Guild Wars 2

Three weeks ago, we announced the upcoming ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League with $200k up for grabs every season!
Four teams from each region have already secured a spot in the Pro League via the Go4GuildWars2 cups and the World Tournament Series.

The qualified teams from EU

• Orange Logo
• The Civilized Gentlemen
• Rank 55 Dragons
• Vermillion

The qualified teams from NA

• The Abjured
• Final Form
• Apex Prime
• Team Faded

Now, there are still four slots up for grabs in each region. These slots will be determined through our Open Qualifiers starting on the 14th of November!

And yes, Open Qualifiers means it’s open to literally everyone who wish to sign-up, just keep in mind that only players from: North America, South America, Oceanic countries, Japan, Taiwan, Korea can play in the North-American qualifier and only players from: Europe, Africa, Asia (excluding Japan, Taiwan, Korea) can play in the European qualifier.

The Open Pro League Qualifier Portal can be found at http://play.eslgaming.com/guildwars2/global/gw2/major/pro-league-qualifiers and you can already sign-up for both the NA and the EU qualifier now!

On the 14th the Open Qualifier will run up until the top 8 teams from each region have been decided, the final 8 teams will then play off in the livestreamed Open Qualifier finals on the 16th.

Prize Pool Breakdown
Scheduled Regular Season Placement (Per Region):

• First place: $10,000, entry into Season Finals
• Second place: $9,000, entry into Season Finals
• Third place: $8,000
• Fourth place: $7,000
• Fifth place: $5,000
• Sixth place: $4,500
• Seventh place: $3,500
• Eighth place: $2,500

Season Finals (NA & EU)

• First place: $50,000
• Second place: $25,000
• Third place: $12,500
• Fourth place: $12,500

If you have any questions regarding the Pro League or the Open Qualifiers feel free to ask in this thread.

There is an issue with the signups for NA. The site asks for an EU gameaccount even when signing up for NA qualifiers.

Demus.4571:

There is an issue with the signups for NA. The site asks for an EU gameaccount even when signing up for NA qualifiers.

I’m not entirely sure why this error is occurring, please open a support ticket at http://play.eslgaming.com/guildwars2/global/support so we can take a closer look at it.

EDIT: Found what was causing this error, should be fixed now.

I did last night. I’ll just sit tight until I hear from you guys at ESL.

any new about how you are going to do the seeding

Such an important competition and they make one of the biggest mistakes when creating tournaments…
I would love to know the reason why the most important matches of the tournament will be running on Mondays at 18h00 CEST!
MOST PEOPLE WORK/STUDY in week days. Explain to me how can they even think about getting more stream viewers/subs, GW2 fans and competitive players/teams if they make the most important matches ON MONDAYS?!

I’m also curious about seeding and format, seeing as its essentially a competition to place top 4.

You might as well skip the tourney and just right the check to the Abjured. Nobody else is even close to being on their level. It’s like watching pro athletes go against high school kids.

Are SEA countries under Asia? If so, why are we only allowed to participate under EU? Our ping on EU is much worse than our ping on NA.

Anti.9156:

any new about how you are going to do the seeding

The plan is to use mainly the Go4 rankings but other major competitions might affect your seeding as well. More info on how the qualifiers will be seeded should be available soon.

ReaperJr.5967:

Are SEA countries under Asia? If so, why are we only allowed to participate under EU? Our ping on EU is much worse than our ping on NA.

You qualify as NA, unless I’m really having a massive moment and SEA doesn’t = Oceanic Countries.

Brix.8461:

Anti.9156:

any new about how you are going to do the seeding

The plan is to use mainly the Go4 rankings but other major competitions might affect your seeding as well. More info on how the qualifiers will be seeded should be available soon.

ty for the information.
Are you looking for the team Go4 ranking or also at the players. Seeing that some newly formed teams have not played at all under this teamname but still contain high ranked players

Noticed a new rule that I don’t remember seeing previously which has completely screwed me over for pro leagues:

“Now, even though we’re allowing anyone over the age of 16 to compete, we will still be restricting the regions these players can play in for the Pro League. For example, a player from NA can’t compete in Europe and vice versa.”

What’s wrong with allowing a single player from an opposing region to take part in a team (where the other 4 reside in the correct region) if said player does not compete in that opposing region?

Brunners.7251:

ReaperJr.5967:

Are SEA countries under Asia? If so, why are we only allowed to participate under EU? Our ping on EU is much worse than our ping on NA.

You qualify as NA, unless I’m really having a massive moment and SEA doesn’t = Oceanic Countries.

Does it? I thought oceanic referred to australia and new zealand exclusively. My bad if it doesnt.

does the qualifier have loser bracket?

If the 2 best teams in the qualifier face each other before top 4, it will mean a random team who is not as good will qualify for pro league.

It will also mean good teams will have better chance to prove themselves if they have dc/play bad in 1 match

Aztex.4895:

Such an important competition and they make one of the biggest mistakes when creating tournaments…
I would love to know the reason why the most important matches of the tournament will be running on Mondays at 18h00 CEST!
MOST PEOPLE WORK/STUDY in week days. Explain to me how can they even think about getting more stream viewers/subs, GW2 fans and competitive players/teams if they make the most important matches ON MONDAYS?!

I have to second this. What in the world inspired ANET/ESL to choose this time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oceanian_countries_by_population

Yeap. Quite poorly organised indeed.

Why have I never heard of the Boston Boys? Is that a forced rename?

Yes. Boston Boys was a placeholder for The Dankening as we wanted to change names but couldn’t decide.

Bump.

Super.2749:

does the qualifier have loser bracket?

The Open Qualifier will be single elimination.

Brix.8461:

Super.2749:

does the qualifier have loser bracket?

The Open Qualifier will be single elimination.

Can i get an elaboration on why the :: MOST IMPORTANT QUALIFIER :: is soo “cut throat”?

masskillerxploit.2165:

Can i get an elaboration on why the :: MOST IMPORTANT QUALIFIER :: is soo “cut throat”?

There could be hundreds of teams in theory, right? I don’t see a limit.

masskillerxploit.2165:

Brix.8461:

Super.2749:

does the qualifier have loser bracket?

The Open Qualifier will be single elimination.

Can i get an elaboration on why the :: MOST IMPORTANT QUALIFIER :: is soo “cut throat”?

Or you could just use your brain? There could in theory be as many teams as ToL3 (why wouldn’t there be?) – that was single elimination and took an entire afternoon. Imagine if that was double elimination.

Fluffball.8307:

masskillerxploit.2165:

Can i get an elaboration on why the :: MOST IMPORTANT QUALIFIER :: is soo “cut throat”?

There could be hundreds of teams in theory, right? I don’t see a limit.

“Hundreds of teams” only 8 teams signed up so far.

Single elimination? Really? I guess seeding is going to be 99% of qualifying.

Belial.9350:

masskillerxploit.2165:

Brix.8461:

Super.2749:

does the qualifier have loser bracket?

The Open Qualifier will be single elimination.

Can i get an elaboration on why the :: MOST IMPORTANT QUALIFIER :: is soo “cut throat”?

Or you could just use your brain? There could in theory be as many teams as ToL3 (why wouldn’t there be?) – that was single elimination and took an entire afternoon. Imagine if that was double elimination.

OR maybe you could use yours ?
http://play.eslgaming.com/guildwars2/global/gw2/major/pro-league-season-1-qualifier-northamerica/database/members/*/

9 teams. atm of writing this.

Because there is so much money up for grabs, and because this qualifier is apparently single elimination, I would just like to stress the importance of objective seeding. I know in past gw2 ESL Cups the organizers have included more than their fair share of bias in determining seeding positions, so as a player I hope that whatever decisions are made are based on RECENT placements for an actual team, as opposed to one or two individual players.

I know its a lot of work, but we cant stress this enough: There needs to be douple elimination

I wouldnt trust myself with the seeding of the eu cup, and that although i know nearly all players, i know how they played against each other in scrimm and in teamq, still i wouldnt do it. How the hell should a random esl admin do this, who has not even half the knowleadge the actual players have? Seeding wont be near perfect, so there needs to be a loser bracket to make up for that. This is one of the most important torunaments so far, it will end in drama if there is no douple elimination

Anti.9156:

I know its a lot of work, but we cant stress this enough: There needs to be douple elimination

I wouldnt trust myself with the seeding of the eu cup, and that although i know nearly all players, i know how they played against each other in scrimm and in teamq, still i wouldnt do it. How the hell should a random esl admin do this, who has not even half the knowleadge the actual players have? Seeding wont be near perfect, so there needs to be a loser bracket to make up for that. This is one of the most important torunaments so far, it will end in drama if there is no douple elimination

This is the most reasonable post I’ve read so far. I’ve admind and seeded multiple tournaments with Gem Prizes, but I would not trust myself or any single person to seed a single elimination tournament with so much money on the line.

I know there’s been some critique of PvP changes being made behind closed doors, this seems to be another situation where conspiracy theories may pop up if there is no clearly defined seeding and/or double elimination.

Brix, I’d ask you to please consider one of these two options. Either have ESL clearly define how they will seed, the exact weighting given to past performance. There should not be any subjectivity in these brackets.
If that cannot be done effectively, I would suggest you consider a double elimination tournament that places less importance on your initial bracketing.

I honestly don’t see more than 16 teams competing in each region and a single elimination tourny kind of feels bad, I assume these rules were in place because you were expecting a higher team turnout which at this point looks small, hopefully some rule revisions are made towards the end of next week.

Hopefully this turns out to be double elimination. If it isn’t you’ll simply end up seeing teams that are much weaker than others entering the Pro-Leagues, which is not what the players and viewers will want to see. You want the best players to go in Pro-Leagues to give quality matches.

It has to be Double Elimination, there will be some crucial “mistakes” in the seeding cause half of the Teams is unknown for the ESL admins and they dont know how good a Team is. Double Elim is the only way to pretend that a few of the best Teams that should be in the Pro League get kicked out (by a bad bracket, imagine the best 4 Teams on one side of the bracket, that worst case Scenario is definitly possible).

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Noticed a new rule that I don’t remember seeing previously which has completely screwed me over for pro leagues:

“Now, even though we’re allowing anyone over the age of 16 to compete, we will still be restricting the regions these players can play in for the Pro League. For example, a player from NA can’t compete in Europe and vice versa.”

What’s wrong with allowing a single player from an opposing region to take part in a team (where the other 4 reside in the correct region) if said player does not compete in that opposing region?

Could I please get an official response for this?

How will this work with subs etc? Will a team be treated as their ESL page so if they have more than 5 all of them can compete in games? For example I can play all the games but potentially not the Monday qualifier, so do I have to leave my team altogether or can we have more than 5 players.

Still no word addressing the format of these qualifiers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that single elimination doesn’t determine the top 4 teams in a bracket, I would have hoped ESL realizes this.

Agreed, this needs to be double elimination.

So, without further assumption, this will be single elimination? Thanks for the transparency!

We have listened to your feedback and been looking at how we could make changes to the format but still follow our schedule and time available.

We have decided to make the Open Qualifiers on Saturday double elimination. On Saturday play will continue up until top 8. Top 8 will then be seeded into a single elimination bracket that will be played on Monday, the 4 winning teams will have secured themselves a spot in the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League. The matches on Monday will also be broadcasted live from our UK studios on http://twitch.tv/guildwars2.

Please keep in mind that this will make the tournament on Saturday run longer than first expected, we’ll do our best to keep delays a minimum and also hope that teams will do their part to have everything run smoothly.

Good luck to all participants

Great news, thumbs up to the esl admins great job

Would have been even better to have top 8 double elim but at least we get double elim for top 32.

Josh Davis.6015:

Brix.8461:

We have listened to your feedback and been looking at how we could make changes to the format but still follow our schedule and time available.

We have decided to make the Open Qualifiers on Saturday double elimination. On Saturday play will continue up until top 8. Top 8 will then be seeded into a single elimination bracket that will be played on Monday, the 4 winning teams will have secured themselves a spot in the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League. The matches on Monday will also be broadcasted live from our UK studios on http://twitch.tv/guildwars2.

Please keep in mind that this will make the tournament on Saturday run longer than first expected, we’ll do our best to keep delays a minimum and also hope that teams will do their part to have everything run smoothly.

Good luck to all participants

Many thanks to ESL for committing to running a double-elim 32 team bracket. That’s quite the undertaking!

Good luck, all!

Agreed. I’m happy with these changes but I am still disappointed about matches scheduled on Mondays at 18h00 CEST…. Why?!

Josh Davis.6015:

Aztex.4895:

Josh Davis.6015:

Brix.8461:

We have listened to your feedback and been looking at how we could make changes to the format but still follow our schedule and time available.

We have decided to make the Open Qualifiers on Saturday double elimination. On Saturday play will continue up until top 8. Top 8 will then be seeded into a single elimination bracket that will be played on Monday, the 4 winning teams will have secured themselves a spot in the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League. The matches on Monday will also be broadcasted live from our UK studios on http://twitch.tv/guildwars2.

Please keep in mind that this will make the tournament on Saturday run longer than first expected, we’ll do our best to keep delays a minimum and also hope that teams will do their part to have everything run smoothly.

Good luck to all participants

Many thanks to ESL for committing to running a double-elim 32 team bracket. That’s quite the undertaking!

Good luck, all!

Agreed. I’m happy with these changes but I am still disappointed about matches scheduled on Mondays at 18h00 CEST…. Why?!

Good question! There were a number of factors that ultimately contributed to our decision to run Pro League on Mondays:

• All Pro League matches will be broadcast in person from ESL’s Studios – meaning no more seeing Jebro’s dirty laundry in the background of his webcam. This brings two big dependencies:
  • We need a day when Jebro, Heurix, and Storm are all available to cast. These guys are jumping on a plane each week to shoutcast for us and trying to work with their schedule is important when you consider they all have other jobs or school.
  • ESL has a fairly booked schedule when it comes to studio availability considering they’re broadcasting some sort of every single day.
• Another big reason for Mondays is Twitch viewership. After looking at the schedule and viewership trends/data with ESL, we believe we can carve a place out for ourselves on Mondays and make sure we give it an appropriate amount of promotion from both us and our partners. We are exploring the idea of rebroadcasting Pro League on the weekend somewhere so anyone who missed the live cast can catch it. Thoughts?

Unfortunately, there isn’t a single day we could pick that would work for everyone, but we’re certainly trying out best to accommodate as many people as possible. This is why we announced the days that Pro League would take place well in advance of sign-ups – just to make sure people know what they’re getting into.

Pro League is obviously a big undertaking for us at ArenaNet, and we’ll undoubtedly iterate on the experience over the next few months and long into the future. I’m stoked.

I think the ESL pro league matches should be broadcasted on a Official Guild Wars 2 ESL Twitch channel. Having the matches on the Guild Wars 2 Twitch is kinda cheesy.

Today is the day! Please remember to submit a support ticket before or during the qualifier if you have any questions or are experiencing any kind of issues: http://play.eslgaming.com/guildwars2/global/gw2/major/support

And please remember to check the email you have linked to your ESL account, updates and information will be sent out via email to all signed up teams during the day.

Good luck to everyone participating!

The eight European teams that have made it through to the deciding matches on Monday have been found!

• Purple Noise
• Pizza With Nutella
• More Guns Than Roses
• Chaotic Contingency
• Celerius e-Sports
• We Inspire
• Car Crashed
• Team Aggression

Congrats to all teams! More info about the deciding matches will be released soon.

Was there a stream of it? I didn’t see one.

Brix.8461:

• We Inspire

Congrats to all teams! More info about the deciding matches will be released soon.

Sizer Sizer Sizer!

TheLargeUnit.2793:

Was there a stream of it? I didn’t see one.

No, but Monday the deciding matches will be streamed.

Josh Davis.6015:

Aztex.4895:

Josh Davis.6015:

Brix.8461:

We have listened to your feedback and been looking at how we could make changes to the format but still follow our schedule and time available.

We have decided to make the Open Qualifiers on Saturday double elimination. On Saturday play will continue up until top 8. Top 8 will then be seeded into a single elimination bracket that will be played on Monday, the 4 winning teams will have secured themselves a spot in the ESL Guild Wars 2 Pro League. The matches on Monday will also be broadcasted live from our UK studios on http://twitch.tv/guildwars2.

Please keep in mind that this will make the tournament on Saturday run longer than first expected, we’ll do our best to keep delays a minimum and also hope that teams will do their part to have everything run smoothly.

Good luck to all participants

Many thanks to ESL for committing to running a double-elim 32 team bracket. That’s quite the undertaking!

Good luck, all!

Agreed. I’m happy with these changes but I am still disappointed about matches scheduled on Mondays at 18h00 CEST…. Why?!

Good question! There were a number of factors that ultimately contributed to our decision to run Pro League on Mondays:

• All Pro League matches will be broadcast in person from ESL’s Studios – meaning no more seeing Jebro’s dirty laundry in the background of his webcam. This brings two big dependencies:
  • We need a day when Jebro, Heurix, and Storm are all available to cast. These guys are jumping on a plane each week to shoutcast for us and trying to work with their schedule is important when you consider they all have other jobs or school.
  • ESL has a fairly booked schedule when it comes to studio availability considering they’re broadcasting some sort of every single day.
• Another big reason for Mondays is Twitch viewership. After looking at the schedule and viewership trends/data with ESL, we believe we can carve a place out for ourselves on Mondays and make sure we give it an appropriate amount of promotion from both us and our partners. We are exploring the idea of rebroadcasting Pro League on the weekend somewhere so anyone who missed the live cast can catch it. Thoughts?

Unfortunately, there isn’t a single day we could pick that would work for everyone, but we’re certainly trying out best to accommodate as many people as possible. This is why we announced the days that Pro League would take place well in advance of sign-ups – just to make sure people know what they’re getting into.

Pro League is obviously a big undertaking for us at ArenaNet, and we’ll undoubtedly iterate on the experience over the next few months and long into the future. I’m stoked.

Thank you Josh for the great answer. I can now clearly see the difficulties you have for this event.
Considering all the investment in this (besides team rewards there’s also all the logistics involved) I can only guess you hope to have a bigger return and growth for a better future where GW2 can be a choice to be seen on weekends.

My concerns:
1- Even though Twitch is the mother of all gaming stream, are you considering other alternatives? There are other platforms growing like Hitbox, Dailymotions Games, Youtube Gaming, Azubu…
Most of our viewers are gw2 players and fans. With the current number of viewers we have on Twitch, I think the difference wouldn’t be that big if the tournament would run in another platform considering the ammount of viewers growth you can get on weekends. It could even bring you more benefits in a long term.

2- What are the alternatives to ESL studios? Having people to stream in person at ESL studios is the best choice for multiple reasons I believe, but it also brings a lot of expenses and limits your freedom to make the best choices for everyone. I hope you are already searching for easier and less expensive alternatives for streams in future events, without decreasing the quality of the tournament streams.

3- Rebroadcasting is a great idea, but there needs to be some changes if you want to bring more viewers and players to the streams and to the game. As I said for another thread today, the viewers and spectators need to be educated and one of the ways to do it is with replays in slowmotion. Make sure the rebroadcasts have much more content like this, because during the matches is almost impossible for the streamers to do it.