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PvP Gameplay in World of Warcraft

The Three Cornerstones of World of Warcraft

When we first started making World of Warcraft, there were 3 major components to the game. One of course was the adventuring aspect of the game, where you play against AI-controlled monsters and the environment with a group of friends. The second component is what we internally call the "World is Toy" aspect: making sure there are plenty of things to do in the world that are fun but that have nothing to do with character advancement. The third component is player versus player gameplay. All the games that Blizzard has released have always been competitive and our fans look to us to provide that type of play. So we felt that had to be a core component of World of Warcraft.

Warcraft. Warcraft - starting back in the day with Orcs & Humans - was about the war between Horde

and Alliance. We have expanded the Alliance and Horde to encompass more races within each side, but

it's still at its core a game about the conflict between the two factions.

Orc Demolisher PvP Vehicle
We designed our world to reflect this tension and to create situations that bring players into

conflict with the other side. Our quests encourage you to attack the NPCs of the opposing faction. We

also set up our zones with conflicts already ongoing between the two sides, and then ask you to

participate in those conflicts. For example, in the Hillsbrad zone, there is both a human town and an

undead town, and the undead town has a series of quests that ask you to go to an Alliance village and

defeat human peasant NPCs. We feel that is a great way to remind the players that a war is still

raging between the Horde and Alliance. It gives both sides reasons to dislike the other players. An

undead player in Hillsbrad is made to feel like the humans are his enemies, and vice versa.

The way we handle languages also supports this division between Horde and Alliance. The two sides

can't communicate with each other. That's actually not a hard and fast rule; they just speak

different languages. There is the ability for any particular race to learn a language of the opposing

side, but again, since you can't really communicate with people from the other side, there is already

a barrier there between you and them. You already have friends that you speak with versus enemies

with whom you cannot.

We really wanted to make our PvP system unique, and we wanted to create a way for everyone to participate in PvP combat if they wanted to. Many MMORPGs out there now segregate their adventuring groups from their PvP groups. Some games are "PvP-centric" while other games are focused only on adventuring. Even in those particular games you'll see that the designers have created special rules servers where people can enjoy PvP even though that wasn't what the game was designed for. We really wanted to bridge the gap. We wanted to design a game where people could have a good time adventuring and at the same time engage in PvP whenever they want, and be rewarded for doing so. That was the overarching goal.

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