Alterac Valley

Battleground for 40 a side, levels 51–60 · Same as Classic Era · read from the Forever client, build 1.60.1.69893. All instances →

Alterac Valley loading screen

Hidden within the Alterac Mountains, Alterac Valley is the home of Thrall's own clan of orcs, the Frostwolves. The Stormpike dwarves have established a foothold in the valley and seek to plumb its depths for riches and links to their ancestral past. The territorial Frostwolves, unwilling to suffer the dwarven incursion, have rallied an army... an army eager for righteous slaughter.

Queue

  • 40 per side · levels 51–60 · groups of up to 5

How much of it was built

A map's terrain is stored as tiles, each 533 yards square. Counting only the tiles with something actually built on them — which leaves out the empty ground a map pads its edges with — gives each battleground's real built area. Warsong Gulch is the yardstick.

Hyjal Crater5 a side4.4×
Alterac Valley40 a side2.1×
Battle for Gilneas10 a side1.1×
Warsong Gulch10 a side1.0×
Arathi Basin15 a side0.9×
Darkspear Islands15 a side0.9×

Built area as multiples of Warsong Gulch. Every tile of every map was read, not sampled.

End to end3,733 yardsAbout 9 minutes on foot, 4 mounted
Built tiles17 of 355×7 grid, 2,667 × 3,733 yards
Scenery placed3,55470 buildings, 19 ground textures

One caveat, because this is the figure most worth quoting. Built area is where terrain work exists, not where a player can walk. Alterac Valley's mountains are built ground to a level designer and a wall to everyone else. What this establishes is how much was made, not how much is playable.

Every measured PvP map

Scenery and buildings are placement counts, read from every tile of each map.
MapQueueBuilt tilesvs Warsong GulchSceneryBuildingsTextures
Hyjal Crater5 a side35 of 354.4×8,7564641
Alterac Valley40 a side17 of 352.1×3,5547019
Battle for Gilneas10 a side9 of 161.1×2,031387
Warsong Gulch10 a side8 of 161.0×1,1151911
Arathi Basin15 a side7 of 160.9×3,287266
Darkspear Islands15 a side7 of 250.9×1,0087115

The evidence, tile by tile

For anyone who wants to check the numbers rather than take them. Each square is one 533-yard terrain tile as the client stores it, shaded by how much scenery sits on it; a dashed square is ground with nothing built on it. This is where every figure above comes from.

Show the terrain grids
Hyjal Crater5 a side · 35 of 35 tiles built
Alterac Valley40 a side · 17 of 35 tiles built
Battle for Gilneas10 a side · 9 of 16 tiles built
Warsong Gulch10 a side · 8 of 16 tiles built
Arathi Basin15 a side · 7 of 16 tiles built
Darkspear Islands15 a side · 7 of 25 tiles built
nothing built 1–99 pieces 100–299 300–599 600+— hover a tile for its exact counts

SOURCES — the built-area figures on this page are read from the World of Warcraft: Forever client, build 1.60.1.69893: each map's own terrain files, every tile of every map, with a tile counted as built when a doodad or a building is placed on it. Nothing here is taken from another site. Reproducible with node scripts/measure-map-terrain.mjs --json.

Areas inside

Irondeep Mine · Stonehearth Outpost · Dun Baldar · Icewing Pass · Frostwolf Village · Tower Point · Coldtooth Mine · Winterax Hold · Iceblood Garrison · Frostwolf Keep · Frost Dagger Pass · Field of Strife · Icewing Cavern · Frostwolf Graveyard · Frostwolf Pass · Dun Baldar Pass · and 10 more

Same as Classic Era · map 30 Source: Forever client build 1.60.1.69893

Classic Era
  • Classic's Group Finder listed it for levels 51–60

Every instance

Dungeons & Raids

52 instances
With a level set, doors you cannot enter yet lock and instances near your level light up.
5 group size, 10v10 players a side 28 Group Finder level, entry level with a plus, or a battleground's level band Confirmed raid Blizzard has confirmed for Forever Announced announced, not in the client yet Not confirmed 40? in the client from Classic, not announced new in Forever changed