There. I’ve said it.
They started with horrible game design (post-launch with the Honor system, before it was great), and they will never get out of that hole they dug.
I’m really surprised about how well the game design is on certain aspects, and how completely retarded it is on others (LFG system, PvP, faction grinds).
IGN has an article about upcoming changes to WoW’s PvP. In particular they reveal how Blizzard plan to revitalize the world PvP. Something that the players have been waiting from a long time and that Blizzard kept hyping still without giving out any concrete detail. As you could guess from the title, the result is terrible.
The big news today is the scoop on world PvP objectives.
The new world PvP content will take place in Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands, although it may eventually branch out to other areas.
In Silithus, the objective revolves around collecting dust, called “silithyst,” and players will activate the geysers to collect the silithysts. You get a nice “buff” (stat boost) when you turn in the resources, but you’ll be flagged as a PvP player as soon as you pick the stuff up, making you attackable by anyone in the opposing faction while you attempt to make your way back the Field Duty camps associated with the Cenarion Hold faction quests. If you manage to turn in enough of the dust, all of your fellow faction members in the zone will gain a buff as well, including those in the “AQ20” Ahn’Qiraj dungeon.
Eastern Plaguelands. There are several towers in this zone, already standing, that will be converted to captureable bases. You’ll need to control and defend each tower, and the faction who possesses all four will gain zone-wide benefits like in Silithus.
Increased damage against the many undead creatures there (and in Stratholme).
So, uhm. Travel back an forth beween a resource node and an NPC to fetch back stuff and get a buff in Silithus, and control four towers to get another buff in Eastern Plaguelands.
The motivation is nothing deeper or more involving than a buff, that also risks to be PvE oriented.
I guess the players are so desperate for PvP that even a so bland objective and context could be enough. But it will get old super-fast. It’s really nothing more than a minor gimmick, risking to be exploited instead of becoming an excuse for a fun and lively PvP environment (as it should).
The article doesn’t say if those objectives will also lead to honor and/or factional points. I guess they will since those two are what keeps alive the shrinking PvP crowd in WoW. But even if they will, Blizzard is still forced to keep the rewards small to not compete with the BattleGrounds.
It’s quite obvious that the PvP will never improve till they don’t address what fucked it up: the honor system.
Anyway. None of the new changes is particularly interesting or bright, nor I think players reading about them get the desire of playing that. It’s again another missed occasion. Nearly two years from release and the PvP still sucks despite the strong demand and the promises from Blizzard (the PvP world objectives were on the “on development” page since release, then they were removed along the war machines). With uninspired and dumb ideas incoming that won’t change a thing.
I hope you weren’t one of those waiting expectantly about the awesome new changes that Blizzard has hyped on for so many months. Because the result couldn’t be more deluding.
It’s also not so encouraging that a similar style of world PvP objectives will be used in the zones of the new expansion.
P.S.
On FoH’s someone noticed another important potential problem:
Doing PvP in zones with a lot of potentially annoying mobs isn’t exactly attractive too.
dunno but I can’t wait to pvp in silithus. Where every inch of that god forsaken zone is covered in snaring, rooting, stunning, charging mobs. JFC It’ll BE SO MUCH FUN
The irony of choosing Silithus is that most PvP servers have had an unspoken truce in Silithus for months. With all the triggered mob spawns, faction/xp grinding and questing going on it has been more logical and reasonable to leave everyone to their own devices and not have constant, all-out pvp going on.