Today's Edition Of Developer vs Developer (DvD)

I’m trying to cut down on the Warhammer stories, really, but then I see links to media interviews or posts and I can’t help myself. It’s got all the drama of Dawn, but surrounding an actual fun game. How can a blogger resist! Anyway, in today’s media clipping, Mark Jacobs smacktalks back at the Blizzard boys.

Do you believe Blizzard’s plan to introduce open world PVP into World of Warcraft is an attempt to position themselves against WAR?

Oh absolutely. I think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You have a game that’s been out for four years, they’ve never put in world PVP like ours, they’ve never been able to level through PVP like in ours.

I think it’s absolutely a reaction to Warhammer. It wasn’t like all of a sudden the idea of open world PVP or levelling through PVP came into their heads and went ‘nobody’s ever done this before’. I don’t think it was accidental that they’re talking about doing it when Warhammer comes out. Four years and suddenly, miraculously, at the same time Warhammer comes out that’s when they start talking about these things… I think it was Jeff Kaplan who said they like to look at other games and learn from them – well, I’m flattered.

He’s right, of course (smacktalk based on truth is always the best smacktalk!) Considering that Blizzard’s designers were avid DAOC players, this isn’t precisely a new development. And hey, if Blizzard takes one of Warhammer’s best features (levelling in PvP from level 1) I’m all over that.

Until they nerf death knights. Which you know is going to happen sometime in January, right? Just checking.