Project Lore

I'm well aware that the Horde legions on my PvE server are way outnumbered by Alliance players. Up until I hit 80, though, it didn't really bother me. My rare venture into battlegrounds usually would get evened out into comparable groups of forces battling it out, and I was too busy grinding to 80 to pay much attention to what would happen once I actually hit that level cap. Simply put, ignorance was bliss. That is, until I had the most fail-tastic Wintergrasp battle of all time over the weekend. I queued up for the battle, and was astounded upon entering the raid and finding that I was only one of 17 players representing the Horde. Only 17! And this was in the middle of a cold, Saturday afternoon. Our opponents apparently had many, many more players, as indicated by a whopping Tenacity -- that buff designed to offset an unbalanced WG battle -- of 10.We had 17 players, they had 120. Mission impossible. Needless to say, it was a massacre. We had too few players to even man and gun our few vehicles, much less defend those vehicles plus our workshops and towers, or try to mount any kind of strategy. It ended with the Allies closing in on our one and only graveyard,  killing us over and over again as we resurrected. Not fun. Perhaps the recent release of Patch 3.3 contributed to our ridiculously low numbers -- everyone was too busy grinding heroics or checking out the new ICC content to be bothered by a silly Wintergrasp battle. But whatever the case, it's my belief now, more than ever, that Tenacity isn't worth crap once it stacks higher than 3 or 4. It wouldn't really be a huge deal if not for the raiding advantages that the other side clearly gets -- more shots at Vault of Archavon, more emblems, more honor -- you see what I'm getting at. I know Khaz Modan certainly isn't the only realm with balancing issues. There are plenty of others out there that probably are worse off than we are. The problem is, with no incentives to transfer to, or even remain at, a server where your faction is outnumbered, the problem just gets worse and worse. I know of at least a couple of large raiding guilds that have migrated from our server to a more Horde-friendly server. And those free transfer services that Blizzard offers every now and then don't seem to be too effective without some kind of greater incentive (other than being free) to switch to a server that needs help. I suggest that Blizzard borrow an idea from Warhammer Online -- along with their free server transfers, they also offer something to help players make the decision to move: a "limited time" 20% experience and reputation buff. Perhaps this isn't the right formula for what to offer WoW players, but something along those lines definitely could help balance out realms. UPDATE When I wrote this earlier this week, it was pretty much a rant. But an announcement this morning makes it actually relevant to some news! Blue poster Bornakk this morning announced that factions that hold WG more often now will have some added difficulty if they want to keep it. Here's what what said:

We wanted to address some of the confusion we often see regarding the Battle for Wintergrasp. We will not provide exact details on how the system works to try and avoid abuse of the mechanics, but there is a system in place that can change how the battle plays out. When one faction defends more than the other, the system will give advantages like the ability to use catapults or siege tanks faster to the faction that is on the offensive. On realms where one faction is often able to defend the fortress and the other faction rarely defends, the system tries to help this balance by providing bonuses to the faction that rarely succeeds at defending.

So what do you think of this possible fix? And for anyone else has had issues with being on either side of an unbalanced server, what other ideas do you think WoW could use to help solve the balance issue?