WoW’s attempt at Open-world PvP

I’ve known for some time that Blizzard would be trying their hand at finally introducing some real open-world PvP in WoW.  The details of said attempt have only recently begun to come into focus.

* Lake Wintergrasp is WoW’s first non-battleground zone solely devoted to PvP action.
* According to a fixed, rolling schedule, one faction will defend the keep/mine, and the other faction will assault it. Both sides will fight over towers and siege workshops scattered around the zone.
* If the attacking force succeeds in capturing the keep/mine, that faction will defend it during the next rotation. If that attacking force fails to capture the final objective before the next rotation, that faction will be given more resources (unknown to what those might be for now)” to balance out the fight, and give every faction a chance to hold Lake Wintergrasp.
* Lake Wintergrasp will feature a variety of new daily quests. These quests include (but are not limited to): quests where you have to ride a mount with an NPC, holding attackers at bay; flying aircraft quests; flying mount quests where you have to lower ropes to evacuate NPCs; in these quests, mounts can hold multiple players!
* Wintergrasp Marks of Honor will drop in the zone. These marks are necessary for honor gear acquired through the Honor system.
* When a faction controls Lake Wintergrasp, bosses in Northrend will drop Spirit shards like objects for that faction only. These objects will be necessary for buying certain PvP gear.
* When you control a tower, you will keep it for a certain amount of time before it becomes available for capture (like the Spirit Towers)
* Before capturing the keep, the walls must be destroyed by weapons.

A fixed schedule, forced swapping, grinding tokens to get gear… yep sounds like Blizzard PvP to me.  They always find a way to turn their pvp into a sporting event or grind…   Yet this is actually a step up for WoW PvP!  To me that does not bode well for WoW’s ability to hold the attention of PvPers beyond the release of WAR.

Blizzard needs to do away with the idea that open-world PvP is nothing more than a larger battleground.  Get rid of the grinding for tokens.  Lose the e-sport happy meal mentality and make it EPIC!  If not then WoW will continue to be the game for people who like e-sport pvp and hamster wheel pve.  It’s probably too late anyway given that the next phase of mmorpg releases marks, in my mind, the further decline of WoW.

If you’re going to add open-world pvp in an expansion rivaling the release of a game that is centered around open-world pvp (rvr) doesn’t it make sense to, at the very least, offer a competitive design?  I think Blizzard would almost be better off trying to create an experience closer to RvR.  At this point who cares if people consider it blatant copying?  Do it right or don’t do it at all.

  • “If you’re going to add open-world pvp in an expansion rivaling the release of a game that is centered around open-world pvp (rvr) doesn’t it make sense to, at the very least, offer a competitive design?”

    Coke does not want to be Pepsi. WoW can not do RvR because it wasn’t built for it. The lake is trying to recapture the Southshore/TM glory days of open world PvP, nothing more, nothing less.

  • I’d be concerned how it’s going to play with the 10 to 1 alliance/horde imbalance on my server. Although it’ll be a nice change to the cross-realm pvp where our horde lose almost every fight.

    speaking of which, regardless of population capping in WAR, I will still be curious how it will go with imbalances (3000chaos vs 3000order could still mean 3000chaos green geared players vs 3000 epic gear players).

  • I was actually just going to write about this, but you’ve covered all my points and more.

    It is a step up for WoW’s PvP but still in some of the wrong directions if you ask me. Once again there’s this assumption that players need artificial incentives to push them along into having fun.

    It’s better than their original FFA PvP assumptions and closed sports-like reaction to the failure of those, but.. yeah well you’re already saying this stuff.

  • I think its funny that for the last 3 or so years, MMOGs have been stealing innovation from blizzard with WoW clones, and now Blizzard are taking it from someone else. At this rate it won’t be long before someone makes an adapter that allows you to transfer your WoW characters into WAR and vice versa =D

  • @Crimson Starfire:

    Innovation from Blizzard?

    WoW has lots going for it, but innovative? Most of the stuff I’ve heard of people giving them credit for, were things they adopted from other games. I give them kudos for a good product, but Diablo was the only game I recall Blizzard innovating much with, and that was via purchased property that became Blizzard North.

    It’s an easy criticism for sure, Blizzard has a lot of high points, that’s not one of them.

  • This blog and the Chaos Cast, which is very good BTW, have convinced me that I need to create a blog to get my opinions out there. No more of this relentless forum stalking. Time to make a stand!

  • @Crimson Starfire: I’m saying list the features you think were innovative in WoW and I bet for each and every one of them someone here can list a game that already had them.

    Do I think they made a poor game? No. Do I think they just ripped off another game? No. I think they mish-mashed a lot of what already existed, then tweaked and fiddled with it in an intelligent game that’s enjoyed by millions. Some great features, but not new ones. That’s what Blizzard is good at.

    The only innovative feature I can actually think of, is the flight path system. Their threat system was fairly evolutionary, that’s close but not quite. The rest? Standard faire, just done well.

  • Blizzard doesn’t seem to get it, that world pvp will fail as well.

    If they want World PvP to truly succeed they need to make it so there isn’t a timer on things you capture, they give meaningful rewards/bonuses. You need to feel like you are affecting the world in someway.

    Blizzard could of made WoW a GREAT world pvp game if they allowed you to capture towns from the start. I still don’t understand why this wasn’t implemented from the start of the game. It’s not like AoC and you only have 1 area to quest in.

  • Halaa 2.0 incoming.

    On any Server with an Imbalance om 2 Alliance on 1 Horde, Wintergrasp will be a nice new Alliance-Town.

    On and something i dont understand: Why is there a Forced PvP-Zone on a Pve-Server?

    And something i will never understand: Why PvP for PvP-Gear?
    Tis only leads to poorly equipped players getting forced to get ripped apart by highly equipped omnes, and they have to.. for their Tokens.
    Real Pvp starts without (OGE) Overwhelming Gear-Advantage.

  • @Sel
    I agree that Halaa 2.0 is coming, unless the town gives worthwhile rewards, and actually feels like you are affecting something. I think the schedule of switching who is in control really makes it pointless though.

    The other thing about WoW that really made me stop liking it, PvP for gear. It wasn’t so bad before arena, because generally the best gear for most players was still only attainable through PVE. They basically killed their PvE with the addition of arenas, why PvE when the gear you get for the most part is useless? Go get Season gear and you can do PvE almost as effectively, and PvP.

  • Well it seems to be mix of Halaa and Terrokar towers with a vehicles/siege twist.

    Nice but I am afraid that:
    – Rewards will be not good and everybody will farm AV still.
    – HUGE faction imbalance on SOME (especially PvE) realms. I rerolled recently on PvE and at lvl 70 A:H ratio is 5:1. Good luck capping it Horde players!

    Ah well at least they are trying. Let them get experience to make Universe of Starcraft better! (hopefully without esport crap)

  • 1st of all Keen@Graev great blog,one of the rare places where i can read objective reviews altho you are stepping into “Mythic fanboy” area from time to time =P.

    And i think people are expecting too much from Blizzard.
    How do you expect them to make meaningful world pvp on a servers that have 25% – 75% balance issues.
    New WoW expansion will be the same as TBC,with several minor innovations like faster mounts ,and the sad thing is that blizzard will again sell gazillions of copyies.

  • @evang

    I don’t know about that. It of course will sell copies, but I bet that unless Warhammer is still not out, most PvP fan won’t care and will switch to WoW.

    The problem is, we are NOT asking too much from a company that makes that much money. But, it is obvious that in the 5 years that WoW has been out they have been putting most of its income into Diablo III, Starcraft II and the ‘other’ titles they have yet to release.

    All of their problems could have been fixed in the 5 years it was out, they really could have. However, without competition, why do they even care? They don’t…

  • was supposed to be, most PvP fans will not care and will NOT switch back to WoW. Sorry, 7 AM and still not to sleep… See, I told you that in the entertainment industry you work insane hours.

  • @Rog:

    What about Auction House? That was pretty innovative. I must admit, it is hard to think of further examples. I retract my first statement.

    @evang:

    Well said.

  • @Photonic
    Ok ok,maybe they won’t sell 10 millions ,or whatever they claimed they sold so far,but it will be a commercial success.

    It is my opinion that WAR won’t take a big chunk of players from WoW ,most of the people who are playing WoW are happy with it in the state it is now.

    Unfortunately i also think that its more and more obvious that marketing is selling the games ,not its quality.
    Could you imagine 5-6 years ago to see a South Park episode with and MMO in it,or a commercial on a TV for one?

  • RE: innovation

    It seems silly to me to equate innovation to being the first to implement a feature. That is not what innovation means and to use it like that in other fields outside mmo’s is to discredit many who are unquestionably innovators.

    WoW has flaws certainly and it also is hard to say they created out of nothing many of the core mechanics of their game. But certainly it makes sense to say they are innovators.

    Before the game came out how many people were familiar with what we say now is standard fare? Millions less, thats for sure.

  • WAR needs to be out first, to be able to say anything about it at all.

    It is pointless the say WAR will do this or that. Talk is cheap. Then reality sets in and you get faction imbalances, zerging, wildy different skills etc.

    If WAR has better PvP the PvP-ers will play WAR. If not they will play WoW, it is that simple really. Currently there is no MMO with more interesting PvP than WoW.

  • Sel: And something i will never understand: Why PvP for PvP-Gear?
    Tis only leads to poorly equipped players getting forced to get ripped apart by highly equipped omnes, and they have to.. for their Tokens.
    Real Pvp starts without (OGE) Overwhelming Gear-Advantage.

    Because it is more logical than having to PvE in order to be competitive in PvP … It was entirely flawed before, where T2 and T3 raid gear equiped plazers would wipe the floor with anyone not in the similar gear, so now people are whining that they cant do that anymore. This way – if you want to have good pvp gear – go and pvp, and if you want to have good pve gear – go and pve. Seems perfectly logical to me.

    I agree big time with your statement about how real PvP starts without overwhelming gear advantage – unfortunately you will never see that in a level based, gear oriented MMO. Levels and gear are just too huge factor for skill to shine. Imagine playing chess, where black has all queens, and white all peons – thats what level gaps and gear dependancy does to PvP.

  • Directly competing against something isn’t always the best option. For example, if one TV station runs comedies from the 7:00 to 8:00 slot, another station, rather than throw 2 comedies of their own into the same slot, may air an hour-long drama instead. This idea is known as counter programming.

    In this case, WAR is set to provide “epic” PvP. Blizzard, which has been cruising just fine over years with its own style of PvP, would rather continue to enhance its own style instead of attempting to directly compete against WAR. In the end, what you get isn’t a mistake on Blizzard’s part, but an intelligent business decision based on a solid understanding of its target audience.

    This idea that WoW needs to learn a thing or two from WAR is ridiculous–and I don’t even like WoW.

  • @Anger: This came up recently elsewhere, I think the word you’re looking for is Implementation, not Innovation.

    Blizzard is great at implementation.

    Innovation, is in fact, produced invention that is substantially different from what came before.

    Success is not an invention, doesn’t matter how mass-market it is. The big question has always been more about how much innovation matters– I’d say it does a great deal. For some of us, we’re entertained more by innovative games *raises his hand* but even if that’s not the case, the rest of the games do follow what others innovate.

    Blizzard is a follower of trends, just glance at their game library and what was already popular in each genre at the time. Diablo is the only exception.

    I’d venture that these new features are in answer to the expectations of AoC’s PvP (however failed, the siege weapon revival in WoW is not coincidental) and WAR’s zone-driven PvP / RvR.

    @Crimson Starfire: I’d actually concede the auction house. Items sales were getting pretty elaborate the way EQ evolved them, but Blizzard put it into a model that made sense for everyone because it matched a real-world modern paradigm people were comfortable with.

    BTW Federation had a player-driven stock market in 1988. Oops, there I go bringing up MUDs again.

  • The whole concept is good, but the Disney Land approach is no fun. Wintergrasp will be something players visit, not something they do. It will probably be fun, but after the initial rush, I don’t see much point to it.

    Plus, if the Wintergrasp rewards aren’t overpowered, no one will give a flying fuck and it will turn into Halaa… something only bored max-level players take part in to farm a few stones for some random +1 foozle.

  • @Alex Taldren

    I am not so sure that I completely agree.

    “For example, if one TV station runs comedies from the 7:00 to 8:00 slot, another station, rather than throw 2 comedies of their own into the same slot, may air an hour-long drama instead.”

    This is an apt analogy for television but I do not believe it fits in a gaming environment.

    What WoW is doing and what Blizzard is (read: very intelligently) doing is adapting to coming threats by refusing to let itself be outclassed.

    In our current situation, WAR is looking large on everyone’s horizon. It looks to bring together a huge mass of wonderful and revolutionary ideas into one game and set a new standard for MMOs. Blizzard, being the smart guys that they are, recognize this threat and acknowledge Mythic’s ability to steal players from their player base. In order to keep this from happening, Blizzard is looking to provide similar sorts of game mechanics that their competition plans on using.

    Mythic is going to bring PvP to an all new level and leave our PvP treadmill in the dust? Well we better step it up and give our players things that are going to keep them playing. It makes perfect sense to me.

    MMOs is a quickly changing environment where the power of the “Trend” rules all. Blizzard sense the slow shift in the Trend and is going to adapt accordingly. Any smart company would. In the coming months, don’t be surprised to learn about things in WotLK or other updates that are shockingly similar to what we’ve heard in WAR.

    The next generation MP3 player is going to have all new features and gadgets? Well our MP3 player better have them too!

  • I think a lot of people who are still playing WoW will look at that list of features and think it sounds like the most exciting thing ever. Blizzard has tons of fans who are thrilled to participate in their hamster wheel design, so offering more of the same makes perfect sense.

    I have a friend still playing WoW in a raiding guild who thinks Lake Wintergrasp sounds awesome. PvP on flying mounts, woo!

    Sigh.

    I agree with you Keen, but Blizzard doesn’t see much point in changing a design philosophy that has netted them millions of subscribers, and they’re probably right. They’re losing players now, and they will continue to lose players, and while changing the design focus of their game could bring some of those people back, I think Blizzard has simply written them off. Let that 20% (or whatever) run off to AoC/WAR, they’ll just keep coasting on their set path and still make millions upon millions in profit.

  • @Bartlebe: You’ve got it bang on if you ask me. Whether Blizzard’s attempt to compete with WAR’s featureset (or AoC’s) is better or worse doesn’t matter as much, because it’s a win-win situation from Blizzard’s position.

    For many players, it will be Blizzard’s attempts that they will see first, regardless of which gets released sooner. If it sucks, a good deal of these players will go “I’ve done that, I didn’t like it”. And if it doesn’t suck, it’ll be “I’m doing that here already”.

    It puts the pressure on the competitors to gather a bigger buzz, something that’s very hard to do.

    It’s in their favour to try to market their PvP changes as matching the competition, whether it actually does or not. They’re definitely following the trends, regardless of whether the competitors (or themselves) pass or fail on it actually being fun.

    It’s marketing savvy. Kind of disappointing really to see their direction dictated this way, but not surprising.

  • The depressing thing is, it will work it will be a succsess and only a few million will leave for WAR but that will still leave what 8mil. Blizzard is gettting lazy because it can, it can do nothing and there will still be millions of subscribers and they will hoarde the cash. Its depressing really.

  • GEAR —-

    the best gear will only be available from raiding and arena. so while lake wintergrasp may be fun, the gear wont be as good as arena, which is really a shame. I would rather run around with 50 or 200 people and eventually get great gear, then deal with the arena again.

    Dont get me wrong i had fun in the arena, but i never broke 1605 as my hunter, and suddenly got to 1780 as my warrior……

    wow arena is BS, and restricting gear to arena only is why i quit.

  • @Bartlebe

    Not quite sure where we disagree, but that could be because of the lack of an edit button.

    @Sylar

    That’s strange… since when was a company doing well by providing a fun experience for over 9 million people depressing?

    Again, just because you like what WAR does and don’t like what WoW does, doesn’t mean that Blizzard is “getting lazy.” And I’m not sure where you’re going with the whole “hoarde the cash,” comment. You mean a company that earned money by selling a product is going to *gasp* keep their money!?

  • I was really just responding to that first paragraph of your post. I know the second paragraph pretty much puts us in agreement. Still…

  • All I see here is: people grinding on a different place. PvP in WOW feels like a big hack.

  • I do believe that this attempt will fail.During the last 4 years Blizzard has been denying World pvp to WoW players and now with the pvp buzz around AoC and WAR RvR coming soon they are all pvp.I see this as a desperate measure to keep pvpers.

    And concerning innovation,I came upon this article which made me laugh and I wonder if this guy knows about what he is talking.

    http://innovation.freedomblogging.com/2008/04/04/11-innovation-lessons-from-creators-of-world-of-warcraft/

  • I’d be a little worried about that if I played the game still or planned to by the expansion. The thing that gets me is you are required to hold the zone for bosses to drop spirit shards in the dungeons.

    That’s awful! Every day for a month I regularly checked the towers in Terokkar trying to find a time that the Horde didn’t control them or that they were going to be down so I could try to capture them. The Horde outnumbered the alliance so bad on the server that by the time I flew over to the towers half of them were already capped by the horde and I was immediately zerged to death upon getting one. Didn’t matter if we tried getting a group the Horde would always come in larger force.

    When we captured Halaa it was only a matter of minutes until horde took it back.

    The idea is fine, but when you throw in a server where one population outnumbers the other 3:1 4:1 and up the whole thing kind of goes down the drain. Not once had I ever seen the towers taken by alliance on that server.

    Then again on other servers I have never seen the horde take them either. So it does go both ways. It’s bad design because a majority of their servers come with a massive population imbalance leaving one faction to dominate the other.

  • @Mike
    Because it is more logical than having to PvE in order to be competitive in PvP … It was entirely flawed before, where T2 and T3 raid gear equiped plazers would wipe the floor with anyone not in the similar gear, so now people are whining that they cant do that anymore. This way – if you want to have good pvp gear – go and pvp, and if you want to have good pve gear – go and pve. Seems perfectly logical to me.

    You are playing an MMORPG, not an FPS. General rule of thumb is you PvE to PvP in these games. WoW decided to change that because people whined about having to actually earn their through the PvE method.

    When you make it so you get PvP gear like WoW, it makes half the game virtually pointless. Why PvE when you can get PvP gear easier that’s nearly the equivalent? For the record I love PvP.

  • @ROG you posted “””It is a step up for WoW’s PvP but still in some of the wrong directions if you ask me. Once again there’s this assumption that players need artificial incentives to push them along into having fun.”””

    What you fail to understand is this: IF Blizard failed to attach some sembalance of reward for doing Lake Wintergrasp then the ZONE WILL FAIL on a grand scale, Just like the Eastern Plagueland towers, Halaa, Forts in hellfire and the spirit towers in bone wastes.

    Every single World PvP objective in WoW has failed MISERABLLY due to the fact they offered no or very limited rewards.

    As long as Instanced PvP Battle Grounds and Arenas are in the game no amount of open world PvP can work unless they offer just as much if not more and better rewards then BG’s/Arenas. Thats it period.

    TM/SS only existed cause there was no other form of PvP in game, take away a persons inate human emotions i.e. greed and then maybe Lake Wintergrasp has a chance to work. Till then if you dont offer rewards for the new zone it will become a ghost town the minute the novelty of it wears off. You jsut cant compete with the human psychie.

    Do I GO to Lake wintergrasp for a couple hours and come away with a lil bit of fun and nothing else or do I do a couple hours of grinding AV, Eots, WSG, and AB and come away with several thousand honor plus marks to buy awesome gear? You see if you break it down as such it becomes a REALLY SIMPLE ANSWER.

    My solution is to make Lake Wintergrasp a Full on PvP Honor farming spot that rewards alternate PvP gear (stuff that cant be purchased with arena points and honor points) and make the gear on par with Arenas and BG Gear but have differnt models, this is the only way to make any successful Open World PvP zone work in Blizzards current iteneration of the game!!!

  • Ignoring any and all intelligent posts regarding this topic, I think it is safe to say yes, this attempt at world PVP will fail along with carrying special sand and capping towers.

    What I believe to be the problem is the time someone puts in taking part in world pvp, does not compare to farming Alterac Valley while watching movies and whatever people do there while sitting at FW keep or Dun Baldar.

    While the above is what I believe to be the problem with world PVP, the problem with PVP itself in WoW is the change of… style it has taken on. Gone are the times of a rogue stunlocking someone to death while they can’t do a damn thing, and not that I think that is… fair, I think it put a level of fear into the game.

    So call me crazy, but the attempt or subtle implementation of this new PVP systen with trinkets that remove all CC and everyone having an intense amount of HP to balance things out, actually toned down the feeling of being able to completely wreck other people just because you have some clue on how to play your class because any person with a third of a brain can hit the staple skill of every class.

    – Please note that post has not been proofread for the reason of me not caring to do so, and the what I have said could have possibly been a splur of seemingly unrelated words.

  • Arena really screwed PvP for most. Lets Play some Spec thats not optimal for Arena, and you can say good bye to gear FOR YOUR SPEC. Why can i get FERAL-GEAR (my chosen Spec) ONLY when i switch to RESTO, get RESTO-GEAR to survive, and then get the Gear i wanted?
    Why do ich have to have a Rating in a Screw-Goblin-Cartels Gladiatorial Games, to BUY some new Boots from my Alliance Outfitter? For Honor i got for fighting for the Alliance?
    Mayor Flaw.
    You know what i liked, hourlong Alterac-Valleys, not for Honor, Marks or cause i need it to be Competitive in some Screw-Goblin-Cartels Arena. Cause it was for the Alliance and Fun.
    The PvP-Gear only led to Guys like: “Full-Epic Hunter seeking Raid… all S2”.

    As said… The Game repeats itself. and after over 3 Years, its simply not Fun anymore.

  • @ Alex Taldren

    First off, I don’t like WOW or WAR and I will not get either. second, Blizzard are getting lazy they are just rehashing what they did before. Put in 10 more levels, put in some raids for gear, put in some battlegrounds for PVP. There you have done the next expansion. They are clearly being lazy and a company getting money in this way is totally wrong, just because they have 9million players happily playing there game doesn’t mean they should stop working for them. But Blizzard of course doesn’t care about this.

    Oh and i say its depressing, because frankly WOW ruined MMOs.

  • @Sws:
    You are playing an MMORPG, not an FPS. General rule of thumb is you PvE to PvP in these games. WoW decided to change that because people whined about having to actually earn their through the PvE method.

    When you make it so you get PvP gear like WoW, it makes half the game virtually pointless. Why PvE when you can get PvP gear easier that’s nearly the equivalent? For the record I love PvP.

    Well it probably comes down to personal preference, but in my opinion, you have to offer the player that likes to PVP to progress through PVP instead of forcing him through PVE so he can be competitive in PVP. For the record, I think wow has one of the worst PVP designs, but I think that is one bright thing they did. Offer people who like different playstyle to excell through that playstyle instead of forcing them to do something else, so that they can be good at it if that makes any sense.

    It did limit raiders who could do the thing they like – raid, and then jump into PVP when bored and kick everyone because of their awesome gear. Now they can’t do that anymore, at least not in that extent, because people who play actively in the battlegrounds and arenas, will have competitive gear. Like I said, from my point it is perfectly logical.

  • @mike

    Two mistakes about the PvP gear approach with WoW. First:
    I believe WoW’s biggest mistake with the gear is making a stat that only it has, resilience. I’d actually be fine with people earning gear through PvP, if it was on the same level as the PvE gear. IE: This would make both PvP and PvE gear viable for both aspects of the game. Right now you can raid just fine (with most classes) in PvP gear, you can’t PvP in Pve gear – unless it’s absolutely the best PVE gear in the game, and even then it’s best to have some PvP gear.

    Second mistake:
    WoW’s system for earning PvP gear is flawed, in that it takes MUCH more work to get top end pve gear. I’m not saying the best season gear is easy to get at all, but in comparison it is. For arena you should of had to win a certain percentage of matches in order to gain points, and if you were below that – you get much less points. The honor farm is a joke, they should reward much more honor for wins, and almost none for losing. That way you don’t get rewarded for losing, and it encourages your side to actually try and win.

    I still believe that because this is an RPG you should have to kill the biggest baddie to get the best gear. It doesn’t make much sense that you can go into a BG and kill terribly geared people and be rewarded this super piece of gear. But since it is a business future MMOs will most likely follow a similar approach by being able to gear through PvP as well. Again, I don’t mind it – my major gripe is it renders PvE gear worthless if they have stats the PvE gear doesn’t. If the armor was virtually the same, just obtained through different methods, honestly it wouldn’t matter.

    And I understand your point, I just think WoW implemented it so badly by adding resilience.

  • @ SwS

    “Right now you can raid just fine (with most classes) in PvP gear, you can’t PvP in Pve gear – unless it’s absolutely the best PVE gear in the game, and even then it’s best to have some PvP gear.”

    Either they make it so that everyone can do everything in both types of gear, or they make it mutually exclusive, where PvP obtained gear is gained through PvP, is good for PvP, and not really good for raiding, and same for raiding gear, obtained through raiding, good for raiding but not really good for PvP – thus creating a balance between the two playstyles.

    I agree that being able to obtain gear through PvP, and be very decent with it in raiding, but not be able to do the same thing with raiding gear in PvP is not good.

  • I think resilence is a good idea, but they implemented it in a weird way. They could just have 2 different stats ( defence and resilence for example), one affecting PvP and have no influence on PvE and the other affecting PVE and having no influence at pvp – I think that was the original idea behind resilence – to destinguish the two kinds of gear, and limit their use in the area they were obtained from.

  • I’m looking forward to LW pvp. Even if it does suffer faction imbalance and no substantive rewards. Even if it is a candyland version of real-world PVP. World pvp in Warcraft is usually so skewed in one faction’s favor anyway that it’s nothing but a lol zerg, so most people just approach it as a trinket while leveling and nothing to expend any effort on.

    And despite War sounding pretty cool and Paul B.’s addictive enthusiasm, I seem to have missed most of the info about how they plan to offset imbalance problems. I understand that everyone will be supposedly taking part in the RvR, but I still don’t see how that turns a 20 on 5 fight into fun.

    It looks to me War will suffer massive imbalance problems. I hope not, but that’s going to keep me from initial retail. I’m not going to invest in a new game only to find out that whether I can win or not depends totally on which faction I chose and which realm he is on.

  • The imbalance concerns are justifiable madi. I’m concerned about them too. However, the fact that a 20 on 5 is possible can be exciting. You and your friends may be the only ones near a keep when it is attacked by an army of enemy players and have to hold out alone until reinforcements can arrive. In DAoC there was always this massive adrenaline rush when the odds were against me. That adrenaline rush kept me playing for a very long time.

  • Personally I think Blizzard did a wonderful job with PvP in this game. First they tried to take the same old argument that has plagued EVERY SINGLE MMO since UO which is, 1 side has superior numbers and will always get steamrolled. BG’s fixed this.

    All in all they did what could be done to help PvP in this game. Resilience is a must needed stat to tone down some of the absurd amount of burst damage in this game, granted certain specs got neutered in the process (demo locks, Fire mages, Ambush Rogues) but for the most part they made it so Burst is still important in PvP but can be minimized with class, talent and skill selection.

    The only thing I feel Blizzard did wrong with PvP is Class balance, Resto Druid, Shs Rogues, Ice Mages, Disc Priests, SL/SL Locks are all overly powerful, Warriors are on the other hand a perfect example of class balance. Warrs have Great Burst, the best anti-healer skill in the game, and great mobility when paired with a healer. However we suffer from not having a certain class behind us cleansing/healing us making us that juggernaut.

    To the poster who thinks “you can raid with PvP gear” you are sorely mistaken, unless you count heroics and kara as raiding. Any good player worth his wait in salt with PvE gear will do substantially more damage or healing plus have the sustainability to last an entire boss fight without going OOM. (p.s. the first boss of ssc/tk/hyjal arnt really raid bosses nor are gruul, mag or world bosses as such pvp gear can work for those, but pvp gear will not let you down archimonde or lady Vashj while still level 70)

    PvE to PvP is a stupid and meaningless endeavor and im glad Blizzard did away with it this rewards the casual and the person who picks his poison.

    Realm balance will always be a source for concern in any world pvp encounter so deal with it, you cant have everything in the game.

  • I think Resilience a bad idea, cause it clearly says: This is for PvP.. or this is for PvE.

    If i want to play both parts of the game, i effectively have to change Talents and switch Gear = i play a diffrent Char in diffrent gear.
    In WoW, PvP and PvE dosnt feel like the same Game anymore. i HAVE to chance my Char to play either one or the other. And pay 50g to enyoy another aspect of the Game.
    Why? In other games i can do both in the same Gear.

    Ideal:
    Think about having 2 Ways of gearing up, PvP and PvE.
    Surely the one that kills Ilidan would have snazzy Gear in BGs too. but then, a Grand Marshal had the same. In classic WoW we had People with PvP gear doing the comparable damage as T-geared ones, and it was fine.
    This leads to: But its easy to Afk in a BG to get gear, we raid daily, and kill bosses to get Gear, its not fair?

    The Root of Evil there is a simple Premise of WoW:

    DO THINGS FOR GEAR

    Sadly, Gear became the only Motivation in WoW. Sure you can say, “i dont raid for Gear, i raid to see a Boss fall”. Yeah sure, but it still feals cool to get a nifty new Weapon. And Frankly, after the first kill, its farming repeatedly for Gear.

    In Other games, there are Bosses and Quests giving Decorations, as your Motivation to kill the Guy, be it a bedroll for your Player-Room (eq2) to the 4meter Blade of Thaurlach to display in the Front of your House (Lotro).
    Or a Boss drops a Scroll that allows a Bard to teach a certain Instrument to a Class who usually cant play that (Lotro) Or a component fot Craft a really cool Blaster that just hits harder (SWG). Or a Title to Display.

    WoW did the same with some Prestige-Mounts and a few titles, but could do a lot more. I think, in WAR there will be things like Extra Spikes for Shoulders, or a new Backpack-Banner to display on your Char for certain efforts.

    There so much more to motivate Players that “just Epix”.

  • I hate how every bashes on WoW, okay so I love WoW. Sure I’m not playing it and taking a break right now, waiting for the expansion.

    You can maybe see though, I feel like a guy that likes planting flowers. Then to just have everyone come and bash on what I like doing, saying it’s girly or gay. That I should just give up planting the flowers because it’s not fun to them and they find it stupid. To join them and build a house because thats what everyones doing.

    That’s how I feel. Why should you constantly bash on me for what I like playing? On the company I love, Blizzard? On the people I care about making the games? Why must everyone critisize every bit of what I like doing?

    All us 10mil gamers, we love WoW. Not because we don’t know any better and that we’re stuck in a “hamster wheel” and are to stupid to know. There’s so much to WoW than people notice, we have a nice passion for Blizzard and their games.

    Now go play WAR, have fun. I’m not going to make fun of you for it, or your company.

    Thank you Hazzerd, from server Gorefiend…

  • Wait. What exactly did Blizzard do wrong? How many subs do they have again? You all fail.