Obviously the video is meant with humour in mind but I don't think it's BGs that killed wPvP tbh.
I think it was:
Phasing + flying mounts discourage it heavily > Honour system revamp removed much of the incentive for killing people out in the open between BG queues > Removal of non-instanced end game open world content that the players can fight over(you can see in the video that the huge Raid vs Raid battle isn't just for the hell of it but because both factions are trying to kill the Hinterlands dragon)
I logged on to my old server Nordassil-US and noticed there were not many players around so I did a /who of every class to find the total realm pop. Mind you this is alliance side alone.
This is staggering since I would not even play on one of the free servers with this low of population, and im sure my server isint the lowest pop server around either. <snipped>
Hunter-42
Rogue-8
Warrior-18
Priest-16
warlock-21
Death Knight-19
Druid-18
Shaman-12
Monk-14
Paladin-23
Mage-15
Total Players Online 206
World PvP still happened after DHKs and BGs came. Sure, the people grinding R12-14 had no time for anything else but non-stop BGs but if server population was imbalanced, the bigger side had to get extra HKs somehow and that was ganking people in the 50+ zones until their queue popped. Plus there were guilds or at least groups of people who were in it for organized world pvp, raiding capitals and so on. Obviously server population played an important part. Then came flying mounts and now the accidental world pvp lessened even further because 70s just flew everywhere in Outlands and only PvP skirmishes happened around nodes being farmed and occasionally over the buffs that a zone control would gve - plus there was no capitals to raid in Outlands. I stopped playing at that time so I don't know whether phasing or what was the final killing blow. Most likely it was a combination of things:Obviously the video is meant with humour in mind but I don't think it's BGs that killed wPvP tbh.
I think it was:
Phasing + flying mounts discourage it heavily > Honour system revamp removed much of the incentive for killing people out in the open between BG queues > Removal of non-instanced end game open world content that the players can fight over(you can see in the video that the huge Raid vs Raid battle isn't just for the hell of it but because both factions are trying to kill the Hinterlands dragon)
Phasing didn't come in until WotLK and flying mounts in BC. World pvp died during vanilla well before either expansion launched. You might have seen it now and again, but it wasn't a normal occurrence anymore.
EDIT: I forgot to mention. It was a combination of BGs and dishonourable kills.
World PvP still happened after DHKs and BGs came. Sure, the people grinding R12-14 had no time for anything else but non-stop BGs but if server population was imbalanced, the bigger side had to get extra HKs somehow and that was ganking people in the 50+ zones until their queue popped. Plus there were guilds or at least groups of people who were in it for organized world pvp, raiding capitals and so on. Obviously server population played an important part. Then came flying mounts and now the accidental world pvp lessened even further because 70s just flew everywhere in Outlands and only PvP skirmishes happened around nodes being farmed and occasionally over the buffs that a zone control would gve - plus there was no capitals to raid in Outlands. I stopped playing at that time so I don't know whether phasing or what was the final killing blow. Most likely it was a combination of things:Obviously the video is meant with humour in mind but I don't think it's BGs that killed wPvP tbh.
I think it was:
Phasing + flying mounts discourage it heavily > Honour system revamp removed much of the incentive for killing people out in the open between BG queues > Removal of non-instanced end game open world content that the players can fight over(you can see in the video that the huge Raid vs Raid battle isn't just for the hell of it but because both factions are trying to kill the Hinterlands dragon)
Phasing didn't come in until WotLK and flying mounts in BC. World pvp died during vanilla well before either expansion launched. You might have seen it now and again, but it wasn't a normal occurrence anymore.
EDIT: I forgot to mention. It was a combination of BGs and dishonourable kills.
1. Lack of open world PvP objectives
2. Flying mounts
3. Battlegrounds and DHK
4. Phasing (was this Wrath or Cata?)
5. Cross-realm stuff
6. And before garrisons, the final deathblow was probably LFD and when it became possibly to level from 15 to cap purely through instances.
It's true. There are a ton of virtually dead servers in WoW. There would be even more if they hadn't started those 'server merges' a several years ago.
World PvP was mostly a function of very little to do outside of raids and dungeons. Give people Battlegrounds and that's something to do. Give people daily quests and that's something to do. Give people more reputations to grind and that's something to do. Give people flying mounts and they bypass most everyone else in the game world. But, yeah, World PvP was certainly dead before Wrath.
The 'events' they made to try to spur it flopped. Anyone remember the towers in Eastern Plaguelands or lol sand in Silithus? No one did those because there were no rewards. Hardly anyone did the zone PvP objectives in TBC.
You have this -- it's called questing. The World PvP is still limited. A few months ago I leveled some character on a PvP server for laughs. It seemed to be Alliance dominated. In Spire of Arak there was a lone blood elf sitting afk on the road. No one attacked her. Dozens of alliance players went by in what was probably a 20 or so minute span just ignoring her.Enable other players to kill them while they do stuff and you have world pvp.
Argent Crusade, Kirin Tor, Knights of the Ebon Blade and Wyrmrest Accord rep can all be farmed in level 80 instances by equipping the right tabard, or if you do not do that you grind for all four Alliance Expedition/Horde Vanguard factions at once. Ashen Verdict you grind in Icecrown Citadel, with the only four remaining ones being dailies.Enable other players to kill them while they do stuff and you have world pvp. Make everything doable in the safety of an instance and you kill it. You could for eample grind rep in instances in lichking if I remember correctly.
Nethaera said:We wanted to let you know that we’ve been closely following the Nostalrius discussion and we appreciate your constructive thoughts and suggestions.
Our silence on this subject definitely doesn’t reflect our level of engagement and passion around this topic. We hear you. Many of us across Blizzard and the WoW Dev team have been passionate players ever since classic WoW. In fact, I personally work at Blizzard because of my love for classic WoW.
We have been discussing classic servers for years - it’s a topic every BlizzCon - and especially over the past few weeks. From active internal team discussions to after-hours meetings with leadership, this subject has been highly debated. Some of our current thoughts:
Why not just let Nostalrius continue the way it was? The honest answer is, failure to protect against intellectual property infringement would damage Blizzard’s rights. This applies to anything that uses WoW’s IP, including unofficial servers. And while we’ve looked into the possibility – there is not a clear legal path to protect Blizzard’s IP and grant an operating license to a pirate server.
We explored options for developing classic servers and none could be executed without great difficulty. If we could push a button and all of this would be created, we would. However, there are tremendous operational challenges to integrating classic servers, not to mention the ongoing support of multiple live versions for every aspect of WoW.
So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.
One other note - we’ve recently been in contact with some of the folks who operated Nostalrius. They obviously care deeply about the game, and we look forward to more conversations with them in the coming weeks.
You, the Blizzard community, are the most dedicated, passionate players out there. We thank you for your constructive thoughts and suggestions. We are listening.
J. Allen Brack
Tremendous operational challenges = we can't be bothered if it costs us money.