Hello, I'm not completely sure if I am welcome here so I'm taking a chance by asking for some advice. I visit these forums due to the obvious calibre of players present , however I really don't have anything to offer in return but still will ask my question.
I'm not a forum troll or anything, I'm just a 49 year old guy who loves to play the game and I want to play well, and perhaps even contribute as so many of you do.
Here is my issue: I have a 55 mage on a PvE server that I enjoy playing, lots of gold and pretty well have it made there, I even have my own Guild, unpopulated but nevertheless a Guild I started.
Then I discovered a PvP server and thoroughly enjoyed that and now have a 56 UD Warlock on one, however I do not enjoy the same comforts with him as the mage, actually he is poor.
I also have 3 other characters on a PvP server that I started just to try something different.

I need to stop jumping around from character to character and get down to playing with one character only. I'm willing to delete the other characters so as not to distract me, i.e. if they are not there I can't play them.
I am leaning towards concentrating on the Mage, again a PvE server.
Am I making a mistake by selecting the one character to play and doing so on the PvE vice PvP server?
If I have come here in error and wasted your time, please let me know and I shall be gone.
Again, I came here because I respect you and advice from anyone here would be considered important to me.

I expected a 1 line comment about is X boss hard and can my guild do it? but I was wrong. My personal opinion is to keep your alts around incase you A) Get Bored B) eventually get sick of one of them

There are many other reasons to keep alts around, but what it really comes down to is play what you enjoy most, and if/when you enjoy another one more switch.

Enjoying your character and environment are much bigger to the enjoyment of the game than money. Once you're comfortable with the first two (sounds like the warlock on the pvp server?), making the gold is easy. Depending on your profession, there are lots of videos out there for particular farming strategies with soloing lower level instances to shard/pick herbs, etc.

Worst case scenario, grind in Silithus on cultists for rep, and sell texts and trappings sets and excess runecloth for an easy 50g+ an hour.

The gaining money part is easy, but all the gold in the world won't make a difference if you hate your class, the server you're on, and the people around you.

Well...

I would choose the PvE server.

PvP server = lots of whine because of the "ganking".


But that's up to you ;)

It mostly depends what you're looking for. If you're looking to obtain some very good gear, progress your character through raiding in PvE, or gain high rank in PvP you're going to want to focus on one character. If you want to mess around with the game and concentrate on just having fun, then there's no reason you can't bounce between characters.

As for the server choice, I personally like PvP realms in WoW because it adds another element to the game. It's basically impossible in this game to be griefed enough to frustrate me by the opposing faction. You can't corpse camp someone who doesn't want to be, and there's no penalty to a PvP death. I also like to run around and do world PvP, which isn't necessarily possible on a PvE server. Again, it's really a matter of preference. The difference between a PvP and PvE server isn't very big, considering most PvP is in battlegrounds.

My suggestion is if you make a thread, try to have a decent topic title, like "What class should I play on which type of server?"

PvP servers seem to have a higher level of players due to the PvP nature, but PvE servers can have good players too.

Stay with the class you like, each is different, but only you know what you like.

Making gold for me is not a real issue, I just happened to give it all away to a friend, thats why the Warlock is poor.
I happen to like the Mage a little better than the Warlock but the PvP aspect of the game is exciting for me, not BGs as such but chance encounters.
I'll give it some more thought and keep what everyone said in mind.

Thank you sir, however I felt by using a topic title as such I would have been completely written off as being too stupid to even deserve a response.
Nonetheless your point is well taken and appreciated, seriously.

Thank you

I think you're making a mistake. A PvP server will have a much stronger economy and a much stronger end-game than a PvE server, though perhaps not *quite* as much with the advent of cross-server battlegrounds, purely because of the competition between Horde and Alliance. And I've played on a PvE server for the majority of my time in-game.

Still, if you like your mage, you like the playstyle, et cetera, maybe you should choose that as your 'main'. But seriously: Why focus, especially with the coming of the expansion in a few months, when, likely, class roles and versatility will likely shift.

Mage and Warlock, however, have pretty similar styles in early current end-game.

Mage: Sheep.
Warlock: Banish.

Mage: Nuke
Warlock: Nuke

Mage: Winter's Chill/Imp Scorch
Warlock: Curses

Concern A: Do I like my class, do I enjoy how it plays?
Concern B: Do I like the changes that are coming to my class, etc.
Concern EE(or somewhere around there): Do I like my current economic position etc. Can I find groups for instances right now? Do I have friends on this server right now?

The expansion will cause a huge amount of turnover. You'll likely have friends go to other games that are positioned in the right place to pick up ship-jumpers. You'll likely, also, have huge amounts of 12-year olds, and new friends, join up, wherever you are.

Figure out your own personal priorities, but on the eve of such great change... concerns about the 'now' should likely be much less important.

I was speculating with a guildie over the amount of guild turnover we expect to see in the expansion and I agree with you that it'll be quite a bit. Not as much amongst the top guilds on a server, but the mid-tier guilds that already see 5+ raiders churn monthly will be unrecognizable a month or two into BC, in my opinion. Combine the opportunities for people to "start over" in a new class with the new friendships forming through PUGs of the levelling instances and the new PvP scene on top of the change in raid caps... I'm predicting in the area of 50% turnover for the mid-tier (BWL, early AQ) guilds and 20-30% for the Naxx guilds on most servers. Anyone else care to argue on either side of that?

Kite him to V-...nevermind.

Why on earth would you just delete a level 60 character? That's a lot of time and effort down the drain. You shouldn't consider them a distraction. If you THINK you want to play your character of Class A and your getting 'distracted' by your other character of Class B, what makes you think you don't actually want to play B?

Do you have some goal that you want to level up, gear up and get into a high end raiding guild on either character and its just not possible to do it with both? If that was the case, then yeah I would certainly make the choice, but if you're just generally playing them to play the game then what's the problem with swapping back and forth?

Gold is easy to obtain, it shouldn't be a factor in your decision. I generally have 1200-1500 gold at all times along with a bank choked full of dreamfoil, pots, etc and I maintain it along with Naxx consumables just by playing the market a little bit. But the reason I do this is because I'm pretty vindictive if I farm. If someone decides to kill me when I've finished aoeing a pack of mobs or something, my new goal becomes to make their stay in the zone miserable. I admit, I've gotten on my horde account to find what zone someone moved in to grief them more before, it's not pretty.

Just stay on the server where you like the community better. I have a couple 60s on other servers but I couldn't imagine leaving Tichondrius, despite how much drama and such we've had.

Do what you enjoy.

If you're not progressing in raid content, who cares? Don't judge the quality of your WoW experience by raiding progression, just because other people do.

If you like playing a mage and playing on a PvP server then why wouldn't you... roll a mage on a PvP server? I know it's a large time investment, but with how much you play the game (from the characters you described), you're better off doing something that you truely enjoy. Take those 2-4 weeks to get a mage leveled up on a PvP server.

My experience is markedly different. I have a mage on a PvP server, but the only time I really notice is in Blackrock Mountain or at the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Even then, if you don't feel like pvping, it's fairly straightforward to take 5-10 extra minutes to corpse hop to the instance. Oddly enough, my mage's server is more advanced in PvE (4H down) than my PvE priest's server (Grobbulus down), too.

Really? I actually feel entirely the opposite way.

Having leveled up on both servers I can honestly say that the only thing I noticed different was that pvp servers tend to have alot more jerks than pve ones. Everyone is out to get you, and most aren't just in it for pvp, they have to be truly jerkish to top it off. So many times when i did escort quests on my priest on a pvp server I'd have a level 60 horde who sat around and followed me for a bit, and then once the escort started and I had to engage something, he'd nailed me and thus cause me to restart the escort.

Pvp was alot of fun because there's more danger involved, and personally on Sargeras I found a good deal of horde leveling up who were incredibly easy prey; I never once lost 1 vs 1 leveling up and it wasn't because I was good. I also never engaged anyone and just let them go about their business until they would attack me and then i would proceed to either chase them away or outright kill them. Now THAT was fun.

What isn't fun is the amount of whining to go on, the amount of level 60s who camp areas just for the sheer jerkishness that comes with obtaining end-game weapons and seeing the nice crits that you can get on an undergeared level 20 in Ashenvale, and the amount of guilds that feel it necessary to make getting from CH to AQ as pleasant as chewing nails.

In all honesty, I prefer pve for social graces, but pvp in it's essence is alot of fun to level up on.

Do you really need to stop jumping around from character to character?
I would love to have the luxury of being able to go "ugh my mage is boring, time to jump on my warlock and camp some alliance at cenarion hold".

The great thing about this game is that, even though you are reading a forum dedicated to end game raiding, that's not the whole game.

Use your mage to grind CC rep, get the ZG items, etc etc.
Use your warlock to test his skills at the pvp, and see if you can get some items from there.

The game is a very very large game, but don't even think of restricting yourself to one character. :)

damn!!!! your old as hell! wtf!

Anticloud can't play WoW because he was banned for 3 days. :lol:

This isn't odd - the majority of cutting edge guilds seem to be on the PvP servers. Indeed, in Europe on the Horde side the difference between the 2 is staggering. On the PvE servers, only *2* Horde guilds have killed C'Thun, and last time I checked none had killed Maexxna. Compared to the PvP Horde side, where guilds like Nihilium are breaking world firsts on content.
Lots of reasons why, but in essence I think it's a combination of better population balance, and a higher than average level of skill. Plus, I think people who chose to play on the PvP servers are more focussed on the actual "beating" of the game compared to PvE. And please note, I chose a PvE server and would do so again in a flash... :)

I am somewhat surprised, pleasantly of course by the amount of replies I have had to my question and all good ones, yes I suppose I am old ex-JIHAD JERRY and I have no friends my own age that play games at all, let alone WOW,
(poor bastages)
LadyVex said it best though, I enjoy the social aspect of Windrunner (PvE) but love the PvP element of my Warlock's server. I can tolerate the immaturity and ganking in return for the excitement I feel when attacked out in the open.
I have decided not to delete anything, to concentrate on my Warlock and switch to the Mage whenever I feel the urge.
End game raiding is a goal but will be difficult for me with the times I have to play, also I have soloed to 57 with the Warlock and lack confidence in group settings, something else to work on.

I seriously do appreciate each and every response.

I always pictured PVE servers being just like PVP servers, except instead of asshole ganking you he just kind of hangs around trying to get you to accidentally flag pvp so he can gank you.

Yeah, you'll see that in PvE some, with level 50's and up jumping in a lowbie's line of sight just as they engage, hoping that they click to attack and flag themselves... mostly though, PvEers just don't bother, and PvE as a whole tends to get boring pretty quick without the idle pasttime of just running around torturing people with lesser gear than you.... gankin nubs! the best part of the game!!