When I regularly played Alliance, I didn't bother. Raiding the Crossroads seemed like a waste of time when there were so many instances to run to get loot or battlegrounds to run to get honor (more honor than the occasional HK in the Barrens would give me, at any rate). Why run all the way out to the Crossroads to hassle the Horde and receive no loot and little or no honor? And now that I usually play Horde, I find it annoying when a group of level 70 Alliance come and spend an hour or more wiping out every NPC in the Crossroads. Hey, guys -- think you could leave the flightmaster alive for long enough to me to pick up the flight path? Please?
My only thoughts on the matter are that city raids like the near-constant assaults on the Barrens are an amusing change of pace for bored high levels... and I admit, fighting off Alliance in the Barrens are an entertaining distraction. But, really -- don't Crossroads raids eventually get as boring as any other existing content in the game? So I ask you, dear readers, do you spend your time in-game battling for the Crossroads? And if so, why?
Tags: barrens, barrens raid, BarrensRaid, crossroads, crossroads raid, CrossroadsRaid, pvp, pvp raid, pvp raids, PvpRaid, PvpRaids, raiding, raids, world of warcraft, WorldOfWarcraft, wow
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Raiding
Jul 10th 2007 at 9:10AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
.:{EK}:. Squall Jul 10th 2007 9:23AM
Ally attack/raids there just because of the lower level guards :p As for the defending bit, its really frustrating for lower level horde players to walk upto a quest npc for turn-ins and witness an ally killing it at that very instance. However on my server (Alexstraza) the local defense/world defense could be spamming with "Crossroads under attack" for hours but alas, no horde defense or counter attack....
Naaruminded Jul 10th 2007 9:25AM
When Chuck Norris gave birth to the world, The Crossroads was where he chewed off the umbilical cord.
Obmulap Jul 10th 2007 9:25AM
They should really change the warning from:
THE CROSSROADS IS UNDER ATTACK
to
THE CROSSROADS IS UNDER ATTACK...YET AGAIN.../SIGH.../SHRUG
I just don't understand what's so "magical" about attacking XR.
Does it make you feel good at 70 to take out a bunch of lower mid 30's to 40's?
We used to care, now it's just a waste of time.
cpsethgt Jul 10th 2007 9:32AM
It's fun!
To me, PvP in the Battlegrounds and world PvP are very different, and I would much rather fight someone in the Crossroads than in, say, Warsong Gulch. I'm not sure why, but it feels more 'real' and exciting to me, and when I get a kill (or death), it seems like it actually matters.
It's probably all in my head. Oh well.
It's because of this, though, that I'm very glad Blizzard added world PvP objectives in Outland. Halaa is my favorite and, in my opinion, the best-implemented one, but they all give the satisfaction of world PvP without having to cause 'griefing' problems for the opposing faction.
I think that the world PvP objectives have had a big impact on the old 'raids on the Crossroads.' Maybe it's because most of the higher level people spend their time in Outland, but actual organized Crossroads raids seem to be much less frequent now than they were before the expansion.
Hunglikehors Jul 10th 2007 9:34AM
What do you expect from a bunch of 13 year-old boys playing Night Elf hunters?
Chip Jul 10th 2007 9:36AM
Although I have never raided Crossroads, I would assume Alliance players do it for the same reason Horde players constantly raid Southshore. Having your FP / quest hub raided is annoying when you're too low a level to do anything about it, and a certain type of person likes to pass along that annoyance once they're big enough to do the raiding.
It's a vicious cycle.
stapleboy Jul 10th 2007 9:38AM
Alliance raid The Crossroads for the same reason people from both sides twink out alts in lowbie battlegrounds - it's easy. I'd pretend the Horde is much more mature about this sort of thing, but the fact is we can't ride 30 seconds from one of our flight paths to a town with crappy guards and empty space in all directions.
Kisark Jul 10th 2007 9:39AM
Even better. An attack on Bloodhoof Village. Killing high teen guards and lower level folks. Luckily, a couple of higher level horde folks were walking through the area...as was I on a herb pulling run.
Venkman90 Jul 10th 2007 9:39AM
On my server at least it tends to be people retaliating to the CONSTANT horde in westfall killing the quest givers...
jron Jul 10th 2007 9:43AM
as if the whorde never raided a low level alliance town...
TELOT Jul 10th 2007 9:47AM
Because the horde must die for their atrocities against the Mighty Alliance! Death to the horde!
Paw Jul 10th 2007 9:51AM
Raiding the Crossroads should really be a non-issue for Horde players. The Barrens is a Horde territory, so there is no forcing players to PvP, even on a PvP server. Southshore, on the other hand, on my server (Smolderthorn) at least, is constantly under attack from the Horde. Since the territory is contested, everyone is fair game. It gets crazy, but it is fun so long as there are adequate Alliance forces to put up a resistance. Nesingwary's, though not technically a raid target, because of its convenience to Grom'Gol is nearly unplayable PvE on my server except during mid-day when server traffic is light. Again, contested territory, so no way to opt out of PvP. When I played Horde, I found the raids on Crossroads amusing, sometimes frustrating when the quest NPC I needed had just been killed, but never more than very mildly inconvenient.
Though to answer one of your question. Would constantly raiding Crossroads get boring? Most definitely. Few lowbie players are dumb enough to flag PvP against a lvl ?? on an epic ride, so where's the fun in it? I would imagine the fun of constantly assailing Southshore is the fact that you get to battle with actual players and not just guards. And unfortunately, the Allaince faction on my server is too disorganized to make any attempts at, say, Grom'Gol, though I have tried to get a party or two together to do that.
innajunglestylee Jul 10th 2007 9:54AM
Pardon my tangent...
World PvP objectives in Outland kind of need some tweaking -- the Halaa buffs and gear don't really justify trying to hold out, and when you have an organized Horde group on my server that can actually take and hold Halaa, Alliance just walk away until we have other thngs to do than killing the few stragglers. Or in the alternative, a Horde raid of 10-15 gets steamrolled by 40+ Alliance. Ah, the numbers game. Soon enough, it's back in Alliance hands for (basically) another week.
I guess I could park my main in Halaa and be the defender of all things Nagrand, but there's other stuff to do than flying to the landing spot, ganking people as they dismount and then flying to the next one.
It would be nice to see the Spirit Shard timer (genius if you ask me) applied to all World PvP objectives. Take it down a few hours across the board (including Terrokar) to make it last no more than 120 minutes, but make it worthwhile to fight for the buffs so that they stick in place for a while instead of the usual "Hey, let's take Halaa! Okay that was fun, a few people got the recipes, guess Alliance needs that buff to level again." People actually plan and fight for Terrokar buffs on my server; as opposed to the "Meh, our JC needs Mystic Dawnstone, grab it long enough to get him the pattern."
Truthfully, this is why I never did EPL PvP but was always organizing my guild for Sandlol. Put in some organized effort, get the buff and it actually lasts long enough to be useful in an AQ run while grinding rep.
Bearskunk Jul 10th 2007 11:05AM
Just leveled a Draenai and Bloodmyst isle has its questgivers and other NPCs constantly wiped out by mostly highlevel Bloodelves on my realm. And I'd say that area is far more annoying to get to for Horde than Barrens is for Alliance. Same really for Sentinel Hill. And I can't count the times how often The flightmaster in Darkshire was dead or the Refugee camp in strangle wiped out. Personally I never bothered to make a detour from whatever I was doing to annoy other players this way, but I start being pissed enough to consider a killing spree in various low level horde quest hubs as well.
PyroAmos Jul 10th 2007 9:58AM
Every time this happens to me and i get a little frustrated, i just think to myself, this guy has nothing better to do than this... he must have no friends and be so alone in wow. Sux to be him, if he wants to kill me a few times, have at it.
and its much more pronounced for alliance raiding horde cause they can fly to ratchet, which is about 30 seconds from crossroads, whereas horde have to goto grom'gol and ride a mount for 5 minutes or so to get to the alliance noob town. if your pathetic enough to go killing ppl that much lower lvl than you, you proably don't wanna spend the time to travel that far.
Oh well.. at least i can take pride that the alliance motto 'if it ain't grey, run away' still holds true. chasing lv35s on my 27 priest ftw ^^
Ryan Jul 10th 2007 10:02AM
They heard that Mankirk's wife is a real hottie.
Gustav Jul 10th 2007 10:04AM
@ 12: It's not so much that we are getting ganked because we are stupid enough to flag ourselfs for PvP, but the fact that killing Flight Masters, the Inn Keeper and Quest Givers makes it impossible to fly anywhere, make the Xroads our home or get/turn in quests. I really hate not being able to turn in a few quests, fly to Orgrimmar/Thunder Bluff, visit my class trainer, browse the Auction House, etc. because some Night Elf Huntard (sorry, couldn't resist...) ganked the quest giver and Flight Master! It really bugs me...
As for people complaining that we (the Horde) are doing the same for Southshore, now you know how we feel...
chaz Jul 10th 2007 10:09AM
@15, she is. You should go check her out. If you know where to find her.
Becca Jul 10th 2007 10:17AM
I once tired to convince a guy in Stormwind general chat that raiding Crossroads and Camp T was lame and he should focus on bigger and better targets. I got flamed to kingdom come.
I once tried to explain to a guild leader that it makes our guild look really childish by raiding Crossroads (and Mulgore) and /yelling swears that the Horde can't even read. I got kicked out of the guild.
Simply put, the reason that the Alliance does anything like that is because they don't like a challenge. I've seen several all-70 Crossroad raids. If they just put their minds to it, they could raid the Undercity (at least THAT'S more respectable than Crossroads). Now, that's not to say that the Horde are all angels too. I've seen "Westfall is under attack!" "Southshore is under attack!" "Darkshire is under attack!" too, but these places don't get raided on an hourly basis quite like Crossroads.
Shawn Jul 10th 2007 10:20AM
As mentioned above - the same reason that Horde constantly gank in Southshore and kill the Defias Traitor in Westfall. That reason being because they suck at real PvP against equal foes.