World PvP – ganking or vanilla PvP?

What is world PvP anyway? To me, world PvP was always about large groups of people coming together somewhere in the world to fight. It could be anywhere from an Island off Azshara to a patch of grassland out side of Crossroads. However, regardless of location, it was the only reason both parties were there. As for ganking, that’s what 80 rogues steathing around Nesingwary’s do.

A new guild have recently transferred to my server, claiming they are bringing back world PvP to the masses. I must admit when I read their first few forum posts I was vaguely excited, imagining massive battles over Halaa, Southshore and the like. After all in vanilla I had lots of fun fighting over Southshore/Tarren Mill and visiting Crossroads.  There was a real sense of community between both sides and often when the fighting was over, we would have parties with naked fist fighting competitions and picnics. However that was a long time ago, a time before battlegrounds and arenas. If you wanted any form of PvP, you had to go hunting for people to fight and so you met lots of like minded people. Now things have changed, if I want PvP we (as Alliance) have close to instant battleground queues.

This guild have been with us for a few weeks now and the scope of the world PvP they offer? Invading our cities and killing auctioneers. Not one single event has been organised or even mentioned. So they bring their raid group of 25ish complete with healers and set up home in the Stormwind Auction House. The majority of people just don’t care so they sit there PvP disabled. The people wanting to use the Auction House just naturally drift elsewhere, whether its using engineering alts in Dalaran or hanging out in deserted Darnassus. Sometimes they visit the Mage quarters in our various cities and kill people portaling in, of course you’re dead before the loading screen fades. One shotting low levels who hearthstoned from PvP zones seems to be another favourite hobby of theirs.

All of this they claim is a great success. As soon as we manage to mobilise a decent defence, i.e. people who aren’t one by one loading into a city, or 2 going up against 30, we manage to kick them out but that takes time. There is no incentive for people to defend their cities so the majority don’t enable. So there you are, a ragtag handful of idiots, usually not in the same party attempting to go up against a raid complete with healers. Maybe I have weird idealistic principles but to me, world PvP was always about consent. Both raid groups wanted to be there, they were there for that sole purpose. Ganking on the other hand, implies a lack of consent. If my druid is stealthing around and I see someone doing their dailies, happily killing mobs and I pounce, I gank.

I’ve never believed the argument about rolling on PvP servers being consent enough, it’s like saying if I wear a mini skirt I’m asking for it. There are plenty of factors why people who don’t necessarily like PvP end up calling a  PvP server home, whether it’s guilds, friends or just picked at random. I also think the last two expansions have given people a false sense of security. We share our cities with the Horde, both factions can share tables in the Legerdemain Lounge or sunbathe on the wall at the landing together. That hardly implies bitter enemies.

Don’t get me wrong, I gank. I know I do, I don’t sugar coat it in any way. I have great fun killing people in amusing ways, parachuting past Horde sitting on their flying mounts and showing them some squawk and awe or sneaking up on them when they are grinding. I just don’t like the principle of ganking whilst claiming it’s something better. I can understand what they are trying to do, but encouraging people to fight by killing the auctioneers over and over and over again or by killing them as they are loading in, 25 v 1 to me removes the consensual element. I would think by now, if they actually tried to organise a world event the majority of the Alliance wouldn’t show up because most of the server seems hate them. When you add into the mix the fact that these same people are equally fond of name-calling on the forums and you basically  have the biggest turn off from world PvP I’ve ever seen. When we beat them, we always had three times their numbers (I wish), we’re skilless (possibly), we’re cowards (nope, going one or two versus an organised raid group isn’t a sign of cowardice, insanity perhaps) and so on.

As far as I’m concerned they are little more than bullies, having tantrums and throwing their toys out of the pram. Plus any fun you could have, with the tide of battle going backwards and forwards just doesn’t happen with this bunch because as soon as they die, they either take res- sickness or all dive through portals or wait as a ghost until they get battlegrounds. For example, a deathknight looking to “world PvP” in the portal room at VoA whilst we controlled it. The Gnomeling attacks him one v one, no guards, no other players and as soon as it starts going bad he leaps through the portal. One v one versus another deathknight in Ironforge, he dies and doesn’t res. Seven minutes later he pops up and instantly disappears into a battleground (I stalked him on the Horde side).

I just don’t understand why people who claim to be after world PvP, run away so quickly when we give them what they want. Could it possibly be because they don’t want world PvP at all, they just want easy ganking?  I’m not complaining about their actions, I just wish they would stop pretending to be after one thing, when its clear they just want to grief and gank. We maybe die 10 or 20 times, outnumbered and zerged but we don’t slink away and res in a corner. We keep fighting after all world PvP has always involved dying a lot, but you kill this lot any more than a couple of times and they are off, portaling, hearthstoning and taking res sickness. These world PvP heroes even prefer entering battlegrounds to escape, yet their whole premise is based around returning to the halcyon days of vanilla WoW pre-battlegrounds.

I really wish Blizzard would make the city guards lv 80 and more like the ones at the Isle of Quel’danas, so they actually present an issue to people wandering in. Cataclysm is going to be fun.

When you discover you are living with a pyschopath

My warrior and the gnomeling’s shaman were happily and innocently leveling in Tanaris this morning, frolicking in the desert sun and generally minding our own business. Then along comes this lv 80 shaman helping a lv 40 bloodelf hunter quest, so what does the big strong tauren do? Naturally he pursues our lowbies and whilst Lylia being the self sacrifical sweetie he is, gave my mount waterwalking and told me to run for it, his ghostwolf couldnt escape from the shaman’s epic bear. To be fair, the shaman only killed him once and then left, allowing him to ankh but …..

Why did Blizzard put a portal in Dalaran straight to Tanaris if they didn’t want you to teach bullies in the desert a lesson? No the Caverns of Time is not the correct answer to the portal question btw. So we log off, log our mains and hurry off to do some sunbathing. Unfortunately it seemed that Mr hero shaman who bravely pursued two lowbies across the ocean, didn’t do so well in PvP versus a lv 80 warrior as he did versus a lv 46 shaman. In the same time it took Lylia to do 18k of damage, the shaman managed a mere 1k to him. I was a late arrival to the party so it wasn’t as if the shaman saw me and gave up, he was just a keyboardturning muppet who can’t fight or run away from a prot warrior.

So where does the pyscho bit come in? Well Lylia spent the next 2 hours killing them in a variety of locations leaving a trail of skeletons all the way from the Lost Rigger Cove to outside Mudspocket. The moral of this is, there are always bigger fish with bigger teeth in the sea and even if you are the mightiest player on the server, sometimes you will be beaten via quantity which is one reason why we don’t gank unless provoked. Hopefully thats a lesson Mr Cow learnt tonight.

Edit: Lylia’s guide to successful camping – kill the flight master so your friends (victims) can’t leave.

Swarm

Ive become increasingly frustated by the overaggressive nature being shown by 90 percent of the server. Its like just because season 4 is over and pve is nerfed to the point of pointlessness, every sad little loser is out looking for people to grief. Now Ive no problem with world pvp or 70 versus 70, but Ive never been able to understand the mentality of people who hang around killing lowbies and then run for the hills like cowards the second some decent competition shows up.

I took my hunter to STV this afternoon to pick up a gorilla and within seconds of arriving, a lv 37 hunter was taking potshots at Lylia (lv 70 prot warrior). After collecting my new pet, I was heading back to the rebel camp when we were ambushed by 2 70s and a pack of low levels. Of course we didnt stand a chance (since my hunter is only lv 33), so whilst Lylia created a diversion I made my escape and fetched my priest. Now obviously this warlock and hunter wanted world pvp, why else would they be hanging around in STV? Oh wait. So we kill them a couple of times and off they run, in separate directions naturally because its rare that gankers ever stick together when things get tough.

Then there is Booty Bay, we have bank alts (both lv 33) parked there for easy access to the neutral auction house and the number of times that people randomly attack…. The guards need to be lv 80 already.

Its like the new talents and lack of focus have created this rage mentality in everyone. Must prove how great I am by ganking people on low health, afk, with multiple mobs on them or just chasing low levels around. Whilst leveling Lylia, only one ret paladin on the opposing side didnt attack, everyone else has been throwing themselves at him. I realise its happening on both sides, but its driving me mad. Im very objective focused, I log with a plan whether that plan is to level an alt, do an instance, some pvp or whatever and it drives me mad when I have to deviate from that plan to corpse camping some scrub who thinks griefing lowbies is a good way to spend the evening.

Its the fact that these people dont want pvp, they dont want to fight people of the same level, gear or quantity. If they did they would be happy for 2 v 2 or they would be in a battleground. They are just trying to upset and annoy people, obviously its working because Im angry right now, but its been every day for 3 weeks now. 

Take the guy who killed us when I was tanking the ring of blood for Lylia’s weapon. It was late at night so we were 2 manning it on the last boss when this ret paladin attacks. We got him low even though we had the elite on us, but he had bubble so with help from the hardhitting mob he killed us. But then he came back questing as if nothing had happened, right next to us. Naturally we killed him 2 or 3 times and then he doesnt res for ages. We wait, kill him again and this time when he resses he bubbles and hearthstones. Its like these people dont understand actions have consequences, that killing people with mobs on them or people doing escort quests is going to make them dislike you. That you cant just waste their time, get them a repair bill and then expect to do whatever you want right next to them. As you might have guessed Im really looking forward to leveling to 80.

PvP brings out the worst in all of us

If you must make macros like this to be used at the start of Battlegrounds, make sure its all spelt correctly. Blizzard are highly unlikely to use “u” instead of “you”. Seen quite a few of these recently, all with really bad grammar/spelling, the worrying thing is each time its spammed into chat, at least one person leaves the battleground. Coincidence perhaps. Hopefully.

On a slightly related note, got ganked by 3 separate 70s in the Searing Gorge today. Guess what they all had in common?

Yep, all rated below 1550. So do high rated players not gank lowbies? Am I just meeting scrubs taking out their frustation on greys? Maybe I should make a “LF high rated lowbie gankers” forum thread to see if anyone holds their hand up and says “Yes, im a Gladitator and I gank low levels with pride”.

Its a Jungle out there

On a medium population server you might think that hitting STV at 4am would be relatively safe. You would be wrong, within 10 minutes we had been ganked by 2 completely different lv 70s.

The rain started just as we arrived. I suppose that should have been an omen. It went from light and airy in Booty Bay to wet, grey and dangerous in the jungle.

Which brings me to my current dilemma, we arent gankers at heart. I think its partly because there are 2 of us, which makes attacking solo questers who make up most of the opposing faction we encounter just seem wrong. Also, I think its a personality issue, maybe a touch of arrogance, why attack someone when you know you would beat them.. its no challenge. Which is why, I dont understand what 70s get out of killing people in their 30s.. ah well, only 32 levels to go before we can hunt them down and eat supper on their corpses. Anyway back to the dilemma, do we gank everything red on the principle that when the next scrub 70 comes riding past and one shots us, we will smirk to ourselves as we corpse run remembering all the misery we had already caused… or do we stay as we are, playing nice and then regretting it?

The arena rating theory is still holding true btw, both our little friends had rubbish ratings. This crocodile could probably have beaten them in a duel.

Perhaps even my parrot could have, well that might be pushing it.

On a more positive or at least more aggressive note, we got around 40 honor today from a lv 42 gnome warlock. He had this fascination with Grom’gol, lurking just outside the perimeter dotting up all the low levels venturing out. Which just plain nasty but for some reason he just didnt want to get the hint. We killed him around 7 times, the final time way out at sea. For some reason he thought escaping from a Shaman would be easier at sea…. water walking proved otherwise.

Ganking Lowbies

Now dont get me wrong, I love pvp as much as the next person, but I really dont understand the mentality of people who just hang out at zones 50 levels lower than those they should be questing, killing greys. Today we visited Tarren Mill to discover a lv 70 hunter running around killing npcs and baby horde. Then we moved to STV to start doing Tamung’s weapon quest and low and behold there is another 70, a warrior this time again killing lowbies.

Which leads me to the reason for this post. Someone posted whilst ranting on the official forums that people who gank lowbies all have sucky arena ratings and fail at fighting their own levels so take out their lack of epeen on lv 20s. Now I tend to take everything i read on said forums with a pinch of salt, after all people are usually too busy complaining, fighting or trying to protect their own bruised egos but that one comment got me thinking. Luckily I keep a stack of postit notes by the computer and I made a note of all their names and checked their amoury profiles… would you believe it… their average rating was 1300 in 2 v 2.

So Zamppa and Snappyah, this post is for you two pvp gods 😀

On a slightly more bragging note, we had our first proper pvp today. Running around in 1000 needles finishing a couple of quests a lv 41 squid mage decided to be a hero and try and aoe two little orcs. He died and gave 3 honor points, my first 3 to be exact. Your first always needs to be immortalised in print so hello Sötsomsocker.

I have to admit the reason I dont lowbie gank is simply because you look so stupid when it all goes wrong. When your target/s fight back, kite you to guards, produce 70s out of the bushes or anything else sneaky. On the other hand, managing to be a lowbie who successfully kills a skull by clever use of terrain/tactics/pots is one great feeling.