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 2 of 5)
Magma Jun 11th 2010 9:06AM
It's about time
Cyanea Jun 11th 2010 9:07AM
LIKE
Cyanea Jun 11th 2010 9:07AM
Too bad they can't do it now and get rid of the 20-minute queues for BGs on my battlegroup, though. :P
Hypocriticalhit Jun 11th 2010 9:07AM
Does this mean that we get a dungeon finder like this too?
More people= more chances of incompetence
Sigh
SamLowry Jun 11th 2010 10:02AM
How about a raid finder? There have been many weeks recently where I couldn't find a group of ten people who wanted to take down the weekly boss.
Soleaux Jun 11th 2010 12:38PM
This doesn't even make sense. If your battle group is made up of 20% incompetent people, and if the player-base as a whole across North America is made up of 20% incompetent people, then you will still have the same percentage of incompetent people. You won't have a higher chance of meeting incompetent people. It will always be the same 20%. It's all relative.
Healr Jun 11th 2010 7:58PM
As Soleaux said, it doesn't make sense and the irony of someone whining about other being incompetent with a post that is founded on ignorance of the even the most fundamental 4th grader maths and statistic understanding is utterly laughable.
JoeRandom Jun 11th 2010 9:08AM
Finally, there is hope for late-night-BGs again. Very, very cool Blizzard.
shaunarcher Jun 11th 2010 12:57PM
Blizzards always cool me down
macB Jun 11th 2010 9:10AM
Sounds like all the twinks with experience switched off might actually get a chance to get into a battleground now without having to go to a destination battlegroup...
zubbiefish Jun 11th 2010 9:09AM
I love it.
I'm hoping for regional dungeons soon after.
zubbiefish Jun 11th 2010 9:10AM
And another thing!
This will, I imagine, shorten queue times over all not just during peak hours.
I hope.
suh8lim3 Jun 11th 2010 9:11AM
I have a question for today's que after reading this. If they have made it now possible to play against other players across battlegroups, than is it also not possible for us to be them to apply the same technology to the LFD? Looking for a group across all battlegroups would possibly make it seconds, if not a couple minutes at most. That is the biggest thing I find lacking in the LFD. I'm dps and I absolutely HATE the que wait time. Sometimes i've waited up to 30+ min and I swear that LFD has a mind of it's own, cause it only pops up when I've turned my head to look at something, or downsizing the game real quick. I'm sure while I'm writing this right now I've probably missed the que. Anyways, I feel when everyone's que for a dungeon is that of a tank, than the LFD will be complete.
Cortland Jun 11th 2010 9:22AM
Actually, it won't matter much for DPS queue time, because with all those tanks from the other battlegroups come many many more dps. Queue times will get more consistent for everyone, though.
chris Jun 11th 2010 11:16AM
if you go into the sound options you can tell it to play sounds even if your wow window isnt in focus. so if you minimize you can still here the lfd poping up sound.
this is what i do so when i have like firefox open infront of wow i can still get my group. the only downside is you still here all the wow sounds, so a bit of a pain if you are watching youtube or something, but hey. better that then missing your 30 min queue spot.
Idaelus Jun 11th 2010 9:12AM
Anything that makes it so the BG queues are shorter is awesome in my book. I like waiting only a few minutes vs. 20 minutes to get my teeth kicked in..... uh... I mean, pwn some n00bs.
(i am a n00b :( )
Ozzard Jun 11th 2010 9:31AM
In before "omg lag or id hv pwnd ur rs"
(Or, for the txtspk-challenged among us, "My dear Sir, I appear to have been affected by latency from my machine to the battleground server, which appears to be somewhere in Outer Elbonia. You, by contrast, appear to be fine, as you live in Outer Elbonia. Had there not been this imbalance, I do believe I would have beaten you.")
Al Jun 11th 2010 3:19PM
Even Elbonia got local servers before us Oceanics?
Why am I not surprised?
RuzGofDI Jun 11th 2010 4:45PM
One would guess that most, if not all, of the game servers for a Region are in the same location already. So you would only be having a problem with "ZOMG WTF LAG FTL GG QQ BBQ!" once this goes live if you were already having this problem now.
Of course, I could be wrong. Some reassurance from Blizz would be nice on this.
Felix_NZ Jun 11th 2010 9:11PM
Damn Yankees and their living two blocks away from the oceanic datacentres, laughing at me while I'm clicking away madly some 3000miles away IN OCEANIA watching my screen say 'Not close enough' or 'Target must be in front of you' Now you'll all be bitching at each other, while me and my Oceanic buddies play WoW:Chess battleground :P