Guild Wars 2

Please, please, please can we eliminate the gigantic text over every player in WvW?

There is nothing worse than seeing 20 + “Gates of Madness Invader” on my screen.

Here’s what I’d like to see. Since there are Blue, Green, and Red used for WvW territories, why not just make your name the corresponding color? If I’m on blue team my name would appear in blue to everyone, and red’s names would appear red and green’s names would all appear green. I don’t need to see their server name over their head. Why can’t we see their actual name?

Another option would be to just put an arrow or a dot above them in the color of their server.

Bottom line, the text is just too much.

please sign this if you agree

/signed

The reason you don’t see their names over their heads is an attempt to “dehumanize” them. Basically, them being nameless “invaders” makes them seem more of an evil maurauding force then it does a play and makes you feel more heroic fighting them.

Of course WvW is a giant snore fest design to demorailize anyone who isn’t a 13 year old who screams “LLLLLLOOOOOOOLLLLLL” out loud in real life every time he gets a kill, so that effect backfired.

I’ve found, particularly when there are a large number of players in combat, the names can be a bit overwhelming. I tend to have enemy names on by default, and I find it’s a bit of a sensory overload. Without the names, however, I have difficulty distinguishing friends from foes at short notice.

Perhaps have this as a player option – whether to give full names in WvW (<servername> Invader), or whether to use a more minimalistic coloured dot or icon to identify server allegiance (like what’s been described above), perhaps with a guild tag next to it, so we can still identify which guild an invader belongs to.

In the gaming world of PvP I don’t think anyone wants to be dehumanized. Why not let me see who is owning me? I might want to make a list of people to get revenge on. The technology is there to just show the other player’s name. They do it in just about every other game out there… If nothing else, give me more options as to what I can see.

The other problem that I didn’t even mention in my OP is that it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the 2 other factions on the battlefield, unless there is just a few fighting. I’d rather see 2 different colors or something.

The only reason I like WvW is because the opponents don’t have names. They look like mobs and the whole thing feels like one big endless cycle of PvE- style dynamic events.

If they looked more like players, I probably wouldn’t WvW nearly as much.

but my main point isn’t to really use names, although I would prefer that. My point is to clean up my screen so I don’t see 500 letters saying, “Gates of Madness Invader” or “xxxxxxxxxxxx Invader” It just doesn’t do the trick for me. I would rather just see a dot, arrow or some other icon above their heads. WvW looks so bad during a fight with all the text on screen. What is probably an epic battle is hidden behind walls of text. I have tried to use a trebuchet on the walls of text but it doesn’t work.

To your point Raphael, I would like the option of selecting what I see. Some might want to see names and others like you may not want to see names. Although, I bet if they gave you the option you would turn names on eventually.

Just give us some options.