Conquest of the Horde

I've done it, you've done it, I'm sure everyone on the server has done it at least one. Rp'ed "sparing" and allowed your character to use the same weapon he would use on the battle field. My question is.... WHY?! T.T

They're WEAPONS not toys. Why is it when I see people sparing, or theres a tournament (where no one is supposed to die) we have people pulling out lethal weapons! I think the worst I've ever seen was someone pulling out a gun in a gladiator fight and shooting the person in the knee cap. When the fight was over, the person shot just walked it off like it never happened. Am I the only person this bugs?

I have nothing against sparing or tournament style rp. Its fun. But honestly if we are going to beat each other with sharp deadly weapons can we at-least keep it simi-realistic and actually get hurt instead of treating a warsong howling axe like a foam sword you get form the dollar tree? Would this discourage tournament style rp? Yes, but to be quite honest, people really shouldn't be in a hurry to get beat with an axe. It takes a special kind of person to go into these fights, its not something people do to past the time. In real life situations people who want to beat on each other to past the time use wooden sticks designed to beat on people. They still hurt, but you can actually walk those off and not accidentally cleave your sparing partner in two.

Just saying, seems kinda silly to use that axe you got from outland to beat on someone you don't actually want to kill.... and really you want to use a gun in a gladiator fight where you have about 30 feet in the entire ring, you're asking for one of 3 things. To accidentally kill the person you are fighting, to kill someone watching the fight or to get mauled by who ever you are fighting. not safe to shoot a bullet at a guy wearing full plate when you are only a few feet away from him. Just a really bad idea.


( Trolls, forsaken and undead death knights are exempt from this. They can replace lost limbs with ease and I think that would cause them to have a little less concern over actually hurting someone. )

PS: Know your weapon! A bow and arrow is not a instant kill weapon. ( Can be. I'm not saying if an arrow goes into someones head they are not going to drop) If I'm running an event and you want me to give you a realistic response to your arrow going into the heart of a bear. Expect that bear to maul you for 5 turns before it dies. I wise dwarf said it best.



(Edit) Q: But why would an arrow in the heart or in the neck not instantly kill a bear? (or anything for that matter)
A: Because shooting something there requires for it to bleed to death. Most arrows don't make very large puncture wounds. These were weapons designed to hit a vital organ and make it shut down after a period of time. Shoot someone in the head, the brain stops working. Shoot someone in the heart, it keeps working till all the blood comes out. That takes time. Granted anything will get weaker as it bleeds and if you do shoot a bear in the heart you will likely get away alive before it bleeds. But I doubt it will just drop right when the arrow hits.

.... Just saying. Its kinda a rant but I think I made a point somewhere.

My name is Clovis, and as a fan of the Flintlocke series, I approve of this message.

Deadly weapons do tend to be deadly. I agree.

I agree. Wooden weapons are often easily acquired from low-level areas too. Not like there's too many you need. A short bat, possibly two, and/or a long pole. Not many variations on that if I'm honest.

I only ignored an axe wound in the long run on my gnome, mostly because from an OOC and IC standpoint I didn't consent to this fight, and in retrospect guards would have stopped someone from dragging an arena spectator into the ring and beating them with an axe.

But eh, if someone doesn't want to rp their character being critically injured and scarred, I think part of that is their choice. Sometimes I emote that an attack happened differently than what the role intended, mostly because I didn't want an arm lopped off when I had no character warning to it. While it might be frustrating to see people shrug off injuries, we also need to consider that others didn't get a character warning for severe injury and should get some choice in how bad their wounds are.

I almost killed Hawks Belf Warlock a while back with Ankou, during a sparring session. He did repeatedly warn him that tempting a Death Knight into combat was a bad idea though, but he wouldn't listen. He ended up having major surgery a day or two before his wedding, attending with a metal plate in his chest and high as shit on whatever drugs he was on for the pain.

My characters purposely go into battle with lethal weapons because they would rather fight and take the pain and danger of actually fighting instead of going at it with wooden weapons knowing no danger comes from it. This isn't to say they just take a small scratch and nothing happens, my namesake Blood Elf's face is covered in scars, one of which is through her eye, causing it to glow dimly and seem pale. Her lips are almost skin tone due to the scar tissue, and her eyebrows are gapped and cut up as well. Saying it's preemptively stupid to go into battle with deadly weapons is your point of view and not mine. If a character didn't want to face such danger, the player would not let them do so. Criticizing us for going into combat with full weaponry won't do any good, I for one will continue to fight with sharp blades because I'd rather have my characters dead than perfectly safe the whole time. Wuvvum's is right in saying that it's the person's choice in the end.

If my characters were sparring, they would strike to hurt the person and not to kill. Contrary to popular belief, this can be done, as i've taken weapons classes and sparred in real life with fully sharpened, lethal blades. If my instructor wanted to kill me, he would have. However, I do have cuts on my arms showing that I took damage from it, and was careful not to die. If a character does get shot in the head and dies, well, that's what they get for messing with fire. Never in my days have I seen someone RP getting shot in the head and live, nobody just says it's a flesh wound and continues to bite their legs off. That being said i've never seen someone 'spar' with guns as most people realize they're a more efficient means of killing someone rather than just fighting with them, it's not a very viable test of skill.

tl;dr, character/player choice to fight with weapons, we don't all strike to kill.

Mm, sometimes it's a player's choice. Sometimes, I think, it's a lack of understanding of how weapons work. We don't all have actual classes on these sort of weapons, so don't all know how deadly they can be. Fel, I know I don't.

Mind you, this is not to demote people having choice in rp. Nore is this to say that anyone who spars with sharp weapons is stupid. Forgive me if I so implied. The stupidity comes in when people are sparing with lets say... sharp daggers and one emotes trying to stab the other in lets say... the stomach and we have two people sparing for paper cuts and not gapeing hospital wounds. Or we have people who are trying NOT to kill each other shooting at each other with live rounds. If you are rping in a situation where your character wants to hurt someone and wants to be hurt by all means use a sharp weapon. But if you are in a situation where you don't want your character to be hurt at all and you don't want to hurt the person involved, then for the sake of keeping it from getting just plain corney use a dull weapon. I've seen way to much rp where people just walk it off or ignore it. Kinda pointless if nothing comes out of it right?

On a personal level my characters usually don't use sharp dangerous weapons if they don't want to kill the person. With war on the horde's doorstep he rather not risk fatal or debilitating injuries to himself or his clan-mates so he doesn't use them unless he feels they are needed for the exercise. They have sometimes but theres a huge difference in emotes between when my character is trying to kill someone between when he trying to train or spar with someone. If I saw the same difference in other's emotes I probably would have never ranted in the first place.

Bottom line, I'm not against your character using a sharp weapon if he wants to train. If you want him to then so be it. I'm against two players wanting their characters to not get hurt but they play sharp deadly weapons all day every day stabbing at vitals. (Example: Cross chop for the neck with a tomahawk equipped. That would figgen kill you, if you're sparing why emote such an attack?!) Or they enter gladiator tournament, get shot and they just walk it off. ( Oh, its just my kneecap, that pellet the size of a quarter did nothing!) It cheapens the roleplay a great deal if you ask me. Everyone has freedom of choice when it comes to rp but shouldn't you make choices that agree with the outcome you have decided for your character?

Normally, when I'm in arena/spars, I'm using Rogg. He basically uses his axes for about, eh, 2-3 passes, then he ditches them to tackle/headbutt/falcon punch whatever his enemy is.


I normally try to not make fatal blows, if it's not to the death, but the other player can emote in a way so it doesn't cause -too- much damage to their character.

It's more of a trust system, I believe.

Personally, unless I'm sparring undead and/or certain characters, I tend to use lethal weapon, but when my character get an opening he/she throws a punch or kick instead. Like deadlock, win deadlock, facepunch. that works really well, and people sparred like this when camping between battles and such when no non-lethal weapons weren't available.

Well IMO it is all two differant levels of sparring. Traditionally live-weapon sparring helps hone one's already learned skills, and perfect the feel/grip and fluid the motions of the weapons they intend to use, while wooden weapons are more for exploration or novices, since it will not really make your motions as fluid as well as it will teach you new motions. Now, with that said, I've seen too many spars where someone is like... "Swings axe at neck" or "Roars in fury and throws axe at arm" or something. It's less people knowing about how deadly the weapons are, and more of an issue of how people treat sparring. Sparring isn't about winning a 1v1 duel with no killing, it is about training and working out flaws in your style or reviewing motions, etc.

I don't mind people using real weapons, if they are aiming to put someone out of the match without death. But if you go in wielding a 2 hander of any kind, it's gonna be too heavy and too brutal for you to be able to manage to lightly injure someone. Those kinda weapons are designed with the idea of "Get them down in one hit, cause you likely can't lift your weapon fast enough to block if you miss." I can understand sparring with one handed swords but when people go into a sparring match with an axe the size of a large child...you can't really NOT kill someone with a hit from that. Maybe with a two handed sword if you were aiming to parry but otherwise...yeesh, painfull. *nod*

I've seen this quite a bit actually, when I roleplay fight with real weapons, I either ditch them at the beginning, or hit with blunt ends, in non-fatal spots. Like try not to break a bone or something. Of course I emote my character not swinging as hard as well.

For the most part, I RP Kaz dulling his (and his opponent's) weapons with a thin layer of stone using shamanism before a spar. He won't -usually- fight without doing it, unless he's got something to prove. For example, he's never done it when he fights Drumgar, and they've known each other for what..? A year now? In any case, most of my characters either ask for a fist fight, or dull their weapon some how and I've never run into any trouble going down that route. There's always a way to dull a weapon though, just to toss out some examples;

Arcane: Mana shield around the weapon.

Shamanism: stated above.

The Ligt: a weak version of a priest or paladin's bubble on the weapon.

Engineering: Gnomish invincibility belt modified to surround the weapon instead.

Death Knight: surround your weapon in frost.

I could go on, but I think you all get the point.

(sorry for any grammatical errors... I can't see what I'm writing on my iphone's little screen with the terrible key board)