There is room for improvement. For example, you must have possession of your own flag to score, which has led to efforts to "hide" the enemy flag, or even deliberately delay ending the match so your team can collect more kills. Making the flags visible on the map, or not requiring a friendly flag at the return point would go a long way toward resolving this problem.
Like anything else, you may grow tired of it after playing it enough times, but until then it is terrific entertainment for PvP fans.
Alterac Valley
This Battleground is only for players level 51 or higher, and it involves a huge campaign with numerous controllable graveyards, destroyable towers, and side quests. These 40 on 40 bloodbaths are vaguely reminiscent of the old Tarren Mill/Southshore tug-of-war, and they rage on for hours or even days. To win you have to fight your way across the map and kill the enemy's NPC General.
Alterac Valley is an outstanding example of what is possible in World of Warcraft Battlegrounds. Not many RPGs feature PvP on this scale, and when they do it's usually more about the size of your team than anything else. In a full Battleground, you can't rely solely on numbers to overwhelm the enemy.
The pace in Alterac Valley is considerably slower than in Warsong Gulch, partly because each faction has a variety of NPC defenders. These defenders are quite tough, and they pretty much rule out running around solo capturing graveyards. By completing specific quests throughout Alterac Valley, players can summon even more powerful creatures to come to their aid. For example, a player-controlled shredder can be acquired and unleashed on the enemy. Under certain conditions, Lokholar the Ice Lord (Horde) and Ivus the Forest Lord (Alliance) can be brought forth to turn the tide of the battle.
Because of the myriad of secondary objectives, Alterac Valley is far less repetitive than Warsong Gulch. Whether you're in an offensive bringing down a tower, a small group trying to take graveyards, or a full raid making a last stand at your base, one trip into AV can be dramatically different from the next.
Some of the issues with Warsong Gulch apply here as well. It takes a minimum of 30 players on each side to start a match, so you can easily wait hours to get in. Again, as a Horde player, you find your team seriously outnumbered at times. While you can contribute at level 51, especially if you play a healer class, you're going to get knocked around pretty hard by the level 60s, including NPCs.
Minor grievances aside, Alterac Valley is a MMORPG milestone, and arguably the best PvP available in a game of this kind right now.
Arathi Basin
If you've played both of the current Battlegrounds, it's not hard to imagine what something between the 2 might look like. Arathi Basin will be the next Battleground released for the game, opening up a 15 on 15 competition to control five resource nodes spread throughout the area. You'll win by being the first team to accumulate 2000 resources, so holding more nodes than your enemy will be the key to victory.
I'm looking forward to Arathi Basin. The nice thing about points-based win conditions is that you know it's only a matter of time before one side prevails. In theory, there is really nothing to prevent Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley from going on forever.
Bottom Line
Though I think there is still room for persistent world PvP objectives in WoW, Battlegrounds are a tremendous improvement to the end game, and they make the game feel far more complete. Arathi Basin should be available soon, and greater variety is always a good thing. It remains to be seen what, if anything, can be done about the wait times. I know I'll be in that queue because this brand of PvP fracas is the most fun I've had yet in World of Warcraft. Don't be too surprised if every other MMORPG out there starts offering something similar.
