I am on the same track here.
WPvP is a huge waste of time for me. Every time I log in, i have a goal what to do in some timeframe, so unexpected wpvp would prevent me from doing my goal for time I have.
I did play on PvP servers before and most of that community and guilds dont fit my game mindset. People there are mostly competitive, edgy, impatient and are mostly looking for excitement and adrenaline rush. Many act like IRL gangs from American suburbs, mafia stlye, brave only when in pack, cowards otherwise.
I play the game to relax, not to pull my hair out over being camped over and over again.
On top of all that, cross faction collaboration destroyed all my will to play on pvp server and was most disgusting thing in encountered on pvp server.
But, ofcourse, I respect some people enjoy pvp servers, but that is just not my thing and I dont fit there.
Can someone explain to me how a mage aoe farming prevents you from killing your quest mobs? They usually ride around gathering mobs, just pick one of them out of there. They are not tagged at that point. Also they usually don’t gather all the mobs because some are in akward places and they would lose two other mobs if they tried to pick that one up (because they drag them too far without ever dealing damage to them).
Yeah, I just wanted to enjoy old Azeroth at my own pace, without having to worry about disruption.
And as you said, it’s a games mindset thing as well. It’s not to say that all PvPers are toxic or anything - that would be a gross and unfair generalization - but PvP server players do tend to be more competitive and min-max oriented, which simply would not mesh with my more laid back attitude to the game. Also, PvP tends to bring out a nasty, vindictive side of me that I do not like.
And another unfortunate side effect of PvP… As I was always Horde, I can’t bring myself to play Alliance to this day, which saddens me. And I know it was PvP that is to “blame” because I didn’t have this issue when I played SWTOR (from the beginning on a PvE server there), I happily played both factions there.
That been said… My strongest memories of TBC are PvP moments. The truth is that PvP has huge potential for memorable gameplay.
PvP servers are the real experience because you can interact with other players on a different level and for me, the reason to play MMORPG’s is to interact with other players. Naturally you can’t expect to only make nice experiences, there will be ugly ones too but that’s kinda the beauty of it. I can tell hundreds of cool stories where I got involved that would never happen on a pve server.
Dying in this game is really not that big of a deal. I am not in a hurry to complete every quest without any obstacles.
This argumentation is weird to me. Videogames are generally a waste of time - it does not matter if you reach a personal goal or just run in circles in OG/SW. We like to waste time, it’s luxury. Others have a lot of responsibilities so they don’t have the luxury of wasting the same amount of time. Having a goal is great but achieving it right away in a world with almost no obstacles is not worth a lot. The journey is the goal.
Many people quit the game after achieving their personal goal.
Was the experience on a PvP server in classic the way you remember it from Vanilla or TBC? I’m genuinely curious because I’ve heard a lot of “horror stories”, so to speak, about the state of PvP servers, and how the experience for many players was vastly different to what it was for them back in the day. I can say that for me on the RPPvE server, the experience was very faithful (minus the PvP of course as I leveled on RPPvP back then).
Instant corruption?
For many people, WPvP isn’t the journey. WPvP is the sudden flash mob that occupies the highway and blocks your journey for hours forcing you call the hotel and tell them you will arrive at late night instead.
I’ve played on both modes, and I have never missed WPvP even once since I’ve been playing on PvE. It never ceases to amuse me how PvP fans can’t even entertain the idea that other people may not find WPvP an enjoyable part of the game, or even a part of the game proper.
I could be wrong, but I think it takes a few seconds for the corruption to tick, which means that if, say, a moonfire is applied to the target before the first tick goes off, the druid will get the tag.
Then how about wanding? My instant corruption makes the mob attack me.
Again, until the wand fires off and the “bolt” reaches the target, the instant damage ability will get the tag… And yeah, while the mob will attack you, it will only be tagged by you once the actual damage is applied. Again, I could be wrong, so I’m happy to be corrected if so!
I think you may be right.
In my experience, things like this don’t really happen a lot on pve-serbers, though.
It mostly happened in the first 20 levels, which would still happen on PvP servers as those aren’t contested zones
Nothing wrong with quiting, it is just a game. That said, didnt quit it after 14 years and achieved a lot of goals. 
wand projectiles have travel time, corruption takes time to tick. immolate has a cast time.
warlocks have no instant tag tool.
having farmed winterspring furbolgs as a warlock for about half a year to get firewaters for my main, the closest thing warlock has to an instant tag is death coil, and that only works if you are casting it while standing on top of the mob, since that projectile also has travel time, and that’s a 3 minute cooldown which is suppose to be your panic button, not a tagging spell.
oh yeah, there’s shadowburn as well if you spec into affliction, but that only has like a 20 yard range and costs a shard every cast, so again, very suboptimal for tagging.
People find the idea of free-for-all PvP in the open world just as alien, as in the most unfun thing imaginable. There’s a big difference to me between a duel and griefing-- in a no rules environment there will ALWAYS be a huge amount of the latter. Again it’s irrelevant if YOU think any enemy player under any circumstance is a fair target, because other people don’t think that way and have ideas of fair play.
I play games to relax, so that means I want things to go at MY PACE. PvP exists still and if I want to do it I can do so when I choose.
As far as immersion goes, well no, because there’s never been a full-on war between the two faction-- in Vanilla particularly it was skirmishes here and there, and generally more of a cold war situation.
WoW clearly was designed as a PvE game, and PvP was bolted on very late-- which is why I find PvP so utterly horrendous in the game.
PvP is kinda fine, but it’s clunky. And probably this clunkyness was actually needed 15 years ago.
hey man, everything is fair in love and war, ever heard that saying?
and no, pvp was not tagged on “very late” you were able to do pvp from day 1, the HONOR system was tagged on in phase 2 out of 6, so if anything pvp was tagged on really early on.
I think that Daecimus is referring to PvP servers, which were indeed decided upon quite late in WoW’s development. I think I remember an interview of an OG dev who mentioned that the original concept of the factions was more like Everquest rather than the version we got, and that they changed it later in development. Either way, it’s all gaming history now!
i recall seeing pvp servers when the game first launched actually, i remember because i chose a pve server and my friends made fun of me for it