Guild Wars 2

Congrats!

Now get back in WvW, I need loot bags!

After days and days and days of frustrating (if understandable) ’let’s just go for bronze or silver’ attempts in overflows, I was lucky enough to get into Blackgate main yesterday. Nine and a half hours and 3 attempts later, I was there with team Cobalt on the beach at Jelako Cliffrise, screaming at Amber to bring it home, and they did. What a truly epic experience.

it is more appropriate to say NA servers win not only Blackgate
You cannot take the credit for everyone’s work as long as guesting is available

Ronah.2869:

it is more appropriate to say NA servers win not only Blackgate
You cannot take the credit for everyone’s work as long as guesting is available

This is totally true. It is like facepalm to all of those ppl from other servers who were helping you to get this goal.

So more appropriate is to say NA Servers win these wurms. And at least thank all those guesting people for help and co-working.

As someone who guested to BG and severely helped our efforts over the last week, I know completely that everyone there and in turn posting on this thread means it as no sense of ownership to the BG server directly. Blackgate got NA first but we all know who we were that were there. We followed Hiba’s advice and we believed!

/heroic pose looking off into the distance.

I guested into BG the whole week, and was there for the kill too (Cobolt team!) and in no way do I feel left out by saying that it’s BG’s kill.

We all guested there knowing it was the best place to combine our efforts and it paid off.

So congrats everyone on the kill, and thank you BG for putting up with us, whether you wanted or not :D

Cant believe people play with Subsampling.

Id like to really quickly say thanks to all of the bg natives as well as guesters for following me for a week straight and listening to me re explain amber 100 times. You all earned it for the work you put in.

#teamamber
#ballsdeep

In an ideal world everybody would be able to take on the wurm on their home server and do so successfully, but this isn’t an ideal world. I would have loved to have done it on my home server (Ehmry), and who knows it might happen eventually, but so far I just haven’t seen the interest or the numbers. So, I guested to Blackgate.

Ultimately, everybody who was there last night, Blackgate natives and guests alike, were there for the same reason, because they wanted to take down the wurm. And we did.

Congratulations! Keep it up!

Ash.5274:

In an ideal world everybody would be able to take on the wurm on their home server and do so successfully, but this isn’t an ideal world. I would have loved to have done it on my home server (Ehmry), and who knows it might happen eventually, but so far I just haven’t seen the interest or the numbers. So, I guested to Blackgate.

Ultimately, everybody who was there last night, Blackgate natives and guests alike, were there for the same reason, because they wanted to take down the wurm. And we did.

they were there for the achievements not to beat the wurms. and guesting is an excuse from AN to make elitist content without getting the slap

@Ronah interestingly enough once we got it we said bugger it, we’ll deal with achievements later we finally got it gj everyone. Also there were many doing wurms they no longer needed to change according to numbers and most experience including commanders who would command the same wurm etc.

Sorry you dislike " elitist " content. =(

Haha yeah I was guesting too from SoR. BG is the only server that really had the dedication and coordination required for this kill.

#believegate #wurmgate2014

Congratz to everyone involved in the kill and every attempt leading up to it! Now let’s get this thing on farm!

Guess I know where I’ll be guesting for Wurm kills

Gratz BG.

Zanthrax.6538:

Sorry you dislike " elitist " content. =(

I dislike encouraging flawed game mechanics for the sake of achievement points

Ronah.2869:

it is more appropriate to say NA servers win not only Blackgate
You cannot take the credit for everyone’s work as long as guesting is available

You don’t understand how much time and effort some key people put into getting this kill. Certainly everyone who was involved deserves credit. But you have to listen on TeamSpeak sometime for a few days to really get a handle on how much planning, training, testing, re-testing etc etc etc went on by Blackgate’s commanders and the key people who were on for hours and hours each day since the patch came out (oh man you could really hear how exhausted some people were when talking on TS- but still very focused on the goal).

Every single step of this encounter was planned by the people running the attempts on Blackgate (I imagine it must have been similar on Deso…it was great to see the information sharing going on). Strategies were tested until the best ones were proven after days and days of attempts. There was not one step in the process that wasn’t carefully considered and analyzed. If you think I’m exaggerating I don’t know what to say to you except put ten plus hours a day into getting the kill like some of these players did lol.

So yes everyone who guested deserves credit for the kill and there were definitely some guests who were key players and made a difference. But everyone who guested as well as the players from Blackgate know who deserves extra thanks and extra credit for the kill. The were devoted to getting the kill and they got it despite so many uncontrollable (often technical) obstacles.

oh and your claim that people were just there for achievements, many many people will get a good laugh from that

So congrats to Blackgate and guests and thanks to the people who spent so much time and effort teaching, training and testing to get this win.

Malediktus.9250:

Cant believe people play with Subsampling.

Can’t believe people play with native sample rendering and still fail the event. ;/

Seriously though, I usually don’t play with Subsampling. I normally play with auto-detect settings and native sampling. This past week my game has crashed or disconnected nearly every night at primetime and each time I was certain they would win the event and I would miss it. So last night during the escort phase when my game started acting out and skills delaying and teamspeak sputtering, I hastily switched my gfx settings to “Best Performance” in hopes it would save me from crash or dc. It was an awesome feeling when the game started catching back up and teamspeak was clear again. I didn’t switch back to auto-detect and so I got a video with blurred graphics and generic looking characters, but I did contribute to the victory. cheers . . . . .

Mahaedros.7085:

Ronah.2869:

it is more appropriate to say NA servers win not only Blackgate
You cannot take the credit for everyone’s work as long as guesting is available

You don’t understand how much time and effort some key people put into getting this kill. Certainly everyone who was involved deserves credit. But you have to listen on TeamSpeak sometime for a few days to really get a handle on how much planning, training, testing, re-testing etc etc etc went on by Blackgate’s commanders and the key people who were on for hours and hours each day since the patch came out (oh man you could really hear how exhausted some people were when talking on TS- but still very focused on the goal).

Every single step of this encounter was planned by the people running the attempts on Blackgate (I imagine it must have been similar on Deso…it was great to see the information sharing going on). Strategies were tested until the best ones were proven after days and days of attempts. There was not one step in the process that wasn’t carefully considered and analyzed. If you think I’m exaggerating I don’t know what to say to you except put ten plus hours a day into getting the kill like some of these players did lol.

So yes everyone who guested deserves credit for the kill and there were definitely some guests who were key players and made a difference. But everyone who guested as well as the players from Blackgate know who deserves extra thanks and extra credit for the kill. The were devoted to getting the kill and they got it despite so many uncontrollable (often technical) obstacles.

oh and your claim that people were just there for achievements, many many people will get a good laugh from that

So congrats to Blackgate and guests and thanks to the people who spent so much time and effort teaching, training and testing to get this win.

The bad design is to structure a game into servers and split the PvE community for the sake of WvW home server pride and then have them all guesting on one server to be able to do it, queuing for days. This is a contradiction they don’t even dare to explain

And i don’t remember TS was mentioned in the game requirements.

Ronah.2869:

The bad design is to structure a game into servers and split the PvE community for the sake of WvW home server pride and then have them all guesting on one server to be able to do it, queuing for days. This is a contradiction they don’t even dare to explain

I assume you mean Anet.

You should make a thread expressing your concerns. Let this thread be one that celebrates the achievement of all who were involved and persevered despite the obstacles you mentioned.

People will whine that they can’t do Wurm on their servers. Well, it happens and it’s a problem of your server community.

Gratz from Deso.

Mahaedros.7085:

Every single step of this encounter was planned by the people running the attempts on Blackgate (I imagine it must have been similar on Deso…it was great to see the information sharing going on). Strategies were tested until the best ones were proven after days and days of attempts. .

And we’re still talking about how to improve after every attempt.

Grats everybody! I would have been there, but I had misplaced my headset’s transmitter last night. Either way, I’m glad that it got done!

-Twilight

(This post will be split into two pieces due to length. I apologize for it being so long, but I feel like all of it is important)

First off, this is Librari, the Font of Knowledge (and saucy dances) speaking.

Before I attempt to refute the server design as being bad on Anet’s part, let me talk really quick about TS. Is it listed in the game requirements? No, of course not. Does that mean that there should be nothing that requires even an ounce of coordination? No, of course not. If you want to be technical, TS (Teamspeak, a voice chat program, for those who didn’t know) is not required for the wurm battle. I suppose it is possible that a well-oiled group could beat wurm. You could even coordinate through map chat if you had to. What TS does is simply make that coordination EASIER. All you need is some commanders who know what they are doing (preferrably with mics), and no one else even needs a mic, just the ability to listen in on TS.

The lack of wurm killing on so many servers is not because Blackgate is just teh best. Really, the whole concept that the only Blackgate (or one of the other “best” servers) can do it is more psychological than anything. Let me try to explain this through my experiences.

My home server is Borlis Pass. When the boss was first released, I did truly try to beat it there. However, I quickly realized there were some problems.

First of all, we never capped the map, hard or even soft. At most, 60-70 people came there, most of which would’ve been BP natives. Regardless, we still tried to fight the wurm. Of course, it was hard at first, we were trying to figure out the strategies for fighting each wurm, and many people were also interested in fighting marionette, as it is a boss thats supposed to only be around for a while, while wurm is permanent.

However, over time, I noticed a disturbing trend. People would hop into the map, ask which wurm path has a specific achievement, then stack on that path. Also, as we failed again and again at the wurm, people started asking that we only do one wurm, so that we would get guaranteed loot, because that loot at the end of the boss was what mattered to them. Everyone considered that beating all of the wurms as an impossible task, and so rather than try, they settled for the Bronze Wurm chest. Also, more and more people stopped coming, but instead went to Marionette, as that boss was easy to fight (Zerg, zerg, and more Zerg, rather than stun mechanics).

At this point, I decided to try guesting over to BG. There, things were different. For starters, the main map was full most of the time. Most of the people there weren’t even BG natives, but guesters like me. I went into the TS, and instead of a single channel for Origins of Madness like the BP TS had, there were channels dedicated to each wurm. And the people in these channels were ACTIVE! The time in the TS was spent either building or editing boss strategies, or spent in humorous discussion, such as how to keep oneself awake with ice. Most importantly, everyone who came into the map actually BELIEVED that we had a shot at the wurm, rather than thinking we better only go for loot.

Also, the people were DEDICATED to killing that evil son of a wurm. I know that some of them even stayed up for 36 hours at a time trying to help build the strat, or lead the teams.

Everytime we lost to the wurm (and we lost a lot), rather than get depressed (okay, too depressed) about the loss, we would look over the fight, trying to figure out what we did wrong, and how we could fix it the next time around.

When the commanders of the attempts started to run low on cash (Since we spent all of our time on wurm, there wasn’t time to dungeon run, or build cash in general) on buying pots of food, sharpening stones, and what have you, people would actually donate gold to a fund for buying more food. When we started trying to edit our builds so that we could try to maximize our damage on the second phase, people would also donate money to those in need. We even ran gold raffles for people in the TS (trying to lure everyone in the map to TS). When the commanders ran out of G for that, people, yet again, chipped into the fund. This kind of selflessness surprised me, as I would never have expected to see people seperate themselves from hard earned money, so that others could afford trait resets, or pots of curry butternut.

PART 2

Closer towards V-Day, we turned our attention towards editing builds to maximize our DPS and survival (That phase two wurm head, where you have to kill a legendary wurm head that is fond of crippling people, running you over, and constantly moving). We came together and created suggested builds for each class, down to what types of weapons, and what traits were good ideas. We put these builds in a online gallery so that anyone just entering the map could see it, and change their builds if they wanted to (our builds are still up at tinyurl.com/wurmbuilds, if you too want to see what we came up with for each class).

The last thing we did was create teams for each wurm by a drafting system. We would have three commanders stack on each of the escort paths, and would have players stack in groups by class. Each commander would then request a certain number of a class, for example, “Can I get 5 elementalists at Cobalt”. In this way, we evened out the teams for each wurm. Commanders would then subdivide their class into groups “Can I get a guardian, a warrior, 2 elementalists, and a mesmer in a party for a DPS team”, or “Can I get some condition necros and rangers into a party for husk killing”, or even “Can I get five people who haven’t been assigned to a DPS squad on a party for running barrels”. This assignment of jobs made it so that people knew just what they were supposed to do, and shortly after we started doing this, we beat the wurm.

I just realized that I have veered slightly away from the point on why the server is psychological (got so excited to write down exactly how we won), and for that I apologize. The TL:DR of this is this: We didnt kill the wurm on BG because it is a superior server. Half of the people there weren’t even BG natives. We killed the wurm there because it has become an unofficial gathering server for those who actually CARED about beating the wurm because they wanted to beat the challenge that was the wurm, rather than because of loot or achievements. If all of those other servers, my own included, would stop thinking that they CAN’T kill the wurm, and drank some Liquid Believe, then maybe they would do better. Anet isn’t supporting one server over the other. The reason they keep doing those streams of servers like BG fighting the wurm isnt to showcase that BG is better. What they are showcasing is the sense of COMMUNITY that we are showing while fighting the wurm, rather than our superiority.

As for me, I’m going to try and break the sense that only Blackgate can beat the wurm. While I am going to try and transfer to BG (because I made so many awesome friends who are natives of that server), I am also going to start going over to Borlis Pass, and start trying to get the wurm killed there. Come and join me there!

Librari, signing off.

@ Ronah :

I feel that TS or a voice chat program is a requirement if you want to beat this harder content. I am sorry but it has been proven all week that you NEED to be on and listen and know what the plan of attack is with each attempt. It simply makes life easier.

Sometimes you need to run certain builds, use certain consumables, etc. It is simply easier to communicate problems that can and do arise during the encounter.

For anyone not willing to simply get on TS and be part of that experience (which is free) you are hurting everyone who is at that event. And I find that rather selfish.

Players are certainly entitled to play how they want, but that doesn’t mean it spells success.

BG natives vs guests? No one who was there last night, or who had been there consistently over the past week, would ever think of it in such a black and white perspective. Yes, BG was the server it was killed on. If people chose to guest over then that is fine but it doesn’t change the fact that the kill was on BG.

You think we turn away people because they aren’t native to the server? The wurm is a World boss, not a servers boss. People chose Blackgate, because contrary to what everyone says about BG for the lulz, it’s a wonderful server full of dedicated people within the community.

Most guesting had the opposite to say about their own servers so it’s easy to hate on this server if you are not from here and couldn’t be a part of any of it. I’ve read many posts complaining about how this encounter is too difficult for the average server and I am in agreement.

This is even true for BG to an extent. After our kill we made another attempt for fun but failed. Everyone was pretty ecstatic over our original kill, we barely even set back up for the next one. After we failed the next attempt, most decided to call it for the night. However, I came back for the next run. Not only was it an awful attempt, the map chat was extremely vile. People demanding free food buffs, being negative nancy because the only comanders tagged up didn’t know what to do, people were opposing TS…basically a typical day in GW2 world boss fighting zones just along for AP and auto attack like they do for all other world content.

Their strat? To burn down 1-2 heads for AP but not actually getting a kill. So from the start, they were set up to fail and by their own choice by not organizing as a zone. Who would want to be a part of that? AP junkies…the game is full of them.

Seeing as how I had left the zone for an hour and came back without hitting overflow, I knew the run wouldn’t be successful.

My point is, the boss was downed on BG but it took everyone to make it happen. This includes commanders leading and people respectfully listening, where you are from isn’t of any concern. The problem is most full zones will never achieve that type of coordination. It really is a shame because it’s worth it to me but it’s not to everyone. It has, by far, been the BEST thing I’ve been apart of in GW2. I’m actually somewhat sad that it is over because of the excitement I had there and the people I met.

Anyways, thanks again to all of those who made this happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect people to come crashing in here to nit pick…

Congrats Blackgate!

Next step, regularly scheduled kills?

I do feel that Teamspeak shouldn’t be required for people to experience their type of content, but what I would argue is the Wurm is definitely not designed for people that aren’t willing to adapt and critique themselves and their builds and put serious effort including downloading teamspeak even just to listen not talk.

I sincerely do stick by the notion that this is hardcore content for hardcore players. You’ll more than likely find once we get the boss on farm, we can and will generally help others get their achievements and the likes.

Kyron The Wise.6507:

I am also going to start going over to Borlis Pass, and start trying to get the wurm killed there. Come and join me there!

I’d be interested in that Librari! I’d be happy to join your quest in getting your server more interested and coordinated. Still doesn’t mean you can back out of that transfer

Just message me if you cereal!

Second thought….idk haha!

Nodo.6907:

BG natives vs guests? No one who was there last night, or who had been there consistently over the past week, would ever think of it in such a black and white perspective. Yes, BG was the server it was killed on. If people chose to guest over then that is fine but it doesn’t change the fact that the kill was on BG.

You think we turn away people because they aren’t native to the server? The wurm is a World boss, not a servers boss. People chose Blackgate, because contrary to what everyone says about BG for the lulz, it’s a wonderful server full of dedicated people within the community.

Most guesting had the opposite to say about their own servers so it’s easy to hate on this server if you are not from here and couldn’t be a part of any of it. I’ve read many posts complaining about how this encounter is too difficult for the average server and I am in agreement.

This is even true for BG to an extent. After our kill we made another attempt for fun but failed. Everyone was pretty ecstatic over our original kill, we barely even set back up for the next one. After we failed the next attempt, most decided to call it for the night. However, I came back for the next run. Not only was it an awful attempt, the map chat was extremely vile. Seeing as how I had left the zone for an hour and came back without hitting overflow, I knew the run wouldn’t be successful.

My point is, the boss was downed on BG but it took everyone to make it happen. This includes commanders leading and people respectfully listening, where you are from isn’t of any concern. The problem is most full zones will never achieve that type of coordination. It really is a shame because it’s worth it to me but it’s not to everyone.

Anyways, thanks again to all of those who made this happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect people to come crashing in here to nit pick…

I completely agree. I would have loved to have the kill on my own server but there was not enough dedication to it even if we have the numbers being a high population server.

I want to point out that I would like to stay and kill it a few more times and be apart of the testing to come up with a solid strategy for this fight. Hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot of familiar faces tonight. o7

dat wall of text… but well said Kyron.
and i love when cobalt cmd trade 2 elementalists for 2 guardians with amber commander xD

Kyron The Wise.6507:

such as how to keep oneself awake with ice.

Okay, I admit it. I laughed at that.

WE DID IT!!!! So much fun and all of us commanding did a great job. So proud of how everybody listened to the commanders and we played like a team. First time in PVE ifelt like we played together like a guild in WvW.

I was honored to play and beat the wurm with each of you over the past several days. Also thank you to other players who where not from BG that helped with the strategy and sticking with us.

Lots of Love. Stay Frosty and Have fun.

Pexx.6327:

Kyron The Wise.6507:

such as how to keep oneself awake with ice.

Okay, I admit it. I laughed at that.

As you should, as you should.

Ronah.2869:

they were there for the achievements not to beat the wurms. and guesting is an excuse from AN to make elitist content without getting the slap

I have to respectfully disagree with your first comment. I wanted that boss dead! I tried defeating the wurm event on Ehmry Bay but realized after several days that our server was not yet ready to defeat the three wurms. My guildies from Ehmry Bay had already been guesting to BG for this event because they were serious about developing a strat to kill all three wurms and BG had the dedicated population needed to make this happen.

These Ehmry Bay guesters spent long hours over the past week working with others to develop tactics and refine builds that eventually lead us to defeating the boss. One of them was even commanding during our winning run. Another two had been commanding regularly throughout the week. To say that these dedicated individuals from EBay were only there for achievements is flat out wrong and it is unfair to paint all of us guesters with such a broad brush. Let’s keep this thread about celebrating the victory though and post any issues with Anet in a more appropriate place.

Congrats to everyone who helped defeat the boss, whether you were there with me at the actual event or had contributed toward the win over the past week. It was an amazing moment and I met a lot of great people from BG and other servers. You guys are all awesome!

#TeamAmber

Here is a link to my pov from team amber http://www.twitch.tv/kal300051/c/3635016