Gankers and whiners

I have been playing Elite Dangerous actively for about 2 years now. I really have to rant about two types of players that I truly, truly despise: Gankers and whiners.

So-called "gankers" are a bane of most online multiplayer games that allow player-vs-player combat (in games where that's not the sole goal of the game, eg. "arena-style" first-person shooters. Although in certain types of even those games there can be what could be considered "gankers" as well.)

These are players with extremely advanced end-game equipment or builds who will attack and kill weaker players, just for the sake of it. In Elite Dangerous, for instance, they will attack players, including much weaker players who have absolutely no way of defending themselves, and shoot them in the back while they are trying to flee.

Their only and sole purpose is to ruin the game for other players. Nothing else. If the victim complains to the ganker that he had no way of defending himself and he was trying to flee, the ganker will send mockery back and laugh at the victim. If a weaker player is driven to solo mode or, even better, to quit playing the game completely, gankers consider it a victory and badge of honor. Every player they drive off from playing in multiplayer mode, or off the game completely, is a trophy. (Elite Dangerous supports a "solo" mode that still plays in the shared universe run by the servers, but where you will not encounter any other players. This mode exists precisely because of gankers and nothing else.)

This is not the same thing as consensual player-vs-player gameplay. Not only will the gankers shoot a fleeing weaker player in the back, but if they happen to attack someone who is actually capable of fighting back, the ganker will usually just flee. They are cowards, and their sole purpose is to try to ruin the game for others, and they will just flee if someone is actually capable of fighting back.

This is very unambiguously bullying and harassment of weaker players. What's most appalling is that this form of gameplay is pretty much effectively officially supported. The developers have expressed this being a completely valid and legit activity in the game, and will deliberately not do anything to curtail it or punish the gankers. In fact, gankers seem to be a special protected class because if you complain about them in the game's official online forums, it will be you who is penalized (for "inflammatory" posts, no matter how calmly and rationally you word your posts) rather than the bullies. In other words, gankers seem to be more protected than their victims, the weak players who can't play the multiplayer mode and are driven to solo mode, and possibly even quitting the game completely. The developers deliberately and purposefully will not do anything about it, and have been quite open about it.

Thus, unless you want to be constantly fighting gankers and would want to do other things in the game, you will be deprived of one of the most important aspects of a massively multiplayer online game: Encountering other players and interacting with them.

There is no limit on how much I despise gankers. They are bullies and cowards whose only and sole purpose is to try to ruin the game for you, and will send mockery and laugh at you afterwards. And there's nothing you you can do about it.

However, there's another group of players that I despise at least as much. Perhaps even a bit more. And that's the whiners.

Where gankers try to ruin the game from within the game, the whiners try to sour the experience from outside the game. And they are everywhere.

Go to almost any video about the game, almost any forum about the game, in Reddit or elsewhere, where there's for example a discussion about a new feature added to the game etc. and there they will be: The whiners. Constantly whining and whining and whining about how much the game sucks, how such and such feature sucks, how the developers suck, and so on and so forth, endlessly and everywhere.

If you are a fan of the game and, thus, likely to watch tons of videos and read tons of posts about it, it gets really tiresome after a while. Some author might be discussing some aspect of the game, or some new feature, in a very positive and informative way, and the comment section will be soured by the whiners endlessly complaining about the game. And you can only imagine how much of a circle-jerk the comment section of videos that are critical and negative about the game are. The amount of whining and screeching in the comment sections of those videos is just endless.

The main issue I have with these wankers is that they just sour everything. No matter how positive and informative eg. a video may be, they will be there, trying to sour the experience for others. Trying to make the game as miserable for others as apparently they themselves find it. And instead of just quitting playing the game and doing something else, they just keep on whining and whining, as if that was going to change anything. It feels like they are jealous that other people are finding the game enjoyable, and are trying their best to change that.

I don't remember ever seeing this kind of behavior from any other game. It's very possible the same behavior happens with some other MMO's, but I have not seen much of it anywhere else.

In fact, this might be the only game in existence where significant updates and additions to the game are invariably seen as a sign that the game is "dead". I'm not even kidding. It happens constantly. In fact, it almost seems like the bigger the update, the more likely it is for the whiners to declare the game as "dead".

For example, when the developers announced the "Odyssey" expansion pack for the game, which was the biggest singular update to the game in its entire history, with the most amount of content and new gameplay mechanics done in a single update, the third response to the announcement thread was a whiner declaring how it was a sign that the game was dying. I'm not even kidding or exaggerating. (Note that this was before the expansion had been published and anybody had had any chance of trying it, so the declaration of this being a sign of the game being on its deathbed was made based solely on the announcement.)

Any time the developers make an update to the game, especially if it adds new content, the whiners will be there, like clockwork, complaining about it. It's really tiresome. They try to suck any fun that people may have with the game.