Free Candy For Everyone

I keep reading people complaining about the problem with World of Warcraft Battlegrounds (click here to see a post on Heartless Gamer about how to fix the problems, which sort of explains them too). They’re complaining about “Honor Farmers” and unstoppable teams of people that have perfected their tactics and cannot be beaten. For a basic description on what the battlegrounds are, try my previous post. Well maybe my server is different, but I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with the Battlegrounds. My first foray was into Arathi Basin with a high level 30s Night Elf Hunter. I played three times in a row with essentially the same pickup group of people. We lost every time but had a blast doing it, and every time we made some headway and it got close, we all were excited and talking and just looking forward to some success.

I played Arathi a few more times (and managed to win once even) until I hit level 40 at which point I decided to wait to grab a few more levels so I wouldn’t get slaughtered now that I was at the bottom of the level bracket.

Most recently I played Warsong Gulch with my level 22 Tauren Druid. I died a lot, but I had a lot of fun. I tried not to get stabby-stabbed in the back by rogues, I tried to heal people where I could, I rooted flag carriers in place as they sprinted by, and just enjoyed myself in general. Again, I didn’t know these people, I played twice with just a pickup group and it was great. We actually did win both battles and that was nice too.

I don’t like the queues (one time I was in an Arathi queue for over four hours before I gave up) and wish there were no waiting. But I haven’t come up against these l33t farmers yet. Certainly trading wins is terrible, that should get you kicked out. But if you play with a group of your friends and get really good at the battles, then hopefully your opponent will learn from you and improve as well! That’s what I felt in my Arathi Basin matches. We were definitely up against better organized opponents, but the solution wasn’t to match us up against other clueless people - the solution was for us to get a clue! Ok, maybe there could stand to be a bit more in game information about your goals and the strategy of the battlegrounds. Short of going to the official website to read up before hand, it’s really never made clear in the game what you should do.

I agree that it has hard for the casual gamer to gain ranks. I haven’t gotten above the bottom rank with my few forays into PvP. But that’s ok. There’s a lot more to the game than the honor rankings. I choose to spend my time questing with my four characters (yes, I’m up to four characters now. And yes, I play them all a bit every week. This is why I have no time to sleep anymore). I choose to spend time leveling up and exploring new parts of the world. PvP is an extra, and sidebar, something to do for some variety. It’s not the whole game. I don’t expect them to rework it so that it is the whole game. Because that would really cause more unhappy patrons.