So I’ve been around the PvP server since classic launch because i joined along with my friends all wanting only to play on pvp server. i joined a nice guild where everybody was friendly until the great purge of flamelash happened. this was the first point i considered transfering to a PvE server, but i had a nice time with my guild and transfered along with them to Earthshaker.
After some time i joined other guilds because people quit. and the PvP scene turned into griefing and being afraid of losing world buffs before raids, and people seeking attention after clearing world buffs from me.
Racial slurs also increased in the new guilds i joined. and was just brushed off as normal behaviour and laughed out.
This weekend i decided to try out some premade Bgs and was met with the owner of the discord server, being mad at a player for not performing, he would then make fun of him for 30 minutes about his non optimal english skills, and calling him a sand-n. when i told the guy to please stop, i was thrown off the server for defending him.
now i usually seek wholesome places. but i have trouble finding it on pvp servers right now. so i’m wondering if i should just switch to pve. is the grass greener there or is it just wishful thinking?
would some of you who changed from pvp to pve share their experiences?
Im at Mirage Raceway (EU PvE).
Toxic people exist everywhere, but i’d say it’s very good at MR.
You wont have the usual PvP problems in the open world, we rather help eachother out instead. I mean theres like 100 allies standing in Xroads waiting for a Mind Control to get Rend buff
The worst “pvp” encounter you can get is someone spitting at you, or pulling mobs to you… It’s a kindergarden compared to PvP realms.
As someone who doesn’t really like being ganked, I rolled on a PvP realm in a reroll guild. I got ganked as soon as I went into a contested zone, and I don’t like it.
I persevered and 8 levels later got ganked for 2 hours and I quit the realm, it made me understand why people have problems with the PvP system. I tried to get help from the guild but no one was interested.
On PvE there is no ganking and if you choose a high population realm, people actually help one another, even if you are about to die the opposite faction sometimes help. This rubbish about no-one levelling is wrong, I see 10-15 players running around often and not just at low levels.
I have levelled all the way to 60 on this character on Stonespine during P2. It was the most soul-crushing, aggravating experience I had in a video game. Of course Stonespine is dead right now, but even then the ratio was something like 30% Alliance.
I finally took the decision to transfer from that server to Pyrewood Village, after having returned to the game in preparation for TBC and it was the best decision I have ever done.
When WoW launched I played all through vanilla, TBC and WoTLK on PVP server. Since then I moved to play on a PVE server.
The main reason for me is that I enjoy PVP, but I have no interest in ganking people who can not (or do not want to) fight back. Nor do I have any interest in being on the receiving end of that.
And so with Classic I hopped on PVE server from the get-go and have not regretted it at all. Sure you get the occasional situation where you might think along the lines of “if this was PVP server I could just destroy this person here and take over the spot” but honestly those have been a handful of times for me.
I like pve server as an alliance player not sure about horde. I guess it’d be alright if you don’t mind a smaller community since most horde players default to pvp servers while many alliance players nowadays play on pve (especially after phase2 fiesta).
My server is mostly dominated by Alliance top guilds, but we have a strong Horde, and both side live in relative peace. But don’t be fooled, there’s everyday griefing and everday debuffers, Felwood is a “go with your friends or get rekt” zone, like all big PvP servers.
I was thinking to switch on PvE server for TBC for 3 reasons :
Avoid mafia / people that spend 1 day in the same farm spot killing everyone / faction collude. It will be a sh*tshow on the firsts months, we all know how TBC will be. Everyone and their mother want some motes to craft gear. It’s not like I don’t like mafia, It’s part of the game, but I’m not in a “top” guild that can pretend anything so basicly I’m not in a position where I can say “Hey, give me a spot, I’ll help you”.
World PvP is sometime, really annoying, when you are not “on” for that (think about P2 for Alliance).
In TBC world PvP is not really a “thing” anymore, due to flying mount. PvP is mostly in instance (BG/Arena). So going on a PvE server doesn’t really impact how you feel the game, because even on a PvP server you can easily “fly” off a fight.
But after all, I don’t think I’ll go PvE :
Sometime I want to be alone when I farm something, and If I see opposite faction doing the same thing, I’ll likely gank them. I can’t imagine on PvE server having a guy farming the same thing like me and I can do nothing.
Even if world PvP doesn’t really exist in TBC, there’s Quel Danas Island, that is a pure world pvp zone with daily quest, no flying mount. It is a thing, and I don’t want to miss that. Same for the leveling (people don’t have flying mount before level 68 for Druid and 70 for others), same for WOTLK leveling (no flying mount, phasing but world pvp still exist). Since I’m planning to level outdoor with quests and just some dungeons to complete the XP bar before swapping zone, I’ll do world pvp.
Going on a PvE server is a “one-way” move : you can’t go back to PvP server after that. Your characters are “locked”. If you want to play with future friends on a PvP server, you have to reroll, you can’t migrate.
All my best memory in Classic happened primary because PvP server existed. The Scarab Wall War, Classic PvP rankings in early phases, Tarren Mill Battle the first week because dishonorable kill was not a thing, Blackrock Mountain fight when going to MC/BWL.
I experienced world pvp as mostly “attack the other guy while he is fighting two mobs his level already” or “wait until the other guy is out of mana and then go”. I’m usually the other guy. It doesn’t appeal to me so I played on Mirage Raceway since the classic release. There’s no world pvp to speak of except in phase 2 before the battlegrounds we have a few 100 vs 100 or so fights in hillsbrad.
Maybe 1% of the world pvp encounters are enjoyable fair fights.
I think it comes down to this: Are you a sadist and want to gank people who are in no position to fight back? Are you a masochist and want to get ganked by people when you are in no position to fight back?
If the answer to these two questions is “No” you will probably enjoy a PvE server more. You will play in the same battlegrounds as the PvP servers but you can do your quests without having to worry that a lvl 60 rogue terrorizes Lakeshire or that someone kills you half a minute before you would have finished an escort quest. Did you know that a lot of zones in classic only have one graveyard? If you get killed in the thistle area in southwestern tanaris you have to walk all the way from Gadgetzan there as a ghost. And you might get killed again before you even get back to full mana.
I’m not saying it’s always like this but during your repeated 5min-corpseruns you will consider if a PvE server would not have been the better choice.
the risk of being ganked at any time anywhere (safe for zones controlled by your faction) is part of the excitement of the game. knowing that you are constantly in danger of being ganked is what makes the game charming to me.
not to mention that if someone from the opposite faction decides to hog mobs you need for a quest, he can do so as long as he wants and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.
on a pvp server you can either log a different character and try to stop him yourself, or simply call for someone to come and gank him.
on a pve server you’re just gonna have to put up with that kind of degeneracy and patiently wait for ‘your turn’ at the questing area.
Hmm, I don’t remember there being a shortage of mobs I needed for a quest. Okay, wait, that isn’t true. There were two occasions:
The first two weeks of the game, mostly in the low level areas. People were spawn camping named quest npcs. But that was in durotar and the barrens and all that. PvP would not have changed a thing there.
The other occasion was the scarab lord farm. It was a tag-war on Mirage Raceway. Guilds were hogging caves, I was called a “bouncer-bear” because I’d follow strangers around that entered our caves, to make sure I would moonfire any mob in their range if one spawned and couldn’t immediately get picked up by a guildmate. From what I have read here in the forums it was way worse on the PvP servers though, with guilds from opposing factions teaming up to kill intruders of other guilds.
The fact that you post from a lvl 51 deathknight and 99% of your posts are in the classic forums makes it a bit less believable that you like it when people go after you.
But, given that what you say is true, you just answered the second question about being a masochist that likes getting ganked with “Yes”, so I guess PvP servers are made for you. And they can’t all be sadists that wanna gank people, they would have noone to gank!
alright dude, but that’s like just your anecdotal experience.
personally i had problems with quests in each and every zone i tried to level up in, due to aoe farming mages who thought they could lay claim to an entire area, with such big egos as to have the gall to try and shoo you away from “their” farm spot.
mages from both factions were doing this all the time, but at least i could deal with those from the opposite faction… i wouldn’t be able to do that on a PVE server.
and yes, the AQ scarab lord farm was some of the worst BS i have seen in wow in a long time. collusion with the other faction is suppose to be a bannable offense, and people were very obviously doing it without blizzard taking any action against them. they even locked down world chat to try to prevent people from finding scarab farming groups.
people were banned from world chat for saying “Silithus” etc. it was really aggravating.
Oh btw. the reason i post on my lvl 51 death knight is simply because i like his looks better. i can change to my classic avatar if you insist. i got several to choose from.
i used to post on my classic avatars back in the day, but my guild officers told me to “not make them look bad” so i switched to a retail character without a guild tag, but nearly the same name.
problem solved.
At least on a PvE server, even if you’re outnumbered, you can still tag faster first or something. On a PvP server you can easily get locked out of quests or entire zones.
For example, while leveling my druid alt in STV, I often ended up tagging the named quest targets (like Sin’dall) from entire groups of Alliance players. This kind of thing would’ve simply be impossible on a PvP server.
People always like to think in terms of situations like “if this were a PvP server I could kill them”, but they rarely consider the opposite scenario of “if this were a PvP server they could easily kill me”, and how often it can end up popping. I dunno about you, but I just don’t like the idea that other players can literally prevent me from doing anything
And besides, judging from OP’s points, he himself doesn’t need to care, so you can take your PvP bravado with you and shove it
At least on a PvE server, even if you’re outnumbered, you can still tag faster first or something
For example, while leveling my druid alt in STV, I often ended up tagging the named quest targets (like Sin’dall) from entire groups of Alliance players.
I think we’ve discovered the problem. druid is thee best class for mob tagging. try being a warlock or something like that and see for yourself how frustrating it is to lack an ability that tags mobs instantly at long range when say, a druid is around spamming moonfire.
On a PvP server you can easily get locked out of quests or entire zones.
that’s part of the charm, and it leads to world pvp which is also healthy. it starts out small, then escalates until either side decides to scram if they perceive the ‘war’ to be lost.
I dunno about you, but I just don’t like the idea that other players can literally prevent me from doing anything
again, the fact that the other faction can prevent you from progressing is part of the charm of the game. being on the receiving end of it makes you curse, swear and whine, but its pretty funny when the shoe is on your foot and you’re the one doing the spanking.
the idea that alliance and horde wouldn’t engage in pvp is a foreign, even alien concept to me. the game is called warcraft after all… playing on a pve server is the least warcraft-ey thing imaginable.
its also super immersion breaking imo.
I’m not sure of what’s charming about being unable to play, but you do you. If that’s what you enjoy, you’re free to do so. But I’m frankly tired of having to hear this charade everytime somebody comes here and asks how’re things on PvE servers and such because they’re tired of ganking on PvP servers.
Just how many people, so far, have been tricked by this whole “PvP is the real WoW experience”, I wonder? I just wish people stopped trying to push this narrative
in order for people to be tricked, there would have to have been a lie involved. as far as i am concerned pvp servers are indeed the real wow experience, and people who flee to pve servers are honestly just softies who can’t take a beating.
its literally the epitome of admitting defeat.
I originally played RPPvP back in TBC, this time I’ve gone RPPvE and don’t regret it at all, especially after everything I’ve heard (and some videos I’ve seen) about PvP servers in Classic. It doesn’t seem to me like the same experience as we had back then. Still, I can fully understand the appeal of open world PvP. It all depends on what you want to get out of the game.
If you want a more competitive experience with more hardcore players, a constant sense of danger, the Alliance vs Horde war in full swing but are also willing to put up with the possibility of ganks etc, possibly a lot of toxicity, a strict adherence to whatever meta exists and situations where population imbalance can affect your gameplay very heavily, go PvP.
If you want a more relaxed experience with less toxicity and a more chill community but are willing to put up with slower progression, a general lack of tension and a half dead (at least Horde side) auction house, go PvE.
As for the immersion that Zmug mentioned… Well, I personally picture it in my mind that the Horde and Alliance have a truce, and that my own characters “don’t get involved in politics, they just want to get through the day” or something
The trick comes from how you represent facts. A lot of people were tricked by all this “PvP is the true experience” because of all the romanticizing around WPvP, where in fact it turned out to be something much less glamorous and much more grief-driven than anything you could read on these forums, especially prior to launch. A lot of people were convinced to roll on PvP servers when they would’ve just been better off on PvE servers. And yet, even when they come here and say as much, you still hear people like you trying to convince them that no, that’s not the case. How much more idiotic it can get?
And let’s not get started with immersion, because WPvP can be every bit as immersion-breaking as PvE depending on the situation.
I like PvP, but most of the PvP in the world is usually just rogues ganking you.
Or phase 2 with dozens of players just camping flight paths.
If I had a choice whether I’d reroll to a PvE realm or PvP realm… but the issue is that I’ve got friends on the PvP realm now lol.
If I didn’t meet them? - I’d roll onto a PvE realm easily.
This is pretty much why I ended up rolling on a PvP realm, alongside the fact people were hoping for massive battles like in the classic beta.
Just ended up being a massive lag fest in these battles and just ends up being a rogue gankfest/Dispel fest rather than actual PvP to take over zones etc.
