The Midsummer Fire Festival has come and gone. As with any of these holidays, there was a large amount of complaining about the PvP element. I am not without sympathy for these complainers. There are those that do not really enjoy PvP. I also fully agree with the solution to the problem that others have put forth; you don’t have to do the holiday. For those of you still with me on the epic quest for the Violet Proto-Drake, it doesn’t seem quite so much like a choice. Rather than complain, though, I wish people would embrace the excitement that a little bit of PvP can introduce to your regular game.
Behold, the PvE servers. As Brian reminded me, in the days of Vanilla WoW, they were referred to as “Carebear Servers”. Of course, I’m not particularly concerned with my “hardcore” status, so that’s where I roll. Even while cuddling my Carebear, I do love some good PvP. I like battlegrounds (except Warsong Gulch) and Wintergrasp. Woe to the lowbe Ally flagged in my presence. Otherwise, I like to be able to do what I want to do without having to worry about some jerk killing me for no reason other than the pleasure of ruining my day.
Along come the holidays. They seem to usually have some kind of PvP component, be it battleground achievements or world PvP. The Fire Festival is no exception. We must honor our own flames and desecrate those of our enemies. Desecrating enemy fires cause you to become PvP flagged. This is where the complaints lie. We’re on a PvE server because we don’t want to have to deal with world PvP. Really, though, give Blizzard credit for trying to make it something a little more than just a tour of the greater Azeroth flight paths. I, for one, relish the excitement of finding oneself vulnerable in the middle of the wilderness. Avoiding the Alliance on the roads, preparing to make a lightning strike raid on their main cities, waiting out a flag in the trees. This really makes my heart pound. There’s preparation there. I ride around on my Dreadsteed instead of my wolf. I turn off my title to make my name shorter. I turn my helm back on to be less conspicuously Blood Elf. There’s a Mata Hari-like thrill to the whole affair.
That being said, there are a few easy things you can do to make your life easier during these times. First, if at all possible, don’t try to get this stuff done during peak hours. Brian and I raided all four of the opposite faction cities to get their fires first thing on Sunday morning. We only died once at the hand of another player. Because we got such an early start on the achievements, we had actually done all of Azeroth before they reset the quests. I actually wound up doing most of them twice. With all of those enemy fires, I only had a problem with other players a couple of times. I’ll admit, once I became flagged, there was a fair amount of diving off the roads when someone was coming. Occasionally I’d cast water breathing on myself and wait it out at the bottom of a lake (This works well. Players don’t like under water battles). It’s great fun. And don’t go alone. Even if you only have one other person to roll with, that’s enough to protect you from the lone jerk wandering the wastes. Sure, you might die a couple times. Remember, if the person is camping your corpse, as long as you’re not in the capital city, you can always wait out your flag as a ghost so they can’t continue to grief you after you res.
So, come on, people, embrace the opportunity to show some of those snotty members of the opposite faction what’s what.
