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Changes coming to Alterac Valley
It looks like Blizzard is finally starting to take this issue of AFKing in Alterac Valley seriously, and not just with the AFK-reporting feature that you've likely already heard about.In response to one poster who begged Blizzard not to implement this reporting feature because he says the map is imbalanced and the Horde always loses anyways, Drysc gave us a relatively long list of changes that Blizzard is making in order to help solve the problem -- not just reporting AFKers, but also finding other ways to encourage them to get in the game as well, such as fixing exploits, changing or removing NPCs, and yes even modifying the map a little bit.Here's what he said: There are quite a few changes coming, all of which we hope will culminate into making players want to participate, and ultimately win the battleground. Obviously as most people know we have the anti-afk reporting measure, by which you can right click on someone in the battleground and mark them as AFK. With enough reports they receive a debuff that keeps them from earning honor in that battleground, and only by entering combat can they remove that debuff. It's going to help, but it's certainly not enough on its own. Other things we're doing are changing or pulling out NPCs in key locations to help even out the balance of time and effort each side has to take to push through. As well as some minor changes to locations that people find are easily exploited to advance faster. We're shifting some of the honor from the earlier NPCs, that help make AFKing so lucrative, to the end of the battleground and more for actually winning. The graveyard spawning is being changed so that players aren't sent back to the cave unless there is nowhere else to spawn, which should help encourage horde to play a bit more defense if they're being beaten back. And we're also correcting the ... I think Jeff referred to them as "creative pulling mechanics" with the general's. Everything together, we feel, should help encourage players to participate, while also improving overall balance.
The twink experience (and toggling XP)
If you listened to the latest episode of Titan over on WoW Radio (and did you hear that we're teaming up with them to do a new show, starting Saturday? You did? Good), you heard Totalbiscuit and Eriyanna talk all about twinks-- alts who are created just to rule a certain battleground bracket. Most players aren't real big on twinks, and Jonaleth straight out wonders why people do it. Is it just for fun, or do the people who stay at that level just want to deal with simpler strategies and less abilities (since lower level characters don't have as many tools to play around with as higher level characters)? The bad answer is, of course, that people just like spending gold and time to rule the battlegrounds with an enchanted, blue-geared fist. But the "good" answer is probably that yes, there's a lot of strategy in squeezing as much power you can out of a lower level character. Totalbiscuit, in the podcast, actually says that what twinks do at 19 and 29 is really what all players do at 70-- work hard on gear and enchants to get every little drop out of a character with a limited level, and that's very true. So here's an interested idea from Brook on Garithos: how about an XP toggle, where players can actually switch off XP gain if they so choose. That would bring twinking to a whole new level, and allow players who twink to go into instances and run groups over and over again just to get the gear they want. Predictably, players aren't thrilled with that idea-- most people have enough trouble with twinks in the BGs already for Blizzard to more or less officially sanction the practice with an official feature like that. Sure, it would definitely bring a whole new aspect to twinking. But most players, it seems, think twinking has too many aspects in the game already.
Ask WoW Insider: What's the best of Ask WoW Insider?
Fridays are a time for early happy hour quiet contemplation and reflection upon the past, and in that spirit we're taking a look back at some of the best posts from over the lifespan of Ask WoW Insider. Now that we're all older and wiser -- who *did* end up being the top PvP classes at 70? Best duo for PvP or grinding"What team of classes make the best duo for PVP or for grinding?" Top PvP classes at level 70Just after Burning Crusade came out, we speculated on which classes would dominate in PvP. Were we right? Would you change the answer you gave then? Best ways to make money in Burning Crusade"What are some good ways of making money for levels 60-70 in Burning Crusade? Are there people making money from jewelcrafting yet, should I pick that up? What about good mobs to grind or drops that sell well to vendors or on the AH?" Best way to get instance invites"What are your tips and tricks for convincing a group you've got the goods despite not having seen the inside of the dungeon?" Why are you overpowered?"Dig deep, self-examine and admit it: what makes your class overpowered?" How's WoW performance on a Mac?"I play Wow on a PC, and am looking towards a new computer purchase. One thing that influences my purchase is how well WoW will run on my new computer. I'm leaning towards a Mac, but how well does WoW run on a Mac?" Best way to power level alts"What's your strategy for the quickest power leveling? How do you maximize your time with your alts?" How would you design your own battleground?"What if you could design your own battleground? What would you do different or better than what is currently in the game?" When is it fair to upgrade an epic?"All DKP ideas aside, when is it fair to upgrade an epic over an epic?" Best healing class"Which class would you roll for a purely healing role? Which would you roll for a powerfully healing hybrid who might want to take on other roles from time to time? Relatedly, which healing class is the worst?" Best DPS class"Which classes can dish out the most DPS and which ones make the least amount of DPS?" Favorite WoW podcasts"There are a ton of WoW-themed podcasts out there now -- which would you recommend? What are your favorites?" Great ding stories"Any fun or interesting stories to tell about hitting the level cap? Or more generally, any memorable or unusual dings at any level?" We see that look in your eye, and we know it means you want to send us questions. Ask WoW Insider needs 'em -- send them to us at ask AT wowinsider DOT com!
Turn crossrealm BGs back off?
Perhaps people are just feeling nostalgic, but last week people were asking for 40 man raids again, and now they're asking for non-crossrealm battlegrounds.Are you serious? Did you all even play before 1.12, when Blizzard gave us the ability to join up to battlegrounds that were populated with people from other servers? We're talking waits into the hours, and some Alliance never even got to play (then again, that part wasn't so bad). No, X-realm battlegrounds were a hit back then, and they still are great today.Now maybe you're asking for a better way to play with people you know-- that's definitely a valid concern, and Blizzard is actually working on it: they all but confirmed guild vs. guild battlegrounds at BlizzCon. Building better and easier ways to play with your friends is always a good idea.But limiting the battleground population again? Bad idea. I'm starting to agree with the commenters in the 40 man raid post: people just don't know what they want.
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Beyond Patch 2.2: Schwick's compilation of verified info
Patch 2.2, currently in testing on the PTR, has some great improvements like voice chat and reporting AFK'ers in Battlegrounds. What it doesn't have is any new, big, sexy chunk of playable content. So when are we going to see the post-Karazhan 10-main raid zone, Zul'Aman? New Heroic Badge rewards? Guild banks? Oh, we already know that last one.Forum MVP Schwick on the WoW European forums has compiled a list of known updates in Patch 2.3 and beyond. He often provide reference links to his sources form many of his future patch notes, which makes him an information god in my book.He also goes on to list all the verified information about the WotLK expansion. I thought I had read all the info that was out already, but on Schwick's list I found items I didn't know, like the fact that Blizzard has a plan to deal with the fact that the Horde doesn't have a fear ward. Or that Naxxramas, the last raid zone introduced before TBC launched, will be repurposed in the new expansion. Or that new shaders will be introduced for shinier graphics. Mmm, sparkles.Check out Schwick's post if you want to get a look ahead about what's known for future patches.Screenshot of Zul'Aman boss models courtesy of MMO-Champion.com.
What we learned from BlizzCon
Here it is-- a comprehensive, one-post guide to everything we learned at BlizzCon 2007. From Alleria to Zul'Aman, it's all here. Everything we know about Death Knights, Wrath of the Lich King, what's happening in Azeroth between now and the next expansion release, what Blizzard thinks about midlevel content, and how they're going to deal with the AFKers in Alterac.From top to bottom, in alphabetical order, here's every single new thing WoW Insider learned (and confirmed-- no speculation here) in Anaheim this weekend. If you have questions or additions, add them below, and I'll either update the list, or answer them to the best of my knowledge. Enjoy.
Overheard at BlizzCon: Changes to the bgs?
Well, as I stood in line for food this afternoon at BlizzCon, I found myself behind some Blizzard employees. They were very nice, and evidently from the QA department. As the the line moved on, their conversation turned to some of their PvP exploits from the day before. Evidently guys who spend all day playing WoW go home and....you guessed it, play WoW.What was interesting wasn't really what battlegrounds they were playing in, or how they did. What was interesting was what they let drop while they talked about their PvP exploits. Evidently fairly soon Blizzard will release a method of dealing with those pesky AFKers in AV and WSG. They said something along the lines of "I can't wait to select all those guys hanging out in the caves and just hit 'report.'" Perhaps this will be a system similar to that which has removed all but the most tenacious gold spammers from my whispers. Intriguing? I thought so, and also thought you should hear about it. I'll keep my ears perked for anything else tantalizing I hear tomorrow.
Officers' Quarters: Unleashing your guild's bloodlust
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.The large majority of my columns since Officers' Quarters began three months ago have been PVE-focused. And even though Warcraft itself is certainly more PVE-focused -- by which I mean, you can't level up from PVP alone -- PVP is a large part of the game for many players. So I was glad to see the following question in my Inbox this week.I am currently the PVP officer of a mid-level raiding guild, our Kara-1 team has been successful and Kara-2 is coming together nicely, but that's not the point. As we are on a PVP server, what should I do to encourage my guildmates to hit the BGs on the holiday weekends as a group, rather than farm elementals for 3 days straight? Also as a Raiding guild - do you believe that World PVP (read: Opposing Faction City Raiding) is a viable alternative to add more class-driven PVP to the game, and give our Raid healers a spot in a fun PVP tradition?
No more summoning in Battlegrounds
Confirmed by CM Drysc, a hotfix was implemented 7/19 that now prevents Warlocks from summoning in Battlegrounds. Drysc explains:The reason for the change is that it was being used to exploit battleground mechanics, most notably flag captures. We realize that its use in Alterac Valley was useful as the battleground is much larger in size, and it was with much disappointment that we had to make the change to keep players from exploiting its use in other battlegrounds. At current the rules extend through all battlegrounds which we find also helps maintain a consistency of rules and mechanics, but we will be watching the impact of the change.Drysc goes on to explain that players in Warsong Gulch are the people using summons not as intended and therefore ruining it for the players in AV using it legitimately. The way it worked was that a Warlock would be standing by his or her team's flag while another player would approach the enemy flag. The flag carrier would grab the enemy flag, accept the summon and be able to immediately capture the flag.Except for a handful of times, I have played AV on the Horde side and rarely were we organized enough to summon people to help kill Stormpike. Honestly, it's hard enough to get the Horde to not fight on that stupid bridge. (Just ride through to a common objective, people! You can't capture the bridge!) But I do know that the Allies often used summoning to beat us. Or so I heard from the woefully undermanned defense while I was trying to heal the handful of people who weren't fighting on that bridge or AFK in the entrance or fishing. Hmmm, I seem to have a lot of bitterness left over from my "pre BC trying to get the pretty Frostwolf Mount" days.Do you think it's fair to have made the change across all battlegrounds? Do you even think that the summoning method of flag capture should be considered an exploit?
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.
Freshening up the battleground with new ideas
This idea has been floating around ever since we all realized there were two new opposing reputations in the Burning Crusade-- an Aldor vs. Scryer battleground. It would definitely be a fresh change of pace to line up alongside the opposing faction and have a chance to face off against your own friends and guildies. Of course, there's lots of coding work that would have to be done (as well as a little lore work-- Aldor and Scryer aren't exactly in open war at this point), but it would be a cool addition to the current battleground options.And the forum thread that mentions the idea is actually full of great BG ideas-- a Team Deathmatch BG, multi-team CTF, and even an escort battleground. There's already that kind of thing in AV (you can run the quests that summon an NPC for you to follow around more than escort), but it would be neat to have a BG where you had to get an actual player from one place to another. Or maybe they could do it with an NPC-- run it in the Caverns of Time, and have the player escort someone in the history of Warcraft. Like Durnholde, but with players instead of an instance.The other neat tidbit from this thread is that Ommra winkingly mentions siege engines as something she'd (he'd?) like to see in the BGs. So whatever news comes out about what's new in the battlegrounds, it's a pretty good bet that siege engines are almost upon us.
Breakfast Topic: This is all your fault and all of you suck
Every single time you're in Alterac Valley and your faction starts losing, someone starts whipping out the blame. Unless you ignore the battleground channel, you will be forced to read all about how you suck, how everyone else in this battleground sucks, how you should have done what they told you to do, and so on. Then, the other guy will pipe up with something like "would you shut up, dude? It's just a game," which sends the first one even deeper into his rage. Eventually he may just leave the match, or else quiet down while someone starts a chorus of "Guys, just let them win! I want to get my mark and go home."Personally, I'm a proud believer in the power of reason. Every time this happens, I find myself giving helpful suggestions, calming tempers, offering insights on how we could improve next time, and generally trying to play the peacemaker. Sometimes I can even find a strategy I think will turn the tide in our favor (and sometimes it works!), but usually I count myself a victor if people just see reason and behave civilly.What's your experience of people in battlegrounds who just can't handle losing? Have you been able to contain their blame explosions?
Why does the Horde always lose Alterac Valley?
Alterac Valley seems to be the hot topic on the General Forums this week, as "Horde ... you just don't get it", "BLIZZARD is FLIPPING THE MAP" and "How does flipping the AV map make it fair" have risen to the top of the forums. Basically, the Horde says that the Alterac Valley map favors Alliance, since Horde have to make it past the bridge chokepoint and the Stormpike graveyard is more secluded and defended than Frostwolf. The Alliance, on the other hand, blame the Horde's perennial losses on AFK people, a defeatist attitude, and a lack of defense, and note that Horde seemingly has no problems steamrolling Alliance in WSG and AB. In response, the Horde has issued a challenge for Blizzard to flip the AV map and see if the Horde's win-loss ratio doesn't turn around. Now, it's hard to generalize about who wins AV more, but judging from the forums and my own experience in AV (dozens of losses and, like, two wins), it seems that the Alliance win more overall. Is this the fault of the map? Could be. The bridge and the graveyard are always giant roadblocks, and the Horde graveyard is woefully open. But if the Horde wanted to, they could make a similar roadblock in the one building that Alliance have to go through to get the last graveyard. Fight for that like the bridge and Alliance won't win so easily. At least back in the day, Horde lost AV because of all the AFK cavejumpers, the fishers, the level 52 warriors screaming orders, all the people who would leave when Balinda was dead, and the magic summoning stick Alliance used whenever they were losing to get everyone in Tier 2.5 or greater to queue for AV at the same time. Alliance, how do the battleground terrain maps look from your side? Does flipping all the BG maps for a month or so sound like a good idea?
US battlegroups Cataclysm and Frenzy to merge
Drysc has announced that Blzzard is planning on merging the smallest of the US battlegroups. At present, Cataclysm contains 5 realms and Frenzy contains 7 -- while the next smallest battlegroup contains 12 realms and the rest of the battlegroups contain 15 to 20 realms. All in all this is probably good news for PvPers on the realms Shattered Halls, Azuremyst, The Underbog, Auchindoun, Coilfang, Blood Furnace, Terokkar, Exodar, Blade's Edge, Velen, Area 52, Zangarmarsh (hey, that's us!), and The Scryers, who should look forward to shorter battleground queues. However, one thing this does tell me is that Blizzard isn't planning on adding new realms in the future -- or at least not a lot of them. These smaller battlegroups were obviously designed to give Blizzard room to grow, but the move to merge them suggests that Blizzard isn't planning on needing that room. As it was, to bring them to the size of the smallest existing battlegroup (the 12-realm Emberstorm), Cataclysm would need 7 more realms and Frenzy would need 5, for a total of 12 new realms. And to bring them up to size of the largest battlegroup, Cataclysm would need 15 additional realms and Frenzy would need 13, which would mean a total of 28 new realms. As it is, the merged Cataclysm/Frenzy battlegroup will contain 12 realms -- based on the size of the largest existing battlegroups, there's still room to grow, but it seems that Blizzard isn't planning on massive growth in the future.
Ask WoW Insider: How would you design your own battleground?
Welcome to this week's edition of Ask WoW Insider, where we publish one of your questions for readers to answer. Last week we scrutinized some Burning Crusade loot etiquette issues, and this week we'll be doing a little speculative PvP imagineering. Our question comes from Omegi from JETT, who poses the question: What if you could design your own battleground? What would you do different or better than what is currently in the game? Try to be as elaborate as possible and try to keep it within the realm of possibilities. Things to consider would be how many players, capture the flag, point based, objective based, types of mechanics allowed. Strap on your thinking caps and let us know what your dream battleground looks like. Also, don't forget to let us know your questions for next week -- send them to ask AT wowinsider DOT com.
Spellthread bug, not that I'd have noticed...
Like many guilds, my guild has a small bracket of level 19 twinks that are set up specifically to run the Battlegrounds and do nothing else. Now I've seen some of the people in guild really go overboard with their characters, pimping them out in the best blues they can get. I've heard about them running instances in raid format so as to wipe all experience points -- just so they can get certain boss drops. I've heard all manner of things. But this one just makes me go "wha?"According to Haetred on the official forums, since the patch people have been unable to apply the Spellthread enchant to any pair of legs lower than level 35. Now, originally his(her?) post wasn't saying "un-nerf this" - it was simply asking for consistency. If Blizzard was going to remove Spellthread's ability, then you needed to remove everyone's ability to have these in the lowbie brackets so as to avoid any potential imbalance. (We hear that word thrown around a lot in regards to PvP, really.) As opposed to that, Nethaera came back and let the original poster know that this nerf is an unintentional bug, and that Spellthread will once again be available to people of all levels in an upcoming patch. Now I can't speak for anyone else here (and I'm sure I'm about to get torched for this, probably) but it seems to me that Spellthread and Clefthide/Cobra armor kits are becoming the new Crusader/Lifestealing of the Battlegrounds. I can't even fathom using those on a low-level character considering what kind of money I'm going through on consumables. I'd be more inclined to sell a spare one than to use it on a character that eventually will level out of that gear. (Not that I wouldn't happily take the money from someone wanting to use it on a twink, mind.) What do you think about using Spellthread and the high-end Armor kits on Battleground twinks? Does it seem like a crazy expensive thing to do to you too, or am I just not 'l33t' enough to understand? I can't fathom spending that in the face of the cost of raid progression (well, up until now...) but maybe that's just me.
Arena battles and "Must-See PvP"
Terra Nova has a good piece up asking a question I've been thinking about ever since I saw video of the WoW arena fights at WSVG: even if Blizzard (or anyone else) sets up the technology for us to watch professional arena fights live, are they really going to be "must see PvP"?Joshua from TN says yes-- he says he enjoys watching for tips, including how the players move, what targets they take, what strategies they employ, and so on. Personally, I have to disagree. I enjoy playing arena or fighting in the battlegrounds as much as the next guy, but when it comes to watching just the ingame fight, I just can't get into it. Part of it really is the presentation; WSVG could do a much better job explaining what's happening, just by showing the teams' makeup and their separate goals before they mix it up, and also by getting a new announcer ("It seems" like he repeats himself, and "that's going to be the case"). They do pull it off once-- in the China team vs. the Pandemic match (which I can't direct link to for some reason-- WSVG should fix that, too), the fight comes down to a mage vs. a warrior, and that fight is simple and easy enough to understand that the tension actually builds to an amazing victory. With the rest of the matches, though, things are too crazy and chaotic for anyone but a really knowledgeable viewer to keep it interesting.So even if the presentation was broadcast quality, I would think that the only people interested in watching these videos were the top arena players themselves. No one else would have the knowledge they need to catch every spell interrupt and every strategy choice. And the natural appeals of other sports, I think-- the glory of a football player making the play for his team-- don't apply here unless you show the actual people behind the keyboards, or at least show what that big Tauren warrior is doing when he goes for the priest instead of the mage. Will arena PvP ever be a really good spectator sport?
PTR notes: Go to the PTRs, fight Blizzard
To help test out the new battleground matching feature, Blizzard is offering players the chance to fight teams of "World of Warcraft community managers and other Blizzard employees." This Friday, May 4, starting at 2:00 PM PDT, go to the PvP PTR with a level 70 character, queue up for WSG, and prepare to battle your creators. They've done this before, and I think they lost at least a few of the games. Think how cool it would be to beat Blizzard at their own game. I wonder why they always pick WSG, though. That's definitely my least favorite of the three pre-BC battlegrounds (I haven't tried EotS yet). Anyway, full blue post after the cut as usual.
Twink changes in 2.1.0
I never really understood the popularity of the twinking phenomenon. A lowbie character, horribly expensive, never growing or changing but only there to own unsuspecting level 22s venturing to WSG for the first time ... meh. But a lot of people seem to like them, and those people might be upset about some of the undocumented changes in 2.1.0. According to Xarim on Battleground Forums, several items have been changed to make very low-level twinking more difficult. The Lucky Fishing Hat was a cheap way for level 19 twinks to get 15 stamina, but it now requires level 30 to equip. The herbalism-gathered Nightmare Seeds, which give you a temporary boost of 2000 health, have been changed to be 60+ only. The biggest change for twinks, though, is the fact that the blue leg armor and spellthread leg enhancements can only be placed on items of level 35 or greater, as can shoulder and helm enchants. For some reason, the epic spellthread and leg armor can still be placed on anything. Go figure. Do you have a 19 or 29 twink? How will these changes affect you? (Thanks to firefly for the tip!)
Suggestion: an instance summary screen
Got this idea while doing a Shadow Labs run with my guildies this weekend: there should be a screen, in instances, that you can pull up to give stats about what players have done in there, just like battlegrounds. During the instance, every player should be able to pull up a screen that lists killing blows, damage done, healing done, and maybe even experience gained or even the loot dropped-- kind of an instance summary at a glance.I know, as with all of my personal ideas, that opposition to this from you readers will likely be strong. I can just hear you saying now: "We can already do this!" Yes, mods like DamageMeters can track damage and healing done, in an instance or out, and across the group or otherwise. But they can't track killing blows and other stats, and not every player has access to the info-- it would benefit from being done by Blizzard (we already know they can do it in the battlegrounds, instances would be no different), and it would give us a standard system to track these kinds of stats for those of us who are interested.The other objection, I'm sure, will be that some players don't want to know this info. Guilds will sometimes ban DamageMeters output in the chat channels, because they want their raiders to be working for a win, not for individual DPS. But to those objections, I say that if that was a problem, we'd already be dealing with it. If anyone is going to work for individual DPS, what's to stop them from installing DamageMeters and doing it right now? And if someone is working for themselves instead of for the raid, the simple solution is to just not bring them along to the raid. If a meter makes them ignore helping others, who needs them?Of course, the other objection you might have to this one is that Blizzard should be working on more important things, and on that I can't really argue. But Blizzard, if you're listening and have the time to do it, I'd like to see the numbers on what my party is doing in instances.
