At first I was convinced that everyone hated the DBL, and I didn’t really like it either. The revamp was great, but then so was Alpine returning. And Alpine is still better in my eyes, except the citadel which I really don’t know which sadist designed it.
Then I get comments from people missing the Desert Borderlands and yes they were on it regularly. They seemed to come out of the woodwork or something, because honestly if we needed in depth strategical defense of those things, we really could have used it sooner.
At this point, I don’t care anymore. The borderland could be a giant freaking square and if people are playing on it instead of queuing on EB and just sitting there in LA, I’ll live.
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
At first I was convinced that everyone hated the DBL, and I didn’t really like it either. The revamp was great, but then so was Alpine returning. And Alpine is still better in my eyes, except the citadel which I really don’t know which sadist designed it.
Then I get comments from people missing the Desert Borderlands. They seemed to come out of the woodwork or something, because honestly if we needed in depth strategical defense of those things, we really could have used it sooner.
At this point, I don’t care anymore. All I know is regardless of which map you like, you better be playing on it regularly and not just queue for EB.
That’s why the next poll will be good. Hopefully the results of it will give us a mix of 2 abls and 1 dbl….or something along those lines. That sort of compromise would please the most people….those players that enjoy abls, those that enjoy dbls, and those that enjoy both.
Forum discussions -
Mmo players with a screw loose vs mmo players with two screws loose. All very important stuff.
-Zenleto-
Do the towers have any relevance to the keeps? Do they help defend them? Can they be used as staging posts to attack them? No? Then it’s a bad map. Everything else is just additional problems. But the lack of strategic relevance and cohesion of the areas is the root problem. Those aren’t issues that can be solved by forcing yourself to play on it. Those are issues you don’t even have to log in to be able to recognize. That’s a major problem at the very core of the entire building process. Everything else is just problems with the details. If the foundation is faulty, it doesn’t matter what’s built on top of it. I don’t care if you know ever nook and cranny of a house, if the foundation isn’t solid, it’s going to collapse. And the foundation of any map is the layout of the major areas, and the layout of the Desert Borderland is deeply flawed. Alpine isn’t exactly perfect, but Desert took the problems Alpine had and made them far worse. The areas have zero cohesion on DBL, and until that’s changed, it will always be a bad map.
To put it another way, think of a pizza. The layout of the areas is the crust. Everything else is the toppings. People can argue forever about whether they’d prefer pepperoni or mushrooms or green peppers on it, but if the crust is made from a cow pie, it’s all going to taste like crap.
You have to understand that the creators of this game aren’t players. They make games, but they don’t play them. By playing games I mean playing a whole bunch of games of different genres. Analyzing what works in them and what kind of things would create good gameplay. Anet doesn’t do this. It’s the reason why most of the stuff they do looks like it’s straight from brainstorming session.
You have to understand that the creators of this game aren’t players. They make games, but they don’t play them. By playing games I mean playing a whole bunch of games of different genres. Analyzing what works in them and what kind of things would create good gameplay. Anet doesn’t do this. It’s the reason why most of the stuff they do looks like it’s straight from brainstorming session.
Clearly you have never worked in the gaming industry. I’ll tell you hands down, not only do employees play the games they create… they also play other games in the genres they do enjoy. A player who likes fps will ikely play fps games, but that doesn’t mean they don’t play racing games, mmo’s or mobile games. I’ve worked for gaming studios for 7 years and the amount of players who work there in there own field of expertise (whether art, programming, communications, marketing, hell even ops and finance have a passion for games)
I also played many times with some Anet employees. If players do not have enough time to play it is usually revolved around a higher demand irl … like a fix, or a new born baby irl or the like.
You have to understand that the creators of this game aren’t players. They make games, but they don’t play them. By playing games I mean playing a whole bunch of games of different genres. Analyzing what works in them and what kind of things would create good gameplay. Anet doesn’t do this. It’s the reason why most of the stuff they do looks like it’s straight from brainstorming session.
Clearly you have never worked in the gaming industry. I’ll tell you hands down, not only do employees play the games they create… they also play other games in the genres they do enjoy. A player who likes fps will ikely play fps games, but that doesn’t mean they don’t play racing games, mmo’s or mobile games. I’ve worked for gaming studios for 7 years and the amount of players who work there in there own field of expertise (whether art, programming, communications, marketing, hell even ops and finance have a passion for games)
Looking at WvW development and the original iteration of the DBL its pretty clear that the WvW designers took no notice at all of other similar games and what is best in practice.
Oh my god. The “people just didn’t want to learn the new map” fallacy once again. Couldn’t you just necro one of the other equally harebrained threads for this?
Gutter Rat [cry] | Gandara | Roaming nuisance
~ There is no balance team. ~
My beef with DBL was the fact that it takes far too long to get from point A to point B in certain areas than you would think just from their distances on the map. Example: going from the southeastern-most camp to the shrine just north of it. Looks like it would take 30 seconds right? HAHA NOPE. Have fun snaking your way down an unnecessarily elaborate scaffolding for 2-3 minutes. Even if there is a way to strategically fall down and cut minutes off of this trip, that route is not obvious enough and perhaps not even intended.
Actually, if you follow the cliff to the northeast, you’ll find convenient stairs, leading you straight to the shrine you’re looking for in a direct trip. They’ve been put there in the last update.
That’s the big point with DBL : ppl thinking it’s tedious running from A to B actually haven’t explored it thoroughly, and found all the shortcuts there’re everywhere. And it’s especially sad about the last issue of DBL which is far easier.
I actually think the trip from Citadel to, say, bottom middle camp feel far longer in ABL than DBL. Maybe it takes less time, but it’s so boring !
I would rather just follow the flat land to the flat opening near a keep that overlooks the lower, flat area with a nicely decorated mountain or forest in the background.
Clearly you have never worked in the gaming industry. I’ll tell you hands down, not only do employees play the games they create… they also play other games in the genres they do enjoy.
Not all companies are the same. I could very well understand that Anet wants to create a world simulator instead of a game. Some companies look like they would rather make a movie or comic book but for some reason have opted to make a game instead. Still more companies have games that look like calculus with graphics.
It’s about looking into and seeing where companies excel. What do they do well and what they can’t do?
Many things Anet creates are only barely working. Why does AoE go through walls? Why is defending about “events”? Why won’t arrows arc? Why would they create desert borderland layout to be a maze? Why is there no difference between firing a bow and firing a rifle? Why does tiny Asura have all the same attributes as huge Norn? Why is keep lord invulnerable to damage?
These things and many others are essential questions to problematize for anyone who wants to create a game. For Anet these are accidents caused by structure of their engine, fixed in band-aid fashion if something seems to go wrong.
Tongku… you said you played the revised version… but the wind knockdowns were removed except maybe for the ones right at the gates of the air keep… not sure what’s wrong with the portals… The barricades were removed, and the wp’s stopped being contested if you owned any of the keeps (unless under attack that is). It definitely does NOT take a “vast” amount of time to get from north to south compared to ABL regardless of which path you take, if you know the map. Truly if you actually played the revised DBL enough you would have seen it was much better than the original release.
You mean the wind knockdowns that matter 90% of the time ? The barricades left such a sour taste in me that even after their removal, I just brought them up for reference.
And what do you mean you don’t know what I mean by the issue with portals ? You say I didn’t play the revised DBL, but did you ? Do you falsely assume that they are all going to always be your color ? And if not, do you not know how you have to path around the vert areas ? Have you actually ever played it and tried to go over them ? How’d that go for you ?
Are you smoking some serious kitten that the rest of us aren’t ?
And the jumping puzzle elements, last time I was in Air keep it made me wanna puke and log off.
