Call me purist... MMOs don't belong in the e-sport world. Money and high exposure are reasons behind it... I guess the era where only a select few could compete in games such as quake 3, RTCW, Unreal Tournament is now reaching it's end. Blizzard is slowly starting to look like Microsoft... invading and controlling one entity at a time shall we say?
I'll watch a few matches... who knows, I could be wrong about it but I have my doubts.
I agree that MMOs really don't have a place in pro gaming. Though if a wave of drones are willing to pay you money to set up some type of tournament structure that is done half assed, you can't turn it down. That's money you can use on resources such as new raid dungeons, and then re balancing the classes for the new pve encounters. It's free money to Blizzard and I wouldn't fault them for that.
How is wow's pvp system flawed? It is now shown as a professional sports like professional soccer, football, tennis, and basketball. WOW's pvp system has become a professional e sport shown on the tv network ESPN lol. Its the first mmorpg ever to achieve such a status. Those who missed watching it on ESPN can watch it live stream on my link. So the question remains how is wow's pvp system flawed? If wow's pvp system is so flawed why is it so popular and deserves to be shown on sports channel espn????
Possibly because WoW has a 10 million subscriber base.
N-Sync's music is all over TV, that doesn't make it good now does it?
WoW PVP = get the right class combo and roll everyone that wants to play with a friend regardless of player skill level. Ret Paladin + DK for example, they should just start out with a 2k rating.
You obviously never actually played arena. No matter how good geared and class combo, you will not get into 1600 arena without skill. Everyone 1600+ rating has maxed gear, and everyone who does arena isn't going to have a shit combo like priest priest. So every team pretty much has a Good combo, and having a good combo doesn't matter much, unless you think 1600 is a achievement.
Battlegrounds are just a flag clicking zerg fest of worthlessness. You can't even get any good items from battlegrounds alone anymore, unless you feel like trying to arena 2 seasons behind everyone above 1500 rating. So these imbalanced pvp teams get a free ride to the VERY BEST weapons in the game, including from raids, now they can roll over everyone in the next season to get the NEW BEST WEAPON.
Dude i don't know what kinda of world you live in, but when new seasons come out everyone is already geared, so there is no rolling over. The teams aren't that imbalanced. Its just you lose one you win. unless your on like whirlwind battlegroup.
Meanwhile, if a new player comes in, no matter how skilled and awesome they are, they have absolutely no chance of getting those weapons for a minimum of 1 full season of getting stomped by people with the good weapons.
Its not about that no matter how good you are you get owned by geared noobs, thats just makes the game even more worth while, It becomes there new goal to get better gear and pwn those no skiller geared noobs.
Not flawed at all right? I didn't think so fake Furor.
This actually speaks more of the sad state of ESPN than WOW....also just because its on ESPN doesn't give the PVP system any more validity or make it "the best pvp" . They show damn texas holdem on ESPN does that make it the best possible way to play poker no....just means its popular....so just because WOW is on ESPN doesn't make the PVP system the best nor without flaw.
Possibly because WoW has a 10 million subscriber base. N-Sync's music is all over TV, that doesn't make it good now does it? WoW PVP = get the right class combo and roll everyone that wants to play with a friend regardless of player skill level. Ret Paladin + DK for example, they should just start out with a 2k rating. You obviously never actually played arena. No matter how good geared and class combo, you will not get into 1600 arena without skill. Everyone 1600+ rating has maxed gear, and everyone who does arena isn't going to have a shit combo like priest priest. So every team pretty much has a Good combo, and having a good combo doesn't matter much, unless you think 1600 is a achievement. Battlegrounds are just a flag clicking zerg fest of worthlessness. You can't even get any good items from battlegrounds alone anymore, unless you feel like trying to arena 2 seasons behind everyone above 1500 rating. So these imbalanced pvp teams get a free ride to the VERY BEST weapons in the game, including from raids, now they can roll over everyone in the next season to get the NEW BEST WEAPON. Dude i don't know what kinda of world you live in, but when new seasons come out everyone is already geared, so there is no rolling over. The teams aren't that imbalanced. Its just you lose one you win. unless your on like whirlwind battlegroup. Meanwhile, if a new player comes in, no matter how skilled and awesome they are, they have absolutely no chance of getting those weapons for a minimum of 1 full season of getting stomped by people with the good weapons. Its not about that no matter how good you are you get owned by geared noobs, thats just makes the game even more worth while, It becomes there new goal to get better gear and pwn those no skiller geared noobs. Not flawed at all right? I didn't think so fake Furor.
On 1 hand, you try to argue that WoW's PvP is more skill than gear and class combos and then on the other hand, you try to say to just accept the fact that you are going to be rolled by "gear noobs" and to just accept it? So which are you arguing for, does the game take skill or doesn't it? Does gear matter or doesn't it? If class combos never mattered so much, then why are there clear trends in the top 2's teams (there was a moment where I thought druids weren't in any top 2's team because of all the pally/dk teams running around). If there wasn't an imbalance, why did ret Pallies get nerfed into the ground? Can you honestly tell yourself every loss was due to skill moreso than gear (or vice versa)? There are too many things you can attribute a loss to and some outside the players own control. These are the things that make it hard to accept WoW as an equally competitive "sport" when there are clearly imbalances in the game and its really hard to weigh between whats balanced and whats not.
With a game like Warcraft 3, I can take more seriously, there's 4 races and only so many units (10-15) you have to track and its static (you play the same maps and there aren't changes made/added to the game every 3 months). With an MMORPG, its 10 different sets of abilities and 20-30+ abilities per set and other additional dynamics like Gear and Pets. I wouldn't say Warcraft 3 was perfectly balanced, but its easier to balance something like that and keep everything on more equal ground compared to an MMORPG that is constantly having things added to it and constantly changing all the time.
Being on TV has always been about marketing and it really is no big deal especially if a company has the money. It doesn't make it the best system yet alone a good one. There's too much complexity within an MMORPG and impossible to acquire a true balance yet alone a decent one when the game is constantly changing. There's a reason why I don't watch TV ultimately and its mainly because its all bullshit for the most part. Its stuffed with marketing, ads and too many forms of propaganda by many different groups that I just don't care to even try and keep track of. (Has anyone watched the movie Idiocracy?)
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism! Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism!
Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
lol damn I had almost forgotten about cabbage patch kids!!!! And it also reminded me of member only jackets and the first air jordans!!! and all the knock and clones of cabbage patch kids and member only jackets and I bet this is why just like with any other fad that there are wow clones....
ps I guess you can put me in the im trying to be cool and bash WOW cause its the cool thing to do club lol ...NOT (that argument always makes me laugh the whole your only wow hating cause its the cool thing to do....no im wow hating cause I think it set the genre back 5 years and there are so many wow fanbois"
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism!
Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
lol damn I had almost forgotten about cabbage patch kids!!!! And it also reminded me of member only jackets and the first air jordans!!! and all the knock and clones of cabbage patch kids and member only jackets and I bet this is why just like with any other fad that there are wow clones....
ps I guess you can put me in the im trying to be cool and bash WOW cause its the cool thing to do club lol ...NOT (that argument always makes me laugh the whole your only wow hating cause its the cool thing to do....no im wow hating cause I think it set the genre back 5 years and there are so many wow fanbois"
mm ,i think most are just tired ,most have leveled 5 lvl 80 prtobably go in starting area and do a new lvl 1 because their server is down ,then erased the same toon what 1000 time lol.
will be good to have cataclysm next year ,
till then in the new game theres only gw2.in recent game you get rune of magic that is fair .maybe ddo will be loved once its f2p (probably)
for me im hooked on eq2 took forever to choose a class/race combo but now im fixed
but this is an adult choice ,most kids wont come to eq2,wich makes this game so appealing to adult
i was astonished to see the amount of adult playing this game,only time you see kids is the trial account
there probably are kids in eq2 but i dont believe it.its mainly adult
There are warcraft arena scrimmage already, and tournaments for arena espn, with first place for $250,000 in cash i may think of going arena pro as well.
Does any mmorpg offer you the chance to be on TV? and pvp for $250,000 in cash prizes? You may be the next e sport michael jordan lol if you can arena pvp your way to the top bracket in arena LIVE ON TV.
Yes i didnt think so. Going pro e sport will be tough you got to go against millions of opponent fighting for first place.
Does any mmorpg offer you the chance to be on TV? and pvp for $250,000 in cash prizes? You may be the next e sport michael jordan lol if you can arena pvp your way to the top bracket in arena LIVE ON TV.
Yes i didnt think so. Going pro e sport will be tough you got to go against millions of opponent fighting for first place.
With all the channels and all the reality shows being on TV nowadays is not really a great feat anymore hehe.
Does any mmorpg offer you the chance to be on TV? and pvp for $250,000 in cash prizes? You may be the next e sport michael jordan lol if you can arena pvp your way to the top bracket in arena LIVE ON TV.
Yes i didnt think so. Going pro e sport will be tough you got to go against millions of opponent fighting for first place.
Well, slightly on topic, but SyFy has a show called "The Ultimate Gamer" where you compete on TV for prizes and prove you are the "Ultimate Gamer", I don't see much of a difference between that and watching WoW Arena on ESPN.
And Zon, it amazes me, it simply f***ing amazes me how ignorant and bias some people can be, namely you. You are assuming everyone pays full 6month subscriptions. Half of WoW's market, asia, mainly play in cafes specialized for it, where they pay by the hour, don't know the price there, but based on that, not everyone is paying that "180 a year". Not every subscribes to that 6month plan either, some buy 30-60-whatever time cards instead.
If you are wanting to play ignorant fanboy, do some research first =P
Oh..mommy mommy..he hurt my feelings..whhaaaaaaaaa...uuhwwaaaaa...
Not gonna mention any names cause I probably get another warning and/or a ban, just gonna say this; If you can't handle to be flamed yourself, don't go flame other people and no, I didn't report him back. I got thicker skin than that, especially on a forum arguing with a bunch of strangers...
Anyway, to get back on topic, I think I'm beginning to like old Zorn here He defends the game with a vengeance.
I have not read all posts.. too lazy but on to the Topic.
WoW Arena is an Esport as much as any other team game is.
Fairness
All toons wear the same teir of gear and all players can chose their class and spec.
Planning
They can customise their gear with gems as they see fit, spec as they see fit, chose their glyphs as they see fit and importantly know the make up of the opposing team. Working as a team they need to pick their classes & specs to best the other team.
Execution
You cannot face roll a professional Arena team, they are vented up, have put 100's of hours in as a team and know how to play as a team.
Yes on the normal arena games there might be the odd multiboxer who will wipe the floor with another team with a x4 chain lighting, thats the 1 in a million exception not the rule. There will be trams that outgear others, there willbe teams sooooo much better than others. But on the professional circuit it does come down to skills and team work.
You might not like WoW or WoW PvP specificly but dont discount it untill you have played at the top end.
In summery to compete at the top level you need teamwork, planning, practice and knowldege/skill of the all classes.
Your post is a good one coffee. However, mmorpg's aren't suited for a fair competition like an FPS is for example. It's just the nature of the game. If you were to make the competition so you could only play one class with the same abilities so it really is a level playing field than it would have a heck of a lot more credence. It probably wouldn't be as interesting but it would be much more in line with an "E-Sport" (I have real trouble calling video games sport) such as an FPS.
I was dissapointed of this...a lot. If you wanna see why, look at a S3 tournament then look at this(and this is pretty much why I hold a crusade versus WOTLK on most forums).
ESPN only shows fringe sports and video games during their off hours. The fishing, bowling, Arena Football, Xgames, World Series of Poker and Magic the Gathering all were put on ESPN when they have nothing better to show. However there is one distinct difference about those types of shows from the normal ESPN events. They pay to be on ESPN. They pay for the commentators to come and cover the event. ESPN has always been willing to show new sports or events and see if they catch on, but it is always for a fee.
World of Warcraft being on ESPN is simply a product of ESPN target audience being the same as WOW and Blizzard deciding it would be a good place to promote their product to their target audience. If the show actually started getting a buzz or even some ratings it could join the Xgames, Poker and Arena Football and become something ESPN would be willing to cover for free or even pay to show.
Magic was not so popular that ESPN decided to cover it. Neither is WOW. Just something that was paid for much like an infomercial.
Xgames is fairly popular though, I doubt they pay ESPN to have it covered. Also for some reason the Poker games have a good following as well. A video game could get shown for quite a bit, Madden football has been shown for quite a while. Also the And-One basketball farce was televised a lot too. But as you said, all of those except perhaps the X-games were taped and shown at non prime time hours.
Poker and the Xgames are examples of events that made it so to speak. Xgames now makes big bucks for the TV rights. 15 years ago when they started in Newport and Providence, RI they were not commanding any sort of TV money to speak of. Same thing with Poker. 10 years ago it was not worth paying to show. Now? The World Series of Poker probably gets several million a year just from the ESPN TV rights alone. Not to mention all the off shoot shows I see on every other channel.
Andone, Madden Football all of those are just more examples of advertising shows paid for by the companies featured. EA has a larger deal promoting their products on ESPN so I am sure it is just a part of the overall ad package EA has with ESPN. The AndOne deal probably only allowed AndOne exposure and ESPN made all the money from the shows advertising. AndOne sold some tickets and DVDs.
Every contract is different but ever since ESPN was started they have tried to parlay obscure sports or events into Television gold. World’s Strongest Man, Americas Cup Boat Racing, Nascar(20 years ago it was not big), Drag Racing, Monster Trucks, Tractor Pulls, Formula One, Super Bikes Etc were all things ESPN covered for nothing or were paid to cover and they built an Empire on it. I predict you will continue to see more E-Sports events on ESPN as gaming becomes more mainstream and competitive.
Comments
I agree that MMOs really don't have a place in pro gaming. Though if a wave of drones are willing to pay you money to set up some type of tournament structure that is done half assed, you can't turn it down. That's money you can use on resources such as new raid dungeons, and then re balancing the classes for the new pve encounters. It's free money to Blizzard and I wouldn't fault them for that.
Possibly because WoW has a 10 million subscriber base.
N-Sync's music is all over TV, that doesn't make it good now does it?
WoW PVP = get the right class combo and roll everyone that wants to play with a friend regardless of player skill level. Ret Paladin + DK for example, they should just start out with a 2k rating.
You obviously never actually played arena. No matter how good geared and class combo, you will not get into 1600 arena without skill. Everyone 1600+ rating has maxed gear, and everyone who does arena isn't going to have a shit combo like priest priest. So every team pretty much has a Good combo, and having a good combo doesn't matter much, unless you think 1600 is a achievement.
Battlegrounds are just a flag clicking zerg fest of worthlessness. You can't even get any good items from battlegrounds alone anymore, unless you feel like trying to arena 2 seasons behind everyone above 1500 rating. So these imbalanced pvp teams get a free ride to the VERY BEST weapons in the game, including from raids, now they can roll over everyone in the next season to get the NEW BEST WEAPON.
Dude i don't know what kinda of world you live in, but when new seasons come out everyone is already geared, so there is no rolling over. The teams aren't that imbalanced. Its just you lose one you win. unless your on like whirlwind battlegroup.
Meanwhile, if a new player comes in, no matter how skilled and awesome they are, they have absolutely no chance of getting those weapons for a minimum of 1 full season of getting stomped by people with the good weapons.
Its not about that no matter how good you are you get owned by geared noobs, thats just makes the game even more worth while, It becomes there new goal to get better gear and pwn those no skiller geared noobs.
Not flawed at all right? I didn't think so fake Furor.
This actually speaks more of the sad state of ESPN than WOW....also just because its on ESPN doesn't give the PVP system any more validity or make it "the best pvp" . They show damn texas holdem on ESPN does that make it the best possible way to play poker no....just means its popular....so just because WOW is on ESPN doesn't make the PVP system the best nor without flaw.
/facepalm
On 1 hand, you try to argue that WoW's PvP is more skill than gear and class combos and then on the other hand, you try to say to just accept the fact that you are going to be rolled by "gear noobs" and to just accept it? So which are you arguing for, does the game take skill or doesn't it? Does gear matter or doesn't it? If class combos never mattered so much, then why are there clear trends in the top 2's teams (there was a moment where I thought druids weren't in any top 2's team because of all the pally/dk teams running around). If there wasn't an imbalance, why did ret Pallies get nerfed into the ground? Can you honestly tell yourself every loss was due to skill moreso than gear (or vice versa)? There are too many things you can attribute a loss to and some outside the players own control. These are the things that make it hard to accept WoW as an equally competitive "sport" when there are clearly imbalances in the game and its really hard to weigh between whats balanced and whats not.
With a game like Warcraft 3, I can take more seriously, there's 4 races and only so many units (10-15) you have to track and its static (you play the same maps and there aren't changes made/added to the game every 3 months). With an MMORPG, its 10 different sets of abilities and 20-30+ abilities per set and other additional dynamics like Gear and Pets. I wouldn't say Warcraft 3 was perfectly balanced, but its easier to balance something like that and keep everything on more equal ground compared to an MMORPG that is constantly having things added to it and constantly changing all the time.
Being on TV has always been about marketing and it really is no big deal especially if a company has the money. It doesn't make it the best system yet alone a good one. There's too much complexity within an MMORPG and impossible to acquire a true balance yet alone a decent one when the game is constantly changing. There's a reason why I don't watch TV ultimately and its mainly because its all bullshit for the most part. Its stuffed with marketing, ads and too many forms of propaganda by many different groups that I just don't care to even try and keep track of. (Has anyone watched the movie Idiocracy?)
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism!
Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism!
Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
lol damn I had almost forgotten about cabbage patch kids!!!! And it also reminded me of member only jackets and the first air jordans!!! and all the knock and clones of cabbage patch kids and member only jackets and I bet this is why just like with any other fad that there are wow clones....
ps I guess you can put me in the im trying to be cool and bash WOW cause its the cool thing to do club lol ...NOT (that argument always makes me laugh the whole your only wow hating cause its the cool thing to do....no im wow hating cause I think it set the genre back 5 years and there are so many wow fanbois"
Magic the Gathering was an E-sport too. Not sure if it still is... ESPN likes money too and lately it seems Blizzard has plenty enough to buy into the mainstream. Go go capitalism!
Sadly for WoW fans this is may actually be the first sign that the game has become 'too' mainstream and will begin to collapse. Fads cannot hold up to mainstream attention for long. When something becomes so big that it seems that 'everyone is doing it' the rebellious side of human nature kicks in and suddenly it's 'not cool'.
HAHAH
yeah right. Tell that to Facebook or social networking or Ipods. Attaining mainstream is the solution to the question of persistence. If you want something to persist, you make it mainstream or evolve into something mainstream. Mainstream increases demand exponentially until there is a max capacity of users and I don't think WoW has reached that.
If anything, WoW's age and archaic gameplay will kill it, not the fact that it is "mainstream."
I've had a long time to watch trends come and go in my life. Hula Hoops, Cabbage Patch Kids, Beanie Babies, Poke'mon... the list goes on. The trend generally starts off slow, then the mainstream catches on and suddenly everybody wants in; you have mothers fighting tooth and nail for the last doll on the shelf, people waiting in line for days for that next expansion, stupid little toys selling for ridiculous amounts of money... But after a couple of years, generally at the most, people are burned out on the crap. You say "Hey dude wanna go buy a box of the new MTG expansion?" and your friend responds, "Nah, I'm kinda sick of that game. Now I'm into breeding Chinese fighting lizards!" and you'll be all like "Chinese fighting lizards? Awesome!".
lol damn I had almost forgotten about cabbage patch kids!!!! And it also reminded me of member only jackets and the first air jordans!!! and all the knock and clones of cabbage patch kids and member only jackets and I bet this is why just like with any other fad that there are wow clones....
ps I guess you can put me in the im trying to be cool and bash WOW cause its the cool thing to do club lol ...NOT (that argument always makes me laugh the whole your only wow hating cause its the cool thing to do....no im wow hating cause I think it set the genre back 5 years and there are so many wow fanbois"
mm ,i think most are just tired ,most have leveled 5 lvl 80 prtobably go in starting area and do a new lvl 1 because their server is down ,then erased the same toon what 1000 time lol.
will be good to have cataclysm next year ,
till then in the new game theres only gw2.in recent game you get rune of magic that is fair .maybe ddo will be loved once its f2p (probably)
for me im hooked on eq2 took forever to choose a class/race combo but now im fixed
but this is an adult choice ,most kids wont come to eq2,wich makes this game so appealing to adult
i was astonished to see the amount of adult playing this game,only time you see kids is the trial account
there probably are kids in eq2 but i dont believe it.its mainly adult
There are warcraft arena scrimmage already, and tournaments for arena espn, with first place for $250,000 in cash i may think of going arena pro as well.
[Off topic]
I would have sticked with EQ2, if it wasn't for the RMT item mall strapped on the game. Too bad I guess.
Does any mmorpg offer you the chance to be on TV? and pvp for $250,000 in cash prizes? You may be the next e sport michael jordan lol if you can arena pvp your way to the top bracket in arena LIVE ON TV.
Yes i didnt think so. Going pro e sport will be tough you got to go against millions of opponent fighting for first place.
With all the channels and all the reality shows being on TV nowadays is not really a great feat anymore hehe.
Well, slightly on topic, but SyFy has a show called "The Ultimate Gamer" where you compete on TV for prizes and prove you are the "Ultimate Gamer", I don't see much of a difference between that and watching WoW Arena on ESPN.
And Zon, it amazes me, it simply f***ing amazes me how ignorant and bias some people can be, namely you. You are assuming everyone pays full 6month subscriptions. Half of WoW's market, asia, mainly play in cafes specialized for it, where they pay by the hour, don't know the price there, but based on that, not everyone is paying that "180 a year". Not every subscribes to that 6month plan either, some buy 30-60-whatever time cards instead.
If you are wanting to play ignorant fanboy, do some research first =P
Oh..mommy mommy..he hurt my feelings..whhaaaaaaaaa...uuhwwaaaaa...
Not gonna mention any names cause I probably get another warning and/or a ban, just gonna say this; If you can't handle to be flamed yourself, don't go flame other people and no, I didn't report him back. I got thicker skin than that, especially on a forum arguing with a bunch of strangers...
Anyway, to get back on topic, I think I'm beginning to like old Zorn here
He defends the game with a vengeance.
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Grammar nazi's. This one is for you.
I have not read all posts.. too lazy but on to the Topic.
WoW Arena is an Esport as much as any other team game is.
Fairness
All toons wear the same teir of gear and all players can chose their class and spec.
Planning
They can customise their gear with gems as they see fit, spec as they see fit, chose their glyphs as they see fit and importantly know the make up of the opposing team. Working as a team they need to pick their classes & specs to best the other team.
Execution
You cannot face roll a professional Arena team, they are vented up, have put 100's of hours in as a team and know how to play as a team.
Yes on the normal arena games there might be the odd multiboxer who will wipe the floor with another team with a x4 chain lighting, thats the 1 in a million exception not the rule. There will be trams that outgear others, there willbe teams sooooo much better than others. But on the professional circuit it does come down to skills and team work.
You might not like WoW or WoW PvP specificly but dont discount it untill you have played at the top end.
In summery to compete at the top level you need teamwork, planning, practice and knowldege/skill of the all classes.
Your post is a good one coffee. However, mmorpg's aren't suited for a fair competition like an FPS is for example. It's just the nature of the game. If you were to make the competition so you could only play one class with the same abilities so it really is a level playing field than it would have a heck of a lot more credence. It probably wouldn't be as interesting but it would be much more in line with an "E-Sport" (I have real trouble calling video games sport) such as an FPS.
I was dissapointed of this...a lot. If you wanna see why, look at a S3 tournament then look at this(and this is pretty much why I hold a crusade versus WOTLK on most forums).
A Little FYI about ESPN programming.
ESPN only shows fringe sports and video games during their off hours. The fishing, bowling, Arena Football, Xgames, World Series of Poker and Magic the Gathering all were put on ESPN when they have nothing better to show. However there is one distinct difference about those types of shows from the normal ESPN events. They pay to be on ESPN. They pay for the commentators to come and cover the event. ESPN has always been willing to show new sports or events and see if they catch on, but it is always for a fee.
World of Warcraft being on ESPN is simply a product of ESPN target audience being the same as WOW and Blizzard deciding it would be a good place to promote their product to their target audience. If the show actually started getting a buzz or even some ratings it could join the Xgames, Poker and Arena Football and become something ESPN would be willing to cover for free or even pay to show.
Magic was not so popular that ESPN decided to cover it. Neither is WOW. Just something that was paid for much like an infomercial.
Xgames is fairly popular though, I doubt they pay ESPN to have it covered. Also for some reason the Poker games have a good following as well. A video game could get shown for quite a bit, Madden football has been shown for quite a while. Also the And-One basketball farce was televised a lot too. But as you said, all of those except perhaps the X-games were taped and shown at non prime time hours.
Poker and the Xgames are examples of events that made it so to speak. Xgames now makes big bucks for the TV rights. 15 years ago when they started in Newport and Providence, RI they were not commanding any sort of TV money to speak of. Same thing with Poker. 10 years ago it was not worth paying to show. Now? The World Series of Poker probably gets several million a year just from the ESPN TV rights alone. Not to mention all the off shoot shows I see on every other channel.
Andone, Madden Football all of those are just more examples of advertising shows paid for by the companies featured. EA has a larger deal promoting their products on ESPN so I am sure it is just a part of the overall ad package EA has with ESPN. The AndOne deal probably only allowed AndOne exposure and ESPN made all the money from the shows advertising. AndOne sold some tickets and DVDs.
Every contract is different but ever since ESPN was started they have tried to parlay obscure sports or events into Television gold. World’s Strongest Man, Americas Cup Boat Racing, Nascar(20 years ago it was not big), Drag Racing, Monster Trucks, Tractor Pulls, Formula One, Super Bikes Etc were all things ESPN covered for nothing or were paid to cover and they built an Empire on it. I predict you will continue to see more E-Sports events on ESPN as gaming becomes more mainstream and competitive.
can't wait to see all the DK/Druid on DK/Druid fights.
<Patrician|Away> what does your robot do, sam
<bovril> it collects data about the surrounding environment, then discards it and drives into walls