Old AV

[Duronos]

You can hate me all you want but anyone who played Old AV can not deny that if there is one thing that we can look at objectively from Vanilla WoW that was better than it is now, it is Old AV from Vanilla. The entire battleground was based around this huge war effort that had mini battles in different parts of it, you had your druids and rogues trying their best to sneak behind enemy lines trying to cap towers effectively and trust me (I mained rogue), those archers were quite annoying sometimes, you had to figure out all of the hiding spots.

You had your stalemates at SF GY where the battle generally held there for awhile, then you had your 2 commanders (1 on each side) that still exist today but they were much more important to kill back then. If you weren't level 60 then you could help the war effort by farming wolf skins in the back and getting the riders ready and nobody can forget BOB (that's what the huge Horde elemental was dubbed on my server) or whoever the Alliance one was. Blizzard changing it the way they did just didn't feel right, the battleground wasn't based around a fast zerg up the middle, it had other things you had to deal with to help the end result and it was satisfying.

If you wanted to play something more fast paced you had two other BG's back then that had that feeling, why did Blizzard change AV? What was so bad about having battles that lasted days (weeks on some occasions)? It's not like you actually had to stay in the battle overnight, you would join back in the morning and proceed onwards. If I had one good thing that I can without a doubt tell you it's not nostalgia then it's Old AV.

[blackhammer99]

It was cool at the time, but what people don't remember is why it was the way it was.

Back then, pvp WAS bgs, and to progress you just needed honorable kills etc.
So the more BGs you did, the more successful you were at pvp.
AV was perfect for this, as there were 40 people to try to kill, and well over multiple hour matches.
Moreso, since it was so long, you could join, get some kills, then take off when you had to.

Now, that system is extinct, and the current scope of BGs are just for honor grinding and to some degree casual fun.
If you leave a battleground now, you get a debuff as well.

So if there were like 4 hour avg battle grounds in the game now, no one would ever do them.
Its not applicable to the game system's in today's game unfortunately.

[Duronos]

It was cool at the time, but what people don't remember is why it was the way it was.

Back then, pvp WAS bgs, and to progress you just needed honorable kills etc.
So the more BGs you did, the more successful you were at pvp.
AV was perfect for this, as there were 40 people to try to kill, and well over multiple hour matches.
Moreso, since it was so long, you could join, get some kills, then take off when you had to.

Now, that system is extinct, and the current scope of BGs are just for honor grinding and to some degree casual fun.
If you leave a battleground now, you get a debuff as well.

So if there were like 4 hour avg battle grounds in the game now, no one would ever do them.
Its not applicable to the game system's in today's game unfortunately.

You received the deserter's penalty when leaving Old AV (was added during a patch).

[RickJamesLich]

I miss the old AV, the place literally felt like a battle ground, there was action all over the place and you wouldn't hear people say "let them win". PvP IMO just isn't measuring up to what it used to be lol, personally I would love it if, for one day a month, they brought the old AV back.

[Cows For Life]

You can hate me all you want but anyone who played Old AV can not deny that if there is one thing that we can look at objectively from Vanilla WoW that was better than it is now, it is Old AV from Vanilla. The entire battleground was based around this huge war effort that had mini battles in different parts of it, you had your druids and rogues trying their best to sneak behind enemy lines trying to cap towers effectively and trust me (I mained rogue), those archers were quite annoying sometimes, you had to figure out all of the hiding spots.

How did you hide from the 30 NPC guards in each tower including the stealth detecting ones?

[Agent Mercury]

That isn't objective at all. You gave an opinion and generalized that everyone agreed with you.

[Kanariya]

That isn't objective at all. You gave an opinion and generalized that everyone agreed with you.

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone in the tons of Bring Back OLD AV posts I've read say that old AV was terrible.

[Agent Mercury]

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone in the tons of Bring Back OLD AV posts I've read say that old AV was terrible.

It isn't terrible but it also isn't better. Different doesn't have to be better or worse. I enjoyed old AV but I would not want it going back. If you want a long BG they should make something new that is persistent or lasts for a long period.

[Sierra85]

Old AV was good because it was server based, so you built relationships with the opposite faction on your server, none of this cross server queuing stuff.

The community drove the battle.

[Deleted]

why did Blizzard change AV? What was so bad about having battles that lasted days (weeks on some occasions)?

Because as they introduced more battlegrounds they also introduced the random battleground signup to make sure that all of their battlegrounds were used, and not just left behind in the dust. With random battleground signup lots of people who weren't interested in AV as a battle and who just wanted to win/lose and get it over with ended up in AV, and therefor Blizzard had to make changes in accordance to make sure it didn't last too long, hence adding the bloody reinforcements, removing elite guards, regular guards, and in overall just ruining the whole thing.

If they hadn't added the random battleground signup, whoever disliked AV could simply have not signed up for it and played whatever other battleground they preferred, but nooo, Blizzard just has to make sure everyone plays everything because that's far more rewarding/interesting...

[iadamson]

I loved summoning wolf riders and that earth elemental...

But i remember it being very...very.... very... long

[Deleted]

I loved summoning wolf riders and that earth elemental...

But i remember it being very...very.... very... long

Lokholar the Ice Lord, feeding him with Alliance npc's and even players for 10 minutes to then see him go on his merry way to smash the Alliance base... =/



Nothing in WoW's current PvP is even close to all the fun I had in AV. I remember weird strategies were formed at stalemates, for example when we were stuck between Stormpike GY and Stonehearth GY, Warriors would charge in and sacrifice themselves just to get a AoE fear out which would maybe give us a couple of meters pushed.

[Itisamuh]

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone in the tons of Bring Back OLD AV posts I've read say that old AV was terrible.

It was terrible.

Sure, it was better than it is now by a mile, since people actually fought, but it was still a joke with how long it took to end.

[BicycleMafioso]

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone in the tons of Bring Back OLD AV posts I've read say that old AV was terrible.

I'm loved Vanilla, I loved AV, I do not care much for the game today (we grew apart, the game stopped being what I fell in love with - it happens).
Despite this, AV certainly had its flaws.

Nigh-Immortal gryphons randomly starting to kill you from above, confusing side-quests, people spaming right-click as soon as someone dies to loot them, trying to charge up Ivus before he gets tapped and dragged to where he could get killed quick, AV being (much) wider than it is, tons of mobs that in fairness had no place there (there are fewer now), wolf riders that spawn and demolish everything in its way, Generals you rescued and who went on rampage, bosses (the troll one), no resources making it go on for days, a much much slower reputation grind, trying to force people to follow objectives that they don't understand, trying to make your raid group the prime raid group, people staying in combat the entire duration they're in the BG not giving them mount/stealth/drink, that damn bridge, tower guards, graveyard guards, lagggggggggggggggggg, unplayable frame-rates (not to be confused with lag).

I loved old AV, and while I would have liked such a BG today and for it not to have been removed (perhaps new AV to be reskinned?), I can certainly understand their design changes. It's a LOT easier to understand and grasp, despite it being purpose-built and limping a bit.

The thing is, there are a lot of people missing "old AV", but it has gone through so many iterations I'm unsure whether people even are discussing the same version.
Is original AV the old av? I have no idea. I sincerely miss it, but it's not like I don't understand why we do not have it.
So. Which AV is Old AV?

[Deleted]

It was terrible.

Sure, it was better than it is now by a mile, since people actually fought, but it was still a joke with how long it took to end.

It wasn't about ending it, it was about being part of the battle...

[iadamson]

I remember one time the alliance had their tree... and we had our ice lord and it was a big battle in the that field of strife? or whatever its called.

you never see that kinda stuff anymore.

[arcaneshot]

It wasn't about ending it, it was about being part of the battle...

Not on my server it wasn't. The Horde on my server was the Alliance's whipping boy and couldn't win an AV to save their lives for months. Winning meant everything to the Horde.

[Deleted]

Not on my server it wasn't. The Horde on my server was the Alliance's whipping boy and couldn't win an AV to save their lives for months. Winning meant everything to the Horde.

I played on Stormreaver back then and it was really 50/50 in who won, so we didn't really care either way since the reward was three AV insignia's which I believe you turned in for experience, and the loss rewarded one. In either case, the real reward was all the fun you had during the battle, just the feeling of joining a battle which had been going on for hours was awesome.

- - - Updated - - -

I remember one time the alliance had their tree... and we had our ice lord and it was a big battle in the that field of strife? or whatever its called.

you never see that kinda stuff anymore.

We successfully summoned Lok'holar the Ice Lord a couple of months ago, seconds before the battle ended. =/

[Merite]

It was very epic. I don't think anything in WoW comes close to the epicness of a lot of things of Vanilla anymore. Honestly, it could've been one of many things. We were much younger then, it was newer to a lot of us then, etc.

As someone who did the whole WSG / AB grind, lead an R14 grinding group, played 24/7 for months on end, slept between games, etc., things have changed a lot. It required a lot of effort to win. Not only did I often have to gather up most of the pvpers, you had to push everything at once to really win all the way, took a lot of coordination. It was very, very epic. It was also very long, but in no way did I ever feel it was boring. Getting the epics from exalted as an accomplishment, you don't really have any accomplishments anymore, even in PvP: Glad means very little.

I very much loved original AV. But, if it was introduced tomorrow with the same tediousness that it had back then, people would hate it, I would hate it even, sad to say, because we've come to accept a much simpler and quicker game than it was in Vanilla.

[Seefer]

It isn't terrible but it also isn't better. Different doesn't have to be better or worse. I enjoyed old AV but I would not want it going back. If you want a long BG they should make something new that is persistent or lasts for a long period.

So you enjoy the zergfest ignore everyone get the boss and win PVE style?