I still remember that I watched the first live World of Warcraft arena match last month. I have to say that it was a disaster in some degrees. The opponents knew very well about each other's tactics, and healers were also very skilled, which made the first round of the match unable to end within half an hour. You may say that that's a symbol of competitiveness. But if you were in the shoes of a gamer not very familiar with World of Warcraft, you might be absorbed by the match only in the first 5-10 minutes, since there's nothing special in the competing manners after that. Only when someone lost focus first or made a mistake due to nervousness first could the match end, not to mention the fact that the televised match was time limited. The best-of-three match, formerly expected to be broadcast for 1 hour, just didn't end within half an hour in the first round (the advertising time not counted).

You all must be very clear that Blizzard is so enthusiastic in entering the eSports field. It has not only gained reputation and benefits by means of the RTS series of StarCraft and WarCraft, but also attempted to integrate "Arena" to World of Warcraft. But its attempt has turned out to be a failure so far. Apart from the international matches at BlizzCon held for its own fans, Blizzard has failed to enter many large-scale eSports events including WCG. What's the problem on earth?

World of Warcraft is undoubtedly a classic game from the perspective of its PvE content, or we can say it displays the EverQuest style perfectly. But it encounters difficulty in the field of PvP, which's actually a common problem for Blizzard's games. Blizzard wishes players to show amazing response, hand control and concentration, which are all related to gamers' innate physical and psychological abilities (such abilities can also be slightly improved through acquired trainings). But that's not eSports' greatest appeal or greatest difference from traditional sports. Instead, its selling point lies in the appreciation of gamers' competition in tactics and strategies. It's not hard to realize this point in RTS, but hard in MMORPGs. Anyway, it's still possible to make a breakthrough. First, let me introduce you several difficult points from the perspective of World of Warcraft's current situation!

In the arena of World of Warcraft, each class's job is fixed once its talents are determined, and the whole strategies are almost confirmed after the team is formed. If the two teams are not much different in power, what matters should be the team members' concentration, but if the two are, it's best that either of them tries its best not to be defeated. In the BlizzCon last year, one of the rules even allowed gamers to change classes before the match began, which was really amusing. Blizzard seemed to realize that it had run its full course in this aspect, and radical changes were absolutely necessary.

Another important reason why World of Warcraft falls into such a dilemma is that its whole system was originally designed based on PvE, and the arena was added afterwards. This just causes an obvious problem. For example, the skill that fits the PvE environment very well may become very unsuitable for the arena. Blizzard usually prefers "nerf", which always leads to game balance problems. There's also a skill that plays a role in PvE but is meaningless in the arena. You must know what I refer to. Yes, that's "Taunt"! In this way, things become very funny. Warriors in World of Warcraft can also have fun in the arena, but it's best to avoid relying on defensive skills, or there'll be few achievements made.

Warhammer Online (WAR), which was pushed into the market in 2008, seems to find a feasibly effective way. Though the game now only attracts a very few gamers, some of its game concepts are still worth learning. WAR endows the same skill with different functions for PvE and PvP respectively, so as to facilitate the game balance settings and avoid the existence of useless skills. The wonderful settings of "Taunt" in PvP are just an example. If you are a DPSer, you'll wish to release the Taunt skill once the cool-down time expires. But it is still not enough. Most combats still lack changeability and unpredictability. Fortunately, there's no arena in WAR, and all are battlegrounds. Killing all the foes around is not necessarily the guarantee of victory, but an indication of individual achievements. Victory just depends on whether or not the objective is reached effectively.

Since the middle of 2010, from the constantly unveiled info, we can see that Guild Wars 2 has outlined such a prospect that MMORPGs will formally enter the eSports field in the future, and it will be a successful mode very likely to be well recognized and accepted by large numbers of gamers. You know why I think highly of Guild Wars 2?

It's mainly due to the large amount of unpredictability that has been integrated in Guild Wars 2's Arena. In the prequel Guild Wars, ArenaNet also disabled certain skills or endowed skills with different functions for PvE and PvP respectively, so that the PvE content wouldn't be affected. Below are some of the most interesting points in the upcoming sequel - Guild Wars 2:

1. Uncertainty

In Guild Wars 2, each character has 10 skills, 5 of which are related to his/her race and class, and the rest are bound to applied weapons. The same weapon can be attached with different skills if adopted by different classes, and each class can also use different weapons. So, what will be the result of such settings?

In face of a warrior, you cannot predict what skills he/she will release, unless you see his/her weapon. But that's only 50%, since Guild Wars 2 allows gamers to equip two weapons for quick swap, which is fairly important for a team. As the skills are bound to weapons, gamers can also perform combos by means of various skill combinations. In this way, suppose the first skill combination is broken by the opponent, the second combination can just be activated immediately by quick weapon swap, and thus the team's tactics can be completely changed. Sounds great, right?

2. Everyone is important!

In traditional MMORPGs, when a class shows up, we usually have an idea about his/her role. "Look! It's a mage. His spells must be very powerful, but he himself is weak. Knock him down now!" "A warrior is over there. He is too strong to be defeated, but only excels at melee combats. Let's attack him from afar first, and then kill him!" "A priest is detected. If he's killed, the foe's healing and resurrection channel will be cut off." We usually have such thought, but in the near future, Guild Wars 2 will stop us from thinking so.

Who says that warriors must equip swords, shields or two-handed axes? When they equip bows, a series of threatening skills can also be attached. Never look down upon them, since you may be in their attacking range unexpectedly! Guild Wars 2 strives to endow all classes with full range and melee combat abilities, and lays stress on gamers' character customization and team tactics.

All classes in Guild Wars 2 have the healing and defending ability, and can also resurrect teammates. When seeing an elementalist, never think that he can only throw powerful fire balls. Actually, he can also give healing rain to recover all teammates' HP. Killing the healer no longer means victory, since every character can be a healer.

Similarly, keep patient after killing a foe, because each class has the ability to resurrect teammates. If you fail to keep a good eye on the foes, things may change instantly. From another perspective, an excellent team will set higher and more comprehensive requirements for its members. The members must be able to attack, defend or heal according to circumstances, have a tacit understanding of each other, and avoid doing the same thing at the same time (e.g. several members resurrecting the same teammate). This will undoubtedly push MMORPGs to a much higher level in eSports.

3. Ability to break deadlocks

Let's go back to the televised match mentioned at the very beginning! If one of the gamers generated a kind of energy that could break the deadlock (e.g. bring the opponent an extremely serious impact or make the opponent unable to move within a certain time) as time went by, the match's competitiveness would be greatly enhanced. Such setting has been applied early, in WAR actually where it's called "Morale Skill", and in Guild Wars 2, it's just called "Elite Skill". No matter what it is called, I believe that there'll be few deadlocks in Guild Wars 2 when the time comes!

4. Knocking down a foe means victory?

It's so wise of ArenaNet to add the "Downed Skill" in Guild Wars 2, which makes the gamer fall down to the ground at two stages: at first, the gamer is hurt too seriously to move normally, but can still fight, and has a chance to apply a special skill (i.e. Downed Skill); the gamer will be "dead" and needs to be rescued only when he/she has negative HP value or totally unconscious. If the Downed Skill is used successfully, those knocked down will recover to a normal fighting state.

So what? Just imagine that the Downed Skill is not the last desperate struggle of the knocked down gamer, but a part of the team tactics. Maybe, the time when the knocked down team member starts to use the Downed Skill is just the beginning of teamwork? That's not impossible actually. So, don't think that knocking down a foe is a good beginning. Things may be just the opposite!

Time to sum up! The PvP content to show up in Guild Wars 2 may be just like what I described above. Regardless of the future game balance problems, the excitement and variability that can be expected will undoubtedly make Guild Wars 2 most likely to become a new eye-catching MMORPG star. Do you think so?