Mark Jacobs of WAR: "I'm flattered" by Wrath's PvP
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, PvP, Quests, Wrath of the Lich King
Oh, this is rich. We'll admit that WoW's achievements system is Blizzard's reaction to Warhammer Online's Tome of Knowledge system, and sure, we'll even go so far as to say that the PvE to PvP transfers are a shot off the bow of WAR, but claiming that WoW's Lake Wintergrasp is a straight rip from Warhammer? We'd think not. Still, that won't keep Mythic's CEO Mark Jacobs from claiming exactly that -the outspoken developer says he's "flattered" by what he calls Blizzard's attempts at open world PvP.
Too bad it's straight out nonsense -we were at the PvP panel at last year's BlizzCon, where Blizzard explained all of the experiments they'd made with world PvP, from the very sad Silithus, to the more successful Halaa and Auchindoun, and how they'd landed on the concept for Lake Wintergrasp -the worldwide buff, the raid boss, the persistent rewards, and so on -from all of the world PvP that had come before. That's not to say that Blizzard doesn't want to borrow the best things from Warhammer and other popular games out there, but to claim Wintergrasp is an attempt to emulate Warhammer's PvP is just plain reaching. And leveling through PvP? Considering you need a flying mount to get to Wintergrasp and you can't actually get that until three levels left in the game, it's as stretchy as it gets to claim that's Blizzard's attempt at emulating WAR. If Blizzard really did want to rip off WAR, they'd do it better than that, no?
Can't say we're that surprised, though. Jacobs and his team do have a habit of biting off more than they can chew already.
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