ArenaNet Interview over at Korean GW Site

The link is up on our front news page, or you can get it directly here, it is about a 15.8 mb download.

My powerful yet respected nemesis Patrick Wyatt (who believes the Kitty Ears are a strange 'fetish') seems to be preoccupied with something to his lower left. And the little part at the end gives me hope that the rumors of an ArenaNet based Barbershop Trio that sings in Korean may yet come to pass - so go ahead and check it out.

pretty cool interview. I thought the end where they started speaking in Korean was a little gay..lol.


bobert

I forgot all about the Neko Mimi idea. They should definately put that in, would look really neat on my N/W girl.

If you have not seen the interview yet, go to the Home Page and look at the latest news. There is an interview from Guild Wars Korea (its in English) that is about 6:30 minutes long and reveals some nice information.

It tells a good deal about Worlds at War and how it will work. But it's only enough to raise more questions along side the ancious await for the new and awesome sounding addition. It says that a guild from, say, a Korean server that gets to the Hall of Heroes will open up new opportunities and cool items and missions and quests for the other people in that server for as long as they hold it. What this means I am not quite sure except that the opportunity will be changing hands quite rapidly because of the quick rate of Tombs PvP. It also says that there is only one Hall of Heroes and so only one guild holds the one Hall at a time. Which is interesting to know that you are the best in the world for at least a moment. I forsee problems in the way this system works though, because of things like internationally grouped teams and of countries that have very few gamers and most of which may not be any good. Some things could come out unfair but I guess A.Net have thought of this. Let me hear your thoughts.

Aye, the first thing that came to mind for me was: "What about Australia? Are we going to be grouped with another country or area, or is this special content going to be denied to us simply because we have a low population?"

I think the idea of making PvE content available to those whos area happens to win PvP at one time is a bit silly, particulary if this content is notable.

Unless it is easy to get to the top and the title is changing hands regulary, giving everyone a chance to access this extra stuff, then it sounds like a bit of a stupid idea, and contrary to the idea of easy accessibility for casual players.

I think the idea of grouping people based by country of origin is just not a very good thing to do. Aside from curtailing player choice it also fosters racial tensions.

It would be MUCH better, IMHO, to set a few game world 'alliances' or 'kingdoms'. Guilds would then choose to declare alligance to one of these groups, and would compete under that general banner, rather than that of "USA", "Europe", or "Korea".

I think this would allow for just as good competition, as these set groups would probably divide along similar lines to that of world regions, but as it would not be a direct division it would allow minority groups to find places within the system to contribute (and recieve benifit), as well as removing a bit of that racial division.

Guilds wouldn't be locked in to one group either and would be able to change if they wanted. Then if one group got too powerful and was winning constantly you would probably see some good guilds leave that alliance and try their hands with the 'underdogs'. This would also promote balance.

Only a formative solution, but I think a reasonable one.

Right now when you create a new character you either make a korean one, or a US/international character. Those are the two worlds I think. Korea, and everyone else

I don't think too much racism should come of this. I mean, having a bit of a rivalry would kind of be fun. Unfortunatly it's too focused on Korea. It's like "Rest of World vs Korea" and that's not exactly something you want to promote in a game like this because as the genre suggests, its a competitive RPG and competition brings on some bad side effects. Unfortunatly, the whole idea is kind of annoying - especially if it would split me off from my friends in Europe (they're grouped the same now... but later?) The smaller countries like Aurstralia/ New Zealand are alright for the moment - being grouped with the rest of the world. I feel that this will spark a Western vs Eastern world sentiment though. Perhaps we can only hope that our fellow gamers are more mature than that.

...not likely.

So there's no way for me to unlock this bonus content for myself - the only way for me to experience it is to join the same 'world' or whatever as good teams, so that I can access said bonus content when they're winning?

Brilliant.

Peace,
-CxE

It's not so bad as you put is Ensign. The game (suposedly) won't be separated into many worlds, 3 or 4 I guess. There should be enough good players in each world to make quite a few winning teams. Furthermore in your day/evening time mostly players from your world will be playing, so the chances that your world holds the HoH are even higher.

And there is a way (although a nasty one) to open up those areas for yourself - get a team, win in the HoH, leave the tombs and you have ~10 minutes to get to the new areas. I doubt that you'll be kicked od of them as soon as a different world captures the Hoh.

Want to get bonus features ? Learn how to speak Korean.

Arg! The WaW concept isn't a bad one, IMO. I refuse to believe that Koreans will dominate the Tombs or any part of the game, for that matter, constantly and consistantly. I'm sure everyone will get an opportunity to experience any and all bonus material at one point or another.

I think WaW is a great idea, gives PvPers a mint goal.

Except that the big PvP'rs don't care that much for the PvE from what I've heard. I think it's stupid. DAoC had a dungeon like this and it drove me crazy. It was only available to whatever realm was winning at the time. I think the idea of content being available to me or denied to me based on what someone else does is stupid.

Now I wouldn't mind seeing those who win the hall of heroes open up some other pvp maps for only those victors who have won maybe a set amount of time or something, but I don't like this.

I personally think Lamaros is onto something here. I think seperating in to "your" choice of alliance or kingdom (maybe 3-5) would be an excellent idea. This would give Anet a far better base to build content and story on.

i think basing it off some in game region would present even more problems than basing it from the real world.

What makes you say that? Give me some examples please.

yeah i was going to but i'm lazy... i guess now i have to:


First of all, if you could change this regularly, then people will be flying around from group to group trying to be on the winning team.

Also, 20 bucks says a favorite will emerge. And I agree with it. I think that there will be one town that everyone wants to side with for one reason or another, and it will probably be the winning team. If it auto-assigns a team for you, then that avoids no less problems that basing it off where you live.

One of the problems I forsee (that they've probably already fixed), is what about parties made of international groups? This is both a problem in virtual areas and in real life.

At least if you base it off of reality, you can be moving to Korea so you can win, but the way we have it now is pointing to a bit of racism. It's going to be hard to find a good solution that is fair and fun for everyone.

You could definitely prevent people from constantly jumping around, by forcing a person to stick with a team they choose for a month or some arbitrary time that is deemed fair. You also need to remember that some players look for a challenge, so they will automatically join a team that is less desirable... not say that this is a fix

Random auto-assign IMO is great way of creating the kingdoms/alliances at first. In fact I think its a better way to mix the GW community. Also when you register a guild it should be auto-assigned to your current allience or kingdom for the first X period of time, and if you join a guild that does not belong to your current allience then you become part of the guild's alliance overriding the one you had. Also if you leave a guild your allience stays as that guild's allience until X period or until you are able to join another guild of a different alliance. Of course there would be exploits to this method, and they would need to be addressed (similar exploits to the ladder incident for the DEC BWE).

EDIT: I just thought maybe even if you join a guild of a different alliance/kingdom your alliance is not changed to the guild alliance until a certian time has passed since joining that guild. It would be similar to say proving your alligence to the new alliance or kingdom. This would definitely prevent people from jumping around so rapidly. Maybe if an entire guild decides to switch that alligence period should be longer. Think of as the kingdom/alliance needing more proof to build trust in a large group because they could be seen as a trojan to the alliance a larger force to reckon with if they should decide to rebel. You could also make it so that individuals/guilds that decide to change alliences are blacklisted for that X period and can not take part in any bonus content provided by alliences or kingdoms. This would definitely force people to think about disbanding their current alliance.

I definitely agree with you that its going to be hard to find a fair solution.

I just find the idea of having access to game content tied to something that is effectively arbitrary to be more of an annoyance than an actual feature.

You want to try out the 'bonus' levels? Oh, damn, looks like you don't have access this minute. Better sit around for (anywhere from ten minutes to a couple hours to never opening up tonight) until it becomes available. Then once it does open up you have to rush everyone there before it slams shut on you - I hope that your friends aren't in different worlds because as far as bonus content goes they might as well be shards.

What exactly are they trying to accomplish here? To make the Tombs matter more? Let's say that I'm holding the Hall of Heroes. My friends are likely also in the Hall of Heroes with me, since I like playing the game with my friends. So we don't get to experience the 'reward' for good play. Which means, basically, that by holding the Hall I'm unlocking content for some large segment of people that I don't know, and denying that same content to some other large contingent of people I don't know. Why am I supposed to care about this?

The way you get access to the bonus content is to be in a world with the most good players, to maximize your access to said content. In addition, to access this content you must currently be losing. That's about the limit of your control over access.

Now, you can try and convince me that it isn't as bad as I think. And, You're probably right, it's not maddening but it is at the very least inconvenient. In a game that's trying to minimize grind and lets you travel around the world instantly to maximize convenience. But does it really matter how bad a 'feature' is? 'Least bad' isn't exactly a sterling design goal. I want good features, things that add to the game, not detract from them. Maybe this does actually add to the game, but I don't see it, and there's an awful lot of negative baggage associated with it.

So why is this an addition to the game, instead of 'not that big of a detraction'?

Peace,
-CxE

In it's current form (from what I know of it at least) I think the "reward" of access to the new content is something more for the thousands of other gamers that can't get to the HoH than it is for the people that are actually in the HoH. I mean, if you're holding the top PvP map in the world then you probably aren't thinking about PvE content to much. I think the typical gamer would be thinking more along the lines of "OMFG my team is the best in the world!!!", while the thousands of other games in your "world" would be thinking, "Alright team soandso is holding the global HoH! I'm so glad that such skilled players are here, and that becuase of their hard work I get to experience special content." If you're opening up new content to others, then there's a good chance that you'll feel good about that, right? Plus when you factor in the fame and whatever bragging rights you and your buddies gain already from holding the HoH I think having 8 players not be able to access the special content until they lose is an alright tradeoff.