In response to growing complaints that the imbalance of races in World of Warcraft‘s PvP has caused massive queues for some players in battlegrounds and the Ashran world PvP area, Blizzard has developed a new system designed to lower queue times by allowing players to become cross-faction mercenaries.
Queued for #Ashran, went and conquered Mars, came back, queue still hadn’t popped. #winning @Warcraft
— GPTurismo Gaming (@gpturismogaming) July 14, 2015
Whenever a particular faction is experiencing long queues to enter Ashran or non-rated Battlegrounds, players will be given the option to work as a mercenary for the opposite faction. Players who choose to queue as a mercenary will have their race automatically changed to one from the opposing faction as long as he or she remains in the Battleground or within Ashran. Players who participate in this system will still be able to earn all of the same rewards as they would have with their own faction, excluding faction-specific achievements.
Our goal with Mercenary Mode is to allow players who want to participate in Ashran or unrated Battlegrounds the ability to do so without having to wait through long queues, while still maintaining the spirit of the core Alliance vs Horde fantasy.
Although a release date for this feature has not yet been announced, Mercenary Mode is currently available on the Public Test Realm as part of the testing for patch 6.2.1, otherwise known as the ‘flying patch’. It’s certain that whenever that may be, it can’t be soon enough for PvP aficionados. While some players are skeptical about how much this change will help “fix” Ashran, where queue times are the most punishing, many are eager to be able to play without waiting for hours.
Have you experienced long queues waiting for Ashran? Do you feel Mercenary Mode will help to alleviate the issue? Do you feel that the ability for players to work for the other faction damages the lore of the game? Speak up in the comments below!
