Darkpopulous provides our first impressions on the Ashran World PvP zone in Warlords of Draenor. How has Blizzard’s centerpeice open world pvp zone stacked up against Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Guild Wars 2’s Eternal Battlegrounds, The Elder Scrolls Online’s Cyrodil? The Verdict Although Ashran is major step in the right direction for Blizzard, offering a persistent open World PvP zone with relevant Arena and Rated Battleground quality rewards and Conquest, there are many areas in which Ashran falls well short of its potential. Too Small The stated objective of Ashran was to bring World of Warcraft back to its real time strategy roots with the addition of a a persistent open world battleground. The Warcraft strategy games had mixed combat, ground, air and siege units, each fulfilling a critical battlefield role. In Ashran there are no siege weapons or vehicles, limiting the pvp experience to infantry fighting. In order to provide a more “Epic” PvP experience Ashran must be larger, more varied and allow for greater numbers of players to participate. Expand Ashran Ashran should be expanded, adding true battlefield objectives such as towers, keeps and fortresses similar to the Wintergrasp Fortress. Additional battlefield objectives will provide variety and replay value, while bringing the challenge in line with Alterac Valley and Wintergrasp. |
