PTR ... Soon

[Mania]

It looks like a new Public Test Realm may be up and running soon. Presumably this is the PTR for the last patch before Cataclysm. Apparently Blizzard is specifically looking for feedback on the upcoming Battleground and Honor changes, so there may not be any interesting stuff beyond that.

In the past, when this starts happening on Thursday afternoon, we usually see the PTR available for play on Friday. But of course there are no guarantees either way.

[Epicfail]

•Firstly, say goodbye to Battleground Marks of Honor. We feel this currency system is a bit outdated and are getting rid of it. Any items which require these marks as currency will have their costs adjusted appropriately to remove this requirement. The quest NPCs will still be available to award players Honor for turning in leftover marks, but this is only to help players clear this expired currency.

This will be interesting. There are certain limitations on servers where "Horde never wins AV" or "Alliance wins every eye of the storm, but loses most arathi basins" and it takes forever to grind up tokens for mounts/etc. I wonder when they plan on doing away with reputations of battlegrounds and the bringing back of pvp ranks.

[VelkynKarma]

So would everything be based on honor then?

I'm not really a huge fan of PVP but I have occasionally worked towards one of the mounts. It'd be nice to have one with less horrendous grind. Getting my NE hunter's black war ram was brutal; I had to play nearly 30 games of WSG just to get my 30 WSG marks X_X

~VelkynKarma

[Dulanie]

interesting the marks is the reason I don't have any pvp mounts >.>

[Saturo]

These changes will be appreciated.
By me.

Now all we need is a mechastrider mount drop for the horde too, and then I'm set!

[Aleu]

I'm happy by this. No more marks, just honor. <3

Also...

Now all we need is a mechastrider mount drop for the horde too, and then I'm set!

This.

[Kastarakovski]

The marks are the reason Laz only has the Black War Tiger and little else.
If the mounts are now a set chunk of honor, it will be reason to start PvPing again on her. I see a Wintergrasp Ranger achievement on her horizon if Blizzard makes this so =D

I vote the Horde gets a mechastrider and a mecharaptor (to go with the Goblins in Cataclysm). They need a double dose of awesome in my honest opinion...

[Kalliope]

omgyay.

They're making the bg honor farming system a lot more like the daily dungeons. Weird!!!

This will take some getting used to.

[Sarayana]

OMG yesssss! I'll be turning in all Sara's stupid marks and buying mounts! (I'm full on AV and AB, but WSG... /cry. Why do you hold me back, oh fighters-in-the-middle? Why will you not help me farm up the badges in a less painful way? *shakes fist* ... *sob*)

[Sonata]

No more....AV marks flooding my mail?

....I think just shed a tear in pure happiness and joy. But the marks will be missed, they kinda left that special feeling of success sorta.
Okay I don't like them...AV marks flooding the inbox.

[Rhyela]

Thank goodness! Like everyone else, the dread of knowing I had to partake in 30 fail battlegrounds was enough to make me avoid the war mounts altogether. Oh fuzzy black war ram, you shall be mine!

Edit: Actually I guess it would be NINETY fail battlegrounds, because Alliance seems bent on losing in the most embarrassing ways possible.