Guild Wars 2

Hey, my name is Mitchel, known as Dropbear and currently writing sPvP for GuildMag. After hearing the good news that we are (finally) getting private servers to set up our own matches, I am quite dismayed at how the community currently appears to be. I just went looking at gw2l.com, guildwars2esport, even a European league site. All dead since April. The guy selling gw2l wants $300 for the domain name. The only notice of a tournament idea is from The Dragon Arena, which while interesting, only focuses on high level teams (24 for the main tournament). In-game tournaments have no “ranking” and is survival of the fittest at it’s core.

So, here’s my question; Would any guilds be interested in a ongoing league structured around accepting all levels of play, with weekly or bi-weekly matches constantly held? The aim of the league would be to help lower teams with playing with players their own level while still allowing them the chance to fight with higher guilds, as well as having a structured time to fight to fit in with the any-time mode of paid tournaments. It would also be useful as a tool for rankings, for practice before and after paid tournaments, for fighting opponents you wouldn’t normally have scrimmed against before, and of course for fun. Another idea could be to hold separate Division leagues as well using these rankings.

While I do know that this is thinking ahead a bit, I still wish to know if the sPvP community would want something like this. If you could comment on the idea, that would be great. Thanks.

First i would like to know if you have any information that i dont. Because the only information about custom tournaments is comming from latest post from Chap – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/structured-pvp-iceberg/
and there is actually no estimation date, so it could still be 6-12 monhts away.

dont get me wrong im probably looking for this feature as you do, but i started to be much more sceptical.

To answer your question, yes. I would be join with my guild as many of these tournaments and custom leagues as it would be technically possible for us.
On top of that i got a plans to organize some of the tournaments too – for my community. With help of playzone.cz server i have prepared this few months ago..

Shamefully there is no custom tournaments in game, so for now i just have to wait.. and dont get crazy from playing against pugs

Aragiel.6132:

First i would like to know if you have any information that i dont. Because the only information about custom tournaments is comming from latest post from Chap – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/structured-pvp-iceberg/
and there is actually no estimation date, so it could still be 6-12 monhts away.

dont get me wrong im probably looking for this feature as you do, but i started to be much more sceptical.

To answer your question, yes. I would be join with my guild as many of these tournaments and custom leagues as it would be technically possible for us.
On top of that i got a plans to organize some of the tournaments too – for my community. With help of playzone.cz server i have prepared this few months ago..

Shamefully there is no custom tournaments in game, so for now i just have to wait.. and dont get crazy from playing against pugs

The idea would be to use the custom arenas to organise matches. When I refer to private servers, I mean custom arenas, my apologies.

Thanks! Is there any ideas on what you would want implemented into a league?

custom arenas = private servers we both are talking about same. But we dont know when it will be supported ingame.. so be carefull you can be disapointed as im right now.

and regarding ideas..

its more about publicity. Just make sure the league is well promoted, discussed on forum boards. Streaming could be nice if possible (again spectator mode is not supported ingame and we dont know when it will be possible).
so basically we just dont have options how to manage it

Im sure a lot of the teams would love this, but like Aragiel stated….. with the current state of things its very very hard to pull off, even when the private servers go up, people wont be able to spectate.

When the private servers go up it will work fine.
It would work Just like the way console leagues are ran I assume.

I like it.

Before LoL even had ranked games there were tournaments held in custom games, so this is absolutely needed.

I’m guessing you are fishing for a response from one or more of the “pro” teams though.

Ignoring the fact that there is no ETA on custom arenas and it may well be a year until we see them, creating a 3rd party league is difficult without ArenaNet making information regarding custom arenas available via a REST API.

For example, I can’t create a website for my league that shows statistics about matches because that data is not available.

You would have to manually record wins and losses to build rankings, which is too much effort and prone to error. For very small leagues, I guess it could work.

Gilgamesh.2561:

Ignoring the fact that there is no ETA on custom arenas and it may well be a year until we see them, creating a 3rd party league is difficult without ArenaNet making information regarding custom arenas available via a REST API.

For example, I can’t create a website for my league that shows statistics about matches because that data is not available.

You would have to manually record wins and losses to build rankings, which is too much effort and prone to error. For very small leagues, I guess it could work.

Console leagues all use win recording, it wouldn’t be hard to do it with gw2

@ Gilgamesh.2561: Basing from communities like comp TF2 and CS:S where they have no API’s, the rules of reporting stats will be from end-game screenshots posted and the word from both captains on who won and by what amount. This will be a rule implemented.

Any stats above what team won and by how much will be impossible to do (ie, individual stats), but for team rankings scores and winners should be fine.

And I’m hoping that custom arenas are implemented ASAP, considering it was listed as top priority in the blogpost. I would hope for something before the end of the month.

tasbury.3674:

Before LoL even had ranked games there were tournaments held in custom games, so this is absolutely needed.

I’m guessing you are fishing for a response from one or more of the “pro” teams though.

Not at all. It’s not just the “pro” players that need this, it’s the lower-level players who are being thrown into matches they can’t possibly win who also need to fight with players their own level and learn better strats than being pubstomped all the time. Teams that learn and play from people at their own level work much better than being forced to play against higher level teams, and pro teams don’t want to play against low level teams because it gets stale and they don’t get any challenge or get to use new strategies. Win-win.

shalmont.2539:

Im sure a lot of the teams would love this, but like Aragiel stated….. with the current state of things its very very hard to pull off, even when the private servers go up, people wont be able to spectate.

Right now spectating is not 100% needed, I’m not expecting people to shoutcast these games at all. Maybe in the future people will be wanting to, but for now it’s all about having players to fight with. No use having shoutcasters for a game with no players.

Does anyone remember the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL)? It was the de-facto “ranking” for Counter-Strike at least, with its various tiers for distinguishing teams. Advancement through the tiers was possible by demonstrating dominance of your current tier, with CAL-i teams only being invited by the league itself.

As mentioned, score reporting was done with screenshots and formal arrangements. Processes for carrying out a game were very rigorous, including pre-game screenshots from every player showing the player models for every other player, recording video just in case a match is called into question for hacking, etc.

I never understood why something similar wasn’t done for other games. I mean, I understood, because it would be very time-consuming to organize and run. However, it’s all 3rd party, and it gives the power to the players to organize their competition and insure that they are facing off against appropriate opponents instead of waiting for the devs to deliver.

I think this is a marvelous idea, if only the community hasn’t completely devolved into absolute laziness. Depending on responses, I might offer up my help if I can find the time.

The same thing happens with Team Fortress 2 (ie; ozfortress) and other FPS. I’m currently working out how to take this further (hosting servers and domain names, forums). Thanks for all your help, guys. Any ideas on what you want with something like this?

Hey! After a few days of editing and mucking around, I have started themists.org, a forum dedicated to competitive sPvP and competitions. I’m currently looking for input on what you guys want in a competition, and the first ruleset of King of the Mists is up for review! Any feedback would be appreciated, and we will hopefully start opening up for teams when servers are fully implemented!