World of Warcraft Classic patch adds Battlegrounds to cut down PvP

That latest World of Warcraft Classic patch introduces several updates to the game, the most important of which is the opening of the Battlegrounds. The Alliance and Horde can now happily slaughter one another within the confines of Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley, which will hopefully reduce the bloodshed in world PvP.

Since the introduction of the World of Warcraft Classic Honor system in the middle of November, players have been mercilessly hunting down enemies from the opposing faction. Players have found it incredibly frustrating to level, with hordes of enemies even breaching the major cities and slaughtering everyone they can find.

By “hordes” of enemies, I also mean that most of this is being done by the Horde. They have been so ruthless in their massacring that entire servers are being abandoned by the Alliance. Some have been moving to PvE servers so they can just get on with playing the game without having to deal with PvP. Others have sought out PvP servers where the Horde and Alliance populations are more balanced.

Just a few days ago the first World of Warcraft Classic server “died” when almost all the Alliance transferred off the Flamelash server. It’s possible Blizzard is going to need to step in and force some server population balance on players to prevent this happening in the future. The latest patch has added client support for Paid Character transfers. So, at least Blizzard has their priorities straight. Got to make that money.

The ground is littered with the remains of the fallen.

Get ready to rumble

With the World of Warcraft Classic Battlegrounds patch, hopefully, players take their bloodlust to these confined and controlled PvP spaces. The Warsong Gulch Battleground is a 10v10 game of capture the flag. And all fighting will be done in level ranges: 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and level 60. This means a considerably higher-level enemy isn’t going to massacre you every time they see you.

The Alterac Valley Battleground is a larger scale 40v40 tug-of-war zone. There are many quests, objectives, and areas of interest for players to explore and battle over. Rewards can be earned from the quests, as well as from reputation. All players at level 51 and higher are placed into a single level range in this epic struggle.

Both factions, Horde and Alliance, can enter either Battleground by speaking to the appropriate battlemaster in your capital city. Alternatively, the Alliance can enter Warsong Gulch through Silverwing Grove in Ashenvale Forest. The Horde entrance to Warsong Gulch is near Mor’shan Base Camp in the northern Barrens. Both factions can enter Alterac Valley in the northern Hillsbrand Foothills.

One of the most important aspects of Battlegrounds is that they are cross-realm. That means you’ll fight alongside allies and against opponents from all the realms of your region. So, population distribution on single servers isn’t as critical for Battlegrounds.

The last bit of relevant information in the latest World of Warcraft Classic patch is the addition of the Keyring. Players have been begging for this feature to be added to the game for a while now. The Keyring is simply an additional bag that stores only keys. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can hold up to 12 keys. That’s a lot of extra bag space for players carrying a lot of baggage. And items.