It’s a simple question, but one that you’ll find has very varying answers, and answers that vary wildly depending one’s situation. How do you treat someone who randomly whispered you asking for help with their class? How about someone who’s asking for a spare gold? What if you’re a mage and they’re asking for food or water? If you see a player nearby you pull a few too many mobs than they can handle, do you pitch in a helping hand and save the day? What if they’re part of the opposite faction?
Overall, kindness in WoW falls in one of two categories: random kindness that isn’t prompted, and kindness that’s done as a reply to a request. The latter is a topic I can talk about for ages, as it involves everything from friends asking, to a guildmate asking, to random players asking. Not to mention all the things they can ask for. So let’s talk about the former: random kindness.
I don’t know about you, but one thing that always brings a smile to my face is when people I don’t know — complete strangers — act kindly towards me, without me having to ask. Has it ever happened to you when you were a lowbie and didn’t have many abilities at your disposal, and while trying to make a risky pull, you accidentally pulled more mobs than you can handle? Now, more importantly, have you ever been in the situation where some random passerby helped you out and between the two of you, you managed to clear off all the mobs you pulled and stayed alive? How did you feel? Did it encourage you to do something similar yourself in a similar situation, but on the opposite side?
When I was a lowbie on my first character, my Mage, something happened that I remember to this very day, and it’s something that really affected the way I play the game. I was level 18 or so, and just about to graduate from The Barrens (yech, Barrens, I know). I was doing that annoying quest where you have to steal silver back from some raptors who decided they needed it for their shiny metal nest (Stolen Silver’s the name), and realized as I got there that the raptors were all symbiotic creatures and were always in groups of two. I managed to get through the first few groups of them by sheer luck and with a mage’s wealth of “oh sh*t” buttons, but the last pull was a difficult one. Right next to the silver is a group of three raptors. One is a little bit father away from the rest, and I knew with clever planning I could pull him separately from the other two. So I targeted him, backed up, and prepared to fire… and aggroed the other group of three raptors right behind me, just as my shot fired off and aggroed the first group of three. I now had six very angry raptors after me, and my escape was blocked off because the raptors on the way out had respawned.
Of course, being a mage, they ripped right through me and before I knew it I was staring at my toon’s body lying there on the ground. With a groan we’re all familiar with, I reached over to the [Release Spirit] button and prepared to press it. A second later, I found myself alive right near where I died, at the feet of a level 30ish shaman. I was amazed. This random player, who I had never seen nor spoken before, had apparently noticed I died, and had stopped in the middle of their journey to give me a rez. I whispered them a “thank you”, and they just said “no problem” and ran off on their merry way. However, that random act of kindness has stayed with me ever since. Just the other day I was doing my Quel’danas dailies and saw a resto shaman get eaten alive by some blood elves just before I could get to him and help. Being a druid, the only thing I could do was to throw him a battle rez (which cost me a reagent). He was shocked that I would spend money on a complete stranger. But that’s just the person I’ve become, and it’s something I don’t mind doing, especially knowing the smile it brings to the other person’s face. It varies per server, but I’ve found the WoW population as a whole is mostly rude, including a few who go out of their way to steal a node/chest that you just cleared a mob for, and stealing quest mobs/items right in front of your face! However, I find that it’s those rare situations where someone goes out of their way to be nice to you, that make all the difference.
What about you? Do you have any stories about times when someone you didn’t know was kind to you? How about something you’ve done? Let me know in the comments!
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