The only real remnant of this old honor system, which involved a lot of hours of grinding honor per week, are the PvP titles like Blood Guard, Warlord, Private, Grand Marshal and others like it. If you happen to see someone with one of these titles, that means he’s been around since those days and that’s the highest rank that he attained in a system that made characters go up and down in rank each week.

When the new honor system came out, that saw the end of newer characters being able to get these titles. It’s why you don’t see any Draenei or Blood Elves with it. But that could change by as early as Cataclysm! As you know, Cataclsym is going to usher in a new feature in the Rated Battlegrounds. we still don’t know exactly how this works but it’s supposed to be a competitive environment for Battlegrounds, a lot like the Arena Tournament I guess. According to Zarhym, Blizzard plans to make the old PvP titles available by Cataclysm and that the Rated Battlegrounds is the planned means for attaining them.

The way the titles were attained back in the day involved a flawed system where more time invested rather than actual skill played a pretty big part. According to Zarhym, they want the return of these titles to involve skill represented by a good win/loss ratio and probably other factors. They’re still not certain exactly what the details are or if this information will even stick, given that the cataclysm expansion is still in early stages of its development.

It’s a pleasant surprise especially for players who never had a chance to get these titles before. Now it looks like it’s a fairer system in giving out the ranks. I just wonder how this news will be taken by players who have these titles considering the time and effort they had to put in. Well I have one character who’s a not too high and not too low Stone Guard and I don’t mind the return of these titles because I just know that anyone who even reaches my rank under the new system will probably have to be more skilled than I was back in the day and I respect that and I already take my hat of to any future high Warlords and Grand Marshals when this system takes off.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

heirloom vendor

Right now the heirlooms state that they increase the experience gained from killing monsters and from completing quests. So it’s actually not that surprising that they currently don’t increase the XP gained from doing Battlegrounds. But apparently this is unintended, according to CM Zarhym. In patch 3.2.2, heirlooms will also increase XP gained from Battlegrounds.

So it actually turns out that that this was just a mixup. It’s just a coincidence that the explanation seemed to fit which actually makes this whole thing a bit cooler. We have to remember that when the heirlooms were designed for the expansion’s release and at that time XP from Battlegrounds was still not possible. In fact it’s only in patch 3.2 that they decided to to make that possible. So while here we were getting XP from the BG’s, I guess they just forgot to change the wording and the mechanics for heirlooms.

The bottom line is that you can use the heirloom XP bonus for PvP as well when patch 3.2.2 comes out so have fun!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

battlegrounds battlemasters

Blizzard didn’t forget about twinks when they released the feature to gain experience from Battlrgrounds, They did provide a feature that allowed players to turn off their experience gain so that twinks can not only PvP without the fear of leveling past their bracket but also play against their fellow twinks in their battlegroup. This is also to prevent casual players who are doing battlegrounds for fun as they level up from getting stomped over and over by the twinks. This whole thing has caused a bit of a problem though.

Keeping the twinks together and away from the casual guys is a great idea in theory. The problem is that, in certain battlegroups there don’t seem to be enough twinks. Many players have reported that they often have to spend so much time queuing up for the xp-off games. This just proves that twinking isn’t equally popular across all battlegroups. Blue poster Crygil acknowledged that they are aware of this problem and that they are watching this closely. They’re working on a solution to this that won’t affect players who aren’t interested in this practice. The only solution I can see right now is to pool all the twinks into one battlegroup but unfortunately CM Zarhym said that massive technical limitations prevents them from doing this.

Well just have to see what solution they have for this issue but I don’t expect that this is anywhere near the top of their list since twinking still isn’t something they endorse but just allow.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

silvermoon battlemasters

The entry that I saw only now is something concerning lowbies and the Battleground daily quests. I’m not a big fan of PvP and most especially at lower levels but I’m sure there are lots of you guys out there who enjoy low level PvP, especially the the twinks out there.

As you might know, the PvP daily quest is chosen randomly everyday and I think it even differs depending on which server you’re playing in. At the max level this doesn’t pose as a problem since all battlegrounds are at your disposal. This does pose a problem to the lower level characters. If today’s battleground daily quest is Eye of the Storm then a level 30 character won’t have a BG daily for that day. Well at least not until patch 3.2.2 comes out.

According to the patch 3.2.2 PTR notes, players level 11 and above will always have a PvP daily and that will depend on the Battlegrounds available to that character based on its level. For example, a level 12 player will always have Warsong Gulch as the PvP daily because it’s the only battleground available at that level. A level 23 player will have Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin as the choices for the PvP daily and so on. It isn’t an earth shattering thing but it’s definitely good that even the lowbies will get to do a BG daily everyday!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

argent tournament grounds

Crusader’s Coliseum

To be clear, the 5 man encounter is called Trial of the Champion. The raid encounter (both 10 and 25 man) is called Trial of the Crusader while the heroic mode of this encounter is called Trial of the Grand Crusader.

Trial of the Champion should roughly on par with other 5 man dungeons in WoTLK. The heroic mode rewards 1 Emblem of Conquest and 1 Champion’s seal per boss. Only the heroic mode will be included in the rotation of dungeon daily quests. Trial of the Crusader will award 2 Emblems of Triumph for each encounter.

There will be a jousting fight in one of the encounters in Trial of the Champion but gear won’t come into play here unlike in the “vehicle fights” in Oculus and Ulduar. It should be just like regular jousting in the Argent Tournament.

Since there are four different modes for Trial of the Crusader, you’ll be able to choose among the four just like you can choose between normal and heroic for other dungeons. This time there will be four choices.

To activate Trial of the Grand Crusader, at least one player in the group should have finished Trial of the Crusader. Activating is done by talking to an npc and everyone in the raid will automatically be doing the tribute run.

The Trial of the Crusader will have one encounter similar to Priestess Delrissa in Magisters’ Terrace. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it was basically a fight where 5 of you fight 5 of them in a sort of Arena Tournament fashion. Gives you that PvP feel inside a dungeon run.

Isle of Conquest

After some testing in the PTR, the devs decided to make a few changes to Isle of Conquest such as increasing keep walls health, lowering reinforcements for both sides, making cannons repairable and other things.

Blizzard’s ideal average time for completing Isle of Conquest (and other battlegrounds too in fact) is 20-30 minutes.

The Cobalt Mine and Oil Derrick will have an added bonus when captured. Capturing one will give a 15% bonus to all damage done by operated vehicles. Capturing both will give a 30% bonus.

Spawn killing or graveyard camping is a potential concern for Isle of Conquest. While making it back to the keep should allow players to dodge enemies, Blizzard might add graveyard portals for resurrecting at a different location if this really becomes a big problem.

While vehicle combat figures greatly in Isle of Conquest, the dev team feels that ground combat will also be a big part of the battleground. The above mentioned change about the Oil Derrick and the Cobalt Mine will make capturing them important and that requires ground combat to do.

Isle of Conquest marks of honor will be a part of the turn in quests. By adding an additional requirement, the rewards will also be increased.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

battlegrounds battlemasters

What is Measured Battlegrounds? I’m actually not sure exactly what it is but I seem to have an idea based on the discussion going on in the forums.I guess the vagueness also comes from the fact that we don’t have a system in place to define it. This is how I understand the basic concept of what Blizzard is trying to come up with. When fighting in a Battleground, players will be measured somehow for their contributions to the success or failure of a given match. While honor does this to a certain extent, it’s limited to activities that give honor and does not show the whole picture. For example a player left to defend a flag is just as important as those capturing a base in an Arathi Basin match but honor would favor those on offense rather than those on defense.

If I’m correct this measurement system would affect the player’s rating and would move up or down based on that player’s performance. There’s talk about rating the team instead of the player but I’m not sure how that would work considering players usually come from different realms to join Battlegrounds. This sounds a lot like the old honor system in that your success in Battlegrounds determines how you rank and also a lot like the Arena Tournament for the same reason. Maybe players have an individual rating and the system would match you up with others players with roughly the same rating as you.

It seems like Blizzard wants a system where individual contributions to every important aspect of playing in a Battleground that contributes to the goal of winning is credited somehow. I’m not sure how they’ll be able to marry the concept of individual achievement with a “winning through teamwork” outlook since we’ve seen that players often overlook teamwork for a chance to have the most kills or the most killing blows and things like that.

This is the dilemma that Blizzard faces and it’s a tough one to tackle. Guess we’ll just have to see what they do to really see what kind of system they will implement.

What are your thoughts on this Measured BG System?

Post from: WOW Obsessed

silvermoon battlemasters

The big thing that’s coming in patch 3.2 concerning Battlegrounds is that they’re going to make experience gain in battlegrounds available. This way players can do some leveling up by doing just battlegrounds, although at a slower rate than if you were to go out and quest. Experience gain will be not be based on kills but instead actions like capturing a flag. I wonder how this will affect battleground healers though since they usually do nothing but heal. I also wonder if simply completing a game, win or lose will give you some experience along with the marks of honor.

The issue of experience gain concerns the twinks, who are a group of people who want to remain at their current level to stay in that bracket. Obviously gaining experience will mess things up so Blizzard also added a feature that will allow players to turn the experience gain on and off. Using this feature involves visitng an npc in Orgrimmar or Stormwind and costs 10 gold each time. turning off experience gain will also turn it off for PvE so if you want to go questing you’ll have to turn this feature on. Also, when entering battlegrounds, you will only be grouped with players who have the same setting so that twinks will only be matched with fellow twinks and those who don’t want to fight twinks won’t have to.

There’s also an interesting idea that they’re planning for the future where players will be able to roll on green and blue gear after a battleground match is over. If you’re a twink, this should be awesome news and even if you’re not, I’m guessing that these pieces of gear will be nice even for PvE use.

As for the Isle of Conquest, it’s much better to read the Q&A to get all the details but here’s the jist of it. the Isle of Conquest is 40 player BG like Alterac Valley with 71-79 and 80 brackets. The fight involves breaking into the opponent’s keep and killing the general much like Alterac Valley but the manner of doing so very different and looks more fun. They do this by breaking down the walls with siege weapons taken from Hangar, Docks or the Siege Workshop in the middle. With the various vehicles you can break down the walls and even catapult yourself over the enemy walls and break it down using Saronite bombs!

Post from: WOW Obsessed

strand of the ancients

Blizzard has said that they really intended Strand of the Ancients to make sides random but what they did just caused some bugs so they fixed it at Alliance starting out on offense while Horde defends. By patch 3.2 this problem will finally be fixed. It’s about time too since it’s been more than six months already since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out. I’m not one who does battlegrounds a lot and Strand of the Ancients isn’t exactly my first choice when I do decide to do some but this news makes me feel good because I like hearing that it’s finally getting the fix it’s needed for a long time. I like hearing that something will finally work as it’s supposed to.

Post from: WOW Obsessed

Zarhym was talking about how they never really expected Arenas to become the more central focus of PvP for players and also how BG’s, unlike Arenas, aren’t really a good measure of PvP skill. He’s quite right since you can get great gear even if you suck or even afk during battles (as long as you’re not reported) which is something you can’t do in the Arena Tournament especially since some pieces of Arena gear have rating minimum requirements.

dalaran bg area

While explaining that they want to essentially make BG’s more attractive for all PvPers and just just focused on the Arena Tournament, Zarhym actually mentioned something about a new Battleground in the works for Wrath of The Lich King!

A new BG! This is quite exciting news even for me, a non-PvP fan. I wonder if this has anything at all to do with the Argent Tournament that’s going to make its debut in patch 3.1? I wonder what kind of battle it will be. How will this impact the PvP rewards that are already out? A new battleground mark should affect the rewards and even the For Great Honor/Conceited Efforts daily quest. There’s so many questions!

Post from: WOW Obsessed