It’s a great time for alting. The ICC buff keeps going up, helping our merry band of Sunday raiders (alt nights, baby!) roll through ICC. Granted, familiarity with the fights doesn’t hurt. It also doesn’t keep us from going through there with a definite air of “herp derp derp,” but that’s a story for another time.
It’s always good to have alts. As I was telling Redbeard yesterday, a draenei hunter is just what I need to help complete my set. I have one at level thirty, but he’s male, and doesn’t really feel like mine – I also have no idea what to do or where to go with him to quest. So when Rades and I realized that Lara had a small warrior tank we could pug with – well naturally a new hunter alt was just the thing.
But I love them so, my precious.
Incidentally, it’s probably sad when you have so many draenei that you need to make a little diagram so that you can choose a hairstyle and colour that won’t duplicate any of your others. The diagram helped! Clearly what was missing was buns. It makes practical sense, they’re out-of-the-way, you can shoot your bow/gun/whatever without any of that annoying flyaway hair in your face thing. So my young hunter and her hair buns have been questing through the Draenei starting area happily. As you can well imagine, I know the quests here pretty well so it doesn’t take too long to speed through the zone. I dispersed some powder, inoculated some owlkin, and was soon merrily murdering the entire population of pretty white deer.
(I’m sure my younger Bambi-loving self had no idea what I’d enjoy later in life. The DEHTA folks would have a bird.) There’s something about hunters. I’m trying to get into the psychology of them. They’re very solitary people, and with good reason. They don’t need anyone else. The mobs see me coming and they just die. They don’t even try, it’s just, “Oh, game over, here comes that hunter and her fearsome pet.” Needless to say, leveling was going well, right up until the moment I hit a snag.
I was at Azure Watch to turn in a quest, when the sound of combat reached my ears. I’m a bit slow on the up-take sometimes, so I looked around in confusion. Why were things fighting? A golden shield flew by my head to strike the NPC behind me. My first instinct was BOLT FOR YOUR TRAINER and train the level you came here to train before the jocular hunter bites it. I just managed to train. The Blood Elf paladin, name of “Gleeka,” was decimating Azure Watch. (This is an aside; I’ve heard people who really like the show “Glee” calling themselves “Gleeks” but in MY day, “gleek” was a verb and it means something rather different. My older brother was particularly pro at this and it was especially disgusting.) So I don’t know which this paladin was thinking of, if any, but that was his name. And he targeted and then laughed at me. But I’d manage to conclude my business and so (I mentioned I have an older brother, right?) I knew that the best way to deal with him was to ignore him. Not receiving a reaction, he’d likely grow bored and wander off. I headed down to hang out with Admiral Odyseus and finish my next series of quests.
Something about me must have said “entertainment” to this blood elf though, because he followed me a little ways. He stopped, got on his big mammoth – and then began to speed ahead. Oh. Hell. No. He reached the mini quest hub far faster than I could on foot, of course, and was killing the last NPC just as I arrived. He waved at me. I did not wave back, but plopped my character down to wait out the twenty seconds before I could log out. He waved good-bye to me. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what was coming next.
Moonrunner is not a PvP server. I don’t want to be on a PvP server. Not because I don’t enjoy PvP from time to time, but because I want to be able to choose the time and place that I will engage in it. This was the time. Millya, my mage, is my character with the best PvP gear and the most PvP experience. (Extreme top left in my diagram, if you’re curious.) Voss was online and he came along to have fun poking the Blood Elf. As far as I was concerned, this Belf had wasted his chance to stop being a jerk and move onto some other form of entertainment. The funny thing was that Voss got there before I did, and the Belf ran when he saw him coming. He just mounted up and headed for the hills. Voss kept following him at a safe distance. He did a “sorry” emote. (Too little, too late, buddy). So it was easy for me to track him down. Again, I didn’t feel too bad about tag-teaming him. Perhaps it’s not sporting, but he’s a paladin – your average paladin I’ve met can handle a prot warrior and a mage. I mean, really.
We chased him through the countryside – he headed for Ammen Vale, and this was the funny part. He dismounted and tried to hide in the bushes along the path. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel, really. To say that we annihilated him would be an understatement. I stood a moment over his cooling corpse, thinking about whether or not I would kill him again. I thought for a moment before deciding, “Nah, he must have gotten the message.” The message being: Go away, or I will continue to kill you with my main character. I was so confident in this, I even teleported back to Dalaran before logging back over to my hunter.
The NPCs were alive once more, so I was able to turn in my quests. By this time Rades had logged in, and I told him about the guy who’d been killing NPCs, secure in the belief that he would have moved on. It was nearly supper time for me and I was about to log off – when a familiar golden animation sped by my head. The Belf was back in Azure Watch, killing all of the quest givers again. It didn’t take long for my mage-y self to speed back to Azure Watch, and this time I took on and killed him solo. (In the interests of posterity, I’ll confess that after I’d killed him once he came back and killed me while I was eating. Who knew the graveyard at Azure Watch is so very close? But I don’t think ganking someone who is still injured counts.) In any case, this back and forth went on for awhile – we killed him again and assumed he’d give up. Even if he didn’t, supper was ready and we had to go.
When I logged in again after supper (a good half-hour later at the least) I was heading merrily down the path, pet in tow, when, imagine my surprise – Mr. Gleeka on his mammoth. He followed me for a little ways and had me targeted; naturally I wasn’t flagged… and then he left. I’d like to think that he made the connection between my tiny, baby hunter and the frost mage who made him eat his own shield repeatedly. I find myself wondering – what do people who do this get out of it? I suppose it’s some kind of power trip. “I can kill your NPCs and stop you from questing, I am so powerful.” I’ve PvPed against paladins before; I am not the world’s greatest at PvP by any means, and they’re usually more than a match for me, so I know that this guy was not especially good, or especially geared. Heck, in the heyday of retribution paladin PvP, I had to check my combat log to see what killed me in a BG. It was like “ALL I SAW WAS GOLDEN LIGHT WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN.” I don’t think I’m better than I was then, so it was satisfying to kill this guy (again, and again). The story has a happy ending because he eventually did give up and go away – but what if he’d been there all night?
My next step would have been to make a lowbie Horde character and just ask him to leave or stop. I don’t know if that’s a wussy sort of thing to do or if it would have worked, but I suppose it can’t hurt to ask. After that, I’m pretty sure that murdering an entire low-level zone could constitute “griefing” and I would have opened a GM ticket for harassment. But on our server, tickets take hours, sometimes even days to be answered, so I don’t really consider that a viable solution. All of this is my roundabout way of saying: I liked having a PvP-geared 80 main to murder this guy, but what if you don’t have that recourse? Have you ever killed low-level NPCs this way (and if so, why?) you can comment anonymously if you think I’m looking to vilify someone. Otherwise, I’m sure most of us have encountered this kind of thing while trying to quest or level – how did you handle it?
p.s. Extra credit for anyone who recognizes where the title is from. Credit towards what, I don’t know. If someone would invent the transporter I would give you a cookie.
Pugging Pally 
Yo La Tengo!
You got it! …see what I did there…
It never works out for me to get my main. I think the horde on my server must have a pretty short attention span because they’re always gone by the time I can get my mage anywhere.
The few times I’ve come across someone killing quest givers and have been able to do something about it, I will usually hunt the person for some time. Keeps em outta mischief and hopefully makes them think twice before trying it again.
Not having a high level character to provide backup, I’m *extremely* grateful to the players who respond to lowbie pleas for help in these situations. I have on occasion benefited, although I’ve never actually placed the call. Other times, I’ve just gone away and quested somewhere else. I always seem to have quests that point other directions or dungeon quests to collect or something.
Generally making a low level alt to talk to them doesn’t work. They get a kick out of the fact someone actually made an alt to ask them to stop (and sometimes it gets screenshotted and pasted around the web or guild forums).
I find that kind of PvP boring, but I’ve met people who’ve engaged in that because they’re bored and they want to get a rise out of people. I generally kill them on my paladin or my feral druid whenever possible. They’re probably picking on low level areas because they know they’ll get owned if they try some world PvP in a place populated by people their own level.
Yeah, I doubt making/logging onto a Horde alt would have done any good. It’s one thing to ask a Hordie who doesn’t know they’re interfering with your questing (like someone grinding Timbermaw rep), but if someone is enough of a jerk be killing lowbie quest NPC’s, I doubt they’re going to listen to your requests. 😦
Actually, not only was he being an ass, he was DEDICATED to being an ass! It’s not exactly easy/quick to get to the Draenei starting zone.
That being said, it was pretty great watching him get his ass handed to him repeatedly! I’m still pro-Horde, but I think we all know by now that belf pallies are sort of an exception.
You’re right, Rades.
People who are into ganking don’t really care, they just gank people. There’s no honor in it, so there’s just the perverse pleasure they get in screwing with someone’s quest chains.
Here’s a theory: ol’ Gleeka was out doing his Explorer work when he decided to mix a little pleasure with business. Besides, the Draenei starting area isn’t exactly the most populated place in Azeroth. I’d hazard a guess that The Exodar is exactly like Silvermoon in that there’s almost nobody there except new players and bank alts, so I guess he figured he could go to town.
Big mistake.
That made me cackle. I may not be a paladin, but howdya like THIS “avenging wrath”?!
That’s a great line.
(Avenging Wrath is overrated, tho.)
Myself and my belf pally are offended sir! 😛
As I was telling Redbeard yesterday, a draenei hunter is just what I need to help complete my set.
That’s kind of strange that WoW will allow a Draenei DK but not a Draenei Warlock. I figure to Draenei, one is just as bad as the other.
::Gleek definition::
That shows that you’re younger than I, because my first thought when I saw “Gleeka” was making the connection to the character (er, thing?) Gleep on Josie and the Pussycats Saturday morning cartoon.
::The Gleeka PvP misadventure in all it’s glory::
Good for you, Vid.
If he was that stupid to remain flagged PVP like that, he deserved what he got.
Gleeka must never have leveled on a PVP server before, because he would have known the rapid response high level guildies and random passersby make when ganking.
I’ve been one-shotted so many times exiting the Tarren Mill inn I’ve lost track. I’m sure Quint’s back looks like a pincushion with all the arrow and shot scars from his leveling experience on a PvP server. Hell, you even say Tarren Mill and I get twitchy.
Oh, and I almost forgot. My experiences in PvP are the rare battleground or the occasional experience out in the wild in PvP, but as a Ret Spec Pally I’ve always found the DKs the hardest to take down. Especially when they get the drop on you they can essentially stun you into death before you know what’s happening. Kind of a reverse Pally, I suppose.
And that “get over here!” ability? That’s deadly in PvP.
Ah, hilarious phrasing. You always has it.
To be honest, you had a little bit more moxie than I do, with logging over to your main to give Gleeka what for. (And gleeking? I remember that too, gross!) Purposefully following you to grief you further was pretty uncalled for, but since I am a PvP wuss, I think that logging over to Anea (the holy priest with no PvP gear or experience whatsoever) would have just made a fool of myself.
Glad he got what was coming to him 🙂
We knew he was a jerk as soon as you told us “he rolled a Belf pally”
PS: I consider it my duty as a rogue to assassinate all flagged horde on our server. (There aren’t very many so my duty is often unfulfilled).
We knew he was a jerk as soon as you told us “he rolled a Belf pally”
Gee, thanks. We’re not all gankers, you know.
Redbeard’s right. I’ve yet to see a female Belf pally gank anyone. Males? Shoot on sight.
Hey now! Quint has enough scars in his back, thank you very much….
In world pvp I only shoot players in the front because I’m all sportsmanlike and stuff.
In general when I see people killing quest givers, regardless of faction, I give them a hard time. If they are on my faction, I explain to them why they shouldn’t (discourages new players from playing, may even make some quit before they really get to experience the game), and if they are on the other faction, I grab my priest and kill them. Then I camp them, as long as I can, and kill them repeatedly, I make them pay and pay and pay, until they don’t do that again.
I’ve only ever leveled on PvP servers and this is so common for Alliance in my experience – horde goes to low-level areas and just kill quest givers. And a lot of the time, no one comes along to challenge them. You ask for help, you get a response of “lol who cares”. So you grit your teeth and carry on and never help lowbies when they ask for your help because you soon come to realize that a lot of these people are Wrathful-geared and will eat your heart while you wait for your rezz timer to tick on out. And don’t get me started on the hell that is Hellfire Penninsula…
It’s odd though. Somedays, when bored on my priest, I’ll slap on my PvP gear and go camp Thrallmar in HFP, until some better-geared main gets fed up and comes to chase me off. I think it’s something akin to old scars – they did it to me, eye for an eye, payback must be demanded. It does however get tedious, an endless circle of camp and gank and grief sometimes. And which is why I don’t enjoy PvP realms all that much…
Ironically enough, in my experience on a PvP server (Stormscale), it’s the Alliance that does the majority of the ganking. There were roving packs of them that showed up in Hillsbrad like clockwork –waiting for their raid to start, I guess– to the point where after 8 PM server time you’d always see an L80 Hordie or two hanging around Tarren Mill to defend it from the Southshore Gang.
That’s interesting, flip side of the coin – though the two PvP servers I’ve played on both have Alliance outnumbered, one of them driven to the point of getting ganked and camped by Horde that there’s now only one proper raiding guild left on it Alliance-side. Horde practically lives in Stormwind and Ironforge there – I never dared to be in my own faction’s cities while PvP-flagged.
p.s. Extra credit for anyone who recognizes where the title is from. Credit towards what, I don’t know. If someone would invent the transporter I would give you a cookie.
I cheated and looked it up. I thought it was just the basketball reference, but I recognized the band name. When WOXY* and WOXY.com were around, they used to play them a bit.
(Trivia: in the movie Rain Man, WOXY is the radio station Tom Cruise listens to: “The Future of Rock’n’Roll”.)
I am reasonably sure that such a ticket wouldn’t solve anything, but that’s an aside; I -loves- me a good revenge story.
My favorite word, in the light of having learned the meaning of gleeking?
Choler.
When I was on a PvP server I never got much fun out of harassing low level characters much or killing NPCs. But I can say this much. If I somehow got someone to log on their main… it was just like egging me on. You knew you frustrated them, made them have to come “fix” the problem. And if they brought another person out to kill you? You knew you frustrated them AND a guildy enough to come out and kill someone they don’t even know! This is mostly because if the low level character seemed uninterested in me or friendly toward me, rather than scared or worried, I’d usually leave them be. It made me giggle personally, although most of my ganking was done on people my level because I never minded dying after picking a fight with the wrong person.
Then again, every server I’ve ever played on Horde (my rogue’s faction) was always either outnumbered, or EXTREMELY outnumbered. So getting ganged up on was pretty par for the course, so you learned to either kill groups of people through convoluted tactics or at least figure out ways to tease their want to kill you without letting them get what they want 😀
I’m terrible sometimes, I know. lol
-Poptart
http://www.poptartica.net
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I levelled on a PVP server (though have since transferred to a normal realm to be with my wife, alas) and me and a mate when we were 70 (cap) would frequently raze splintertree post in ashenvale to the ground, including low-level players. Ganking? Of course. I have no guilt about it though.
1) To me, it’s an immersive experience — being on a normal server like I am now yanks me out of game repeatedly with belfs or trolls or what-have-you running by and waving at me. These factions are *at war*, even if pre-varian it was of the colder variety, and under such circumstances, from an RP perspective, I feel it is my duty to raid the settlements of the enemy. No sympathy for women and children, either. Because —
2) They will grow up to be 80s too. And so anything that you can do to obstruct them from doing that is a direct, tangible help to your faction b/c you’re slowing down the rate of enemy 80s. I view it as useful from a tactical perspective to do that.
3) This will sound odd but on my normal server now, I will go into Tarren Mill or Crossroads and burn shit to the ground, precisely BECAUSE I want people to log onto their 80s and come play with me. I like world pvp but it’s impossible on a normal server to just wander around deliberately flagged all the time — this way, I know that it’s coming (who doesn’t have an 80 main nowadays, anyway?) and that’s actually my major goal in needling lower level players. In a sense, I have gotten you to play my game instead of yours…and sure, as you say, that’s a power trip.
Of course on a PVP realm there is always the personal,
4) They did it to me when I was growing up, therefore I will do it to others. Which sounds terribly unfair b/c the ones who killed you are not the ones you’re killing…but again, I think it goes back to the RP part. There’s no communication between factions, and all this mistrust and animosity has built up and perpetuates itself. I think that’s precisely Blizzard’s intention, actually. If they would let us sit down and share a pint and talk with the other side, even PVP servers would be a lot friendlier. But they don’t…b/c they want that kind of stuff to happen on PVP servers.
*shrug* That’s my view anyway. I ganked…but mostly not out of a power trip from killing people 60 levels below me. I don’t know how widely shared that opinion is, maybe most people ARE doing it for that reason but…IDK.
When I raid Crossroads, I’m picking a fight. Period.
I’m okay with that.
well sure…the only thing you could do to thumb your nose more would be…IDK, Brill maybe. Can you shout louder, “COME AND GET ME”?
I’m on a Pvp server so I’ve been ganked my fair share of times.
As for the other way around? I try not to (sometimes I admit I follow them around if I’m bored, but try not to hurt them, I usually help them kill quest critters). Unless they’re on Horde territory, then I give them a friendly little ‘get out of here’ to send them on their way.
Camping though? That’s actively trying to ruin a person’s fun. I’ll only do that to griefers.
The way I see it, you can kill someone once or twice as a sort of “Move along” gesture, but as you say, following and camping them is above and beyond unless they did something to bring it upon themselves in the first place. I think that’s why I would be a poor fit for a PvP server, when/if that happened to me I’d get so angry at being obstructed, I would probably just get up and walk away and wind up playing very seldom! I guess I like my PvP in a controlled environment. 😀