World of Warcraft

There’s been quite a lot of buzz since the introduction of the arenas into Warcraft. Not only because it brings out a number of glaring balance issues with certain class combinations, but also because of the excellent gear that is now attainable through pvp alone. This post is meant to be a devil’s advocate post, and I’ll purposely not try to lean towards one side or the other. This shouldn’t be too difficult considering my love for both aspects of the game.

The animosity of the two sides of this argument stems quite a bit from those who prefer one style of play or another. On the one side you have players that never step in to the battlegrounds or arenas, and prefer to raid for their character’s equipment. They feel threatened and disappointed that a new avenue for progression has been opened that they do not prefer, and a number of players have left raiding guilds to pvp in the arenas instead. They claim that arena epics are far too easy to obtain because you can obtain an epic item within a few weeks, win or lose, while raiding is a lengthy, sometimes complicated process that involves quite a bit of managing people and taking orders. It also involves farming consumables and paying repair bills. PvP does not.

On the other hand you have players that never go into raid instances and feel the thrill of competing against other players trumps anything that a scripted computerized boss can dish out. They like the fluid, quick paced nature of player versus player combat and feel liberated now that raiding gear no longer dominates the pvp area of the game. In fact, raiding gear is now at a significant disadvantage because of the addition of a new stat, resilience. They also tend to have shorter attention spans, and prefer to spend an hour fighting in the arenas over 4 hours in a raiding dungeon.

There’s no clear answer to which side is right and which is wrong because most of the back and forth you see on the forums is simply a matter of opinion and biased passion for one side of the game or the other. Is the more easily attained pvp gear causing inflation of equipment too fast and will eventually lead for players to be bored quickly? Maybe. Does the current raiding system need to be modified to guarantee rewards and cut down on the amount of time it takes to complete? Perhaps.

In the end it all comes down to what you do for fun in game. I see a lot of interesting terms tossed around about how players “work” for X or “deserve” Y for their efforts, this isn’t really in the spirit of the game. Ideally, games like warcraft are meant as a fun distraction, an interesting use of your leisure time, not a second job for pvping or raiding.

Enjoy the weekend!