Your Head, My Trophy

Once upon a time... long ago, on a piss poor 17" NEC CRT that weighed as much as my desk... 4:15am... waiting for server restart to pop rares and collect regs.

There I was, hacking away at an old oak tree on my young and weak carpenter, overhearing snorts of orcs nearby cruising the forest between Britain and Vesper... , knowing I cannot out run an orc... I'm 3 stepping back to town due to the overwight of my bags, picking up my logs and throwing them a couple steps in front of me as I step along. Suddenly a RED name appears and dashes in with a "Corp Por Kal Vas Flam" and bam "OOoooOOooo", there I am in bed sheets, watching the devastation of my bags being thrown onto the ground as the murderer takes his pick at my goods... my palms slightly sweating, goosebumps on my arms... my nostrils flare as I grind my teeth! I scream at my monitor screen!, "NOOO!!, YOU MUTHERF*$&KER!" - Frankly one of the best parts of this game and I will never forget those moments.

I log out of the account... I log in as my dex monkey, double click "Roger Wilco" as fast i can to see if any guildies are around to assist in my dire and frantic need to gain revenge, desperately double clicking on my telescrolls as fast as I can to his last known location, to find him still in the area trompling around for other little noobs...and with a swift "ching chang ching" of my Katana of Power dipped in deadly poison... and now... "OOOoooOOOoo" is revenged. -This probably only happened once! lol All the other times he killed my alt too... or he was already long gone.

I bagged your damned head and was able to keep it as my trophy or turn it in for the bounty..? i believe?- as one of the greatest of rewards in the game to acquire; I would like your head on my wall, or on a table, in my castle to brag about... will this reward return? Will we be able to show off our trophies?

 

It would be kind of cool if it looked like the exact character that it belonged to. If they didn't look different, someone would probably think I was a head collector. (This is in my own mind. The real Britannia will probably be littered with hundreds of my heads!)

 

I can't even fathom why you'd put something like this in any game. It is the complete opposite of everything Ultima stood for and this encourages a toxic playstyle in a multi-player environment.

 

I honestly don't imagine the headhunters shard being a huge part of the game, it's too far to the far end of PvP to attract even 'in-between' players, let alone "tempt" the non PvP players to try it out. I think that even some of the dedicated PvP crowd will find this to be too much.

Still, I suppose that some segment of the population really wants to play like this, and as long as they keep it amongst themselves and don't try to force the behavior on those who aren't fans, I'm cool with it. After all, I won't be encountering any of it.

 

Trust me, I have no plans on forcing other players to decapitate me!
PS: I never played Ultima.

 

I'm not so interested in carrying a bag of heads around with me either, but I feel that some players need some sort of resolution to mindless criminal acts in a full loot world. It would be nice bragging rights to have some sort of trophy in your home or somewhere in town for taking down a famous criminal- wouldn't you agree?!

Say you were traveling around, out minding your own business one day- not a threat to anyone, out collecting crafting supplies, reagents and ended up looting some rare items that everyone in the game wanted and then suddenly got ganked by a random pk. The pk then loots your corpse and spreads your loot all over the forest. The hardest part at this point was watching him do it and he could talk to you in plain English, but when you spoke all your character would say is "OOOoooOooO". This was a 2d world, so from a 2d top down angle, your screen would turn black n white and there was no silly "respawn!"you had to run all the way back to town as a ghost to be resurrected, then once you returned to the living, run back to your body (if you could find it again) just to find the pk waiting for you and kill you again.... ! grrr! It was mind numbing! After time and time again of coming across this bastard and he pounds on you, takes your loot and spreads it around, your mind becomes numb, your revenge turns to a foul hunger and the only remedy for this... is his ... his blood...!

To actually come across the notorious criminal again and kill him was extremely exciting! Being able to take something with you for the brag rights would be amazing!, A title doesn't just do it for me, I don't just want to be "The Illustrious Echowolf", I don't want a town to walk past my trophy everyday, i want to stroll into my tower and glare at my sweet revenge daily. In the old days of Britannia, it was a savage world and to have a trophy of your gain was impressive and stunning!, a... a... a center piece in your trophy room!, a conversation piece during guild gatherings! Something that you could point out to others standing around and say, Yup, that's the head of SexyJelly! Finally I was returned some of my dignity!

Chaos!!!! I shall never forget thee! I ban thee!

So much was lost, So little was gained... Why must this torment continue?!

And the PK Hunting Parties! Those were the best nights! The whole guild would get together and go PK hunting! To have a trophy from one of these parties would be memorable!

 

Anti-virtues are a big part of the Ultima. Cutting of a head for a trophy is just an example of how far the wing anti-virtues can spread. As far as a "toxic" playstyle... maybe... but from what I remember even though it was able to be done for the bounty system in UO....it really didn't happen all the time. Either players were not skilled enough in PVP to get a head.... or the people who were enabled just didn't waste their time after doing it so many times unless they weren't killing someone important to them. I loved getting the "dread" title in UO. Going to Skara, escorting those npcs out to the woods and murdering them. Ultima stood for all choices.... not just virtuous choices.

 

I gotcha. I was just trying to assure the poster who asked that trophy collectors didn't try to force their behavior on them. The head that I am most interested in taking is my husband's. Whenever he gets out of line I'll just log into the game and hold up his head and make it say the latest thing that offended me (he gets pretty disobedient at times) and I'll say "yeah, but I got your head."
Yeah, that is pretty immature behavior but at least we spend most of our time laughing at each other than doing anything really crazy. I think for all of the times I'll be saving his butt I should at least be able to tease him with his character's head.

 

If players cannot be villains, how can there be Virtue?

 

I used to have heads of all the people that i killed lined across the steps of my keep, since most of those pkrs lived around me, it was funny to see the reactions some good and others bad! Yeah i got ganked too! lol for flaunting thier kills on my steps!

 

I would love to see this feature back!

Great times taunting enemies even offline hahahaha

 

Player 1 " Hey, you think i can get a little head?"
Player 2 (looks in bag) "Yea I think I got one in my bag somewhere."

 

The greatest game of all time, Ultima Online circa '97-'01 had it, why wouldn't this game?

Fun feature that should definitely be in there. When you walk past Mr. Evils house and he has heads on spikes outside, it could lend toward more immersion. If you finally off that guy you can't stand ...you can proudly display his head for all to see.

 

I really enjoyed this read and a walk down memory lane for me as well. Nothing like ore/wood hopping...I was so glad when I could boat mine it make it so much easier.

 

I have to disagree. Having criminals increases the depth of the game. It helps to give any game more variety and less of the same game play. Without that extra wild card that introducing criminals creates, it just ends up being a bunch of the same stuff at the same place and maybe even at the same time of day, every day that you play the game. Having criminals changes the grind and it gives the "good guys" a villain to hunt. I've been on both sides of that coin and I am here to tell you that there is no bigger thrill in a game.

As for "Everything Ultima stood for", I played plenty of UO and there was a huge community of criminal players. Lots of players would have quit without criminals to hunt. Ultima has always been a big pusher of "Virtues" but how can there be light without darkness?

Guards!

 

Well.. Lets take the movie troy for example. Achilles hated hector. So what did he do? He killed hector, tied the carcass to the chariot, then took the whip to the horses. Pretty brutal, not for the faint of heart to watch!
Turns out, I am NOT faint of heart, not the least bit. No limits for me, DOOM, mortal kombat, and god of war( gow 3 in particular) are all what im talkin about! I want more than a trophy, I want new fatalities released on a monthly basis. New brutal body part trophies each month as well, based on the types of fatalities that are invented. And yes! I want to make jerky out of the corpses as well. Ill give the livers to my chef character and he can make liver and onions of the player who pked me while mining the last three weeks.
But I understand. This will not happen because it wont sell. Most people want a game where you swing your sword repeatedly at another player with the same sound effect repeatedly, no wounds or visible injuries occur and once the health bar is empty the player tips over and vanishes. And of course, you first walked up to the player like Goku and said "hey you look strong, I wanna fight you! hehe this is going to be fun". And afterward you both say "good duel".
To each their own I guess. No offense to that play style, just going into detail as to what it will be like, and im sure to most it sounds great, its exactly what they want. Ill play this game too if it ends up not being a brutal world where we can take body parts as trophies of players we viciously slaughtered without consent and all. But ill more than likely just be fishing or something, sure an occasional duel for the heck of it, nothin to lose. Guess ill just have to go whip out god of war three when im getting a blood lust. Or maybe just log into some of the more brutal MMO's once in awhile.

 

What ever happened to the Bounty system in UO? Couldn't you take the heads of murderers and turn them in for gold?

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I'm not opposed to visceral when its done well...

But I'm just trying to wrap my head around this whole collecting heads thing. So are the people whose heads you're collecting simply belong to murderers? Hence the whole bounty thing?

Cuz if you could kill Tiny Tim while he was trying to sell one more matchstick to be able to buy a blanket to keep his spot over at [ab]'s sewer grate and grill warm, and take his head and then use it as a door knocker, well... thats just wrong.

 

Well... It would definitely make a statement.

Most likely one where the killer thinks he is *badass*, and everyone else just thinks he's a wanker for killing a kid.

 

Head collections were fantastic... For murderers, they were a symbol of bragging rights.

Hell, I've witnessed murderers trading the heads of prominent blue players. It's the kind of thing that's there for immersion. Same goes for placeable bloodstains & entrails. Skeletons. Bloody instruments.

You're gated into a trapped house. It's empty, except for the boxes that block you. You're killed. Darn. Freakin' gankers.

Or, you're gated into a trapped house. Heads are scattered around and piled 15-high on a bloodstained pentacle. There are limbs, bloodied weapons, and a tanning rack. Your murderer, wearing an orc skull and butcher's apron, words your last worldly goodbye.

You're slain. Your remains are chopped up, and your head is discarded to the many piles.

... Awesome. 8)

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