The Isle of Conquest Preview

The Isle of Conquest Preview

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. But as insignificant as it may seem, this is no ordinary place. A sound of thunder as waves crash endlessly against rocky cliffs; a sound of fury as swords clash on the blood-stained fields of this island on the edge of forever.

Welcome to the Isle of Conquest.

The ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance has turned many once peaceful (and some not-so peaceful) places into theaters of constant war. The Isle of Conquest is the latest such place, set to be the location of a battle of epic proportions over the island's precious resources.

An Alliance and a Horde general are fighting for dominance, overseeing the action from the safety of their keeps. Whichever side manages to eliminate the enemy general first will triumph on the island; failure to protect your leader will bring shame, dishonor, and defeat. There is no peace accord here, and it's an all-out war between the factions.

Once More unto the breach....

Isle of Conquest, a new battleground scheduled to make its debut in the upcoming content patch, Call of the Crusade, will pitch teams of up to 40 players against each other in a massive battle over this small island off Northrend's northern coast. To win, your team will need to make use of the island's unique strategic locations including an oil derrick, a siege workshop, and a fully equipped airship hangar. You will deploy devastating siege weaponry on the field; Light have mercy on anyone caught between you and your ultimate target, the general holed up in the enemy keep.

There are five points of interest on the Isle of Conquest for the factions to battle over. Each one offers its own benefits and strategic value. Which one will you claim for your side, and will it be enough to ensure victory?

Capture Locations

Consider your options before storming out of your keep to confront the enemy head-on. Spread throughout the Isle of Conquest are several capturable locations, each granting a unique strategic advantage to your team.

 

The Oil Derrick: Located on the northwestern end of the island, this smudge in the Frozen Sea produces enough black gold to run a thousand siege engines. Taking this resource garners precious reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Cobalt Mine: This snow-covered assembly, located on the southeastern end of the island, hides untapped supplies that must be harvested. Taking this resource grants reinforcements and a continuous flow of honor to the side that controls it.

The Docks: The western shore's docks will further expand your selection of siege weapons with the devastating new Glaive Thrower and the Catapult. Unleash the destruction of the Glaive Thrower upon the walls of the keep, or launch your invading party over the walls to assault the keep from within.

The Airship Hangar: This sturdy steel structure stands on the peak of Mt. Conquest overlooking the eastern side of the island, allowing players to board the airship docked there. This devastating weapon of war is capable of raining death upon the heads of your enemies and destroying enemy defenses. Once onboard the airship, players will find it comes equipped with parachutes enabling a strike team to drop into the enemy keep from above.

The Siege Workshop: Situated right between the Alliance base and the Horde base, this siege workshop occupies a strategic hot spot. Seizing it grants the controlling party the ability to utilize an arsenal of siege vehicles perfectly suited to reducing the enemy keep's walls to dust and ashes.

Graveyards: There are five graveyards in the Isle of Conquest that are attached to different points of interest on the map: the Horde base, the Alliance base, an oil spill island in the center of the map (attached to the siege workshop), the northeast corner (attached to the airship hangar), and the southwest corner (attached to the docks).

Main Objectives

The Keeps: The Horde and Alliance keeps sit at opposite ends of the island. These citadels host four easily accessible defensive cannons set on the ramparts, capable of unleashing hot fury onto oncoming attackers. Additional explosives sit safely stowed in the base of the keep along the back wall. At least, they're safe as long as they don't fall into enemy hands. If they do, though, they can be employed to bring the stone walls down from within.

The General: Holed up behind the keeps' massive walls, the generals command their forces from a position of relative safety. Should the keep fall and the general be slain, the Isle of Conquest will fall to the victor.

Reinforcements: Isle of Conquest uses a reinforcements system similar to that of Alterac Valley. The clock is ticking and every individual counts. If too many of your comrades fall to the enemy the battle will end in defeat. Killing enemy players will reduce their reinforcements by one for each kill, Once your faction's reinforcements reach their limit, so too does your bid for control of the island and the wealth of resources you've fought so hard over.

An island somewhere off the shores of Northrend. A rock, hardly worth a second look. A test of strength. A chance to prove your might, to crush your enemies, to make a difference, a chance for endless glory and conquest.

Will you seize it?

1. Changes based on build 10048 feedback
In addition to the changes originally listed in this thread, the following change was recently added and is now live on the test realms:

• Players gain a new buff after being launched out of the catapult that reduces all falling damage taken.

We intend to make the following changes to Isle of Conquest in the next test realm build:

• Increase siege damage from Glaive Thrower.
• Increase all damage from Siege Engine and its turrets.
• When the parachute effect ends from jumping off the Gunship, players will gain a new buff that reduces all falling damage taken.
• Increase the timer before a Catapult without a driver explodes from 30 seconds to 120 seconds.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone who has experienced the following bug could provide us with as much information as possible on the circumstances surrounding its cause:

• Sometimes the Keep Cannons are being despawned and they never return. This should not happen.

Given that the changes originally detailed in this thread are now live, we'd love to get feedback on your experiences in this new Battleground. Is the average length of each battle better now? Did the changes to the Huge Seaforium piles help address the overly advantageous strategy of capturing the Hangar and parachuting into the enemy's base? Do the Keep Cannons still feel effective now that they do less damage given that you can now repair them? Any information you can provide on your game play experiences will help us a great deal to make this Battleground as fun as possible. Thanks!

2. Changes based on build 10026 feedback
Based on player feedback and testing, we will be making several changes to Isle of Conquest in the next test realm build. We'd like to lay them out for you here in the hopes we're able to encourage continued participation and feedback.

• Increased all the gates' health from 300,000 to 600,000.
• Increased the reinforcement count from 200 to 400.
• Significantly increased the health and damage of the keep generals.
• Seaforium
  
  
  • Reduced effect range of the siege damage caused. Both the player damage and the siege damage caused should be 10 yards now.
  • The Huge Seaforium piles will now despawn for 20 seconds once looted.
• Glaive Thrower
  
  
  • Reduced the cooldown of Blade Salvo from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
  • Reduced movement speed.
• Demolisher
  
  
  • The Hurl Boulder and Ram effects no longer share a cooldown.
• Keep Cannons
  
  
  • Fixed a bug that was causing them to do much more damage than intended.
  • Keep Cannons can now be repaired once they are destroyed by clicking on them. This repair process takes 8 seconds and can be interrupted, similar to capturing a PvP objective.
• Siege Engine
  
  
  • Significantly Increased health.

Your testing of this new Battleground thus far has proven invaluable and we ask that you please keep the feedback coming once these changes have been applied. (Source)

3. Faction balance and travel distances

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Q u o t e:
Will this one have a one side advantage like alliance and AV?

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Hrm, let me just say that this battleground was carefully designed so that the travel distance between points was equal all the way around. What you choose to assault first is purely up to you. ;)

Screenshots will be added at a later point in time, but we wanted to give you a look at what is to come so you can begin your battle plans a little early. (Source)

4. Control of the Bombing Zeppelin

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Q u o t e:
Looks very nice Neth, but as like many others I am disappointed in the inclusion of reinforcements. However, it still looks like it's going to be fun, and I can't wait to give it a try!

One thing that wasn't clear to me though while I was reading the preview, is the airship player controlled? Or does it simply follow a set path of some kind?

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The airship will have a set flightpath, though you will need control of the hangar to be able to get on board.

I may not answer all questions right now since we'd like to compile questions and answer them for you all at once too as a resource. (Source)

5. Game Length

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Q u o t e:


Because there are a handful of us who enjoyed those longer games.

Also, putting a forced end time on the battleground causes people to skip objectives and go to the main goal, in this case the general.

Skipping the entire map just to win = no fun.

This happens because they put a forced end time on the games, instead of allowing them to play out.

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Having 8 to 10 hour games isn't really an ideal situation for a battleground. While it may have been fun for a select group of people, many others were joining, participating, and leaving without ever garnering the appropriate reward.

As for skipping objectives ... that is something we've thought about. In this particular battleground, the objectives are more of a strategic choice and less of a "you must cap them all" scenario. Though kudos will be in order for those who manage to take all of the unique objectives. (Source)

6. Design of capture objectives

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Q u o t e:
I have a feeling this is just going to turn into AV 2.0 with vehicles and people rushing to the general.

I.E PvE that awards honor.

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The whole battleground is designed with the intention of you seizing your goal. So yes, rush to the hanger and acquire the airship so you can assault the enemy keep. Or rush to the factory, and claim it, so you can bring the walls of the enemies keep down around their ears. Don't think for an instant though, that you're going to be able to win the day without the assistance of at least one of the three offensive locations.

As for reinforcements and why you should hold the resources that garner them. We don't have a fixed number to give for their totals just yet. However, the Oil Derrick and the Cobalt Mine aren't just conduits for reinforcement acquisition. They also give you honor. The longer you hold either of them, the more honor you're going to amass - win or lose. (Source)

The Future of Battlegrounds - Q&A with Cory Stockton

Community Team: Joining us today to discuss the future of World of Warcraft Battlegrounds, including the upcoming epic siege-style Battleground, Isle of Conquest, is Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton. First, let’s discuss Battleground participation during the leveling process.

As it’s something that has been discussed at length for some time now within the community, where are we at with allowing for players to obtain experience through Player vs. Player (PvP) combat and Battlegrounds?

Cory Stockton: We plan to implement this in patch 3.2.0. We have wanted to allow players to earn experience through Battlegrounds for a long time now and it’s great to be able to finally deliver this feature to players. Experience will be granted based on honor gain from actions, not kills. For example, if you capture a flag in Warsong Hold, you would gain experience, but killing a player would not grant experience.

If players in the lower level ranges choose to utilize Battlegrounds as a means of leveling their characters, how will the experience gains compare to the Player vs. Environment (PvE) experience?

Cory Stockton: This is something that we have thought about quite a bit. We want Battleground experience to be rewarding, but we also don’t want it to be the fastest way for players to level up. Based on that, players can expect to earn experience at a rate that is a bit slower than questing at the same level, for the same amount of time.

Will rewards of some sort for winning a Battleground match be available?

Cory Stockton: Battleground rewards are high on the list of features that we would like to get in the game. We are not planning to implement this for patch 3.2.0 but we are currently working on it and expect to implement it into a future patch. We are planning to let players roll on mostly greens and the occasional blue item at the end of each Battleground. These items will be highly optimized by class, level, and talent specialization.

Community Team: Given that gaining experience through PvP game play is a rather substantial addition to the World of Warcraft leveling process, there is bound to be some concern among players that enjoy staying at a particular level to participate only in specific level brackets of the Battlegrounds, otherwise known as "twinking."

Do these players still have an avenue to remain at a level of their choosing while still being able to engage in PvP combat?

Cory Stockton: Yes, players will have access to a new option that will allow them to turn off experience gain in PVP. This option also ensures that you will only be matched against other players that have set the same switch. Players can activate this option by talking to new NPCs, Behsten and Slahtz, near the Battlemasters in Orgrimmar or Stormwind. This new ability will cost 10 gold to turn on or off each time.

If these players disable the ability to gain experience, will this apply to PvE content as well?

Cory Stockton: Yes, this option will apply to PvE content as well as PvP.

Community Team: Shifting gears a bit, let’s talk about the ambitious new Battleground coming in the next major content patch, Isle of Conquest. We understand it is to be a large-scale Battleground allowing for forty players on either side of the siege.

What player level brackets will have access to this Battleground?

Cory Stockton: The brackets will be the same as they are for Strand of the Ancients, so a 71-79 bracket and an 80 bracket.

What is unique about Isle of Conquest when compared to the Battlegrounds currently available?

Cory Stockton: The Isle of Conquest will offer a number of unique features that players will not find in any other Battleground. Parachute into your enemy’s base and destroy the keep’s walls from the inside using Saronite bombs, drive our newest vehicle, the Glaive Thrower, or hop into the Catapult and launch yourself over the enemy’s wall. Those are just a few examples of the new things you will be able to do in this Battleground.

What is the story behind the Isle of Conquest; and why are the Alliance and Horde concerned with controlling it?

Cory Stockton: The Isle of Conquest is located in the Frozen Sea, north of Icecrown. This small island may look insignificant but it is actually loaded with resources and a great spot to launch a full attack on The Lich King and his forces in Icecrown. Both factions have set up a foothold here and now the battle is on to decide who will control the island and make the final push against Arthas and his undead army.

Community Team: While Alterac Valley is still a relatively popular large-scale Battleground with players, a common critique we hear is that opponents are not incentivized enough to engage each other in order to win the match.

With that in mind, does the layout of the Isle of Conquest and strategies involved in winning the battle encourage a new level of engaging the enemy head-on?

Cory Stockton: We have designed the layout of the map based on this kind of input. Players come face to face in a matter of seconds and must fight over the only siege workshop on the map right away. We have also made a big effort to create intelligent choke points on the map that force players to fight for control of the various capture points and objectives.

Community Team: We would like to take a moment to delve into the various strategic points found on the Isle of Conquest.

Why do players have an interest in capturing the Oil Derrick or Cobalt Mine?

Cory Stockton: Not only do these capture points give valuable reinforcements but they also grant honor each tick. Holding both points for the majority of a game will grant a significant increase in overall honor.

If the Docks are captured, what are the strategic advantages of producing Glaive Throwers and Catapults?

Cory Stockton: Glaive Throwers are one of the new vehicles we are introducing for the first time in the Isle of Conquest. These are mainly intended to be anti-personnel attack vehicles but they also have an extremely long-range glaive attack. The Catapults are unique in that they allow players to shoot themselves to any destination they see fit. I would recommend shooting yourself over your opponent’s walls and using the Saronite bombs inside!

What will the Gunship offer the faction that controls the Gunship Hangar?

Cory Stockton: Gunships are giant flying transports that fly in a path over the enemy keep. The Gunships are outfitted with turrets that players can use to blast the opposing team’s keep walls or players. The gunships also offer parachutes to everyone on board, so you can jump off the side and land inside the opposing team’s keep!

Community Team: Given that the Siege Workshop is located in the middle of the map directly in between the Alliance and Horde bases, it is bound to be a hotly-contested node.

What kind of vehicles will this workshop offer the faction that controls it?

Cory Stockton: Players will be able to obtain both Siege Engines and Demolishers. The Siege Engines available in the Isle of Conquest are upgraded and allow up to three additional passengers. Two of the passengers have access to their own anti-personnel flame throwers while the third gets a gun turret. The Demolishers have three seats in total. Two of the passengers allow players to cast their own spells while the driver gets access to a gun turret.

What system is being used for capturing these nodes?

Cory Stockton: Nodes in the Isle of Conquest are captured exactly like the nodes in Arathi Basin.

Will there be a system in place to ensure that those defending strategic nodes on the map are awarded honor comparable to those on the attack?

Cory Stockton: This is a common complaint and as such, we have been working on a design to solve the problem! As of patch 3.2.0 any honorable kills that are made within range of a capture point grant 50% increased honor. This change is retroactive to both Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm.

How important will producing and operating siege vehicles be to reaching victory?

Cory Stockton: Siege vehicles will be important since they are your primary means of destroying your opponent’s keep walls and gaining access to the general. However, players can also parachute off of the Gunships generated by capturing the hangar. Once players land inside their enemy’s courtyard, they can use the Saronite Bombs to destroy the walls from the inside. Saronite Bombs will also generate at the Siege Workshop once it is captured.

Other than the generals that sit in either keep, will there be other NPCs that play strategic roles here?

Cory Stockton: We do plan to have NPC guards who will run out of the keep to help defend it once a wall has been breached.

Once the walls of the opposing faction’s keep are breached, how does the invading force ultimately defeat their opponents?

Cory Stockton: They must enter the keep and kill the opposing faction’s general. Gates block entry into the keep until at least one keep wall has been breached.

Now that we’ve covered the major points of interest in this new Battleground, will you give a basic rundown of how you expect events to unfold in a match (i.e. where does each faction start, what is the focus of defense, what is the focus of offense, etc.)?

Cory Stockton: Players start the game inside of their keep’s courtyard. Once the battle begins, players have a choice of going to the Hangar or Docks capture points, or they can opt to head straight for the Siege Workshop in the middle of the map. The main objective is to destroy the opposing team’s keep walls so you can gain access to their general and defeat him. There are a number of ways to go about doing this but they all involve taking a capture point first. Defending your keep is also an important aspect of the game and we have provided no less than 12 gun turrets on each keep to help you out in this department.

Assuming there will be achievements associated with performing specific tasks on the Isle of Conquest, will there be any change to the “Battlemaster” meta-achievement?

Cory Stockton: Yes, we have new achievements for the Isle of Conquest but we are not sure what we are going to do with Battlemaster yet. A lot of people already have this achievement so we can’t just go and change it. We will either make a new one specifically including Isle of Conquest, or just not have it be part of a meta-achievement at all.

Community Team: Just to touch upon one last topic pertaining to World of Warcraft PvP in general, many avid Battleground players would love to see some sort of skill-based ladder system for measuring talent and providing optimal rewards.

What are our plans for the future of the Battleground system beyond 3.2, and where do you see non-Arena PvP game play fitting in the World of Warcraft, whether it be through the leveling process or at the endgame?

Cory Stockton: We plan to deliver more Battlegrounds to the players as often as we can. We see Battlegrounds as a very large and important part of the World of Warcraft PvP game and we would like to expand the system as much as we can. I do have a little tidbit that I can share with you guys today, though. We are planning to implement rated Battlegrounds in a future patch. We will be giving more details on this system at BlizzCon.