Bornakk speaks on the whole esports thing
So a while back, Tom Chilton talked about turning WoW into a "viable Esports platform" in an interview with Gamespy, and lots of players did not take it well. Some time later, the fire has still not died down. Darqchild of the Perenolde server posted another complaint about this the other day, expressing a belief that the creation of a 2nd rule set and the domination of the esports concept had already gone with the implementation of a Tournament server.
Bornakk replied with his own defense of Blizzard and Tom Chilton over a series of posts in the thread. First, he said that the implementation of the Isle of Queldanas in 2.4 with all its PvE quests and dungeons was proof that Blizzard still considers the PvE game. On the focus on the 3v3 Arena tournament, he said that just because they're running it doesn't mean they're neglecting other things, and said that information would be put out on new PvE content when it was available.
Finally, and here's the two comments where one really wishes he would have elaborated, he said both that they do take PvE and PvP into consideration when making class changes, and that Chilton's Esports comments have been widely misinterpreted.
On the first comment, I have to say that 2.4's testing both supports and conflicts with this idea. In their original forms, the Life Tap nerf and the water drinking change, while obvious arena-oriented, also created incredible problems for certain classes in PvE. Likewise, the Lifebloom nerf devastated PvE-oriented Tree of Life Druids while doing little to affect Restoration druid play in the arenas at all. So from a certain point of view, it's hard to believe Bornakk's comment.
From another point of view, we should remember that 2.4 was all about the progressive testing, and all of these changes were eventually either removed completely, or adjusted so that only affected Arenas. Whether they did this because of testing results on the PTR or because of community outcry is a whole other can of worms, however, so I suppose people will believe what they want to believe on Bornakk's comments.
Still, I think the biggest thing to take away from this is that once again, a blue poster is promising information on WoTLK in the near future, or at least teasing us with the prospect. Here's hoping that the rain really is coming!
