And Then We Ganked a Chimera

As I was finishing up that last post about DBRB’s sleepy op, Jabber popped up another opportunity.

reelism: Big Things to Kill real quick right in VFK YAY!

A quick kill seemed like just the medicine to ward off the lingering effects of that last fleet, so I jumped into the game and got in the fleet.

It turned out that somebody had lured a carrier pilot to come out to VFK to join the Goons.  It was, of course, a scam.  And while this pilot jumped out to VFK, we assembled the reception committee.

The initial plan was to have everybody stay docked up in the station and, when he jumped in, have everybody surge out at once and attack.  However, some people were not on coms, some people were not even in fleet, and a bunch of ships were loitering outside of the station.  So the word was given to just undock and wait for the carrier to jump to the cyno in our midst.

Surging from Mittaningrad

Since this was sure to be a quick kill, people were trying to get as many different types of ships on the kill mail as possible.  I toyed with the idea of using the Ibis I had in station, but decided to play it safe and go with my Drake.  And so we sat outside the station while the cyno went up.  And then Captain Dragotahl jumped in.

Carrier sighted!

A bubble went up around him and we all tried to lock him up.  The Chimera was invulnerable and could not be targeted for a bit, until Captain Dragotahl moved. Finally he was no longer protected and everybody locked and opened up.

Fire!

And he quickly blew up… and was looted and salvaged in what must have been record time.  I don’t think the ship had time to actually run the explosion animation before it had been stripped bare.

The kill mail shows a wide variety of ships in on the kill.  The top damage dealer was a titan, while at the far end of the list there were badgers, rifters, and other small ships.  But not one ibis.  I should have gone with that.  I could have been the guy in the rookie ship.

The carrier destroyed

This is the first time I have been involved in what was clearly a gank, a setup to kill somebody with somebody overwhelming odds.

I have no idea what the full story was as to how he got lured out.  All I know is that I have a capital ship kill on my killboard for June and that somebody out there is pretty pissed at losing a 1.3 billion ISK ship.

Welcome to EVE Online, govern yourselves accordingly.

Addendum:  Passed along post-gank.  I’m not sure what it really means.

incident report
From: Captain Dragotahl

I’m sorry if this letter comes off a bit dickish but please bear with me.

a  few hours ago I met someone named Elecktra Blue in the recruitment  channel who said he needed help in his Stain ops. Being an avid lover of  the space, and a huge fan of Goonswarm I of course jumped at the  opportunity to join up with you guys

I paid a 1 billion isk  security deposit to Nikos Iscariot, contracted all of my belongings to  one Tanya Belle, and then set about trying to get my Chimera cynod down  to VFK.

When I jumped into VFK I was raped by your fleet, and  quickly podded. I feel completely scammed at this very moment, but  several people have reached out to try and make me feel like this is not  the case.  I’m getting a bit drunk at the moment to ease over this  assfucking you guys have placed on me.

Items lost:
Chimera: 1.14 bil
full set of plus 5 implants: 525mil
shield leadership implant: 109mil
plus 5 percent heavy missile implant: 100mil
buzzard with full sisters setup: lets say 100mil

As far as the rest of the items on the chimera im sure you have a better idea of the cost with the kill mail you have.

Id  like to apologize in advance for the drama. Believe me this is NOT the  entrance I had in mind when I sought to join your alliance.

I was Ganked by Cheaters!

Does the word “Gank” mean anything anymore?

Cute Kitten Picture For Those Who Do Not Care About Ganking

“Gank” used to mean something back in the mists of time.

Or so I am told.

I am not big on PvP in MMOs, so for the most part I can only guess at the meaning of the word based on what I read.

And as far as I can infer from current usage I see about, the term had been reduced to meaning something like, “I got killed in PvP by an opponent who had an advantage in equipment or numbers, or who was totally cheating.”

Which can be reduced to “I got killed in PvP” about 99% of the time.

Cheating, of course, has always had a variety of meanings when people use the term.  It could be deliberate hacking of the game or the use of game mechanics to bestow an advantage.    Often though, it seems to mean, “The other side was more skilled, but there is no way I am admitting that in a public forum.”  You don’t win at smacktalk by saying things like that!

Given the above, I can pretty much summarize the majority of my MMO PvP experience with the title of this post, “I was Ganked by Cheaters!”

I certainly cannot recall a time when I was defeated in PvP where the above did not apply, and cheating (as defined above) is always at the top of the list, since I am massively unskilled at PvP.

But that is just my inference of the meaning of the word from the way it gets thrown around in comments and forums.  And, we know people say a lot of crazy, or at least ill-considered, things in comment threads and forums.

I am also convinced that one of the great lies PvP players tell is that they only want a fair fight.  Obviously this is not so, what with all this ganking going on.  But perhaps that is another topic.

But the word is now so tied in with MMO PvP that we cannot seem to mention one without the other.

So what does ganking mean to you?  Or what did it used to mean to you?

And has it lost all real meaning through mis-use?