When Thought Experiments Get Out of Hand

Speaking of anachronisms...

Given how Retail WoW has developed over the years, why is leveling still a part of the game? 

That has been one of the items I've been pondering over the past several days. It's not a new opinion by any stretch of the imagination, but the leveling experience ceased to be a focus of Retail WoW players for as long as I can remember. 

If the Old World zones back in 2009 were as populated now as they are on the 20th Anniversary Classic Servers, I'd have likely found leveling incredibly difficult. Remember, I began playing WoW on a PvP server, and if every zone had a crowd like Hillsbrad Foothills had, I'd have spent most of my game time running for my life. 

Or dead. Yeah, I'd be dead.
I pulled this out of my archives just because.

Since those zones weren't that populated --because most people were at max level in 2009-- that made my original leveling experience easier.

Yes, I do love the leveling experience in Vanilla Classic. While I dislike the XP boosts that the Classic team regularly puts out, at least they do pay lip service to the time honored tradition of actually leveling a character.

But that's the pre-Cataclysm WoW environment. Since that time, as WoW's game world has become bigger and the level cap has grown larger, the actual process of leveling itself has become more and more streamlined. Paradoxically, the emphasis placed on the current expansion --and getting players as quickly as possible to the level cap-- has skyrocketed as well.

So that begs the question: why have people level in the traditional way at all when a new expansion drops? 

***

It's not as if what I'm suggesting hasn't been thought of before. After all, Blizzard loves to roll out level boosts late in an expansion --frequently with gear upgrades to help you once you reach the level cap-- for at least several years now. What I'm asking, however, is why are they even bothering with the leveling journey in the first place if the entire focus of the game is at the level cap. 

If people are zipping through the leveling zones to get to max level as quickly as possible --or the actual leveling process is so streamlined as to be little more than a visual novel with a few "kill ten rats" quests-- then why not eliminate the leveling process itself and start everyone at max level when they purchase the expansion? 

I'm not saying to eliminate the leveling zones themselves, but to essentially make them optional. If people are zipping through quests, not bothering to even read quest text, then why not leave the quests for people who actually want to read them and let everybody else just rocket on ahead and do what they really want to do? 

***

Am I playing Devil's Advocate here?

A bit, I'll admit.

There are days when I feel like I'm the only person in the world who enjoys the leveling process itself, and during the last Retail expansion I played --Mists of Pandaria circa 2013/2014-- it actually took an effort to slow down my leveling so I could enjoy the game. It also took a bit of an effort to handle the Mists intro areas when the gear I was wearing were Cataclysm quest rewards and random drops from the mid-Cataclysm zones such as Uldum; I could tell that the development staff expected the average Mists player to have at least a full Heroic dungeon set when they crossed to Pandaria*, and there was at least one mini-boss quest that was effectively a gear check in the Pandaria intro zone that you had to pass before you progressed further in the story.

Nostalgia aside, however, I think the time has come for Blizzard to seriously consider eliminating the leveling process from Retail. If enough people are blitzing through the zones (or really don't care about the story except for the "get gear/renown/etc." part), why not give the players what they want and just let them skip the leveling process entirely? Or, knowing how Microsoft and Blizzard thinks, offer players the opportunity to skip the leveling for a price. Instead of Early Access, allow those players the opportunity to start the next expansion at max level for an extra $30. All the try-hards can go straight into their gearing process while those that actually care about the story and the questing zones can go do those. Blizzard can even institute layering to separate the paid boosts from the levelers, so you can prevent the boosters from farming all of the World Bosses and gathering nodes.

Before anybody brings up the elephant in the room --PvPers and gankers-- institute a simple change to the PvP rules: for the first month of an expansion's release, max level toons can only engage in PvP with other max-level toons. Not with NPCs. Not with lower level toons of the opposite faction. That keeps those who paid for the privilege of skipping the leveling process from interfering with the fun of those who did not. 

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter. As for me, I'll be back on the Anniversary servers, leveling at my own pace.

*It's not an accident that the level boosts provided to players have included a set of basic gear so that the boosted players aren't too underpowered in the current expansion.

What My Brain Thinks About when I'm Stressed

While I was buried under work today, a sudden thought struck me:

What if World of Warcraft's Arenas were decoupled from the rest of the game?

Now, I don't mean that it's a separate program from WoW itself --although that could be an intriguing possibility-- but what if in the interest of getting new players into Arenas Blizzard essentially removes some of the roadblocks from getting people into Arenas? 

In this case, I'm envisioning the following:

• A player must have a subscription to WoW to participate in Arenas.
• When you enter into an Arena fight, every player is set to a standard set of gear and their max level. It doesn't matter what your current level or gear is, everybody gets the current Season's PvP gear and is set to max level. Once the match is over, you return to your regular level and gear.
• Customization (transmog) of your appearance is allowed, but offers no bonuses. They're just skins for the standard gear underneath.
• Your class buffs are allowed, and every player is given access to a standard number of potions/scrolls/etc. based on their class, plus the PvP Trinket that breaks incapacitation. That's it.
• All of your class abilities are still present for a max level toon.
• All addons are disabled for an Arena match.
• Arena victories yield rewards as standard, but since Arenas are temporary events, you can use your rewards to buy gear used in other PvP activities (such as Battlegrounds and World PvP).
• If you want to play Arenas as they are now, you can under a separate naming convention. Call it 'Old School Arenas', maybe? Some people would hate to give up their addons to play, but others won't mind if it means they can play as soon as they subscribe to the game.

What this standardization process does is that it eliminates the grind and the gearing process from getting a player into Arenas. A player can create a toon and go straight into Arenas if they wish, or they can level and run dungeons, raid, or play in Battlegrounds. If you want to customize your PvP experience in the standard fashion --complete with addons and the grinding for gear process-- there's Old School Arenas to go play with.

Anyway, it's something to consider.

#Blaugust2023

Teaching kids the basics of PvP since... oh.... A month ago

For the past month, the most popular game on the Wii U has been Splatoon, Nintendo's answer to multiplayer PvP games. 

And, naturally, what our youngest got for her birthday was Splatoon.

"You're a kid now, you're a squid now..."
From forbes.com

Splatoon is the first new Nintendo property in what feels like ages, and it has been a big hit.

The basics are pretty simple: you're a squidling, which is (effectively) a squid that switches back and forth between squid form and a humanesque form. The squidlings love to have "turf wars", which are 4x4 PvP matches where they try to cover the playing field with their color of ink. The players are selected at random and then assigned randomly to two different teams, so you could have a big bad veteran in one match and find that same vet on the opposing side on the next match.

The games may be a variation on area control PvP games, but they're still fun.*

Of course, along the way the mini-Reds are being introduced to PvP in a slightly more forgiving environment.

Slightly.

From forbes.com.

"AAAAAAAAHHH!!!" My oldest screamed. "I HATE THEM!!!!!"

She stormed over to where I was working.

"Do you know how some people will hang out at your respawn point and wait for you to respawn and then kill you?"

"Graveyard camping? Sure. I've played Alliance in Warsong Gulch, so yeah, I know graveyard camping."

"THEY'RE DOING IT TO US RIGHT NOW!!!!"

"Ah." I considered putting on headphones but decided against it.

The match had ended in defeat, but my oldest ranted for a few more minutes. "AND THIS IS WHY I DON'T PLAY PVP IN MMOS!!!!"**

A half an hour later, she'd recovered and the games went on, but yeah, they're learning about PvP.

A lot.

Maybe they'll have some battlegrounds in their future. But excuse me, I'm going to put on some headphones.





*I still have issues playing due to headaches even though it's in 3rd person viewing angle, but in general the game is a lot of fun.

**And several less PG variations on the same point.

As Seen on TV!!

PvPers!

Tired of being stuck in a Warsong Gulch run with a 0-4 healer imbalance?

Does your Eye of the Storm have six Rogues in it?

Did you just discover that half of your Twin Peaks team has below 400k health?


Well.... Has Blizzard got a deal for you!!!

No longer are you saddled with either sticking out a painful loss or having a 15 minute deserter debuff! That's right, Blizzard has slashed the timer on the deserter debuff!

If you port into a BG that hasn't started yet and decide to drop, you get a 5 minute debuff. If you do it again within 20 minutes you get an additional 5 minutes tacked onto that debuff (until you reach a maximum of 20 minutes.)

***

Given that I'm often forced into taking a random I know we have no chance in or being saddled with a debuff that will last longer than the game, this is a sanity saver.

Of course, the SMART thing is to level out the teams more so that gear levels and healing components are more equal, but I doubt Blizz is going to do that any time soon.

Don't you mess wit' my people, or there might be an accident. Capiche?

I have found the new Hillsbrad, and it is called Hellfire Peninsula.

The past few weeks, I've been hanging out in Hellfire while groups of (primarily A-52) Horde invade Honor Hold and the Temple of Telhamat, ganking everyone and everything in sight. The cold war of the Stadium/Overlook/Broken Hill has turned hot ever since A-52 and its 10:1 Horde:Alliance imbalance was lumped in with Ysera.

There are times when I'm the lone L90 in Hellfire Peninsula and I have to simply grit my teeth and take it when a group of 6-8 Horde sweep down on Honor Hold, slaughtering everything in sight. If it were a bunch of Horde L60 toons doing this, I'd probably not care, because the fight would at least be a fair one. But when it's instead a bunch of L90s wearing Conquest badge gear doing the ganking, I really get annoyed.

Some people would leave, and others would try and tilt at windmills for a while, but that's not me.  I might not be able to stop the onslaught at Alliance bases, but I can skip over to Thrallmar or Falconwing, exacting an eye for an eye.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some lone juggernaut who is able to wipe out an entire settlement, and I do often get caught by the same Horde group rushing back to defend their own base, but I also don't gank their own lowbies. I don't sink completely to their level.

But all is not lost for the Alliance.

Eventually someone either calls their guildies or makes it to Shattrath and sends out a plea over Trade Chat, and the cavalry comes running. There was one time a few days ago when a pair of Hunters and a Shaman thought Honor Hold would be easy pickings, never guessing that myself, another Rogue, a Hunter, and a Feral Druid were waiting in ambush.

The results were messy. For them.

"AND STAY OUT!" I shouted when we'd dispatched the last of them.

Hey, You Got a PROBLEM wit' Dat?

With all of the snow and colder weather than usual, you'd think that I'd be able to play MMOs a bit more. Well, that's what I thought, anyway, but I was wrong.

Seems that I've spent even more time than in the Fall being the family taxi, which boils down to schlepping kids to and from activities/friends' houses, etc.  And when the day is over, I swear that their clothes must breed in the laundry bin like some bizarre ooze or something.*

And naturally the SWTOR Rakghoul event is starting just as my workload is going up, too.

***

For the first time in a long time, I've begun hanging around an area to protect my faction.

As I'd mentioned in the last post, I've begun hanging around Hellfire Peninsula to protect the Alliance from Horde PvPers.  While I'm technically on a PvE server, the wave of PvP gankers has been on the rise the past few months.  I figured that since I'm not doing much, just waiting around between BGs, the least I could do was flip the PvP switch and protect some fellow Alliance members.

And that first week, I'm glad I did.

Somehow, somewhere, the CRZ for Hellfire Peninsula now includes Area 52.

You know, the large server where Neve and Q can be found.  And the Horde:Alliance ratio is something like 10:1.

So.  That means there's a swarm of A-52 Hordies all over Hellfire, basically raising some hell for the Alliance toons there.  In my informal scans of the area, the Horde outnumbers the Alliance between 2:1 and 3:1. While some Horde toons play nice, others, well, don't.  I've seen L90 toons gank L60 toons, Tarren Mill style, and I've seen Ganklethorn Vale behavior of an L90 toon trailing along at a distance from an L60 toon, just waiting to step in when an Alliance L60 toon swoops in for some PvP action.

I don't go for ganking the low level toons, but I do believe in fairness. And if I see you picking on my faction, I'm going to retaliate. Want to slaughter NPCs at Expedition Point? Fine, Reaver's Fall doesn't need that many questgivers. Trying to torment that L61 Mage working on quests around the Path of Glory? A few judicious sappings will convince you otherwise.  Ganking that L60 DK trying to take the Stadium with your L90 Warlock?  You might want to look behind you, someone just might be there.





*Whenever I venture into the laundry room, I keep expecting to hear Brann Bronzebeard yell "Incoming!!" like he does in the last boss of Halls of Stone.

Where Did I Put Those Training Wheels?

I have PvP on my brain.

Seriously.

After having spent the past two weeks running Battlegrounds (or doing questing in various MMOs), I queued for a Old Republic flashpoint.  Since I'd leveled my first toon strictly via questing and the occasional heroic, I've been taking some time on these alts to explore the different flashpoints in the game.  Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but since I'd been playing a Rogue for such a straight stretch, I had to change my expectations.

Unfortunately, I didn't change them enough.

I got into the Collicoid War Game flashpoint, which was new to me, and I ended up spending part of the first phase of the game as a keyboard turner.  For some reason my brain thought move = both mouse buttons, whereas on the turret it is move = right mouse button.  When I kept hitting both mouse buttons, I kept getting kicked out of the turret.  That was very nearly a disaster, as the collicoids closed to a dangerous level before I finally started blasting them to pieces.

Okay, that was a new flashpoint mistake.  I could deal with that.

But what I couldn't deal with was that I kept pulling aggro.

I mean, I'm not on my glass cannon gunslinger, merely my Commando running DPS.  I've finally got a rotation down for the Hutt expac changes, but I know that Commandos don't hit quite that hard.  The only thing I could figure was that I was being too efficient with my rotation, which is an artifact of PvP.  You know, the "OMG! OMG!  Quick-quick-quick-hurry-hurry-hurry gotta-DPS-this-Druid-down-before-he-heals-and.....  OH NO A LOCK!  Dump the DoTs and Vanish!!  Hurry Hurry Hurry!"

Yeah, right.  You try doing that in Eye of the Storm.

Spacing out my rotation helped, but it didn't really prepare me for the puzzle part of the flashpoint.  "Over here!" became my name, synonymous with "Over here, Ki!" and "Ki!  Not there, here!  To my right!"  Of course, I had no idea which toon was saying that until I clicked to find the right one.  And then, on the last fight which was a boss fight transforming into another boss fight (think the middle boss transitioning into The Black Knight in Trial of the Champion and you've got the idea), everybody was frantically telling me to move to the middle.

What for, I wondered as I ran up.

Then, WHAM!  The last droid boss dropped in.

Oh.  That's why.

Still, nobody died due to my klutziness.  Except me, who moved over to try to push an elite off a platform and ended up getting blasted off myself.  "Those droids do that," the tank said as I respawned back at the beginning.  

"I noticed that."

By the end of the flashpoint I'd slowed down my rotation enough that I didn't pull aggro* from the rest of the bosses.  But I think I need to do a bit more PvE group content to balance out this PvP attitude I've got going.

Okay, one more and then I shut it down for the night.

*Except for my very first shot at the final boss, which I'd deliberately waited before dropping a Grav Round on it, and of course the boss turns and smacks me.  "Oh, for pete's sake, I only hit it once!" I said in party chat, which elicited laughter.

The Great Divide

There are days when I really wish that screen caps were working for me in WoW again.

You see, in a recent Arathi Basin run, I was the only non-Pandaren in the group.

You read that right.

The Alliance had fifteen players:  one Night Elf, fourteen Pandaren.

The Horde was nearly as bad:  one Blood Elf (a monk), one Tauren (a Druid), thirteen Pandaren.

Orcs?  Humans?  What are those?

You know how some people were excited because the Pandaren capable of being on either faction meant that you couldn't rely upon silhouettes any more?  In this scenario, you don't even bother looking at silhouettes; you just rely upon your add-ons.  Due to the scenery, I felt like I was in some bizarre recreation of the Spanish Civil War, but with pandas.  The only thing that was missing was a few Messerschmitts flying overhead.  (Note to Gnomes and/or Goblins:  make yourselves useful and build some Spitfires and ME-109s!)

***

Leveling via BGs is often something that goes in fits and spurts.

Unlike leveling via instances or questing, gear acquisition becomes a bit of a problem.  Sure, you can use heirlooms to make up the bulk of your gear, but what if a) you don't have heirlooms for the class you're creating, or b) you can't afford or don't want to move heirlooms over across servers?  Here are a few options:

• You can go do some questing to get a few pieces here and there, but the Old World's quests discourage cherry picking.  In the pre-Cata days, you could do a quest here and a quest there, grab what reward you wanted, and then go on your merry way.  Now, with the linear quest lines in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, you can't do that without running a lot of quests to get to the one you really want. Forcing you to quest through the majority of a zone kind of defeats the purpose of leveling via BGs.  
• You can run the occasional instance, but you're at the mercy of whatever gear drops.*  Instances, however, will level you very very fast, especially at low levels.  If you're not careful, you'll end up leveling via instances instead of via BGs.
• If you've the cash, you can look through the auction house and rummage through the available gear.  That has the advantage of speed, because you can quickly hunt through the AH in between BGs, but it's not very cost effective.  But hey, if you play the AH already or are sitting on a pile of gold, why worry?
• If you don't mind being out in the world a lot between BGs, you can also craft your gear.  The speed of BGs proccing these days --anywhere from 1-6 minutes-- means that you're either going to have to set aside some crafting time for your toon or you're going to just have to live with getting one or two items at a time in between BGs.  For the gathering professions, however, you can also level fairly quickly, so you have to be careful that you don't outlevel the gear you're hoping to craft.
• Visiting the Silverwing Sentinels/Warsong Supply Officer and their Defilers/League of Arathor equivalents is a good way of supplementing gear at low levels.  Once you gain access to Alterac Valley, another vendor opens up for use.  While this isn't perfect --you have to travel a lot-- it will fill in gaps.

Finding gear for leveling via BGs can often become a huge subgame, because gear can create such a huge disparity in a BG.  At least a Rogue can hide if the time isn't right to strike, but what if your Mage or Lock is the undergeared one?  Well, I know from experience that it's not fun being the target.

***

The net result of all this is that I've often found my toons undergeared in BGs, particularly when I'm up against toons with a full set of heirloom gear supplemented with the highest available crafted items.  I may play BGs, but other people live them.  It isn't until you get up to L78 and you run into the people with Cata greens that you see a disparity on the same level as in the lower three tiers of BGs between the haves and the have nots.  When you're a toon with about half white gear going up against the heirloom equipped, all of the skill in the world isn't going to keep you from being one-shot.  When my Rogue finally got enough Honor to buy and equip the heirloom dagger, my DPS and kills took a big jump.  I didn't change my play style, I just added a really nice piece of gear, and that bit of min-maxing was all the difference.

Lara at the now sadly defunct Root and Branch blog had written a story encapsulating this disparity, entitled Don't Fret Your Pretty Little Head.  Although she wrote from the perspective of instances, it also applied directly to BGs.  I often wondered which was worse, the nerd rage of dungeon puggers or the nerd rage of the BG puggers, and I think that the prize has to go to BG puggers, because they can bitch and moan and whine and be anti-social without repercussion.  If someone is an ass in an instance, you've at least got a shot at getting rid of them via vote kick.  In a BG, you're stuck with them unless they go AFK, and believe me they know it.  They're the ones always saying that the faction you're on sucks, that you suck, that you don't know how to play your class, that your mother had sexual relations with a turnip, etc.

But you know what?  Gear matters, often more than skill.  Sure, gear can cover up deficiencies in skill, but gear can also help you dominate beyond what skill can't provide.  Skill isn't going to give you an extra 200 health in the L15-19 BGs, and being one shot is still being one shot.  Additionally, how you acquire skill is more difficult than acquiring gear:  you actually go out and play the game, take your lumps and learn how things work.

And you get told that you're an idiot.  Frequently.

Who'd want to put up with that abuse when there's a nice, easy alternative in place?

For those who have the honor and/or gold, that is.

*I ran Shadowfang Keep to get the mats for the Rogue weapon, but discovered that the dagger I got from the Silverwing Sentinels was actually better.  Go figure.

**The speed of BGs proccing these days --anywhere from 1-6 minutes-- means that you're either going to have to set aside some crafting time for your toon or you're going to just have to live

Messing with my Head

Just to remind me that an MMO isn't all sweetness and light, I encountered an Imperial L50 on Tatooine the other day.  Or rather, he sought me out.

You know the type:  the player that likes to mess with the lowbies.  In a PvP environment, they'd be the person decimating Tarren Mill or invading the Crossroads.  In PvE, however, if you don't attack them they can't do that to you at all, so they park themselves atop your toon, wiggling around, trying to freak you out in the hope that they cause you to mess up so they can gank you.*

I remember quite well one day, years ago now, when Quintalan was just reaching L20, and he was finishing up the pre-Cata Silverpine Forest.  This was back when I was on a West Coast PvP server, and I was quite aware of the free-for-all that awaited me when I crossed into Hillsbrad.**  Perhaps I wasn't thinking straight; it was 6 AM that day and I probably was waiting on my coffee.   I was at the gates to Shadowfang Keep, poking around and admiring the moon over the keep, when all hell broke loose.

I saw a flash of yellow bars and then the skull of a much-much higher level toon as he descended upon my young Paladin, jumping and swinging and yelling some nonsense in Common.

"Oh god," I thought, "I'm going to die.  I'm about to get creamed."

I quickly bubbled and then used my Hearthstone to get out, all the while praying that I wasn't going to get ganked in the middle of nowhere.

Once I'd Hearthed back to Silvermoon, I realized that I'd been had.  He wasn't going to attack me at all; I wasn't flagged for PvP, and I was in a Horde controlled area.  I felt incredibly foolish that I'd fallen for such a juvenile tactic, yet at the same time I itched to get back at him.

Fast forwarding to the present, I knew just how to respond to such idiocy when the Empire player tried messing with me.

I was in the middle of a quest that bordered on a Heroic area, so I was keeping an eye on my positioning.  The last thing I needed was having several elites decide to pay me and my Wookie a visit.  I was examining the next mob when my screen was filled with an Imperial on a speeder, bouncing and wiggling atop my Gunslinger.

"Oh great, just what I need," I grumbled.

My toon yawned and made a rude gesture.

"Hmmph."  I don't know what the guy expected, but he certainly didn't expect that.  The Imperial player stopped all movement for several heartbeats, then flew away on his speeder.

I sent a message out in Gen Chat about the guy, telling any fellow lowbies in the area to ignore him and he'll go away.  Because you never know if you've got a true newbie around, after all.




*Or, failing that, they attempt to kill the quest givers.

**Q was actually my second toon; a Blood Elf Priest named Gdaan was my first.  I manged to actually get him to around the mid-L20s before I finally decided on Q as my main.  (The reason for the strangeness of the name was simple:  I thought I could put in a ' in the name, and discovered that wasn't the case.  Since I didn't have a backup name to use, G'Daan became Gdaan, and that was that.)

PvP "Hybrids"

The thing that I do find most intriguing is the concept of the kinda-sorta PvEish version of BGs.  Imagine the PvPish zones in Grizzly Hills, and instead of a loosely connected set of dailies, convert them into an "event", and that's what you'll get in this new PvP hybrid.

In practice, I'm not sure how well this will work, and whether phasing will do the job as needed.  Think of Tol Barad, and how that has dropped off like a rock.

I was thinking about this, and how the smarter thing that Blizz could do would be to create a PvP option where --if selected-- you'd buff up the non-Boss NPCs in Alterac Valley and add NPCs as needed in the other moderate to large BGs.  That way the NPCs wouldn't be a pushover, and you could theoretically turn AV back into the epic battle of old.

Mists of Pandaria = PvP Land and Other Musings

The title is my first opinion in a nutshell.

If you don't like PvP, I suspect that you're not going to like this upcoming expansion quite so much.  PvP has been carrying the Alliance v. Horde conflict for quite a while now, and I don't expect that to change.

When the stated goal of an expansion is the conflict with the opposing faction, PvP will become more important, and possibly more important than raids.
The racials of a Pandaren are very interesting from a PvP standpoint too:

• Bouncy: reduces fall damage by half.
• Inner peace: double rested XP.
• Gourmond: +15 to cooking.
• Epicurean: double stats to food buffs.
• Quaking Palm (from the live stream): Puts a target to sleep for three seconds.

Quaking Palm is very PvP oriented, as is Inner Peace.  (Just wait around the Capital City and queue for BGs.  Watch the XP rack up!)  Bouncy is kind of meh, and Gourmond and Epicurean equally favor PvE and PvP content.

***

If we complained about Outland being out of date before, I guess we ain't seen nothing yet.

Outland will now be more out of date than the Old World would have been when Cata dropped.  Northrend almost as bad, and the Old World will be filled with Deathwing references.

***

In case nobody was noticing, Inner Peace means that Pandaren will rocket through the leveling system.  Add a few heirlooms, guild perks, and....

***

My previous post about "quests-on-rails" and the effect of making the leveling secondary is going to be even more pronounced in the upcoming expansion.  When Blizz explicitly mentions that they're focusing more on max-level content for this expansion, then you know that leveling has taken a back seat to the WoW experience.

***

WoW Pokemon?  Are you kidding me?

Is Blizzard losing subs to Wizard 101 or something?

If there's something that's going to land on the cutting room floor before the game goes gold, I expect this will be the one to get the axe.

Is there an Adult in the House?

When you reach that magical mark of L45, the grind through BGs suddenly becomes worth it.

I clicked to join the queue, waited a few minutes, and the pic of a Frostwolf Orc and Stormpike Guard Dwarf filled my screen.

"Ah...." I sighed in content.  "Alterac Valley.  The best BG in the game."

Then my Lock ported into the loading tunnel and was greeted by farts, belches, nose pickings, and some guy yelling "I'm running around naaaked!!!"

I was playing Alterac Valley with 39 teenagers.  Yay me.

(I mentioned this to Vidyala from Manalicious, who happened to be logged in at the time, and she said "Did you see that strip from The Oatmeal about that?  Oh wait, you posted that, didn't you?"  Art imitates life, I'm afraid.)

***

For my money, AV is a great learning Battleground, and probably the best starter BG for someone who has never tried BGs before but wanted to test them out.

Before anyone points out the value of creating an alt just to try Warsong Gulch at L10, yes, I'm aware of that as an option.  That method of getting your toes wet in BGs does have advantages, namely that you start to learn the PvP capabilities of your class at the beginner level, and your skill will grow over time as you gain in abilities.  However, starting at whatever level your toon is at (presumably max level or at least L45) and queuing for Alterac Valley has advantages too:

• You are one of 40 players on your side.  If you screw up, odds are good that you're not going to drag down your team much at all.  With WSG (and to a lesser extent Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm), one player's mistakes are far more costly to your side.  What this means is that in AV, you have a little bit of license to try things out and not worry about messing up too much.
• In a large BG such as Alterac Valley, there will always be someone more poorly geared than you are.  From quest greens through the latest Ruthless Gladiator set, all types can find a home in AV.
• AV has pretty standard strategies (zerg and turtle being the most common), so you don't have to know the intricacies of the BG to contribute.
• There is always someone attempting to complete the external AV quests, particularly at the lower levels.  This kind of ties into my first point in that AV is forgiving enough that one or two people will wander off and not impact their team so much.  Now, I'm not talking about the in-BG quests you find to go and bring back gear to quest givers at each base --I haven't seen anyone do that in a long while-- but the "Capture a mine" and "Defend a tower" quests.  While this isn't a big deal in today's WoW, back in Vanilla it was a moderately big deal to get the trinkets from the Frostwolf or Stormpike factions, and completing the quests helped get some of that rep.  Besides, if you play Arathi Basin and you complete that starter quest, you're probably thinking "oh yeah, these BG quests aren't a problem."  Until you head into gnoll caverns and have to fight your way through against monsters 4 levels higher than you, that is.
• When in doubt, help to capture a tower.  Graveyards are a bit trickier, because there are times when it makes more sense to not capture one, but towers are always ripe for picking.
• The natural tendency of a newbie PvPer is to travel in a pack, and that is perfect for a big BG such as Alterac Valley.  Stick with the pack as much as you can, and you lessen the chance of getting jumped from behind.  For clothies, I can't stress this enough.  Rogues and Hunters love clothies, particularly stragglers.
• If you're really lucky --or unlucky, based on how quickly you want to play the game-- you can witness the elemental summoning.  I haven't seen it myself, but it does happen from time to time, and there's nothing like having a raid level boss on your side.
• Honor per game is better than almost all of the other BGs.  Since there are no vehicles to worry about ala Isle of Conquest or Strand of the Ancients, Alterac Valley is a big ol' backyard brawl.  The honor will add up very quickly, particularly in a series of quickly resolved zerg games.  And yes, that means that even if you lose you'll get some decent honor so that you can buy PvP gear more quickly.  (And yes, I meant quickly.  I did say it three times, no?)

***

Back in AV, I ignored the excesses of the hormone driven crowd and followed along until Snowfall Graveyard, when I peeled off to cap it.  A feral druid pulled in next to me and asked if I wanted to stay with him to defend it.

"No," I said.  "There's no need.  It's a disadvantage for the Horde to take this; we're better off going to Tower Point instead."

"Okay.  You lead."

We reached TP to find that the rest of the group had pushed on ahead, so we darted up the ramp and waited.  A priest arrived for support just as "the Horde have captured Snowfall Graveyard" scrolled on screen.

"They actually took the bait," I said.

"Yeah," the priest replied, "you know they're going to lose when they can't resist taking it from us."

A swarm of Hordies came charging up the ramps, and all we had to do was hold out for 20 seconds.  I was spamming every fear ability I had while the priest got knocked off the ramp.  The druid got two on him and I feared one away.  My succubus disabled one and Howl of Terror procced again.

10 seconds.

I got hit and stunned and quickly used my trinket in combo with Death Coil.  The feral had two more on him, and a Tauren Sunwalker came barreling in.

5 seconds.

I cast Fear.  The cast bar crawled across the screen.

"Come on....  Come on...."

The Sunwalker turned to the Feral just as I feared him.  He ran out the room.

3...

The feral died.

2...

Howl of Terror procced just as the two on the Feral turned to me.  I mashed the button so hard I was sure I broke the key.

1...

A Judgement hammer struck me and left me with around 50 health left.

Boom!  Flames exploded around the tower, and I whooped as the Sunwalker finished me off.

"GJ on TP!" the designated tank hollered.

Ah, Alterac Valley.  Such fun indeed.

Miscellaneous PvP Musings

The long slog through leveling an Affliction Warlock via battlegrounds has hit a turning point.

I finally reached L44 and gained access to Howl of Terror.

While it's not an immediate panacea, it does give me two instant cast fear spells in my arsenal, which you almost certainly need given that Kitty Druids and Rogues can down you in two strikes.  But being able to actually protect a flag carrier by scattering enemies for a brief moment in time is a wonderful feeling.

It's almost as much fun as that first time I reached out from beyond the grave and took out that Hunter who failed to shed my DoTs after he killed me.

Believe me, after having seen tons of losing fights in WSG, I'm happy for just about anything right now.

***

You can put the Paladin on the shelf, but you can't take the Paladin out of the player.

By now, you'd think that I'd have weaned myself off of my tendency to wade into the thick of a melee and blast everyone from point blank range.  On a plate wearer, that works great.  A clothie, not so much. 

But in extreme moments of "get the EFC! get the EFC!" or "zerg inc BS omg" my rationality goes out the window.

I've found the life of a Frost Mage can get very... entertaining... when you're running around like a nut using Cone of Cold and Frost Nova (and Deep Freeze) to cc everything in sight.  And at max level with a decent amount of PvP gear, you can drive the opposing faction batty.  I've had a Prot Warrior, a Priest, and a Rogue beating on Neve, yet I was still able to take out that Disco Priest before I bit it.  In a small BG such as Warsong Gulch, keeping 1/3 of the opposing faction occupied while your flag carrier zips on by is a great thing.

I'm looking forward to the day when I can hang in there a bit longer on my Lock, so I'm not just a glorified pin cushion.

***

I don't know what it was about today, but the 'bots were all over the place in the early morning BGs.

For example, I was on Neve in Eye of the Storm, holding down the Fel Reaver area.  I'd watch as the Spirit Healer timer popped, and two Tauren on kodos would ride up, keyboard turn around where the buff was, and head straight for the middle area.  A few minutes later, they'd be back.

Just when I was about to say something, a Night Elf Resto Druid rode up and attacked FR.  She laid down a healing circle and, well, not much else.  I quickly DPSed her down before any more Alliance showed up, and three minutes later she was back again.  After a while, I just shrugged.  At least nobody was yelling and screaming in BG chat, and the fight ended up being a very close one with the Alliance pulling it out in the end.
 I guess you could say that their 'bots beat our 'bots.

iLevels and Deception

For most people out there, this particular rant doesn't apply to them.  They leveled, they ran normals, then got enough gear for heroics.  (Hell, who am I kidding?  They're way past that now, deep into raid progression.)

The average WoW player probably grumped at bit about iLevels and the restrictions for the heroics, or they had heroic pugs where at least one puggee griped about an undergeared party member.

I, obviously, didn't follow the normal progression.

Due to time restrictions, I leveled, skipped instances entirely, and concentrated on battlegrounds.  After running BGs for about a month or two (and crafting gear), I've gotten enough PvP gear on Tom and Neve to be able to jump straight into heroics, almost completely bypassing the Cata normals.  If I work on my PvP gear for another couple of weeks, it's entirely possible I could queue for Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub without having set foot in a single Cata heroic.

And I'm here to say that isn't right.

The point of the iLevel restrictions for heroics and the 4.1 instances are to make sure that the players have a fighting chance in those instances.  Whether you get the gear by crafting, running normals, or the auction house, once you get into one of these instances the gear shouldn't be what holds you back.  But PvP gear, by it's very nature, will do just that.

I've said before that to run a BG you don't need PvP gear, and I stick to that assessment.  Regular BGs have a hodgepodge of people with all sorts of quality gear --from Cata greens to full Gladiator sets-- and anybody can join in.  However, if you want to run Heroics --and, more importantly, tank or heal in them-- the reverse won't be true.

The emphasis on Resilience (and gemming for spell penetration) hurts PvP gear when you run PvE content.  Sure, you can compensate with skill, and iL PvP gear that is far higher than your PvE gear will be better overall, but if your gear has similar iL, PvP gear will be inferior to PvE gear in PvE content.

And that doesn't address the overall problem of bypassing most of the content to get to the latest PvE stuff.

I'd like to see Blizz fix this issue by dividing the iL into PvP and PvE tracks, much like how the gearscore app has evolved over time.  PvP gear won't count toward your PvE iLevel, and vice versa.  Or at least have a requirement like Magister's Terrace, where to unlock the Heroic mode you have to have run the normal instance to completion at least once.  For the Zandalari Heroics, I'd suggest that having run at least half of the Cata Heroics would suffice, although by the time you get enough PvE gear to get into the Z-H's, you'll probably already have the Cataclysm Dungeon Hero achievement.

As for me, I'm not planning on using my PvP gear to sneak into Heroics.  I know better; just because you've got the gear doesn't mean you can slide by.    I also don't want to misrepresent my guilds this way, either.*  I've discovered that normal Tol'vir has both a small queue wait and a short run time, so I've been spending some PvE time there, but when I get around to it, I'll expand my PvE immersion.  But not until I feel that my PvE gear has gotten good enough will I walk into a Heroic.



*I believe that when you affiliate yourself with a guild, you represent that guild when you're out in Azeroth.  It's just like in the real world, where you wear a shirt with a university or sports team or company on it, people will judge the name behind that moniker by your actions.  It's not fair, but it happens.  In Azeroth, if you behave like an ass, people will judge your guild and your server accordingly.


EtA: My last comment about Zandalari Heroics disappeared into the interwebs, so I had to go fix it.

Exploring for Fun and Profit

If there's one thing that's gotten an update in the BC starting areas, it's the level of the guards.  Sure, that happened everywhere, but when you can fly over Northshire Abbey or Deathknell, you just don't notice.

Until you want that Explorer achievement, that is.

I was doing just that on Neve while I was waiting for a BG to pop, cruising through Darnassus (gotta love flying up the trunk of Teldrassil), and then I hit Azuremyst Isle.  Typically, it's not a big deal.  The guards throughout most of the Isle are the traditional level, so I got lulled to sleep thinking that all I had to do was pop into Ammen Vale and then scoot over to Bloodmist Isle to finish up the achieve.

Neve approached, forded the river, and rode her strider up the cleft and into the guards patrolling the entrance to the Vale.  She got smacked at, but I didn't think anything of it until I turned her around to head back.  She was immediately pulled off her mount and pummeled.

Did you know that the L90 guards hit for damage that range into the six figures?

And that using Invisibility to sneak past the guards won't work either?

I haven't had as much an exciting time getting that Explorer achievement since I got my original award on Quintalan on the Stormscale PvP server.

***

While I play battlegrounds, I typically don't engage in PvP play these days.  That's a far cry from my time on Stormscale, where I made a habit of looking over my shoulder and I developed a healthy distaste for the Alliance gankers in Hillsbrad.  Even then, I wasn't the sort to go out of my way to go after low level toons on the other side.  (Now, if I caught an Alliance player going after some Hordies, that was another story.)

Being on a PvE server means that you don't notice the faction territory quite so much as when you're on a PvP server.  That first time when I ventured into Loch Modan and I saw that big red "Loch Modan - Alliance Territory" flash overhead, I gulped.  I was sure that tons of Alliance would just pour out from behind every boulder and I'd be a smudge on the ground.  After all, when you get ganked in Tarren Mill 3-4 times a night, you learn to expect that stuff.  Much to my surprise, however, I kept moving and nobody seemed to really care that I was in the area.

If I thought it was terrifying on a PvP server to cross into enemy territory, I was extremely underwhelmed when I did it on a PvE server.  There isn't a big red "hey dummy!" alert, so you really don't get that sense of "things could go really really bad" that you get on a PvP server.

Unless you're a lowbie who encounters a max level toon from a rival faction, that is.

Her adventure with the Ammen Vale guards aside, Neve was cruising right along through Bloodmist Isle when she rode up toward the Vector Coil.  There, toiling among Kael's traitorous Sunhawks, was a lone Draenei.  I pulled Neve up to watch as he dispatched a nest of them, and then he turned and saw her.

If a toon could have a deer-in-the-headlights look, it was this guy.

Neve paused a moment longer, nodded and waved at the Draenei, and sped on her way.  Happy hunting!

A Cure for the Common Ganker

I started writing this post about two or three times before I decided I wasn't going to write about pugs.  I could return to my regularly scheduled grumblings another time, but this post will be pug-free. 

(You're off the hook, Mr. "Gnomer-is-so-boring-and-I-spend-so-much-time-yawning-that-I-forget-to-tank.")

I was on Neve, working on some quests in Hillsbrad while waiting for the LFD queue, when a thought struck me.  "You know," I said to a fellow guildie, "this has to be the first time I've leveled in Hillsbrad without constantly looking over my shoulder."

Old PvP habits die hard.  When I first showed up with Neve in Hillsbrad, several months ago, I was completely unnerved by the Alliance characters just blithely passing me on the road.  After having spent my formative WoW years on a PvP server, I was used to ganking as a way of life.  If you were out farming for ore, you kept a close eye on your surroundings before you stopped and picked that nugget of Iron up.  Even when you got flying in Outland and Northrend, that meant you had to watch the skies as well as the ground.  You could be out questing at 3 AM server time --Stormscale is a Pacific Time Zone server and I live in the Eastern Time Zone-- and found yourself caught from behind while working your way through Stromgarde Keep.  After a while, you get twitchy when you go through different locales, wondering where the next attack is coming from.

Switching to a PvE server does help eliminate that inherent nervousness, but I think what really helped in the long run was leveling on the Alliance side.  No, I'm not talking about some great kumbaya moment about how we're all one great happy family, but rather going out and leveling in unfamiliar places.  Redridge Mountains.  Darkshore.  Dun Morogh.  Loch Modan.  Wetlands.  Westfall.  Azuremyst and Bloodmist.  All of those places are strange territory to this Hordie, and the lack of opposing faction toons finally allowed me to relax and enjoy the environment.

After that experience in low-ish level areas, returning to Hillsbrad on Neve was almost a non-event.  I saw a few Alliance toons heading up to Alterac, but since I didn't have the PvP flag turned on, there was nobody to worry about.

Except for the fellow Hordies who thought that Neve needed company or something to protect her from the big bad Murlocs.

Now, if I could only figure out how to attack people on my own faction....

Something odd is happening...

Alliance actually won a wintergrasp this week... and in less than 5 minutes to boot! After which, I received my three marks from the battle, and turned them in (along with another 37) and got some fancy new pvp shoulders on my warrior.

The night after that, the Alliance were back to business as usual and I had a spectacular losing streak of battle grounds, but gained enough honor to purchase the wrathful cloak. So hooray for losing matches with the quickness. I did get the chance to get a bit of excitement, though. Tenacity x8 makes blaaaaaaade stoooooorm a LOT of fun. I had 76,000 health, and could drop an enemy player in 4 hits (a LOT less than that if they had no resilience).

I figured I'd try to get one battleground in tonight and WSG was what came up. Holy crap, was I astonished to see 5 other players pretty well outfitted in pvp gear, and not a single heirloom weapon to be seen anywhere! It was pretty much a steamroll in favor of the Alliance.

It's interesting to see the various battlegrounds now from two perspectives. The horde truly does seem intimidating, and the alliance has no flippin clue what they're doing. I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen half the team go straight for the flag in Eye of the Storm, or the entire team sans 1 person at the stables go to the mine in Arathi.

It's an odd feeling to just look at battlegrounds as a way to farm honor, instead of actually playing the game and trying to win. At points, when the team is just SO BAD I don't even feel like trying, because it would be a suicide mission to do so, I have to admit: I've given up and just stayed at a spawn point for a while until the match ends.

Come to think of it, I used to laugh about the crazy suicidal Allinace "I'm a hero - I'll kill you all with one fell swoop of my *gurgle - flop - overly dramatic death animation*" Who knew? They're not suicidal, they were just the only poor bastard on the team who actually was trying. And now it's me!?

I'm wondering if the attitudes of the players has changed a bit with all of the instant gratification we're seeing. "Oh, crap. The horde took three flags. Ok, that just means it'll be over quicker."

Honest to goodness, I have seen Alliance players justify their lack of effort as "the horde has 20 minute queues, and we can get in battlegrounds instantly." Which, coming from the Horde as I did, I know is completely untrue. It totally depends on the server / battlegroup.

And to further the topic, Blizzard is making regional cross battlegrounds, meaning all of North America will the thrust into the pool of players waiting to play matches. Which, should speed up the queue times for the Horde.

So all you Horde players rejoice! You'll be queuing up faster, and winning the same amount as always, because the Alliance just sucks at rational thought and organized fights; they'd much rather follow the safety of the herd and just defend one node.

Yep, we sure got stables here. No foul hordie is gonna take my flag! Yep, horses... Such a shame we can't give them any shoes or any work to do such as hauling ore, or even timber around because we'd rather just let the Horde have the mine, lumberyard and blacksmith. And we can't feed em either; no farm.

With treatment like that, I surprised the horses don't leave. Maybe that's what we're all there for? In fact, I think I'll start organizing an equestrian guard squad in the games from now on. Our battle cry will be "Hold your horses!"

Duelling Crusaders

I'm lousy at duels.

I tend to think in terms of PvE, not PvP, and duels --especially spur of the moment ones-- emphasize that.  I think the first duel I ever accepted I ended up running away from, because the warrior involved was absolutely crushing me.  (I now realize he probably had heirloom gear, but still...)  I'm one of those people who motor through the front gates of Orgrimmar so I don't have some enterprising young whelp challenging me.

So, it was with some trepidation this morning that I was doing my Argent Crusade dailies and I received a challenge from a Tauren Warrior while in the Valiants' Ring.

My mouse cursor hovered over the Decline option of a good five seconds or so, but I had second thoughts.  Oh, why the hell not, I thought.  We're both mounted and technically pretty equal.

We started out the duel matched evenly: both of us with our shields up and on full, and exchanging equal blows.  I was thinking that he hit me first, so if it came down to a complete war of attrition, I would have to do something to sneak ahead of this guy.  From experience, I knew the first one who broke would be at a disadvantage, but I didn't know what else to do.

Then all of a sudden I started watching the Tauren's lifebar plummeting toward zero.  He'd forgotten to keep up his shields.

He panicked and tried to run, and I was able to run him down and get a good joust in before the fight ended.

Yay me; winner by TKO.

I hung around to finish up my daily, and the Tauren reappeared.  "Give a guy an achievement?" he whispered to me.

Oh hell.  I was feeling generous.  Particularly so since I'd not actually won a duel before.  I became a sacrificial lamb, left my mount's damage in place without healing it, and just let him beat me.  (To be honest, that wasn't that hard of a thing to do, since I'm not the greatest mounted jouster either.)

Feeling pleased with having done a good deed for the day, I went back to grinding some quests in Stonetalon.  I pulled into the Horde outpost there, and while I was catching my bearings the magical duelling flag popped down.

You have got to be kidding me.

I hovered over the Shaman, and discovered she was L31.  Apparently she must have discovered my level at exactly the same time, because she scooted away as quickly as possible.

Sometimes, it's good to be the 80 in a low level area.

EtA:  Oh, and I almost forgot.  I finally got that Azure Whelp pet to drop in Azshara.  Time to go buy a lottery ticket!

Arena.. schmarena

So... I lost my 2s partner when Soul left.. I was quite sad because we were actually starting to do well and I had no doubt in my mind we'd be hitting at least 1800 soon. /sigh.

Well, last night before resets, I was asked to do some 2s. I said sure, might as well at least get my 10 games in for the points since I only have 1 upgrade left before I need ratings.

Now, this person plays a hunter... Hunter/Priest? I really couldn't see it working very well, but what the hell, I wanted my points. First map is Nagrand Arena. YAY! This is probably one of my favorite arena maps. We go in and I tried to live as long as I could, but my partner just didn't have the burst to dps down 2 plate wearers.

Second map is Ring of Valor. Not really my favorite, but it doesn't bother me. Both DPS focus on me.. Not really something I'm a stranger to since most people tend to want to pick on the priest... Except I don't think they were prepared for a priest with 1334 Resilience and just under 30k HP. I lived forever it seemed, however my partner just lacked the burst to kill either one of them. /sigh.

Right as I queued for the next match, he says to me in vent, "Are you ready to give up? Cause I am". I was like, uhh no, I'd like to just get the 10 games in. So we go into the third match. The same problem... I live live live live no one can kill me, however my partner's dps wasn't enough. He managed to get the rogue down and almost had the other guy dead as I died... but it really seemed that once I died, he just sort of gave up. MEH.

Fourth game... Dalaran Arena.. one of my least favorites but hey, whatever, I go with what I get. We're up against a resto druid and a ret pally. Ok, I figured this was probably going to be a difficult team for us because my partner lacked the burst to kill the druid and his sustained dps wasn't going to kill the pally. I gave it my all though.. I kept him alive although he was being focused. For the most part, I was left alone running around keeping my partner alive. I knew this team wasn't very versed in Arenas because I was allowed to heal at my heart's desire. Regardless of this, my partner emo-spiraled because I guess he realized how bad he really was and just left the game. Yes. He left the arena mid-battle. I was left alone in there. I left the game, asked in vent if he's just going to give up when it gets rough, and he replies with "yeah". Well eff you too. I logged out of vent and out of WoW.

I'm a pretty patient person... and I think Soul knows this since our first week or so in Arena was rough, but we still had fun. Our 2nd week, we started winning games and we were having a great time... I came from a 2k rated 2s team on my old server, so I do know a bit about it. This isn't to say that I think I'm some sort of pro and I'm this god's gift to arena. I don't believe that at all... but I do believe that to get to a rating like that, you can't just give up. We may not have had the best comp for 2s, but who cares? If you try and do your homework, we may have been able to get some wins in.

This person has pissed me off to no-end a few times before last night. I don't hold grudges.. pretty much just say "Hey you prick, you pissed me off. Don't fucking do it again". Then I just move on. I've done that on 2 recent occasions already... Should I do it again? Probably. Will I? Doubtful. Why is this time different? Because its a trend with him... it doesn't go his way, he'll emo-nerd-rage. Will I keep raiding with him? Yeah, I want to raid... and I won't let personal feelings get in the way of that... but will I continue to do things outside of that with this person? No.. probably not... at least not voluntarily.

On Being 'Tarren Milled'

Murtaugh, his wife, and I play Horde on the Stormscale PvP server. (If you see Quintalan or Gdaan poking around somewhere, that's me.) When you reach your upper-teens/low-20s as a Blood Elf and you venture out to the Undercity, you're given the "Report to Tarren Mill" quest from the Sindorei representative to the Forsaken. Being a noob, my first thought was to take it easy and work my way through Silverpine Forest first, and then make my way to Tarren Mill once I'd gone up a few more levels.

(Now, in the sake of honesty, I do use Quest Tracker, and the arrows to Tarren Mill from the Undercity go through the Western Plaguelands. I did venture into there as a 25th level Paladin, and promptly found out why it was NOT a good idea to go that way. Like I said, I'm a noob.)

I finally ventured to Hillsbrad Foothills and Tarren Mill somewhere around 27-28th level, which was my first exposure to the Contested areas. Naturally, if you're traveling on foot/horseback from Silverpine Forest, you have to pass several Alliance controlled areas. I kept expecting Alliance players to see me and come streaming out from their base to lay some serious smackdown, but I arrived in Tarren Mill without incident.

Ah, I thought. That worked out well.

I got the flight point for Tarren Mill squared away and logged off, confident that I'd be ready the next night to handle some initial quests in the area.

Things started out well enough, but when I was turning in one of the first quests you get (basically killing some bears in the area), all of a sudden I heard a "zap" and the release spirit window popped up.

"What the..."

Then I saw them. There were several of them -at least 5- and they were all well above my character's level into the "??" range. All Alliance guys. (I say guys because the characters were all male- your guess is as good as mine as to what their real gender was.) They were all having a grand time zapping everyone in sight, jumping around, and in general looking like a bunch of punks who deserved a visit from Mr. T and his Night Elf Mohawk. Considering I'd seen the results of such destruction in The Ghostlands when everyone in Tranquillien was zapped by a couple of '??' Level Alliance guys, I knew what to expect.

Okay, I just need to wait and they'll split, then I can respawn and that'll be that.

Only it didn't work like that. I waited five minutes, thinking they were gone -well, I couldn't see them anymore- and respawned. Ten seconds later I was chewing on my lip, staring at the release spirit window again.

I'd been Tarren Milled.

Murtaugh, when he heard about my misadventure, laughed and informed me that was why he didn't typically go to Tarren Mill when he was leveling. "That happens all the time," he more-or-less said.

"Yeah," I said. "I noticed. Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel."

Obviously I wasn't worth it from an honor standpoint -I was way too low level for them to get any honor from it- it was pure maliciousness.

I came from that experience having learned two things: always watch your back, and Alliance people can be real dicks.

Since then, I've had some run-ins with Alliance people outside of Warsong Gulch -in Stranglethorn and Feralas, most notably- but in those cases the fights began with comparably leveled opponents. Sure, Murtaugh tagged along in Stranglethorn for protection in case a higher level "friend" of the Alliance opponent made an appearance (he did), but the fight was comparably even. It was remarkably 'jerk free', compared to Tarren Mill.

There was one time in Alterac where I was fighting some Syndicate personnel, and all of a sudden the dreaded '??' Level Alliance person suddenly entered my field of vision, circled me on his mount three times, paused, and then continued on. I got the distinct impression of "I'm going to let you live, buddy, but I could have had your ass whenever I wanted."

Gee, thanks for making my heart beat a little faster.

The uber-level Alliance person I encountered in Harathi while I was trying to complete a Strombrad quest wasn't so nice, however. He simply butchered me twice while he was apparently hunting for something. I grumbled, respawned, and got the hell out of dodge while I could.

Then there was the encounter I had today.

I was taking a late lunch and logged on to complete a few side quests. (Hey, 6000 XP is 6000 XP to a 50th Level Paladin.) Riding through the Hinterlands, I stopped at one of the troll areas (the one with the big Mayanesque pyramids) to go kill some spiders for an Apothecary in Tarren Mill. While I was there, I noticed a quest marker, so I ran up a pyramid and killed the three or four trolls at the top to find the quest hovering over another troll. Jumping down to where the troll was, I was about to talk to him when a flash of another monster caught my eye, popping up directly behind the quest NPC.

Great, I grumbled, another troll I missed.

I didn't need this; I only had about 20 minutes left to play and I wanted to be in and out quickly. Without much thought, I clicked and sent Quintalan to go slice and dice.

Then I noticed the '??' Level marker.

Oh crap. I am so dead. I actually got in a hit or two before I yanked Quintalan off of the female Night Elf (either Night Elf or Human, I can't remember) and waited for the end. I was about to get Tarren Milled again.

A piece of action popped up in my screen. "XXX says we are NOT going there."

I swallowed, pushing my heart back into my chest from where it had been lodged in my throat. I quickly typed out "mistake" and pressed Enter.

A further piece of action popped up. "XXX smiles."

And that was that.

There really isn't any moral to the story, outside of the obvious: don't let your initial impressions color your perceptions for the rest of the game. Not all of the people on your side are fantastic people, like the Horde person who decided to start a fight with some Alliance people in Booty Bay when I was wandering through (you're making the rest of us look bad, buddy; take it outside of those neutral cities), but neither is the other side composed of Grade A jerkoffs, either.