Anyone else miss the Xunlai Tournament House?

You could make back your $5 investment on a one-chapter account in the first month for approximately three minutes of effort. After that, it's earning you $5 a month on average, every month.

If Gifts of the Traveler sell for 450k each, I'm sure people would be complaining about people with multiple accounts too.

Just to give you an insight from someone who actually used the XTH for what it was for...

I watched GvG stuff, watched who won who lost and how close their match was. I also took into account their past records and how they fared against other guilds.

I don't have 10 accounts, only 1, and I used it as a means to get Z-keys, since I am not a PvP'er. I personally used most of my Z-Keys, although I did sell some when needing to buy materials for elite armor and such, but I had a vast collection of creme brulee and firewater as my rewards.

I miss the XTH simply for this, as my guildies and I used to talk about GvG matches we had watched and it gave us a common interest in the game on the level of watching your favorite football team play...personally I liked watching Rebel Rising. Some other favs were Dangerous Pumpkins and Straight Outta Kamadan.

We didn't bleed it for keys on multiple accounts and for me it did up my interest in the GvG matches, as well as it did for some of my guildies as well.

So we did like it, and it did increase our interest in PvP stuff, but we never felt we were good enough to try and complete. It was like Football Sunday for us. XTH was our in-game bookie.

Back when there was a XTH I did not GvG and only did the XTH for free Zkeys. Now that there is no XTH, I have done some GvG. Go figure.

In the end it was a great idea that ended up a poor idea since most people including myself just did it for the free Zkeys.

And let's be honest, it wasn't hard to get many of the picks close when it was pretty much the same few guilds facerolling.

Despite what you say, XTH did make me look into observer mode because I was curious why certain teams kept winning. Right now, I don't need zkeys and there is no motivation to care about PvP at all.

zkeys are just a means of attracting PvE players to be more interested in PvP so of course, many PvEers was interested in XTH because of the zkeys. Just like many people are interested in farming UW because of the ectos. Would farming UW still be as popular if UW gives crap rewards? Of course not.

If Anet wants to continue to attract PvE players into PvP then they need to continue to use PvE rewards as a carrot! If it is not zkeys then it has to be something else. If the reward is crap, then nobody is going to be drawn to it.

Personally I think the XTH reward could have been reduced because it was too good. I would not give more than 5 zkeys for a perfect prediction.

Our guild's website. Had charts and tables for the tournaments allowing everyone to make the best picks possible for the out comes. Once you see where players and guilds would usually rank, max points rewards were common place for all.

The Xunlai did in fact for my guild, get people interested in PvP and had people show interest to play. Xunlai got people who never even thought about killing anything other than an NPC, to turn their head and look over the fence. Once they saw how PvP could be something to do. They wanted to participate in our PvP events.

The death Xunlai Tournament House just marked one step of how Anet slowly killed off PvP. A game once made and designed for only PvP and PvE was just a tool to teach players how to play. GW as come so far from the original intentions.

However caring about PvP and the Xunlai Tournament House has died along with Team Arenas, Hero Battles and so forth. Decisions were made and things have a way of not turning out as intended.
I still play the game almost everyday and the community of people that surround me, make it possible to keep enjoying the game.

I think the XTH would have been better served handing out flames of balthazar if they wanted to encourage would be pvp'ers to play. there is nothing about z-keys that promoted pvp back then. the way it stands now with the HoM, it just allowed people to get a PvP title without ever having to step foot in any pvp at all which is a total shame.

I would like to see it return but give points for reskins only, not ZKeys.

Also, allow PvE characters to spend points for weapons, however, keep the customized/non-tradable restrictions in place. Give out basic "clean" r9 inscription core/PvP-skin weapons of each type for free at an adjacent NPC. Remove annoying existing system of 50-50 unlocks, and increase the points required for the EoTN dungeon drops like Bone Dragon Staff (maybe rare Canthans too) so the economy doesn't explode.

The EotN weapons economy would explode regardless since the rarity factor would be non-existent.

Canthan and "oldschool" weapons wouldn't be affected since those are all uninscribable.

IMO, if the XTH did come back, make it so that you can't get Zkeys with reward points. Perhaps ZCoins as a substitute?

Disagree on the EoTN weapons, so long as the number of RPs required is sufficient. Also, you would not be able to combine RPs between accounts as you can combine coins between different characters.

Canthan weapons are actually more likely to be affected, since there are only a handful of 20/20 for any given skin and attribute, and they hardly circulate.

You can already get Crystallines, Envoy Weapons, Paper Fans, Paper Lanterns, Jugs, Amber Aegis, and a ton of other nice weapons.

I have to agree with an above poster that giving out something like flames of Balthazar would be far more better than handing out free z-keys per month to encourage interest in PvP.

Furthermore, I think with the death of the XTH, PvP started to dwindle as well. Many players lost interest for the fact that watching or observing GvG matches seemed pointless since there was no reward. Additionally, I think that the whole "competition" in GvG was brought down severely with XTH being brought down. Just look at any GvG match and you'll see that there really is no competition or true tactic involved.

To me, the XTH meant something more than the z-keys. To me, the XTH was like an online bidding house where people could dispute, laugh, and get mad at each other. This game is called GUILDwars, so wouldn't it seem logical for a large focus to be focused on a meeting place that united players together, PvE or PvP, and made them communicate and exchange advice?

You shouldn't need a "carrot" for anything... if there is nothing the last pvp update proved is that "carrots" don't work... otherwise you would be out PvPing right now... instead of "no motivation to care about pvp at all"... your rewards and z-keys are there... you just have to actually participate now... instead of hit the observe button and make a few guesses for the month.... but guess what... after the hype passed... pvp is still in the dead condition that it is... except what is different now is you have people exploiting (syncing) the rewards.... people are not stupid they can't be lured into a format they don't find fun or productive.


Lets be honest with ourselves XTH was way more about the z-keys than any "interest" you gained in PvP... "interest" via observe mode... is just a useless as no interests at all... observe mode does not increase the participation of PvP.. The cost of anet endorsed RMT is not worth the increased interest of observe mode and the slight possibility of a few players making that leap into participation... because you never hear anyone say "XTH is why and what turned me on to pvp"

When you say miss the XTH, you mean free zkeys. No. I don't miss them.

It is not that the carrots don't work, the carrots have stopped with XTH a long time ago. Everything in PvE is about carrots, if they dont provide carrots then it is going to be near impossible to bring PvE players into PvP en masse.

Do you really think that getting rid of XTH would be better for the game? Take a look at the state PvP right now after Anet has gotten rid of XTH, has PvP become better or more popular?

Again I disagree. The XTH actually piqued my interest in PvP not only by using the observer mode more, but also by actually conversing with the players in leading guilds, asking them questions about the matches.

I can understand why PvEers prefer to jack up the value of their own zkeys than to make PvP more popular because if PvP becomes more popular then their own personal in-game wealth takes a hit. Face it, I wouldn't expect anyone to sacrifice personal wealth for the sake of making PvP more popular so such responses are well anticipated. The thing I can't stand is the hypocrisy of it all.

For the EotN weapons, it doesn't matter how many reward points are needed because you could still get it with coins. Coins are also stupidly easy to get. They can be bought and farmed easily.

Regarding Canthan weapons, excluding staves, wands, foci and some specific skins, almost every skin comes out of the Zaishen Chest inscribable anyway. Those specific skins would be things like Zodiacs and other Urgoz/Deep stuff. But you get inscribables for those from the end-chests anyway ^^

I'd actually support having a greater variety of usable staves, wands and foci. It's too limited at the moment.

That might have been the case for you but you're in the minority. A very tiny minority.

I never suggested the rewards from XTH could be combined with ZCoins (you have to pay entirely with one or the other). That is a completely separate problem that should not have occurred in the first place. They hardly count as PvP reward gear when you can just buy them without having any involvement with PvP.

Your statement regarding Canthan weapons is ridiculous. You specifically cited the extremely valuable items (minus shields) which for the most part, are not available insc at all (Amber Aegis, Echovald, Dragon Staff, Celestial Staff, etc) or not in secondary attributes. It's that almost that makes these weapons so valuable. This thread in Trader's Outpost explains this far better than I can.

As for having more "usable" weapons, I am assuming you mean better access to these types of rare skins with desirable mods and such. This is exactly what I am proposing in such a manner that the economy will not be significantly damaged.

Fact is the most of PvE players had no idea who to vote for and they did it only for the sake of rewards. Doesn't matter if those are zkeys, flames, pve weapons or something else it doesn't change the fact that most of them would just vote for whoever had the most qpts or will ask their friends and vote same as them. So, they will spend 3 minutes on voting and just wait for free rewards. That doesn't make any sense. They get enough free rewards from abusing OP uwsc, doasc, fowsc and whatnotsc builds already. Also, 50/50 is quite easy to get, me (PvP player) got from 30/50 to 50/50 within a month without even trying much.
Also, Bone Dragon Staff, etc. are supposed to be RARE drops. Can you elaborate how would increase in drop rate still keep them rare? Can you imagine that Ghostly Hero drop rate increases. No one would consider having it as an achievement anymore (that's what happened to tormented weapons when doasc abusers showed up). It would be yet another worthless item everyone else got.

Not at all.

Past state generated little extra interest in pvp but huge amounts of currency.

If you make rewards more competitive and dependent on good knowledge of state of pvp, you raise intereste in pvp and decrease amount of currency generated because fewer people will vote successfully (as it will be more diffcult), but they will need to be more interested to reap benefits.

Getting people interested in PvP is not only about making them play. You need audience to organize big ass events. You need enough people watching to make it attractive for big brands to be sponsors. You need someone to donate money/equipment to make it trully motivating for esport type people participate. And it all depends on masses watching the spectacle. We need less of "Updated the 2011 Automated Tournament Series Trophy in the Great Temple of Balthazar." in update notes and more of "1k was sent to each member of winning team, courtesy of razer, alienware and nvidia"

Making people play PvP should not be THE goal at moment. Making people watch it should be.

I miss it, used to love how pathetic my predictions were. It was kind of like a Nicholas lthe Traveler look forward too thingy for me. Thanks to all the greedy mofo's that ruined it.

You're capable of distinguishing between causation and correlation, right?


Food for thought: In the four years since the XTH started, I've never met a single person who cited it as a motivating factor for actually GvGing.

And even in your example, you obviously stopped paying attention to GvG once the money was out of it. Would you really describe the XTH as succeeding in promoting interest in PvP, if it's directly linked to the rewards?

horse-race gambling won't make them as horse racer