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Bruce
Tom
Ah, well, that explains why I'm still alive to type
this. That guy must have thought I was just calling
in his position. I hope I gave him a good scare.
Mark
You hope you gave him a scare? He was level 18 and
you were level 12. He was probably thinking about
whether to pan fry you or baste you and stick you in
the oven at 450 degrees. He was disappointed when
you didn't attack!
Tom hasn't had any PvP experience in World of
Warcraft yet. When he does he'll see how
level-dependant it is. Blizzard did tone down the
to-hit and miss level modifiers a bit for PvP, but
it's hard for a lower level character to beat a
higher level one.
This all changes at level 60, of course, where the
playing field is as even as it will ever be. I know
a lot of fans of PvP decry level-based games because
they feel the level overwhelms skill, but one of the
nice features of World of Warcraft is that it's easy
to get to level 60. It's a quick-leveling game, and
even better, it's a highly entertaining leveling
game. It's not a steep hill to get to level 60 and
you'll enjoy the process.
One more thing about PvP -- it's not done yet.
Blizzard is currently doing internal testing on the
first of what I hope are many PvP battlefields. This
will be an instanced area designed specifically for
PvP with PvP-related quests. These battlefields will
be like the battlegrounds in Dark Age of Camelot --
it's no coincidence that the labels are so similar.
I expect that the bulk of the PvP activity will take
place in the battlefields once they are implemented.
I'm looking forward to this.
Bruce
It's interesting that the first two-thirds of this
blog consist of a discussion of how to avoid PvP on
a PvP server. Let me contribute to the rousing tales
of players not fighting one another by describing
some actual combat: I got my first PvP kills today.
I was doing a quest in Ashenvale Forest (which
probably wasn't a smart move since it's contested
territory and hunting grounds for levels 20+, and I
was level 19) when I came across some of my Horde
comrades at a crossroads. They were looking for a
Night Elf rogue that had been harassing players on
the road to Splinterhoof Outpost. They were also on
the same quest as I was, so we joined up and went
looking for the NPC we needed.
As usual with non-guildies who are not on Teamspeak,
we got all spread out, and somehow they found the
rogue while I was still completing the quest. As I
was coming back to that same crossroads, a Night Elf
suddenly came up the road to my left, apparently
headed for the same place I was. I know he didn't
see me, because he was basically next to my before
he turned around and started running away. He was
level 19 and I was level 19. However, I was a
warrior and he was a druid. End of story. Hamstring
to slow him down, Rend to get him bleeding, Tauren
War Stomp to stun him when the Hamstring wore off,
then Hamstring again, all the while hitting him
until he died.
We had to eventually cross all of Ashenvale Forest
on this quest, and about thirty minutes later on the
other side of the zone I met a level 19 Night Elf
druid. It may have been the same guy, who knows.
Whoever it was, he didn't run, but turned to bear
form and stood to fight. I wasn't close, especially
since I have very good armor for my level, but it
was nice to just have a straight-up fight without
having to chase someone all over a zone.
The biggest problem in PvP is catching people. I've
seen trains of players chasing a single enemy from
Camp Taurajo all the way to the Crossroads because
everyone moves at basically the same speed and if
you start out of range you really have no way to
slow an enemy down. This is especially true for
non-spellcasters who cannot cast roots. One of the
most useful items in PvP is something called
Extra-Sticky Glue, which you can use to cast a stun
with a 5-10 meter range. As a warrior, I'm going to
have to stock up on this stuff. ..
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