Well I’m sure you’re all dying to know how I’m getting on with this whole beating-other-people-to-death for points thing, and the first week’s results are in! I’m a Scout! I get a neat red tabard with a Horde symbol on it. I don’t wear it much, as I end up wearing my Amazing Technicolor Guildtabard mostly instead, but that isn’t really the point (and another story). I also get the word ‘Scout’ appended to the usual floatey name above my head that keeps following me about, so everyone can be impressed and intimidated in equal parts, by my presence. In reality it merely marks me out as being one step above ‘Nobody’, but I still think it’s an important step nonetheless.
Standingwise, I came in at a respectable 540th place (Horde), or thereabouts, although this figure is a rather complicated number arrived at by only one week’s fighting, rather than a lifetime tally. This is good…one reason the website leader boards don’t really work in Planetside is that performance history is rarely purged, meaning that whoever was playing on the first day of release has a massive head start on the newbie, and is likely to always be at the top unless they stop playing the game altogether for a long period.
The WoW rankings are also very dependent on how many other Horde players got involved that week, and how they did too; an entirely relative and floating number. I’ve no idea how many players are on a typical WoW PvE server over a week, and how many actually do PvP at all, but have no delusions of adequacy over standing, and suspect that I’m still very much in the ‘ocassional dabbler’ range, which is probably right where I should be. I’d guess that around the 300-400 mark, you start hitting players who do nothing but PvP, lots, and the progress becomes much slower, and difficult to maintain.
This means your position (and derived rank title), will tend to gravitate to where you ‘ought’ to be over a number of weeks, based on your commitment to PvP. Personally, I do enjoy it, but still also enjoy the many other aspects of the game too, so don’t expect to get a lot higher, but we’ll see.
I do like being able to just ‘switch off’ when I’m done though, so probably wouldn’t enjoy a proper ‘always on’ PvP server. It’s taken me the best part of six years to recover from a life like that anyway. The flashbacks are still terrifying, so I’ll pass thanks.
One thing I am noticing however, is that although the Alliance always on the attack, and generally outnumber us, it also means that we have far more unique targets, far less competition for kills, and more frequent opportunities to gain Honor Points, at a much faster rate than they do. When you’re Horde, there’s always a fight to join – Taren Mill usually, or the Crossroads if they’re feeling particularly bold. Most Alliance raids on the other hand, always seem to contain at least 30% of troops who just sort of loiter at the back, unable to get an axe in edgeways until significant numbers of frontline troops go down. That can’t be a lot of fun, surely?
A big fight at Hammerfall surprised me the other night though; a rather remote log-walled hamlet on the high moors. While variety is nice certainly, I ended up not liking this one quite as much as I’d thought I would, mostly because the walls block movment, but not projectiles and spells, due to the non-FPS physics of the game engine. This threw me a lot, as I’m used to walled fortifications - ala Planetside - actually providing solid physical protection. The walls ended up working as an effective trap to keep us penned up and camped, and caused more trouble than they stopped in the end, especially for my own fast-attack cavalry slam technique, and token ranged weapon skills. I won’t call it exploiting, but it certainly went counter to the way I understood fortifications to work. Still, you respawn and learn.
I’ve no idea what my rank and standing will be next week, as the numberwork behind it all is both somewhat opaque and rather complicated, but given the gruelling five-hour bloodbath I ended up involved in at Taren Mill a few days ago, I shouldn’t be surprised if I’m promoted next week. Planetside Terran Republic Courtyard Defence teaches you Endurance, if nothing else…‘Grunt’ here I come!
For the Horde!