Guild Wars 2

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

btw…. this blah blah destacking, blah blah destacking, is the WRONG solution. If we tried to spread out there wouldn’t be enough on the maps. People have been utterly delusional for the past 3 years with this same rhetoric. There wasn’t enough players for 24 NA server’s then and certainly we don’t have enough for the 4 paired now.

Lastly, the though process behind the “NA is for NA” and “EU is for EU” scoring nonsense incoming is going to be the nail in the coffin. Once the Dev’s discriminate and devalue people, they’ll leave.

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appeal for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

SkyShroud.2865:

lil devils x.6071:

SkyShroud.2865:

Incentive to destack a server is really easy to achieve, just a matter if anet want or not. Simply by locking the 6 largest servers and give the bottom 6 lowest server complete free transfer while opening the rest of the servers with 500 or 1k gem transfer cost. Then check the population by weekly basis and adjust accordingly. You can achieve a very simple way to destack. The word “free” itself is powerful enough.

Why would " free" make people leave their server when they already have lower tier servers offering them gold to transfer on top of their transfer fees and they still don’t want to move? ( In addition to the fact many players already have multiple accounts on other severs)

You actually have it backwards. There is not enough population for all the servers left in NA. What needs to happen instead is to have less WvW servers. The only fair way to do this I think is for us to have PvE servers and WvW servers so we do not destroy communities.

What you have to understand is players move off servers because they are unhappy there. When they become unhappy with the server they are on, they have 2 choices, they can transfer or they can quit. If the only open servers only offer what already makes them unhappy ( sub par gameplay), they just leave instead. In the end, you will have ALL low pop servers due to players leaving all together due to unhappiness and the game will die. Players do not keep playing a game if it is making them unhappy.

Locking servers does not make players play where they are unhappy, they just leave instead.

Because golds are finite and being free itself isn’t, being free itself is a strong incentive to get people to move, either they move because…

• They want to regroup the scattered guild members
• They are looking for a new home
• They want to get out of full server
• They happen to join guilds on those servers
• And more

Then, when you combine with the linking and relinking process, even if you move to a supposedly low populated server, doesn’t necessary means you will end up with bad matches. So, it is not a bad trade for guilds or players that want to do it. What’s more, they are 6 free lowest servers to choose from, if not happy with that one, go another on the next week.

Also, linking is already decided so we will work with what we have now, arguing about merging is pointless. Even if you continue to argue about merging, the incentive to move people downward is still applicable, is just halving the number of servers from 6 to 3.

I have read about that your idea of turning existing wvw servers into pve, then getting people to choose a new wvw server. However, isn’t that itself being deluded? All that ever does is just giving the people a illusion that their server still exist but people know, they know their servers have been converted to PvE. It really is nothing more than a indirect way of deleting servers and creating new ones. You will still end up with issue of people complaining about communities and new servers being full due to the balancing rules set up for it.

No it is not an illusion, the server exists, you can still guest to that server for PvE as they currently do, keep the server community website and pre paid Teamspeak that their server PvX, PvE and WvW players use. This would still remain their " home base".

The most important thing on the WvW server selection menu for wvw server is showing players the current server population and the population cap so they will know ahead of time if they can fit their guild on that server so it is not split. THAT is one of the big issues currently with the server selection, player have no way of knowing if the server can hold 50 or 500 people. Disconnecting wvw from pve allows for only active population to be counted, players to know what they are getting themselves in to ahead of time in terms of population, and allows for the amount of WvW servers in game to be determined by WvW population. If a player doesn’t log in to WvW for a couple of weeks they should be dropped from the population and will have to reselect a new WvW server when they wish to play WvW , making it so there are always opening spaces. The problem currently is often they have inactive players clogging up server spaces that should be used by active players.

Golds are finite… do have any idea how much gets offered at times? These things are often paid for with gemcards, which are less than in game gold. HOWEVER, what you should understand is that low pop servers do not have the things that are most important to many WVW guilds.

• 1) large community guild support. In larger servers, you can call upon numerous other guilds to help out on ccoms and they respond and assist with whatever is needed. Guilds are not left doing all the work themselves and have many other players to help out with that, not just a few.

• 2) larger communities get paired up with bigger more intense fights, more enemies means less PvD. PvD= boring / uninstall.

• 3) Larger communities have more consistent funding from the many in the community. More players = more money to buy siege, food, utilities and to fill the warchest. More players to send you rams, claim keeps and set out feasts and trays when you need them means less money spent by each player to compete. EVEN if lower servers are offering you money to go, if they can’t keep funding you for years of playing it still isn’t worth it.

• 4) Larger communities have more experienced players. More players that are willing to change classes and builds to what is needed for the raids to have proper squad comp and you have more players on voice coms to be able to have a higher level of game play. Lower populated servers have more players not using voice comms, running proper builds and have weird ideas about how to play the game mode. They often lose/ get one pushed/ die on inc because they really do not know how to play the game well and often are too stubborn to learn. They often do not understand the differences between PvE/PvP/ WvW / roaming/ havoc/ and zerg builds and switch as needed according to what they are doing.

• 5)Larger communities have population at all hours so no matter when you come on to play, you have people to play with and against and can have fun. Low population servers turn into ghost towns. When you wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep, or during breakfast. lunch or dinner.. you can always find a fight going on and can have good fights even when lower servers are completely dead at that time. Players do not just play at one time, many WvW players play at all times..

• 6)Larger communities have a larger pool of players to recruit from and grow your guild, low pop = less prospects to expand your guild.

• 7.)With linking, the low pop server is going to have a less stable community, as they are overwhelmed and dwarfed by the numbers from the servers they are linked with. The players on the lower server will become frustrated making friends and joining guilds with the higher pop servers then being ripped apart as players have already been posting is happening to their servers. Players don’t want to feel as though they are forced to hop from sever to server to server as they are doing with linking.
  The low pop servers are hardly even noticeable to the high servers they are linked with, the higher population server is not affected by the changing of the links as the low pop server is. For the high pop server, it is pretty indifferent if the low pop server is there or not really because they do not make much of an impact. With the low pop server though, the opposite is true. They are overwhelmed, and it is more like they are just hopping servers repeatedly now than if they are actually on their old server. Even if they changed the names, the big server would still be so dominating it isn’t going to matter.

The truth is many come to WvW to play with and against massive amounts of players, and low population is the opposite of that.

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Them playing their own game is why they are preferential to arrow carts :p

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

looks like he meant " Mass appeal".

If a game mode is open 24/7 it should be played 24/7. players should be able to come on at any time they want to play the game mode and be able to have players to play with and against. That makes WvW unpopular because many players from other types of games do not like the other team being able to score and take your stuff while they are not playing. Sad, but true. PvE is popular, but WvW does not appeal to the “masses”.

The truth is the " masses" are carebears that do not want other players to be able to attack them and are happy fighting an NPC that can’t think they suck giant hairy donkey kittens. Most MMORPG players do not want PvP at all. PvP hurts their feelings. They felt good about themselves before they went to PvP zones, and not good after they got there.

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

looks like he meant " Mass appeal".

If a game mode is open 24/7 it should be played 24/7. players should be able to come on at any time they want to play the game mode and be able to have players to play with and against. That makes WvW unpopular because many players from other types of games do not like the other team being able to score and take your stuff while they are not playing. Sad, but true. PvE is popular, but WvW does not appeal to the “masses”.

The truth is the " masses" are carebears that do not want other players to be able to attack them and are happy fighting an NPC that can’t think they suck giant hairy donkey kittens. Most MMORPG players do not want PvP at all. PvP hurts their feelings. They felt good about themselves before they went to PvP zones, and not good after they got there.

Yes, but what does this have to do with Arena Net playing with the community is why im mostly confused.

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Them playing their own game is why they are preferential to arrow carts :p

lmao maybe so. They don’t get that from me!

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

looks like he meant " Mass appeal".

If a game mode is open 24/7 it should be played 24/7. players should be able to come on at any time they want to play the game mode and be able to have players to play with and against. That makes WvW unpopular because many players from other types of games do not like the other team being able to score and take your stuff while they are not playing. Sad, but true. PvE is popular, but WvW does not appeal to the “masses”.

The truth is the " masses" are carebears that do not want other players to be able to attack them and are happy fighting an NPC that can’t think they suck giant hairy donkey kittens. Most MMORPG players do not want PvP at all. PvP hurts their feelings. They felt good about themselves before they went to PvP zones, and not good after they got there.

Yes, but what does this have to do with Arena Net playing with the community is why im mostly confused.

People drank the “server pride/ Bias/ Corruption” koolaid… Most in the wider gaming community that have been around a while know all devs play the games with and against players as they should.

Here it seems they still have this mindset that if you are on a server you are somehow corrupted/ biased by that server giving them benefits or W/E . If anything I think it would be a disadvantage. I have seen so many of them play, and even worse.. it is so easy to Queue a map in seconds by telling people it is “come spike a dev” time.. That is how ppl wind up spawncamping with balis and trebbin their spawn because a dev dared to show their tag in WvW. People don’t care about taking anything at all, then they see a dev and then they take everything on their side just because…

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

My reading of this: If the devs listen to people that are “above average dedicated” to the game, they will design a game for the “above average dedicated” crowd. And not appeal to the more average or casual players.

So, the more ANet listen specifically to the most die-hard-core WvW players, the more WvW becomes intimidating and less tempting for the casual/average gamer.

Grabs the “special” popcorn for sitting waiting for LilDev’s rant on this

lil devils x.6071:

sniped

It doesn’t change the fact that the so-called home server is nothing but a skeleton of its old self. At the same time, people already moved on to the new wvw server of their choice and in that new wvw server, is a new community, not the same as the old servers. Those old servers will eventually become a relic of the past, people will know that. Just because you have that server there for namesake will not change that. Also, you seems to have forgotten that PvE has megaserver.

Another thing is that, it is either you are still thinking that pve population is counted to the server status or something else. If is not the latter, then no, the server status now did not factor in current pve players but rather players who actively do wvw. As for how they define active, that only anet can answer.

You seems to have taken for granted that what were offered in the past will continue to grow with time, along with gem/gold inflation. However, is that really the case? Are there really more golds offered than the past? Also, the amount of golds require to transfer will only increase, due to gem/gold inflation. The amount of golds that can be sent to individuals will continue be locked at a maximum of 500g per week. Likewise, this apply to guild bank as well. The raising gold/gem inflation and current wealth transfer restriction will make concept like sponsoring guilds become harder and harder.

Indeed, large communities have more potentials. That much I know which is why I make a large guild compare to a small or medium one. However, large communities now can be form not only via stacking a server but also by combining two or more small to medium communities into one via server linking. Now the question is how the players can turn that into their advantage instead of seeing it as a problem.

As for the guest servers’ issue of not able to keep up and adapt to the change. I think it is a community issue than the linking issue. To me, it is more like their guilds are incapable of holding on to their members and despite the potential advantage like bigger pool of people to recruit (from the host server), they still couldn’t make it. Also, this issue will continue to persist along with them, even if you merge the servers or create a brand new set of servers since it is more of a leadership issue than a server issue.

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that.

HoD was a product of guaranteed better rewards and a lot of players not wanting to get locked into a cage match with an 800lb gorilla for weeks like every other season. Better to be the gorilla getting more rewards than the other fellows.

Getting pummeled by numbers simply isn’t fun. Until ANet figures out a much better way to level that playing field, WvW will always be a game mode for RvR players hoping for another game to do it better.

True enough but at that time, the idea wasn’t to balance population. The idea was to boost the lowest 3 servers of that division to win the tourny. People transfer for the tourny, not for population balance but to win.

Now, if we really want to balance the population, then we have to do it right, not the lowest of the division but lowest of all the servers. Then, monitor and make necessary changes on weekly basis.

Edit: Another thing is that it is already decided to use world linking, so all other ideas kinda threw out and had to work on solutions that can work with linking.

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

looks like he meant " Mass appeal".

If a game mode is open 24/7 it should be played 24/7. players should be able to come on at any time they want to play the game mode and be able to have players to play with and against. That makes WvW unpopular because many players from other types of games do not like the other team being able to score and take your stuff while they are not playing. Sad, but true. PvE is popular, but WvW does not appeal to the “masses”.

The truth is the " masses" are carebears that do not want other players to be able to attack them and are happy fighting an NPC that can’t think they suck giant hairy donkey kittens. Most MMORPG players do not want PvP at all. PvP hurts their feelings. They felt good about themselves before they went to PvP zones, and not good after they got there.

Yes, but what does this have to do with Arena Net playing with the community is why im mostly confused.

People drank the “server pride/ Bias/ Corruption” koolaid… Most in the wider gaming community that have been around a while know all devs play the games with and against players as they should.

Here it seems they still have this mindset that if you are on a server you are somehow corrupted/ biased by that server giving them benefits or W/E . If anything I think it would be a disadvantage. I have seen so many of them play, and even worse.. it is so easy to Queue a map in seconds by telling people it is “come spike a dev” time.. That is how ppl wind up spawncamping with balis and trebbin their spawn because a dev dared to show their tag in WvW. People don’t care about taking anything at all, then they see a dev and then they take everything on their side just because…

Okay thanks, yeah now I get it. Most of the devs however, never draw attention to the fact that they are indeed a dev however. ArenaNet is pretty funny and or trolly though depending on which person we are talking about so they do, do things like spawn camp, claim objectives and ..yes even troll a GvG lol. TBH I think they’re generally just having fun just the same as us.

I’ve seen ArenaNet battles lol. When YB fought TC for the first time, there were devs on both sides killing each other. They also can play anywhere they want and don’t have to worry about server locks or gem prices.

joneirikb.7506:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

My reading of this: If the devs listen to people that are “above average dedicated” to the game, they will design a game for the “above average dedicated” crowd. And not appeal to the more average or casual players.

So, the more ANet listen specifically to the most die-hard-core WvW players, the more WvW becomes intimidating and less tempting for the casual/average gamer.

Grabs the “special” popcorn for sitting waiting for LilDev’s rant on this

I think the devs listen and play with a spectrum of players. Some of them are hardcore. Some are extremely skilled SPvPers and others are casual PvErs and they listen to us all.

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

SkyShroud.2865:

Incentive to destack a server is really easy to achieve, just a matter if anet want or not. Simply by locking the 6 largest servers and give the bottom 6 lowest server complete free transfer while opening the rest of the servers with 500 or 1k gem transfer cost. Then check the population by weekly basis and adjust accordingly. You can achieve a very simple way to destack. The word “free” itself is powerful enough.

Free only to those moving down…..

joneirikb.7506:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

My reading of this: If the devs listen to people that are “above average dedicated” to the game, they will design a game for the “above average dedicated” crowd. And not appeal to the more average or casual players.

So, the more ANet listen specifically to the most die-hard-core WvW players, the more WvW becomes intimidating and less tempting for the casual/average gamer.

Grabs the “special” popcorn for sitting waiting for LilDev’s rant on this

Your right as well, but you ALSO have to understand that the " average gamer" hates PvP all together is the actual issue. So they will spend less time in that mode regardless and in the end without dedicated players you have an empty non competitive game mode. The reality is most MMOPRG players do not like PvP at all, that is why they made safe zones in games that did not have them before. Even from the earlier days of MMO’s the majority of players avoided areas where other players could attack them. The “safe zones” became popular while the PvP zones became deserted.

Basically, allowing the “average gamer” to determine what happens in a PvP game mode doesn’t " improve" a PvP game mode for PvP game play, it turns it into a safe zone, making it easier to avoid fighting other players instead of keeping them engaged in combat. They want it less player skill based because they don’t want veterans to be able to kill them. By making it less player skilled based and safer for the average gamer not to die, they take the competitiveness out of it that attracted PVp players at all and instead turns it into a goofy run around without the risks and get rewarded place like everywhere else.

When you actually understand that the " average mmorpg gamer" doesn’t want to have other players kill them, you understand that means making it a safe zone rather than an actual PvP zone at all. The goal for PvP games modes instead should be to attract PvP players, not " the avergae gamer" or it will no longer even be a PvP zone at all. PvP players are not the Average gamer at all. No rants silly :P

DeWolfe.2174:

If we tried to spread out there wouldn’t be enough on the maps. People have been utterly delusional for the past 3 years with this same rhetoric. There wasn’t enough players for 24 NA server’s then and certainly we don’t have enough for the 4 paired now.

This is untrue for 2012 and early 2013. Every server close to launch had queues in pretty much every WvW zone.

People aren’t interested in de-stacking themselves, though. We’ve seen from HoD and overall general player attitude that player-driven free-transfers result in the worst-case scenarios.

Really, everyone’s out for greener pastures because some system implementation or aspect of WvW has failed those interested.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

What it seems they are actually asking for is to have their own private server to be able to play the game with less people in it so they can run around and enjoy doing what they want without interruptions so they have more control over what is happening. You don’t get control over what is happening in a large scale server based PvP mode and that seems to be what they want to see happen.

DeceiverX.8361:

DeWolfe.2174:

If we tried to spread out there wouldn’t be enough on the maps. People have been utterly delusional for the past 3 years with this same rhetoric. There wasn’t enough players for 24 NA server’s then and certainly we don’t have enough for the 4 paired now.

This is untrue for 2012 and early 2013. Every server close to launch had queues in pretty much every WvW zone.

People aren’t interested in de-stacking themselves, though. We’ve seen from HoD and overall general player attitude that player-driven free-transfers result in the worst-case scenarios.

Really, everyone’s out for greener pastures because some system implementation or aspect of WvW has failed those interested.

What he stated was true though, 2016- 3 years= 2013. This isn’t 2012. As with all MMORPG’s the population reduces over time and the game has to adjust to the lower population or find ways to massively attract new players. They are not doing that at all, instead the opposite is happening and they are losing even more players at a higher rate due to the direction they chose to take with the game mode.

fishball.7204:

DAWN went to BDO so they don’t play anymore I think.

Can’t really blame DAWN for quitting WvW though since OCX is ded in all tiers right now with like maybe 4 guilds on all NA servers combined. There’s literally not enough OCX pop to even populate 3 servers now so that’s like rip rip rip.

Correct, our core are now playing BDO, and loving it.

No server boundaries to divide the OCX community (Most are on Edan) makes it very easy to find PvP when ever you want it, where ever you want it. Which is a major advantage over the GW2 server system. Any oceanic players who find themselves in BDO, roll Edan, and feel free to reach out (PM: VortexShield)

There are likely still JUST enough OCX left in GW2, but the server system and historic match manipulation makes it near impossible for them to regularly compete now, in turn making the situation far from desirable. NA prime sounds like it’s still a blast though.

Take care!
/salute

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Super Kruegs.8967:

Mal’s that guy convinced him having fun is what makes him happy when really it’s kittening on someone else that really gets him off.

Sure you could just make your guild’s experience better by moving to a different server, but the real fun is the salty tears of strangers so let’s move 9 guilds to the server we know the rest of community will disapprove of most. It’s not wrong, evil, outside the rules, or an attack on our way of life. It was simply underhanded, unnecessary, antagonistic and cowardly. The kitten alliance is run by older middle aged men who’ve been through game cycles before. They stopped having fun playing games a long time ago it’s all about greifing and “power plays” now bois.

tldr: ANET still ruined GW2 that’s not on any player but some players are less than helpful when it comes to considering the experience of others.

We don’t play for salt, its just a side effect that makes us laugh. This is also not about power. If it were Why would I give up all my power on BG?

Enjoying power plays is different than having power. My guess is in some way you like the process more so than the power that’s why you keep doing it. IDK your motivation I just know what went down in T2 both times and it was all the things i mentioned above.

"lil devils x.6071"

snip

(Hey, I was just helping translating a post!)

Well I think this case/post could just as well refer to "Average WvW player" and "Average GW2 Player" etc, but I do see and agree with where you’re coming from. Have friends that throw a fit at the mere idea of going into a dreaded PvP zone! And wouldn’t be caught dead in a PvP based server in the games that has those.

But on the other hand, ANet said they specifically wanted WvW to be a link between PvE and PvP, to encourage both types of players to find a middle ground that they could learn to enjoy the other/itself. So obviously listening only to the hard-core WvW players are going to scare away the "Non-PvP players", and that means little to no new blood/recruits.

So where is this golden middle ground, to make WvW skill/strategic enough for the competitive/pvp crowd, while also keeping it interesting/fun/tempting enough for the most casual/pve/carebear/average/(whatever) players to want to come and try this ?

Always been a fan of the idea that higher risk = higher reward, so as you go into continually higher difficulty areas to get higher rewards, you eventually end up in WvW or PvP as the highest difficulty. But I can just imagine the pitchforks and torches at ANet’s office if they made WvW the most lucrative gold-mine in the game.

After all, if new people won’t join WvW, it will die by simple attrition. No matter what changes and updates are done to the game.

(Can just imagine, in 7 years, Puck sitting alone in the last Alpine borderland, vigilantly keeping an eye on the horizon, perhaps this will be the day that a new player will join the map, and not another tumble-weed!)

No rants silly :P

Have this weird feeling inside... not sure if I’m relieved or kind of sad :P

joneirikb.7506:

lil devils x.6071”

snip

(Hey, I was just helping translating a post!)

Well I think this case/post could just as well refer to “Average WvW player” and “Average GW2 Player” etc, but I do see and agree with where you’re coming from. Have friends that throw a fit at the mere idea of going into a dreaded PvP zone! And wouldn’t be caught dead in a PvP based server in the games that has those.

But on the other hand, ANet said they specifically wanted WvW to be a link between PvE and PvP, to encourage both types of players to find a middle ground that they could learn to enjoy the other/itself. So obviously listening only to the hard-core WvW players are going to scare away the “Non-PvP players”, and that means little to no new blood/recruits.

So where is this golden middle ground, to make WvW skill/strategic enough for the competitive/pvp crowd, while also keeping it interesting/fun/tempting enough for the most casual/pve/carebear/average/(whatever) players to want to come and try this ?

Always been a fan of the idea that higher risk = higher reward, so as you go into continually higher difficulty areas to get higher rewards, you eventually end up in WvW or PvP as the highest difficulty. But I can just imagine the pitchforks and torches at ANet’s office if they made WvW the most lucrative gold-mine in the game.

After all, if new people won’t join WvW, it will die by simple attrition. No matter what changes and updates are done to the game.

(Can just imagine, in 7 years, Puck sitting alone in the last Alpine borderland, vigilantly keeping an eye on the horizon, perhaps this will be the day that a new player will join the map, and not another tumble-weed!)

No rants silly :P

Have this weird feeling inside… not sure if I’m relieved or kind of sad :P

There really isn’t a “middle ground” between PvE and WvW outside of openworld PvP without full loot and no score. And the truth is they cannot compete with the current openworld PvP games as that is not their " niche". Gw2 has different modes instead. PvE for the majority, PvP for small scale PvP and WvW for large scale PvP. The way you make that grow is know your “niche”, and try to be the best on the market for that, not try to be to the " be all" because all the " be all" winds up being is being the “empty” because neither side will be fully happy with that. If they want to grow PvE they make Great PvE. To expand their PvP, you make great PvP, and to make the best RvR you make it the best RvR.

The problem is they are not trying to do that, they are trying to be the " be all" and that means you lose your dedicated WvW players while still having PvE players not coming in and staying. All that results in is neither side being happy and still looking for what they want. If they make it the best large scale PvP on the market and it gets promoted as such, players will come as word gets around. They would have to start over entirely in their direction and undo much of what they have done already to accomplish that though because that would mean listening to dedicated WvW players first and start with that as a base, then bring in ideas from elsewhere and test it out with the dedicated players and see if those new idea work before fully introducing them live. You start with the dedicated players and then improve from there first. They have never done that.

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Edit: even three years ago WvW was already being called a sandbox. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/w7r91/is_guild_wars_2_a_sandbox_or_theme_park_mmo/

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Agreed. Good post.

The first couple of years when Anet really paid no attention to this mode let the players create the sandbox. Even with Anet’s recent renewed interest, it is going to be tough for them to break that mentality with the playerbase, imo.

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

joneirikb.7506:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

My reading of this: If the devs listen to people that are “above average dedicated” to the game, they will design a game for the “above average dedicated” crowd. And not appeal to the more average or casual players.

So, the more ANet listen specifically to the most die-hard-core WvW players, the more WvW becomes intimidating and less tempting for the casual/average gamer.

Grabs the “special” popcorn for sitting waiting for LilDev’s rant on this

I think the devs listen and play with a spectrum of players. Some of them are hardcore. Some are extremely skilled SPvPers and others are casual PvErs and they listen to us all.

Going back to what I was stating before, no I do not believe the Dev’s listen to a wide spectrum of players. In fact, I think the sphere of influence on them is extremely small. There would never have been a need for the “Adopt a Dev” event if there was a vast number of Dev’s playing WvW regularly. Your perception that there are is likely skewed because you’ve had a couple in your Guild. I assure you that not every World, nor every guild, has a Dev playing with them. Certainly not any of the more visible ones or from the WvW team.

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

~ish=\= IS. Two different things. you are trying to pick one little thing out and leave the rest. Even in your link you had more people calling it a theme park and saying it was a theme park with sandbox elements. It is called theme park on gaming sites.
You think some guy thinking it is a theme park sandbox mix and others disagreeing with him doesn’t actually make it one.

Have you actually ever played A real sandbox? Players can design and build their own forts.. they create their own brackets and determine who fights each other. WvW rank levels ARE progression silly. Having a developer not player determined score that affects who you play and which tier level you are in not a sandbox. Considering I have played SWG, Linkrealms, A Tale in the desert, EvE online, Darkfall, Wurm and MORE, it is laughable to think someone even suggested this was a sandbox.
Why isn’t it on the list?
http://sandboxer.org/sandbox-list/#.V2zYh_krLcs

Lets see.. like 41 posts on this thread calling it a themepark, 23 calling it a Themepark with sandbox elements mix and then 2 calling it a sandbox. That is more evidence than your link about players calling it a themebox/sandpark..
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/13405-would-you-call-this-game-a-sandbox-or-a-themepark/

Having a blast atm with things like this

http://imgur.com/a/Ns1SS

instead of what yall are dealing with here. Oh and that is after a little under 26 days into the campaign, with just over 4 days remaining. kitten if only GW2 had neck and neck races like that, I’d still be playing GW2 super hardcore and continouslly telling ANet to “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY” all year long. But what ever life goes on.

PS# No offense but I would not recommend coming over of play with us in that game. Because honestly I realy don’t think %95 of the GW2 current WvW community have what it takes to play something that punishes the casual gamer very very much.

^ ??? Except YB was brought to T1 because we were bored of stale matchups and the possibility of rotating servers seemed refreshing. And I don’t believe it was such a stacked blowout as we see BG/ET currently doing; for little reason I might add. What’s above T1? There’s no reason to over stack in T1 besides being a kitten about it. Good job on killing the player base.

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

joneirikb.7506:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Lord of Rings.5371:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

DeWolfe.2174:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

we have some staff in our guild and we’ve been in their testing events as you guys saw from Reyanas stream.

And this is why I think the game mode has never evolved for the better. Dev’s should be non partisan and they clearly are not.

Devs should play their own game. I’m not sure what you mean. They are in many many guilds. Some you don’t even know are devs but they could be playing along side you. ArenaNet team is a very nice team and they are gamers. I think if anything exploring their relationships with the GW2 community is helping them greater not hurting.

Sometimes “What You See Is All There Is”.

When developers develops a game based on the experience of gamers with 24/7 participation, they are creating a game for the 24/7 gamers.

So don’t expect mass appear for the game mode and don’t expect the game to be popular.

Even through PR would say otherwise, people would find out the expected participation level quickly and quit.

I’m confused by what you’re saying. “24/7” gamers? What do you mean by this. What do you also mean by “mass appear” and Guild Wars 2 is popular.

They dont expect 24/7 of participation. I’m not sure where you are getting this from when I say Arena Net also plays their game as well.

My reading of this: If the devs listen to people that are “above average dedicated” to the game, they will design a game for the “above average dedicated” crowd. And not appeal to the more average or casual players.

So, the more ANet listen specifically to the most die-hard-core WvW players, the more WvW becomes intimidating and less tempting for the casual/average gamer.

Grabs the “special” popcorn for sitting waiting for LilDev’s rant on this

I think the devs listen and play with a spectrum of players. Some of them are hardcore. Some are extremely skilled SPvPers and others are casual PvErs and they listen to us all.

Going back to what I was stating before, no I do not believe the Dev’s listen to a wide spectrum of players. In fact, I think the sphere of influence on them is extremely small. There would never have been a need for the “Adopt a Dev” event if there was a vast number of Dev’s playing WvW regularly. Your perception that there are is likely skewed because you’ve had a couple in your Guild. I assure you that not every World, nor every guild, has a Dev playing with them. Certainly not any of the more visible ones or from the WvW team.

No, I simply meant they listen to and play with the community at their own accord in their free time. That doesn’t mean that this information is going to get pushed up the command chain line or that that said dev /staff member can even do anything about that given piece of information. Hell, this developer could simply be someone who designs PvE maps or NPC AI and have nothing to do with WvW in general. They are literally a person who is a gamer, and works a job.

The only reason, I draw attention to them being in my guild, is to demise the claim that they don’t see what’s going on, and to prove their opinion on any given situation is varying depending on the person, and that doesn’t effect the entire Arena Net companies decisions on their actions. I also bring them up to show, that if my guild was doing anything deemed illegal or damaging to this game we’d for sure hear from them and we simply wouldn’t do it.

However, I agree that Arena Net catered to the wrong crowd. They listen to all crowds but they were influenced by few. I’m using past tense on purpose because their new strategy is completely different.

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

Chaba is right. When my alliance decided to do it’s thing, we simply decided to treat the game more like an sand box game. Because in actuality it is and because of the mechanics we are all interlinked. What you’re describing lil devil, is not the case but it’s perceived that way, and it’s actually the thing that caused a lot of hostility towards OnS/TW. People believed we were playing something like a sport and the servers are the teams. So when we made alt accounts people had a real big problem with it. But we never thought of server communities like a team. For that matter just because you are on the same server doesn’t mean you are apart of a grand scheme or a team. When you start thinking about the game as a sandbox game then, you can start to understand actions like this. One of the opposing views to us cross repping was the comparison between GW2 servers and sport teams.

Ideally you want an environment where all types of play can exist. Sadly some of those types step on the toes of other play types. The compromise is in between Tier 1 and the lower Tiers but that is only simply if you ignore the fact that WVW is 24/7 and you have other timezones.

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

~ish=\= IS. Two different things. you are trying to pick one little thing out and leave the rest. Even in your link you had more people calling it a theme park and saying it was a theme park with sandbox elements. It is called theme park on gaming sites.
You think some guy thinking it is a theme park sandbox mix and others disagreeing with him doesn’t actually make it one.

Have you actually ever played A real sandbox? Players can design and build their own forts.. they create their own brackets and determine who fights each other. WvW rank levels ARE progression silly. Having a developer not player determined score that affects who you play and which tier level you are in not a sandbox. Considering I have played SWG, Linkrealms, A Tale in the desert, EvE online, Darkfall, Wurm and MORE, it is laughable to think someone even suggested this was a sandbox.
Why isn’t it on the list?
http://sandboxer.org/sandbox-list/#.V2zYh_krLcs

Lets see.. like 41 posts on this thread calling it a themepark, 23 calling it a Themepark with sandbox elements mix and then 2 calling it a sandbox. That is more evidence than your link about players calling it a themebox/sandpark..
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/13405-would-you-call-this-game-a-sandbox-or-a-themepark/

Thank you for digging up the GW2guru forum post (which I’ll note is from 2011 before the game was released). Notice the word “sandbox” being thrown around? None of those posts mention a large PvP arena. We’re discussing whether WvW exclusively is a large PvP arena or whether it is a sandbox arena.

I’d argue that one of the reasons players blob up in WvW in the first place is precisely because of the sandbox qualities. Those players are looking for directed rather than the self-directed play of a sandbox. Do you find it interesting at all that EVE forums discuss blobs too?

TL;DR: WvW includes large scale PvP, but as a sandbox arena it supports more than one style of play. This is nothing new and was famously highlighted by the game mode violation event.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

Chaba is right. When my alliance decided to do it’s thing, we simply decided to treat the game more like an sand box game. Because in actuality it is and because of the mechanics we are all interlinked. What you’re describing lil devil, is not the case but it’s perceived that way, and it’s actually the thing that caused a lot of hostility towards OnS/TW. People believed we were playing something like a sport and the servers are the teams. So when we made alt accounts people had a real big problem with it. But we never thought of server communities like a team. For that matter just because you are on the same server doesn’t mean you are apart of a grand scheme or a team. When you start thinking about the game as a sandbox game then, you can start to understand actions like this. One of the opposing views to us cross repping was the comparison between GW2 servers and sport teams.

Ideally you want an environment where all types of play can exist. Sadly some of those types step on the toes of other play types. The compromise is in between Tier 1 and the lower Tiers but that is only simply if you ignore the fact that WVW is 24/7 and you have other timezones.

See, that is still what I consider ~ish, but not quite because you can do that exact thing on Themeparks as teaming up with other players and deciding to what team you play is not actually a sandbox element, it is juts picking out a ride together.

After playing actual Sandbox PvP modes, WVW is far too Developer limited for me to consider it a sandbox in any way. The score is not even determined by the players. In sandbox games we had player created tourneys with our own brackets and rewards. We determined who the winners and losers were, had our our " refs" and determined how the score was kept, not the Dev’s. I have to agree with the those who consider Gw2 themepark including WvW because the players have so little say in so much of the structure of the game mode. Having a little freedom, like where you choose to play and whether you group up or not is not enough " player freedom" for me to think it to be a sandbox game. There are plenty of PvP sandbox games out there that offer MUCH more in terms of freedom of combat, movement between servers or alliances, freedom to determine score and rewards, freedom of setting your own battlefield.. this game just has too many limitations. I don’t consider the limitations placed on the player by the developer minimal in any way for WvW in gw2, it is very restricted compared to Sandbox games.

What I read is your sandbox is a vision of just a pile of sand and let the players do with as they will… while the other argument is that it’s a pile of sand in a box with walls to keep the sand in. Both have buckets and rakes you can play with, just one is slightly limited.

There is a finite amount of points that can be capped. Depending on how many times each structure is flipped, it can vary from a lower total score (of all 3 servers combined) to a higher total score. Less deviation will lead to lower total score, but in the end… its the players who control that aspect. While they are limited in there potential to change the total scores, it’s still in our control.

Hexinx.1872:

What I read is your sandbox is a vision of just a pile of sand and let the players do with as they will… while the other argument is that it’s a pile of sand in a box with walls to keep the sand in. Both have buckets and rakes you can play with, just one is slightly limited.

There is a finite amount of points that can be capped. Depending on how many times each structure is flipped, it can vary from a lower total score (of all 3 servers combined) to a higher total score. Less deviation will lead to lower total score, but in the end… its the players who control that aspect. While they are limited in there potential to change the total scores, it’s still in our control.

Have you ever played Wurm? Darkfall? You can build your own structures.

GW2 is more structured.. more like a mini game like Runescape’s castle wars where you go into a portal and the rules are set for you instead. You cannot even attack your own players on GW2.

It might be late but there are indeed two different meanings of sandbox.

In the older days, openworld indeed was referred to as sandbox. At the same time, there also a thing called sandbox mode for city building games.

As MMO evolved, the sandbox mode that exist for city building games are being bought over to MMO. So, nowadays, most up-to-date gamers usually refer sandbox as allowing players to leave persistent changes to the world, things like building and terraforming and so on. Likewise, open-world as open-world instead of using the old sandbox term.

SkyShroud.2865:

It might be late but there are indeed two different meanings of sandbox.

In the older days, openworld indeed was referred to as sandbox. At the same time, there also a thing called sandbox mode for city building games.

As MMO evolved, the sandbox mode that exist for city building games are being bought over to MMO. So, nowadays, most up-to-date gamers usually refer sandbox as allowing players to leave persistent changes to the world, things like building and terraforming and so on. Likewise, open-world as open-world instead of using the old sandbox term.

ANd for GW2 PvP to be open world sandbox I would be able to attack people in the Kessex Hills and take over a fort there. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensure if WvW players could suddenly start killing people in PvE .. XD

I’ve only played … Everquest, FF11, DAoC, WoW, FF:ARR, Warhammer, LotrO, GW2 (and 1 but its not mmo, and we only gvg’d), EVE:Online .

There are a lot of limits in all those games, but the game mode was made more an RvR style from inception so I wasn’t expecting an empty map to build up from scratch completely. Just an open avenue map that offers individuals, small teams, and large war scale sieges. The closest I can compare this mode to is the RvR style of DAoC

Hexinx.1872:

I’ve only played … Everquest, FF11, DAoC, WoW, FF:ARR, Warhammer, LotrO, GW2 (and 1 but its not mmo, and we only gvg’d), EVE:Online .

There are a lot of limits in all those games, but the game mode was made more an RvR style from inception so I wasn’t expecting an empty map to build up from scratch completely. Just an open avenue map that offers individuals, small teams, and large war scale sieges. The closest I can compare this mode to is the RvR style of DAoC

They admittedly used DAoC to base this game mode on, but DAoC was never meant to be called a Sandbox game either.

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

Chaba is right. When my alliance decided to do it’s thing, we simply decided to treat the game more like an sand box game. Because in actuality it is and because of the mechanics we are all interlinked. What you’re describing lil devil, is not the case but it’s perceived that way, and it’s actually the thing that caused a lot of hostility towards OnS/TW. People believed we were playing something like a sport and the servers are the teams. So when we made alt accounts people had a real big problem with it. But we never thought of server communities like a team. For that matter just because you are on the same server doesn’t mean you are apart of a grand scheme or a team. When you start thinking about the game as a sandbox game then, you can start to understand actions like this. One of the opposing views to us cross repping was the comparison between GW2 servers and sport teams.

Ideally you want an environment where all types of play can exist. Sadly some of those types step on the toes of other play types. The compromise is in between Tier 1 and the lower Tiers but that is only simply if you ignore the fact that WVW is 24/7 and you have other timezones.

See, that is still what I consider ~ish, but not quite because you can do that exact thing on Themeparks as teaming up with other players and deciding to what team you play is not actually a sandbox element, it is juts picking out a ride together.

After playing actual Sandbox PvP modes, WVW is far too Developer limited for me to consider it a sandbox in any way. The score is not even determined by the players. In sandbox games we had player created tourneys with our own brackets and rewards. We determined who the winners and losers were, had our our " refs" and determined how the score was kept, not the Dev’s. I have to agree with the those who consider Gw2 themepark including WvW because the players have so little say in so much of the structure of the game mode. Having a little freedom, like where you choose to play and whether you group up or not is not enough " player freedom" for me to think it to be a sandbox game. There are plenty of PvP sandbox games out there that offer MUCH more in terms of freedom of combat, movement between servers or alliances, freedom to determine score and rewards, freedom of setting your own battlefield.. this game just has too many limitations. I don’t consider the limitations placed on the player by the developer minimal in any way for WvW in gw2, it is very restricted compared to Sandbox games.

When we move a server up and down and effect their overall standings and everyone else around it, we’ve made a persistent change within WvW community simply because this game has sandbox elements that enable you to play where you want and how you want.

Just because another game has something greater doesn’t mean it’s not of that game type. The things you describe are the things that I’ve personally done because the game simply allows me to do so. That’s intended by design of the game.

The scores are determined by the players. I can’t see how you can say they aren’t. In GW2 we have player created tournaments and rewards just the same. Look at the GvG scene. It’s self created and has rules of it’s own. We even make terms to go along with the rules. This isn’t bound by the walls of the servers or the tiers.

If GW2 WvW were themepark there would be no way to change the tier of a server. There would be more restrictions on doing just that, and the score wouldn’t reflect coverage in that system. People disregard the fact that this game is sandbox so, when we treat it as such it’s normally viewed negative. Not just talking about the actions of my alliance but you can also see this when you look at the GvG scene. Or recently, a popular commander of BG went on a rant about roamers. All of these are examples of why GW2 WvW is indeed a sandbox or “living World” in it’s own.

Furthermore, rules to govern doesn’t depict if a game is sandbox or a theme park. All games have rules to govern.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

Chaba.5410:

lil devils x.6071:

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

fishball.7204:

Free XFers don’t work and HoD historically showed that. T1 never destacked to move to HoD for free tourney win, it was always the other servers in lower tiers that shuffled into HoD to stack it big.

There is no incentive to leave T1 unless your entire guild moves off and you like them more than the server. Or you hate the queues (which once again, are almost non existent again).

Instead of trying to destack T1, they should get more people into WvW so that T2/3 are also T1 competitive. T1 is basically the last place with somewhat 24/7 WvW action on NA and trying to gut that seems like a poorly thought idea.

I sorta agree, that’s why I think they should have just merged servers to create what you’re talking about. However, the counter argument is that people don’t like “Tier 1 playstyle”.

I agree. What players don’t realize it isn’t actually a " tier 1 playstyle", it is called a healthy and active large scale PvP arena instead. For a massively multiplayer game mode to be healthy and successful, it needs to have massive amounts of people enjoying it together. They do not seem to want it to be a large scale PvP battlefield arena at all.

You suggest that healthy means crowded. Yet players and guilds leave when there is a crowd and they can’t get through a queue. A true healthy WvW is when there is a mix of styles to attract a wide variety of player because WvW is a sandbox arena. People leave the lower tiers when the population gets too low to support large scale battles. People leave T1 when the population gets too crowded to support guilds who want to run on their own without being nothing more than a 15-man “havoc” or “gank” for a pugmander blob. Everyone has their own reasons for playing and seek different goals out of the sandbox. Crowds have a habit of enforcing/imposing only one goal on a sandbox.

Healthy =\= overcrowded though. Queues are a technical problem that could actually be solved, not one that is a problem that has to actually exist. WvW isn’t actually a “sandbox arena” due to their being an actual score. A sandbox PvP mode is open world PvP, like they have on some other games, which if implemented in this game means you could attack people in the PvE parts of the game world, but you cannot. WvW is a battlefield arena due to there being a score kept and actual objectives. In real “sandbox”
PvP zones, you can even build your own forts, there is no score and the players create their own methods of scoring against one another.

You do have different playstyles within though and all playstyles work together on coordinated servers. The Roamers, havoc scouts, and zergs all work together on the more coordinated servers as they should as they all perform different roles that are beneficial to each other if they are good at their positions on the field. They are all communicating and helping one another work towards common goals. often on the lower servers, players left because the guilds there would not do that. JQ, for example, had many groups of 15- 20 all working together and were coming in 1st place every week for a looong time.

The only ones who are not beneficial to the team are the player who ignore their teammates and just do whatever they want instead of try and play as a team. It is like you are standing in left field and they are screaming at you to throw the ball in and you are saying " but but I wanna to catch this butterfly instead" so when that happens of course people are going to start yelling wondering WTH ?!! they are doing. LOL

On coordinated servers they still have Roamers, havoc, scouts, and zergs , and all of those playstyles are done quite well, just those groups have to work together rather than just do their own thing and ignore the rest of their team. What is misunderstood is that it being a large scale battlefield arena means that there are not numerous types of playstyles within. Of course there are, just like there are different positions on a baseball field. Just because there is a large scale battle going on does not mean there are not havoc battles, roamer battles, and scouting going on as well. Of course there is because that is all apart of the mode. That being part of the mode does not change that it is still a large scale PvP arena with a score.

None of what you said really matters because the past three years of WvW have shown that WvW is in fact a sandbox. You can say “ideally”, but it just doesn’t reflect practice or history. Even what OnS/TW have done with their alliance stuff and going back to WM and the first great stacking of Kaineng fits a sandbox model.

Sandboxish =\= Sandbox. That is like trying to compare World of Warcraft to Wurm.

Definition – What does Sandbox mean?

A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Simply because it has some things in common does not mean that is what it is. GW2 and WOW are both known as Casual Theme Park MMORPG’s, not sandboxes. There are WvW score limitations, Players do not determine how that score is determined. Not only does it have score, it has segmented areas AND numbered levels. It has defined classes and levels. WvW rank levels, combat levels, armor levels, mastery levels .. SOOO many levels at that. The player does not have access to the world from start to finish. Players do not create the content, build the structures, determine the score and are restricted by levels to even be able to utilize the siege.

Players team up in both theme park and sandbox MMO’s that isn’t what makes it a sandbox .. “Alliances” happen in numerous types of games. LOL

Saying “None of what you say matters” does not suddenly change the definition. Even in Theme park mmos or RTS games, players can often change servers and decide who they want to play the game with. Choosing who you play with and having different playstyles in a game mode that has a playing field and a score does not suddenly turn it into a sandbox.

I don’t particularly find it useful towards your argument for you to link a website that gives a definition of sandbox that perfectly describes WvW here and then say something about how the score has to be player-determined to truly be sandbox.

“A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."

WvW is not a progression-style game by any means. One can argue that masteries and now WvW reward tracks provide a progression, but players are still allowed to play WvW however they want in order to earn those progressions.

But don’t just take it from me. Read the reddit thread I posted earlier about whether GW2 is sandbox or theme park. PvE is theme park. WvW is sandbox. There’s many more similar discussions if you google it.

TLDR; you’re seeking a narrow definition of sandbox that doesn’t exist in your link.

Chaba is right. When my alliance decided to do it’s thing, we simply decided to treat the game more like an sand box game. Because in actuality it is and because of the mechanics we are all interlinked. What you’re describing lil devil, is not the case but it’s perceived that way, and it’s actually the thing that caused a lot of hostility towards OnS/TW. People believed we were playing something like a sport and the servers are the teams. So when we made alt accounts people had a real big problem with it. But we never thought of server communities like a team. For that matter just because you are on the same server doesn’t mean you are apart of a grand scheme or a team. When you start thinking about the game as a sandbox game then, you can start to understand actions like this. One of the opposing views to us cross repping was the comparison between GW2 servers and sport teams.

Ideally you want an environment where all types of play can exist. Sadly some of those types step on the toes of other play types. The compromise is in between Tier 1 and the lower Tiers but that is only simply if you ignore the fact that WVW is 24/7 and you have other timezones.

See, that is still what I consider ~ish, but not quite because you can do that exact thing on Themeparks as teaming up with other players and deciding to what team you play is not actually a sandbox element, it is juts picking out a ride together.

After playing actual Sandbox PvP modes, WVW is far too Developer limited for me to consider it a sandbox in any way. The score is not even determined by the players. In sandbox games we had player created tourneys with our own brackets and rewards. We determined who the winners and losers were, had our our " refs" and determined how the score was kept, not the Dev’s. I have to agree with the those who consider Gw2 themepark including WvW because the players have so little say in so much of the structure of the game mode. Having a little freedom, like where you choose to play and whether you group up or not is not enough " player freedom" for me to think it to be a sandbox game. There are plenty of PvP sandbox games out there that offer MUCH more in terms of freedom of combat, movement between servers or alliances, freedom to determine score and rewards, freedom of setting your own battlefield.. this game just has too many limitations. I don’t consider the limitations placed on the player by the developer minimal in any way for WvW in gw2, it is very restricted compared to Sandbox games.

When we move a server up and down and effect their overall standings and everyone else around it, we’ve made a persistent change within WvW community simply because this game has sandbox elements that enable you to play where you want and how you want.

Just because another game has something greater doesn’t mean it’s not of that game type. The things you describe are the things that I’ve personally done because the game simply allows me to do so. That’s intended by design of the game.

The scores are determined by the players. I can’t see how you can say they aren’t. In GW2 we have player created tournaments and rewards just the same. Look at the GvG scene. It’s self created and has rules of it’s own. We even make terms to go along with the rules. This isn’t bound by the walls of the servers or the tiers.

If GW2 WvW were themepark there would be no way to change the tier of a server. There would be more restrictions on doing just that, and the score wouldn’t reflect coverage in that system. People disregard the fact that this game is sandbox so, when we treat it as such it’s normally viewed negative. Not just talking about the actions of my alliance but you can also see this when you look at the GvG scene. Or recently, a popular commander of BG went on a rant about roamers. All of these are examples of why GW2 WvW is indeed a sandbox or “living World” in it’s own.

Furthermore, rules to govern doesn’t depict if a game is sandbox or a theme park. All games have rules to govern.

You do change the tiers in Themeparks. Themparks can have structured tiers and ranks made by the developer, just as they do in GW2. You can have winners and losers, but the players are not the ones who determine how that is scored. GW2 has Developer structured tiers., same any any sports game. You can determine who wins or loses by changing who is on the team, and stack a team with good players,like any sports game. WvW is no more a Sandbox than DAoC ( which is not a sandbox either). None of what you are discussing makes it a sandbox, that is just forming teams. The developers still determine how the game is scored. Players don’t get to say " oh we won this GvG", now we get to go to T2.

On racing games I can turn around and run all the cars off the tracks, that doesn’t make it a sandbox. On soccer games We can just kick the ball back and forth and never score, that doesn’t make it a sandbox. Simply being able to do things that are not how it is supposed to be played doesn’t make it a sandbox game.

Ina sandbox game, the Kingdom of Blackgate could declare war on Devona’s Rest, take them over and force them to be under their rule… In a themepark MMO, Blackgate doesn’t get to pick and choose who they fight at will.