WOW's 2009 Arena tournament confirmed

By Oli Welsh Published 11 February, 2009

Online gladiators compete for USD 200k.

Blizzard has confirmed that its official World of Warcraft Arena tournament will go into a second year. Registration starts on February 17th.

As last year, the tournament will begin with an online qualifier played on special tournament servers with premade level 80 characters. Top teams will then proceed to regional finals and a global world championship - which last year took place at BlizzCon in October.

Prize money will total over USD 200,000, and participants also stand a chance to win some in-game rewards for their live characters - an exclusive armoured Murloc pet, and the title of Vanquisher.

Registration costs EUR 15 / GBP 12 per account, for which you get to create three characters. Details of eligible countries will be published next week when registration opens; for now, you can read more at the official WOW site.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Gurgeh #1 3 years ago

    Does anyone take Arena seriously these days?

  • bigbadbeasty #2 3 years ago

    I would say: Has PvP in WoW ever been serious at all??

  • Notez #3 3 years ago

    Haha, can you imagine the whining and rage if this was only for ages 18+ (and I hope it is, just for that).

  • butler` #4 3 years ago

    i'll be winning this

  • mkreku #5 3 years ago

    Wow.. $200,000 in total prize money. What is that? Like three minutes of Blizzard income? How generous of them.

  • Kami #6 3 years ago

    Arena was the worst idea WoW has ever implemented - it requires balanced classes and in an MMO, especially one with a heavy emphasis on the PvE, that's just impossible without stepping on the toes of one or the other.

    The PvP isn't terrible if it's like the battlegrounds, when you have a large group of people and can have pretty much every class working for the win. But Arena is small, condensed, limited, a bit rock paper scissors in style as one class is stronger than another - and has a huge reliance on special arena epics which makes life for newcomers rather difficult.

    But people seem to enjoy it for some odd reason. I won't be participating, Arena for me has always been a stupid idea implemented very badly - not even prize money would tempt me into it.

  • BadgerFiend #7 3 years ago

    *dons troll costume*

    WoW blows..