After discussing the potential problems/solutions with Blizzard's upcoming plans for Lake Wintergrasp, it's only natural that some mentioning of what their future plans are with the Arena in WotLK was done as well. Blizzard has opted to take a riskier route with their currently planned direction once the expansion is released, and it's hard to say whether or not it will be a good choice on their behalf.

With the initial concerns and subsequent QQ'ing around the early design of Nagrand arena and the randomly spawning tornados that not only knocked back players, but damaged them as well, Blizzard eventually opted to remove the pesky things once and for all a couple of patches later. A randomly spawning variable that could have so much weight on the outcome of a fight was not taken too well by the general WoW community - and logically this makes perfect sense. With such RNG having such a huge impact on the game already, tossing in an even greater variable probably wasn't a good idea. Needless to say though, Blizzard decided to head back to the drawing board in an attempt to re-implement hazards and LOS objects all over again in their upcoming arena maps. The first of which, is Dalaran Arena.

Dalaran Arena

- No mounts
- Water Hazard that knocks players back
- Plenty of terrain high spots and low spots - meaning a lot of potential areas to LOS.

If you haven't yet checked out the floor plans/screenshots of the new arena, you can find them here (courtesy of MMO-Champion)

Layout with Water Jet Hazard active

With Blizzard going back to their original hazard ideas, the arena will change quite a bit from it current form, and it could be for the worse. Again, adding in even more random variables isn't generally taken well by the public. The thing is, most arena or team death match type games have plenty of hazards of their own - falling off terrain to your death, and many other random traps etc. that damage your character. Is it sensible to bring in the same style of map layout into WoW, a non FPS game? I would say yes, except for the fact that every other game has quite the small number of random variables compared to WoW. However, I think it will make things more exciting as well, regardless of these new additions being a huge target of finger-pointing in relation to factors in losing a match or series. What I like about the Dalaran arena is that the hazard doesn't actually hurt you, and only knocks you back - not to mention it doesn't damage you and there is a warning sign before it actually goes off. That means if you run into it, 9/10 times it will be your own damn fault and you will pay for your carelessness. With the new moving terrain objects as well (from what I'm gathering, the boxes on the center section move around), pillar humping won't be as easy due to the fact that you have to maintain movement along with the object, making drinking and complete LOS from your enemies harder to pull off. This should help slightly to balance the classes that can abuse the pop in, pop out type of strategy as you might find that you unexpectedly no longer have LOS with your ally/target. Overall, I think I will prefer this arena over the second WotLK will have to offer.

Blizzard will also be disabling mounts in this arena, but with such closed quarters and a water purge pushing you out of your starting area, I don't see this being that big of a deal. It seems however, that Blizzard is really pushing to get rid of huge stalemates that tend to be a trend when arena matches begin.

Orgrimmar Arena

- Starting Area has each team practically standing on top of each other
- Pillars move up and down and spikes protrude when the pillar fully retracts

You can find the early stage of map development here

I'm really excited to see that Blizzard has gone with a more in-your-face route with starting areas with this arena. Having each team start within casting/charging range will bring a new level of strategy and will help those with quick reactions even more if they can pick targets within the allotted time before the spike barricades retreat that are in design to give you a couple of seconds to see what you're facing before the match starts. This will have a large impact on Rogues as they will most likely have a more difficult time getting saps off unless they're faster with an ShS sap combo than their opponent is using an ability to put them in combat. This will mean almost always having to use an ShS off the bat though.

On the other hand, I don't think I'm as excited to see that Blizzard has gone back to damage based hazards with this arena. Granted, again, there is a warning sign and you will know when you'll get damaged, but do we really need it? The pillars themselves, moving up and down and creating height advantages and alternating LOS positions, is probably sufficient enough. This could really change a lot of matches if a class can take advantage of the height, a team member overextends themselves on the pillar and goes out of LOS of their healer, etc etc. I really like the design in this regard.

Blizzard has, as opposed to the Dalaran arena, enabled mounts in this arena. With teams starting so close to each other, opportunities will be far and few between in terms of actually finding time to mount up, and even though teams will have a prep time before the match starts, you will be within charge/ShS range making mounting almost completely useless anyway. If you're able to drop combat and mount at the peak of a pillars extension, that could be interesting though.

In the end I am excited for the new arenas, and I hope Blizzard uses the beta wisely to determine if some of the additions are necessary or overbearing.

Tournament Realm Round 2 Update

After Greenrager's team withdrew from TR1 and all of the drama associated with it, they have returned the second time around and are currently dominating the competition with their first place position. As is to be expected, queue dodging and scouting are just as rampant the second time around as the first. The previous first place team, BMFC, consisting of Thorrior, Aimlessgun, and Sterlymobile apparently queue dodged their way to first over 150~ games played, only to follow it up with a huge tank from 2k+ to 1700.

It also appears that CLC hasn't been doing to well and went a reported 2-10 against Greenranger's team and ended up remaking their team after 200 games played. It will be interesting to see if Greenranger will be able to repeat their success, albeit controversial, of round 1, this time around.

Have a good 4th of July.

When half-AZN mutilate hero, XOM demolished Jared "Noktyn" Fogle's Pandemic Black at WWI Paris while singing karoake songs, you know owner Chris Lemley is going to make a serious change to their roster.  His team was desperate enough to run the Shadowplay (lock/shadowpriest/shaman) comp, although it was so poorly done that XOM said he has seen better from the 1500 bracket in Cyclone.  I am not sure if Kintt/Ecilam/Nitrana has enough left in the tank to get their RMP to the level of Council of Mages, but with the way druids have been dominating the 3v3 bracket, they finally picked up Teeb from Nurfed which caused a lot of animosity among team members. 

Most of them still live in the past and feel it is "their" team when the manager needs to make business decisions.  Noktyn even put on his "big scary Noktyn" face (I love the shaved head by the way, it is an easy way to maintain a clean look for someone who doesn't shower very often, also gave him a burglar's style for extra street credentials) but it didn't change his boss's decision.  I am not sure if a single player can revive the franchise at this point, they probably have to blow up the entire roster to make a real impact, unless these guys can somehow put in hundreds of games a week to get themselves in shape again.  You can't really compete internationally when you are a non-factor in your own BG.  47 wins and 23 losses and a rating of 1780?  The "BG9 is so tough" excuse doesn't fly anymore.

MOB Took The Easier Path

You can talk about how him falling off the Blade's Edge bridge cost the golden child his best chance at a championship, but Ohnoes seems like the only MOB member who truly cares about winning these days.  He was so upset about Swarm's poor play at Paris that he nearly got into a fist fight with him.  The Godfather himself had to enter the foray and personally removed Swarm's MOB jersey + headset in front of 20 other people.  Watching his old teammate Spoh finding a top team and finally winning a championship at MLG San Diego, plus the spot at Blizzard regionals definitely changed Ohnoes's heart.  Ohnoes is giving up on his long time buddy Xecks, as he believes the golden child no longer has the drive to put in the hours to compete at tournament level.  He is the most handsome player in MOB Gaming and Godfather has a soft spot in his heart (if there is such a thing) for him.  In fact the entire trip to Paris, MOB Godfather acted like the father Ohnoes never had, it was very sweet indeed.

The problem is, without Xecks and Swarm, how will Ohnoes build a new team?  At end of the day, Godfather is still a business man that is why he picked up the best MOB team yet, Shadowplay a team that won both TR1 and CGS but yet to make any offline tournament appearences due to the lack of sponsorship!  This team has a huge axe to grind as they feel their manhood was belittled by the fact that so many lesser teams got sponsors before they did.  There are only two concerns here.  Can Kollektiv play without mods?  Do they have a counter for double rogue teams?  If they can address these two issues, they can potentially be the team that will bring pride to America.  The line-up they play is very unique and the element of surprise is going to make a huge difference against the Koreans. 

This is just a no-brainer move.  You get the number one team from TR1 and CGS, that is two guaranteed offline appearances which you do not have to pay a dime for.  You know the team is hungry.  What more can you ask for?

Your Best S4 Moment So Far

For me personally it was against Eks/Goodball/Mcfugie, a RMP team featuring a double warglaive dwarf rogue.  They were around 2000 when our RRD fought them the second night of the season.  Our rogues are not double UD and rushing down the priest is by no means 100%, but for some reason we had their numbers first a few matches or so before they played a very strong game that left me alone against rogue/mage. 

I got novaed, rogue was already low health but with stone form and cheat death he almost got away from me and my deadly throw MISSED, out of desperation I did a regular throw which critted and killed him.  I took a ton of damage from the mage in the process but I finally got behind a pillar with 1000 health left, against a full health mage who is considered one of the better mages in our BG.  I was about to throw in the towel before I realized my sharingan can copy jutsus!  I activated my genjitsu: The Neilyo Within, which makes the enemy confuse me for Neilyo-kun over the next minute or so.

With the patented pillar humping I finally got a re-stealth off, clearly Mcfugie hasn't been watching GOM TV videos and his blizzard attempt missed me.  He ran away to get the eyes and I got myself a nice full bandage.  He ate back to full and started chasing me with the eyes but I landed a shadowstep sap on him which caught him right next to the pillar, a terrible spot for the mage to be in.  He wore a lot of PVE gear because we never targeted him during our earlier matches.  It was an intense fight, I got another bandage off with blind, but the vent exploded when I killed him and it felt good.  I think that just crushed his spirit and his team played very poorly from that point on, to the point they stopped playing RMP for now.

Early season is a lot of fun.  You fight top teams at low ratings, and people don't queue dodge nearly as much.  What is your best S4 moment so far?

The much anticipated PVP highlight of WotLK, Lake Wintergrasp - which was supposed to be the revitalization of world PVP for WoW - was finally previewed by Blizzard this past weekend at WWI. I have to say, initially my feelings were somewhat mixed based on what they presented, but certain aspects of the concept are beginning to grow on me. However, I still have some pretty large concerns as to what the end product will look like.

If you haven't quite read up on it yet, head over to mmo-champion.com before you continue, and check out the 'pvp table' from WWI.

So far it looks like Lake Wintergrasp will be a combination of Halaa, Auchindoun Towers and AV. Basically, controlling sections of the area will allow you to pickup shards from PVE bosses much like you could in any of the instances in Auchindoun, and turn them in for rewards. While I don't think this would be a terrible addition to Lake Wintergrasp, having it be the highlighting feature of the epitome of WotLK PVP is a huge mistake. Shard systems are crap, and once people finish getting their gear, the incentive for returning is gone and the zones die. Bad PVPers know this, good PVP'ers know this, and Blizzard knows it. When there is no other incentive besides a small amount of gear, fighting gets repetitive, Siege or not. There is no real sense of power, control, or domination that is exactly what is needed for players to actually want to compete, and continue doing so months later. Re-doing Halaa etc. is a poor example of a broken, rather weak zone/resource control. In addition, the rewards are not stronger or better than any other rewards from any other areas. Uh, Hello? Does that really make sense when you're trying to attract players? You need superior rewards when you're dominating an entire faction of the game, or something that distinguishes your talent over other players. Stop *****footing around Blizzard and put some effort into this without being concerned about crying players. You already have superior items from PVE instances, you can do it from PVP as well.

In relation to these items, you could require access to these items based on a guild scoring system - or some other long term commitment or required domination. Allow the items to be gained only through extreme success and ranking systems from Wintergrasp, and only allow the items to be used there so the advantage is only specific to PVP situations. Make it difficult and worthwhile.
There's always the option to limit access to complete areas based on your success as a faction and/or guild. Allow access to dungeons based on meeting extremely high goals within Wintergrasp, and allow unique items to be accessed there. You seem to be getting the idea of actually making challenges and the quality of reward based off of that - which is evident by the recent rating changes in the Arena.
 
One of the reasons that the Arena is remotely successful is that with the improved ratings, you now have a means of distinguishing your talent from other players. When the vast majority of players will no longer have shoulders/weapons, it's hot new bragging, e-thugging rights. But even still, it's only a very small reason to compete.There is no real affect on any players around you, and there's still little to no real accomplishment. The only big benefit after all, is from outside sponsors not affiliated with Blizzard what so ever, allowing you to gain real life benefits from it. And this is for like .0001% of the total number of players. This could change with Wintergrasp, and new pew-pew'ing devices are only part of the answer.

Yes, the siege weapons and vehicles will probably be a new exciting addition, but it won't be anything remotely different than getting in a new relationship with a man or a woman. The first 3-4 months are very fresh as you develop a relationship with said person, learn new things about each other, and experiment. Once the butterflies are gone, maintaining the same level of interest (unless you're quite the good match) can be quite difficult. Keeps and what not, although destructible, are no different than adding destructible walls to AV. The basic fundamental zerg/reward system in Lake Wintergrasp is no different than a BG from years and years ago. There's just machines and other flashy things now that will only provide temporary interest.

Bringing in a Elemental Plateau type of area is a great idea as well, but the foundation is still flawed. Unless you have materials that can only be found in Lake Wintergrasp (which I think would make it much more effective) it will be somewhat fun, but you have weak players that are there to farm as opposed to PVP'ing, and real PVP enthusiasts will prey on the weak just like it is now. A lot of the farming players will just end up giving up and leaving as opposed to fighting back. A Gankers heaven, PVP'ers hell. There won't be strong competition unless the aforementioned materials are exclusive to the plateau, and guilds begin to compete over control of it. Emphasis on strong zone and resource control is the key here.

You could take it even further by putting those resources inside zones that can be controlled and defended - instead of just a grassy elevated knoll. This would allow guilds to gain advantages and even control markets if they so desired, but no one could have access before taking over the area. in addition, try to design a system where controlling and defending the captured areas promotes small skirmishes instead of zerging - such as requiring a capable defense at 4-5 locations in order to protect the whole area. No one wants a Hillsbrad all over again. Make sure that in order to regain/gain control, a large number of areas have to be held at the same time, or a large number of tasks need to be finished simultaneously.

In addition, don't make control linear. One of the biggest issues with AV is that it's just running in a giant line back and forth. You follow one path, and veering off from it is entirely unnecessary. To avoid this at wintergrasp, make sure players and groups have to go all over different areas of the map in order to accomplish meaningful impactful combined effort goals. Collecting resources from worthless mobs or even looting players is worthless. Batriders and **** are dumb, and no one cares about them - nor does it make a difference.

Once control is established, have progressive levels of defense. Instead of just allowing man to man defense, take advantage of your newly developed vehicles and make them required to really break through a solid line of structured defense. Perhaps allow these new unique resources to be gathered in order to actually build structures and defense, providing a means to bring professions into it so they're useful as well, as well as requiring a team effort. Zerging an area and then having it under control with predefined defense systems kind of defeats the purpose of building your own defenses. Make it so that strategy and organization are actually required to break into a controlled area as opposed to success from sheer numbers. Require time to actually build a formidable army.

The only difficult aspect of that though is somehow allowing it to be guild based. Maybe have a different realm or instance for guild only Lake Wintergrasp otherwise organization will be chaos. However, I think it will be necessary to develop something based on Guilds only. It just can't work the same when it's a massive free-for-all with no forms of distinguishing who is better than the rest. You can promote guild's getting involved by making the challenge of certain tasks only feasible for those as organized as a guild.

Regardless, these are only some suggestions. There is so much potential to develop something strong here. Don't answer all of the people accusing you of not caring about PVP by releasing pure crap. Progression, Control, Developmental defense/offense, and long-term GOOD incentives are what brings success.

You got the first hint when Hafu was caught getting jiggy with Celex at MLG San Diego (in Chinese terms, it is called a "green hat" for Glickz to wear).   You saw it coming when Glickz and Rhaegyn replaced Hafu with Greenranger for CGS.  You can almost smell what MOB Godfather is cooking after he condemned Hafu's behaviors and vowed to never send her to a MLG event again. 


And it is all clear as sky when Glickz finally pulled the trigger and transferred to an unknown location under a secret name which will soon be revealed on WOM.  Perhaps he learned from Serennia-sama's war path and realized in order to measure his "container", he must cut off all emotional ties.  Perhaps May Wang's tears of pearl did convince Glickz to take her with him aa she too disappeared from BG9.  Maybe Hafu finally ran off with the mysterious "prince", a very wealthy man who owns a gladiator character of every single class and paid thousands of dollars to many famous players to maintain his collection. 

Either way, e-romance takes an incredible amount of strength and dedication to maintain.  Only the hokage himself has the iron will to turn it into something more than a side quest, setting the ultimate example for younger ninjas to follow.  Still, looking back, I am sure both Hafu-chan and Glickz would always remember the time they spend in San Diego, and going forward, they will get a better understanding of true love.

The Korean Difference

The Chinese armory is finally open, and I expect SK100 to be filled with Chinese flags two months from now (see the Chinese rogue with 8200+ combined ratings, highest rated player worldwide!).  The big money competitions from this point on will all be international.  WWI Paris is worth as much as three MLGs combined.  And Blizzard's 2008 tournament grand finals is worth as much as six MLGs! 

I am not sure if Koreans can justify sending teams to MLG events, as they will have to place second just to break even on travel expenses!  In fact, due to financial issues, Nihilum's sponsors are reluctant to send the team to MLG Orlando, despite their second place finish at San Diego!  It is a shame, because MLG presentation is far and away the best we have ever seen in Western world.  But after WWI Paris, American arena lost a lot of prestige although watching Serennia-sama never gets old.

Like everyone else I was very impressed by GOM TV presentations.  The intro of players and characters, the professional stage works, instant replay in slow motion, and oh, the 1v1 duels!  Wow, can you imagine Azael vs Neilyo 1v1 for the first match point before actual 3v3 action begins?  That will make the matches so much more personal.  I really hope they add this to MLG matches soon, perhaps use it as a tie breaker for the fifth and final match similar to penalty kicks in soccer?  Watching GOM TV made me realize how much I would love a KOF style 1v1 arena, how about Tekken Tag style 1v1 arena? 

At end of the day, no other country has the environment Korean players enjoy.  A famous Chinese player said "In Korea my ping is single digit and I can play while downloading from bit torrent, in U.S. my ping is double digit and I can play while browsing web pages, in China my ping is triple digits and I lag even with nothing in the background!"  Not only Korea's fiber optic network is way ahead of everyone else, as Inactive-chan would put it "In korea, being pro at video games is pretty much the equivalent of being a movie star in America." 

This is the type of environment that breeds champions.  Chinese parents will always preach academic success, American parents will probably kick you out of the house if you try to become a pro gamer, Korean parents will probably be 100% supportive.  That is the Korean difference.  Let's face it, once you hit a certain age and reach a certain level of income, pro gaming is just way too risky.  Most pro gamers start out in their parent's basements and there is nothing wrong with that. 

Inactive-Chan, The Korean Killer?

When I watched Koreans talk trash at WWI Paris, I really wanted an American player to step up to the plate and go all gangsta on them.  Neilyo-kun is just nowhere near his nerd raging e-persona in RL.  Serennia-sama is actually very confident in front of the camera, but he didn't come from the hoods either.

The player who fits the bill is Inactive-chan, the Allen Iverson of WOW players.  Coming from a traumatic childhood and growing up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in America, Inactive has seen it all.  The demeanor he carried at MLG San Diego was straight out of And 1 mix tape.  I would love to see him show these Koreans that they know nothing about American gamers.

In all seriousness, Inactive held a very low opinion of online ladders and simply refused to practice hard, and like Iverson believed in the fallacy of "playing into shape".  After his CLC fell apart at the hands of nerd sponsors at San Diego, they went back to the drawing boards and finally started playing serious games again.  Money make the world go round and if there is money in 3v3, Inactive and his boys will go after it like a bag of cocaine.   200 games on TR and it has been a night and day difference, Inactive is finally back on his rogue and he was ahead of Neilyo-kun before he went warrior for 5v5.  I can't wait to see what this talented club can do at Orlando now they have worked out the kinks.

While Ming covered all of WWI this weekend (by far the busiest periods of my week) I was able to catch up on a couple of things amidst my hectic schedule. I, for one, fully expected that the American playerbase would be able to sweep the international competition - but boy did I and a lot of other people underestimate the caliber of those teams.

WWI was a staple example of how much international competition is underrated. The fact that the vast majority of American teams were eliminated after stepping foot into the tournament absolutely demolished any reputation of basically every team but SK-Gaming. The long time contenders in previous tournaments, such as Pandemic, were absolutely obliterated in terms of reputation - this happening after the famous Kintt returned to the team, which was pretty much icing on the cake. It seemed like a lot of sponsors assumed that teams would be able to carry their success from WSVG into a tournament quite some time later. They must be regretting that mindset now.

After almost a year of hyping BG9 and American battlegroups in general, all of this initially, came as quite the surprise. Previously, a lot of the evidence supporting the skill (or primarily lack of skill at first) in terms of international teams, was only in the form of rugged video footage and infrequent fraps recordings of various arena matches and battlegrounds. It initially seemed like the only solid team to compete on behalf of other countries than the U.S was Nihilum. But this is where the problem started.

Never before had anyone really seen that much footage of other international teams - mainly Korean and Chinese teams. With such a long standing reputation of incredible success when it comes to competitive gaming, logically speaking, one would assume that Korean base teams would be able to carry their success into not only other games, but other genre's as well. However, it seems that the long standing BG9 domination brought about a ****iness in teams and their members, too large to subdue, and too ridiculous to control when the time for steady play and concentration was called for - subsequently aiding the domination of eastern based teams.

So what does this say now? Was all the hype of the American teams and bg9 completely overdone and absolutely in the dirt now that their performance was underwhelming and attitudes looked down upon? I don't think it's quite time to discredit American teams, but I would definitely say it's time to take a step back and reconsider what a lot of other countries that aren't IN Europe have to offer. For all we know, the Koreans might begin to completely dominate the WoW E-sports scene and we'll be watching them in the future as we do with WC3.

TR Round 2

The second round of CGS competition is underway, and will end right after MLG Orlando. Many teams that were almost contenders in round one, refused to throw in the towel and are now pushing for placement in the second tournament. What's most interesting, is that C A P S L O C K C R E W is up on the chopping block and has a second chance to show what they're capable of doing without a sponsor. From what I'm told, they're most likely in first place now as the armory hasn't been updated in some time. The question is, are they in that position based on talent as a team, or the fact that the first qualification tournament was much more competitive than the second and had a higher number of "quality" teams?

Even more MLG Hafu and MoB Gaming Drama, The Truth Revealed?

From my inside sources, I was able to get a more in-depth scoop on the developing story that is what exactly happened with Hafu, MoB Godfather, and MoB Gaming at MLG.

Apparently, Hafu was indeed caught drinking, but an individual decided to e-mail the drama on Gameriot to Turtlebeach which seems to be where the problem started. Based on what they were told via the e-mail, they wanted to/dropped Hafu due to her drinking, which I'm assuming, broke some sort of agreement within the contract both parties had agreed to. The interesting part about it was that Glick, who is also under 21, had zero repercussions from him personally drinking underage. Is MoB gaming falling victum to E-Drama themselves when it comes to basing some of their roster changes off of E-Drama and borderline nonsense?

It seems that performance at MLG had nothing to due with it either since their placement overall, really wasn't all that bad. After all, they came within the top 8, which, was quite a bit better than the other MoB team, which had zero punishments or roster changes based on their performance.

In addition, from what I hear, my initial speculation of Hafu trying to break her contract is indeed true. However, apparently that has changed, but it's confusing because Vinnie, AKA Godfather has been dodging phone calls as was initially hypothesized. It seems the Mob Godfather is not exactly on good terms with many WoW MoB Teams. It's more than evident that he doesn't exactly treat his players with a lot of respect - Ohnoes knows it, Xecks knows it, and undoubtedly, Hafu knows it. You might remember some speculation about him asking Ohnoes to write a blog commanding that what Ming has written in the past to be false and not true, but both Ohnoes and then Xecks evidently refused to cover for him. In addition, apparently MoB Godfather's supposed ban is goes as far as removing his access to all future MLG competitions - due to his provocation and ****-talking. How can you punish your sponsored players for having a little safe, fun drinking in a hotel room when you cant even maintain composure yourself? I fully support a lot of sponsors, but I'm tired of seeing players pressured into dealing with inappropriate leaders because they're forced to.