For those that have never battlegrounded before, there are four battle grounds to choose from. When you sign up to a battle ground you will go into a queue and WoW will put you into the next available run that matches your level band.
WoW will fill up a battle ground from any realm so you will be playing with (and against) players from other realms in most situations. Before they implemented this feature, wait times of more than 24 hours were not uncommon, these days the wait times are usually only a few minutes.
The level bands are 10 levels long and end on the 9'th of each band. So there are 10-19,20-29,30-39, etc. This holds true except for the last band which is just the max level (70). As you can imagine there is generally quite a bit of an advantage if you are in the top end of the level range. Most people you play against will be 19,29,39,etc.
Each of the different battle grounds have different level requirements, for example, to enter WSG you only need to be level 10, but for Eye Of the Storm you need to be 61.
Each battle ground will also define the size of the teams, ranging from 10v10 to 20v20.
Each of the battle grounds have a home in the world and a world entrance. You can enter the BG using the world entrance or by talking to the Battle Master in a major city. If you make the effort to go to the world entrance you will be able to pick up certain quests that you can do inside a BG.
Winning battlegrounds give you two things. You get tokens and honor points. These tokens and the honor points can be handed in to the quatermasters (in stormwind) for items that are generally of pretty good quality. You receive much more honor at higher levels although the rate of tokens is the same (1 for a loss, 3 for a win).
There are also daily PvP quests which are usually just "win X battle ground" and you get extra honor points and gold.
Arathi Basin (AB)
- This is a resource control game where your faction needs to control different vantage points on the map to build up a winning score of resources (2000). The first faction to get the resources wins.
- You get resources by holding the vantage points.
- There are a total of 5 vantage points.
- You will spawn at the closest controlled base or at the starting area which is just off the map.
- You can also win (albeit rarely) by controlling all 5 points for a certain amount of time (not long only a few minutes I think).
- 15v15
- Level 20
Warsong Gulch (WSG)
- This is a very simple capture-the-flag style game.
- Both faction's flags are in their bases and you must capture the enemies flag and return it to your base
- If you're flag is still in your base you can return the enemy flag to capture it and earn a point.
- First to three points wins.
- 10v10
- Level 10
Alterac Valley (AV)
- This is a lot more less structured than the other BGs and really just involves you killing the other faction's npcs until you reach the main boss.
- You take control of various graveyards around the map so when people die they can reenter the battle quicker
- Level 51
- 20v20
Eye Of the Storm (EOS)
- A cross between WSG and AB where you need to control bases AND capture a single flag that spawns in the middle of the map.
- Winning involves points awarded when flags are captured (and I think by holding bases).
- Level 61
- 15v15
This means we can only do WSG and AB, although AB will suck without a mount as the map is reasonably big. We would just get on to both queues and play them until we are sick of them (or sick of waiting!).