Breakfast Topic: Mounting annoyances
by Amanda Miller 
Dec 3rd 2007 at 8:01AM
Now, other games often get around this by giving each character and NPC its own space, mutually exclusive from the space around it. In other words, you can bump into things, but not stand in them, enveloping them. While such a method may be more true to life, I think WoW's way of doing things is quite handy, considering the sheer numbers of players in big cities or on heavily populated realms.
Unfortunately, it can indeed become a bit of a nuisance. I become especially frustrated in the banks, when some characters feel the need to stand in the banker, rather than in the crowd, or when I find it difficult to click target a quest-giver.
Of course, Rihlsul is right; there is an increased presence at the battlemasters. Given the fact that arena season one gear can now be purchased with BG honor, many people are on a farming push. People are also still exploring the new Alterac Valley, as it has changed so much since patch 2.3. In addition, because of the new daily battleground quests, even players who previously PvP'd seldom or even never are stepping up to bat. In fact, I often find the small excuse of doing one a day is often enough to prompt me to queue a few more.
Battlemasters aren't the only NPCs seeing more action lately either. This week, after the realms came back up from extended maintenance, ushering in arena season three and the ability to acquire season one gear with BG honor, the above shall we say "crowded" screenshot was posted in Around Azeroth.
Are you annoyed by players parking on the NPCs that you need, or are you one of the players who has a habit of doing it themselves? If you could switch to a system in which characters had their own, impermeable "spaces", would you; or are you more concerned with the newfound PvP'ers in the battlegrounds than outside their gates?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, NPCs, Mounts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
evestraw Dec 3rd 2007 8:05AM
lol need to finish my netherdrake quest
Makavelli Dec 3rd 2007 8:09AM
Press Shift+V to bring up all healthbars. Then simply click on the health bar of the NPC you need to talk to.
Kiyokko Dec 3rd 2007 8:17AM
I remember back at Brewfest, when the dark iron dwarf attacks worked, an irate tauren druid who couldn't get an answer to a question, sat down on bear form on the guy you handed in your dark iron marks to. I've had players block mailboxes, battlemasters, flight masters and quest givers. It's truly annoying and I wouldn't mind if there was a small space around important NPC's and mailboxes. This would also solve the scantily clad elves dancing on the mailbox problem.
LostOne Dec 3rd 2007 8:29AM
Use the shift+v option above, or do what I do. Park your battleground grinding character in an Azeroth capital city rather than Shattrath. All the BG masters in SW and IF are in no-mount zones so they're much easier to get to without resorting to the shift+v option. Plus on my server, those rooms are less crowded anyway.
John Dec 3rd 2007 8:29AM
It's not so bad in Shat, or in one of your own cities, where you won't accidentally right click on a hostile player. It's very annoying in gadgetzan, cenarion refuge, etc.
Shadowisp Dec 3rd 2007 8:35AM
I suggest "No parking zones" if you idle (not moving) on your mount around certain spots/npcs for say 20 seconds, it dismounts you.
This will allow you to ride/fly past the area/npc without a problem.
hpavc Dec 3rd 2007 8:41AM
/tar battlemaster
/click targetframe
using a pitbull like interface with the secure dropdown modified to have a 'click me' also helps.
JPN Dec 3rd 2007 8:44AM
Or put them in bubbles you can't move through. And elevate them. Then put some shamen or something down there holding them up magically like those guys who keep the portals open next to the dark portal. Make up some lore and bingo.
Really though, in Shat, I find getting to ANY BM annoying. You get your daily BG quest, then all the BGs dump everyone right on top of all the other BMs....I wish they'd put them up on pedestals or a wall or something.
engineering is underpowered Dec 3rd 2007 8:51AM
Even worse is when you're fishing a crawdad pool in Skettis, and a Shaman casts water walking and sits down on your lure. If they don't do it right, they ruin your cast :-/
engineering is underpowered Dec 3rd 2007 8:53AM
^^ er, if they do it right, they ruin your cast.
Extremitus Dec 3rd 2007 9:18AM
Stick up big charters on the walls by the battlemasters - allowing players to literally "sign up for the battle". Stick in a PvP trinket that allows you to "Use: Join the queue for 'battleground x'", dunno how it would work for joining as a group tho, unless it brought up a prompt in the group "X is joining the queue for 'battleground x'. Would you like to join?"
Ahoni Dec 3rd 2007 9:20AM
Makavelli and others already mentioned the solution. We had a big problem with this on my server recently, with a Tauren going AFK while mounted on top of the AV Battlemaster, and several other people just being jerks. We submitted tickets on the people who were being rude about it, and the GM suggested using SHIFT+V to view the health bars, and right-clicking the health bar to open the dialog. Should work for bankd and AH as well.
Still, would be nice if there was a way to get people booted off for being jerks.
Mad Cow Dec 3rd 2007 9:20AM
I got burned out on the old pvp system, prior to the free-for-all rankings before BC. This past weekend I decided to give it a shot again and grind for the S1 weapons.
In less than 3 BGs I became annoyed with trying to requeue with drakes, kodos, and gryffons afk camping the battlemasters. So i portal'd to Org to find so many people around the battlemasters that I couldn't target them. I ended up in UC with two other guys and after my hearth cooled, I figured I'd test out TB and see what that was like. Absolutely NO ONE in TB ... I was content with that so I didn't bother to check SM.
The only down fall to using a battlemaster in the older capital cities is lack of free time activities. On some BGs the queue time is rather long, so if you're in shat ... just hop on your mount and do some fishing, a cooking daily, farm mats, etc. If you're in TB, Silvermoon, UC, or Org ... you can farm your tv or rubik's cube while you wait for the pop.
Blizzard should elevate or "block off" all vendors and battlemasters within a city. If you stand on them for more than 5 seconds, they should "bump" you off to a set distance away from them ... sort of like a little personal space for the NPCs. A nice "stun" debuff for 5-10 seconds would be nice to slap the repeat offenders. It should bump you regardless of AFK status or some douche spinning circles on the NPCs. It would stop the people from AFKing or even standing on them. I don't see how they could do that for all quest NPC's due to escort quests, etc., but it is a royal pain the ass to try to queue for AV or WSG on their respective weekends.
Just my two copper. I'm on a "low" population server, I can't imagine trying to queue on an extremely high pop server.
Sherp of Ahrotahntee Dec 3rd 2007 9:21AM
Darnassus is always utterly deserted on my server. In this case, that can be a good thing! :-)
I like the idea of elevating the Battlemasters. Increasing their size would also work.
Goldwolf Dec 3rd 2007 9:39AM
In Jaedenar, people are always in the personal space of the Horde Battlemasters! It's like an IQ test to figure out how to click one before you can join a Battleground.
...On the other hand, I never see the Allies having this problem...
Joe P Dec 3rd 2007 9:55AM
I think more annoying is when you're in a shared town and members of the opposite faction feel the need to park themselves on top of questgivers, so you have a chance of accidentally attacking them instead of talking to the questgiver.
Grimmtooth Dec 3rd 2007 10:04AM
It's rude to stand in the way, at a merchant, at a bank; anywhere.
One should always get in, conclude one's business, then move off to the side. It's called courtesy.
Mainman Dec 3rd 2007 10:05AM
Related:
http://darklegacycomics.com/117.html
Scrit Dec 3rd 2007 10:49AM
I hate it even more when they stand right beside the daily givers, then when you're about to right-click they move on top of him. Then I smack them with my stupid warlock sword and I get guardpwned.
Chrysee Dec 3rd 2007 10:50AM
On a somewhat related note, my first character was a hunter and around the time I was in Winterspring I really thought I'd be cool and hardcore and awesome if I had an owl. About a week later I was back to my old pet since every time I tried to click on an NPC the damned owl was in the way.