Is the war over?

10:54AM on 01 Mar 2010 by shieldbreakr
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Over the past three years, something has been bugging me about Warcraft. Before you tune out, this is not a waxing poetic about the glory days of vanilla. For those of you who remember the bad old days, you might remember with fondness the battles over Hillsbrad. Without a doubt, I have the firm belief that the SS/TM war happened on every single server in the game. For the most part, a great deal of fun was had by all concerned, except the poor level 20's trying to level amidst a field of god-like 60's rampaging the countryside. That was the basis of the Alliance vs Horde experience in WoW.

When Burning Crusade dropped, we got to do it all over again in the appropriately named Hellfire Peninsula. Ever wanted to know what having every single player on your server in one PvP battleground was like? Hellfire Peninsula on 16 January 2007 was probably it. I spent more time killing alliance than leveling that week and probably was about the 900th person to hit 70 on my rogue, but I know for damned sure I was in the top 10 on HK's that week and didn't do a single battleground.

Prepared for even more mayhem, I was sorely disappointed when the facts of level 70 life settled right on top of me: standing around Shat. Shattrath was the first "blue" zone. Sanctuary. No PvP allowed at all, period, no exceptions. Lore-wise, it didn't make much sense either. I can kill Archimonde and Illidan, but not Alliance newbs around Shat because a giant crystal snowflake said so? Nope, we must live harmoniously with the Alliance.

As the Lich King started amassing strength in Northrend, little things started to creep out about achievements like: [For the Horde!]. Could this be the face of the new war? Constant sieges and assaults on our Warchief, Alliance bodies littering the hallways of the Stormwind Keep and the Valley of Strength, murdering that s.o.b. King Wrynn? It was.. for a while. In reality, I have probably killed King Wrynn about 25 times in my entire WoW career, almost all of those before the Black War Bear mount was in the game when non-raid nights consisted of slipping a warlock (frequently my wife) and some rogues into Stormwind Park and summoning an entire raid army there. I think the mount was a great addition to that particular achievement, it keeps the raids going even if they are much less frequent now.

Unfortunately, the only thing that I see drawing Alliance into Orgrimmar any more is the Lunar Festival. The Alliance have to ride right through Orgrimmar and next to the hall of our beloved Warchief to shake hands with a cow standing in a spotlight for 1/77th of an achievement. These poor bastards have to dodge a gauntlet of people, like me, who frequently stand next to the portal hut on the way to the back door of Org and hit them with slow over and over again while guards, newbs, and rampant Blood Elf Paladins murderfy them with no thought other than getting [City Defender] or maybe some casual harassment.

So I pose the simple question: Is the war over? The Alliance and the Horde have signed a de-facto peace treaty with one another by continuing to live in these sanctuary cities abroad and to the North in order to better pursue the extinction of our common enemies. I believe we have been at peace for too long. As I said on twitter earlier today "Death to the Alliance, full time, all the time. Dalaran should have streets filled with blood." Maybe the last half of that sentence is a bit of hyperbole, but the sentiment remains the same: We should be killing the Lich King *and* the Alliance. We are the Horde, we can do both. While making Dalaran/Shat a free fire zone seems a bit extreme, the war can be ramped up safely in the old world where we don't share a home and here is how:

1) Establish buffs to honor in battlegrounds, Wintergrasp, and world PvP (including capital cities) for killing a world faction leader in the past week. To aid the defenders, slow the respawn on Thrall, Wrynn and the rest down to 24 hours and reward everyone in the capital city zone with a set amount of honor every time a raid of significant numbers touches a world leader and he lives through the combat (with a proper cooldown to prevent exploits). Also, these events should favor the defenders by allowing them to use siege engines and other devices around the city to kill attackers at choke points similar to Wintergrasp walls with portals for defenders only.

2) Double honor gained for killing a player in a capital city. Also remove diminishing returns on players killed in capital cities. If two horde and two alliance want to farm honor for 19 hours by repeatedly killing each other and ressing, so be it, though I doubt many will sit by with reds in their capital cities. Honor for gear is not exactly valuable, with rated battlegrounds coming up, even less so.

3) Establish a criteria for city offense/defense as part of the new rank structure when it returns. Warlords should have been a part of many city sieges on both sides of the lines, not just over some timber hut in the middle of Warsong forest. Require world leader kills and player kills in enemy territory, just like with achievements now, but cumulative, in order to avoid the full time job with overtime that High Warlord became before.

4) Give honor/arena gear price discounts for players with city raiding achievements. There should be a reward, a real, tangible reward for taking the battle to the Alliance where they live and to keeping Thrall safe. This seems trivial but completely worth it. Now Gladiators, High Warlords, and newb level 70's have a reason to jump into the war with both feet, even if they're only in it for the honor. Additionally, make the discount expire every arena season, corresponding to new campaigns in the war.

5) [[ When this post was starting to be written, this said give world PvP'ers ways to get the gear that only BG marks received before, but that has since been put in the works via 3.3.3. Kudos, Blizzard, on finally killing BG Marks, I am not sad to see them go. ]]

.. and that's it. The point is to make killing a world faction leader something to be proud of. The Lich King is very important, but so is Thrall. It's time it felt that way.

#ForTheHorde!

Tags: cataclysm ForTheHorde achievements