As of now, testing has been completed, and Blizzard has not announced whether this feature will be available on the servers on a permanent basis. That being said, many players are still unhappy with the idea of ​​switching to mercenary mode in Classic as it does nothing to fix the underlying problem.Of the 25 most popular posts on the Wow Classic subreddit over the past week, 13 are threads complaining about faction imbalances. Many players are concerned that this will further reduce the already small population of the Alliance on PvP servers.

How the excessive popularity of the Horde poisons WoW: Burning Crusade ClassicGame playing info

March 15, 2022
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Despite promises from the developers of World of Warcraft Classic to make the MMO almost identical to the game it was in 2007, the project abandoned its course quite early. Since the release…

How Horde Overpopulation Poisons WoW: Burning Crusade Classic

As of now, testing has been completed, and Blizzard has not announced whether this feature will be available on the servers on a permanent basis. That being said, many players are still unhappy with the idea of ​​switching to mercenary mode in Classic as it does nothing to fix the underlying problem.Of the 25 most popular posts on the Wow Classic subreddit over the past week, 13 are threads complaining about faction imbalances. Many players are concerned that this will further reduce the already small population of the Alliance on PvP servers.

Despite promises from the developers of World of Warcraft Classic to make the MMO almost identical to the game it was in 2007, the project abandoned its course quite early. Since the release, Blizzard has already made dozens of changes that were never in the original. These are settings that cause a lot of controversy, but are created with the aim of finding a balance between the nostalgic times and what interests gamers in 2021.

But just recently, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic began testing the most controversial change ever, which forced North American gamers to line up to take part in PvP battles. Overnight, the innovations turned into one of Burning Crusade Classic's biggest problems: no one wants to fight for the Alliance.

Zach Zach

After 17 years of evolution, the never-ending war between the Alliance and the Horde is still the driving force behind World of Warcraft, as well as a major source of trouble. Since the launch of the MMO, players have been divided into two groups that never interact with each other. Unless they fight among themselves. Although factions often join forces to fight a common evil (in the storyline), Horde and Alliance players cannot team up to participate in raids or dungeons together.

This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the unique abilities of the different races that give the Horde advantages in both PvP and PvE. Take, for example, the undead skill Will of the Forsaken, which grants the player instant immunity to enchantment, sleep, and fear for 5 seconds. In PvP combat, this ability makes the Horde unfairly strong – and for this reason, the undead have always been the most popular race for PvP.

In World of Warcraft Classic, this imbalance didn't matter much, as PvP was chaotic and took place mostly in the open world, where dozens of gamers fought each other. Such small advantages will not help if you are opposed by the most numerous or coordinated enemy. According to IronForge.Pro, which was made shortly before the June release of Burning Crusade Classic, there was practically no difference between the Alliance and Horde on Classic PvP PvP servers: about 53% of gamers played Horde.

But Burning Crusade greatly increases the appetite for PvP. One of the most significant features of this expansion is PvP arenas (battlegrounds), where teams of 2-3 players fight. Here racial differences in skills and abilities have a much more significant impact. All of a sudden, PvP in WoW has shifted from mass street skirmishes to more modest, small-scale confrontations. Naturally, gamers who want to win want to get any advantage, and therefore the Horde has become the only rational choice for PvP in World of Warcraft.

No wonder history repeats itself. According to IronForge.Pro, the same resource, after the release of Burning Crusade Classic, the number of the Horde increased to an average of 61% of the total number of North American gamers. However, if you look at individual servers, then this ratio can exceed all conceivable and inconceivable boundaries. Yes, some are dominated by the Alliance, but the curve on most PvP servers is skewed in favor of the Horde. Some servers, such as Kirtonos and Skeram, are presumably 100% full of Horde. You might think that in this case, Horde players get an automatic victory in the faction war, but in reality it is a nightmare for both sides of the conflict.

The cycle of war

Immediately after the release of Burning Crusade Classic, the subreddit was flooded with complaints about the long queue times for PvP. Since most gamers join the Horde, they do not have enough groups formed from members of the Alliance, so on some servers you have to wait several hours for the start of the match. Battlegrounds aren't the only way to earn the honor points you need to unlock cool PvP armor. As a result, members of the Horde often roam the various zones of Outland, trying to find Alliance players who can be easily killed.

As gamers noted, this creates a vicious circle from which no one benefits, but the Alliance suffers the most. Alliance players attempting to level up to level 70 on Horde-dominated PvP servers are constantly being attacked by an overwhelming number of bored Horde members. Faced with such injustice, many of these players will either leave, move to a PvP server dominated by Alliance forces, or switch to PvE Classic servers. And they can also go over to the side of the Horde.

At the time of Burning Crusade's launch in the original game, the issue was not as pronounced, which was likely due to the lower prevalence of minmaxing in the gaming community. As the game developed, the imbalance steadily increased until 2015, when Blizzard added a mercenary mode, allowing gamers to change sides of the conflict for the duration of the battleground. When the mercenary mode was activated, the avatar was replaced with a character of the opposite faction, so the opponents did not even suspect that they were actually fighting a player representing their own faction.

This weekend, Blizzard tested a similar system for Burning Crusade Classic. If the Horde players who lined up did not get into the BG against the Alliance, they were thrown into battle against other members of the Horde. Only this time, instead of magically transforming into another race, cardboard masks appeared on their heads with the faces of Alliance members painted on them.

As of now, testing has been completed, and Blizzard has not announced whether this feature will be available on the servers on a permanent basis. That being said, many players are still unhappy with the idea of ​​switching to mercenary mode in Classic as it does nothing to fix the underlying problem.No wonder history repeats itself. According to IronForge.Pro, the same resource, after the release of Burning Crusade Classic, the number of the Horde increased to an average of 61% of the total number of North American gamers. However, if you look at individual servers, then this ratio can exceed all conceivable and inconceivable boundaries. Yes, some are dominated by the Alliance, but the curve on most PvP servers is skewed in favor of the Horde. Some servers, such as Kirtonos and Skeram, are presumably 100% full of Horde. You might think that in this case, Horde players get an automatic victory in the faction war, but in reality it is a nightmare for both sides of the conflict.

The cycle of war

Immediately after the release of Burning Crusade Classic, the subreddit was flooded with complaints about the long queue times for PvP. Since most gamers join the Horde, they do not have enough groups formed from members of the Alliance, so on some servers you have to wait several hours for the start of the match. Battlegrounds aren't the only way to earn the honor points you need to unlock cool PvP armor. As a result, members of the Horde often roam the various zones of Outland, trying to find Alliance players who can be easily killed.

As gamers noted, this creates a vicious circle from which no one benefits, but the Alliance suffers the most. Alliance players attempting to level up to level 70 on Horde-dominated PvP servers are constantly being attacked by an overwhelming number of bored Horde members. Faced with such injustice, many of these players will either leave, move to a PvP server dominated by Alliance forces, or switch to PvE Classic servers. And they can also go over to the side of the Horde.

At the time of Burning Crusade's launch in the original game, the issue was not as pronounced, which was likely due to the lower prevalence of minmaxing in the gaming community. As the game developed, the imbalance steadily increased until 2015, when Blizzard added a mercenary mode, allowing gamers to change sides of the conflict for the duration of the battleground. When the mercenary mode was activated, the avatar was replaced with a character of the opposite faction, so the opponents did not even suspect that they were actually fighting a player representing their own faction.

This weekend, Blizzard tested a similar system for Burning Crusade Classic. If the Horde players who lined up did not get into the BG against the Alliance, they were thrown into battle against other members of the Horde. Only this time, instead of magically transforming into another race, cardboard masks appeared on their heads with the faces of Alliance members painted on them.