Ferion
05-13-2005, 10:24 AM
So I was able to try out Battle Grounds on the test server last night and I have to say, from what little I got to play I am fairly impressed. They introduced two different BG's, Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch. Both of these are instanced and have multiple instances running of which to choose from. I just picked the "Join First Available" option which ended up queueing me for about 5 mintues before I got to play. Alterac Valley, a 40v40 map, was the first one I tried and it is really fun and plays a lot like Battlefield 1942, WoW style. First off there are a multitude of quests that you can do when entering the Zone which range from supply quests in the nearby mines to boost NPC strength, to gathering Rams for the army in the foothills, to capturing Graveyards and points. The first 30 minutes of this battle was kind of a stalemate with the Alliance and Horde just battling it out in the center of the map. However the Horde were able to push us back and capture one of our bunkers which they held for about 20 minutes before we pushed them out. Then we were able to take control of one of their graveyards, which it appears, in this BG to be a very crucial goal because you can only spawn at Graveyards that your faction owns, much like the spawn points in Battlefield. Anyways after the Alliance captured this GY we were able to spawn closer to their territory which led to the capture of a tower and the siege on one of their Garrisons. Now this was fun, because in the Garrison was a 61 elite Captain who was a bitch to kill. About 10 of us wiped on him and it took 2 attempts to do. He was easily the equivalent of a raid boss. Once this captain was down the horde Garrison burst into flames, although it wasnt destroyed completely. I could only imagine what the boss at th enemy's Keep is like. Now after this me and another rogue went on a quest which is kind of cool, to find the captured Gryphon Commanders. We stealthed further into their territory and found one of them up in a tower. We took out his immediate guards and then he fought along side of us as a 58 elite, mind you we all got slaughtered eventually because there was just too many, but we ended up taking the tower in the process. I didnt stick around to the end because this Battle Ground takes hours to do, but it would be awesome to get a coordinated guild in there to do some damage.
So I went to try out Warsong Gulch next in Ashenvale, which is a 10v10 map, and to my surprise it is a CTF Battle Ground. Yes, Capture the Flag true and true. It is set up with two opposing fortresses and a flag at each end. It plays very fast and is very entertaining. In this map Warriors and Pallys are going to be very useful as Flag Bearers because evry other class drops too fast. It is also cool becasue it shows the scores and kills just like it would in a Quake or Tribes match.
All in all I was satisfied with the Battle Grounds from what I got to experience. They are entertaining and a great way to rack up honor points. :)
So I went to try out Warsong Gulch next in Ashenvale, which is a 10v10 map, and to my surprise it is a CTF Battle Ground. Yes, Capture the Flag true and true. It is set up with two opposing fortresses and a flag at each end. It plays very fast and is very entertaining. In this map Warriors and Pallys are going to be very useful as Flag Bearers because evry other class drops too fast. It is also cool becasue it shows the scores and kills just like it would in a Quake or Tribes match.
All in all I was satisfied with the Battle Grounds from what I got to experience. They are entertaining and a great way to rack up honor points. :)