Monday, November 17, 2008

Why I’d rather not kill yellow mobs

I’ve always been a fan of budo sports, especially ones like aikido, which doesn’t really teach you any techniques for attacking, only ways to effectively take care about people who attack you. Be peaceful to the peaceful and remorseless to the aggressive ones. It’s easy to like the philosophy.

Maybe that’s the reason why I find it so easy to attack red mobs, which apparently hate me and will do anything to kill me unless I do something about it. And that’s why I also find it so hard to kill yellow mobs, which won’t attack me for other reasons than to defend themselves.

It just doesn’t seem fair to nuke an innocent, peacefully grazing clefthoof or mammoth calf, because some stupid quest giver has told me to. No wonder the poor animals get angry with me when I come there, tanking and spanking and wanting to cut out their intestines to sell to some guy for gold!

I know there have been some dedicated pacifist players trying to level their toons without killing stuff. I wouldn’t go that far. I kill they yellow ones if I have to. But I feel bad about it.

The level 1 critters
When it comes to the yellow level 1 critters, I’m even more reluctant to throw my spells. I can’t think of any good reason to kill them. But other players obviously can.

I’ve seen surprisingly many bloodthirsty players who won’t miss an opportunity to stab a tiny level 1 animal, and who seem to get happier the cuter the little creature is. “Yay, there goes another rabbit!”

Some of them refer to the damage lists. I don’t know if they’re joking or if it really would help them to climb. I’ve never tried it myself. But for some odd reason the most enthusiastic critter killers I’ve seen have been healers. I guess it’s the only way they can live their secret wanna-be-a-dps-dream.

Then there are others who make a sport out if it. In my former guild there were a couple of guys who had a little private vendetta every time we ran Karazhan. They both wanted to be the first one to reach and kill a rat dwelling in one of the last rooms before the Opera event. It was a race for life and death, much more important than getting the bosses down or topping the damage list. (Actually it was a bit fun to see, another idea how to get some excitement out of the game when you’ve done Karazhan too many times.)

Role playing aspect
The funny thing is that I feel different about killing critters on my characters. Larísa would never kill a level 1 critter, no matter if it’s a snake or a cow. She considers herself too enlightened and intelligent to do such a thing.

My rogue on the other hand, Arisal, is streetwise as a rogue should be, and only thinks about morale when she seems some way to benefit from it. Killing critters is a perfect way for her to improve her stabbing technique.

I guess it’s the closet role player side of me speaking again.

But since Larísa is the innkeeper and master of this blog, I let her get the last word in this post, while Arisal is probably sneaking around in the backyard, killing the rats.

Killing yellow mobs is wrong unless you’re forced to it by circumstance. Let the critters live. And maybe it’s like in the sf short story where the killing of a butterfly will change the whole future? You never know for sure what effects your blood thirst will have in the long run.

7 comments:

krizzlybear said...

What about the non-critter characters? I think I AoE grinded on countless groups of horses in grizzly hills. I'm surprised D.E.H.T.A. hasn't come and taken me away yet =(

Gevlon said...

I also avoid killing yellows. Actually, I avoid killing anything unnecessary. Killing things takes time. I go for the quest item stealthed, than run away with it in kitty form.

Anonymous said...

I am a healer so i would rather have someone else kill them for me hahaha

I would rather do instances to level.

Captain The First said...

Hehe reflective damage ftw. Did that for a while on my pally... only using defensive abilities. Still aoe grinds really well if you do that... wonder if the new and improved warriors can pump out enough reflective damage to try something like this.

Anonymous said...

@Krizzlybear: it felt kind of weird when I first helped mammoth calfes out of traps and then a few quests later was expected to kill them. AoE-grinding... not as fire. But who knows, if I grow tired of questing I may turn frost...

@Gevlon: actually I do miss stealth a lot. Lately I've been levelling my rogue alt to 70. Switching over to questing again with my mage I keep wishing I could stealth and sneek by those mobs to get the shining questitem at the end of the camp. Now I have to get back to clear my way killing.

@Esdras: I thought I'd prefer go instance levelling but actually I enjoy questing a lot more than expected. More about that tomorrow.

@Captain the first: well... as a fire mage I don't have many. But I must admit I love to see adds with low health killing themselves on my molten armor. Not sure though if a yellow mob would take damage from molten armor unless I do something activly to attack it?

Anonymous said...

One of our bear tanks refers to instance critters as "rage cookies" and Elune help you if you kill one before he gets to it. I'm not really up on my tanking, but I'm guessing he uses them to keep his rage up between pulls.

As for me, all of my characters are working on their "To All The Squirrels I've Loved Before .." achievement.

How can someone as pet-happy as me intentionally kill a critter?

Anonymous said...

As a fury warrior I find the rats in UK (for instance) to be incredibly useful. Overdamage still generates the full amount of rage.

So when I get to hit one of those squishy 3 health rats for 2500 damage, I still start the fight with 40 rage. Extremely handy - and /loving yellow corpses counts for the achievement, so I don't even feel bad about drowning the steamfrogs.