Guild Wars 2

Mike O’Brien has just announced on reddit that Colin is leaving Arenanet and he will be taking over as Game Director for the moment. Mike is conducting an AMA on reddit and of interest to WvW is that he states that Stephen Clarke-Wilson is now the WvW Director and seems to state that John Corpening is only working on PvP. So yet another change.

Here’s the link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/

And more delay?

Taking turns to give WvW a kick in the teeth.

Well I read it, Live beta testing starts in April, guess we’ll see how that goes and the involvement and communications go.

Yeah here’s the quote on WvW: "After the April update, we’ll start live beta-tests of improvements to WvW. "

Well i am slightly optimistic about whats been said on the wvw topic. BUT, yes there is a big BUT, we had beta tests on HoT maps and all the things that we the players felt was wrong with it was reported back and nothing was changed. If this beta is going to follow the same road, then it is a dead end. But if they are really following up on what we are saying, and make changes if needed so that it matches what the wvw players want with their game mode, then this might be a good thing. So yeah slightly optimistic. A bit disappointed about the time line, i thought the changes would come through in April, i am fairly fed up with not having waypoints in “hills” and “bay” and if they at least fixed that thing, it would probably improve wvw hugely.

And again!

Why are we having to receive this information from a 3rd party when Anet has it’s own forums here, it just goes to show what they think of us ‘THE’ customers.

I’m done with this dying game.

Bunch of “we are working on stuff”and no real answers, nothing seems changed.

Here are the WvW comments I can find, not much compared to the rest of the game:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nwzk4

Yes there is only 1……………

Here is what Tyler says:

“I can’t really go into the ‘whens’, but here’s what I can tell you. At a high level we plan to address core WvW issues such as population imbalance, scoring issues, and rewards. Of those, the first updates you’ll see will be related to population balance and rewards. As always, as we get closer to releasing an update we’ll be publishing a blog post including more details.”

Here’s another few: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nxqbt

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nyizn

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0ny76p

This comment has some more detail:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0nyizn

“We are currently working on layout improvements to the Desert Borderlands map. Specifically, we are looking at changes that simplify navigation, reduce line of sight blockers, reduce/eliminate critical choke points (Fire Keep Lord Room), reduce lethal fall locations, etc.
We still intend to eventually bring back the Alpine Borderlands map, but it’s not as simple as just toggling it back on. We don’t have the tech for rotating between the two borderlands built yet, and the map itself required a significant amount of content updates to support all of the features that were added to WvW as part of the HoT update.”

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Why the kitten reddit?!

THESE are the OFFICIAL forums!

If I have to go over to reddit to get answers then why not just move the forums over to the reddit platform?

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Can you stop whining about this already?

They have metrics, they know what people do in their game. YOU don’t. All he said in the video is that the majority of the player base is PvX, and this is generally true. Most of us play all game modes. (Well I used to, now I just login for rewards.)

Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why? Because they built the game modes with accessibility in mind. We can jump from game mode to game mode without a gear or lvl grind and thats why the game is so appealing to many of us. Playing multiple game modes keeps players invested in the game and that’s what ArenaNet wants, I guess.

That’s what he meant with ‘minority’.

Kraljevo.2801:

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Can you stop whining about this already?

They have metrics, they know what people do in their game. YOU don’t. All he said in the video is that the majority of the player base is PvX, and this is generally true. Most of us play all game modes. (Well I used to, now I just login for rewards.)

Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why? Because they built the game modes with accessibility in mind. We can jump from game mode to game mode without a gear or lvl grind and thats why the game is so appealing to many of us. Playing multiple game modes keeps players invested in the game and that’s what ArenaNet wants, I guess.

That’s what he meant with ‘minority’.

There is a huge difference between players who come into WvW just to do dailies and players who actually play WvW. Simply because their metrics tell them the majority of players that come into WvW are Pver’s doing dailies does not mean that the majority of WvW players meet that description. Simply coming into WvW =\= playing WvW. Can you please stop whining about what you do not understand already instead of asking others to stop pointing out the problem with the metrics?

The " minority" are actually WvW players in WvW, the rest are not there to play WvW at all..

lil devils x.6071:

Kraljevo.2801:

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Can you stop whining about this already?

They have metrics, they know what people do in their game. YOU don’t. All he said in the video is that the majority of the player base is PvX, and this is generally true. Most of us play all game modes. (Well I used to, now I just login for rewards.)

Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why? Because they built the game modes with accessibility in mind. We can jump from game mode to game mode without a gear or lvl grind and thats why the game is so appealing to many of us. Playing multiple game modes keeps players invested in the game and that’s what ArenaNet wants, I guess.

That’s what he meant with ‘minority’.

There is a huge difference between players who come into WvW just to do dailies and players who actually play WvW. Simply because their metrics tell them the majority of players that come into WvW are Pver’s doing dailies does not mean that the majority of WvW players meet that description. Simply coming into WvW =\= playing WvW. Can you please stop whining about what you do not understand already instead of asking others to stop pointing out the problem with the metrics?

Wow, I struck a nerve, eh? I was just pointing out the truth, like it or not, I don’t give a kitten. Oh, and by the way, I know very well how business metrics work.

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

AND that is the mindset ruining WvW. When they are catering the " just go into WvW for dailies and leave crowd". They obviously are not concerned about actually improving the strategic value and challenge of the PvP game mode for those actually playing WvW. In the end the WvW guilds will die and they will just have it as a PvE Daily reward Farm.

Kraljevo.2801:

lil devils x.6071:

Kraljevo.2801:

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Can you stop whining about this already?

They have metrics, they know what people do in their game. YOU don’t. All he said in the video is that the majority of the player base is PvX, and this is generally true. Most of us play all game modes. (Well I used to, now I just login for rewards.)

Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why? Because they built the game modes with accessibility in mind. We can jump from game mode to game mode without a gear or lvl grind and thats why the game is so appealing to many of us. Playing multiple game modes keeps players invested in the game and that’s what ArenaNet wants, I guess.

That’s what he meant with ‘minority’.

There is a huge difference between players who come into WvW just to do dailies and players who actually play WvW. Simply because their metrics tell them the majority of players that come into WvW are Pver’s doing dailies does not mean that the majority of WvW players meet that description. Simply coming into WvW =\= playing WvW. Can you please stop whining about what you do not understand already instead of asking others to stop pointing out the problem with the metrics?

Wow, I struck a nerve, eh? I was just pointing out the truth, like it or not, I don’t give a kitten.

EXACTLY ( take your statement here and apply it to yourself). He was spot on, the truth is the majority of players who log into WvW are doing dailies, not actually playing the game mode, simply because they come there does not mean they are actually WvW players. I 100% agree with Morrolan, it is ignorant to think that PvE Reward farmers are representative of WvW players in any way. WvW game mode would be better off not enticing PvE farmers if they want to actually retain and increase actual WvW players.

“Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why?”

Fact, because a bulk of them left a loooong time ago.

PVPrs make their minds up quick, they played for a few months, loved the mechanics laughed at the scoring and imbalance of the game and left to another game they could seriously compete with – spvp has been a work in progress since gw2 started, they didn’t like it then and they don’t like it now. and it’s not because spvp or wvw is bad,…..it’s because winning an spvp or wvw match is nothing to brag about.

pvprs are not about loot and shinies, they are about bragging rights. The current wvw scoring system is a placebo for pvers that like to pvp too.

Ricky.4706:

“Naturally, there are pvp and wvw only players. These players are in a minority, though. Why?”

Fact, because a bulk of them left a loooong time ago.

PVPrs make their minds up quick, they played for a few months, loved the mechanics laughed at the scoring and imbalance of the game and left to another game they could seriously compete with – spvp has been a work in progress since gw2 started, they didn’t like it then and they don’t like it now. and it’s not because spvp is bad,…..it’s because winning an spvp match is nothing to brag about.

pvprs are not about loot and shinies, they are about bragging rights.

The fact that Anet refused to treat WvW like a large scale PvP game mode is why this turned out so bad. They still refuse to look at it the same way the Players do and this will result in more players giving up on the game mode all together. WvW players spend real $$ To get their challenging strategic PvP fix and do not need cheap trinkets to play. Pixel loot doesn’t do much for us..

That AMA is about 12 month late. That horse is dead and decaying.

“The fact that Anet refused to treat WvW like a large scale PvP game mode is why this turned out so bad.”

very much this +1

Ricky.4706:

“The fact that Anet refused to treat WvW like a large scale PvP game mode is why this turned out so bad.”

very much this +1

Well, this is something I agree with any day.

bragging rights has nothing to do with being able to overcome any challenge the computer can present, it has to do with pulverizing players that were able to overcome any challenge the computer presents. – that would make me larger than Mordermoth, now that’s something to brag about! My turn to be the monster that people can’t wait to fight! thank you!

I am afraid ANet is reacting too slowly to WvW players bleeding…when the transfusion arrives the patient will be completely dead.

Kraljevo.2801:

morrolan.9608:

Ricky.4706:

this may be a good thing, considering gw1 did after all start in Mike Obrien’s apartment with a small team…, and i’m sure running the company took him away from a lot of hands on time with the game itself – especially when you are knee deep in administration stuff.

this may be what gw2 needed to get back on track

Remember Mike O’Brien was the one who stated players aren’t interested in WvW only.

Can you stop whining about this already?

They have metrics, they know what people do in their game. YOU don’t. All he said in the video is that the majority of the player base is PvX, and this is generally true. Most of us play all game modes. (Well I used to, now I just login for rewards.)

WvW players are forced into PvE because WvW isn’t self sufficient unlike PvP.

Wow, things have got to be dramatic. I left the game as did 90% of my friends after HoT since so many things felt wrong with HoT… and now they are restructuring the top of the company.

Well they finally woke up for sure.

Maybe I’ll come back when the new WvW stuff is out then if they can fix the terrible skill balance and lack of build diversity as well.

Here are the AMA posts from Stephen. He’s worked on WvW from the beginning, the updates will be delivered incrementally which IMO is a good thing:

https://www.reddit.com/user/DrStephenCW

Wake me up when WvW is about balanced large-scale PvP again. Until then, my wallet is closed and I’ll spend my time on games that provide something more engaging and challenging. I used to play at least 4 hours a day on average, probably more like 6 hours. I haven’t actually even bothered to log in for dailies in two weeks. I have 27 characters and tons of gem-purchased swag on them. I know lots of players who fit the same description. A-net basically shot their golden goose, and then ran over for good measure.

Colly.4073:

And again!

Why are we having to receive this information from a 3rd party when Anet has it’s own forums here, it just goes to show what they think of us ‘THE’ customers.

I’m done with this dying game.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Qugi.2653:

Maybe dumb question but why not here on official forum? I am sure you wait for that question.

The formatting on reddit makes an AMA work better in that system. No preference, just a matter of functionality for this sort of short-term project.

there is your answer.. too bad you won’t read it since you are done with this game

Companies always wake up and clean their top management when the profits start to be written in RED on their balance sheets.

We still intend to eventually bring back the Alpine Borderlands map, but it’s not as simple as just toggling it back on. We don’t have the tech for rotating between the two borderlands built yet, and the map itself required a significant amount of content updates to support all of the features that were added to WvW as part of the HoT update.

LOL!!! So they want to spend valuable dev time adding to the old BL all the awful mechanics they introduced into HoT? Talk about having zero clue.

The anet dev we had with us on JQBL tonight — Hamm, I think? — said they would be disabling the oasis in an upcoming patch. If true, I believe that’s a step in the right direction. Disable it, until they can suss out whatever issues are making it lag so horribly. He then claimed fire keep for anet, and told us that if we didn’t defend it, we’d all be banned lol.

Lord Kuru.3685:

We still intend to eventually bring back the Alpine Borderlands map, but it’s not as simple as just toggling it back on. We don’t have the tech for rotating between the two borderlands built yet, and the map itself required a significant amount of content updates to support all of the features that were added to WvW as part of the HoT update.

LOL!!! So they want to spend valuable dev time adding to the old BL all the awful mechanics they introduced into HoT? Talk about having zero clue.

Pretty sure they are talking about all the changes to upgrades, tactics, shrines and guild claiming.. Not silly stuff like barriers, pop up walls, oasis events and all the other things we dislike. I think the upgrade change was a good change and tactics don’t bother me one bit.

I said in past that I doubt they made any of those changes to the old maps and that is the reason why they can’t just “put them back” like so many people seem to think they can do with a flip of a button.

They stated they would bring them back and to me that meant they would work on it after they gave us the new map. With the amount of feedback after HoT dropped on the new map it looks like they scrapped the whole thing and now are trying to listen more and actually do something about it this time before changing the old map and then having to change it again when the forums rage because its not what some wanted..

If you actually think they coded all that stuff into the old maps, can flip a switch to bring it back and also flip a switch that magically brings back the population too well you have zero clue

I read all of that thread and just hope they follow through and keep communicating. Unlike many I think they can but people need to let go of the past and try to move on into the future.. If you actually think it will never get better you will never see anything we get as being better.

also I said a lot and it all wasn’t all directed at you lol its just a general statement about all the QQ’ing I see going on in the forums and how many times old things that devs said are brought back up. I’ve said some stupid things on these forums but over time I change my mind and views on things. I’m only human and make mistakes..

What this says is that WvW is hard to get right and no one from A.Net wants to take responsibility for it.

I’m guessing:

Population Imbalance = Merged Servers or Megaservers
Reducing DBL navigation problems = Gliding (Obviously DBL was designed with this in mind)
Improved WvW rewards = who cares? (PvE players I suppose)

Expect Cata and Treb abilities to launch players over walls a la Lineage when Gliding is introduced. As it will be on all maps at some stage in 2016. I’m hoping they nerf autoupgrades, but it might not matter if Megaservers is the route they choose. Megaservers won’t kill WvW but it sure will change it. I can’t guess how well server merging will go down with the community…but at least there will be a community.

Mike O’Brien

Lol. And finally, an hour later, people are starting to up-vote my comments here again. It’s all good. I just hope the WvW community can dial down the answer and focus on working with us.

kittening hypocrite!

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Mike O’Brien

Lol. And finally, an hour later, people are starting to up-vote my comments here again. It’s all good. I just hope the WvW community can dial down the answer and focus on working with us.

kittening hypocrite!

Yeah, I found that pretty amusing and out of touch, too…

lol, Anet is so pathetic, let’s not forget the last WvW lead dev didnt work on ANYTHING for the game mode when HOT was announced (he admitted on reddit after leaving the company), now there’s a 2nd expansion, chances are the pattern will be repeated.

We’re kitten doomed if he has a say with WvW.

ouch, that’s like saying if you love poker, you’re really into solitaire :x

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Mike O’Brien

Lol. And finally, an hour later, people are starting to up-vote my comments here again. It’s all good. I just hope the WvW community can dial down the answer and focus on working with us.

kittening hypocrite!

This answer and the one before: "Thanks for the down-votes and for the thread on the official forums, “Wrong answer again RIP WvW”. You know I’m actually here to help."
are ridiculous and concerning. As a long time developer in the game industry he should know this is part and parcel of development and he should have the empathy to realise exactly why WvW players are so frustrated

Buy Some Apples.6390:

Mike O’Brien

Lol. And finally, an hour later, people are starting to up-vote my comments here again. It’s all good. I just hope the WvW community can dial down the answer and focus on working with us.

kittening hypocrite!

It’s just one of the many signs that he doesn’t acknowledge (or worse yet, he doesn’t even realize) that he and Anet are the problems; that they are the ones who put WvW in its current position — not the WvW community.

Seriously. What rational person is going to “work with them” after seeing them time and again promise to “listen” and then end up doing the exact opposite of what’s needed to be done.

guys, stop buying into the bullkitten info from the reddit thread, it’s just a lot of hot air… It’s just a keep people interested, making you chase that invisible carrot.

I also find it funny how he says " I just hope the WvW community can dial down the answer", like we have the answers to help WvW, but he doesnt want to hear them :P

But pretty sure he meant anger. But how you gonna make 4 years of anger go away? Unless this overhaul is amazing, it aint. HoT was the last straw for some WvW guilds.

I think it was fairly patronizing to selectively pick one (or a couple) of the bad threads like only those come out of WvW— it’s not like there aren’t many entitled threads for PvE and PvP yet it seems to be an attempt to dismiss the WvW community for being incapable of open discussion when obviously the channel hasn’t been proper, especially when one is posting from reddit, and choosing that to comment on.

Granted, I just don’t think that was good to comment on it at all regardless of right or wrong.

What amazes me is Mike O’Brien still thinking that ANet has a few more months to fix WvW…

Brazzi.2045:

Bunch of “we are working on stuff”and no real answers, nothing seems changed.

Yeah, I’m wondering if they started working on WvW back when “Everybody was working on the expac” or “Everybody was working on Living Story 2”
Seems like timelines have started heavily overlapping, based on which section of the community they’re addressing…