Guest Post: Three fresh ideas for world PvP events
by Michael Beck 
Jul 24th 2010 at 4:00PM
Of all the PvP events I've participated in over the years, the battle for Halaa in Nagrand always sticks out in my mind as one of the best-executed examples of world PvP that the World of Warcraft has ever produced. The battle for Halaa brought together several areas of warfare in perfect harmony.
- The element of surprise The battle for Halaa took place at any time. Whenever the opposite faction felt like taking control of the city, they could form a raid and start bombing. It left the controlling faction scrambling to assemble a defense when the words "Halaa is under attack!" popped up on their screens.
- Aerial assault Players had to activate one of four wyvern stations and fly over the city of Halaa to drop bombs, causing massive amounts of damage. Until the defenses were weakened, players could not successfully enter the city.
- Sabotage While enemy players were taking to the skies, one of the keys to success was to destroy the activated wyvern stations to prevent those enemy players from immediately taking off for another bombing run.
- Siege warfare Once the city's defenses were eliminated, the conquering force moved into the city center and held the city captive. Either the defending faction would break the siege and regain control of the city or it would be lost to the conquering heroes.
- Spoils of war Defeating your enemy within the boundaries of Halaa yielded you a Halaa Battle Token. Once you controlled Halaa, those tokens could be spent on various rewards, including the coveted Dark War Talbuk.
With new expansions come new territories to explore and conquer. Sadly, Nagrand and the war-torn city of Halaa fell to the wayside in favor of Wintergrasp once Wrath of the Lich King was released. So what does a player who is hungry for world PvP do now? If you have some friends and are will to do a little organizing and promoting, here are three new ideas to spring on your server.
Sunreavers vs. The Silver CovenantWhen people think of Crystalsong Forest, only two things come to mind: Dalaran and Glassfin Minnows. However, there is an unused PvP gem on the eastern side of the map. In the Unbound Thicket, you'll find the Sunreaver's Command and the Windrunner's Overlook (home to the Silver Covenant) directly across from each other.
The idea here is simple. Capture the enemy camp. Keep the enemy out of your camp. Kill the guards. Destroy their leader. Hold their forces in check and claim victory. Aerial assault would be too easy in this case, so flying mounts are not allowed.
The first faction to successfully capture the other camp and hold it for 10 consecutive minutes is the winner of the battle.
Battle for the Dark Portal
The Dark Portal is of major strategic significance to both the Horde and Alliance. While they have cooperated over its use to this point, the time has come for a group to ultimately hold the Dark Portal for its own uses.
The idea here is to slaughter the opposite faction and hold control over the area surrounding the Dark Portal. Protect your lower-level players who are arriving from the Blasted Lands portal and ensure they make safe passage through the Dark Portal. Slaughter any new recruits appearing from the opposite faction.
A winner will be decided when one faction is able to keep players alive on the steps of the portal for at least 10 consecutive minutes.
The Amphitheater of Anguish offers more than just a chain quest and an achievement. It is a structure that would make a great place for a serious world PvP battle. If you look behind Gurgthock, the fight promoter, you will notice a staircase that leads up to what appears to be a throne room, complete with a throne. It's just begging for someone to sit upon it and hold it as their own!
In this scenario, each faction selects its best fighter to start in the throne room. The remainder of the players line up across from each other on the fighting floor of the Amphitheater of Anguish itself. When the battle is signaled to begin, all hell breaks loose.
In the throne room, the victor in single combat takes his rightful place on the throne. Down below, the factions battle each other on their way up to the throne room. Flying mounts would take the fun out of this battle, so they are forbidden.
The faction that keeps a player alive on the throne for 10 consecutive minutes is crowned the King of the Amphitheater, and the other faction must mount up and leave in shame. Or continue to spill blood in rage. Their choice.
Tips on promoting world PvP events
- If you have enough willing friends on your friends list, start your promoting and player recruitment there. Your friends are more likely to follow the rules than someone on trade who would rather just crash the party.
- Make sure at least one person is recording video of the event. It will make recruiting for the next event easier when you can actually show them what a great time it was.
- Welcome feedback on how the event went. Would it be more fun if some of the rules or objectives were tweaked? Be open to new ideas!
- Keep in touch with the players who participate. After doing this a few times, you'll have enough contacts to organize future events.
Have you ever wanted to write for WoW.com? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions for articles via Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. The next byline you see here may be yours!Filed under: Guest Posts, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Moeru Jul 24th 2010 4:17PM
Dire Maul Arena.
40-man riad vs 40-man raid.
Go.
Moeru Jul 24th 2010 4:18PM
Forgot to add...bonus if the rare spawns while you're there.
West Jul 24th 2010 4:29PM
some of the most fun i had in vanilla were the impromptu 5v5 matches in that arena..
that and SS/TM. there was just something perfect about the back/forth of that when both sides were heavily represented.
no real end goal, just some solid/fair (mostly) open pvp. pvp to pvp.
Dril Jul 24th 2010 4:22PM
Ten consecutive minutes.
Anthony Jul 24th 2010 4:29PM
These are all terrible ideas.
Rai Jul 24th 2010 5:50PM
Put up or shut up.
Faerillis Jul 24th 2010 7:51PM
I wouldn't say terrible but lacking in a few areas.
First off, these all have 2 things in common:
They all have Objectives
They all lack Goals.
Hold X for 10 minutes is nice, but we can already do that. What do we gain?
Second: Crystalsong
Crystalsong doesn't work for more than the lack of a goal. It also doesn't work for No Flying.
You are talking about taking a big strip of land in Northrend where it would be a No Fly Zone. You could make it a Flagged PvP exclusive, and have a turret that does major damage against people on flying mounts. Also claiming a camp with a FP, not a particularly well considered plan. That said a battle to claim the ruins of Shandaral...
Third: The Battle for the Dark Portal
This is by design a gank fest. I'm not saying some battle near the Dark Portal is a bad idea, I mean the area is a fish bowl! You could have people jump in over the ledge, or charge down it. It's also a very small area so having no flight would be doable. You could have particular highlighted zones on the ridge where ranged attacks do more damage.
KoA: No
I'm sorry this one is beyond repair.
vazhkatsi Jul 24th 2010 8:42PM
so basically the dark portal would become a place for level 85s to kill any 58s coming through? oh joy would love that when i'm just trying to get to the outlands, a max level waiting there to gank me at the chokehold
ANeM Jul 25th 2010 3:06AM
@Faerillis
If you actually read the post you'd see that what it is suggesting here is not new official world PVP areas, but rather player run world PVP events similar to how many servers used to occasionally have makeshift PVP Tournaments in the Gurubashi Arena pre-bc
dengarsw Jul 25th 2010 10:31AM
I agree with Anthony, actually. I know what player run content is, and these are actually pretty lame. BGs are more entertaining, even with people just killing each other and ignoring the objectives. The thing is, these objectives seem very broad and how can you tell who wins? I'm actually surprised by these results, since these ideas were initially the first ideas my g/f and I came up with but shot down b/c they're just so dull. Any decent idea seemed to need vent involved and "referees" from both sides so everyone would know when the game would be over.
I don't exactly blame the author for these ideas though. WoW just can't really support good player run events for cross-faction PvP w/out item drop, persistant item drops, and the language barrier.
For example, in Darkfall, my guild had something like capture the flag (but more like "capture the bag of rocks"). There was only one "Flag" but it was in a hard to reach place, so players had to figure out how to get a man up there before the other team could WHILE FIGHTING THE OTHER TEAM. The flag carrier was then super slow, but if done right, another player could fake holding the flag if he could walk slow enough. Remember, this was all player run- no instances, no GMs, just players.
Jack Miles Jul 24th 2010 4:30PM
The Amphitheater is already a pit of PvP. You kinda have to wait for your fellow allies to finish it, but screw waiting for the other team, stab the bastards!
Naturally, this means the only time you can do the quest is 4am, but still...
awall Jul 24th 2010 4:33PM
The dark portal battle would need to be on the Azeroth side. The outland side is a sanctuary zone.
Alyran Jul 24th 2010 4:58PM
Everything is subject to change. To quote Heraclitus: 'Panta rhei, kai ouden menei'!
Johnny Jul 24th 2010 4:43PM
Adding to the Sunreaver vs. Silver Covenant idea, you could try to see which faction could get a better firerworks display in the enemy outpost using all those fireworks from engineering, holidays, vendors etc.
Johnny Jul 24th 2010 4:48PM
Also, you automatically win if you do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwO-wo892pI&feature=related
Jack Miles Jul 24th 2010 5:42PM
Still crack up every time I see that clown.
Like a less evil version of the joker.
elstor Jul 24th 2010 4:51PM
I like these ideas, but they all are a bit too similar- basically theyre all just variations on king of the hill.
Iirdan Jul 25th 2010 12:38AM
Most World PvP is. The Outland ones are just King of the Hill with a minor variation per - in Halaa, you have to bomb to get rid of defenses. In Zangarmarsh, you have two towers to control, then you unlock the ability to capture the last hill. In Terrokar, it's a short game with seven hills to capture, after which all seven are automatically held until the next game. In Hellfire, three individual hills.
The only "unique" World PvP is really in Silithus, with the Silithyst.
Nawaf Jul 24th 2010 5:07PM
Here's my idea of a world PvP event. Readers, please comment on it
-The PvP event is in Hillsbrad Foothills. It's a monthly 40 vs. 40 event.
-The objective of the game is to get 60-100 points (you decide).
-20 points are granted through capturing relics. Relics are captured by taking the relic from the relic keeper and reaching Tarren Mill (horde) or Southshore (Alliance).
-The relic keeper is a low level player of the same faction. The horde relic keeper stays in the end of Southshore (in a safe place away from NPCs) while the alliance relic keeper stays in the end of Tarren Mill.
-If a player reaches the relic keeper he must trade with him. The relic keeper must give that player a relic (a grey or white item).
-The relic keeper must tell the raid leader of the same faction and the raid leader of the opposing faction (through battle.net chat) who took the relic. They tell their whole raid to protect or kill that player.
-If that player is killed before he reaches Southshore or Tarren Mill it is not counted.
-After the player with the relic scores, he must give the relic to the raid leader. The raid leader tells the relic keeper of the number of relics he has every time he takes a new one.
-5 points are given for the opposing faction for each time the relic keeper is killed by a player.
-If a relic is given, another relic cannot be given until scoring or killing the relic carrier.
-Relics are the same item in each match. That item is changed every match without telling players what the item is. Only the relic keepers know what the item is. This is done so that people don't cheat.
-When enough points are gathered, the relic keeper tells the relic keeper of the opposing faction. The match is ended.
For those who didn't understand here's an example:
-The goal is to get 80 points.
-A horde player goes to Southshore and takes the relic from the horde relic keeper.
-The horde player reaches Tarren Mill without dying. He gives the relic to the raid leader.
-The raid leader tells the horde relic keeper that he has X number of relics.
-Let's say the horde relic keeper was killed by a player 4 times. This gives the horde 20 points.
-With 20 points, the horde needs to get 60 more points to win. 60 points = 3 relics.
-When the horde relic keeper is told that they have 3 relics. He announces this to the alliance relic keeper (Battle.net chat). He then walks back to Tarren Mill and meets the raid leader to check that he has all the relics.
Avan Jul 24th 2010 5:24PM
Too complicated, and requires RealID to work.