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The pro-scene and WoW
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Post by
Fjobben
PvP, specifically Arenas, is only a part of the gameplay WoW has to offer, but it is the most competetive one (arguably) and most likely to have a successful viewership audience. It has always kind of bothered me how hard it is too keep track of torunaments etc. I dont even know if there is a 'World Championship'.
I definitely think that Blizzard could do better to advertise their PvP scene, and I think they would profit of it greatly.
So the question is, why don't they?
Post by
Monday
I would imagine it's because there's not as much interest in it. Most people who watch competitive gaming generally tend towards League of Legends or Starcraft (not so much recently, but there's still a fairly large audience). Additionally, you have the problem of time and effort. It takes a lot of time to get into WoW PvP, what with grinding gear and whatnot. On the other hand, you have games like Team Fortress 2 where the competitive scene is generally pretty easy to get into. There's a skill-floor, but not an equipment or time one, as it's fairly easy to get all the items right off the bat.
WoW, though, requires skill, consistent time and effort. It's something that a lot of people aren't willing to give.
I know they generally try to do a large Arena tournament with most Blizzcons, though I don't know if they did one this year.
Post by
Izichial
MLG used to cover WoW (could've been 3v3 only) and hosted some great tournaments back in the day but dropped it due to, afaik, balance concerns and low viewer numbers. Arena just isn't as accessible as FPS / RTS / MOBA games are as it's only really people who are familiar with higher level arena who can tell what's going on.
Blizzard do host their own tournaments, at Blizzcon and the Blizzard Invitational which I believe wanders around a bit as the last I can recall was in Warsaw (but I haven't kept up). Unfortunately these have a pretty spotty history of oversights, technical issues, drama about invitations and so on and so forth.
The most recent Blizzcon wasn't an exception.
As for advertising the PvP scene, doing it any more than they are now for tournaments would probably lead to some backlash from the kind of players they want playing because very few people who play high level PvP have much faith in Blizzard. Attempting to hype the scene to the "public" for as long as that is true is just not going to work out very well.
Post by
Levarus
WoW, though, requires skill, consistent time and effort.
So does Starcraft and League of Legends. Actually every competitive game does.
My opinion is that WoW PvP, especially arenas, are god-awful. Class comps are imbalanced and people like Hunter fans will rarely see their champion in a competitive scenario. Healers make games last SUPER long, which becomes boring. Plus, there is no real spectator mode. You simply watch through the lens of one of the arena-players unlike spectator mode in let's say Starcraft.
The mix of these things end up creating something much less appealing to watch.
Post by
Izichial
WoW, though, requires skill, consistent time and effort.
So does Starcraft and League of Legends. Actually every competitive game does.
I believe his point was that it takes all of that just to get
into
arena enough to be able to grasp what's going on in high level play.
I didn't touch ranked in SC2 when it was released and I haven't played it in ages, I could still find a random SC2 tournament match and get most of what was going on in the game just from being generally familiar with the game. Even most stuff I would miss myself (and certainly wouldn't be able to pull off without a lot of practice) I would still easily understand if a commentator pointed it out.
The average WoW player who's maybe geared an alt or two through battlegrounds and then messed around a bit at 1500 wouldn't have a clue if you showed him/her a few minutes of footage from a high level arena game, paused it and asked him why they're going for a certain target or what's going to happen next. To him/her, it's just going to look like they're randomly hitting each other until someone dies and he or she won't really be able to tell if it was due to strategy, whether or not it was related to something that happened previously in the game or if it was just rng.
Arena simply doesn't have many "markers" for people to follow when watching. If someone has an extra base or a bunch of units hidden near the other guy's base in SC2 anyone can tell it's an advantage. If one team in LoL is three towers down and has less kills than the other team anyone can tell they're behind. If a bunch of ground units with no air attack get surprised by flyers in SC2 anyone could tell they're in trouble. If a jungler goes for a 1v1 lane in LoL anyone can tell the lone guy is going to have a problem.
In arena it's more like... one team forced a defensive cooldown one and a half minute ago and the other team's healer doesn't have trinket ready for half a minute and the dps cooldowns for the first team's warrior is going to be ready in ten seconds and the first team's disc is positioning for a cc and they also have a hunter so they might go for fear -> scatter trap -> warrior switching back to interrupt healer while hunter finishes off the guy who's down a defensive if necessary, except the other team's healer is a paladin so he might sac the scatter and it needs to be dispelled and... you get the gist of it. It's just way too obscure for the average / casual / non-PvP player to follow.
Sure, you get tactics on this level in other games too, but in other games it's
on top
of much more easily followed mechanics or strategy. In arena you have to know these things to follow the game properly. The fact that the very rudimentary spectator tools they use in WoW tournaments are terrible compared to purpose-built spectator tools used by other games doesn't help.
Post by
Monday
I believe his point was that it takes all of that just to get into arena enough to be able to grasp what's going on in high level play.
This was exactly my point, thank you. Arena has such a high skill and time floor, compared to other games, that it's just not worth it in the long run.
Post by
rabican1
PvP, specifically Arenas, is only a part of the gameplay WoW has to offer, but it is the most competetive one (arguably) and most likely to have a successful viewership audience. It has always kind of bothered me how hard it is too keep track of torunaments etc. I dont even know if there is a 'World Championship'.
I definitely think that Blizzard could do better to advertise their PvP scene, and I think they would profit of it greatly.
So the question is, why don't they?
"Why don't they?
Because your basic premise is flawed. PvP, specifially arenas are
NOT
the only parts of the gameplay WoW has to offer. Not does not have a successful viewership audience, in fact it is a dying audience. PvP is an aspect of the game that Blizzard needs to abandon.
Post by
Jkpman
PvP is an aspect of the game that Blizzard needs to abandon.
Nonsense.
PvP is niche, but it does have it's place in the game. World PvP is dying/dead, Battlegrounds, Randoms, Arenas are still very much alive.
I am not a huge PvP fan personally, but I do feel the game would lose some of it's charm if they abandoned it altogether.
@OP
Wow PvP as an e-sport is like watching paint dry at times. Compare to a game like Starcraft that anyone can pick up and play, the time and effort required to even understand what you are seeing in WoW PvP is just too much for the casual viewer to care about.
Post by
704301
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
781960
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
lankybrit
Yeah, the big e-sports at Blizzcon was definitely SC2. It also looks like Heroes of the Storm will be big on the e-sports front also, and I think Blizz will be pushing this. WoW is so far behind as a spectator sport.
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