Pv-what now?

Having been born and raised on a PvE server, the horror stories of Life in Stranglethorn Vale never really held any meaning to me. The Isle of Gank'danas was only something to read about and laugh at.

Well, it sure was time for an education.

Allow me to sum up my findings from my first weekend on a PvP server...

Warning to Horde

Let it be known. I generally shant initiate combat on you, Mr. Hordie. If we're questing, I'll just try to ninja your quest mobs, same as I would if you were an Alliance player who declined my invitation or was behaving like a turd on /trade. I steal, but I dont keel (to stretch a rhyme out of "steal" and "kill"). If we're waiting for the same rare spawn, know that I'll do whatever I can to tag it before you can, and I'm damn good at it, but I won't kill you. Sorry for this, its just how we roll.

But, lemme warn the Horde, so as to save you the time of waiting with the other surprised players standing in line at the complaint desk.....

If you attack me first, know that I'll carefully weigh the time required to execute revenge versus the satisfaction to be gained from said revenge. If there's a creative way for me to get you back, that won't take too much of my precious time, trust that I'll be waiting, deep under the water, with my Hydrocane equipped, and I will strike at the moment most entertaining for me.

And, please, pretty please, with sugar on top, don't get between me and my minerals. Cobalt is fair game, you get there first, you win. Saronite might get you in trouble, depends upon how angry the behavior of your Hordie friends has made me over the previous 15 minutes. Horde near Titanium is Kill on Sight. I do not apologize, you have been warned.


Background


With no idea what to expect, I set off into the world shortly after the server transfer was complete.

The Horde like to start you off slowly. At first, nothing. Just quest around, and see lots of friendly Alliance toons around. Ok, this is warm and fuzzy.

Then eventually, you come across some Horde questing in the same area. Ok, ok, seems to be a mutual respect amongst people leveling. Leave eachother alone, because we're all on a mission.

Then, in a cave in Howling Fjord, waiting for a named quest mob to respawn. GF calls out that she's got a rogue on her, while I'm clearing out some unnamed trash in the room. Ok, nice and nifty, usually when NPC mobs attack one of us, there's plenty of time to finish what you're doing and then go over and help eachother. Nope. Dead, nearly instantly.

Ah, our first gank, a Horde Rogue. And, like the brave warrior that he is, as soon as I get him to about 50% health, he vanishes and runs off. We finish the quest, and on the way out, he saps me and runs away. Very nice, thank you. You've given me a taste of what's to come.

Generally a mutual respect throughout the lands, Alliance and Horde questing amongst eachother, no real problems.

Sometimes Bubbles on Defensive mode will start attacking a Hordie that's right near a quest mob I'm killing. As long as I notice quickly, I'll get her back at my side quickly.

There's also the new changes since 3.0.2 that have you automatically targeting new mobs as your current mob dies, so I've inadvertently targeted and fired upon Horde. Sorry guys, but if I notice and correct it quick enough, they rarely turn and spank me.

The occasional gank here and there. Usually from a solo Horde player on me as a solo Alliance player.

Sometimes its near a quest objective, in which case, I can sort of agree with the mentality, since if they kill me off, it'll give them access to their quest a little faster. Ok, ok. You win.

But there's a few doozies who clearly make PvP servers what they are.

Sea Bulls Need a Little Action

The Sea Bulls are a pretty randy bunch. But it would seem that their Sea Bull bars are all sausage fests, and they can't find their way to the all-girls dorm across the water. So I gets me some fish and lead them over to carve off a slice.

Until Mr. Hordie thinks its cute to kill my Sea Bull, and then, him and his 3 buddies come and kill me. Luckily, I held them off long enough for the GF to finish her quest and get her Sea Bull some booty.

These guys weren't too bad though, as they left me alone when I came back.


The Cheap Shot

I head on over to solo Ragemane's Flipper in Zul'Drak at level 76. At the end, Ragemane is dead, Bubbles is dead, and I'm at less than 1,000 health. Every single ability on cooldown, including deterrence and lifebloom. Happy at having finished the quest efficiently, I swim past 4 Hordies who showed up to complete the same quest. Frikin undead priest feels compelled to smack me with a single Mind Blast which finished off the job Ragemane started. F. U. you spineless cheap-shotting worm.

Of course, true to the philosophy of gank or be ganked, I did the only thing that possible to reclaim some self respect. Corpse run, rez, and swim deep deep underneath where Ragemane spawns. Wait for the 4 of them to engage the mob, then start shooting their tank from the depths, straight up the pooper. Me and Ragemane took care of him quickly, then the healer who so thoughtfully Mind Blasted me earlier. At this point the two DPS'ers figured out what was going on and turned on me, killing me rather efficiently, only to get killed by Ragemane shortly thereafter. I'll chalk that up as successful revenge since they had to start over.

I just might learn to like this PvP stuff.

Sholazar is the new STV

And then, my night turned to sht.

Finish off Zul'Drak quests, and fly on over to Sholazar Basin. NOTE TO SELF: don't fly over Lake Winterchill. Wasted 20 minutes (A) figuring out how to get at this one node of Rich Saronite without being able to fly, and (B) figuring out how to get the F out of the zone.

Back to Sholazar.

Get 4 quests all in the same area with some Venture Co. folks digging in the dirt.

Fly there, land, start killing goblins and such. Then a silly horde unstealths, stunlocks, and kills me without my even being able to move or attack once.

Ok, ok, you got me, fair and square.

Run back, rez, start questing.

Again with the instadeath, only this time there's 3 of them.

Run back, rez, questing...

Uggy, now there looks to be 10 Hordies, spread all over the camp and they're killing all Alliance they can get their hands on.

Ok, so I fly over to a slightly different quest, finish that up, come back to the area. Looks clear.

Start questing, and the pack of 10 comes back, killing everything around them.

Strangely enough, after I got over the initial wave of emotion and desire to crush their windpipes IRL, it became a bit fun. Land real quick, kill a mob, loot a quest item off the ground, mount up quick enough to avoid the incoming Horde wave. Lather rinse repeat until quest is done.

But, facing a pretty strong desire to ding 80, wasting time like that gets old in a hurry.

A big and scary world

If you ever want to know just how important social networking is to WoW, change servers to a place where you technically know nobody.

Sure, if you're switching to join a guild, you've got the people in that new guild.

But you've got no rep. No street cred.

And no friends list to fall back on.

After spending a year and a half on the same server, you take for granted just how many people you know, and just how much your reputation is actually worth.

The culture shock starts when you log in for the first time and you're forced to change your name.

WTF, my damn name is taken already? By some punk @ss level 19 hunter who hasn't logged in for 3 months? /facepalm. Suppose that's what I get for using a name suggested by the Blizzard randomizer when I first signed up for my first level 1 character.

Impulsively just went with whatever tweak to my old name would be accepted as unique on the server. For the couple days since then, I've been seriously considering plunking down $25 to fix that impulse. But I digress.

Then, an hour later, your other toon transfer completes, and now you've got a banker / disenchanter, and happily, your friends list is no longer empty. But, a single solitary name actually looks more lonely than an empty list.

Make your way over to the big city in the sky. First thing you see? Three Mini-Vans standing outside the northern bank. On Terokkar, I had not seen a single other Traveler's Tundra Mammoth, but in my first 10 minutes, I've already seen three others. Welcome to a new world.

Eventually, one of the guild officers logs in and gives you the invite, and suddenly you're faced with the next wave of culture shock.

The guild's got 15 level 80's who are running Heroics and debating whether that night's attack on Naxx should be all-guild 10 or PuG 25. And you're sitting there blissfully ignorant at 74.

Better get your grind on!

As you clear out a zone, you're generally left with Group quests and Dungeon quests.

Luckily, a Hunter with T4-5 / Arena / Badge gear and a Gorilla can solo most of the Group quests, or find the occasional person on the same quest near the target.

But Dungeon quests? Rough to get a group for normal mode Nexus when everybody around you is 80 and your friends list only has your bank mule on it. Not just the guild, all over the server, seems people have outgrown non-end game after less than 2 weeks of Lich King. Even the LFG channel was filled with only Heroics - OR - every single player is a DPS'er.

News flash. I don't care if you're Retribution. If you're level 74, you can definitely tank Utgarde Keep without any spec change. Too damn many people have this mindset of "i spec dps, therefore i am dps". Hell, just to prove a point, me and the gf hit up Utgarde Keep. Just the two of us. She was a level 69 SHADOW PRIEST at the time. And I was a level 76 Hunter with a Gorilla. Just the f'ing two of us. She healed, Bubbles tanked, Amiva DPS'd and healed. And we cleared the first hallway before it became too much. Granted, it was painful, and had many wipes in that hallway, but.....it was just the f'ing two of us!!!!!! And she was 69!!!!!! And SHADOW!!!! So get your damn level 74 Retribution @ss in there and help a sister out!!!!!!!!

But I digress. Back to the strange new world...

While waiting for an escort quest mob to respawn so you can start up the quest, you run to get a soda IRL, and you come back to find yourself a spirit.

Welcome to PvP server, baby!

I'll save this little taste of culture shock for its own post.


Overall, I'd say the server switch is going reasonably, but the experience clearly illustrates the tremendous worth of your social network, and reminds you how much energy you actually put into building up credibility and reputation.

Now, if I could just get a group for Gundrak so I can finish those last few quests to ding the Accomplishment for questing in Zul'Drak, I'd be a happy camper.

Well, that's a lie, Happy Camper doesn't come until 80, but we'll have to see whether Turkey comes between me and that. At least I can fly in cold weather now!

Welcome to Conquest

In my ongoing effort to never actually enjoy stability and to continuously make waves for myself and other people, I've done it again.

I transferred servers. To a PvP server, none the less.

Matticus, of WoW Insider and World of Matticus and PlusHeal fame, started up Conquest, a new guild on the Ner'zhul server, with a guild charter and approach to raiding so consistent with my own thoughts that you'da thunk I wrote it. An initial conversation with some of the Officers illustrated even further how well we match up.

Spent some time deep in thought (usually means "on the throne", but not necessarily so in this case), and decided to make the plunge (c wut i did thar).

Choosing to leave Kishi Kaisei was painful. I've been on the Terokkar PvE server my whole WoW career, and I've been with the folks from Kishi for over a year. We've shared amazing times, a wonderful atmosphere, and lots of friendship. Each and every member of the team has contributed to making my gaming experience richer, and I will miss playing and hanging out with you.

Ultimately, I make the analogy to Jerry Seinfeld's choice to stop making his show. He did it when the show was on top, and actively chose to change things rather than do the standard human behavior of waiting for things to slowly change and break down until drama is massive and the choice to split up is inevitable.

Kishi remains in the hands of excellent Officers, and as always, the Membership is made up of an outstanding group of people, so I'm confident you will be successful and have fun moving into WotLK. I hope to hear great things about your experiences.


Likewise, Conquest has attracted people from a wide audience and server base. I look forward to getting to know the new team, and finding out the meaning of pain on a PvP server.



Did you really just compare your WoW gaming to Jerry Seinfeld? Are you kidding me?