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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBig Download talks to Blizzard about eSports and PvE/PvP
by Mike Schramm 
May 13th 2008 at 11:31AM
Our newest sister site Big Download is just a week old, and yet they're already playing with the big boys -- Steven Wong has posted an interview with Blizzard's Lead Designer Tom "Kalgan" Chilton, as well as Paul Della Bitta and Joong Kim of Blizzard's eSports division about what it's going to take to tune the Arena game just right. As he did before, Kalgan confirmed that the Arena Tournament Realm is acting as a laboratory for changes and updates to classes.Della Bitta confirms, also, that Blizzard is still interested in letting players watch the matches, either via television or some other way (we heard that way back when from WSVG's President -- when they were still around, anyway). And Joong Kim lays out a simple timeline for the Arena tourney: Blizzard expects the online portion to be finished mid-July, and the Global Finals will start later in the year, around October (which is when another big Blizzard event is taking place... coincidence?).
Wong doesn't get Kalgan to list a favorite class (obviously -- think of the torment that would cause on the forums), but he does confirm yet again that Blizzard isn't giving up on keeping both the PvP and PvE games the same. They want players using the same abilities as much as possible in both types of gameplay, and apparently they're committed to juggling both of those flaming torches for as long as they can.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, PvP, Interviews, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Sirg May 13th 2008 5:03PM
How come the draenai in the picture has a Grand Marshal rank?
rihahn May 13th 2008 5:30PM
My biggest complaint with the Arena format is similar to my complaint with the Battlenet 'ladders' of yore.
I play games to have 'fun' and, sure, some of that fun comes from PvP. I also like to think I'm fairly good at PvP, afterall I did have a "duelist" title back in season 1...
But, much like the old Starcraft 'ladders', as soon as an element of 'competition' with rewards outside of the game were introduced, the level of play completely changed. It became impossible to play an online game against anyone but people you knew because your play session would last about 3 minutes against someone with crazy skill (and absolutely no concept of "fun") just drove you like a tent peg and moved on the the next opponent.
Now we have WoW and the Arenas, and the situation is very similar. I don't have a dedicated 24/7/365 arena team with 'hot swappers' and 'spotters' who look up the opposing team on the armory and let us know how they're configured in vent so we can adjust tactics or resistances prior to the match.
What I have are a few friends who log in and try have some good old-fashioned PvP fun for an hour or two. But now that there's such a competitive edge, it seems more like work than fun and we're just there to give three other grim-faced players some more points to display on their team site.
They've also completely killed the Horde vs. Alliance aspect of the game because more often than not you're fighting folks from the same side now... I used to take great pride in being a Tauren and part of the great and powerful Horde - now I'm just another fighter in a pointless never-ending stream of duels.
I really do miss the old days before 'honor' when the Horde and the Alliance were truely at war and the announcement of "such and such is under attack" actually meant something.