PVP
Reaching 60
In this part 4 of the First Steps in World of Warcraft, I want to talk about some memorable Player vs Player(PVP) stories and finally reaching Level 60.
The way PVP originally worked in WoW was that you could start out on a PVP server or a Player vs Environment(PVE) server. The difference between the two was that: on a PVP server once you left the starter areas you were open to being engaged by players of the other faction at all times. While on the PVE server you had the option to flag for PVP or turn the PVP switch on, so to say, which then would allow players from the other faction to attack you. You could flag for PVP in several different ways, you could, if I am remembering correctly, type /PVP in chat and that would flag you or you could attack a player of the opposing faction that was already flagged for PVP and that would automatically set you to PVP. The PVP flag wore off after a certain amount of time, but this was only true on the PVE servers, on PVP servers your only safety was the “no PVP” zones in starter areas and I think a couple other places, but I can’t remember that far back.
The reason I am mentioning all of that is so that the context is a little clearer when I describe the situations I was in while PVPing.
I started out on PVE server Shadowsong, my first ever real character in WoW was created here with the name of Cailan (pronounced as Kaylin, but I have heard it as Sailin too, which is fine). And thus began my journey through Azeroth. I have already talked at length about the level experience to 40 you can read it by following this link. I don’t remember at what level I first engaged in PVP, but it was something I really wanted to do early on. In general I played video games prior to WoW with only two directions, it was either all single player or all multiplayer where you had to play against other players.
Because I didn’t have access to the neutral zones in the early levels, which meant I didn’t really meet a whole lot of horde players, what I would do is what’s called Dueling. In front of Ironforge there was a little platform where everyone would get together and challenge each other to an honorable duel to the death(not really). The benefit of this was that you didn’t die, and if you won a duel it would be announced through the whole area you were in, in general chat. Which was fun little recognition piece of it for a kid like me.
So I dueled a lot, I enjoyed the rush of it, I won a lot of duels lost a lot more, but it was just fun.
So the first PVP story starts here in dueling, I challenged another Paladin to a duel she was 10 levels higher than me. It was a definite loss for me but I figured why not give a shot. At this point I was very well practiced and knew all my cooldowns, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Her name was Dove I believe a very nice person in chat, from what I could gather she was a young woman older than me at the time and played with her husband mostly PVE stuff. But enjoyed a duel now and again. So I went ahead and threw the challenge down! I had my guildies nearby watching, it was about 5 minutes long I think much longer than most duels were for me, but in the end I somehow won the duel. I was so excited about it, it was incredible. She told me that PVP wasn’t really her thing and ran off somewhere, but still 10 levels higher than me and I won. I was so happy, it was at that point that I started to realize I am actually pretty good at this PVP stuff, and stopped being afraid of the horde so much.
The next story is also about a Duel, this one was with a horde Tauren Warrior in Crossroads. It all started when Blizzard released the new Honor system, that would get you points for participating in PVP and then you could get rewards for it like titles and gear in some cases. It was awesome. But it set the world PVP ablaze, towns burned, the fields were littered with skeletal remains of both horde and alliance. Whole guilds were formed around PVP and defending those towns, it was awesome. Eventually Blizzard released Battlegrounds, which were basically instances that we discussed in one of the previous articles, but with a PVP focus, like capture the flag, hold a zone, stuff like that. That of course took people away from PVP in the open world into instances and kind of made it weird for everyone. But it did solve a lot of problems and provided a ton of incentives to be a PVPer type character.
Before the Battlegrounds came out though the alliance would go over to Crossroads and start wasting that town until the big guilds came out to push as back it was a ton of fun. Quick mention, there was a troll shaman named Cortez, I don’t know what it was about him but whenever he showed up on the field alliance players panicked and scattered, myself included. I don’t remember him being incredible or anything, but he had this aura around him that really worked in the horde’s favor. We were scared of Cortez, I don’t even know if he realized that.
So anyways, after one of our raids on Crossroads my guild and I were chasing some group of hordes down and this Tauren Warrior approached me and threw down a duel, he was a higher level than me and geared much better than I was. The duel took forever but I beat him, all the while Bob’s little brother chatting me to not embarrass him… Like you see why I didn’t get along with that guy? I am in the duel of my life and all he is worried about is being embarrassed in front of some horde person that he will never ever see again. Anyways I beat the warrior he bows and I bow back and we go our separate ways, Bob was very proud of me and I was super proud of myself too. The rest of the PVP was very generic to me and didn’t really stay in my memory. So that’s it for the PVP portion, the next thing I wanted to talk about was getting level 60 and I guess we will have to do that in the next article as this one got a little wordy again. Sorry guys, I really wanted to finish this up as much as you do, but I remember things and want to write them down before I start forgetting.
See you in the next one!
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