Lake winterspring question.

Q u o t e:


the term uneasy PEACE... mean anything to you?

if this game was designed for pvp as your trying to push...... why was pvp not IN the game till 2 weeks before release? aka not tested worth a damn other than the mechanics in beta................

if you can not see the difference between a capital city and a neutral zone that forces flagging.. there is no help for your inteligence level.

also as you are selectively ignoring... it was mentioned the devs are entertaining the idea of putting the equivalent of elemental plateau in this FORCED PVP zone... meaning i have to go to that zone to level my crafting...

For all intents and purposes Lake Wintergrasp is a Battleground that is not instanced. The idea is to bring to the World of Warcraft several new approaches to PvP game play. Bear in mind there won't be any materials or items found in this zone that cannot be found elsewhere. This is not a place you will be forced to go if you want to collect elements, ore, herbs, etc.

The term "forced" is being thrown around too loosely in this thread.

There are plenty of people like you I'm sure that do not care for the idea of having a zone that requires a PvP flag. This is why we have, from the beginning stages of designing this zone, made sure it's not a place anyone has to go who doesn't want to PvP. You don't have to travel through to get elsewhere, nor do you have to travel to it for any sort of crafting materials.

The PvP flag is absolutely necessary to make sure the game play is as fair as possible in Lake Wintergrasp. There's really not much good that can come from letting players enter this zone without being flagged for PvP while the battle wages on. The zone will have checks in place to monitor the participants and populations in this zone. Having a bunch of unflagged characters running around can upset this. Ultimately unflagged characters could become a distraction to the events taking place, or a hindrance to their faction. This is why no unflagged players are allowed in Alterac Valley. It's somewhere no one is forced to go, but if you do you have to be prepared to fight the opposing faction.

You've made mention of the vast amount of Normal realms and populations. One thing it doesn't seem you've brought much into consideration is the fact that not everyone on Normal realms share your distaste for PvP. Not wanting to get ganked while leveling does not intrinsically mean a player has no interest in fighting other players, particularly when done in objective-based combat. One of my main characters is on a Normal realm yet I spend the majority of my time in Battlegrounds with that character. I can guarantee he will be in Lake Wintergrasp a lot along with many other players on my realm.

Q u o t e:
These are called PvP servers. They already exist.

It's not accurate to compare a PvP realm to a single zone with the PvP ruleset. Whether you're questing, farming, or doing anything in the world on a PvP realm, PvP is intrusive. A single PvP zone that does not punish players who do not go there is non-intrusive to the PvE ruleset.

Q u o t e:
If having non-flagged players in the zone breaks it, then it was either poorly thought out and/or badly coded, and needs to be fixed.

I've yet to hear any good reason from anyone in this thread why there would be a positive purpose for players who do not intend to PvP to enter the zone. If the zone is made for players to fight against the other faction, why would you want to go there without a PvP flag?

Q u o t e:
The 'no consideration' road runs both ways. Manual flagging has worked on PvE servers since the beginning, and there's little reason to change this now.

I can agree, which is why the system for manual flagging is not being changed on PvE servers except in a single PvP zone where the entire purpose of being there is to engage in PvP combat, whether you're on a PvP server or not.

Q u o t e:
You're exactly right. Wintergrasp needs to be instanced.

There will be a new instanced Battleground with some very new tactics released with Wrath of the Lich King. The purpose though that Lake Wintergrasp has as a non-instanced PvP zone is not trivial. A lot of players, myself included, kind of miss being able to fight specifically with the opposing faction from our own realm. The multi-queuing system is great for being able to enter matches at-will with very short wait times, but having more of a tangible connection to the enemy can be a good thing as well. Making this Battleground not instanced means players won't have to wait in an indefinite queue to fight against members of the opposing faction on the same realm.

Q u o t e:
Actually, both sides are advocating that everyone play the way that side wants, so it's really a moot point anyway. Sometimes it's entertaining enough just to argue.

I disagree. Players have a choice to go to Lake Wintergrasp, which is what those who are in favor of this PvP zone are standing behind. I'm actually not even sure what your argument is anymore, so I guess it's comforting to know you're at least entertained by being contrary.

Q u o t e:
Ok i have looked and can not find any information on this...

on a PVP server will *any raid instance* act as a pve server zone?( aka not instantly flag everyone in the zone for pvp)

if so i forsee this being another BWL,MC,Za,Kara,SSC,BT,SW,ZG on PVP servers.. people rolled on PVP servers as oposed to Normal servers for a reason..

I visualize what you accomplished yonder.

Q u o t e:
Question about Lake Wintergrasp -

Does this mean the zone's going to have differential cap timers determined by the number of players in each faction present in the zone? IE, if you're on a 30:1 alliance:horde realm, and there are 2 horde and 60 alliance in the zone, will the horde cap nodes 30 times faster to compensate for there being comparatively few of them?

I'm just wondering how you guys are preventing faction imbalances from imbalancing the world PvP zone - if it's even something you're worried about.

This is especially going to be a concern for PvE realms, since from what I've heard most of them heavily favour alliance.

There will be some imposed handicaps placed on the faction with more team members or repeated victories in the zone. For instance, since resources will need to be collected to gain rights to operate the siege weapons, the resource requirements for the team with less players may drop incrementally. We will be tuning a lot of our population checks & balances as testing progresses.