Cataclysm to bring region-wide battlegrounds
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 11th 2010 at 9:00AM
How this managed to slip past us, we'll never know. Wednesday night, Kalgan (also known as Lead Game Designer Tom Chilton) hit the official forums to drop some news regarding rated battlegrounds in Cataclysm.
KalganWe're currently expecting both normal and rated battlegrounds to be cross-battlegroup (within a region) for the launch of Cataclysm. So, players queueing from anywhere in North America (for example) could play vs players on any North American battlegroup, etc. This applies to all regions, not just North America.
Yes, battlegrounds will no longer be locked to battlegroups in the coming expansion. The pool of players to pull from is going to grow dramatically with this change, which can only be a good thing. It also has interesting implications for PvE content. Cross-realm battlegrounds came long before cross-realm 5-mans via the dungeon finder, so cross-battlegroup battlegrounds could potentially suggest that the dungeon finder will pull from the entire region eventually as well. With the Battle.net revamp and the incoming Real ID features, what realm we play on may become less and less relevant for anything but the guild we're in and which faction holds Tol Barad.
[via World of Raids]
Filed under: News items, PvP, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Bill Jun 11th 2010 9:03AM
AWESOME!
Dah Jun 11th 2010 9:10AM
I thought the same thing at first...but after I thought about it a bit more, I'm not sure.
Having shorter queues is definitely a plus, but at the same time, I kinda like running into a few enemies that I've known before. It doesn't happen a whole lot, so it's not like I ever get bored of playing against the same person(s), but it happens enough so that I might recognize someone and have some idea of how to fight them.
Fighting strangers is fun, but so is fighting people you've fought before.
Rakah Jun 11th 2010 9:38AM
i'm very skeptical. i already see enough laggy players and if i have to put up with the notoriously laggy spannish i probably won't queue.
Boz Jun 11th 2010 9:40AM
All the Twinks in the house say: YEAH!
Alex Jun 11th 2010 10:20AM
Good news everyone! I think they're finally fixing Battleground and Dungeon queue times!
trefpoid Jun 11th 2010 10:30AM
I totally agree with Dah.. I've fought with guys from level 30 up to 80.. we develope pure hatred for eachother and it's lots of fun. It will be sad no to see them anymore.. also, I like my battlegroup 'cause horde almost always won.. guess that won't happen anymore if we get mixed with anyone. Hope it turn out ok! shorter queues are a great plus.
SunGod228 Jun 11th 2010 10:34AM
It will help a lot for people who queue for BGs and Dungeons off of peak hours
In general I don't think it would have a large impact on dungeon queue times . The ratio of players who are willing to heal/tank will be the same across realms.
Baba Jun 11th 2010 1:02PM
If this eventually gets extended to heroics, what will happen to tank queue times? It may well be that if we log onto our character with the intention of doing a heroic, we log on inside said heroic :P
Though I would find it funny if there is a realm lurking somewhere composed ENTIRELY of tanks... and they doom us all lol. For that would truely be the real Cataclysm.
Bananana Jun 11th 2010 1:28PM
This will be good for twinks. It will reduce their battleground queue times.
This will be good for leveling characters or anyone who who is queueing for dungeons when there wouldn't have otherwise been five people in the queueing system.
On the other hand, it'll be a mixed bag for max level characters. It'll essentially average out the queue times between battlegroups. As it is right now, on each battlegroup one faction typically has very fast queue times, while the other has slightly longer ones. After these changes, I'm anticipating this pattern remaining the same, except replacing "battlegroups" with "regions."
That is, it won't matter what server you're on. One particular faction (I'm going to go ahead and guess it'll be the "non-worgen" faction, although who really knows) is going to have faster bg queue times, although I'm hoping it'll be less severe than it has been on some battlegroups.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that I won't lose my regular < 1 minute bg queues on my alliance pvp character.
GrumblyStuff Jun 11th 2010 1:26PM
I'm... not so excited about this prospect.
We've all seen how people treat each other when they have anonymity and an audience. This will only expand on that, allowing them to be exposed to more and more strangers. If this hypothetical idiot/jerk was able to be ignored by a small population (ie. just a realm), he might learn (or server transfer). This just gives him a fresh audience constantly.
It would be nice if they gave people the option to look for groups/BGs/raids/arena foes only from your server or battlegroup so that you can develop relationships with people rather than just pewpew, tanktank, healheal and pulling the group slot machine lever and starting over again.
Moonfaxx Jun 11th 2010 1:32PM
Now if they would just implement a "vote to kick" option for battlegrounds, we'd be set.
Jormund Fenris Jun 11th 2010 9:05AM
This might sound a bit pessimistic, but I wonder if Blizz will increase the ignore list limit since now we now apparently can meet with an entire region of players.
Nillah Jun 11th 2010 9:14AM
That was my first thought, too. Gives those people even more chances to be asses in random groups.
Elwoods Jun 11th 2010 9:22AM
The chances of you meeting the same assmonkey again get even more remote with such a bigger group to choose from.
Then again it just gives us a bigger group of idiots to choose from as well :)
Alex Jun 11th 2010 10:21AM
Report spam m8.
Aedilhild Jun 11th 2010 10:26AM
Name of the game, unfortunately. There's always going to be a "general" barking orders within seconds of zone-in and berating the group if a match goes badly. Just ignore them during respawn and keep on playing.
Aedilhild Jun 11th 2010 10:33AM
Sorry, forgot to add that Elwoods' right: with these numbers, it's probably unlikely you'll be paired with the same players even during the wee hours. Ignore then remove the couple bad apples? I dunno. I just aggravate angry players until they shut up.
Zanathos Jun 11th 2010 5:03PM
Keep track of many matches you win with a "general", and how many you win when no one calls out directions. I think that'll give you an appreciation for generals, though the whiners who bemoan when the fight doesn't go their way should be rightly mocked.
For example, I've noticed in strand, that when no one calls out a gate to focus on, we win about 0% of the time (with a 5% variance). If someone takes the time to type out either "everyone hit blue" or "focus green", suddenly our chances of victory increased over 50%.
Don't begrudge someone issuing orders in a BG because you want to be a lone wolf. Feel free to keep on hating them if the combine issuing orders with nerdraging though.
KrisseyB Jun 11th 2010 7:01PM
+1 for nice use of assmonkey. Still giggling.
nikdaheratik Jun 14th 2010 5:14PM
My problem with "Generals" is the fact that they generally think they know more than they do. For example, they call out on alliance side in AB "G1 BS, G2 ST, G3 LM" which is dumb because you don't know what the horde is gonna pull so you could be left with a group of 5 just sitting around at ST while horde pickup BS and GM by hitting 2 groups at BS and have no one at GM.
The best plan is to just try and hit each of the contested ones and then fall back to the stables if you're outnumbered by alot at one of them. Having a plan doesn't help much since the best way to win some of these BGs is to be flexible and communicate where the other team is.