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?

Many of us that have played the game every day over the years have developed some habits of sort. One of the habits that I've found myself doing night after night is logging off in the same spot. For me, this spot is at the staff vendor in the Aldor section of Shattrath. I find myself logging off here almost every night since I hearth back to Shat when I'm done raiding, and then go and repair immediately (less I get yelled at for not being fully repaired).

I can imagine that there are some better spots than others to log off at. In particular the PvP servers I'm sure pose certain pragmatic limitations on where you can disembark from the game. In the PvE world, I could (if I wanted to) log off anywhere in the wild. Save for the wandering aggressive mob, I would be just fine. However, I don't think this would be too good in a PvP environment.

As it turns out Zebulon had a run-in with a shifter who really knew how to use his class abilities. As he was flying back from Skettis daily questing high above Terorkkar Forest, Zebulon, who was playing a Rogue, was ambushed by a Druid in Swift Flight Form. The attacker flew above him and shifted into caster form. The Druid cast Insect Swarm and began spamming Moonfire as he dropped toward the ground. The altitude permitted the Druid to break combat and return to flight form. Because of the speed boost from epic flight form the Druid was able to make another pass. Damaged, dotted, and desperate, Zebulon searched for a safe body of water to drop into. The plan was to dismount into the water, Cloak of Shadows, and then Vanish from the attacker. No luck- HK for the Druid.

As we generally do here at WoW Insider, we make it a point of reading many other news sources to bring you the newest and freshest news we can possibly find. But I have to admit, in the middle of surfing around, I stumbled across one article that has brought me back to a question I've wondered about several times before. In short, why does the mainstream media add World of Warcraft into articles when WoW really has very little to nothing to do with the topic they're talking about?

Take, for example, this article from the Washington Post. In the article they say

"In World of Warcraft, the most popular online game, with an estimated 8 million participants worldwide, some regions of this fantasy domain have grown so lawless that players said they fear to brave them alone. Gangs of animated characters have repeatedly preyed upon lone travelers, killing them and making off with their virtual belongings."

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.

A Mexican WoW player named Bronco Carson got beat up in real life by the husband of the player he had been repeatedly ganking, as well as a few of the husband's friends. Apparently, he'd been killing the heck out of this woman's character, which is reasonable enough, although somewhat annoying. The woman started threatening Carson at some point, but hey, it's the internet, right? They don't know where he lives.

Wrong! Carson seems to have decided that a good idea would be to give the woman his address and and ask "if her husband was man enough to just come meet me to settle this." Um...bad move, sir. The husband and friends came and beat him up, netting Carson two broken fingers, a fractured wrist, and a destroyed computer and entertainment center. The moral of the story: if you're going to make life hard for someone in-game, don't give them your address and taunt their husband to come fight you. You are not prepared.

Note that this story may well be fake, seeing as how there's no terribly credible source for it -- all the references to it I've been able to find trace back to this story on Fun Tech Talk. Grain of salt and all that.

P.S. Just so we're clear, beating people up isn't cool, especially when it's three against one.

[via wow.qj.net]

Who knew all it would take for the Horde and the Alliance to stop fighting was the Burning Crusade? (Aside from all the lore, that is.)

My home server, Magtheridon, is usually a hotbed of PVP action, with Horde generally coming out the losers. But with everyone piling into the Outlands, both sides have come to an understanding that ganking is just going to make everyone's day a little longer. So we get surreal moments like me and a shaman, surrounded by fifteen alliance, summoning our Ramparts group with no interference, and Horde and Alliance waiting patiently in line for spawns and helping each other take turns killing the mobs at the Forge Camps. Sure, there are a couple of people ganking, and others who AOE without thinking and end up as a small, mage-shaped spot on the ground, but all in all it's been an amazingly peaceful day in Hellfire Peninsula.

How's the ganking on your server?

The hunters in this video use a rather... inventive way of ganking low-level players. Consider the movie a public service announcement -- be careful what you attack, as it may bite back in nasty ways!

My mom certainly doesn't play any videogames at all, but apparently Malevivs from Eonar showed the game to his mother and got her hooked on it. And apparently other players have had the same experience. Wives, in-laws, kids-- seems like anyone who sees someone playing this game has to pick it up, try it themselves, and be amazed. WoW isn't just addictive-- apparently it's contagious, too.

Or maybe not. Personally, I haven't had any luck at all recruiting anyone to play the game with me. I haven't lived at home for a while, so the closest thing I have to an onlooker is my roommate, and he hasn't shown the slightest interest in it. Even a good friend of mine who really loves videogames (we play Mario Kart DS over the net all the time) hasn't given in, especially after hearing about my many nights spent slaving away to hit 60 more than once..

So is it me, or my family and friends? Have you recruited a family or friend to play just by showing them the game? Then again, I'm not sure I'd want my mom to play at all-- not just because it would be really embarassing to be ganked by her, but c'mon, man-- she's my mom! She doesn't own n00bs, she bakes them cookies!

In stark contrast to yesterday's wonderful tales of altruism, today we're looking at the flipside -- unwarranted cruelty. Have you ever ganked someone just because you could? Pulled a quest mob knowing that those nearby would have to wait another 15 minutes for it to respawn? Given a newbie purposefully bad directions? Summoned people to their death?

There are quite a few nasty tricks you can play on others in WoW, whether they deserve it or not. I like to think I'm a nice person, but I've done my share of "run in, get the named quest mob before anyone else can, run out" -- sometimes it's an easy way to finish a quest, as everyone nearby will fall on the mob in hope it becomes theirs. On the other hand, the excuse "everyone else is doing it" doesn't hold much weight amongst grown adults.

What are your tales of cruelty and horror towards other WoW players? What's the worst trick you've fallen victim of?