Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 news15 Minutes of Fame: Noor the pacifist
by Lisa Poisso 
Jan 8th 2008 at 5:30PM
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – both the renowned and the relatively anonymous. Know an interesting player you'd like to see profiled? Send your tips to 15minutesoffame@wow.com.
We checked on Noor and Reinisch's progress this month and found them plugging along merrily through battlegrounds, quests ... and yes, levels. Intrigued, we contacted the player behind the toons to find out what's behind this novel way of playing World of Warcraft. Read more about the attraction of playing a pacifist character, how to go about getting XP without killing anything – and of course, whether or not Noor thinks he can actually make it to 70 ... all after the break.
Ok, so we gotta ask – why on earth a character that doesn't kill anything? Doesn't that feel like pulling teeth? I prefer doing stranger stuff, as opposed to grinding high-end instances. Once, my 70 mage was in Southshore, and someone was asking directions to Ghostlands in zone chat. I told him how to go through EPL. Then I clicked on him, and he was something like a level 12 Draenei hunter. I asked him why he wanted to go there, and it turns out he wanted a red cat for a pet -- so I escorted him through EPL, and he only died a couple of times getting there. I've also done a few quests on PvP servers with non-hostile Horde players (not pre-arreanged or anything), such as the mechanical chicken escort in Feralas (twice, so we could all get credit).
So what sparked the idea of starting a pacifist character? I had thought about doing such a character off and on for a while. When I saw Gweryc Halfhand's blog on being a melee-only hunter, that finally spurred me on to try it. It turns out he had been thinking of trying something similar but wasn't sure if he'd have the patience for it.
Show us your kung fu: what's the actual nuts-and-bolts reality of this character? Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters. My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and having other players do their dirty work.
In terms of bragging rights, I intend to keep my rogue's weapon skills (dagger, thrown and unarmed) at all 1s. My priest will also have all 1s, but it won't be obvious on WoW Armory that he has no offensive spells beyond the level 1 Smite all priests start with.
Tell us about the concept behind Reinisch, your first pacifist character. I started him from a roleplaying point of view, based very loosely on a real German priest, Franz Reinisch, who refused to serve in Hitler's army and was executed. My undead priest's back story is basically the same, and he still refuses to kill.
What made you start a pacifist rogue, too? My priest hit an XP plateau. There were no longer any quests he could do without killing mobs -- this was before 2.3 came out, with repeatable BG quests that grant XP). I had already decided to try both Horde and Alliance pacifists, so this time I started an Alliance character using what I had learned from my priest.
I thought about using a hunter and have my pet act as a decoy; however, I figured that my Alliance character would also have to go into dangerous areas, and a rogue with stealth and sprint would stand a better chance. I settled on a gnome because they get +15 to engineering, allowing my gnome to use Target Dummies at level 5 (as opposed to 10 for my priest).
As a rogue is a sort of "spy" class, I Googled for a pacifist spy and found Noor Inayat Khan, a woman who was also executed by the Nazis for aiding the French resistance, so I named my rogue after her. She was the daughter of a well-known pacifist in India.
Didn't you originally have a pacifist rogue named Noorkhan? When my first gnome rogue Noorkhan learned Sap, I tried it out -- and my melee skill went up, so it was no longer a "perfect" 1. I was also reminded of the Anh'Qiraj war drive when I saw it again on the public test realm for patch 2.3. I knew a low-level character could get some extra XP if the war drive was still going on, so I looked and found that the Maiev realm still hadn't finished the war drive to open the AQ gates. So I rerolled on Maiev. The name Noor wasn't available for my character on Maelstrom, but it was on Maiev -- and I preferred just Noor, anyway.
It's apparent from the research and design behind Noor that you have some WoW savvy up your sleeve. What's your past WoW experience? Do you currently play a "regular" character as well? I've been playing since October of 2005 and have a 70 mage and warlock on Stormreaver (Gummo and Vardlokker) in <Critical Mass> and a number of alts, mostly in the 40s.
Who do you consider your main character – Noor or Reinisch? I'm working on both; Reinisch is doable but slow, since he can only do WSG dailies now since he's level 15. Both are pretty low-maintenance at the moment, so I can level both simultaneously. I've been mostly neglecting my level 70s in <Critical Mass> lately, though I still do a few instances with them.
What kind of time do you spend on Noor each week? How often do you play? So far, I've still been playing nearly every day. I'm still collecting items for future consideration (green whelp armor for battlegrounds, etc.), and I want to earn enough money so I can buy what I can't make. The Charred Vale in Stonetalon Mountains is the best place for a self-twinking miner, as it has mithril and truesilver nodes, most of which are far from the mid-20s mobs. I hit 270 mining at level 23, so I bought a +5 mining enchant for some gloves and mined a rich thorium vein in Azshara in the Bay of Storms just for fun.
It must take a ton of research time to orchestrate the XP progression. What percentage of the total time you spend on Noor would you guess is spent researching vs. actually playing? At first, it was quite a lot, since there are a lot of quests in four different starting areas to look over. The new "!" markers on the minimap help, too. However, the number of new quests has fallen way off. Level-27-required quests only shows about half a dozen new entries on wowhead.com, and I can only do one of them.
It looks like PvP is a huge part of your strategy. Do you foresee continuing to PvP the whole way up? I have to; the repeatable daily battleground quests are the only way to "grind" XP if you aren't going to kill mobs (not counting the very slow repeatable seasonal quests that you can do each year). Without them, Horde characters would be stuck around level 15 and Alliance around level 23 ("around" since class quests vary, and exploring very high level areas can get you a bit farther).
What reaction have you gotten from other players in battlegrounds? Some are amused, some are not so amused -- at least for my rogue. At least nobody complains in BGs about a priest who runs around just healing everybody.
What about from your battleground opponents -- can you tell if they've been taken aback by any of your actions? Not that I can tell -- but they might wonder why I'm just whacking people with a fishing rod instead of using standard rogue attacks.
You blogged that you recently started throwing bombs in AB because you didn't feel you were pulling your weight defending the flag. What other compromises have you made so far? I had to "make up" for some unintentional XP I received when I was grouped with another player to meet up with him and some murlocs attacked. He killed them and I got shared XP, so I completed one quest without turning it in to compensate. My priest will actually be much better in roleplaying terms, since he won't need to throw bombs. He'll just heal other players and sometimes interrupt flag captures with a Psychic Scream or Mind Control. I did have my rogue do the second part of A Noble Brew even though that kills an NPC, because she isn't told that the drink will kill him. But both of my characters will refuse to do quests if they know it will kill NPCs.
What about in-game support -- do you have a guild or friends who help you out, or is this strictly a solo effort? I don't have any alts or "rich uncles" helping my pacifists. I've met a few people like Mephisston who read my blog because it talked about the opening of the AQ gates, and he decided to open them on Maiev by buying up linen and turning in bandages. He's made some potions and bandages for me (at 225 First Aid, you can use but not make Heavy Runecloth Bandages). ... But no huge support network.
As far as a solo effort, I bought a Security DELTA Data Access Card from the Auction House and managed to stealth all the way to the "D" Punchograph card readers in Gnomeregan at level 24, so I could learn how to make Discombobulator Rays myself instead of needing to rely on another engineer to make them. The hard part was placing the Target Dummy so all the ranged attackers would attack the dummy instead of me while I got the schematic.
Are you in touch with other pacifist characters such as Gutrot? I've read Gweryc's and Gutgot's blogs, and Gweryc and I have left each other messages on our blogs. I also sent an in-game mail to Lintilla on Dragonblight, which I found by searching WoW Armory for guilds named "The Pacifist," though I haven't heard back. Lintilla's weapon skills are low for a level 17 rogue (9 in daggers, 2 in unarmed).
Are you a roleplayer outsider of World of Warcraft? Yes, mostly back in college. I've roleplayed with Michael Mornard, who was one of the original playtesters for D&D back when it was just World of Greyhawk.
How long have you been playing MMOs? Not much outside of WoW since I'm on a Mac and many games are PC only, but I was on Steve Jackson Games' Metaverse MOO years ago, where I created some simple dice-rolling objects to automate paper-and-pencil gaming. I even got to show them to Steve Jackson (in the MOO), and he liked them.
And the points many readers will have made so many guesses and assumptions about: How old are you? What do you do in real life? I'm a 50-year-old male computer programmer, and I'm also the main webmaster of the Firesign Theatre website.
So tell us -- is Noor actually going to make it to max level? 80 or bust! Hmm, she's now at level 27 with 18.5 bubbles to go, and she's out of quests. That means roughly 14 daily BGs. That's about four weeks to go from level 27 to level 28. We'll see. Level 28 opens up the Missing Diplomat quest series, and I might actually do the fights (since nobody actually gets killed) to go as far as I can with them.
Know an interesting player you'd like to see profiled in 15 Minutes of Fame? Send your tips to 15minutesoffame@wow.com.
More interviews with World of Warcraft players from 15 Minutes of Fame: Horde of Unschoolers - A Mom uses WoW as a learning tool for her homschooled kids. Plus, Lisa Poisso logs on to the WoW servers every week to ask players what's on their mind in Gamers on the Street.
Back in November 2007, columnist John Himes took a look at a special breed of player who levels from 1 to 70 in a decidedly unconventional manner: hunters who only melee, a naked (well, except for his loincloth) warrior – and Noor the pacifist, who levels without intentionally killing anything. Now, this isn't the first time we've heard of players who've given this idea a whirl, but Noor, a gnome rogue on Maiev, and his Horde counterpart, Reinisch the undead priest, seem to have the gumption and persistence to make it to the top of the XP tree.
We checked on Noor and Reinisch's progress this month and found them plugging along merrily through battlegrounds, quests ... and yes, levels. Intrigued, we contacted the player behind the toons to find out what's behind this novel way of playing World of Warcraft. Read more about the attraction of playing a pacifist character, how to go about getting XP without killing anything – and of course, whether or not Noor thinks he can actually make it to 70 ... all after the break.
Ok, so we gotta ask – why on earth a character that doesn't kill anything? Doesn't that feel like pulling teeth? I prefer doing stranger stuff, as opposed to grinding high-end instances. Once, my 70 mage was in Southshore, and someone was asking directions to Ghostlands in zone chat. I told him how to go through EPL. Then I clicked on him, and he was something like a level 12 Draenei hunter. I asked him why he wanted to go there, and it turns out he wanted a red cat for a pet -- so I escorted him through EPL, and he only died a couple of times getting there. I've also done a few quests on PvP servers with non-hostile Horde players (not pre-arreanged or anything), such as the mechanical chicken escort in Feralas (twice, so we could all get credit).
So what sparked the idea of starting a pacifist character? I had thought about doing such a character off and on for a while. When I saw Gweryc Halfhand's blog on being a melee-only hunter, that finally spurred me on to try it. It turns out he had been thinking of trying something similar but wasn't sure if he'd have the patience for it.
Show us your kung fu: what's the actual nuts-and-bolts reality of this character? Both my priest and my rogue try not to hit anything, although there's always a chance of a misclick when trying to open a quest item with mobs fighting near it. Both of them always wield a fishing rod, so any accidental hits won't increase their weapon skills. Neither of them will do quests where they have to kill things. In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters. My priest only heals, so he is actually closer in roleplaying terms. Neither will "get around" these limits by grouping and having other players do their dirty work.
In terms of bragging rights, I intend to keep my rogue's weapon skills (dagger, thrown and unarmed) at all 1s. My priest will also have all 1s, but it won't be obvious on WoW Armory that he has no offensive spells beyond the level 1 Smite all priests start with.
Tell us about the concept behind Reinisch, your first pacifist character. I started him from a roleplaying point of view, based very loosely on a real German priest, Franz Reinisch, who refused to serve in Hitler's army and was executed. My undead priest's back story is basically the same, and he still refuses to kill.What made you start a pacifist rogue, too? My priest hit an XP plateau. There were no longer any quests he could do without killing mobs -- this was before 2.3 came out, with repeatable BG quests that grant XP). I had already decided to try both Horde and Alliance pacifists, so this time I started an Alliance character using what I had learned from my priest.
I thought about using a hunter and have my pet act as a decoy; however, I figured that my Alliance character would also have to go into dangerous areas, and a rogue with stealth and sprint would stand a better chance. I settled on a gnome because they get +15 to engineering, allowing my gnome to use Target Dummies at level 5 (as opposed to 10 for my priest).
As a rogue is a sort of "spy" class, I Googled for a pacifist spy and found Noor Inayat Khan, a woman who was also executed by the Nazis for aiding the French resistance, so I named my rogue after her. She was the daughter of a well-known pacifist in India.
Didn't you originally have a pacifist rogue named Noorkhan? When my first gnome rogue Noorkhan learned Sap, I tried it out -- and my melee skill went up, so it was no longer a "perfect" 1. I was also reminded of the Anh'Qiraj war drive when I saw it again on the public test realm for patch 2.3. I knew a low-level character could get some extra XP if the war drive was still going on, so I looked and found that the Maiev realm still hadn't finished the war drive to open the AQ gates. So I rerolled on Maiev. The name Noor wasn't available for my character on Maelstrom, but it was on Maiev -- and I preferred just Noor, anyway.
It's apparent from the research and design behind Noor that you have some WoW savvy up your sleeve. What's your past WoW experience? Do you currently play a "regular" character as well? I've been playing since October of 2005 and have a 70 mage and warlock on Stormreaver (Gummo and Vardlokker) in <Critical Mass> and a number of alts, mostly in the 40s.
Who do you consider your main character – Noor or Reinisch? I'm working on both; Reinisch is doable but slow, since he can only do WSG dailies now since he's level 15. Both are pretty low-maintenance at the moment, so I can level both simultaneously. I've been mostly neglecting my level 70s in <Critical Mass> lately, though I still do a few instances with them.
What kind of time do you spend on Noor each week? How often do you play? So far, I've still been playing nearly every day. I'm still collecting items for future consideration (green whelp armor for battlegrounds, etc.), and I want to earn enough money so I can buy what I can't make. The Charred Vale in Stonetalon Mountains is the best place for a self-twinking miner, as it has mithril and truesilver nodes, most of which are far from the mid-20s mobs. I hit 270 mining at level 23, so I bought a +5 mining enchant for some gloves and mined a rich thorium vein in Azshara in the Bay of Storms just for fun.
It must take a ton of research time to orchestrate the XP progression. What percentage of the total time you spend on Noor would you guess is spent researching vs. actually playing? At first, it was quite a lot, since there are a lot of quests in four different starting areas to look over. The new "!" markers on the minimap help, too. However, the number of new quests has fallen way off. Level-27-required quests only shows about half a dozen new entries on wowhead.com, and I can only do one of them.
It looks like PvP is a huge part of your strategy. Do you foresee continuing to PvP the whole way up? I have to; the repeatable daily battleground quests are the only way to "grind" XP if you aren't going to kill mobs (not counting the very slow repeatable seasonal quests that you can do each year). Without them, Horde characters would be stuck around level 15 and Alliance around level 23 ("around" since class quests vary, and exploring very high level areas can get you a bit farther).
What reaction have you gotten from other players in battlegrounds? Some are amused, some are not so amused -- at least for my rogue. At least nobody complains in BGs about a priest who runs around just healing everybody.
What about from your battleground opponents -- can you tell if they've been taken aback by any of your actions? Not that I can tell -- but they might wonder why I'm just whacking people with a fishing rod instead of using standard rogue attacks.
What about in-game support -- do you have a guild or friends who help you out, or is this strictly a solo effort? I don't have any alts or "rich uncles" helping my pacifists. I've met a few people like Mephisston who read my blog because it talked about the opening of the AQ gates, and he decided to open them on Maiev by buying up linen and turning in bandages. He's made some potions and bandages for me (at 225 First Aid, you can use but not make Heavy Runecloth Bandages). ... But no huge support network.
As far as a solo effort, I bought a Security DELTA Data Access Card from the Auction House and managed to stealth all the way to the "D" Punchograph card readers in Gnomeregan at level 24, so I could learn how to make Discombobulator Rays myself instead of needing to rely on another engineer to make them. The hard part was placing the Target Dummy so all the ranged attackers would attack the dummy instead of me while I got the schematic.
Are you in touch with other pacifist characters such as Gutrot? I've read Gweryc's and Gutgot's blogs, and Gweryc and I have left each other messages on our blogs. I also sent an in-game mail to Lintilla on Dragonblight, which I found by searching WoW Armory for guilds named "The Pacifist," though I haven't heard back. Lintilla's weapon skills are low for a level 17 rogue (9 in daggers, 2 in unarmed).
Are you a roleplayer outsider of World of Warcraft? Yes, mostly back in college. I've roleplayed with Michael Mornard, who was one of the original playtesters for D&D back when it was just World of Greyhawk.
How long have you been playing MMOs? Not much outside of WoW since I'm on a Mac and many games are PC only, but I was on Steve Jackson Games' Metaverse MOO years ago, where I created some simple dice-rolling objects to automate paper-and-pencil gaming. I even got to show them to Steve Jackson (in the MOO), and he liked them.
And the points many readers will have made so many guesses and assumptions about: How old are you? What do you do in real life? I'm a 50-year-old male computer programmer, and I'm also the main webmaster of the Firesign Theatre website.
So tell us -- is Noor actually going to make it to max level? 80 or bust! Hmm, she's now at level 27 with 18.5 bubbles to go, and she's out of quests. That means roughly 14 daily BGs. That's about four weeks to go from level 27 to level 28. We'll see. Level 28 opens up the Missing Diplomat quest series, and I might actually do the fights (since nobody actually gets killed) to go as far as I can with them.
Know an interesting player you'd like to see profiled in 15 Minutes of Fame? Send your tips to 15minutesoffame@wow.com.
More interviews with World of Warcraft players from 15 Minutes of Fame: Horde of Unschoolers - A Mom uses WoW as a learning tool for her homschooled kids. Plus, Lisa Poisso logs on to the WoW servers every week to ask players what's on their mind in Gamers on the Street.Filed under: Features, Interviews, 15 Minutes of Fame
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
mellowknees Jan 10th 2008 11:18AM
I don't understand why people are so cheesed about someone playing a game in a different way than most other people do. I love challenging myself in MMORPGs to do things in ways that don't necessarily follow the norm. Might be boring to some people, but for me it adds a lot of extra interest to the game.
anfa Jan 11th 2008 4:17PM
Personally, I think it's awesome. To each their own! I love playing WoW, but I've also become more and more interested in the concepts of nonviolence and Buddhism, and they don't go together very well. You suggest an interesting, challenging way to integrate two interests. I like it!
pacifistgamer Jan 10th 2008 2:43PM
"In battlegrounds, my rogue will throw bombs to interrupt flag captures and stun people and may even accidentally kill players low in health or nearby critters."
Not a pacifist.
Healing players so they can continue to hurt and kill also means she isn't a pacifist player.
I know these are little things and probably mere technicalities to most players, but for the very few of us who try the pacifist gaming route, they are important distinctions.
(Fishing also isn't pacifist.)
Gnaglor Jan 10th 2008 3:47PM
Having Noor on your team in a BG game is better than having an AFK'er. It's just not as good as having someone who is trying to use their character to the fullest extent. If Noor was on my team, I'd prefer him to an AFK'er, but I'd prefer a real player to Noor. I somewhat see Ugar's point, but think he has strayed too far from it. Basically I think he just wants to say what Noor is doing is dumb. Which it isn't. It's just unconventional. But yes, I could see how someone would get angry with Noor on their team as I get angry when I get teammates on CTF in Halo who just want to rack up kills rather than go for the flag.
qombi Jan 13th 2008 9:43PM
"quite possibly the most boring gimmick leveling idea ever.
I'm intrigued by the idea of a melee hunter, or perhaps a melee-only casting class, and maybe a naked druid/rogue/etc or whatever for leveling... but not killing anything in a game where killing things is %90 of the game, seems a bit like you're just stretching to find an angle.
I could see this being at least slightly enjoyable as a healer if you got to 16ish and just leveled entirely through instancing (totally plausible, although boring I suppose) but refusing to do even that seems like it's going to just take forever and ever and not even really be rewarding since there doesn't seem to be a realistic chance that you'll have enough time before the game is literally dead before you're going to hit 80. or 90. daily BG quests will pretty much take 5-6 months per level if that's all you can do at some point, and it almost surely is. (and by the math, L60 will take approximately 6 months worth of daily BG quests assuming you can get a win in whatever BG it is every day... so that's kinda lame).
I'd rather see one of the more interesting varieties on crippled leveling, but that's just me I guess."
Actually I only leveled through instancing with my Warrior and that is before the stupid changes to make leveling even faster in WoW. It was a lot more fun than soloing and only took a little longer to max the character to 70. I don't see why they ever decided to make leveling even faster, it was too fast is it was.
Ben F. Jan 11th 2008 2:29PM
This is a totally erroneous concept; he is allowing other players to make experience for him by killing. The very act of being in a BG is non-pacifist. Even Rogue abilities like Sap involve doing violence - clearly non-pacifist. There are few quests that can be finished without killing something. Even if you are just going for the flag, you are dependent on others killing for you. Even if you just heal you are dependent on those you heal to kill for you. The only way you could be a pacifist in a BG is if you convinced everyone in your raid not to fight at all.
This can certainly be done by defining violence as something you do to other Humanoids, so beasts and anything else is fair game. Joining in BGs is non-pacifist.
An interesting effort, but self-deluded the way he is going about it.
Larry Jan 14th 2008 10:42AM
I am sorry but "throwing bombs" at people in bgs isn't something a Pacifist would do. Plus, really should you be in a bg if you are not there to do everything in you power to win. I guess everyone needs attention and some are a little more creative at getting it.
Mephisston Jan 14th 2008 9:12PM
Some of you guys are getting way too worked up about this.
So it's not your playstyle - who cares? Why rant about it here? Some of you even think that everyone should have exactly the same opinion as you on this topic - get over yourself. People enjoy doing different things in games.
And for those who say he's not a true pacificst - well, yes. But as he stated in the interview, his Priest hit an XP plateau - he couldn't get any further without killing mobs. The only viable way to continue after that was to loosen his rules slightly and do the BG daily's. But he has still been strict in following his own rules that he set out to play by, except when absolutely necessary.
As others have stated, he is NOT useless in BG's. If you think BG's are as simple as damage = win, you've got a lot to learn. Yes, damage is important, and if everyone on a team was a pacifist, you'd have a very hard time... But BG's aren't just about killing, they're also about objectives, and if you're smart, like Noor has been, with items/consumables/class abilities, you can still do a very good job.
Good luck Noor. While I probably wouldn't have the patience to do this myself, I think it's an interesting way to play.
Angreifer Jan 15th 2008 8:57PM
So, does this person realize that they are playing World of WAR-craft? Pacifists are traitors to their faction, and should be summarily executed (in game of course :P). Come on now, the Scourge arent going to re-kill themselves, the Burning Legion wont just go away. Long live the War on Alliance. You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists :P.
Myntris Jan 15th 2008 10:27PM
What about destroying machines that were never actually "alive" in any sense of the word?
I understand that shredders are probably off limits, as the destruction of the shredder causes the death of the living being operating it, but what about purely mechanical mobs such as the robots in Ruins of Silvermoon, or the mechanostriders in Gnomeregan? I don't think this would trivialize the leveling process, as there are significant gaps between the levels at which these mobs can be found.
toofargone Jan 16th 2008 12:12PM
My bank boy alt is a pacifist of sorts. ..he is sworn to not kill anything. Its a long story involving a failed attempt to get my gf to try wow. I have been trying to get him to level 10 so that he can tame a pet (half nekkid nelf hunter bank boy, natch) but it is hard. He once accidently killed a critter with his trusty Farmer's Broom and /cry 'd for hours--auto attack is now off the button bar. He also once paid 1g for a run through of the Japserlode mine (/shame)!
I think the Noor's battleground strategy is great and completely valid--I'd welcome her/him in my battlegroup anytime! Although the weapon skill constraint, to me, seems a bit contrived...I would think sap would be valid....but to each his own!
Hurray for you, Noor! and good luck!
Pablo Jan 16th 2008 12:18PM
Pacifists make me want to punch something. . . j/k.
Noor Jan 16th 2008 9:20PM
Hey Meph!
Myntris, I tried something like that at first (machines, undead, elementals were ok), but that wasn't very different from regular play. I have done one quest (Save Techbot's Brain!) where I "killed" Techbot, but I justified that in game terms because Overspark wanted his brain in order to fix it and restore Techbot to normal. That'll show up in the blog when Noor hits 30 in a few days.
Since there aren't any real rules on what a "pacifist" is in WoW, people can make up their own terms. I've changed my terms a bit as I've actually tried various things.
Reinisch is much more a pacifist in roleplaying terms. He won't be throwing bombs in battlegrounds, just playing a medic (there are actual pacifists who have been wartime medics, like Desmond Doss who won a congressional medal of honor). Other players have leveled healers that only heal, but do quests that require killing by being in groups.
Noor is more like a spy, reluctantly using violence when needed. She's more of a pacifist in game-playing terms, where her absence of any weapon skills shows up in the armory, much like Gutrot's and Gweryc's skills show their self-imposed limits.
The best combination of available quests and roleplaying would be an Alliance healing class, as Alliance have more nonviolent quests, and a healer in battlegrounds is useful while still being true to pacifism.
As an aside, I think it would be interesting to have a pacifist faction (in WoW or another MMORPG), where they have quests for you, but only if you don't kill anything while you do them. They give you a buff that you need to turn in the quest, and the buff goes away if you kill anything (or drop the quest). If you kill something while you have their buff, you fail the quest, and they refuse to give you any more quests.
I think it would be even more interesting if you could ask to join them, and they indicate that you have too much blood on your hands to be acceptable to them (thus hinting that a pacifist character could join them -- a hidden, "lifelong" quest). But there would need to be more nonviolent quests to make it possible without battlegrounds, and have a minimum experience level before they will consider you, so you can't just corpse-run a level 3 to them.