Are sociopaths just the price you play for being on a PVP server?

[andersman02]

Wait, so you joined apvp server, and are pissed because there is world pvp?

Stop being such a baby, this is how it always has been on pvp servers. If your getting ganked, either log out, move to a different area, or try and get someone to help.

[Aymus]

This is good. A reply that begins to shed some light on the subject. Ok, so the reply is a little light on detail and can probably be categorised as maybe a "learn to play" style of primitive response which has been seen countless times down the years, but it's a line of communication.

Aymus, I'd be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on this further. Let's begin with what "can't defend themselves" means to you:

Do you mean that they can't defend themselves because the don't have the skills (I mean as a player, not necessarily as a character - there's nothing they can do about the latter), and it's somehow entertaining, or perhaps "rewarding" would be more apt, to help them improve upon those skills, perhaps even to the point where they could possibly defeat you despite you "throwing the first punch"? I mean, they could duel if that's what they're after, so perhaps offer that to someone on your own side instead? If you do think you're offering some sort of training, then repeatedly doing so when they're obviously not interested would be problematic.

Or do you mean that they can't defend themselves because they're out-levelled and out-geared and no amount of skill (again, player skill) would help them? If this is what you meant, I'm especially interested to hear, in your own words, what makes this "great".

Can't defend themselves means they're either out-leveled, out-geared, out-skilled. I do all types of PvP, from WPvP to rated PvP and I think of myself being decent to good considering past experiences.

This "great" is defined simply by seeing an enemy player die, regardless of level, skill or w/e. I don't think it's any different from the type of killing in any other online pvp game.

Associating ganking with sociopath behaviour seems exaggerated to me. As long as it's allowed, I don't see the problem. HOWEVER, camping bodies for more than once, twice, a maximum of three times is a totally different story. I think it's wrong and I think it's being caused by a huge amount of frustration coming from the enemy player.

My personal reason for ganking is usually securing a questing area for the friendly lowbies that are leveling in it and overwatching while they do it. If I have nothing else to do at the time, I always answer a call for help from lowbies when someone keeps ganking them. When I am by myself and I'm headed somewhere, I don't really gank lowbies as I find it a waste of my time and their time also. I will gank equal-ish level though, unless I'm in a hurry.

Some of my ganking rules, if you want to call them that are to never kill warriors who level solo, because I know how hard it is. I usually try and help them out if I can. Avoid killing tauren (they seem to be the least ganking race in wow). Always kill blood elves, especially if they're paladins. Always kill people who have ganker names like "Ganksta". Always kill a player who is using his main to level up his alt from a different account using /follow. Always kill horde when they are in alliance areas, like Duskwood. Always kill players who out-leveled the zone they're in (eg. level 50+ in STV).

This is pretty much it I guess. Ganking people makes you immune to the frustration of being ganked, because I understand why they do it, so I am almost never mad if I get ganked. I joined vicious circle so I deserve it. Nothing to complain about.

[Zelekhut]

Gotta love how some people speak as if players even HAD a choice to play on a PvE server, on warmane - as if they were choosing to play on a PvP server^^

[Luminnar]

these threads... wow... not everyone likes to battle brainless scripts, you know? i don't know why am i playing games if i'm doing there something i hate to do. why would i be helping someone kill more mobs (or scripts that do the same thing over and over again), if i can duel an intelligent being? i mostly was provoking lowbies to log on their mains so i can get my dose of wpvp fun, camped people in netherwing, annoyed skettis and primal fire farmers and so on. why? cause it's fun. is killing scripts fun to me? nope. that said, i've been to the other side of the story as well - i also camped a single guy for over 4 hours in outland, even when he begged me to stop, since he was ganking my low level alt without mercy, while stealing quest objectives and chasing me around for a long time. eventually i forced him to faction change since he had no fly mount = no escape. go ahead with calling me a sociopath, but remember that this is a game and you can choose which path to take. this is a high rated xp realm and leveling here takes about 1 day of game time. by the time you wrote your post, you could've already skipped a whole zone worth of levels. join with others, call for help (it's what i want you to do anyway when i corpse camp you), be a SOCIAL human being, you'll do us both a favor :)