Kill Stealing

In online games and especially first-person shooter games, MMORPGs and MUDs, kill stealing is the practice of arranging to get credit for killing an enemy, when it should have clearly been another player's kill. An example is when a player in a first-person shooter whittles an enemy's health down and is about to kill them, when another player comes along and shoots that enemy once. The second player gets credit for the kill despite having done almost none of the work of killing that enemy. Kill stealing occurs when the rewards for defeating a foe are limited or highly desired, and many players are competing for that same reward. The term is most often heard in MMORPGs and MUDs, where rewards of items and experience points can be substantial, but can also be found in first-person shooters where players are rewarded a point for a kill. Many players feel that kill stealing is a dishonorable practice.