Guild Wars 2

One of the requirements for playing in Pro League was that you had to use their anti-cheat program called ESL Wire. They sent it out to players to download about five days before Pro League started, giving players plenty of time to test it before it had to be used. However, that’s where the problems started. We were told that there was an issue with the program and Windows 8, so we didn’t need to use it until it was fixed.

Fast forward to the second week of Pro League. We hadn’t heard any update from them in regards to ESL Wire. Just to be safe, I asked in advance if ESL Wire has been fixed and if it would be required. (Note: I had to ask. If I had not asked, we would have had zero warning.) They told us yes. This was about 6.5 hours before the tournament was due to start. Most of my team members were at school or work. We installed the program just before the tournament started and had no time to troubleshoot. We had issues with it, and they forced us to use a substitute.

Here is the direct quote from the ESL Admin:

“ESL Wire: we added it to the Pro League, but I understand there are some issues with using Windows 8. Since we haven’t used it before in the Go4’s, it won’t be required at the moment”

There was no more communication about ESL Wire until I had to specifically ask about it. When we had issues, their response was essentially to fix it or they would DQ us. There was no attempt to troubleshoot the issue, they just said to restart and try again.

“Seems like it’s a technical issue on the player’s end. Teams were given a lot of notice to prepare and have this program installed and running.”

We were not given proper notice that we had to use the program and did not have time to troubleshoot.

On an entirely different note, ESL Wire was causing crashes and lag for many players, completely disallowing Caden from re-entering his match with us after DCs.

TL;DR – ESL did not properly communicate with teams as to whether or not ESL Wire was required until there was not an adequate to troubleshoot buggy software. I leave you with my favorite quote from them:

“I downloaded it on my laptop tonight and it downloaded fine”

It works for me so it must work for you… Thanks for the troubleshooting…

Well this is disheartening.

Thats pathetic quite frankly and also caused the delays and time outs in the PZ/Abjured match. But to actually cause a DC!! ESL are lucky the team Never Lucky proved to be such sportsmen and essentially sat out a player.