Guild Wars 2

I want to start by stating I have had many an exciting hour in WvW. It provides GW2 Players the only real opportunity for large scale organised play and is in many ways an alternative to raiding in other MMO’s.

Of course in raiding the AI soon becomes very predictable so the dynamic, competitive nature of Realm v Realm will always have a strong following.
WvW at launch was fun allowing casuals an opportunity to dip in and out whilst providing a permanent residence for hardcore players.

Unfortunately the goodwill towards ANet has declined with each passing month. Many will say “no subscription, stop being entitled”. However even ANet would discourage such a reaction. They have consistently stated they want their game to be better than any subscription based product and consequently should be held to that standard.

So why has ANet disappointed the WvW community so much? The answer is straightforward. There has been almost no new content added to this aspect of GW2 since it shipped encouraging the thought that WvW is very low priority for the developers. Whilst more and more problems have cropped up. The most serious are queue waiting times on many servers during peak hours are similar to what we saw at launch, despite their being far fewer players overall and culling (Enemy/Ally characters not rendering in a timely fashion) making wide scale battles frustrating at best.

The one month postponement of the much vaunted ‘February patch’ is not a big deal in itself however when coming on top of everything else it certainly adds fuel to the fire.

I believe ANet and the community are about to reach the first critical crossroads since the very successful launch.
Tomorrow we will see the aftermath of the score reset. If ANet have reworked things and provide meaningful, balanced matches next week people will grumble a bit as they always do, but overall things will go well. However if there are a lot of very one sided matches where one/two servers are permanently spawn camped, I expect a huge backlash. The first since the game launched and it will be interesting to see how ANet react to mass, hostile criticism.

Am I right or is this not really that big a deal?

On my server I have not had to wait at all since starting to play GW2 again. I am going to guess that everyone flocked to a few servers while free transfers were still in place and are now complaining about the wait times?

I do think there are issues with WvWvW that seriously need addressed though. I was surprised to see little change at all since I stopped playing a month after release. In fact if any change has taken place at all it is for the worse, less xp, less loot, less upgrading/use of siege, etc.

You are entirely right. While I don’t PVE, don’t want to PVE and don’t really care about PVE at all if WvWvW had been given even a fraction of the resources PVE has been blessed with I expect a lot of old friends who left would still be playing GW2.

I’d say you’ve missed a few things though – WvW rewards are terrible compared to PVE, far too many exploits (many still existing), orbs removed and never replaced, too small maps, the current reduction in number of active players in WvW (aka the queue bug), lack of a test server and infrequent communication from arena on WvW issues all play a part too.

Of course we all want the perfect game devs, who communicate all the time and bring us everything we want (ideally before we know we want it ourselves). No devs can live up to that, but (maybe stupidly) I bought in to the idea that arena.net were a different kind of game developer.

The next week or so is crucial: MMO game players are like a hive mind – once the rot starts in one section it quickly spreads.

I agree with your assessment and many I know and play with feel the same way.

I applaud anet for what they are doing, it is at the same time sadistically ironic. So they announce the end of free transfers, the realms rejoice to end the continually regurgitation of players bouncing between worlds. Most of these players have been labeled “bandwagoners” by the masses. I myself have not switched servers since Aug. 25th and never plan on it.

The part I notice that not many people have mentioned, is how Anet pulled a slight of hand by announcing the tier reset. All of the competitive servers were finally settling into place in teh top three tiers and bam, blow it up like dynamite. This is a straight forward attempt by Anet to make some coin. Many players will not be happy with the que times that they bandwaggoned along to and the only resort now is to empty the pockets to find a cure for it. It is clever and the same time dirty that they reset the tiers, it doesn’t matter what they say in the fact they want to tweak the math and make it better. That is pretty much like a Car salesman telling you nothing is wrong with a vehicle that has been wrecked. He only wants your money.

Just my 2 cents, the only problem now is instead of people paying to transfer they may just quit completely. Wonder if they planned on that outcome too!

ANet cancelled the server reset today

The only thing that irks me with Anet’s policy for handling wvwvw issues (and the persitent class bugs) is the massive amount of new PVE released. I wish they would pull their resources and nail down the issues with existing game modes before releasing so much new content.

Back in September Anet said ~30% of the player base was playing wvwvw. Based on the released content, do you think wvwvw has received even close to 30% of Anet’s attention? I don’t.

Gaiawolf.8261:

The only thing that irks me with Anet’s policy for handling wvwvw issues (and the persitent class bugs) is the massive amount of new PVE released. I wish they would pull their resources and nail down the issues with existing game modes before releasing so much new content.

Back in September Anet said ~30% of the player base was playing wvwvw. Based on the released content, do you think wvwvw has received even close to 30% of Anet’s attention? I don’t.

Game developers have always considered PvP to be a mini-game. Anet is no different.

I saw a post by Anet that they’re not showing favoritism towards PVE. Posting negative opinions in the way Anet handles things only puts you at great risk to get an infraction.
Out of the 70+ members we had, there are 3 left that log semi-daily. There are 3-4 people on my friends list that still log on. For the most part, all the people I started playing this game with have since quit. I quit wvw a week ago when they added the new patch. Way too much lag, culling, ect. Impossible to play. I posted opinions and facts on a topic and both got an infraction. I see a lot of fishing and time spent outdoors in my immediate future.

I just wish they could learn something from their PvP in GW1. It was amazing (GvG and HoH).

You’re right, this game mode gets nowhere near 30% of the attention and it is sickening.

Greens Daily Ritual.9025:

I saw a post by Anet that they’re not showing favoritism towards PVE. Posting negative opinions in the way Anet handles things only puts you at great risk to get an infraction.
Out of the 70+ members we had, there are 3 left that log semi-daily. There are 3-4 people on my friends list that still log on. For the most part, all the people I started playing this game with have since quit. I quit wvw a week ago when they added the new patch. Way too much lag, culling, ect. Impossible to play. I posted opinions and facts on a topic and both got an infraction. I see a lot of fishing and time spent outdoors in my immediate future.

How dare a customer voice their opinion, we shall censor them because it paints us unfavorably!
…in any other business, wow the repercussions of that would essentially be career suicide. Right or wrong, if the customer has a reason to let you know something isn’t working for them, its a warning sign that service isn’t either communicating to them or meeting some fundamental requirement of theirs.

Like yourself, I pretty much couldn’t keep my old 70 strong guild in the game. I made new friends, started from scratch and moved on with the in-game events, but it saddens me that people I played with for 6-7 years aren’t around anymore to share it with.

I was buying GW2 on the premise that it wasn’t going to be another box sale like WAR or Aion that had maybe 5-6months of play before it started to stink to the point that you couldn’t live with it anymore. Now, I’m not so sure, I’ve checked out Camelot Unchained and not really convinced just yet that’s an alternative.

This is basically, my GW Nightmare:

Hey, you know those 8000 odd badges you had squirreled away on your condition necro and couldn’t use any of them to buy anything except for siege, well now they’re still the same but instead you can buy this other stuff with “Magic WvW Beans” (aka currency #24 in the game) that you can use to buy stuff, that you can actually use! How great is that?

Oh and sorry buddy, those 1200hrs you spent in wvw getting paid basically nothing but badges and Karma… well we don’t see that’s fair for new players that are part of the entitlement generation of gamers. They’re fairly special, so you’ll be starting from scratch because those kids need a ‘fair go’ at actually not having a veteran player deck them in 3 seconds because they’re running around in green/blue armour and never bothered to learn from their guild how to play in wvw and all run glass-specs.
So their ol uncle Anet is going to hold their hand… just that little bit longer.
You still get to spend your 2.4mil Karma though! On what that is actually useful we haven’t quite figured out, but we’ll let you know in another 3 months from now.

Have a nice day! Oh, you’re not having a nice day?
Oh wait, your a necro… yeah about those 73 odd documented bugs about your class you sent us, we’re waiting on Peter in forms to submit them as TPS reports, so we can process them some more. Now if you could move to one side, we’ve got to buff warriors a bit more.
Thanks.

Its also about this point I don’t wake up.

Thresher.3049:

Greens Daily Ritual.9025:

I saw a post by Anet that they’re not showing favoritism towards PVE. Posting negative opinions in the way Anet handles things only puts you at great risk to get an infraction.
Out of the 70+ members we had, there are 3 left that log semi-daily. There are 3-4 people on my friends list that still log on. For the most part, all the people I started playing this game with have since quit. I quit wvw a week ago when they added the new patch. Way too much lag, culling, ect. Impossible to play. I posted opinions and facts on a topic and both got an infraction. I see a lot of fishing and time spent outdoors in my immediate future.

How dare a customer voice their opinion, we shall censor them because it paints us unfavorably!
…in any other business, wow the repercussions of that would essentially be career suicide. Right or wrong, if the customer has a reason to let you know something isn’t working for them, its a warning sign that service isn’t either communicating to them or meeting some fundamental requirement of theirs.

Like yourself, I pretty much couldn’t keep my old 70 strong guild in the game. I made new friends, started from scratch and moved on with the in-game events, but it saddens me that people I played with for 6-7 years aren’t around anymore to share it with.

I was buying GW2 on the premise that it wasn’t going to be another box sale like WAR or Aion that had maybe 5-6months of play before it started to stink to the point that you couldn’t live with it anymore. Now, I’m not so sure, I’ve checked out Camelot Unchained and not really convinced just yet that’s an alternative.

This is basically, my GW Nightmare:

Hey, you know those 8000 odd badges you had squirreled away on your condition necro and couldn’t use any of them to buy anything except for siege, well now they’re still the same but instead you can buy this other stuff with “Magic WvW Beans” (aka currency #24 in the game) that you can use to buy stuff, that you can actually use! How great is that?

Oh and sorry buddy, those 1200hrs you spent in wvw getting paid basically nothing but badges and Karma… well we don’t see that’s fair for new players that are part of the entitlement generation of gamers. They’re fairly special, so you’ll be starting from scratch because those kids need a ‘fair go’ at actually not having a veteran player deck them in 3 seconds because they’re running around in green/blue armour and never bothered to learn from their guild how to play in wvw and all run glass-specs.
So their ol uncle Anet is going to hold their hand… just that little bit longer.
You still get to spend your 2.4mil Karma though! On what that is actually useful we haven’t quite figured out, but we’ll let you know in another 3 months from now.

Have a nice day! Oh, you’re not having a nice day?
Oh wait, your a necro… yeah about those 73 odd documented bugs about your class you sent us, we’re waiting on Peter in forms to submit them as TPS reports, so we can process them some more. Now if you could move to one side, we’ve got to buff warriors a bit more.
Thanks.

Its also about this point I don’t wake up.

HAHA! Umm Yeah, we’re gonna need you to move your desk back there in that corner and I’m just gonna take this red slimline stapler off your hands for you.

Man, if only I had a red slimline stapler I’d have some single target takedown ability…

I’m fairly certain I’m going to lose out on some of my red circles of death, because some new guy Noddy Nobrains hasn’t quite figured out that standing in aoe… will actually kill him eventually.

I did get a 12ft beach rod for christmas I haven’t broken in though, so there is light a the end of the tunnel even if the game collapses.

Thanks for all your comments. Looks like Crossroad catastrophe has been averted. Good job ANet. Now the developers need to redouble their efforts in supporting WvW else the bleed will continue drop by drop

Greens Daily Ritual.9025:

I saw a post by Anet that they’re not showing favoritism towards PVE. Posting negative opinions in the way Anet handles things only puts you at great risk to get an infraction.
Out of the 70+ members we had, there are 3 left that log semi-daily. There are 3-4 people on my friends list that still log on. For the most part, all the people I started playing this game with have since quit. I quit wvw a week ago when they added the new patch. Way too much lag, culling, ect. Impossible to play. I posted opinions and facts on a topic and both got an infraction. I see a lot of fishing and time spent outdoors in my immediate future.

Might as well complain because I get infracted for joking with people I know. I get infracted for telling folks I enjoyed fighting them. I get infracted for breathing heavy and called a ‘mouthbreather’ by a mod! (okay, that’s a lie).

Thresher.3049:

Hey, you know those 8000 odd badges you had squirreled away on your condition necro and couldn’t use any of them to buy anything except for siege, well now they’re still the same but instead you can buy this other stuff with “Magic WvW Beans” (aka currency #24 in the game) that you can use to buy stuff, that you can actually use! How great is that?

Oh and sorry buddy, those 1200hrs you spent in wvw getting paid basically nothing but badges and Karma… well we don’t see that’s fair for new players that are part of the entitlement generation of gamers. They’re fairly special, so you’ll be starting from scratch because those kids need a ‘fair go’ at actually not having a veteran player deck them in 3 seconds because they’re running around in green/blue armour and never bothered to learn from their guild how to play in wvw and all run glass-specs.
So their ol uncle Anet is going to hold their hand… just that little bit longer.
You still get to spend your 2.4mil Karma though! On what that is actually useful we haven’t quite figured out, but we’ll let you know in another 3 months from now.

And you never will get to spend that karma, its pretty clear now that arenanet won’t introduce major new gear and have it be able to be bought with an old currency that a long term player has stored away. At best we will get some trinkets like the new karma jewellery.

Thresher.3049:

Oh wait, your a necro… yeah about those 73 odd documented bugs about your class you sent us, we’re waiting on Peter in forms to submit them as TPS reports, so we can process them some more.

I cannot believe we still have reanimator. I had a long fight with a d/d ele and a warrior(naked with a g-sword) at the jumping puzzle a few weeks ago. I went to finish the ele but right before it finished him he killed that useless little reanimated pet I got from killing the warrior. Consequently Rallying the ele who ended up killing me instead. A Mesmer showed up as he rallied and helped him, but honestly I probably would have lost anyways. kittening reanimator..reanimatorreanimdatordkfjl;ksja;lla

Ireniicus.2167:

I want to start by stating I have had many an exciting hour in WvW. It provides GW2 Players the only real opportunity for large scale organised play and is in many ways an alternative to raiding in other MMO’s.

Of course in raiding the AI soon becomes very predictable so the dynamic, competitive nature of Realm v Realm will always have a strong following.
WvW at launch was fun allowing casuals an opportunity to dip in and out whilst providing a permanent residence for hardcore players.

Unfortunately the goodwill towards ANet has declined with each passing month. Many will say “no subscription, stop being entitled”. However even ANet would discourage such a reaction. They have consistently stated they want their game to be better than any subscription based product and consequently should be held to that standard.

So why has ANet disappointed the WvW community so much? The answer is straightforward. There has been almost no new content added to this aspect of GW2 since it shipped encouraging the thought that WvW is very low priority for the developers. Whilst more and more problems have cropped up. The most serious are queue waiting times on many servers during peak hours are similar to what we saw at launch, despite their being far fewer players overall and culling (Enemy/Ally characters not rendering in a timely fashion) making wide scale battles frustrating at best.

The one month postponement of the much vaunted ‘February patch’ is not a big deal in itself however when coming on top of everything else it certainly adds fuel to the fire.

I believe ANet and the community are about to reach the first critical crossroads since the very successful launch.
Tomorrow we will see the aftermath of the score reset. If ANet have reworked things and provide meaningful, balanced matches next week people will grumble a bit as they always do, but overall things will go well. However if there are a lot of very one sided matches where one/two servers are permanently spawn camped, I expect a huge backlash. The first since the game launched and it will be interesting to see how ANet react to mass, hostile criticism.

Am I right or is this not really that big a deal?

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

Greens Daily Ritual.9025:

I see a lot of fishing and time spent outdoors in my immediate future.

Someone save this man, quick!