BlizzCon 2017 World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Panel Transcript

Battlegrounds & Arenas

Ion: Now the last couple of features that I want to talk about are primarily PvE features against large NPC armies. Battle for Azeroth is also going to be a great expansion for those of you who love PvP.

First off, we are adding a couple of new arenas. We have a new arena coming in Kul’Tiras, a new arena in Zandalar, capturing the aesthetics of those places, new environments against everything with which you can pick your skills against one another.

We also have a new battleground coming called the Seething Shore. Now this battleground is located just off the coast of Silithus. For some reason, the Alliance and the Horde have decided that this barren stretch of desert is worth fighting over. I don’t know why there is nothing interesting going on in Silithus, but for some crazy reason, commanders of both factions decided to go fight over it. Weird.

But as it turns out, for some reason, there is a lot of Azerite that seems to be bubbling to the surface in Silithus, and it has become a natural point of contention. So the way this plays out is as a new type of battleground that has dynamic control points.

So imagine Arathi Basin if there were multiple possible flag locations, and you never knew exactly where the control point was going to spawn, you would have to adapt, you would have to always keep on the move. Here is a quick look at the layout from an internal sketch of this battleground.

Each of those crystal nodes you see in the map is a potential point where an Azerite efusion can occur. I think it is about 3 active at any given time. So as you are skirmishing over control of one, you might see the one that has pop up on the other side of the map. You have to make a choice between how many people you are going to keep to try to contest the current one, versus who is going to break off and try to claim the new one.

Very fast-paced action. Keeps you on your toes. Really excited about this, and it is actually part of the story that we are telling. It is part of the events that will lead up to Battle for Azeroth. So as such, we also want to get this on your hands a bit before Battle for Azeroth itself.

So keep an eye on the PTR, and we want to get this coming your way soon. We are also going to continue to expand upon successful systems like PvP Brawls, we want to keep adding new ones, all those things are here to stay. But that is instance PvP.

NEXT: WORLD PvP

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