WoW Arena matches at Electronic Sports World Cup
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jul 6th 2007 at 8:00PM
So the Electronic Sports World Cup is running in France from Thursday to Sunday, and while WoW wasn't one of the featured games, they did have exhibition matches between one of the top European PVP teams, Millenium, and the top PVE team, Nihilum. The teams played 5v5 matches with premade, pre-geared characters. For those of you into the 5v5 thing, Millenium sported a priest, shaman, warrior, paladin, and mage, while Nihilum used ... mostly the same lineup, except with a druid instead of a priest.
Unsurprisingly, Millenium creamed Nihilum 5-0: PVP players tend to beat PVE players at PVP, as it should be. But another interesting result of the match was the ton of pictures taken of the teams. I'm shocked that super-hardcore WoW players can look so ... normal. And blond. Awake kind of looks like that guy who played Doogie Howser, and Kungen is like seven feet tall. Also, the fanboys attempting to look cool made me laugh a little.
What do you guys think about WoW as a competitive gaming sport? How about the team makeup -- does it say something about what classes are underpowered in arena settings?
Edited that add that the "ton of pictures" thread contains two of the funniest statements ever on the WoW forums: "English people call it soccer, americans call it football" and "they all buy massive amounts of cash for real money."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sky_Paladin Jul 6th 2007 8:57PM
I would love to see WoW as a competitive sport. It is obvious from the areas that Blizzard is focusing its content develoment on that this is the direction they are intending to take with it (presumably so WoW can compete with LOTRO and WAR). There are serious design decisions that need to be reversed before competitive WoW can be taken seriously as a sport by the rest of the sporting world. Some examples:
Removing from the game of all effects that cause loss of control of character.
Consolidation of all servers into PvP servers.
Standardise honor/arena/raid rewards so that they are equivalent, or allow progress in any area to purchase the desired rewards OR have predefined limits on the kinds of equipment allowed (eg fight with an item level limit) in competitive events.
Obviously there is a lot more work to it - these are just general design decisions. However, the way that Blizzard intends to develop WoW goes against the current grain, and gamers will naturally resist being coerced to play a certain gaming style. If Blizzard comes out and makes their plans known well in advance, much hate can be avoided.
Hybrys Jul 6th 2007 10:00PM
As I've liked to say MANY times when people claim that Nihilium/people better than you have no life... They are just normal people, who are better at a game than you. They hold jobs. They see sun. And they definately don't live with their parents.
Hybrys - Malfurion US - A
Venkman90 Jul 7th 2007 4:23AM
Better at the game? you asume the game takes skill. They just have more time to throw at it. But yeah they are just normal people unlike the stereotype of basement dwelling bottle pissers.
IKT Jul 7th 2007 4:36AM
@3 so if there are two raid groups, raid group a and b, both equally geared, yet raid group a downs the boss first, what do they have?
Hybrys Jul 7th 2007 4:54AM
You do benifit from being skilled at the game. Knowing when to pop precious cooldowns, such as Battle Resses, potions, HSs, Shield Wall, etc. Likewise, if you, as DPS, just mashed buttons, you'd either overnuke, and pull, or be crappy DPS, and quickly replaced. Think about it.
Apollon Jul 7th 2007 4:57AM
Kungen. Is. HOT.
/drool
This pretty much shattered my preconception of hardcore raiders.
Christian Stricker Jul 7th 2007 5:50AM
Who would've thought Kungen is such a handsome man?
kabes Jul 7th 2007 7:27AM
Of course they're normal looking...they are european WoWers...if this was an american convention half would be obese and the other half would be uber nerds.
Venkman90 Jul 7th 2007 8:21PM
@5 nah, only mouth breathers do stuff like that, I would argue they are more skilled than my guild, we are at SSC and only raid 3 times a week for a few hours, so are obviously not "unskilled" its all about time.
This isnt Ninja Gaiden ;)
Narugh Jul 8th 2007 2:25PM
#9 That is of course bullshit. If you put a "casual raiding" guild against someone that practice that much more and are that much more dedicated of course they are not as good.
Or do you really think that your guild would down Illidan/Kael/Vashj as fast (counting in /played) as an end game guild with NO movies/strategy guides/forum threads/irc questions?
macawesome Jul 8th 2007 11:03PM
This game takes time doesn't it? I don't like how you have to grind to 70, grind mats, grind instances, grind BGs, and so on, to even be competitive.
Time > Skill in this game environment so I don't even consider it a serious competitive game. It's an insult to even put it in the same league as other competitive games.
chaz Jul 9th 2007 9:36AM
Don't these guys come from a Nordic region of the world? Of course they are are tall and blonde.
Kaylek Jul 10th 2007 8:25AM
@11
Time before skill, not time over skill. If you don't have the time to put yourself in a competitive position (ie. collect the gear, learn the classes), that's your thing. You have other priorities.
Don't knock the people that put in the time and do well, just because it burns you up to see someone actually successful as a gamer.
Can you honestly say pro athletes don't spend a tremendous amount of time and money training themselves for their positions (regardless of what headlines they make once they've already made it in the door).
Time and skill go together. If you don't have one, you'll never compete with the upper tier of any competition.
Frosty Jul 10th 2007 4:14PM
I have no problem with people who spend a lot of time playing an online game and getting better at it. I love playing WoW with my friends from around the world and the country. when I have time. I love raiding in Kara and running heroics with people I'm friends with. However, let's not compare it to competitive sports please. Just because you're good at a computer game does not make it equal to excelling in actual sports say like rugby, soccer, basketball. That is laughable.