A large part of what makes Arenas fun for me is the amount of competition. The same thing that turns people away from Arenas because they are too competitive, is the same thing that I like about them. The changing competition and inability to fully predict what the enemy will do next is what keeps me coming back. If you are more into raiding, imagine if your guild finally got to Anub’Arak except he changed tactics every time you tried to down him. There are no more phases, no more emotes or timers to predict when he’ll use his abilities; only raw teamwork can even come close to beating him. How many of you would still raid? How many wouldn’t fall asleep like you normally do when you run old content?
Playing RMP is the epitome of this competition. If you go into every arena match with set strategies and aren’t ready to break from those strategies, you will end up losing a fair amount of matches. It forces you to think outside the box, to come up with different strategies for each comp that you face and ultimately makes you create strategies on the fly. For example, when we face a mirror comp, we always have the same opening strategy but it rarely ends the same. Some RMPs will focus the rogue, some the mage, some the priest. Not to mention the many variations between. You have to be able to adjust your strategies on the fly and react/predict what your opponent is going to do.
How Casual is Casual?
I keep reading articles here and there about ex-WoW players or current WoW players who feel that the game is too hardcore for them. Whenever I run into a random person in RL who plays WoW, it seems like they don’t have any max level characters. The rare ones who do seem to have a single 80 that doesn’t have any gear let alone knows much about the game.
It would be fun to see statistics on how many players are really that casual. What percentage of accounts have 80s and how many of them actually see endgame PvE/PvP content. Just hearing that I have 3 level 80s makes these people look at me like I must play 24/7 and not have a job or a life. In actuality, I currently play WoW roughly 3-5 hours per week on average and could easily hold my PvP status with playing much less (1-2 hours per week).
On one hand, many would consider me casual because I play little every week. On the other hand, many would consider me hardcore because I have 3 level 80s all of which are in full Epic gear. Being a Hardcore WoW player is nothing what it used to mean. In 2005, I read a statistic that said less than 10% of level 60’s even saw MC let alone killed Ragnaros. Think about the old ranked PvP system where 1 person would get rank 14 per week per realm. Thats only ~52 people per realm per faction per year.
If the game gets to a point where epics are handed out freely without any work or any value, I will no longer have interest in the game. Take away that competition and the game will be a MMO version of peggle.
Live Stream
Lately, I have been streaming my play through Xfire. Add me as a friend or check out my stream at http://www.xfire.com/live_video/ferngully You can usually check out all of our Arena games and some other PvP that I do.
