Fact: They know AV is unbalanced

[Brokenwind-malganis (Brokenwind)]

@Veshze-area-52

@Brokenwind-malganis

Hint: Korak’s Revenge

Ok i think i get it now.

So retail gets an original version of AV (even tho most don’t bother playing it) during the anny event.

And classic players wished they got that version, but didn’t.

K. ty. Took me a few mins lol

Pretty much. When AV was discussed ad nauseum prior to the AV announcement (and long afterward), there was a large movement to have them NOT use 1.12 AV, but rather an earlier version that best represents what AV was originally intended (version up for debate of course, I personally thought 1.7 AV was the high water mark) One of the excuses being bandied about to NOT do an earlier version was that they no longer had the code, and it would have been too much trouble recreating it. Blizzard even acknowledged that players had been clammoring for an earlier AV:

@Kaivax

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.

Fast forward to the 15th anniversary of the game, which nearly coincided with the release of AV in classic, and suddenly there it is: a recreated representation of an early version of AV. And what was it used in? Retail.

But hey, blizzard got the “clarity” they desired, and we in classic got to enjoy this large sandwich they dumped into classic.