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Sure, it can be disappointing. But A: Hopefully it means some cool story patch involving Karabor/Bladespire--I wish they could have us conquer it/take it later, that'd satisfy a lot of people.

B: Maybe it'll encourage people to not stand in the capital city all day.

C: I agree it was weird that we just randomly conquer and take some space as our own. Shattrath was still very much Aldor/Scryer control, we just happened to be using it. Ditto on Dalaran--very much Kirin Tor has their claws in it, we're just using it as a base. Cata didn't give us much in the way of new capitals. And then here comes Pandaria, where we just randomly take some temples for our own in VotEB like "Yoink!" It does seem a bit weird. Something more like the whole Dominance Offensive/Lion's Landing stuff could be cool, except it's less Horde vs. Alliance, more take it back from Legion/Iron Horde!

That said it still feels like they're making Horde the demon evil faction of death. Might be time to play my Ally characters again...

There's a thread going on at the official forums if you guys wanna join in. There's also a EU one as well.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 408?page=9

Wain wrote:I actually suspect their main reason is wanting to keep the capitals in the same area and level of content so as not have to double up on the level 100 starter content / dailies by having to offer it in two different places.

As long as the faction hub isn't actually in PvP territory, which it is not, I can't say I care much how pretty it is. Nor do I see how it'd be much of a deal breaker since the building itself encompasses a minuscule proportion of actual game play. On top of that, this decision sounds recent and I'll be interested to see what the hubs look like by the time the game goes live, it's entirely possible they'll be very different to what was placed there before they made the decision.

Well thats good! No need to worry about having NPCs ganked is good.

I'm really disappointed with the change. Will it stop me from enjoying the expansion though? Nah. Any of the faction cities would've got boring after a time anyways.

But I'm not really buying the "reasoning" behind it. And as someone who hates PvP, I'd like to not be near any PvP zones. Travelling near/through/over any PvP zone is a pain imo (aka see Wintergrasp being right smack in the middle of everything), especially if you have 0 interest in PvP.

But back to their reasoning, I'm not buying this whole thing:

we came to the realization that it just doesn’t make sense for the Horde and Alliance to spend so much energy and resources building up a stronghold on Draenor, only to base their efforts out of someone else’s city. We’re not helping the Draenei or Frostwolves fight off the Iron Horde – they’re helping us. The Alliance and Horde both have major bases of operation on Draenor. That should be where they’re working from.

Actually, from the way the intro quests read and play out, it sure seems like we're helping the draenei and frostwolves honestly. The entire intro quest has a feel of "we need to help them". In fact there was one part of the quest that was like "let's get you (you as in Alliance; I haven't tried Horde ver. yet) set up here" that I was like. "Uh wait what. When did this become you saving me?"

I think it's a pretty poor change. And part of the fun of "other continents" and worlds is that we see their architecture and design, with hints of our factions flavor (like the shrines in Vale). Not just "Oh hey here's our stormwind bricks in the middle of this zone".

Azunara wrote:That said it still feels like they're making Horde the demon evil faction of death. Might be time to play my Ally characters again...

I'm getting this feeling too and the Lupis is not pleased. They have a lot of opportunities to play with the less savage side of the Horde in this expansion, I hope they make use of that chance. The writers need to make up for a LOT of beating on the Horde in Pandaria (seriously, wowa, way to villainize the faction x.x) and I know a lot of people are really, really sick of faction conflict, which will only get worse in WoD unless they really start working on improving the Horde's image.

But. That's off topic. I still would rather Karabor/Bladespire are the faction hubs due to the lore that goes on there, but maybe they'll impress us with these new cities.

My fiance read me this blue post earlier from MMOChamp; it's under the "Warlords of Draenor - Faction Hubs and Ashran" post:

As to the Alliance and Horde staging areas on Ashran, allow me to lay out a few key facts to hopefully allay some concerns:

-They’re located on Ashran as a geographical location on the map, but they’re not part of the Ashran world PvP zone. They won’t be subjected to the realm coalescing we’re using to keep Ashran’s PvP area populated, and they won’t flag you for PvP on non-PvP realms.
-We’ve also made some major improvements to the way PvP flagging works on non-PvP realms that removes “accidental flagging” from mistargeted abilities or ground effects. Unless you manually flag yourself by typing /pvp, you will simply not be able to attack enemy players, or heal friendly players who have flagged themselves.
-They’re populated with guards, and the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone (including a major fortress). It’s certainly possible for someone from another faction to attack it, but it’s not any easier to do so than it is to attack the enemy faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.
-There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like.

It does sound like they are doing what they can to reduce the amount of problems from PvPers who feel the need to be jerks. While I'm a little skeptical on the whole ''the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone'' bit, the rest is better than nothing as far as I can tell. I'm willing to sit it out and wait a little longer to see if they end up changing their minds again, seeing as we're still in Beta. :/

Also, I wholeheartedly agree that they do need to stop demonizing the Horde. -.- My troll and Blood Elf do NOT appreciate it!

While this does ease my concerns, I still want Karabor over Ashran. :<

Thats a shame. It looked like they put a lot of work into the art and details of those cities. I would spend hours playing around in shatt and even though Dal was empty by the time i hit northrend it is still the coolest city in my opinion. I thought shrine was ok, very small compared to what we usually end up with. I was looking forward to the new cities i could explore. The new hubs do not look that impressive so far. very generic allinacebace#227 at the moment.
that being said I don't think it will matter to me anyway. Right now I live in half hill and just grow portals and use various teleportation trinkets due to the demonic lag i get in the vale. this plus mention of a portal to stormwind being available in your garrison + SW currently being the biggest nest of portals to all the older zones means i will probably just set up a garrison in some remote corner or the world and forget that everyone exists regardless of my other options.

Blizzard (via Torachi) wrote:the only land-based entrance is directly through the Ashran world PvP zone (including a major fortress). It’s certainly possible for someone from another faction to attack it, but it’s not any easier to do so than it is to attack the enemy faction’s shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa that makes it EVEN WORSE.

I've spent the majority of the last ten years on a PvP server as the minority faction and the number of times I've been flat out stuck because there isn't a way to leave my hub because the flight master was killed by a handful of stealthers (or not-stealthers in the case of the Shrines) and I was unable to leave through other means (again, largely Shrine due to Vale having been landlocked—you can get in as soon as you can get to Pandaria cos you can take the ramp in Shado-Pan Fallback in Kun-Lai and then jump into Vale) until they respawned... which takes forever, especially when you want to actually be doing something instead of sitting around twiddling your thumbs.

It's not even relegated to PvP servers, though I feel like it's worse there (personal bias, to be fair). Unless the new hubs are sanctuaries (they won't be) the flight master will always be killable and while it'll take a little more effort than it does for Shrine, it won't take more than a couple people—like, you know, those two or three undead rogues that are constantly killing the trade district auction house guys, or are ALREADY killing the flight master at shrine and then doing whatever it is that they do to get themselves "stuck" in the statue so that nobody (who doesn't know the same exploit/path/whatever) can kill them while they wait for it to respawn so they can do it again?

At least at level 90 you have outs from Shrine, and at 87+ you can run alllllllllll the way out to Kun-Lai. Ashran is an island. You won't HAVE an out.

And they seriously think this is a GOOD THING?!

I was pretty much thinking the same things, Xella. I play on a PvE realm, but I do worry/wonder what the repercussions are going to be for those that play on PvP realms. I've heard how some people can be on those realms, and if the PvPers are any example on my own, there are some that just don't care how much they're ruining other people's gameplay experiences.

Apparently this is the reply to those concerns (again, on MMOchamp, under newest Faction Hubs and Ashran):

Ashran cities post mentioned "only land-based entrance (to the city) is through world PvP zone." So you must enter PvP to get there?
Not at all. You can portal or take a flight there. (Mumper)


Something really bugs me about how nonchalant the reply was. x.x I get that portals and flightpoints are meant to make our lives easier, but it feels like a bandaid solution to me. Though I might be a bit biased. [shrugs]

Xella wrote: Ashran is an island. You won't HAVE an out.

And they seriously think this is a GOOD THING?!

Uh yeah you will the portals. Did you forget about those?

Is Ashran a no-fly zone? Because if so, the "land based entrance is PvP" thing is a HUGE BAD THING for me. I very very rarely choose to use flight paths because I don't like not being able to stop- and limiting how you can get into the city is... no. No, please don't.

LupisDarkmoon wrote:Is Ashran a no-fly zone? Because if so, the "land based entrance is PvP" thing is a HUGE BAD THING for me. I very very rarely choose to use flight paths because I don't like not being able to stop- and limiting how you can get into the city is... no. No, please don't.

well the statement "There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like" means there will be other ways in.

Also by the looks of what they are doing with PvP flagging, if you are in a non Pvp server you have to flag yourself so going into a zone wont flag you anymore.

cowmuflage wrote:

LupisDarkmoon wrote:Is Ashran a no-fly zone? Because if so, the "land based entrance is PvP" thing is a HUGE BAD THING for me. I very very rarely choose to use flight paths because I don't like not being able to stop- and limiting how you can get into the city is... no. No, please don't.

well the statement "There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like" means there will be other ways in.

Also by the looks of what they are doing with PvP flagging, if you are in a non Pvp server you have to flag yourself so going into a zone wont flag you anymore.

...I'm a dolt, you're right, I think the PvP flagging thing will fix any problems I'm worried about.

cowmuflage wrote:

Xella wrote: Ashran is an island. You won't HAVE an out.

And they seriously think this is a GOOD THING?!

Uh yeah you will the portals. Did you forget about those? :lol:

Didn't forget about them, no. Portals are only good for going back to old content and your garrison (in theory). They're not gonna put a portal to Nagrand in your Ashran hub—they'll expect you to take the flight path. Which you won't be able to do, because the flight master will be dead.* Alternately, you can take an extra load screen by porting to your Garrison and then taking the flight path from there, which MIGHT be faster if you've got quick loading screen and are wanting to go to Spires of Arak, but if you need to go to Gor'grond? (or vice verse if you're Horde). No way.

You could also go to your major city, port to Blasted Lands, and go through Dark Portal 2.0 if that's still a thing, but if you've ever used the Blasted Lands port on a PvP server (especially during the day or if you're alliance and thus your BL portals in all of your major cities except Exodar are indoors so you can't be mounted as you load in and have to wait for the inevitable CRZ pause before you can take any sort of action) you KNOW what a terrible idea that is and honestly I don't even know where that'll drop you off nowadays (will it be in Tanaan? Will there be a sanctuary there like there is in Outland? Or will you get corpse camped on BOTH sides of the portal? Too early in beta to know.)

I'm disappointed about Karabor/Bladespire, but I can get over that disappointment and go about my day. But I'm MAD about Ashran. I want it to be out of the way, I want it to be NOWHERE NEAR where I need to go to do what I want to do. I'm tired of getting dismounted as I fly across Northrend and I want Ashran to be as out of the way (and potentially on a completely different world server a la Tol Barad so it doesn't affect the stability of people who want nothing to do with it—can you imagine if raid instances were actually just bits of the real world and the consequences that would have to people who weren't raiding? That's what places like Ashran and Wintergrasp do to server stability. I didn't get to experience my server's AQ gate opening because the server crashed because it couldn't handle just one server's worth of people existing in the same zone. Tech's improved since then but we're now talking about SEVERAL servers' worth of people (for at least one of the realms involved; each CRZ zone is "hosted" by one server of the 5-10 you'll see there), PLUS both factions' major hubs?

This is a bad decision and while we won't know the full details until it all gets implemented into the beta, I don't have high hopes for it. I'll keep reporting bugs and writing up suggestions NOT related to this decision until it DOES get implemented and we can actually see it in action, but... it's gross and awful and has "not well thought-out" written all over it from where I'm sitting.

* anecdotal evidence: Bloodscalp was a 2.5-3:1 Horde:Alliance server before we went through four sets of connections and I said "screw this CR is awful this server is awful everything about this place is awful and all my friends left years ago". When I logged onto one of my sub-90 alts (and later when those alts hit 90 and I didn't want to spend 3k? a pop for alts that didn't REALLY need to fly because they weren't planning on doing Tillers dailies and pandaria flying isn't that useful for Timeless Isle or Isle of Thunder) to go out and quest, the flight master was dead 3/5 times. After we were connected to Boulderfist, Maiev, Stonemaul, and Dunemaul I have less evidence of her being constantly dead because I'd transferred my hunter by then and all but one of my alts had hit 90 and been abandoned by that point, but I logged on my priest while I was typing this up and guess who was dead? :P Her respawn timer is about 5-10 minutes, if you were wondering.

LupisDarkmoon wrote:

cowmuflage wrote:

LupisDarkmoon wrote:Is Ashran a no-fly zone? Because if so, the "land based entrance is PvP" thing is a HUGE BAD THING for me. I very very rarely choose to use flight paths because I don't like not being able to stop- and limiting how you can get into the city is... no. No, please don't.

well the statement "There will be a fast travel option between the staging areas and your Garrison. You can pop over there quickly, conduct your business, and leave again if you like" means there will be other ways in.

Also by the looks of what they are doing with PvP flagging, if you are in a non Pvp server you have to flag yourself so going into a zone wont flag you anymore.

...I'm a dolt, you're right, I think the PvP flagging thing will fix any problems I'm worried about.

No worries and you anit a dolt :3 I'm pretty happy about those flagging changes. Timeless isles is a pain when it comes to the rares and you get flagged by one ally >.>

cowmuflage wrote:

Xella wrote: Ashran is an island. You won't HAVE an out.

And they seriously think this is a GOOD THING?!

Uh yeah you will the portals. Did you forget about those?

I hate portals. They make it feel less like a world. One of their arguments for not having flying was that they didn't want to put patch content out on magical islands away from the main landmass of the expansion. And that's where they're putting the faction hubs. Karabor and Bladespire weren't really going to be in central locations, but at least they were part of the world. That being said, fortresses next to Ashran might not be a horribly designed as we fear. As long as they don't use the traditional keep buildings where you get lost falling down one of the four identical stairways.

If they make the faction hubs sanctuaries, then they can eliminate griefers from harassing pvers or killing bankers/AH/flight master/whatever. But they probably won't do that. And we should at least get some special architecture. New Stormwind would be boring.

I thought for a city to be considered a "sanctuary" it has to be the main hub for both factions? Like Dalaran and Shattrath? I don't remember any other cities being considered sanctuaries... but then again my brain could be failing me tonight. >.>

"It’s certainly possible for someone from another faction to attack it" (again from that quote Torachi posted earlier) basically means it won't be a sanctuary. About the best we can hope for is that they make flight path people as hard to kill as faction bosses so you'd have to actually get a sizeable group to take them down. Which, you know... they have no precedent for :\

As I said, they probably won't make the faction hubs sanctuaries. But that's a poor decision. Especially when it's on the edge of a pvp zone.

On a pve realm, you mostly don't have to worry about it. On a pvp realm, if the capital "cities" are close to each other, there will be people who find a way in and grief people or kill necessary npcs. I don't care how many guards they put out there, it will happen. It's a problem with the shrines. It wasn't with SW and Org (or IF and Org) because enemy raids on the city were there for the kings. Especially when there's some 25 boxer on your realm who can't do BG any more and decides killing necessary city npcs and camping players is a good use of his money. There's a difference between pvp and Schadenfreude. The new location of the faction hubs will lead to the second at least as often as it leads to the former. Especially with no flying, where you get rooftop gankers safe from guards.

Not all sanctuaries have been major cities. Or cities at all. Although they have all been places where both factions have equal sway. But Wrathgate? The whole area is a sanctuary for a dragon to do some brief RP. There's very little of interest there.