Aug 5 News
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Lythrdskynrd starts a post on the WoW Europe forums about how the new Achievement system, and how it may promote bullying. There is also some great discussion over here, too about it. It is an interesting question. It's already 'bad enough' that folks can't be taken about their word about gear or skill or talent levels. It's quite common on the main WoW Blizzard forums to see someone say "You don't have a 2000Arena 2v2, you can't talk about 2v2" and things along that line. Is the Achievement system, if it's viewable by others than yourself, going to cause more problems than good?

Arena matches between lvl 71 to 79 will be Skirmish only, it turns out, and not count for points. This is already polarizing folks, who are either saying that it'll be a great return to skill based PvP for the duration, or those who think the only measure of a toon is their Arena Rating.

Eluminite has a nifty video up showing the new pet and mount interfaces, and then showing that non-combat pets will have a new trick to entertain us.

From the "Ask a Beta Tester" column, comes a question I had been wondering about, too. Are the current crop of Daily quests going to be useful in levelling your toons? The answer is pretty much "no". You get around 3.5g and 9500xp/turnin for a daily. Why bother when you can be charging around Northrend getting around 4-5g and 20,000xp or so per quest. I think there might be a place for Dailies, but I'm a voracious content devourer, so you know where I'll be.

This has more factors than money / XP per quest if you're going to approach it from the optimization perspective... things like:
- population density of new zones (waiting for spawns)
- time to complete quests
- quest density (proximity to other quests)

The SSO island dailies are really high density and have minimal travel time. I can do the non flying quests (I think there are 8) in less than 30 minutes now. My experience with leveling zones is more like 3 or 4 per 30 minutes at best. So it may still be worthwhile to do the dailies if it's easy enough to travel between the isle of QD and Northrend.

I imagine it might be good for alts, who can basically log in, do 8 quests for the day, log out, and retain most of their rested bonus for when you have more time to get them through the Northrend quests. Because I imagine they will make it fairly difficult to travel between TBC locations and WotLK locations.

Obviously from a "see more new content" perspective Northrend is far, far better, but I was more looking at it from the perspeective the article used.

I actually intend on taking a 2-3 week hiatus on release of WotLK, since I don't think there'll be much point in playing it till the quest zerg is a little ways ahead of me

To me, that was the best part of the expansion. Playing Alliance, it was *awesome* to head out of Honor Hold with dozens of other players around me. I'd go to a quest area and there would be an army of players there too. Except for a handful of quests that were poorly designed to handle the rush, usually involving killing one particular non-elite mob, it was pretty fun. It felt like war; like we really were at war with the Burning Legion and there was massive violence everywhere.

A few weeks later, I brought an alt through it and it was empty, stale, and boring by comparison.

No way I'm missing the opening-weeks experience. It's a blast.

-Bolty

It'll only be worth it if it's a massive PvP orgy. If it's just going to be a bunch of people standing around waiting for spawns, I'll definitely pass.

QFT. If I could multi-box and do both starting areas at the same time, I would.

Perhaps it sucked on PVP realms, then.

On Terenas (PVE), respawn rates were very high, and I had zero issues completing quests in the starter areas. It was a blast.

It sucks because no one ever wants to fight... they're all so busy waiting for some kind of mob to spawn, nothing interesting happens. I don't get why those kinds of people (the fluffy, fuzzy, cuddly kind) play on PvP servers.

Because of circumstances you may not have considered.
/shrug,
~Frag

*gasp* sometimes, even people that play on PvP servers, want to complete a quest without getting ganked and corpse camped. Doesn't matter if it's PvP or PvE, sometimes people just want to get $#!@ done without a hassle.

Then they should be on PvE servers where it's an option and not a requirement.

Though it's not like PvP servers are even PvP servers anymore with the way people can just chicken out and fly away.

Have you, perhaps, noticed that raiding on PvE servers is slowly inching to dead? How a bunch of top-tier guilds on PvE servers decide, even after having 5 legendaries from TBC, that rerolling on a PvP server is a better idea than keeping their characters because they can't get any recruits?

These people don't necessarily want to play on PvP servers, but they choose to because it's much easier to get a recruit to try out transferring to a PvP server (that can be undone) than a PvE server (you're stuck on PvE for life).

PvE is broken because you can go PvP -> PvE but you can't go back. Thus you get players on PvP that are there to raid, a contradiction in itself.

As has been said, if you want to do high-level intensity raiding, you pretty much have to roll on PvP servers. The average skill level of players on PvP servers is higher.

And I know you're trying to come off as hard-ass, Artega, but come on. This was well documented when TBC came out; people just want to get to the level cap before the action starts up anew. It's retarded to go around picking fights with everyone because you *both* lose - that was time lost for both of you getting to the level cap. Congrats.

-Bolty

That doesn't make any sense. At least on a PvE server, you actually CAN get recruits from PvP servers -- if you're on a PvP server, you've cut yourself off from all PvE servers.

The issue is, if someone transfers from a PvP server to a PvE server, they can't go back, and most people aren't willing to risk that.

Take note that you're telling other people how to spend their time and money here.

On that we agree. It can be difficult to keep someone from simply cc-ing or outracing you long enough to drop combat, mount up and fly away. Which in turn meant that a lot of the actual fun of being on a PvP server for some of us; the ambushes, fighting over a small objective, building a rivalry over resources, etc... has been trivialized to some extent.

Cheers,
~Frag

It started a feedback loop. The more PvP becomes a standard for raiding, the less raiders roll PvE, the less are willing the transfer to PvE, and thus more rerolls to PvP. As an example, check out Juggernaut. They gave up trying to get PvE recruits after killing M'uru, their last raid was early July (though it looks like their last serious raid was early June). Where are they now? On a PvP server, they're already working on M'uru again.

Not allowing PvE -> PvP transfers is one of those bad decisions (like being able to chain-chug pots) that does its best to destroy some fundamental aspects of this game while people sit there and voraciously defend it.

Yes... I know this...

You're still cutting yourself off from half the population.

The only way this would make sense is if the majority of the population currently resides on PvP servers.

The thing is that for the progression raiding groups, the player population that they want to attract does have its majority on the PvP servers to start with. That was pretty much the case at launch of the game. The difference is that at that time it was probably 55% to 45% split at launch and as time has gone on the shift is even more to the PvP side now.

Funny thing is, for the sort of people who'd be out and about ganking people (such as myself), other peoples' time and money is worth a little bit less.

Hi,


Maybe you're playing the wrong damned game. If *all* you want to do is fight, then why play a ROLE PLAYING game in the first place? Get yourself a first person shooter and go play with the other hypertestosteroned kiddies who fear for the loss of their e-peen. Leave the balanced, mature people with imagination the hell alone.

--Pete

I'm not sure if i'd put it that harshly, but eventually occam's razor needs to be applied. Is it more likely that every other player is just PvPing wrong, or is it more likely that hardcore PvPers are just playing the wrong game?

The server says PvP on it, the game is well known for its PvP, the population of PvPers certainly exists.

If this is the wrong game for PvPers then maybe somebody needs to inform Blizzard.

Hi,


Not too good at reading comprehension, are you?

To reiterate: PvP as part of the overall RP experience is good. PvP as all that you get out of the game is stupid. There is so much more to the game for those with the wit to find it. If all you want is Quake, then go play Quake.

Oh, and Blizzard put in all that non-PvP content. And you can't level from PvP. Maybe that should send a message.

--Pete

*shrug* Who said anything about wanting nothing to do in-game but killing people? And what, exactly, makes people who want to do nothing but PvE balanced and mature? I, personally, consider myself a PvPer. But all the same, I've raided (mostly pre-BC, which is when I played the most) hundreds of times, and participated in a number of first major boss kills with my guild.

I would have to say Artega is likely to be the same. And so would the majority of people who refer to themselves as PvPers.

Nothing about going out and doing some ganking stops people from enjoying other aspects of the game on occasion. And nothing about that is under discussion. Even Artega's original comments were about doing world PvP while levelling to 80.

The whole problem that Artega was complaining about was that PvP servers used to be full of PvP out in the world, at random, and now that's harder to find. And a lot of us who rolled on PvP servers back when the game was new did so and continued to play there because we enjoyed that. And it was certainly widespread when WoW was new--levelling on a PvP server was all about annihilating your enemies hard enough to give yourself the breathing room to level. And it was great fun for me, and a lot of others. And just because it may not have been great fun for you, does not mean that the people who liked it and wish it would happen more often are stupid, testosterone-filled 11 year olds.

And, yes, Blizzard did put in all of that non-PvP content. They also put in all of the PvP content. And continue to put more in.

Also, I would like to ask you to stop with the condescending comments. Nobody here is insulting you, and disagreeing with you does not make us all retarded.

Hi,


You are right. I make a statement about a certain attitude. You claim not to have that attitude and that my statement offends you. So, it both doesn't apply to you and does apply to you? Disagreeing with me does not makes you retarded.

As for PvP, I built a character on a RP-PvP server in the hopes of finding a better game. I found the same crap that I'd found in the PvE non-RP servers with the addition of ganking.

--Pete

I had the exact same experience, sigh.

I'm sincerely hoping all PvPers who play WoW only to PvP move to those tournement servers I keep hearing about. At least that'll keep them out of our hair.

No, see, what's happening here is, you make a statement accusing someone whose views I generally share of having a certain attitude. And I am offended because you did it in a very inflammatory way. Forgive me if some modicum of civility is something I've come to expect around here.

I'm sorry, but I did not and do not play World of Warcraft to RP as some silly little elf so I can cyber with another silly little elf in the Deeprun Tram.

I played it and play it because I want to be an Orc killing Humans, Dwarves, and other Alliance scum. I have played Orc since the first Warcraft game, and I will continue to do so if there are other Warcraft games after this one.

Know why I rolled on a PvP server? To kill Alliance scum. Is that not roleplaying enough for you? Well then I guess it's a good thing that I'm not on a server that requires it, huh?

Yeah, there's more than just PvP to WoW - PvE can be a fun diversion, you get to meet some really cool people and some total jerks, and some of the questlines have a pretty good plot to them. But I play for the PvP, just like you apparently play for the roleplaying opportunities.

I do play first-person shooters extensively, and I'm afraid that the majority of the playerbase for the ones I play are largely over 21 (myself included) and are probably more mature than you'd like to stereotype us as.



This sums it up for my first toon to 60, as well as my second. Because those toons were both made before the advent of the honor system, the only reason to PvP was for the sheer fun of it. I still remember those times as the most fun in WoW, though current-day WoW is still enjoyable enough to keep me playing six nights out of seven.



Why in the world would you roll on a PvP server and expect people wouldn't gank you? Even moreso on an RP server, where players have the added incentive of being able to roleplay hating your race or faction so much that they'd do anything kill them or die trying? You think that, because it's an RP server, orcs and humans are suddenly gonna get over their differences, inherent distrust, and outright hate of each other and make love instead of war?

What about blood elves, who were discriminated against by the humans and are distant cousins of the night elves? You think they're gonna give some random human the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their intentions?

What about the the Silverwing elves and the Warsong orcs in Warsong Gulch (ignore the flags, please)? The Defilers and League of Arathor in Arathi Basin? The Stormpike dwarves invading the Frostwolf Clan's territory in Alterac Valley?

If anything, you're more likely to be ganked and camped on an RP-PvP server than a regular one.

That's... A pretty good point actually. I've only ever played on RPPvP servers (Horde on Ravenholdt, Alliance on Scarshield Legion before it got impossibly laggy and Sporeggar afterwards) and though my main character is typically played very passively and non-aggressively (My other character, however, will take on pretty much anyone just for kicks), there's always the very real chance that the red name I see on the horizon will attack me without provocation. And probably likely have a rogue or druid hidden nearby to "help out" if it looks like I'm getting the upper hand.

Now, I've talked to people on regular PvP servers and they're always the ones who say that world PvP is dead, that they've levelled a whole bunch of characters from 1-70 without getting ganked once, and how levelling on a PvP server isn't any harder than on a PvE server and can I have that PvE->PvP transfer please?

Poppycock*.

My mage alt did some time in Hillsbrad Foothills, and there always seemed to be a few bored level 70s running around willing to one-shot anyone. Heck, during one fairly intensive play session I decided to keep count of times I was ganked by a skull-levelled player while trying to collect my requisite thirty skulls and work my way up the Battle of Hillsbrad questline. I was killed thirteen times by players, a further six times by mobs through the interference of players, and managed to escape death through some lucky Blinking another three times. And I don't know if you Alliance types know this, but the corpse run from Tarren Mill to Hillsbrad is long. I could have easily made an extra level on top of my session had I managed to stay alive and not waste so much time corpse running.

And you can't say that Honor had anything to do with this. Warlocks in full Merciless Gladiator's aren't getting anything from Skillcoiling a level 27 Mage save for cheap thrills. Same for the Hunter running around Grom'gol attacking anyone who stepped out in the short time my Druid was there (I tend to avoid STV, but the Mirage Raceway quests require a fairly extended stay there.). Seriously, if this balderdash** about PvP servers being as easy to level on as PvE, then it certainly doesn't seem to apply for RPPvP.

On the other hand, I have noticed a pretty disturbing trend. Nobody wants to PvP in a situation that nobody (I could generalise and just say "the Alliance", but that's only because I haven't witnessed the Horde do this, but I'm also one to admit that a tree falling in the forest does make a sound even when I'm not there) is willing to do any world PvP if there's the possibility of risk. I've seen "world PvP" guilds on my server crow about glorious victories when all they did was steamroll The Crossroads for an hour straight without any real opposition and splitting the very moment any organised resistance turns up. The Crossroads isn't a hard target, Tarren Mill isn't particularly well-defended, same for Southshore and Astranaar (Though in the last case, sometimes it is better to just slaughter your way through the guards, since at level 70 it's a quicker route than walking around it).

Nobody is going for the outposts guarded with level 65 elites, even though they can be killed fairly easily if you're in a party. It's always the soft targets, nothing glorious or even worth discussing on your realm's forum.

I saw a twenty-strong group from an Alliance guild massing at Ratchet one night while passing through on my Druid. A few minutes later Barrens defence was filled with a steady stream of "The Crossroads is under attack!". Well done, guys. Build up a huge force to corpse-camp questgivers in an outpost that most folks can wipe off the map in a group of three. Why not use that numerical advantage to, say, try and at least kill a sizable portion of Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff? And why claim you're doing world PvP when, as it turned out, you run within half an hour of the first assault because a rival Horde guild decided to intervene?

Isle of Quel'danas is another interesting example. In the first phase it was an absolutely glorious example of world PvP done right. We had the major guilds of both sides racing for mutually-agreed destruction, the vast majority of other players joining in, and the Shattered Sun Peacekeepers basically doing all they could to keep the armor repairers in business. There were a few of us not getting involved, just delighting in the carnage, and walking through the outpost was almost exactly like walking through a bar brawl. Pity nobody could swing from the chandeliers. Nowadays, it's almost deathly quiet now the phases have progressed, and about the only PvP that goes on is the usual camping of the Greengill Coast chokepoint or on the boats up north. Oh, and the usual mages firing from beyond the range of the guards hoping that you've kept your pet on defensive. They're always fun.

Generally, on my server, levelling up is hard. It's because nobody actually wants the challenge of doing anything "risky" and would rather sate their pretences of "roleplaying" a hero of their faction by killing low-levelled players and outposts. Unfortunately, while there's plenty of incentive to go after players of your own level in the form of Honor, this state of affairs is likely to continue until Blizzard (re)introduces a system to dissuade players from just repeatedly slaughtering weaker players and preventing their progress.

-----------------------
* Blame my word of the day calender.
** Next Friday's word.

I think you've demonstrated over the history of this board that this is not, in fact, true.



As of level 60, here's the count: 6. And 3 of those were because I insisted on questing in STV despite the risks. The fact is, you've got people rolling on PvP servers for non-PvP purposes. That, in and of itself, demonstrates a failure on Blizzard's part.

You can roleplay hate without adding ganking. You can have PvP without ganking. Your entire 'argument', if it can be called that, falls flat on its face.

By 'ganking', I am referring to skull level players steamrolling others who are trying to level up.

Hi,


Yep. Eleven years ago, in CD, there were many discussions about PvP in RP games. Many ideas were put forward to actually integrate PvP into the game and not just have it be a ganker's paradise. Ideas such as experience point gain (and loss) for killing players above (or below) your level. Big penalties for killing the same player repeatedly within a short time. Quests that required raids into enemy territory and the killing of enemies in that territory. And many more which I've long since forgotten.

During the intervening years, Blizzard has implemented none of those ideas, and PvP in their games is still a tack on to please the wankers (the fundamental WoW equation: wankers = $13/month each). Blizzard has shown, repeatedly, that they are masters of making games fun, but not deep games. And to do PvP right is going to take depth.

--Pete

Forget I said anything.

I've played on a PvP server since something like February '05. I've levelled 7 characters through at least the STV killzone, and do you know how many enemy players I've found whose purpose is only to ruin others' game time? And I don't mean people of equivalent level fighting, and I don't mean the random bored 70 who happens to dismount on his way to wherever he's going and lay down a quick gank, or even people who spend a bit of time every once in a while tearing up some lowbie town or harassing some quest hub. That's obviously not something most of you like around here, but it's avoidable, really not a big inconvenience if you've got practice gank-dodging, and, honestly, it's just par for the course, and if you have the right mindset for it it can both be a bit of fun and good practice for evading enemies, breaking line of sight, and properly using your abilities to foul up a stronger enemy (not always possible, of course, but you might be surprised how often it can be useful). I mean people who obviously take the majority of their enjoyment in-game from just logging in, ganking for an extended period, logging out, and repeating the exercise the next day.

That number would be two. A human rogue by the name of Aeonic who used to spend hours every day standing stealthed next to the flight master outside of Gadgetzan. And a gnome rogue named Xenocider, who, in just a staggering display of single-mindedness, had at one point spent several hours every day running circles around STV killing every red name he could find for over a year and a half.

Those people suck. But hey, the second one at least, I'm pretty sure was only there because he was a terrible player who couldn't kill anyone his own level, and as such, was barely up to the task of ganking. I had lots of fun messing with him.

And I suppose most of you would say that those first things I said that didn't count for a real 'ganker' or 'wanker who only enjoys ruining others' game experiences' are over the line anyway. In which case all I can really say to that is that you just won't have very much fun on a PvP server. And I'm sorry for that, because I like it quite a bit, and I wish you could share that.

"People on PvP servers are 12-year-old wankers who enjoy ruining other people's game."
"People on PvE servers are carebear losers who can't handle any competition."

Could we stop with the generalizations?

-Bolty

What if you wanted to roleplay your high-level character, by all means a hero of his people his faction, as being a brave frontiersman, helping expand your faction's influence in a particular zone? Would you simply see the Alliance scum wandering around - possibly doing the same thing as you, or scouting for those who will - and just go "Hmm..." and be on your way? Nah, you'd kill them and enjoy the glory of killing your most hated enemies.

You're free to your opinions, but I don't think that ganking is a necessarily immature way to play.

Hi,


And I'm 100% in agreement. But, if you then proceed to corpse camp that *player* for the next hour, you've gone beyond just role playing a bastard.

-Pete

This has always been true. I've been playing on pvp servers since WoW was released in Nov 04, so believe me, this is very very old.

So last year I flipped that concept on its head. I rolled my first Hunter and decided that to attack anything that was red. Because the old world is mostly empty, this didn't happen often. But when it did happen, I never paused to check the level: There was a very surprised +5 rogue that got kited all over Ashenvale to his death, and a party of 70s that must have laughed at my little viper sting before crushing me.

And then there are the much more entertaining abuses of power: A level 70 paladin I know was recently out leveling mining. Whenever he spotted a lowbie, he would chase them down, drop his fire festival statue, point at the lowbie and point at the statue. If the lowbie danced, he'd cheer for them, mount up and ride off. If the lowbie ran...

And that's why there are PvE servers

That's nothing but an excuse. "Well, I was only being a rotten asshole because my CHARACTER is a rotten asshole! Nothing personal!"

Yeah, well, don't roleplay a rotten asshole in the first place.

I've dabbled with a character on a PVP realm a while back. Mirage Flats in Thousand Needles was probably the most fun because players were usually the same level (30-31 or so) and usually questing alone (so it felt like a fair fight if you got into one). I can enjoy world PVP, but I'm quite happy doing most of my play on PVE realms.

I'm guardedly optimistic that Lake Wintergrasp might be able to provide a satisfying world PVP experience for care bears such as myself in a way that Halaa and the Outlands PVP objectives failed to do. In my mind I picture it as a Quel'Danas of PVP - there are daily quests to make you go there, with objectives that will lead towards PVP conflict.

Apparently Warhammer Online gets around the "high level characters ganking low level characters" issue by turning the high level characters into chickens... defenseless, easy to kill chickens... (WoW seems to rely on social measures to deter gankers - the oppressed lowbie will send out a call for help, and the forces of righteousness will descend to smite the aggressors).

Chris

Who are you to tell people how to play and how not to play? It's their money; they should be allowed to play how they wish.

There's always been something about this "it's my money I'll do what I want" argument that's struck me. Just because someone pays for something, that does not entitle them to act like a total jerk. We all pay for the streets we walk on, but someone walking down it treating everyone they see like a jerk is going to get himself into trouble in a hurry.

Or...we all pay to go to a hockey game, but if someone starts acting like a jerk, security gives them the boot pretty quick.

Just because you are paying money, doesn't mean you get to ignore societal niceties.

Unless it's stated in the rules, it's completely fine - if you don't like the way someone's acting, either ignore them or find somewhere else to be.

In terms of ganking, you have the option of a PvE server or a PvP server (in both Original and Roleplaying flavors.) If you choose a PvP server, regardless of whether or not you knew the distinctions, you have absolutely no right to complain about anything enemy players do to you. Unless you believe your $15 is worth more than theirs

For what it's worth, I (eventually) give people the option of just leaving instead of forcing them to spirit rez.

Funny, everyone else seems to.

-Jester

I didn't tell you how to play. I said that claiming it's appropriate for your character to act in certain manner is nothing but an excuse, as you can easily roleplay your character in a different manner. You are still responsible for your actions.

Or we all pay to go to a hockey game, and there's one side of the rink with a big "You are allowed to be a jerk here!" sign, and a sign on the other side that says, "You are not allowed to be a jerk here!"

And then somebody goes and sits down on the jerk side and complains when somebody is a jerk.

I understand your point. I, personally, draw the line at extended camping (unless of course I have some other reason to be on a corpse--such as that's where my quest spawns are; or if it's a vengeance camp: the lowbies love it when you camp the guy who was camping them). But whether it's assholish or not, there are no rules being broken, and the 'security' (GMs) won't lift a finger for it.

Aug 12 News
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The new Recruit-A-Friend feature is really kicking up some flurries of feeling. You hear about folks going from level 30 to 59 in a minute, as well as a lot of other things. Seems like it's easier than ever to get to 60, but is that better? If the folks using this system really are folks who haven't played before, is one really doing them any favors by blasting their first toon up to 60 in a matter of a few days?

There are some neat Engineering goodies posted about the web. It looks like there will finally be Eng. things that can be made and applied to existing items, along the lines of enchants. This could give Engineering a much needed boost.

Zeida of Tichonderous posts a pretty amusing list of the folks you don't want in your raiding guild. Looking over the list though, it's pretty easy folks to fall into these categories, and....you can't raid by yourself.

Sadly, as quickly as it was in, Potion Sickness is gone. It's a shame, and I hope that it comes back. I realize that it'd be quite hard to rebalance the current encounters around Potion Sickness (if Blizz would even bother doing it in the first place) but I liked the idea of encounters balanced around one potion, and having to choose that potion carefully (not to mention the farming time it would slice out of the game)