Thursday, February 25, 2010

Perceptions, or "Is The Enemy Always The Enemy?"

I have a slight problem.

I view the alliance as people.

It's a problem because many of my horde guildmates don't.

It's not that they don't realize that the alliance is played by humans, it's just that the only alliance they experience on a regular basis are the vilest part of alliance society. So my friends see alliance and think "monster" rather than "person."

It has been bandied about, usually joking but always with a serious undertone, that all alliance are evil and should be killed whenever a red nameplate appears.

The thing is, I've played both sides and both sides have gankers who make everyone miserable. But 80% of my PVP server doesn't actually gank. Most of your populace is in cities getting ready for raids or doing transactions or queuing for things or leveling something, not out in the world trying to find someone to grief.

So I don't agree with anti-alliance or anti-horde sentiment. Anti-really-mean-people, sure. But I just can't get behind blanket generalizations for (and retaliation toward) a whole populace just because their biggest jerks bother you.

On a PVP server, you want to kill the people you don't like. But there's no way to interact with those people, so you don't always know if you'd like them or not. (Some, yeah, you know. But most of the people who get attacked are minding their own business.)

Next, we come to the issue of being outgeared. Even if you find the worst people on your server and have the chance to attack them, what is the possibility of outgearing them without massive time and effort expended into acquiring resilience?

On a PVP server, if you want a chance at survival when someone decides to bother you, PVP gear is a must.

It's also a massive time sink. If you don't have time to gear out properly, trying to kill people for revenge or just to be able to defend yourself is an exercise in futility because I guarantee the worst gankers will have some of the best gear.

Then, finding the gankers you hate the most takes time and effort that isn't always worth it. Many gankers, when faced with an equal or superior match, are cowards and won't give you the satisfaction of a fair fight, and when you're ready to fight them they aren't always in a convenient location waiting for you.

So why does anyone in my guild still think that PVP servers are where we should be when, at the end of the day, nobody wins?

Everyone loses. Particularly the people who have better things to do than run around trying to grief others, and who can't defend themselves because they don't have PVP gear.

So this is yet another reason I want my guild to move to a PVE server when the game allows entire guilds to pick up and transfer. Because I hate the animosity bred by the worst of each faction and taken out on the people who did nothing wrong.

If I had to leave one final thought for my guild and the people in it who like PVP and view alliance as some sort of twisted game of whack-a-mole, it would be this:

The ability to fight over a resource node isn't worth the crap the rest of us have to put up with. Your delight in the "surprise" of world PVP should not be able to trump my right to play in the world unmolested.

If you want to stay on a PVP server, feel free to argue your case when the guild discusses it, but do not assume for a moment that I will not do everything in my power to escape.

15 comments:

  1. This is why I don't play on PVP servers 8D;;; -hates PVP-

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  2. I originally played on a PVP server, and while I hated the ganking, I have to admit it taught me infinitely more about spontaneous defense and survival reactions than battlegrounds ever could. It also taught me that though I never attacked unaware Alliance, it sure did feel delicious to not only survive an Alliance ganker jumping you, but killing them handily and /sigh'ing at their corpse before continuing what you were doing. ;)

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  3. Move over to Earthen Ring, if it ever happens. It's a nice enough RP server, and the Horde Guilds Cake or Death and The Praxeum (my new Guild home) are really awesome!

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  4. I don't think we hate the Alliance because we've been ganked; we hate them because they betrayed us. The humans destroyed my whole race while we were in the Outlands... I even dislike Thrall sometimes because he is chasing after Jaina. >.<

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  5. I play on a PvP server because that's where my friends play. I was ganked. I called the cavalry. My friends were happy to pwn sum n00bs for me. When neither of them was online, I'd die, rez, move on. I'm one of those people who doesn't really care for the repair bill. Or the rez sickness. I do what I must.

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  6. If you ain't got the balls for PvP, move the difficulty slider to "Easy" and reroll or transfer to a PvE realm.

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  7. I know exactly what you mean. When I first started, I played on a PvP server. I did notice that a lot of the time I was getting ganked, it was either by some one who either greatly out leveled me, or it was by a group of people...Who out leveled me.

    The whole ordeal was greatly frustrated. How did I take out my frustration? I ended up ganking when I could.

    Playing on a pvp server was not only more of a chore for me than actual fun, it was turning me into the kind of person I really didn't want to be.

    Once I rolled normal, every thing fell into place. The thing is, that the majority of players in WoW can't actually play hours upon hours a day every day. They usually get their play time in in their spare time. When that times is spent running back to your body to be cut down again, well, it's not exactly worth the subscription fee.

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  8. Honestly, I hate plenty of people on both sides of the faction exchange. I love my guild, though, so I stick with the whole PvP realm thing for their sake (and I actually enjoy fair PvP -- even somewhat fairly matched world PvP). What I don't like is 80s in full Relentless gear ganking lvl 20s in Tarren Mill.

    The reason I'll cite for why we don't transfer isn't the realm, but the money. If they come up with a guild-rate transfer, though, I'll reconsider.

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  9. I will agree with Rades that getting the upper hand on someone who jumps you is quite a feeling. But most of those stories belong to my guildmates. When in the world, I'm in constant watch mode, turning my camera, and if I see red I mount up to leave.

    It's my "run away like a little girl" policy (taken from Kharazan's Big Bad Wolf), which I've displayed elsewhere and even followed up with something semi-satisfying.

    Still, I'm with Jon here. I stick with the PVP server for my guild and my guild stays because of the money. If we get a guild-rate transfer, I might be able to throw my girly weight on the "Let's leave" side of things. That's what I'm hoping for.

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  10. There are still people in the guild that enjoy [i]fair[/i] world PvP, myself being one of them, despite being extremely anti-arena, and getting just as frustrated as anyone by a 5v1 massacre where my character doesn't even do the death animation, just flops over, or, like Jon said, getting camped by a "??" character when you're leveling a baby toon.

    I would be extremely disappointed to transfer to a PvE server despite complaining when I do get ganked when I'm just trying to quest, etc., and I realize this may sound like extremely incongruous behaviors, but it is what it is.

    In my opinion, one of the biggest things I don't like about world PvP is as follows. You mentioned having to keep up a PvP set of gear if you want a decent chance at survival, and that's definitely true- and my lock's PvP set is nothing to scoff at with over 1000 resilience and 2600 spellpower and the necessary hit/spell penetration to be successful (without ever doing more than a week or two of EXTREMELY casual arenas). My issue? That I'd rather quest in PvE gear so stuff dies significantly faster. Why should I have to be penalized for taking advantage of my PvE gear? On PvP servers, you should have a gearset that auto-switches when another player attacks, like Outfitter does when you enter a BG/Arena.

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  11. I enjoy the thrill of world combat - there is a reason that Dylan and I kill mages on a weekly basis. Not because I think they're evil - but because it's a part of the came I really enjoy. It's hard to have a world pvp experience that isn't one sided or ganky or what not. On our old server (Dunemaul) there was a faction of Horde and Alliance that had a great deal of respect for each other. Ganking didn't happen - we would bow kneel ready and fight in world pvp. Most often it was an even fight - until someone who didn't understand what was going on came by and killed you. But, good point Beth - blanket generalizations are bad. AS for your balls - I think I know at least 1 person who is glad you don't have any.

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  12. "AS for your balls - I think I know at least 1 person who is glad you don't have any"

    Two people. I'm also pretty glad I don't have any.

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  13. ""AS for your balls - I think I know at least 1 person who is glad you don't have any"

    Two people. I'm also pretty glad I don't have any."

    I'm also pretty glad you haven't got any. I bet your brother would be pretty traumatized if he found out you had them as well. Maybe you should take a poll? =P

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  14. if it's red, it's dead. nuff said.

    FOR THE HORDE

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  15. haha well I think the same for horde, there are some people who won't leave you alone and gank you 20 times in a row, but some people are cool and leave you alone. I do the same, sometimes I kill the reds sometimes not.
    --------------------
    http://alliancelevelingguidex.com/

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