's
a different topic.
On October 10, 1999 I met with Eddie McManus of KoC. It took me a tremendous
amount of time to get in touch with ANYONE of decent importance for KoC.
There wasn't any way to get in touch with them unless you personally knew
members in game, or knew someone who knew someone. Finally, just by luck,
I was able to catch a KoC member who was strolling down the road. He proceeded
to give me the contact information I needed to set this up with KoC.
Now, I talked to a lot of people trying to get in touch with KoC. The
implications I received weren't always what I expected. It seemed KoC had
quite the reputation for not caring about anyone or anything but themselves.
Not that that is true, but I was warned repeatedly that Eddie probably
wouldn't have anything to do with me unless I was in the line of fire.
It turned out that KoC owned several buildings right along the border
of PaxLair. Eddie McManus told me to meet him at his castle near PaxLair.
When I arrived I met Eddie and another KoC member, Tokissdasoul. It was
a little different with KoC because we only had two members. KoC was a
lot less welcoming to me then J-D, I'll say I was expected to know what
to do and what to have with KoC. With J-D, I was told how things would
work, asked if I needed anything, ect.
While I was with KoC, there weren't as many kills as there were when
I was with J-D. Because there were only two members with KoC, we didn't
exactly run into every situation. We kind of treaded around the corners,
and if everything seemed ok, we'd go in. For the most part, the night was
very similar to my night with J-D. We recalled to a "hunting" spot, killed
whomever was there, recalled back to "home base," went to another spot,
and so on and so forth. There was only one time, with KoC, I believe, in
dungeon Covetous,  where
we had to retreat. We went into the second level of the dungeon, and there
were many other people there. It looked as if they were actually a rival
guild of KoC, because they seemed to know each other. After Eddie and Tokissdasoul
recalled away before any fighting began, a lot of people came rushing up
in hopes they could have killed them.
The fact that the PK division of KoC would have rival guilds is very
intriguing. As I've stated PKing isn't guild wars, they are different.
So, it would seem KoC knew this guild from a division of KoC that DID do
guild wars. This would mean that alliances / wars / actions a PvP guild
might have, not related to their PKing, effects their PKing experience.
Being able to see these pro-PK guilds in action was a very enlightening
experience. I can tell you that I learned a lot about the life of a PK.
While simple, a PK's life can be very entertaining; it offers continually
changing atmospheres, surprises, and the PK "rush." The PK "rush" is the
exciting feeling PKs get, well, when they kill someone.
Eddie defines the PK rush. "Increased heart rate, sweating,
and adrenaline rush."
It may seem sick to some, but that's basically what it is. The PK rush
is what keeps most PKs PKing. When I asked Eddie what he thinks most PK
would say they like most about PKing, he told me the rush and UO wave sound
of uahhhhhh. That uahhhhhh sound is something which a PK would love to
hear. Why? Because it marks the fact that they now have another corpse
full of loot for them to enjoy. That's right, loot, and lots of it. A good
PK can make a tremendous amount of money. Consider this scenario, a PK
runs up to a warrior and Paralyzes him. Casting the Paralyze spell takes
up one each of Mandrake Root, Garlic, and Spider's Silk. Next the PK casts
Flamestrike on the player. Flamestrike takes up one each of Spider's Silk,
and Sulphurous Ash. Finally, the PK decides to Energy Bolt this victim
and deal the final blows with a halbard. Casting Energy Bolt takes up one
each of Black Pearl, and Nightshade. So counting the regents it took, one
Mandrake Root, one Garlic, two Spider's Silk, one Sulphurous Ash, one Black
Pearl, and one Nightshade, to kill this victim. All for a grand total of
seven regents to bring this lone warrior to the ground. To make it interesting
lets really over price those regents. Lets say the PK had to pay 9 gp for
each regent he just used, making him have to spend 63gp to kill this warrior.
Upon checking the warriors corpse, we find that he was very well-endued.
The warrior's corpse contained one set of full GM crafted armor (silver),
3000gp, two katanas, 400gp, and 15 greater heal potions, 750gp. So right
there after one kill this PK made, subtracting the 63gp, 4087gp in loot.
Multiply that by five, as the PK continued to kill that night, knocking
down four other people. Of course this is just an example of what could
happen, but you get the idea of how PKing can be a very profitable profession.
So in a nutshell the life of a PK is very simple, but very hard. Simplistically,
PKs just kill people. To become and STAY ready to kill is the hard part.
Skills are the major concern of a PK, they define if you will be able to
kill. The skills must be kept up, and if they should fall, major work would
need to be done to bring them back up. From what I have seen, PKing is
a profession, it is something people do to support themselves. That may
sound strange, killing people as a job, but in UO it's not only do-able,
it works. It is the stereotype people see in PKs, which makes them so disliked.
By killing a player, that player is loosing a lot of hard-earned valuables,
this causes dislike, and even hatred towards the PK. Hate leads to fear,
and fear leads to trying to overcome the fear. By thinking of a 12yr old
kewldood killing you just because he/she is juvenile, suppresses the fear
and eases the hate.
In closing, feel free to love the PK, hate the PK, or become the PK,
only you can decide how you feel about a PK. Just remember to respect the
PK, just as you would that tailor finishing his 1000th fancy dress. J-D
has stated they are not in this to ruin other player's experience, they
are in it to have fun. FUN, is something that tailor rarely sees in his
job, unless the tailor has a bizarre joy for sewing GM fancy dresses.
- Azazel
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