Before I start, just a side note that my last exam is Tuesday, so afterward I’ll do my best to finish editing Arena Vol. VII before I go on vacation on Friday, but I’m not going to rush and make it shitty either, and with the upload time I’m not sure if it will be out this week, or when I get back at the beginning of May. I’ll keep you updated.

I’ll also be letting other authors touch on the Cloak change to 100 percent, but I’ll just note that it kicks ass and it’s about time.

Rated Battlegrounds and Arenas: Will it be one or the Other?

This is going to be one of the biggest questions facing cataclysm PvP. Will rated battlegrounds serve to replace arena? A lot of this will depend on the success of rated Bgs and how they are presented. Initially, of course, don’t expect many players to be playing arena when rated Bgs are the new kid on the block. People will always want to try something new, and coupled with that fact I think that a good portion of the WoW populace is disillusioned with or at least a bit tired of arena being the only real PvP left in the game.

The idea behind rated BGs is to be able to offer the best PvP rewards through both Arenas or BGs. If you love BGs but don’t like Arenas, you can still get great rewards. If you love Arenas, hopefully the experience will be even better for you because the guys who don’t like Arenas will be off doing something else. If you like both Arenas and BGs, great, you have more choices in what you do that week. If you like PvP but still lose a lot, yes you’re still going to be a season behind the guys who win a lot. We’ll reward you gear just for participating, but if you want th best gear, you still need to win.

There are a lot of potential issues with rated battlegrounds however. The first of which being how do you organize it? WoW isn’t the same game it was 5 years ago, where players were much more hardcore and millions were happy to spend most of their waking lives playing WoW. I think (mostly because Blizzard wanted this) the playerbase has become much more casual, for better or for worse. Even if you have a guild that’s only focus is rated bg’s and you’re confident in its players, it is always going to be hard to organize 10 players or 15 players to be on and ready at the same time and not leave. Anyone who’s tried to organize a 5v5 will probably understand. Expect the few guilds that are actually able to organize top players to dominate, and other players to trade chat BG teams that will probably fair about as well as trade chat arena teams.

Having played some very competitive battlegrounds back in vanilla WoW (both on reckoning and the then BG9), I can say that they were both intense and a lot of fun. You really didn’t want to lose, and mistakes were met with group kicks. At the same time, this has only ever been true of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin. This may be in part to the death of BG’s in the Burning Crusade, but even so, expect only 10 – 15 player battlegrounds to be utilized competitively. You can also expect Blizzard not to realize this whatsoever.

The ultimate determining factor here will be if rated Bg’s are pretty much the same as battlegrounds are now, except you get arena points. I think that how Blizzard handles this new idea will be the determinant of the success or failure of PvP in cataclysm. If they don’t work out, expect people who care about competition whatsoever to return quickly to arena. I’m not exactly sure what “6” means but the following quote doesn’t exactly get me pumped for rated BGs:

Allows player to earn Arena points through Arena or BGs; no punishment for losing, but points via BGs may be capped at 6 or so per week; required to join as a group, but not one dedicated like Arenas – may be awarded special epic ground mounts.

The way that sounds, rated bg’s will be like a daily quest for arena points that you can only do as a group. I’m sure some people will take it seriously and you may occasionally get the game of coordinated premades facing off with both teams in vent and playing strategically (which is what we want!), but mostly it will be half pug groups that are just playing to get their points, and rated Bg’s will suck almost as hard as wintergrasp. Almost.

To the PvE Haters

This is just a short note for the people hating on the site talking about PvE. PvE is a huge part of this game; more people PvE strictly than PvP by a very large amount. I realize it seems that this site is primarily concerned with PvP, and I suppose it has been, but one of the biggest reasons for that is I haven’t raided seriously in a long time. In the Burning Crusade, I posted a lot about raiding, specs, and gearing for PvE.

I see this trend a lot where PvE has fallen out of favour and is seen as “the enemy” by the PvP community, but first and foremost, one of the biggest goals of this website is to help rogues, all rogues. More rogues strictly PvE than they do PvP, many are interested in this part of the game. I’m not asking you as a PvP’r to read PvE articles that don’t concern you, but at the same time it isn’t hurting you that they are there. Are there other PvE websites? Yes, but these rarely cater specifically to rogues, and if they do they do so in a very elitist way where you can expect every question to be met with “check your spreadsheet”. What Seperation is planning to do is tackle PvE from a rogue perspective, and at the same time make it accessible to people who aren’t on Lich King hard mode.

And if you’re still not happy:

Moment of Anti-Zen

I’ve talked about this kind of thing before but it never ceases to baffle me. I appreciate fans but…seriously. Seriously?

Edit: Late Edition

Woundman 3

Just saw this now, woundman released another video, 3v3 with commentary. A great look at rogue perspective of RLS and Rogue S priest Shaman, not only does it show solid top-level game play but it also reminds me just how annoying it can be to play a rogue in 3s. Even when being played correctly and effectively, its frustrating to watch vanishes randomly break, stealth removed by lucky novas or cone of colds and kicks that sometimes just don’t work. Even so this is a really good watch, I found the dance section more entertaining but the mutilate section more realistic and also a lot more intense.

So first I want to thank all the people that have already submitted articles / apps. Really, I realize now that this is something I should have done a long time ago. There are lots of great opinions out there and people interested in sharing their thoughts about the game and class. If I haven’t responded, don’t feel bad because I’ve gotten a lot of submissions, and there’s also a chance I haven’t gotten to it yet. If you’re interested in blogging, there is no deadline and I still may be looking for more! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are the details I posted about a week ago.

I’m going to open up roguerogue.com to some potential community involvement. If you’re interested, email me at feedback@roguerogue.com with an article or any questions you have. I’ll potentially be looking for some permanent authors, especially going forward into Cataclysm, so if you’re interested, give it a try! No promises though, and please at least have a fair understanding of the class; not to discourage people but I’m not going to post stuff just for the sake of posting.

The good news is I’ve already found some people who want to share their thoughts and over the next few days you’ll start seeing their posts here, so be friendly and check it out! Hopefully this will make roguerogue.com a much more active place and give the rogue community a lot of new advice and opinions! I’ll still be posting here as well, and I know bizzlesnaff is going to start posting information as well. Stay tuned!

Also, the last piece of good news is that I’ve finished recording for Arenas Volume VII. I’m in final exam mode until the 20th, but I have the 20th-25th off so I’ll be finishing the video up then and hopefully releasing around that time period. Bizzlesnaff’s first User Submission Video will also be out before the end of april, and I know he has more to come.