Gamespy scored a 7-pages interview with Tom Chilton concerning the 2008 Arena Tournament.
GameSpy: Arenas definitely turn WoW into more of a competitive game, but the Arena Tournament realm has a wildly different approach from the live realms. You can avoid the leveling and PvE game entirely, and start off with a full set of competitive PvP gear. Do you feel that players will want to have this kind of approach available at all times?
Tom Chilton: We don’t really intend for the Arena Tournament realm to replace WoW. We do feel like the arena games are a game within the game, a meta-game of WoW. We don’t necessarily want people to feel like WoW is no longer a game to them. Also, within that, it kind of makes sense to structure the tournaments in a way we’re doing. They’re not something we can run all the time, so we’ve broken them into this seasonal concept, allowing us to pace how often we have them, and to make sure that they’re as well-supported as we can support them.
