Alterac Valley in Classic
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
This is a subject that has been asked about several times recently, and we want to clarify some of the details surrounding it. Like many aspects of the game, Alterac Valley was tuned and adjusted in different ways from patch to patch in 2005-2006.

First and foremost, we’re planning to use the 1.12 version of Alterac Valley. For many parts of the game like this, we’re picking an original WoW patch that gives us the most clarity for WoW: Classic, and 1.12 is that patch.

In Alterac Valley, that puts us before the introduction of reinforcements. It puts us before the removal of all of the Commanders and Lieutenants. The only win conditions are the killing of Drek’thar in Frostwolf Keep or Vanndar Stormpike in Dun Baldar.

It gives us several early improvements to the BG that we’re glad to have in place. Early on in AV, there were too many NPCs and they were too hard to kill. By 1.12, many had been removed and NPC health was brought down to a reasonable level. Turning in armor scraps is an encouraged, supportive activity by this point. Many capture points (mostly graveyards) had been moved away from their initial placements to gain better balance across the map. Korak the Bloodrager was removed, and killing opposing players no longer drops items like Dwarf Spines, Orc Teeth, or Human Bone Chips. Gross.

In our content plan update, we mentioned that we’re still working out exactly how and when PvP elements of Classic will roll out. We’ll update you on that here very soon.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Alterac Valley in Classic started by chaud View original post
Comments 69 Comments
  1. jackofwind's Avatar
    Sounds about right.
  1. Ealyssa's Avatar
    I loved collecting dwarf spines tho. Can't remember that it was allready removed in 1.12

    But yeah, old Alterac may be the only single thing that I'm interested in replaying old vanilla. But not sure I'll grind to 60 for that.
  1. Rogalicus's Avatar
    I'm glad they started to do updates frequently, but I'm still waiting for release date.
  1. JuanSR's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ealyssa View Post
    But not sure I'll grind to 60 for that.
    You can play it at lvl 51 if you dont want to grind to 60.
  1. cozzri's Avatar
    This is sad news, the overpowered NPCs made the battleground feel much more dangerous and encouraged teamwork. You weren't going to run all the way to the enemy base on your horese, you would get destroyed.... and Korrak was an amazing threat in the field of strife and graveyard.
  1. Moozart's Avatar
    I was playing Ally during vanilla but weren't horde at a disadvantage in this version of AV due to distance from the towers or something? I thought i remembered something that was changed in later xpansions that helped the horde a bit more but I could be thinking of something else.
  1. smegmage's Avatar
    So no more 24hr events?
  1. The Stormbringer's Avatar
    RIP reinforcements. That was a cool aspect of the Valley, IMO. Armor scraps will still give upgrades though, right? I remember boosting the attack and defense of NPCs.
  1. Sigxy's Avatar
    While we won't be seeing those REALLY long duration AVs, I'm still happy that we'll be able to see those big awesome summons again! \o/ Hopefully.
  1. Coldfrostzero's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by cozzri View Post
    This is sad news, the overpowered NPCs made the battleground feel much more dangerous and encouraged teamwork. You weren't going to run all the way to the enemy base on your horese, you would get destroyed.... and Korrak was an amazing threat in the field of strife and graveyard.
    A threat? You mean having someone ride by him to get aggro so someone else could tag the graveyard?

    AV was ridiculously exploitable. I look forward to the Alliance jumping over the wall again and Horde having the closer main gate
  1. A Chozo's Avatar
    Nice.

    It would be weird to have another version. The devs can't have the freedom to change too much stuff, or soon WoW Classic would be this weird-ass frankenpatch, not representative of the true Classic WoW patch at all.
  1. Akka's Avatar
    Bad choice. The original AV had much more content and was a lot more fun. The latest version was just a boring zerg rush.
    Too bad that they basically chose the worst version available.
  1. Esper's Avatar
    Eh, I wanted the 48 hour AV matches. That's rather disappointing.
  1. Monster Hunter's Avatar
    With out the crazy powerful npc's bis tactic is rush so won't be any different than retail except you don't have an irrelevent counter on the screen.
  1. Mardux's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moozart View Post
    I was playing Ally during vanilla but weren't horde at a disadvantage in this version of AV due to distance from the towers or something? I thought i remembered something that was changed in later xpansions that helped the horde a bit more but I could be thinking of something else.
    It was always (slightly at minimum) with the advantage to the Alliance, but the advantages were pretty meaningless back in early AV. Once blizzard reduced npc count/npc power though, it became a race. This made the advantages the Alliance had have much more impact. Things like shorter distance to mid, the bridge of death, being able to LoS horde towers, etc, all mattered now.
  1. Mask's Avatar
    So it's just going to be a zerg battleground. Looks like the experience of long AV games from the earlier patches will never be played out again.
  1. chiddie's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by matheney2k View Post
    Yeah because having AV last days is such amazing design
    Really amazing, especially if it ended without you in to get the rep bonus (that happened 9 times on 10).

    How can people regret the first AV is beyond my imagination.
  1. Firgus's Avatar
    AV was all about the reputation and the epic battles, not really about actually winning it.
  1. Sencha's Avatar
    That sucks... Reinforcements was a bad idea.
  1. sam86's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Moozart View Post
    I was playing Ally during vanilla but weren't horde at a disadvantage in this version of AV due to distance from the towers or something? I thought i remembered something that was changed in later xpansions that helped the horde a bit more but I could be thinking of something else.
    AV even today still favor alliance badly, i was alliance so i didn't notice it but the tower design alone make alliance far stronger, add to it the bridge of death vs a literal tunnel to hide alliance approaching

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