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Around Azeroth: If two's company and three's a crowd...
...then I'm not sure what this is. Reader Zpoo of Blackrock sent in this shot, taken after the battlegrouds server crashed and tossed all of the players inside back out at their battlemasters. Here, at the Stormwind Keep battlemasters, everyone seems to be killing time with some nasty AoE damage while waiting for the battlegrounds to return.Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! You can attach a picture file or send us a link to one -- and don't worry about formatting, we'll take care of that part. See more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Alliance learns to hate Paladins too
Halecusis posted a story on the forums yesterday that sounded like music to my ears. He didn't say anything new, really: he said that fighting a Paladin was annoying as get out in AV. Just when you think they're done, they pop that stupid shield, spam Flash of Light, and if reinforcements show up, it's all over. But what's new (and completely tasty) about his story is who it's coming from: Halecusis is a human Paladin. And he's writing about a Blood Elf Paladin.Ah, sweet revenge. Finally, you Alliance types will learn to curse those smarmy, tacky, and overdone Pally animations. In fact, this may bring the World closer together-- Horde or Alliance, we can all learn to hate Paladins like the annoying plate-wearing healers they are. Of course, Shammies are on both sides now as well, but those totems, while annoying, don't seem to inspire as much hate as that flashy Light stuff does.And I wonder how having all the classes on both sides is changing battlegrounds as a whole. I haven't spent a lot of time in battlegrounds since the expansion hit (I'm trying to find time to get my Shammy up to 70), so I wonder how things are going. During the little time I spent in Eye of the Storm 61-69, Horde seemed to be wiping the floor with Ally, but in my experience on Thunderhorn, Horde wins at lower levels while Alliance always wins at the top levels, because with a higher realm population, more of them can get into the endgame and gear up well. But maybe Paladins had a bigger impact than I thought-- will even classes on both sides make for more Horde wins at 70? Your input on this is welcome below.At any rate, it's been a long time coming, but I'm glad to see that Alliance is getting a taste of what we've been dealing with for so long. Paladins aren't by any means unbeatable-- wait for that shield's cooldown, then kite them around with a liberal dose of mana burning and/or spell interruption-- but they are really, really annoying.
Gear matching in battlegrounds
We've heard official word that the game is going to receive some sort of gear matching system for battlegrounds -- a system that will hopefully try to match up players based on the quality of their gear as well as their level. Theoretically, this would prevent twinks in all level brackets from simply steamrolling green-geared players who are taking a break from leveling up, as well as separating fully epiced out players from those brand new to 60 or 70. And a more challenging battleground match is more fun for all of us, right? And while we still lack any details on how such a system might work, we do have confirmation from Drysc that we should expect to see it in-game with the next major content patch (no, this wouldn't be 2.0.7). Great! Now we can move on to speculation as to when that might be...
Players deal with even more patch bugs
Bugs aplenty in 2.0.3. We mentioned a few yesterday, including the raid promotion issues and the disappearing target frame issues, but players keep finding more.Peridoc from Daggerspine has collected a bunch of them, including the ones above, delays on some characters in the loading screen, and alignment on the Battlegrounds score sheet.Lots of people (including our good commenters) are mentioning that icons have gone all wacky everywhere-- some icons have completely disappeared and some just show the wrong thing. Some textures have messed up, too. Blizzard is collecting the issues here, along with video card specs, which means it's probably a driver problem-- upgrading the drivers on your videocard wouldn't hurt. If you've got an Nvidia, you can get those here. Just know that it is being worked on.Finally, MBAzeroth (and some more commenters) have said there's a problem in AV (and, I believe AB): flags can be capped from many yards away. Obviously, that makes defense pretty unmanageable. Blizzard knows about the issue, and is, as always, working on it.If you've got more bugs, you can include them below, but don't forget to drop them on Blizzard's tech support site, too-- the quicker they know about them, the quicker we'll see them fixed. Someone said the target frame thing was a problem with CTRaid, so updating addons wouldn't hurt, but most of these are real bugs (I'm guessing they have to do with little upgrades to the actual game engine for the expansion, but that's just a guess). At any rate, when you head out into Azeroth, be ready with your bugspray.
60-69 PVP bracket coming in the expansion
Just in case you're still wondering, Tseric has confirmed that the BG divisions in the Burning Crusade will be for levels 60-69 and a separate one for 70. That's, of course, to go along with the 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 battlegrounds already in effect.Alterac Valley is a little different-- as you already know (if you've hit 51), the current battleground allows levels 51-60, and the Burning Crusade will bring a 61-70 field. And Eye of the Storm, the new battleground in Outland, will have two: 61-69, and a 70 bracket. And while you can play Arena PVP before 70, you can't actually gain Arena points or a team rating until level 70. There was still another battleground rumored for Burning Crusade called Aszhara Crater, but it's a pretty safe assumption at this point that we won't see that for a while (perhaps in a patch coming later this year?), so no clue yet what levels will find their way in there.Finally, the bad news. As a few players point out, the new 60-69 bracket means people who don't buy the expansion will be running around fighting mostly players who have bought the expansion, which means they'll have up to nine levels and tons of new items on them. If you're already 60 and not planning to buy the expansion, get ready to get steamrolled in PVP. But if you're not 60 yet and weren't planning to buy the expansion, maybe it's time to learn about twinking at 59...
PvP: Tales of an AV AFK'er
A post on the General Forum of WoW's official boards has certainly caught people's attention today. Etherboo, on the Bleeding Hollow server, points out exactly why he spends his time *not* playing in AV, instead doing something else while racking up free honor points for cave-dwelling. Now I've been playing a LOT of AV lately, due to my commitment to checking out the Battlegrounds and earning up some honor gear before the expansion, and I've seen that on the Horde side of the battlelines, there are often 10-15 people just hanging out at the starting point waiting for the game to be lost to the Alliance. As a result, I've found myself pushing to win with only 25-30 teammates against a seemingly fully-committed Alliance team. As could be expected, we get steamrolled.
WoW Insider Best of 2006: Blizzard's Best and Worst
This is the final entry in our year end awards. All this week, we've looked at the best Azeroth had to offer this year-- from Guild, Server and Class, through Friend, Enemy, and Instance, all the way to Player and Addon of the Year.And today we're taking a final look at the company behind it all in 2006. WoW looks like a completely different game right now then it did last January-- PVP is completely different, the endgame instances have almost doubled in size and number, items have sprouted up like adds in UBRS, and the classes have almost completely new talents across the board. Blizzard did a lot to this game this year, but not all of it was great. So today we're taking a look at the best change Blizzard made this year, and the worst. Best and Worst Blizzard Moves of the Year are after the jump.
More honor points answers from Drysc
Players still have questions about how honor is calculated (both in the estimated screen and at the end of the day), so Drysc answered question after question on the forums today. Because of a previous CM post, players believed this to be true, but it isn't: The recent "honor nerf" is not calculated at the end of the day; it's already counted every time you drop someone. The honor you gain has already been dropped to its appropriate amount-- there are no other specific reductions that your honor should suffer when it's calculated late at night. However, as stated the other day, you may still see your honor a little bit lower from the estimated honor shown on your honor page. The reason for this is because of dimishing returns-- if you kill a player more than 10 times, the honor you earn from them starts to lower in value. The server can't calculate that in real-time, however, so estimated honor is appearing a little higher than actual honor. Bonus honor is now appearing in daily estimated totals. For you math majors, honor can be awarded in fractions-- it is possible, due to bonus honor most likely, to earn .3 or .7 honor points-- those add up and are rounded at the end of the day. And finally, even though the rank titles still show up with every kill (e.c. "HK: Blood Guard" or "HK: Grand Marshal"), Drysc says they have absolutely no bearing (that he knows of) on earning honor. So I'd like to know: why are they still around? Don't get me wrong-- I love murdering a Night Elf and having a nice big yellow crit-looking thing pop up on my screen-- feeds the sense of accomplishment and all that. But why are they still doing that if ranks no longer matter? For all the questions Drysc answered, he still left some untouched.
PVP stays strong in 2.0.1
If one thing hasn't suffered because of the patch, it's PVP. Even though the Arena system has been buggy nonexistent so far, the regular battlegrounds are getting plenty of playtime as people start to grind for the new Honor Points, learn their new specs, and generally get back into the swing of a World of Warcraft that's changed a lot. As Relmstein says, the patch has breathed new life into WoW PVP-- people who never played before are interested in playing, and people who've played to no end are coming back to try the new talents and learn new tactics.All this activity hopefully will bring with it a little bit of strategy. Relm says he's seen zerging in WSG and little node defense in AB-- I'll agree on that last one (get three flags and hold them, guys), and add that AV needs help as well. In fact, AV needs a lot of help. With all the work Blizzard has done on the off-the-field of battlegrounds, I'd now appreciate seeing a little on-the-field work. It's well known that AV, as it's set up, is unbalanced towards the Alliance side. As much as I'd like to see that fixed before the expansion hits, I doubt it'll happen, and Horde will continue to get trampled on that darned bridge.Still, strategy problems aside, I have to agree that while raiding has taken a beating under this patch (with new specs and mod changes causing players to learn their roles all over again), PVP is still a pleasure most of the time. In fact, if you'll excuse me, someone just yelled INC BS-- looks like I'm needed on defense.
201 issues in 2.0.1
OK, well maybe there's not exactly that many issues, but there's quite a few floating around with the new patch today. No Arena masters, for one. Here's a few more I've heard about so far. Druids are just plain confused. The patch notes had tons of changes for them, but it looks like only two showed up in the actual patch, the Omen of Clarity buff and Swiftmend. What's up with that? The devs are saying the patch notes are wrong, and there's no word about whether an update will change things later. A lot of druids are confused about it, and rightfully so-- why put stuff in the patch notes that doesn't get implemented? There's crazy addon issues, for sure. None of my addons worked at all (they didn't just say "out of date", they actually said "incompatible"), and for a lot of major addons there's no word yet when an update is forthcoming. We knew this would happen, but it still sucks, especially for guilds like mine who plan to raid tomorrow. The LFG interface is cool, but there's a few kinks in it, most notably that I couldn't seem to join a group for lower level instances on my 60. If I have a quest in Sunken Temple or Maraudon, why can't I find a group for it? Also, it appears (confirmation on this?) that the raids aren't in the LFG interface either. The stealth animations were speed increased (walking speed in stealth), but frankly it looks like characters are "doing the pee pee dance"-- they're jerky and wrong. Petition has been started on the rogue forums to fix them. Appears that because of the changes to thrown items (they don't stack-- instead they lose durability when used), equipped thrown items have disappeared forever. Finally, this isn't Blizzard's fault, but the battleground servers are being obliterated right now with all the people jumping in to try out their new specs. I was in Arathi Basin 167, and it lasted for all of three minutes before it froze up, flipped over, and died on the spot. On the flip side, there is a lot of good coming out of the patch: Pallys are thrilled, and while Druids are a little unhappy, they do like that treeform. I've already seen a few Shamans walking around dual wielding (I had to stay Resto, unfortunately, so no DW for me until the expansion). Warriors, from what I've heard, are happier than they thought they would be with rage normalization (their new talents helped a bit). Priests have some new tricks up their sleeve, as do Hunters. Locks still own. And it seems true that no matter what this patch does, it will definitely breathe some new life into a game that a lot of people were getting bored of. There may be 201 problems, but players not playing tonight ain't one.
The long and short of battlegrounds
Speaking of a little PVP strategy, a good strategy in the battlegrounds can definitely mean the difference between a quick "four noder" in AB, or a long, drawn out turtlefight in AV. Artemis F makes an interesting point over on Livejournal with a roundup of the longest AVs players have ever seen-- before the battlegrounds, AV matches ran for a looooong time-- from three or four hours all the way up to days at a time. Of course, now that we're in the era of premades and crossrealm battlegrounds, things can be much, much faster. Here's a video, linked from the thread, of a Horde premade finishing the thing off in just under four minutes. Unfortunately, not all groups are as well organized (and knowledgeable-- what's that deal they do with the Generals at the end there?) as this one, and I'll often log into a WSG late at night hoping for a quick 15 minute match, only to have it turn into a 45 minute grind as one side hides the flag and/or farms away the HKs. As for AV, my average time is about 45 minutes or so, but never much longer than two hours. What are you seeing out there in the BGs? I'm sure nothing is as fast as they're predicting arena matches to be (under 5 minutes each, we've been told), but we don't still have weekend long AV games. Do we?
A little PVP strategy goes a long way
Galinth dropped us a line to his (very) comprehensive guide to playing in Warsong Gulch. If you ever wanted to know everything about running a premade in Warsong Gulch, you'll find it all here, from individual tactics and "kill order" to team strategies and even leadership techniques.In fact, a guide this comprehensive will probably turn most casual players off. Not all of us have the time or interest to focus on PVP like it's our job. The majority of us just want to show up, kill a few alliance, capture a flag or two, and have a good time. Of course, in the future, the arena and matching systems will probably help people find what they're looking for, but until then we have to assume that there are some players who won't be interested in pages and pages of strategy and planned attacks.But nevertheless, even if you're not part of a full-time 60 premade, Galinth's guide is helpful because a little strategy goes a long way. Just as in PVE play there are a few basic strats to keep in mind (aggro and crowd control, class strengths, roles and abilities), PVP play is no different, but most players don't seem to know the most basic organizational strategy-- how do you react in WSG when both sides have turtled with a flag? How many nodes should you take in AB, and when should you go for new ones instead of defending the ones you have? And what's the order of conquest in AV-- should you head for the graveyards, take out the NPCs, beeline the opposing base, or work on farming mats and summoning assistance?In that sense, a guide like Galinth's is very welcome. He's gone to great lengths to cover every single facet of premade WSG play, and for that reason, it might seem a little overwhelming at first (like you've been handed the manual to a job on the factory line). But making sure every player on the field has a least a little bit of strategy in their head (just as in PVE play) will only make the game better for all of us, and that's why his guide is more than worth a look.
Forum Post of the Day: Twinks ruin low level BGs
Before the advent of cross-realm battlegrounds and server transfers, I rolled a new character on a brand new server and had the best of times running battlegrounds while leveling up. In my mind, it was fun precisely because there weren't any twinks yet -- everyone was working on leveling up and playing in the battlegrounds on the same level. And leveling a new character up on any server, with cross-realm battlegrounds, I don't think I'd have the same amount of fun running the low level battlegrounds casually. Because so many people playing in the lower brackets have characters that have been pushed to the max of their abilities for the level, and I'm just trying to level up. But is this really something Blizzard should do something about or is it just working as intended? Regardless of what you think, you can join in on the discussion.
New battleground stats in the Burning Crusade
This isn't exactly groundbreaking news, but is an interesting new quirk in the expansion's battleground stats screen. As you can see in the screenshot above, in addition to the usual information on killing blows, deaths, honorable kills, and bonus honor, there's also data on damage done and healing done -- providing us with with an interesting new perspective on battleground participation. I like it!P.s.: The link from this story goes to a German site with a slightly larger screenshot -- I don't know much German, except that clicking "schliessen" in the upper right will close those pop-up ads.
The timesink of PVP ranks
Interesting piece up over at Terra Nova that links to a set of graphs on exactly how much time it takes to get certain PVP ranks in WoW. Take a stab at how long you'd have to play to reach, say, Legionnaire rank.If you said 30 hours a week, you're right at what they decided. And for Field Marshal / Warlord, they say 80 hours a week. I'm not sure I'm even awake that much per week! Now, to be fair, their reasoning is a little off here-- they simply monitored /played time of these characters and then related it to their PVP rank, but there's no way that all of that /played time was just spent PVPing for rank. And they didn't account for skill at all-- you'll earn honor much faster by being in a well coordinated premade than floating from battleground to battleground. Their numbers are no doubt a little inflated, just based on the way they're calculated.But they're right about one thing: while I think it is perfectly possible to have a normal life and be a successful endgame raider, I don't think it's possible to have a huge PVP rank and not spend way too much time playing this game. As Nicolas says, the grind is just too steep. There will always be someone more willing to commit time to PVP grinding then I am, and so they'll always "win" the ranks, just by playing more.However, anything else we could say on this subject is going to, unfortunately, fall into the World of Theorycraft, because we know there's already a change on the way. With the next patch, the honor system is completely changing. In Arena PVP, we already know that ranking will be placed in a much more skill-based rating system-- if you beat another good group team, your rating will go up much faster. And for the rest of PVP, all we know is that there'll be some sort of Honor Point turn in system, where you'll be able to exchange earned HP for items, ranks, and rep. Will that balance out the current time commitment requirements, and make ranks reachable for those of us who work 9-5? Only time (and maybe our beta testers?) will tell.
Blizzard names cross-server BG groups
No one's really sure why, but Blizzard has now named the Battlegrounds groups. Check this page to find out where you've been placed-- in Bloodlust, Cyclone, Nightfall, Rampage, Reckoning, Ruin, Shadowburn, Stormstrike, Vengeance, Vindication, or Whirlwind. Note that as far as I can tell, none of the BG groups have actually changed-- all the servers are still in the same groups, there are just new names to go along with them.And leave it to players to find something to complain about on even such a superficial change-- Ronoramin points out that three of the group names are Warlock abilities (and one is a Shammy ability-- Shaman power!), but none of them are druid abilities. A bias against droods? Tseric says no, of course, and that if they'd named them after ice cream flavors players would still be complaining, which leads to an amusing use of the phrase "Vanillacoil is overpowered!" Personally, I call Mint Chocolate Chipadins imba, but that's just me.And as to why the names showed up in the first place, I'll guess it has something to do with the upcoming Arena PVP patch. There will be different listings and tables for each grouping, and giving them names will just make it easier to identify which Arena group belongs to which server (not to mention compare them-- I wouldn't be surprised if, maybe a patch or two after the expansion, Blizzard even sets up crossgroup Arena PVP). Meanwhile, if you don't mind, I'll start off the requisite chest thumping: VINDICATION HORDE PWNS J00, NUBZ.
To /afk or not to /afk...
Right now, at least, I'd recommend not. It's hard to walk into a battleground these days without noticing at least one player who's not doing anything but sitting quietly near the battleground entrance gaining honor and reputation. Perhaps they're using a bot or perhaps they're watching a movie and occasionally pressing the space bar -- either way, they're a nuisance at best. And when this post showed up on the customer service forums, I couldn't help but be surprised. Because while Blizzard would previously take action against players using bots or hacks to prevent them from going AFK during a battleground, now they seem to be prepared to act against any players "who are not actively participating" in a battleground. The wording is still very vague, but this could mean a crackdown on AFK players -- regardless of method.
Bears, flags and cross-server queue times
"This PvP thing is quite fun," thought I, several weeks ago.Time passed. Lured on by cheap combat potions, armour and (of course) glory, I've been spending plenty of time attempting to kill Horde recently. I thoroughly enjoy the niche my druid has found in PvP, and have worked hard to become a better player. By slowly but steadily ranking up, the addictive microreward cycle has worked its magic on me, and what began as an experiment to see how far I could get PvPing when I had the time has become something more permanent.Of course, such idyllic stories end in tears; the Drums of War have arrived in Azeroth, bringing with them shortened battleground queues. Previously, it was a case of occasional PvP games (usually short losses to elite teams) fitting nicely in amongst work breaks -- a little light relief from a heavy burden. However, now the queues are almost eliminated, and the games are much longer, I can't multitask any more.All is not lost, however. Despite the joy of being a flag-carrying bear, sometimes it's fun to just get out there and burn faces. My mage alt is old enough to go into AV, and firing pyroblasts with reckless disregard for rank or reputation is a different -- and utterly refreshing -- kind of game.
More on the Battlegrounds Matching System
There have been whispers of some sort of battlegrounds matching system in the past, without any real information on what such a system would try to match. Today, Drysc responded to a post with some additional hints on the kind of the system we can expect. The system will only be viable with the new cross-realm battlegrounds system, due to the increased size of the player pool, and will attempt to match people with specific levels of gear together. It seems like such a matching system would be darned complicated, but if this really works, my Zul'Gurub-geared priest will be quite happy to not again be one-shotted by Ashkandi-wielding warriors. [Thanks, Tommy]
Cross-Realm Battlegrounds... or not.
It seems like just yesterday (or was it actually yesterday?) that the cross-realm battlegrounds were the talk of the town. However, something seems to have gone wrong with the system, as illustrated in the screen-shot to the right, which was taken last night. One Arathi Basin up? One Warsong Gulch? One Alterac Valley? And interestingly enough, they're all full of players from my realm and only my realm. Now, I can't find anything about this on any of the official forums, but it seems to me that cross-realm battlegrounds are... well, not! Are cross-realm battlegrounds down for the count? Blizzard, say it ain't so!
