Monday, February 27, 2006

Environment PvP

I am writing an article which draws clear parallells between MUDs and WoW at the moment, struggling as I feel it's so obvious and I want to look brilliant, but at the same time: Somebody needs to do it, and this time I guess it's me.

BUT I can't just write, need to play some too. So I log into Argent Dawn with Agirra and set off to drop off some quests. PvP is on, but I am in the middle of Horde territory, and don't expect trouble. On the way, what do I see? I come just in time to see a member of my guild being killed by a paladin. He is standing over her body gloating. As I show up he immediately attacks. I get off the wolf and start hitting him with what I have, and as shamans actually have a bit in the book, I manage to take him down. Wait for my guildmate to resurrect, and hang out to see if he comes back spoiling for a fight. Which he does. Again he attacks first. Now we are two pissed and prepared shamans, so he dies in very little time. We decide enough is enough, and ride on to see what we can do about those quests, keeping PvP on just because turning it off right now would be cowardly and bad sport. We had after all just been corpse-camping and ganking, even if he did attack first both times.

We got into the quest area and started doing our stuff, who came back? Our paladin friend and a gnome mage, again attacking first. The mage was specced to the ears and all epic, so we were quickly toast, something the paladin just could not stop himself from gloating over. He gloated long enough for a friend to show up, and soon we were three. With some help from a friendly hunter we became four, and they were dead - again. Now we were getting a little more than annoyed, so we were actively corpse camping. When they both ressurrected close by, we immediately hit them again. I hardly noticed that I killed the mage, and the paladin was dead before the other shaman had gone through half her mana. No honourable waiting for regenerating anything now. Mext round they had turned PvP off, and fled towards the Undercity. We tried to catch them, but they snuck off. That is, until we asked on the local defense channel. The paladin had turned from ganking level 60ies to ganking level 12s.

So of course we found him again. And again. And when he turned PvP off again, we stuck around until he just couldn't keep himself from attacking, at which point he died again. And after I logged off, the guildmates had him on th Kill On Sight (KOS) list, so he kept being killed all over. Lucky for him PvP doesn't ruin equipment like PvE (Player versus Environment).

I normally don't like environment PvP. I don't sneak around in enemy camps looking for vulnerable strays to attack for honour kills. But when I can catch somebody else doing that they are fair game in my book. And then getting them feels good, really good!

Just as good as it felt 8 years ago during the wars in the MUD at the time, blinding a lev 100 ranger when I was lev 75. (The trick was blinding him and surviving.)

Yep.

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