The core of the game play focuses on large scale PvP play, or as Mythic refers to it, Realm vs Realm (RvR). In RvR players from all pairings compete to complete objectives either in instanced scenarios which resemble traditional multi player games such as King of the Hill or Murder-ball, as well as non instanced seiges to gain control of strategic in-game locations. RvR is heavily ingrained into the playing of the game, with crafting largely designed as a system to create consumables to gain advantage in RvR, and even a large number of PVE quests interacting with locations secured and created by RvR achievements.
WAR's designers were very conscious of the elephant in the MMO market, many of their design decisions can be seen as a response to perceived shortcomings of it's major competitor, World of Warcraft. Notable changes include the focus on PvP, and a new take on 'raids' called public quests, which features a non instanced questing area with a sequence of objectives players complete co-operatively simply by being in the same area.
