Vanilla AV is the very definition of ambitious game developers not afraid to take risks and hold nothing back. It felt a lot more like a full on war than just an instanced battleground.

So, kinda funny story. Back in the vanilla days I was a Game Master. For a good long while we would get reports of either AFK botting or fish botting in Alterac Valley. Now most of the time our ticket times were atrocious so we'd get the report about 3 days too late (some periods while working there the ticket times were in weeks, not hours or days). Anyway, one night when we got the times down I saw a ticket that was only a half an hour or so old that was reporting an AFK. So I went in-game to verify where the reported character was and what they were doing. Now as a GM I spent most of my time in a windows program with little chat windows I could move around. This is where I spent probably 98% of my time, not physically in a game client. Normally we would only get into the client if we really needed to. To do this we would have multiple characters, one an Allied character and one a Horde character. We actually had a third character but that was technically the character we were using to chat with in our communication program and that character never moved off of GM Island. So anyway, these characters used to investigate stuff in-game were special GM characters flagged with certain abilities. Those abilities include a command to instantly level to max level, god mode, being invisible to players, and being able to fly (more like swim) or move at extreme speeds. We were also able to teleport directly to a player with a quick little command, which is exactly what I did to investigate AFKers in AV. But there was a problem on this particular night. Thinking that everything on my computer was set up properly. We all shared rows of computers so we didn't just have the same one every day. I guess there was an issue with the client not being the proper version of our GM client or something ... can't honestly remember. The short of it was that I was able to access our console (and perform console commands like teleport and such), and my GM character was flagged on the server as being allowed to do all the things I previously mentioned. The problem was ... I was not only visible to players, I was also able to be killed. On top of all of that, my characters were essentially naked because most of us only put on our pre-approved GM gear when we had to make ourselves visible (which I did only twice while working there). So there I am ... a visible, floating, naked, level 60 human teleporting to someone who is AFK in AV. Except he isn't AFK. Nope. Instead he's taking part in the forever war of the center of the map. So when I teleport I'm a floating naked dude, clearly labeled as a GM, swimming through the air and darting around like a pixie on crack. Then ... it happens. While I glance and make sure the player reported is the one I teleported to a strange feeling washes over me. A feeling I never felt at work before while in the client. I felt like I was being watched, because I was. In the middle of this battle several players stopped what they were doing and started facing me. Second guessing myself I wondered, "..... wait, they can't see me can then?!" An answer came to me in the form of a hunters mark appearing over my head followed by several shots from a hunter. There I was, naked and afraid ... and swimming in air. Needless to say I hauled my ass straight under a mountain about 3/4ths of the map away from there. Luckily he didn't kill me, otherwise the forums would have been filled with a screen shot of my dumb ass being killed by a player. Still, some select few players in AV that night got to see something few ever have. A naked GM, running in fear.

I'd sign up to a classic 36 hour one in a heart beat. Its where some of my fondest wow memories were made.

Would you still queue up for 6 hour long AV's? - Yes

I loved the old av. I would play a game for an hour, got to work, then come back and get in the same match. It was more about the fun of a full on virtual war than about honor rewards. Its not a battle ground anymore. Its a drag race.

I remember it well, it was like a real life battle. We had people working behind the lines to provide support for the war effort. We had the grunts fighting and constantly dying in the middle. We had rogues infiltrating the enemy bases. It was frankly a pain in the ass, BUT. It was so fucking cool. Nowadays you just run north/south, blow the bunkers and try to kill the boss the fastest.

Ah, back in the day I remember playing AV. Going to sleep. Then work, then the next evening joining the same AV. Sometimes for 3-4 days I would join the same game. That was immersion.

>ice guy and tree guy These were their names. Anyone who says otherwise is a filthy liar

of course the alliance have terrain advantage, the dwarves know where to build their shit.

You're not kidding about that bridge I once logged into AV before I went to work, played for an hour defending that bridge, went to work for 8 hours got back and qued for av again and got into the same av defending the same bridge

AV was so good, it could be it's own MMO

I was involved in battles that lasted several days, and were truly epic in their scale, like real world battles. I think I had 2000 kills in a single battle once. The entire battlefield was soaked in blood. This was among the best times I ever had playing any video game. The ability to single handedly turn the tide of a massive battle was truly unique.

"Would you queue up for old AV more than once?" Fuck yes, it sounds fun as fuck compared to current AV.

I loved playing my rogue when I was level 54. What made it fun to be a rogue at that level was that you knew you were fucked if you got matched against a well geared 60, so you couldn't be 1v1 badass like you were used to. Instead, I kind of had to play support to the level 60s. This meant doing the quests, but also meant being annoying with guerilla attacks. Is there a furry warrior wrecking shit with a dedicated healer? Well, I'd cheap shot (sap was unlikely) the healer, stun lock them, kick them while trying to cast a spell, blind them, etc. My goal wasn't to kill the healer, it was to stop it from healing the warrior that was mowing us down. That warrior can't take on 3 60s by themselves and win without heals. It worked well. It also saved a game where the main healer couldn't keep the tank up against our general. They wiped. I don't know if we won because I had to quit, but that was an hour after they were about to win. Shit was so fun because I felt like I was just a pawn, but was swinging above my weight. I understand other classes probably couldn't have as big of an impact due to them not having stealth to hide and wait for an opening, but I think AV was a great experience if you didn't treat the battle as a gear /rep grind and instead just treated it as a for fun battle.

I remember starting an AV (as Horde), playing it for hours, logging off to sleep, logging on the next morning and rejoining the same AV. Good times.

Sorry to comment on this,but you say it A LOT in this video "Calvary" is a hill near Jerusalem "Cavalry" are mounted combat units

One thing you didn't mention about old AV Hiru, was the landmines. They were all over the place and stepping on one, especially at a low level, was an almost guaranteed death. Other than that, great video as always! :)

I dont even play this damn game anymore but still watching videos. When am I gonna be free?

One of the things I loved about old AV was that to me, it was as close a representation as we could get to the RTS roots of WoW. Instead of the unseen hand of a general commanding the armies, we the players were inhabiting to role of the many peons and grunts being commanded. The guard upgrades, the special units, the resource farming, it was an epic thing. Maybe the extreme lengths of the matches didn't make the best show of what WoW has to offer, but people wanted to play AV like that....and still do

Dude AV was awesome for Horde. As a former shaman main, my goal was to find the biggest baddest warrior I could find, and follow him everywhere. It's how I became a healbot for numerous Warlords...and it was glorious.

I played on Ravencrest EU in vanilla, as Alliance. On that server, Horde almost always won. My very first, of only a few, win as Alliance, the fight lasted 26 hours before victory. That was insane. I had my brother help when I needed some food and drinks so to not go afk. I still remember that fight now many years later, and can still recall different situations in the battleground. I loved vanilla, and I still do. I havent played since the start of TBC.

Played Vanilla WoW until WoD. Now Back in Classic while also binge wathcing ALL your WoW Videos. Makes boring leveling a little bit easier :D Also I'm learning things I didn't knew :D

WTF, I kind of missed the scale of war Alterac Valley made you feel. I wish they never made the Marks of Honor for Alterac Valley so high on gear, that way the games would've stayed long. I don't mind it being shortened a little, but when the commanders and lieutenants left, the battlefield just felt like another boring map. When they were all in place, it was cool killing lower ranking individuals as you storm your way to their captain and eventually their general. Really unforgettable.

I loved the old AV, even though I was horde and lost many of them. But that was still one of my most fun times back then. And I will play a lot of them in Classic!

Watching this just renews my pride in my frost wolf mount.

Alterac was one the best memories I have of WoW. The scale of PvP battles combined with capturing points and a bit PvE involved(including taking mines) was simply epic and hasn't seen anything similar good up to today

This video is without a doubt by far the single best video you have made period. When I played and started in burning Crusade I did not understand anything and how to do anything in this Battle Ground. With the restart of vanilla this information you have provided is without a doubt some of the most useful information I have ever gained on World of Warcraft ever. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart cuz now I actually understand what to do when they re-release the game.

I would love to play av again as it was ment to be played, longer games with better tactics than just zerging. But as an alliance player since og vanilla on multiple servers, my experience is that horde wins 70% of the games.

AV was designed to be a huge epic experience. If Blizzard wanted a 20 minute BG they should have just made a new one rather than gutting AV.

Old school AV was legitimately some of the best gaming I have ever done. I was heartbroken when I found out they wouldn't be including it in Classic/SoM. Most people will never know exactly how epic it truly could be.

It is pretty much what warfronts should be.

Good ol AV. I’m exalted with the frost wolf clan haha. I checked, my win ratio on it is like 42% while all other Bg’s I’m in the 55-65% range on horde. Makes a lot of sense when you analyze all the reasons allies have it easier. It was always something I was aware of, but never aware of all the specifics that make it so much easier for them.

My best Alterac Valley memory... playing horde side and it glitched on the alliance side....it only let in one player...one alliance player vs 40 horde, got the Alterac Valley Perfection achievement that day.

Those "advantages" were just Alliance superior thinking and planning... but when they saw Horde's advantage they boycotted it... Jokes aside this video was really good! I didn't even know most of these AV facts in such detail. In my opinion Blizzard should try to put the PVEVP aspect more, in future. Also I liked your stylish edits towards the end, fancy!

I miss old av, I hope it is returned to it's former glory when classic wow is released.

LOVED THE VIDEO! brings me back. i started late in vanilla and never hit max lvl till TBC. i never got to experience the real AV which i would love to. however i remember a lot of the changes and the stuff you touched on from when i played it till now.

AV was the best BG back in vanilla 👍 battles lasted for days 😊👍

The experience my friends and I had going to AV for the first time nothing short of incredible. Balance non-withstanding, it was a gigantic experience that just left the impression that WoW was just so gigantic. I can't wait for WoW classic to roll around so we can pull a classic "Play AV for 5 hours, go to bed, hop on before work/school and end up in the same battle".

hahaha thanks for this... I was a horde player in vanilla wow, and was exalted with the frostwolf clan! God i was proud of my wolf i got to prove i spent a lot of my life getting owned by a 1 sided fight i was on the losing end of

I still remember when AV came out, it was extremely exciting and fun, the huge epic battles, all the quests, all the different strategies and things you could do, all the rep rewards you could work towards which actually meant something, awesome time, it's fucking trash now obviously, just like the game lol

I think it should go back to the original system with minor geographical changed to make it more balanced. Playing a thousand small parts in a greater war effort will always be more satisfying than a single minor battle.

AV was actually my favorite one of the BGs and I played Horde 🤓 Nothing gave a bigger pleasure than winning AV despite of the alliance advantages 😎 Maybe it was since I played a druid, so if some spec didn't work on some days, you could just switch to another one and play another role in the group 🤷🏻‍♂️

All they should have done to solve the length of time problem was increased the rewards. Like with the marks, instead of getting 3 for a win, you get 1 for X amount of enemy deaths, or for capping certain objectives. Make it so that everything had a reward for accomplishing something. This way, you'd get hopefully the same amount of rewards from a 5 hour AV battle as you would have running Warsong the entire time. Wouldn't have solved the advantage issues, but there were/are a lot of people that greatly enjoyed getting to fight in AV for hours on end. I know I did. My longest run was just under 7 hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. It felt like it was an actual BATTLEground, and not just some short skirmishes.

Vanilla AV could have weekend long games, a game would start on Friday afternoon and would still be going Sunday afternoon. Now it was interesting that you mentioned the Horde entrance being moved back. I was lucky enough to be a part of a strategy that guaranteed a Horde win. The strategy was called Rath Strat named after the architect of the strategy "Rathmasus"(I think i spelt his name right), to be a part of this there were some requirements for this to succeed, Access to Vent(ventrilo voip program) Frostwolf trinket/medallion(the instant teleport back to FWK) and willing to do something if asked immediately like trinket back to FWK. All would start and about 10-15 would stay behind Galv's bunker hidden while the rest would advance, now because this came a zerg fest no one really bothered fighting in the field of stryfe. As alliance went in and attacked Galv as soon as he shouted out those 10-15 Horde that hid behind Galv's bunker wiped out the major force of the alliance, and by the time the Alliance respawned all the forward GY had been capped by the horde. Stormpike GY was left not to be capped for the purpose of that would be their only spawn as once you left the cave you would spawn at the nearest GY, and by then the 10-15 Horde that defended Galv has joined the main battle. A group of 10-15 would go in and take Stormpike and as the Generals disappeared when towers/bunkers were capped, the rest would surround Stormpike GY and then farm HK as Alliance had nowhere to go. One of the reasons that you had vent that if some Alliance got passed they still cause damage and they would capp the FWK GY and gave the group a different spawn point, the BG leader or spotter would call out I need about 5 to drop back with the reply I'll trinket the rogue alliance would be dealt with and then rejoin the group. Stormpike would be killed and usually the base honor would be about 1800 with up too 2500 honor. For 20 minute game it was a fast way to get honor and when the reputation got around on Nathrezim server you just have to say Rath Strat and you would have a full horde BG side in under 2 minutes. It was loathed by the Alliance as cross realm BG's had been introduced as they hadn't wised up as they were random PUG's that joined AV and cause they were random they didn't figure out the strategy and come up with a counteract. When Rathmasus stopped leading the AV his record was 300 wins and 1 loss, the only loss was trying the strategy for the 1st time.

Honestly really sad I missed out on the epic-ness of old AV :( I can do without it lasting days, but I want to see the whole map and all the NPCs returned to their former glory. I'd love to see it for a brawl or rework!

Run in to Generals room, fear bomb, heal general. Usually caused a wipe and it was fun to do.

a new video about this current anniversary event and how AV is horde dominant would be intresting

12:57 - I cannot believe I just noticed this, but the AV Mark of Honor icon is... literally Scooby Doo's collar. Complete with the initials "SD."

I loved Alterac Valley. As a horde player, we rarely won, but there were times in which either our guild or other organized groups would prepare and enter the BG with the sole objective of kicking as much Alliance ass as we could. Those fights are forever in my memory, as the best team battles i've ever had in any kind of videogame. Even if we failed and raged, we did it all together, and it's a feeling of camaraderie that no BG ever managed to replicate.

I never played OG Alterac Valley so I definitely am probably vastly overestimating it. But it actually seems quite fun in its original scale, as a very PvE focused battleground. Obviously it was clearly unbalanced, but the sheer grandiose scale of Alterac does make it feel like a very epic battleground.

Alliance has a map advantage in Battle for Gilneas too. The alliance spawn is a shorter path to the Water Works with no obstacles. And the Horde spawn is slightly further away with a river between the Mine and Waterworks. Alliance can cap WW before the Horde can even get close enough to contest at the start, and then it's just a matter of keeping the Horde off the flag for a short while and they're already ahead in points with more spawn locations. You watch every game at the start of Battle for Gilneas, the WW will turn half blue before the Horde barely make it across that small river.

Summoning Ivar the Forest Lord was one of the greatest experiences I've ever had the pleasure of participating in. Old AV was a masterpiece, was a game within the game.

CA VAL RY The L comes after the V, not before!

It's worth noting that not only there were A LOT more npc soldiers back then, but they were also way stronger and those inside the towers were even elite (and had a lieutenant boss with them)

Huh, neat. Never really been into PvP so it was nice to hear about it from someone who maybe was. I absolutely LOVED Wintergrasp, though. I miss it a lot :)

I loved vanilla AV because I'm bad at pvp.

AV: **exists** Alliance Players: “Its free real estate”

Funny how Korrak's revenge, the anniversary event AV, is so imbalanced but to the Horde benefit this time.

I'm horde but I still find it funny that people in this comment section act like it's the alliance players fault for AV not being fair.

6:40 Old alterac valleys can last only 7 minutes if you are in premade group. Jump over the wall if you are alliance, or take the backdoor shortcut if you are horde. Have 4 hunters or mages kite the warmasters/marshals while rest of the raid kills the general. Alternative 15-20 min strat is that you first cap enemy base graveyard, and then kill the marshals/warmasters one by one, and then go finish the general.

Great video, but you missed one great moment in AV. In mid BC the Horde could pull Van in such a way that despawned all of his guards, allowing the Horde to attack him alone as if all the towers were destroyed.

I will. The AV turtle was my favor. I still remember by lvl 60 hunter in AV sniping all those noobs at choke points as alliance. It all depends on if you have good gear and are able to slay people. I assume it would be boring for melees.

The question isn't "will you queue up for AV more than just once?" its you will only have to queue up for AV once because by the time you get out of it you'll be retired or on your death bed.

Gotta love how 3 out of 20 npcs which killed most players are from Westfall.

20 hours ? AH :D I remember some AV that would last the WHOLE WEEK xD

My Undead Warlock used to stand on the hill outside of the alliance bridge.. place 3-4 seeds of corruption on a crowd and pop it with shadow fury?!? I forget name/... but would come out top dmg every game, was decently geared but the combo just did so much Aoe dmg it was insane...

alliance wins all the time - "deal with it" horde starts to win often after changes were made - "BOYKOTT THIS SHIT" thats alliance for you.

AV was one of my favorite Battle Ground in Vanilla, i was so disappointed when it went away :(

I think AV was at its best in early burning crusade. It still took a long time but could reasonably be trusted to end in a couple hours at least, and you COULD win without the side objectives, but they were all very helpful and worth doing and saw frequent use. AV got so depressingly fast in later BC that it was like.. what's the point.

I loved it, as horde we actually won most of the time om aggramar

Wintergrasp is the real loss. We need a modern version of it. I remember you would have ALL horde/alliance queueing for WG as it started in one room.. then once they were busy you'd have people arranging to storm their capital cities. not to mention the AWESOME vehicle aspect and the way you won your factions right to spend currency from raid bosses. miss it so much

My longest AV in 2004/05 was about 32h.... epic!

Back in Vanilla there wasn't any inherent advantage for either side, that's why you could quit AV, go to bed, get up, go to work, come back home, enter AV and it would still be the SAME one! Yes Alliance had the Bridge of Death, but the Horde had the Two Towers; both choke points were nearly impenetrable, and usually required summoning the raid boss to break through each respective point (The cavalry typically would not be enough for either side). If you won or not depended heavily on controlling the two graveyards closest to the generals. If you didn't the other team could respawn fast enough to reinforce the general and wipe their attempt to win. So the strengths and weaknesses of the graveyards worked both ways. The positions of the Horde graveyards made them harder to defend; while it meant it was easier to get into the base; it also meant the Horde could take them back just as easily. What had to happen for Alliance to win was to defend the outer graveyard, which was extremely hard to do since it was open on all sides, and the spawn point could be bottle-necked to contain the next spawn wave while the point was recaptured. Additionally the capture point was far off from the bottleneck between the two towers, which made it all the easier to recapture the point because the bulk of the Alliance forces would be no where near it. On the Alliance side there would be a stalemate at the bridge because it was nearly impossible to take the outside graveyard back once it was capped since you had the Horde team standing on the capture point while trying to cross the bridge. The moment the inner graveyard fell the Alliance would likely lose that match, but getting that inner graveyard of course was nearly impossible. It's actually commendable that the people who designed AV in the first place was able to create an asymmetric map that was balanced to the point where both sides had a near impossible chance of actually being able to kill the other's general to end the game. All the changes to AV only served to make it more and more imbalanced as time went on. AV in it's original state would have been far better if the quests also rewarded marks of honor, as well as the general giving out a repeatable quest of kill 100 players for a mark of valor. The only problem with AV in it's original state was the tying the rewards to ending the match as opposed to participating in it.

I don't think today's player base would complain about it if their entry experience was Vanilla, like the rest of the Vanilla community. tl;dr post-expansion WoW is like going to a shopping mall and Vanilla WoW was a DIY challenge, and those who accept the DIY challenge are fine with accepting the conditions at the onset, despite w/e problems, when they know they want the goal on the otherside of that wall. Think about it: post-expansion WoW has always been centered around a core prerogative: *Life . Is . Convenient*. If post-expansion WoW had a spokesman it might go something like: "It would be really inconvenient to have to spend hours walking across a boring world, so here's a mount from lvl 1 to help you get through it faster! It would be really frustrating if you had to waste a huge time sink into leveling through a boring world just to have another character available for you to play the new stuff, the fun stuff, so here's heirlooms to help things go faster! It would be really frustrating to have to waste a bunch of time finding a group for a dungeon (or guild for a raid) so here's LFG/LFR! It would be really inconvenient if you thought you couldn't beat a raid, so here's reduced difficulty! With optional higher difficulties, for the convenience of those people who want more of a challenge (even if the difficulty is artificial)! Hell, it would be pretty inconvenient if you didn't like how your character looked, so now you can make your gear look like w/e you want with transmog!" Vanilla WoW's prerogative on the other-hand, was the exact opposite. Vanilla's core mantra might be something like "Nothing is given, every problem is there for you to solve for yourself, but those solutions are there for you to find. You will have to explore the world yourself to complete this quest, you will have to find a group yourself if you want to do a dungeon, you will have to journey there yourself if you actually want to do it." But when you did do these things, it gratified you, and when you got rewarded for your success, you felt like you actually earned it because....well, you did. You wanted something, a problem was in your way, you overcame it and got what you wanted. Some problems were small, some were big, some were tedious and some were down-right unfair, like Alterac Valley....but you did it all the same, and you didn't always win but some problems that you failed to succeed at for days, weeks, or months at a time, were things you eventually earned victory over. It was the kind of game that got people thinking "I'm going to set out to get what I want, no matter what hand I'm dealt", and when you think like that you become tougher to any kind of challenge, and when you start winning at challenges you thought insurmountable before, you become stronger and more confident as a person. It's not that far fetched to say that not only did people's in game character grow in level as they succeeded at each challenge, but that their inner character, their character as a human being, grew as well.

what killed WoW was that it was only about the next carrot... people did only things because they wanted a reward... not because things were fun. before there was automated LFG i ran stratholm and scholomance dozens of times.. no because i needed any rewards... but i loved, meeting with new players tha never been there and guiding them through those places. making friends...

Fun fact: Calvary is the location where Jesus was crucified and died. Cavalry are people who performed mounted combat. Be weird for Tracer to say “Cheer’s love! The Calvary is here!” Just thought I’d help you out. :)

Alliance have several major advantages for years. Blizz: huh, what? I don't see anything, just deal with it. Horde get a minor advantage for 3 seconds IF every member joins in on it. Blizz: NERF IT TO HELL!!!!!!

They really should do an event where they return 1.5 AV. Like comon that would be fun. People would complete like a few in a week lol.

If only everyone playing Korrak now watched this...

Great video! Small note: _Cavalry_ are mounted troops. _Calvary_ is the hill Jesus was crucified on. I know, I'm being pedantic. I'm sorry.

"Calvary" "Imputiny"

Snowfall Graveyard is such a Taboo, ppl who are smart avoids in Completely, cause if there are no graveyards captured by your side and you die a bit away from the base, it will send you back there, instead of an unclaimable graveyard next to your keep. Whoever claims Snowfalls Graveyard is bombarded with insults, and the saltiest of people tend to just flat out leave.

thanks for the memories. AV was especially important during BC for grinding PVP gear. Those bridge fights were epic.

Ashran was an uninspired fucking road that wasn't half as large as original av(or at least didnt feel like it)

The Alliance also started on top of a hill, one which they could parachute or slowfall down to reach the objectives faster. There was also a snow mound that allowed the Alliance to jump over the spike walls of the Horde base to get inside, so the Horde base had at least 2 entry points, while the Alliance base only had the dreaded meatgrinder of a chokepoint, Dun Baldar Bridge. Blizzard was well aware of AV favoring the Alliance, and even poked fun at it with Wing Commander Ichman's comments during the Dragonmaw Races in BC. "Three years I spent in that hell hole. Three years a prisoner of war to the damnable Frostwolf Clan. Made to sit in their tower and listen to them endlessly whine about the bridge to Dun Baldar. About how it's "unfair" that blah, blah, blah, blah... War isn't fair! To hell with 'em all!"

It's fun watching how AV evolved. Horde (Hail Hydra) had a massive advantage in Vanilla AV that organized groups could take advantage of and win most of the time (and disadvantages that pugs had to fight against, as shown in the video). There were also many horde-specific bugs that Blizzard refused to use that were the bane of the Alliance. It wasn't until the game was turned into a universal speed-fest -- and the moving of the cave -- that the starting positions and geography became more apparent. It was so much easier to call the wolf riders, wyverns and summon their Raid Boss than it was for the Alliance due to geographic locations. Wolves were out of Alliance player's sights, as were the rams you had to kill for the fur. Whereas wolves to kill were smack dab in front of the Hordes base / main respawn / closest flag that was outside. Any alliance that attempted to kill them were sniped immediately. And riding upwards from the horde base -- and the wide open area -- allowed the horde to see who was going after rams. Not to mention the summoning point of the Icelord being hidden behind a mountain, with the Alliance version placed smack dab in the horde's path to reach the Alliance base. You had to be winning already to be able to summon the tree, or have half of your army protecting a ritual that could be disturbed with a tap. Add to that that the placement of most horde NPCs were where the Alliance typically rode, and the alliance defensive NPCs could easily be avoided. The towers were a double edged sword as it was easy to capture alliance towers as a rogue -- if you knew how -- and incredibly easy to defend horde towers initially. One good fear could make you run outside without a chance to defend. So capping it was exceedingly difficult if an organized group was defending it as it took 5 minutes to take down, and could be taken back with minimal forces and efforts. When the BG was altered to be a speed run for optimal efficiency, it's people's mindsets that took over more than small advantages either way. "Just let them win for quick honor / five minute matches". This was oft fought against by organized PvP groups throughout the years, and many such groups came up with the choke point to turtle a victory and have an impenetrable wall to guard their towers and burn the alliance's (which was easier to burn for those that knew what they were doing). At this point, both horde and alliance players started to dislike this tactic as they were ultimately getting less currency as a whole, which prompted a boycott of the battleground. It was moreso an issue of disrupting the status quo than victory, and both the alliance and horde players began to leave the BG in droves when they heard the words "turtle" in the horde chat (or saw it happening) as taking the penalty was more efficient. This further proved the "invincibility" of the tactic since the Alliance only charged with half their strength, with the others instantly quitting. There was also the whole Ice Lord being vastly superior in A.I. while the forest lord could be kited; plus the Horde Captain's fear and higher defense rating oft caused alliance to reset by accident.

The horde have an advantage over the alliance on AV. The alliance advance uphill, while the horde travel downhill. The horde have three choke points to defend on the way to their base, while the alliance only has the bridge.

To me, the old Alterac sounds just soo much more interesting and fun than the current thing.

Claiming no one noticed these changes until it was changed to be faster is entirely incorrect. All of these issues and more were brought up repeatedly and totally ignored by Blizz. I also find it amusing that you excluded the biggest Alliance Advantages in AV. Those being The ability to jump over the Frostwall Keep walls and the fact that Alliance in AV during vanilla could also reach objectives faster due to the position of their starting point being closer to the mid on top of them having access to Paladin Crusader Aura Also the reason Horde began winning AV when resources were introduced was due to Horde implementing a new strategy of actually defending and participating in PvP instead of just allowing the Alliance to Zerg rush across the map untouched. The AV Zerg was ALWAYS the Alliance Strat because again they could entirely circumvent all of Frostwolf Keep defenses by jumping the wall.

I just cant, when he says "calvary" instead of "cavalry"

I'll never forget the first time my group made a concerted effort to summon the ice guy. It took a lot of time and effort, during which the Alliance was pushing in hard. We just barely got the turn-in before we were overrun, but once the summon was complete we bulldozed our way to Stormpike's doorstep. From there, the battle wasn't over, and I think we eventually lost, but dang if it isn't one of if not the best WoW memory I have.

Can I really call this a "mini" fact if its the video is over 20 minutes long?

BRING BACK OLD AV!!!!!

I just found your channel and video. Maan! You did an excellent job and you are an amazing storyteller. Usually, I leave quite fast from a 20 mins+ video, but I stayed for the entire video captivated. Keep it up! New subscriber here! 🤗

Great memories and a lot of frustration being Horde and having a disadvantage built into the map, lol.

I was the DerpDaDerp guy in your game Hirumared :D

I have been horde since day one and have blacklisted AV since the day blacklisting was put in game.

I was once in an AC match that started on a Friday night and stalemated to last til midday on a Sunday. I stayed for it because it felt like every swing of my weapon was contributing in a meaningful way to a push, and collapsed to bed when it was over.

dBlizz gave us Eye of the Storm, finally a truly balanced PVP map. What happens Alli get wrecked and put it on their veto list lol