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[Editorial] Guild Wars 2: Review in Progress Part 4 - WvW
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the fourth in our ongoing Review in Progress, we take a look at Guild Wars 2 and its unique concept for massive scale PvP. Is it as unique as it purports to be? Is it functioning as it should? Find out in our latest Review in Progress. Leave us your WvW thoughts in the comments.
Remember how I was bemoaning the plight of those on high population servers in Guild Wars 2 last week? I was whining about the fact that Jade Quarry’s queue times were too long, and that I’d had trouble actually getting into WvW? I was even toying with the idea of temporarily changing servers to a less PVP-active one so that I might get some time in and review WvW. Lo and behold, just a day later I was in the Borderlands and the Eternal Battlegrounds getting face-rolled by Henge of Denravi and Stormbluff Isle’s unified front. And I liked it. I spent most of this week in different Borderlands and the Eternal Battlegrounds. Heck, I didn’t even need to do what Mike Feguson suggested either in his recent blog update.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Guild Wars 2: Review in Progress Part 4 - WvW.
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Comments
First off, I'm no PvPer. I'm fine with group battles and such, but for the most part I avoid it.
But let me say this: the rampant "exploitation" of the server transfers, or whatever, which has led to "spys" "subterfuge" and all that jazz is AWESOME. I think its a cool mechanic that should be pushed to its limits by the players.
I'm sure that this is, in fact, the correct way to PvP in GW2.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Good review.
Your feeling of "is it enough." is warrented. I hit a wall after alot of WvW hours (I was able to sit in the 3 hour queues >.<) played during the first three weeks. That left me asking "What for."
Seems like there needs to be ranks or something, or an expanding of the skill system.
For the record the garbage that's going on is not ok. Even if Anet says it is.
The problem with cheating is the mechanics are in favor of the cheater.
1. they take up a queue spot
2. you cant cant kill them
3. if you expose them they can create infinite alts
4. they can lock down seige weps with no way to kick them off
This is not real life. This is a game, and games have rules to ensure a fun and competitive atmosphere where people play with sportsmanship. THis is why you cant horsecollar a football player or excessivly celebrate, or take a dive in sports. AN wants this to be an esport, and there is no sport on earth where spying is allowed.
Now, if you want to make this a full loot, permadeath game with friendlyfire, then we will be happy to sort the problem out ourselves.
I have barely touched WvW thus far but based on my experiences in beta the limited time during live, it's a lot of fun.
I am probably going to level to 80 first in PvE and get myself some good gear before I start hitting WvW hard, but that's mostly due to my competitive nature - I hate losing so I want to make sure my toon is "ready" before stepping into the competitive arena(s) of Gw2.
But yeah, paid for world transfers and timers/limits will stop the spying game entirely. The game hasn't even been out for a month (close now!) once the full 2 week rotations are in and transfers cost $ these kinds of issues will be very, very minor ones.
WvW was never meant to be an e-sport. sPvP is and that has no gear/level progression at all, it's a whole other game essentially.
We did the same for TSW and TERA, and will do this for all major AAA MMOs in th future. Even did one for D3.
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You are correct. About the only thing on the horizon is expansions. Maybe in a few months, we'll see something new and worthwhile. But for the present, GW2 is pretty all they have to talk about and so they do. FWIW, I'm in agreement with you -- I didn't think it was all that great and haven't felt compelled to even log in for the last two weeks.
WVW is no where near like DAOC RVR not in the least.
Do we have bard's for group speed groups nope '
Do we have massive battles with hundereds of players per side nope only around 20-30
Do we have healers to heal and remove the CC nope
Do we have a large map nope we have a ok size map not large in anyway
Do we have a darkfall that we fight for to get the best farming and lvling not to mention tokens for gear from darkfall only nope
DO we have realm pride or in the case server pride nope
In what way is this like DAoC OUTSIDE SEGING AND daOc IS NOT THE ONLY GAME WITH THAT JUST ONE OF THE 1ST.
Arenanet’s official response to Azure was:
“Although it might be bad sportsmanship, espionage and sabotage are legitimate tactics in any combat based game. We would not consider the use of these tactics to be a violation. Please let us know if you have any further questions.”
tells alot about arena net,imagine Counter Strike where its considered pro tactic when opponent joins your team and shoots his teammates in the head and flashbangs all and kills all hostages you should be saving.
amazing stuff.
Let's internet
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
"The bonuses are great and all, but just like The Secret World, I’m stuck wondering if it’ll be enough in the long haul."
That is the general problem with the entire game in general. Its fun, its new and shiny..but once you've satisfied the apparent requisite to be a completionist..you'll see that the game lacks meat on its bones. Unfortunately, despite being innovative in various areas, they seem to think that completely omitting forms of progression that other games have makes them different and superior, when in fact people are leaving in droves because of that alone. There's nothing to work towards. Having a pretty equipment skin =/= long term satisfaction.
For me (I know not for everyone), World vs world is the BEST part of GW2 (but I also really like sPVP), because I come from other games that had massive world pvp or such. Arenanet has been adjusting the WvW zones and caps lately and I'm a little annoyed by the queue (couldn't even get in at all last night), hopefully they'll smooth things out where all the players can get in and fix the matchups, right now my server is well over 200K while other 2 are 60K and 40K.
Just to let you know the person who placed the siege weapon can kick anyone off their siege weapon at will. You do however raise the point about a que spot. It is ofcouse possible that a massive alliance could drasticaly reduce the number of players in a battle ground however a couple of spies does not make a difference in a fight. There should however be a way to report someone as a spy and have aNet check it out and kick them back to the server they are spying for. Once sever transfers cost real money this could be a very interesting dynamic. Then i could see the best spies who have infiltrated alliances hiring out their services for a lot of gold because of the high risk that once your caught you cant do it anymore. This could be an awesome dynamic with a little thought put into it.
I refuse to participate in a game that allows cheating and exploits. So I guess I will limit myself to PvE and then move on to another game.
Other people may think it's cool and a part of the game, but when there are no counter measures to combat these cheats and exploits, it's is not cool and part of the game. Enjoy your broken, ruined WvW.
here is the thing about the spy thing, THERE IS NO WAY TO STOP IT!
I had 2 friends in my old DAoC guild who were roomies at Cal Tech, one had a account with the Middies the other had a account with Hibernians. Their computers were 4 feet apart, guess what they did? I have 4 computers in my house and without a monthly fee it is no issue to have up to 4 GW2 accounts going at once. WvW just isn't that important to me, but I am sure others feel differently
ANet can't stop this from happening, get used to it
I miss DAoC
i stopped reading after you endorsed exploting.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
"full aoe speed buffs that last 5sec yup"
Why do people who know so little about the game try to pass their misinformation as facts?
As a guardian i can provide almost 40 secs of speed buffs every minute or so and elementalist can do even more.
So you are dead wrong.
Jade Quarry = GW2's Yankees...
Unfortunately for JQ they are on to us and go 2 on 1 lol.
Leaving in droves? Hahahaha... (looks at the full high servers at noon) yeah droves bro!
ok so i have not play a guardian yet.
daoc bard speed is much faster and is on all the time
but i like EQ bard speed more
After a few weeks WvW just sort of fizzled in the fun department. I'm not the sort that needs rewards to do PvP, fun is usually reward enough. However, when the point eclipses the amount of fun I'm having, and in this case it was a seemingly complete lack of point, then it ceases to be fun anymore.
Why? This was the biggest thing that started creaping into my head as I played. Why? What was the point. Realm pride simply isn't enough, and the fact that it's a contained enviroment that doesn't seem to have that great an impact on anything seems to be the big killer for me.
Maybe if it wasn't server vs server and self contained I would get it.
You would think that with the way that it's set up that when you're not actually doing WvW you would care. Afterall, is that not first and formost one of the effects of WvW? Bonuses for the server. When I'm doing PvE I'm not giving WvW any thought what-so-ever. If my server is winning or losing I could really care less because I never feel any form of impact when not doing WvW.
Perhaps a PvE zone that would unlock for the winning server that provides the best PvE farming? Access to merchants, dungeons, craftables, etc. for the server that's winning in the WvW? Something, anything that actually has a tangible, noticable impact on the PvE experience.
Lobsided, incredibly. This was something I noticed that took a lot of fun out of it as well. Either you're winning or you're not, and usually winning means your server has more people in the WvW zone then the other servers. I do not think that I've experienced a situation yet were Dragonbrand was either completely dominating whatever map they were winning, or losing horribly. In EVE we call it "good fights" when sides are relatively balanced and winning really comes down to who simply did better, I've not found any of this in WvW yet. It seems, first and foremost, based on whether or not your server has more players in the zone then the other server, and when sides are relatively equal who is actually using seige equipment. Primarilly though, it's just who has the bigger zerg.
Map diversity. This was another killer for me. It's supposed to be a world unto itself, but it's not in the slightest. 3 of the 4 maps are identical, even though they're supposed to be seperate areas of the same world. Why did they only make two maps and then use one for three different areas? Really wish they would have made four unique maps for the four different fronts.
It's not bad or awful in any extent, it's just not that engrossing after a few weeks. It just kind of became the place to go when some form of world pvp was desired, or when I wanted to do some nonstructured PvP.
I do have to say this about the review. The extent of WvW doesn't seem suited to a review after only a few days of playing it. Obviously it wasn't Bills fault that he couldn't get into it, but I do wish that the review could have waited a little longer. Reviewing WvW after a week or so is kind of like reviewing any other MMO after only playing it for a week.
I really think that something like this could have used a few weeks of play time to review well. For the first week or two WvW was great; I had a blast. It wasn't until after about three weeks that I really started to ask why, and that was around about the time that it started feeling rather shallow and dull to me.
I'd really love to hear Bills impression of WvW after he's had about month to really play in it. I have a feeling Bill might actually come away with the same impression that I'm seeing a lot of other people developing, where's the point.