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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsWe're in your docks, kidnapping your flightmaster
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Dec 10th 2006 at 8:00PM
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With the disappearance of dishonorable kills, many people are hoping for the return of innovative world PvP. As an example of "innovative world PvP," and how angry people get when it actually occurs, we present last month's Mal'Ganis Flightmaster Hostage Crisis.
Mal'Ganis is a fairly overcrowded PvP server, hosting both some of the world's best guilds (Ret, Elitist Jerks) and some of the world's best drama (the guildmaster who threatened to kill a guy who gquit after spending a month in the hospital.) One of the native Mal'Ganis guilds is Goon Squad, a giant Horde crew that was formed from readers of http://www.somethingawful.com. Goon Squad is known for pranks and odd ideas, the most well-known of which is their "I Summon People Off Cliffs" warlock PvP video.
On the night of November 4, Goon Squad snuck into Theramore and kited away the Alliance flightmaster. Soon after, they posted a ransom demand on the Mal'Ganis realm forums: If the Alliance bought out two Lightforge Belts listed for 1500g each in the neutral auction house, Goon Squad would free their hostage. If not, wrote Stuul from Goon Squad, "It would be very unfortunate if we were forced to hold him for the weekend while you try to raid." To encourage the Alliance to pay up, they also camped the Ratchet boat and kidnapped the Auberdine flight master.
A large group of Alliance joined in the fun and vowed to hunt down their beloved flightmasters rather than pay the ransom. Goon Squad soon posted that the hostages were in Bael'Dun Keep in the southern Barrens, and challenged Alliance to come and get them.
Unfortunately for the Horde, enough people complained to GMs that the incipient world PvP battle was nipped in the bud. Five hours into the hostage crisis, GMs struck down the kited flightmasters with instant Curse of Dooms, killing them and allowing Alliance to fly free in Kalimdor once more. "Your flight masters were slaughtered by a overexcited GM," Arktdnonoobs wrote. "We had no part in their deaths."
Goon Squad received commendations from both Horde and Alliance on several servers. Even a CM on the Customer Service Forum, Batta, noted that while the GMs had to kill the flight masters to keep them from being "lost", he admired Goon Squad's ingenuity in pulling off the caper.
So is this an example of innovative world PvP, or a bunch of Horde being jerks? Do you have any plans to spice up your server's PvP in the future?
Filed under: Realm News, Guilds, PvP, Humor
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
azurenightmare Dec 11th 2006 11:27AM
This is priceless, such creativity is so wonderful.
Tecno Dec 11th 2006 12:35PM
I'm a member of The Goon Squad, the alliance version of this, on Kel'Thuzad.
I salute our Horde brothers on doing this, it is a fantastic play. I only wish we would do a take over of Goon'Gol sometime in the future, but with the 65 buffed guards, it seems less and less likely.
Mat Dec 11th 2006 1:01PM
This is awesome, and I can only imagine what it would be like if some of the RP servers got in on this kind of world pvp. :) Man that'd be fun.
Goonba Dec 11th 2006 9:31PM
So I was the tank for the "Goons" that ran the three flight masters. And let me tell ya, it took about four hours of work to get all three of em in the keep and about 10 seconds for the GMs to spoil what would have ceartinly been a legendary gimmick battle!
barborak Dec 11th 2006 10:42PM
yo goonba we both tanked the flight masters :colbert:
Elizabeth Wachowski Dec 11th 2006 11:12PM
Barborak, I deleted some of your comments for extreme off-topicness. Congratulations on your AV, Goons - how long did it take?
Jonathan Mead Dec 12th 2006 12:08AM
I am literally on the edge of cancelling my account. What with the complete crap from the patch (why does my concussive shot from my gun now sound like a bow for example?) Blizzard are just not interested in changing anything up, making things interesting, or even allowing true creativity from it's players. Four hours to pull it off. Ten seconds to ruin it. Blizzard are pathetic.
The whiny bitches who take the game way too seriously and went whinging to a GM are a part of the problem as well and should be ashamed of themselves for being so pathetic.
About the only way I can see to turn things around is when you learn of something like this, is write to the GM's and say "This is awesome!" I mean they say people complained... Well unless the main body of players on WOW are sadder than I thought, then I would think it was only a small group whinging, and that most people thought it was very cool. I mean not one person here has said Blizz did the right thing.
Kadmiel Dec 12th 2006 9:21PM
Just wanted to add that PAA (Penny Arcade Alliance) guild had their own PvP event on the Dark Iron server the week before the new PvP system was put in place. To make a long story short, several raids were created and the PAA attacked all the Horde cities and killed all but one of the racial leaders. And this was done simultaneously between all three cities. This effectively not only shut down all the Horde cities at once, but ended up briefly crashing the server.
The Horde are still bitter over that one, and for the next few weeks, they kept attacking our cities, but nothing to that same effect. This of course gave our world PvP a shot in the arm, but at the same time, angered a bunch of Alliance players because the Horde were out looking for blood.
I think things like this make the game fun especially because, as some one mentioned, it creates a player created world event, which we rarely see in the game. And of course it makes the whole Horde and Alliance "dispute" fun.
KRalgore Dec 19th 2006 11:23AM
Sounds like blizzard just went American Government on the issue. Instead of letting the world go about it's business they had to stick their nose in where it didn't belong and fuck it all up.
Cheron > Horde @ Neptulon Dec 20th 2006 6:44AM
Oh MY! ;) So lovley to hear about this!! I'd love to do something like that...One think I wonder is how on earth do one kite him that long, without killing him, and without him killing the kiter? Ofc they must have had healers and such, but ;) GJ ;) love you!!