As my experience with WoW continues to accrue, I find it increasingly likely that I am a carebear. I enjoy the battlegrounds, but random world PvP is something else entirely. I initiated my first PvP on Sunday morning, and promptly felt guilty about it. I was using my warlock Cominius (level 24 at the time of this incident) and was headed out of Stonetalon Peak when I ran across a troll shaman named Granfalloon (level 23 at the time) fighting a Twilight Runner. I watched him finish his fight, and decided well why not, so I targeted him, sent my succubus, and rushed after her firing off my various afflictions. Granfalloon opted to make a run for it, made outside of Stonetalon Peak, and nearly got into Ghost Wolf form before I dropped him. Flush with victory I continued about my marry way, but that afternoon started to feel a little guilty that I ran him down when he obviously didn’t want to engage in any PvP activity. Later on that night I was back playing Cominius and I was surprised to see Granfalloon’s body still outside of Stonetalon Peak. Now I started to feel really guilty for killing him. Late Monday night I was again playing Cominius, Granfalloon’s body was still outside of Stonetalon Peak, and I was getting ready to swear off PvP forever as I kept thinking of wildly unlikely scenarios about how my killing this character had caused Granfalloon to give up WoW forever. Happily after work on Tuesday I found Granfalloon’s body gone, replaced by a skeleton (a tell-tale sign of a PC having died and revived at that spot).
However my second foray into initiating PvP didn’t cause me any guilt at all. That is probably because I strongly suspect my victim was either a bot or a gold farmer. While running Cominius around the Stonetalon Mountains I kept encountering this level 25 undead priest killing the stags found in between Mirkfallon Lake and Stonetalon Peak (I didn’t note his name). By Monday night I was pretty sure he was a bot, so I decided I might as well kill him. So I took my level 28 dwarven hunter (whom I was playing at the time I reached this decision) to the area I kept running into him at and sure enough there he was killing stags. I waited for him to finish the mob he was on, targeted him, ordered my pet to attack, and opened fire. I became more confident in my determination that he was a bot when he started attacking my pet instead of me. Between the level difference, and his poor choice of targets the combat was quickly decided in my favor.
On Tuesday night I was back on Cominius still plugging away at a few quests in the Stonetalon Mountains. Just as I was nearing completion and while in the middle of fighting a harpy, a tauren druid named Swifthoof jumped me. Not too surprisingly I pretty quickly died. Now I find the idea of attacking somebody while they are fighting a mob to be pretty bad form, but what really annoyed me about the whole situation was Swifthoof hid and waited for me to revive and then attacked and killed me again. The first time I can understand. We are opposing factions, and given a chance I certainly may have attacked him, but to engage in corpse camping means you are just being a jerk.
Contrast this to the actions of the level 31 Blood Elf paladin, Daloo, that Cominius ran into a bit later that evening. I had completed my quests and was running out of the Charred Vale back to Stonetalon Peak when I met up with Daloo heading the other way. Being five levels higher than my character I wanted nothing to do with her, and headed off to one side hoping she’d ignore me. In doing so I aggroed both a harpy and a basilisk; while my succubus grabbed and kept the attention of the harpy, the basilisk continued to attack my warlock. Now Daloo could have simply ignored me, she could have also attacked and killed me and I would have counted as an honorable kill, but Daloo attacked the basilisk and drew it off my warlock (and at her level easily killed it). Left with only the harpy to deal with my warlock quickly finished it off (honestly without the presence of a level 31 horde occupying my thoughts both mobs at once wouldn’t have been a big deal). Again at this point Daloo could have attacked me and racked up some easy honor, instead she waited to see what I’d do. I gave her a /bow and ran off counting my blessings.
I’m certainly not trying to say this is how all alliance/horde interactions should go. Dark Iron is a PvP server after all; of course the sides should fight each other. If Daloo had attacked me before I aggroed those mobs, I wouldn’t even be posting about it (nor would I have bothered to look up her name in the combat log). I also would have been fine with her attacking me after the mobs were dealt with, and again I probably wouldn't be posting about it had that happened. The same is true if Daloo had ignored me and continued on her way after I aggroed the mobs. I actually would have considered that hypothetical act a great kindness. If events had played out that way I might even have posted about it.
Well enough about WoW.
BESM on Saturday went very well. For the record the players weren’t boned (see previous post). The end of the campaign is actually in sight. That fact makes me both very happy, and very sad. We should game again this coming Saturday.
Harkening back to the peripheral references made to quantum physics in my last post I leave you with this amusing lolcat picture I found posted on the Penny Arcade Alliance forum.
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