Guild Wars 2

After having this map available to us now for a month, I do question whether this was really the wisest employment of development resources.

Don’t get me wrong, the map is pretty, it has some interesting mechanics and it seems bigger than it really is, but overall i don’t think it has enhanced WvW in any meaningful way.

Sure, having an overflow map is nice. Certainly beats sitting in a queue. But now there’s no more downsides to being on a high-population server. No reason not to jump on the bandwagon.

It also hasn’t enhanced the core WvW experience in any way. The actual maps that matter (Borderlands and EB) are still as bland and unoriginal as they have always been.

EotM is also incredibly easy to ignore completely unless you specifically seek it out.

I don’t know, but I don’t think that the 1+ year of work that went into this map really enhances the game in a meaningful and lasting way. It’s too optional, too inconsequential and basically a place for the Karma-Trains to roam.

I shed a tear for all the awesome enhancements WvW might have experienced if the resources had been better spent.

But that’s just my 2 cents.

Well, there’s still hope that some of the enhancements in EotM will work their way to real WvW. But as I’ve said from the start, releasing a map with significantly better direct gameplay and better rewards without revamping the main game mode is leading to the destruction of conventional WvW on a lot of servers.

EotM on paper made total sense if it had been inserted into the game around the time they probably started designing it (early last year) but things changed . . . as they often do and by the time details on EotM were released it had a lot of us scratching our heads wondering the same things as the OP. Of course it is easy for us to say this now looking back in hindsight but considering the problems WvW was facing at the time it was a logical first step that had to be taken to address the rest of the most pressing issues of that first wave WvW era.

Now, maybe not so much, but who knows, maybe it can still be used to do some amazing desperately needed things like drastically lower the WvW map population caps to the point ANET can do something to address AoE caps and zergs or world population balance without facing huge backlash from the community. It might ofter tech helpful in condensing some of the lower tiers while maintaining that sense of community they thrive on.

I still hold out hope for some of that but personally choose not to play on EtoM not because I don’t like the map or enjoy the overflowing rewards, but because I know the game needs a strong WvW population to remain the kind of MMO I enjoy playing. It is also the same reason I run around solo sometimes even though I am not a very a good player and die a lot. I like games that offer a variety experiences and the best way to encourage that sort of atmosphere is participate is all the game play formats you most enjoy regardless of the results. In other words, have fun playing a game which is why we all play these things right?

How popular is EoTM these days? Is there a way to tell how many instances of it are open?

I would love to see Obsidian Sanctum as a cross-server instance so we could GvG guilds outside of the current matchup. So if making EotM furthers that goal in some way I’m all for it.

Mostly though I haven’t taken to EotM. Too much PvE and at the times I play (OCX) it seems pretty dead.

Lord Kuru.3685:

How popular is EoTM these days? Is there a way to tell how many instances of it are open?

Not entirely sure, but I entered EoTM ~4 times yesterday almost back to back due to my game crashing , and noticed entirely different players/commanders the third and fourth time I went in. So, from that, at least 2-3 instances a bit after NA primetime, which is a fair bit of players. I only remember cuz I was talking to one of the commanders the first time I went in :P

There are probably way more instances up at once, but it’s really hard to check accurately.

EOTM is an amazing map; but I believe it was poorly implemented.
In all honesty, I believe less and less in the Borderland map idea.
EOTM should replace the current BL map simply because it’s better and more fun and is 3-way like EB.

The current BL map should be the place where all server merges and a specific colour defend.

3-way maps like EOTM or EB are much more interesting anyway than BL maps that are copypasted 3 times.

You can use it to karma train and farm easy loot bag (PvE players).
But it is very boring, after 1 hour of no challenge, I prefer roam in borderlands.
Basically, it is good because it keep all the PvE players on this map and stop them being rallybot in real WvW.

I agree, probably would have been better for them to get something like say account wxp done sooner than eotm, and saved eotm a couple weeks before spring tournie. Don’t get me wrong the map was needed, even if there isn’t queues for any server, it’s another option for wvw players if their matchup is going badly. Now they just need to make the reward drops for both areas equal, 10 badges off a chest for taking a supply camp in eotm but 3 badges from grub in ebg? lol.

I would also probably preferred if they developed another borderlands map that they could rotate out every week with the current one, so that it keeps wvw a little fresher.

If they would put the resources they had for EOTM into fixing bugs/exploits/glitches and whatso ever on the existing maps before creating a new one, it would make sense to me.

All in all it took me about 1hr ish to get extremely bored with the new map so i decided to stay on the borderlands for some nice roaming and challenging fights.

I only play WvW and Spvp. Went into this map 2 times, not planning to go back ever again.
It looks really nice but the whole map has no meaning. Only reason i would play it is if i needed dragonite ore or such. All this hard work could’ve been used so much better by improving current maps or something… I was hoping for much more but the map is not funny for me, its only square shaped sentries and champion farming.

It would have been worth it if it had of been integrated into the game 12 months ago. Now it just doesn’t make sense. That said, there are alot of people who enjoy it, so good for them. But was it worth it? Nope. Its a completely different game mode that took away from WvW. It was supposed to be an addition to WvW. But its not associated with WvW in any way other than a chance to get a supply drop every 4 hours. As far as I’m concerned, its as much related to WvW as sPvP or PvE is.

You’re forgetting that this game is about to be launched in China; which is obviously one of the largest populations in the world - EotM was a necessary solution for them.

The downside of EoTM is that it is way too much fun compared to the actual WvW.

Thus make WvW too much one-sided. There is another option to go to if your server is losing.

NO

Arenanet should have poured the resources to solve the actual problems instead of making this new map.

I fall somewhere between:

-ANET had to make this map and roll it out before season 2 due to queue problems during leagues

and

-ANET rolled this map out because WvW has major inherit issues that will likely not be fixed anytime soon, and this map is a nice distraction in the meantime, and can help (on paper) to address/alleviate some complaints about WvW

But to answer the question, I think ANET would of course been better suited addressing many of the long-standing complaints/issues with WvW in general, rather than devoting the resources to a map that is largely hit-or-miss.

King Amadaeus.8619:

-ANET had to make this map and roll it out before season 2 due to queue problems during leagues

There’s a dev quote that says (or very strongly implies) EoTM was created so that terrible queues will be less of a problem for the China launch.

It’s a gorgeous map that should be a lot of fun once the population levels in it drop a bit.

I saw that post too, with the imminent release of GW2 in China and some dev comments around how interest from China in GW2 WvW was unprecedented and significantly more compared to NA (Link?).

EotM was an invention to bypass the huge queues for WvW. I read comments on the forums that at release the super stacked servers would have 4 hr queues in NA. If they’re expecting more from China then EotM is merely a logical introduction so people aren’t left hanging for hours.

EoTM was a complete waste of resources imo. It was used to bypass ques for WvW because of stacked servers. Instead of allowing guilds on high pop servers to get free transfers to any server they wasted their time on this. It is essentially a karma train for PvE heroes. It takes away players from lower pop servers and leaves us with very few on the regular WvW map. Plus I will be 100% honest in saying none of my friends on Blackgate or Jadequarry do EoTM while waiting for their que. They go do other things because thats how much EoTM sucked.

The new map is terribly boring. No server cohesion, very little coordination, massive pug zergs smashing faces into other pug zergs or doors.

Meh.

I honestly don’t see why guilds would like EoTM. You can’t even GvG there because there will definitely be adds from pugs. There’s no challenge fighting in EoTM because you’re fighting random groups with no voice comms. That isn’t fun.

I played on the map for two hours during best prime time. In that time our zerg encountered enemy groups for a grand total of 2 times, I kid you not. And those “fights” (which lasted 20 seconds) were won or lost by pure numbers.
The rest of the time was indistinguishable from the latest LS installations: mindless PvE damage sponge mob bashing.
Another time I roamed for an hour or so, but between people ignoring you while beelining to their blob, and the terrain not being conductive to roaming at all, I experienced zero real roaming action