Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hunter's Griefing Hunters: The Pet Taming Challenges

Hunter's shouldn't grief other hunters. I know some people might disagree with me on this statement, but I believe it to be completely true. Hunter's griefing other hunters causes nothing but problems and has no benefits that I can see.

I should start by describing what I think griefing is. Or in this case, isn't. Griefing, to me, isn't PvPing. It isn't ganking, or camping, or spitting on and consuming corpses (I'm looking at you, Undead hunters). Griefing is messing up a player when he is trying to get something you want, or deliberately ruining something you know some one else wants.

Hunter on hunter griefing most often occurs when two or more hunters are looking to tame a pet, and is becoming more wide-spread with the addition of these "special" pet to tame. I can't for the life of me understand this behavior. Does griefing a player who is trying to tame the pet you also would like to tame make this hunter not want the pet ? Not usually. More often than not this hunter is now just angry, and the next time the beast spawns he may be there again. And he will likely remember the hunter who caused him so much trouble...

These new pets to tame very much remind me of the Rhok'Delar demons of the Classic days. This seems to have been Blizzard's goal, but I don't think they intended players to remember it in quite this way. Here's the two memories that I have from this quest that stand out most in my mind:

The Bad

If you aren't familiar with the Rhok'Delar quest here's a quick run down of the relevant parts. After obtaining a quest item from the end of the Molten Core the hunter was asked to kill 4 demons... alone. And it meant alone alone. No tank. No healer. No pets; nothing. And each demon had to be defeated in it's own quirky way. If another player damaged the demon after a hunter had engaged it it would depspawn.After being defeated or despawned it would be three hours until the hunter could try again.

The second demon I took on (there was no particular order defined by the quest) was Franklin the Friendly. This demon was unique in that he spawned near Blackrock Mountain, which was chock full of content at the time. The road he spawned on was very well traveled. This particular demon was one of the hardest to defeat (I could never decide if he, or Nelson the Nice was more difficult) and I had already failed several times. But this time, this was the one.  As I started I could just feel it. I had him. Then along came a dwarf hunter. That darned dwarf hunter. As I kited the demon down the road and past the dwarf  he stopped and began to follow me. As soon as it became clear that I was about to finish the demon off... BANG! The dwarf opened fire with a single autoshot and despawned my demon.

I was devastated. I had camped the spawn point for the full three hours, as when I had arrived another hunter, an Orc, was just finishing up. On top of that it took quite a bit of preparation to challenge these demons and the food and other buffs I had spent a long time obtaining were now wasted. Now, I had had this same demon despawned on me once before, but this was by another class( I can't recall which) who was unaware of the mechanic and apologized profusely when I explained it to him. This hunter was different. When I explained to this hunter that he had spoiled my attempt the only reply I received was "lol". After phrasing it another way, he second reply was much clearer. "I know, I'm out here to get him too lol". He'd done it for the sole purpose of ruining my attempt. And why? He had to wait three hours either way, why ensure there would be one more hunter out there competing for the same spawn?

The Good

The third demon I completed was Artorius the Amiable in Winterspring. This fellow was by far my favorite.  To defeat him I had to learn how to jump-shot and this is a skill that has been very useful in my huntering career. When I arrived at his spawn point I saw that he was up and ready to be killed. I began clearing the mobs out of my kiting path, as commenters on WoW Head had advised. After just a few mobs I saw another hunter arrive. A horde hunter. "That's it." I thought to myself. Then the horde hunter started making gestures. Pointing at me, pointing at the demon, and nodding. After a few /ponders it became clear to me that this hunter was trying to ask if I was attempting the demon. I nodded, and he cheered. Worried that his good will might run out I decided I'd just try to avoid the other mobs in the area. I pulled the demon and began kiting. Then something wonderful happened. The horde hunter started kiting and killing the various adds out of the recommended kiting path. He was helping me in one of the only ways he could! He was helping me defeat the demon and earn my epic hunter bow and staff, a pair of weapons I have to this day. After I beat the demon we cheered and danced for a while, then went our separate ways. I tried to find this wonderful hunter the next couple of times this demon spawned, and even helped a few other hunters the same way he'd helped me, but I never saw him again. I can only hope he found some one as nice as himself to help him complete his quest.

Since that day I've tried to be as helpful a hunter as I can, especially to other hunters. I hope I've  helped generate some fond memories of a hunter who helped when she didn't need to. I strive to be like the second hunter I encountered in my demon hunting; never the first. And I challenge you all to do the same. We are members of one of the best communities in WoW and I'd guess nearly every hunter has had help from another. Hunters like Zeherah, Frostheim and many others have dedicated hours to helping others, and really for no benefit other than to see our community be great. So let's keep it great, and help our hunter brethren. Griefing helps no one.

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