Mark Jacobs of WAR: "I'm flattered" by Wrath's PvP
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 21st 2008 at 5:00PM
Oh, this is rich. We'll admit that WoW's achievements system is Blizzard's reaction to Warhammer Online's Tome of Knowledge system, and sure, we'll even go so far as to say that the PvE to PvP transfers are a shot off the bow of WAR, but claiming that WoW's Lake Wintergrasp is a straight rip from Warhammer? We'd think not. Still, that won't keep Mythic's CEO Mark Jacobs from claiming exactly that -- the outspoken developer says he's "flattered" by what he calls Blizzard's attempts at open world PvP.Too bad it's straight out nonsense -- we were at the PvP panel at last year's BlizzCon, where Blizzard explained all of the experiments they'd made with world PvP, from the very sad Silithus, to the more successful Halaa and Auchindoun, and how they'd landed on the concept for Lake Wintergrasp -- the worldwide buff, the raid boss, the persistent rewards, and so on -- from all of the world PvP that had come before. That's not to say that Blizzard doesn't want to borrow the best things from Warhammer and other popular games out there, but to claim Wintergrasp is an attempt to emulate Warhammer's PvP is just plain reaching. And leveling through PvP? Considering you need a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp and you can't actually get that until three levels left in the game, it's as stretchy as it gets to claim that's Blizzard's attempt at emulating WAR. If Blizzard really did want to rip off WAR, they'd do it better than that, no?
Can't say we're that surprised, though. Jacobs and his team do have a habit of biting off more than they can chew already.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP, Quests, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Bloodletter Oct 21st 2008 5:07PM
Angry author is angry. Grrr....
And a WoW fanboy.
Don't worry, not ripping out at anyone here, I kind of /agree with Mr.Shramm anyway.
Faar Oct 21st 2008 5:13PM
Yea, that was a bit of a rant.
Really, who cares about PR from company bigwigs? I'd rather look at what they're actually delivering; I've never played WAR, but I have an old IRL mate who do, and he likes it. That's what counts, this dude could claim to have invented the internet, I wouldn't as much as bat an eye as long as his MMO's worth playing... ;)
Oldbear Oct 21st 2008 6:37PM
Come on Faar - Everybody knows Al Gore invented the internet and that Senator Ted Stevens plugged the tubes with his emails.
Preston Oct 21st 2008 6:50PM
You have to be blind not to see Lake Wintergrasp as a reaction to Warhammer's RvR. It's Blizzard's attempt to meet demand for world PvP in lieu of Warhammer. The author's arguments that it's not are unconvincing.
darian Oct 21st 2008 7:07PM
Or just as a reaction to how pointless Halaa was.
Wintergrasp is effectively what everyone was thinking back when Blizzard promised a city that could be taken and retaken via PvP. Halaa was so small in scale, and so meaningless, it's not even funny.
It was fun, just not as epic as everyone imagined.
offday Oct 21st 2008 8:56PM
He's flattered? So are 10,000,000 other people, bud.
BoneyD Oct 21st 2008 11:51PM
I would have said that it was more closely borrowing from a Dark Age of Camelot ideam (another Mythic title)... Darkness Falls was an endgame dungeon that you only had full access to if the frontier relics were controlled by your realm. The other benefit to holding the relics was that your realm got a melee/magic increase.
WoW is also clearly taking points from these games by including a worldwide buff. This, and the exclusive access to content by controlling world objectives, is the incentive that gets people to do them. Halaa etc were fail because it didn't matter if your side never controlled it.
K4el Oct 21st 2008 5:09PM
You're kind of off base here Mike. It's completely with in reason that extra focus on world pvp is a direct reaction to WAR's RVR. Winter grasp has many elements commonly found in WAR.
WAR has been in development for a long time. The time frames match up well enough its not that out there to assume there is some relationship.
Logarth Oct 21st 2008 9:31PM
Blizzard has been promising world combat w/ vehicles, destructable content, and everything else that is in Wintergrasp since WoW was first released in Nov, 2004.
4 years have gone by and they finally updated the engine enough and put in the resources they could to make it possible.
Honestly, Blizzard has been playing this for a long time.
Just because they are similar doesn't mean one developer copied another or vise versa. People get their panties in a bunch too easily. Chill out.
-Logarth of the Gorgannash realm
Justin Oct 21st 2008 5:09PM
This is the second post in the past few weeks that seems to forget there was a time, pre-BC where you could level through PvP in WoW. As I was leveling my first toon, I would grind to x6 and then use token turn ins to get to x0, and there were several others who were doing the same.
So basically, my point is, Blizzard had a way to level through PvP years before WAR was sniffing Beta.
Rihlsul Oct 21st 2008 5:37PM
Exactly! I knew some seriously good players (in PVE even) that leveled ONLY through PvP. A long long time ago (in an Azeroth, far, far away).
DrunkenPandaren Oct 21st 2008 6:44PM
You know what other game had leveling through PvP.
UO.
Amaxe Oct 21st 2008 11:33PM
Wow, that brings back the memories. I had forgotten the tokens-->experience back then.
The week my first character would have made Knight was the week they switched to version 2.0, so I was stuck as a Sar maj
gton Oct 21st 2008 5:10PM
i played WAR and its laughable how much of the game mechanics are borrowed from Wow, furthermore, animations and graphics are sub-par for a 2008 game with heavy system requirements.. when i play a 2008 game with heavy requirements, i expect it to look like that...
Preston Oct 21st 2008 6:52PM
Yeah, WoW never "borrowed" gameplay elements from previous MMOs or anything. And none of its lore was ripped off from Warhammer. Warcraft didn't originally begin life as a Warhammer RTS in 1994. Nosiree.
vazhkatsi Oct 28th 2008 1:12PM
yeah see, i need to be quicker on this whole reply business, yeah warcraft originally began life as a warhammer imitation RTS, but after the first game they developed their own lore and world. so i don't really think this is a new "copy" but i don't think this is specifically a copy from WAR. personally i didn't play wow until BC, because i have to pay for it, and prior to BC i was still in High school, but i still have a magazine article that came out sometime in 2003(2002 maybe earlier?) when they were still way before even alpha, and at that time they were promising world pvp all over, driveable vehicles, and such things. they couldn't do that at the time, but now things have changed.
gton Oct 28th 2008 3:14PM
well, WAR is fully borrowed from games workshop universe, its a lame adaptation of the tabletop games whereas wow offers solid gameplay , decent animations, beautiful worlds for low system requirements... just becaus it was inspired by games workshop (which in itself is inspired by large measure on Tolkien) doesnt mean it can surpass it with a big leap on the videogame level
gton Oct 29th 2008 11:18AM
well, WAR is fully borrowed from games workshop universe, its a lame adaptation of the tabletop games whereas wow offers solid gameplay , decent animations, beautiful worlds for low system requirements... just becaus it was inspired by games workshop (which in itself is inspired by large measure on Tolkien) doesnt mean it can surpass it with a big leap on the
Karthas Oct 21st 2008 5:13PM
"And leveling through PvP? Considering you need a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp and you can't actually get that until three levels left in the game, it's as stretchy as it gets to claim that's Blizzard's attempt at emulating WAR. If Blizzard really did want to rip off WAR, they'd do it better than that, no?"
Actually, Blizzard has talked about making it possible to level through PvP via experience gained in Battlegrounds and through experience-granting Daily Quests, so there's a little more to that comment than just Wintergrasp.
Jay Oct 21st 2008 5:12PM
Its a shame WAR isn't very good.