Wintergrasp Rant

[LavCat]

People that have nothing better to do than ruin other players' days/nights just because they can (and that's really the only reason) should die in a fire. But not before donating their money to some environmental organization to account for their filthy emissions.

take care
Tarabulus

Thing is I can't see any workable mechanic to prevent this, short of no PvP. The old dishonorable kill mechanic could be abused by sending child soldiers into battle. All it takes is a little AoE to lose a rank.

I would argue that there are times when corpse camping is even warranted. Last winter my then baby night elf druid wanted to visit Crossroads for the holidays. We asked a level 80 friend to come along. Of course my friend *had* to shoot up the guards, flight master, etc. One of the regular Horde hunters, Tarmoch, as I recall, showed up and in a pique of revenge killed my friend and camped her body. Even she thought it was funny.

For my part, I cast Shadowmeld, held my breath for five minutes, waved to Tarmoch, and rode away. It was getting time for Wintergrasp. Not surprisingly I found Tarmoch in Wintergrasp and could whisper my friend that she had been avenged.

Another time, the Horde had committed some attrocity in Stormwind. We defenders formed a raid and someone decided we should sack Crossroads in retaliation. But there was a spy! (Actually, not much of a spy, someone said in chat they were getting on their Horde character.) Our warparty found the Crossroads well defended. Only my warlock made it out alive. (Trinket, deathcoil the rogue, escape artist, rocket boots, and a rapid ride to Ratchet.)

On another occasion King Varian had died. We defenders formed a raid and were waiting in Darnassus. I mind controlled the tank. No Horde left there alive and we camped them till we got tired.

My underaged priest died once in Undercity, and it took her forever to get her body back.

You point out correctly that the PvP problem comes when people just want to kill and camp to ruin some lower level person's questing.

Sadly, it appears that Blizzard and Deathwing may have found the final solution for those of us wanting to battle between Tarren Mill and Southshore.

[shoju]

In your examples though, those were people actively wanting to engage in world pvp. Sure, if you want to do that, then you deserve whatever you have coming.

My main loathing of PvP comes from the fact that I leveled on a PvP server, and there was just nothing that you could do to avoid the idiocy of getting ganked by some giant loser who is getting their jollies by running down characters 30-40 levels less than them.

I see why DHK's were not the solution. the abuse that can be had there is astounding. But, until Blizzard finds a workaround for the problem, World PvP just isn't much more than a problem, that needs a solution.

Maybe it is just my inherent sense of morality/ethics whatever. I have a 19 twink. He is a brutally efficient killing machine. before the xp off / on split came, I very rarely went into BG's that weren't premade. My goal of having a twink wasn't to run around killing lowbies, it was to see just how insane i could make a character at a specified stopping point. The few times that I wasn't able to get a pre-made and had to join as just normal fodder, it wasn't very fun. I guess I missed the part where 1 shotting an 18 priest with autoattack was a good time.

Now, my twink is gearing back up with the new RDF dungeon bags, and soon the 4.0 loot. With the merger of BG's the casual twink community is able to get back into it, and have a good time. I had thought about finally giving up on him, because I didn't want to pay more money to xfer him again and have that guild lose interest and die off, and the new dungeons are not soloable. (I was previously killing time Soloing RFC, WC, SFK for gold / drops / pets)

[Taelas]

Playing on a PvP server is kind of saying "I want to engage in world PvP".

[shoju]

Engaging in world PvP =/= getting ground into the dirt when you have no chance at all to win the fight.

Personally, an easy fix for this would be to set it so that any player -10 levels of yourself is automatically set to a "sanctuary" setting that removes them from combat. By enabling their pvp flag (which on a pvp server means almost nothing) they are welcoming that type of behavior.

10 levels seems to be a good cutoff. Before 4.0.3, when you queued for a BG, the brackets were 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-60, 61-70, 71-80.

Post 4.0.3, they are even further segregated. 10-14, 15-19, 20-24, and so on and so forth.

I'm all for allowing people to engage in world pvp, but allowing someone to be a loser is just not a good solution.

I didn't roll on a PvP server because I wanted to engage in world PvP. I rolled on my original server (a PvP server) because that is where my friends were that played. I was an utter complete nub to the game. Seriously for the first 20 levels, I thought I had to spam my autoattack key to get white hits, I thought I had to replace gear when it broke, I thought that green gear was used as good as it got, and I would upgrade items based on looks (how cool it looked) rather than how good the stats were, I thought that you had to buy each slot in your bank, instead of buying slots for bags (Yes, for the longest time, I had 1 item in my bank because I had only bought 1 tab)

The only thing I was good at was stunlocking something(one). And I learned to be good at that, because I was using bad gear and shutting off autoattack and had to be good at it to kill something.

I didn't even know what PvP stood for when I rolled. I called Kaine and said "Hey, I'm installing warcraft". He said "Pick the Bloodscalp server, that is where Palpy, vecindak, and I are, and make sure you pick horde".

I still have characters on that server, and I do play them from time to time, and I do engage in World PvP. But, I'm sure that gnome mage I splattered while killing furbolgs in Felwood last weekend isn't as mad as he would have been had I rolled through there on Sunetra and toss an Avenger's Shield in his face, insta-killing him. There is nothing he could have done to prevent that, or escape from that.

I'm not against world PvP if that is your thing, I'm against those who have the desire and want to ruin a lowbies day. My original involvement in the thread was trying to understand why they were unhappy with the situation in WG because it works to balance it out, and make sure that the sides are as equal as possible.

[Concillian]

I'm all for allowing people to engage in world pvp, but allowing someone to be a loser is just not a good solution.

The only difference between the Normal ruleset servers and the PvP ruleset servers is allowing people to surprise attack you. Ganking is an expected part of life on a PvP server, as this is what makes a PvP server a PvP server.

There was no chance that was going to change in 2004 or 2005. There's even less chance now that there are Battlegrounds, Arenas, cross BG queues, PvE --> PvP transfers, etc... that weren't around then.

If they did change these rules, even in a relatively benign way, like you mention, I fully expect that the outcrys would be louder than any previous cry-fest we've seen from the WoW community.

[LavCat]

If they did change these rules, even in a relatively benign way, like you mention, I fully expect that the outcrys would be louder than any previous cry-fest we've seen from the WoW community.

I'd like to see a few real zones (by "real" I mean in contrast to Wintergrasp) in which everyone was flagged both on PvE as well as PvP servers. That way if someone wanted to farm or quest in peace they could go to a protected zone. A PvP server could have most zones flagged, a PvE server could have most zones unflagged, but still some of each.

I'd also like to see some way to address the repeated corpse camping issue. As it is Alliance can always drink a Light of Elune and hearth, but even better I think there should be diminishing returns on vulnerability after resurrection over a short period of time.

For example: if I am ganked (or die for any reason) I am blue for 2 seconds upon getting my body back. If I die the next time I am blue for 4 seconds. Die again and I am blue for 6 seconds, and so on. After a few minutes of not dying the counter resets. This rule would apply only in contested zones. If you die in someone else's city, you are on your own.

To my way of thinking this would solve the camping problem. As a low level character I expect to be ganked, but with this mechanic I would not have to be dead all night.

Last night I chased a Horde over the bridge towards [Edit: Malfurion] Stormrage. The fellow died in the middle of the bridge and I never did get in a blow. (They may have been looking for the picnic tables and hopelessly lost.) I waited around a bit, then went about my business. Sometime later the body was gone. By the way, Corpse is a useful addon.

[LavCat]

My reasons for hating PvP are similar to what happened to you in the salt flats. My first toon was an undead rogue. Friends thought I would like rogues, and I thought that the undead looked pretty cool (before I realized no amount of cool gear made the bones hidden).

Nothing sticks to your ribs like oatmeal and savory deviate delight.

[NuurAbSaal]

Playing on a PvP server is kind of saying "I want to engage in world PvP".

I beg to differ. Playing on a PvP server can also mean: I want to play with my friends (who had a head-start) and am going to regret their choice of a server forever.

Basically Shoju's story.

take care
Tarbulus

[Taelas]

Playing on a PvP server is kind of saying "I want to engage in world PvP".

I beg to differ. Playing on a PvP server can also mean: I want to play with my friends (who had a head-start) and am going to regret their choice of a server forever.

Basically Shoju's story.

take care
Tarbulus

That's how the world works. We make concessions.

I personally do not enjoy levelling on PvP servers most of the time, and as such, I stay away from them. If I have to play with friends on a PvP server, I accept the PvP ruleset -- including gankers. That does not mean that I do not believe a change should be made in how they operate, but we need to work with how the system is actually set up, not how we want it to be in an ideal world.

It's unfortunate if a new player rolls on a PvP server when he doesn't actually enjoy that kind of play, but there's not really anything that can be done about it, at least not without massively restructuring how PvP servers work. If that can be done, I'd welcome it, but it hasn't changed for six years, and I doubt it'll ever change.

[NuurAbSaal]

It's unfortunate if a new player rolls on a PvP server when he doesn't actually enjoy that kind of play, but there's not really anything that can be done about it, at least not without massively restructuring how PvP servers work. If that can be done, I'd welcome it, but it hasn't changed for six years, and I doubt it'll ever change.

That's basically it, summed up nicely. I somehow feel cheated out of my righteous rage now though .

take care
Tarabulus

[Mavfin]

I'd like to see a few real zones (by "real" I mean in contrast to Wintergrasp) in which everyone was flagged both on PvE as well as PvP servers.

I completely disagree. If you want to be force-flagged in areas other than designated 'enemy-owned' areas, go roll on a PvP server. Leave the PvE servers alone, please.