A lot of gamers are scared of PvP. Really, really scared. Like when you were a kid and were convinced that there was a godawful globbulous slime thing under your bed that was gonna get you kind of scared. I know, I was one of those scared players. But then I moved to a PvP server and I saw the light. I saw the light my brothers! (and sisters too I suppose). Anyway, here are some tips on what it will be like for you when you enter the new wide world of a pvp server.
First off, lets start with rolling a new toon. You have your new little gnome mage or whatever the hell it is in your brand new world. And lets be honest, you’re scared shitless. But after a little while you work out that nothing bad can happen to you in the starter zone. So you run around and do your quests and stuff and all is nice and good in the world. But then comes the horrible moment when you cross for the first time into a zone labelled, ‘Contested Area’. Now every move you make is fraught with danger for you could be ganked at any moment …
I levelled a gnome warlock up to about level 30 on an RPPvP realm a few months ago, just to check out what this RP thing was like, (stupid and dull and populated by people who still play with dolls and knight lego sets). I never got ganked, not even once. But I tell you what, it was a lot more exciting. There is a warlock quest that sends you over to the Barrens to talk to some dude. Now the Barrens is serious horde territory. I was only a low level 20 when I had to set foot over there. I figured that the best way in was via Theramore Isle, up through Dustwallow Marsh, (where I fully expected to have to corpse run a bit due to aggro issues), and then into the Barrens. The first surprising thing was that I managed to get through the marsh without being killed. I aggroed a few crocodiles and what have you, but my little feets ran a treat and I scampered away. I also ran past a few horde who kind of regarded me with a faintly bemused expression, kind of along the lines of, ‘what the fuck are you doing out here?’.
So into The Barrens I arrived. This was exciting stuff. Instead of taking the road I decided to travel along the tops of the mountain peaks, which was also good for avoiding packs of mobs which could easily make my life a misery at my level. I scrambled along these all the way up to where I had to find the dude. It was very exciting stuff, mostly because I was an outlaw in an enemy land. Do this on a PvE server and you basically waltz your merry way to where you want to be. But I got in and out without being ganked and that was a very satisfying feeling.
Transferring my rogue across to the PvP realm for the ganking project, I had the same type of worries, only now I was a level 80 in Northrend. My first few trips out into the wilds to do my JC dailies had me reduced to a nervous wreck. But once again I never got ganked. I still remember the first time I actually ganked a player. I crept up on a warlock in the Storm Peaks who was doing his daily. I waited until he had just killed a mob and his health and mana were not at maximum, then I cheap shotted him from behind. It turned out to be an epic battle due to my PvP crapness at the time and I only just managed to take him out. I then quickly got the fuck out of there as I was terrified that he was going to come back with 5 of his mates.
Playing on a PvP server is not that different from a PvE one. World PvP doesn’t really exist anymore. But it gives you an extra dimension to the game and rewards you with the option of actually killing that player from the enemy faction who is making your life a misery. And if your own PvP skills aren’t up to the task? Well, you’re just going to have to get better, and that’s always a good thing.
June 16, 2010 at 10:31 am
Nice post.
I rolled every other realm before I eventually found my home on a PvP realm, lets just say I saved the best for last.
When people moan about PvP realms and getting ganked it just makes me laugh, to me it really adds excitement and indeed adds a different edge to your gameplay. Not to mention brings fresh challenges to the table.
As for PvP skills its all down to practice and understanding other classes and their weaknesses as well as honing your reaction times. Sure it is frustrating at the start and takes a while to get used to but it will improve your overall gameplay and though process.
Oh and my worst memory of PvP was getting corpse camped by a warlock three levels below me in boreon tundra. It wasnt until I checked his armory I noticed he was out questing in full warlord gear
this experience didnt put me off though it gave me more reason to stick at it and improve both my toon and my skills.
June 16, 2010 at 11:13 am
Well, PvP realms weren’t my cup of tea personally. I went from 1-35ish and it just ruined it for me
When you go from PvE to PvP you have to relarn you idea of safety. AFKing in town and using roads is just suicide. Stick to the wilds and if you need to go AFK for anything more then 10 minutes just log out in an inn or goto a major city.
I spent more time dead in my own towns then I did out in the wilds. Not once was I ever killed by anyone my own level or even saw somebody my own level. it was always a group of level 80 players who corpse camped me until I just waited them out and they left. This isn’t PvP this is rediculous.
Before anyone says I only got half the pvp experience since I was such a low level. You’re absolutely correct. But I’m also well familiar with the layout of quests in both factions for all the zones. Especially outlands. Where the quests are just a clone of the other factions with your own story twist to it. Which means you have to do all the same quests with the other faction in the same spot. This is where accomplishing your own tasks becomes tedious. Not fun or exciting.
June 16, 2010 at 11:23 am
‘Especially outlands. Where the quests are just a clone of the other factions with your own story twist to it. Which means you have to do all the same quests with the other faction in the same spot.This is where accomplishing your own tasks becomes tedious. Not fun or exciting.’
So you just dont like PvP fair or otherwise then?
World PvP actually works well when you have ‘similar’ quests as it creates competition for that item or mob which in turn makes it more likely you will want to kill that Alliance player who is also killing the mobs you are after.
As for making it tedious and not fun or exciting I cant comprehend why it wouldnt unless you have a real hatred for PvP. Is pitting your skills and witts against another player not more satisfying and fun than against some AI that barely hits you back? the fact you have to be alert and on your toes at all times is what makes PvP realms more enjoyable and dare I say more fitting to the world of WARcraft.
June 16, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Which is why I said PvP is not my cup of tea. Followed by my explanation as to why I didn’t like it. Which is why I play on a PvE server and enjoy not being griefed by other people. If your sole enjoyment from a game comes from making other players lives irritating as fucking hell. Well fill your boots. It doesn’t effect me any since I play wow for raid content. I play PvP base games for PvP. Since they are balanced for it.
June 16, 2010 at 4:00 pm
ooooooh sounds like someone got ganked by a rogue down STV once too often
June 17, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Wouldn’t matter what class it was. I told you, I never met anyone my level. Any 80 can one shot my level 35 character.
June 17, 2010 at 4:38 pm
You didnt meet anyone your level or lower? sorry dont believe that for a minute, Im on a low pop pvp realm and the low level areas are still fairly active. Were you on a private server or something?
June 16, 2010 at 11:26 am
I can see you didn’t levelled in vanilla on Drak’Thul EU, where groups of 5 lvl 60 players used to chain gank lone lvl 20s in places like Duskwood or Ashenvale. I would very much like to hear what you’d say about PvP after going through that everyday experience.
June 16, 2010 at 11:40 am
The fact is that this is no longer vanilla WoW and the process of levelling on a PvP server is much different now. Particularly when you take into account the fcat that with the LFG tool you don’t even have to leave a city to level.
June 16, 2010 at 12:47 pm
There are too many carebears in WoW specifically people rolling on PvP realms then crying when they get ganked.
Ganking is and always will be a part of levelling in WoW vanilla through to WoTLK. Now if you take it personally and take a little pissy fit then the person who ganked you will be delighted, if you dust yourself off and carry on then they soon get bored.
I myself like ganking it encourages world pvp and builds up hatred for the opposing faction.
June 16, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Yeah, carebears. I had a bunch of my faction yelling me at the easter holiday for ganking horde in Goldshire. Inconceiveable!
June 16, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Haha yeah you cant make it up, the worst thing I have seen is alliance and horde members helping each other take down an elite. Then thanking and waving at each other…… I mean WTF?!
The sooner cataclysm hits and these stupid shared citys are done away with the better! Thats half the problem, people get all friendly and soft
June 16, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Going from only ever playing on PvP realms to a Pve realm gives one some idea of what it must suddenly be like to retire aged 70 and realise your not as fast or as athletic as you used to be, and are rapidly approaching death.
June 16, 2010 at 10:19 pm
My main (rogue) used to be on a PvP server, well rather, I leveled it from 1-70 there and then changed over to a PvE server right before WotLK. I never left because I didn’t like it there. Quite the opposite! Even the most insignificant gathering and questing could become a 4+ hour funtime if I wanted it to. I left because I wanted to raid with some old friends
Man I LOVED leveling on a PvP server. If you had your wits about you and a keen eye the times you were spotted by high level characters were pretty few and far-between. Which just left you to attack other players leveling in the same areas you were, mostly.
Ah well. At least I have Wintergrasp. After being on a PvP realm for so long the enjoyment of simply killing someone wasn’t enough, although still mildly entertaining. It had to be a funny or particularly inconvenient death. Something that would make me go “omg lol!” or the other person go “wtf just happened?!”.
Needless to say, being on a PvP realm made this game a lot more involved for me. No more sitting AFK wherever. No more putting as much effort into it as I do a game of minesweeper. Had to be constantly vigilant and think things through before you go and do them
June 16, 2010 at 10:46 pm
I rolled on PVE for the first time recently for the Single Abstract Noun guild. My wife loves it. I’m kinda agnostic.
PvP never bothered me much, but I have to admit I have always experienced it more as being ganked by a random high level that could one-two shot me, than interesting world pvp.
So there is definitely a part of me that likes going where I want when I want without worrying about ganking (I very rarely intentionally flag).
OTOH, there was a certain exhilaration and just playing scariness as a noob who reached level 20 or so, having finished all my quests in darkshore, crossing the line into ashenvale and getting the big red “Contested territory” sign, and yes that feeling that around any corner, I could be ganked. Especially in horde territory, I got exactly that feeling of sneaking around behind enemy lines.
And after a while, you get good at avoiding stupid PvP. When I was levelling my first toon and there was a lot of world pvp, you would often do it against people of similar level, and you would group up with same faction people to quest (and kill/defend against opposite faction).
These days, there is little world PvP, and it mostly consists of 80s wandering around one-shotting lowbies.
I still remember being level 10ish and a total noob, and watching a big horde raid on darnassus with spells flying everywhere and not knowing what the fsck was going on, or how you would fight off an invasion like that.
I don’t know, I think there is something missing on a PvE server, but honestly it’s mostly missing on PvP servers as well.
I still maintain there should be *some* way to gank people in your own faction. Some people just need killin’
June 17, 2010 at 7:30 am
“I still maintain there should be *some* way to gank people in your own faction. Some people just need killin’”
Amen to that, brother.
June 17, 2010 at 8:36 am
It’s called Gurubashi Arena
No, I enjoy playing on a PVP realm. In BC I had this thing where I would specifically gank other locks on my lock. I don’t know why I did it, but it was fun at the time.
But levelling on a PVP realm feels more ‘right’ to me in the context of the game. Sure it’s more dangerous, and sure you will get ganked. The joy of this I found, is that you find the places where you won’t get ganked, and see content you might not have otherwise seen because it’s out of the way or something.
Ultimately, and I think the comment is true about kids, PVE guilds tend to be more succesful on PVP realms because of the higher skill level required to survive levelling.
At any rate, enjoy the new server.
June 21, 2010 at 11:38 am
Red = Dead.
I played another MMO on the only pvp server they ran and it was hilarious. Meant when I picked up WoW it was the only concern I had. I hate lolboys so I at least made it RP-PvP so if I did get ganked it wouldn’t be by “xsouljaboidkx”.
To be honest theres not that much action at the moment. Even levelling its quiet and the last world pvp was fail level 80s trying to gank me in hellfire. I tend to gank mercilessly and regardless of numbers because being in BoA and having a clue tends to make you pretty much worth 2 players in greens. At the moment I’m having to learn how to starfall properly as it’s causing me too many mob aggro issues, even after I kill the target. So far my record level difference was killing an 80 lock with every CD at 72 on an enh shammy.
I’d say the best time I had ganking while levelling was on my dk because soo many people didn’t understand how to use the rune system. It pretty much meant could hold one of the pvp nodes against wave after wave of retarded dks fresh from their starting zone, if you knew what you were doing.
I do not understand people who advise logging out or hiding in an inn if you have to go afk – whats the worst that happens? You lose no durability and generally theres a spirit healer close by and yet by hearthing you’ve probably cost yourself 20mins. If anyone is that dedicated to sit over your afk corpse chances are they’d have got you anyway on your return to the zone. Now that they’ve removed the dismount effect of thunderstorm, typhoon and blastwave etc you can even hover out of range (I used to go around Storm Peaks killing people afk during their dailies with my ele shaman – good times). Although if you’re an engineer/mage/hunter you can still gank them it won’t cost them durability.
Oh and killing a hordie who’s overpulled is good. I don’t object to them doing the same if it saves me a rep bill.