Guild Wars 2

Sticking this tidbit for those like me that don`t touch Reddit & haven`t see it get a mention anywhere in the GW2 sites

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/196tgh/jeuxonlineinfo_made_an_interview_with_mike/

Sounds like the usual excuses.

Also how can the queue issue not be a priority?

I appreciate the information, and commend the direct manor of questioning. It is unfortunate that dub-v-dub is still lacking in any true measure of priority from ANet. I see a lot of ‘this takes time and resources, both of which are devoted elsewhere.’

I hardly even read these interviews anymore. Absolutely no information is offered in any form.

It was honestly quite pathetic when even their “official” post on the forums consisted of nothing more than “this is definitely on our table, but we haven’t looked at it yet”, or “adding this to WvW is something we would really like to do, but we just don’t know how to do it yet”.

It’s all just a game that they are playing to keep people interested, while in reality they are doing absolutely nothing to change WvW.

i do like the interviewer however, very direct questions, Anet is prolly not used to such questions.

Well, I’d probably be really disappointed with that interview if it didn’t simply confirm what I had already concluded. ANet short-changed the game engine (thereby affecting map size, etc), undersized their server and network capacity (thereby creating lag, queues, and the need for culling), and skewed their staff toward content instead of software (bug fixes and game improvements). ANet did a lot of things right when it came to PvE mechanics, but they stumbled badly on PvP in general and there does not appear to be much hope for any meaningful change. That interview clearly shows that they don’t have the resources to deal with the issues.

GW2 was a good idea with crippled execution.

what a disapointing load of crap, as expected.

“While we would like to add new maps to the game at some point, creating maps is our most labor intensive process and WvW maps take quite a lot more effort to build than any other type of map so we’re exploring some other avenues to create new gameplay opportunites until we have enough time to properly build and test any new maps.”

How is 3 of the 4 WvW maps being copy-pastas of each other with each section being named differently labor intensive? It must be hard renaming a tower redbriar from greenbriar. ><

Well that’s as good as any statement people have been asking for imo.

No new maps, no culling fix, no loot changes, no queue fixes. Just a progression system we have no details on yet and titles and here they’ve been telling us since December that it is SUCH A HUDGE UPDATE. I’m about done checking in to see the changes even.

Magiofdeath.2745:

How is 3 of the 4 WvW maps being copy-pastas of each other with each section being named differently labor intensive? It must be hard renaming a tower redbriar from greenbriar. ><

Except that was not what he meant, and you’re being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. He’s referring to creating, from scratch, a well tweaked, well tuned map for a competitive environment. This isn’t like map-o-generator SSC where nothing matters, we’re talking about maps that have to be meticulously tested for siege placement, defense vs. offense balance, chockes and holds, etc…

Six months for a WvW map has been a number we’ve known since pre-launch.

enji.7459:

Well that’s as good as any statement people have been asking for imo.

No new maps, no culling fix, no loot changes, no queue fixes. Just a progression system we have no details on yet and titles and here they’ve been telling us since December that it is SUCH A HUDGE UPDATE. I’m about done checking in to see the changes even.

And I question your ability to read…

Well at least we got official confirmation via his comments that they did in fact manually reduce the map population limits after the last major update. I wish they would have just come out and said it rather than having everyone going “why does this BL feel empty yet there’s a queue?”.

“After the last patch we tried reducing the limit quite a bit more than what has been typical for the last few months to see if we could ease some of the lag issues players experience during some of the larger fights around Stonemist, but changed it back after a few days because we didn’t see a major improvement and it was just too detrimental to the game.”

Just as everyone suspected, stealth change with no notification, no confirmation on the forums despite all the speculation. Anet your treatment of players is poor.

“Queues do indeed behave in a strange manner. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more news about that as it does boil down to resources. It’s a fixable problem, but we need some time from a very specialized type of programmer for that job and they’re all currently busy with other tasks.”

Magiofdeath.2745:

“While we would like to add new maps to the game at some point, creating maps is our most labor intensive process and WvW maps take quite a lot more effort to build than any other type of map so we’re exploring some other avenues to create new gameplay opportunites until we have enough time to properly build and test any new maps.”

How is 3 of the 4 WvW maps being copy-pastas of each other with each section being named differently labor intensive? It must be hard renaming a tower redbriar from greenbriar. ><

I got to agree with this. There is tactically only 2 different maps in WvW: EB and BL.

Gab Superstar.4059:

I hardly even read these interviews anymore. Absolutely no information is offered in any form.

10/10 for the interviewer. 0/10 for ArenaNet who classes WvW as very low priority.
________________________________________________________________
Colin: I would prefer we do it more, you know, story-driven I think it’s more compelling and I think that’s more where we are headed. I’m curious actually, that’s really something that we’re walking down that path now. Is that compelling to your guys? I mean, take everything that happened in January, and condense it down to say, a weeks worth of content and then the next week there’s more story that builds on that. Is that something that would interest you guys?

Absolutely. It’s really good.

Colin: Is there anyone here who doesn’t like this idea?

Well, it doesn’t affect those who do WvW much.

Colin: I think that’s fair. It’s really not intended for the WvW specific player.

http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/211/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-II.aspx

morrolan.9608:

“Queues do indeed behave in a strange manner. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more news about that as it does boil down to resources. It’s a fixable problem, but we need some time from a very specialized type of programmer for that job and they’re all currently busy with other tasks.”

Ouch. Sure makes me feel appreciated.

Gab Superstar.4059:

I hardly even read these interviews anymore. Absolutely no information is offered in any form.

It was honestly quite pathetic when even their “official” post on the forums consisted of nothing more than “this is definitely on our table, but we haven’t looked at it yet”, or “adding this to WvW is something we would really like to do, but we just don’t know how to do it yet”.

It’s all just a game that they are playing to keep people interested, while in reality they are doing absolutely nothing to change WvW.

To play devil’s advocate: what did you expect? This is how it always goes down in PvE centric games.

The only real difference here is that their pipe dreams of sPvP being an e-sport are taking up the bulk of what resources they’ll allocate to PvP, so WvW gets doubly shafted.

Vena.8436:

And I question your ability to read…

Feel free to point out my mistakes so we’re in the know instead of being an insult generator.

Aww not even all WvW stuff in March? Great.

I guess WvW is not part of the game, its a small feature like keg brawl.

The answer of Mike are a big joke.

The great thing about this game not having a sub – you are free to walk away for a while and do something else with your time until the changes you hope to see will get implemented. It will be a while due to the same lack of the sub. There is absolutely no reason to be upset.

You can do that with a sub game too. Un sub til fixes are implemented then resub. People bought the game to play this winter, at least I did. The devs fed us interview after interview preaching about how important wvw would be. I even gave them the benefit of the doubt for oh……almost 7 months. pssssssssh

enji.7459:

Feel free to point out my mistakes so we’re in the know instead of being an insult generator.

Mmkay:

• No new map: Shouldn’t have expected this since it has not even been discussed. (So you’re complaining about a non-thing that no one promised you nor should you have expected.)
• No loot changes: You’ve drawn a blanket conclusion by ignoring the question, what was asked was: “loot can not be placed directly in the inventory” and answered with a: “no” (and frankly this isn’t exactly a pressing issue), this does not preclude loot changes (considering that the progression system itself is partly about loot changes, this makes the statement you made an extension on a point that wasn’t made).
• No culling fix: No date was given.
• No queues fix: Yes, this one indeed is valid.

Meanwhile you missed the one thing that actually been a hot topic for a while:

• Orbs will be replaced by something else, but that may or may not arrive in March.

The internet. Where people draw conclusions with crayons.

I hate that he can be so casually truthful on reddit because he is addressing the Guildwars 2 PvE community, and not just the small subset of wvw players that he ignores on his own subforum. For weeks our pleas for answers on both the reduction in pop caps and the queue issue were disregarded, allowing over 5 threads to be permeated with truth, untruth, fact and fiction when he knew all the while it was true and said nothing. That sort of shadiness doesn’t sit well with me and I now have zero respect for this person and his messages.

Vena.8436:

• No new map: Shouldn’t have expected this since it has not even been discussed. (So you’re complaining about a non-thing that no one promised you nor should you have expected.)
• No loot changes: You’ve drawn a blanket conclusion by ignoring the question, what was asked was: “loot can not be placed directly in the inventory” and answered with a: “no” (and frankly this isn’t exactly a pressing issue), this does not preclude loot changes (considering that the progression system itself is partly about loot changes, this makes the statement you made an extension on a point that wasn’t made).
• No culling fix: No date was given.
• No queues fix: Yes, this one indeed is valid.

Meanwhile you missed the one thing that actually been a hot topic for a while:

• Orbs will be replaced by something else, but that may or may not arrive in March.

The internet. Where people draw conclusions with crayons.

Yeah orbs will never be back in the game. Booo

Anyway,

-People have been talking about map changes, especially the lake area. Anet has been saying they are looking at changes to wvw to help alleviate certain issues which map changes would help fix. We have no map changes confirmed now and no news as to what other changes, if any, they have planned for this patch.

-I was quite aware of the loot issue he was addressing.

-I don’t care about whether or not a date for culling was given. I’m not digging through dev notes but I swear they said it would be in 2 patches, Jan 28th and the wvw patch coming up but whatever. That’s irrelevant because as Ferguson admits it is (or should be despite what they are actually working on) the 1st issue fixed before anything else gets finished. If they can’t afford more programmers, the other programmers that have the ability to work on culling should be taken off their current assignments to help fix it as far as I’m concerned.

It saddens me to realize that this update is becoming more and more something on the lines of “We will not fix any of the WvW gameplay issues, but hey, here’s a bunch of titles and shiny stuff, go grab them”
God kitten ANet, we have endured all this long, without any rewards. Why haven’t we left yet? Because there’s still some fun to be had in WvW. Rewards are good, of course, but we aren’t just a bunch of donkeys that need a carrot to chase.

aww man I don’t like the answers at all….looks like march will not introduce anything exciting. How are they able to create all the pve content, but cant introduce a new map. The borderland maps are very plain looking and seem like they were rushed to complete for game launch. seriously anet if u need extra people that are wvw focused only, i know a ton of programmers i can send over.
or how about u use one of the existing pve maps and alter it for wvw.
If gw 2 loses all their wvw players, believe me pve will fall appart too, so please Anet pleas put as much effort as u can in this

Straegen.2938:

Every MMO that had a designer/developer make a specific comment about an upcoming feature or fix ate said comment at every turn when it was even a second late or wasn’t everything everyone thought it would be.

Most companies simply don’t allow designer/developers to be interviewed leaving the user base completely in the dark because of complaining like this. I suggest players be satisfied that ANet is talking about the issues and focusing more on real fixes rather than incremental patches.

All in all, I am still waiting on someone on the forums to point out another MMO that has this much content (PvE, WvW, sPvP) within the first year of release and wasn’t a disaster. If that company exists, why aren’t the people complaining here playing that game? Relative to all other competitors, ANet delivered a massive system that mostly works great with some expected and unexpected flaws. They haven’t shied away from talking about said flaws either. I say we give them the benefit of the doubt this soon after release.

Just an opinion.

It doesn’t take much careful reading to figure out that Anet doesn’t really have solutions for any significant WvW issue. Read the 2nd part of that interview again … he talks about having only two software people to handle EVERYTHING related to server issues (lag, culling, queues) and WvW game mechanics. Look at all the times he says he doesn’t even know what’s behind some of the issues because they don’t have the resources to find out. The bottom line is that anybody who enjoys WvW type of play needs to either accept GW2 for what it is or wait for another game to come out, because this one isn’t going to change much at all. It’s often fun to propose things we feel would make the game better, but they aren’t going to happen if they require a different engine, more bandwidth, or different code … the resources simply are not there.

enji.7459:

-People have been talking about map changes, especially the lake area. Anet has been saying they are looking at changes to wvw to help alleviate certain issues which map changes would help fix.

But he never said anything about this in terms of time-lines. The only thing he said is: No new map. That doesn’t preclude any of the others things and he himself didn’t preclude any of them, he just didn’t give a timeline for good reason.

enji.7459:

-I was quite aware of the loot issue he was addressing.

This is hardly an issue. Its an inconvenience at best. Complaining about this, out of all the things to complain about, is bewildering.

enji.7459:

-I don’t care about whether or not a date for culling was given. I’m not digging through dev notes but I swear they said it would be in 2 patches, Jan 28th and the wvw patch coming up but whatever. That’s irrelevant because as Ferguson admits it is (or should be despite what they are actually working on) the 1st issue fixed before anything else gets finished. If they can’t afford more programmers, the other programmers that have the ability to work on culling should be taken off their current assignments to help fix it as far as I’m concerned.

Network programmer =/= engine programmer =/= X programmer.

You cannot just pull a “programmer” from a different project. Programmer is not one set of skills, its any number of different specializations. You’re not going to call in a dermatologist for brain surgery.

The real issue is this:

For weeks our pleas for answers on both the reduction in pop caps and the queue issue were disregarded, allowing over 5 threads to be permeated with truth, untruth, fact and fiction when he knew all the while it was true and said nothing. That sort of shadiness doesn’t sit well with me and I now have zero respect for this person and his messages.

Sad a state as sPvP is in, at least their developers actively inform them of changes and talk to them. All we get is moderation on this forum or Colin coming to get shot by an angry mob.

Holy kitten batman, I already said if they were able to work on culling. Nit it up more bud.

selan.8354:

aww man I don’t like the answers at all….looks like march will not introduce anything exciting. How are they able to create all the pve content, but cant introduce a new map. The borderland maps are very plain looking and seem like they were rushed to complete for game launch. seriously anet if u need extra people that are wvw focused only, i know a ton of programmers i can send over.
or how about u use one of the existing pve maps and alter it for wvw.
If gw 2 loses all their wvw players, believe me pve will fall appart too, so please Anet pleas put as much effort as u can in this

I am also puzzled as to why they don’t use PvE maps for WvW. Just add a lord to each waypoint for take over. There won’t be any tower or keeps so you don’t even need sieges. Purely open field combat where strategy and tactics wins the day.

enji.7459:

Holy kitten batman, I already said if they were able to work on culling. Nit it up more bud.

My fault, I missed that part. But in that case, the original discussion already notes the need of a “specific engineer” as in they likely on have one or two. If they need to do anything, its to hire more.

The rest still stands though. So you have two other paragraphs to address.

The thing I find so odd about the ‘apparent’ lack of concern for WvW, is the live participation of some of Anets own crew. It seems from recent commentary that many of them do actually play in WvW. So it would seem that they enjoy this aspect of the game they’ve developed?

Then to read this interview (props to the interviewer for getting right to it!) and see more of the same side-stepping of the actual problems (lets not dress them up by calling them ‘issues’) in this segment of the game. Though I was pleased to see that Mike did confirm what we all suspected about the stealth queue reductions we all experienced.

It just saddens me to see that a game with such high aspirations and promises of " Epic, large scale battles" is now waffling about what the definition of that means. Heck, I don’t even expect “Epic” any longer, I simply expect clear, concise fact and truth. Period.

In any case, I hope that the Anet folks that are in WvW playing, give some insights and perspective to the guys and gals doing the development. Hopefully to offer advice on actual fixes and what it’s really like to play in there on busy nights.

Cactus.2710:

Straegen.2938:

Every MMO that had a designer/developer make a specific comment about an upcoming feature or fix ate said comment at every turn when it was even a second late or wasn’t everything everyone thought it would be.

Most companies simply don’t allow designer/developers to be interviewed leaving the user base completely in the dark because of complaining like this. I suggest players be satisfied that ANet is talking about the issues and focusing more on real fixes rather than incremental patches.

All in all, I am still waiting on someone on the forums to point out another MMO that has this much content (PvE, WvW, sPvP) within the first year of release and wasn’t a disaster. If that company exists, why aren’t the people complaining here playing that game? Relative to all other competitors, ANet delivered a massive system that mostly works great with some expected and unexpected flaws. They haven’t shied away from talking about said flaws either. I say we give them the benefit of the doubt this soon after release.

Just an opinion.

It doesn’t take much careful reading to figure out that Anet doesn’t really have solutions for any significant WvW issue. Read the 2nd part of that interview again … he talks about having only two software people to handle EVERYTHING related to server issues (lag, culling, queues) and WvW game mechanics. Look at all the times he says he doesn’t even know what’s behind some of the issues because they don’t have the resources to find out. The bottom line is that anybody who enjoys WvW type of play needs to either accept GW2 for what it is or wait for another game to come out, because this one isn’t going to change much at all. It’s often fun to propose things we feel would make the game better, but they aren’t going to happen if they require a different engine, more bandwidth, or different code … the resources simply are not there.

But where are their resources being used on? NC Soft aren’t making any other title that I even heard of. Tell them to send over a few programmers to help out. The GW franchise is their most successful franchise in North America by far. Surely they should put in more resources to make sure it remains successful.

Vena.8436:

The rest still stands though. So you have two other paragraphs to address.

lol wut

CHIPS.6018:

But where are their resources being used on? NC Soft aren’t making any other title that I even heard of. Tell them to send over a few programmers to help out. The GW franchise is their most successful franchise in North America by far. Surely they should put in more resources to make sure it remains successful.

NcSoft doesn’t care about the West (they sort of just dumped this side after the Aion failure). Just look at CoH, that was their only main draw on the West before the GW franchise and, even then, it was still a big staple name for the company.

enji.7459:

lol wut

The other two paragraphs to the quote that I broke up? Though you don’t really seem all that invested in an actual conversation…

Great, we’ll stick with the “the side with more ppl wins trololo” and the “your server fights better but we have a nightcrew so we win trololo”, that should be healthy on the long-term

Vena.8436:

The other two paragraphs to the quote that I broke up? Though you don’t really seem all that invested in an actual conversation…

wtf

I don’t care if you don’t think the loot changes being discussed were important? For someone talking about drawing conclusions and kitten on the internet you somehow misinterpreted my whole point despite Ferguson being quite clear about the loot issue in the interview.

As to map changes, I don’t care if they didn’t give any specific date on map changes? My disappointment is not dependent on a specific date. People have been wanting to know the changes that were going to be implemented for a long time, since December as a matter of fact. Now we have a confirmation no new maps in this patch and no news as to what the fixes actually will be in this patch. The crickets chirping in this forum every time someone asks questions that result in an infraction are not encouraging either.

“Queues do indeed behave in a strange manner. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more news about that as it does boil down to resources. It’s a fixable problem, but we need some time from a very specialized type of programmer for that job”

What? It’s just a simple queue. I don’t even…

CHIPS.6018:

But where are their resources being used on? NC Soft aren’t making any other title that I even heard of. Tell them to send over a few programmers to help out. The GW franchise is their most successful franchise in North America by far. Surely they should put in more resources to make sure it remains successful.

I don’t understand this either, NCsoft are a big company with a lot of global resources I’m sure they can allocate remotely to do piece-work in certain areas. But if the interview is anything to go by, then most of us are going to have to play with a much longer timeline between changes than we’d expect.

While that might be completely reasonable expectation from the current resources allocated to do the work, what I’d more worry about is the damage to the community long-term which is something MMO produces should be very, very aware of that if enough people leave, they take others with them and populations rapidly shrink to unsustainable levels.

Warhammer was a classic example, the big selling point was rvr there but they couldn’t get their act together enough to support it, within 6 months the population was halved, then halved again in subsequent months until its the joke that it is now.

The reason this is pertinent is that at 6 months, GW2 has a good selling point with its wvw, but its running on good faith and a lack of competition from other producers for this ‘niche’ area. People want pve, they go thump mobs in a half dozen games which do that, people want spvp, there’s dozens of games that do that… wvw/rvr, there’s not many at all, yet.

Why dont we just stop playing WvW all together. I find no reason to play lately also. PvE is so MUCH more rewarding then WvW. Why are we playing this stupid gamemode?

Good interviewer compared to the usual heavily bias walk on eggshells fair we are usually served up however the answers were no less depressing. WvW is so behind the curve compared to pve

WvW is still lots of fun, I like the people I play with and against, I like killing people and need no incentive what so ever to continue slaughtering people, because that’s what I like to do.

But its just not rewarding at all and hence there’s not an immediate mass-appeal for most people who come from an MMO/PvE orientation to actually do it. Where this issue comes into play for the people like me is that its not actually sustainable in its current format.
To the point we don’t always have the best gear, we don’t always have enough siege, we can’t always run a full set of food buffs, etc, etc. Then I look at people with ascended, legendary gear and other stuff with interesting titles, sigh very deeply and feel disappointed that there’s absolutely no recognition for full time, frontline people like me.

Straegen.2938:

Cactus.2710:

It doesn’t take much careful reading to figure out that Anet doesn’t really have solutions for any significant WvW issue. Read the 2nd part of that interview again … he talks about having only two software people to handle EVERYTHING related to server issues (lag, culling, queues) and WvW game mechanics. Look at all the times he says he doesn’t even know what’s behind some of the issues because they don’t have the resources to find out. The bottom line is that anybody who enjoys WvW type of play needs to either accept GW2 for what it is or wait for another game to come out, because this one isn’t going to change much at all. It’s often fun to propose things we feel would make the game better, but they aren’t going to happen if they require a different engine, more bandwidth, or different code … the resources simply are not there.

Where in the article does it say there are only two programmers to work on everything? Could you quote that part for me and paste it here because I am not seeing it. People who don’t code and particularly don’t code in large n-Tier systems simply have no idea how time consuming developmental issues like these are. It isn’t like banging out some web script for a web page. The code lines surely numbers in the millions and is very high tech. I would again point out that virtually no other company out of the box has produced this level of software.

He did mention they haven’t looked at queues yet because of a personnel resource issue, but that isn’t an uncommon issue in large software shops and again it has been around six months post release which in MMO time is extremely brief.

Two … three … who knows. The specific term he used was “a couple of engineers”, and he used it different times to explain his resource limitation. By the way, I was referring to the interview in the link posted by SoPP above … it is very enlightening.

Excerpts:

Interviewer: Before I let others ask about WvW, something that’s come up in our guild meetings is we’d love to have guild halls

Colin: Me too, that’d be great. It’s just a matter of skill set wise the people who work on that, are also the same people who work on like seven other systems in the game. Basically all that stuff uses your account data and there’s only a couple of engineers really who completely understand how that whole system works and so we’re always time limited on what systems those guys can work on and them training others so they can work on those systems. So we’re slowly trying to expand all that stuff it’s just a matter of time really.

Interviewer: Talking about space, if you disconnect in WvW and your team is doing well, you end up having to go back in a queue which can be an hour or more. Is there anyway we could reserve a spot for a bit so we could get back in right away after a disconnect?

Colin: Right now, no. You know I talked about the same couple of people who are required to do a lot of the guild features, are the same couple of people who need to do all the server back-end for the same stuff that you just said. Really anything that involves large amounts of server messaging or things, those are always bottle necked by the very very best programmers we have who can work on that extremely difficult set.

The bottom line is simple. People will leave this game if
1) Culling is not fixed
2) Ques are not fixed
3) There is no parity in regards to gear/rewards/income with pve

The third point is by far the lease important to me. The first two simply allow me to play your game. There are other games on the horizon. GW2 was sold to me on the premise that this was THE pvp mmo. Particularly, no gear treadmill, massive battles, complex group interplay, multiple objectives on a pvp map which require multiple group coordination. If they can make those things happen, I will still be here, if not….well whatever.

Also, the thing about the ques is so annoying, there were hundreds of posts just asking for confirmation about this when it was happening, and no one from Anet said anything. It was incumbent upon the players to go out and count the number of people in the map themselves, really shows you how much Anet cares about this portion of their game. If I wanted a care-bear fest wow clone, I would be playing wow.

DeadlyRush.1620:

Why dont we just stop playing WvW all together. I find no reason to play lately also. PvE is so MUCH more rewarding then WvW. Why are we playing this stupid gamemode?

Because I’m not playing for rewards, I’m playing for the thrill of killing actual people, not some predictable NPC with poor AI. If you get a thrill from easy mode, good for you. Some of us like the dynamics of WvW.

So who are the A-team of A-net?

CHIPS.6018:

But where are their resources being used on? NC Soft aren’t making any other title that I even heard of. Tell them to send over a few programmers to help out. The GW franchise is their most successful franchise in North America by far. Surely they should put in more resources to make sure it remains successful.

Lineage 3? Continued work on older games like L1, L2, and Aion? Unannounced projects? They’re not going to keep people on the payroll if they aren’t expecting to use them.

GW2 made the most money for NC Soft globally in each of the two fiscal quarters its been out out of any of their games.

enji.7459:

I even gave them the benefit of the doubt for oh……almost 7 months. pssssssssh

I agree, the 6 month mark is a milestone and a point to assess what WvW has evolved into (de-evolved?).

Orbs removed.

Culling worse? at least no better, I prefer to think of culling now as a different dog with different fleas.

We got Break Out Events!? Who cares, upper tier servers don’t even use it.

They the big ones, oh, they did take siege out of the JP!

The next milestone will be one year. What will people’s assessment be then?

Vena.8436:

Except that was not what he meant, and you’re being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. He’s referring to creating, from scratch, a well tweaked, well tuned map for a competitive environment. This isn’t like map-o-generator SSC where nothing matters, we’re talking about maps that have to be meticulously tested for siege placement, defense vs. offense balance, chockes and holds, etc…

i won’t deny that a map can take a lot of work, but i do question if it is nescecary. would maps created by a random generator be worse than those maps the ‘team’ spend six months on ?

is it really nesc that a treb placed in location x,y on the tip of feature z can hit something while a treb placed 2 units of distance further can’t ? do towers/keeps have to be within just the range that some warmachines placed at their tips can hit the other feature or would it be better to have them all just apart far enough that it can’t happen ?

i think the current maps are too ‘artificial’, too ‘designed’, too ‘staged’, they leave extremely little place for different tactics. the terrain and the features create a permanenet funnel effect where there are very few ‘roads’ from feature A to feature B and there is almost no room where a group can get ‘lost’ and pass another group without the groups noticing eachother.

would a flat map (or only with minor elevations) that has 5 keeps and 10 towers placed at random by a generator in 2 seconds be worse than what we have now ?

a bit of open space large enough for 2 groups to be in it and still not be within visual range from eachother would be nice.

i think the current maps are ‘overdesinged’.

i wonder what people would think from a experiment where the lake in the middle gets landfilled into a big central plain with almost no features, apart from maybe a piece of dense forrest.

DeadlyRush.1620:

Why dont we just stop playing WvW all together. I find no reason to play lately also. PvE is so MUCH more rewarding then WvW. Why are we playing this stupid gamemode?

if we all stopped playing w3, i guess some people in Anet would be jubilant about having fixed culling and pat eachother on the back for the job well done.