It’s impossible even to list down all the issues between broken queues, exploits and bugged calculation of points and reputation. This is a message taken from the boards that demonstrates how the Contribution Points are broken in Warsong:

Unfortunately this is likely going to get lost as the problems seems isolated to Hellscream, but here goes.

Hellscream is not receiving CPs for Warsong wins. I have talked to 10 different people now all of whom have CP totals that are less than half what they are supposed to be. I myself noticed a problem on Wed and held on to my tokens from Thursday. I had 8 total and ended up with 8000 CPs on the day. Something is amiss. The problem is on both Alliance and Horde.

Perhaps people can bump this if they get a chance.

If he has eight tokens it means he won eight times. This alone is equal to 1660 x 8 = 13280 Contribution Points. Without counting the Honor Kills. Instead he collected 8000.

This confirms my test. One day I won two sessions, all three flags returned and I ended up with 3k of points. The following day I did the same but leaving the BG after two flag returned, without waiting for the third. And I ended up with nearly 6k of points.

It’s also kind of interesting how all the radical design holes are starting to show. The servers have huge population unbalances, same for the factions. This brings to endless queues making the game unplayable for most of the players and also shows other design shortcomings. Try to play PvP in a low populated server during the off peak, it’s not possible. Even if you manage to get in after insane long queues you’ll be stuck to kill the same players over and over and over. Without getting points thanks to the “diminishing returns”. And this right now that these battlegrounds are a novelty and everyone is checking them. Think to what will happen a few months down the road.

Blizzard has stated various times that they are currently researching ways to ease the faction and population unbalances. Idiots. This is not something you do seven months after release. This is something you plan right at the start of the project. You’ve been noobs, now it’s too late and you suffer another huge design shortcoming.

Enjoy. The PvP in WoW is broken beyond repair. There’s nothing good aside the deatmatch mode they stole from different genres and that required no talent at all to copy. The rest of the design is an insane clusterfuck where you really cannot find anything to save. Anything.

I don’t like the battlegrounds in World of Warcraft, in particular I don’t like the direction where the game is going. This time I don’t want to comment the bugs or the mechanics I don’t like or consider broken, I just want to say that I don’t expect much from the overall approach. The first day after the patch I heard a guild mate say: “this isn’t anymore a mmorpg”. And that is also my point.

It’s not important to define and categorize what is a mmorpg and decide if WoW betrayed an ideal or not. The point is that this implementation of the PvP is arid and leading nowhere. I believe the latest Penny Arcade comic describes this approach. Blizzard didn’t even try to suggest an interesting PvP model, they didn’t even pick up the challenge. They simply took a consolidated mechanic like the CTF and adapted it into the game. The risk is zero here because there isn’t anything to design aside the conversion itself. By adding a CTF you cannot go wrong because it is a mechanic that has been tested for years between many different titles.

But where is the “world”? From this perspective the battleground are a failure. A failure because if the genre isn’t able to gain its own definition and personality, it will just inherit what worked from other games. The same dynamics, the same structures. Guild Wars is a “landingplace”. If so many parts of these games have failed, the new trend is to question even their existence. Why we need to walk from point A to point B? So we get insta-ports. This example is becoming a consolidated dynamic. These games are losing their personality, they are losing their own specific design, their are being emptied of relevance and purpose till there isn’t anything left. When this process will be over a “mmorpg” will become just an empty box that you can fill with whatever you like, even consolidated deathmatches.

Right now the implementation of the CTF in WoW is revealing. Why I need to fly from Ironforge to Menethil, take a boat, move to the other continent, fly again to Ashenvale and then ride till the entrance of the BG? And why I need to backtrack all that in order to go back to Ironforge in the case I want to do some PvE? Yes, I want insta-ports. All these dynamics are: idle times. I’m being idle for most of the time I pass logged in. I’m idle to move between points and I’m idle while waiting on queues, I’m idel while LFG. There is no gameplay and these idle times have zero use since I alt-tab out of the game. They are unexcused.

Now what I want to reveal is that all these consequences aren’t natural. It’s not natural that you can join the local channels form everywhere in the game-world. It’s not natural that the concept of “space” becomes so devoid of relevance that I feel seriously the need of insta-ports. What happened is that there was a deliberate choice in the design to empty the game from purpose and relevance. These aspects have no depth and no meaning anymore but because the design, again as an action and a choice, has decided that they have no role. This is a systematic attack that this genre is constantly suffering. This is what will kill these games.

What this approach to the design is achieving is the negation of the principles. The negation of the origin of the genre itself. Those roots are being killed and when all the ties with the past will be gone, the genre will be ready to be conquered by the consolidated archetypes already existing. Consoles, sport games, FPS, RTS and so on. This is what brought to my comments on Dave’s blog. For sure this genre is going to last for long, but what it will become isn’t even remotely near what we expect and will be completely estranged from its own origin.

WoW’s battlegrounds are the manifestation of this process. The game needs insta-ports because the principles on which the game was being built have been eroded to a point that they became completely unexcused. I need to fly from Ironforge to Ashenvale but …why? At the end I’m going into a portal and join a specific instance completely cut-out from the game-world. I do not care what happens in other instances, what I do in mine doesn’t affect the world outside, I do not care who is going to win. The key here is “I do not care”. Everything is contingent, the space is negated, the purpose doesn’t exist. The player isn’t anymore put in a context, he is outside that context, he makes the context and uses it. He makes it up, he hallucinates himself. And, outside, nothing exists, nothing has consequences and nothing “breathes”.

What is left of a mmorpg? The time I spend flying from Ironforge to Ashenvale and vice-versa. What is left of a mmorpg is an unexcused burden that will be ultimately removed. Even in WoW (you’ll see).

Aside all these considerations the battlegrounds are a fun diversion. They are fun because they copy directly consolidated mechanics that cannot go wrong if not in the implementation. But after some time they will grow old. Very old. The gameplay is limited, repetitive and unexcused. The rewards become plainful grinds that bore you to tears. They add nothing in the long term because they are estranged from the fabric of the world. They are time-bonuses for a live team that isn’t able to match the expectations of the players on the content.

And again that gap between the expectations of the players and the concrete possibilities of the dev team isn’t an unavoidable fact but just the direct result of a broken approach.

On the other window I have corpse of Azuregos (one of the two PvE outdoor raid encounters) in front of my character.

It took some time to gather the raid and four attempts to succeed, which equals to about three hours.

I guess we should be partying at the moment but there was no drop aside 170~ gold to share. Yes, no drops at all.

On the forums there are various threads about nasty bugs in the loot system that are ruining many raids. This may be related or not, I don’t know.

What I know is that there aren’t many parts of the game that aren’t broken in a way or another.

EDIT- It seems that the loot was dropped by a GM. Next time you know who’s your true target. (I won nothing)

World of Warcraft is also known for horrible LFG tools. This is why there’s a little and useful (for casual players) “exploit” around.

There is the possibility to join Ironforge chat channel (used for LFG by default) from everywhere in the game, without being there physically. To do this you can build two simple macros so that you can join/leave the channel as you like.

The macro to join is:
/script JoinChannelByName(“General – Ironforge”, nil, 1); ChatFrame1.channelList[5]=”General – Ironforge”; ChatFrame1.zoneChannelList[5]=0;

You don’t need to type everything since the game support copy/paste (ctrl+V to paste).

Then you build another macro to leave it:
/leave 5 (the number may change)

Thanks to exploits we can work around the design shortcomings.

About what I write here below. Some peoples didn’t get the problem.

—
From Olaf, on the related thread:

Why is the scoreboard ranked by killing blows anyway? How fucking stupid.

The entire PvP scoring system is flawed IMO. Tanks dont get points for tanking, healers dont get points for healing. Why? Why is the system setup so that the easiest CP gain is that of solo DPS classes riding the coat tails of a balanced raid group working together?

I totally agree with you and I was forgetting to underline that. It’s another wonderful proof of their bright design.

The display should be interactive (so that you can sort it how the hell you like) and sorted by HK by default since all the active classes will get HKs no matter of their class.

About the discussion on the points:
You are supposed to get 498 points for each flag returned.
Second time is 996 and then it’s 1660.

1660 ALWAYS become 166 because the system is broken and noone at Blizzard cared to solve it after it was reported endlessly.

Now. HOW THE FUCK did that guy on my screenshot get 664 points?

It’s simple. That guy came in after the match was already started and he assisted to the last two flag returns.

The first he got 498 points. Which was correct. 664 is the fucked up result of the third flag. Because instead of going to 996 he just got 498 + 166 = 664

Which is a further proof that this is most likely a broken system instead of just a display bug for points above 1000.

So. Want to get points from Warsong? Bail off the BG after you collected 2 flags. Thanks to Blizzard and their retarded bugs. /golfclap