A new patch: 1.8.4
by Josh Owens 
Dec 6th 2005 at 8:56AM
Today, during the regularly scheduled maintenance,
Blizzard will be putting in a new patch. Unfortunately this is not the
much anticipated 1.9 patch with all the great new content, but the 1.8.4 patch
that will mostly add the holiday festivities into the game. Be sure to
swing by Ironforge or Orgrimmar to speak to the Smokywood Pastures' customer
service goblins to start your holiday questing. The only other
interesting item in this patch is the Battlegrounds change - A match must last
10 minutes for the losing team to get a mark of honor. That change makes
sense to me because if you are so bad you can't get organized to stop them from
winning within 10 minutes, you deserve to lose!
Filed under: Patches
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris Gardner Dec 6th 2005 10:55AM
Honestly, Josh, I don't know why you're even posting about Wow. Your recent post (http://www.wowinsider.com/2005/12/04/my-very-first-bg/) shows you know absolutely nothing about the battlegrounds system, how long it takes someone to progress up the ladder, etc.
This "That change makes sense to me because if you are so bad you can't get organized to stop them from winning within 10 minutes, you deserve to lose!" shows a complete lack of understanding for the steamrolling model (having epic teams pound a pickup group into the ground quickly). The core mechanic was that you'd at least get a little honor when facing overwhelming odds. Now you receive NO honor, no points, for your time. It's like the game never existed.
Why start a blog when the posters know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the game?
C.K. Sample, III Dec 6th 2005 10:54AM
Chris, relax buddy. We're all players and we all have different playing styles and experiences. I'm the first to admit that I myself am pretty much a n00b to WoW (although not new to RPGs, online gaming, or gaming in general), but the n00b perspective is a good one to have for the site, as it will appeal to all the other n00bs out there.
There are much more polite ways of pointing out if one of us is mistaken about something we've posted. I'm sure when Josh comes back online, he'll make an update.
In the meantime, however, consider that as *huge* and free as WoW is, there are numerous ways to enjoy playing the game and it's very unlikely that anyone is a complete expert knowledgeable of every nook and cranny of the game. The goal of this niche blog is to collectively work at covering as much ground as possible.
So, thanks for sharing your knowledge, but please endeavor to do so a little more politely next time.
Josh Owens Dec 6th 2005 10:56AM
Chris,
I appreciate your views, but I would disagree with you. I know enough about the Battlegrounds system to know that you should at least be able to pull off decent D for 10 minutes. I admit that I am a BG n00b, and as such I still need to play the other types (other than WSG). The idea for the battleground system is to encourage PvP and teamwork, if you don't work well as a team why should you be rewarded? I was surprised I even received anything for losing in BG in the first place!
I guess you will always have people who expect something, even for doing a bad job. Failure, especially in war, is failure. I believe they are trying to reward *SKILL*, not just time put into BG.
Chris Gardner Dec 6th 2005 11:03AM
By your own admission you've played exactly one battleground. Let me put things in perspective: I'm currently rank 11. That requires playing close to a THOUSAND battlegrounds. It requires spending all of your time competing in the battlegrounds.
The current situation in Warcraft is that large, preformed teams wearing epic equipment (known as "steamrollers") dominate games. If they come up against average players, they usually complete the game in 5 minutes or less, regardless how organized the other players are or how hard they try. The only olive branch that was held out to players was the fact that, if you lost, you still got a tiny bit of points for at least trying. Now, you receive NO points.
This was meant to be a solution to teams that would "trade wins" (if you force them to play 10 minutes, they're less likely to want to do this). Instead, this will cause a lot of regular players to bow out of the system entirely, as they'll receive no credit for playing. The steamrollers, in turn, will have a lot longer queues as they wait to play. It breaks the system completely.
You'd understand this if you played in the battlegrounds more. Heck, even if you were to just read the official Wow forums you'd recognize the problems this is going to cause.
I just don't get why WebLogs Inc. pops blogs up all over the place when the posters don't seem to have knowledge of the topics are covering. I would've avoided the "That change makes sense to me because if you are so bad you can't get organized to stop them from winning within 10 minutes, you deserve to lose!" completely, as anyone who's spent time in the battlegrounds will tell you you're wrong.
Stimps Dec 6th 2005 11:09AM
If I'd have known you could get rewarded for losing, I'd have bothered to spend more time in a BG :)
Perhaps we should ask Blizzard to reward XP every time we get killed in the normal game?
Josh Owens Dec 6th 2005 11:19AM
Chris,
I do agree that this change may cause problems. You have to remember that my perspective is coming from a level 32 player, not a level 60. I am not contending with PvP guildies who toss on the purple gear and go stomp the pickup teams. The basic idea of battlegrounds is to encourage PvP teamwork, imo. Perhaps that view is wrong.
I encourage people to point out problems, but also remember that you don't help much if you don't have ideas for the solution. How would you propose fixing the system for level 60 BG players Chris?
Chris Gardner Dec 6th 2005 11:32AM
There have been many solutions proposed:
1.) If a team queues up, they should face another team, not a group of pickup players. This would encourage more skilled players to compete against one another.
2.) Battleground queues, in general, should organize games based on rank. Currently, a rank 14 (the highest level) can be put against a rank 1 (just starting). A better system would try to match rank 14s against other rank 14s, similar to how they do it in Warcraft 3 and Halo 2.
3.) There should be tournaments so the best teams face each other. As it stands right now, it's like the Yankees competing against T-ball.
Furthermore, the honor system, in general, is fubared. In order to reach the top rank, you need to be #1 on your server for 6-12 consecutive weeks. If you get #2 at any point, you drop back.
In order to get #1, you often need to get between 400-500k honor points a week. That often equates to 6-8 hours of PVP a day. Imagine having an "off day" when real-life responsibilities kick in. You can see the problems here.
The "loser prize" was a nice little way to at least recognize the players who weren't spending all day in a battleground, who couldn't compete in gear -- in other words, the new players having fun. It equated to exactly 1/3 the honor of a win. Now the other team receives NO honor for a win, leaving people to wonder "If I can't win all the time, how am I going to compete to get 500k?"
David Dec 6th 2005 11:51AM
WoW!
I just came here after seeing this site on digg.com. I admit I am a n00b at WoW and thought the article was pretty good. Nice point of view. But damn chris, take a break. open dialouge is good, but you should really take a break. go outside, and look at the bright shiny ball in the sky. it's like the one in Azeroth but this one is real ;)
just trying to add some laughter to this.
anyway. good starting point to you Josh and weblogs. thought you would want to hear the other side.
L'Emmerdeur Dec 6th 2005 1:52PM
Most of the new content created by Blizzard is targeted toward people who have no life outside of WoW.
The endgame content consists of 40-man raid dungeons that require dedicated players to complete and farm for epics, 20-man dungeons that require gear from the aforementioned 40-man dungeons to complete in a reasonable amount of time, and BG rewards that will become more difficult to achieve in the patch with a PUG. Then they throw out Silithus as the place to get decent drops as a solo player or in small groups (hogwash) - or at least I think that was their intention.
Strange, most of their revenue comes from casual players, yet most of their current development seems to target the hardcore content only. Adding insult to injury, they are in the process of alienating their biggest audience of casual players, paladins, by finalizing changes that are convincing most paladins to abandon the class and reroll.
As for rude comments, c'mon, Weblogs Inc. wasn't born yesterday. Like the paladin shield&hearth, you can always delete&ban.