In World of Warcraft criticism of the queue times, balancing and overall way that player versus player combat is handled is constantly under scrutiny. In an upcoming patch Blizzard have announced a new way to try and fix the issues. Mercenary Mode in it’s simplest terms is the ability to fight for the opposing faction when queue times are proving to be too long.
So when you’re sitting waiting in a queue for Ashran and it’s taking a while to get in you’ll be able to visit an agent of the enemy faction who will appear in your side’s base, Warspear for the Horde and Stormshield for the Alliance. Here you’ll be able to enter the battle for the other team and you’ll be converted to an opposing race for the duration of the battle. This will also work for battlegrounds.
All the rewards will be same but the faction specific achievements won’t be obtainable whilst playing for the other side so unfortunately it won’t turn out to be a good way to get those pesky Nemesis quests done for your garrison but you will experience what it’s like fighting as part of the other faction. It will be interesting to how communication between players takes place as up to now players from opposing factions haven’t really been able to talk to each other.
There’s no solid date set yet for this feature but it will enter the public test realm very soon to see if and how it will work in the game. So what do you think? Is it a good way to quell the rage surrounding PvP in Warcraft? Will it even up the Ashran battles? Let me know what you’re thinking in the comments section below!