Like Liquids raid leader Max explained, over four weeks of raiding, with 16-hour shifts in some cases, gnawed too much at the players. They broke camp early and needed a break until it continued two days later. This time, not from the event location, but from home. The World First Race simply went on too long. And even if fans want to see a long, epic race, a Marathon to World First is harmful for several reasons.

The problems of a too-long World First Race

Comments on Limit’s interim abandonment show that players have a somewhat skewed view of the apparent “well-paid professionals with endless money and time.”

The misconception of a WoW top raider

First of all, spectators need to be disabused of the illusion that WoW professional raiders in the Race to World First are something like professional soccer players going to the World Cup. You can never accurately predict the timing of participation in a World Cup (you might make the finals, you might be eliminated in the group stage). The criticism of Liquid was that the players should have prepared better. Contracts for location, moderators, technology, flights and so on should have been included in the calculation. But the comparisons to other sports and events are very lame.

I have yet to see a World Cup where every team is on the pitch for 14+ hours a day permanently for weeks. Teams sometimes have days of rest, WoW raiders don’t. And then there is the misconception of the status that pro raiders have in the eyes of many viewers. The top 5 teams now have support from sponsors and organizations. But that doesn’t mean that the players are all set and that there is endless money available for events.

Or do you think a RazeQ from Liquid makes enough money with his Twitch stream and some grant from Liquid? Who now cries out and says “of course”, let me tell you that I just made up the name RazeQ and nobody plays with this gamertag at Liquid. So known are these players namely, and accordingly small their streams away from World First Races. Many have to take time off from their normal work for the World First Race. Two weeks is still okay. But especially for US guilds, who sometimes don’t have paid vacation days, three or more weeks are simply not possible – apart from the fact that the entire vacation is to be used up for several World First Races?

If the race can only really be tackled by one or two guilds because it goes on for three weeks or more, the race gets boring. So we have a choice: a longer World First Race and always the same winner(s), or a shorter race and thus more excitementbecause more guilds have the chance to play at the top. I am clearly leaning towards the latter.

Nobody wants the lonely top favorite

Let’s stick to soccer comparisons. Do you know what happens regularly in increasingly boring leagues where the same team always becomes the perennial champion? The league thinks about a fairer distribution of money, play-off modes are discussed for a more exciting championship fight and in the long run spectators don’t take the title fight seriously anymore. Something like that could happen to Race to World First, if only two guilds can afford to invest so much time for so long.

Earlier, the players of Echo and the banner of Echo raided. Even then, there were actually only 2 favorites to the World-First throne – Limit and Method.

No one wants to see Echo lonely at the top just because players can half afford to make a living off WoW, so they can put a month’s time into a World First Race. Viewers want an exciting Race to World First. For that to be the case, and as long as there are still only two or three guilds that can afford to pay for their raid squad, the race will never be exciting. That can’t be in Blizzard’s interest either. Because nothing is a better advertisement for World of Warcraft. (buy now ) than to see the game in the top 5 most watched games on Twitch for a month.