SpawnPoint

Before you read one sentence of this guide, know that it only covers legitimate walling. I'll discuss estimating a player's movement patterns, using sound effectively, using sight effectively (which is surprisingly rare), and using your radar. With practice, you will be killing players through walls, or at the very least softening them up for your team, on a regular basis, at several different spots on CS_Assault, whether you're a T or CT. Some people will call you a hacker when you do this. Some people will complain. I do NOT support cheating in any way, shape, or form, nor will I ever. An educated, experienced player knows the difference between a cheater and someone who has learned to use every single aspect of CSS to his or her advantage. If you cheat, you will be caught. Now, onto the fun stuff.

This guide isn't for everyone.

Generally, Assault regulars will use the same spots when they play, because we're creatures of habit, even if these spots are generally ineffective. Just how a lot of the regulars on 108.4 know I'm at the red crate 99% of the time I'm a T. Use that to your advantage. CTs are at a disadvantage on Assault, because obviously, the Ts are expecting them to come in. Turn a disadvantage into an advantage every chance you have. They know you're coming. So kill as many as possible before you go in. What do I mean, exactly? A little thing called walling. And no, you don't need a "wallhack" to wall effectively. All you need is practice and a gun with enough power to get the job done through a bit of steel. The M4 is a poor option for this, because it can take up to 12 hits to deal over 100 damage through a wall, assuming you score body/limb hits. If you're able to score headshots, more power to you. We're talking about 4-5 shots to the head through a wall with an M4. I suggest the AUG, or, if you have one available, an AK or Krieg. The Scout is generally a poor weapon to use for this, in my opinion. Simply because the reload leaves you completely vulnerable for a short time of roughly 2 seconds. Two seconds of being complete vulnerable? Not for me.

Dealing with Footsnipers
Footsnipers are always going to be in one of three spots. Either side of the ramp, or camping the ledge above BBD. The latter is the most difficult to deal with, because it's almost a guess where the player is on the ledge. Communication is key here.

The Scout has muzzle flash. You can see the muzzle flash from a footsniper on either side of the ramp, even though you can't see the player who shot at you. If you're footsniped, and you didn't see any muzzle flash, the perp is very likely on the ledge above BBD. Tell your team! A bit of walling should get the job done. Help them, and yourself, even more by giving them a likely position on the footsniper. If you're in the very back against the wall, at the corner of the underpass, with the shed in front of you, your footsniper's on the right side of the ledge - a good 8 feet from BBD, but at least 5 feet from the wall. This is where he would have to be in order to have your feet in his field of view.

If you did see muzzle flash on one of the sides, shoot back! You'll need to fire a very tight, accurate pattern to be effective, and you'll need to place your shots through the metal door that only comes halfway down in the front. Look at the ramp angle, and adjust upward along it. Remember, you want to aim for the head to inflict maximum damage, and be sure to remember the ramp levels off after a point, it's not at an incline all the way up. Adjust your aim accordingly for these factors.

If you're confident you hit him, he moved. Adjust quickly and get another couple bullets into him. A footsniper hit through the wall will typically move up the ramp, closer to the front, as moving backward would only place him in your crosshair. So place your last bullets further left if the player is on your left side of the ramp, and further right if he's on your right side. This way, he'll walk into your shots.

Dealing with the Vent as a T
This is the most common form of "walling" a T player will have available to him. What do you need in order to do it effectively? An AK-47, Krieg, or Deagle. A Galil will do the job well, too. You'll need to learn to recognize the sound a player makes on a ladder, and the sound a player makes when he leaps from the roof into the base of the vent. A decent pair of headphones are a big part of using sound anytime you're playing CSS. The last thing you'll need is a pair of functioning eyes, and patience.

When a player uses the vent ladder or jumps in, you'll hear a telltale sound give him away. You will also see the soles of his boots as he crawls through the vent. Don't give him a chance to shoot back! And here's where the patience part comes in. When you're hit with a bullet in CSS, your movement slows down dramatically. A player crawling through the vents who's being sprayed with bullets is almost completely stuck in place. When you're shooting at someone inside, take your time. He's not going anywhere. But the moment you stop to reload, he's off like a racehorse, and in the UV before you've finished reloading your weapon.

Always pay attention to the things going on around you. When I play, I usually take a second before rushing off, move my crosshair over my teammates to see where specific people are going, then move on to my position. When I see a teammate was killed, I check to see who it was. If it was the guy who said he was headin to the vent, then surprise! I know someone's watching the vent, and I'll communicate this with my teammates at the back and front of the warehouse. If I'm then told that the vents appear to be clear? I know a T is camping lower vent! So what do you do? Drop in quickly - don't use the ladder - and prefire him.

So as a T, glance at the vent every once in a while. If the guy covering it is now lying dead on top of the boxes, and there's blood spattered on the wall behind him, you probably have an intruder in your vent. Look for the boots. If you dont see any, he either dropped down, killed your vent guard, and went back out on the roof, or he's in the UV (or possibly already inside the office! o.0) Most experienced players never leave the inside of the building once they're safely inside for more than a matter of seconds. This includes the vent. If I drop into the vent and kill a guy watching it, I'm sure as heck not giving that advantage back to the Ts! I'm movin my rear toward the UV asap.

The CT Box Rush
We've all been playing as a T, took a bit longer to buy our weapons, and found ourselves killed before we took one step. Odds are if this happens to you, you were killed by the CT box-rusher.

The CT box-rush is pretty well known. Basically all there is to pulling it off is making sure your weapon is in your inventory, and a knife is in your hand, when you're released from the pre-round buy period. If you bought an M4 (which is arguably the best weapon for this rush), don't rush the box and equip your silencer at the same time, you can't afford to take that extra time running. They'll know where you're shooting from whether your weapon is silenced or not. =P

So you've got your weapon in your inventory, and a knife in your hand. The round begins. Move quickly, avoid bumping into your teammates, and go to your immediate right, along the truck. As soon as you're out in the open area, turn 45 degrees to your left and run directly to the ladder leaning on the two crates against the warehouse. The idea is to take the shortest route possible. Press 1 to pull out your rifle the moment you hit the ladder, it'll be charged and ready to use by the time you're at the top. Don't go to the roof, just to the top of the first ladder. Line yourself up with the very edge of the crate, move forward until you're against the building, or at least pretty close, so you don't block teammates, crouch, and spray your weapon through the wall. After 15-20 shots, you'll know if you hit someone. A bullet that hits someone through this wall sounds different than a bullet that didn't hit anybody. If you didn't hit anybody, get up and move ASAP. They'll be shooting back in a moment if they haven't started already. If you hit someone, you may want to continue shooting until you register a kill, empty your magazine, or don't hear bullets registering anymore. If you hit someone, but you're being shot at and you've been wounded, you'll need to decide if you want to push your luck for a free kill (that you may not get either way). It's up to you. Just know that a CT can be killed by a T who walls here just as easily, and again, the T here has the advantage, because if bullets are coming out, he not only knows you're there, but he can stand just off to the side of your bullet spray while he shoots back, unwounded. Be careful with this one.

Simple to do. Effective when properly executed. Always risky.

The Bay Door
There are a few risk factors with this one, regardless of which side you're playing. Here's how to do it.

The bay door is the small silver-gray "loading dock" door toward the back (or side alley) part of the warehouse. IMO, the only time it's ever worth your ammo to wall here, is when you know for a fact someone is on the other side, and your crosshair is on the person. How could you possibly know? The radar. The radar works pretty simply. When you or a member of your team sees a member of the opposing team, the member of the opposing team will show up as a red dot on your radar. So let's say you're a CT, and you're standing near BBD, outside, trying to get an angle on someone. Suddenly your radar blips red at the bay door. A scouter on your team probably saw the T standing there from the front. So you know there's a guy there. Now you have two options. Strafe in BBD, prefire kill him, and strafe out? Or go wall him, not exposing yourself to any fire from any angle (except the possibility of being walled in return). I generally choose option two.

If you're a T, you're at the greater risk at this spot. If you're standing there shooting through the door, you have your back to BBD, allowing someone the opportunity for an easy kill. You're blind to the front door, and if someone happens to come inside while you're shooting the door, you'll be easy prey.

I think that's plenty to soak in during one sitting. Practice, practice, practice.

This is just a sort of compilation of tips I've picked up while playing, things people I know taught me, etc. Some of the tips are really basic and won't be of much help to an experienced player, some of them are a bit more advanced. Anyway, hope these help someone. lol

Different weapons have different firing patterns due to different rates of fire and recoil. For example, the AK-47 vs the M4A1. If you're standing up, and spray the rifle, you would want to aim your M4 at a player's neck, and the recoil will raise the rifle (and your crosshairs) into the target's head. With the AK, you could effectively aim at a target's groin, and the high recoil of the AK would raise your crosshair into and past the target's head area very quickly while spraying. Obviously using this tactic isn't the best idea, as a skilled player will just aim for the head right off the bat and fire controlled bursts.

Along the lines of spraying, which contrary to popular belief can be quite effective (when mastered), once you become comfortable with the weapon's recoil and shot pattern, you need to get comfortable with countering that muzzle-rise. In other words, as you're spraying a rifle, you need to drag your mouse downward slowly, so as to counter the muzzle -rise and keep your crosshair on your target (or in the spot where your bullets will land... more on this later).

I see a lot of new players running around, turning corners, with their weapon crosshair pointed in poor directions. Far above where a player might be, far below a player, etc. When you turn a corner, come up over a ladder, cross a threshold on a roof to find a player below, or open a door, move (or stand) with your crosshair pointed where you expect the enemy to be standing. You don't want to see a player, then have to move your crosshair to him, then perfect your aim, then fire. It can all be done in a matter of a second or two, but when you're playing against skilled players, even a split second can be the difference between a kill or a death.

When you're shooting at a player, you're not shooting at the player. You're shooting at his hitbox. A hitbox is simply an invisible area on a player where a shot will register as a hit on the Source engine. CS:S is imperfect, like everything else, and when you see a player, know that his hitbox isn't always exactly where you visually see the player. CS:S hitboxes trail very slightly when a player is moving. Picture a slinky ...slinky-ing down a flight of stairs. (=P) As the slinky descends the stairs, it expands and contracts. In it's starting position, the slinky is still, coiled tightly. This would be a player standing still, or crouching down, not moving. You would want to aim at the bulk of slinky, or the mass of the player, as you shoot. His hitbox is centered within the graphic of the player you see. As the slinky moves downward, it expands, and it's no longer coiled tightly. This would be a player running across a walkway in front of you or jumping down off a small building. In this situation, you wouldn't want to point your rifle directly on the graphic of the player. While you may have aimed perfect on the player's head, and placed a shot or two exactly where the graphic for his head is, you'll have missed your shot, because his hitbox is actually slightly behind the graphic of his character. Picturing the slinky, you'll want to aim slightly on the tail-end when the slinky is expanded. In other words, you'll want to aim slightly behind the player when he's moving, rather than directly on him. I know this sounds crazy, but with some practice, you'll see that this is true. =)

Earlier I mentioned pointing your crosshair so your bullets will land where you want them to, rather than where your crosshair actually is. Like I said, every weapon has unique firing patterns. I honestly don't have an accurate description of how each weapon works, but I do know how the deagle works. If you're spraying with a deagle, you only have 7 shots, so you want to make sure they hit. At the same time, you only need one headshot to kill a player, even if he has a helmet. When spraying with the deagle, you want to hold your crosshair slightly down and to the left of the spot you want to hit. So if you're spraying a deagle at a guy standing still and you want to hit him in the head, try aiming at his right shoulder, or even his right bicep area, at medium range. Practice the shot patterns with different weapons on walls. Find a small crack, or use a custom spray on a wall, then back up to medium range, and fire away. It's a great way to learn how each weapon fires.

A lot of players seem baffled when they're killed through walls, and jump at the chance to call "wallhacks" on a person. Other than the obvious spots on maps where spraying will usually score a kill or two (outside boxes to office ramp on assault), there are things people do to give themselves away.

Flashlights. For the love of God, don't stand by a wall and beam your flashlight on it. It's the easiest target from the outside that just screams, "Hey, I'm right here. Standing nice and still for you. Kill me please..."

Rifles with muzzle-flash (all of them except the M4 with the silencer equipped). Same thing as a flashlight. The muzzle-flash is very obvious on the other side of the wall, and lets people know you're standing right there.

Familiar with the term "clipping?" Clipping is present in CSS. Essentially, clipping is when a part of a player, usually an arm or weapon, can "pierce" a wall and appear on the other side. I'm using examples from cs_assault, because that's the primary map I play, but there are spots on most maps where clipping is present. In assault, your weapon and arm can clip through every single outer wall of the warehouse. If you're standing flush against a wall and looking right at the wall itself, yep, your weapon is visible on the other side - again, a big target for players on the other side to shoot at.

No flashlight, no muzzle flash, no clipping, walled anyway? Let's make some noise.

Sound is an incredibly important part of CS:S. The sound of footsteps on a catwalk, a player jumping onto a cardboard box, a player jumping from a roof down into a vent, the general spray of weapons, the realization that some weapons are only available to one team or the other, they can all give you away. Learn to recognize a weapon by the sound of it being fired, and react based on whether that weapon is probably being fired by a T or CT. Valve made this easier by incorporating the radar in CSS. Use it, for your team's sake, as well as your own. Learn to recognize common sounds like footsteps, and don't be afraid to shoot at a wall when you do hear an enemy on the other side of it (unless a server has a rule against this... which is ridiculously common). Eventually you'll be able to pinpoint an enemy on other sides of walls, and through that, you'll be able to kill an opponent without exposing yourself to enemy fire - the ideal situation.

Learn how to use angles when throwing nades or flashbangs, learn their blast radius, learn how long an enemy is disoriented for before the flashbang effect wears off. Use flashbangs and smoke to your advantage, but know that at certain times, they'll be more detrimental than helpful. Recognize the pros and cons of each and when they're best used.

This last point is probably the biggest mistake I see people make. Let there be no doubt in your mind that a player with 1 HP is still very deadly, whereas a dead player won't be shooting at you.

Don't make the mistake of shooting at an enemy before you can kill him. If you turn a corner and a door is open, do NOT shoot the door, unless you're completely certain he's there, and you have the means to score a headshot (IE, if the player is clipping the door). Even if you hit the player, odds are you won't kill him unless he's almost dead, because every weapon in CSS takes a huge damage loss when penetrating walls. Instead of shooting through the door or wall when you know an enemy is there, it might be more better if you take some cover and wait. More often than not, if a player opens a door, he plans to enter or exit through that door. Be mindful that he may throw a flashbang, so be ready to avoid the disorienting effect (this is as simple as turning away, or placing something between you and the flashbang), and be ready with your crosshair pointed where he'll be. In this way, you can kill the player, taking him out of the match, rather than injuring him, and allowing him another opportunity to kill you or your teammates at a later time.

The most important thing is to always learn from your mistakes, and to never make the same mistake twice. Watch your team, as well as your opponents, and learn from their mistakes, so you don't make the same one later. Good luck. =)

Ever since I picked up an NES controller when I was five or six, I've been hooked on games.  I always had friends who were also into games, but I only had one friend during my youth who loved video games as much as me. 

As a child, and throughout my life, I never had any idea what I wanted to do as an adult. When adults would jokingly ask my peers and I what we wanted to be when we grew up, most kids gave answers like a policeman, astronaut, doctor, or teacher. I was never able to answer the question, and I thought it was very peculiar that no career seemed to interest me - particularly as I matured and entered high school, when talk about careers became an everyday topic.  There were times when I thought I would love making video games, but for some reason I considered it to be an unreachable goal, sort of an immature dream, if you will - similar to an 18 year old without a driver's license insisting he would become a Nascar driver.  I just didn't think of it as a realistic career goal, for whatever reason.

About two years ago, I bought CS:S at a coworker's suggestion.  The very first day I picked up the game, I ran into a guy named c0ke, who seemed to be really good at the game.  Three days later, two other guys (Rob and Unbe) who were each playing for the first time happened to come into the server when c0ke and I were playing there.  Over that first week, the four of us realized we all got along with each other really well, and traded X-Fire account names so we would be able to stay in touch and play CSS together.  Three months later, I applied for admin on that same server we all met in (a 24/7 Assault, coincidentally enough) and was accepted.  The server ended up being shut down by it's owner a month later for personal reasons, and the four of us decided we would all pitch in and start our own 24-player pub server, which we ran successfully for the next four months. 

Right around that time, I got orders for a six month deployment to Iraq.  Rob and Unbe decided they would shut down the server and give World of Warcraft a try, since they'd heard from friends that it was a great game. c0ke was offered a spot on a CAL-O team, and was eager to give that a shot.  So I deployed to Iraq, Rob and Unbe left CSS for WoW, and c0ke entered the competitive gaming scene.  When I got back from Iraq, I joined Rob and Unbe in WoW, leaving CSS almost entirely for the next year.  Backing up a bit, c0ke's team made it into CAL-IM, and c0ke gave his spot up for a friend of his (who had been on a different team the prior season) about three months after I got back, so he could join us in WoW.  At this point in the story, it's around May '07.  I applied for a spot on the Honor Guard team here at Nellis AFB and was accepted.  This gave me a lot of free time during the days, when the rest of my posse (=P) was still at work.  So I started playing CSS a bit more, but still spent the majority of my gaming time on WoW.

My Honor Guard tour ended 1 Oct - about six weeks ago.  The time I spent playing CSS during those four months got me hooked on the game again, and I left WoW completely the first week in October. During these past two months playing CSS, I've improved immensely, and I'm now playing on a level I've never been at.  I was recently invited to join Reverse, a team I've played alongside in 108.4 from time to time.  I'll be a recruit until the team's leaders decide whether or not I should be officially accepted onto their roster.  If I make the cut, I'll be competing with Reverse in CAL-O next season, which will be the team's first season in competitive gaming.  Obviously, I'm very excited to see how the cards will unfold in this, because I've been eager to give competitive gaming a shot for some time now.

Looking back on the past two years, it's really interesting how things have played out.  When Rob, Unbe, c0ke, and I started our server, we also started a clan called L33t Fl33t, with the intention to enter CAL-O, play our best, and just see how things ended up. We never entered CAL, and I think my unexpected deployment had a lot to do with that.  c0ke was always the most skilled player out of the four of us, and he actually did end up competing in CAL-O, and had what it took to proceed into IM after his first season ever.

Now Unbe's engaged, and he's lucky to be allowed to play video games with us even three or four days a week (LOL).  c0ke has a job that gives him immense freedom, so he plays video games now as much as ever, but says the time he spent playing WoW has made his FPS skill all but disappear, and that he'll never again reach the level he was playing at when he was in CAL.  We know he's lying though - he [i]still[/i] plays better than the other three of us. =P

Rob and I became good friends soon after meeting in that first CSS server, and always joked around that we were long-lost twins.  We're both in jobs we don't enjoy doing, and have dreamed of making video games for some time.  Rob's older brother, Dave, develops video games for a living, and he's told me about his education, given me a day-in-the-life scenario of a game developer, etc, over the past year or so.  Talking with Dave has really made me realize that game development is far from being an unrealistic career goal.  So during these past two months, Rob and I decided to finally set the dream we share in motion, and who better to go through it with than a long-lost twin? XD  So we're currently applying to Full Sail, a school with an exceptional game development program, and plan to begin the course together upon my separation from the Air Force in September 2008.

I'm very eager to see what the future holds. When I joined the Air Force nearly four years ago, I had never played any online game whatsoever.  I never would have guessed my life would take this kind of turn.

Inc rant.

I've got some issues with World of Warcraft, but I find myself still playing it regularly a year after I started. WoW is one of the most time-consuming games I could ever possibly fathom playing, simply because of the way Blizzard has changed the game's general structure.

This is all nothing more than my personal opinion, but let's have a look at the game before The Burning Crusade was released, or as some people call it, Vanilla WoW. In Vanilla WoW, the game was much more simple. Once you had hit level 60, which was the level cap up until TBC was released, you basically had two possible avenues to pursue. You could either raid dungeons with groups (PvE), or fight against other players (PvP) in battlegrounds or throughout Azeroth if you'd chosen to play on a PvP server. And of course the option to do both was available, and still is. Regardless of the route you decided to pursue, your first step after hitting 60 would be to go out and get your Tier-0 armor, and replace your current gear with that. This could be easily accomplished with four friends, in as little as a couple of nights or more, depending how much time you spent playing WoW.

After you earned your T-0 armor set, you were ready to begin along the path of your choice. If you wanted to become a notorious PvP threat, you would spend your time in battlegrounds, accumulating as many kills and honor points as possible, trying to move up the ranks. As you moved up in PvP rank, new, better armor and weapons became available to you, as well as a new title associated with each rank. Identical armor was given to both Horde and Alliance players for the same rank, the only differences were the actual names of the ranks, and looks and names of the armor. An avid gamer - that is a player who spent time on WoW every day - could move up to the next rank every week if he or she was willing to spend the time PvPing, and the armor and weapons available to those who dedicated the time to earn the title of High Warlord (for the Horde) or Grand Marshall (for the Alliance) was outstanding.

If you chose to raid, you would go out and earn your T-0, same as a PvPer, then gather 19 friends and step into Zul-Gurub, the first "endgame" dungeon. As you and your raid group progressed through ZG, you became better geared, outfitting yourself for the next step: the Molten Core. Or, since MC required 40 players and a fair bit of gear farming (gogogo fire resist), you could go from ZG to Ahn'Qiraj 20 - the first section of the much more advanced AQ40. Most raid groups chose to join with another which had also finished with ZG, and move onto MC, because the dungeon was well-known for being nothing more than a zergfest, meaning just about any group could successfully complete the dungeon, regardless of their skill levels or raiding experience. AQ20 was fairly easy as well, but required slighty more coordination than MC, and again, only 20 people.

I just realized that at this rate, this post will be 100 pages long. Long story short, if you wanted to raid, you learned to work with your guild members and each player learned to do his job in the raid, and do it well. You started with ZG and progressed through the instances at a rate set by nothing but your guild's overall skill and determination. At this point in the game, a player wearing a full set of gear from ZG would be able to perform about as well as a player ranked 8 or 9 through PvP - the highest rank being 14, which took an immense amount of time to earn, because of the "curve" type PvP system Blizzard had in place. Only a certain amount of people would promote each week, on each server, and as I said earlier, the gear available at rank 14 was definitely sought after by a lot of people.

Then came the day we found out Blizzard was redesigning the PvP system almost entirely. Instead of progressing through PvP ranks, players would now be awarded honor daily, rather than the weekly update that was in-place before. The "best part" was that honor would now hold a sort of monetary value. Now you didn't have to work hard to achieve Rank 14 for those amazing weapons and armor pieces. Now you would purchase those pieces of gear using the honor you accumulated while PvPing. This made the game much more balanced for people who didn't have immense amounts of time to devote to World of Warcraft, negatively dubbed "casuals" by the more avid gamers. This patch was welcomed with open arms by casuals and other so-called lazy gamers, but the people who had spent months working to earn their High Warlord or Grand Marshall status were furious, and in a way, they had the right to be. To give you an example of why this was, you need to know a bit more about the PvP system. There were 14 ranks total. No matter how often you PvP'd, you could never promote more than once a week, because Blizzard set it so that honor only updated once a week - every Tuesday morning during weekly downtime for maintenance. It took the average player three months or so to hit rank 10. That's if the person played every day. To hit rank 12 took an additional two months or so. Rank 13 took yet another month, give or take a week. In order to hit rank 14, dedicated players took vacation from work or school and spent 12+ hours a day doing nothing but playing World of Warcraft for two weeks. Even then, some players couldn't manage to make the cut. Knowing that, I believe it's easier to understand why people who took the time to do this were furious.

The whole point was that the gear difference was so incredible, Rank 14 almost became a status symbol. Nobody in mediocre gear would ever fight a Rank 14 player one on one, in some cases even with a number advantage. The one big difference between Vanilla WoW and TBC is simple. In Vanilla WoW, a player with raid gear could perform exceptionally well in PvP, and vice versa. In TBC, a player wearing full raid gear will be slaughtered by a player in full PvP gear, even if the gear is at the same level of difficulty to earn. Likewise, a player in full PvP gear will not be able to perform well in PvE.

Why? Because of another exciting change, called resilience, which became active with the release of The Burning Crusade. Resilience is a stat that's only available on PvP gear. Essentially, what it does is reduces the amount of damage a player takes when being attacked. PvE gear doesn't have any resilience on it. Instead, to make up the same amount of item points, Blizzard stacks either spell damage, spell penetration, attack power, or melee +hit on the PvE gear - all stats that improve a player's performance in endgame dungeons, where the targets are higher level NPCs.

To wrap this all up, I'll list some of the things I personally feel have changed the game to the point where it's become almost completely flawed. I've already discussed some of these things, and I didn't even mention some others. The list is as follows:

-Resilience - PvP has become a contest reduced to nothing more than outlasting your opponent. What used to be decided by individual skill is now decided by gear. If two players have equal gear, it will be impossible for certain classes to beat others, because of Blizzard's rock-paper-scissors approach to the different classes in PvP.

-Flying Mounts - Because of their low cost, almost every single level 70 in the game now has a flying mount. Because of this, ground travel is nearly nonexistant in the Outlands, save players who haven't yet reached level 70. The problem with this is that it has effectively removed "World PvP" from the game. World PvP meaning PvP outside of battlegrounds. In Vanilla WoW, world PvP was an enormous part of the game for anyone playing on a PvP server. You chose to play that type of server, and like it or not, you were attacked by members of the other faction very regularly, often caught by surprise. This made the game more challenging, more spontaneous, and generally more enjoyable for a lot of people. The lack of world PvP in TBC is one of the most common complaints WoW players have.

-The difference in gear - It's been said (and not just by me =P) that the difference between an exceptionally geared level 70 and a poorly geared level 70 is currently as great as the difference between any level 60 and a level 30 in Vanilla WoW. In other words, it is virtually impossible for a new level 70 to kill an accomplished level 70. What this means is that Blizzard, as a single entity, has contradicted itself in the most extreme fashion.

Remember the PvP patch I mentioned? The one that removed the PvP ranking system? That patch was put in place to make WoW more "casual friendly," or more enjoyable for less avid gamers. With the difference in gear at level 70, they've done the exact opposite. Once you hit 70, the game begins, because if you plan on doing anything well in WoW, you need to be well geared. All because of the extreme difference in gear at the level cap. This unfortunate change is what altered WoW in the biggest sense.

In Vanilla WoW, it didn't matter if you'd been level 60 for a week or a year. You had a fighting chance against most players, and if you wanted to raid, you could jump in and begin your progression through the PvE aspect of WoW (which was, and still is very enjoyable, in my opinion).

The thing is, I play WoW for PvP. I enjoyed raiding for a long time, but the original reason I started playing the game was for PvP, and the whole way it worked was outstanding to begin with. Blizzard has ripped the heart and soul of PvP out of World of Warcraft. Like the PvE, PvP has become nothing more than a gear-check. The difference?

There's better AI in the PvP. -.-