EyeOfTheStorm
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Battleground fallacies
Hi. I know we're all excited about Season 4. Some of us are stockpiling arena points and trying to get our ratings up, while others are taking the opportunity to gear up some alts in Season 2 gear as soon as it moves to honor. And that's great, there's something for everyone. But it also seems, at least on the servers I play on, to be leading to some frayed tempers in the battlegrounds. So let's chat about what is, and what isn't, appropriate and useful for getting yourself some honor in the BG's.First off, and I can't say this one enough as a general piece of advice for any battleground, yelling, calling people names, and spamming macros does not actually make you Sun Tzu. It can be very annoying when your WSG turns into a 45 minute turtle with no flag captures, or your AV run becomes mired down because yet again everyone rushed RH instead of taking and holding Iceblood Graveyard, but no matter how creative your insults get, the tide of battle will not turn. The other players in the battleground are not going to say "you know, Matsakillza is right, I really am a total noob" and even if they did, how would that possibly improve how the match is progressing? It won't. It just makes you look like a petulant child throwing a fit because something didn't go your way.Now that we've gotten that bit of general advice out of the way, let's move on to specific examples from each battleground, linking to our own Zach Yonzon's thoughts on each as we do.
Do BG's need diminishing returns?
As we all know, with the changes to Alterac Valley in patch 2.3 have come changes to the tactical balance of the game. Specifically, if you're not willing to put some real effort into defense, you're not going to win, and you can end up in a turtle game waiting for one side to run out of reinforcements. Which leads me to wonder: if the games are inherently limited by the reinforcement factor... if by killing opposing players you will eventually win the game and as result there's no way the games can last indefinitely... then what do we need diminishing returns on honor for? Battlegrounds are limited in that you have no real choice but to kill the same people over and over again, after all.There's never going to be a setup where one side agrees to be honor famed by the other in AV now, if that ever happened in the first place. One side is going to lose, the game is going to end, and a new game start up: but if you've played in a lot of AV's lately where one side put up a vigorous defense and the two factions clashed for a significant melee, then you may have noticed as I have that your estimated honor for the day will often be wildly overstated. For instance, yesterday I managed to squeeze about 4k honor out. But when I went to bed, it said I had almost 6k honor estimated. I understand what estimated means, that it's not accurate, but the idea that the system estimated an additional 2k honor over what I had actually earned made me wonder if there was a way to improve this. With Arena 3 coming out tomorrow, people have either acquired the honor they want or will be working to do so, so it seems like a good time to consider if we need what seems to be an outdated means of preventing repeated ganking or honor farming.Then again, I suppose you could do it in Warsong still. AB and EoTS also have their limiting factors built in, but Warsong keeps going until someone caps 3 flags. Maybe we could just eliminate the honor decay in the other three BG's? That might make Warsong drop in popularity, though. What do you think? Do we need diminishing returns on honor in battlegrounds?
Breakfast Topic: Favorite battleground
There are four battlegrounds in the game right now, but you can still only play one at a time -- which means you've got to have a favorite. You know, the battleground you hope will come up even while you're in another. I have to say, I think my favorite is still Alterac Valley. I've always loved the massive battle that plays out there, and how it integrates PvE elements in a PvP framework -- however, I can't say I'm fond of the AFKers these days... But this isn't about my favorite battleground -- today we're asking which of the four you favor, and why. So tell us, do you have a favorite battleground?
More battlegrounds in our future?
Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley have been part of World of Warcraft since way back in June 2005 (patch 1.5). That's given us all plenty of time to play both of those battlegrounds until we know every inch of the map by heart and could capture the flag (or, in the case of AV, the bunkers/graveyards/etc) with our eyes closed. Arathi Basin is a bit newer than that, released with patch 1.7 in September 2005, but by now, even its most dedicated fans have had a chance to play it to death. And even the most recent battleground, Eye of the Storm, has been in the game for nearly seven months. Doesn't running the same maps endlessly get old at some point? And doesn't the battleground system deserve a little love?Well, Nethaera lets us know that there are more battlegrounds in our future (though she can't tell us precisely when), but that Blizzard is concerned about longer queue times that could result from giving players wanting to participate in the battlegrounds a fifth choice. For my part, I think even some new maps for the existing battlegrounds could liven them up some.
Guildwatch: Flawless victory
One of our featured guilds this week actually has a motto! My guild doesn't have a motto (at least not one that I know of), but if we did get one, I'd suggest "We're here to kick ass and disenchant epics, and our bank is already full of Nexus Shards." Actually, my guildies might not go for that one so much.Anyway, it's Tuesday, which means it's time for Guildwatch, our weekly informal look at what's happening with guilds around the game (your guild can appear right here by dropping us a drama, downed, or recruiting story at wowguildwatch@gmail.com). Click the link below to read this week's GW.
Eye of the Storm battleground revealed
Blizzard has dropped a page up that introduces the first new battleground in the Burning Crusade expansion: it's called Eye of the Storm, and it works as kind of a cross between WSG and AB. The battlefield is 15v15 with four capture points connected by bridges, and a single flag spawn in the middle. Each tower has a different scheme to it (Draenei, Human, Fel Reaver, and Blood Elves), and players fight for control of the towers, but can earn extra "victory points" by bringing the flag to a tower controlled by their faction. A win earns Eye of the Storm marks of honor, of course, which can be turned in for honor rewards. EotS is for players 61-70, and the only other interesting point about it (besides, you know, actually playing it) is that there is no portal to it-- it can only be reached by talking to battlemasters in the major cities.So far, the player reaction is... mixed (when players can actually see the battleground's page-- for a while tonight it was down in place of an XML error). A few players lament Warcraft for turning into Spacecraft-- from the screenshots, it's true that this is quickly becoming not your normal fantasy setting (but was it ever that anyway?). Some people think it sounds thrown together, and that the lack of a portal means Blizzard cut corners. But personally, that sounds more appetizing to me anyway-- the only way I ever use battlegrounds now is by hanging out in the cities.Player are also asking if flight will be allowed in the BG, but Drysc says it will not, as it will allow some players to reach unreachable terrain. I agree that the idea Blizzard has cooked up for this one doesn't really sound original (I'd like to see a story based battleground, where players fight around events like the summonings in AV), but all in all, EotS sounds like a fun new take on a mix of old ideas. I'm sure that as soon as 30 players hit 61, we'll be hearing "3 INC FRR" all the time. In the meantime, we'll keep an "eye" (ha!) out for info on Azshara Crater, the other rumored BC battleground.
