Alterac Valley has two simple win conditions. The first is that each faction has a General housed inside a heavily fortified keep. Once this General is slain, then the battle is won and the game ends. While this win condition is very simple, the actual act of getting to the General is not. Various towers, bunkers, and other defense points lay between your side and theirs. These points must be neutralized to move safely through the battlefield. Not only that, but various graveyards provide tactical positions to assault from and become valuable assets through the fight. Each general is guarded by various lieutenants making it almost impossible to rush him right off the bat. Each of the adds will despawn as the tower they are linked to is taken.
The second possible win condition is reducing your opponent to zero reinforcements. Each team starts with 600 reinforcements and then lose them in various ways. Each death of a player counts as a reinforcement lost. Each bunker or tower taken costs 75 and each captain 100. The best way to win this way is taking all the towers, killing the captains and engaging the enemy for as many PvP kills as possible.
Each side begins from a cave located in the mountains, with an equal number of forces, graveyards, and towers/bunkers on each side. A “herald” announces whenever an objective has been taken and when graveyards change hands. The various Captains also announce when they buff each side with their destructive and protective buffs. There are also friendly NPCs who provide a means to summon destructive elementals, launch an aerial assault, a ground assault, and a mounted assault.
Taking objectives and graveyards is simple. A flag is located somewhere near the objective/graveyard that shows the current owner. The flag is also well defended by four or more guards (that upgrade through the game by quests players complete). After the flag is activated (by right-clicking on it when you are in range and completing the ten second timer) the location goes neutral before it changes hands in five minutes. The defending team only has to reactivate the flag whilst it’s in it’s neutral state to retake the objective/graveyard, after the flag change hands, they have to go through the capturing process themselves. Captains are optional objectives that only require your side to kill the opposing Captain.
Honor is gained through kills, like any type of PvP, but the nature of AV makes this honor quickly come to a stop. After a player has been killed five times he becomes worth about one honor point. This tallies up rather fast considering the amount of times players respawn. Killing though, isn’t the only way to gain honor. When various objectives are taken (for the first time) you gain bonus honor. When the game ends, you will gain a large amount honor and tokens (one for losing and three for winning).
ong ago, before the First War, the warlock Gul'dan exiled a clan of orcs called the Frostwolves to a hidden valley deep in the heart of the Alterac Mountains. It is here in the valley's southern reaches that the Frostwolves eked out a living until the coming of Thrall.
After Thrall's triumphant uniting of the clans, the Frostwolves, now led by the Orc Shaman Drek'Thar, chose to remain in the valley they had for so long called their home. In recent times, however, the relative peace of the Frostwolves has been challenged by the arrival of the Dwarven Stormpike Expedition.
Sometimes the game turns into a marathon turtle event (one side has everything on defense). Now that diminishing honor returns from kills have been removed, make the best of it and start killing anything you can. Honor kills can quickly add up to 100-150 honor, or more! These games can be very entertaining, but tend to take a long time. The other option is to just throw the game and get out with the honor you already have and grab a fast token. Not very sporting though.
