I miss world PvP

[bluemicrobyte]

World of Warcraft has changed greatly since its release just over a year ago. One of the most memorable features of the game was the large scale world PvP not found in any other mmorpg. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way Blizzard killed that with canned, pre-scripted battlegrounds. Before the days of hitting the "grp 1 mill grp 2 bs grp 3 mine" macro every half hour, you had to plan ahead and be able to command massive armies. You needed to have the skill of a war commander and be able to handle new surprises as dynamic battles unfolded.

On February 12, 2005 the Shadowsong PvE server had planned a large scale attack on the city of Orgrimmar. This massive unscripted world event took place over the course of four hours and involved well over 600 players. The carefully planned attack was the work of one of the servers top guilds. The high end hardcore players led the raid, and worked together with casual players to create a truly unique experience. The original plan had been to strike the Undercity - and everyone had believed that when the word had been spread weeks before. But on the morning of the attack, the masterminds behind the raid - right outside of the Undercity gates - ordered all 300 people present to turn around and board the zeppelin to Orgrimmar.

Here are some screenshots of this exciting event that succesfully combined hardcore and casual gameplay:

http://www.microbyteproductions.com/stuff/orgrimmar.php

[Sikawtic]

That's l33t, but I thought you said there were no more world wars? I'm confused...

[TranquilNightElf]

Whoa..Impressive! That sounds like unique and an awesome experience.. like GvG but on a much larger scale. Would have loved it if you had a gameplay video ;).
But, and this is coming from an outside-the-game perspective, don't you think that if Blizz didn't do anything, it would promote random harrassing raids all the time?

[Sikawtic]

Um... that'd be good. It's warcraft... not... sitbackandnotfighteachothercraft.

[xodkrm]

I love large-scale battles....

I remember once when I got a 80-person raid group (all level 1 &2 )from the
Orc & troll starting place. We were planning to raid some huge alliance city (i forget)
Only 10~20 made it to the city, due to all the gankings by alliance and creeps.
When we did get to storm wind, we got pwned.
The end.

Edit: I think it would be really cool if it R v R waz possible.
(realm vs realm)

[TranquilNightElf]

Um... that'd be good. It's warcraft... not... sitbackandnotfighteachothercraft.

Very droll.:rolleyes:

I meant what would prevent some blokes from constantly carrying on raids ALL the time and harrassing all those who don't want for some reason or the other to be raided continuously?

[kongurous]

I remember one raid back in Terenas...

I was a level 60 paladin, with a fresh full set of Lightforge armor and Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros. Me and my guild, the Giant Electric Penguins, had devised a plan. We got together with the guild leaders of 4 other hardcore guilds and a few casual guilds, and sat down in SW for a round. It was a sort of RP experience in a normal server. Anyway, the hardcore guild leaders said they were ready, each of them having at least 20 lvl 60 players on hand to work with. That was an instant 80 lvl 60s with a lot of experience in capitol city raids. The casual players altogether had around 80 60s as well, and with the Giant Electric Penguins in, our number was about 175 players strong. We went out looking for other high-end guilds who wanted to have a little fun, and by the end of the hour, our total force numbered around 290.

The guild leaders once again met in SW for a round. We spent some money on bourbon, and after a few drinks, we decided to do the following strategy: 50 players would get together and launch a false raid on Undercity. Another 50 would go over to Thunder Bluff. This meant the rest of the Horde was busy with other raids and hopefully some of the 60s in our intended target, Orgrimmar, would go off to defend TB or UC.

So then the 190 players, everyone above lvl 55, set off. We took the boat to Darkshore and flew to Azshara and went south along the river. We came up on the Talongate, pulled the guards there, and the raid was commenced.

The guards fell quickly. Me and the Giant Electric Penguins spearheaded the assault, cutting through the guards and getting into the Valley of Spirits with ease. Our ploy had apparently worked, there were few 60s around to bother us. A group of rogues got together and stealthed, going up to where Thrall is to cause some trouble. I was with the main group, and found the warriors to be quite a fight.

All in all, we were divided into 4 groups in Org. Red group, blue group, yellow group, and green group. Red was in the Valley of Strength, yellow was in Honor, blue was in Wisdom, and green was in the Drag. Fighting was fierce and the raiders in UC and TB banded together after deeming it useless to continue fighting there, and went over to help us in Org. Our number was boosted by 28 alive players, and we had about 100 raiding in Orgrimmar at the time. The fighting continued on for a total of about 2 hours, and casualties numbers on the Horde side were huge, numbering in hundreds of guards and nearly all the players in Orgrimmar. Casualties in Thunder Bluff and UC were significantly lighter on Horde side, and they killed a big number of the feigned raids sent over there.

In Orgrimmar, the Alliance losses were also staggering, even with the 28 reinforcements that joined red group.

In all, here were the losses, organized by group.

Red group: wipe
Blue group: wipe
Yellow group: 3 survivors
Green group: wipe

So out of 290 players, 3 survived, but were eventually hunted down and killed by a group of 10 Horde hunters. The server promptly crashed 15 minutes after this event, and the Horde celebrated by partying outside of Orgrimmar. There was no follow up raid, and the Horde didn't launch an attack on us.

http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=orgrimmarbattlemap2ag.jpg a map detailing group colors and locations during the battle.

I meant what would prevent some blokes from constantly carrying on raids ALL the time and harrassing all those who don't want for some reason or the other to be raided continuously?

The server crashes if it has to respawn too many NPCs. Since guards spawn infinitely, raiding a capitol city can crash a server.

[Incantrix]

World of Warcraft has changed greatly since its release just over a year ago. One of the most memorable features of the game was the large scale world PvP not found in any other mmorpg. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way Blizzard killed that with canned, pre-scripted battlegrounds. Before the days of hitting the "grp 1 mill grp 2 bs grp 3 mine" macro every half hour, you had to plan ahead and be able to command massive armies. You needed to have the skill of a war commander and be able to handle new surprises as dynamic battles unfolded.

On February 12, 2005 the Shadowsong PvE server had planned a large scale attack on the city of Orgrimmar. This massive unscripted world event took place over the course of four hours and involved well over 600 players. The carefully planned attack was the work of one of the servers top guilds. The high end hardcore players led the raid, and worked together with casual players to create a truly unique experience. The original plan had been to strike the Undercity - and everyone had believed that when the word had been spread weeks before. But on the morning of the attack, the masterminds behind the raid - right outside of the Undercity gates - ordered all 300 people present to turn around and board the zeppelin to Orgrimmar.

Here are some screenshots of this exciting event that succesfully combined hardcore and casual gameplay:

http://www.microbyteproductions.com/stuff/orgrimmar.php I think it would be cool if Blizz could set up semi-scipted sorts of events or even quests that would encourage world pvp enough so that all the servers can do something cool like that, not just one really cool server that I'm not on. I've heard one of their reps say they're working on world pvp, but i haven't heard any specifics, so it's probably long term stuff.

[Killphill]

They could always make quests that required you to kill Npcs from opposing factions. That would encourage people to raid other cities more often and just do BG's.

[killer-penguin]

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~gmarco/Screens/fire.jpg

Some screenshots from the first day of pvp on my server

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~gmarco/Screens/outnumbered.jpg

first tuesday after patch

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~gmarco/Screens/goodday.JPG

[Forsaken_One]

That's insane.

Awesome pictures man.

[Laughingjack]

Well this (http://forums-en.wow-europe.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-pvp-en&t=155685&p=1&tmp=1#post155685) I believe shows that they miss it too :)

[rise]

Blizzard did an excellent job killing spontanious PvP, as well as PvP in general. BG's are fun the first hundred times, but not the next three thousand. And raids, what raids? Dishonourable kills have also killed world raiding. Saying this, I've had a few good (very far in between) instances of true PvP in my days under this oppressive direction of the game. There's still the SS-TM tug-of-war, as well as Kargath non-stop PvP. I've also had a few instances of defending Grom'Gol from players trying to fight into the Zeplin.

To be honest, most of my good experiences lately were lvl 60 harrass as a Hunter (pre-visible Flare). Some of the server leading Rogues had a bit of grief from me.

I do have a ton of hugely good, "oldskool" memories. Remember the days when you could be feared of cliffs? TB raids were fun! One time I was a level 25 Paladin solo supporting a 40x60 raid pinned down on the bridge to the Elder Rise. I played res bot as well as well as some minor healing. Originally there was a full other raid of non-60's, but the leaders maid us march through the whole of TB to get to the main raid. Everyone was shafted at the first lift (back in the days npcs could run up cliffs, heh). In a few deaths I managed to make it to the group to play my role.

I have a few good AB memories, although it was mostly in a PUG setting as a healer. I.e. it was frusterating.

Really, it's I get my kicks out of tactical skill. I do not have massive kite skills, I rather prefer fighting 60's at levels 25 and on to test my metle. Usually I rely on the principle of "haha low level kid can't level" to allow me to effectively fight. Saying that I have a couple fond memories of of playing a level 20 Paladin trying to kite a 50+ Warrior.

On the note of underlevel power, Concussive Shot almost always can hit a lvl 60 even at low levels, a Flare is a Flare, traps resisted still destealth, a mark is a mark. In terms of the Paladin in a 60v60 battle, suddenly your whimpy lvl 25 heals can help that player come out on top. Failing that there's a ressurect handy!

Sadly, WoW has killed my desire to play support as they force entire classes to play it. Just a sea of sad faces, hehe.

-rise

[killer-penguin]

World pvp is still in full swing, just head to Blackrock Mountain at 5pm server time (when most raids start) Never a dull moment as tier 2 epicced guilds go toe to toe for first dibs on BWL / MC entrances.

We still raid stormwind/Darnassus on our server and TB gets raided and Cairne killed regularly (the 1k honor or w/e they give up isn't tooo bad.)

It's just not like it was in the old days :(

-kp

[rise]

Aye, I forgot to meantion gauding large instance zones. The Kargath-BRM stretch is a fun one. I was harrassing 60's there at 45 :)