My first experiences in PVP.

Last night's raid to Black Temple was cancelled due to lack of numbers, so I went back to levelling Aretus. I was hoping to get Tortage finished before it become inundated with new players from the full release today.

This is my first active experience on a PVP server. My few attempts to level characters on PVP servers in WoW never got me out of friendly territory so I was quite unprepared for the experience. I wouldn't even be on a PVP server, but my friends decided they were gonna roll there.

Firstly AoC PVP isn't faction-based like WoW. Basically in AoC everyone outside your party/raid is a viable target, and when you pull a bunch of mobs like I do, it can sometimes be hard to tell where the mobs stop and the players start.

This led to some awkward moments last night where I'd be killing a few mobs, then someone would pile in and I'd cleave into them or they'd cleave into me. There'd then be an awkward moment where we'd stare at each other, work out if the other person was going to actually attack, then shrug, apologise and go our separate ways.

Then there was the incident this morning where I was happily killing mobs and a Herald of Xotli called Soul came and started beating on me. By the time I realised what had happened, I was dead. So, I shrug, respawn, get my health up then walk through the door, and find that Soul is attacking me as I'm loading up. This happened 2-3 times in the Tortage Undercity until I managed to catch her with mid-fight for some revenge.

After that, I start killing some mobs in another part of the zone and I find her coming after me, along with a friend this time. She killed me about a half-dozen times before I sent her a tell telling her to grow up and lo the ganking stopped.

I know "it's a PVP server, you should expect it", but I dunno, I hoped the RP part would outweigh the PVP part. I still don't believe in attacking people who are spawning, or who are fighting mobs at the time.

Still I can imagine the dynamic brought about by free-for-all PVP will be an interesting one:

D00d1: Can u come and tank an instance for me?
Tank: Wait, didn't you spawn camp me for about an hour last week?
D00d1: hehe, yeah!
Tank: Erm, no thanks then.