Which battleground might get the axe?
We talked briefly about the most recent Ask The Devs on PvP in the patch 5.3 PTR, but one thing that came up which merited further discussion was the following quote:
A new battleground and arena are planned for patch 5.3. This is really cool, do we have any more plans for battlegrounds and arenas and what can you share about these?
Answer - (Systems Design Team):
There is nothing new in the pipeline at this time. We may spend some time fixing older ones. We have a lot of data now about which Battlegrounds players are voting out of participating in, so that gives us some direction on which Battlegrounds we could potentially fix . . . or even cut.
The notable part here is the last bit. Cut a battleground? That's new. Not really what anyone expected. So the question is, which battleground might be cut and why?
It seems to me that a good way to approach this might be to look at which battlegrounds are unlikely to be cut. This is extremely tricky, because one must always remember that one's personal experiences are in no way necessarily reflective of those of the masses. Taste is extremely subjective, and one man's meat is another's poison.
Having whittled down the likely candidates, my current bet for the battleground least likely to succeed is Strand of the Ancients. Why do I say that over Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest? Well, I may be setting too much store in one Tweet, but as we've reported before here on WoW Insider, Senior PvP designer Brian Holinka has spoken in the past about putting these two large battlegrounds into a separate "epic BG" queue. So, while they might be cut from the main rotation, it seems unlikely that they'd be cut altogether. The second in line for my list would be Eye of the Storm. Like Strand of the Ancients, Eye of the Storm is rather unpopular, or at least unpopular among a vocal minority. I still think SotA is the less-liked map of the two.
The problem with SotA is the way it's played out. It's a game of two halves, and it's highly possible to know whether the match is won or lost half-way through. It is likely one of the most balanced maps around, given that it's a straight swap, but if one team steamrolls the other, it's both disheartening and pointless to carry on for part 2 of the game. That, and it's a vehicle battleground, which is either a love or hate proposition for many players. Vehicle battlegrounds are tactically interesting, at least, but remove a player's access to their abilities. Vehicle drivers can't heal, they can't use their class' toolkit to attack, they are effectively just a vehicle for that portion of the match.
That's my take on the battleground most likely to get the chop, but what's yours? Of course, take this with a pinch of salt. It's important not to read too much into three words at the tail end of an Ask the Devs!
