Originally Posted by
Steelangel
Ok ok ok, I know I'm like 8 months late to the PvP game in Warlords, but PvP is what I end up doing when I get bored with wow. I don't claim to be a good PvP-er, I just like to find a group of greens and go kill some reds. I heard that you can get PvP stuff from Ashran, and I go there in full tourist mode, wait my couple of minutes to queue up and get invited to a big group. I'm thinking "Tol Barad", I get "WTF".
I see at the top of the screen: Enemies Killed for Horde and Alliance, and it's some fraction, 34/1000 or 220/400 or something like that. These numbers change seemingly randomly throughout my time in Ashran without rhyme or reason. The group I'm in sees zero resistance as we start to capture flags all the way to the Horde base, and kill this blood elf mage at the top of the tower. Then things get screwy. We pull a couple of NPC mobs from the front gate of the Warspear Stronghold, and out of bleeding nowhere I am surrounded by red. There is not a SINGLE green in sight, when I was in the middle of a group of people. It's like I suddenly phased into the middle of a pitched battle of every member of the horde vs. gnome mage. As I'm dying in an uncontrollable stun-lock, I look at the raid frames and there is noone "near" me at all.
So I take the rez, only to appear back at the Alliance base. The numbers at the top of the screen have changed again. Stormshield is being obliterated by a massive force of Horde, who after killing the boss, seemingly vanish into thin air, leaving behind a few stragglers and a poor beleaguered flight master(?)
I follow the arrows pointing toward my group, and.. into a completely peaceful, serene Archmage's overlook full of Alliance NPCs and not a sign of Horde for miles. I run over to the mines to finish a mini-quest thing for honor, and go back to Stormshield, turn in some artifacts, and some others have awoken Fandraal. Ok, this looks interesting. I follow this big tree all the way to the horde base, seeing zero resistance. As soon as the tree starts attacking the NPCs near the COMPLETELY EMPTY Warspear, an army of Horde appears out of nowhere, kills him, and me, and the two people that I had happened to be with. I look on my map, and all the dots from my raid group are "nearby" but I don't see anything like a real PvP battle, just a swarm of red nameplates taking turns violating Title XI with my gnome.
This goes on for an hour or so. I give up and come back later, at about 1 AM server. It's completely empty, and I run around with a group of folks completing all of the events unopposed, get a bunch of PvP gear (only then do I find that Honor gear is mostly crap compared to my PvE gear).
Ok. This was totally not Tol Barad or Wintergrasp. What I don't get though is what the heck is going on. People I'm following sometimes phase out when entering a new area. Horde armies appear and vanish without a trace. Running to a farming area is peaceful and serene until you realize that just outside this invisible zone boundary is a half-million Horde that were invisible before.
I've read threads on how shitty Ashran is, but this is beyond the pale. Can someone please explain my experience to me? Is is "normal" to feel like I just wandered into CRZ hell?