Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

An Open Letter to the Alliance Player I Met in Alterac Valley Last Night,

Hey d00d,

I really have to apologize. I know this is hard to believe, but that doesn't usually happen to me.
You see, I'd just made the level cut-off for the Alterac Valley Player-vs-Player battleground and I was very anxious to earn enough tokens to buy a riding wolf from the goodly orcs of the Frostwolf Clan.
I didn't even know what I was doing really. There was mass chaos on our side of the battlefield and there isn't even a tutorial to tell me what the objectives were.
This isn't Warsong Gulch with its straightforward "Capture the Flag", after all. There are offensive and defensive struggles all over the map until (for some reason I haven't even figured out yet) someone wins. (Edit: Please see the comments where I am set straight on that.)
And then, there was our encounter.
I'll admit when I'm wrong.
Our first two meetings left me a little, you know, dead. They also left me cursing in the Horde chat channel about gnomes and rogues and especially gnome rogues.
And what happened next was quite clearly wrong, there can be no doubt.
I lost control.
I lost sight of the fact that it was a game.
I lost sight of the fact that it is wrong to sneak up behind someone (especially someone with such a vertically challenged avatar) and pepper them with arrows from the cliff above them -- stunning shot after stunning shot after stunning shot -- until they fall in a bloody heap to the snow.
I lost sight of the fact that it is wrong to then head to the Alliance graveyard and wait for them to resurrect so that I can have my pet hold them in place while I again fire arrow after arrow after arrow until the respawn process repeats itself.
I lost sight of the fact that it is, in fact, probably quite wrong to "/yell" the things I did afterwards.
I don't use that kind of language. I don't know what came over me.
Illuminated by the harsh light of dawn, I can see that I was wrong.
Were it not for the choices we each made during character creation, we could have been a formidable team. Between your sneak attacks and my deadly sniper aim, few adversaries would have walked away from a conflict with us.
My Horde allies, to their credit, called attention to my glaring breach of etiquette. When a troll tells you you've crossed a line, you kind of know you've gone too far.
They advised me to scroll up in my chat window and I was astounded at what I saw there. My own words, in glaring red text.
Were it not for that evidence, I would have doubted their claims. I had (and have) no memory of using that language.
The troll accused me of being incoherent and . . . racist . . . but I don't even know what a "lurgan" is, much less its status as hate speech. The troll didn't know what it meant either, but in context we can all agree some type of deranged slur was likely intended, however poorly it was delivered.
I am shamed.
I pride myself on my self-control, and to recall how badly I lost it is more hurtful than that bleeding wound you used to take me out before I . . . you know . . . snapped.
Please know this:
Should our blades ever cross again on some future plain of conflict, win or lose I will not "/yell" anything. There will be no revenge graveyard killing. There will be no childish teabagging.
My kills will be as quick and painless as possible, and my deaths will be as silent and dignified as the still falling snow of Ol' Alterac Valley herself.
Good hunting to you, Miss StabbinUrEye. May your daggers never dull.

G