New outlook on PvP

[fatboy]

I prefer to play on PvE servers.  But I have a good friend who convinced me to join him rolling new Horde characters on Tichondorus.  I reluctantly agreed.

So now I am a 25 Blood Elf Warlock in Hillsbrad (Gank Central).  Numerous times has a ?? Alliance <any class> come up and pretty much one or two shot me and then go on his / her merry way.  And I think, what's the goddam point?  I can do *nothing* to them.....all he is doing is slowing me down / making my life miserable / pissing me off / etc, etc, etc,...

My solution used to be just to say fuck it and logoff.....I don't need this grief.

But now I have a new outlook over the past couple days.  Now I just say fuck it and keep playing. 

So...it costs me a soul shard to resummon my VW.  Big fat hairy deal. 

So, it slows me down a minute or three.  Big fat hairy deal.

I just put another mark in my little book.....and someday.....maybe not until 2008 or 2009......but someday....it will be me who is the ganker instead of the gankee......

What do you guys do in these situations?

[Valmorian]

Same thing happened to me.  I switched to the PvP server Frostmane. 

The way I started to look at it was that being occasionally ganked is the price I have to pay in order to have access to unexpected level appropriate PvP.  For every time I'm ganked and have to run back to my body, losing a minute or two of play time, there's another time where I get into an exciting PvP battle with someone close to my level. 

It also makes you pay more attention in the contested areas.  You never know when an alliance might be about..

[jpark]

I am not sure if is a sense or roleplay on my part - but I have never felt comfortable attacking guys significantly below my level - in WoW - or any other game.  I truely detest any player who ganks (e.g. attacks players far below his level) - so I rationalize it as an "evil" player - part of the Lore of the game.  This even happens on pve serves - where guys of high level flag themselves and look for lowbies new to wow who have no idea how things work.

I find it kinda of cool - to be of the opposing side - and let the lower level player "be".  To me that is honor in the sense of roleplay in the game.  I don't spend much time at all on pvp serves in WoW - but in my experience in other pvp games (e.g. Shadowbane) - that's been my attitude.

Now the cool part is the "hate".  Write those names down - pay back time will come later.

[Arrrgh]

I normally don't gank greys, but you're an elf and all elves must die.

Probably people on your server who share my fondness for elves.

I've always felt the main problem with WoW was that it forced you to chose between playing a dwarf or gnome and being able to kill elves.  I would have bought BC if it had done nothing but added gankable elves.

[Valmorian]

I normally don't gank greys, but you're an elf and all elves must die.

Probably people on your server who share my fondness for elves.

I've always felt the main problem with WoW was that it forced you to chose between playing a dwarf or gnome and being able to kill elves.  I would have bought BC if it had done nothing but added gankable elves.

It did.  There's elves on both sides now.  Gank away whether you are alliance or horde.

[fatboy]

I normally don't gank greys, but you're an elf and all elves must die.

Probably people on your server who share my fondness for elves.

I've always felt the main problem with WoW was that it forced you to chose between playing a dwarf or gnome and being able to kill elves.  I would have bought BC if it had done nothing but added gankable elves.

guilty as charged......and I always hated Night Elfs......but, in my defense......I wanted to see the new content.....which is well worth the price...

so yes....I might be brining it on be being an elf.....     

[WindupAtheist]

First off, get out of Hillsbrad.  At level 25 you can go to Thousand Needles south of the Barrens.  It has plenty of quests, no Alliance flight point, and thus a vastly lower gank factor.  Occasionally some chucklefuck will come screw around at the top of the elevator leading out of Freewind Post, and you will start seeing some Alliance (mostly fellow lowbies) in the vicinity of Shimmering Flats around 30 or so, but on the whole it's a nice quiet Horde leveling zone.

The twenties can be annoying on a PVP server, with you being at the bottom of the contested territory food chain.  Just level in quiet places when you're not looking for a fight, maybe find a friend or two around your level to run with, and get bolder as you level up and the proportion of Alliance players who can gank you with total impunity goes down a little.

And by all means, relax and embrace the gank.  It's consequnce-free fragging on a PVP server, so just run with it.  He's grey to you?  Kill him for shits and giggles, it's not like he loses anything.  You're grey to him and he's coming at you?  Put up a fight anyway, you have nothing to lose.  Running across a zone to escape some guy can take just as long as running back to your corpse from the cemetery, and if you attempt the former you may end up doing both.

Showing the depth of your compassion by sparing the defenseless, and shaking your fist at those who don't abide by such chivalry, seems like a hell of a lot of gravity to confer upon the whole affair.

[sinij]

Avoid Hillsbrand, its poorly designed zone for horde - they place you into the same zone with 30+ alliance that quests there. When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

[Zetor]

Yeah.. on my old server it was same for alliance going to ashenvale at level 15-20. It's better to just avoid contested zones on the 'enemy' continent (kalimdor for alliance, eastern kingdoms for horde) until you're pushing level 40.


-- Z.

[AcidCat]

I just put another mark in my little book.....and someday.....maybe not until 2008 or 2009......but someday....it will be me who is the ganker instead of the gankee......

Eh, you will probably find it a hollow victory. I've heard this many times - "I will revisit this pain upon lowbies when I'm strong" like some hazing ritual to be handed down again and again. My first two characters were on PvP servers. I tried the whole revenge thing, ganking lowbies when my time came. It just wasn't fun, it was pointless. It is a pointless waste of time for both the ganker and the gankee.

I no longer play on PvP servers. It's a much more relaxing experience, and you automatically weed out the worst of the playerbase.

[AcidCat]

When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

And let's call this what it is - letting other players limit your access to game content.

[Morat20]

I just put another mark in my little book.....and someday.....maybe not until 2008 or 2009......but someday....it will be me who is the ganker instead of the gankee......

Eh, you will probably find it a hollow victory. I've heard this many times - "I will revisit this pain upon lowbies when I'm strong" like some hazing ritual to be handed down again and again. My first two characters were on PvP servers. I tried the whole revenge thing, ganking lowbies when my time came. It just wasn't fun, it was pointless. It is a pointless waste of time for both the ganker and the gankee.

I no longer play on PvP servers. It's a much more relaxing experience, and you automatically weed out the worst of the playerbase.

I bolded the fun bit -- that's actually the reason that child abuse tends to run in families, and that any given abuser was very likely to have been abused himself (or herself) as a kid.

Ganking is generally an abuse mechanism, and people handle it as such. (There are some games where it's not -- but standard Diku's like WoW, level is King).

[Jayce]

When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

And let's call this what it is - letting other players limit your access to game content.

Yes, but the flipside is that it provides another kind of content for those who like that sort of thing.

The other kind of content not necessarily being the experience of being ganked, or being a ganker.  There are those who like to feel a need to look over their shoulder when doing things in the wild.  Makes the world feel dangerous.

But not too dangerous, a la Eve or UO.  If you get killed, it's a facepalm and a run, not a YOU LOSE, NOOB, NOW FARM FOR ANOTHER 12 HOURS!!

[rk47]

At the current moment, my motivation to play in PVP server is not much, I played a hunter to 60 , it was bearable because of tracking ability to warn me of oncoming threats (save for rogues) and shadowmeld to hide. But when I rolled Paladin last year, I couldn't take stranglethorn valley with the constant hunters and rogues attacking me way above my level. Even when they are even level, the only class I could take down are warriors because I lack any skills to slow them down and finish em off. They just run away and come back later with friends. So I quit the pally at 42.

I recently started a warlock and got him to 42, and ran into a lot of lvl 70s almost everytime I quested in Stranglethorn. It's a really frustrating experience and pushed me out of my comfort zone of soloing, so I decided not to play till my lvl 43 shaman friend came online. It was great going in Tanaris, managed to take on lvl 50+ duos at times. But I seriously detest soloing in pvp server nowadays and decided to make a shaman in PVE server just to kill time. Let's just say I got addicted and now my PVE shaman outlevelled my warlock 52 to 42. I loved the fact there are no more annoyance and pointless kills, logging into pvp server to lvl warlock and gets one shotted by a ?? level just made logging off and switching to the PVE alt easier. I understand the thrill of pvping someone of your level and beating someone a few levels above you, but the fact that he'll just login his lvl 70 and one shot me+camp messes up my playing objective which irks me a lot.

[Xanthippe]

Instead of writing down names, use this cool little mod

vanasKoS

Alternately, search for VanasKoS on this list.

to keep track of your kill on sight people.

I love it.  It warns me when someone is near who is on my list.  I can set it to a person, give a reason, set it to whole guilds.  Is unobtrusive, easy to use, and is little.

[Fabricated]

I don't play on PVP servers, so I don't suffer that crap. Heh.

Well, sort of. I got an alt on Ravenholdt (PVPRP) that hasn't ever been ganked. I've been killed for sure, but only because I joined in on a fight. This is pretty good considering the horde on that server like to attack every goddamn alliance town there is 24/7. They were attacking Blood Watch, Azure Watch, Auberdine, Stormwind, Ironforge, Sentinel Hill, Darkshire, Redridge...every single place I went one night. This is all within an hour and a half of play. There were groups of 20+ horde attacking ALL OF THOSE TOWNS.

[sinij]

When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

And let's call this what it is - letting other players limit your access to game content.

Have you considered that about gazillion of unkilled mobs limit your access to a lot of game content outside starting area from the moment you start?

[Hutch]

When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

And let's call this what it is - letting other players limit your access to game content.

Have you considered that about gazillion of unkilled mobs limit your access to a lot of game content outside starting area from the moment you start?

That's true on every WoW server, regardless of ruleset.

[Merusk]

When you play on PvP server its all about knowing your zones and not going places where you likely to get ganked.

And let's call this what it is - letting other players limit your access to game content.

Have you considered that about gazillion of unkilled mobs limit your access to a lot of game content outside starting area from the moment you start?

No, that IS the game's content.  See, that's where you've never quite grasped the PvE folks' mindset.

[Teleku]

I actually prefer playing on the PvP server.  My first char was on a PvE server (Proudmore).  Right about the time me and all of my friends got to around 60, we all kind of stopped playing for various reasons.  Then a friend who stayed playing switched over to another server which was PvP (Frostmane) and got us all started again (BTW Valmorian, whats your name on Frostmane?  In any of the bigger horde guilds?).  While the ganking was annoying at first.....I came to actually kind of have fun with it.  The worst parts for me as alliance were Redridge Mountains and Duskwood.  Those were constantly under attack by bands of high level horde Chars.  But like WUA said, it doesn’t actually do that much to you when you get ganked, and if your smart, you just move your ass to another part of the zone and continue to level in peace.  I leveled up just as fast on the PvP server as I did on the PvE (faster actually, but that’s probably because I knew where everything was already this time around). 

But beyond that, I’ve actually come to enjoy the paranoia.  When ever I'm out leveling, I am always constantly looking over my shoulder and memorizing nearby hiding places.  Even though it doesn’t mean anything, getting killed by somebody else is enough on principal for me to fight to the death in PvP to foil any would be ganker.  I will run and use what ever skills/cooldowns/trinkets I have to make the bastard chase me and put as much effort as he can into killing me (and sometimes even get away).  This was especially fun with my latest char (a rogue).  I was using a subtlety build, with preparation and all the talents that lower your cool down times.  Level 60's would attack me and I would precede to gouge/sprint/vanish/sap/blind/evade/preperation my god damn way across the zone until I could get to safety or they finally killed me.  This might be a waste of time, but I've found it to be an amazingly fun game!  How long can you survive against the epic mounted/geared lvl 60 lowbie ganking warrior? 

It actually does get to them as well.  I lead one epic'ed out Tauran Warrior all around Arathi highlands in random zigzags (bastard kept finding me even after I vanished) for a long ass time till I finally got to Refugee Point, were he proceeded to continue to chase me down the hill, and through a bajillion guards.  He had a massive amount of mid level guards beating on him and dazing him, but he continued to slowly march at me steadily across the town, throwing out one final rude gesture a second before he was finally brought down by the guard swarm.  It was quite amusing.

But I enjoy it at level 60 as well (and 70 once I get the expansion.  Stupid Japan), since in all the high end zones you are crowded in with tons of other opposing faction 60's.  Its just makes the game way more exciting to actually be walking through woods and actively be worried about being ambushed by something.

I will also second Xanthippe's KOS list recommendation.  I got that mod with my char when I first switched over to the PvP server, and I made sure to enter in all of those bastards names, and it has paid off.  I am in one of the bigger guilds on our server (or was, recent drama break up shit.  Not sure how it looks now, heh), as well as always running around with my friends/roommates in a group, and I keep running into people who made it on my list.  Its great fun to just yell over vent for everybody to focus fire on some random horde in the middle of a group, then proceed to corpse camp hin for awhile.  "Why are we doing this?"  "He killed me when I was level 19!!!!"  Sometimes I spot one when we are out fucking around outside a raid before everybody actually shows up (usually trying to get into the raid himself for his guild).  I can then proceed to get 30-40 people in on making sure he never ever actually reaches the zone enterance.

But thats just me, YMMV.

[Valmorian]

(BTW Valmorian, whats your name on Frostmane?  In any of the bigger horde guilds?). 

At risk of being perpetually ganked by your Alliance guild, I go by Valmorian on there, and a few other names too, but I'm not in any guild and play pretty casually.  My kid kinda limits those long play sessions.

[WayAbvPar]

I performed my very first WoW gank over the weekend. Just got out of AV with my 53 rogue (had some friends helping me complete some of the quests in there), and was headed to Arathi briefly when I ran past a flagged 38 NE hunter or rogue (can't remember which). I kept riding, then went around a hill, jumped off my mount and into stealth. Made my way back to where he was hunting, and he was gone. I quick search of the area found him high up on a hill, hiding behind a tree. I made it quick and as painless as possible  :-D

[Ironwood]

I always thought gank meant 'Gang Kill' when you were totally ownzzerred by a bunch of assholes.

It's got a twisty meaning now.

[jpark]

Showing the depth of your compassion by sparing the defenseless, and shaking your fist at those who don't abide by such chivalry, seems like a hell of a lot of gravity to confer upon the whole affair.

heh it might seem that way I agree.

First, I like roleplay - and acting that way sends a message about my character - that the opposing side - can learn to respect (through counter communication and emotes etc).  For me roleplay is not "thou art" but stuff like this.

Second, strangely, I apply good sportsmanship to gaming.  In Judo for example, if you fight an opponent far below your skill level, you handicapp yourself by fighting on your knees, or restricting the use of your hands to thumb and index finger ("two finger judo") - so it can be competitive for your much weaker opponent (in Judo everybody fights everybody for training - you rotate partners).  Also, for actual matches, I always go after the guys either far above my skill rank - or the strongest guys / toughest guys that most folks prefer to pass on as a match partner (in my dojo, we had 3 people who competed in the Olympics).

That's my take on it - playing pvp in a MMORPG to me involves not only some roleplay elements, but also carries over the rules of good sportsmanship that I find make my physical activites so enjoyable.

On the other hand, if I could loot my opponent in Judo, that might change things 

[Ironwood]

Can you not take their belt ?

[WindupAtheist]

I will say this about the gank-em-all playstyle:  It relieves you of all right to bitch about anything the other side does to you, and a lot of people don't seem to realize that.  All the time I hear someone in Ventrilo bitching about how some Alliance player ganked them.  My response is generally "If I were him, I'd have done it too.  And so would you.  It was probably funny on his end."