WoW: Battlefield wait times

Shadows

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Hi everyone. Some of you may have noted that I don't post as
often anymore. My free time has been consumed by the World of
Warcraft.

Recently Blizzard released two battlefields which are essentially
instances for PvP. The Warsong Gulch is a quick 10 versus 10
capture the flag instance and the Alterac Valley is a massive
battlefield with 40 versus 40 and a ton of side quests.

If you're not aware of this check out:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/

I wanted to ask regulars of this NG what their experience has
been with the battlefields. Please don't cross post it to the WoW
newsgroup. There's are threads there already on this topic but
the substance is lacking.

My own experience thus far has not been too good. I like what
they did with the battlefields but the execution is poor due to a
few obstacles:

I play Alliance on Lightbringer and I noticed the Horde
population on that realm is abysmal. Last night after signing up
for the queue to Warsong Gulch I mounted up and went with some
friends to the Horde entrance and found only ONE level 20 warrior
sitting outside. He walked up and uttered "Mu" in Orcish. It
means "Hi".

Due to the low Horde population Alliance suffers hour long queues
before we can get in. The last six battles ended prematurely
because all the horde players exited as soon as the battle had
begun. We still got the talisman, but what a disappointment.

I understand that you can go and "adventure" while waiting in the
queue without losing your spot, but it's impossible to go do an
instance when a pop up window will come up and port you out any
minute. It's unfair to your group members. Consequently queue
waiting time is typically spent outside of the portal dueling and
practicing PvP (which is actually fun when done right).

Several other weaknesses of the battlefields came up when we did
have an enemy to fight. Healers will almost never heal as they
would if our group was fighting NPCs. All the priests and
paladins go on the offensive because the Honor system rewards
points based on damage. Crowd control spells are almost
completely unseen unless a caster is attacked directly. This is
extremely disappointing but I can't blame the players for wanting
their honor points.

There is one exception. When I grab the flag in Warsong the
healers will heal me as I get the snot kicked out of me.

Warsong, especially, suffers from the "too easy" problem. Even
when the Horde were organized both sides would get the flag and
hide it. This would lead to a prolonged battle until one of us
found the other teams flag and reclaimed it. I really think they
should have made the fortresses in Warsong have defenses like
Alterac. That way an all out zerg would not necessarily work.

And boy, do I see zerging in Warsong.

That being said the most exciting time I've had in WoW is on the
battlefield. I do think Blizzard has done a wonderful job of
balancing the classes to the point where you DO need to practice
a lot before you get good.

I went from dying a lot in the beginning to taking out multiple
opponents in a matter seconds. FYI, I play a sword specced combat
rogue most of the time in PvP.
 
G

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"shadows" <shadows@whitefang.com> wrote in message
news:slrndbcvkd.24ih.shadows@helena.whitefang.com...
> Due to the low Horde population Alliance suffers hour long queues
> before we can get in.

I play on a pretty balanced server but it's low pop. Therefore, Warsong
games are usually available but Alterac is a tough one to join since there
are rarely enough people to kick-start it.

> Several other weaknesses of the battlefields came up when we did
> have an enemy to fight. Healers will almost never heal as they
> would if our group was fighting NPCs. All the priests and
> paladins go on the offensive because the Honor system rewards
> points based on damage. Crowd control spells are almost
> completely unseen unless a caster is attacked directly. This is
> extremely disappointing but I can't blame the players for wanting
> their honor points.

I thought honor was awarded to the raid/party and then split evenly among
its members?

> Warsong, especially, suffers from the "too easy" problem. Even
> when the Horde were organized both sides would get the flag and
> hide it. This would lead to a prolonged battle until one of us
> found the other teams flag and reclaimed it. I really think they
> should have made the fortresses in Warsong have defenses like
> Alterac. That way an all out zerg would not necessarily work.

But that's what I like about Warsong. Two ten-man "zergs" clashing in
midfield. Or smashing headfirst into a bunch of the opposition screaming up
our tunnel. Or finding and capping our flag at the top of their base (its
always at the top of their base...Horde is always under the saw, FYI).
 

Shadows

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On 2005-06-20, CCCP1 <nobody@nothanks.not> wrote:
> "shadows" <shadows@whitefang.com> wrote in message
> news:slrndbcvkd.24ih.shadows@helena.whitefang.com...

>> Several other weaknesses of the battlefields came up when we did
>> have an enemy to fight. Healers will almost never heal as they
>> would if our group was fighting NPCs. All the priests and
>> paladins go on the offensive because the Honor system rewards
>> points based on damage. Crowd control spells are almost
>> completely unseen unless a caster is attacked directly. This is
>> extremely disappointing but I can't blame the players for wanting
>> their honor points.
>
> I thought honor was awarded to the raid/party and then split evenly among
> its members?

You're right. I'm not sure why they don't heal now...