BlizzCon 2008 - World of Warcraft PVP Panel

The PVP Panel at BlizzCon focused primarily on the addition of two new arenas, one new battleground and the much anticipated zone PVP that will accompany the release of Wrath of the Lich King. Tom Chilton and Cory Skelton were the primary speakers and covered topics including layout, strategies, and intent (Blizzard’s) with regards to the new areas. We’ve broken their comments below and added our own observations. Read through and feel free to comment your opinions.

Ring of Valor (Arena)

The Ring of Valor is located in the long dormant arena located in the Horde city of Orgrimmar. Cory spoke at length with regards to some of the new features of this arena. They include dynamic line of sight, the additions of two permanent strips of fire in the arena floor that cause a DOT, and moving the starting positions of the players much closer to each other.

This fight starts off with an immediacy not found in other Arenas. Players are lifted from beneath the arena in two cages that start directly opposite each other, gladiator style. Players must be ready to go the second the cage walls drop.

The dynamic LOS comes in the form of 4 pillars spaced at the compass points around the arena. These pillars retract into and lift from the arena floor at timed intervals. They block LOS when above ground canceling any ranged attack or heal. The pillars have symbols on the top for ease of identification and communication.

The strips of fire on the base of the arena floor (one at either end) span the entire width of the arena. The fire erupts from these strips at timed intervals and causes a 10% DOT for 3 ticks. The fire causes a special debuff to prevent players from being rooted over a strip and continually causing them damage. A player will need to be aware of the timing on these strips as they could prove useful in combat. If a player times it right it could force the opposing player to break off long enough to get in a heal or kill them with the DOT if they carelessly run over it while chasing the other player.

Dalaran Sewer (Arena)

The Dalaran Arena is located in the sewers of Dalaran is the smallest of the arenas and has a unique feel and strategy thanks in large part to a timed pillar of water that falls from the ceiling during the event. Being caught in this pillar of water causes a small knock-back for the player. The water also interrupts LOS. Players start out in pipes on the wall of the arena and drop towards the center platform at the start. To prevent players from merely staying in the pipe and using ranged weapons or heals those that stay in the start pipes too long will be pushed out by a wall of water. Due to the small size, no mounts are allowed in this arena. Blizzard put a little bit of an Easter Egg in the form of a scripted arena battle viewable through the big grate in the sewers where players queue for battle. As of yet this hasn’t been seen in the beta but it might still make it into the release.

Strand of the Ancients (Battleground)

The Strand of the Ancients is the first Battleground where players will be able to use Siege weaponry. Players start in either a defense or siege position and are required either to break through the walls or repel the invaders respectively. The event has a 30-40 minute limit to prevent matches from going on for hours. Once the siege teams conquer the fortress the teams switch and do it all over again. The new siege team must conquer the fortress in less time than the first team. The beta kept the number of players at ten but Corey mentioned in the Panel that the cap will be raised to fifteen players and will add additional siege weaponry to support the new players.

The new siege weapons are an absolute blast to use. There are several types of mobile weaponry, mines, and mounted cannons that players can use. The mines have a 3-4 second timer and CAN be defused after they are placed. Players can attack with the weaponry from multiple different angles and can coordinate those attacks using the colors of the walls in that area.

Wintergrasp (PVP Zone)

Finally, we come to Wintergrasp: arguably one of Blizzard’s crowning achievements in Wrath of the Lich King. mmolecule staffers were very skeptical early on in the Beta as there a lot of performance issues around in-world (i.e. non-instanced PVP) but Blizzard took the time to iron out all the kinks. The end result is nothing short of amazing. For those that love random PVP it can always be found around the zone and the actual battles feel like the original raids on Orgrimmar or Stormwind back when PVP first started.

The battle in Wintergrasp is very similar to the battle at the Strand of the Ancients. Factions fight for control of the fortress either by siege or defense. Once either the timer of 30-40 minutes runs out or the opposing faction captures the fortress the event idles for 2.5 hours. When the 2.5 hours is up the battle commences again. More information on why Blizzard chose 2.5 hours is at the bottom of this section.

Battle in Wintergrasp is fierce and ferocious with both sides using siege weaponry and player numbers reaching into the hundreds. Again, Blizzard spent a lot of time tuning the experience to eliminate the lag usually experienced with that much going on in a world zone. With regards to the siege weaponry, players have the choice of several types of weapons; however they must attain a certain rank before being able to use the weapons. Ranks are determined by honorable kills with the minimum level being two HK’s… The table below outlines the various ranks.

* The Flying Machine comes in two types, normal and bomber. The bomber has a second seat for a player to drop explosives on enemy towers.

Blizzard also took into account the server population imbalances and setup a buff called Tenacity. It grants a dps buff and damage reduction to whichever faction has the smaller number of people in the zone. It shifts proportional to that difference. The numbers stated during the Panel included upwards of a 300 percent increase in damage. Corey pointed out that most players would still play if it meant doing insane damage...we tend to agree...

Upon winning the fortress several unique things happen: players can now access a 10 or 25 man raid instance (Archavon: The Stone Keeper) inside the fortress, players can talk to all the NPC’s for daily quests and loot unique to the fortress, a portal forms between Wintergrasp and Dalaran, lastly players can collect Shards from bosses killed while their faction holds the fortress. These shards can be turned in for unique items.

The Future of PVP

Lastly the Panel spoke on some of the future directions Blizzard is looking at with regards to PVP in World of Warcraft. They touched on the following:

• Support all PVP Player styles
• Continue to refine Reward bonuses
• Queue from anywhere
• Looking into Competitive PVP and Guild Battlegrounds
• XP gain in BG