Personally, I think each side has advantages in the new AV. Horde has the stronger captain. Galv with his fear is very easy to defend with a small group, while Balinda goes down like a 2 dollar whore. But the Alliance has the more defensible base. The climb to Stormpike is an excellent chokepoint, (and the alliance respawns all run past the flag to get there, so very hard to stealth cap.) and lets not even discuss the freaking bridge into Dun Baldur. Compared to the wide open “defend every direction, and watch them jump the fence behind you” Frostwolf Graveyard.

Overall I like the new AV. It’s much more combat and pvp oriented than the old one. There are only a few things I would change about it. Matches are still reasonably fast. And in our battlegroup at least, it’s a pretty balanced win/loss record for each faction. Unless afk’ers become a factor that day.

1) Give both teams 100 or 200 additional starting reinforcements. You should not be able to win with just a captain kill and all the towers. You should either need to kill the general or farm kills for a few minutes.

2) Loknar and the Tree elemental guy need to move immediately when spawned now. The 10 minute wait in the field of strife makes them pointless currently. We summoned him once, and he stood there until the match was a reinforcement victory, less than 2 mintues in.

3) Similar to 2, when the wing commanders reach base, they should now launch with much less feeding and start killing people. Make escorting them tactically important. Or at least starting them running on thier own important, since the other side has to take time to stop them.

4)Fix the damn afk’er thing. Yes, they are back in force after a short break following the patch that allowed reporting. Its extremely frustrating to be in there busting your ass, and having it handed to you repeatedly because 20% of your team is afk. (No exaduration. 8 of 40 people last Saturday. 6 games in a row. Alliance had 2 – 4 each game.)

Oh I can only imagine the great stories that will come from some of these scrumptious snippets; would-be girlfriends/models, consistent anal reaming of players (which doesn’t appear to have stopped since release day), virtual economics (not unlike real economics, except perhaps slightly better than our country currently finds itself (at least, MI is totally fucked)), neo-baptism, meth addicts and umbrellas. Surely there is a good story for each one. Please don’t leave us fiending for too long, no matter how masochistically glorious the drama may be; we long to live it as well, just vicariously through you =)

Plus, I have to live the drama … I must savor it, in all its masochistic glory … before I can share.

Like the rogue and his wouldbe European-touring model girlfriend who just left the guild (much to our relief). And I will allow you to speculate whether the “wouldbe” is for the European-touring model or for the girlfriend. (It’s complicated. May take a while to sort out the players.)

And hey, how about the new, improved, fucked Alterac Valley? Think there’s a map imbalance? No way, couldn’t be. It’s all factional. True story.

Who here loves virtual economics? I DO! Who thinks a certain VERY POPULAR game is struggling with how to catch everyone up? I DO!

Anyone from EQ in a nostalgic kinda mood? Y’know, back before server/name/guild hopping was only a credit card away? I like to think of it as neo-baptism … you’re washed of your sins. For a fee.

Now, after you’re done thinking about all of that … I have a story about a meth addict and an umbrella.

It doesn’t involve rain.

is this some kind of a test? =P

So Foton?

Yes!!!! Foton is all right!

And Mena, great post, That was on good post. Can I steal it and post on my blog with your name?

lol – Get a move on on the schooling Mena, so I can PuG with no fear. Thanks! 🙂