When is it okay to gank other players?

One of the more foolish decisions I made when picking a realm for WoW Classic was picking a PVP realm. I never played on a PVP realm back in Vanilla, and I’d heard the horror stories from people who knew how brutal a PVP realm could truly be. And yet, my friends convinced me to follow them to a PVP realm anyway. But by the time they’d decided Classic wasn’t for them, I’d already invested a lot in my Priest, and I didn’t really want to start over. After all, Shadow Priests notoriously melt faces in oldschool PVP, so I just had to make it to the finish line, right?

Well, yes and no. Now that I’m capped in Classic, I’ve had less of a tough time dealing with players who want to attack me, but I’ve also still encountered plenty of Alliance who are more than happy to attack me in groups. I may melt faces, but there’s only so much I can do when I’m outnumbered. And even when I do run into a single Alliance player out in the open, I honestly don’t usually fight unless they’re the one who struck first. (When that happens, I always win, of course.)

But I won’t lie, part of me is tempted to “pay it forward” and mercilessly attack any Alliance I come across, regardless of level. It happened to me, why not show others how painful PVP realms can be? Unless I’m in a particularly bad mood, I don’t actually attack, though.

Contrast all this with modern World of Warcraft, where I keep War Mode on and rarely get attacked, despite Horde and Alliance all gathered in the same area thanks to the recent 8.3 update. It feels much more like people just want to get things done without actually fighting each other. Even when leveling earlier in the expansion, it felt this way, too. No matter what, though, the option is there to attack.

So, I ask you, readers — when do you personally find it okay to attack other players? If someone went with a PVP realm or enabled War Mode, is everything fair game? Do you only attack when attacked? Does level matter? Let me know what you think in terms of PVP and attacking the other faction!