PvP is one of of the aspects of playing Warcraft that I really enjoy a lot. Sadly, it is not something that I have done much within this current expansion. Mainly because I have been focused playing more through the PvE side of things, while leveling several alts up to 90, so as to finally give them some much needed love.
I even sold all of my PvP gear to make room for the various toys/fun items that have been added throughout all of Pandaria. Sad I know! I still have a ways to go to complete the 250,000 honor kill achievement, which has been one of my long terms goals since the devs first added it into the game. Once Warlords of Draenor is released, it will solve one of the biggest and most longstanding hindrances for me enjoying the game fully, that of bag space! With the toys and other such items made to go into a new storage closet (please make it so for Tabards as well, I beg of this!) I will get back to PvPing.
The coming expansion also lends itself to more of a PvP vibe. What I really enjoyed about this expansion was the fact that there was no major world catastrophe that needed our immediate attention. I was very much feeling like Mr. Incredible from The Incredibles film, when he shows his exasperation during the pre movie interview, when he declares, “I just cleaned up this mess. Can we keep it clean for ten minutes?” It was a nice, much needed break. I greatly appreciated the “slow down” mentality of the Pandarian culture, though with the rise of the Iron Horde, it will be time to get back into the fray and get my “Bloodthirsty” title.
So, what does this all have to do with Alterac Valley or AV for short? Well, there is going to be a massively cool new battleground released with the new expansion and I can not wait to get into just such a battleground that will feel truly epic once again! Long story short, the battle will last hours. It will be what AV once was. Av was my favorite battleground because it actually felt like this massive, impactful battle being waged! Not some “lets lose and get it over with for fast honor lawlz” as it is now within its current and sadly lacking monumental incarnation. I so wish for the dev’s to go back and make AV what it once was, with a long drawn-out battle waged, with a prodigious number of npcs all over the map. I so miss the grand scale of epicness of what Alterac Valley once was.
What brought about this article for the week was the release of statistical data about the win loss ratio for both the Horde/Alliance within the Battlegrounds and a corresponding comment by one of the Blizzard Dev’s saying how there is no real favoritism within the Battlegrounds in terms of map layouts or design implementations. Good thing I was not drinking my green tea at the time when I read that, for I would have “phhhhssttt” it all out!
What came immediately to mind when reading that statement was AV. All the hours upon hours of playing AV throughout the years has made it evidently clear that there definitely is a favoritism towards the Alliance. A few years back, I came across an article that included different pics taken from AV that highlighted the very key aspects of how AV is favored towards the Alliance. I downloaded the various images and kept them as a good reference point so as to clearly show in a very easy fashion what myself and many others within the Horde community have been expressing for so long throughout the years of Alliance favoritism within AV. Granted, these are now several years old, but the crux of the particulars are still very much valid.
Thus, one of my long standing desires of AV game design changes which I very much would like to see are:
1. Make it so the Alliance can no longer jump over our wall to get into our base.
2. Change the Horde guard towers so they are open, thus allowing our guards to shoot at Alliance when trying to take them.
3. Allow for the Horde guards to be able to be positioned, so as to be better suited to agro Incoming Alliance, as well as range guards to be able to shoot as Alliance move throughout our Horde base.
4. Bring back components of the old AV that made it so epic. Restore the multiple npcs that gave it such an interesting flavor and feel. Allow it to feel like an actual battle again, not just some mad dash to the finish line.
I know Blizzard only has so much time and resources to work on the various aspects of the game. Obviously, I want the game (and story) to move ahead, though having said that, there are some aspects of previous game designs and features that I contend would be good to go back and make some adjustments/additions to, AV being one of them.
AV “balanced”? I certainly don’t think so, but regardless it is still one of my favorite battlegrounds within the game. Hopefully at some point a few of these changes can implemented.
Until them, For the Horde and For the Frostwolfs!
