Tigole Talks Battlegrounds and the Future Shift of PVP

Keeping in step with the PVP news this morning, Tigole spoke out about Battlegrounds (my favorite aspect of PVP) and some of the plans on the table for them in the future. I’m especially liking the idea that you might be able to queue from anywhere in the world as in other games, and that the emphasis is going to be shifted towards more Horde vs Alliance events and combat.

The arena is fine and good (should just be called team deathmatch to be honest) but it doesn’t really fit too well with all the new current events going on in the game. When Arthas is taken down in Wrath we’re going to be at a point in the game where we can reignite the fires of war between the factions, as is already stated by the Alliance’s declaration of war against the Horde from this post.

Actually, we have been discussing new battlegrounds quite a bit lately. Wrath of the Lich King will feature Strand of the Ancients (attack/defend) as well as Wintergrasp (non-instanced, world PvP).

But past that, we are exploring ideas that would involve expanding our Battleground content in future patches and beyond. We believe we have some strong ideas for improving Battlegrounds and PvP as a whole in the game and we’re definitely going to focus on improvements in the future. Now, it’s very early to be talking about some of this stuff but I think it’s important for the community to know that it’s on our minds.

Our general thought is that we could provide more BG content over time. The BG content that we could provide could be of higher quality with a higher degree of accessibility. Overall, we’d like to have more content and variety. We also want the gameplay experience in the BGs to be better directed. We’re also exploring the concept of a complimentary “competitive” bg system as well. Over time, we’d like the focus of PvP to shift back to being more BG-centric and more focused on Horde versus Alliance — the core of our game.

We’re also planning on improving some Battleground and PvP features in general. For example, we want to give you the ability to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world. We’re also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that.

Please don’t take this post as a promise. This won’t be an overnight process. Not all of these things are set in stone and guaranteed to happen. It would take us a while to shift in this direction. But these are some of the current thoughts on the development team. I think it’s important for you guys to know some of our thought process in regards to PvP. (src)