Guild Wars 2

TwoBit.5903:

@defrule
That actually gives me an idea. Instead of one giant map that the game’s engine can’t render, why not make a bunch of small or medium sized maps akin to tiles in Civilization?

Your solution does not address a problem that exists as you think it exists.

E.g. the game engine can render the map size fine. It can even theoretically render all the players fine (evidenced by my having >60 fps with any number of players on screen).

ANet has basically chosen to render / communicate a subset of players because they don’t want people running on toasters to have “lag”.

That and they’re trying to save a buck on network bandwidth, or something.

That aside, a tile or hex-based conquest wouldn’t be horrible, but it has unintended consequences.

Benefit: No queues for the game mode in general (should be enough space for everyone to fight over territory).

Disadvantage: Much smaller fight size, queue times / pop caps for individual fights disallow guilds and alliances from working together directly.

Disadvantage: Harder for an underpopulated side to take territory (they have to take territory in smaller increments, rather than just golem-dropping a keep). Also, the distribution of population auto-organizes the zergy side, giving them unnecessary advantages.

EasymodeX.4062:

Your solution does not address a problem that exists as you think it exists.

E.g. the game engine can render the map size fine. It can even theoretically render all the players fine (evidenced by my having >60 fps with any number of players on screen).

ANet has basically chosen to render / communicate a subset of players because they don’t want people running on toasters to have “lag”.

That and they’re trying to save a buck on network bandwidth, or something.

ANet was awful vague when they said their engine couldn’t handle larger maps so I assumed rendering issues were the core of the problem, either on their end or ours. In any case, wouldn’t having smaller and more numerous map instances alleviate the lag and bandwidth issue for both ANet and the types of players you mentioned anyway?

That aside, a tile or hex-based conquest wouldn’t be horrible, but it has unintended consequences.

Benefit: No queues for the game mode in general (should be enough space for everyone to fight over territory).

Disadvantage: Much smaller fight size, queue times / pop caps for individual fights disallow guilds and alliances from working together directly.

Disadvantage: Harder for an underpopulated side to take territory (they have to take territory in smaller increments, rather than just golem-dropping a keep). Also, the distribution of population auto-organizes the zergy side, giving them unnecessary advantages.

Of course it’ll have consequences, but you can design around those consequences. I can see it being done through things like queue limits, respawn cooldowns, spawn locations, map incentives etc. Irrc, EVE’s sectors have a rendering limit, but that’s rarely a problem because overly large scale fights rarely occur in a single sector due to the various design choices on the developer’s part.

Besides, I think the advantages outweigh the possible consequences. For one thing, it could potentially spread out the population more between maps and therefore give WvW better pacing. Currently, it takes about 2-3 minutes for a zerg to march across any of the two maps and then they can also waypoint around. That’s utterly ridiculous. If a server can’t get coverage for even an hour, the server with the more active zerg can march through maps with impunity and take everything. By having to go through a series of maps, this can potentially be slowed down and controlled, opening up ways to counter it.

TwoBit.5903:

…

Irrc, EVE’s sectors have a rendering limit, but that’s rarely a problem because overly large scale fights rarely occur in a single sector due to the various design choices on the developer’s part.

…

This comment reminded me about this article:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/planning-for-war-how-the-eve-online-servers-deal-with-a-3000-person-battle

Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about something so beautiful…

Lavath.8924:

TwoBit.5903:

…

Irrc, EVE’s sectors have a rendering limit, but that’s rarely a problem because overly large scale fights rarely occur in a single sector due to the various design choices on the developer’s part.

…

This comment reminded me about this article:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/planning-for-war-how-the-eve-online-servers-deal-with-a-3000-person-battle

Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about something so beautiful…

Whoa good article. Time Dilation is absolutely brilliant and would work well conceptually with EVE’s battle system.

Pirhana.8935:

i think once they add the wvw rank / ability system next month it will be alot more fun and you will feel like your always building / improving your character. Hopefully they do it similar to DAOC’s realm rank system, that kept people building their characters for years. it also promoted better rewards for NOT zerging

It make harder for new players to fight against higher rank players that played for years..
New alts will be not wanted
You will have groups looking for atleast rank X players.
You will get high rank players one shotting a new player after a few years when the difference grow bigger and bigger .. so new players will never join WvW

Having as main goal land and resources should be the main goal of all WvW based games (next to fun battles ofcourse). Or the rewards(abilities) should be temporary so new players will have an equal change against players who played for years.
A WvW game where you grow stronger over time is always a fail.
Thats why a WvW game combined with PVE doesnt match.. Since PVE usualy means having harder dungeons with better gear every few years..

How i would make a wvw game is:
A guild zone each guild has. where you can build extra defence and upgrade your guild keep.(like sandbox). And are none combat during none chalange times
Guilds can challange other guilds and the 2 zones will be connected in matchups
During the guild battles you earn guild tokens that can be used to make the special abilities all classes have.(use 1 costs x tokens and recourses, so more like potions every time you use the special ability something in your bag dissapears.)

Next to this all guild zones are connected to a large open centre zone with all the resources.. Where people can also build defence towers , traps, walls etc..
Gathering some resources takes time so you need to defend a part of the open world for a while. Or if you like hunting you need to be very sneaky (not realy pve since mobs dont fight back.. but if not enough skill will run away if people get close, and other people can kill you.)
Resources are needed in lots of things:
- like weapons and armors that need to be replaced after a while..
- building or expanding/upgrading buildings or rebuilding after a guild fight.
- special abilities( next to the guild tokens that can only be won during gvg matches: so an special ability like shoot lots of arrows into a ground target costs x wood + x iron + x guild tokens)
- food and water to stay on max strength
- buildings in centre city like shops or guild house
- building siege

Next to this you have layers.. (a ladder or more like a pyramide)
One world will contain like about x number of guild zones with the centre zone.
And in the centre of the centre zone a none combat city ( for trading /recruting/making alliances or deals etc )
All guilds in a world will be about the same size. So like layer 5 world will have guilds with max 5 accounts. layer 4 world will have guild with max 10 accounts layer3 would have guilds with max 20 accounts, layer 2 max 40 accounts etc..
Winning enough guild vs guild battles will change your guild to another world(ladder), where you can have more members or merge.
Loosing to many battles will make you drop down a layer. And if you grew to hard you have to fire people.. or spit your guild into 2 guilds (for the time being).. in the open zone you can always fight together..
Ofcourse you will have more lower rank worlds and only a few rank1 worlds.

Dutchares.6084:

How i would make a wvw game is:
… stuff …

The guild zone stuff was kinda interesting, but I am not sure how well it would work. It makes me ask questions like:
Are you talking about GvG on one world?
or WvW where a world must be built up by guilds that work together first before attacking other worlds?
If you did GvGvW.. that would turn into a chaotic free-for-all pretty fast, I think.

This would also not scale very well because small guilds would get destroyed in battle or eaten by larger guilds.

I do think that being able to use some form of resource (player generated or provided) to build on some claimed land, and then defend it, would be pretty cool. The analog to this would be how EVE does “nullsec” space. Basically, everything starts out open, free, and uncontested. People have to move in, claim it, then build on it to improve it and defend their claim. The area that is claimed provides something to those that claim it.

From there it becomes a story of keeping what you have and taking the rest from your enemy while reaping the rewards of both.

EasymodeX.4062:

Cactus.2710:

I can easily imagine that some of those things would be difficult to implement and may even have unintended consequences, but please tell me why any of that would be “silly.”

Underlined for your convenience.

ANet’s not going to overhaul WvW from top to bottom. They’d lose more players than they’d gain.

Hence, silly notion. Much better to enhance what already exists to shift it towards a better course, rather than try to re-build the entire thing.

They may want to rethink that … TESO and ArcheAge are both creeping over the horizon.

Check out this video from GW2Junkies, a reasonably high profile fan site. Skip to the 45:00 minute mark and listen to the perceptions of a couple of T1 guild leaders regarding the future of WvW. It’s both enlightening and depressing at the same time. Nobody has much faith that ANet has either the inclination nor the resources to fix WvW, and both guild leaders pretty much refer to GW2 as merely being a placeholder for the next few months. I don’t see how ANet can possibly expect to fend off any of that without some sort of rebuilding of WvW.

http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2013/02/26/guildcenter-post-drama-recap-with-aneu-votf-evoe-lotd/

Cactus.2710:

EasymodeX.4062:

Cactus.2710:

I can easily imagine that some of those things would be difficult to implement and may even have unintended consequences, but please tell me why any of that would be “silly.”

Underlined for your convenience.

ANet’s not going to overhaul WvW from top to bottom. They’d lose more players than they’d gain.

Hence, silly notion. Much better to enhance what already exists to shift it towards a better course, rather than try to re-build the entire thing.

They may want to rethink that … TESO and ArcheAge are both creeping over the horizon.

Check out this video from GW2Junkies, a reasonably high profile fan site. Skip to the 45:00 minute mark and listen to the perceptions of a couple of T1 guild leaders regarding the future of WvW. It’s both enlightening and depressing at the same time. Nobody has much faith that ANet has either the inclination nor the resources to fix WvW, and both guild leaders pretty much refer to GW2 as merely being a placeholder for the next few months. I don’t see how ANet can possibly expect to fend off any of that without some sort of rebuilding of WvW.

http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2013/02/26/guildcenter-post-drama-recap-with-aneu-votf-evoe-lotd/

Archeage is seven years in the making and is looking great even in its beta stages. I doubt GW2 could compete in the same arena with it even if ANet decided to redesign WvW and miraculously finish in time to compete.