Posts with tag battleground

Isle of Conquest gameplay screenshot gallery

by Michael Sacco Jun 24th 2009 at 4:00PM

The new Battleground coming with Patch 3.2, the Isle of Conquest, is live on the 3.2 PTR as we speak, and we've been running some games on said Isle to see how it measures up to the current BGs. We're pretty happy with it so far -- it certainly looks great, as you'll be able to tell by checking out the screenshot gallery we've compiled for you. It shows the BG and all its sundry parts in action.

We'll keep you up to date with new Isle info as we get it. If you're on the PTR too, then be sure to queue up -- who knows, it might just be one of us you're ganking!

Gallery: Isle of Conquest

Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

Patch 3.2 bringing Strand of the Ancients coin toss

by Mike Schramm Jun 18th 2009 at 4:30PM

We mentioned this issue a while back -- since it was introduced to the game, Strand of the Ancients has started Alliance on attack first, and that's caused problems. Due to the way the map is set up (a back-and-forth attack and defend map), the team that starts attacking has an advantage in terms of farming honor -- they only have to play until the other team loses rather than having to keep up a defense the whole time. That means shorter battlegrounds for the Alliance, which means more honor overall for them.

The problem was that Blizzard couldn't just flip a switch to randomize the battleground's spawn points: they were hard-coded into the moving ships that players appear on, so it took much more coding to use a coin-flip start. However Zarhym now confirms that the coin flip is coming to SotA. And though he didn't say when in the original post, the Patch 3.2 notes tell us that it's coming in that patch.

Hopefully Blizzard will have learned their lesson for the Isle of Conquest -- although since it's closer to Alterac Valley from what we've heard, we probably won't have that asymmetrical issue, and both sides will be able to start with just as many advantages and disadvantages as the other.

First screenshots from Patch 3.2's Isle of Conquest released

by Michael Sacco Jun 18th 2009 at 4:00PM

Blizzard just released some screenshots from Patch 3.2's brand new super massive Battleground, the Isle of Conquest. For those unfamiliar with the Isle, it's a large-scale 40v40 Battleground that features siege combat, good old-fashioned melee, capturable resource points, NPC bosses like Alterac Valley, steady Honor ticks from capping certain areas, and more. It's essentially the Battleground with something for everyone. We just recently posted a Q&A with World Designer Cory Stockton, with a lot of questions about the Isle answered.

And now we've got screenshots to give us a feel for the place. They show bits and pieces of the Isle, including the Alliance Keep, part of the Refinery, what appears to be the Airship Hangar, and the Lighthouse. It's all very Northrend and very exciting. After all, in the grim, dark ~~future~~ ~~past~~ World of Warcraft, there is only war. As long as you're in a Battleground, anyway. But only if you're fighting instead of fishing or killing harpies. Regardless, there's definitely war going on somewhere.

Check out the shots in the gallery below. We'll keep you posted with all the new info we get!

Gallery: Isle of Conquest

Wintergrasp lag a big issue after patch 3.1

by Mike Schramm May 6th 2009 at 9:00AM

Zarhym has got some answers to the widespread problem of lag in Wintergrasp after patch 3.1 the other week. He says Blizzard figures the problem is simply population based -- there are many more people playing in the battleground than there were before the patch. For that reason, they're having trouble coming up with good solutions: the battleground is designed to be non-instanced, and that's why a lot of people like it, so putting a limit on the amount of people in there is not the way to go. Hardware isn't a solution either -- Blizzard's hardware is already top-of-the-line, and not only would upgrading it take a while anyway, but my guess is that most of the lag issues come not from Blizzard's side, but from the connections between players and them, which they may not have any control over anyway.

So yes, we're more or less out of luck -- as long as Wintergrasp is extremely popular (and even Zarhym remembers the naysayers before the release with a smirk), there will always be a certain amount of lag in there. There are a few good suggestions floating around the comments thread -- one is that Wintergrasp should always be conquerable, which seems like it would keep down on the flood of people, though of course there'd be other issues if that were implemented.

At this point, Wintergrasp lag may just be something we have to live with. Eventually, you have to think the population will drop back down, and then those of us still in there will enjoy lag-free battles again. But Blizzard has taken on quite a goal trying to do non-instanced PvP full of vehicles and towers without any lag at all.

Trying out the new Wintergrasp

by Mike Schramm Apr 20th 2009 at 8:00PM

The new Wintergrasp, I am here to tell you, is a lot like the old Wintergrasp. Which isn't a bad thing -- though Blizzard has made a few significant tweaks to the game's big non-instanced battleground, it's still the same match it's been (and a good match it is, if you ask me). The main difference is that all of the workshops outside the keep are now up for grabs, so the defending team can now not only take out the southern towers to knock some time off the clock, but also lock down the workshops to create a vehicle shutout. That's tough to do, in my experience, though -- even if you grab the two lower workshops, it leaves the top two open for attack, and odds are that the lower two workshops will really only be taken if all of the towers are down and the vehicle drives down south need something to do.

So the gameplay hasn't been changed that much, but it is nice that the requirements for the daily quest have been lowered -- we now only need 10 kills of the other side, and there are more NPCs around to count for those kills, so I actually finished both the kill and vehicle quests without even trying. It would be nice for Blizzard to somehow streamline the raid invite/share quests process that happens everytime WG begins, but they're leery of that, given how honor farming was such a problem in the auto-invite AV. And I have one personal request: Blizzard, can you please have me auto-dismount when I try to pick up an RP-GG? I'm fine with not mounting while I have one, but every single time I try to pick one up I get that error message, when all you need to do is auto-dismount me like any other object I use while mounted.

The biggest WG change isn't even in the battleground, it turns out -- most of the players I've talked to are just thrilled that you can now fly over Wintergrasp on the way from Dalaran to Sholazar Basin (and it figured 3.1 would drop a week after I finished the Oracle rep grind). I've even heard you can get credit for winning the BG if you're in the air when your side wins. Though a fix for that will probably have to come during the next round of WG improvements, whenever that will be.

Patch 3.1 user interface changes roundup

by Mike Schramm Apr 14th 2009 at 3:30PM

Lots of the new stuff in today's patch 3.1 update will be in your face -- the class changes won't be missable, and the LFG channel will be full of people trying to head into Ulduar (though who knows how far they'll get). But some of the changes, especially to the user interface, will be a little more hidden -- you'll have to dive into the options to go and find them. Here's a few things we've reported on that you might want to make a note of, if you're interested.

Arenas now have an option to show Enemy Unit Frames. These will only appear in the Arenas, but you can enable them in the Interface options.
You will now be able to see when the next Wintergrasp battle is from anywhere in the world -- but only by going out to the world map and then zooming back in to the Wintergrasp map.
Make sure you hit the map button (usually "M") next time you go into an instance. There are maps in there now.
There are new "advanced features" for quest tracking now -- but you've got to go into the Interface Options to enable them. If you're already using Questhelper or a similar addon, these will be familiar to you.
The Equipment Manager isn't in the game yet, but the Color Blind mode and new Battleground and LFG options can all be accessed now.
Finally, there are a number of new video options available in the Video Options panel, including better shadow and texture details, and even a "Video Mode Ultra" setting. Even Blizzard recommends you run things on the highest setting at your own peril -- lower end computers will have major issues trying to run graphics at the highest setting.

It's definitely worth putting "take a tour around the options screens again" on your to-do list for when the patch arrives on the live realms. There are lots of little changes and updates hiding in there that you'll never know about unless you go look for them.

Patch 3.1 is live and it takes us into Ulduar, delivers us dual specs, and brings significant changes to all the classes! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1 and the official patch notes!

Patch 3.1 Battleground queue updates

by Adam Holisky Apr 13th 2009 at 9:40PM

Out of the blue tonight, the blustering Blizzard Blue bard Eyonix, came out and let us know about a few things that'll be happening with the Patch 3.1 battleground queue (see what queuing will be like now):

Players will not be able to queue while dead.
If you queue and accept to enter a battleground while in flight, you'll be returned to a designated destination.

Now the first point is clearly to prevent dodging of corpse runs or mess around with corpse camping.

As far as the second point, this is interesting and pretty much provides another way of ghetto hearthing in some circumstances (remember, ghetto hearthing is being removed in patch 3.1). Not that you should take advantage of this or anything, and chances are it'll be hotfixed relatively quickly upon release of patch 3.1.

Disembodied skull confirms new Battleground, your grim future

by Michael Sacco Mar 23rd 2009 at 11:31PM

In what can only be called a grim portent, a disembodied skull haunted the official World of Warcraft forums today. A local farmer noted that the skull had visited the area previously, but "only in times of dour weather, or when death was near for m'cows, or when someone was trolling."

"We were just complaining about Battlegrounds," said a priest who witnessed the visitation of the gruesome geist, "when all of a sudden it appeared, and we knew right then that it was an omen, and one of us was going to die soon, or possibly that it was going to tell us about an upcoming game feature we hadn't heard about yet."

The skull, floating ominously above the gathering crowd, apparated a set of evanescent words, formed likely of the spirit's own ectoplasm, tinged with a blue color known only to come from the world beyond.

Unencumbered by gravity or PR sensibilities, it augured that a new Battleground is in the works. The reaction was one of fear and of somber gratitude for the spirit, and its otherworldly masters, for passing along an omen as important as this. When the prophesied Battleground would appear is still unknown, as the spirits who visit the forums are not wont to reveal such information.

Before it disapparated as quickly as it had come, the skull also noted that you're going to die.

The Queue: Clam stacking sea mounts

by Adam Holisky Mar 23rd 2009 at 3:00PM

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

Good afternoon all. I want to give a shout out to everyone in Fargo, North Dakota who is dealing with the flood that's going on, in particular everyone who is busy sandbagging. It's big, bad, and full of water. But on the plus side there are now ducks outside of my apartment, and I live two and a half miles from the Red River. But ducks are cool. It's made me want to go fire up Duck Hunt. I may be pawning off The Queue this week to Alex, depending on how bad things get in my area. He's anxious to talk about Mountain Dew I hear.

Palatel asked...

"Any idea on how the leader of a Battleground is determined?"

The Queue: Meow now

by Adam Holisky Mar 19th 2009 at 11:00AM

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

The above picture took me all of five minutes to put together. Super Troopers is a great movie, and I encourage you all to go watch it today. But finish reading WoW Insider first, and in particular finish reading The Queue to understand the reference. How many times can Alex say Mountain Dew? The answer is a lot. Update: Go and read Massively's take on the coming Mountain Dew. It's quite good.

037 asked...

"Now that you can queue for battlegrounds from anywhere, are we looking at the new ghetto hearth?"

Tips for Strand of the Ancients and how to win it

by Mike Schramm Jan 7th 2009 at 4:00PM

Eye for an Eye has a great set of tips up for the Strand of the Ancients battleground. Their tips are aimed towards Ret Pallies, but they're useful for almost anyone, and especially any melee-based classes. And the general idea -- focus on the relic and getting to it, not the players attacking you or other teammates -- is great for anyone to know.

I don't know what it is about Strand and Wintergrasp that has pulled new players into PvP, but there's something new there -- DanO also has found himself PvPing in those places when he never guessed he would. It seems like the objective is a big part of it; the goals in Strand and Wintergrasp just seem more epic than the skirmishes in Warsong and Arathi Basin (and they come with none of the major issues in Alterac Valley).

Still, while most of the tips are common sense, some of them are worth listening to if you haven't though of them yet (I liked the tip about sniffing out Rogues around the tanks -- whenever I've played Strand, I've always headed for the walls, but protecting the tanks is a great tactic, too). If you haven't tried either of the new PvP areas yet, give them a look, and bring these tips along with you.

Wrath 101: Wintergrasp zone overview

by Zach Yonzon Dec 14th 2008 at 6:00PM

These days, my schedule revolves around partitions of two and a half hours. This is the time I allot for meals, errands, work, showers, and most other mundane things. In between those two and a half hours, I take a break from whatever I'm doing and play ten to forty minutes of Wintergrasp. Ever since I made my way into the zone, I've made it my second home in the World of Warcraft. I log out in Wintergrasp about as often as I do in Dalaran. I know I said that PvP is sort of pointless right now, but Wintergrasp is the most fun I've had in Wrath and the game in a while. Nowadays, whenever I dream, I dream of siege vehicles and exploding walls and towers.

Wintergrasp is the smallest zone in Northrend, bordered by Sholazar Basin, Icecrown, and Dragonblight. It is a PvP zone, which flags all players entering it for PvP. This isn't an issue on PvP servers, but on normal or RP servers, this makes everyone in the zone fair game. There is no physical way to access Wintergrasp other than through a flying mount, creating a natural Level barrier of 77 although lower-level players can be summoned or take the portal from Dalaran. It is my favorite zone in Wrath of the Lich King, although it isn't without its flaws.

Gallery: Wintergrasp

Majority of player base does not have a level 80 character

by Adam Holisky Dec 4th 2008 at 2:30PM

Vaneras on the EU forums this morning responded to some criticism that everyone is already 80, etc... He makes a few interesting points.

First, he notes that they have internal numbers that the majority of players don't yet have a level 80 character. This might be a known or assumed fact by some, but for many of us it's interesting to hear Blizzard extrapolate on the issue.

Vaneras goes on to point out an important tidbit – don't assume just because all your friends are 80 that everyone else is as well. People that play all the time tend to gravitate towards other people that play all the time, and folks that only log on once or twice a week gravitate towards each other as well.

This means that just because everyone on your friends list is 80 doesn't mean the whole server is yet. I know that for myself nearly everyone's main is either 80 or high 70s now, and most have alts quickly getting up there in level too.

But then I'm reminded of my brother, who just dinged 77 a couple days ago.

This is also good to know as it means battlegrounds and Wintergrasp will be filling up more as a greater number of folks ding. That's only going to lead to more fun for everyone.

Shifting Perspectives: State of the class, part 1 - Balance

by Allison Robert Nov 6th 2008 at 10:30AM

Every Tuesday, or possibly Thursday when the writer votes on Tuesday and spends Wednesday screaming and beating her laptop over formatting errors, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting Druids and those who group with them. This week Allison Robert steals John Patricelli's column once again, secure in the knowledge that she will never be forced to atone for her crime as long as she writes something nice about ferals and keeps a respectful distance from Dan O'Halloran's whip.

I hate Tauren cat form.

Good. I got that out of my system and can write something productive. Although, believe me, if I could get away with it, an entire Shifting Perspectives would be devoted to just how much I hate Tauren cat form. I mean, just look at it! Look at the angle on the horns! The cat can't bite anything! Christ, I just -- hi, Dan. Yes, I'm totally writing the column! Look at me go!

This week, mindful as always of American election-year politicking, I'm going to borrow a page from presidential duties and write a little something I like to call "State of the Class." Druids have undergone a number of changes in the transition to Wrath of the Lich King, and will acquire even more as they level to 80. We are one of Blizzard's primary targets for both gear and role consolidation, which raises a few questions over how comfortably we're going to scale in relation to pure classes and what we can realistically expect on the march to a new level cap.

The TL:DR version of this article -- I believe our future is generally bright, the Druid community continues to have a few concerns over certain aspects of the class, our focus in PvP seems to be changing the most, and I hate Tauren cat form. This is a three-part post, so let's get started with balance. However, if you want to jump ahead to feral, you'll find that here; and the third part, restoration, is here.

Honor points and marks reset in WotLK

by Adam Holisky Sep 23rd 2008 at 5:30PM

We all had an inkling this was coming, right? I mean, it is Blizzard and they do things that are occasionally "evil." So it should be no surprise to anyone that Eyonix announced today that they will be resetting all the honor points when Wrath of the Lich King is released.

In his post he does mention that they will be putting in a few new items that are purchasable with honor points only. At least those that have piles of points saved up can get something. Let's just hope that it's something you can use. They will be appearing on the PTR shortly.

The reasoning behind this is that Blizzard wants there to be an even playing field when everyone hits 80. If people saved up tons of honor points and marks, they could be used to immediately purchase the newest PvP gear. That would create an imbalance.