Label colors?

[pergolesi]

I'm a lvl 41 hunter (alliance) on a normal server. Last night I'm prospecting in 1k Needles and I'm passing this hostile NPC tauren I assumed was far enough away to avoid aggro, tho you never know, and he attacked us (me and my cat)! A quick flash on his label and it was red and it says something about pvp, a couple of levels above mine. It's a hard fight, but eventually I won and he died. His body amost imediately disappeared. Now I'm wondering if he was a player or a NPC. I didn't have a lot of time, he was abusing my kitty. I'm not even sure whether he was a tauren or an orc.

So my question is, I'm fuzzy on the rules about pvp and labels etc. I notice that often I see alliance player characters with green (instead of blue) labels. I have seen Hordes with either blue or yellow labels. I'm assuming that if I haven't selected pvp for my character that my label will appear blue to Horde players? And they can't attack me, or can they? Or only if I attack first? Thanx.

[Radhil]

Here's the deal on color labels:

Blue on anybody: Player, not PvP enabled. Or you're in a sanctuary zone, where all PvP is off.

Green on player, your side: that player is PvP on. If you buff/heal him, you turn on PvP too.

Yellow on player, enemy side: that player is PvP on, YOU are PvP off. You're safe, but you can attack him (which turns on PvP)

Red on player, enemy side: that player is PvP on, and so are you. Anything goes.


My guess is tho, that what hit you was a patrolling NPC guard; there's a lot of Horde presence in Thousand Needles, and certain sections of the main roads just aren't safe for Alliance. And even though you were doing your own thing and he charged you, you would have been PvP flagged for five minutes as soon as you or your pet took a shot at defending yourself. So try not to screw with the town guards - they're so not worth it when you have other things to do.

[pergolesi]

Thanx, that's a very good explanation, clears up alot for me. I guess he was a npc guard, he was standing next to the big elevator in the center of Needles (not the one on the border of the Barrens.

[Wintrow]

that elevator leads to a horde town on one of the needles, so yes, they'd put a guard or two there...

[xDarkDrifterx]

This page also explains the color coding:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/basics/realmtypes.html