12-30-2006, 07:21 AM
So in the interest of testing the beta fully, I've been playing around with the various pvp features. Most of the world encounters are pretty straightforward. You flag pvp, you stand in X area, and the more of you there doing the same, the faster it goes. Other faction doesn't like it, they try to keep you out of it. Pvp ensues.
Enter Nagrad and Halaa. Nagrad is a simply beautiful zone (Take the Barrens, add in some STV, toss in some Lion King, and you have the zone. I found it a very nice zone to be in. In the center is the much ballyhoo'ed "PvP town".
The concept is cool. The town is in the middle, the faction holding it can, and those combatting for it have 4 flightpoints from which they can bomb the city and it's guards. Or the PC's, if they stand in the bombs. These bombs hit you for around 1000/tick, so you probably don't want to stand in them too long.
If you win the town, you get 15 NPC defenders. The easiest way to deal with these is from the air, as they can't do anything to you. But if you have a sufficient raid force, you can just overrun the town without too much worry. You cap the town much like you would an AV node, and it eventually gets 'won' by whichever faction capped. From that instant on, your guards can be firebombed, so it could be a pretty fast paced back and forth.
The problem as I see it, is that it won't be. Horde aren't likely to give a damn about Halaa. There is no zone wide buff for holding it (truth be told, the zone wide shouts about it get pretty annoying, pretty fast, whichever side you hold). There is no 'extra' honor in holding, nor is there really any honor in holding it. The only reason to have Halaa on "your" side is to turn in a repeatable quest, or buy some pvp stuff from their shops. It makes things a wee bit faster, as you can cut through there, repair, and sell, cutting off some travel time. With the faction imbalance on most servers, this area of pvp is likely to be lost in the shuffle as the Horde just won't be bothered with it.
Sadly, I don't see this world pvp feature going very far, which is a shame, as it seems to have some potential.
When I logged on today, Blizz's MotD was a call to arms. They wanted to "pressure test" the Eye of the Storm BG between certain times. As I'd logged on 1/2 after their requested times started, I dutifully went to Shattrath and queued up. Shattrath is the only place in the Outlands you'll find BattleMasters, btw.fI had tried to queue up once before, but after 1 1/2 hours gave up on it. The continual "bonging" of the pvp signet to mark off every minute you are in queue gets old fast.
Anyhow, After a 14 minute wait, I got my summons. Now, I knew little about this BG, having not looked at anything before hand about it. But a couple of folks in /general were talking about it beforehand, and it was described at "a cross between AB and WSG". And that pretty much sums it up. It's a "mineral" race to 2000, with a capture the flag element tossed in.
There are 4 nodes to hold, 2 on each side of a gaping chasm. The more nodes you hold, the faster you gain minerals, obviously. For the majority of the game I was in (It went just over 1/2 hour) each side held 2 nodes, with the Alliance occasionally stealing a third from the Horde for a bit. The Horde was able to disrupt our nodes, but never fully capture them.
There are three bridges across the chasm. One at each node, and one in the center. In the center of the center bridge is the flag. You tap the flag and boot it to ANY node your faction holds. Each successful run seemed to earn the flagrunners around 100 minerals...so you can't ignore the flag, as it resets seconds after a capture. IIRC, there were about 15 flag captures, most by our side, some by the Horde. Alliance did end up winning.
The map is really easy to get the hang of, though the scenery may distract you your first couple of times in there. It's very shiny. The bridges are somewhat narrow, and thus is pvp forced. Fears are huge in there. Luckily, you can't be feared or Screamed off the edge of the bridge. As well, you can't reach the flag node from the edges of the land mass. You have to get out onto the bridge if you want to play with the flag.
For a Marks hunter, I found this to be a pretty ideal setup, as I could hang back some, send the melee up the bridge for the flag, then pick and choose my targets from optimal ranges.
I did find this bg to be pretty fun (coming from my mostly PvE background) but also found that it started to 'drag' some, as the fight wound down. It was fairly close (we beat them 2000/1700) but there was no sense of urgency, just "are we done yet?"As a pug team of 15 players, it was pretty good. When you get serious teams of 15 in there, it'll get pretty one sided pretty fast I think.
But that's not stopped WSG or AB from being played, so it shouldn't affect this much, either. Overall, I enjoyed this one, and imagine I'll be spending a good portion of my pvp time in the Eye.
Enter Nagrad and Halaa. Nagrad is a simply beautiful zone (Take the Barrens, add in some STV, toss in some Lion King, and you have the zone. I found it a very nice zone to be in. In the center is the much ballyhoo'ed "PvP town".
The concept is cool. The town is in the middle, the faction holding it can, and those combatting for it have 4 flightpoints from which they can bomb the city and it's guards. Or the PC's, if they stand in the bombs. These bombs hit you for around 1000/tick, so you probably don't want to stand in them too long.
If you win the town, you get 15 NPC defenders. The easiest way to deal with these is from the air, as they can't do anything to you. But if you have a sufficient raid force, you can just overrun the town without too much worry. You cap the town much like you would an AV node, and it eventually gets 'won' by whichever faction capped. From that instant on, your guards can be firebombed, so it could be a pretty fast paced back and forth.
The problem as I see it, is that it won't be. Horde aren't likely to give a damn about Halaa. There is no zone wide buff for holding it (truth be told, the zone wide shouts about it get pretty annoying, pretty fast, whichever side you hold). There is no 'extra' honor in holding, nor is there really any honor in holding it. The only reason to have Halaa on "your" side is to turn in a repeatable quest, or buy some pvp stuff from their shops. It makes things a wee bit faster, as you can cut through there, repair, and sell, cutting off some travel time. With the faction imbalance on most servers, this area of pvp is likely to be lost in the shuffle as the Horde just won't be bothered with it.
Sadly, I don't see this world pvp feature going very far, which is a shame, as it seems to have some potential.
When I logged on today, Blizz's MotD was a call to arms. They wanted to "pressure test" the Eye of the Storm BG between certain times. As I'd logged on 1/2 after their requested times started, I dutifully went to Shattrath and queued up. Shattrath is the only place in the Outlands you'll find BattleMasters, btw.fI had tried to queue up once before, but after 1 1/2 hours gave up on it. The continual "bonging" of the pvp signet to mark off every minute you are in queue gets old fast.
Anyhow, After a 14 minute wait, I got my summons. Now, I knew little about this BG, having not looked at anything before hand about it. But a couple of folks in /general were talking about it beforehand, and it was described at "a cross between AB and WSG". And that pretty much sums it up. It's a "mineral" race to 2000, with a capture the flag element tossed in.
There are 4 nodes to hold, 2 on each side of a gaping chasm. The more nodes you hold, the faster you gain minerals, obviously. For the majority of the game I was in (It went just over 1/2 hour) each side held 2 nodes, with the Alliance occasionally stealing a third from the Horde for a bit. The Horde was able to disrupt our nodes, but never fully capture them.
There are three bridges across the chasm. One at each node, and one in the center. In the center of the center bridge is the flag. You tap the flag and boot it to ANY node your faction holds. Each successful run seemed to earn the flagrunners around 100 minerals...so you can't ignore the flag, as it resets seconds after a capture. IIRC, there were about 15 flag captures, most by our side, some by the Horde. Alliance did end up winning.
The map is really easy to get the hang of, though the scenery may distract you your first couple of times in there. It's very shiny. The bridges are somewhat narrow, and thus is pvp forced. Fears are huge in there. Luckily, you can't be feared or Screamed off the edge of the bridge. As well, you can't reach the flag node from the edges of the land mass. You have to get out onto the bridge if you want to play with the flag.
For a Marks hunter, I found this to be a pretty ideal setup, as I could hang back some, send the melee up the bridge for the flag, then pick and choose my targets from optimal ranges.
I did find this bg to be pretty fun (coming from my mostly PvE background) but also found that it started to 'drag' some, as the fight wound down. It was fairly close (we beat them 2000/1700) but there was no sense of urgency, just "are we done yet?"As a pug team of 15 players, it was pretty good. When you get serious teams of 15 in there, it'll get pretty one sided pretty fast I think.
But that's not stopped WSG or AB from being played, so it shouldn't affect this much, either. Overall, I enjoyed this one, and imagine I'll be spending a good portion of my pvp time in the Eye.
~Not all who wander are lost...~