Battlegrounds Preview

[MongoJerry]

A battlegrounds preview:

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

[LochnarITB]

As much as I loath random PvP, these organized battlegrounds sound FUN! I look forward to trying it. I found the portal to the battleground a couple days ago at the end of a long cave. I assumed it was just an instance that hadn't been implemented yet. I wonder how soon this will actually get to us. One question that comes immediately to mind is the alliance -vs- horde population on most servers. Aren't the horde far outnumbered? Will it be possible to pull together similar forces from each side or will the alliance simply swarm over the horde? Will there be something that limits the forces for each side? Anyway, I will be glad to give this a try and hope it is soon.

[Kevin]

As much as I loath random PvP, these organized battlegrounds sound FUN!  I look forward to trying it.  I found the portal to the battleground a couple days ago at the end of a long cave.  I assumed it was just an instance that hadn't been implemented yet.  I wonder how soon this will actually get to us.  One question that comes immediately to mind is the alliance -vs- horde population on most servers.  Aren't the horde far outnumbered?  Will it be possible to pull together similar forces from each side or will the alliance simply swarm over the horde?  Will there be something that limits the forces for each side?  Anyway, I will be glad to give this a try and hope it is soon.
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I must concur with all of this. This looks like a good way to implement PvP that will be fun for lots of people.

Of course I would still rather see Guild Housing first, but that may just be me.

[Artega]

Been wetting myself with anticipation. There was a fairly large skirmish just outside of Tarren Mill today - about ten Alliance killed me and my party while we were having a dance party over a few ogre corpses, to which around fifteen other Horde (in addition to the five in my party) responded by kicking much ass. Ah, the joys of PvP servers :)

[Bob the Beholder]

Been wetting myself with anticipation.  There was a fairly large skirmish just outside of Tarren Mill today - about ten Alliance killed me and my party while we were having a dance party over a few ogre corpses, to which around fifteen other Horde (in addition to the five in my party) responded by kicking much ass.  Ah, the joys of PvP servers :)
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So there are people in PVP servers who actually fight eachother? Last Alliance member I met was a level '??' Human paladin named Amhar. He followed me around for a while, and waved.

Then he started dancing.

Eventually he just left.

(Okay, so I was in a Horde area, and so low that I wasn't about to attack him, but still. It's funny.)

[Raven Vale]

I played DAoC for quite some time , I did everything I could to keep my interest up , I made characters on different servers , hit the level cap , made more alts than I dare remember , and in the end I did something I said I would never do , I sunk my cash into crafting . It did'nt take me long to get to Grandmaster tailor , I think within 2-3 days I had made something like 17 platinum , a lot of cash , I had had some great luck making masterpiece cloth and people would pay a lot of money for full sets etc . I remember that after those first few days of raking the cash in , it was time for me to leave DAoC , I had done everything , well not quite . A friend suggested I joined him in the "battlegrounds" , ok why not , I had a young assassin at just the right level . What can I say , this was probably the best experience of my nearly 2 years in that game , wow , it was so much fun , killing and being killed , it really did'nt matter if it was one sided one way or the other , everyone just seemed to lap it up , and then after so many kills you could'nt enter that lowbie battleground "cry" I did not want to grow up , I did not want to go in the next battleground for higher levels , the fun was here and now , wait , I have another character this young woohoo , prepare to die infidels........ A fantastic experience , I am hoping when Euro release is here , not only will I enjoy the the whole WoW thing but that the battlegrounds will be just has good , if not better .

[Artega]

So there are people in PVP servers who actually fight eachother?  Last Alliance member I met was a level '??' Human paladin named Amhar.  He followed me around for a while, and waved. 

Then he started dancing.

Eventually he just left. 

(Okay, so I was in a Horde area, and so low that I wasn't about to attack him, but still.  It's funny.)
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Yeah, we get a lot of that. While wandering around in the Wetlands (Alliance-favored Contested), I occasionally stopped to help (read: save their ass) low-level Alliance people while on my way to kill evil orcs for their shinbones (Warrior quests are so much fun.) Most of the time they'd freak out and run away, teleport away, or Hearthstone away, but a couple of them chose to pick a fight with someone clearly out of their league (given that I was at least 13 levels higher than the highest-level that I saw, I was probably showing up as Level ??), and died a violent and bloody death for it.

Booty Bay is generally a lot of fun - many dance parties, much snowball-throwing, and the occasional skirmish in between guard patrols.

[Rinnhart]

So there are people in PVP servers who actually fight eachother?  Last Alliance member I met was a level '??' Human paladin named Amhar.  He followed me around for a while, and waved. 

Then he started dancing.

Eventually he just left. 

(Okay, so I was in a Horde area, and so low that I wasn't about to attack him, but still.  It's funny.)
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There's a ton of constant fighting in Hillsbrad and Ashenvale. I used to leave high twenties and thirties alone in those areas until I had a peaceful encounter with a 30 hunter that I later found butchering a party of twenties just out of Darkshore.

The constant raids by 50+ undead don't do much to encourage interracial cooperation, of course.

[MongoJerry]

The constant raids by 50+ undead don't do much to encourage interracial cooperation, of course.

Raids by 50+ undead? Please, those are just response attacks to the usual alliance gankfests in Hillsbrad. Alliance is responsible for 80% of the ganking in Hillsbrad, and any similar Horde response is an attempt to retrieve an important Horde questing area for lowbie Horde players. There are very few Alliance quests in Hillsbrad itself, since most of the quests in Southshore are directed at Alterac. If an Alliance player is hanging out in Hillsbrad proper, they're only doing one thing: ganking. All Alliance who are not actively going to Alterac or returning to Southshore deserve to die. Period.

After playing Horde for over a month after playing Alliance on a PvP server for six months, I can understand now all the complaints that Horde players made in the beta. Alliance players just have it too easy. They have three "contested" zones all to themselves -- Redridge, Duskwood, and the Wetlands. It's easy to get to level 30 without ever venturing into a zone with questing players of the opposing faction. The only zone that Horde gets like that is the northern half of 1k Needles and even there there's enough alliance traffic as players make their way to the racetrack in the shimmering flats.

I used to sympathize with Bolty's plight of dealing with the level 60 mage who ran around the lake in Redridge, ganking all the lowbies. But the more I've played Horde, the more I've begun sympathizing with the mage. Simply put, Alliance players do not die enough. They always outnumber the Horde, and they have all these vast stretches of areas all to themselves. When a high level Horde player kills a low level Alliance player, it's not ganking. It's equalization.

(The previous paragraph was done tongue-in-cheek. Alright, only partly tongue-in-cheek).

[Artega]

You're my hero.

I guess Horde is outnumbered because all the hot women are on the Alliance side (though Orc women don't exactly look bad :) ), but it is pretty lopsided.

We had a little skirmish outside of Refuge Pointe with a bunch of Alliance when they ganked one of my party members. We were winning because of the level differences at first, but as the skirmish continued, more Alliance kept flying and riding in, and we soon found ourselves outnumbered nearly 3-to-1.