Path of Conquest: Chapter I [Concluded]

These screenshots are highly biased! I see none of the two kaldorei present in these pictures!

:3

To be fair, Aariam, we're a rogue and a feral druid.. We might be in those shots but stealthed!

We'll see what future battles will be like, and yes, we only had around eight TTH dwarves at the battle (we've got quite a few members on summer break, others have gone Horde).
But the reason for my concern is that I've got guildmembers whispering me and saying that they think this campaign is made for the Horde's favour in order for them to IC'ly retake the Southern Barrens. They saw that almost every Horde roleplay guild was present and that not even half of the Alliance side was there. That added to the fact that the Alliance was steamrolled might sow the evil seeds of doubt and distrust and make Alliance members less willing to take part of future battles.
(No Gogol, I have never said that I would not allow anyone to take part of the event, I'm sure some of them would come regardless. Where did you get that from?)
However, when I get the reply; "Meh, I'd rather farm Zul HCs then being steamrolled in a Horde event.", when I ask people to join the raid then I'm getting worried.

IC'ly we now have Horde in the Southern Barrens and Northwatch Hold is still standing, both sides can be declared winners of last nights battle, this is very good. And the Horde outnumbering the Alliance might aswell be all fair and due to the fact that they knew exactly about the attack and where it would be while the Alliance only had sent a holding force to Northwatch. The campaign is now motion and can proceed.

Let us now pray for an epic campaign with more event battles and less steamrolling from one of the sides, may it be Horde or Alliance.

Then clearly it's up to someone on Alliance to start recruiting more guilds.

You know. I recall after the TTH campaign in Barrens people saying "I cba being steamrolled by Alliance over and over." On the Horde side.

I recall that to be hosted by the Alliance side, TTH, and that it had vastly more Alliance guilds involved.

Regarding Gnash's event, from what I read up on, every guild involved had to SIGN UP on their own. Which means if Alliance has so little, there might have been lack of enthuaism to attend. Or they just didn't keep an eye in here.

Eitherway, Gnash most likely can't help that his event that was "open for all", got imbalanced numbers.

Someone will always have the upperhand in these events, it's time people realize. :p Tell your guild that. Alliance shined last time. All's fair.

Note; I didn't participate in this battle, but the TTH campaign. Which proves I'm not biased.

Vectoria wrote:Then clearly it's up to someone on Alliance to start recruiting more guilds.

You make it sound like that's so easy, I believe we tried to rally as much alliance as we could and despite having a lacking representation of Night Elfs (which already should be better during the next fight..) I am not sure who else we could recruit to come... We could always try though..

If unfair numbers occur on either side then we could always try to level them. I recall it being attempted in previous battles, and perhaps to some extent in this as well (With the company staying out).

WPvP is enjoyable if both sides feel it's well-planned, thought out and that there's no unfair treatment/steamrolling/and so forth. I didn't enjoy parts of the last campaign for various reasons, and I'd hate it for the same, although with others, in this.

It's both our problems in the end, and we'll surely find some way to work it out.

Gotta agree with Trave. There will be times the horde wins and times where the Alliance wins. Simple as that.

And I know plently of night elven roleplayers, Drefurion. Where were they D:?

Well the information about the event was handled pretty terrible on the Night Elven side, all we had to go on was a random calendar invite with no explination or posts on our own forums. Aariam is working hard to fix it though, and as I said, there should be more of us next fight.

Anrim Stouthammer wrote:TEXT
(No Gogol, I have never said that I would not allow anyone to take part of the event, I'm sure some of them would come regardless. Where did you get that from?)
etc etc.

Your last post. A clarification was needed.

Anrim Stouthammer wrote:
However, when I get the reply; "Meh, I'd rather farm Zul HCs then being steamrolled in a Horde event.", when I ask people to join the raid then I'm getting worried.

And lets be honest, that is something you should not blaim the Horde for.

In each and every battle, I asked Gnash how many I should pull out / pull in from my crew for a fair fight. We even pulled out completely for one clash whilst we set up the exploives to clear the debris. I believe the Horde can't seriously do anything else to even out numbers, unless we have to roll alts on Alliance side and advertise the event in the capital cities.

Paragus wrote:Can't you just be outnumbered ICly?

If a faction can't pull enough weight to protect their frontier, they should get steamrolled, I'd support that. Unfortunately the playerbase has the tendency to become demoralized and just bugger off after being obliterated quite a few times and the campaign would grind to a halt due to the lack of an opposing force.

During the previous campaign, a few guilds on the Horde side were notified of the start of the campaign very late, if at all. They didn't have that much time to prepare or announce it and, as a result, few members showed up and the Horde got steamrolled several times. This fault was part due to the Horde's own doing.

Although I don't imagine it's the exact same story here with the tables turned, I can understand if some Alliance for example aren't as keen on attending this campaign as the previous one, as they put all of their effort and backs into that one. I can imagine another Barrens campaign so soon after the previous one might drain one from the will to do it all over again after having done such a good job on a recent one.

What I'm trying to say is, both sides know the nub of the deal and have faced these circumstances before. Although the organization of numbers/morale/whatever may be the responsibility of the respective factions, there can always be alternative ways to even the odds.

It would also help if some people (on either side) would know what kind of effort goes into making these sorts of things happen. It requires effort and time to even things out at times, and the best course of action for a participant is patience. If they're not willing to show up any more on the mere assumption that they will be steamrolled in the future, that's fine, but it won't be doing a service to those that do plan to attend either.

Throughout the last campaign, interest was dwindling on my side as well, though we've tried to keep people interested even if we weren't exactly motivated ourselves, and even tried to pull in some new guilds. People simply shouldn't be too quick to jump off the boat yet. The fault is (in either case) not always with the opposing faction.

And war isn't always equal! I think it fits the IC story pretty well that we were "undermanned", since we had rather short notice to get troops moved from various locations to Northwatch, and just a day to settle in. We were in a weak spot, that's for sure!

Lazarus wrote:

Anrim Stouthammer wrote:
However, when I get the reply; "Meh, I'd rather farm Zul HCs then being steamrolled in a Horde event.", when I ask people to join the raid then I'm getting worried.

And lets be honest, that is something you should not blaim the Horde for.

Damn, someone beat me to quoting that.

And yeah, that's a problem with the guild, all it does it make the numbers even more uneven.

Trave wrote:You know. I recall after the TTH campaign in Barrens people saying "I cba being steamrolled by Alliance over and over." On the Horde side.
I recall that to be hosted by the Alliance side, TTH, and that it had vastly more Alliance guilds involved.

(Not ranting against you Trave, but I will 'steamroll' that argument)

As for the TTH campaign in the Barrens, there was quite some effort to balance things, at very least by DoL. It reached as far as members of our guild logging in on their Horde alts to help the balance, and I participated in only 1 battle despite being there nearly every night. At times we had 1, maybe 2 people participating while we had 8 pvp'ers online. The one battle I participated in began with cutting down the Alliance force in two to improve the balance in favor for the Horde and we ended up getting steamrolled because Horde had nearly doubled their numbers by the end of the night.
DoL had to make up so many IC excuses for not participating in battles that we started getting whispers of treason behind our backs (which is totally hilarious).

I have rarely seen such effort to balance things on Alliance side as during the TTH campaign. It shows how deep the respect was for the organisation, on alliance side. I would like it to see it remembered so and not brought as an argument to pardon unfair games.

This comment, in no way, tries to look negatively at the Horde however, nor the organisation behind it. I've seen acts on both sides that deserve more respect than the QQ it receives. We can do better than QQ aimlessly. And I don't want to claim "it's fine because the other side QQ'd last time".

Balance isn't just about numbers. Almost every football match proves you that. Grab 20 people, divide them randomly and play 10v10 war games. We did it before and still it was a one-sided battle. Then we divided healers and dps equally and still we could have one-sided matches. Why? Because balance isn't that simple. The reason Blizzard fucks up pvp balance every season is because it's just that hard and they have paid game designers with far more knowledge on such things than us. (plus a rotating system of imbalance is financially more interesting)

Now I had a good time yesterday despite being steamrolled. I would love any plan to improve the balance because it's more fun fighting a balanced game... But in the history of WoW alliance lost a fair bit of battles that shaped us as much as our victories. Why people refuse to let a loosing battle be just as much part of their game is beyond me. It almost feels like Stormwind streets where people fight to the death over a spilled beer with powers that could decimate the city, cause heaven forbids, they could have to back down!

This campaign is marvelously beautiful and deserves more respect than some silly QQ. I'll face that force alone if I have to.

Not that Kingdom of Stromgarde is a massive force at the moment anyway...
Just to clarify there is an IC reason why we're not present.

Jeanpierre wrote:

Trave wrote:You know. I recall after the TTH campaign in Barrens people saying "I cba being steamrolled by Alliance over and over." On the Horde side.
I recall that to be hosted by the Alliance side, TTH, and that it had vastly more Alliance guilds involved.

(Not ranting against you Trave, but I will 'steamroll' that argument)

As for the TTH campaign in the Barrens, there was quite some effort to balance things, at very least by DoL. It reached as far as members of our guild logging in on their Horde alts to help the balance, and I participated in only 1 battle despite being there nearly every night. At times we had 1, maybe 2 people participating while we had 8 pvp'ers online. The one battle I participated in began with cutting down the Alliance force in two to improve the balance in favor for the Horde and we ended up getting steamrolled because Horde had nearly doubled their numbers by the end of the night.
DoL had to make up so many IC excuses for not participating in battles that we started getting whispers of treason behind our backs (which is totally hilarious).

I have rarely seen such effort to balance things on Alliance side as during the TTH campaign. It shows how deep the respect was for the organisation, on alliance side. I would like it to see it remembered so and not brought as an argument to pardon unfair games.

This comment, in no way, tries to look negatively at the Horde however, nor the organisation behind it. I've seen acts on both sides that deserve more respect than the QQ it receives. We can do better than QQ aimlessly. And I don't want to claim "it's fine because the other side QQ'd last time".

Balance isn't just about numbers. Almost every football match proves you that. Grab 20 people, divide them randomly and play 10v10 war games. We did it before and still it was a one-sided battle. Then we divided healers and dps equally and still we could have one-sided matches. Why? Because balance isn't that simple. The reason Blizzard fucks up pvp balance every season is because it's just that hard and they have paid game designers with far more knowledge on such things than us. (plus a rotating system of imbalance is financially more interesting)

Now I had a good time yesterday despite being steamrolled. I would love any plan to improve the balance because it's more fun fighting a balanced game... But in the history of WoW alliance lost a fair bit of battles that shaped us as much as our victories. Why people refuse to let a loosing battle be just as much part of their game is beyond me. It almost feels like Stormwind streets where people fight to the death over a spilled beer with powers that could decimate the city, cause heaven forbids, they could have to back down!

This campaign is marvelously beautiful and deserves more respect than some silly QQ. I'll face that force alone if I have to.

its time to put down the PWN and pick up the RP, eh?

Jeanpierre wrote:
This campaign is marvelously beautiful and deserves more respect than some silly QQ.

This.

Valestrion wrote:It would be good to vary the times of the battles. Currently, all the battles take place at 2000, which is too early for me. The odds might be different at a different time.

Actually, battles are planned to start at 20.30. Both factions start gathering at 20.00, however, and the half hour spend prior to battle is naturally well spent role-playing! That was the general idea behind it, at any rate.

And as for the last couple of posts in this thread, I just want to say that I can understand the Alliance's frustration, but it would mean a lot to me if you at least give us a chance. We are really trying hard to make this enjoyable for both sides, and by no means do either faction's organizers intend to fuck over the either faction. To be quite frank, however, the Alliance guilds were not all that quick to sign up, as pointed out a couple of posts back, which kind of put a strain on balancing this battle. Moreover, this was just the first battle so I expected that it wouldn't go smoothly yet.

For future reference, we are trying to be a bit more organised on the Alliance side of things. We have recently formed the Alliance Military Council, comprising representatives from each of the Alliance nations, which should give a central point of contact for campaigns. The concept is that each nation has an army, and that the commanders of each nations army will look to involve those guilds who have signed up to be part of their nation's army. Of course, there is no obligation on any guild to be part of a national army, but I am sure the national commanders will be happy to hear from any guild that wants to join in. If you want to contact us, either to sign your guild up for your local army, or to organise events with us, the national commanders are as follows:

Stormwind: Geldar and Valestrion
Ironforge: Jomir and Ildranor
Darnassus: Aariam and Sheyton
Gnomeregan: Swatti
Northern Cities: Eodan and Eloresh (Note that the Northern Cities represents an confederation of Alliance states in the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms, e.g. Stromgarde, Lordaeron, Gilneas, Wildhammer Dwarves. It only covers a few guilds so far and there are likely to be a few arguments, quite possibly IC, about who is a part of it.)

Really liked tonight's event, not only because we won. I thought the objective-based W-PvP was quite enjoyable, and I am looking forward to the future events!

Less sapping and casting Distraction while we roleplay/prepares for the battle would be good though.

Anrim Stouthammer wrote:Less sapping and casting Distraction while we roleplay/prepares for the battle would be good though.

You really have to whine always do you?

Aariam wrote:Really liked tonight's event, not only because we won. I thought the objective-based W-PvP was quite enjoyable, and I am looking forward to the future events!

Hear hear! Also, thanks for the small skirmish afterwards, and sorry for the few interruptions! (PS: BLAME GNASH FOR THEM.)