Given a games company founded by the developers of the PvP-centric MMO Shadowbane, and the fragfest shooters DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D, making a game centered around a bloodless card game where kids could battle monsters with funny monsters of their own must have been a little tough.
Stingite over at The Friendly Necromancer says that that’s all about to change.
Just in time for Christmas, the small dueling arena (picture on top) is being entirely revamped. There will be leader boards, ladder, arena ranking, matches, betting, special PvP loot… This is all sounding so incredibly familiar.
I’m not sure that adding a strong PvP element to Wizard 101 should have taken priority over pushing Dragonspyre out, but, there ya have it. A WoW-like Arena system is coming to W101.
Full details past the fold, but I’d like to point out this quote from Director Todd Coleman:
“If you prefer questing or mini-games, great… you never have to duel another player,” said Todd Coleman, Director of Wizard101. “But families — and a lot of core gamers that are playing Wizard101 too — are going to have a great time competing against other players in the Wizard Arena.”
In the best of all possible worlds, perhaps… but we all know what happens in arenas. The absolute worst impulses of your MMO player come out. But Coleman does point out that a lot of core gamers — if you read this blog, you are one — play W101.
Were you really waiting on an arena? As a core gamer myself, here are the things I put above an arena: An unfiltered chat server for adults. Guilds. Appearance slots. Customizable housing. Some basic means of crafting, perhaps combining the stats of one item with the look of another. A broker for treasure cards where players can make and trade them. Guilds — I list that again because how can you even have structured PvP without guilds or clans?. Larger battles than 4v4. Some sort of basic raids. The new, rumored Astral magic. The ability to re-spend training points.
I’ll play the Arena, but I find PvP fairly dull. I do like the sense of danger it brings to a game world, but when I’m involved in PvP, I usually wish I were doing something fun instead.