Alterac Valley WAS a PvP Zone!
by Slipsta | 31/07/2008 02:50:04 It seems that all the world PvP enthusiasts want, aside from encouraged city raids, is a PvP-oriented zone. Yet we've had a PvP zone, and we've had it completely gutted. Alterac Valley was, in every way but one, the PvP zone everybody seems to "want". In the Alterac Valley of old, the primary objective was, yes, to kill the opposing general, but it was also generally accepted that this was not something that could be easily accomplished. Indeed, on some servers, one could leave an Alterac Valley and come back the next day to the exact same game. The focal point of the zone was the frontline, where scores of players battled viciously in an attempt to gain whatever ground they could over the enemy. The Field of Strife used to be named aptly so; the Alliance and the Horde would push from one end of the field to the other and back again for hours upon hours. But the frontline was only the beginning. When not fighting to further the cause, players had a multitude of ways that they could assist the frontline without actually being there. Players used to collect supplies out of the mines to be used in summoning a brigade of powerful soldiers, or tame friendly mounts and hunt the skins of the enemy mounts to bring out the riders. The flesh, blood, ears, skulls, tusks, or feet of the enemy were all potentially used for something, from summoning your god to feeding your flyers. Each side even came complete with their own faction, reputation, and handsome rewards! The one thing that made Alterac Valley not a true PvP zone was just that; it wasn't a zone, it was an instance. Yet, at the same time, that solved what so many people see as a potential issue with PvP zones: faction balancing. In an instance, this is easily controlled, in a pure zone, not so. So why was Alterac Valley gutted, when Blizzard is trying to bring back the exact same concept? Edit; The only people who appear to be opposed to old Alterac Valley are the same people who seem to PvP for the sole purpose of getting gear. The point of Alterac Valley was not to get gear. Let me repeat; The point of Alterac Valley was not to get gear. If you want honor and marks, that's fine. There were two other battlegrounds for you to reap. If you wanted large-scaled, epic, fun battles where time allowed actual tactics and strategies to emerge, then you could play Alterac Valley. True, Alterac Valley was not for everybody, but nobody was forcing you to play. Alterac Valley is one of the few cases I can recall of a large chunk of content being outright removed. To say that Alterac Valley was gutted, downsized, or simplified are all terrible understatements; Alterac Valley was removed and replaced with a PvE race. [ Post edited by Slipsta ] |
by Zarhym | 30/07/2008 15:54:32
This is partially true. Alterac Valley was originally going to be its own zone. We do feel Alterac Valley is fairly well tuned at the moment, though we would like to give players a different type of experience that will include large-scale PvP battles, destructible buildings, siege weapons, and more. These are some of the things planned for the new PvP zone Lake Wintergrasp. There will be a lot of tuning and balancing of the zone done in the coming months. One thing we are looking to do though to help with population imbalances is impose certain benefits for the side with less players in the zone. For instance, since supplies will be necessary to unlock certain vehicles, the side with the population handicap may see a decrease in requirements. We may also offer increasingly more supply benefits for a faction if they are suffering from consecutive losses in Lake Wintergrasp. The goal is to even the playing field regardless of faction population balances across all realms. We plan to give Lake Wintergrasp a definitive play time where the event may last somewhere around 45 minutes. The event would not start again for a set amount of time after the battle is won. We will tune these times as testing further develops. The plan, additionally, is to provide certain incentives for visiting this zone between battles. We'll be sure to provide more information about Lake Wintergrasp as well as the new Battleground as we get closer to releasing them for Beta testing. When does a kid ever get to sit in the yard with a stick anymore? |
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