Karazhan chess

As part of Saturday's Karazhan raid I had the opportunity to participate for the first time in the chess event. That was a lot of fun, even if I just stuck to the pawns, me being a noob. In the chess event you control a piece on a big chess board, where 16 Horde pieces face 16 Alliance pieces. You can only move from square to square, but combat is done with the pieces hitting each other with attacks and spells, trying to bring down the other piece's health just like regular WoW combat. Every piece has different abilities, and you win by killing the enemy king piece.

The Karazhan chess event is very easy, our guild refers to it as "free epics". Blizzard had to hotfix Karazhan once, giving stealth detection to some trash mobs on the way, after videos appeared on how to solo the chess event in an uncleared Karazhan by sneaking there. Apart from a joke on how chess was too hard for Alliance and would be changed to checkers, most guilds consider the event as a light entertainment interlude between harder fights. The strategy required is very basic, just kill the healers first and then concentrate on the king. And the pieces always have the same stats, so the players' gear and buffs make no difference whatsoever.

What did strike me most about this event is that I can't see any reason why it should be reserved for raiders able to get past Curator and the trash mobs. The chess event is a complete game inside the game, which obviously took a lot of effort to program, even more than a regular raid boss. And the ability of a raid group to win the chess event is in no way related to their ability to beat other bosses or trash. If they could just get there, any group of players could beat the chess event and get the epics. It is welfare epics for raiders, plus a free fun game thrown in. And the reason why it is so easy is that the pieces are well-balanced, but one side is controlled by a relatively stupid AI, while the other side is controlled by the players.

The same chess event would be a lot better if it was a 16 vs. 16 PvP battleground. Instead of choosing their piece, players would be randomly assigned one piece to control. As both sides would be controlled by players, and the board is symmetrical, the outcome just depends on player skill and a bit of luck. This would be the one PvP encounter where playing an overpowered / underpowered class or wearing full epics / only greens wouldn't matter. It would be real Player vs. Player, not Avatar vs. Avatar. Of course there wouldn't be epics at the end, but some honor points for both sides depending on how well their side fared, plus the usual victory marks. As a "free epics for raiders" thing the chess event is wasted, as a PvP battleground it would be extremely popular.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:40 AM Permanent Link