Please don't use 1.12 AV

I remember solo capping bunkers because I could cap flag through walls. :joy: Good times.

AV was the embodyment of World of WarCraft
 I mean it’s kinda everything all at once


You have Dungeon stuff, world quest stuff, and even Raid bosses in addition to super epic PVP of every kind imaginable.

The late version AV had almost none of that.

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Blizzard had a true masterpiece in the original AV that truly summed up the spirit of Warcraft.

The fact they reduced it to a quaint little PvE race was one of the worst decisions in gaming history.

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2 week long AVs.

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This literally fits you to a T in this thread. JS

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I was interested in classic primarily for Original AV. If it isn’t original, what’s the point


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Yep, exactly.

I was one of those whon ever even got to experience the original AV. I got into WoW the patch after that, so I could still play around with Shedder, but the Syndicate were gone, and Korrak was awkwardly placed in the middle.

The more there is to do in a BG, the more strategy and fun there is. That’s not exactly rocket science.

I don’t understand why we can’t have the OG AV, concidering that will be one of the primary reasons for me even playing the game.

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Blizzard’s John Staats, stated that AV wasn’t popular at the time.

He worked on the original WoW team. That was why it was changed from mix of PVE to mostly PVP.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/9fb2bo/john_staats_ama_author_of_the_world_of_warcraft/e5ymu7a/

And Classic is a chance to undo the mistakes of the past, like neutering early AV.

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You seem smart, listen to this guy.

YOU ARE GETTING 1.12 AV AND YOU ARE GOING TO LIKE IT

The general consensus is that we don’t want to see the alliance ride right past the horde and visa versa recreating the PVE instance that AV has become.

The issue is eventually the path of least resistance will over come nostalgia and people will inevitably start to use this same strategy. Players will want faster honor because they want to compete in the honor grind which is more of a competition then anything to reach the coveted rank 14 (or whatever they can realistically acquire).

Hopefully for a good 6 months we’ll have something like a PvP instance in AV and it’ll be a reward for those loyal players who level to 60 from the start. However eventually
 the POTLR prevails.

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a) many people were still leveling up “at the time”
b) a decreased pve element directly led to less pvp
c) working on the original team did not mean all of their decisions were the right ones. They completely ignored the outcry of those who were enjoying the BG.
d) by what metric was “popularity” guaged? If total numbers playing the facet of the game, then raids should have been nerfed as hell.

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Old school AV and its long battles were absolutely EPIC.

One of the highlights of vanilla.

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Cross realm BG’s need to exist for PVE & RP servers, otherwise the wait times will be hours. Pvp realms can stay isolated. Win win.

Although if that did happen, the larger faction on the pvp realm would start complaining about lengthy queue times (just like they did in vanilla) and blizzard would have to step in and create BG cross realms (just like they did in vanilla). Just saying.

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Blizzard would not “have” to do anything of the sort. If they truly cared there would be faction ratio queues when logging onto the servers from startup through a certain span of time.

Is that even something that existed ever in the history of this game?

It seems like there were some good changes and some bad changes throughout the patch cycle. Would we ideally want something of a hybrid?

Since this BG wouldn’t be out at launch that could allow enough time to customize it.

Server queues were a thing in general. Faction ratio queue would not be a stretch. No, Blizzard never utilized them, but other entities do, if you catch my drift.

Basically they removed NPCs, then they nerfed them. Then they removed more and nerfed the remaining ones more.

Then they nerfed the remaining ones MORE. That’s the general gist of it. But the above link has all the patch notes and explanation.

Back in the day it wasn’t uncommon for a single AV to go 2-3 days, and you’d get in some epic fights that would go the full week.

I used to log into a match on Friday and be confident I could log into the same match Sunday night when I got home from work.

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AV v1.5.0

  • Enemy NPC lieutenants and commanders now have a team bonus honor value.
  • Enemy NPC lieutenants and commanders no longer respawn.
  • Enemy towers are now destroyed rather than captured (a one-time event per tower). The mechanics for destroying a tower are very similar to their previous capture mechanic.
  • The enemy NPC mine layer no longer respawns when killed.
  • The respawn time for laying mines has been slowed.
  • All Alterac Valley quest items (ie: armor scraps) are zone-bound, and will be lost if taken outside the battleground instance.
  • Korrak’s respawn time has been increased to 30 minutes.
  • NPC’s in the entrance tunnels will no longer fight enemy NPCs, only enemy players.
  • Lok’holar the ice lord and Ivus the forest lord are now friendly to Horde and Alliance players (respectively), and will therefore no longer affect friendly players with area-of-effect spells.
  • Sound effects have been added to critical battleground events (ie: a graveyard being assaulted).
  • Additional items for purchasing have been added to the quartermasters in the entrance tunnels. The types of items you may purchase is based on your reputation with the quartermaster.
  • The Alliance and Horde NPC captains now periodically shout a “rallying cry”, granting a powerful effect to all friendly players in the battleground. Killing the enemy’s captain will deny the ability for the enemy to gain a rallying cry.
  • Ivus the Forest Lord now uses a winter Ancient Protector model rather than a Keeper of the Grove model

AV v1.6.0

  • Each team will now gain additional bonus honor if their towers are not destroyed by the end of the map. The more towers that remained intact, the more honor received.
  • If you manage to keep your faction’s Captain alive for the duration of a battle, you will be granted extra points upon victory.
  • Several Alterac Valley vendor items are now bind on acquire.
  • The respawn time for tower guards (assuming the tower has not been destroyed) has been greatly increased.
  • Korrak the Bloodrager has gained immunities to many different spell and ability effects.
  • The minimum reputation needed to send a cavalry charge has been reduced to Honored.
  • Players of Revered or higher reputation may now call offensive air strikes if they have managed to rescue their respective Wing Commanders.
  • Alterac Valley’s guard spawn is now controlled via a more intuitive mechanism. Please check the Officer Supply vendors for your faction to read up on the changes.
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the Alliance team from receiving honor for destroying towers.
  • Fixed a bug that was not awarding Horde credit for owning a mine at the end of a game.

AV 1.7.0 (general BG changes)

  • Battleground “holidays” have been added to Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin. Holidays occur during most weekends, starting on Thursday night at midnight and continuing until Tuesday morning. During a holiday, emissaries from that Battleground will be found in the major cities, and honor/faction rewards for performing objectives in that battleground are increased.
  • Alterac Valley now correctly rewards honor for owning graveyards at the end of the game.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause players to stand up when a turnin was made in Alterac Valley.
  • Players will no longer be able to gain health by repeatedly entering and leaving the effect of a Battle Standard.
  • Entering a battleground now resets the timer for the AFK flag. This should prevent players being kicked by the AFK timer moments after they enter the Battleground instance.

BGs in general v 1.8.0:

  • Each Battleground has an individual turn-in quest associated with its related victory/loss condition. Upon completion of a Battleground, the winning side will be awarded three Marks of Honor while the losing side will be awarded one Mark of Honor. Three Marks of Honor may be turned in to the associated questgiver for Honor points and faction increase. Should players complete this turn-in quest, they will find that the bonus Honor Points for completion are twice that of normal turn-in conditions (individual).

AV v1.8.0:

  • In order to keep teams in Alterac Valley more numerically balanced, players will now enter Alterac Valley on a one-for-one basis (i.e. if there are 30 players in the battleground for each side with 10 players in the Alliance queue and 2 players in the Horde queue, only two players from each team will be added, bringing the total to 32 per side).
  • The minimum number of players required to start a battle in Alterac Valley has been lowered to 20 (the maximum is still 40).
  • Points for completing the map and winning have been slightly decreased.
  • Graveyards and graveyard capture points are now at different locations. The banners players must interact with in order to capture a graveyard have been distanced from each other somewhat in order to alleviate “graveyard zerging” and make graveyards more meaningful to both defense and offense.
  • Several terrain changes were made to fix some geometry exploits as well as to adjust for the new graveyard mechanic.
  • Iceblood Graveyard has been fortified.
  • The Frostwolf Relief Hut now has appropriate guards.
  • A great avalanche has closed off both the eastern and western segments of Alterac Valley. This has displaced the Syndicate, the 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.
  • The quests Korrak the Bloodrager (Alliance), Korrak the Everliving (Alliance), The Legend of Korrak (Horde), and The Return of Korrak (Horde) have been removed from the game. The rewards for the initial quest involving Korrak have been moved and can be acquired by completing the quest associated with winning a match in Alterac Valley. We realize that some players may have had the Korrak quest and never completed it. These players may have already completed the quest for killing the General and thus might not be able to benefit from the rewards from the previous quest line. We have opted to add an extra quest step at the end of the General kill quests to reward players that fall under such conditions.
  • A new item has been added as one of the reward choices for the quests Hero of the Stormpike and Hero of the Frostwolf.
  • NPC difficulty has been scaled down. All NPCs have had their power reduced by 15-30%.
  • There is now a portcullis at the end of each of the entrance tunnels inside Alterac Valley. They will rise two minutes into the battle.

AV v1.9.0
No specific changes listed

AV v1.9.3

  • The default graveyards in Alterac Valley for each side were moved further up the tunnels away from the battleground exit. This should prevent accidentally leaving the battleground.

AV v1.10.0

  • Flavor items from player loot in Alterac Valley will now stack and can be sold for a small value. These are items like Documents from Boomstick Imports, Worn Running Shoes, etc.
  • Players in Alterac Valley will no longer drop Darkspear Troll Mojo, Dwarf Spines, Forsaken Hearts, Human Bone Chips, Orc Teeth, etc. and the quests have been removed for these items. Instead when a player is slain in Alterac Valley, any enemies that were in that player’s threat list will gain 1 point of reputation with either the Frostwolf or Stormpike factions.
  • Frostwolf and Stormpike faction will now be gained by killing players of the opposite faction. Reputation will no longer be split up among the entire raid group.
  • Tower Banners in Alterac Valley can no longer be used through walls.
  • Korrak the Bloodrager and his band of trolls have packed up their bags and left Alterac Valley for greener pastures.

AV v1.11.0

  • Most of the NPC guard units have been removed.
  • Players now drop more quest items.
  • Creatures that remain in Alterac Valley have had their hit points reduced.
  • The buff that is periodically cast by each faction’s Captain has been changed to a flat 20% hit point buff.
  • Upgrading troops through armor scrap turn-ins will also now result in your team’s General enabling a periodic buff to your melee and spell damage. This buff scales from 10% at the Seasoned unit level, 20% at the Veteran unit level, and 30% at the Champion unit level.

AV v1.12.0

  • When you join a battleground, you are automatically added to a raid group. You MAY NOT leave that group. To speak in this raid, use /bg instead of /ra.
  • Leadership of the battleground raid is granted to whomever has the highest PvP rank when the raid is formed (approximately 1 minute before the battleground starts).
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