khai

Actually, there are quite a few zones the Horde can quest at for those levels.

Once you hit the barrens, you can also quest in silverpine forest. And then start at stonetalon at level 14. You can start Hillsbrad at 18-19. I have to switch areas alot since I can't stand barrens 24/7. Seriously, it's pretty much torture for horde. You'd think a non-contested territory that holds your hand to level 25 sounds good, think again.

Also, I was opposite of Setzer. I had the non-joy of experiencing a normal server. I played a druid up to 23 or so. Up to that point, I had played only on pvp servers. So, similar to Setzer, I was also doing the Defias brotherhood series of quests up to the messenger part. While escorting, 2 horde rogues jumped out and killed the messenger. One horde being 19 and the other 15. Me being 23, I would've been able to take both of them. In fact, I did after they jumped the messenger and flagged themselves. That's the broken thing on pve servers. The opposing factions aren't even flagged when in another faction's territory. That meant that they can't be stopped until they flag themselves. They're unflagged by the time the messenger respawns and repeat the process. You can't kill them before they attack the npc and flag themselves.

So, needless to say, I quit the normal server experience with a bad taste in my mouth. I enjoy my redridge massacres on my pvp servers.

Setzer

Yah, we enjoy playing Alliance? Plus we're familiar with the different zones and quests. On Uther we had 17k Alliance to 2-3k Horde which made wait times getting into the BG ridiculous. Dark Iron has a 50/50 pop of Alliance/Horde and the longest I've had to wait to get in a BG is 4min.

Setzer

The only reason why the PvE server wasn't working out for us was the balance. Alliance had the numbers. It was 80/20 Alliance/Horde on Uther and the BG wait times were a bitch. So, it's not like I didn't like the PvE server it was just Uther was extremely unbalanced. Moving to a PvP server was to try something different.

Gromit

How do you find out the alliance/horde balance on a given server?

Crashnburn

For weeks now I've been trying to get into Arathi Basin. I've never played it and I want to see how well it plays. Everytime I log in I go sign up for first available. Three hours later when I'm ready to log out I still haven't been allowed into the BG. The estimated wait time always says "unavailable". Can anyone shed some light on this for me? What's the deal? Is it my server, Blackhand? Or is it something just to do with me? If you play on Blackhand have you been having problems getting into any of the BG's?

joeblow69

I have the same problem. I notice the Arathi basin is different from the other battleground, in that the other one usually has 1 or 2 instances you can choose from (or choose "first available"). Arathi NEVER has an instance for me to choose. I get on the waiting list, but have never ever gotten in.

Am I missing out? Is the Arathi Basin even any fun?

neiname

Sranglethorn Vale is an absolute joke on a PvP server, you will get ganked constantly, so much so that it's probably not even worth trying to level there.

The rogue killing you was probably a 30-40 as a lvl 50-60 would've one shot each of you.

neiname

What level are you? If you are anything but 60 it is a pain to get games going because there may not be enough interest on the other faction. The reason it said unavailable is that is the wait time of the last 10 players to get in, unavailable means no one has gotten in for quite sometime and it is unlikely you will be playing BG that night. Also as servers age the population naturally progresses to lvl 60 which makes findign groups as low levels, whether it be BG or Deadmines, a pain.

Setzer

HERE

Crashnburn

I'm a lvl 36. I just never really had a problem with getting into WSG (only once or twice), so I was just suprised I could never get into Arathi. Plus it's the newest BG so I figured a lot of people would be playing it.

neiname

I couldn't imagine playing AB without a mount. There is an insane amount of running around, plus the map is larger than WSG, so that could explain why a sub lvl 40 may have difficulty finding a group.

DaveNinja

Ab running usually jsut depends on if there are enough horde guys who want to play and are queued up. With the ability to be in multiple BG queues coming up in 1.9 you should see more AB since horde guys waiting for WSG will probably be in both queues.
With a good horde group in Ab you can totally farm it for honor. I had this happen to me 3 or 4 times in a row since the alliance is never organized.
The stratagy is the horde splits into 3 groups of 5. while one guy gets teh farm the other group each take the mine, blacksmith and mill. Usually the alliance only heads to one or 2 of the places in force so the horde get 1 or 2 of the middle places without too much trouble. Then the horde heads to the stable and camps 8-10 guys there while the other 5 - 7 run around to the mill, BS, mine and farm. By camping the stable and not letting the alliance have controll of any other spots then cause the alliance to rez at the starting point and then have to run by the stable. Since the alliance guys never wait for others to rez and party up, the horde ends up taking them out with 8-10 vs 1-3. So they stop any force from assembling and taking over the middle spots. Twice when they did this they hit 2000 resources while we only had 100-150. The 3rd time i came up with a plan where 3 of us (guildmates) would take the farm no matter what. This screwed up the hordes plan and they had to divert more away from the stables and we ended up reaching 500 resources before they hit 2000. i think 500 gives you a little bonus honor.

neiname

Here is a guide to Arathi Basin written by someone from my guild:

The Graveyard:
Personally, I think this is one of the major the reason pug groups tend to lose: they do not truly understand the role of the GY's. GY's provide some very interesting but counterintuitive tactical elements to AB.

Intuitively, one would assume a battle over some defended position plays out something like this:
Offense sends more attackers than defenders (in an attempt to win).
As the battle rages on, offense and defense reinforce.
And then either:
Offense eliminates all defenders and takes the position
Defense holds out and attackers are eliminated, or call off the attack

In AB, however, this assumption only holds until the first rez at the GY of the node under attack. After that, the GY will provide an endless supply of free reinforcement to the defenders. In contrast, it is very difficult to meaningfully reinforce the offense. The offense can either send back in the players from the original assault that have died, when they rez(much like the defensive GY zerg) or they can call in other players. However,
1). Players on offense take much longer to get back to the battle than the defense, allowing more time for the defense to react.
2). Committing other players to an attack reduces the amount of defense to be had at other nodes.
3). Committing other players requires time for them to travel also.

The fact that the rez timer is static makes this reinforcement effect not so noticable or important when the offense and defense are small in size, since some classes have no trouble killing or disabling another class quickly and efficiently multiple times(IE shaman vs mage, or mage vs warrior), however, it becomes critically important in medium or large sized battles for nodes. In those engagements, there are more targets to be CC'd and focus fired, more likelyhood of CC to be broken, cleansed, dispelled, more likelyhood of damage being healed due to focus fire not being focused enough; all this helps to lengthen the battle, which only benefits defenders, who will then have a greater likelyhood of establishing a defensive GY zerg, or receiving reinforcements from other nodes as they see fit.

Another element provided by the GY is the fact that dead players rez at the closest GY available to them. This means that, not only does the GY undo the death of the player, it provides free travel as well. Some consequences of this:
1). After successfully taking a node, the attackers must immediately be ready to respond to the movement of the defenders that will soon be rezzing at another node.
2). It is possible to predict where dead players will respawn, and thereby be possible to predict where the likely weak points in defense are, for both sides.
3). Crowd control can be brought to GY during a node assault, since that is where defenders will be guaranteed to respawn, in an attempt to buffer the capping of the node.

And so, because of GY's, death by itself does not mean much, what matters is where it occurred and how much the player was able to accomplish before it occurred.

The Nodes:
I'll just skip the mundane stuff on the nodes and go to the important stuff.

Needless to say, the BS is the most important resource node. Any attack force that moves to attack any other node can be seen from the BS. Any strategy that aims to win in AB must involve holding at least 3 nodes, and without the BS, this will result in holding nodes on opposite ends of the BS. Such a node formation is weak due to the fact that the distance between the opposite nodes is twice as long as the distance between either of them and the BS. In conjuction with the GY mechanic this will mean that the offense will always travel a distance equal to or less than that of reinforcing defense, when assaulting a node. This weakness can easily be exploited by alternating attacks from the BS upon them until the defense is eventually unable to catch up. Thus, the BS is the most important because whichever side holds it, can use it to obtain 2 more nodes.

The lumber mill is the second most important node due to its ease of defense from having only 2 points of entry, difficulty of being proper gauged of defenders, and the commanding view of AB it provides due to elevation. From the lumber mill is possible to see the stables, BS, farm, and movement of any assault force.

The farm is next in importance because it complements the BS and lumber mill, forming the best 3-node formation in AB, this formation provides nearly all the advantages to be had from holding the BS and LM and is the easiest to defend from their shared crossroads, which will be referred to as the southern crossroads.
Reasons why these 3 are easiest to hold:
1). The farm flag is on the southwest side of the of the farm, placing it closer to the southern crossroads and further from the mine.
2). The BS flag is closer to the southern crossroads than the northern crossroads.
3). The direct path from BS to farm consists of less water and more land than the direct path from BS to stables.

The stables is fourth in importance because it is the closest node to the alliance starting point. It is the first node available to alliance and likely the last node to be assaulted by horde. This fact plays an important role in some advanced strategies that I will detail below. Admittedly though, this is only true if the horde suffer from the same misconceptions which this guide is attempting to dispel.

The mine is dead last in importance, it is by far the worst node to possess for any reason other than total victory.
1). The road that passes through the mine is lesser in concavity(it is a wider curve) than the road that passes through the LM, therefore it takes longer to get from the mine to the BS than from the LM to the BS. This makes it harder for the mine to reinforce the BS and the LM, than for the LM to reinforce the BS and mine.
2). The mine has low elevation, making it impossible to see what is happening at other nodes.
3). The mine is further from the flags at the BS, stables, and farm, than the LM.

As one might notice by now, alliance got shafted on the nodes they were dealt; alliance is provided the northern crossroads(crossroads of stables, BS, and mine) as a centerpoint for their defense of mine, BS and stables, and it happens to be far worse than the southern crossroads. Just one more reason why I felt this guide was necessary =).

The Play:
Here is the second major reason why pugs lose: they have an enormous tendency to overzerg. We've all seen it before, one or two horde sneak up and ninja a node, attracting the attention of the alliance, which zergs 10+ people back to the node and slaughter the ninjas; then half of them cap the flag while the other half stand around and watch. The nodes they were attacking are no longer under pressure, and the nodes they were defending are now left open, disaster ensues. This behavior is due mostly to the fact that a pug is not organized and cannot work cohesively towards a goal, so they do what seems obvious to them: when a friendly node is assaulted, they all rush back to defend it, when an enemy node is assaulted they all rush forward to defend it. Good play requires organization and restraint, qualities a pug lacks almost by definition.

This is the part of the guide that aims to stop that kind of debacle, the part of the guide that is for the individual player, where I will try to explain some of the elements of an AB match that all players should watch out for and understand.

First, the most basic and most obvious concept that a player should realize, is that the capture and defense of more nodes than your opponent is the one and only objective of AB. This is why some leaders of AB groups tell their players who are on defense to fight horde at the flag, so that, in the heat of battle, they are less likely to forget that the flag is more important than making horde die. This idea extends to offense as well, many newb players cruise around by themselves looking for nodes to ninja not realizing that no competent group would allow their nodes to fall to such unfocused attempts, and not realizing that when they do this, they become wasted resources to their group. Also, players who realize this point, will not attempt to zerg lost nodes(other than the BS) as a knee-jerk reaction, they will actually stop to consider the situation.

Players should also strive to understand the concepts presented under the graveyard and nodes section of the guide. This will help the player make better decisions during the course of play. For instance, a normal player who has just rezzed at the BS because the mine he was defending was assaulted by the horde, might panic and rush back there in a futilely uncoordinated attempt to take it back from superior numbers of horde. A good player would take stock of the forces currently available to retake the mine, likely consisting of people currently rezzing at BS, people already at BS, and people at an adjacent node(either stables or farm), and weigh that against the numbers of horde currently occupying the mine and against the importance of the mine as a node, and then either attack the mine to retake it with his allies, or use the fact that it is under attack to leverage another node elsewhere.

From the above two paragraphs should evolve some of the following play habits:
On offense:
Defense need only to match the efforts of the offense to win, offense must overwhelm the defense(sometimes more than once) to win, so it is very important that all players play in a way that maximizes the speed and efficiency of the attack, and stay alive long enough to make a meaningful capture attempt. This is especially true of alliance, who have less offensive power than the horde. This means that healers should heal if the people they heal stay alive longer enough to deal more damage than the healers would have, paladins should always view their cleanse button as being more important than their autoattack button(sorry pally's but thems the breaks until 1.9), dotters should hold off long enough to for CC to be applied to the horde. Focused fire is also more important to alliance since the horde have better healing capabilities(shaman), and ability to remove AOE CC(wotf). Assuming the attack went well and the immediate defenders of a node have been cleared out, the attackers must be ready to delay defensive reinforcement to buffer the capping of the node with snares, more CC, etc. Finally, once the capping begins, the attackers must quickly redistribute themselves amongst the nodes, since their side now has 1 more node to defend while the horde has 1 less.

On defense:
When defending, the flag is of the utmost importance, it is more important than killing horde, and more important than staying alive; an eye should be kept on it at all times. When an occurs, the defenders should be doing all in their power to interrupt capture attempts for as long as possible so that a defensive GY rush can be established, or other reinforcement called in; when this is accomplished the attack force will pewter out as a matter of course as they run out of mana to heal, cooldowns to burn, etc. The means of doing this will usually vary from killing horde outright, to staying alive as long as possible to interrupt capture attempts again and again to buy more time for the rez timer. When not actively defending, it is the job of the defenders, and everyone else who is not currently attacking, to be aware of what goes on on the battlefield so that they can report it over vent/raid chat to complement their allies' map reading skills. They should also be ready to identify and react to important events that occur, such as reinforcing a node that has lost too many defenders, or mounting an assault upon a node that has been left vulnerable.

In general:
1). Speed is important in AB, so when not in combat, drinking, or stealthing, players should always stay mounted.
2). Players should always be ready to move once an objective is accomplished, to counter the fact that whenever they accomplish something, horde have likely died in the process, will therefore be rezzing soon, and need to be responded to. For instance, if defenders have moved from one node to another to reinforce the defense there, they should be ready to mount up and go back to where they came from before the last horde hits the dirt, but after the number of attacking horde have been reduced to less than the numbers of permanent/semi-permanent defenders.
3). Players need to realize when a cause is lost, when their efforts have failed and it is time to stop struggling at a node that can't be taken or a node that can't be taken back for the time being. Then at the same time, be able to discern what the consequences of this loss are. An attack, even a failed attack, could mean that the horde have shifted around their defense, making another node a better target. A failed defense means that horde defense has been spread thinner.

Once a player begins to get the hang of AB, one of THE most important skills that they will develop is interpreting the map. This is the skill of being able to look at the map for about 2 seconds, and derive enough information to fill 4 or more lines of /raid chat. This is one of the skills that separates good players from decent players, the good players will always manage to stay one step ahead by knowing more information without the need for words, and even when a voice chat client is available, by knowing what will likely happen before it happens. This skill is centered around the fact that there is a reason for why your ally is where he is, and why he's going where he's going.

1). The most basic application of this skill is to see the positions and movement of friendly forces and be able to ascertain which friendly nodes are well defended, which ones will be reinforced quickly enough in the event of an attack to avoid capture, which ones are at risk of falling to an attack, and which horde nodes are eligible for being assaulted by the concentration of alliance forces that are nearby. This is something that nearly all players will develop as they gain experience with AB.
2). A more advanced application is being able to tell if a node held by your side is actively being attacked, by the movement of your allies there. If you see the dots moving around frenetically on your map, they are likely fighting someone. If they're not moving, things are probably quiet.
3). One of the ways to figure out how many enemies your allies are fighting, is to estimate how quickly your allies die. For instance, 5 of your allies have just gone to LM, and you can't see the battle because you're at the BS, however, you notice that after ~5 seconds of fighting, two of them are already dead. With this you can be reasonably sure that the horde there outnumber alliance by a good margin.
4). Another way is to examine the movement of your allies at a node, if your allies are defending a node and then, suddenly, 3 dots are moving away, chances are the attacking horde are near dead, and your allies that have left are leaving to do battle elsewhere while the more permanent defenders clean up. On offense, if most of the movement around the flag has stopped, and you see some of your allies move to the GY, and some move towards where horde will likely be coming from, then the defending horde are most likely dead, your allies are drinking, capping the flag, and moving in position to buffer the capping.
5). A third way is to guage the concentration of friendly forces, if they are very closely bunched and/or moving together, it is likely that they are focus firing the last few horde that are still alive, if they are all moving around in seemingly random fashion, they are likely separately engaged with multiple horde, moving to gain range on targets, moving to get away from 2h arms/fury warriors, getting feared all over the place, etc. which probably means a good size battle is still being waged.

The Leader:
This section will not be very long because in AB the leader serves the same purpose as they do in everything else of WOW that requires a group, pvp or pve. It is his job to analyze the information given to him by his allies, his eyes, and his grasp of the encounter/BG and to order that a course of action be taken under circumstances in which there might be a difference of opinion on how to proceed. If he is a good leader, he will, more often that not, select the right course of action.

Faction Differences:
Some faction advantages that pertain to AB
Horde advantages:
1). In AB offensive power provides both offense and defense. For defense this is because killing the attackers will prevent them from capping, and even when they start capping, it is damage that interrupts the process. Shamans can manage these very well.
2). Shaman are good at delaying reinforcements(see below in advanced strategies).
3). Shaman are good healers with 3 ways to force heals: EB totem, grounding totem, and NS.
4). With WotF, horde are less vulnerable to AOE CC, make focused fire more difficult.
5). With warstomp, horde make alliance more vulnerable to CC and focused fire.
6). Shaman have heal negation(ES).

Alliance advantages:
1). Paladins can shield+heal, which can make a difference in critical battles.
2). Paladins can cleanse, making alliance less susceptible to in combat CC, such as polymorph.
3). Shadowmeld permits single NE hunters to defend a node against at least 1 and maybe 2 attackers.
4). Shadowmeld makes the number and make up of defenders at an alliance node an uncertainty, sometimes.

more to be added as comments are made

Advances Strategies
The good part ^___^
(note: some arguments in here might contradict those that were previously presented, this is because this section takes into consideration some elements that were not accounted for earlier)

Mentality:
First, one observation is that horde play tends to dictate alliance play. Back when AB first came out and sovereign began guild runs, we always tried to go for the blacksmith first, however, as the opposition got organized and began to toughen up, we often times opted not to attack the BS at all when games started because horde would always go there in force, and instead, try to hold the mine, stables, and LM. Of course we eventually wised up and realized that we can't let them have the BS(or at least not for free), and nowadays we always make an attempt to take it when possible. The point is that alliance cannot afford to let horde have their way and simply hope to react to whatever action horde takes, this is playing right into their hands since, assuming they are competent, they will push their advantages, which are better than alliance advantages, to maximum effect.

Defense through offense:
Unfortunately, alliance is still letting horde play as they wish(to some degree): in AB, the strategy we often take, against good groups and pugs alike, is to take 3 nodes and hold them. This is a mistake, horde advantages are most evident when they go on the offensive. Compared to alliance, horde have more decisive racial abilities, those which are likely to affect the outcome of a battle. In a failed offense, no nodes will change hands, in a failed defense, however, they will. Therefore, it is much more preferable to alliance for the horde to expend their racials to succeed on defense than on offense. This brings up the notion of defending through offense. One might notice that a node under attack can't launch attacks itself. Between any two given nodes held by different sides, the offense serves as defense as well with respect to the opposing node. "Defending" a node by moving most of the defenders to the opposing node in this way, has some notable advantages.
1). Horde must be more honest about defense. If alliance does not attack, horde will not need to defend, and will be free to go on offense themselves, something we don't want. Having forces perpetually attacking or threatening a node of theirs will force more horde to play defense.
2). Horde that are playing defense, are horde that are accounted for, and horde that cannot do something unexpected without forewarning .

Of course, there are risks. Playing this way leaves the the alliance node highly vulnerable to ninjaing and attacks from another node and will leave the alliance with less mobile forces than horde, since keeping the pressure on a node will require more attackers than defenders, and those attackers

Goal:
Our goal against a pug group that we feel we are capable of winning against, should be total victory. Going on the warpath and taking 5 nodes makes the games go faster, makes them less boring, makes more demands of our players(making them better), and minimizes certain horde advantages. There is no reason why we should not aim for this sort of victory when we know we have better players/gear/organization.

Playing Shepherd:
Playing "shepherd"(cause I'm a mage) is to delay the re-positioning of defense after it has moved out of position to respond to an assault. Executed well, this maneuver can be devastatingly effective. The point of the maneuver is to prevent defenders from getting to nodes in time, by the use of crowd control, roots, and snares.
For example(with a mage):
Alliance holds the BS and stables, horde have everything else. Alliance launches an attack on the mine to draw horde defenders to that position. Horde defense shifts away from farm and LM to mine. Alliance now attacks LM and sends a mage to play shepherd. Mage gets into position at about 30 yards southeast of the southern crossroads. As horde try to get back to LM, the mage uses polymorph(and POM+polymorph) to dismount them, frost nova to root them in place, silence to stop dispels, blink to catch someone he missed, cone of cold/blastwave to slow them down, AP+ToEP+ZHC to nuke one into wet pasta if the mage's name happens to be verlas, ice block when they start trying to beat on him, etc. And while the horde are having a hell of time trying to get back to LM, it is likely falling to the alliance assault.

The reason this tactic is so powerful is that defenders need to be mounted for speed, but that also makes them unable to defend themselves against CC, roots, and snares. They can dismount to deal with the person that slowing them down, but this costs them time, something they cannot afford to waste when their underdefended node is under attack. This also permits 1 or 2 attackers to negate many times their number in defenders. Technically, this can work on defense as well, however, offense determines when and where battles will be fought, so it is much easier to get the shepherd into position on offense.

NE hunter defense:
In general, involves freezing trap, aimed shot on cloth/ranged classes, kiting of melee/armored classes, with good anti-stealth abilities, FD+trap, and enraged pet.
The specifics of this section will be left for hunters to elaborate on.

Some Plans:
Against a sub-par pug group one way to go achieve total victory is to hit them hard in the beginning; prevent them from securing any node on the battlefield. This is best done during the beginning of the round because there is no gy zerg to deal with yet and because if horde do manage to take one node, zerg mentality will cause many of them to go there and defend it.The strategy relies on the fact that we will take fewer losses than the horde at the beginning due to better organization/equipment/experience, which, ideally, will enable us to push all the way to the farm on this initial drive. Since we are trying to keep the horde off the field, we must attack BS, mine, and LM. 5 players should be sent to attack each node. The mine group should predominantly consist of classes capable of breaking their fall, so that they can travel to the cliff overlooking the mine and divide themselves between the mine and BS accordingly. Assuming we assessed our opponents correctly, we will take at least the BS and one other node. The players from BS should help the node that is still contested, while the players from the other, claimed, node should begin working on the farm. Ideally, the horde will have left the farm lightly defended to commit their forces on offense, in which case it should fall quickly. If not, then the players from the alliance claimed node should position themselves outside the farm to prevent horde from getting to either the BS or the claimed node. Once the node that the BS players went to reinforce is cleared of horde, massive war will ensue at farm. In the case of massive war, it might take us a while to take farm, or we might even fail to take it at all, but since this strategy leaves the farm as the last node, at least holding the other 4 nodes should not be very difficult.

Against a good horde group, our strategy should be to take the BS and "trade" them stables and mine for LM and farm. Since we need the BS to win, we should send everyone there in the beginning, all 15. If the battle goes well, we'll take the BS and kill a good number of horde in the process. We will ignore the mine and defense of the stables while this takes place since our goals are BS, LM, and farm, and any forces horde send to mine and stables are essentially wasted at this point in the game. Once we claim the BS, a handful of people should be left to defend it, while the rest attack the LM, with a few people shepherding to delay the rezzers at farm and defiler's den. How many people should defend the BS at this point will depend on how many players horde did not send to BS. Once we take the LM, we will be in good position to take farm, or stables if horde hold on to farm too tightly, through alternating attacks. If we fail to take the LM, we should regroup at the BS, and wait for horde defense to spread out before making another attempt. If horde refuse to spread out away from farm and LM, then we will be free to capture mine and stables.

DaveNinja

Great info. gives me lots of ideas. if only leading a pug wasnt like herding cats...

joeblow69

I'm on a PvE server, and yesterday I killed a civilian who was out in the wilderness camping. I noticed I got a "dishonorable kill" for it. Is that bad? Is that going to come back and haunt me in a while?

I mean, I'm a horde guy, and this was some alliance shmuck elf, so I thought I was perfectly justified in killing him.

DaveNinja

I have 5 dishonor kills (from being in raid groups with lame-os that kept killing civilians). havent notice and thing from them. they never go away, though

Crashnburn

It probably just subtracts away from your total of Honorable kills.

DaveNinja

If you get too many DHKs and get into the negative you switch factions!

khai

It keeps your kills the same but your points get subracted thus making it harder to rank up if you get alot of dishonorable kills. This is why you don't see world pvp raiding on towns as often.

neiname

I finally got my epic priest staff, Benediction/Anthema http://thottbot.com/?i=37916 after 3 tries at the quest.

hardcore

Congrats! I got mine about a month ago. Wasn't the quest fun? I finished it on my second try, but I was convinced through the whole attempt the next peasant death would cause me to fail. I think that was partly due to me getting the numbers mixed up between that quest and the triage quest, as I was convinced I could only let 6 peasants die.

DaveNinja

I heard the test server with 1.9 is up or will be up soon.

hardcore

Yeah, it went up last Thursday I think. I tried the 40 man Silithus instance for a little bit on Saturday. On our best attempt we had the first boss down to 20% before I went to bed. The instance looks pretty fun though, even though the boss is a bit goofy. And the bug mounts are cool!

I was briefly in the 20 man instance, and that gives Cenarion Circle faction. So no more cultist grinding!

DaveNinja

what good is Cenarion Circle faction? can you buy patterns?

hardcore

There are some LW patterns you can get currently. Also I believe you need to be revered in order to summon the raid bosses at the twilight cultist camps.

I'm assuming in 1.9 there will be some other faction-related rewards.