World PvP preview [WoW]

[Torrid]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

DPS warriors also get owned in PvP, depending on how they spec. Many of my friends are among the so-called "raid DPS" warriors and they get dominated by mages and warlocks in blues, epic or no epic. MS Warriors beat Fury Warriors unless the gear gap is so large that you might as well argue that only Alliance raids; and even then, what about them holy priests, huh? What about those resto druids and pure marksmen hunters? Combat rogues and SB-spam warlocks? Raiders do not typically have optimal PvP builds, and that tends to make up for the fact that they have better gear.

Does your guild do nothing but duel? Warriors are the most powerful PvP class in the game when they have support.

Raiders will CRUSH anybody not an an equally organized guild, regardless of gear or spec, because the raiders will be using vent, playing with the same people all the time, etc. The only possible disadvantage they could ever face would be to face a hardcore PvP guild team full of people with rank 13+ gear.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

See how many of them are nearly even? I'm talking about PvP servers, buddy - people who *play* to PvP.

I see seven servers with a horde population advantage. Remind me again how many PvP servers there are? How long do you think those seven will last with transfers available?

Originally Posted by Etadanik

Alliance will get dominated by Horde because half of them don't want to even fight.

What server do you play on? I'd love to play there. My server-- which is one of the new servers that opened at the end of March-- is full of Horde that are ex-Alliance players that went Horde because they got their shit packed in by real Horde on their old server. Likewise, a lot of Alliance are ex-Horde that either wanted to play the other side of the content or wanted paladin ez-mode. Hence my server's Alliance spank my server's ex-Alliance faggot Horde.

Even on my original server, the Horde players used to PvP a lot better at first. Then eventually the Alliance zerg got better over time. You can only get so much better at the game, so the gap narrowed. Combined with the Alliance PvE ez-mode resulting in them out gearing us, they eventually ended up stomping all but the Horde uber guild pre-arranged teams.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

those servers where bi-weekly Southshore raids still happen, and where people still have massive world PvP battles despite the coming of BGs. True PvP servers.

Uh, can you list these servers? Seriously? I'm looking to play on a server with Horde PvP guilds that are actually hardcore enough to be interested in killing city leaders. So far my search has located all of two US servers that have so much as killed the dwarf king. One of which used the city terrain to their advantage if you get what I mean.

[Etadanik]

Does your guild do nothing but duel? Warriors are the most powerful PvP class in the game when they have support.

Nice dodge. In PvP: MS Warrior + Support > Fury/Prot Warrior + Support. Shadow Priests > Holy Priests. Survival/Marks Hunter > DPS Marks Hunter. And the list goes on.

Raiders will CRUSH anybody not an an equally organized guild, regardless of gear or spec, because the raiders will be using vent, playing with the same people all the time, etc. The only possible disadvantage they could ever face would be to face a hardcore PvP guild team full of people with rank 13+ gear.

Because obviously Horde is full of soloers who can't work together if their life depended on it, and Alliance is full of organized guilds that CRUSH all Horde they come across. In that case - they fucking deserve to lose, numbers or no numbers.

I see seven servers with a horde population advantage. Remind me again how many PvP servers there are? How long do you think those seven will last with transfers available?

Because Horde has to have an advantage in order to win, right? I thought you wanted PARITY? Besides, a small population imbalance is a non-issue and is unavoidable. Even in BGs you fight with a population imbalance half the times due to people leaving/not enough people queueing up/etc. My point was in response to your idiocy suggesting that all the 2.8:1 ratio PvE servers as a generalization of World PvP when they NEVER HAD WORLD PVP.

What server do you play on? I'd love to play there. My server-- which is one of the new servers that opened at the end of March-- is full of Horde that are ex-Alliance players that went Horde because they got their shit packed in by real Horde on their old server. Likewise, a lot of Alliance are ex-Horde that either wanted to play the other side of the content or wanted paladin ez-mode. Hence my server's Alliance spank my server's ex-Alliance faggot Horde.

Even on my original server, the Horde players used to PvP a lot better at first. Then eventually the Alliance zerg got better over time. You can only get so much better at the game, so the gap narrowed. Combined with the Alliance PvE ez-mode resulting in them out gearing us, they eventually ended up stomping all but the Horde uber guild pre-arranged teams.

Emerald Dream. Have fun winning 90+% of the battles in AV and laughing at the Alliance PvP retards that never got past MC (and yet repeatedly queues up for AV, for some reason, hence making sure Alliance never wins). But plenty of PvP servers are like as you said - in the beginning one faction dominates, then they get bored and another one dominates, and the cycle repeats (or doesn't, in the case of ED). The reason that happens is because there's no point to world PvP - and so the winning faction gets tired of winning and the losing faction gets a chance. And then the losing faction gets tired of winning and world PvP just dies - ED is not there yet, but unless Blizzard starts paying attention to world PvP, every PvP server will eventually reach that point.

Uh, can you list these servers? Seriously? I'm looking to play on a server with Horde PvP guilds that are actually hardcore enough to be interested in killing city leaders. So far my search has located all of two US servers that have so much as killed the dwarf king. One of which used the city terrain to their advantage if you get what I mean.

No guild in the game is currently interested in killing city leaders. You know why? Because of having to fight through a billion DK mobs for little or no honor gain while Alliance 0 honor noobs zerg you is too much for even the most hardcore to endure for long. However, ED has plenty of town raids, esp. on Southshore. Just be ready to fight them forever because town guards that hit for 200+ repop every five minutes or something.

[Hebbin]

Success in WoW isn't designed for pvp from the ground up. It's a heavily gear and levels based game. The importance of gear and levels means that people get stuck on the never ending loot treadmill so they keep up in pvp. This even carries over into stuff like how the honor system works. While I still played, I accumulated most of my faction and honor semi-afk in AV. How this merits a great pvp title and gear, I don't know.

Solution:Create a pvp server where you level fastest by killing players and guards. Ensure pvp gear is just as good as pve gear and can be earned quickly. Eliminate the instanced pvp in favor of world pvp.

Another problem is that there is a two team system with no ingame method of communication between the two. If one team started winning and destroying the cities of the losing side, you need artificial mechanisms to step in and help to losers. I really doubt the developers would ever let Ironforge fall to horde catapults.

Solution: Allow both sides to talk to each other. Inform all the members of this server that they need to use the /filter and ignore commands if they have an issue with someone in chat instead of paging a gm. Eliminate global and trade chat. Instead, create a voting system whereby each side can elect commanders who have the ability to create pvp alerts for their side. It would kind of be like sounding the horn from the battle of helm's deep. There could also be mines in the world to control and extra guards to place which could be rented for gold (coming from donations and from the mines).

The two team system with no ingame communication also means there is no room for any sort of politics. Treaties, alliances, spies, and all that good stuff make up a great deal of the fun in pvp games and create topics for discussion on message boards. The only reason I remember some of the guilds we fought against was so I knew when to quit out of warsong to get a pug as out next opponent.

Solution: The election system I mentioned above would get people involved in server politics. If you think the WoW boards are crazy now, imagine what they would look like with this system in.

There's no real penalty for death. I was never scared to die or experienced a rush from winning a battle that I shouldn't have been able to win. An example is when I attacked two characters 1v2. Just as I finished killing both of them, the first one down showed up to finish me off. It was a pretty big letdown.

Solution: Pvp deaths should suck gold, items, and exp out of the server. They should give it back to players at a similar rate that they leave the server. Let the horde collect resources and gold to siege stormwind which would be collected through donations and the control of mines on the map. When they siege stormwind, place trebuchets and tents outside stormwind for a week as the horde sets up so the alliance will know it's coming. When the siege starts, the horde has to kill a commander inside stormwind etc and then all the shops in stormwind are disabled for a week before it returns to normal. Something along those lines. The players won't mind because they knew what they were signing up for when the server started.

[Torrid]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

Nice dodge. In PvP: MS Warrior + Support > Fury/Prot Warrior + Support. Shadow Priests > Holy Priests. Survival/Marks Hunter > DPS Marks Hunter. And the list goes on.

I merely pointed out that raiders will very rarely (if at all) have to face any sort of team that could possibly have any advantage over them-- if they are PvPing with their guild. This in response to your "wah, PvE speced raiders get owned in PvP" paragraph.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

Because Horde has to have an advantage in order to win, right? I thought you wanted PARITY? Besides, a small population imbalance is a non-issue and is unavoidable. Even in BGs you fight with a population imbalance half the times due to people leaving/not enough people queueing up/etc. My point was in response to your idiocy suggesting that all the 2.8:1 ratio PvE servers as a generalization of World PvP when they NEVER HAD WORLD PVP.

First of all, I never suggested that. Secondly, my point in mentioning the few servers with any sort of Horde population advantage was that the other end of the scale would have to be much larger in favor of the Alliance, and it is. It's nowhere near that of PvE servers, but it is still signifficant. Half the PvP servers have 1.2:1 or more in favor of the manginas.

Originally Posted by Etadanik

No guild in the game is currently interested in killing city leaders. You know why? Because of having to fight through a billion DK mobs for little or no honor gain while Alliance 0 honor noobs zerg you is too much for even the most hardcore to endure for long. However, ED has plenty of town raids, esp. on Southshore. Just be ready to fight them forever because town guards that hit for 200+ repop every five minutes or something.

Retribution killed Thrall twice. I've seen a few posts of other Alliance guilds that have killed Thrall without even looking for them. I've found two guilds that have killed the Dwarf king ever when I searched for them.

But I guess the Horde just cares WAY more about their rank than Alliance? They would have to if as you say, the Horde dominate the Alliance, right?

Personally, I don't PvP to rank or get gear. I PvP to kill people like you. Alliance who complain how badly they have it when they have every advantage.

[Jimb0v]

Originally Posted by Etadanik

No guild in the game is currently interested in killing city leaders. You know why? Because of having to fight through a billion DK mobs for little or no honor gain while Alliance 0 honor noobs zerg you is too much for even the most hardcore to endure for long. However, ED has plenty of town raids, esp. on Southshore. Just be ready to fight them forever because town guards that hit for 200+ repop every five minutes or something.

Risk vs. Reward

People should remember this example of something that is fun that noone does because of risk vs. reward. I have killed most of the horde leaders in the game. It was a blast. But I would never do it again because its completely pointless.

Obviously Blizzard doesn't want people raiding towns which is why they don't put any incentive to do so. Perhaps I'm getting offtopic but I just hate when peopple bitch about how hardcore raiders only play for advancement and the "casuals" all play for fun. I don't see these casuals organizing and raid town leaders. Seems like one of the most fun things you could do from an abstract point of view.

[Cad]

It's not that casuals "play for fun". They just have a lower threshold of what kind of bullshit they are willing to put up with for the sake of advancement. Hardcores by definition will do nearly anything for the allmighty progression - casuals are obviously motivated by progression and advancement as much as a hardcore, they just have a much softer tolerance for crap.

The best game is going to be the one that cuts out most of the crap and merges the casual/hardcore groups, with so much content the hardcores don't run out (or at least aren't left waiting too long) but the casuals are working on the same content the hardcores did. Rather than the WoW concept which is "casual content" (Tier 0.5, new 5-mans, festival stuff, etc) and "hardcore content" (40-mans) which a pretty clear divide between the two.

[Tolanin]

Originally Posted by Cad

It's not that casuals "play for fun". They just have a lower threshold of what kind of bullshit they are willing to put up with for the sake of advancement. Hardcores by definition will do nearly anything for the allmighty progression - casuals are obviously motivated by progression and advancement as much as a hardcore, they just have a much softer tolerance for crap.

The best game is going to be the one that cuts out most of the crap and merges the casual/hardcore groups, with so much content the hardcores don't run out (or at least aren't left waiting too long) but the casuals are working on the same content the hardcores did. Rather than the WoW concept which is "casual content" (Tier 0.5, new 5-mans, festival stuff, etc) and "hardcore content" (40-mans) which a pretty clear divide between the two.

ya streamlined progression would make dev time more efficient but its a real tricky thing to get right... especially in a game like wow were the lvl curve was so short... if they had, had a lvl curve prolly about twice as long and released lvl 70 last christmas you would prolly have the kind of progression you are talking about.. or atleast alot closer to it than they do now.

[Etadanik]

Originally Posted by Torrid

First of all, I never suggested that. Secondly, my point in mentioning the few servers with any sort of Horde population advantage was that the other end of the scale would have to be much larger in favor of the Alliance, and it is. It's nowhere near that of PvE servers, but it is still signifficant. Half the PvP servers have 1.2:1 or more in favor of the manginas.

ZOMG half the servers have 1.2:1, Horde is doomed. Get a clue, Torrid. You've offered no evidence whatsoever that Horde is going to be WTFPWN'd by Alliance the moment world PvP is improved because guess what, the PvP servers have dealt with world PvP and slight population imbalance ratios vs. Alliance for one and a half years - and there hasn't been the sort of problems you're "foreseeing." On certain PvP servers Horde dominates; on others Alliance dominates. On some there's parity. And the cycle switches back and forth. Your only major point of argument was bandwagoning the > 2:1 ratio PVE servers into the equation without considering the fact that people went to Alliance in the PVE servers because they weren't looking to PvP and because Alliance has a undeniable advantage in PvE - doesn't take a genius to see that if I were going to do full PVE, I'd have gone Alliance. Dragging them into the equation won't help your cause, because personally, world PvP should not even exist for PVE servers.

In PvP, the story is different, and the ratios and personal experience show that the problem is insignificant, if it exists at all. I've already told you that on certain servers despite the fact that Alliance has a higher population PvP is favored towards Horde due to Alliance not wanting to fight. That is true for ED, where Alliance isn't even queueing up for BGs anymore because it's loss after loss. Your "universal" population arguments are thus retarded; just because there is a slight disparity in numbers, doesn't mean the sides are imbalanced. Case closed.

Retribution killed Thrall twice. I've seen a few posts of other Alliance guilds that have killed Thrall without even looking for them. I've found two guilds that have killed the Dwarf king ever when I searched for them.

You must have crappy searching skills. Here, i"ll help:

http://www.thottbot.com/?n=818946
http://www.thottbot.com/?n=654571
http://www.thottbot.com/?n=654732

But I guess the Horde just cares WAY more about their rank than Alliance? They would have to if as you say, the Horde dominate the Alliance, right?

Or... The fact that PvE servers can kill faction leaders just as easily as PvP servers might serve as an example of why Horde leaders get killed more often?

Personally, I don't PvP to rank or get gear. I PvP to kill people like you. Alliance who complain how badly they have it when they have every advantage.

Ignoring the fact that I played both Horde and Alliance on PvP servers for the moment, ROFUCKINGFLOL irony you retard. I'm not the one whining incessantly about Horde population imbalances. I counter your sad, pathetic point with actual facts and WHAT DO YOU DO? Call me an Alliance whiner, of course, despite the fact that basic rhetoric demands that I have to make a case for Alliance in order to even argue with you. So is this your tactic? Anyone who disagrees with you is an Alliance whiner? Pathetic.

[Bixxby]

Originally Posted by Cad

The best game is going to be the one that cuts out most of the crap and merges the casual/hardcore groups, with so much content the hardcores don't run out (or at least aren't left waiting too long) but the casuals are working on the same content the hardcores did.

In these parts we call that Everquest.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Bixxby

In these parts we call that Everquest.

I said cuts out most of the crap, not makes the crap indistinguishable from the game as a whole.

[Quineloe]

casuals are working on the same stuff as hardcores. Hardcores did MC a few months back.

[holydevil]

I don't think I like the crosserver bgs at the moment... I can't believe that it will alleviate the queues for BGs... it may even make them worse. I don't feel excited about the prospect of fighting people from another server since there is no ranking or score keeping over long-term to say "I'm better than you" like there was in WC3

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

casuals are working on the same stuff as hardcores. Hardcores did MC a few months back.

Casuals aren't doing MC.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Cad

Casuals aren't doing MC.

youre full of shit.

I won't get into this argument, you just define casual in the way you want, denying facts.

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

youre full of shit.

I won't get into this argument, you just define casual in the way you want, denying facts.

25% of the population has done ragnaros. Whats the other 75%? Ultra-super-happy-casual?

Facts, indeed.