"You want to go back to Novus?"

Haha. This should be one of RF's legendary lines. Now that I think about it, I have seen this line before.

I think it was at that last scene in Bismarck's epic, Peregrine's Rock, the one where Admiral Virae and Ensign - I'm sorry, Lieutenant - Jobarth were talking. The once-stammering ensign, now a Hero of the Federation, told the Admiral that he was requesting a re-posting at Novus. "You want to go back to Novus?", the Admiral asked, since, as a Hero, Jobarth could have his pick of assignments. As to his reason, I suggest you just read the epic by clicking at the linkie above, hehe.

The question is relevant to me in the sense that, given everything that's happened to me in RF - both as a player and as a person - I found myself asking it quite a lot at the early part of the year, especially as the kuya introduced me already to World of Warcraft. And there's the work. OMFG, the work.

Why stay? Why go back? All those bugs! All those buggers! All those munchkins and neanderthals! And let's not get to the delay for Episode 2!

Because... and maybe this is just me, mind you, but...

It's the PK...

Ok. Call me psycho. Call me a friggin' bloodthirsty excuse for a gamer. But, dammit, this is a MMORPG that actually encourages PK. It wants you to go out and kill people. Its main everyday event - the Chip Wars - are nothing but an excuse for its gamers to do massive PK!

Like I said during my interview at the New Worlds Alliance thing, you don't play RF so you can traipse around and enjoy the scenery; go to Flyff if you want that! Nonononono: you go into Novus because you want to KEEEEELLL.

Hah.

Actually, its much more complicated than that. I mean, my server in WoW is Bleeding Hollow, a PK server. I've killed players there. I've gone out of my way to hunt players there (especially after a Horde player messed my PL by killing me. Ah ganun ha? If only those Horde I killed after could understand me, I'd tell them, "sorry dude, but blame your friend. He killed me."). I've engaged in multi-player battles there.

But... there's something missing.

How does one explain it? How do you tell a non-RF player the thrill of CWs? Of the... excitement you feel while waiting for a massive Event to start? How do you illustrate to them the blood pounding in your ears as you duel with players from another Race, the sheer... pleasure in seeing them, especially if they're more powerful than you, kiss the ground (or lie down in a very uncompromising position, in the case of the Cora)?

Our targeting system sucks; unlike in WoW, you have to drag your cursor over to the target and click them. Which is, in my opinion, one of the things that make Summoners imbalanced (or "imba", in RF slang), because the targeting "square" of a Summoner's Anima is so big you click it rather than the Corite. When key to defeating a Summoner is Locking Down the Summoner and slowly killing the Summon.

Play here in the Philippines is truly unequitable. So many of the top players and guilds have pilots to keep training their avatars 24/7, and some engage in PhP, or real-money trading (RMT). They hog the Pitbosses, which are the source of some of the best equipment in the game. Heck, our top guild in Bellato Nexus owns both of the massive mining units that are the only source of +4 Ores. Most of the time, I and my guildmates have to battle uber-equipped, uber-leveled enemies.

But I still go back. I still play. Heck, I'm stuck at level 45 because (a) its so boring to grind, really, and (b) its really so much more fun to PK in RF than anything.

Do I go about killing lowbies? Hell, no! I prefer battling people close to my level or above. I love a challenge, you see. I only massacre lowbies after some munchkin disses me.

I mentioned in the first post one encounter I had in Ether. It was some time since I last played, and I needed to go up the bloody ice-and-blood-covered island in the sky to replenish my potions. And because you don't go up and down immediately (at 214k per ticket? No way!), one has to "farm" - meaning, kill monsters, get their item drops, and sell them once enough have been "farmed" - to make the trip worth it.

I decided not to go through one area in order to avoid all the bloody PKers; I wasn't in the mood to kill people at the time. So I went left, to go through the "BRS" route. Lo and behold, some stupid Accretian was trying to PK another Bellato. And he's higher ranked than me, too!

As one of the oldest players in Bellato Nexus, and because of my guild, I have to engage him. And as a testament to my being rusty, it took me a good amount of time to react to the tin can. Yet, perhaps lady luck was smiling at me that evening. Or maybe that Accretian was a new player and didn't know several things about the game. Because he did the worst thing any tin can can do against an Archmage: go Siege Mode.

One Vulnerability, three GM-level AoE spells, and one Force Impact later, the Accretian was face down on Ether snow.

Heh, even I was surprised at the damage. The tin can's HP bar went less than 1/2 when my GM-class Meteor Swarm connected...

The other instance that for me defines RF as a PK game was just last Saturday morning. It was already three and I wanted to sleep. But there was a report of a massive raid, led by one of the Corite legends, Asheron. Wanting a challenge, I and my guildmates moved to intercept the raiders.

Little did we know, he was carrying two full parties of level 50s.

And the lag, to top it all, was horrible.

Ok. That was no contest. Level 50 Corites. Plus lag. Really bad combo. No one, least of all Asheron, was to blame for my two deaths. Perhaps if my guild was at full strength, we could have done something, but even our commander, Ryunaito, conceded that we just lacked the power to match Asheron's team.

So I logged off at 3:30 a.m.

An hour later, I was logging in.

I couldn't get the bastard off my mind. So what if he was level 50? I've faced the legendary Redhound and he, one the best mystics of the Holy Alliance of Cora, ended up dead. And I was level 42 at the time. His SI Hora Staff, his GM spells, his very Corite-ness and level, didn't help him as I Locked-Down his avatar. A few minutes later, all the highbies cowering at Bellato Wharf realized I was still alive and Reddie was trying to run away. Three BMAUs gave him a beat down he won't forget.

So I logged in. Chances are, Asheron wouldn't be around anymore. But I wanted to clean the stench of Anima blasts and Zealot spittle from my Bellato uniform with Corite blood.

Minutes later, I was jogging off to the Corite settlements to PK. Three of them managed to intercept me early on and killed me. Took them all of five minutes, too. I came back, and killed their leader just outside the settlement.

I remember being killed THREE TIMES by this lousy braggart in WoW. Somehow, that Blood Elf hunter, who was one level below me, could do stuff like flit around the field. I couldn't tag her, and traps being laid so quickly by her kept my pet - I was also using my Hunter, Raiya, here - from tagging her while hers kept hounding me. She could see me too, even as I used the Night Elf ability to hide.

I never hunted that player down. Neither did I hunt Horde players after. There's something with WoW PK that isn't... satisfying. Like I told Mai - the veteran Accretian player Morrigan - in WoW, level discrepancies are too much that you can't hope to stand up, one on one, against someone 3-5 levels higher than you.

In RF, even a lowbie could kill a highbie if the highbie wasn't taking care.

Do I want to go back to Novus? Sir, yes sir! I have a long list of people to frag, now that we're all stuck at below 50. God help them when I start hunting them down for real, wehehe...