Or, the cute and cuddly side of Horde-Alliance relations.

In mah time I’ve seen it all - Trolls tryin’ tae eat gnomes, Dwarfs kneecapping Tauren, all sorts of bad blood between the Horde an’ the Alliance but sometimes ye find yersel’ knee deep in Furbolgs wi’ an Orc at yer back and ye make do. Puts a different light on things, that sorta business.

Now, I’ve been on a pvp and a pve server and I’ve seen some pretty downright arse-hole-ish behavior between factions and, I admit, I’ve taken delight in killing off a gnome or two under my otherwise usually cuddly-care-bear Tauren guise. There is a divide in Warcraft - you pick sides and, as much as you may bemoan your own faction sometimes, they’re still a part of who your character is. Even the most ardent ‘I hate Alliance, we suck in pvp’ whiner will often be all ‘Kill the Horde’ the second they hit a battleground.

I’ve had so many bad experiences, with both my own and other factions, of people simply being gits - stealing nodes, taking quest mobs etc. That, however, is all blasted away when the nice things occur. I’m talking about a member or group of Horde or Alliance players actively helping out the ‘other side’.

Step 1:

More frequently these kind of events happen on a pve realm where people are not always flagged for pvp action and thus don’t have to worry about being shot in the back by those they just helped (and this happened to me plenty of times). There’s usually a moment where each side is sitting thinking ‘Hmm are they going to come grind all my mobs / steal my encounters etc.’

You might, for a while, comfortably grind alongside each other. That level of cooperation isn’t uncommon (on pve servers at least) and it always seems less hassle to just get along, for me, than try to discourage others by stealing their mobs or alike.

Step 2:

The next step up is symbiotic co-operation which I had going for a little while tonight when on my hunter. A blood elf hunter was grinding yetis in the same cave where I was doing a quest. As usual, I threw a few potshots at is as I ran by and whilst I was letting my pet grab aggro on the next mob. He returned the favour and stood beside me. The usual ‘greeting ceremony’ between the two factions began.

“Player X waves at you.”
“You hug player X.”
“Player X smiles at you.”
etc.

Friendly guy, I figured, and got on with shooting my Yetis. I noticed he was following me and helping me and not taking any mobs. After a few seconds and a few pauses later I realised he was skinning them. I checked his level - 60. Aha so he was here, probably, to get his skinning up to 300 for Outlands. Cool! So we merrily went on shooting, two hunters playing together, until I had gotten all I needed. A couple of /thank and /farewells later I came away a happier person for that little ray of sunshine in a world full of “OMGN00BLOLZZ U SUCK” spewing, mob-stealing players.

Step 3:

The next stage, which I was reminded of when reading a blog post which I sadly can’t find again, was the ‘total cooperation’ phase. Despite not being able to ’speak’ to one another, despite having chosen two opposite sides in a war, despite pursuing the same goal and having the relative anonymity of the internet, two people of opposite factions will go out of their way to help each other.

I love it when this happens. It hits me right in the warm and fuzzy part of my brain which likes to think of the world as a better place than it is. It’s that same bloody bit which makes me despair so often at the behaviour of others, when I realise that not everyone is willing to be a team player.

I have a couple of stories of this sort. The first was whan I was levelling my shaman. I happened to help out Tauren warrior who had a few too many mobs on him as I passed by, got a /thank, gave a /hug and went to grab some quests. Came back, he was heading into one of those tombs in Terrokar with the adding-mobs of joyus death - just where I was going, too. We spent a few minutes in the symbiotic-type I kill, you kill, we both profit from not having too many adds sort of phase. Then came the escort. He had killed his mobs first and picked up the escort quest. I figured I’d help him out. Followed along, healing the quest mob once in a while and zapping some of the excess adds. All was good, escort ended. /beckon, he ’said’. So I followed him and we went right back down and he helped me through the same escort quest. He had no obligation to do so and a lot of people might have wandered off but, no, he was nice enough to help me get through the quest too.

The other encounter was a little more bizarre. I decided, after one of my ‘little rampages’, (see step 3 in my previous post…) that I’d go visit Stormwind on my druid since I was nearby. It was in the early hours of the morning and I figured I’d not have so much trouble getting aroun without being seen. I love stealthing about places and I was bored so what the hell. I toddled into Goldshire and mauled a few guards just to make sure people were on the lookout (it spices things up!). A level 70 mage happened to be passing through, though, and nearly singed me to a crisp. After a hasty retreat I healed up and came back. She was still there and I played my usual game of ‘lick them in stealth and run away’. If you’re a stealthing class and have never tried this I suggest you do - some of the ‘reactions’ you get are just amazingly funny.

Anyways, this was a particularly canny mage and she ran around on her mount, eventually catching up on me and AoEing me out of stealth. Bugger. I prepared to become crispy fried chicken (was still boomkek at this point) but when she saw I was only healing myself and not attacking her she stopped too. A few /hugs and /giggles and whatnot later we were best of friends. I stealthed up and was on my way, teasing her with some emotes as she tried to follow me.

Eventually she found me again in Stormwind. /beckon. Allright, why not? I’m doing this because I’m bored so no reason not to follow her. And so began the crazy ‘tour’ of Stormwind and Ironforge given to me by an Alliance mage on a pvp server. That was a really surreal half hour but, again, made me feel all warm and fuzzy (feathery?).

It just goes to show that sometimes there are people in the World of Warcraft that realise that behind the characters is another human being and not a mindless robot whom you can take advantage of. This post is sort of an addendum to my last - times like these can make all the frustration melt away… Step 6, lets call it.