![]() "We didn't design WoW up front to be an E-sport game. We're trying to retrofit this in - I hope to one day implement some sort of spectator mode." - Rob Pardo All I can say to this point is that I hope either Rob Pardo was drunk when he said this or there was a ventriloquist back stage who worked for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). Why? Simple - right now PvP in WoW, whether battlegrounds or arena, is about as balanced a fight as one where someone brings an armed thermonuclear warhead to a knife fight. Who knows? Maybe Blizzard will surprise us. Maybe they will be the first company to "retrofit" PvP into a game and have it be worth a damn. At this point I ask myself if this is the same company that starts the best armed, highest rated arena teams in the world against the poorest armed teams in the world without any experience at all at the beginning of each seaon? Is this the same company that has given us such stellar performances as that when they thrust the world arena championships upon us in such an unintelligible manner? If Activision/Blizzard really is trying to turn a PvE game like WoW into an e-sport (the likes of which has already been tried and failed) they may as well retrofit the bank account from whence comes the WoW profits with a toilet flush handle. Am I wrong? I sure hope so. Blizzard gave us some of the best PvE content in the industry. However, consider the track record here. This is the same company that was, by the admission of both Rob Pardo and Jeff Kaplin, willing to dedicate the majority of resources on PvE content that at one point 1% of their clients were ever likely to see. These are the same developers that were willing to feed the delusion that is held by "high end" raiding guilds that they set a standard by which the rest of us measure ourselves. When Wolfshead discussed how PvP USED to be saying "People engaged PvP for one reason: it was fun" the nail was hit right on the head. By turning "honor" earned in PvP into currency used to buy better gear Blizzard has thrust their PvP into the same "inventory management" (as Richard Garriott once described it) cesspool in which WoW end game now sits. Ask anyone who plays WoW why they continue to raid or do PvP and you will get some version of the same answer: "for better gear". PvP in Blizzard is not about skill - it is about who has managed to get themselves the best "uber sword of uberness". Battlegrounds and Arena in WoW have long ago ceased to be about talent and ability. As the Wolfshead article so aptly put it, there is no emotional involvement in PvP where WoW is concerned. There is no way to affect the game in any substantial way. Well, except of course I can take some towers in "world PvP" to give my side a buff - be still my impatient heart. There is no way to influence the virtual world as there is with Eve Online and which there will be in Warhammer Online in a very big way; both games that have been designed with PvP in mind from the "get go". In the end, odds are (if Rob Pardo really did make this statement) one of two things will happen. First, and hopefully, Activision/Blizzard will continue to give us some of the best PvE in the industry. Or... ...or they can start to believe their own hype. At that point no one will have to design a game that is a "WoW killer" - the 800 pound Blizzard Gorilla will simply flush itself down the toilet. - Julie Whitefeather |