Skirmish PvP returning to World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor is shelving its Trial of the Gladiator PvP mode due to community concerns and will instead bring back Skirmish mode, along with a new Spectator Invite system for tournaments.

Ozzie Mejia

February 18, 2014 5:00 PM

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The upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion for World of Warcraft had aspirations of making some new additions to the PvP experience. However, Blizzard has revealed that the original plan of a new Trial of the Gladiator mode is being shelved in favor of restoring the game's Skirmish mode and implementing a new Spectator Invite system for tournaments.

A Battle.net post from WoW community manager Josh Allen goes into the demise of Trial of the Gladiator, which would have been an exclusive high-level PvP mode that only operated at certain hours with certain gear.

"While there were a lot of potential benefits to [Trial of the Gladiator], ultimately we agree with some of the concerns community has raised about the way it worked," Allen states. "Ultimately, players who couldn't play during the pre-set times for Trial of the Gladiator might feel like they're missing out, and it was possible that normal Arena games would lose a lot of their replay value without rating to push for. Because of these issues, we've decided not to continue development of Trial of the Gladiator and to focus our efforts on giving players more ways to find PvP that suits them."

The unranked Skirmish mode, which was originally discontinued with the Cataclysm expansion, will return in Warlords of Draenor with new 2v2 and 3v3 options. Skirmish victors will receive different rewards, such as gold, Honor, or Conquest Points.

The new expansion will also debut the Spectator Invite system, which allows players to organize tournaments.

"Our new Spectator Invite system will allow a match organizer to invite two teams to play against each other in a PvP spectacle called a War Game," Allen explains. "Then, when the match begins, everyone in the match organizer's party will be able to watch those two teams duke it out."

These PvP plans come in the wake of World of Warcraft's new 5.4.7 patch, which includes the launch of the new PvP season. Check out the full patch notes here.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?