Guild Wars 2

Mahaedros.7085:

do you believe that they say?

I believe that that is their goal and their vision, and they will do their best to try to meet that goal.

Godorn.2931:

“So when we say we’ll show something “when it’s ready,” we really mean it. We don’t want to talk about it until we’re ready to show it, because it may change. "

The way we see it, Guild Wars 2 sPvP may be shipped, but it’s far from finished.
-Jonathan “Chaplan” Sharp

The above is from the link posted. Personally, I can’t resolve the contradiction.

The problem here is that they didn’t listen to their beta testers. We were telling them that this game wasn’t ready to ship well before they even had the release date announced. But they were pretty much dead set on getting GW2 released before the end of 2012. So they ended up releasing a game which has great starting content….but the late-game content (like their under-tested dungeons, and the insane thrown-together-at-the-last-minute style grind to obtain legendaries) and other aspects of gameplay (PvP especially) are incredibly rushed and indicate just how not ready for release this game really was.

What’s worse is that all of these things they designed poorly and rushed to get ready for release? We’re now at three months later and many of them still haven’t been fixed. Dungeons are still poorly designed in general, legendaries are still one of the dumbest grinds I’ve seen in any MMO, and PvP/WvW still suffers from extreme balance issues that make any “e-sport” status very unlikely in the foreseeable future.

ANet needs to focus on fixing all of the things it rushed before they can concentrate on making PvP an “e-sport”, and by the time they get it all done, I suspect they won’t have enough PvP players left to make much of a sport out of it.

NetherDiver.6079:

Does no one follow the dev interviews and livestreams? Whether or not it’ll be a flop the dev team is actively working on implementing e sport features such as custom arenas and spectator mode.

First I hope it still is everything one would ever want for e-sport, pvp balance etc. But I’m also of the belief you get one first impression almost always. There is a very small sample of some mmo making a major players # breakthrough after a content update. The game usually peaks at release and dwindles from there, if it’s great (very few) it grows. To have this Feb. PvP content patch have people rethink GW’s 2 as a E-Sport sPvP game, isn’t smart gaming business based on what I would think is historical tendencies.

However if I were hired and this was my job at Anet to make this work… I’d keep making it better and better, but the big focus would be on the next expansion. Have everything and I mean everything in place and have one of it’s main selling features be E-Sport PvP and it best be ready. You could get the surge there. If my part still wasn’t ready, I’d expect a pink slip.

JaironKalach.4938:

Mahaedros.7085:

do you believe that they say?

I believe that that is their goal and their vision, and they will do their best to try to meet that goal.

not to be a jerk towards you in any way but… the game was not released “when it’s ready”… the manifesto was, at best, reneged… “we don’t make grindy games” …. “horizantal progression”…

what I am asking is how do you believe certain things they say? what do you pick and choose to believe what they say? Sorry but Arenanet’s lead, Mike O’Brien, said from the start that they wanted to beat WoW and make a different MMO…. i guess if you can’t beat ’em join em

I’m loving the open world pve which I haven’t got out of a game in a long time but I can’t deny that I am disappointed with what we have now(after Nov 15th) and what they promised back in August

Mahaedros.7085:

JaironKalach.4938:

Mahaedros.7085:

do you believe that they say?

I believe that that is their goal and their vision, and they will do their best to try to meet that goal.

not to be a jerk towards you in any way but… the game was not released “when it’s ready”… the manifesto was, at best, reneged… “we don’t make grindy games” …. “horizantal progression”…

what I am asking is how do you believe certain things they say? what do you pick and choose to believe what they say? Sorry but Arenanet’s lead, Mike O’Brien, said from the start that they wanted to beat WoW and make a different MMO…. i guess if you can’t beat ’em join em

I’m loving the open world pve which I haven’t got out of a game in a long time but I can’t deny that I am disappointed with what we have now(after Nov 15th) and what they promised back in August

You don’t seem like a jerk so it’s all good.

I believe everything they say was their intent and still is their intent. I also believe that they’ve missed the mark a couple of times (they’ve said so). I also believe it’s more difficult for a business to stick 100% (95%, whatever) to their ideals, because businesses live on money. All that said, let me address your particular complaints here:

1. Everyone likes to focus on the last sentence in the paragraphs “we don’t make grindy games.” Here’s the full quote from that May 21, 2012 interview:

Source

Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear.
We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.

So… On legendaries, that seems to be exactly what he’s talking about.

Ascendeds… Well, you seem to inherently disbelieve the Whiteside MMA so I won’t bother quoting directly, but they stated it was a mistake and that they were looking at ways to reduce the grind there… On request, I’ll go back and find the quotes.

2. For Horizontal vs… Progression, they stated as far back as 2011 that there would be vertical progression with a low power curve.

Vertical Progression Promise
Vertical Progression Promise 2
(Search for Expansion)

3. Clearly they didn’t release “when it’s ready.” Although my experience (and many others, I gather) has been fairly polished. But, I know that that is not a universal experience and many people feel that its full of bugs. However, I look at Guild Wars 2 as a 1.0 product. Given what happened with “Daikatana,” I expect that companies will make the mistake of shipping early, particularly after a 5 year wait. Rands in Repose: 1.0 covers my philosophy in some detail, but I can’t find the actual quote I want.

So… I don’t feel lied to and betrayed like many folks seem to. Even if they had changed some of that, I give everyone, people and companies, the right to shift direction because they feel they learned something. But, again, I don’t see that Anet has truly….I also don’t try to judge a trend until I have 3 or 4 reference points.

Finally…. It doesn’t actually do me any good to adopt full-on skepticism. As you’ve pointed out, either I disbelieve nothing they say, or I disbelieve everything they say. At the point I disbelieve everything they say, I just stop listening to them altogether.

Mahaedros.7085:

NetherDiver.6079:

Does no one follow the dev interviews and livestreams? Whether or not it’ll be a flop the dev team is actively working on implementing e sport features such as custom arenas and spectator mode.

ya i followed the dev interviews and livestreams and even the manifesto -prime reasons why I bought the game.

Does anyone follow the dev interviews and livestreams after Nov 15?

Sounds like you all ready made up your mind about the game and the company. I’m not sure what this thread is for.

About promises and delivery. There are reasons why I wait for players to chime in before I jump in the water, usually. Now can they throw a change up at us mid-stream? Yes. But by then and if tragic, I’ve almost always got the $/worth on my end. I recall spending $50 on <10 hours gameplay and many games still sell like that today, I guess I’m more half full then have empty on most things. I don’t expect to live day in and day out in a single game for years, however some do, it’s what makes the world go round.

Mahaedros.7085:

JaironKalach.4938:

Godorn.2931:

I’d say, in the future, Arenanet, don’t let Nexon make you do those AMA’s on Reddit. At least not with the faux bad spelling and all. Just be professional and stop the B.S. manipulation, be professional. You know you’re going to be quoted so skip the Q&A and just do a professional press release. Often. Much more often than your current communication. We’d all love to hear from Areanet more.

Good god I hope the devs read this…
Hopefully they’ll ignore Nexon just as much as is possible and do what they know will be good for their game…. Nexon will push for more sources of quick income.. That will kill the game because, AT THIS POINT, bug/balance fixes should be the ONLY focal point, because if that isn’t addressed properly and quickly, the people who would be willing to spend cash will leave and not come back, but if that is addressed before thinking of more ways to make money, more people will stay and be happy with the game… Happy players = spending players.. I know I was more than prepared to spend cash on this game (which I’ve only ever done for LoL, sub-based games excluded) until I actually played and experienced the myriad balance/bug-related issues… At this point there’s no way on Earth I’ll spend cash… If more shinnies are added before bugs are fixed or balance is addressed, not only will players such as myself not spend cash, but we will probably stop playing completely.

So, to address the main question – the game has potential to become an e-sport, but it will never even come close to anything resembling an e-sport if development priorities get too screwed up… Fix what’s been developed and released, THEN add to it.. Do it any other way and this all falls under. To cater to the people screaming, “I’m 80, I’m bored! Add more things for me to do!!” would be to kill the legitimacy of the game. Cater to all of us saying the game has potential but needs some serious polish and ANet will have a long-lasting and well-loved game. This is true mainly because the ones screaming they’re bored will get bored and threaten to leave again the next time they devour content, but most will come back when new content is released, even if they did take a break in the meantime. However, those of us stating the game is just not very fun due to balance issues and bugs are usually the type to tolerate such things for a limited amount of time and once we’re done, we’re done. If a company can’t fix their own product in a reasonable amount of time (especially when the things broken are so often glaringly obvious and/or extremely easy to fix [spelling errors STILL not fixed??? That takes a few MINUTES to correct…can be done on a break for god’s sake ]) then, chances are, that game will never be worth coming back to.

Yeah, I rambled a bit, but I’m pretty concerned atm.. I truly hope GW2 doesn’t become yet another potential masterpiece destroyed by corporate greed and short-sightedness

-Zan-

hahahaha No.
1char

The short answer is no, GW2 is not e-sport material.

Gods I hope not, I don’t need any of that e-trash messing up my favorite game.

I think ANet definitely planned for it to be an e-Sport, but there are serious class balance and game mechanic issues including the downed state problem mentioned before and I don’t think it has a chance of gaining popularity with the e-Sport crowd in its current form.

Possibly if they fixed the issues and then started sponsored tournaments…

Nice summary answer, bluejay…
LOTS to be done before it’s even remotely possible

No chance at all .

Not enough maps, no spectator tools, unbalanced classes, lol stealth, down state.

lol no. The pvp in this game is horrible. It’s boring too. So it doesn’t really have any redeeming value.

Downed state and other races having an advantage such as asura with their small character models which makes it difficult to see the animations to time your dodges etc.
I also find it just isn’t appealing to watch compared to sc2 and cs

Don’t you like, have to pay to participate in a structured competition?

not a good idea if you want to be an E-Sport…

If you can’t practice in the right environ for free, you’re probably going to just play a game where you can.

Unless they get this game into a more balanced state and with different PvP gamemodes within the next couple months, I don’t see this game ever getting into the e-sport scene and I honestly think they shouldn’t waste the resources to try and make it one. The amount of work they still have ahead of them seems to be manageable in a reasonable amount of time, but their snail-pace patching methods won’t bring back people who left or alleviate the issues before GW2 falls out of the spotlight. In all seriousness, TES:O comes this year and while to many of you that doesn’t matter, it is a game that would easily overshadow GW2 if it does things right.

Oh they want it no question but alas they will be chasing that queen for a while.
No no chance it will ever make it to that level.

They put all their resources in the wrong direction torments vs rankings and ladders.
The balance and down state dont work well.
It was in no way shape or form ready and shouldnt have been included at ship.

The population is gone and wont come back. They tarnished their name for good on this one. And ask a former pvper and youll get I wont go back to that Pos.

They can continue and will continue to pour money into it in hopes and delusions of grandeur but nothing will come of it. You can wish all you want that your date is the prom queen but in the end she is just the troll from under the bridge.
It seems Anet is just like Bioware now and they are mirroring the decline the same way.

Until GW2 supports spectating in matches, I do not see this game making any headway in E-Sports, regardless of what other features are put in place, or whether the game is interesting or not to watch.

Remember, there is a difference between a competitive multiplayer game and an E-Sport. An E-Sport is something that people watch, and that money is thrown at to pay teams and players to participate. If those things aren’t happening, then it’s not an E-Sport, it’s a competitive multiplayer game.

Ashes.6418:

Until GW2 supports spectating in matches, I do not see this game making any headway in E-Sports, regardless of what other features are put in place, or whether the game is interesting or not to watch.

Remember, there is a difference between a competitive multiplayer game and an E-Sport. An E-Sport is something that people watch, and that money is thrown at to pay teams and players to participate. If those things aren’t happening, then it’s not an E-Sport, it’s a competitive multiplayer game.

people can always watch from the view point of the players. Its not so hard. Anet just doesn’t have any initiative to market the game as an esport and is too greedy for money.

They shipped a half finished product lacking almost every area. The time for making ripples in the scene has come and gone and they flubbed it in a heroic fashion. Their slow as balls pace when it comes to obvious bug fixes and lax attempts at balance didn’t help either.

They could, eventually, put out a glorious product. But, by then, who will care? It’s no secret that people are fickle and the longer it takes to fix the game the more likely that another, more attractive, product will come along and once you have a new love why go back to the frumpy one who couldn’t get their kitten together no matter how much you asked them to?

all esports games are for the most part balanced.

gw2 is not balanced.

Bubby.6475:

all esports games are for the most part balanced.

gw2 is not balanced.

most esports games are fun to play and watch.

gw2 is neither (spvp)

Game is currently lacks many tools to be an e-sport. As well as popularity. If nobody wants to watch the game then sponsors won’t put money into teams. So you won’t see GW2 showing up at your MLGs and IPLs unless ANET is going to be the one to back all these teams financially or run their own LAN tournaments.

If Anet intends for this to be an Esport I don’t know why they has so little on the spvp side of things. No ranking, 1 spvp mode, and nothing on the cash shop besides tournament tickets and glory boosters. There’s nothing to bite on besides glory farming.

They will need to add tons more to spvp.