Ghostcrawler speaks on Arenas and Battlegrounds

Ghostcrawler posted numerous responses in a long thread that referenced the findings that far fewer players were participating in Arenas in Season 5. It's an extremely good thread where he addresses numerous posts, defending Blizzard's treatment of Arenas, attempting to explain the drop in participation, and conceding various points to players sharing their thoughts. Here are a few things that Ghostcrawler mentions that stood out for me:

On Arenas

• "Players go where the loot is." - on why he thinks Season 5 has less participation, pointing to the fact that it's easier to gear up through PvE
  

• "Getting 100% of WoW players into Arenas is not our goal. Getting 100% of players who like to do Arenas into Arenas is a goal."
  

• "I hope it's obvious we would not have gone for that new system if we did not think it would offer an enormous improvement over the old one." - on Blizzard's planned move to a new rating system (again) in Season 6, where teams start from 0

On Battlegrounds

• "It actually takes a great deal of time to make a BG. It isn't the map creation; it is making all of the rules work. We are working on building better tools though to streamline that process." - responding to a post saying that Blizzard can crank out a Battleground every 8 weeks

• "If we offered epics through BGs, it would basically be (right now at least) some kind of grind fest."

• "We would LOVE to offer good gear through BGs, don't get me wrong. We just haven't figured out a great way to do it yet."

• "I think this is fair. We have some BG plans up our sleeve." - on the accusation that Blizzard has focused on Arenas and largely ignored Battlegrounds

He also digresses a little into discussions about raid difficulty, challenging players to get to Algalon. Overall, it's a rather engaging thread where Ghostcrawler explains (as he usually does) Blizzard's philosophy on building things. He also clarifies that "bring the player not the class" is a PvE goal and doesn't necessarily apply to Arenas. Although he continues to defend Arenas by noting that many factors contribute to its lowered popularity in Season 5, it's a good sign that they are starting to give more focus to Battlegrounds. As excited as I am for Season 6, I think the new Battleground has whet my appetite even more.