f13.net

As for the biggest mistake? There's a lot of them that I think, were ... they just "fell out" of things. If I was going to pick on a game design thing that I look back on and think was a mistake? We really never designed WoW to be a competitive e-sports game; it was something that we decided to start tackling because there was such a desire and demand to evolve it in that direction, to introduce competitive arenas. I'm not sure that that was the right thing to do with the game.

We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.

If I could go back in time before we shipped WoW, I would have said, "Maybe we shouldn't go there."  

 There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing.

I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.

really? Really? REALLY??!?!?!

In their defence, nobody really qualified (ergo sitting on a shitpile of cash and resources) had had a stab at it prior to WoW. Are the signs there for a fool to see? Perhaps, but prior to Blizzard actually making a real effort to balance things we weren't able to say "not even Blizzard can make it work!" SoE, Mythic or whomever never really cared for one side of the game, which Blizzard decided to do. Essentially it was a lesson someone had to learn (PvP and PvE don't mix), and it being Blizzard makes that lesson so much clearer.

Now, if some people had actually understood that lesson, some games could have been much more successful in the long term.

Seriously though, most people know that the arena game is broken.  The only other obvious mistake the guy could cite was that they didn't order enough cloth bags with dollar signs printed on them to hold all the cash that they would eventually rake in. 

When they finally devote resources to it, they shovel it all into the flawed at a base Arena system.

There's a lot of people who play Arenas.  There's a lot of people who only play Arenas.

No. No, lots of people don't enjoy arenas. Lots of people, in fact, simply see Arenas as a short-cut to decent weapons and armour and take part for that reason alone. See Season 7, where 2v2 teams were nerfed plus PvE content is readily available and gives out just as good rewards...and the number of people taking part in the season has fallen through the floor.

The funniest thing is Pardo saying "Oh, but lots of people enjoy Arenas so we can't just remove them!"

No. No, lots of people don't enjoy arenas. Lots of people, in fact, simply see Arenas as a short-cut to decent weapons and armour and take part for that reason alone. See Season 7, where 2v2 teams were nerfed plus PvE content is readily available and gives out just as good rewards...and the number of people taking part in the season has fallen through the floor.

Regardless of merits of Blizzard's arguments, alienating chunk of your player base by blaming your own balancing difficulties on them and designating them official scapegoat in the eyes of the rest of your player base is as stupid as it gets.

Regardless of merits of Blizzard's arguments, alienating chunk of your player base by blaming your own balancing difficulties on them and designating them official scapegoat in the eyes of the rest of your player base is as stupid as it gets.

Of course mouth-breathing retards who stumble upon that quote will throw poo everywhere.

PvP is content multiplier. How many more raids would Bliz have to push out to keep people occupied if there wasn't PvP?

{citation required}  :grin:

I'm skeptical about this. I don't know anyone who raids that does PVP other than when it's mandatory for some sort of equipment or reward. Ditto for PVE and my PVP friends.

I see their meddling with outdoor PvP zones, and the upcoming rated battlegrounds as hail marys.  I think they have hopes that something less 'srs bsns' will take over for arenas and they can gracefully bow out of them.  I don't really see it happening though.  But I am kind of interested in rated battlegrounds.  Vanilla wow guild v guild Arathi Basin was the best PvP has ever been in WoW.

Regardless of merits of Blizzard's arguments, alienating chunk of your player base by blaming your own balancing difficulties on them and designating them official scapegoat in the eyes of the rest of your player base is as stupid as it gets.

I can understand people not enjoying Arenas when ladder shows beyond any shadow of the doubt that you belong in the bottom 10% of WoW skill and you can't hide your personal failures by rolling in a zergball. Rest are justifications.

Wow arena is not about 'skill' it's about having the right class/spec comp for your group and that is it. Oh sure there's basic stuff you need to know but if you aren't X specced Y class, you aren't anything but cannon fodder.  Anyone who says differently is one of those specs and classes who can't understand why all the noobs whine See:Ret paladin at wotlk start.

I read it the same as sinji and don't play WoW (I don't eat at McDonald's).  I enjoy listening to you guys try to spin this.  It's like telling your spouse that you wish you never got married but you still love them anyway.

Hey look, a bullshit failure of a PVP system that only a handful of vocal douchebags enjoy and which even the developer admits was a flawed idea from the beginning. Who could have imagined that we'd find Sinij trying to champion it in his uniquely retarded fashion, making vague allusions that the company will someday regret "alienating" his dipshit demographic and whining like an infant that anyone who doesn't enjoy it must suck?

Nice to see that your zelous douchebaggery only rivaled by your total inability of play computer games well. You would think that after decades of voluntarily getting your shit pushed in various games you'd pick a pointer or two and graduate out of
Please, do tell me what helpless victims get hurt by "dipshit demographic" Gladiators on the way to the top in WoW's arena ladder?

www.Arenajunkies.com

Hush you. You just lack Sinij's leet PVP skillz.  Don't make him kill you with a holy priest just to prove a point.

i liek feces

Wow arena is not about 'skill' it's about having the right class/spec comp for your group and that is it. Oh sure there's basic stuff you need to know but if you aren't X specced Y class, you aren't anything but cannon fodder.  Anyone who says differently is one of those specs and classes who can't understand why all the noobs whine See:Ret paladin at wotlk start.

Wow arena is not about 'skill' it's about having the right class/spec comp for your group and that is it. Oh sure there's basic stuff you need to know but if you aren't X specced Y class, you aren't anything but cannon fodder.  Anyone who says differently is one of those specs and classes who can't understand why all the noobs whine See:Ret paladin at wotlk start.

No one here is a lot different that no one anywhere.  This "The arena player's aren't being scapegoated.  But fuck those guys, I hate them." message is funny.

We really never designed WoW to be a competitive e-sports game; it was something that we decided to start tackling because there was such a desire and demand to evolve it in that direction, to introduce competitive arenas. I'm not sure that that was the right thing to do with the game.

WoW arena and pvp is somewhat skill based once gear is equal, but could be better balanced in terms of removing macros and banning certain UI enhancements.  There are many many ways to gain a competitive edge in pvp that go well beyond your knowledge of game mechanics and reaction times.  Those need to be equalized long before any arena pvp can be considered more than gimik exploitation.  

So they're given identical gear and forced to use identical interfaces. They then choose to create identical teams. (Because WoW is balanced and diverse!) After all of this, with every other possible consideration is ruthlessly stamped out, they're able to have a skillful match.

All of these systems are even in less polished condition than Arenas. Any kind of emphasis, like BiS PvP gear handouts, will put it under microscope that will reveal all kinds of problems.

Map imbalances, assist trains, AoE CC, stack warfare and client issues. Do you think WoW is ready for competitive group PvP? Please, be realistic.

What exactly is this supposed to mean to the average dude who's just logged into WoW and is sitting there deciding what to do? Besides, everytime anyone playing an MMO talks about "gaming skill" some dude at a Street Fighter tournament starts laughing hysterically without knowing why.

You can have your arena when it stops affecting my PvE experience. That ok with you 1337 5k1llZ d00d5?

I don't know why they can't balance things differently when someone is participating in PvP versus PvE stuff.  Just make the ruleset different when you enter into the Arena.  Can't be that hard. 

Have players zone into the arena with set gear that is 100% equal (would take a little time to balance across classes).  Then you limit player advantage to skill, experience, macros, group build, and UI elements.  Arena rewards would then be titles and perhaps some gear that would help in WG/BG's. 

Yes, a lot of us who played WOW arena have been saying that for a while (and some 'arenajunkies' have, as well). Watch -- in less than 5 posts someone will say "but if there is no gear reward from arenas, why would people play them????" and we'll be back to where we were in the previous 5 threads.  :why_so_serious:

Have players zone into the arena with set gear that is 100% equal (would take a little time to balance across classes).  Then you limit player advantage to skill, experience, macros, group build, and UI elements.  Arena rewards would then be titles and perhaps some gear that would help in WG/BG's. 

Yes it only takes a little bit of skill above average.  Sure sure WUA, if you cared you could be awesome at it.

I've been in agreement the whole time, pvp in a gear based, level based, diku combat system, grind to get to max level bullshit game like WoW is stupid.  No argument here.  Its just funny how you have to throw in that there isn't that much skill disparity.  Trust me, there always is.

GW suffers some (albeit fewer) of the same issues that WoW does (i.e. a pvp generated level 20 will get crushed by a well-developed 20).  They are both proof that PvP and achievement- based MMOs really don't go well together.  PvP needs a fairly low barrier to entry with horizontal class development (larger array of equal powered abilities) rather than a vertical one (levels or gear) to be successful.  

Gear progression is at the heart of WoW. You can't just remove that and expect to feel confident that players will still be in Arenas months and months down the road. Titles alone matter to the 1-2% of the people that may have a shot of ever hitting the top (lifestyle mostly). And conveying advantages in BGs while workable still means a reward system that compels them out of the system you're trying to fix.

This would be a good idea to have started the concept of Arenas with. But years later you've got some very established conventions you don't just arbitarily toss out the window. Not after you've hit your peak and are looking more at retention/win-back strategies than new acquisitions ones.

Let me clarify since you clearly missed the point.  A freshly made 20 in GW cannot compete with a 20 that has had time to acquire/capture skills and get enough gold to buy a proper set of glyphs and gear.   If you are logging on to GW you still will need some time to get the glyphs/skills you need and the cash for gear etc.  The curve is significantly less steep with regard to this than most MMOs making it more palatable as a pvp mmo.      

If you think BGs will magically make everything better, keep dreaming.  The successful BG setups are going be as cookie cutter as the 5's bracket is now.

You know, I read that article as a developer was asked a question, so he came up with an anwser. Arenas, stating that they are perhaps the weakest part of the design, or to use the questioners wording, mistake. Hindsight is 20/20.

Why weakest instantly is rounded down to "FAIL!" and an insult to players is one of the most fascinating things about players. In no way shape or form is the addition of arenas failed. Its in, its working, and many enjoy it. He simply stated that during the design process, they may not have foreseen all the consequences of the feature.... He was ASKED to think about what was the weakest part. I dont think he grabbed some random news guys and said "You know, I need to tell someone this, arenas, yeah, broken fucking idea because I hate those players too."

You may now return to your regularly scheduled crying.

Guild Wars entire pvp system is based on low level of entry, horizontal power curve, and no rewards that increase your stastical power. With that in mind the system is quite popular for 5-6 years now. Considering the entire game is built around the lack of vertical progression, the replay ability of content, and fighting for shinnies that provide again no statical increases in power, anyone playing the game is playing it for the fun and lolz.

I agree.  I apologize for my slanted comment earlier as I now see that we were coming to the same focus. 

What would be interesting would be if GW had the following it does with a subscription model.  I fear that the allure of rare shinies is an almost necessary component when you introduce a monthly fee. 

Designers are not known for the social skills. He gave the answer like he would of to any team mate.

This is why corporations have public relations department.  Silly mistake on Blizzard's part.

What are you most proud of over the last five years? What was the biggest mistake you think you made?

What I'm most proud of? It's just kind of the achievement of WoW itself, of having this goal - our goal was to look at the genre, and we saw what was super fun about it, but unfortunately in the previous MMOs you always had to be hardcore to get to that really "sticky" fun. But for the people that did it, we all saw how much fun there was in that genre that so many people couldn't ever get to. Our No.1 goal with WoW was, "Lets make a game where people can get to that fun, see it, and get invested in this wonderful genre instead of scoffing, and passing over it because it was an MMO."

We did it through a lot of methods; we had directed quest gameplay from beginning to end, you could solo all the way to the top - grouping was encouraged rather than required. The level curve actually matches the content. There were lots of little implementation details, but the idea was this: "Let's just take this super fun genre that people don't know really exists, and expand it out so that everyone can enjoy that." We set that goal and achieved it, and I'm most proud of that. A lot of the time you try to achieve goals, and don't quite make it all the way - you might make 70% of the goal - especially if it's so lofty.

As for the biggest mistake? There's a lot of them that I think, were ... they just "fell out" of things. One example: I wish the servers were more stable when we launched, of course - there's a lot of that sort of thing. We have a lot of excuses for that - we didn't expect nearly the response - but we can't say it wasn't a mistake. If I was going to pick on a game design thing that I look back on and think was a mistake? We really never designed WoW to be a competitive e-sports game; it was something that we decided to start tackling because there was such a desire and demand to evolve it in that direction, to introduce competitive arenas. I'm not sure that that was the right thing to do with the game.

We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction. Either I'd go back in time to before WoW ever shipped and change the rules to make the basic game more conductive for being an e-sport, or if not that, just say it doesn't make sense. Right now, WoW has a bit of a schizophrenic philosophy behind it, and we're trying to figure out how to guide it.

It's tricky, now that we've gone down that road, because we have a passionate, large audience that enjoys it - the Arena, the e-sport - so we can't just chop off that head. We can't just say, "We fouled up and will go back to how it used to be before," because we have a really passionate audience that wants it in the game.

If I could go back in time before we shipped WoW, I would have either made serious changes to basic class balance to facilitate that type of play, or if I went back to when we had the idea two years later, I would have said, "Maybe we shouldn't go there."

The person in question was interviewed, not the PR department.

Since when did all game companies become a giant blob of a hive mind? I was under the impression that individuals working together made a "development team", and that interview was done by one of those individuals about his personal opinion. I was not aware that one persons opinion was the entire group think of the company.

http://www.arenajunkies.com/

Those macros are beyond retarded. E-sport my ass.

Welcome to my comments from a page or two ago. 

Those macros are beyond retarded. E-sport my ass.

If I go hang out with some hardcore PvP master dudes...

They will sound exactly like people in raids.  For every arena player that screams throughout the match and nerd rages after every loss, there's a a team that is slightly more talkative than a Charlie Chaplin movie and just quietly sighs after every loss before requeing.  Troxed (http://dramaloot.com/media/troxed.swf) wasn't talking about arenas.

What magical INSTANT SKILL macros are you looking at?  Please cite specific examples.
---

It is unbelievably popular to bash Arenas and PvP in WoW nowadays. Because, as opposed to the PvE game which is obviously rocket science and catering exclusively to extremely skilled, civilized and highly trained individual role models of win, PvP is something for immature losers resorting to yelling, macros for winning and being general dorks. Not to forget they are also responsible for having Aimed Shot nerfed by 3%, which of course ruined many a virtual existance in the world of Azeroth.

WoW pvp takes skill.  That's very true.  I've been humbled in open pvp a number of times by people outplaying me.  

Just to be clear, my point was that:  a) Macros and UI elements remove some of the skill requirement.  b) gear and arena group composition play a significant role in success until you reach the uppermost tiers.  

Why weakest instantly is rounded down to "FAIL!" and an insult to players is one of the most fascinating things about players.

instantly is rounded down

rounded down

[No disrespect guys of course, no disrespect but..]

They're not better than you, they're just literally poop-flingin' crazy.  That's what it boils down to.  They trade their sanity for the opportunity get berated over the course of months/years, probably by someone who was himself been broken down and humiliated not too long ago himself.  And almost as a side effect of their poor behavior, they get somewhat better at killing Elves and Dwarfs on the interbutts.  My theory is that this is the method cavemen used to figure out how to fight mammoths and shit.  I just think it's sad that we haven't really evolved.  And if that offends you, well, you may want to direct your rage in a positive direction.  (IE Get help.)

Oh for fucks sake, none even approached saying any fucking thing like this.  This is why you get picked on.

You two need to not be so butthurt. (Native tong, yes?)

Arenas really do have a much larger skill component than most of the people in this thread are giving credit for. I've been on the losing end of plenty of matches where I just got flat outplayed (and won a few where we outplayed comps we should have lost to, too), and I'm far the worst PVP player in WoW (Fordel might disagree after being my arena partner for a while  :awesome_for_real:). Yes, composition and gear combined probably play an overall larger role than skill but skill is still a big chunk of it. I'm surprised to see people who I know have extensive raiding experience say there's no skill in it; many of the same skills that cause people to succeed or fail at raiding will have the same effect in arena.

This whole "oh it is all gear and comp" thing reminds me of a common complaint from (dare I say it?) lesser players in other 'deckbuilding' contexts. Arena actually has a lot in common with those, right down to the ELO rating system. Nobody likes to admit they lost because they didn't play well. They'll blame everything they can before looking at their own shortcomings as a player, whether that's bad die rolls or poor luck on draws or the opponent playing overpowered cards or figures, or whatever else. The great players are the ones who come away from those matches not pushing the blame onto outside factors but saying "what did I do wrong that I can change for next time?"

I think if they got rid of the macros it would probably make it a bit more even.

Read the quote above perhaps?

Gob,

Correct me if I'm wrong... but if macros didn't impart a competitive advantage, would anyone bother to use them?

EDIT: Also, having a UI component that screams "YOU NEED TO PUSH BUTTON A NOW TO MAXIMIZE DPS" or "YOU HAVE EFFECT X ON YOU" doesn't hurt either. 

Gob,

Correct me if I'm wrong... but if macros didn't impart a competitive advantage, would anyone bother to use them?

EDIT: Also, having a UI component that screams "YOU NEED TO PUSH BUTTON A NOW TO MAXIMIZE DPS" or "YOU HAVE EFFECT X ON YOU" doesn't hurt either. 

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html ?

[No disrespect guys of course, no disrespect but..]

Yea, I'm not sure how much of that can apply to WoW. Unless you consider being unwilling to re-roll a 'mental block'.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/963220/6a00d4142efd3f3c7f00d414332aab3c7f-500pi.jpg)

I'm surprised to see people who I know have extensive raiding experience say there's no skill in it; many of the same skills that cause people to succeed or fail at raiding will have the same effect in arena.

My non-scientific contribution is that well over half my guild uses at least a couple UI mods, even if it is just recount or auctioneer.

What I was getting at was this: In today's business environment admitting that you have any weakness can lead to bad things.  It's a very PC world now.  This developer's personal opinion should never been made public.

Now that most classes have at least a viable spec I think it brings it a bit closer to the CCG paradigm, since most people could just respec to a potentially viable character rather than having to reroll entirely.

No, the article is actually spot on in many regards, especially about how lots and lots of people make non-existent rules for games. I do it all the time myself for lots of games, I generally won't "rush" in a friendly RTS game. Or look at DaoC and all the GankGroup "rules" for what was and wasn't a legitimate group vs group fight.

I don't think that kind of mental block is really holding anyone back in WoW, unless like I said, you want to include the unwillingness to always follow the current patch balance and re-roll (or spec, or gear or etc). We all 'abuse' every damn advantage we have, all the time.

If I spent months and months leveling Dhalsim and getting him gear, switching to Ryu required the same, and I couldn't be sure Ryu wasn't going to get nerfed into the new Dhalsim anyway, I'd probably just keep picking him too.

Why is anyone surprised? You can unravel the people in the top tier of anything to see the sequence of life events that lead them there, and which keep everyone else out. This is games, sports, politics, economics. I know some people like this idea that games start everyone at a level playing field. But that hasn't been true since before people started recognizing it.

Personality, life station, family, personality, mental differences, it all contributes.

This is why it's so important to know oneself. It becomes easier to recognize what you can and can't get good at so you can focus your attention on what you can do well.

I expect someone to come along and say "you can be good at anything you put your mind to", and that's true, as long as you're using the word good and not the word best.

Why is anyone surprised? You can unravel the people in the top tier of anything to see the sequence of life events that lead them there, and which keep everyone else out. This is games, sports, politics, economics. I know some people like this idea that games start everyone at a level playing field. But that hasn't been true since before people started recognizing it.

PvP which is gear dependent?  Seriously?

"Hey mom! Why didn't you give me Autism so I could spend days grinding without a stop and be in the top 10% in a computer game?"

PvP which is gear dependent?  Seriously?  If you had Fordel and myself square off against one another he would crush me.

Each bracket has infected the other brackets 'balance' wise. To the point where they finally gave up on the 2v2 bracket even.

PvP which is gear dependent? 

All of the same for equalizing gear on entrance to the arena apply equally to BGs and PVE instances.  After all, why should Fordel do more damage in PVE just because he's been at it longer than you?

They've given up on the 5v5 bracket too.

Funny to see all these people trying to justify why they are at the bottom 10% of the ladder and not top 10%.  It always, "if not for our gear/addons/classes/whatever, we too could be Gladiators". Instead it always the same crew of people that gets gladiators regardless of class they play any given season, followed by duelists crowd. Only challengers get good turnover, people ether move up or don't come back.

I can understand someone when they say - I got to 1800 but my ilevel200 gear really holding me back. No, its always decently geared perma-noob complaining that they can't get past 1200.

Stop making excuses and spend time getting better, or accept that PvP isn't for you and stay away from it. Very few people are born to be natural PvPers, for most of us it takes research and practice. You too will have to practice to get out of bottom half of the ladder.

3v3 as well, its RMPs all the way down. Arena under current management isn't doing as well as it was doing in tBC. Rating requirements on all gear made sure various retards like WUAs just gave up and simply mediocre players took their place at the bottom.

We beat plenty of players and teams that later on got duelist (and we were beaten by a lot of them, too) simply because we were a 4dps team that'd kill someone in 3 seconds if I got a healer in a fear. There is your "skill". :p

Part of 'skill' on live is recognizing the best comp among what you have available.  You won't necessarily have a good enough mage or resto shaman available to run MLS, or an ele shaman and a holy pal for classic wizard cleave, but if you can find a druid and a warrior you can run WLD.

Not to rip on you, but DPS-heavy comps that just tunnel vision the shit out of something tend to be easier to play - up to a point.  4 DPS can beat up on a lot of comps, but eventually the gimmick stops working and advancement stalls.  It's the same in 2s with double-dps: Much easier to play to Rival, much harder to play to Glad (if it was still available in 2s, anyway).  If your goal is just to get to 1800 for weapons though, rating's rating.

Then a bunch of those players quit because now they're not getting any gear either, dragging even more people down into the "no gear" zone in a repetitive cycle

It has to not punish being the sheep.  The good get better while the bad don't.  Kind of throws the "it's all about skills" argument out.

Filtering your usual drivel away, yes that is definitely an issue and exactly why Blizzard needs to remove rating reqs from majority of gear out there.

What you are wrong about is to why bottom quits. They stop participating because they don't get any meaningful rewards out of it, not because of victimization by antisocials or whatever psychobabble you chose to use these days. There has to be ding-gratz type of reward not tied to success to appeal to masses, but that goes contrary to 'even out playing field' requirement when these rewards are only given to successful.

Arena has to reward failure to gain mass appeal. :(

It has to not punish being the sheep.  The good get better while the bad don't.  Kind of throws the "it's all about skills" argument out.

What you are wrong about is to why bottom quits. They stop participating because they don't get any meaningful rewards out of it, not because of victimization by antisocials or whatever psychobabble you chose to use these days.

Arena has to reward failure to gain mass appeal.

Arena has to reward failure to gain mass appeal. :(

On the note of rated BGs, I really don't see how it can work. For good or for worse Arenas benefit from having a consistent team to play along each week, and even there it's a real pain to get enough people for a 5v5. Getting 14 other people for competitive AB week after week? Yeah good luck with that. And if you can't get that you're reduced to pugs amd afk'ers, which will be a truly competitive edge in rated BGs.

This thread delivers more than politics.   :popcorn:

While true, there is no reason in a game that certain reasonable balance is not done.

PvP which is gear dependent?  Seriously?

Arena needs to be a separate game.  Wouldn't that make everyone happy?   WOW becomes easier to balance, Arena players get to concentrate on competing, everybody wins!

Which is as much a waste of resources, because it's a completely separate game. Didn't this come up in this thread already? The idea of separate ranking systems with separate itemization (which already exists anyway)?

Oh. Yea, that hasn't been mentioned. WoW Arenas are not some mass marketable thing. It's something of an arcane e-sport that only those into MMOs would even consider. Unless you're also thinking that this is more like an EVE/Dust 514 kinda split where two completely separate activities merely share the same IP but nothing else? Maybe that could work. Something like a Tekken for Warcraft maybe. Particularly for consoles.

If it isn't mass marketable, then one has to wonder why it has such a dominating factor on the game of WOW. 

It seems like it would be fairly easy to have a "PVP talent tree" that would be separate from the normal talent tree and only be activated when in a PvP system. Then you don't have to worry about balancing two systems as one, you just balance each individually.

I thought they're trying to repeat the Korean madness that's Starcraft e-sport... or at least hoping for something on similar level.

Probably.  Currently, arenas are a cross of poker and MMA.  There is a reason there are no 3 on 3 MMA tournaments: MMA is hard enough to follow when it's just two dudes punching one another in the nuts, much less six guys trying to arm-bar each other.  They're probably hoping rated BGs will be slow enough paced that you can follow what's going on mostly from the overhead view.

If it isn't mass marketable, then one has to wonder why it has such a dominating factor on the game of WOW.  I mean, weren't they gonna try to put this on TV? And I'm not saying you're wrong, in fact I think you're right.   

It's a dominating factor while intertwined with the WoW MMO system, but as a separate entity it is nothing more than a "non-sucky" Fury, and monetizing and keeping a stand alone arena game popular isn't as easy as maintaining an Arena system as part of a much larger MMO.