A temporary cease fire

While doing dailies last night, I found myself reverting briefly to my own Care Bear roots in terms of my dealings with the Alliance.

There was a Gnome Rogue who was in danger of being killed by three Dawnblade Blood Elves in Dawnstar Village at one point; I helped kill them, /waved, (without targetting the gnome, lest accidents happen) and got a /hug in return. Later, during the Dawnblade Reinforcements quest, a Night Elf Druid was similarly in danger of being killed when I saved him, getting a /cheer in response.

The interesting thing was, on both occasions, I'd started to do it even before I'd actually thought about it, and didn't think about it until afterwards. Normally I don't do such things where the Alliance are concerned; opting instead to simply avoid them if they do not attack me. I can only remember perhaps one other occasion where I've actually tried to help one of them.

I think what that proved to me was that Rilgon was right when he said he couldn't see me as primarily PvP. I had to roll on a PvP server initially because my offline friends were there, and later had to adapt to PvP out of necessity. My first character, a Mage, was designed for pure PvE; until they began to consistently attack me, I hadn't had any plans to attack Alliance players myself at all.

Although I do enjoy the battlegrounds, my reasons for attempting to adapt to the Arena are purely gear based; s3 Arena gear is the apparent equivalent of t6, certainly in terms of armour pen at least, if nothing else, and given that my chances of progressing to the Black Temple in raid terms are basically non-existent, if I want to move forward in the game at all, it's pretty much the Arena or bust.

Hence, while I enjoy the battlegrounds recreationally, and the Arena is basically a gear grind, in terms of the non-instanced game world, truthfully I'd much rather have peace with the opposite faction. It means I can do what I need to, and they can do the same; it's a much more certain means for us to both ultimately get what we need, than is fighting each other.