Changes to the Stormrage Guild system

[MongoJerry]

I don't think it is proper to include this.  My understanding of the feelings of the Lurkers community is that, in the Diablos, PKing a PKer is still PKing.  How is this different?

Oy! Why do I have visions of spending a week trying to define KoS and griefing and all the nuances of what's right and not. Lochnar, player killing in WoW is very different from Diablo II. As I said before, I was one of the most vocal opponents of PK'ing in Diablo II, and some of my sentences on PK'ing in hardcore games got integrated into Sirian's famous diatribe. What I found surprising about playing on the WoW PvP servers is that I actually enjoyed the PvP experience. The WoW PvP experience is very different from Diablo II. The three primary ways they are different are:

1. There is an intrinsic mutual consent in PvP in WoW. When someone logs in to the PvP server, one is in effect getting a James Bond license: "The right to kill or be killed." This doesn't mean that you would agree to fight in every fight you end up having, but unlike Diablo II, you did actually have the choice to play in a PK-free or a PK-ok environment.

2. The death penalty is much smaller -- only a loss of time and some dignity. I won't say that there is *no* penalty like some claim, because I know opportunity costs are real (ie. you lose time that you could've spent getting gold or exp), but it's not as draconian as losing your character forever in Diablo II -- or if you were a softcore wussie, some chunk of experience.

3. Players have the ability to fight back. Some classes have some advantages over others, but there is no one class or group of classes that is completely dominant over other classes like in D2. What's more, unlike Diablo II, the PvE equiped player isn't very different from the PvP equiped player, so a PvE player can do quite well against an attacker. Finally, after you die in WoW, you have the ability to come back and get revenge on your attacker either by hunting him or her down yourself or gathering friends or factionmates and going after him or her. It's not like in D2 where the PK can just laugh at you in town and then run off to a different server.


Anyway, back to the discussion about KoS activities, you need to play on the PvP server to understand. There are certain guilds whose purpose in life is to be kill-on-sight guilds. That is, their purpose is to go out and kill all members of the other faction anytime anywhere at any moment -- and the more unfair the fight is the better. A character in this guild's entire focus is on this and other activities like leveling and getting equipment is designed to be able to kill other members of the other faction. Two Alliance guilds on Tichondrius who do this are Exiled and Kali Compton. Understand that I have never once had a person or group of players in these guilds pass by *any* opportunity to gank or attack me or any other person I've spoken to. What's more, these guilds plan events specifically around ganking entire zones.

It is not a case where they are a couple of guilds with a few bad actors in it. It's a case where the guilds' stated purposes are to gank and KoS all members of the opposing faction. A person who joins one of these guilds knows what they are getting into. They are in effect signing a stronger James Bond contract: "A license to gank or be ganked." For them, ganking and being ganked is part of the game, so yes, I release Lurkers from all moral inhibitions from KoS'ing members of well known KoS guilds. A person who joins a KoS guild choses to play the game that way and in effect publicly declares that they are playing the game that way. A Lurker should have no inhibitions about indulging that person. If the person doesn't like the KoS way, they always have the opportunity to leave the KoS guild.

If anything, I feel the PvP guidlines set by Mongo may be a bit too restrictive. That is not to say I KoS as a matter of course. 90% of the time I adopt a live and let live policy when I encounter filthy alliance, especially when I am questing. Yet I feel there are situations where indiscriminate killing is appropriate or even called for.

Come on, Boutros. Let's not get into scemantics, and please don't make me have to write a white paper on what is and isn't KoS activity. We both know what KoS activity is when we see it. I very explicitly say, "KoS activity means always killing players of the opposing faction no matter what the situation and level differences are among the players." When you're raiding a town, you're raiding a town. When you're defending Nessingwary's Expedition so that people can turn in quests, you're defending Nessingwary's Expedition. But when you're a level 60 riding through Desolace and you see a level 35 character of the opposing faction fighting a couple of mobs for quests and there haven't been any reports of serious ganking or fighting in the area in the general chat channel, then don't be a jerk, OK?