Ask Aurdon: Battleground XP

Nov 02 2008

Posted by Aurdon in Ask Aurdon, PvP, tags: Email

Well I think its time I actually start up a new feature here on the blog. Every once in a great while I get a personal email asking me a specific question. Usually a very good question. Instead of simply replying to these I think they’d make great posts and open the dialogue up a bit more. This way the original question doesn’t just get my incite, but the informed views and opinions of you my blog audience.

Today’s question comes from Travis:

Hi, my name’s Travis. I was hearing that Blizzard is adding experience points through battlegrounds. Is this true? Because if it is, what happens to all the twinks?

Hi Travis. Great question!

I have heard this as an Idea that has been tossed around. It seems to have originated here on the official forums from Tigole (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10532281614&sid=1&pageNo=2). All I know is that they are considering it. Details beyond that are unknown which means nothing has been hashed out about what would happen with twinks. Perhaps they would have an ability to “opt-out” and forgo the experience granted or pearhaps the experience would be only in select battle grounds (aka an entirely new battleground or a mirror version of an existing battleground: XP-WSG, XP-AB, etc…).

I have heard in Beta that you could/can receive honor points in Lake Wintergrasp but that is not scheduled to carry over once Wrath of the Lich King launches. The honor points awarded there were only to help players purchase honor gear for testing due to the arena scene being nonexistent in beta.

I’ve also heard that in Warhammer online, one of the primary ways to gain experience is through PvP. Mythic’s game is obviously geared towards PvP so that only makes sense. Once I heard about Tigole’s post I instantly thought about Warhammer’s XP model and saw it as perhaps a counter measure to WoW players leaving for WAR. That’s really just conspiracy talk because with WoW’s eleven million subscribers, they really aren’t on the same competition level with WAR. I just chalk battleground XP up as a “good idea” borrowed or not.

Well that’s all I know about it. What do you guys thinK? I’m adding my email to the side column if you care to submit any future questions that you’d like to see me and the rest of the readers chime in on. My email address is of course isheepthings at gmail dot com. Easy huh?

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Comments “Ask Aurdon: Battleground XP”

Scuzzy Bastard says:

November 3, 2008 at 9:51 am

You know Aurdon. It is a great idea, my only concern is that the xp rate earned in a BG is not going to be the same as the xp rate received out in the world. The major concern is that either it is going to be excessively low which in turn would make the idea a flop, or it is going to be equal to or higher than world xp. In either case it would be bad. Think about what that can do to the economy if everyone can level to 80 via PVP only, go back after hitting cap and doing the quests for gold?

Aurdon says:

November 3, 2008 at 10:38 am

@scuzzy Wow…I had not even considered that. Imagine the devastation to the economy if everyone waited to quest at level cap. And imagine all of the skipped quests in the process. I’m sure these are the reasons its only being tossed around at the moment. WoW is geared more towards PvE and that’s where its roots are. Battlegrounds were not even added to the game until patch 1.5 (June 2005, 7mo after WoW release) and Arena in 2.0.1 (Dec 06, 2y after game release)

Even though PvP is pretty decent in this game, it didn’t really have focus from day one (like WAR) so I’m not sure how successful a system like this would turn out. The original forum post that started this did say the rewards will include “low level itemization” which is already part of BG’s I thought. Or perhaps “low level itemization” means “almost as good as quest gear”. I would think that blizzard would put enough deterrents on this leveling process to keep it from becoming the new leveling path of choice.

Even though Blizzard seems to want to turn their game into a professional cyber sport they need to consider how doing so is going to give the game a split personality.

Scuzzy says:

November 3, 2008 at 12:54 pm

The other thing maybe allowing players to do xp for bg’s only after they have leveled a toon to level cap? That might allow the economy to stabilize from the resulting influx of gold. Plus for those of us with altitis (like myself) it would give an ability to level without doing the same quests 50 times. I am not saying that running BG’s to get to 80 is my idea of fun, but to some out there it most definitely is fun to them.

Santyn says:

November 3, 2008 at 5:25 pm

It’s hard to say whether this is good or bad. Does Blizzard consider twinking a valid aspect of the game? Rewarding experience in Battlegrounds would destroy the sub-game of twinking, causing a huge cry of outrage from the twinks. Some people, such as players who PvP as they level, might find this a good thing, whether to help them level or to provide a release from the wrath of twinks.

Personally, I think it is a good idea. I’ve never understood the fun in dominating level 19 PvP. There is way for fun to be had at the higher levels where there is a wider variety of gear and abilities.

Gnomeaggedon says:

November 3, 2008 at 9:49 pm

I am sure I heard something about this a little while back.

Something along the lines of someone at Blizz that hated twinking intending to remove it from the game. I am pretty sure I heard another blue stated soon after that twinking would be safe.

I think if it is optional, then great, if it is compulsory, then not so great.

Those that don’t understand twinks, possibly never will, but those that twink do so for a variety of reasons including a “purity” or simplicity of character while increasing the challenge and reliance on player ability rather than toon ability.

The thing is if you do want to choose to play in a 19/29/39 bracket, it would be a pain in the but leveling to 19.1, playing briefly to 19.9, deleting the toon and starting again.

I sometimes wish I could limit my PvE toon too. Max level 60, just run old world stuff. Sure you could just run old world stuff at 60, but these days you would quickly become 61.. thus the challenge and joy of seeing old world content at an appropriate level disappears.

Aurdon says:

November 4, 2008 at 9:31 am

@santyn I think twinks are here to stay. They wouldn’t have been allowed to run the game for so long otherwise. If they do add this system, its doomed to fail unless they allow measures for twinks.

@Gnomeaggedon I can recall forum posts requesting the addition of “Vanilla WoW” only servers which cap off at 60 and do not offer any TBC content. Blues would show up and say that would never happen though. They want to “keep moving forward” which is a reason why they never set up heroic preTBC dungeons. Even I was interested in running a heroic MC if I would get useable gear. But I suppose you can never say never with Blizzard…just look at the PvE -> PvP server situation.

In all honesty though, I think Blizzard should incorporate a simple premade system instead of allowing Twinks. They could even set this up where you get to choose your class each time you spawn at the spirit healer (just like the many popular FPS games like Team Fortress 2) . Then we’d see where the real majority likes to play…a battleground where everyone starts of as equals and the outcome is based upon cooperation and skill or…a battleground that is dominated by Arena Gladiators who steam roll their opponents in a matter of seconds.

Hallowed be my Gnome « Armaggedon’s coming says:

November 5, 2008 at 8:01 pm

[...] I thought it was well placed as a BG toon. Sure, not a twink, but ready for WSG and AB. Assuming Aurdon isn’t correct and BG XP is coming in the future. Which is specifically why I am opposed to BG [...]