Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley have been part of
World of Warcraft since way back in June 2005 (patch 1.5). That's given us all plenty of time to play both of those battlegrounds until we know every inch of the map by heart and could capture the flag (or, in the case of AV, the bunkers/graveyards/etc) with our eyes closed. Arathi Basin is a bit newer than that, released with patch 1.7 in September 2005, but by now, even its most dedicated fans have had a chance to play it to death. And even the most recent battleground, Eye of the Storm, has been in the game for nearly seven months. Doesn't running the same maps endlessly get old at some point? And doesn't the battleground system deserve a little love?
Well, Nethaera lets us know that
there are more battlegrounds in our future (though she can't tell us precisely when), but that Blizzard is concerned about longer queue times that could result from giving players wanting to participate in the battlegrounds a fifth choice. For my part, I think even some new maps for the existing battlegrounds could liven them up some.
Tags: alterac valley, AlteracValley, arathi basin, ArathiBasin, battleground, battlegrounds, eye of the storm, EyeOfTheStorm, pvp, warsong gulch, WarsongGulch, world of warcraft, WorldOfWarcraft, wow
Filed under: Patches, PvP
Jul 12th 2007 at 6:09PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rakuen42 Jul 12th 2007 6:27PM
Why not just rotate the battlegrounds?
Have 3 battlegrounds up at once. On its bonus weekend, rotate the battleground in and rotate the oldest one out.
Blizzard would have to do something about the token system, but honestly, the token system is kind of worthless. I know I can manage 100 tokens easily before I can even buy an item with honor points.
overneathe Jul 12th 2007 6:38PM
The battle before The Sundering, The War of the Shifting Sands, The battle over Grim Batol involving Alexstrasza, The battle over Grim Batol involving Dark Iron Dwarves, The battle at the Frozen Throne...
James Jul 12th 2007 7:03PM
I think it would be interesting to "finish" a Battleground. Have like one last month to do Warsong Gulch, and the faction that wins the most worldwide battles, would actually change the game world, i.e part of the Barrens goes under Alliance control. You could easily introduce a new Capture the Flag BG, and transfer all the old tokens over to the new one. Not too big an issue.
Coherent Jul 12th 2007 7:34PM
They need to retire old battlegrounds! That way the unpopular battlegrounds get to go away, and the best of the battlegrounds will stick around for everyone to enjoy for a long time to come.
Of course they need to track battleground popularity on some sort of consistent basis. But it's absolutely true that some BG's provide a better experience than others.
DeanSpeedway Jul 12th 2007 8:50PM
If they were to introduce new BGs - give them an end point. I have only played Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch- but AB is far preferable in that it is (a) actually fun to begin with and (b) eventually the tickets (resources) tick over and the round ends.
I am trying to grind WSG tokens and so many rounds have lasted close to an hour at total stalemate. Each team grabs the flag and hides in their most defendable spot. Noone can get their own flag back- noone can cap the other one. YAAAAAAWN.
Build in a time limit (30 or 45 min)and if it's not over it's a draw.
I realise this is a bit off topic but gawd I can't wait to never have to do WSG again.
DanKOzz Jul 12th 2007 8:48PM
Even if they allowed for diffrent game types with in the same map would help... So like a WSG style game in AV.
Ingaverson Jul 12th 2007 10:00PM
I think the idea of map rotations is the way to go.
Many FPS games rely on different maps to make the game interesting and with 3 or 4 variations (and some better loot) BG's might be more fun.
Essentially each is just a different kind of battleground so multiple map for each should work fine:
WSG - Capture the flag maps
AB - Capture resources maps
EoTS- Combination of above maps
AV - PvP with PvE objective maps
Imagine WSG on a beach or AB in a jungle things would be more interesting, at least for a while :)
It's not a new idea even, the new Lorderon map for Arena has its pros and cons but at least its different.
Baluki Jul 13th 2007 12:35AM
What happened to Azshara Crater? That map has been in the game files for a long time now, but it's as if the idea has been abandoned.
I like the idea of rotating the battlegrounds. Maybe they could replace one each week and just have 3 playable at once, with a map's Holiday weekend occuring just before that map is removed (people would be tired of it after playing it all weekend anyway).
novelty22 Jul 13th 2007 2:29AM
I'd really like to see xp for battleground brought back, that'd solve my overflowing mailbox of endless tokens from every battleground...
i'm still unclear as to why they removed it, especially now that everyone has way to many tokens..plus it gave people more reasons to want to win, and I really don't even recall afk'rs back then...
Kaylek Jul 13th 2007 10:13AM
I think alternate maps are the next step. Alternate WSG, AB, EOTS, possibly even AV (though I can understand the difficulty in a complete redesign of something that big, with so many internal quests).
Just something visually different, maybe some terrain variation. Just like the current arena mixup.
Bootsanator Jul 13th 2007 11:19AM
Um, I played the "Stack" level on Goldeneye 007 for N64 SOO many times. There were other levels, but I thought it was the best and we almost always played on it, occasionally mixing it up and doing the Temple (?) level.
Now, this is quite a bit different than a classic FPS, but just saying, maybe people do still love these maps. I love AB (just wish the rewards I wanted while leveling were from AB, not WSG [cheap purple bracers ftw]) and still enjoy levitate/jumping down from the lumber mill towards the blacksmith...and of course the ever popular mind control them off of a cliff, always a good time.
Chadwick Jul 13th 2007 11:29AM
I like the idea of rotating battlegrounds. Especially if they have more out, it may help with the queue times. Also having a world event that changes the old maps into new ones is also a great idea.
Here's mine:
In addition to the above items, have the old ones still accessible via a Cavern of Times type zone.
That way you get new versions of the current battlegrounds, you all new battle grounds, and you still can access the old ones if you want. Queues may be an issue, but you are accessing an old battleground, so it should come with the decision.
Even have it as a separate portal in the CoT dungeon, with quartermasters, and what nots.
Eztonic Jul 13th 2007 3:58PM
Bored after 3 years of playing the same Battleround over and over again? Get over it, I think I've been playing the DE_DUST, DE_COBBLE, CS_OFFICE for about 10 years, And they are still exciting!