Guild Wars 2

Evo.9180:

PowerBottom.5796:

…I don’t hate solo-q’ers or want to single them out, but ANet shouldn’t focus on them first, because those Aspects of a game don’t make it an e-Sport or help a potential competetive Community to grow …

If you didn’t know until now “e-sports” and community are built upon the casual players and most of them want this game to have a proper solo queue. Or maybe you thought that all of the people watching streams are “pros”. None of the today’s big “e-sport” games would have had such success if they didn’t have solo queue. It’s the most popular option and it always will be. The satisfaction of the casuals is very important, because they are the majority and they are the ones who help the game grow as a whole.

I summarize for you: The “pros” need casual players as much as casuals need “pros”.

But a soloq is not the core in a game. GW1 had also casuals playing GvG and HA (about 80%). It isn’t that hard to form a team if you have enough players, who want to play.
It was the same in the first month of GW2, where all ppl formed guilds to play in a core-team (even casuals). So you see it works. You don’t need a soloq. You need a good system where titles mean something, where rank means something. And not hotjoin and soloq, where it just matters how long you play and not how good you are.

@players without a clue.

Comparing two different games is not working. Even when they have the same modes.

Evo.9180:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

@players without a clue.

Comparing two different games is not working. Even when they have the same modes.

It’s not a question about the games themselves, it’s the question of what people want to play. If you missed the general consensus on this issue, the majority wants a proper solo queue in this game as well.

Because all the competitive players have allrdy left. Well done!

Evo.9180:

PowerBottom.5796:

Evo.9180:

None of the today’s big “e-sport” games would have had such success if they didn’t have solo queue. It’s the most popular option and it always will be.

More importantly, none of the big e-Sports games would be big e-Sports games without Custom Games and Observer Mode…..

Except, League of Legends, the most popular of them all, was released in 2009 and got spectator mode in late 2011. It didn’t stop it from being extremely popular and successful.

mhmm… And when exactly did it start with ridiculous Prize-pools, the Formation of professional Teams and when did LoL really explode with their numbers (both ppl playing and ppl watching it on Stream)?

Besides: Here’s what GW2 had for casuals from the start:

- Hotjoin
- Rank
- Rewards in terms of aestheticly more appealing Gear

Now they’ve added: Matchmaking (lets assume this invisible Matchmaking-System does exist), Ladder (coming soon….), Solo-q.

—> What do casuals want more?

This all happened while paid tournaments got removed, 3-map Tournaments got removed etc. which totally crippled the organized competetive Teams.

—> Is it good for GW2 to loose the community which would potentially form the core of an e-Sports Scene to invest in stuff the casual players wants?

Well, we don’t know it exactly…. It’s the good old question of what came first, the Egg or the Chicken? Does a game need to make the casuals happy for them to begin forming an e-Sports Scene, or do they need to accomodate more professional Players that could attract more potential pro’s and casuals?

I can only speak from my own experience and from what I think a lot of Players out there want:

- I’m only interested in a game with a highly competetive Scene and I get interested in certain games when I see good streamers, tournaments and when the game to me has potential to be an e-Sport.
- There are millions of potential Customers out there that play competetive Games like SC2, LoL, HoN, Dota2, freaking World of Tanks (50 Million guys!) and I do think that a good portion of them is looking for a competetive Game, maybe sth. new and fun, that they can get into.
—> Those Players won’t hear anything about GW2 if there are just Casuals playing all day long, the way they hear of GW2 and get interested in it is:

1) If there are Tournaments with good Prize-Money
2) If popular e-Sports Names/Brands sponsor Teams or participate in Tournaments.
3) If ESL and other Leagues had an Amateur-Series
4) If they constantly see GW2 up there at the Top on Twitch.tv (and in EVERY game, Tournaments get the highest Viewership and as a rule of thumb you can say: The better and more professional a Player is, the more Viewers he gets. Of course the person itself is important, but no1 watches a streamer just because he is soooo hilarious, it’s always a combination of skill and personality and how can you rate skill better then with a Player being sponsored by a big Team and winning a lot of Tournaments?)

—> This is pure advertisement for a game and thats why I think pushing out Content for high-end competetive Play is more important for the growth of GW2 than giving the casuals everything they desire. This is of course based on my opinion and of course you need a certain ground to stay on and to keep the casuals happy, but IMHO, GW2 has that now, while they have nothing for the competetive Players atm.

lol@people arguing against soloque being a must. Yeah meng, lets appeal to teams only. Soloquers are most certainly not the majority of any pvp game.

I totally remember that whenever I played jk2, wc3, league, wow, sc2 and gw1 etc all I saw was team players and solo players are just some nische market compared to forcing 5

Gw1 failed because of it’s neglect of solo play when it could have been so much bigger. No, I’m not saying HA mode should have had soloque, but having the only form of competitively playing solo being hero battles was the most kitten idea ever and whoever argues against it should return to licking the wall they were previously making out with before posting such a thing.

league exploedd with the implemention of soloque (seriously) lololol.

Oni.5429:

lol@people arguing against soloque being a must. Yeah meng, lets appeal to teams only. Soloquers are most certainly not the majority of any pvp game.

I totally remember that whenever I played jk2, wc3, league, wow, sc2 and gw1 etc all I saw was team players and solo players are just some nische market compared to forcing 5

Gw1 failed because of it’s neglect of solo play when it could have been so much bigger. No, I’m not saying HA mode should have had soloque, but having the only form of competitively playing solo being hero battles was the most kitten idea ever and whoever argues against it should return to licking the wall they were previously making out with before posting such a thing.

I personally don’t argue against ANY Feature, but I argue that to me, some features are more pressing than others. IMHO, GW2 could have a competetive Snowball-fight Ladder all year long, but not if it means we’d have to w8 another X months on Spectator-Mode and Custom Arenas.

Besides: GW1 didn’t fail in any way, but it could’ve been bigger. But not because of a lack of Solo-q. GW1’s Problem was that they never reached out to competetively interested Players/Organizations outside of the GW1-Community:

1) Most Tournaments were organized by ANet themselves and got little to no traction in e-Sports outside GW1, because there were no third-parties involved. No ESl, MLG or whatever, where other Viewers might have stumbled upon GW1 while watching the Streams or attending a Tournament live.
2) GW1 didn’t stream anything, didn’t make many VoD’s etc. which meant that most ppl watched the Tournaments with the ingame Observer-Mode. This meant, that in order to watch those Tournaments (which could’ve been a great way of reaching out to potential new customers) ppl must’ve already bought the game!

It’s like advertising for a new TV with a commercial that only plays on exactly that TV which you must’ve bought already in order to see that commercial.

This meant all the growth and every e-Sport aspect of GW1 came from within the Community itself, which heavily limits the potential growth of a game.

I have no doubt in my mind that solo-q in Ascent or GvG would’ve changed absolutely nothing. Those game-modes were designed for organized Teams anyways and it would’ve been a huge mess for solo-q’ers and probably not even that enjoyable.

we are in 2013. games that were on the summit of success are those who have resisted all the attacks of similar games. therefore, to date, a new game that wants to impose on the market must ALREADY have all the features that other games have. a software house that expect his community to remain faithful despite all the mistakes they made, and they can not keep up with the other software houses, well, they can even change jobs!

Lovin the intelligent discussion in this thread from guys like PowerBottom.

As it pertains to the chicken and the egg question…

The casuals are more critical to success. Titles like GW1 and Bloodline Champions had superior skill based PvP to any other games on the market at the peak of their popularity, but failed to reach e-sport level, because they were notoriously casual-unfriendly games. Meanwhile LoL, which is the nearest reasonable facsimile of a game that is arguably viable as an e-sport, is not nearly as skill based as either of those titles.

One major Problem I have with the approach of accomodating casual PvP’ers over highly competetive oriented Players is:

Are casuals willing to pay for GW2, if they can play tons of casual games for free?

I don’t think this Aspect is a Problem for Players that are looking for a very competetive Game: If I see a good Game with a big Community and an e-Sport-friendly environment, I don’t mind paying for it.

@Myrmidian: Yes, there are tons of games out there that are more successful than other because they accomodate casuals, but there are things to consider when trying to apply this logic to GW2:

1) The point mentioned above: Are they willing to pay if they just want to play casually or “just try it out”?
2) How will they hear about GW2 in the first place? Having a good competetive Scene would help with that: Tournaments, well-known streamers and all the networking that comes with being a good competetive Game in an established competetive Field of Games (being associated with big Names/Companies; even if well-known Teams like EG or Team Liquid would just have a decent Team and pay them basically nothing, it would still be Advertisement for GW2 and the Team that is playing under their Banner. Same goes for ESL, MLG etc. Even if it was just an Amateur-League with a low Prize-pool, it would get the Word about GW2 out there to exactly the people you want to hear about GW2, if you are trying to go into direction of e-Sports). It’s basically heavily targeted Advertisement ANet would get for free.
3) The really successful Games like LoL and WoW, had very good timing: They offered the right things at the right time and because they were so successful, everything like e-Sports grew naturally. Look at WoW: Even that had a competetive Scene for a while, although it’s horrible and confusing to watch for anyone that isn’t a hardcore-WoW-Player themselves, but because every Organizer of a Team or an Event could just say: “Sponsor us – there are 10+ Million People playing the Game.” were able to get money practically thrown at them. GW2 gets into an oversaturated Market in that aspect of more established Games with more Features that are even free to play. Can you win this battle by accomodating casuals? Well: I don’t know for sure, but I’d strongly doubt it.

silvermember.8941:

Shukran.4851:

if pve and pvp are both equially fun, i think pvers will quit before pvpers.

Guild wars 1 had everything PvPers said they could want and what ended up keeping the game was PvEers.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. GW1 PvE was absolute fail. GW1 was a PvP Focused game. PvP is what made GW1 a Successful game and a successful business venture. PvP players are the people that put ANet on the map. If it wasn’t for us you never would have heard of ANet and there certainly would never have been a Guild Wars 2.

The monumental success of GW1 (that took place during the height of the WoW era) proves how great and loyal a PvP player base can be. GW1 was successful for many years and ONLY because of the PvP it contained.

I love how all of the No Talent No Skill PvEasy Noobs come running into the sPvP forums to defend Anet’s decision to dedicate all of their resources towards PvE. Stop trolling the sPvP thread and get back on our knees under thedevelopers desk where you belong.

Ultimate joke is on ANet though. There are a lot of happy people out there right now by how poorly GW2 is doing in both PvP and PvE. They are losing players left and right and can’t find a way to retain their customers. They are doing everything they can to try and keep the game afloat but it’s dying. Nothing was ready at release and in a vain attempt to keep what players they have left they constantly release unfinished projects. Not once has anything been introduced nor did it work correctly when released. Everything has been an epic fail from the start. WvWvW, Culling, Dungeons, Karka One Time Guest Weekend Event, Dynamic Events, Gear Treadmill, Fractals, etc….. All of it has been a fail and not a single thing was ready to be released when it was released. The only thing they somewhat managed to do correctly is the Halloween and Christmas Events. And even those two had some major issues. However, The Mad Kings Clock Tower was the best PvE they’ve created to date. And the Capture the Gifts Arena is the most balanced and exciting PvP GW2 has ever seen. The SAB was a good idea but it isn’t even a 1/4 of the way finished and it humorously easy to complete.

GW2 is basically VaporWare at this point. They better not invest too much money in it’s future because it’s going downhill fast. Just wait until that next big MMO that has the word Scrolls in it’s title comes out. GW2 will be a complete ghost town and the PvP’ers they relied upon in GW1 will not come to their rescue.