PK Philosophy - The Order within Chaos

*This writing contains 1,474 words.

PvP Trolls. We all love them. I'm sure many people remember the endless drama they cause, whether it's in pm, on world chat, or on the battlefield. Most of us grow to hate them and despise them. We vowed vengeance against them, and wished that they will be cleansed off the face of the server someday. They say though, be careful what you wish for.

I have grown to realise that trolls aren't necessarily a waste of a server space. They serve a purpose - to maintain balance. The difference between those who strive for PvP and those whose enjoyment is satisfied by pure PvE is that the more hardcore PvPer seeks challenges from other players, as opposed to from bosses or mobs. PvPers needs other PvPers as rivals. Imagine if one day you were suddenly able to 1 shot every boss and mob in every instance, and that you cannot die at all. That would get boring pretty fast, wouldn't it? Or what if you discover that every TW you attended was nothing more than a Crystal bash? Or that every NW instance was 20 v 0? That is the equivalence of a PvPer without a rival. Rivalry in pk to a PvPer is a difficult instance to a PvEer. Trolls fill this role of rivalry that seasoned PvPers seek. Sure, even the PvPers hate them because of their constant stealth kills or their annoying world chats and pms, but without them there would be no reason for these PvPers to improve. Respectful 1v1s between players only go a short distance. Organised group pvp events are rarely entertaining for long. It is rivalry that provides the challenge to keep them motivated, on their feet, and constantly improving. Where there are trolls there is rivalry, and where there is rivalry there are trolls.

Many people will tell you that these trolls would not last on a PvP server. This is true. On PvP servers, people rarely troll as individuals. Instead, they troll as entire factions. This is because on PvP servers, rivalry is rarely individual. They span across entire alliances. There is rarely a chance to target specific individuals except a few prominent people due to the constant mass pvp that spans across all major pvp spots. There, trolls are absorbed into alliances, and rarely come across as someone who people would hold individual rivalry against.

On PvE servers, they tend to be targeted as individuals. For this reason, we tend to hate them as individuals. But this is a fault of our own, and not of theirs. We are so accustomed to the peacefulness and respectfulness of West gate or Orchid temple that a person killing everything in sight would seem odd, as opposed to normal. Some of us may remember the faction Krispy that was formed for a brief period that wreaked havoc on West Gate. Yet they are only like this because we allowed them to be. When I used to lead Regenesis, I fought against them. Every time I brought the faction out to fight them, they would disappear until we were gone. But that is the nature of a peaceful PvE server like ours. With so few active pkers, they are only able to become trolls as individuals, against individuals. They cannot withstand the force of an entire faction. That fault is not of theirs though, for they have long been tagged as a PvP troll so no faction would accept them. In PvP servers, there are always alliances that would back them up. For that reason, PvE and PvP servers would forever be different.

Regardless of what server you're on though, they still maintain a balance. They are chaotic, so a lot of us find distaste for them. We fight them to bring back the order that we so desire. However, this constant struggle between order and chaos is order within itself. The reason we want order is because there is chaos to begin with. If there is no chaos, then we would not care for order. Let's say for example that on a PvP server, a group of trolls decide to form a small faction to pk people doing cultivation quests. To a lot of people, we would fight this very degrading to humanity, and it would drive us to fight back against them. As a result of this chaos, order is given birth. This little struggle gives a reason for two completely different factions to exist and eventually develop into major forces - One that started off because they enjoyed trolling people doing cultivation quest, the other that started because they wanted to fight back against these trolls. Without chaos, there would've been no need for order. Without the trolls who started a faction to begin with, there would be no need for the other faction to fight back against them. We see less of this on PvE servers because the number of people who PK is drastically lower compared to PvP servers. PvP rivalry between factions is almost non-existent outside of events. For this reason, trolls are extremely important in keeping the sanity of those who PvP. Remember what I said earlier about a PvEer who discovers that they can 1 shot anything and cannot die? What do you think is the first thing they would likely try to do? Most likely they'd try doing crazy things, such as solo harpy wraith, pull every single pav in warsong at the same time or try to kill city guards and such. Eventually, they'd probably quit. A PvPer who faces a similar scenario where all rivalry disappears can choose to quit too. However, their alternative is much more drastic. They would taunt people by trash talking them in common chat, world chat and pms. They would go on killing sprees in PvP spot, and try to get people to fight them and gank them. Does this remind you of something? Yep, the very trolls that we were trying to get rid of in the first place. So as you can see, it's a degenerative and regenerative process. We can never get rid of trolls. They are needed to keep the sanity of the people. Chaos is needed for order to exist. If all trolls were to disappear, the very people who were trying to fight against these trolls could very much end up as trolls themselves.

So if that is the case, then do trolls really deserve hate? Probably not, but naturally we hate them anyway, because we view them as the chaos that we need to bring order to. Perhaps they may once have been nice people who lost their sanity for reasons I mentioned above. So then I should thank all you trolls for keeping my sanity. I would name them, but I suppose we are not allowed to on this forum. While they are hated by many, they are nonetheless not hated by all. I do not believe they are pure evil. Despite the numerous people who despise them, I can always find people, very nice and orderly people I might add, who will tell me that they are friends with them, even after being aware of what they do to others. They are chaos, but they are not evil.

We see similar scenario in places other than world PvP. We can address spawn killing in Nation Wars to this very reason. While some people spawn kill because they are not capable of killing people otherwise, most people (like myself) resort to spawn killing because there is no challenge anywhere else. When I enter a battle of 20v0 that has gone on for a while, I would not be surprised at all to see a group of people standing by the spawn point waiting. Does that mean these people are evil? No. It means they know that they will not find a challenging fight anywhere else except the spawn point. They know that the fastest way to a challenge is to wait for someone to spawn, and so the spawn point is where they will wait. There is a lack of a challenge, a rivalry, a chaos. So there is no need for them to seek order. Instead, they generate chaos themselves.

We as human beings strive for challenges. While we prefer challenges of varying degree, (hence why we have hardcore PvEers while others are hardcore PvPers) we nonetheless play this game for the challenge of it. A PvEer demands challenges from the game developers. A PvPer demands challenges from other players themselves. That is why trolls are so important in maintaining this balance. Think about it, and you will see that a perfect world is not a world with all order and no chaos, but rather a world where there are equal order and chaos, except that you can find order within the chaos.

*Note: This piece of philosophy applies to PWI ONLY. This is NOT to be compared to real life in any way, shape, or form!

*Personal Note: I am writing this piece because I find that there has been a lack of entertaining PvP (Trolls, Rivalry, Chaos) on this server. Personally, I am getting very bored of playing here and I am desperately trying to find ways to entertain myself. So I think at least everyone should be aware of the mentally of pkers who are like myself.