The expansion draws ever nearer, and many folks are working away at the last important bits of Burning Crusade content. We're looking to see Wrath by the end of this year. I've been spending a lot of time leveling alts to get ready for Wrath of the Lich king. I've noticed that this has been surprisingly easy compared to my previous leveling experiences. In the last week or so I've leveled my Warrior from 40 to 56 with very little resistance. I've probably only been ganked a total of ten or so times.

I'm beginning to think either most people have shifted their priorities from hunting lowbies to preparations for the level 70 to 80 grind. Or could it be that many of the folks who would ordinarily be giving me grief have been preoccupied playing in the beta test? It reminds me of the unofficial truce between factions immediately following the release of BC.

Has your gaming experience changed recently?

Have flying mounts killed off world PvP in Outland? I'm on a PvE server, so I don't see it much anyway, but folks on a PvP server are complaining that whenever they find a good target and get close, the person just hops on their "carebear cloud" and flies away. Of course, "xxxx ruined PvP" is one of the most common types of QQ (although "xxxxx class is broken!" probably beats it), but is Blizzard protecting folks on flying mounts by letting them escape a fight too fast?

Neth says no, of course -- she says that flying away from (or into) a fight is just another method PvPers have in their arsenal. And a few commenters in the thread make the point that I would: odds are that if someone is running away from you, it's not really a fair fight -- flying mounts may have ruined ganking, but they haven't ruined actual PvP.

Of course, what people really want here is a way to attack someone in the sky, and fortunately, with Wrath of the Lich King, your prayers will be answered -- not only have we seen flying vehicles fighting in the air, but Blizzard has confirmed anti-air capabilities. If you're just looking for a gank, and are angry when that level 64 runs away from your kitted-out 70 Rogue, you're probably still going to be unhappy. But if you're looking for the fight to go up in the air when your opponent does, Northrend probably has what you need.

1. You get ganked while killing Bloodscalp Trolls.
2. You resurrect and wait for the perfect opportunity to exact your retribution.
3. They log onto their level 70 and one-shot your level 32 alt.
4. You log into your 70, fold, spindle, and mutilate your foe's 70 until they cry for help.
5. Their buddy joins the fight.
6. Your buddy joins the fight.
7. Half of their guild rushes to STV.
8. Your guild matches their fire power.

It's really interesting to watch something like that happen. I'm not sure how anyone who has no 70s on the server survives the most ganktastic zones in the game. I can't quite comprehend how people can feel compelled to hang out in these zones at high levels just for ganking. I imagine that they're all either bitter about their own leveling experiences, or maybe they're short.

Or so wrote Robert Heinlein in Beyond the Horizon. The general idea was that, in a country where there were serious (and officially sanctioned) consequences to misbehavior from quarters other than the police, you'd wind up with a place where people really thought hard about whether it was worth pissing someone off just for the fun of it.

Whenever I'm reading about PvP, that quote always springs to mind. People who have played MMORPG's with more "hardcore" PvP systems have mentioned that the amount of random ganking you see in WoW just doesn't seem to occur on the same scale elsewhere. WoW's PvP is pretty consequence-free. Corpse runs are annoying, sure, and being camped is nobody's idea of fun. But you don't take durability or experience loss after a PvP death, and you don't lose money or items to the attacker. Nor does the attacker gain anything from killing you (unless it's honor if you weren't a gray target).

Drysc responded strongly to some QQ over at the forums when a poster from Kil'jaeden -- a PvP realm -- ranted about being griefed by high level characters while leveling up. Drysc's uncompromising response? Get some friends and fight back. He reasons that if players roll on a PvP server, they should expect to be griefed as part of the leveling process. It's the same philosophy that has prevented Blizzard from allowing character transfers from PvE to PvP realms. It really only makes sense. If players roll on a PvP server, they shouldn't complain about players from the opposing faction taking advantage of the fact that they're flagged for PvP.

As Drysc explains, "the rules of war are based around attacking when the odds are in your favor". This could mean when opponents outnumber you, outlevel you, when you're low in health and/or if you're engaged with multiple mobs... the question isn't whether it's honorable or fair. It's war. In a PvP server, everything is fair game. There are no rules, and players certainly shouldn't bother sending tickets to GMs asking for any help (or sympathy). This should probably be common sense, but Drysc's somewhat provocative response is something of a surprise -- to many players a welcome one. While I'm all for etiquette (ganking a fisherman is just plain rude) and a personal sense of honor, players who roll on a PvP server know what they signed up for. Shape up or ship out -- character transfers, after all, are just a click away.

When I'm soloing, I very rarely take advantage of PvP in the environment. I'm usually too busy leveling or grinding for cash to start a land war. I've even been known to help out an ally in distress. About the only time I attack unprovoked in the environment is when there is a quest monster close by that I need to fight.

And by honor I don't mean the honor-as-currency system that's currently in the game -- I mean a sense of personal honor as in, there are things you make a conscious decision to avoid doing just as a moral gesture.

I thought of this recently after a truly miserable losing streak in Arathi Basin. I wound up in three consecutive matches with a full complement of 15 Alliance players to 7 or 8 Horde (with both sides being PuG's, mind you). Being out-numbered and out-gunned sucks no matter what, but it's made immeasurably worse in places like Arathi Basin and EOTS due to the dwindling number of sites you'll have to rez when your side is being utterly destroyed. There was one particularly awful game where the Alliance decided to see how much honor they could get from us before the inevitable 4 or 5-cap ensuring their victory, and simply zerged us in the graveyard as we rezzed (or tried to). The feeling was made worse by knowing, having also played Alliance in BG's, that Horde would almost certainly have done the same thing had the situation been reversed. PvP is the subject of a lot of emotional dicussion in the WoW community as a result of situations like these, and I think we can all agree that it's not the losses that drive you nuts so much as knowing that the game is full of places and times where no amount of strategy or skill will keep you alive.

There are a lot of things in PvP that I just don't like being a part of.
I don't attack fellow Druids unless I'm attacked first (yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but a surprising number of Druids subscribe to this). I don't join in when an enemy player is obviously being dog-piled. I don't /spit on opposing players or do other rude emotes, and I don't participate in griefing. There's not much about WoW's PvP system that's really all that fair to begin with, especially when compared to games more explicity designed around PvP combat, but in the back of my mind there's still that notion that your opponent should at least have a sporting chance. I risk being called a hopeless carebear for this statement, but I think "honorable kills" are a lot more enjoyable when there's a measure of actual honor involved.

The biggest objection to this idea was the possibility of sky-ganking. Ganking however is a fact of life on a PvP server. I try to avoid going to Azeroth whenever possible, partly because it takes so long to get from place to place. Sure it would take a great deal of coding, but I would love to see this explored further.

If nowhere else, flying should be an option in Moonglade. That way Druids could try out their fantastic flying skills as soon as they get them.

Do you think we should be able to fly in Azeroth?

I play on RP servers only, but when they first came out, I tried an RP-PvP server for a while. I kept plugging away at it till I got to my mid thirties and finally gave up. Ever since then it's seemed to me that players on PvP servers are people who like their game to be extra difficult, and they don't mind if that means they have to suffer through the kind of situations that would submerge a "normal" gamer in intolerable frustration. They just accept that leveling up means doing lots and lots and lots of ghost runs, because other high-level characters will gank you and they will camp your corpse, and there's not much you can do about it. That's just the cost of being elite, to them -- having gone through it, it's as though they feel baptized by fire.

That's why I'm always surprised when a player from a PvP server asks for some sort of help from Blizzard with such frustrating situations. A blood elf hunter named Arkdemon is asking for neutral guards at all summoning stones -- apparently he's had trouble getting to his instance when there's a bunch of PvP going on there. But isn't that the whole point? Isn't PvP on a PvP server supposed to get in the way of PvE stuff, just like all the other struggles these players go through leveling up? The fact that you can effectively conquer a summoning stone, raid entrance or otherwise important spot on a PvP server is the whole reason people play there. If you take away this sort of challenge, or nerf it until it's not so serious a problem for people who just wanna PvE that night, then what's the point of even having a PvP server to begin with? (Zul'Aman is a possible exception to this rule, since it's so much more accessible to the Horde than the Alliance, but even in that case, a number of hardcore PvPers cried out how much they hate the addition of guards there.)

Bornakk seems to agree with me for the most part, but he mentions that Blizzard will indeed add guards (or indeed do whatever they want) if they feel it is necessary. What's your opinion?

juBBjuBB is the proud father of one very charismatic girl who, aside from being absolutely adorable, is also able to play WoW! As he says in his forum post "YOU may have been GANKED by our 3yr old!", Charisma was captivated with her parents gaming activities and started out playing WoW at 1 and a half years old, doing very basic things like running and jumping and chasing bunnies, but since then has actually gotten the hang of some of the basic mechanics of the game. She has learned that you don't want that green bar to get empty or you'll "fall down," as well as the fact that the alliance ("blue") is good and the ugly ones ("red") are bad -- or enemies in PvP anyway. She knows to cap a flag and grind her way up in levels, too apparently.

Some people who read this story cry foul. How can a 3 year-old level to 20 "by herself" (as her myspace page claims) without being able to read? Also, it certainly does seem a bit much to say that she can "gank" people. I also doubt that she can play at the same level as, say, the proverbial 12 year-old WoW player could. My bet is that when the father says "level to 20 by herself" he probably means "without doing any quests and with me watching and talking her through things." And when he says "gank," he means "overpower a level 30ish opponent with a level 60ish rogue alt of her parents using very basic play tactics," which, hello gankers everywhere, even a 3 year-old can do by pressing just a few buttons! Good for her, I say, but shame on anyone over 9.

But I digress. Playing three to four hours per week maxiumum, juBBjuBB says, is helping Charisma get excited to learn the alphabet and cooperative teamplay. Fatherly love and pride in such progress may be leading him to exaggerate a little bit about her gameplay skill, or maybe leave certain details about it to our own common sense -- but can you blame him? If I had a little kid who showed a strong aptitude in any area, from computers to cartoons, I might need to rein in my superlative praise too. She may or may not be the one heroine destined to be the best gamer in the world, but she's the pride of her father's life, and in his Azerothian sky there's no star shining brighter than her.

Update: More from Charisma's father after the jump! You may find it hard to believe...

Nikol of WoW Ladies posts about something I shouldn't get so worked up about, but often do anyway-- higher level characters farming mobs that lower levels need for quests or rep.

Now, Nikol is actually on the opposite side of the equation from the one I remember being on more. She was wondering if there is a certain etiquette when she goes to farm Timbermaw rep (as a level 68) and starts competing for mobs with level 58s. Which is actually very nice of her, because usually I'm in the other situation: I'm playing a lowbie alt and I have to go kill 50 pigs to get their spleens. Suddenly, a level 70 mage roars through the area, AoEing every pig he sees, rounding them all up in a pile so he can level up his skinning. A few seconds later, I'm left with nothing to farm, and he's standing over a pile of piggies, skinning away and humming to himself. For some reason, that makes me just see red. There are lots of other places he can farm skinning, so why does he feel the need to gank my quest mobs? It makes me seethe just thinking about it!

Unfortunately, as Nikol finds out, there is no set etiquette-- outside of a group, it literally is a free-for-all. If you're in my place, your only real option is to just find another quest to work on while all the mobs respawn, or poke around to see if he missed any. And to tell the truth, I shouldn't get so angry anyway-- it could be that the mage didn't realize I needed those pigs, and in fact, there is probably a whole other cache of pigs just over the hill that I haven't found yet.

But for some reason it just drives me nuts. Have you been on either side of this situation? And how have you handled it?

Hot on the heels of that craziness in Mexico comes an article on QJ.net talking about that touchiest of subjects, ganking. In the article they talk about a European forum post put up by Varneras that lists reasons why people gank. He says that some do it simply because they believe it is expected gameplay on a PvP realm. Others gank players out of a feeling of sport.

Now, I play on a PvE server, so my experiences with ganking have been limited, largely because I find no real interest in raiding Crossroads. Recently however I had occasion to live some real life gankage when I went to The Bulwark to finish off Alexi Barov. As our group formed, a similar group of horde also gathered, taunting in their most creative fashion, and salivating for the upcoming fight. By the time we began the quest, there were about four hordies joining in, which made trying to keep our healer alive a bit of a challenge. However, it also made the fight more interesting, and in the end more than a little adrenaline flowed through my veins.

So I sit here thinking on the subject of ganking, and although there are obvious negatives, I think the practice brings a sharpness to our game play we wouldn't have otherwise. For example, one of my few forays into a PvP realm I rolled a little paladin. As my character loaded into Northshire, I noticed an honor guard of level 60 players - this was before the expansion had been released - there to guard me and my fellow newbies as we attempted to level through the content. This isn't something I've ever seen on my original server, and so I was surprised until I realized why they were there. If they were there, so were the Horde rogues, ready to filet my level two pally body and dance upon my corpse.

As much as I would love to hear about the reasons why you as players gank, I am also interested to hear if anyone has any experiences similar to mine. I came away from the encounter with a sense of Alliance solidarity, and a greater appreciation of how adaptable and inventive the players of World of Warcraft can be within this virtual universe.