Battleground

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Battlegrounds are instanced areas solely used for the purposes of PvP. Each classic battleground - Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin and Alterac Valley - has two red instance entrance portals; one for the Alliance, and one for the Horde. Crossing these portals was originally one of the ways to enter the queue for that battleground. To enter the queue for any battleground now, the player must seek out a Battlemaster — which can be found at the portal or in any capital city - or do so through the Player vs. Player tab. Once inside the instance, the two teams will engage in large-scale PvP with various and different objectives determining the winner. Players will earn one or more Mark of Honor, using these along with honor points make PvP rewards available. (There is no durability penalty associated with death, except if you fall to your death).

If a character goes AFK, they will leave the battleground and gain the Deserter debuff. This prevents entry to another battleground for a 15 minute duration. You can report inactive players by right clicking on the player and selecting "Report AFK". When enough reports are registered, a 60 second debuff will begin to count down. Once the timer is up a new debuff will appear that will prevent the player from gaining any honor or marks while it is on. This debuff can be negated as soon as the player engages in PvP combat.

The two initial Battleground areas, Alterac Valley and Warsong Gulch, went live June 7th, 2005. Arathi Basin was added to the list in Patch 1.7 on September 13th, 2005. A fourth battleground, named Eye of the Storm, was released with the Burning Crusade. A fifth battleground, the Strand of the Ancients, was added in Wrath of the Lich King. The sixth battleground, the Isle of Conquest, was added in Patch 3.2 on August 4th, 2009.

Existing battlegrounds

Warsong Gulch

WSG loading screen

WSG in-game map

Factions: Silverwing Sentinels, Warsong Outriders

Alliance Base: Silverwing Hold
Alliance Entrance: Silverwing Grove
Horde Base: Warsong Lumber Mill
Horde Entrance: Mor'shan Base Camp

Levels: 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80
Combatants: 10 per faction

Arathi Basin

AB loading screen

AB in-game map

Factions: The League of Arathor, The Defilers

Alliance Base: Trollbane Hall
Alliance Entrance: Refuge Pointe
Horde Base: Defiler's Den
Horde Entrance: Hammerfall

Levels: 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80
Combatants: 15 per faction

Alterac Valley

AV loading screen

AV in-game map

Factions: Stormpike Guard, Frostwolf Clan

Alliance Base: Dun Baldar
Alliance Entrance: The Headland
Horde Base: Frostwolf Keep
Horde Entrance: Northeast of Sofera's Naze

Levels: 51-60, 61-69, 70-79, 80
Combatants: 40 per faction

Eye of the Storm

EotS loading screen

EotS in-game map

Requires World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

Factions: No factions are directly associated with the battleground, but members of The Exodar and Silvermoon City appear during its battleground holiday.

Alliance Base: Northern rock
Horde Base: Southern rock
Exterior entrance: There is no exterior entrance to the battleground as in the classic battlegrounds, but the Eye of the Storm is located somewhere in Netherstorm

Levels: 61-69, 70-79, 80
Combatants: 15 per faction

Strand of the Ancients

SotA loading screen

SotA in-game map

Requires World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Factions: No factions are directly associated with the battleground, but members of The Silver Covenant and The Sunreavers appear during its battleground holiday.

Faction bases: Neither side has a fixed base as teams alternate playing offense by attacking the keep and defense by preventing the attack
Exterior entrance: There is no exterior entrance to the battleground as in the classic battlegrounds, but the Strand is presumably found south of Dragonblight

Levels: 71-79, 80
Combatants: 15 per faction

Isle of Conquest

IoC loading screen

IoC in-game map

Requires World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Factions: No reputation can be gained while playing in the Isle of Conquest, however the Alliance is represented by members of the Alliance Expedition and the Horde by members of the the Horde Expedition

Alliance Base: Alliance Keep
Horde Base: Horde Keep
Exterior entrance: There is no exterior entrance to the battleground as in the classic battlegrounds, but the Isle of Conquest is located northwest of Sholazar Basin and southwest of Icecrown

Levels: 71-79, 80
Combatants: 40 per faction

Future/Incomplete Battlegrounds

Azshara Crater

A reported future addition, but details are mostly speculative.

Tom Chilton: That was a battleground that was created pretty much at the same time that we were creating Alterac Valley...I've never really felt comfortable going forward with Azshara Crater until we finally feel like Alterac Valley really works the way we'd like it to work ... I don't want to make another "Alterac Valley" until we're pretty happy with Alterac Valley.

Blizzard info:

Caydiem: We're not making any new Battlegrounds in the near future. We naturally need to be careful about spreading the PvP community thin. That isn't to say we're not thinking about what we could do with a new Battleground, but I wouldn't expect anything anytime soon, no. (2006-01-20)[1]

Nathaera: There is one new battleground planned. (There may be more added in the future but we shall see.) Just to clear something up, The Caverns of Time are not Battlegrounds. (2006-10-11)[2]

Gurubashi Catacombs

A "deathmatch" style battleground that was scrapped and made into Arena PvP.

Battle for Gilneas

In the next expansion pack, Cataclysm, there will be a new battleground called Battle for Gilneas.

Notes

If you are the highest level in a bracket and you join the queue for that bracket it is possible to become 1 level higher than the maximum level for that bracket (with the exception of the level 80 bracket). This is done by joining the queue then leveling up to the next level. Since you are still in the queue for the bracket that is below your current level you will still enter the battleground of the bracket when you queued. [EDIT: Seems that the problem has been solved and now the player is instantly teleported out of the Battleground after leveling up while in the queue].

XP in Battlegrounds

Blizzard stated that XP for playing in the battlegrounds has been added in Patch 3.2.

In order to assist those who choose to keep an alt for the purposes of playing in a specific level of battleground, there will be an added option to turn off the ability to gain XP. This ability costs 10G to switch on or off and prevents XP gain in all areas of the game. If the switch is on (that is, you are not receiving XP) then you will only be matched against others who also have the switch on; this is because the developers assume that if you don't want XP, you must be twinking.[3]

In Alterac Valley (AV) you can earn XP by killing mobs, however the XP gain is very low if a lot of your faction players are within range. Patch 3.1.3