Icecrown - Add Arena Queue NPC in front of OG/SW

I saw this on some private servers, they had a simple arena queue NPC in front of SW and OG so people can hang out there and queue arnea if they want. This added a good new alternative zone to dalaran sewers to hang out, chat, queue, find partners and do some dueling. I really enjoyed hanging out in front of stormwind and orgrimmar on these servers with lots of people. It would also add a new exciting world PVP layer, because when people who play arena/pvp hang out in front of the main cities, make duels etc - its attempting to intervene and maybe disturb them and/or start city fights. I saw all this happening and it felt very nice. I really miss this on warmane though. The gates of the cities are just empty, noone is there really.

I think this feature would greatly improve gameplay experience for many players, bringing little to no negative side effects (unless someone hates getting city raided -> why are you playing on a pvp server in the first place bro?) and is very easy to implement.

What this feature would bring:
* Fun dueling while waiting for queues in different locations than sewers
* Will probably take some load off dalaran on icecrown (which is good)
* Potentially more open world pvp^

I know that for example in SW the room behind the king exists, but it's pretty much useless, because it's too far away from anything for players to make it attractive and its not a duelable zone.

I also saw people hang out in goldshire way more, because they can queue arenas in Stormwind for example. I think this could add a really cool touch to the lick king pvp servers. Right now everything is kind of all clean and limited to dalaran, which feels a bit boring in comparison.

I suggest adding 1 NPC in front of SW and OG on Icecrown for Arena Queues (I would even add a Spectator NPC imho).

I also suggest making a community vote on this feature to see if people would like it or not.


What do you guys think about this?

Great suggestion, but it'll get ignored or crapped on. They wouldn't even entertain.the idea of Target Dummies at the gates of capital cities, even though Darnassus already has it. I'd love to see the Arena NPCs added so hardcore PVPers can escape the depths of SW to more regularly socially engage with other players.

You just described the number 1 problem of finding a random arena partner. They cant accept the que and enter because they do random duels. You lost the 1v2 fight and then instead of taking responsibility they blame it on the duel. 5v5 is dead, 3v3 almost dead, time to start killing 2v2? I would even say you shouldnt be able to duel while you are in que for arena. This is my suggestion for improvement, players cannot accept/request duels while they are in que for arena.

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Originally Posted by MyNameIsNO

You just described the number 1 problem of finding a random arena partner. They cant accept the que and enter because they do random duels. You lost the 1v2 fight and then instead of taking responsibility they blame it on the duel. 5v5 is dead, 3v3 almost dead, time to start killing 2v2? I would even say you shouldnt be able to duel while you are in que for arena. This is my suggestion for improvement, players cannot accept/request duels while they are in que for arena.

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Great point actually. I already missed a queue or two accidentally because I thought I can just join before the invite is done, but then I was in combat and missed it. Either you shouldn't be allowed to accept duels in queue as you said, or you can join even if in combat during a duel (which is probably harder to implement)... or forfeit automatically when a queue pops up (don't like this idea so much).

@bcparker1 is there information about the staff actually implementing suggested features? Is there a way to push suggestions, or contact responsible staff members directly or is the forum here and posts the only option? Not just for my request here, but in general.

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Originally Posted by mzelyx

Is there a way to push suggestions, or contact responsible staff members directly or is the forum here and posts the only option?

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No, no and yes.

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Originally Posted by bcparker1

Great suggestion, but it'll get ignored or crapped on. They wouldn't even entertain.the idea of Target Dummies at the gates of capital cities, even though Darnassus already has it. I'd love to see the Arena NPCs added so hardcore PVPers can escape the depths of SW to more regularly socially engage with other players.

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True, but those were placed there by blizzard, and their location makes sense. I mean, the place they're put in is called "Warrior's Terrace". Other cities' dummies are placed so that makes thematically sense.

Regarding arena que NPC's near city gates, I see few gripes that may rise.

1. (w)PvP is filled with griefers. Meaning these NPC's would be repeatedly killed to grief the opposing faction.
2. These NPC's would need to be integrated to world properly. Otherwise they'd stand out like "cheap private server utility NPC offering X/Y/Z services" e.g. Blackrock vendors.
3. If the NPC's were to be placed by the gates of Orgrimmar or Stormwind to offer people a different places to hangout, duel and whatnot while on arena que, why not offer it to other cities as well? They'd be less used, sure, but why limit them to Orgrimmar & Stormwind.

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Originally Posted by OhieMitzen

True, but those were placed there by blizzard, and their location makes sense. I mean, the place they're put in is called "Warrior's Terrace". Other cities' dummies are placed so that makes thematically sense.

Regarding arena que NPC's near city gates, I see few gripes that may rise.

1. (w)PvP is filled with griefers. Meaning these NPC's would be repeatedly killed to grief the opposing faction.
2. These NPC's would need to be integrated to world properly. Otherwise they'd stand out like "cheap private server utility NPC offering X/Y/Z services" e.g. Blackrock vendors.
3. If the NPC's were to be placed by the gates of Orgrimmar or Stormwind to offer people a different places to hangout, duel and whatnot while on arena que, why not offer it to other cities as well? They'd be less used, sure, but why limit them to Orgrimmar & Stormwind.

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Thanks for your response, good points.

ad 1) I'd just make these NPCs invincible, put the goblins there, maybe in a Tent on the side, kinda like the Season Events NPCs. And regarding that it makes sense what Blizzard thought there I have to disagree: In Wotlk the npcs are placed poorly so that everyone is kinda forced to be in Dalaran and thus makes this completely overfilled. I'm also thinking about people who constantly struggle with crashes in Dalaran. You can fix this with a RAM patch, but many don't know this. There's no authentic action in the villages before the cities because of that. This could potentially add a lot of new style. And the game is good, but I don't see a reason to not improve it slightly. It's been almost 20 years now.

ad 2) True, but I don't really see a challenge here, I would also not offer too many services there, just simple queuing NPC for arenas, maybe the spectator too.

ad 3) I don't see a problem with putting them in front of all major cities too, just thought maybe its easier to just do it in the two to reduce the effordfor the devs. But yeah, when doing it for one, the others should also not be much more efford.

The positions of the queue NPC's is designed for hub-centralizing of players and is a token nostalgia, even if archaic, of the original game.

It's to prevent and promote specific things from players including adversity of queue sniping and PK to disrupt engagement, discussion and etc. I can see why they don't want to, or wont change this in the future.

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Originally Posted by ogWG

It's to prevent and promote specific things from players including adversity of queue sniping and PK to disrupt engagement, discussion and etc. I can see why they don't want to, or wont change this in the future.

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I get what you mean, but I don’t really see how adding queue NPCs at city gates would make queue sniping or PK any worse than it already is. Right now in Dalaran everyone is literally standing in one tight spot, so if anything, it’s easier to see who is queuing and try to abuse it there.

If NPCs were spread to other major cities, that would actually dilute the playerbase across multiple locations instead of concentrating everyone in one room. On top of that, if the NPCs were placed right in front of safe zones (Stormwind/Orgrimmar gates, or equivalent for the other capitals), then griefing them or killing players around them wouldn’t be any different from how it already works when people duel outside cities.

So in my eyes, this wouldn’t create new problems, it would just give players more options where to hang out, duel and queue — instead of forcing everyone into Dalaran.

Cool suggestion, this would be a nice QOL improvement.