WoW Battlegrounds test realms open!

[Keeperofpeas]

Blizzard has announced (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com) that the test realms for the upcoming Battlegrounds patch are now ready for (US)character transfers.

It looks like there are indeed going to be multiple battlegrounds released, and the speculation of the location of the 2nd battleground can cease.

The patch notes (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html) also suggest many PvP issues introduced since last patch have been addressed, including the viability of warlocks in PvP.

[crackeriah]

Whoop-dee-doo! I cancelled my account two days ago. I got sick of the treadmill around level 30, and I hated the prospect of doing that until 60. Also, to make things worthwhile in PvP and battlegrounds, you need to play for a minimum of several hours a week.

No thanks.

Blizzard needs to do a better job of appealing to the less "hardcore" MMORPG gamer. Right now they seem to consider a "casual" WoW player one that plays 10-20 hours a week.

[Savok]

A lot of "about fucking time" fixes. Soul Shards from honorable PvP, Volly having a chance of being useful, Hinterlands having a Horde outpost.

A HUGE fix with finally getting pets in the party UI.

Still no fix for pet AI, only a bandaid with the speed boost. Honor is the same as always, and god knows what's been left off the notes.

[Heretic Machine]

Well, at least someone is trying to fix their PVP... CoH's PVP is so friggin broken right now hardly anyone even uses it.

[Speed_D]

Just at a glance, the pvp changes seem logical to me. I admit I have not played on the test server, though.

There is a change that's going to really bite for pve raids. Check out the restorative elixir. The note about it seems innocent enough but what's really happening is it is now on the combat potion timer, which blows. I imagine a lot of guilds are going to fuss about this one. Especially horde guilds since they don't have paladins to help overlap priest responsibilities.

[netcraazzy]

Blizzard needs to do a better job of appealing to the less "hardcore" MMORPG gamer. Right now they seem to consider a "casual" WoW player one that plays 10-20 hours a week.

I thought they did a pretty good job myself. It's easy to level up in the beginning so you aren't a low lvl noob for long. The rest state practally rewards you for not playing all day long by allowing you to get almost double xp after you've rested in a town or inn for a while. You don't have to make some long trek across the world to get from one place to another. There are tons of little quests that you can do that give you lots of xp so you aren't just grinding on mobs all day long in order to level up. Honestly, I could go on and on. If you think WoW is too hardcore then you need to get your head checked I think.

[Savok]

Well, at least someone is trying to fix their PVP... CoH's PVP is so friggin broken right now hardly anyone even uses it.

And yet it's also totally optional, and what's this small patch I got yesterday? Oh! It's set of updates for the PvP.

[Heretic Machine]

And yet it's also totally optional

So is breathing, but guess what? I want to do that too.

EDIT: BTW, here is the update from yesterday.

05.11.05

Arena

Players can no longer use Inspirations to resurrect in Arena battles.
Fixed rare bug that allowed players in Observer mode to die, resulting in a client crash.
An event creator's Ready button no longer shows placeholder text.
The Troll Tunnels map has been removed from the arena map list.
Fixed issue where an event creator who quit out of an event could not drop the event in the Arena terminals.
Fixed bug on Tech maps where observers would spawn in the ceiling.
Fixed issue where the Arena Chat channel could not be set as the default channel.
Game

Fixed bug that made the Friends window difficult to resize.
Fixed bug that allowed the /respec command to be used to remove all holds and debuffs from a player.
Powers

Removed ToHit penalty from Super Speed, Super Leap, Fly and Peacebringer Fly.
If you attack a target while you have Super Speed on, you will be reduced to your base run speed for 4 seconds.
If you attack a target while you have Super Leap on, you will be reduced to your base jumping for 4 seconds.
If you attack a target while you have Flight on, you will be reduced to Hover flight speed for 4 seconds.
The following powers can now significantly affect enemies with Super Speed and Super Leap: Chilling Embrace (Tanker, Blaster and Jack Frost), Mud Pots, Ice Patch (Tanker, Blaster), Caltrops, Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Blizzard, Shiver (Blaster, Controller), Arctic Air, Tar Patch, Snow Storm (Defender, Controller), Freezing Rain, Lingering Radiation, Siphon Speed, QuickSand, Ice Slick.
Fixed Epic/Telekinesis to match the effect of Mind Control/Telekinesis in PvP.
Fixed AV Infernal so he is no longer 100% resistant to Fire.
Fixed Assault Rifle FlameThrower PvP damage. It was incorrectly set much higher than its PvE damage.
Fixed Nemesis Staff Short Help (it used to say Minor damage. Text now says High damage).
Fixed the KnockBack on some Battle Axe, Super Strength and Earth Melee powers. Many were changed to KnockBACK and should have stayed KnockDOWN. This was a bug and all affected powers have been reverted.
Set up a fix to reduce the chance of single targeted Tanker Melee powers from affecting multiple targets (e.g. Energy Transfer bug).
Updated Snow Storm Help text to indicate it can bring down flying foes (power did not change).
Fixed Nemesis Staff. It was working as an AoE, when it was supposed to be single targeted. Decreased the lifetime of this Temp power to 3 days. Increased its chance to Knock Back.
Added combat text for the Nemesis Staff temporary power.
Fixed an issue with the Web Grenade and Stun Grenade purchasable Temporary powers. The number of uses was increased from 1 to 6.
Fixed an issue with Controller/MindControl/Mesmerize -- The Magnitude of the power for PvP was set too low. It should now be possible to sleep your opponents.
Fixed Controller/Kinetics/Transfusion so that it properly debuffs the targets Regeneration Rate instead of Buffing it. This bug was not in evidence in the Defender version of the power.
Fixed Knockback in PvP for Power Push
Fixed Suppression on Spines/Barb Swipe Immobilization.
Fixed issue where pet icons remained in the status window even after the pet was destroyed.
Fixed issue with missing tooltip information for all Kheldian Dwarf and Nova powers.
Costumes

ICON: fixed bug that charged players for body and face scaling although no changes were made.
Chat

Super Group Chat: Fixed bug that prevented players on a channel from logging on if the Message of the Day was too long.
Tasks

Fixed level 45 ambush spawn in Taskforce Numina

None of this fixes the blatant balance issues currently plauging PVP in CoH. When one class (Tankers) have the advantage over every other class, and another class (Blasters) have no advantages over anyone (often times being handicapped against other AT's) there is a problem.

[crackeriah]

If you think WoW is too hardcore then you need to get your head checked I think.
It's not "too hardcore," it's just "not casual enough." I saw a lot of things in WoW that I really enjoyed, and I would have liked to keep playing. Unfortunately I can't consistently devote 5-10 hours a week to gaming in general, much less WoW. With the monthly fee and new honor system, there's not a lot to keep you in the game if you're not playing at least 5 hours a week.

If Blizzard offered something like $0.50/hour up to $15 a month and then flat after that, I would probably still be playing.

[Heretic Machine]

It's not "too hardcore," it's just "not casual enough." I saw a lot of things in WoW that I really enjoyed, and I would have liked to keep playing. Unfortunately I can't consistently devote 5-10 hours a week to gaming in general, much less WoW. With the monthly fee and new honor system, there's not a lot to keep you in the game if you're not playing at least 5 hours a week.

If Blizzard offered something like $0.50/hour up to $15 a month and then flat after that, I would probably still be playing.

Play Guild Wars.

[Mrbunchypants]

sounds like fun.
And I might be able to do some SS quests now. ;)

[Mason]

And have we ever got a guild for you.

Yeah, I'd actually been paying for CoH for some time without playing, so I finally logged back in and had a look at the PvP. Wow is it bad. Slow effects seem to utterly dominate, and the fact that you can't cast pets while under respawn protection is just crap.

I guess I'll be interested to hear how people like the new BGs. They sound zergtastic to me. I'm just hoping they aren't swarming with NPC guards like the rest of the game. And will they ever fix the thing where you're still considered "in combat", even when there isn't an enemy within visible range?

[Savok]

Here's the thing Perigon, CoH has had PvP for like a week now, the devs can't wave a magic wand and have everything work great from day 1. And come on, everyone knows the point of the Arena is to make sure PvP works for CoV, it's practically a beta.

[Genital Eclipse]

No idea why I'd want to play PvP in WoW after experiencing GW's PvP.

It would be like putting pants back on after experiencing an entire month without pants. It's just a step back in the movement.

No pants forever!!! GW!!!!

[Ghost_Saint]

You guys really don't get Guild Wars if you keep comparing it to WoW. I played all the betas for Guild Wars, and time after time after time the thing that always managed to cause every bad experiance was some guy who's name was "Dick Munch" running around doing stupid stuff and generally not caring about anyone else in the mission. This is a huge and complete diffrence from WoW where you can reliably get to level 60 without having to interact with any other player character.

Plus I mean come on a huge advertizing point for GW is that no matter what level you're at you can still play with all your buddies and not be a liablity. The whole emphasis of the game is on strategizing your abilities.

[Vorphalack]

Blizzard needs to do a better job of appealing to the less "hardcore" MMORPG gamer. Right now they seem to consider a "casual" WoW player one that plays 10-20 hours a week.

I'm thinking maybe MMO's aren't your cup of tea then. I've played quite a few MMOs and WoW, EASILY has the least amount of grind out of all of them. You want grind? Go to EQ or SWG.

Not saying Wow doesn't have a grind....just saying that if the grind that it does have bothers you that much, then you definitely made the right choice in cancelling. I would suggest not investing in MMOs in the future either.

-V

[Heretic Machine]

Here's the thing Perigon, CoH has had PvP for like a week now, the devs can't wave a magic wand and have everything work great from day 1. And come on, everyone knows the point of the Arena is to make sure PvP works for CoV, it's practically a beta.

Ya, but they've had it in test center for like two months, and the same problems that were around back then are still there now. Not much has been repaired after two months of testing. Don't get me wrong, if they are working on a fix, that's cool. But if this is the way CoV is going to be, then the game is in a lot of trouble.

This is a huge and complete diffrence from WoW where you can reliably get to level 60 without having to interact with any other player character.

Worst. Idea. For. An. MMO. Evar.

"Hey, I wanna pay $15 a month to run around by myself and grind in an online game world, never interacting with anyone!"

The whole point of MMO's is to have an experience with other players, working either co-operativley or competing in a persistent world. You can't get that if you never work with anyone else. This was the main problem with Utlima Online, grouping wasn't really needed or encouraged. It's the problem with many other MMO's as well, and for some reason people keep demanding that soloing be the primary way to level up in an MMO.

[Savok]

Test doesn't mean as much as you'd think, it's only to make sure the game doesn't go and format your HD. Once it goes live you get power gamers tearing at each other with exploits, where the gameplay testing begins. Again it doesn't fuck the rest of the game, so I'm not too concerned.

And I was just about to have a go at Ghost about that myself, first time I've ever agreed with you on anything I think.

[bradlay]

Here's the thing Perigon, CoH has had PvP for like a week now, the devs can't wave a magic wand and have everything work great from day 1. And come on, everyone knows the point of the Arena is to make sure PvP works for CoV, it's practically a beta.

Agreed. It isn't perfect but it's optional and can still be a lot of fun. It's so nice to be back in CoH after my run in Azeroth.