Saltspray Beach

Would you play AB if the only map was Saltspray Beach (and the rewards were decent)?

The rewards aren't important to me, I play just for fun. I've played GW almost since the release of Factions, and would have quit a long time ago but AB has kept me playing. The best "reward" would be to be able to play on Saltspray Beach again. I'd like to see Etnaran Keys and Grenz Frontier as well, but I assume Saltspray Beach only would be easy to implement.

I think alliance/guild members & friends would be willing to play against each other on the neutral map.

I would play if the waits would not be half an hour

pretty much this.

Might just be me... but isn't the long waits because no is playing (or not enough anyway)?
Kinda would be a shame to make it only one map imo... but... if it could revive this nice format I would be for it.

Think they'd need to balance the reward with the rewards you get in FA and JQ though... noticed that people bring that up all the time...

What was said above... People might say in any game " if everyone would go there, there would be many teams and shorter waiting times" , but unfortunately, the match making system is problematic here. Even on AB week end( the only time you can play AB ever), with 2 districts, waiting times are still like 12minutes, which is long...

But there are other several flaws :
- lack of tactic : most of games are about running in circles until one 4/4 team fails, which is making their side lose
- bad mentality : if you don't run in circles and stay with your team, you can be sure to get kicked at the end of the game( even if you decided to suicide to make opponents go slower, to help your team)
- the reward isn't good considering waiting times and games partly about luck : i do not mind the reward, but many do, and it will be less players coming to AB

I would love for AB to be playable again, it's probably my favourite format.

As to the suggestion of only Saltspray, ehhh, I think people might get bored with it quickly, but that being said, FA/JQ is on the same map everytime.

If the rewards were higher, people would play, making the wait time less.

They should allow making AB skirmishes, so anyone that likes a map can play in that map with friends.

at this point i think its pretty obvious there wont be any updates for AB, years of threads regarding AB did not help much....maybe the real fixes are in GW2 ?

Yeah, I'm just disappointed lackluster formats JQ & FA are alive but AB is not. WvW better be very good!

See you on Monday... on the Ancestral Lands! *yeeeeaaahh!*

They need to fix the queue times, and increase the faction you gain from it, because it's more beneficial to just to do JQ.

They should add consumable title points as rewards for AB in addition to the faction rewards. People these days are playing the most rewarding areas of the game and working on titles. Consumable title progression through PvP would be tempting and easy enough to implement. How about linking the PvP titles to AB as well? Not like there's enough time to try to max any PvPtitle between now and GW2's launch anyway, but there are several hodge podge things they could attempt to bring more people in.

As far as just playing Saltspray Beach, I don't think it'd be enough. I personally didn't love the fortress maps (no matter which side I was playing) but I do like some variety. I think the fortress maps could have been much better designed than they are, maybe they could attempt some changes in the layout and NPC advantage to even things up a bit (or add some interesting mechanics to create a bit more strategy than the currently stale circular capping design). Either way, I don't think it's just a lack of fun or a stale arena that killed AB, it's also the poor rewards. Multiple changes (not that difficult, most of them) would be needed to revive this corpse. Random entry would also be supremely preferred, I think it would cut back on the number of people sitting in an outpost without waiting to enter because they didn't bring the most desirable class.

If Saltspray Beach had no wait times, I'd happily enter, but I don't think just having the one single map would create this scenario, the problem is bigger than that.

AB was on the decline ever since they buff JQ rewards. They should just make a static back and forth rotation:
ancestral -> grenz -> saltspray -> etnaran -> kaanaii -> etnaran -> salt -> grenz -> ancest....ect.
That way every zone sees action but the 3 middle zones are twice as frequent.

even on double faction ab weekend, there are still more people at jq than alliance battles.

There are still enough players even though it's not double faction ab weekend...

Wiki is up to date but GW is not? GG Anet!

It's D3 open beta weekend and AB is still (somewhat) alive. Cheers!