World of Warcraft 'Call of the Crusade' Patch to Add New 80 Player Battleground

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Blizzard has revealed that the upcoming "Call of the Crusade" content patch for World of Warcraft will deliver a new player-versus-player battleground capable of supporting up to 80 combatants in the "ongoing struggle between Horde and Alliance."

Of the five battlegrounds currently in Blizzard's ultra-popular PC MMO, only one other--Alterac Valley--supports up to 80 players. The remaining four max out at 30 or below.

Making use of "devastating siege weaponry on the field," the new "Isle of Conquest" battleground will see two teams of up to 40 players each attempt to capture various points on the map as they fight to bring down their opponent's keep and general.

While Blizzard has yet to state when the patch can be expected, the developer did offer a breakdown of the capture locations and objectives found in the battleground.

    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.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    June 15, 2009 4:03 PM

    And will they fix the broken fps under DirectX mode since 3.1.3?

    • reply
      June 15, 2009 4:11 PM

      What broken FPS? I run the game in DirectX and my framerate never drops below my refresh rate.

    • reply
      June 15, 2009 7:00 PM

      Yes. A new, sexy OpenGL mode will be added soon.

      • reply
        June 15, 2009 8:28 PM

        Any chance at it supporting crossfire/SLI?

        WoW is pretty much the biggest (playerbase) game out there now... seems silly that they still don't let it take advantage of dual cards.

        • reply
          June 15, 2009 11:40 PM

          This is Blizzard we're talking about it. It took them four years to add shadows to the game.

          They're not going to add SLI/CrossFire support unless they can make damn sure it works for 95% of the people playing the game that have them.

        • reply
          June 16, 2009 6:06 AM

          WOW SUPPORTS CROSSFIRE AND OPENGL, gees, learn to... erm.. google.

    • reply
      June 15, 2009 9:51 PM

      What broken FPS? Maybe a new graphics driver will fix your problem? I had FPS issues in 3.0.x and only a fairly recent ATI Catalyst released fixed the issues my card had.

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