Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Blizzard, Contests, Wrath of the Lich King, Arena

Here’s an interesting post on GotGame that sounds different from nearly everything we’ve heard about professional Arena tourneys and Blizzard so far. Whenever we’ve talked to anyone involved with Arena tournaments, they’ve always told us Blizzard is very supportive of the events. But that post alleges otherwise — they say that Blizzard is falling short of professional Arena support.

There are two main complaints: first, that Blizzard doesn’t supply any onsite Arena servers. We know that is true — Blizzard has event servers that they use for events like that, kept offsite so they don’t have to set them up all the moment. But GotGame claims that that causes problems — as much as 300+ ping, which in the quick world of Arena matches, is practically unplayable. We’re not certain why Blizzard doesn’t allow setups on site, but that seems like a fair step to take whether they’re serious about making professional Arena big.

The second is a little tougher: that post claims that Blizzard has brought the pro Arena servers up to the Season 4 patch, but locked the gear down at Season 2. Our own Zach Yonzon says he’s not certain where the Arenas are — he doesn’t believe that official Arena matches are underway after Wrath yet, and whether that’s true, thereupon Blizzard may already be updating that (bringing the gear on the realms up to level 80 levels to match the talents). But either way, it’s strange to produce out someone say that Blizzard isn’t supporting professional Arena matches correctly. You’d think that whether they were as into supporting WoW as an e-sport as they say, that they’d address some of these concerns.

Arena tourneys need more Blizzard support? originally arised on WoW Insider on Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Mike Schramm