History Main / PlayerKilling

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has an indirect version where a player can drag a monster towards other players not fighting it and have them be hit by the monster's wide area of effect attacks. This is highly discouraged since it's against the rules of conduct and intentionally having enemies attack other players that are not a part of the fight can get you suspended or even banned. The practice of luring enemies towards other players was done quite commonly on players that were in a gathering class since said classes have no battle capabilities and could die easily. The developers released a patch where gather classes can't be damaged by area of effect attacks. There are also forms of indirect player killing during a dungeon run or trial where tanks can refuse to hold aggro or healers refusing to heal in order cause a TotalPartyWipe. This is also a reportable offense.

Games that allow Player Killing may result in some players becoming [[SerialKillerKiller Player Killer]] [[BullyHunter Killers]]. These people focus on killing other player killers only, as a form of in-game police to punish {{griefer}}s and otherwise discourage pointless killing. This inevitably leads to others pointing out that they are themselves player killers, and [[HeWhoFightsMonsters asking whether they are any better then the player killers]].(Though since its just a game its better to be one then to just let them keep griefing, someone has do something after all.)

* Somewhat meta-example, given the [[{{Machinima}} medium]]: In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', Caboose is ridiculously guilty of this behavior by virtue of being [[TheDitz very, very stupid]]. While it's true that he only managed to kill one teammate in the original series (albeit several times), as of ''Reconstruction'' he has managed to almost empty out the base he was transferred to completely by accident.

* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' has [=PKing=] in numerous forms, from the relatively anarchic Wilderness to BountyHunter servers and minigames. A notorious [[GameBreakingBug glitch]] allowed a player, [=Durial321=], to attack unsuspecting bystanders in a crowded city, during a popular player-held celebration. While he was banned for abusing the glitch, Jagex has acknowledged the event, both as an [[AscendedMeme in-game historical tragedy where dozens were killed in cold blood,]] and as an in-game event on the tenth anniversary, where [=Durial321=] would return from the great beyond to kill again.

* Another famous RPG by Creator/BlizzardEntertainment, ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', has [[FinalDeath hardcore mode]], where the players stay dead. Duelling to death and Town Portal player killing were very popular. Sometimes, winner was eligible to loot the loser's corpse.

** The Corrupted Blood Plague: An exceedingly memorable event and held as proof of the {{GIFT}}. Players discovered an ability cast by a raid boss could be brought out of the instance to populated cities, where it would proceed to spread and kill everything. When Blizzard attempted to eliminate this, the {{Griefer}}s buckled down and found new, inventive ways of spreading it.

* It exists in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' and some of these incidents are due to the perpetrators not believing that killing another player would also kill them in real life. Or in some cases, [[TheSociopath not caring]]. Though its noted that during the first year, despite there being around 1000 players choosing to become bandits in SAO, there was never a single incident of player killing. Though [[spoiler: there's an entire guild dedicated to it.]] Once everyone's out of TheMostDangerousVideoGame and new tech comes along without risk of killing people in real life, player killing becomes popular again

Games that allow Player Killing may result in some players becoming [[SerialKillerKiller Player Killer]] [[BullyHunter Killers]]. These people focus on killing other player killers only, as a form of in-game police to punish {{griefer}}s and otherwise discourage pointless killing. This inevitably leads to others pointing out that they are themselves player killers, and [[HeWhoFightsMonsters asking whether they are any better then the player killers]].

* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' has the Greed Island arc, where the cast presume they're on a digital island attempting to gather every card in the game to win. However, the threat of death is very real and the main antagonist of the arc does this to almost every single player in his path if he gets the opportunity. Even with rules in place that discourage it, (if a player is killed, all their cards are erased, preventing players from looting dead players), the mechanic of a card limit leads to players killing one another just to make a "space" for new cards. Even worse, [[spoiler: the island is a real place, just running with the card and game rules on a large scale, and there's no systems in place to save or recover defeated players, so a ''lot'' of people died over the cards.]]

%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

->''"Have you heard about the Pink Devil? It's a PKer in the desert field that ambushes other players. It killed Kenji!"''

[[quoteright:350:[[LightNovel/SwordArtOnlineAlternativeGunGaleOnline https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aggo_dialogue.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Oh come on. That's not a scary name for a player killer now.]]

Player killing can be done either directly or indirectly. Direct player killing is just fairly straightforward attacking of other players. Indirect player killing can take many forms. Whether it be through manipulating other monsters to attack a player, causing a monster currently being fought to perform an otherwise avertable action, abuse of the game mechanics, or simply agreeing to team up to defeat a more powerful opponent, then abandoning the poor victim to fight a monster he can't possibly defeat by himself without any of your promised support, this has become significantly more common due to the fact that most {{MMORPG}}s don't allow non-consensual player versus player any more.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'' Pegasus hires Player Killers to work in Duelist Kingdom to eliminate high-powered opponents so he ends up the winner of the tournament. The protagonists run into four of them, one who pretends to be the ghost of Seto Kaiba, Panik, and the two Paradox Brothers.

* ''Webcomic/WeLiveInAnMMO'' has a major scene involving this; after seeing a group of rival players harassing the {{NPC}}s, being attacked by their spellcaster, and seeing his friends being injured, [[spoiler: Rando goes completely berserk and kills all three of them in the boundaries of the town. This summons [[TheDreaded the Guards]], who sentence him to a [[FateWorseThenDeath permanent ban]].]]

* ''Webcomic/WinterMoon'' is a webcomic taking place in an MMORPG. PVP is rampant and seems to have almost no restrictions. Florence is a mage who has managed to piss off most of the powerful players in the game, and constantly gets ambushed. (Which he mostly finds amusing, since he inevitably wipes the floor with his attackers.)

* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'' has the Greed Island arc, where the cast presume they're on a digital island attempting to gather every card in the game to win. However, the threat of death is very real and the main antagonist of the arc does this to almost every single player in his path if he gets the opportunity. Even worse, [[spoiler: the island is a real place, just running with the card and game rules on a large scale, and there's no systems in place to save or recover defeated players, so a ''lot'' of people died over the cards.]]

* It exists in ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' and some of these incidents are due to the perpetrators not believing that killing another player would also kill them in real life. Or in some cases, [[TheSociopath not caring]]. Though its noted that during the first year, despite there being around 1000 players choosing to become bandits in SAO, there was never a single incident of player killing. Though [[spoiler: there's an entire guild dedicated to it.]]

** Popped up from time to time in [[VideoGame/DotHackR1 the first version of The World]]; at first, the game had full [=PKing=] but was primarily player governed, and the large Guild, Crimson Knights, handed out punishments and sometimes worked with CC Corp for breaking rules set by CC Corp. After they disbanded, things got really out of hand, causing CC Corp to remove [=PKing=] entirely. (Thus setting the stage for the first set of games.) They later (After the games were finished) restored it.

* Player killing in "The World R:2" is SeriousBusiness in ''VideoGame/DotHackGU'' Player Killers are opposed by... [[SerialKillerKiller Player Killer]] [[BullyHunter Killers]].

** Popped up from time to time in the first version of the world; at first, the game had full [=PKing=] but was primarily player governed, and the large Guild, Crimsion Knights, handed out punishments and sometimes worked with CC Corp for breaking rules set by CC Corp. After they disbanded, things got really out of hand, causing CC Corp to remove [=PKing=] entirely. (Thus setting the stage for the first set of games.) They later (After the games were finished) restored it.

Games that allow Player Killing may result in some players becoming [[SerialKillerKiller Player Killer]] [[BullyHunter Killers]]. These people focus on killing other player killers only, as a form of in-game police to punish [[{{Griefer}} griefers]] and otherwise discourage pointless killing. This inevitably leads to others pointing out that they are themselves player killers, and [[HeWhoFightsMonsters asking whether they are any better then the player killers]].

** It was also a common occurrence for players to drag large amounts of aggressive monsters to high traffic zone entrances resulting in players being dead before the zone had even loaded. Both methods were later patched out in a patch which caused monsters who had been dragged out of their wandering area to despawn if they no longer had hate on anyone present. Many Beastmasters [[RageQuit rage quit]] in response.

* [[TheBeastmaster Beastmasters]] from''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' gained a very negative reputation for player killing for a few years. Due to stigmas surrounding the job it was very hard to them to get invitations to experience point parties so a soloing subculture developed around the class. Beastmasters had very specific camps for soloing experience gain (plots with a good supply of pets and prey) so if an experience party was already present in the camp it was a common occurrence for a Beastmaster to "free up" the camp by using the charm command to bring high level monsters over and release them from control on top of the party until the party was wiped. This was at a time when the amount of experience lost upon death could amount to hours of grinding.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI''
** [[TheBeastmaster Beastmasters]] gained a very negative reputation for player killing for a few years. Due to stigmas surrounding the job it was very hard to them to get invitations to experience point parties so a soloing subculture developed around the class. Beastmasters had very specific camps for soloing experience gain (plots with a good supply of pets and prey) so if an experience party was already present in the camp it was a common occurrence for a Beastmaster to "free up" the camp by using the charm command to bring high level monsters over and release them from control on top of the party until the party was wiped. This was at a time when the amount of experience lost upon death could amount to hours of grinding.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' [[TheBeastmaster Beastmasters]] gained a very negative reputation for player killing for a few years. Due to stigmas surrounding the job it was very hard to them to get invitations to experience point parties so a soloing subculture developed around the class. Beastmasters had very specific camps for soloing experience gain (plots with a good supply of pets and prey) so if an experience party was already present in the camp it was a common occurrence for a Beastmaster to "free up" the camp by using the charm command to bring high level monsters over and release them from control on top of the party until the party was wiped. This was at a time when the amount of experience lost upon death could amount to hours of grinding.