World of Warcraft Arena Tournament Interview

Big Download sat down with Tom Chilton (Lead Designer), Paul Della Bitta (Senior Manager, Global Community and eSports) and Joong Kim (eSports Manager) to talk about the Worlf of Warcraft arena tournament.
Do you think that there will be a time when the Tournament Arena will have its own rules and balances separate from the live game?

Tom: No, we intend for the games to stay very much the same in terms of rules and balance. Any changes we make on the live server will be reflected on the arena server. Anything that we learn and deem necessary to change on the arena server will also apply to the live server. It's very important to us that the experience on the live server feel well balanced, so any lessons we learn will work in both directions. We also want the game to feel consistent so that the Arena Tournament server still feels like World of Warcraft gameplay. We don't want it to start diverging and feel like a completely different game.

What is the ultimate goal with the Tournament Arena? Will there eventually be televised gameplay?

Tom: As a game designer, my ultimate goal is to have it be fun and exciting. I'm sure Paul has more to add.

Paul: As far as televising goes, eventually the players competing online will transition to a live event to each of the regions where we're running the tournament. The winners of those live events will go to a global final. We know our players are very interested in watching, so we're looking to broadcast them in some way. We'll be releasing more details as we get closer to those events.

There is an objective. We want to give our players the opportunity to become pros and show off their talents. Our players will have the opportunity to become superstars within the World of Warcraft community.