80-player WOW battleground detailed

By Oli Welsh Published 15 June, 2009

It's got an airship!

Blizzard has revealed that the next new battleground for World of Warcraft, the Isle of Conquest, will support up to 80 players.

Up to 40 participants from each of the Horde and Alliance will war over a small island off the coast of the Northrend continent, attempting to storm the enemy's keep and slay their NPC general.

Like WOW's only other large-scale battleground, Alterac Valley, the Isle of Conquest will use a reinforcements system to limit the number of spawns each side can have.

Aside from the keeps, there are five capture locations in the battleground: the Oil Derrick and Cobalt Mine, which grant more reinforcements, the Siege Workshop, which gives access to a standard array of siege vehicles, the Docks, which furnish the capturing side with the new Glaive Thrower vehicle, and the Airship Hangar. The airship docked there provides one side with aerial bombardment as well as the ability to drop a strike team into the enemy keep via parachute.

Sounds big. The Isle of Conquest will arrive in the next major content patch for WOW, Call of the Crusade.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • magicpanda #1 3 years ago

    So a PvP battleground that seems to be a cross between the horrendous lag of wintergrasp and the PVE fest Alterac Valley? Genius...

  • Nephirion #2 3 years ago

    Doubt it will ever be as good or as fresh as AV was in vanilla WoW. Resiliance, overpowered immunites have imbalanced the game so much to the point that;

    1) Its harder to get kills
    2) Its slower
    3) New rewards are harder to achieve due to higher cost
    4) PVP progression is reduced

    WoW pvp has got slower and the rewards are harder to obtain, even though players are stronger, adding a new battleground won't change that fundamental problem ...

  • magicpanda #3 3 years ago

    There's one major problem in a nutshell. It's all about self reward and means nothing overall. Factions are meaningless.

  • butler` #4 3 years ago

    Not sure I can remember a time when PvP gear was easier to obtain, Nephirion. Especially with the WG daily quest giving stupid honor for very little effort until recently.

    I'm all up for an 80 player large scale BG, but I can't say I know a single person that likes the vehicles of WG/SoTA. I hope they get it right.

  • Nephirion #5 3 years ago

    Your right, Faction is now meaningless in WoW but it also means the devs only need to build one city instead of two, even better pull up a bunch of old content like naxx and cut and paste it into new zones and call it new content. WoW has become about cutting corners as if they realise its days are finally numbered and work on WoW 2.0 needs to progress full steam ahead. Wintergrasp is a prime example of how tired stretched the engine has become and also how badly we need a new one.

  • Nephirion #6 3 years ago

    The PVP gear from dailys can never match arena gear which is what i would describe as " proper " pvp gear. When i say PVP gear I just dont mean BG but Arena also.

  • Dizzy #7 3 years ago

    Hopefully it won't be like the "new" AV where "enemies" just run past each other, wave at the other group in the middle of the map and proceed to slaughter the last NPC "boss". PvP in WoW is a total joke...

  • Gurgeh #8 3 years ago

    "Hopefully it won't be like the "new" AV where "enemies" just run past each other, wave at the other group in the middle of the map and proceed to slaughter the last NPC "boss". PvP in WoW is a total joke... "

    The Devs have already said that you can do just that but claim you won't be able to defeat the boss without taking at least one objective - so I'm guessing it will boil down to grabbing the first objective on the way to the boss, then steamrolling him for the win.

    And vehicles are just Blizzard's way of making balance easy. When all you can press are 3 buttons the game becomes simple to develop... and boring to play.

  • Hamflank #9 3 years ago

    8 reactions and 8 of them are negative.

    If only a community of whiners was in charge of development, instead of the most talented developers out there.

  • prolific8 #10 3 years ago

    To WoW is to whinge. I like to be as positive as I can but it just sounds like a rehash of AV, and AV is pretty rubbish.

  • rogueJT #11 3 years ago


    Just ban Pallies.

    Not sure how reinforcements stopped players spawning in AV.

  • Nasty #12 3 years ago

    ZZZZEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG.

  • MaxiSleep #13 3 years ago

    Well I for one am really looking forward to this :)

  • Hamflank #14 3 years ago

    Imbalanced gameplay along lack of depth and creativity would beg to differ.

    As far as I know, Blizzard developed a game called StarCraft back in the days, not sure how much that game is affected by imbalance.

  • spudsbuckley #15 3 years ago

    Having recently played AoC for a month and just buying EQ2 on the Steam weekend deal i realised just how good WoW really is and promptly re-subbed.

  • SFG_Clan #16 3 years ago

    My friend plays WoW, mostly Naax raids. 80 PvP sounds alright, but the last time I played battle grounds there was a goddamn twink, whatever that is.
    Edited by 1 at 15/06/09 @ 22:14

  • Nephirion #17 3 years ago

    It's only when you leave WoW you realise how suck ass now it really is ...

  • Orange #18 3 years ago

    It's more of the same, which is understandable given the continued popularity.

    Really need Old Republic or some other big new mmos to come out and give them a big push. I still recall all the blue WoW dev posts after WAR was near release making big pvp promises, although when WAR flopped nothing happened.

    This is always a problem with lack of competition, businesses naturally take their foot off the pedal.

  • Zidargh #19 3 years ago

    Hamflank: As far as I know, Blizzard developed a game called StarCraft back in the days, not sure how much that game is affected by imbalance.

    Oh snap! ^_~