Method hosted the first broadcasted raid speedrun showcase in World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth expansion today. But prior to the event, Method’s co-founder Sco suggested that perhaps more events like this could be coming in the future.
Method blazed trails early on in the expansion when the guild became the first in the world to achieve a World First raid finish while streaming its progression. Since then, the organization has continued to try to push the limits of what content and marketing can be made out of competitive raiding.
“The Race to World First is obviously, as well as being a competition between the top guilds in the world, it’s a chance to premiere content that no one has ever seen before like the downing of the most difficult boss in the game,” Sco said. “So I think the Race to World First is extremely exciting. It’s very competitive, and it is, you know, quite a unique content piece. That being said, it’s obviously a content piece that doesn’t really happen that frequently right? It’s something that happens on average once every six month.”
Today’s speedrun was a change-up from what most fans are used to seeing when it comes to raid “racing” in retail WoW.
When new raids release, guilds spend hours—and even days—trying to get their first kill on some bosses. But with significantly more gear and practice, Method and their competitor Aversion were able to kill all 12 bosses in Ny’alotha in less than an hour and a half.
To compare it to a more traditional sport, today’s competition was more like a 100 meter dash, while the Race to World First is viewed more as a marathon.
While Race to World First is highly competitive and generates massive amounts of marketable viewership for guilds like Method, it only comes a few times a year. In fact, since Method’s initial decision to broadcast a Race to World First in 2018, there have only been four major raid releases for nearly two years.
“In between the Race to World Firsts, I think it would be great if we could keep the competition going in the raiding scene and do some more of these raid races because on the flip side, these raid races are competitive in a different nature,” Sco said.
Two of the major concerns with competitive raiding’s viability as an esport stem from the work that has to go into a raid on Blizzard’s end and the amount of time that exists between raiding tiers. But if Method’s efforts to host raid racing showcases prove to be successful, the organization might be able to bring an entirely new form of competitive raiding to the forefront in retail WoW in the same way that they popularized RWF broadcasts.
Published: May 13, 2020 04:04 pm