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World of Warcraft RP PvP
When it comes to RPGs, actual roleplaying is
something us computer dorks don't get to do very
often. Usually it boils down to certain types of
dialog responses, and sometimes you can choose a
"good" way to finish a quest, or an "evil" one.
Online roleplaying games are a different story,
though. And rather than mash everyone together,
you'll have servers (or "shards," or what-have-you)
that are dedicated to just dorking it up. World of
Warcraft has had a few RP servers up from the
beginning, but it wasn't until recently that they
added Player Versus Player RP servers. And in my
endless quest for gaming goodness, I decided to roll
a new character and see what the whole hubbub was
about, since I'd never really been into the whole RP
thing, but I like PvP -- and mostly for fighting
even-leveled players, thankyouverymuch.
In the interest of piling on as much New Stuff as
possible, I chose a Hunter, whose character class
has seen some big chances with the latest patch. For
those of you not into the WoW thing, a Hunter is a
ranged fighter (mostly) who can domesticate beasts
and have them fight alongside him or her. Since the
last patch completely reorganized the Beastmaster
talent tree, the Hunter pet is now a formidable
beast, instead of an annoyance that magically
disappears when its owner is killed.
There's "Bestial Wrath," which doubles your pet's
damage for 15 seconds and makes it immune to effects
that would usually slow its movement speed, stun it,
put it to sleep, et cetera. The pet also increases
in size and turns all red while the effect is
enabled, which is pretty cool. You can also get
improved health regeneration, a pet attack that
combines a stun and a taunt (for getting monsters
off your back), and a percentage chance for a nifty
pet attack speed boost. Overall, the Beastmaster
talent tree is a pretty compelling reason to be a
Hunter, to me, besides the appeal of having my own
in-game buddy whom I can name and order around. My
character's name is Rollins, and my pet's name will
be Henry. You can check out the talent trees for
yourself by heading to this page on the official
site.
At any rate, thing were a little quiet today in RP
land. Admittedly, I didn't spend a ton of time
poking around, but the regular-to-RP ratio was
actually pretty skewed towards the traditional
style. I was expecting to find people sitting around
at the inn or the tavern, regaling each other with
their adventures, laughing heartily, and making
amusing emotes at passersby. Instead, it seemed to
be business as usual, in Orgrimmar, at least.
There's the usual enchanter spam, quest grouping
spam, questions about specific items (typically
where to find an NPC or the finer points of
character development). On the other hand, there
wasn't much of the out-of-character silliness, like
people running around in their skivvies, talking
like idiots (anyone who's spent five minutes in the
Barrens on a high population server knows what
that's about, although it can be pretty funny in
small doses).
I had one orc female flirt with me, but I was
totally in mission mode and was almost done
collecting all the foozles for this one quest and
couldn't be troubled with the pompatus of love. I'm
a Hunter after all, the loner guy like Aragorn or
somebody, striding through the forest with my trusty
companion crab Henry beside me, whom I feed and
train almost Tamagotchi-style and watch proudly as
he evolves from a polite shore wanderer to a
whirling dervish of mayhem. That's the life for me,
with a little pleasant fishing time thrown in there,
prospecting for ore so I can fashion better rifles,
and some cooking (which is all but necessary, since
you otherwise have to buy food to feed your pet,
which can end up being a considerable investment at
the end of the day).
The RP servers do seem to be a bit more friendly,
though. And although this was a PvP version, people
still seemed to be pretty laid back. During one
mission involving clearing out some human scallywags
at a fort south of Orgrimmar, a Druid player came
through as well, shapeshifted into his bear form. He
suggested we join up to defeat a specific guy who
was deep within the fort, and he was great help,
being several levels above me. As soon as we partied
up, he cast a few spells on me to improve my stats
temporarily, and we dove right into it. I then
followed him up to the top of the fort, where he led
me to that held some secret documents essential to
the quest. I also had several encounters where a
fellow player jogged by me and cast a beneficial
spell on me, without saying a word.
The impression I get is that the term "role playing"
in WoW doesn't necessarily mean people talking funny
(although there was a lot of chat that approximated
the trolls' Jamaican-sounding pronunciation). Or
acting funny, beyond simply being more social and
typing out complete words. I'd heard about all this
before, but I didn't quite believe it. You'll get a
few special cases of people really getting into
their roles -- one message board posting about a
Dwarf finding two Night Elves in a secluded area of
the game and en flagrante delicto got passed around
the WoW community, and hilarity ensued.
But those are pretty much isolated cases. When it
comes down to it, "RP" is more of a special tag that
keeps out the jokers, letting those who play well
with others do their thing without much hassle. In
general, it seems to be a more mature crowd full of
people who genuinely enjoy the game and enjoy
socializing within it. I've been playing the game
since closed beta in April last year (with a few
gaps, mind you), and I've experienced my share of
hair-pulling aggravation that only a dedicated
asstard can generate, so it's nice to come across
what looks like a fresh change of pace.!
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