DenialOfService Drama
Entry posted by Micael Fatia
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Welcome to yet another banned member drama entry, for your entertainment.
Typically, dealing with trouble-makers can be quite... unpleasant. Sure, sometimes (often) they end up banned, but it's hardly a satisfying result for anyone involved unless there's some very personal stakes at play.
Was it nice when players like Macki got their deserved upcoming? Sure, but were we as individuals in a better position than before? Hardly, since one thing trolls / troublemakers were very good at doing was bringing down others to their level, unfortunately leading to many of the younger users who often lacked self-control to rack up punishments / warn levels / suspensions for rules broken while fighting the bullies. It didn't matter if the staff sympathized with you, they had their rules and guidelines to enforce, so if you went out of line you'd still get smacked.
Many of you who were able to deal with the most unpleasant individuals, and remain untouched by warns / suspensions, kudos to you. You were probably a minority. I myself got suspended and warned a few times due to rowdy interactions with trolls, and even if I was in the right, I did inadvertently cause trouble to the staff, the forums and the clan chats.
But sometimes, some feuds had very... satisfying finishes. Obviously a lot of bickering was still immature, especially by our standards of today as adults / young adults. But we were younger back then, were we not? RuneScape was a lot more important in our lives, and more than "out-arguing" a rival, beating them in the game we played was pretty sweet.
This is the most 'satisfying' drama story I recall from my RuneScape and Sal's Realm days.
The DenialOfService aka VBreaker saga
There is too much that could be said about this drama ball. Unfortunately, it was so long ago I couldn't possibly remember most of it but the bare essentials. This is also just my personal experience, Vbreaker was very much disliked by everyone due to his attitude and behavior and there’s a lot more to his story.
Vbreaker was a Sal's member. He was nothing but an average player, nothing special about him whatsoever. It sounds a bit mean when I put it like this, but it's not an insult. He was normal, like so many more of us. It was hard to stand out in a community of hundreds and hundreds of players, especially in the early days when we had so many celebrities and star players. Breaker was Breaker.
He made some bad choices right away in the “beginning”, some may not recall because he wasn't as flashy as some others, but he was part of the Macki crew. But once Macki was gone, he went back to being just your average, ordinary everyday Sal's member.
In such a big community, one way for members to stand out was having 'special' skills. They could be real life talents like graphic design, writing fan-stories, being fantastic debaters or just genuinely funny people who made others laugh. Other talents were more closely related to RuneScape, such as having a ton of money, high skill levels and skill logs, or being kick-ass player killers.
My original claim to fame was my association to the long deceased Sal's Clan Discussion. This is a discussion for another entry, but let's just say while I became somewhat known there, I was far from celebrity status. I was liked because despite all my childish flaws, I still managed to be a pretty alright fella, especially in contrast with the highly toxic RuneScape clan world.
My second and most known claim to fame, was my F2P PKing ability. When the clan section died, my attachment to Sal's had became so great that I refused to migrate to other fansites with the rest of the Sal's clan world. Sal's had became my home, I was no longer 'just' a Sal's clanner. So I found other ways to still be around, and not severe my attachment to the PvP aspect of the game we all played.
Since clanning was no longer an option, I migrated to solo PKing.
Why I choose to become a F2P PKer is also a story for another entry, but I can can explain it in a nutshell by saying I was never able to remain consistently a RuneScape membership owner, thus often I had no choice whatsoever but be F2P. But also, the Clan World at the time thrived in the F2P world. Things weren't as expensive, and the limited options in equipment allowed 'wars' to be more evenly matched and required more skill. Players could legitimately 'tank', and so matched wars could be decided by individual skill even if collective organization was of the utmost importance.
F2P was the PvP style I was used to the most, and felt more comfortable PKing in. And boy, was I good at it.
My first Kill log started small, it was just a fun little topic where I posted the occasional kill, and felt the indescribable feeling of a chest swollen with pride.
Just like any first time PKer, I was irrelevant. Just a small fish in an Ocean of bigger fish.
But then I got better. And better. And better again, consistently, to the point I had became the shark in the pond that was Sal's.
Sure, sometimes people looked down on me as 'just' a F2P PKer, because according to many it's 'easier' and the stakes aren't as high.
And pretty much every single one ended up bowing down (death animation) to me, anytime they felt they needed to teach me what PKing was like.
And yeah, that was pretty satisfying.
At some point my tiny log had hundreds of kills, and it became a Sal's Realm tradition between regulars to challenge me to fun fights, just to see who could beat Sal's resident PKer. Very few ever beat me, and those who did often had a level advantage. Once I maxed, I was never beaten again by any Sal's member. (F2P combat)
Vbreaker treaded a similar path, but made very different choices. By the time Breaker became 'relevant', Sal's Clan section was long gone. I was already semi-famous.
Breaker began as a PKer rather than a clanner, I don't know the exact circumstances that led him to it, but maybe he simply liked PvP. Maybe he liked the feeling of beating others. I wouldn't say he enjoyed 'competing' with others only because more than a terrible loser who lied to hide his defeats, he was an even worse winner who tried to make others feel like garbage.
I was a F2P PKer, Breaker was a P2P Pker.
I was a small/medium clan clanner (at the time), Breaker immediately joined the clan with the worst reputation that ever existed (RoT), and a top 5 clan. Their motto was "Always Cheat, Always Lie, Reign of Terror 'til I Die". You could tell easily the values by which they were (are?) governed. Fittingly, around this point Breaker changed his Sal's display name to 'DenialOfService' (DDOS), something RoT was famous for doing to rival clanners' accounts and TeamSpeak/Vent servers.
I like to think I encouraged newbies and tried to make friends. Breaker mocked newbies and made enemies.
Conflict between us arose for the first time after I returned from a period of long inactivity. I had been absent, but not forgotten. And during my time away, Breaker's reputation had increased, he had become semi-famous... and a downright prick.
He'd bully other PKers in Sal's PvP section, mock them, diminish their achievements and attempts at learning.
Same situation as Macki, this immediately made us clash. I didn't like bullies. Especially bullies in my turf.
This led to very ugly situations, I believe at some point my warn level went as high as a positive 3, all while 'fighting' Breaker on the forums. Breaker ended up banned, because a very defining trait of online bullies is that they make several enemies, and fighting with so many people, moderators included, got him banned. First from the in-game clan chats, and eventually from the forums themselves.
I believe the last straw was him threatening to DDOS Sal's with RoT's help (some of them joined to 'help' Breaker look more even like a clown).
In terms of in-game competition, well, due to the fact I was a F2P expert and Breaker a P2P expert, it made things... complicated. Breaker wanted to settle our differences and drama in P2P combat. I wanted F2P combat. Understandably so - even if cowardly - Breaker would always refuse to fight where he felt he didn't have the advantage. And me, similarly, wasn't very fond of the idea fighting Breaker where he had the advantage.
You could say we were equals, right? Wrong. First and foremost, RoT was a P2P clan BUT at the time they had become also one of the largest three F2P clans. After Damage Inc, their P2P rivals closed doors, RoT had no choice but hop to F2P to have anything to do in-game.
So unlike me - I wasn't even P2P most of the time so literally could not even fight in P2P if I wanted - Breaker was in a position where he could have put his money in his mouth, and beat me at my own game which was also his own game now that RoT was finally F2P as well.
And he still did not. Instead, he resorted to mocking me for not P2P fighting him when I couldn't (no membership), and still refused to F2P fight me (which everyone can do). Fair enough, nothing could be done. The drama continued.
As previously mentioned both he and I were involved in the thriving RuneScape PvP clan world. He was part of RoT, one of the most hated clans at the time alongside Violent Resolution (VR). I was a member of Dark Dragon Breath, a former Sal's clan, consisting of members of multiple closed Sal's Clans. I joined as part of the legendary (by Sal's standards lol) 3xtermination (Sal's clan) group.
One thing that needs to be explained to players who've never been part of or even heard of the PvP clan world, is that wars used to take place chiefly in The Wilderness. It was a free for all PvP area, where dying meant the loss of your items. It was dangerous, and that added to the thrill. Clans considered fighting there a superior experience to fighting in the safe Clan Arena.
The problem is, it being a free for all area, it meant other players could intervene and 'crash' wars that were agreed between participants. Wars were usually (especially between large clans) PKRIs (player killing run ins) which was just a fancy acronym for "everyone who dies can keep returning and rejoining the fight until one of the clans has died too much and can't keep going, or is being dominated so bad they give up". PKRI's could last hours between large clans, and could be severely affected by 'crashers' attacking one or both of the clans.
As such, participants often recruited other clans (normally allies) to anti-crash any crashing attempts. These clans functioned as guards, killing other clans attempting to crash and just random people interfering and looting.
This is important to this story, because one day my small/medium sized clan was anti-crashing for two larger clans. I can't remember exactly who, but I believe a top 5 clan (The Titans) was involved. So all we were doing, as a small unit, was sticking around as volunteers killing crashers and looters, and ensuring other clans wouldn't ruin the action.
And so was RoT. Sorta. I say sorta, because as previously explained, RoT was a NH (No Honor clan, in other words the clans that gave zero shizzle about respect) clan.
They were there to create havoc, but I believe being involved in a crash war at the time, their goal wasn't making more enemies. They were just looking to attract their rivals to fight them in the same world a fight was already taking place.
Huge pile of members as you can guess, but they were avoiding other anti-crash clans. After all, why piss off small/medium clans that could then feel petty and help their bigger enemies they were trying to attract?
Of course, this meant absolutely nothing whatsoever to Vbreaker who was there. While he did not manage to kill me, he made sure to always leave the RoT fall in, and attack me in the DDB fall in, knowing perfectly there was nothing I could do in retaliation, because retaliating would give RoT (again a much, much LARGER clan than DDB) reason to crush us all to small pieces.
So all I did was take it up my bum, over and over, while still not dying but having to constantly run and restock at the bank due to Breaker's (immature) actions. Fair enough Breaker. You did a funny. If only you had known how this was coming to bite you in the ass.
A few days later I attended another war, as a watcher this time. No armour, no items, just looting and watching the action. RoT was fighting their bitter enemies VR. Massive scale war, people everywhere. Chaos.
Still Breaker couldn't help himself again. Left RoT's pile and killed me, an armorless watcher right there and then.
No big deal, no loss for me. But this is where Breaker's dishonesty shined once more.
He added my death message to his Sal's Realm signature. For those unaware, when you kill someone in the Wilderness, you get a fancy/funny message saying you killed the player [name here]. And Breaker now had my name in his signature. Wouldn't also be much of a big deal, were it not for the fact... Breaker decided to lie about it and claim he killed me fully armoured and crashing his fight.
Yep.
And this pissed me off. Immensely. I don't like bullies, and the only other thing I dislike as much as bullies are liars.
I quit DDB, they could no longer be associated to me and pay for what I was about to do.
At the first opportunity I got, I myself became a crasher. A RoT crasher in particular, I had no qualms with any other clans or people. I just wanted to mess with RoT and Breaker in particular. You know, an eye for an eye and all of that except I wasn't satisfied with just an eye.
I crashed what was likely the largest war I ever attended. VR was at the time in a bit of a losing streak against RoT. But this one fight that lasted hours, boy it was a massive beating that RoT took. It was so massive that they lost all will to keep going. Two more fights and they closed. We're talking about hundreds of players, VR and allies, RoT and allies, crashers, anti-crashers, random looters and solo crashers.
And I was there. For hours. With my bow permanently pointed at Breaker's ass.
By the end of the historical loss, Breaker (already banned from Sal's at this point) was spewing propaganda much like every other RoT member in the RSC war topic. "We didn't lose, was ez, died 0 times".
Zero times. He made a post claiming to have died zero times, when I alone screenshoted 9 of the 20+ times I killed his sore ass in the beating he took that day.
That was the greatest satisfaction I ever felt playing RuneScape if you're wondering, knowing this absolutely despicable guy had to resort to lie to save face, when he knew he had suffered an absolute humiliation not only in his clan's loss, but dying to his 'rival' more times than he himself was able to keep a count on.
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