It’s a draw! And the demise of WoW as an esport.

I may have forgotten to mention that we killed Maloriak in a 25 man raid last week. It was a close run thing. And one of my more talented raid colleagues captured the whole thing on video here. (If you are looking for a tactics guide, here’s a link to the tankspot one.)

(It’s worth listening to the end since he captured some of the comments on vent as the boss went down – a 0% wipe, as we in the trade like to say.)

I was thinking while watching this that the fight looks much cooler on film than I thought it felt in the flesh. I may just be burned out on raiding, though. This does also have the distinction of being the one boss where Arms outdamages Fury (due to being able to AE the adds), so there is that.

Anyhow, well done Cobra on a very amusing and well deserved kill. Onwards and upwards! Or downwards, since these raids all take place in caves.

Is this the end of WoW as an esport?

I have very little interest in the esoteric world of eSports, live gaming tournaments, sponsored teams and suchlike. But when World of Ming reports that one of the major eSports circuits is excluding WoW from tournaments this year in order to concentrate more on SC2, it’s a trend worth noting.

I also always felt that Blizzard’s fondness of the world of eSports was misplaced for WoW. Zilea suggests several reasons for WoW being dropped as a format including suspicions that fewer people are playing arenas in any case, few teams are interested in the competitive circuit anyway, and lack of interest in the game from spectators. Yup, that would do it.

I’m not sure how this will affect arena players, but suspecting that for the majority, this will be not at all.