Instanced, "e-sports" PvP in an MMO

[Wyrmrider]

This question missed the 500-post limit for the PvP Q&A thread, but I posted it in a follow-up thread and thought I'd post it here as well.

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WoW's endgame PvP systems deliver fast-paced, instanced, low-impact, "e-sports" style action -- the kind of PvP traditionally found in game genres that don't require level/gear grinds (or monthly fees).

1. Does Blizzard feel that this PvP philosophy is well suited to an epic, persistent-world MMO?

2. If so, will Blizzard incorporate more ways for players to jump right into the instanced action?
Examples: rated battleground finder, limitless arena teams, spectator mode, pre-made PvP characters.

3. If not, will Blizzard take steps to revive a more epic, MMO-oriented brand of PvP?
Examples: incentives to regularly raid (and defend) cities, bounties on players' heads, world PvP events, continuous "RvR" with hot-joining. Some of these would apply only to PvP servers, of course.

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What do you think -- where will Blizzard take PvP? Where do YOU want them to take PvP?

Cheers,
Wyrm

[Snuggli]

rated battleground finder, limitless arena teams, spectator mode, pre-made PvP characters.

1. No, just use a normal battleground finder until you get good gear and a guild. Then do rateds.
2. They no longer cost gold to setup, the only limit is the player cap on your Arena team.. and if you Arena with 6 different people, that is a massive variety of comps.. and that'd be hard to master, there is no point.
3. Spectator mode would lag arena, it's a real neat idea but I don't think they have the resources to do it yet. It'd be cool if they worked on this though.
4. Tournament realm for real Arena.

[Spurmwhale]

Read the blue quotes front page Q&A. a few questions were asked in relation to world stuff, and the Dev's seem content with the world being empty and justify it for leveling up purposes, and their model for everyone being in some instanced activity. Seems like if they do anything with world PvP it'll be Isle of Quildaneas where they seem to look at that like some success. So no i am pretty sure they aren't planning to implement anything different than what we've already received regarding PvP activities, if anything more of the same.

They make no sense tho. They cater to a competitive niche to a fault in a medium(RPG) that isn't generally competitive. Game mechanics completely carry most of the pvp in the game, their designed activities are pretty fail when there is little variation.

[coldbear]

They're not going to do stuff that's specific and useful only to people on Pvp realms. The majority of their players are on PVE realms, they'd be stupid to design stuff that's only good for less than 50% of their players.

So it's instanced content, pretty much. It's the easiest to implement and doesn't cause a metric crapton of GM tickets like open world pvp does.

[Wyrmrider]

...they'd be stupid to design stuff that's only good for less than 50% of their players.

They do that all the time.

I didn't mean to argue about every little feature though, so save the comments about lag and arena comps and GM tickets. My fault for listing a bunch of specific examples in my original post and possibly obscuring my point.

My point is this:

MMO grind + instanced, low-impact PvP = a weak value proposition. If I want instanced, low-impact PvP I'll play StarCraft, DOTA, TF2 (or any shooter), etc. etc. etc., and skip the grind.

Give me some PvP systems worthy of "it's not a game, it's a world."