World of Warcraft®

War Games

With the coming of the Cataclysm, Blizzard introduced a new feature in gameplay known as War Games.

This is the ability to enjoy a Battleground of your choice, pitting pre-made group against pre-made group.

Form up your Battleground Raid Group, Select an appropriate Battleground in which to play a round, and then Challenge a group of your friends to a match.

Availability of Battlegrounds is dependent on group size. In other words, you cannot take 40-Player raids into Arathi Basin, nor can you take 3v3 into Alterac Valley. Choose a BG that is appropriate for the group sizes, and then let the battle commence!

To keep players from exploiting this new feature, there are no Conquest or Honor points awarded, nor are achievements granted. You do however receive HK credits while in War Games (You receive about the same credit as you would in open-world PvP). This feature is purely for fun, and folks, Fun it Is Indeed!

We the <Zen> Guild have been organizing War Games every Saturday, at 4 PM Realm-Time. And I really must say, this has been a blast, good times for all! This has turned into quite a popular event for us, and we have been inviting guests from other guilds to come along and enjoy the fun as well. This is an excellent opportunity, especially for smaller guilds, to get in on some events that some players would not otherwise be able to enjoy.

Often times it happens, that after several exciting rounds of War Games, the players are so fired up that we form up and go raid Horde Cities and/or slay Faction Leaders. I can’t promise this, or publish a definitive schedule for such an event, but let’s just say it is a distinct possibility.

Consider this post as an Open Invitation, and a Call to Arms… to any and all Alliance Guilds, PvP Groups, or even individuals that would like to join us in the fun of War Games (and possible Horde City Raids afterward).

Contact Penelopae in-game to get on the invitation list, or reply to this thread. We welcome entire guilds, especially smaller guilds that wouldn’t ordinarily have enough players to do something of this magnitude on their own.

The following posts will illustrate possible scenarios.

Thank you for reading, and we encourage your participation in this really fun event,
- Penelopae, Leader of Zen

Here’s how an average War Game scenario will play out:

For the following examples we assume 15 Players per team (Maximum allowed Players for Arathi Basin).

All players assemble in our guild’s Ventrilo (we have room for up to 100 players), at the very bottom of the room list, you will find:
WAR GAMES (Form up here to Pick Teams)
- Team 1
- Team 2
- Team 3
- Team 4

We get everyone into a Raid Party.

We choose Team Captains.

Team Captains and Guild Principals gather together, usually in an Inn and sit across the table from one another.

We ascertain which players are experienced and accomplished PvP Players with excellent PvP gear and distribute these players evenly across the two groups.

We designate Healers, and the Team captains take turns choosing healers until they are all assigned a group. Then we take turns choosing the remainders of the players until both groups are full. We then separate the groups into separate Raids.

Once we are satisfied that the groups look evenly balanced, we can begin the Battle.

Team Captains /roll for Battleground Choice. The winner of the roll selects a Battleground and Challenges the other Team Captain to a Game. At this time, we hop down into separate Vent channels and are teleported to the battleground.

Once the round is complete, we all re-join in the WAR GAMES Vent channel to say, “Good Game!” and comment on how evenly matched the teams were in the event. If we need to make adjustments to balance the groups we do, and then we go for another round.

The result is that we have very evenly matched groups, which makes for some very excellent battles.

Rules of Engagement

These are Standard Rules of Engagement, the code by which we conduct ourselves during War Games.

Good Sportsmanship is a MUST.

Infractions will incur a penalty. The penalty is that the offending Player is immediately removed from their group, thus penalizing the group by losing that player from the Battleground for the remainder of that round.

Nobody wants to play with a poor sport. Cursing, swearing, threatening other players, or any sort of poor sportsmanship will result in removal and you will not be invited back.

“T-Bag” a player, will incur a penalty. As will “/spit”, or any other offensive behavior. We run a clean game, and all players are to be respected.

That’s about it. Blizzard takes care of the rest, all gameplay within a Battleground is standard stuff.

Thank You,
- Penelopae

Alternative Scenarios

Because it is a closed circuit environment, we can choose to create special situations within War Games scenarios. These are not standard methods that we employ, merely some possible alternative play scenarios.

Generally, we play the Battlegrounds just the way they are intended, as in your normal Random Battlegrounds. But, because we are using these Battlegrounds as private instances, we can/could change the rules a bit to suit our fun. Just a few examples of the possibilities:

Arathi Basin: Horde team captures the Farm and the Mines… Alliance team captures the Stables and the Lumber Mill… NOBODY re-takes or captures these locations for the remainder of the game.

The Real Fight occurs at the Blacksmith. This creates a Battle Royale over one point of contact, resulting in a hard-fought, exciting round of pure brawling over one location.

A similar situation can be created at Eye of the Storm. Each team is allowed their 2 bases, and all ensuing battles are over the Flag.

There are other interesting scenarios to explore, as I said, these are not methods that we generally use, merely ideas, food for thought. The concept of being able to custom-create battle scenarios in the existing Battlegrounds is interesting to ponder =)

Oh! ….and I almost forgot to mention…

We also cheerfully accept Challenges from other Guilds!

Your guild is “all that”? Wanna prove it?

For bragging rights, or just for pure fun…
…We accept challenges from ANY guild.

Fair play and good sportsmanship is still required, but we don’t mind a little challenge for fun’s sake.

Do you want to KILL the infamous “Penelopae the Undying”…?

Well here’s your big chance, tough guy. Bring your mates and Come Get Some!

I foresee bad things happening.

Nah, no bad things. Just good fun.

War Games... it's a blast!

It's the Weekend Folks!

What a great time for a rousing round of WAR GAMES!!!

What? No challengers?

Awww... what a shame.
_____________________________________

Come join us anyway, we'll fit you or your small guild into our groups.

It really is a lot of fun folks, and we have no requirements for PvP Gear or Experience. Anyone is welcome to come along and join the fun!

This is a great way for non-PvP players to get acquainted with the Battleground instances and strategies.

This a friendly environment, and a great way to learn something about PvP without the normal mess associated with Random BG runs.

Come have some fun with us, you'll have a great time and meet some fine new folks to play with. It really is a lot of fun.

Thanks,
- Penelopae