Lake Wintergrasp

General Information
Gameplay
Vault of Archavon
Beta Screenshots
Images
Map
Media

Summary

From WoWWiki and Computer & Video Games Interview with J Allen Brack:

Lake Wintergrasp is a large lake located in between Sholazar Basin, the Borean Tundra, The Dragonblight, and Icecrown Glacier. It is the largest body of water, albeit frozen, on the continent of Northrend.

Lake Wintergrasp will appear as a zone fully dedicated to World PvP, even on PvE servers. It will focus on siege weapon warfare.

Lake Wintergrasp is WoW's first non-battleground zone solely devoted to PvP action.
According to a fixed, rolling schedule, one faction will defend the keep/mine, and the other faction will assault it. Both sides will fight over towers and siege workshops scattered around the zone.
If the attacking force succeeds in capturing the keep/mine, that faction will defend it during the next rotation. If that attacking force fails to capture the final objective before the next rotation, that faction will be given more resources (unknown to what those might be for now)" to balance out the fight, and give every faction a chance to hold Lake Wintergrasp.
Lake Wintergrasp will feature a variety of new daily quests. These quests include (but are not limited to): quests where you have to ride a mount with an NPC, holding attackers at bay; flying aircraft quests; flying mount quests where you have to lower ropes to evacuate NPCs; in these quests, mounts can hold multiple players!

Lore

From WoWWiki:

The lake sits midway up and just west of the Dragonblight proper. It's unknown if the lake has always been frozen, but probably has, since Icecrown Glacier is right above it. “Frozen lake” is a misnomer, of course. The surface is frozen solid, and one can walk across it and even drag a small cart if it’s not too full. Yet beneath that sheet of ice the water flows, so cold it’ll suck the heat from a person in minutes (if he's lucky) and so blue it rivals a clear evening sky. The taunka (a lost race of tauren) cut holes in the ice and spear the fish swimming beneath. It’s bitterly cold near the water, and the wind can slice right through a person.

In this zone there is a valuable mine. This mine is contested by both the Horde and Alliance, who both seek to reap its riches.

As of Beta Build 8770, Lake Wintergrasp is live and available for play on Beta servers. It is, however, still a bit buggy. This page contains a summary of known gameplay mechanics.

Overview

Wintergrasp world PvP "events" happen on a set schedule and last a set amount of time. Details on this are still being worked out.

Each faction battles for control of the main Keep in the northern part of the zone. Which faction control the Keep at the start of the event is determined by the previous event period. The controlling faction receives the buff "Rulers of Wintergrasp", increasing damage dealt by 5% while in the zone.

Players make use of Siege Vehicles and other weaponry to destroy the Keep and other structures in the zone. In order to obtain these weapons, players must control their various spawn points, which appear as Goblin workshops throughout the zone.

Upon winning a match, the successful party gains approximately 7500 honor and 150 arena points for participating. However, the current buff in the gamefiles is "Grants the winning team 1500 honor and 500 arena points for participating in Wintergrasp." {Note: Values as of Beta Build 8820. Arena points may not be given for Wintergrasp gameplay at release.)

Blizzplanet's Wintergrasp Preview describes the current state of gameplay:

"...I could see siege weapons destroying buildings slowly. You can attack bridges, and you can see chunks bursting in all directions, until the building or bridge are destroyed completely. I noticed you can take control of buildings by staying near them for certain amount of time. The flag will then shift to your faction: Alliance or Horde. Seems to work like Halaa in Nagrand. You can see a blue/red bar on the top-right indicating who is winning."

Rank Buffs

One of the main features of Wintergrasp gameplay is a system of buffs gained by players when they participate in the zone. There are currently three ranks, each of which allows players differing amounts of access to the various Siege Vehicles in the zone. These ranks are tracked as buffs.

Available Ranks:

Recruit (Rank 1): "Fighting in Wintergrasp has enlisted you into the fight." Allows you to create catapults.
Corporal (Rank 2): Buff that allows you to operate siege and ground vehicles. "Defeating 10 combatant in the battle for Wintergrasp has promoted you to the rank of Corporal."
First Lieutenant (Rank 3): Buff that allows you to operate flying vehicles. "Defeating 10 combatant in the battle for Wintergrasp has promoted you to the rank of First Lieutenant."

Siege Vehicles

There are a variety of Siege Vehicles available in the Wintergrasp zone which players can control in order to help fight the opposite faction.

When a Vehicle becomes available (and the player has the required Rank), the player can click on the vehicle and board it. Currently there are six types of Vehicles available:

Forsaken Catapult- Requires Recruit
The Demolisher- Requires Corporal
Siege Engine- Requires Corporal
Goblin Shredder- Requires First Lieutenant
Flying Machine- Requires First Lieutenant
Flying Machine (Bomber)- Requires First Lieutenant

Each vehicle has special abilities that allow it to attack enemy players as well as structures in the zone. See the individual Vehicle pages listed above for more details.

Siege Vehicles can travel anywhere in the zone, except through water. If a Vehicle is driven into water, it gains the "Wintergrasp Water" debuff and is disabled until it leaves the water.

Play Time & Upcoming Developments

From the official Beta Forums:

There will be a lot of tuning and balancing of the new PvP zone (Lake Wintergrasp) done in the coming months. One thing we are looking to do though to help with population imbalances is impose certain benefits for the side with less players in the zone. For instance, since supplies will be necessary to unlock certain vehicles, the side with the population handicap may see a decrease in requirements. We may also offer increasingly more supply benefits for a faction if they are suffering from consecutive losses in Lake Wintergrasp. The goal is to even the playing field regardless of faction population balances across all realms. We plan to give Lake Wintergrasp a definitive play time where the event may last somewhere around 45 minutes. The event would not start again for a set amount of time after the battle is won. We will tune these times as testing further develops. The plan, additionally, is to provide certain incentives for visiting this zone between battles. We’ll be sure to provide more information about Lake Wintergrasp as well as the new Battleground as we get closer to releasing them for Beta testing.