Alterac Valley in Classic

This is a subject that has been asked about several times recently, and we want to clarify some of the details surrounding it. Like many aspects of the game, Alterac Valley was tuned and adjusted in different ways from patch to patch in 2005-2006.

First and foremost, we’re planning to use the 1.12 version of Alterac Valley. For many parts of the game like this, we’re picking an original WoW patch that gives us the most clarity for WoW: Classic, and 1.12 is that patch.

In Alterac Valley, that puts us before the introduction of reinforcements. It puts us before the removal of all of the Commanders and Lieutenants. The only win conditions are the killing of Drek’thar in Frostwolf Keep or Vanndar Stormpike in Dun Baldar.

It gives us several early improvements to the BG that we’re glad to have in place. Early on in AV, there were too many NPCs and they were too hard to kill. By 1.12, many had been removed and NPC health was brought down to a reasonable level. Turning in armor scraps is an encouraged, supportive activity by this point. Many capture points (mostly graveyards) had been moved away from their initial placements to gain better balance across the map. Korak the Bloodrager was removed, and killing opposing players no longer drops items like Dwarf Spines, Orc Teeth, or Human Bone Chips. Gross.

In our content plan update, we mentioned that we’re still working out exactly how and when PvP elements of Classic will roll out. We’ll update you on that here very soon.

137 Likes

But Korak is bae.

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#nochanges

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Just add Korak back please. Everything else is fine. Pleeeease

Snowfall is such a boring objective without Korak. People just skip it. What’s wrong with having a neutral boss to spicen up the fight?

Edit: Adding some info on the various changes AV went through for people.

1.8
-A great avalanche has closed off both the eastern and western segments of Alterac Valley. This has displaced the Syndicate Wildpaw Gnolls, and many of the Winterax Trolls.
-Due to the avalanche, Korrak the Bloodrager and a small band of surviving Trolls have made the Snowfall Graveyard their new home. Players will find that Snowfall is now under Korrak’s control and they must defeat Korrak and his Troll guards if they wish to take Snowfall.
-NPC difficulty has been scaled down. All NPCs have had their power reduced by 15-30%.

1.10
-Korrak the Bloodrager and his band of trolls have packed up their bags and left Alterac Valley for greener pastures.

1.11
-Most of the NPC guard units have been removed.
-Creatures that remain in Alterac Valley have had their hit points reduced.

1.12
-Cross Realm BGs

Do we really want the 1.12 version with all its nerfs? It was only done because of Marks of Honor IMO. In 1.8 the East and West lanes of the map were completely removed. Look up the original AV map, it is amazing.

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Not my first choice, but I can handle it.

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That is unfortunate :frowning:

My favorite part of vanilla wow was 1.5 AV…

It’s okay, I understand… I am just sad.

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Anything about sharding that has been posted several times in this forum?

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Wasn’t expecting to hear anything today, but this is nice to have an answer to this question.

Edit: In before we get 50 people in here complaining about having the 1.12 version because a streamer wants an older version.

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I wouldn’t mind if you guys picked and chose specific aspects of AV from various vanilla patches to make what you feel would be the most enjoyable experience. I think just a few things from earlier patches would possibly make a lot in the community happy. If anything, it should be considered and tested. I’m only going off accounts of people talking about how epic the old, multi-day AV battles were, and would like to experience that myself.

Edit:
In this thread, there are two types of posters.

Poster 1:
I am disappointed. I really liked the old AV. Here are reasons why:
Reason 1
Reason 2
Reason 3

Poster 2:
No, you’re wrong. A streamer told you to think this. It isn’t even possible. Original AV isn’t classic. The developers already said no.

I am getting wall of no vibes from poster 2.

68 Likes

Thank you for giving us this information, but isn’t the point of Classic to give us what we lost over time? Very very very few of us have ever seen, or even heard of, Korak the Bloodrager. Having him gone in the only time we will ever travel back to the beginning is saddening. It’s understandable, I just hope we have the way-too-long AVs of olde

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Thanks for the info!

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Hype hype hype! Love it! Sticking to all the original gameplay mechanics.

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Bummer.

RIP Real AV

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That’s great, so long as there’s no reinforcements it’ll feel like classic AV.

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Not my first choice, but good to get the information so we know what we’re working with.

When it comes to PvP for the content release plan, I really hope there is a window where we can get some good world PvP going. BGs are great and all, but they start to take PvP out of the world as they’re the most efficient place to farm CP for the honor system.

8 Likes

Gnocchi/broken on suicide watch

It’s going to be okay.

We still love you

5 Likes

Streamers aren’t the only ones who would have preferred 1.5 AV. I’m not even a PvPer, but was hoping and looking forward to getting to have the non-zerg experience. (I had the zerg experience in TBC playing two people’s pocket healer, and it is just plain boring and not a “battleground” at all.)

:woman_shrugging: Blizzard has decided, so all they’ve done is ensure I won’t touch it.

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Not saying they are. Just saying that by this afternoon, you know a ton of people will descend on this thread because a streamer made a topic about it.

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Alliance after reading this thread:

"See you on the bridge Horde scum!"

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all we ask is we still have our 2 days AV battle still going on blizzard no timer stuff to do a base race game and be able to summon the almighty elders to fight the war with us and push to the alliance stronghold. :grin: and no sharding or whatever is it.

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