Guild Wars 2

Let me just preface this with saying that I’m liking the discussion/rivalry in this thread.

Even though I have trash-talked NA from time to time, from a shoutcasters perspective I would love to see the NA team beat the “kitten” out of the EU team, simply because it would surprise me.

I don’t want to throw a wrench into the Abjured vs TCG discussion, but…
On NA The Abjured might be the sure winners of the WTS qualifiers, on EU however there is still MiM.
If they manage to get some proper practice and not let their nerves get to them when it gets serious, I still think they have a pretty good chance of beating TCG.

Brigg.6189:

Last I checked the highest percentage you could be without being top 1000 was 96%. That would mean those 1000 are 4% of the population, or 250/1%. That means total pop ~= 25000.

But yes, keep in mind that a huge fraction of that is probably inactive.

Also FYI, I did a quick survey of hotjoin once on the weeknight out of boredom. There was ~ 400 ppl playing.

I have 3 people on my friendlist atm who are at 98% and therefore not top 1000.
So that would be 50.000 total population.

But as you’ve already said, a huge fraction of that is inactive.

I only skimmed over the previous replies to this post, so I apologize If I missed anything important. But since there are a couple of misconceptions about this, I’ll give a quick statement as well.

Btw, since you probably can’t tell by my account name, I’m ChroNick, the German Shoutcaster Sputti mentioned.

As Sputti already said, the thought that we are not using this feature at all isn’t really true. We have pretty much stopped using this feature to stream teamQ games due to a couple of reasons.

The original reason was just a kind of drought of Q-pops (meaning the messages we get, saying that we can watch a game). This drought existed as far as I know because of a combination of few people playing and the rating threshold above which we could spectate games, being a bit to high at one point. This then resulted in up to 30 minute waiting periods between the games, which we then had to fill somehow. And even though I think all shoutcasters have some practice with having to fill time, it did result in a somewhat unpleasant experience for both shoutcasters and viewers.

Both the threshold and player-base problem have been resolved (resolved itself) for a while now, so we are atm getting Q-pops quite frequently.

Now comes the second reason, which is quite simply that a lot of the time we are already casting 1 or 2 days every week, with the regular tourneys like the ESL Weekly Cup and then sometimes stuff on the weekends like ToL or at the moment ToG.
And if I remember correctly, back when we used to stream TeamQ, the number of viewers/the interest in it was not as big as one might think. Based on this thread I’d have to say, maybe the interest has grown now and it might be worth the additional investment of time.
If the time to invest can be found that is :-)

Concerning the thought that we then don’t use the system at all, or the statement that we spectate from time to time if we are bored…

OK, honestly, yes sometimes I watch games if I’m bored. From time to time we also just chat with the teams playing. But even If you don’t believe it, most of the time we use the tool to improve our knowledge about the game or more specifically about the teams. We watch the games to learn strategies that teams use, so that in a shoutcast we might every once in a while be able to identify the precursors of a certain move and explain it to the viewers.

We watch the games to learn the playstyles of teams and players. For example “does a team have the tendency to be overtly aggressive, and could another team due to team composition or their own style take advantage of that?”

We watch the games to spot newly formed teams that might have the potential to become one of the top teams, so that in a roster of 32 or 64 teams we can say have an eye on that team, they’ve looked good in teamQ, and maybe we should cast this match instead of another one.

With the knowledge that we do in fact watch a lot of games you might now think “If your watching them anyway, why don’t you stream them?”

Well, compared to just watching a game and maybe taking some notes on the side, casting a game is kittening exhausting (and yes I wrote “kittening” on purpose).

Also, I can’t speak for the other Shoucasters, but for me watching a game to gather information and shoutcasting a game are two completely different things. Not only do I spectate it differently, but while casting a game I don’t retain as much information as I would when just watching it, at least not for the long term. Don’t ask me why, most likely my brain is just weird. So in my case the preparation for the next shoutcast most of the time involves re-watching even the matches that I have casted myself.

If viewers would just want to watch the games and not necessarily mind not having a proper cast, but more a kind of “casual cast”, that would be a whole lot easier to do on a regular basis. So if you guys would want 2 people just having a chilled conversation about the game and maybe sometimes talking a whole load of rubbish that has nothing to do with the game (I know, not much different from my normal shoutcasts ;-P), then that might be something to try out.

Ok, enough rambling from me. That was probably way more information than anyone of you ever wanted XD

<Player Looking for Team>

Ingame name: ChroNick

Region: Europe (Desolation – not that it matters ;D)

Main Class / Potential Classes (Incase team requires): Mainly Thief with a variation of builds (currently boon removal, but I’m going to adapt to the team’s needs, of course).
I played around with some classes but nothing serious. I want to learn a second class soon, but for the moment Thief is definitely my focus.

Practice Times (Times in CEST): Weekdays after 20:00 definitely, except for Thursday when I have to do a podcast from 20:00 to about 22:00 (end time varies from time to time). I should be available every 2nd weekend, and every Sunday evening.
Just to give a really basic overview.

It gets a bit complicated after that. Anything more specific would be easier to clarify in a conversation.
Since I’m currently at University, I don’t have a lack of time. I just have a fairly complicated lecture schedule, which is why I would prefer to explain it in a conversation.

Experience: I’ve played since beta and mainly thief. I’ve played in some teams here and there, but everything rather short term.
I’m rank 31 and was ranked in the 800 to 900 area on the Leaderboards due to Solo queue (at least until I stopped giving a S***), which in my opinion doesn’t really say anything in terms of skill, but interpret as you please.
I could add that I played 2200-2400 rating in 2v2 and 3v3 in WoW, if anyone’s interested. But that was a few years ago – so again interpret as you please.

Other (Anything else that you would like to add): I’m looking for a team to get some coordinated but nonetheless fun PvP going. I’m not looking for a team to get to the top of the leaderboard, but a basic level of ambition and willingness to improve is expected.
Additionally it would be nice if you didn’t have a problem with being in a live stream and possibly in videos.

Contact me ingame
Or via PM on the forum

For all of you who haven’t familiarized yourself with the new PvP map Temple of the Silent Storm yet, I made a short Video guide that explains all the basic mechanics, the map layout aswell as some tricks and shortcuts.

Temple of the Silent Storm Guide: http://youtu.be/7x45nHZ3mQs

More in depth coverage is likely to follow, but much more inside wasn’t really possible after such a short amount of time.

Hope you’ll like it, and constructive criticism is as always very welcome.

Hey guys,
I just (re)started a little news show of mine called the Bookah Report. It’s going to be weekly/bi-weekly depending on the amount of topics available.

Here’s the newest episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpz5EOUQ-8U

The show is still in its starting phase, which means I’m aware that there are a few kinks I have to work out and some areas of improvement, but I thought I’d just submit myself to the community’s judgment.

Maybe you’ll like it.

PS: Constructive criticism is very welcome.