As I've mentioned in a recent warrior column, I'm running the new Alterac Valley on my prot warrior. Mostly it's not intended to accomplish anything, it's just to see how I'll do. I average about four games before I get bored and go do something else. However, in the days leading up to patch 2.3, these four games would probably have been miserable timesinks with no honor gain to show for it and a lot of complaining in /bg.

Nowadays, as you can see to the right, four games is about 1500 honor.

I've found, at least on my Stormstrike BG toons, that the games go a lot faster now. Towers are still being capped, and the Horde still wins more than we do, but it's not so much the intolerable blowouts I'd become accustomed to where they crush us and we can't even take Iceblood GY. In the past two days I've won three and lost five, and almost all of the matches were pretty close. (We tend to do better when the Horde defends, I'm noticing, although I don't know why.) So from my perspective as an Alliance player (look, pro-Alliance bias in a WoW Insider post! Get those flames ready, kids!) and a very casual PvP'er who probably won't bother to run arenas, the changes have been for the good.

How about you all? Thumbs up or thumbs down for the new AV and the immediate honor updating? (I think immediate honor is my favorite thing.)

It has come to my attention, as the kind of masochist who is trying to get Gladiator's gear for five level 70's before taking them into the Arenas (one team already created and one more incoming) that I run a lot of Battlegrounds now. And of all the BG's I play in, AV is the one that seems to have all that you need for a really exhilarating, awesome good time, full of close matches and hard fought victories.

Luckily my fellow players have often stepped in to prevent any enjoyment whatsoever. Out of a sense of gratitude, I thought I would compile some of the ways my fellow Horde or Alliance (depending on who I'm playing) have conspired to help keep me safely mired in a total bog of withering boredom.

Part One - We need more armchair generals, please.

Seriously, don't actually play the game. Don't make the mistake of going out there and capturing graveyards, defending towers until they burn, or even killing enemy faction players. Don't waste your time. You're a strategist. You have to share your time tested battle plans, preferable in all caps, and leave out as many vowels as you can when you do so. "Frgt IBGY, rsh RH, DON STOP FOR TWESR." While no one in the group will know who Don Stop is, much less why he seems to be running for the office of the Twesr of all Alterac Valley, you will have managed to convey your intricate strategems to the whole battlegroup. Money and accolades will no doubt follow. It is especially important to do this as a counterpoint to six or seven other people who are offering opposing battle plans in caps, how else will you convince them of the rightness of your cause?

Today was the first day in my 'Matt runs AV in the morning while his wife's asleep so he can make breakfast for her' scheme since Patch 2.3 changed AV. We all know that I'm a big fan of Alterac Valley, and since my stated goal in running PvP battlegrounds until Arena Season 3 eventually comes out is to collect enough honor to go into full-time arena play alongside my wife wearing as much Season 1 gear as I can get my grubby hands on, the amount of honor I can accumulate in a two hour patch of play is important to me.

So far, it's been very nice.

The removal of the lieutenants and commanders and the emphasis on taking and holding bunkers to remove the marshalls means that there's a lot more actual PvP going on, at least in my battlegroup. (Go, Shadowburn!) I ran several matches this morning, and AV doesn't seem to have bogged down as everyone indicated it would: the honor from capping a bunker or tower is adjusted upwards to 62 so there's a real reason to make sure it gets done, while the other team definitely doesn't want you to do it. I fought more in the Icewing Bunker than I have in quite some time. At one point, I managed to hold a druid/warlock/rogue team just long enough to ensure that the bunker burned. Sure, they killed me, but they killed me too late, and that's a victory in my eyes. I stopped running AV long enough to run the daily PvP quest (today it was EotS) and after a frustrating low-honor match, we got that done on my second run, meaning that I actually made a tidy little sum of gold and honor that helped push me over 2000 for the day.

AV seems revitalized to me, and much less a PvE experience. I learned a lot, including that a warrior with even an enhancement shaman tossing him the occasional heal can rip faces off. Icewing Bunker is mine!

How is AV working out on your battlegroup? Are people still trying the zerging tactics without holding bunkers? Are folks hip to capturing mines for reinforcements? Are your matches more PvP oriented than before or less?

I don't know why, but Alterac Valley is still my favorite battleground. I primarily play Horde in there, although I'll take my Allies in if I'm bored enough with them. I've bought the items I wanted and now, honestly, I don't even care about the honor, I just enjoy AV. I have never understood the lure of AFK honor farming. You're going to be in there as long whether or not you get out of the cave and play, so why not go smash some faces while you're there? I mean, if you want to read a book, turn off the game, man.

There are of course problems with Alterac. Some folks think the map is imbalanced or that the NPC's don't work out the way they should. There's the AFK issue which can really make the game less fun. But for me, whether I win or I lose (I'd say Horde loses about 60% of the time when I do AV, maybe more) is less important than the simple fact that in AV, I'm free to do whatever I want. If I feel like tanking some of the NPC's I can, or I can just go in with a fury or arms spec and DPS. I often take my resto shaman in just to throw chain heal around, I don't even care who I'm healing. That dude over there is taking damage? Chain Heal to the rescue. But if I don't feel like healing I won't, I'll slap an Earth Shield on myself and just flail around ineffectually with my Crow Wing Reaper like a total dumbass and have fun doing it.

Most people will tell you that they're excellent in all aspects of the game. I'm going to admit now that I am awful at PvP. I have reflexes perfectly tuned to PvE content and reaction time that means I'm rarely surprised by what any group of mobs will do, but I cannot wrap my head around PvP. Arenas? I am the first to die. Warsong Gulch? Well, I can slap on full tank gear and run with the flag, but wouldn't you rather have a druid do it? Eye of the Storm and AB are just variations on these themes. But Alterac Valley can contain mobs of Horde and Alliance trying to slaughter each other, it can have races to the end, it can even allow you the magnificent joy of being a spoiler. I've wiped Alliance groups on Drek who were at 1% by killing their last remaining healer and then using Intimidating Shout and War Stomp to break up their rhythm, and even as I died I laughed. Some of my best times in game are in taking petty revenge on Ally turtles by making them have to take even longer to kill Drek.

I admit it, I'm not a very forgiving person.

I look forward to the changes in AV, because I hope to see it restored to a battleground everyone enjoys instead of one everyone but me endures.

It looks like Blizzard is finally starting to take this issue of AFKing in Alterac Valley seriously, and not just with the AFK-reporting feature that you've likely already heard about.

In response to one poster who begged Blizzard not to implement this reporting feature because he says the map is imbalanced and the Horde always loses anyways, Drysc gave us a relatively long list of changes that Blizzard is making in order to help solve the problem -- not just reporting AFKers, but also finding other ways to encourage them to get in the game as well, such as fixing exploits, changing or removing NPCs, and yes even modifying the map a little bit.

Here's what he said:

There are quite a few changes coming, all of which we hope will culminate into making players want to participate, and ultimately win the battleground.

Obviously as most people know we have the anti-afk reporting measure, by which you can right click on someone in the battleground and mark them as AFK. With enough reports they receive a debuff that keeps them from earning honor in that battleground, and only by entering combat can they remove that debuff. It's going to help, but it's certainly not enough on its own.

Other things we're doing are changing or pulling out NPCs in key locations to help even out the balance of time and effort each side has to take to push through. As well as some minor changes to locations that people find are easily exploited to advance faster.

We're shifting some of the honor from the earlier NPCs, that help make AFKing so lucrative, to the end of the battleground and more for actually winning.

The graveyard spawning is being changed so that players aren't sent back to the cave unless there is nowhere else to spawn, which should help encourage horde to play a bit more defense if they're being beaten back.

And we're also correcting the ... I think Jeff referred to them as "creative pulling mechanics" with the general's.

Everything together, we feel, should help encourage players to participate, while also improving overall balance.

There are four battlegrounds in the game right now, but you can still only play one at a time -- which means you've got to have a favorite. You know, the battleground you hope will come up even while you're in another. I have to say, I think my favorite is still Alterac Valley. I've always loved the massive battle that plays out there, and how it integrates PvE elements in a PvP framework -- however, I can't say I'm fond of the AFKers these days... But this isn't about my favorite battleground -- today we're asking which of the four you favor, and why. So tell us, do you have a favorite battleground?

Though the video is titled "Under Five Minute Alterac Valley," the total time from entering the battleground to completing it is three minutes, forty seconds. I don't think Alterac Valley was built to be steamrolled this quickly -- but with a coordinated team of 40 non-afk players, this sort of thing is possible. Sadly, none of the AV's I've participated in have gone nearly this quickly or easily.

Previously on Moviewatch...

If you don't often visit the PvP battleground Alterac Valley, then you may not know what I'm talking about. But AV seems to be the best place for people to go and collect honor points while safely sitting AFK in at the battleground's starting point. Why Alterac? Well, Alterac offers great honor returns for anyone -- and most of the honor is given out zone-wide, regardless of whether you're near the rest of a group when an objective is captured or a boss is killed. It's just too easy to collect large amounts of honor by just sitting around without doing anything -- much to the chagrin of players who are out there fighting and trying to win the battleground.

And while Blizzard has shown themselves quite eager to rid people who are botting or hacking to prevent their AFK flag from coming up when they're not at their keyboard, there's not much they've been able to do about the people who sit in front of their computers watching television and occasionally hitting the space bar. So what's Blizzard to do? There are plenty of suggestions on the PvP forums, though I can't say many of them seem practical. They could remove honor gain from the starting point -- but then players would just learn to idle elsewhere. They could alter the battleground's honor mechanics to give out honor based on a player's range to the objective giving honor -- but this would likely gimp players playing defense by limiting their honor gain (despite the fact that defense makes an important contribution to a match). They could somehow tie honor gains to overall damage or healing done -- though such a change probably isn't a quick fix.

What's your solution to the AV AFK problem?

Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley have been part of World of Warcraft since way back in June 2005 (patch 1.5). That's given us all plenty of time to play both of those battlegrounds until we know every inch of the map by heart and could capture the flag (or, in the case of AV, the bunkers/graveyards/etc) with our eyes closed. Arathi Basin is a bit newer than that, released with patch 1.7 in September 2005, but by now, even its most dedicated fans have had a chance to play it to death. And even the most recent battleground, Eye of the Storm, has been in the game for nearly seven months. Doesn't running the same maps endlessly get old at some point? And doesn't the battleground system deserve a little love?

Well, Nethaera lets us know that there are more battlegrounds in our future (though she can't tell us precisely when), but that Blizzard is concerned about longer queue times that could result from giving players wanting to participate in the battlegrounds a fifth choice. For my part, I think even some new maps for the existing battlegrounds could liven them up some.

Every single time you're in Alterac Valley and your faction starts losing, someone starts whipping out the blame. Unless you ignore the battleground channel, you will be forced to read all about how you suck, how everyone else in this battleground sucks, how you should have done what they told you to do, and so on. Then, the other guy will pipe up with something like "would you shut up, dude? It's just a game," which sends the first one even deeper into his rage. Eventually he may just leave the match, or else quiet down while someone starts a chorus of "Guys, just let them win! I want to get my mark and go home."

Personally, I'm a proud believer in the power of reason. Every time this happens, I find myself giving helpful suggestions, calming tempers, offering insights on how we could improve next time, and generally trying to play the peacemaker. Sometimes I can even find a strategy I think will turn the tide in our favor (and sometimes it works!), but usually I count myself a victor if people just see reason and behave civilly.

What's your experience of people in battlegrounds who just can't handle losing? Have you been able to contain their blame explosions?

Hellaciouss asks why there is no epic set for level 70 Battleground honor rewards, and Drysc, in answering, reveals quite a bit about how Blizzard views the arena PvP, raid, and battleground experiences.

Drysc says the high-end arena gear is "intended to always be about on-par with the current tier players are progressing on." That means that if you play well in Arenas, you can earn gear that's just as good as what the hardcore raiders are earning in PvE. But Battleground gear, says Drysc is actually intended to be not as good. Because Arena and raiding take "quite a bit of effort, interaction, etc" (and BGs apparently do not), the gear for regular honor just isn't as good.

I'll let you decide whether that suggestion is true or not, but I've been playing in the BGs, and there are large numbers of players sitting there AFK just to earn honor-- I reported a few of them. That definitely doesn't match up even close to the effort the best teams put into the arenas. But then again, it takes a lot of coordination and effort to lead a winning Horde team through AV, and if I'm able to do that, shouldn't I get rewarded for it? Just because it's easy for some people to exploit the BGs and earn lots of honor doesn't mean Blizzard has to treat all of the people playing in the Battlegrounds like second class citizens. Instead of gimping the gear, how about upping the effort required, and ditching the AFKers?

Alterac Valley seems to be the hot topic on the General Forums this week, as "Horde ... you just don't get it", "BLIZZARD is FLIPPING THE MAP" and "How does flipping the AV map make it fair" have risen to the top of the forums. Basically, the Horde says that the Alterac Valley map favors Alliance, since Horde have to make it past the bridge chokepoint and the Stormpike graveyard is more secluded and defended than Frostwolf. The Alliance, on the other hand, blame the Horde's perennial losses on AFK people, a defeatist attitude, and a lack of defense, and note that Horde seemingly has no problems steamrolling Alliance in WSG and AB. In response, the Horde has issued a challenge for Blizzard to flip the AV map and see if the Horde's win-loss ratio doesn't turn around.

Now, it's hard to generalize about who wins AV more, but judging from the forums and my own experience in AV (dozens of losses and, like, two wins), it seems that the Alliance win more overall. Is this the fault of the map? Could be. The bridge and the graveyard are always giant roadblocks, and the Horde graveyard is woefully open. But if the Horde wanted to, they could make a similar roadblock in the one building that Alliance have to go through to get the last graveyard. Fight for that like the bridge and Alliance won't win so easily. At least back in the day, Horde lost AV because of all the AFK cavejumpers, the fishers, the level 52 warriors screaming orders, all the people who would leave when Balinda was dead, and the magic summoning stick Alliance used whenever they were losing to get everyone in Tier 2.5 or greater to queue for AV at the same time.

Alliance, how do the battleground terrain maps look from your side? Does flipping all the BG maps for a month or so sound like a good idea?

In my continuing quest to explore the PvP side of things, I've often been wondering if I should've been saving my honor for level 70 rewards. I had no idea what kinds of things would be coming out of the BG's for my little orc hunter until now.

Blizzard has updated a lot of PvP information today. For each individual battleground, you'll notice the elimination of faction requirements (no more friendly, revered, or exalted rquired), and the changes in pricing from gold to honor points and pvp tokens. For general PvP weapon rewards, the list has been expanded upward to level 70, and includes a lot of new weapons.

Check out the new information at the links below:

• Level 70 weapons
• Alterac Valley rewards
• Arathi Basin rewards
• Warsong Gultch rewards

The weapon rewards are definitely worth noting. First, level 70 weapons are all rare, rather than epic. Next, I noticed that there's only 1 ranged weapon, and it's a crossbow. I really enjoy using a bow on my hunter, and though I could've switched to better DPS'ing guns and crossbows before, it just felt wrong. I'm sure there'll be some great PvE bows, but I really think Bliz needs to add a gun and bow to the PvP list at level 70.

Aside from that, I think the rewards are pretty solid for the existing battlegrounds. I'm sure we'll see the Eye of the Storm rewards and Arena rewards on the official site before too long, and that's where the true display of PvP skill will come to play, so you can reap the epic rewards that are due.

What do you think of the new weapons, and the shift in how you acquire battleground rewards from gold/rep to honor/tokens?